The Ramsey Show - You’ll Never Be Able to Outearn Your Own Stupidity

Episode Date: August 2, 2024

📱Finish today's episode for free in the Ramsey Network app. Rachel Cruze & Jade Warshaw answer your questions and discuss: "Should we pay off our house before having a kid?" Dealing with financial infidelity post-prenup, "Should I rent or buy?" "We're $125K in debt and we're drowning," Jade & Rachel break down a listener's budget in EveryDollar, Asking for a "Friend": What is the difference between Gross and Net? Support Our Sponsors: NetSuite: Free KPI checklist, visit netsuite.com/Ramsey  BetterHelp: https://www.betterhelp.com/Delony to get 10% off your first month Zander Insurance: Go to zander.com or call 800-356-4282 for a fast and easy quote today. Health Trust Financial: Discover Top Health Insurance Plans, All in One Place. Next Steps 📞 Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET or click here! 💸Enter The Ramsey Cash Giveaway for a chance to win $10,000! 📚 Shop the $12 Sale to get life-changing tools to help you make real progress! 📄Will an online will work for you? 🚢 The Live Like No One Else Cruise is booking fast! 💼 Become a better small business leader 💵 Start your free budget today. Download the EveryDollar app! Listen to more from Ramsey Network 🎙️ The Ramsey Show   🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 💰 George Kamel 💼 The Ken Coleman Show 📈 EntreLeadership Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I am Rachel Cruz hosting this hour with my good friend and bestselling author Jade Warshaw and we'll be answering your questions. So give us a call at 888-825-5225 and we'll be talking about your life, your money, your career, your relationships, anything and everything. We are here for you. So first up, we have Geli in Greensboro, North Carolina. Hey, Geli, welcome to the show. Hello, Rachel. Thank you for taking my call. Absolutely. How can we help? Yes, well, we have a 35-year-old son who he just struggles with

managing his family's finances, and now he's currently in like a mental health crisis. Um, so he's not getting a check right now until short-term disability kicks in, which we're not sure when that will be. Um, so my husband and I are prepared to step in and help the family, uh, with whatever they need, but also financially. But we, what we want to know is how do we best support him with the finances? Because it has been, you know, years of poor financial decisions. We wonder if, you know, can we provide help they need, but also say, hey, once this is over, we want you guys to be set up to sustain yourselves if there's ever another issue like this. Sure. So what was the issue? Can I ask what the mental health crisis is? Was he diagnosed with a mental health disorder?

Well, yeah, he's ADHD. So that's been since childhood, but he's going through depression and anxiety right now. It's crippling. So it started about a month ago when it was really bad diagnosed. And now it's just kind of, kind of gotten better, but it's still not good. So we're working with my daughter-in-law at the moment. Okay, so he's married. Do they have kids? Yes, they have four children. Oh, wow.

Okay. Young? Their ages are 7 to 14. Okay. So has she been staying home with the kids or does she work as well? No, she works. She works a part-time job. So she is the main breadwinner. She works part-time. They have three, well, four children. Three are also diagnosed ADHD. So there's a lot of doctor's appointments and things like that. And this job affords her to be able to take off whenever she needs.

So what's their current financial situation? Because you said that it wasn't great. There had been some mistakes. So where are they financially? Yes. Well, right now they are about $600 short a month to make their bills. And that's all the bills. But they have, you know, like credit cards. Um, they have a high, their rent is very high. Um, so, uh, you know, even

when he is making his full check, they're still short, maybe a hundred or $2 a month. Um, so when I say six, I'm talking about all the other things that are not needed, like the credit cards and things like that, and the high cell phone bills, stuff like that. Okay. So what are you, when you talk to the wife, when you talk to the wife, what are you guys talking about? Like, in your mind, what does help look like? Well, in our mind, we're looking at the the four walls just to keep them in their home utilities they they have to have internet so children can do homework things like that and they're two they're two hundred dollars away from four walls is what you're saying

yes yes and that's when his short-term disability kicks in it won't even be his full check I think it's like 80 percent And I, you know, like I said, don't know how long that's going to be, but. Okay. There's usually an elimination period and he should be able to look into what that is before it begins. So that's the terminology that you want to look for to find out when that's going to start to pay out. And so after he does start to get half of his pay, will that, will they be fine financially or do you still sniff out that there could be issues? Oh no, there'll still be issues. Yeah, that won't, they won't be able to sustain themselves. Right. And we're willing to help them.

I mean, my husband and I are financially, youfree, things like that, thanks to Dave's program. But I guess for us, we need them to communicate more about their finances. My son's very, he's a spender, and she's very quiet and humble, but doesn't tell him no when it comes to the overspending. Can I butt in for a second? Sure. and humble and but doesn't tell him no when it comes to the overspending can i can i can i butt in for a second sure um what i want to ask is did they come to you for help and what do you and what do you think they would be doing if you weren't kind of inserting yourself into this how do you think that they would handle this? Because there's part of this where I'm going, okay, you're a mom. Like you're trying to do what's best for these, you know, kids in quotes.

You know, obviously they're fully grown. But then there's part of me that's going, did they ask for help? Are they asking you to step in? Do they have a plan? And they have to want to help themselves too. Like you said, I think that their rent is too high. So regardless, and I don't want this to sound insensitive regardless if you have depression or not math is math so like yeah you know so whether he gets a job where he makes more to sustain the rent that's one thing but it's

not sounding like that's going to be probably in the cards for them recently so they have to have some grown-up conversations within themselves and I think you know I mean I guess it's okay if you help facilitate some of that or ask some questions, I guess. But there does have to be a point that this can be an endless cycle for you continuing to come in and rescue and rescue and rescue. And so I would want them, again, I think to Jade's point,

I think the ideal solution whenever a parent comes down and helps an adult child is that the adult child is very acknowledges and is aware of the reality of what is going on and they say okay you know for six months there's a timeline like there's there's some things in place some boundaries that make all of this like make this a gift where it's all a blessing and it doesn't end up being a spiraling curse um but it sounds like she's in the clouds. Yes. He's sick. You're looking in the outside wanting to come in and be like, I don't want you guys to be behind on rent, which is understandable. But there is a point that I

think if you're going to go down this road to help them financially, I think it would be your responsibility then to at least communicate out loud some boundaries and can communicate what you're seeing too, because you're not going to be able to help them forever they do have to make some decisions in their life right and one of those decisions could be the the wife having to pick up full-time work because because he's operating at a deficit you you if they don't have savings if they're dependent on you know credit cards like it sounds like they are. This is going to make a bad situation worse very quickly. And I think you know that, but that would be a big piece of advice,

not you trying to fill the gaps for them. Oh yeah, that's absolutely right. And we've been watching this for years, to be honest. It's just, this is the first time that we've ever really done anything financially. We have not in the past because we've had conversations before. But I think, you know, there's some neurodiversity things going on. Like she's not diagnosed

autistic, but she is supposed to be going to get tested for that because there's no pushback. There's no conversation. He blows off, you know, he goes off the handle. She doesn't know how to handle conflict. So it's... How long have they been married? Yeah, 15 years. he goes off the handle. She doesn't know how to handle conflict. So it's... How long have they been married? Yeah, 15 years. It's been 15 years. So, you know, I feel like there's more that needs to be done because we talk to, you know, we've talked to them and they've lived in government housing before, so they pull themselves out. So they have done it in the past. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, when there is a diagnose, you know, something, you know, whether it's

a mental sickness, a physical sickness, right? I think that, you know, having someone alongside you is such a gift. And I don't push that away necessarily. But then there is a point that they have to be able to see the reality, too, for themselves of what's going on. And it sounds like they're not there yet post this diagnosis or after. So, yeah, that's a hard line to draw for sure. But thanks for the call.

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And so you can grab One of our best sellers For one of the lowest prices of the year. And this sale, again, has everything that you need when it comes to books. So whether you're facing money problems, mental health challenges, anxiety, career problems, like we have the book for you. So multiple books are on sale. So go to ramseysolutions.com slash store. And again, ramseySolutions.com slash giveaway to enter the $10,000 giveaway. All right, up next, we have Scott in Albuquerque. Hey, Scott,

welcome to the show. Hi, thank you for taking my phone call. Absolutely. So my wife and I are both expecting in April, May time next year. oh my gosh congratulations yeah um and our we just have a question regarding whether or not to pay off our mortgage early so um i think that you guys a little bit of background um we're both 30 uh we have a take home of about 10 a little bit over ten thousand dollars a month after 25 put into the 401k health insurance and all that stuff so we have three pots of high yield savings accounts the first one is a year's worth of emergency fund and i'll give you some more background on why we did a year and that's about 65 000. um we saved 12 000 on the second pot for like a new baby son kind of thing.

And then we also, the last one is about $110,000 sitting in cash. Very good. Very good. And we have also maxed out our Roth IRAs for the year as well. What do you owe on the mortgage? What's left? Yeah, it's $200 200K at 3.25%. So the question we have is what would you all advise on paying off that $110 into our mortgage? And then we would, you know, obviously continue to do that in 18 months and we would probably pay off everything or invest given that our mortgage rates are so low? And then the second question

is what does Dave and his team say about paying off mortgage early with a newborn coming? I mean, technically, we would say if you had debt, if you were in baby step two or even baby step three, we would say, hey, pause all the paying of the debt and just stack up money for the baby right but you don't have debt and you've already saved up twelve thousand for the baby which i'm guessing is a deductible or how did you arrive at twelve thousand um that's probably deductible and just like starting up a baby room okay birthing funds all that kind of stuff yeah there's all that stuff for the first couple months. I think because you have that money there, you've got over a year, like you've got a year's worth of emergency fund. I would not push pause on what you're doing. I'd keep doing what you're doing.

And in this case, it sounded like, if I understood you correctly, you're already investing more than 15%. I think you said 25%. And so technically where you're at right now the focus should be the mortgage i'd probably back the 25 percent down to 15 percent and i'd put all of that extra margin or whatever you and your wife determine is a reasonable amount of extra payments on the mortgage and yeah if you have 110 in cash that you've earmarked for paying off the mortgage i would 100 do that yeah and throw it at the principal of the mortgage. I mean, I would do that. I would do that today, Scott.

I mean, because I could see you guys get on to $90,000. And then to Jade's point, if you guys even take 10% more of your income from that 25% to 15%, that's more cash going in. And then you guys are savers, so you probably won't do this, but I would even take that $65,000 down. I don't think you need $65,000. You could take that down to even $40,000 if you wanted to throw an extra $25,000 at the mortgage. Because what's crazy, Scott, is if you think about how much is your mortgage payment a month?

It's about $1,700. And the reason why we have a year's worth of emergency fund is earlier in the year, we experienced a miscarriage. So going into this pregnancy, we're both, you know, scared to death and we're, you know, knock on wood, don't want to have any complications or anything like that. But the reason why we have, you know, that big cushion is in the event that something happens, you know, we have the money to cover ourselves. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Which is very understandable. So yeah. So that's, um, yeah,

that's great. If you want to do that, I just, um, the point of paying the mortgage off early, cause there's a lot of, you know, people have a lot of opinions about this cause you can put it in the market and make more

than because if you have a low interest rate on the mortgage, I mean, we hear all these, you know, kind of, uh, pushbacks against this, but the,

but the wild thing is when you don't have a mortgage payment and you literally owe no one anything. I mean, you think about that $1,700 instead of going to the bank, you just invested that every month, right? I mean, you can actually start to play out and see mathematically how this fast forwards you so quickly. So yeah, I would definitely take the $110.

I'd put it towards the mortgage. And then from there, if you guys want to keep the $65, you can do that for sure. But let me throw this at you. Because if your thought is, hey, we're going to have a year's worth of expenses, because God forbid something happens, and maybe we want to take X amount of months off for mental health, right?

If your mortgage is paid off, you don't have payments anyway. And that eliminates one of your biggest line items out of your budget. And so even if you were to take a lot of time off, your cost of living would be so much lower because of it. So there's some math to be done to really think through that, because I'd hate to have that money just sitting there when you could have a paid off mortgage. Excellent. Thank you. Yep. Absolutely, Scott. Thanks for the call. Up next, we have Lloyd in Raleigh. Hey, Lloyd. Welcome to the show.

Hello. Hello. Thanks for calling in. How can we help? I'm 65 years old. I'll be 66 in four months. I'm retired. And right now I'm living off of my 401k. And I wonder, would I be better off to go ahead and start drawing social security and let the 401k, you know, gain value? Yeah. How much would you be getting a month from social security right now? Approximately $2,000.

$2,000. And how much is in your 401k about twenty two hundred thousand okay yeah i mean i would i would go ahead and i would go ahead and pull it because i mean the longer you you know don't pull on the social security the more you will get but at that point in life if you've taken it early and you're able to live off of that and not touch the 401k, that's just going to continue to grow. How much is your expenses a month? Bare bones, $1,600, $1,700 a month.

Okay, yeah. I just want to make sure I understood you. Did you say your 401k is 22 000 what's in the 401k 20 000 20 000 220 220 okay you were cutting up it was breaking up i was like i was missing that very important first two okay okay so good so yes lloyd i mean i i would i would start drawing on that now and use it to your benefit because i mean it's there and again some people argue well just if you keep it in there longer you'll get more later but i would rather be using that money than absolutely pulling from my 401k are you able just to pull from the growth of your 401k lloyd are you touching the principal part of it um using the principal okay then definitely

yeah rachel said yeah i would definitely pull that social security and live off that and well done lloyd i mean that's okay that's a significant yeah but you i mean you've gotten to a point of uh what most people dream of of having you know yeah,000 in your 401k and you're retired and doing it. Do you have any debt? Maybe $3,000 in credit card debt. Okay. That's it. And your house is paid off? Oh, yes. Excellent. Well done, Lloyd. That's great. Wonderful. Well, thanks for the call. Yep. That's what I would do. And enjoy, enjoy that retirement. You worked hard for it, Lloyd. Thanks for the call. Yep, that's what I would do. And enjoy that retirement. You worked hard for it, Lloyd. Thanks for the call. This is The Ramsey Show. Okay, here's the hard truth. Your investment dollars could be winding up in the pockets of

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carefully consider a fund's investment objective, risk, charges, and expenses contained in the prospectus or summary prospectus available at timothyplan.com. Read carefully before investing, mutual funds distributed by Timothy Partners LTD and ETFs distributed by Forsyth Fund Services LLC. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I am Rachel Cruz hosting this hour with Jade Warshaw. So give us a call at 888-825-5225. And we're here to answer your questions. Up next, we have Sarah in Atlanta. Hey, Sarah, welcome to the show. Hi, how are you?

Thank you for taking my call. Absolutely. How can we help? I pretty much don't even know where to really start. So I've been married for less than three years. And I've worked for everything that I have and nothing was given to me. And when I got married, I was my net worth was a little over a million. And but that did consist of most money in retirement and equity and a few rental properties. My fiance at the time, now husband, did not have as much as I did, which was fine. So we had decided to get a prenup and whatever he came in with, I matched.

And then anything else in excess of that was to go to our children. What'd he come in with? He came in with $160,000. So you were at a million net worth and he was at 160 net worth? Yeah. Whose idea was the prenup? Mine. Okay. Keep going. So, um, fast forward, um, uh, fast forward. Um, I'm making a great income. He's making a great income. I've always been a saver, just naturally, very always,

you know, live below my means. And things just begun, like just not making any sense. And my husband owns his own business. And I just started seeing our accounts getting lower and lower and lower, when I believe our account should have been getting higher and higher. So I said, Hey, you know, like, what's going on? And his response was, you know, I just haven't done the paperwork, you know, for taxes and said that he filed the tax extension. So, you know, so it's taking money out of his savings until he goes through his paperwork so he can know what he has to pay exactly. I said, okay. Several months went by and I still notice these things going down and

things just don't make sense to me. Something in particular happened and I said, I pretty much said, are you sure everything's okay? He said, yeah. I asked him to please let me see his account, his business account where he said all the money was. And that's when he admitted to me that he has been stealing from us, from me, and is a fraud. And needless to say, dove into everything, and he has completely wiped us out. Oh, my gosh. Our savings, everything. We now only have two months of emergency fund. We have two very small children, two under two.

When you say he wiped out your savings, how much did you have saved? And he was just funneling it to keep his business afloat? Is that what you're saying? So we had over $100,000 in savings. He also took from me personally two hundred and eighty six thousand dollars. Out of where? Just various accounts that I had that were deemed as premarital, but that weren't supposed to be touched. And what did he use that money for? So I just went through everything, and there is no addictions.

There's no other woman. There's nothing like that. So then when I dove into things, so it turns out that he actually, the lies began when we were dating, and he actually lied on his prenup and um 160 000 that he even came in with were tied to loans and lines of credit from his business so he just said that this is how much credit i have it's not real it's not real net worth i didn't know that but that's what he just admitted to you though recently so yeah so really he came in with zero and he lied and he lied on a he actually came in with legal document so he lied on a legal document too yeah yeah um yeah when did all this happen sarah how long ago about two months ago okay and i to say, I'm still in shock. Sure, sure.

How's the business doing? Is it going into the business and his business is tanking? Or does he, when you look at his business, is there profit? And he's just not bringing that back into the personal side. No, no. His business is not doing anywhere near as well as it used to or as it was. And he has been lying about how well it's doing. And, you know, you know, and just, you know, like I'm a budgeter, you know, like you tell me, hey, you know, only this much money is coming in.

I'll just, you know, pull out a spreadsheet and say, hey, let's start budgeting. But that's not what happened. Instead, you know, we're going on vacation. Yeah. Instead, we're, you know, doing things like that that we shouldn't be doing if you have debt. So he's also racked up about one hundred and thirty thousand dollars now in personal debt. Can I ask you, can i ask you a question because he's not here so i can't question him in the same way yeah what was the inside of you that made you go i need to sign a prenup with this guy was there a red flag already no it was no there wasn't it was just the fact that our net worth was so vastly different. Sarah, I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry. So are you separating from him? No. I feel we have two very small children. And again, I'm still very much in shock, but we have two very small children. And again, I'm still very much in shock, but we have two very small children. And I know the statistics with growing up in a home with a broken household. And I don't want that for my children either. Yeah. Are you in counseling? They're just so young. Are you guys in counseling? Will he go? No. He said he would go. But to be quite frank, it's not something that we could afford right now.

Well, if you're going to make this, the marriage part work, Sarah, you're married to a liar, and not just a liar like here and there. Like, I mean, this is like a, this is, yeah, this is, there's something, there's something wrong, deeply, deeply, deeply wrong with him. And in the process, he's hurting his family. And so for you to draw boundaries for yourself does not make you a bad mom. I just want to give you freedom to do what's best for Sarah in this moment. to for this to be a healthy longevity you know level of a marriage there is there's a lot of broken broken broken pieces and without a professional I really believe uh to be in the mix of this and and for him to show deep remorse and a pattern of change until you have trust

I'm separating everything today, Sarah, financially. You need to protect yourself. You need to, your income now goes into a different account with his name nowhere near it. I would contact a lawyer just on the basis of lying about a prenup. I would just get some more information to protect yourself and your kids. I have already done most of that, and I'm in the midst of a post-op, which he has agreed to where you go back in and have like basically a

prenup in the middle of the marriage. Is that, is that what that is changing the prenup to make it correct? So where you guys currently are? No, no, no. So I'm just reiterating that like his debt is his debt.

And even if I decided to, let's say, help him get out of his debt, that I would not be, you know, I'm expecting to get reimbursed at some point. It's not just my responsibility. I hear you. Yeah. Well, what we find so much often, Sarah, with these, I mean, that this, I mean, the level of financial infidelity that you've experienced is the level of an affair. I mean, you know, you can put anything in place, but that you start to question yourself. I mean, there's so much in that when you are so deeply lied to from the person that you're supposed to be in a marriage with. So I would do what I could. I would have my own therapist. I would have him go to therapy if you're going to make this work, but I would also protect yourself until a pattern is proven

that he's proven back his trust with finances. But for now, I would keep it separate, and you have your stuff. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. This is the season for Halloween. It's October. We're wearing costumes and we're wearing masks. So if you haven't started planning your costume yet, get on it. And while you're thinking about it, I want you to be honest.

A lot of us hide ourselves. We hide our true selves behind costumes and masks all the time. We do this at work. We do this around our friends. We do this around our families. We even do this when we look at ourselves in the mirror. I know because I've been there multiple times in my life and it's the worst. If you feel like you're stuck hiding behind masks and costumes all the time, if you find yourself hiding from your true self, I want you to consider talking with a therapist. Therapy is a place where you can be honest, where you can talk to somebody else and reflect and learn,

and you can accept all the parts of yourself over time and start living an authentic life. Masks and costumes should be for Halloween parties, not for our emotions and our true selves. And if you're considering therapy, try calling my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy. You can talk with your therapist anywhere, so it's convenient for you and your schedule.

Just fill out a short online survey and you'll be matched with a licensed therapist. Plus, you can switch therapist at any time for no additional cost. Take off the costumes and take off the mask with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp.com slash Deloney. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. So coming off that last call, Jade, that was a severe case of financial infidelity. I mean, that was many layers of being basically a pathological liar to his wife and in the situation which is

just so sad and we hear we hear this stuff more and more um and you know i can hear some of the naysayers like well this is why we say separate accounts and you know all of that um but the but the truth is if you're if you're lying about your money that's an indication of your character and who you are. And that is going to bleed over into other areas of your life. And, and so if you can't trust them with your money, then you're not going to be able to trust them as a person. And there's got to be some deep boundary sets in that way. And so I don't want that to negate and scare people off with the idea that working together with your

money is one of the most beautiful things that you can do in your marriage that you're on the same team you're doing this together but you can't be a team financially or otherwise in a marriage when another spouse is lying and so that's the point that we draw a line and say okay now that doesn't work so we're separating everything and you have to protect yourself in that situation and um and it's really difficult but again the financial infidelity can go from that extreme um from debt other accounts lying about income to even just hiding big purchases and we're seeing this a lot there was an article jade in the wall street journal it says the rise of stealth shopping how americans are hiding big

purchases from their partners so i've been seeing a lot of this. I saw this Wall Street Journal article then even the Today Show did a whole like segment on it. And it's basically they did a survey of a thousand Americans and they found out that nearly two thirds of people who live with their spouse or significant other are hiding purchases. OK, so two thirds of them hid purchases over the past year and a quarter of them started out with small things like clothing purchases right but they joke of like the target bag yeah you know what i mean like it's like yeah but they said that one in ten manipulated even their financial records to like show that no i didn't spend it so you're actually going in there and doctoring credit card statements or you know that sort of thing and so to your point

this is crazy so i'll just read a little piece of what people are doing so they said that they perfected a strategy for sneaking in new clothing handbags and shoes uh she enters through the back door and shoves her packages in the coat closet behind an armoire or in the laundry basket at night when her husband and three sons are asleep she puts away her like everything she got then there's another guy who i'm not going to read it on here i read it earlier but there's another guy who anytime he buys new clothing he immediately takes it to the dry cleaners and then when he picks it up from the dry cleaner it's like in the bag and it looks it looks used it looks like it's been there so when he walks in

his wife is none the wiser and she's like oh you just picked up your dry clean like that is sneaky on a whole nother level for sure and here's the thing you guys like the i i you know i talked to a lady one time at an event and she was like all you know been out of shape she's like my husband went to chick-fil-a four times last week and didn't tell me you know she's all in tears i'm like okay you need to chill like like there's a level of forgetfulness and mistakes and you know what whatever fill in the blank yeah and then there's purposeful yes intentional hiding and that's where i would start asking questions and always my first question is why what what is the need for that yeah why are you hiding is it because you don't you and your spouse don't have the money for it is it because they

would get mad at you if they would get mad at you why are they getting mad at you is that their problem or are you overspending like you start to kind of peel back the layers to understand and that's where people miss um so many opportunities especially in a relationship like this i'm like i think so too you're you're not only hiding and being deceitful about it, but also there's something going on and why you're hiding it. And then that's a part of growth. I think digging into that and facing that, that just allows you to grow as a human.

And I feel like we just push that type of growth away so often. Absolutely. And I mean, that's kind of what the author of the article says. She says, quote, what can seem like harmless white lies can lead to mistrust that undermines the relationship. Your partner will say, if you lie about buying shoes, what else are you lying about? Sure. Which is 100%. I mean, it makes me think of that scripture that's if you're faithful with a little, you're entrusted with more. Right. And so it's like, if you can't be faithful with a little, you're entrusted with more, right? And so it's like, if you can't be faithful with the little truths, right? If you can't just tell the truth, then your spouse will not give you more trust, right? That's right. So you've got to start with being able to say, listen, why can't I tell the truth about something very small? Yep. I think it's Dr.

John Zaloni talks about how secrets are a poison in a relationship. I mean, the secrecy, it does no one any favors. And if anything, it's so harmful. Well, let's talk about money and marriage because I know that that's coming up in October. And I know I'm talking about lies on the money and marriage event. Yes, our October event, it was sold out. It sold out really quickly for the fall.

We're actually gonna do one evening in October, just kind of a one night event. But then our other next big event is on Valentine's weekend, February 13th through the 15th, which will do a very similar event that we're doing here in the fall. But yeah, you're speaking at it. Yeah. And you're talking about lives. Yeah. In that way.

Because this is a thing like it really does start to unravel. And to your point, Rachel, the bigger question is why? Why am I doing this? And so I'll go through like the reasons that I believe are the why behind it. But stay tuned. You got to be at the event. That's part of the talk. Yeah.

Oh my gosh. The teaser there. Yeah. Yeah. So instead, what we recommend couples doing is you do a budget together. Every spouse, every family. We do family members. Yeah. Has a line item

Yeah With a certain amount of money And within that money You go and spend And if 18 packages from Amazon Show up Winston just

Grins Yeah And says well Rachel That's out of your category Because I'm spending And But There's a point that you say

Okay I still want my You know Be an individual And I still have things that I enjoy. And I don't feel like I have to ask permission for every little thing. You know, like I bought fashion tape on Monday for my clothes. I don't need to text Wednesday. Can I spend six dollars on Amazon?

No, that's out of the budget. It's fine. So it's not this overly controlling thing when people hear, oh, my gosh, you know, you have to share accounts and and your spouse, you you have to agree on it yeah it's just the agreement but then you get to go and enjoy your money so for these people i'm like golly just put a freaking clothing budget easy in the budget and then a line item in the budget and then go and spend and enjoy like that's what it's for here's the thing so there was another i told you the today show also talked about this yeah and they said um so of the people they surveyed, 43 percent did say, yes, I lie about purchases, but they're lying about purchases that total four hundred thirty five dollars or more. So that's pretty significant. But that just goes to show there's

also it's like I think some of it could be solved with a line item, but there's probably some of it that's like, hey, hey like let's be mature about what's a reasonable amount and like for some people's budgets yeah fine 435 dollars but there is that line of reasonableness where it's like okay if we have a budget if we're divvying out fund money make sure it's a reasonable amount for your spouse for your income and it's not just like you get a 50 allowance you know right right, right. But these are big purchases and probably going on credit cards. 100%. Yeah.

Well, one of the girls in the article says, so the thing that she does to be quote stealthy is so her husband has an American Express card, which pings him anytime she uses the card. And she's like, I don't want him to be pinged where she has a credit card that he doesn't get pinged. And the only statement he gets, he doesn't want him to be pinged where she has a credit card that he doesn't get pinged. And the only statement he gets, he doesn't get an itemized statement. It's just a full like it's, you know, two thousand dollars or whatever. Yeah. And so she if he says, man, it seems a little bit high this time.

She'll just say, oh, well, life insurance came out. And so she can lie about what was on what made it high. Yes. And that's what's exhausting it's exhausting and just if you're going to be living that life that way then just say well yeah i bought some shoes and i put it on the credit card man up yeah just yeah to say it to say it oh man this is it's a big topic the money and marriage conversation you guys and it's so hard because money usually the money fights in the money conflict kind of what we're talking about here it's so hard because money, usually the money fights in the money conflict. Kind of what we're talking about here. It's never about that.

Like, you know, it's never about the shoes. It's about the lying about the shoes. And why do we have to lie? And so if you're out there and you, you do have a significant other, you are married, you know, be thinking about this and that feeling of, oh, God, I'm embarrassed to tell my spouse about this purchase or I don't want to tell them about this purchase. Start asking some questions to yourself of why. What's really going on there?

Because, again, my encouragement and my challenge always is to push into that. Because, again, those are moments that people say, all right, I'm out. Separate accounts. Let's just do our own thing because that's too painful to go down there. Yeah. But that is where health of a marriage and relationship really starts when you start to feel that like, okay, I'm actually going

to face something that's uncomfortable. So it's really difficult. But if you guys want to check out the Money in Marriage event, make sure to go to ramsaysolutions.com slash events.

We would love to see you there. Valentine's Day weekend couples. It's a great, great event, Jade. We'll be there as well. Well, thanks to all the guys in the booth. Thank you, America. This'll be there as well. Well, thanks to all the guys in the booth. Thank you, America. This is The Ramsey Show. Do you ever feel like you're finally making progress towards your goals only to get quickly distracted by something else in your feed? Well, that's why

we created the Ramsey Network app, your single source for content that keeps you motivated. The Ramsey Network app is designed to keep you laser focused on reaching your goals. Loaded with over 7,000 hours of Ramsey shows, this free app is the best place for uninterrupted content and no distractions. Plus, you can search specific questions to get more personalized content in seconds. So, for the days you need some extra motivation, you'll have proven advice at your fingertips. It's time to get serious about your goals and shut out the distractions for good. Simply search Ramsey Network in the App Store or Google Play. If you're listening on a podcast, just click the link in the show notes

to download our free Ramsey Network app today. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I am Rachel Cruz hosting this hour with my friend and bestselling author, Jade Warshaw, and we are answering your questions at 888-825-5225. So give us a call. We'll be talking about your life, your money, your careers, your relationships, anything and everything.

So give us a call. Up first, we have Rebecca in Rochester, New York. Hey, Rebecca. Welcome to the show. Hi, guys. Thank you so much for taking my call. Absolutely. Um, so my husband and I, we're going to be, um, relocating to Florida in November. Um, we are on baby steps six and seven, and we're kind of struggling with, um, deciding if we should purchase a home or rent. Only reason being is if we're going to rent, it's going to cost us about

anywhere from $2,100 to $2,500 a month. And just running numbers on a mortgage, we would be paying about the same thing for a mortgage. So we're just kind of struggling with deciding with our financial situation, what would be best or the smart way to do that. What's causing you guys to move? You're just moving for work? Yeah, we've always wanted to move there and we both have jobs lined up, so better opportunities for the both of us. I mean, I could definitely understand the idea of if you own a home now, you see the value in that. So wanting to go to Florida and also buy a home. But there's a big part of that where when you make these big moves cross-country or even just you know to another county if you don't know the area it's really hard to make a wise decision because you don't even know what part of the city that you want to live in so in many ways i would just say get there get

settled rent for a while until you can learn which areas of town you like and which areas of town you know have the best schools and all of those things that really do go into making a good home buying decision. Yeah, because buying a home. We've done a lot of research on that, too. Oh, sorry. No, go ahead. Go ahead. You're good. We've been down there a lot the past six months just for the process for my husband transferring his job from here to there. So we do have a pretty good idea of where we want to be.

I guess it's just the struggle of, you know, if we should jump into it, obviously, we don't know if it's going to work out. Obviously, the goal is for it to work out and not have to move back home. And then also, you know, we're going to be spending $30,000 a year. What's the part about it not working out and you having to go back home? What do you mean by that? I guess, I guess if we just end up not liking it which i don't see that happening honestly interesting yeah yeah i mean i if i were you rebecca i mean honestly i would probably just go and um i'd probably just rent even for six months like go do it go do a half a year rent somewhere um put your stuff in a storage unit if you need to and just like really feel it out let him get you know cycled into a new job i mean there's just a lot of change that happens

and there's just something about not having the burden of home ownership during all of that and then just like jade saying then you're able to like look at houses while you're there you can set up appointments with an agent i mean you can really do it well instead of doing it from a distance and i know you know it's just a world. I know so many people even in my own neighborhood, they go sight unseen, like they're moving from California and they don't even see the house, right? Because it's because things are getting, you know, bought up so quickly. So I don't know if the area of Florida you're in, if it's a really competitive part, you know, from the real estate perspective. But I still think it's just wise to kind of slow down because your house, is the largest purchase that majority of people make in their lifetime and I just want you guys to

to be extra extra sure that yep this is the area we want we want we had multiple houses that we're able to look at we had good options we picked the right you know the right spot and just feel really good about it um so yeah I don't I if I you, I'd probably rent for six months to a year for that process personally, even though the money's the same. And I get it feels like you're throwing money out the window, but you're not, you're buying time, which is wise and then you're able to see.

So that's usually what we tell people if they are moving to a new city or a new state. We say that even your first year of marriage, don't get into a home if you don't have to, right? Rent for just a little bit and kind of get your feet under you um so these big life changes i think it just helps to to slow down yeah and the plan is to sell our house here i'm in real estate here and we'll be doing that down there okay so the market's definitely much different there it's more of a buyer's market than here but the goal would be to sell our house and then what we not to put that into a high yield savings account um until we decide to buy because we

would probably put that as a down payment would it be smart to put that full amount down payment i mean i know i mean my whole goal would be to put as much down as possible when the time comes do you guys have consumer debt we have no debt no debt yeah and a good emergency fund a good fund even for moving expenses and everything to be able to cash flow that. Yeah. So we currently have $50,000 in our checking and savings account. And then my husband will also be getting a $20,000 relocation bonus. So the goal is much more than what we're netting on the house down on the new house. Yeah, that's fantastic. You know, mortgage when we're doing, you know, the numbers on that, we're netting on the house down on the new house. Yeah, that's fantastic.

You know, mortgage, when we're doing, you know, the numbers on that, we're like, oh, my God, we're going to be paying more than like what a mortgage would be. Sure, yeah. It's temporary, though. Yeah, it's not forever. It's just a buy time. And again, could save you, in essence, tens of thousands of dollars versus getting into a home that, you know, you don't like

or a situation that you you got to get out of and then you actually end up losing money because you have to make a different decision a year from now, right? Versus if you're not attached to a home, you're able to slow down. Right, okay. Well, I hope that helps, Rebecca.

Thanks for the call. I know this is always a tricky part of life tricky, a tricky, a tricky part of life, especially if you're moving. Absolutely. And I mean, you know, she mentioned and I think a lot of people feel this. Well, we've been there before. Like we spent time during the interview process. But I'm like, how much time really? Like, yeah, the equivalent of what, 14 days or it's really not enough time to get a full sense of the area. And it's I mean, even if you say, oh, we really like this area because you spent the most of your time there there could still be other areas that you don't even know

about yet that's right could be better for you maybe even less expensive like you just it's hard to know until you really get to a place plus when you get you know into your job you get into your community then other people you start saying oh well they live over there like I like that area and so knowing people also kind of helps you do your research on another level so yeah no for sure and I even know within Nashville right all the different so many neighborhoods yeah so many pockets and and then you know and I don't know if they have kids or not but you know you get into to schools and you get into that whole conversation with different counties and everything and so um yep Rebecca I I appreciate the call because, again, this is one that we get a lot, you guys. And just remember,

renters don't go to hell. You're going to be okay. You're going to be okay if you rent. Buys you time. People just feel like, oh my gosh, this is so unwise because I'm just throwing money down the drain. I know it can feel like that. Again, I get that because it's not going towards equity. It's not going towards anything. But it's giving you time and patience. And for a a short period of time that is one of the best moves that you can make and the truth is they still have to sell their current residence like that's right that's a big piece of the puzzle for them to buy the next house especially if you're talking about you know using that money for a down payment so yeah take your time is the yes that's the advice yes because when you guys moved

here what did you because you guys moved from florida we moved from florida but i'd lived here before that's right that's right that's a long time so i knew the area so we did buy pretty much immediately but i forgot you had yes but i know i've lived here so yes that's right that's right i forgot i forgot about that no it is it's uh it's a big it's a big decision you guys so the housing situation slow down yes make sure again that you you have a good down payment if you're a first-time home buyer. 5% you can at least have, but even up to 20 to avoid PMI. Making sure it's not a big part of your paycheck, you know, 25%. We love a 15-year mortgage around here. And so just making sure that all of those elements are lined up and then

that way your home is a blessing, not a curse. This is The Ramsey Show. I've been doing this show for over 30 years and some of the saddest calls I have taken are from situations that are completely preventable. Yeah, and what's so hard is I feel like one of those, especially the ones that I'm like, oh, it's terrible. People that call in and their spouse has passed away suddenly and they don't have life insurance. When you have to think through, how am I going to pay my bills? I'm going to eat next week. Yeah. In the middle of all that grief, like it's just, it is, it's terrible. And so life insurance is the one thing, especially as a mom with three little kids that I'm like so big on for people to get because it's inexpensive. Zander

is the place that Winston and I actually get all of our life insurance. And it doesn't cost much because Zander shops among a gazillion different companies. It doesn't cost much. You just have to admit that someday you're not going to be here. You got to say it out loud and you got to say, I'm going to say I love you to my family by taking care of them and taking the time to put this stuff in place. The cost of stinking pizza. To get a free quote, call 800-356-4282. That's 800-356-4282 or go to zander.com. Today's question of the day is brought to you by WhyRefi. So if you have private student loan debts and it's taking away your peace of mind and you don't see any way out, you need WhyRefi.

WhyRefi refinances defaulted private student loans that other places will not touch and gives you a low fixed rates loan that you can, again, it's built just for you, specifically for you. So if you go to Y-Refi.com slash Ramsey today, again, that's the letter Y, R-E-F-Y. com slash Ramsey may not be available in all states. All right. Today's question comes from Layla in Pennsylvania. She says, I finally got my husband on board with the baby steps and we have done well communicating and holding each other accountable in pursuit of our goal.

The one thing that both of us consistently overspend on is our kids. Daycare is an expensive, I'm sorry, daycare is an expense we budget for, but beyond that we struggle. My husband buys them toys and takes them to the movies and I find myself gravitating towards extracurricular activities to make up for lost time due to my busy work schedule. How do we determine how to budget for our children and their activities and what is or isn't necessary for the kids in this phase of our life? I mean, for me, this I go back to what you said. We're making each other accountable in pursuit of our goal. And so I don't you know, you don't mention anything about debt or anything like that.

So I don't know what baby step you're in. Did I miss it? Nope. You don't say what baby step you're in. Did I miss it? Nope. You don't say what baby step you're in. So I'll kind of phase it in a couple of different ways. If you're in debt, then the number one goal should be to get out of debt. Right. And so if that's the case, then I would say, OK, daycare. Yeah, that's expensive. It's necessary. And so that stays on the budget. But there's some things that are not going to be necessary. And I'm all for, you know, with kids maybe having a little line item for entertainment because kids are kids and they do want to do, you know, things.

But you also don't tell me how old the kids are. And I'm like, if you have like really under two years old. Yeah. They don't know. Like I was the first person to say when your child turns like one and a half years old, you could literally or like one years old, you could literally wrap up an old toy and put it under the christmas tree and they would never even know like so there's a layer to this where it depends on what baby step you're in it depends on how old your kids are and it also depends on your scope of

like some people would say to go ten dollars over budget is like, wow, like we've just gone crazy. And other people have the margin where it's like, okay, I went 10 over, I can be flexible in another area. And so there's a lot of nuance to this that we don't get in the question. But I think just by kind of spreading it out and thinking through it like that, Rachel, she should be able to find herself in one of those categories to see, have we gone totally crazy are we reasonable is it something that we just need to just add to the budget yep um because you know we're in baby step four five and six so that's really the way you need to think through this that's great all right let's go to the phones we have rick in tampa hey rick welcome to the show hi ladies

thank you for taking my call absolutely Absolutely, how can we help? So I just came across Dave Ramsey's videos yesterday. Oh wow. So I have been listening and listening and listening. And I'm 55, I'm married, I have two young children, preteens, and both my wife and I work and we're about, I'm taking a guess about $125,000 in debt. Our income, combined income that we bring home or gross, should I say, is roughly about $145,000. So I don't have any student loan.

My wife doesn't have student loans. What kind of debt is the 125? Can you itemize it? It's mainly, we rent. We live in Florida. We rent. So my rent is like two grand. Okay, but that's not debt.

Okay. I know. rent is like two grand um okay but that's not dead cars okay i know but we have uh two cars and i have two motorcycles how much do you owe on all those um 80 can you go through like the first car? What do you owe? So the first car I, so a lot of this is during COVID when we bought, um,

because COVID really screwed us up financially. Um, so the first car is about 30 grand. The value, um, is 11. Okay. Yikes. The value is 11. That's what they're saying. What about the next car?

The next car I had to get after I had a car accident, my car got totaled. I went lower just to try and find a car for work. So I think I owe like 26. I think the value is like 15. how'd that happen

if your car was totaled and then they gave you a payout for you to go and get another car the guy that no because the car that i had um was upside down and the guy that hit me uh no license no registration registration, no insurance. Got you. Oh, my gosh. Okay. What about the motorcycles? So the motorcycles, I have a friend of mine.

He took both of them. He's making the payments on them. So they're kind of out of sight, out of mind. But they're in your name? They're in my name. How much do you owe on those? $40. What are they worth?

Probably $30. Oh, my goodness. So what we're learning, like what I want people to learn who are listening is vehicles are depreciating assets. They go down in value. And we're seeing this in real time with four different vehicles, things with motors in them go down in value. And you're feeling this in a really hard way. What other debt do you have? So we have credit card debt.

It's not that much. Maybe, you know, six, seven thousand. I have hospital bills because of the accident. Okay. How much are those? Probably three grand. Okay. How are you doing now after the accident? Are you still working? Everything's good? I'm good. I'm forcing myself to work. I don't have a choice. And you're in pain?

My level is like a 10 every day. My wife has to help me up out of bed to get to work. Oh, Rick, I'm so sorry. Yeah. What kind of career are you in? I drive a truck. I do flatbed work. Are you, um, is there a, is there a plan for you in the near future to maybe exit that type of career and do something that's less physical? I, I want to, and I can. Uh, the problem is, is that I have guaranteed pay. So i have 40 hours plus 10 hours of guaranteed overtime and once i take a

40 hour job automatically i'm going to lose about 1900 a month just in overtime pay so of the 145 income what's what portion of that is your income about 90 000 okay okay well for the short term rick who and you said yeah the car's worth 11,000 that's what they said who is they um that week blue book okay okay so you did okay that's great because yeah because a private sale you're always going to get more than going to a dealership um right so yeah for you guys you are um definitely way over the you know suggested amount when it comes to having things with you know we say wheels motors uh we want that to be half of your annual income and you guys from my calculations with the motorcycles which i know you're not counting in your head because the friend has them but it's still under your name it's around 116 000 so you guys are way over way over in car um and so if i were you i mean this

is where i would really and it's gonna hurt financially because there's there is a point that um some of these i think i think there's one maybe one maybe your your car I may keep and try to pay off. But the others, I mean, honestly, the $30,000 and the motorcycles, Rick, I mean, I would sell them to your friends if he wants them. I'm trying to. Okay, good. He wants them, so I'm trying to sell them to him. Okay, that's great.

Yep. And you're just going to have to take out a loan for the difference on some of these. But I'd rather have a $10,000 loan on a car versus a $26,000 loan. And you guys are going to have to scrape up some money and really replace that car for you, I think is going to be one of the biggest things. And then you and your wife, I want you to sit down and do a budget, Rick. Stay on the line. Kelly's going to pick up. We're going to give you every dollar premium because I want you guys to sit down and know where exactly every single dollar of your paycheck is going that's going to help you on this debt payoff.

You've worked, saved, sacrificed, and been gazelle intense with your financial game plan. But do you have the right defense in place, like the right health insurance? Look, you can't walk past a doctor's office these days without getting a massive bill. And if you don't have health insurance, a major medical situation can undo all of your hard work. That's where my friends at Health Trust Financial can help. They work for you, not the insurance company. So they find you the right health insurance, and they save you money. Ramsey has recommended Health Trust Financial for two decades because they're the experts.

And whether you're 19 years old or 90, you can trust them to do two very important things. Listen to you, then find you health insurance coverage with everything you need and nothing you don't. Health Trust Financial is your one-stop shop for unbiased advice about affordable health insurance options. They could save you hundreds of dollars a month, so make sure you're not overpaying. Go to healthtrustfinancial.com today. healthtrustfinancial.com. We're always thankful for the listeners of this show the people that view it on youtube and watch us but one of the best ways to help spread the word is to share the show with the people that you know your friends your family even on your social media feeds uh but you know even subscribing

leaving reviews all of that helps because with the algorithms of today when you're able to get this show in front of people that may not know about it just like our last caller he just said he just found us like two days ago on youtube yeah or on facebook is that what it was said and uh yeah and it's just it's great because we want to be able to help people that's our goal for the show and the more people we can help the better we're doing at our jobs the way we look at it so thank you again you guys for um subscribing and sharing. We really, really appreciate it. All right. Up next, we have Wanda in Los Angeles. Hey, Wanda, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you so much. It's really a pleasure to be on the show. Thank you for taking my call. So I do apologize if I'm hyperverbal. It's the excitement and the coffee couple together.

You're good, Wanda. You're great. How can we help? So I recently got a divorce and I owe my husband $50,000 and I'm not quite sure where to take the money from or borrow the money from for the first $50,000. I don't have any money in my savings. I owe 25,000 on my car, 12,000 to my 401k. And my other expense is my home in my mortgages 24 70 a month. I looked into refinancing. I really don't want to refinance my house because my interest rate on my house is two and a quarter. And so I've been looking at other

like HELOC personal loans, but personal loan is like 12%. The HELOC is 10%. And I just don't know. Okay. So Wanda, the 50,000, is it because of the house? Like, are you supposed to give him the equity? Yes. I'm supposed to give him the equity out of the house. Originally, I was supposed to give him $150,000, but he knows that he didn't put any money into the house or anything like that. So he settled and said, I'll take $50,000. So I'm just trying to figure out the best course to give him the $50,000. I did take on a second job. I've been working the second job now for about three months. I haven't received any monies for it because I just haven't turned in the invoices because, um, what's the

timeframe that you owe the 50 K? Um, it's supposed to be third cause we went back to court. So it's 30 days after the, um, court ruling. And so the, and I got the court ruling in the mail two weeks ago. So I have, yeah, yeah. So into basically in two to three weeks, it's due. Yes.

Okay. So let me kind of set the stage for this right quick. Is his name on the mortgage? Like is he on the deed or the title of the house? It is so typically typically what would happen if if you're divorced you would do a refinance to get his name off of it and you would do a cash out refinance so that you could also pull the 50k out give him his money and now you're free and clear from that um but i see why you don't want to do that because of the interest rate.

But I now double check this because I'm not sure, but I feel like you can, when you refinance, you don't necessarily have to refinance the entire, the entire mortgage. Yeah. But just the amount that you're a portion of it. Yes.

Yeah. And so a portion of it would be at the old interest rate and a portion of it would be at the new interest rates yeah have you talked to have you talked to your lawyer wanda about different options when it because considering it's because of the house uh and his name is on it so you are going to have to get his name off the home yeah um right so what i was advised was um i actually talked to and the accountant and so what I was advised was I actually talked to the accountant. And so what I was advised to do was to do a quick deed to take his name off the title. And if he agrees to stay on the loan, let his name stay on the loan.

Because if I ask him to take his name off the loan, they may make me refinance anyways. And then I lose the two and a quarter. And so he said he was agreeable with his name being on the loan. And he was just quick deed to home into my name. Yeah, yeah, quick deed is definitely a great option when it comes to the situation. Yeah, I mean, I mean, and we never tell people to go and take on debt. But there is a point that you're, you're going to be owed this from a legal standpoint. And so you mean you have to give that money and Wanda, you don't have it right now. And so I don't want to see you take equity out of your home and get into that mess of a HELOC or anything like that. So it may just have to be a personal loan.

Okay. Even though the interest rate for the personal loans is just through the roof? Well, my, I mean, from the court of law, you have to give this money. So either Wanda, you sell your home and, you know what I mean, take the equity and pay him what he's due, and you have to go find a new situation. Are you able to sustain the home that you're in? Oh, most definitely. Most definitely.

Definitely. Yeah. The house is now worth almost $700,000. When we purchased the house, it was at $391,000. And so I'm very happy. How much do you owe on it? How much do you owe on it? $360,000. When we purchased the house, it was at $391,000. How much do you owe on it? $360,000. And in California, I can't buy another house at $391,000 and not in the area that I live in anyway. How much do you make? How much are you making?

I make $188,000 a year. How much are you bringing home after taxes and insurance and everything per month? What's your take home pay? A little over $6,000. Okay. Yeah, I mean,

and your mortgage payment's $2,000. Yeah, so you're in. And that's the reason why I got a second job too because whatever I do, I want to chop it down. With the second job, I just haven't received any of it because I I do, I want to chop it down with the second job. For sure. Because I don't know which way to go with that yet. A hundred percent. Yeah. I mean,

I mean, I mean, you're, you're, you're kind of stuck between, you know, a hard place. I don't want you to make a bad decision with your home. I think that would be unwise. So it's not this idea that like, you know, and it's one thing if you couldn't afford the payment on your income, but you're able to sustain that, which is wonderful great um but yeah i would i would yeah do the yeah do the quick deed i would again ask ask the accountant again wrap back around and just ask what jade was talking about and if there's a way to take a portion of it um where you're able to pay him out of it and and the entire loan is not then subject to the new interest rates because that would not be smart.

And it's a blessing that he dropped from $150,000 to $50,000. That's a big blessing. Yeah. So, Wanda, I mean, I'm looking at this. So let's just say you have $50,000 in debt because of the divorce. You got a $25,000 car, and you got a $12,000 in debt because of the divorce you got a $25,000 car and you got a $12,000 401k debts uh seven eight I mean that's yeah that's $87,000 you make $188,000 I want you to pay this off in 18 months Wanda that's why I got a second job yeah which I'm so proud of you seriously so

yeah and that's the thing is you know that um when you when you look at this high income I'm like man this and I know you're in Southern California so it doesn't go as far as it would in Kansas City or something. I get it. But man, you have a lot on your side, Wanda. But from this point forward, I want you to draw that line in the sand and say no more. I'm not doing car payments. We're not doing credit cards.

We're not, you know, borrowing our 401k. I'm living on what I make. I'm going to be, you know, funding retirement. I mean, why? It's because, I mean, how old are you, Wanda? 55. 55. Yeah. So 55 this year. Great. So yeah, here in five to 10 years wanting to retire, you know, and do something with your life and you're going to be able to make a lot of progress really quickly, which I'm so excited for you. So congratulations. I'm so sorry that with the divorce and everything that's kind of brought you to this point,

that's always heartbreaking and grief in and of itself. That's so hard. But you have a lot of great change ahead and a lot of things that you can do and make a big impact. Thank goodness that he was a good guy and was like, I know I didn't put any money into this house. Right. It could have been 150. Yeah. I mean, that's I think that's the really difficult part about one of the many difficult parts about divorces. There's all these assets and it's like somebody gets to keep the house. But if you've been living in that house together, there's also

a portion of it that goes to the other spouse. And so how do they get their money? And so that's that's one of the frustrating things. And i know like during these times where interest rates it's like if i had it at you know 2.3 percent you don't want to refinance in order to with these rates and so i think that's very painful yes for sure yep and again it's one of these things that to tackle the debt snowball method and even looking at the car i mean she's still she can pay off her car in 18 12 to 18 months 100 you know buffer so she can keep the car pay it off uh it's not an outrageous you know different amount considering her income but she never needs to borrow from her 401k no ever again no wanda you hear me thanks for calling in this is the Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show.

So one of the parts of winning with money is being intentional. That's right. And the way to be intentional and really specific and detailed with your money is to do a budget. And we tell people regardless of where you are financially, a budget is there to help you win. So whether you are drowning in debt, you need a budget. Whether you're completely debt-free and you're doing great, you still, a budget is there to help you win. So whether you are drowning in debt, you need a budget, whether you're completely debt free and you're doing great, you still need a budget. So you're just being intentional with your money. And you, Jade, you talk about this a lot, especially on your social media and people have been submitting budgets to you. Yeah. And you've been talking about, you know, walking through line items and all of it. I did a call out. I was like,

listen, if you want help with your budget, send me your numbers and I'll plug them in and I'll feature you on social media. And so I got tons and tons of submissions. And so one of the women that called in, she was like, listen, here's, you know, I'm, I live in Atlanta, Georgia. I'm divorced. I make $95,000 a year. Help me out. And so I thought it would be actually really fun. Her name is Ariel. If we brought Ariel on and I can go over her budget with her live on the show, because I've already looked at it and I kind of started thinking like coming up with some ideas because she told me her biggest goal is to get out of debt. Okay. And so I think we should bring Ariel on and kind of get into it with her. Wonderful. Ariel, are you there? Yes, I am.

Hi. So great. Hey. Thanks for calling in and letting us do this because I think a really tactical budget walkthrough I think is so, so helpful. And those of you listening, either on radio or podcast,

you may not be able to see the visuals of this, but those of you on YouTube will be able to bring some stuff up. For sure. So Ariel, I'll just kind of give a quick overview of the numbers and you tell me if i'm wrong about anything or if anything sounds weird but i have that you make 95 000 a year but after taxes investing in insurance you bring home about 6200 a month yes okay and so on your budget i broke that into do you get paid twice a month?

So I don't get paid. I get paid once a month, but I also have some little side hustles. Yes. I've, I'm used to it. It's 17 years. I've been getting paid twice a month. Okay. Well, when I did your budget, I just, cause I didn't know that I broke it into two checks just cause I figured most people get paid like that. But if you, I know you can't see it, but I did not see any side hustles. And I was thinking if her biggest thing is to get out of debt, she needs a side hustle. So if you I know you can't see it but I did not see any side hustles and I was thinking if her biggest thing is to get out of debt she needs a side hustle so if you're watching on YouTube you can see that I wrote in the line item of side hustle for you just as an idea. The side hustles I have are like they're not consistent so I didn't know how to put it into my budget. Okay what would you what do you think like monthly you put in? Just to guess.

If I were to guess maybe about $600 extra from the side hustle. That's amazing. So I'm just going to plug that in live here to see how it changes your budget. Because before your margin, like after all of your expenses, your margin was like $241. But adding that side hustle is huge. Now your margin is like $885, which is a big deal. Before cutting anything, before anything. Yeah. So then you told me that you have an emergency fund. And in that emergency fund is like $2,200. Yes, I did. Yes, I'm rebuilding it for the third time because it's always an emergency. Well, I built it back up. Well, one of the things you know, you told me that your biggest goal was to get out of debt and then save up, you know, three to six months of emergencies. So for us, baby step one is getting a thousand

dollars saved and you're above that with this two thousand two hundred. And it looks like you're still planning to put three hundred dollars a month towards it. So if I were in your shoes, I would cut that down to zero like today. And that adds back. If you see like your margin, she's so scared. Now your margin is $1,185 to put towards debt. Okay.

And for anybody, we haven't scrolled down to the debt yet. And this is per month. Yeah, per month. Which is great. We haven't scrolled down to your debt yet, but I'm just going to like spoiler alert and let the people know that you're paying out $1,700 in payments. Yeah, it's a lot in debt.

So having that kind of margin to pay it off is good. So let's keep going through. I'm just going to call out like everything going on that I see. So your mortgage is $1,800 a month, which is fine with what you bring home. You have a great income. The typical things, cell phones. You know, I love that. I love that everything looks pretty reasonable. Cell phones felt a little high, but I know you have kids. So I'm guessing that one of your kids has a phone. OK, two of two of them have. Oh, OK, then that's a good number. Gas at 350. And what do you do for a living, by the way? I am a teacher in elementary school. Okay.

Wow. You have a great salary. I love that. Now I've been doing it for 17 years. Okay. There we go. Now here's where I'm really proud of you. Groceries, $500.

Yes. So this is something I actually started last year after I read a book, um, uh, about, um, budget mom. So I actually take out $500 a month and I do $125 a week in cash. And once the cash is gone, we're done with buying groceries that week and we eat whatever's in the house. And it's been working for a year now.

I love that. That's amazing. And I love that your restaurant budget is zero. It can be done. Yeah, we can't. Yeah, I'm like, so I gave myself an entertainment budget it's like well there's something over here guys but my kids know we eat at home we eat at home I love that so

you set the precedent they already know so going down into your personal items the things that I would cut because I see like you and your daughter get your hair done it sounds like you spend $300 how necessary is that because listen when I was a kid somebody had to do my hair we just get our hair braided and in Atlanta it's just I know actually 300 for the tool to get braids is actually pretty cheap I know that it is my only luxury item okay so then if if you keep the hair braiding because listen I know the way I grew up I wished somebody could braid my hair if you keep that on there then I would say that you need to cut this $60 for the kid's allowance

because there will be a time for that. But the time is when you're out of debt. And if you keep the hair, then I'd also take off the $75 for nails. What would you, Rachel? Yeah, the nails is not that important. Yep, gotta get out of here. It hurts a little bit, but yeah.

Now you also have on here $150 for child care, but you told me that this is the last month for that. So we can take that off. May was the last month. My son is now in middle school. So no more child care. I love it. I did the happy dance.

Yeah, for sure. And I know you're on the phone and you can't see this, but your margin, just making those changes, you started at $1 dollars of margin and now you have 1470 dollars of margin okay that's awesome so much so great guys this is just rachel us plugging the numbers in every dollar being intentional and then going through and going okay what's necessary what's not necessary and what and that side hustle has helped too so that extra job but yeah so when you go down to the debt jade um i mean quick math but for her to be able to throw at her at her lowest debt oh there it is yeah um i actually paid off the two lowest credit cards i love it

you paid them off yes yes great job okay i that. So if I click into here, because the balance was $84 on one and you were paying 40 bucks a month. That one's gone. And then that's gone. Oh my gosh. I'm just going to delete them. Yeah. And the third one is almost gone.

I only have 37, which is this month. Wow. I'm paying that this month. But you're in with the margin. We, we just found too I think that you'll be able To knock out credit card two Heck yeah

Or credit card three Four And then What was right below that The social security She should be able to Knock out everything What's security

EQ Like security equity What was that April Ariel The security The vivid security For my house Oh okay So like that probably will be able to be

this month and then you look at next month credit card five which is almost a thousand dollars that will be done and then a little bit of credit card seven yeah and then the next month and you keep going down you know you keep going and seeing like oh my gosh it really is and all those minimum payments will be going to the next step because you're using the debt snowball method. And I think the way your debts are is really a great teaching point to show people how the debt snowball works. Because to Rachel's point, you pay one off, that money goes back into your margin. And so I kind of played that out on paper for you. And if you keep going the way you're going, and here's the thing, when I played it out, I didn't know that you had a side hustle. So I played it out without a side hustle and just cutting those few areas in the budget. And it was going to take 20 months for

you to pay off the debt. But now with that side hustle, I bet that bought back several months yeah oh yeah ariel are you there yeah okay yes so and also i cut up all my credit cards last year so there's i'm not amassing any new day are slow clap this is how it's done guys that's so wonderful oh my gosh ariel well done see and it's just changing these habits it's cutting up the credit card it's saying okay i'm going to take on a side hustle. I'm going to eat for $500 a month. Did y'all hear that? Her and two teenagers eating for $500 a month. No restaurants.

I mean, she's doing it. So yeah, Jade, I mean, I think within, yeah, I mean, 18 months. 18 months, easy. 16 months, amazing. Ariel, thanks for doing that. And what a great teaching point. And make sure you guys go to everydollar.com and check it out. You can build your own budget for free.

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm Rachel Cruz hosting this hour with my friend and bestselling author, Jade Warshaw and we are here again to help you out America. You can give us a call at 888-825-5225 and we'll answer your questions about money, about life, relationships, career. Give us a call. Up first we have John in Houston. Hey John, welcome to the show. Hello, welcome. Thanks for having me I guess. Absolutely, John. Welcome to the show. Hello. Welcome. Thanks for having me, I guess. Absolutely.

Yes, for sure. How can we help? Well, I filed for divorce from my wife about a month ago. Lots has transpired since. We're kind of trying to maybe make it work, going to marriage counseling. In the interim of all this, we kind of split our finances about two or three months ago due to her spending and daughter. That's a long story. Um, so fast forward to this, um, this last week, I got a, uh, a bonus from work, a $30,000 bonus. Um, by the time I was put

into, I think it was about 24,000. Um. I currently owe $11,000 on a credit card. Most of that is for the divorce attorney. And then the other issue I have is I have, during COVID, we had two credit cards with Chase that we quit paying because we lost our jobs and obviously employed now. But there's a lawsuit pending against me, and those are about $26,000 each. So I don't know what to do with this bonus money. One, I don't know if I should tell the wife or not because we're not divorced.

We're trying to work. That's part of it. But the other part is do I keep the cash and try to settle with Chase? Do I pay off the current credit card that I have so I can get me back to debt-free? Sort of- ish other than my home um it's not real sure sure yeah absolutely what um any other money saved um I have just a couple thousand dollars in the bank nothing nothing major okay okay by a couple like six or like two like two okay yes Okay. Yes, two. So the bonus is $3,000, yes?

No, the bonus is $24,000. $24,000. My hearing is off today. Okay. So what do you think you can settle these chase cars for? Have you kind of floated it out there to them? I talked to the debt attorney that filed the lawsuits. He said there may be a 25,000 or a 25% reduction.

Yeah. So he's thinking they could probably settle for about 20,000 each. Each. That'd be a total of 40. Okay. So there are two separate cases. So I don't, one's coming up the 1st of September and the other one I don't have a date on yet. Okay. So the one coming up the 1st of September, if you can settle it, I think there's part of this since it's already like gone to court like it's already you know it's progressed to the point where you're gonna have to pay something i do think there's a smart part that would hold on to that money and not put it on the other eleven thousand dollar debt because you know this is coming and you know you're going to be on the hook for paying whether it's the full sum or you know a reduced amount okay so yeah and then i guess just go ahead well i was going to say

yes so um and anything obviously you get in that lawsuit haven't have in writing and i and i would tell them hey i have 24 000 well i guess they're separate lawsuits, you were saying. Correct. Okay, yeah. So I think getting them down as much as possible, obviously, would be the goal. And ideally not going into collections and all of that, that you kind of just take care of it.

Absolutely. And if that's the case, then yeah, you have $4,000. When does the other lawsuit hit? This one's September. Do you know when the other one will be? I don't know. I don't know. I mean, they've already kind of hit.

This is obviously progressive. So now it's like going to the trial thing and all this other stuff where I'm going to have to pay Chase. It's already been on my credit. Like all that stuff's already kind of happened. How long is this? Oh, sorry. Was it all under your name or is your ex or I guess she's not your ex-wife. Is your wife's name attached to this as well? No, they were all mine. They were cards that I had prior to our marriage and we've always done good. And then we spent a bunch of money and then we tried to get out of debt and then we were doing okay. And then COVID hit, we both literally lost our jobs in a week and it was pay mortgage and feed our children or pay this credit card. Well, we chose a home and children.

As you should. Yeah. How much are you making a year, John? I bring in my base salaries, $104,000, and my bonuses are in the $60,000 to $80,000 range annually. Okay. And with her, what does she make? It varies. We own a small business, a food truck business, so she brings in roughly, I would say, $60,000 a year. Okay.

And considering you guys are somewhat separated, I don't know if it's through legal means or not, have you guys separated your finances? Yes, we did that about two or three months prior, and that was kind of her final straw for us. But her spending was really the issue for me. Okay. So these three accounts, are these the only debts that you're on the hook for? Is there a car? Is there anything else? Because there, there is a Cadillac that we, that we purchased together. That's her car, not my car. So in the divorce, she would get the car kind of the thing. She would get the car. I have a truck it's paid for than, if we were divorced today,

the only debt I would have would be the two Chase and the $11,000 credit card. Okay, but you're making, you know, on a good year, 180 plus a year, yeah? Correct. So, I mean, when I look at these debts and knowing that one of them is going to be settled, you should have this knocked out, like lickety split.

What's your living situation? Currently living is she moved out Thursday. So literally just two days ago, she moved out. She's living with a friend and her two kids, and I'm living in my house with my two kids. And what was the second marriage then for both of you? Yes. Okay.

And are you able to cover the mortgage in a way that it's no more than 25% of your take-home without her income added to it? Mortgage is $3,000 a month, so that's not a problem. Okay. That's great. Yep. So, yeah, so to answer your question of why you called in, for sure, yeah, I would take the one that had the lawsuit attached to it go ahead and knock that out and then like jade saying i mean i would cut back on on everything until you get this mess cleaned up and then i think you do have this kind of fresh start but i also i'm cheering on for you guys you know that that possibly i heard

a little bit of hope there at the beginning of the call yeah um that you guys can yeah i think you do do some work do some counseling therapy. And I pray that it is reconciled. I think that's always the best hope for this. We never want to see, you know, marriages torn apart. And he said part of it was because of her spending. But we do see money issues play into that. But always, you guys remember that those money issues usually is an indicator of something else going on underneath. And that's why having, you know, professionals on your side to really dig in to know why. I mean, we are complex people.

And the way we, whether it's Medicaid or whatever it may be, our habits come out sideways. And when you can get to the root of that, of who you are as a person, that's really a beautiful thing. So, John, we're cheering you guys guys on i really do hope that there's reconciliation um but just from the the money standpoint on your side um i think you can have a lot of this cleaned up really quickly so i'm thankful you got got back on your feet job wise since covid because i know that was a pain point for a lot of people. Absolutely. No, I feel like today, Rachel, we saw a big theme of divorce, which is tough and it's so difficult, but I think it just drives home the point even more. Like I've heard Dave say it, marriages need maintenance. Like you need that regular,

the same way you bring your car in for a checkup, you go to the doctor for a physical every year. Like you need a regular rhythm of let's go see a counselor. Like let's just make sure everything's good. And let's make sure, you know, premarital counseling, all those things that are checks and balances to make sure that you're operating at an optimal, safe level in your marriage. Yep. And we have Dr. John Deloney here on our team, you guys. So check out his content and books because it's kind of in this whole realm of life. This is The Ramsey Show.

So I always hear someone will kind of ask something or be like, hey, there's a situation. Like, it's not me. It's my friend. Right. It's kind of that I'm asking for a friend because you never want to admit it's you. And it's whether because the situation's terrible and you're like, I'm so embarrassed by it. And or you feel like it's a stupid question. You're like, I should know this, but asking for a friend.

And so you came up with this like whole idea, Jade, which I love. Yeah. Asking for a friend. And so like, I feel like Rachel with money, there's all these terms or like lingo or jargon out there. And it's like should should i know that like at this stage in my life and so gross versus net pay i feel like that's what's the difference i'm asking we toss around asking for a friend and there's a couple of ways that

we could explain that but honestly rachel i think this video explains it best take a look at this so basically all it is have you ever been to a restaurant and you get a drink and you're like yeah I'll have a coke and they it's filled with ice right and you're like there's hardly any coke in here and when they take the ice cube out you see how much drink is actually left it's basically not a lot less than half half. Less than half in that example. Very disappointing. Yeah. It's a great example of gross versus net. And gross is the cup that looks like, oh, it's full. It's great. Yes. And then the net is what you take home and you're saying, oh, yeah, after taxes. Yeah. The ice is the taxes. The ice is the taxes. That's right. That's right. And so when you look at your paycheck, you know, you might you'll probably see like the different numbers like this is your gross pay. This is your net pay. A lot of times when you I mean, most of the time when you go for a job interview and you're negotiating pay, what you're really talking about is gross salary. Right. It's like you're going to make $50,000 a year. You're going to make, you know, $100,000 a year. That is gross. And it would behoove all of us to look and go, okay,

what does that mean for me after taxes with my budget? Does it work? Because I know there's so many people who when they finally get their check, they're like, wait a minute. I was planning for... I think we all had that, our first jobs, right? Mine was at the mall. I had a job at the mall. It's that first big job and you're like, okay you get that paycheck and you think what yes i thought it was gonna make you know you calculate your head like oh no no taxes yeah so gross pay is the total you earn before any deductions or taxes are taken out of your check and the net is what you have left okay so for example if you have a salary of $50,000, that's your gross pay for the year. And your yearly salary is divided by the number of pay periods you have, such as

if you're paid weekly or semi-monthly or monthly, that's the gross amount that you get to see on the check. If you're paid semi-monthly, which is twice a month, you would have 24 pay periods in the year. So the $50,000 divided by 24 would be about $2,083 gross per check. But nobody cares about the gross amount. We want to know about the net amount. The way I always learned it or like remembered it in my head is that if you go fishing, you get to take home what's in your net. Yes, I thought that or mine, the gross, I always look and I'm like, wait, is this the gross? Oh, gross, gross. I don't want to see that number because I'm gonna be disappointed. I was like, gross, gross number, gross number. I don? Oh, gross, gross. I don't want to see that number because I'm going to be disappointed. That's what I think. I was like, gross, gross number,

gross number. I don't like that. Gross, nasty. Don't, don't show me that number. Inside the minds of Rachel and Jade. I love that. So here's the thing. Again, if you own a business, maybe you're self-employed, your gross income is usually like, this is like the total revenue that I'm bringing in. This is before like payroll and all the business expenses, right? So that's kind of the way to think of it. So net pay is your total pay minus taxes or deduction taken out of your check. We could also call it take home pay, right? That's right. Yeah. Which is when people call on the show all the time, they'll say, I make $80,000 a year. And we're like, okay, yeah. What's your take home pay? What do you see every single month? And so,

you know, we don't always do that, Jade. And that's some of our negative Nancy's in the comments. They're always like, y'all just use that number. And, you know, but you forget about taxes. We don't forget about taxes, but we don't forget. They're just the fact of the matter is it there's a different differential there depending on what state you live in. And so sometimes it's hard for us to guess. And so we usually try to ask. But the deductions that take place between gross and net, we're talking about federal income tax, state income tax, which is the biggest differential, social security and Medicare taxes. If you have any like wage garnishments that we don't know about health insurance premiums, a lot of times if your job will give you a health insurance that's coming out of your check. And so I wouldn't call that a tax per se, but it is something that will lower your take

home pay. And then, of course, if you have retirement or 401k coming out of your check, again, it's not a FICA. You know, that's right. It's not something that's coming out in that way, but it is something that is lowering your take home pay. So all of those things you really have to think of when you're planning your budget

and making sure that you're looking at your pay stub every single time. So, so important. But yes, whether you're an employee or a business owner, working with the tax pro can help you make accurate withholdings so you know exactly what's coming out of your paychecks. You know, you want to make sure

like those withholdings are correct because a lot of times withholdings are too much or not enough and that is determining your tax return whether you have this big hefty tax return or not so a big tax bill or you're getting a big tax return yeah either way you want kind of more that middle ground so looking at your looking at that part is huge yes so again gross versus net gross versus net. Gross is the gross amount. You don't want to get too stuck on it because that's not the amount that you keep. Gross, nasty.

Don't look at that one. It's yucky. What you get to keep is what you take in your net and take home. That's right. See? We're so helpful. No, but it's like one of those simple concepts

that, again, it's that jargon that everyone's like, golly, I wish, you know, some people are like, I wish I learned this in school. Like if I did, I didn't have to Google or ask Jade and Rachel. Yeah. And so honestly, learning this, some people are like, I wish I learned this in school. Like if I did, I didn't have to Google or ask Jade and Rachel. And so honestly, learning this stuff as early as possible, I think is such a gift. And we talk about this a lot at Ramsey Solutions that if you have kids, you guys, it is your responsibility to teach them these things.

But also when schools get involved or churches or places in the community, that is just a bonus. And we are seeing a lot of states are actually mandating financial literacy now for high school goodness which is great and and hopefully you know they have a great curriculum and ramsey we actually have a curriculum that is in high schools all across america called foundations and personal finance and i think we actually have a video um from them because it's such a great, such a great resource. How do people make money investing in the stock market? I'm not sure.

I don't even know what a stock market is. Yeah, I don't know what that is. It's like gambling in Vegas. How do you know when you are able to retire? Don't you have to be like old? I feel like for most jobs, they give you a retirement plan and insurance and all that. Tell us what you know about how taxes work. I haven't been taught a whole lot about that. I just know you get them every year I think. Yeah I ain't gonna I have no idea about that one so. What types of insurance do you need to have? Phone

bills. Does the dentist have insurance? I think that's when you get older though. Life insurance. Yeah I mean I don't think unless you're worried about dying what is a good credit score i learned about this i did not that late around like 700 yeah 700 so good okay so that was something our team did where they just interviewed a bunch of high school students some some of the basics about yeah adulting we'll call it just adulting because that's everything from insurance to taxes and investing. And again, when you can have this knowledge early on,

then you're able to really change, you know, your mindset around money, the way you're doing your habits around money. And the earlier, the better. So if you guys want to check out

Foundations, it really is an incredible resource. You can go to ramseysolutions.com slash foundations. And thanks to all the teachers and the school districts across America. I mean, we graduated. What was it like?

How many students was it? Over 10? I mean, 10 million or something. I mean, it's crazy. It's grown so much over the past couple of years. And we really want good education, the right education into our schools. We don't want credit card companies, obviously educating our kids who have alternative motives. We want them to learn the common sense way

when it comes to money, but also educating them on some of these more complex issues like investing and that kind of thing. But man, the earlier you can learn that, the better off you're going to be. So again, you can go to ramseysolutions.com slash foundations and check that out. I didn't know about any of this stuff when I was in school. I remember the first person

to mention anything about investing was a professor that I had in college. And it was just like offhanded. He said, you know, like if you invested a dollar a day for this many days, you'd have whatever the number he said, I just remember being intrigued by that, being like, wait, what do you mean? And like, I had questions after the class about that, not like music history or whatever we were learning about. I'm like, what was that investing thing that you were talking about?

Like, what is the stock market? Like, I just had never heard of it. Well, if no one's, yeah, if no one's talking about it or teaching it. So yeah, parents out there, talk to your kids. You know, one thing mom and dad did so well is that they did not force us into like a mutual fund summit or something on the weekends. Like it was nothing legalistic,

but it was just in the ebb and flow of life. Just be like, Hey, did you know this? Or Hey, let me talk to you about this. It's such a gift. It's such a gift to give the youth,

the kids of today. This is the Ramsey show. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. Up next, we have Chris in Charlotte. Hey, Chris, welcome to the show. Hey, how you doing? Thanks for having me. Absolutely. How can we help? All right. So a little bit about myself. I'm 27, married with two kids. My wife and I wrote a check to pay off her $58,000 graduate student loans, and we're officially debt-free. Nice. Amazing, Chris. Well done.

Thank you. Thank you. I have a unique situation where I'm a pro athlete and I build a cover by each team I play off. After saving up for the next two years since we're debt free, should our focus be on buying a house with cash and buying a car with cash? That's a great question. So how are you guys doing currently with your cars? Because you mentioned paying a car with cash. But you're debt-free. You don't have any loans on your current cars, but you're just looking to upgrade.

Is that what you're thinking? No, no. So we don't have cars. So when we go overseas, they provide us with a car. So when we come home, we usually just rent a car for the two months that we're here. But we don't want to do that no more. We want to actually go ahead and start owning cars. Oh, I hear you.

Okay, so you guys don't currently own a home in the States because you're traveling, I guess, to Europe or where are you going to play? Yes, yes. Okay. To Turkey. Okay. And then where are you going?

Turkey. Okay. Nice. And then when you come home, you're now saying, gosh, I mean, we have no debt. We have probably, you know, you're now saying gosh i mean we we have no debt we have probably you know you're making i'm sure great money so you're thinking we want to have a house in the states that we can really start you know uh having some some money on our foundation yeah yeah so the first thing yeah i i with your income can i ask what your income is or you don't have to say if you

don't want to yes yes yes so um next year so this year coming up I actually leave tomorrow I'll be making four hundred thousand dollars okay for the next 10 months and then the next year after that it'll increase to four hundred and fifty thousand dollars okay and then you have two months where you're not making anything or do you have other deals that kind of fill in those gaps for the other two months of the year? Two months, not really making anything. I run a camp, but it's nothing substantial. Okay. So the first thing that I would want to make sure is, I mean, you guys are debt free.

I'd want to make sure you guys have stacked up three to six months of expenses as quickly as possible. Do you have that in liquid? i do okay and then the next thing is are you regularly investing at 15 of what you earn no okay that's the first before that's the first rhythm i'd want to start is like okay we're investing um because i don't have to tell you, like in sports, you know, you're on top and then something happens and you're injured and you're like, oh crap. Right. So I want to make sure that that rhythm starts as quickly as possible. And then after that, you know, the way we teach home buying is you're saving up in your case, I'd save up, you know, no less than 20% and then of the down payment, right? And then after

that, you don't want the payment to be any more than 25% of your take-home pay. Now, if you're like, hey, I just want to pay cash for a house, like that's also an option. If you're like, I just want to save up the income and pay cash, you have that option as well. Okay. Yeah. And I think too, Chris, you know, there's a reality to your situation that you guys will just be in the States for two months at a time. Are you looking to retire and come back full-time soon, or are you going to play this out as long as possible? Yeah, so my time frame, I'm 27 now, so I think I will play for another good six to seven years. Okay. My income might not be as high as it is right now, but I was thinking projected around the $200,000 to $300,000 range, you know. Okay, going forward.

For sure. So, yeah, so I think, yes. Okay, so since, you know, you're only going to be in this house for two months out of the year, you guys, it'd be tempting to get something crazy and be big and flashy, but I wouldn't. I would go really conservative on the first home. I would put as much down as possible, even pay cash for it. And again, you guys will just be back two months at a time, and that's going to grow so much in your home value over the next few years that by the time you come back full

time, even if it's in five years, there's a good chance you could sell that, take some of this cash that you've been accumulating over the past and then go get a great home that you guys will be in year round. So I think it's a really smart idea. Yes, I would go cash forward if you can. Again, it can be something, you know, really conservative, but paying cash for it would be a great. But if not, you know, you can just put down maybe 50% or 75% down. That would be great and pay cash, yeah, for a car, but start that investment, Chris. You can check out our SmartVestor Pros

if you go to ramseysolutions.com and sit down with an investment professional and really work through some of these numbers with them too, because you guys have some great opportunity to do some amazing things and you already have, Chris, like well done. I just, I applaud you for the decisions you guys have made. All right, up next we have Savannah in Houston.

Hey, Savannah. Welcome to the show. Hey, hey, thanks for having me. Absolutely. How can we help? So I reached out because I had a fraudulent loan pull out my name. It was one of those classic, you know, text message scams, and I had just fell right into it.

This happened back in February or March, I believe. Yeah, so back in March, and I've just been dealing with it ever since. Since it happened, I've reached out to Navy Federal multiple times to get help. They've since told me after multiple encounters, three times that I was responsible after me appealing responsible for this said that and have also taken my paychecks for my direct deposit automatically have also whenever they were investigating the incident, they gave me, I forget what they called it, but it was about $2,000 while they sorted out the investigation. And then they later pulled that money back and different deposits that have gone to my account,

they've automatically taken out. Okay. so they have access to your checking account yes yes maybe federal does that's who i had my bank with okay so they're garnishing your wages on a loan that is not yours so right so i would immediately close your account you need to open up a new one they don't need to have any access to your account um and then i mean if they're if they're not doing anything, then I would pursue legal action. I mean, this is a classic case of identity theft and someone taking your identity. Have you talked to any legal counsel? Yes. So I've done a lot that I haven't mentioned yet, but I mean, I've really taken just about every action that I have access to or can afford. So I first went to my JAG office. I'm active duty, so we have a JAG

office. I went to talk to them and basically they are military related. There's nothing that they can do for me in this section of law, but he advised me to report to the government that I'm at risk for identity theft. Did that. Take out all of my money and move it to a different bank account. Did that. And report to a bureau called, one moment, it's a credit bureau that is over navy federal basically report a complaint to them that maybe federal isn't taking my issue seriously i did that and haven't really heard anything back from them how long has it been it well i i filed a complaint with consumer financial protection bureau in uh two months ago

i i got a package back from them but it was kind of a just documentation that i filed the complaint there's no new information on that okay i mean my yeah honestly savannah my my next step would probably be to contact um an actual lawyer and have them get involved because they're going to be able to um you know do more legal action than you just as like a citizen and hopefully have some level of intimidation to some of them right to say oh my gosh this is not yeah it's obviously not correct and you're not liable for any of that you are not liable someone forged your signature they took your identity and they took money out in your name so yeah so obviously you're you've done a great job savannah at this point um keeping all the documentation i would keep a very very close

record of everything but um but if you don't hear anything back in the next 30 days, again, from them after contacting them, you know, a third, fourth time, I would probably contact, yeah, get a lawyer. I'd be turning the tables and be like, well, maybe I'll come after you. Yeah, that's right. I mean, absolutely.

But I'm glad that, yeah, you've moved your accounts over for sure so they can't garnish your wages. So I'm so sorry, Savannah. So sorry. This is The Ramsey Show. counts over for sure so they can't garnish your wages. So I'm so sorry, Savannah. So sorry. This is The Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day is 1 Peter 3 at 15. But in your hearts, revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.

You can't knock on opportunity's door and not be ready. Bruno Mars. Well said, Bruno. Well said. All right. Let's go to Taylor in Dallas, Texas. Hey, Taylor. Welcome to the show.

Hello. Hi. Thanks for calling in. How can we help? I lost my son in a car accident a couple of months ago. Oh, Taylor. And he had a big life insurance policy that we didn't know about. He wasn't married and no children. And I would like to share the money with my other children, but right now I'm just overwhelmed. We're not sure how to go about doing that. One is very responsible financially. The other one is not. And I'm just not sure exactly what we should do.

I'm so sorry. Taylor, what was his name? I'd rather not say. Okay. That's fine. That's fine. Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.

I can't imagine. How old was he? 24. I'm so sorry. Yeah, grief is um I mean that's that that is the that's the hell on earth that no parent that phone call that no one wants so um our hearts are with you I'm so sorry um so what I honestly would do Taylor is nothing right now. You guys are grieving. There's no urgency. There's not kids in the picture, whether it's a death or a divorce, is just to slow down and wait a year. Wait a year before you make any major financial decisions. And so giving his life insurance away, I think, is a really beautiful way to honor his legacy.

But I would consider that a major financial decision. So I would honestly just open up a high yield savings account and I would put that money in and I would just sit and cry and grieve as a mom and just kind of let some of this settle. Yeah. And then I think you may have more of kind of a clear mind to make some of these decisions in regards to your other two kids. How old are they? 30 and 34. 30 and 34. Okay, so they're older.

Yeah. Do they have, are they married with kids? One, yes. One married, no kids. Okay. Which one was the, you said one was really responsible, one is not. Is the one that is married and kids? No. No children. Okay. They're very responsible one. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I agree with Rachel. You probably have some thoughts in your mind right now that maybe you would do with this money, but there's a lot that can change in

a year. You might find the one that's, you know, quote, irresponsible now might start turning things around, or you might see other patterns that start to develop that change kind of what you're viewing. But the biggest point of this is nothing's clear right now. Like grief is such a, it's such a cloud, right? And I agree with Rachel, a year, like even if it's longer, the thing with this money is there's not a high sense of urgency on it. Generally, life insurance is to replace, you know, income that was depended on by somebody. And no one was dependent on that income. And so you do have the peace to kind of just sit on this.

Like Rachel said, you put it in a savings account. It's still going to grow. And you have the time to kind of wait until that right point where you go, okay, I know what to do with this. I know what he would have wanted time to kind of wait until that right point where you go okay i know what to do with this i know what he would have wanted me to do with this and you can feel confident in the decisions that you're making um and so i'm right with rachel on that i just my heart goes out to you taylor did he have oh absolutely did he have a will in place on what he wanted to do with this money? No. No, okay.

And as, yeah, so there's, I'm just thinking through any logistics on this side of it. Do you, where are you and your husband financially? Can I ask that? Oh, yes. We're everyday millionaires. Okay. Wow. Wonderful.

Yeah, we've been doing this since I think about 2015. Okay. Very good. Yeah. Yeah, I think... We don't need it, but, you know, I don't want to be irresponsible with it. And you won't be. No, you won't. And I think even what

you can do is, you know, and again, this is a year down the road, and I think you can kind of make this, but different people that have sums of money that give to their children, you know, some people do it in the form of assets that they help with a big down payment on a home or they help put towards paying off a mortgage. So it's not just free cash. It's actually going towards towards something so even the one that's irresponsible you know that could be something you kind of think through that you're not just handing him cash but if there is a way in his life that you're able to kind of help set him up better if that's what you choose to do that doesn't you know it's not magnifying an issue

that he has you know is a great thing or you know even with the son that he has, you know, is a great thing. Or, you know, even with the son that has a family, you know, even talking through with them, you know, giving them, I think, the freedom to say, hey, here's some money and maybe they get help their kids with it. You know, but I do think the legacy piece is honoring to your son. And so I do love that thought of kind of passing that on to the rest of your family. Because I mean, that's a beautiful way to honor his legacy. You know, we've set aside 10% to give to different charities that we thought he would be, that he would like. It's beautiful, yeah.

I think that's a great plan. Taylor, are you guys, are you seeing anyone, a counselor, or do you have a good church family around you? We do have a good church family. We haven't found a counselor that we're comfortable with, but we've been led to a Cree share group that starts next month. Good, good. Yeah okay that's good so yeah that's great yeah we all we need that oh for sure yeah and I think you know those

intense emotions you know ones of grief and that kind of thing I mean having somebody in your corner that can walk you through this I mean it's just painful it's it's it physically is just it's torture it's absolutely torture but I just, it's torture. It's absolutely torture. But I think you're doing a wise thing to take care of you and your marriage. Because I do think as well, you know, some marriages, it, they don't survive traumatic experiences like this, like a death of a child. And so this is the time to lean into that with, with all of your might, whatever strength you have, lean into your marriage. Yeah.

And I have a good one. I'm grateful for that. Yes, I'm so, so glad. Well, Taylor, I hope that helps. And again, I'm so, so incredibly sorry. But for any of you listening, just make it a point that there's there's usually not a lot of rush and you know we talked to even widows you know of a wife who has lost her husband or a husband who's lost their wife and and they want to take you know they get life insurance and

they want to take it and pay off the house they want to do all these things really quickly and we even that just gotta wait even that we just say slow down and and this is the time to grieve like this is you don't need to make major decisions if you're in a um a dire situation and something needs to happen you can use that money for that but if you are in a position where nothing no action has to be taken um i wouldn't um and and sometimes even jade which is terrible but there are people that even take advantage of those in grief of course and they they set them up in a bad plan and a bad financial product or whatever it is and that's you know and emotions are so high at that time that some people are really they fall to that so quickly that's right you're not thinking clearly you're not reasoning that's

right same way you would yep that's right that's. So Taylor, our hearts and prayers are with you and your family. I'm so, so incredibly sorry. Well, that puts this hour of the show in the books. Thanks to everyone in the booth, all the guys and Kelly. Jade, thanks for a great show. You too, Rachel. Love hosting with you. Thank you, America, for listening.

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