The Ramsey Show - You’re Not Stuck—You Just Need a Better Plan

Episode Date: March 23, 2026

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Brought to you by the Every Dollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Normal is broke and common sense is weird. So we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio, this is The Ramsey Show. And I am Rachel Cruz hosting this hour with my good friend and co-hosts the Smart Money Happy Hour, George Camel.

So we'll be taking your calls. So the number is. Triple-8-8-25-2-2-25. give us a call. And first up, we have Dacia in Boston. That's Georgia's hometown. Welcome to the show. Hi, thank you.

Absolutely. How can we help today? I am about $140,000 in student loan debt. And my boyfriend and I have been talking about getting engaged, and the debt is overwhelming. And a wedding would be, you know, obviously a lot more on top of that. I'm wondering if you have to have. if I should refinance my student loans or if I should do a balance transfer on my credit card

and what your opinions are the best way to get out of this debt as soon as possible. Yeah, what did you get your degree in? Criminology and sociology. I was planning to go to law school, but now it's too expensive. Yeah. So how much are you making now a year? So I was working in my field. Now I'm back waitressing.

Right now I make between a thousand. to $1,500 a week. Wait, why are you, why did you get out of the field? Because the job that I had gotten, I was making more money serving. So I went back to serving because when I was working my regular job or working the job in my career, I only had like $300 at the end of the month to buy groceries and pay everything. So I thought it would be better to make more serving. So what were you doing? What was the job?

I was a probation case specialist. So what does the sort of ladder look like in the field that you're wanting to go into? So initially I was going in, I wanted to go to law school, and then when I graduated, I realized how much debt I had. So probation was my next option. It kind of goes probation case specialist, then case manager, and then being a probation officer. But that's not what you want to do. that's just sort of what you fell into? Yeah, I mean, I would love to be a lawyer and go to law school, but I don't think that that's going to happen. I don't really see the point in getting $100,000 plus more debt to go to law school.

Yeah, we definitely don't want to make the problem worse. But right now, we're trying to go, serving probably has a ceiling, and it's a great side hustle, but it's not a career. And so my fear is you stick to this, and three years from now, you're still serving, making the same thing. same amount and you haven't made much progress on the debt versus you got promoted now you've been in this field for three or four years with more experience now you're making 60 70 80 that's the goal and then what does your boyfriend do um he was in the coast guard he got out about a year ago and now he's waiting to get on the fire department okay and do you guys think you'll get married soon if you did get engaged yes okay soon i would say we wouldn't

get married at least for two years, maybe three. Okay. Well, the truth is, it's going to be hard to do this on just your income if you stick to this salary. Yeah, the job that I have now, I'm going, I work at a different restaurant in the summer and there, the on season there, I make, like, I can make $10,000 a month. That's why I went back initially. It's just the off season that's awful. Yeah, well, I think long term, maybe you, you, get through the summer and make that because, I mean, because you said 145,000, right, in student loans, right? 140. 140. So, yeah, I mean, with at this rate, I mean, it's going to be a really long time until you pay these off. And so like what George was saying, finding a career at any level, now I don't care if it's with your degree or not.

But just anything that you want to do, you need to start pursuing because getting in is going to be really important. important, and then you're going to start working your way up, and that's where you're going to start to see raises and actually be making significantly more money to help pay off $140,000 of the student loan. So before you get off the call, we still have a few minutes with you, but Christian will pick up, and we'll get you Ken Coleman's book, find the work your, find the work you're wired to do. Yeah. Oh, sorry, Ken. So many words, Ken.

I forgot the title. But it has a, it has a, like an assessment in the back of it that's going to be able to I'll honestly direct you and maybe give you some ideas career-wise. So that's going to be really important in this because of the amount of student loan debt. So what type of student loan debt is? Is it private, federal? Yeah. So three of them are through Sally May, and my interest rate on one of them is 15%.

And the other two are, I think, 12 or 13. So I don't know if I should refinance. Yeah, it's awful. Yeah, you could probably get a better deal. Just here's the parameters for when you should and could refinement. finance a student loan, it's got to be completely free to make the change. You've got to keep a fixed rate if you have one or change over from variable. I assume these are all fixed rate loans. And then you either need to keep the same term for the refinance loan or possibly shorten it.

So what we don't want to do is make the term longer. And then lastly, obviously you've got to lower the interest rate. So if you can check all of those boxes, it's worth looking into it to see if that can help you. But it's not the solution. I don't want you to think that we've solved the problem, and especially a balance transfer. That's a terrible idea. Because all it does is move the debt around and make it harder to pay off because now they're not split up. They're just in one giant pile. So it's actually good that they're split up into multiple loans because that means you can knock it out faster using our debt snowball method. Yes.

And I'll send you my book as well and it will walk you through the debt snowball method. It's called Breaking Free from Broke. There's a whole chapter on student loans that I hope gets you fired up. There's no way to reverse this. You can't return the degree. I'm so sick of it. I wish there was refunds on your college degree. But, you know, this is the path.

And, Deja, this is, you know, it's, you did sign the dotted line, but too many students are led down this path of saying, hey, education is worth it at all costs, no matter how much it costs you in student loans. And then here you are. And regardless of school and degree, and don't worry, it'll ROI. It's a good investment in your future. And then you're left picking up the pieces, realizing how much 100, what are your total minimum payments on all these student loans?

my Sally May is 1336 my other one is 1333 and another one is 287 wow so we're like edging towards two grand just in minimum student loan payments 1741 yeah and is that hitting any of the actual principal or is the most of that the interest most of its interest I think a little bit of principle since I've graduated it's gone down the total has gone down 2000 yeah so that's the that's the hard cycle that has to break so dacia honestly i would be doing this this job that you're talking about i would be waiting tables every weekend every night i would be working oh my gosh 80 hours a week i mean honestly like there's going to have to be a i'm trying

yes like a significant significant bump and what george was saying too you know not that your you know fiance is necessarily the answer but if you guys ended up getting married and you combined finances and you guys work at this together, the double income idea, you know, don't get married for that reason, obviously, but having that double income is helpful too. So I would not wait until this debt is paid off to get married. We never say to wait on life events. You know, people are like, well, I don't want to have a baby or I don't want to get married because I have all this debt.

Life has to go on. And so if anything, if he really is the one from a mathematical perspective, a dual income can help knock this out too. Making 150 to pay off 140 is a lot easier than making 50 on your own. Yeah, hold on the line day show. Christian's going to pick up to get you those books. Running a business is hard work. You're the CEO, the accountant, and the sales team.

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Hi, Sophie. Hi, Rachel and George, thank you so much for taking my call. I appreciate it. Absolutely. today? I am a long-time listener, and I just finished reading The Total Money Makeover, which was really energizing to read. And I've been listening to the podcast just nonstop in recent weeks because I just need

to internalize everything. And my husband and I are on the same page, you know, about what kind of position we are in. And so there's a teamwork element there, and we're very optimistic because there are lots of people who are in, anyway. Sorry, I didn't realize how much all I was going to be. No, you're fine. What's going on? I am. I have, oh my gosh, I'm sorry. That's okay. Take your time.

It's stressful. I have 10-month-old twins and a two-year-old. Well, that's why you're emotional. Sophie, you haven't been sleeping. You've got babies. Babies, babies. This is probably the most time you've had to yourself in a long time, just you calling into the show. Oh, my gosh. That is actually true.

So you got three little ones, and what's happening? So we, I have been at work since they were about three months old, the twins. And we've had a nanny, and she's amazing. but we are my husband's work is in sales. I now make salary. I thankfully received a promotion when I came back from maternity leave, so that was a blessing for sure, and it definitely has been helpful

because now I'm on salary instead of hourly, so it's a little bit more predictable. I make, for contacts, I make 75, my husband is in sales, and so it really fluctuates. It's very seasonal, and this month in particular was the lowest he's ever earned. And so it's just put us in a position where we are looking at rent, looking at paying the nanny, looking at car payments, looking at that kind of stuff.

And it's just all like I don't see it coming together in time. And so I'm just wondering what kind of first steps would be advised. Okay. Well, we always talk about when there's an urgent situation like this, from a cash flow perspective, there's a couple of things. Number one, before any debt is paid, rent is paid. Okay. So rent, food, and anything transportation, so gas to get you to and from work, okay? The car payment would be close in there to make sure that you're not getting behind on that, but rent is before the car payment.

Okay? So the order of priority is very important that what is taking. care of is taken care of of things that are needed. Okay. So the priority is important, number one. And then number two, where you draw the line of where the money runs out. And then what's below that is going to have to be a conversation either with a place, a creditor, a nanny. I don't know what that looks like. But where do you think this month the money's going to run out? If you paid rent, if you paid utilities and if you paid food and made sure you had gas in the car, where would the line, where would the money run out, do you think? Well, I once this payment I just put through, anyway, I'm about to have $200 probably in my checking account.

I've got a little bit of cash, a couple hundred bucks. And cash continues to come in. I manage a restaurant, so there are some little things that I do within the business where I take a little cash so that that's it's small but it's not nothing I would say a couple hundred bucks a week um but uh we are going to have to pay the nanny about a grand um and um my so i'll be paid a little after the first like whatever that Wednesday is around the first um and my net is 21 71 so that'll be mine my husband gets paid on the first he gets paid on the first he It's 971.

And our rent is 2650. And so I'm kind of seeing like everything. So my, yeah, I don't know. We pay $400 a month in freaking formula. I haven't even, that's not even including diapers. Right, right. So we've been collecting some cloth diapers. We've got some on our registry.

Originally, I got some from my local Buy Nothing group. I'm all about that, by the way. That's such a great thing. Yeah, yeah. Yes, totally. And those little things are very helpful for sure. But looking at the big picture, is there extra hours that he can work or you can work or he could pick up a side hustle at night just to be getting cash flow in? If he could make an extra, I don't know, $500 a week doing DoorDash or something at night. What does that look like? I did sign up for Instacart delivery. There's spotty little places where I could do a couple hours here and there. I'm on a wait list.

So that's hopefully going to come through. I mean, we have bartending experience. I could see if my husband has any interest in picking up like Monday or TV. Nights and weekends for sure. Yeah. The thing about the nights and weekends, that's when I work. Because you're in the restaurant. business. Right. So the nanny is part-time. She's there from 12 to 6 Wednesday, Thursday,

Friday because I go in and I, excuse me, and I'm the closer on Wednesday, Thursday, Fridays. I open on Saturday Sundays, and my husband has the kid. Okay. So you're just using her when you really need her. You both work. Right. Okay. So she's part-time, and theoretically we could really cut her hours, but then I don't know that she would stay with us. Yeah, if anything, it would be the opposite. It would be finding a cheaper sitter maybe for two or three nights throughout the week. So you're both earning more even with what you're paying a sitter. Like, it's going to be hard.

And I know you feel that. Yeah, and we know it's going to be hard. And he and I are like, we're in the hard. So what kind of debt is there? So the cars, one of them is, I think, about 14,000 on it. and the other they're about the same excuse me

one of them the minivan we had to get so we got the Tucson first and that's when we were about to have our son because we were like okay we're about to have a baby

we had my 2008 a launcher at the time which had been paid off a long time ago and but she she got to up like to 200,000 miles so we had to eventually

if you sold those private party each of those vehicles how much could you get for them So the minivan is a unique scenario, sort of. So when we were having the twins, and we were about to have three rear-facing car seats, the police station that helps put car seats told us that and was correct. I mean, the car seats didn't fit side by side. She was like, if you had two rear-facing and one forward, it would fit,

but like just the mechanics of it. So we had to get a different car. my aunt actually gifted us the money to buy a newer minivan. I haven't read the total money makeover yet, so I hadn't internalized

the value of going the snowball method and mentally who owns the van? Whose name is the van under? Yours? Mine. Okay. Do you know how much you would get for it

if you guys sold it? Probably 30, but more I'm wondering if that's... You would get $30,000 for this van. So you could net 16. It's a 20-22 and we... My aunt gifted us basically the cash for it because she wanted us to have no...

But why are you in debt with it then? If she gave you back... It sounds like you bought a more expensive car. She gave you 14 and you spent 30. I paid off our credit cards because that was a higher interest. Well, then let's not talk morals if we used it for something else anyways. Sophie, this is a, this is a bright, light, get rid of this van. Get rid of this van. You'll have $16,000 cash. That's how you pay rent.

You know what I mean? Like, yes. So I would get rid of this van tomorrow. And then get something in cash. Yes. And that frees up a payment. And even the $14,000 other car. If you can, if you're not underwater on it, get rid of that. These, this freeze up money. You guys have to make some extreme sacrifices because you're in an extreme state. So remember, prioritize the budget, food, shelter, utilities, transportation gets paid, okay? And then we're going to start working our way out of debt by working extra. You know, one of the first things I discovered working in the financial world is how absolutely devastating it is when the breadwinner of a family dies. And there's too little life insurance or none at all. Grieving families are suddenly left behind, scrambling to pay bills and

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Visit zander.com. For instant online quotes, or for a more personal touch, give them a call at 800-356-42-82. Philadelphia. Hi, Tyler. Welcome to the show. Thanks, guys. How are you guys doing? Yeah, we're doing great. Thanks for calling. How can we help? So my wife and I have been struggling with this question ever since we had our daughter about eight months ago. So my wife has a stay-at-home mom. Is it morally right of me to ask her to work a shift or two a week when my income is more than enough money to pay for our bills, pay debt payments, and even pay a little bit extra on debt?

Is it morally right? I probably wouldn't. and put that wording to it, I would say, I would frame it more as, um, is it, is it okay for her to work outside the home? Is it okay for the value system of our family and how we want it to look and run, uh, that we're maybe doing a different plan. We're changing that plan from what we originally thought in order to hit goals. Like, yeah, to me, it's not a moral question. It would be more of a values question for you guys. So what's the motive in wanting her to pick up some shifts? I just want to be able to, like, obviously we have a plan to be able to pay off debt,

but her being able to work a little bit and pick up a couple shifts would be able to allow us to kind of make that plan go a lot faster, and we're just kind of not on the same page. Like, I want to get out of debt obviously as quick as possible, but she's just not, she's not on the same page, and I'm having a hard time getting through to her on that, and I'm just, I'm not sure how to move forward, moving. Yeah, so you're not on the same page with the timeline of her going back to work to make the timeline faster to get out of debt, or you're not on the same page to pay off debt at all? I think it's the latter. Trying to pay off debt at all.

Okay. Okay. So then, yes, it would be very difficult to tell your wife to go back to work for something that she doesn't really care about. It's not a moral issue. It's just strategically wrong to demand. It's just not going to go well. And saying, like, hey, can you pick up some work to a person who's been working all day in the home? That's where I think it can get defensive.

Yeah, well, and she's going to go to work for something that she's not interested in, and that's the payoff debt. And she didn't care to pay off debt. So we need you guys to be united on the goal. And then what levers can we pull in order to make this go faster? Yes. And then that might be one lever to pull. So what is causing her not to care about the debt? Is she just like it's not a big deal?

We're fine? I think the way she was brought up, I mean, my parents and her parents had very different views on money. and so my parents are very much get out of debt, like death free as soon as possible, whereas her parents have kind of always, that's not, money's not always been

the most important thing in their life. And so coming from such different backgrounds, yeah, it's hard to find that common ground. How long have you guys been married? About two years. Okay. When did you decide that you want to get out of debt?

I, for the first six months of our marriage, I wasn't as, I wasn't as gung-ho back because I should have been, but then about a year and a half, I really, sat down and we looked at all of our finances and I said,

like, we got a mess here. We got to get ourselves out. Have you shown her that? So it's been a year and a half of this conversation. Yeah, it's, unfortunately, it's just one of those sore subjects that every time it's brought up, it usually ends in a fight or just we drop it and then talk about something else

because we don't ever get anywhere. Does she, do you guys sit down together and talk about money on a regular basis? I mean, not about the debt necessarily, but bills and goals for saving or anything along those lines. Yeah, that's the crazy thing.

She's completely on board with the budget. We have a great budget going on. She's completely on board with that and spending within her means. It's just the aspect of wanting to try me. Extra sacrifice. If she didn't have, yes, correct. Okay. Well, at what rate will you pay off debt without her picking up more work?

It would probably take us five to seven years, I would say. What kind of debt is it? It's 85,000 total. It's a combination of student loans. There's a car loan. We have a loan to my dad because I'll pay off. What? On that.

It's a lot of different aspects. What's the debt to your dad? A loan to my father. Your parents were the ones that didn't like debt. Yes, correct. We had $20,000 in credit card debt, and my dad came to us and said, well, I'm going to pay this off for you guys. You're just going to pay me back in a loan the way you guys aren't getting paid. killed with the interest involved in that.

Oh, boy. Okay. So you owe him 20 grand? Yeah. What's on the car loan? About 10,000. Okay, what's that thing worth if you sold it private programs? It's pretty much right at 10,000.

Okay. And then the majority student loans? Yeah, it's about 55,000 in student loans. Okay. How much do you make a year? 105. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I think it is going to, it's going to come down to you guys sitting down and just saying, and you explaining to her, not that, not saying you need to do this and you need to do that and you need to pick up work, but how you're feeling, right?

This idea of stress, you're feeling the weight of all of this. And to be honest, Tyler, you owe your dad 20 grand. Like, that's not fun. That's not a fun place to be with your parents. For seven years. every holiday is going to be a little awkward. Yes. So all of that combined, she needs to understand and hear from you, her husband,

what kind of toll this is taking on you. From a stress standpoint, an emotional standpoint. It's fair to say, I can't live with this stress for seven years. Yes. And that's fair, Tyler. And I would hope that she could look over and say, yes, I see that my husband is, is majorly struggling. This may not feel important to me,

but it's important to him. And so what does life look like for us to get, you know, past this and through this debt? And then that would be the conversation of looking at, for me, it's always helpful to look at numbers because just this like never-ending idea of like, okay, I'm just going to be going back to work for this thing.

That can feel like, you know, a tunnel you're walking down and you can't see the end of it. And so if you guys put in, you know, even like an Excel sheet or something and just say, okay, if we sacrifice and we lived on, you know, $70,000, $60,000 and put everything else towards the debt and you guys got really aggressive, like really aggressive and she did not go back to work. I think you guys could have this paid off faster than seven years, Tyler. If you guys did nothing. I agree to. Nothing. What's your rent or mortgage payment? $1,500 a month. Okay, that's reasonable because you're probably taking home, what,

little over six grand a month? Yeah, it's, yeah, it's about 60, yeah, something like that. So your total bills, you're saying, are about five grand, and you can throw a grand towards the debt? Correct. Okay, so now the question is, well, we have five grand of bills. How can we get that down while you go make more? If she can't or is unwilling, then it's on you, and that's a new conversation. Hey, I'm going to be gone a little more because nights and weekends are now going to be me side hustling because we can't be in this mess for seven years. Yeah, if you guys could get to a point, that you're throwing three grand at this debt a month, right? I'm like, that significantly changes things.

And that could be from extra work. That could be from you guys taking your food budget to X amount down a couple hundred bucks. You know what I mean? Like it's moving the numbers around. The conversation is if you can't pick up extra work, we're going to have to have a budget of about $3,000 to live on. And now you guys get to play that game and see what you can cut. And then if it gets uncomfortable, then we have to go, all right, we need to make more money. One or both of us is going to have to do that.

And then put in there and just say, hey, if you, yeah, is she a nurse when you said shifts? What does that mean? No, no, no, she's a stay-at-home mom. No, I know, but you said she could pick up a few shifts earlier. Yeah, she used, before she had a baby, she used to work at a fast food restaurant. Got it. Okay. Yeah, and, you know, you got.

And you may look at it too. It's just hard. No, go ahead. Well, I was going to say, you may look at it too and say what she's bringing in versus child care may not even be worth it. Do you know what? You know what? You guys may actually run the numbers and see. But it's hard for you. What? Finish your sentence? It's hard because I know how much work a stay-a-home mom is on her. And so I don't want to feel like I'm asking too much of her by asking her even just to pick up a shift or two a week. Well, men, change of the sacrifice. The sacrifice becomes we need to cut a bunch of things out of the budget. Our lifestyle is going to go down if we can't go make more.

So there's just, there has to be a sacrifice on either side here. And that might just mean right now you're working extra and cutting down on the budget in order to cut down this timeline. Hey, what's up guys? It's Jade. Listen, my husband and I drive used vehicles. And we really do plan on keeping those running for a long time. So we trust Christian Brothers automotive to take care of them. Their team is honest. Their shops are super clean.

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And so filing early means that you get the best deals and you get that tax stress off your shoulders. So as soon as you can get all of your tax documents, go to ramsysolutions.com slash smarttext and start filing. Again, that's ramsysolutions.com slash smart tax. All right, let's go to Victoria in El Paso. Hi, Victoria. Hi, how are you? Hi, we're doing great. How can we help?

I was needing some help figuring out some guidance in the situation my husband and I are. And we recently purchased his home, started out doing small renovations that led us to discover big, massive problems. So much to the point to where our contractor did some digging, realized that the permits that were pulled for this house were never completed. Nobody ever inspected this house. Nothing was signed off. There was never a certificate of occupancy on the initial home selling. and we have found my nothing in the plumbing, the electrical, and at this point the building now is up to code, nothing, absolutely nothing.

And so my husband and I have already invested close to $30,000 in renovations that we were already budgeting to do for this house. And that's not including all of the plumbing and stuff that we have recently found that are wrong with this. And so we're just kind of trying to get some guidance on what our next steps are with all the information that we've gathered and have seized. work on our new house that we bought. How long have you owned the house?

When did you buy it? We closed January 29th of this year. Oh, so super recent. Yeah, we haven't even moved into this house. Like we were going to do all the small renovations like new flooring, baseboards, some lighting, and then that was it. We were going to move into our first ever home because we had been working so hard hang off all of our debt, like our college debt and everything.

So we were super excited for this big, step and then suddenly we run into this massive, massive problem. And there's a lot of people who are incompetent to get us here. And so we're not going to rehash all of that. Let's just talk about what you can do at this stage. Because right now you could be legally liable to get this thing up to code. Exactly. And so number one, I would be contacting a real estate attorney. Correct. We are in the process of trying to figure that out. I've collected all original tax documents. Do you have the permit history? I am in the middle of requesting it.

They will be sending us those documents on Monday, and I even went to the title company, and they have no record of the certificate of occupancy for the people that owned the house prior to us because they were the first homebuyers to the new home, and then for us as well. Was there title insurance at closing? For us, there was.

I don't know if I can't speak for the people prior to us. Well, I'm wondering if that title insurance could help you in this case. It could cover some of the stuff that was undisclosed. And then the other part is the listing agent. The person who sold you this home, you could file a complaint against them as well with, you know, your state's real estate commission. Yeah, have you contacted your real estate agent, Victoria?

I have. She said that from the legal counsel, she saw out that as a, since this wasn't a new home buy for us, that theoretically we were all in the clear not having to ask for a title of occupancy and for any of proof that the permits were completed or anything was up to code with this house. A lot of assumptions made here. Okay. Oh, boy, and you guys didn't get an inspection.

We did. So we got an inspection. The inspector never flagged anything that we, there was a couple of things that he flagged, but those were like minor negligible things that my husband's like, I can fix such as like the vent on the top of the house wasn't done correctly. So things my husband's like, it's not a big deal. Like there's nothing massive. All the problems that we found in this house are all things that we're not visibly able to see, obviously.

Okay. So it's not something the inspector should have reasonably caught. That's what I'm wondering. Correct. Because if so, they have their own insurance that you could fire a claim against. But the plumbing and everything, I'm shocked that nothing, I mean, from what you're making it sound like, I'm shocked that there was no level of any problem from the inspector. Oh, yeah, for sure. we're so in shock that somehow we got from there was someone had purchased property and then suddenly

there's a house but there were no signatures and no signature trail from A to B and then somehow though we're all connected to all kinds of city resources though even though the city's like yeah none of this was completed nothing was ever signed off on I mean nothing is making sense no dots are connecting is the title like everything's good with the title that's what I almost would be fee I'm scared that someone else's name is is in all of this too you know what you mean like i mean like i mean the way that this is sounding is horrible yeah i have no i mean honestly at this point i've i feel like the only thing that i felt was in the right direction was to try and go and collect all the original documents for this house and the property taxes and everything yeah before someone tries to cover

something up when they find out that we're digging in it i mean of the of well i guess a little over 90 i mean close to 90 days so that that i mean i mean that i mean i mean you're within what i I mean, the time for me, I would think, from a legal perspective, is on your side because of the window, right? You haven't owned it for two years and you're finding all this stuff and you're trying to backtrack everything. Right. That this closing just happened. So I would. I would talk to a real estate attorney to probably get some good course of action.

Because from, especially from in Texas, like specific state laws and different things, right? Different states run things differently. And so they're going to know from a state-specific side how to move forward. But yeah, I would make sure the, even the titles clean, all of it. Yeah, if there's a lack of certificate of occupancy, I think your attorney's going to have a field day with this one. But it's going to cost you before we can get out of this mess or solve it. So that's the not fun part. This is going to be a full-time job for you guys just to deal with.

I'm so sorry. Yeah, it's horrible. So sorry, Victoria. All right, let's go to Brad in Huntsville. Hi, Brad. Welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for taking the call. Absolutely.

How can we help? So basically me and my wife, we're 26 years old. We don't have any debt apart from a mortgage, but we have two homes. One is completely paid off. And the other one, we have about $270,000 in mortgage debt on. So our plan was to hopefully sell our house and then pay off the entire mortgage. But now it's looking like there's going to be about a $30,000 difference. So we have close to like $350,000 in investments.

And we're just deciding whether it would be wise to take that 30K difference and put it into the house to pay off the mortgage. Or if we should just try to pay off the mortgage as fast as possible, you know, over the course of like two years. Yeah. How much do you guys make a year? We make $5,795 a month. So it's like $69,000 a year after taxes. Like that's the bring take-home pay. Yep.

When you say investments, are these retirement accounts or non-retirement? Non-retirement accounts. Oh, okay. Where did that money come from? And what were you investing for? Yeah. So some of it, we meanwhile, I've had some businesses, some franchises that we sold. So we got some that way.

Some was like inheritance stuff. Others have been different real estate stuff. So it's just kind of a combination of all the things. So it's not really earmarked for anything. It was just sort of a pile of money of profits that have just been sitting there in like a brokerage account? Yeah, it's on a brokerage account. Heck you. You know, like in my head, in my head, you know, we have other stuff going on for retirement too,

but in my head it's part of my retirement, even though it's not like an earmarked account. Well, you guys are 26. If you have no mortgage, no payments and you're investing from 26 for the rest of your career, you're going to be multi, multi, multi-millionaires. I'm not really concerned. I would be taking that $30K out plus whatever you'll owe in capital gains taxes on the growth and knock out that mortgage. Okay. And then with that freedom payment, let's do something smart with it.

Yeah, how much is the mortgage payment a month? So again, so right now, we're selling, we're closing on the sale of our house next week. So that's when we'll actually get to take that big chunk of money to pay down the house we currently have. But like I said, the current mortgage is $270K. So that's like a $1,700 payment. Got it. And so, but, but if we were to just take it and not pay off the $30,000 difference, the principal, you know, just the mortgage side of it, not including the home insurance would be like $190.190 on up.

Nice. Gotcha. Yeah, I would do that. And this is, to be clear for the listeners, it's because it's in a non-retirement account. You're not going to be facing penalties. You're just going to have the capital gains tax. And so I would definitely do that. You'll still have a giant pile of money and no payments for the rest of your life at 26.

Dude, you guys won the lottery. Well, done. crowd. Yep. Pay it off tonight and enjoy. Finally, mortgage rates have dropped, and you know what that means? People who've been sitting on the sidelines are about to jump back in to the housing market. So if you've been waiting to buy, this could be your window, but you've got to be prepared and do it the Ramsey way. You need to contact Churchill Mortgage. Their home buyer edge program gives you peace of mind in a wild market. You can cap your rate for 90 days, So if rates go up, you're protected.

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I am Rachel Cruz hosting this hour with George Camel, and we are answering your questions. So it's open phones at AAA. 825-5-2-2-25, so give us a call. All right, first up, we have Nehemiah in Charleston. Hi, welcome to the show. Hey, how are you guys doing today? We're doing great.

How can we help? Okay, so I'm 21 years old. When I graduated high school, I thought credit was the main thing that I had to focus on. And I ran it up pretty quick. and I was handling it pretty decent, but I recently lost my job. And now I'm back working, but I took a major pay cut, at least in my book. And I'm just trying to figure out how can I handle it better. So, like, whenever I get out of this, I know the right steps to do next time.

Yeah, absolutely. So how much debt are you in? Around 25,000. 25,000. Okay. And is that mostly credit cards or what kind of debt is it? I have 14,000 towards my truck. My truck had a problem that needed to be fixed.

And that was $5,000 towards three pairs. And then the job I was working at, I needed tools. And that was roughly around $3,000. Okay. And is that, was that on a credit card? Uh, yes, ma'am. Okay. So you got the truck loan and then a bunch of credit card debt?

Yes, sir. Okay. What are you making right now? $800 a week. That's $41,600 a year. Okay. And that comes out, too. What's your take-home pay every month?

Right at $800. Okay. So what is your... $800 a week? $800? A week. A week? Okay.

or the week. Gotcha. Got it. And what is your rent right now? I'm currently staying with my mother. Okay, good. I just don't want to bite off no more than what I can chew now. Well, yeah, we tried that game. We played with the snakes. We got bid. So here's the good news. You don't need to worry about your credit score once you've paid off all this debt. Yes, sir. Because the point of credit scores is to get you some more debt at better rates. That's the game. Yes, sir. But if you want to live more freely, you just don't go into more debt. And you can still rent departments, rent cars, even get a mortgage without playing the credit score game. And I'll walk you through that. I'll send you a copy of my book, Nehemi, and I have a whole chapter on credit scores I want you to read as some homework.

All right. So the goal now is, how low can we get our expenses, how high can we get our income to create this beautiful gap called margin to throw at this 25K? So right now, how much do you think you'd have if you live pretty tight? How much could you throw at your debt? I'm throwing about $600 at it right now. I mean, I'm living off of chicken, eggs, and rice. But you're saying you're living at home, so your expenses should be pretty low. Yes, sir.

Well, my mother, she's actually out of work right now. She's been having some serious medical issues. So I'm doing what I can do. Not completely because she is on disability, do, but I am helping out. Okay. So what are your total bills that up to? I can't. Because here's the math on this. I'll just show you what I'm doing in my head, some napkin math. You have 25 grand in debt. So if you could put $1,000 toward the debt, you're done in about two years. All right. So the goal is, how do we get out of debt in less than two years? Well, we need to put more than $1,000 a month toward the debt. So that

becomes the goal, and now it's how do we get our expenses down, income up in order to do that. Yeah, and I would say, I mean, I would go even bigger Nehemiah, too. If you think about if you're, if it's 600 right now, could you make it a goal to earn an extra $1,000 a month by working nights and weekends and just working like crazy? And if you earned an extra $1,000 a month, then that's, yes, $1,600 go into that debt and that, you know. That speeds it up. Yeah. I mean, it cuts it not quite in half, but close to it. That would get you out of debt in about 15 months instead of 24, 25 months. Yeah. So it's just, it's just, it's. It's those seasons of sacrifice.

And you're doing a lot to Nehemi. I mean, helping your mom. Do you know, do you see kind of an end to when she may be able to go back to work for her to support herself? Do you see that happening anytime soon? Yes, ma'am. She's making some improvement. Okay. It is like with a physical labor at her job that she would have to continue.

I got you. Okay. She hasn't been cleared yet. Because how much are you paying towards her stuff a month? A couple hundred bucks? Yes, ma'am. Okay. So, yeah, so when that clears up and if she's able to get back to work,

you know, that's a couple hundred bucks again freed up. So I think there's, yeah, definitely some, a bright future. And you're 21, you said? Isma. Yeah. Well, I'm so thankful you called Nehemiah and so encouraged by you, honestly. Like, if you can learn this stuff at 21 and you're learning to chase the right things like having a plan and you have a budget and you start saving for an emergency

fund after you get out of this debt and you start investing like all of that is in just the next four to five years for you I mean you're going to be able to do some incredible things financially like completely change your family tree like you're going to be able to build wealth so quickly because you're getting this so young and so I would have some big goals you know I mean I would say um to get out of this debt say you do that in Say you do that in a year and a half, okay? Maybe you kind of get a raise here, there, you get some money flowing. 18 months.

Yeah, so that'll be, what, end of 2027. Pull up the investment calculator, George. Oh, this will be fun. Yeah, so end of 2027, and then your goal, Nehemi, is to get a three-month emergency fund, okay? So all of your expenses, and I would include rent in that, because I think eventually you're going to move out and you're going to rent an apartment or get a place, okay? So you're going to get about a three-month emergency fund. And then from there, you can start investing after that emergency fund and or start saving up for a down payment to own a home one day.

Right. So those are some big goals. But when you start investing, and let's say you start investing Nehemiah at 25 years old and say, you put, I don't know, George, what, $1,000 a month, right? So say all of this that you're doing. And at this point, you're maybe down a career path. you know, who knows what's happening with your income. And say you put, you know, a thousand bucks a month aside and you're investing from age 25 to 65. What is that, George?

That would be with a 10% return, $6.3 million if you consistently put $1,000 a month away. In retirement. Do you know anybody that has $6.3 million in your circle? No, sir. You might be the first. Nehemi might be the one. If you decide, and. And look, here's the thing. There's people with 800 credit scores who have nothing in retirement.

And they're real proud of it, aren't they? They go, man, I got a great interest rate of my truck. And you're going, dude, I've got a 2008 truck. I've been driving till the wheels fall off. And I'm putting every dime into investments instead of a depreciating asset. That's the kind of mentality that will cause you to be wealthy. And so we have a lot of confidence in you because you're so young and you've got a bright future ahead. And you can knock out this dead in 18 months. Yes. I mean, I would get, I would be so motivated. and to stay debt-free, Nehemiah, for the rest of your life.

You save up and pay for things. You learn to live a life where you're not sitting there trying to impress everybody else, but you're diligent, you have a plan, you have goals, and George's book, Breaking Free from Broke, is going to help walk through all of that for you. So stay on the line, and Christian's going to pick up, and we'll give you that as a gift. And, yeah, Nehemi, we're cheering you on.

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compared to 12 months on the Boost Mobile Unlimited plan as of January. 2026. See website for full details. Next, we have Austin in Indianapolis. Hey, Austin. Hello, how are you? Hi, we're doing great. How can we help today? Um, I, my name, like you said, is Austin. I'm 28 and I have about $375,000 in debt. 375,000? Yes, ma'am. Is that include a mortgage? Yes. The mortgage is about 120-ish. Oh, okay. Dang. Okay, so what's the rest of the debt? The rest of the $250,000. Like $192,200 is an SBA loan on my business, which is my full-time income.

Is it profitable? That's why I'm calling you guys. Okay. Oh, that's not good. So when I purchase my... If we're only hope to make this business profitable, who's, what's the business? I'm a small distributor for. a snack company. I deliver

to big box grocery stores. Okay, what was the loan for? The loan was for the acquisition of the business that I bought from the last individual that owned it. Oh, okay. Was it profitable when you bought it? Yes, sir. Okay.

So what's going on now with it? So basically, how do I word this? So basically, the last owner of it. He was doing about, it's 100% commission. He was doing about $15,000 a week

in sales, so he was taken home about $2,200. And since then, all of the stores had resets done, so my product presence has kind of slowed down a lot in there. And I'm doing about $10,000 to

$12,000 a week on a good week. And what are you taking home from that? Um, it's not a lot. So I'm making about $15 to $1,800 a week. Okay. Where does the other $10,000 go? So some months I'll do like five or $6,000, $7,000, and then some months I'll do $10,000.

So I have, I pay about $3,000 a month just on the SBA loan for the business. that's cutting into your profits correct that's the bulk of it and you're doing this full time 40 hours a week yes sir more than that but yes okay and you're making about five or six k a month yes and you've got a sizable level of debt what's the other

60 grand in consumer debt about 30,000 is credit cards 20 of that is just regular this and that on my wife's credit card. About 2,000 is my credit card, just regular consumer. And then 8,000 of the rest of it is on a new HVAC system for our house that we got last year. Okay. Does your wife work? No, we have three and a half children.

Okay. Well, congratulations. My oldest stepson is 19. Oh, okay. He lives with us. That's why I save the half. Okay. Oh, okay.

So this is even riskier because you're a single income household on 100% commission. Correct. Do you guys have anything in savings? We have our $1,000 emergency fund. And I have about $600 in my wallet of money that was given to me by various family members to keep gas in my truck so I can keep working. Wow. So are you that?

Is it that tight every month to where you're barely scrambling? grape and buy because you've got 3,000 a loan plus all the family expenses making five grand total. What's your rent or mortgage? About $1,250. So just between the $1,000,000 mortgage and the $3,000 to service the loan, you're already barely putting food on the table. Correct. Do you see an upside? Do you have a hope that this business is going to be profitable soon?

Like, do you see an actual realistic future? So I have a couple more accounts, a couple more grocery stores that are opening up in my area. One of them is going to, I'll probably do on the low end about $2,000 a week in sales in there. So that'll be, you know, a chunk extra, I guess. When does that happen? In June is when they're opening. Okay. How old are your kids?

The three. We have the night, okay, 12. He'll be 13. soon. Yeah. And then my daughter just turned seven and then my youngest son just turned three. Okay. So the three-year-old's home.

I'm just wondering if your wife could jump in and do something while the kids are in school at least. Yeah. So we've been talking and trying to figure out like when my three-year-old goes to school that she could go find somewhere to go. Yeah, but that's going to be in like two years unless you guys are going to do a preschool or something. You know what I mean?

Like I do wonder. just for a six, seven-month period. It doesn't have to be long, but for you guys, an extra thousand bucks a month is life-changing. So to supplement a little bit, my dad is also in the same business just for another company.

I've kind of worked my route around to where I can spend Wednesdays with him, and he's offered to pay me some extra totaling about like $1,600 a month extra. Okay. I don't help knock out these little debts. Why would you be working with him on a Wednesday versus just in the business? Because most of my accounts are big contract accounts, and a lot of his are small cash stops.

Okay. And the big contract accounts, their receivings are all closed on Wednesdays. Gotcha, gotcha. I have a couple stores that will let me come in on Wednesdays, but I've just started doing those. Well, that's great. I mean, an extra, yeah, $1,500 doing that. That's going to be very helpful. Yeah, your best bet is just to get more of the,

these big contracts and make this business more profitable in order to have some extra. Yeah. And you and your wife also, I mean, this $200,000 small business loan is like, but you guys need to sit down and you both need to have a date on the calendar that we can't, we can't live like this for the rest of our lives. So what's the point? If we're still here a year from now. That we eject. Yeah. At some level, what, what's that date? If we don't see progress by when we need to start having some really serious conversations about what it looks like to get out of this business.

Because if you can just go work full time making seven or 80, it's a better bet. Yeah. Even still having this business loan. Is there a way you could sell this business to someone else? I could. The problem is I'm kind of upside down. So I owe like 190, 200 on the business. And on paper, it's probably worth about 140, 150.

Okay. Well, I mean, even if you came up with a difference, it still might be worth getting out of this eventually. Yeah. Or getting the business out. What I would do is get it profitable enough. I mean, yeah. If you hit some big accounts and you get back going and it's actually a blessing in your life, yeah, long term, then obviously that's the win.

But if you're running your wheels like this, you can't be doing this for another two, three, four years, Austin, right? Yes. I mean, that is correct. Yeah. So you guys, you and your wife need to sit down and just have some level of a plan. Some timelines. Yes, some timelines. If this happens, here's what we'll do.

If this doesn't happen, here's what we'll do. Yeah, we need to hit this benchmark net at this point. We need to see this and this, right? Because if the June accounts don't end up happening, you know, then you're still exactly where you are. Right. So there needs to be some benchmarks that you guys need to be hitting. And if that's not the case, then, yeah, we got to figure out what to do.

Because like George said, even if you found something that paid 80 grand a year, you're still going to have this debt. But hopefully with this, you know, even if it's, even if you get it cut in half selling it for not a lot, that's 100 grand and people got student loans for 100 grand, you know, you just look at it as another debt to get out.

And Austin, dear Lord, please cut up the credit cards. You guys can't keep doing this. Yeah, that's... Cut them up tonight. The majority of... Do it now. Do you have one... Yeah, well, get it out.

You guys got to figure out. Go shop at Aldi. Beans and rice rice. You don't get fancy food, right? You can't afford it. And adding this guardrail is going to help you get out of this mess. Right. And it's going to be hard. You're going to have to get creative.

But once you take debt off the table, we can finally get out. It forces you, please. We've got to plug the leak first. Absolutely. Yeah, you're not going to be able to get out of this mess as you continue to dig out the bottom. So cut them up tonight. You guys need some extreme changes. So I'd make a timeline and I'd cut up credit cards for the business.

That's what I would make a timeline for the business to cut the credit cards tonight. Hey, guys, George here. Listen, 99 times out of 100 when people say, I don't know where my money goes. It's not a math problem. It's a behavior problem. They're not budgeting. Then they're shocked when their bank account hits triple zeros. Well, here's the deal.

Winning with money is about doing the boring stuff consistently. And that includes banking someplace that helps you stop guessing with your money. Like Fairwind's Credit Union. They're not going to fix your habits. That part's on you. But they do support people who are ready to take control of their money. At Fairwind, you get a high-yield savings account with a great rate to help grow your emergency fund. a checking account that won't nickel and dime you, and up to 10 free savings accounts

so you can organize your money on purpose. Because when you stay disciplined, your money gets predictable, manageable, and boring in the best way. So if you're ready for a bank that helps you be intentional, open your smart bundle today at fairwins.org slash ramsie. And get the Ramsey beweir debit card to go along with it. That's fairwins.org slash Ramsey, insured by the NCUA. The Ramsey Show Question of the Day is brought to you by Y-Refi. defaulted private student loans don't fix themselves, but you can fix them.

Y-R-R-R-E-F-I helps you refinance into a low fixed-rate payments that fits your budget so that you can get back to the baby steps and move forward. Go to Y-R-R-R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey may not be available in all states. Today's question comes from Diana in Minnesota. She says, my husband and I have just started looking at our every-dollar budget. together once a month. Sometimes it feels like we're just staring at our screen and have no idea how to talk about the budget. What are some strategies to use these monthly budget meetings to forward ourselves? This is a nice question. So Rachel, you talk a lot about the budget meeting at least once a month. We're talking about this sitting down. It doesn't have to be an hour. It doesn't have to be dramatic. Yeah, no. So it's, I mean, when I think about the monthly budget, honestly, I would say for us,

80% of the expenses are the same month to month. Like the categories really don't change. And then there's probably five to six categories that change month to month or that we add. It might be like activity-based, calendar-based, where this thing's happening that we need to have the money for. So for us, honestly, our budget meeting looks like a calendar meeting when we look ahead because I'm like, okay, we got, you know, this thing coming. You know, Winston has a trip coming up with some guys for his birthday. So it's like, hey, we have that. We got this.

Like you end up talking about, I mean, for us, the calendar, kids' school stuff, camp signups for the summer. You know, like we're looking at all of these things that are going to be happening that month. And that's it. And for us, it takes five minutes. Like our budget meetings are not long. Yeah.

Once you get in the habit of it, it's quick. It's so quick, yes. But you do want to have a meeting, though, I say a meeting. But to have conversations, we do it once a year and you can do it more to be dreaming and thinking through your long-term plans. What are the bigger goals? Yes. And this is probably once you're in Baby Steps' Four and beyond, right? Because your big goals, if Babyseps 1 through 3 is to get out of debt, get that emergency fund. And that's what you're working towards. But after that, you kind of say, okay, as we're investing in retirement, we're looking to pay off the house, what are some other

goals that we have? Is there renovations around the house we want to do? Do we need to replace a car? Do we want to go on a trip? Like, what are these things in the next year, two years, three years, five years? And then we even look out as far as down the road and just say, if money were no option, what we do when the kids are in high school? You know, would we want a second home one day? You know, like, we start to dream that way. We don't do anything with that, but we at least get those conversations going. You don't want to fast forward 10 years and now you're on very different pages because you never talked about it. Yes, that's exactly right. Yeah. So those are- If you're in Baby Step 1 through three, this looks different because it's pretty simple. It's how little can we live on? How much can we

throw out the debt? All right, did we assign those dollars to the debts? great, high five, we're doing this. So it really starts with alignment on your money values and goals before you ever look at the screen. Because if you don't have that, you are just staring at a screen. Go, all right, what now? We're supposed to be doing this. Totally.

And they're not exciting. So if you guys have been doing it for a while and you're in a routine, it may be that kind of quick, boring. I'm like, okay, we did it, check. We're moving on. The nerd is usually more excited. The free spirit is like, oh my gosh. I ran into a couple of sitting next to them at a coffee shop

and they had their every dollar budget pulled up. and they were doing their budget meeting. With you sitting next to them? Did they know? I felt like I was undercover boss. I was going to say. But I didn't say anything. How's it working?

I didn't want to make it weird. Like, hey, I noticed you guys are doing your every dollar budget. Can I help? If you need any help. That would have been hilarious. This is me, George Campbell. But I was like, wow, look at this couple actually budgeting. They're having a good time.

They have their fancy coffees. And they're doing great. They're just talking about what's going on this month. Yeah, looking ahead. I love it. Yep, I hope that helps, Diana. All right, let's go to Jessica in Richmond. Hi, Jessica.

Hi, Rachel. Hi, George. Hi, welcome to the show. How can we help? So my mom and I want to sell our homes and buy one together, but I think I'll need to use at least some of her savings in order to achieve that, and I wonder if that's a bad idea. Where do we start with the bad ideas? You just listed off. Well, what's going on here with the codependency of you and mom buying homes together? Well, I'm going through my second divorce.

She is widowed. She's 65 retiring this summer. she has limited mobility and we had a really bad ice storm here this winter and it was hard for her to take care of the house and the ice of the driveway and still try to get into work. I had to do the same to my house all by myself and so I figured that way we can take care of each other if we get a house together. Got it. So you are kind of partial caretaker and you're coming off of this divorce and you're kind of needing a safe place to land and have some emotional moral support. I guess you can say that. Okay. Are you an only child, Jessica? I am.

Okay. Well, that's helpful. I was going to say because, you know, if you guys have this plan long term and the house is left to you, right? I don't know how that was going to work with all the will and the estate and everything, but that kind of simplifies it. Do you see living with her for the foreseeable future or are you going to want to own a home yourself? Well, she was going to put everything in my name, so it would basically be like she's just living with me until she goes to the award. Okay. So why not just you buy a house on your own?

I would like to do that. The problem is I don't think I have enough money. I currently have a home. It's a townhouse, and I think I can only get about $190,000 if I sell it and try to get a bigger home so that I can accommodate her. but with doing that, the mortgage is going to be too much for just my income. Okay. And does she have income right now? She does, but with her retiring in the summer, that income is basically going to go away, and we don't know when Social Security and her 401K distributions will come in.

What would she get if she sells her home? We're hoping she can get $200,000. Okay. I just think this is going to be a lot cleaner and simpler and less dramatic if one person owns the home. that's what we were thinking to. So maybe she pays toward the mortgage while she lives there, almost like she's paying you some rent out of her profits. We were thinking that. I was just thinking with paying off the house in case something happens like,

I lose my job, I didn't want us to have a mortgage payment over our heads. So that's where I was thinking if we could just pay off the house all together. We have no debt. Oh, just buy it outright is what you're saying. So she would use her profits and give them to you almost like a gift. Yeah, it's almost like that's part of your, yes. Part of your inheritance, you're getting early while she's alive.

Correct. The worry that we were having is selling my home first, putting the $190 down on a house and maybe using some of her savings. She has $400,000 in savings, maybe using about half of that to put a lot down on the house for the mortgage is decent for me to use while we wait for her house to sell because there is some work that needs to be done on it. And I'm afraid that if it takes longer to sell than we anticipate, then she's going to have to pay this $2,000 mortgage with no income.

How much does she have total in liquid assets right now? $400,000. What's in her 401K? She has a 401K in the amount of $265,000, and then she has $164,000 in her government TSP. She's currently a government worker. Okay. So about 420 or so in retirement, another 400 in cash.

Right. So she's in a pretty decent spot. What I don't want to do is deplete her money to pay off this mortgage, and now she has no retirement, and now you're funding her life forever. I wouldn't mind. That was one of the things I was thinking. It's like, we'll come in, you know, we'll get a house together. If you don't have income for a year while we're waiting on Social Security, that's all right.

If we have no mortgage, I'll have the money to be able to afford our food and utilities. Yeah, you're just signing up for this is it. you were signing up to cover her bills for the rest of her life. And if you're okay with that, that's fine. But you also have to realize you have a life to live too, and you could get remarried one day, right? I don't know. I don't think I'm doing this again. I mean, never say never. Just saying third marriages exist. And so that's my fear. As you marry this guy, he goes, hey, listen, you're moving into my house. Now mom is living in your house, I guess, rent free, or she needs to be a care, you need to be a caretaker.

She moves in with you. Yeah, it just seems like a big, I mean, a house is the, you know, it is probably the largest financial purchase, right, that you're going to make. And she won't have, because I would not put it in her name. But if she called us,

I'm trying to think what I would be telling her, right? What's best for mom in the situation? And so, yeah, I mean, if you guys go through with it, Jessica, I would put the house in your name, and I, and if you need to, you know, wait a little bit to make this all work and sell both houses first just to make it clean. You guys can do that, but don't deplete that $400,000 of hers because she's going to need

that to live on as well as things in her 401K as well. Next step, we have Elizabeth in Seattle, Washington. Hi, Elizabeth. Hi, Rachel. How are you doing? Hi, we're doing great. How can we help today? I've got family members that are moving across the United States. So we live in Washington. It's pretty, it's pretty spending here. I got an uncle that's moving him and his family members all to Tennessee. They're trying to convince us to go with them. I was wondering

how the numbers pencil out when you decide to move like that. What do you mean? What do you mean by numbers? My husband makes good money. I make pretty decent money part-time. He's got really good insurance. He works for a union.

And so right now he's making 45 an hour. We'll use that as the number. And if we moved to Tennessee, my uncle was like, oh, you can make $25 an hour, but the cost of living is different over there. And we don't have any jobs lined up. I just, I'm kind of curious if we're going to miss the mark, if that makes sense. Why do you have to go when he goes? Are you struggling right now? Are you guys struggling financially? No, no, we're in a good spot. That's why it's hard because it's more of an emotional, attachment to go because the uncle that's moving is one of my like closer relatives if that makes

sense. Sure, yeah. But there's no urgency here. You guys could find jobs. No urgency, no. And then move. Yeah, you can use a, like we have a cost of living calculator on our website and you can start to go, okay, you could probably make 75 instead of 90 and it'd be about the same lifestyle

because we have no state income tax in Tennessee. And cost of living is a little cheaper than C.S. And so you can start to do the math on that and do some research ahead of time instead of just winging it. And like every state, depending on which part of the state you move to, is going to be different, right? You go to Jackson, Tennessee. That's going to be cheaper than parts of Nashville, Tennessee, right? Yeah, the area that our studio here is in, it's one of the top 10 wealthiest counties in the nation. And so you would come here and go, oh, my gosh, Seattle was cheaper.

I can't believe how expensive the homes are here. And so the grass always seems greener, and that's why I would just do a lot of facts finding, and then make your decision. That makes sense, and that's kind of where I was at, because our mortgage right now up here is very low. We're sitting at $2,000 a month, and our income covers that. It's not too hard to save around it. We've got a decent amount in retirement. My big thing is I don't want to sell our house just to move somewhere else because we're going to be in the same boat. Elizabeth, it sounds like you don't want to move.

You don't have to. No, I don't really. Okay. I think you're okay. Just plan a couple of trips a year to Tennessee to see Uncle. Yeah, you're fine. That's probably the simpler move right now. And if you fall in love with it and you find a job here and get the job,

well, now we can talk about moving. Yeah, but that could happen in two to three years, you know what I mean, if you guys love it. I've had a couple people trying to convince me. My best friend moved to, like, rural New York. She wants me to come over there. We've got some relatives in Pennsylvania. Yeah.

Just move everywhere. My uncle's... It sounds like you're a free spirit. It sounds like you've got a lot of good friends, you know? They all want to hang with you. I got a lot of people, and I'm the second oldest of 12 children. Wow. Good night.

Okay, what does your husband say? What's he want to do? My husband is more of a go-with-the-flow kind of a person. He hasn't said, let's move. He kind of sounds kind of like a good idea, but I don't know. So your friends are convincing you, and then it's your job to convince him and then we'll just move around the country. Yeah, I'm not feeling, the main reason people call, and it's usually a Washington, a California,

like, we get certain parts of the country and they're like, I can't afford to live here. We can't buy a home. We can't X, Y, and Z. And so they move to further their income in order to do the things that they want to do. It sounds like you've done everything you want to do. You have the house that you want. You guys have great jobs, all of it. It's just going to look, you may just look up in a year or two and be like, man, I miss our family.

So we want to move closer to them in Tennessee, and maybe that's what you decide to do. But that's not pulling you right now. I don't have any compelling reasons to say, yes, you should move. Yeah. So I would just hold tight, Elizabeth, calm down, nothing is on fire, and let the Tennessee people move. And yeah, go visit them a couple of times a year and see if you guys still have this itch, you know, a year from now. And if you do, then you're both adults and you guys get to make a decision then that we want to look for jobs and move. I would not do anything now because nothing is on fire.

All right, let's go to Hannah in Dallas. Hi, Hannah. Welcome to the show. Hi, how are you all? Hi, we're doing great. How can we help? Okay, so we've been advised by a couple different people in regards to selling our home

that we should not put the 20% down on the next home because we'll have a pretty good amount of equity selling our house. We're moving closer to our church and our community and our kids' schools. So we'll have a good amount of money to put. put towards our new house and they're saying not to put 20% down but to save it and like fix the house up really nice and then in six months do a like a reappraisal or a recast or something like that to make our value then go up and so my husband and I feel like it's kind of like a game and we don't we don't know whether we should play it when you say we're being told who are these

people um so we've gotten a couple different well for one our realtor is told us this he's like this is what we did with our last house, and it's got us, we went from like a thousand dollars extra every month, and now we've taken that off of our mortgage every monthly or whatever, and then when we talk to a couple different banks and like credit unions, they're like, yeah, that sounds like a great idea. So we're just like, I don't know if it is a great idea. Well, of course a bank is going to want you to put less down to take out more on the loan. They make more money. Yeah, but like, what is our realtor gain from us doing that? Well, the realtors, they're if you ever met a realtor, their risk meters are broken.

They don't think in terms of I'm going to put cash into a thing. They go, how little can I put into a thing to squeeze the most out? And so I wouldn't be listening to either of these people. I would just go, can we actually afford this home based on the number we're putting down? And so have you done the numbers on that? Is there a house that you've already been looking at? Yeah, so there's a house. Like we, our house is selling like this weekend or this next weekend.

And in a house we're buying is significant. lower so it needs like updated flooring and stuff but we would make like $115,000 off the sell of our home for the purchase of this next home okay so we have a really good amount that we could like put towards the house but everyone's like you should hold on to that and fix the house up now nice now that you have a chance to well you'll always have the chance to yeah that's the question is how urgent are the renovations and can you just cash flow them once you're in because here's the thing if you put more down your mortgage is lower meaning you have more margin every month to then cash flow the renovations.

But they're saying like if we could have that higher monthly payment for like six months, then you have a higher value home and then your mortgage will go back low. I'm confused on that part. Just because your home value goes up doesn't mean your mortgage payment goes down. Because then it takes off the PMI is what they're saying. Because if we don't get 20 down, we get the PMI and then we can get like 200 off our monthly every month is what they're doing. Got it, because you have, yes, because the debt to income ratio, you'll have more than 20% equity at that point based on the value of the home.

Okay. Well, you could just avoid the PMI entirely by putting the 20% down and cash flowing the renovations. Yeah. That makes sense when I'm on the phone with you all, but I don't know. Well, the other piece of this is they don't know your finances. They don't know what 80% on the mortgage is going to cost you every month, and if that's feasible for your take home pay. Yeah, how much is the new home you guys are buying? It's 325.

It's probably what we about what we would end up what we offered and what the exception in all of that. Okay, so you guys are putting down almost a third. I mean, almost 30% right?

If you put the 115. What's your take home pay every month? My husband, I stay home, but my husband brings right at 7,000. Okay, great. So based on that, if you look at the parameter

of, you know, fourth of your take. home pay, you're looking at $1,750 is the goal. Even putting $115,000 down on a $3.25 house with the current rates, you're probably looking at a $2,200, $2,300 mortgage. So here's the other thing they're not thinking about. Not within the parameters is what you're saying. It's tight. Now, we say the 25% of take-home pay, that's after taxes, but before any other deductions. So don't include the health care premiums, the 401K contributions, which will help

your numbers here. Okay. So I think you guys can do this, but I would be. putting all of the proceeds down on the next house. Yeah, because the goal is just to get out of debt as fast as possible. And so when you sit there and kind of just play all these games and move the numbers around, praying that the interest rates and everything are still going down, right? Like, you just don't know.

So if your husband income goes down, well, now you still have stuck with this high payment. Yes, so I just put everything down, Hannah, and enjoy the home. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio. I'm Rachel Cruz hosting this hour with George Camel. And we are taking your calls at AAA 825-5-2-2-25. Up next we have Lynn in Mobile, Alabama. Hi, Lynn. Welcome to the show.

Thank you so much. I'm honored to talk with y'all today. Oh, well, thank you for calling. How can we help? My husband and I, we are retired and we're doing fine. We have recently found out that one of our granddaughters and her husband, they're in their early 20s, are about $20,000 in debt, and that includes a car. They owe $7,000 on, and it needs about $2,000 worth of work in order to run.

My husband and I are at odds on what to do. One of us says we do nothing, that they need to learn how to handle money just like we did. husband? Yeah. He's old school. And sweet, Lynn, what do you want to do, Lynn? My suggestion is we gift them Financial Peace University, and once they complete that, then we give them, I don't know, four or five thousand dollars to help start them to get out of debt. Are they both working? They are both working. They, they, they, make, my guess is between $50,000 and $60,000 together. Okay.

And part of his concern is that they will spend the money on tattoos or more animals. More animals? How many have they got? Yeah. They have a dog and a cat in an apartment. Oh, okay. So they're renting right now. And it sounds like he sees a pattern of financial misbehavior. And he doesn't want to fund that misbehavior and enable it. that's correct so i see his point and i also see your point in wanting to help your own granddaughter get a leg up in her adult life yes and no more tattoos how many do they got are they tatted up

just kidding several our joke amongst my husband and i is we can either spend the money or we can save it for them to buy more tattoos okay so lynn i love are they asking for help No. Okay. So you're just seeing this play out. Yes. But she's told you because you know the numbers. Or did her mom tell you? Did your daughter or your daughter or son tell you? Is this the gossip? Yeah. Yes. Yes. They're there, the granddaughter's mother told us. Okay. Are the, what are the, what are they saying? Like her parents, your kids. What are they saying? What are they saying? Yeah, they're not, they just told us as a course of conversation.

Oh, okay, okay. So no one is panicked right now. There's not, they're not looking to change. They're not, yeah, I mean, I mean, honestly, Lynn, the most I would do is gift them Financial Peace University and just say, I would, I would watch this if I were you guys. This helped us and, you know, tell them a little bit about your story, but I mean, You can stick a $100 bill in it. Especially if they're not asking for anything, right?

It'd be one thing if they called up grandma and grandpa and they were like, hey, I need help. We have made mistakes and I don't know what to do. You know, if there was some level of that, then I could say, hey, you could get creative and say, hey, if you pay off $2,000 in debt, we'll pay off $1,000. You know, you can kind of like work with them to encourage them a little bit, but they're not even wanting to change, I don't think, Lynn. Yeah, I don't think that they see the benefit in changing, and I don't think they have any idea how much we have. Are you guys pretty well off? I mean, we're comfortable. Our net worth is probably between three and three and a half million.

Way to go. Well done. Yeah, Lynn, I think as a grandparent, a gift, like Total Money Make, over a Financial Peace University, I think is great. I think that's a great idea, just to be like, hey, this is a program when it comes to money that really helps. And if you guys ever get stressed and you want to learn something, here's this. But that's, I think, I wish I knew this stuff sooner, so I want to give this to you guys. Yeah. And just say, you could, you guys could kill it financially. You're young, your hard workers. And if you actually create some good habits, you guys

could really do well financially. You don't have to be stuck in debt. You know, you can give them a little pep talk. But, I mean, if they're not looking to change, And I think that's probably one of the hardest parts of life that you know better than George and myself because you have lived longer lives than a longer life than us. But when you see someone in your life who's making decisions, that's not great for them, that's not fun to sit there and watch. But also knowing that you're not able to change them at all. And they have not hit this point where life has been hard enough for them to say, well, what I'm doing isn't working. They don't feel any pain right now. And so you offering relief isn't going to do.

anything. Okay. Other than enable it, like your husband is worried about that. I think there's a higher chance they blow the money that you give them. So if there's a tangible need that you want to cover and you can give directly to that, you know, if it's... But they're not even asking. But they're not asking for it.

They're not destitute. So giving them a grocery store gift card, it's not going to help that much. So I think the truth is we're learning, you're learning that you can't change people as much as you want them to have a better life. It's up to them to go get that life. But now my issue is I can't tell my husband he won. I would. In fact, Lynn, I would not tell him you one.

You know, you just say, you know, just don't even bring it up. Yeah, don't even, don't tell him. Don't, do not tell him you called. So he doesn't go and listen to this, you know. We're trying to, we're trying to say face for you, Lynn. How long have you guys been married? I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Um, 30-something years.

Yeah, that'll do it. He probably needs a win. Just let him have this one. It's probably been a while. I love this. You're so fun to talk to. Oh, Lynn, you're great. And I love the heart behind this.

I know. Because it is hard when you're like, Lenn, they're being stupid. Why are they being stupid? And I'm picturing this being like my granddaughter. Yeah. And you're just like, come on, don't do this. That's a hard, hard place.

But you know what, Lynn, stay in good relationship with them, love them, be part of their lives. Because when they do hit a wall, which I think eventually they will, they're going to go, gosh, I wonder. Grandma Lynn has the wisdom. Lynn, what would she say? And then you get to coming with all the whistle that they're looking for. All right, let's go to Margaret in San Antonio. Hi, Margaret. Welcome to the show.

Hi, thanks for having me. Yes, how can we help? I have a question. We have one bet, and it's our car. It's right at 23,000 that we have left on it. I think that we have about 9,000 in a high-ield savings account. And then we have, We also have a $1,000 in another savings count. So we have $10,000 total right now. Okay. We recently, because we have like a custody thing that kind of just pops off whenever the ex-spouse feels like dragging us into court for fun, we have to drop between like $7,000 and $10,000 on a lawyer.

And we recently had to do that back in November. So you're wondering, should I use this to pay down the car loan or should we hang on to it? Yeah, I would hang on to it. If you know this is a likely thing, I don't want you going to debt for lawyers when we saw this coming. So I hang on to it for now until the coast is cleared. And then when there's a while of a season that you guys know that you're in the clear, then take that and pay it off.

But if you have extra money coming in, Margaret, be throwing that at the car. But if you want to keep this side for custody battle with lawyers, that probably would be smart until all that's cleared. When I talk to people on the Ramsey show, 90% of the problems I hear come down to one thing, not having a plan. They're not living on a budget. They have no idea where their money's going. Money is just happening to them instead of them happening to their money. And guys, that is so normal, but it doesn't have to be normal for you. And that's why I want you to go download our every dollar budget app. Every dollar not only helps you tell your money where to go with a budget.

It also builds a plan to free up extra money so you can pay debt off faster and start building wealth. and the best part, your plan is completely personalized to your life. It's the same advice that you would get if you call the show. And it's right in your pocket. So don't keep living normal. Go download the Every Dollar app, answer a few questions, and get your plan today. So Ask Ramsey is our new free AI tool that's been built. It's been trained on proven Ramsey principles.

And today we're going to break down one of the most frequently asked questions that we got last week, George. You ready? All right. The question is, what are the key considerations and steps for managing Trump accounts for kids? Love it. Let's see what Ask Ramsey said about this, because this is a question we do get a lot. The Trump's savings account is a tax-deferred account funded by a one-time, $1,000 government deposit for eligible children born between 2025 and 28. Follow the government's official process to set up the account in your child's name. You'll be the custodian until they reach the legal age. Like other custodial accounts, when your child reaches that age, they gain full access and control, and they can use the money for anything,

not just education. So it becomes like a traditional IRA of sorts at that point. There are no ongoing contribution requirements, but you should check if you're allowed to add more funds or invest the balance for growth. Consider the impact on future college financial aid, as these accounts may be counted as the child's asset. There we go. So bottom line here, Trump account can be a great boost. I'll take the free thousand bucks, which I signed up for when I did my tax return. Was it Henry, I guess. A little Henry got it. Henry got it. There we go. Sorry, Mia. Yeah, she didn't. Yeah, your three-year-old did not. Two-year-old did it. But this is just one part of the

Child's Financial Foundation. So don't think this is like your ticket. And the key is, you got to invest for compound growth to take the lead. But starting at zero years old, I did the math. You leave a thousand bucks just sitting there for 65 years. It could be half a million or more. Yeah, that's crazy. At their retirement. So, It becomes a bonus retirement account, which is great. But I love a 529 plan for the tax advantages for education and even a brokerage account in my name for the kids. Because I don't necessarily want an 18-year-old to have access to $100,000. I know I wouldn't have made the best decisions at that age.

So it's a piece of the puzzle. It's not a savior for anybody. So if you want to know the best way to invest based on your situation, check out Ask Ramsey. It can help you break down how much to contribute monthly. Go to Ramsey Solutions.com or just use a link in the description if you're listening on podcast. or YouTube. Beautiful. All right, let's go to Salt Lake City, and we have David on the line.

Hi, David. Welcome to the show. Hey, guys, big fan. And God bless. Thank you for taking my call. Yeah, absolutely. How can we help? Yeah, so my fiancé and I are getting married in June.

And we're looking at a honeymoon here. And there's an all-inclusive trip to Mexico. It's about $6,000. I make between around $100K to $110 a year. And my fiance makes about $74. So all together, about $175. to 180. Thank you. I got about 40K in savings slash an emergency fund, about 30K in stocks and an IRA. We own both our cars outright, and we're looking to buy a home in the near future, too.

So I just want to know if this $6,000 trip makes sense or if we're being too frivolous over here. So yeah. Being too frivolous. Okay. I was going to go the opposite. David, I think you could. Rachel's like up it to $8,000. I think you could spend a little bit more if you wanted. I think you're doing great. No, that's very physically responsible. David, that's great. I think that is, yes, you guys are on a great track. Nothing feels out of balance.

You're debt-free. You got an emergency fund. You guys are making upwards of $200,000 as a newlywed couple. You're going to look back and say, I'm so glad we took the trip. Yes, absolutely. Just make sure you're paying cash and not putting it on the credit card. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. All right.

We'll do. We watch the show, so we've learned a lot from you guys. Oh, awesome. Well, congratulations. And, yeah, enjoy that. an all-inclusive trip to Mexico. We got to be good cop. That felt really nice. I love when I tell people, just go spend and enjoy.

Enjoy your hard work. Rachel loves a trip, loves a trip to Mexico. And I love a-loves newlywed love. A reason for a trip, you know, like a honeymoon or a birthday or an anniversary. Like that's fun. It's great. You'll look back fondly on that. You will.

Yep. Y'all enjoy, David. All right. George and I may show up and just be like, party. Hey there. All right. Let's go to Amanda in Des Moines.

Hi, Amanda. Welcome to the show. Hi. Hello, hello. How can we help today? Oh my gosh. I'm so nervous. Okay. You are good. You are good. Do not be nervous. I am calling. We have been on Baby Step 2 and we have so far paid off about 30,000 in debt in the last year. Nice. So we have four left and we have one that's been in consolidation, indelinguent. So it's in collection. and they called and gave me a settlement. They gave me a settlement. The loan itself right now is sitting at $10,500, and they gave me a settlement of $6,000. And they said I'd have to have that paid off in 30 days. If I don't have it paid off, they attack on 55% interest.

Yeah, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a bad deal. So my question is, is should I take another loan to pay that off with a smaller interest rate? No. So we have some time. to make the payment.

No, because you can get this deal anytime because it's in collections. So they're going to end up... They're trying to put some pressure on you. Yes, they'll end up selling the debt to another company. You'll be dealing with a different collections company.

So that is the key, though. When you do settle a debt for less, and usually you'll probably get a better deal, honestly, Amanda. Did you even try to negotiate the $6,000? Well, that's what I negotiated, because I was like... Okay, because you could even go lower.

For some of the... Yeah, for some of the... this, yeah, you could have even possibly gone lower. But you do have to have it in full. You have to like... It's a lump sum. Yes. And you can tell them, hey, you and I both know,

$6,000 in 30 days lump sum is crazy. Yeah. I can't do that. I just say I can't do this deal right now. And then when you guys get to that part of your debt snowball, is that your next debt, your next smallest? That is, yeah. Okay, so what I would do then is I would save as much as you can and say, I mean,

pay the minimum payments, don't get behind on it necessarily, but, well, I guess you already kind of work because it's in collections. I would have an amount and have $4,138.24. And you call them, you say, this is the exact amount I have. I can write you a check today. And so when you have a good, when you have a decent amount in there, a couple of thousand or so, I would call them up and start negotiating. But I would not take a deal until you have the amount, the total amount. And make sure you get it in writing and that's settled in full. Yes. No interest, no games. And, you know, it sounds like you've been putting away $2,500 toward the debt. So in two months, you'll have $5,000, right? Right. Yep.

That's great. Two months from now, you call them and say, hey, listen, I got $5,000, take it or leave it. Yeah, so just don't do that deal today. Okay. Okay. Yep. That's great, Amanda. Well done. Way to clean up the mess. Yes. Oh, my gosh. Y'all are killing it. All right, let's go to Alex in Los Angeles. Hi, Alex. Welcome to the show. Hi, thanks for having me on the show. Yes, absolutely. How can we help? So earlier in this month, I beat stage three rectal cancer. Oh, my gosh. Oh, I'm so glad.

It feels like a huge fear that's going to come back, and it sounds like a high possibility. And if it comes back, it's going to happen within the first five years more likely than later. Okay. Of course, who knows who can predict the future. So I have step one, three, and four down. And I'm stuck on speed going to long. for step two or going to step five. So I have a baby that's about to turn one.

And I want to put into a 529 for him, but I also have 100 grand in student loan debt. I don't know if I should aggressively pay off a student loan debt or aggressively put into a 529 for him, thinking that if I pass, you or my husband can't inherit my student loan debt. Yes, that would be correct. but as of today, the information that you have is that you are cancer-free, right?

And I understand that it's a high probability that it's going to come back because that's what they told you. Yes. They say cholerectole cancer is the highest cause of death in people under 50. Yes. Yeah, the rates are – I actually was just talking to my doctor about this yesterday. It's crazy because, yes, they said it's skyrocketed with young people. So if I were you, Alex, I probably would start paying down this debt. And the 529, because he's so young, you're going to be able to catch him up college-wise

over 18 years, right? When you guys are completely debt-free. So I probably would not worry about that. I think I would have the information that's in front of me. and live off of that, which is right now that you are debt-free, or I'm sorry, that you are cancer-free, and I would start, yeah, working my way out of that soon. Let's deal with the problem in front of you, which is $100,000 in student loans. You've still got to make those payments every month.

We'll deal with the 18-year-old problem way later on, and family can be gifting money over time at birthdays and Christmas into this $5.29 plan, so it's not all on you, but let's take care of you, and your household first, and then we'll focus on the kids once we're debt-free. Yeah, we're so happy for you, though, Alex. We'll celebrate for now, for sure. Hey, guys, I've got big news. The Ramsey Show is going on tour, and this is your chance to be more than just a listener. You get to be part of the show.

So hear questions, ask live, and experience the kind of momentum that only comes from being in the room. We'll be in Charlotte, Denver, Phoenix, and Anaheim with a limited number of seats in each city. So last fall, we completely sold out in 72 hours. So do not wait. Get your tickets at ramsysolutions.com slash events or by clicking the link in the show notes. The Ramsey Show is going on tour. So this April, we are headed to Charlotte, Denver, Phoenix, and Anaheim, California, Southern California. And you guys, you've never experienced the Ramsey show like this.

It is the perfect date night because one of you is a spender, probably one of you is a saver. So come and enjoy because we take your questions live. We do the show basically live with the studio audience, and you guys are the callers. You know, you get to come and ask your question. And a good caveat. You don't have to be on camera, on mic. You can just attend and be in the crowd. That's a great point.

But you can so choose, and it's more fun if you get up there and have a- We do involve the audience some. Have a settle the debate, and we have the audience interact. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so fun. Such a good time. It's me, George, of course, John, Jade, and Ken. And we're all at different cities.

There's a trio in each city. Yeah, so there will be three of us. and I'm doing Charlotte, Phoenix, and Anaheim. Which ones are you at? I'm on Charlotte and Anaheim. Oh, yeah, we're together in two. That's fun, George. So don't wait.

Go to ramsysolutions.com slash events or click the link in the show notes if you're listening on podcast or YouTube. There's only a few seats remaining, and I think a couple of VIP tickets are still available in each city. They'll probably be sold out here in the next day or two. There's small, cool venues, little theaters, not arenas. It's so fun, you guys.

They'll sell out fast. Yep. So go and get your tickets at Ramsey's, solutions.com slash events and we will see you in those cities. All right, let's head to Amy in Fort Worth. Hi, Amy. Welcome to the show. Hey, thank you for having me. I appreciate the opportunity. Yes, absolutely. Yes. So long story short is I feel like God brought me this amazing man. I love my marriage. I want to stay married forever. Now, financially, we are very both immature. The fault lies on both of us. So we've never had joint bank accounts. I've asked previously about it, and he didn't want to do it. So I was just kind of like, whatever, I'll just deal with it. But we really come into some problems. One day I came home, and there's a vehicle, a new vehicle

at our apartment. I thought it was a joke, but it was not a joke. And then he's also booked like multiple vacations without discussing it with me. But on the flip side, I'm no better. So I was saying from my sister's car for quite a long time, probably a year to help her out. And so he never knew about it. And then also, so I signed up, well, I volunteered to pay for my mother's pre-furnal arrangements. Pre-fueling? Like she hasn't passed? No, she hasn't passed. So she's old, though. She's in her 70s and she doesn't really have any money.

So what had happened was my brother had passed away and she got like a settlement. And so she paid for the funeral with part of it and then just like blew the rest of it. Okay. Okay. So what are you wanting, Amy? So whenever, so he's on vacation right now, my husband. With who? By himself. That's not a thing. Amy, I think he's cheating on you.

Guys don't do R&R on their own to get away on a trip. And I think that's part of why he's been so cagey about combining finances and so against it. I think the parts of you know are the. tip of the iceberg? You think so? I think so. How many of these trips does he do a year? Well, this was the first one, but there's two more planned.

By himself? Yeah. Where did he tell you he's going? They're cruises to different places. Does he not invite you? Amy, does that worry you at all? Is that weird to you? It's a little weird to me.

How long have you been married? So we've been married for five years. This is both our second marriage. Okay. Do you have kids? We have four together. So I have two. He has two.

Oh, from the previous marriages. Yes, me am. Okay. So the one that's going to come out towards the end of this year, I was, he didn't want me to go. And then one day I was like, I'm going to go. And then the next day he was like, did you book it? And I said, well, no, I was just kind of messing with you.

And he's like, well, I don't know how to tell you this, but I don't want you to go. Amy. Amy. This is not a marriage. This isn't good. You know that, right? I mean, I know it. I just know how to address it.

And like, regardless of whatever's going on, I want to be married forever. I don't know if it's going to be to him. Because he doesn't want to be married to you, and he's made that clear by continually cheating on you behind your back, going on these cruises. And just not wanting a life with you, not wanting to share any level of information,

making his own decisions, making purchases. And what you said, too, you know, you're doing the same. Yeah, I don't know. I think what I would probably do in the situation, Amy, I'm not sure you would do. But if I woke up in your shoes, there would be an absolute cancel of all trips going forward that is solo. Okay. As well as I want to see every transaction that you have been making financially. Because when you financially hide money, there's usually another person involved.

There's an addiction involved. Like there are not good things. You don't hide money because you're really smart and kind person, right? Like, no, we're hiding money because it's deceitful. You're putting it in the dark. It's not in the light. There's no freedom in that. And so I would, yeah, I would be, I would, I would demand such specific documentation on everything.

I would get cell phone record. I mean, I would, because I would be convinced that there's somebody. else. Do you have money of your own? Are you working full-time? Oh, yeah. I work full-time. Okay.

I mean, I would be at least hiring a private investigator just to get some info if you can't get it yourself. Just to verify, because we're making some assumptions, I think they're right. A hundred, yeah, yeah, yeah. But if you just want some verification, because it seems like you are going to be in denial until you have hard-prud. Or you book that cruise and don't tell them and you show up with a camera, and I think you could probably sell some content online. But I can in good faith tell you to stay married to someone who's

constantly committing infidelity. Yeah. But that's what I'm saying is I don't know what you, you know, we'll get off this call, Amy, and you have to decide the life that you want for you. And I want you, Amy, to have self-respect, to be loved by somebody and taking care of by somebody who loves Amy. You are worth more than this. So then to live your life, looking over your shoulder all the time. And again, people do and people make decisions. And that is, that's not my free reign. People get mad because I think that we keep telling people to get divorced when they get cheated.

You know, when we say this stuff, we're like, I'd leave the marriage. So you have to decide for Amy what you want. But I don't think you have a marriage, Amy. Okay. I don't think you have a godly, you do not have a godly husband who is loving and serving you well. Right. Like if you want to talk scripture, we can talk scripture. But that's not what's happening.

And so I want you to have the self-dignity to be able to say that, yeah, I'm worth more than that to be treated like this. And I would, yeah, I mean, I would do what you could to find out what's going on. The private investigator thing ain't a bad idea, George. If you just want some answers, but you may not want it. I don't know. But I'm really sorry. I'm really sorry, Amy. That is so hard for you.

It breaks my heart for you. You're going through this. Yeah, no. Thank you all so much. The best thing you can do is just start to kind of protect herself and create your own little island so that you're okay financially. That's right. If you did leave his marriage, you would be able to. I would not combine finances with this man, though.

Nope. He's not safe. That's a time when you, yeah, we want couples to work together. Not that he would anyways. It's true. Yeah, he's not asking for it. Gosh, Amy, I'm so sorry. Hey, guys, Dave Ramsey here.

Every day on the show, we help people work through real money, problems and figure out what to do next. Now, you can get that same kind of help any time with Ask Ramsey. Ask your money question and get answers built on Ramsey principles we use on the show. Whether you're making a decision or just want something explained, Ask Ramsey is here to help. It's fast, simple, and free to use. Go to Ramsey Solutions.com and try Ask Ramsey today. That's ramsysolutions.com. Our scripture of the day comes from Psalms, Psalm 1-1. Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners

take or sit in the company of mockers. Chuck Norris passed away, for those of you that didn't know. At 86. 86 years old. What a legend. Do we have a good quote for you here from Chuck Norris. A lot of people give up just before they're about. to make it. You know you never know when that next obstacle is going to be the last one. That's apropos. Oh my goodness. And there's so many great memes too. Well, the Chuck Norris

isms. Let me see if I can get one here from producer James. There was one that said when when Chuck Norris got to Evan, he had to tell the angels at the gates to fear not. Chuck Norris. That's good. That's strong. Does producer James have one for us? I know he was a big fan of the Norrisisms. My thing is it on. Is that working? Yeah, I just heard you, James. There we go. You're live on the air, James.

I saw one that said that Chuck Norris has actually been dead for five years, but death just mustered up the courage to tell him. Oh, now that's a perfect one for today. That's the Chuck Norris. RIP. Oh, Chuck. Man, well, it's a sad day. Sad day.

The kids out there probably don't even know about Walker, Texas Ranger. You know what? I bet they don't. I bet that end did when? In the 90? When did that end? We were probably the last era. Mid-90s?

That was hip, too. it. Oh, my gosh. All right. Let's head to San Francisco, and we have Ryan on the line. Hi, Ryan. Hey, thanks for having me, guys. Yes, absolutely. How can we help you? Hey, so my wife and I own five rental properties, and they're doing great. We have absolutely no problems. They're all profitable. The original plan was that we keep buying, and hopefully we have 10, 20, 30, and then live off of those and retire soon. Recently, I've been kind of looking at. into more investing and switching things up. And so when I was kind of crunched the numbers, I was trying to figure out if I should sell two of those and put that money, which would be

almost about a million dollars into like the S&P 500 and get that return of, you know, that 10%, and if it makes sense to do that or not. Or if we should just stick to our game plan of just gung-ho buying houses and keep going. Yeah. Do you guys have any money invested in retirement or is everything in rental properties? No, we do. I mean, we have our 401Ks that are probably about 120,000 combined so far. She's 30. I'm 34. Okay. I also have, you know, 30,000 in S&P 500 now and some in crypto and stuff like that.

Okay. And probably like 20 grand cash on hand and stuff like that. So we kind of have a couple different spaces. Uh-huh. Are the homes paid for, Ryan? No. Well, one of them is paid for. So we got very blessed.

But last year we inherited a house. That one's worth about $700,000. Okay. And it's completely paid off. And we make about, it's $29.50 a month that we make off of that house alone. Okay. How much do you owe on the other properties, the other four? The other, another one is paid off.

Oh, good. One of them is 279. Another is like $326. Mm-hmm. And the one that's a 279 is a duplex, so counted that one as two. Okay. I was thinking about selling the one that has the 279 because it's worth about 600. The duplex?

Yeah, so with those two would be close to a million. That one we get about $1,600 profit. And so if you... What's your least favorite? The least favorite is actually the one I didn't mention. That one, we probably have about $100,000 in equity. And that one only makes us about $500, $600 a month. Okay.

I'm just thinking, can we sell one or two and pay off the others? Now we have a completely paid-for real estate portfolio. We're de-risking any extra money. Now we can invest into the market. Because you guys have another 30 years to invest into the market and build wealth. So I'm less concerned about that. I just think having less risk now and more cash flow and simplifying your life would feel real good. Yeah, I mean, my wife is her big thing is she loves having the extra cash flow.

So that's why she doesn't want me to invest. And then when I told her like, hey, you know, if we did get that 10%, it would actually be more than what we would get off of the cash flow yearly. Yeah. But then her caveat to that is, well, you're the cheapest person I know and you're not going to want to actually pull out any of that money. all using the money for that's off these rentals. What do y'all do? What's the cash flow going to? So most of it we're saving to, we have another like rental account that we're saving just to basically get ready for another property. Yeah. Um, but this year was like our break where, because I've been so gung ho for the last few years, this year was our break to kind of, okay, I understand that you're upset that

I'm doing so much. So let's slow down and let's live our life this year. So this year's been more about vacations and family time and doing stuff with our kids. How much do you guys make a year in your jobs? With my overtime, I make about $250. She makes about $40, so right around $300 and then plus we make off the rentals. So we're doing very good. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Amazing. I would be in Georgia's camp, which majority of investment real estate, majority of people, yeah, they're leverage. They take out loans. They put some down. You know, that's the cycle they live in. But at Ramsey, we always talk about two things with investment real estate. Number one is that it needs to be paid off.

So when you get to that point, so I would do a George said. I would find and kind of you guys can do the math and just say, hey, we could sell these two. That could pay off everything else with some extra that we can invest in the market, you know, whatever that looks like. And then number two, just when it comes to investments, we do talk about diversification. And that can be within the stock market that you're diversification. diversifying within mutual funds and all that. But even at a bigger scale, yeah, the diversification of what types of investments. And so real estate is one of those. So having some in real estate and then having some in the stock market, which I know you already do, but I do like the plan

of you guys being stable with the rentals and then putting anything extra and maybe take a season where you are investing in the market. Because, I mean, depending on how quickly these houses, you know, appreciate and everything. thing. I mean, the market itself had did very well the last couple of years, and you'd actually probably make more off of being in the market than real estate. But with less headache. That's truly the only passive income is you just let your investments ride and it spits off money versus real estate, which, as you know, is not super passive. It's active. Is your, if people live in there, it's a headache? Is y'all's primary home paid off, Ryan? No, it's not. It's not. Okay. How much

do you guys have left on that? That one's our highest. That one's close to six, six-20. What's the payment every month? 4,100. Man, it'd be nice to have that thing paid off. Do you risk the place you sleep first? Yeah, I mean, I would definitely love to, and it definitely would help, especially because it's one of the highest payments, and that duplex pretty much covers that.

For now, until there's a vacancy or someone doesn't pay or there's a repair? Yeah, so with the baby steps, Ryan, I would go back and I would walk the baby steps. So I'd be funding 15% of your income into retirement. So back into the 401ks, the Roth IRAs. Which is 45 grand. Yep. And then you guys have enough in the rentals, again, that I really do think you could sell one or two

and have everything paid off in that. And I would be okay with you guys keeping those and then start knocking off your primary home. And you guys may get so aggressive that you look up. You're like, hey, maybe we only have one rental and we sell everything else and pay off the primary home. I mean, the $700,000 rental, you know, I know it was gifted to you all, but, you know, depending on taxes and everything, but if it was sold and it paid off your primary home, I don't know, just some things to think about. But I would have, before I added on any more real estate for my investments, I would be paying off my primary home. Okay.

Which is the, it's going to take the longest, unfortunately. Yeah, as well. I want everything to be done as fast as possible. Well, the goal here is just to have no debt whatsoever. How much is sitting in the account that you're going to buy another rent? rental with. How much is in there? Right now, it's low. It's only like 20, 26. So it's not enough. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm out in California. So realistically, we have to put about like 60 to 100k down depending on the place that we're looking at. Yeah. So yeah, I would stop all of that. I would not buy any more

houses. I would work to pay off my primary home. De-risk the portfolio. And then as you buy more, do it in cash. And you can do that quickly when all these are cash flow. with no debt on them with your amazing income. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, George, great show. You too. Thanks to all the callers for calling in.

Thanks for all the guys in the booth and the great audience that we had today here in Franklin, Tennessee, outside our studio. And remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.