From Ramsey Network, you're listening to the Ramsey show. I'm your host, Jade Warshot, joined by your other host, doctor John Deloney. We're taking calls for the next couple hours about your life and your money. So give us a call. The number is triple 8825-5225 and we will get into it. We'll get knee deep and all the things that you're going on and what's going on in your world. So give us a call. Let's go straight to these phone lines. John, we got Alex, who's in Boulder, Colorado. What's going on, Alex?

Hi. I am in a bit of trouble, actually.

Okay.

So I would, I guess. I don't even start. So I guess in the last year, I've been building up some debt, kind of hiding it from my family, and it all recently came out and pretty much just tearing apart my family at this point.

So how much debt, man?

About $50,000. Are you credit card?

What are you buying?

So that's the worst part, is not really buying anything. It's actually streaming. So I used to play video games a lot. I'm actually in the military, so I used to play video games as a way to kind of cope. And basically I got into streaming and watching other streamers play video gaming and kind of helped pass the time and especially when I'm at work. And I just. I kind of got into the whole gifting subscriptions. Couldn't really control it. I can say I've never been addicted to anything ever in my life. But you can't has got to be the closest thing.

Yeah, you can't.

You're right. I can't say that. Yeah.

I guess the definition of addiction is a pattern of behavior that continues after the person knows that it is hurting me and I continue to do it anyway. Can I tell you, Alex, I. And this is me just being straight up with you. I. I don't know if I fully believe you. What else were you spending? $50,000. I only see that in extreme, like, you suddenly have somebody else that you're. You're courting or you have. You're struggling with drugs, you're struggling with gambling.

It.

Honestly, I know it sounds crazy, but that literally is it.

It was you just sitting there watching twitch, and you're just gifting thousands of dollars away to people.

Yes.

I got so into the hype, you know, you dropped that $500, you know, 100 subs, everybody goes crazy, and, you know, they hype you up. And I got so into it, I don't know. It just kept happening. I just kept doing it, and I wasn't keeping track. I wasn't paying attention, you know? As soon as one credit card max, go straight to another one.

Over what course of time? How long did it take you to acquire this debt?

It was over a year, bro.

I'm having a hard time with it.

Same.

I'm having a hard time with it, like. So are you married?

I am. I'm married, and I have kids, and. And that was. That was the hardest part, was, uh, once I realized how bad it was, and I.

Alex, you would know, like, maybe for sitting there trying to explain this to your wife or something, she'll buy this. But you would. You. You had to actually go open new credit cards.

I did.

So you didn't just open your eyes and there was $50,000 when.

Well, no. So the credit cards were old ones that we had zero balance on, that we had used from years prior, when. During COVID we were using. My wife wasn't able to work, so it was just my income that was supporting us. And mortgage rates in Colorado are not very good at all, and they haven't been for a long time. And we just basically were using credit cards to kind of survive. Once we came out of that and she was able to start working, we were able to pay them down. We even refinanced the house at one point to be able to get some money back to.

So you're making the rest of the house. Let me ask a little bit of a more tactical question. You've got $50,000 in credit cards. You've got to make minimum payments.

Yes.

Is that what raised the flag to her? How did she not notice? Hey, there's hundreds of dollars going out every month in minimum payments. I'm guessing you guys keep the money separate so she couldn't see that well.

So I actually went and opened up a checking account on the side so that way I could have some of my paycheck.

Right. But she's still seeing hundreds of years. She's still seeing, hey, hundreds. There's a lot less money coming in than there used to be. And that didn't raise any red flags for her. I'm just trying to understand the landscape of your marriage.

All I can say is that we were never really good with finances when it comes to keeping track. As long as we knew we had money to do things and pay things, we weren't really paying attention. As much as I never really cared what she was spending money, she never really cared what I was spending money on. And it didn't get to that. Like I said, she didn't realize could.

Be gone and her not even notice.

Yeah.

Wow, bro, Jade and I make a lot of money. And I would tell you right now.

I'm like a bird dog. I know. If money's missing. Sheesh.

All right. So how can we help, man?

Yeah, so, I mean, at this point, I mean, the basic thing is I'm just terrible with money, obviously, and I have no idea what I'm doing.

That's not the problem. That's not the problem, bro. Like, you're living in an altered reality. Like, you have to go get beneath that. Like, if we take you at your word, which I'm telling you right now, I've just been doing this for too long. I'm struggling with it. If I take you at your word, and when Mastercard said, I can't let you have any more money, and then you went and opened up another account to keep paying that bill. And this isn't just, oh, my gosh, I was just clicking on something, and suddenly I was $50,000 in the hole. You knew step by step by step along the way, I'm gonna keep going down. And if I take you at your word, something about watching other people play video games and you giving them $500 at a time brought you more life, made you feel more alive than your own home, than your own life that you're creating here. That's what you have to deal with, because that's a case of you are living this quiet life of desperation and these little. I can't even wrap my head around this. And like, dude, my whole career has been sitting with people who've made some wild choices, and I've never heard this.

Not $50,000. I've seen 5000. I've seen, like, 10,000. I've never seen $50,000. The second thing is, is then you're a guy that doesn't tell his wife the truth. The third thing is you're a guy that put his kids financially at risk. Those are the things we need to deal with.

Alex, are you telling us that you're done? Like, you've called in to talk about the money aspect of this? So that makes me think, okay, he thinks he's finished with this behavior. What is causing you to think that you're finished with this behavior is what I want to know. Otherwise, what I tell you is not going to matter at all.

Yeah. So, I mean, we've started doing family counseling, marriage counseling, I've deleted all my accounts. I've given my wife access to every single thing that I have.

Did you give her the receipts?

Yes.

I gave her access to every single bank account so she can look at the history, see every. Every single transaction. Okay.

All right.

Good for you. I mean, we've been married for 17 years, and I love my wife more than anything. She's my best friend. And I honestly have no idea why I got into it. I think that's part of the counseling that I'm. That we're going through.

Good for you.

Understand.

Good for you. I'm proud of you.

Know that. I don't want to lose that.

Okay. I'm proud of you on that, man. You're gonna have to work through the money side of it, and you're gonna have to follow the baby steps and pay it off. Hang on the line. We'll send you a copy of total money makeover and help you on your journey. Best of luck to you, brother.

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This is the Ramsey show from Ramsey Network. I'm Jade Warshaw. Next to me is doctor John Deloney, best selling number one, author of building a non anxious life. Love it.

Hey, Jade. Last night was the first debate. We'd like to go ahead and give our thoughts on the debate. All right, let's go to Newark. All right, New Jersey. And talk to Christian. God help us all.

What's going on, Christian?

Hey, guys. Thanks for having me.

You're welcome.

So, for about a year, me and my wife are planning on getting a $200,000 addition. But it doesn't. The numbers don't make sense. So I want to sell the house, go live with my parents and buy a $900,000 house, our dream home. And she's not really on board with it.

Okay, let me. Okay, let me.

That's a lot of swings, man. Yeah.

Let me run this back. So you were wanting to make a $200 thousand dollars addition to the house?

Yes.

Okay.

And what, what's the addition?

Yeah.

A two car garage with about 550 sqft above it, which is two bedrooms and a master bath.

Okay. And if you did that, would it make that house worth $900,000?

So my dilemma is our mortgage is 2400.

Wait a minute, wait a minute. Let, just answer me that question right quick. Because then the other plan was that you were going to go buy a $900,000 house. That's why I'm trying to understand right now.

We could sell our house for 700.

Okay. So if you did the addition, you're hoping that you putting that money in, you would at least make it.

Does that make it worth 900? I think it would possibly be 800 or less.

Oh, okay. Okay.

Because of the comps.

Okay.

So you would, the addition would, would suddenly make it beyond the nicest house in its area?

Yes.

Okay. Gotcha.

Got it. Okay. So now tell us more. My screen says that your wife doesn't agree with this.

No. So if we put 100 of our own money and 100 heloc, that brings our mortgage from 2400 to 3600, and if they raise our taxes, that would put us close to 4000 a month. And I'm not comfortable with that.

What percentage of your take home income is that?

We take home around 10,000 a month.

Okay. Okay. So there's a lot wrong with this initial plan. A, I don't like you borrowing against your home to do upgrades because you're putting your own home on the line in order to do that. Why is there this urgency to make, to do all of this? Why is there an urgency to do a heloc? And if you don't do that, then we've got to move and buy a $900,000 house. Why is there this sense of we've got to do something?

Well, we have three kids, six, eight and ten, and the boys share a room, so we want something bigger. We have a big eating kitchen with no dining room. So we want to a dining room, be able to host family, host events. And the clock is ticking. We want our dream home. And I feel if we sell our home, we'd be in a position to buy a beautiful home and half an acre, cul de sac, extra bedrooms.

But, bro, what do you think the payment on a $900,000 house is going.

To be, right, with today's rates?

Well, we would. It would be less than getting an addition, because if we sell the house after realtor fee, we would take home a little over 450.

Okay, so you put half down on it.

No, we would put about 60% to 70% down on it.

How?

Oh, you've got 100 cash.

Oh, you've got the 100 cash.

Okay, we have close to 300, but I wouldn't.

So what. How much in all are you putting down between cash and equity?

Oh, on the edition.

No, no, no. If you go, if you do what you say you do, which is you sell your current home, you take that equity, you put it towards a down payment, and you put other cash that you have sitting around towards a down payment on a $900,000 house. How much cash is that that you plan on putting down?

I would want to put down 600. 650, tops.

Okay. 650, tops. And that gets you where you want to be? What we would teach is the payment all in hoas, everything, taxes, insurance, is no more than 25% of your take home pay. So that gets you there?

That gets me there. $3,200. $3,300.

Okay, so where's. So tell me where your wife is in all of this.

So I. So that we don't have to have the headache of waiting for a buyer and then selling and all that and finding a home and then selling. I would rather just wipe our hands clean, sell the house, move in with my parents that are a mile away, and take our time, six to nine months, and find our dream home. Take that 600,000, put in a six month cd of five and a half percent interest.

Does she like your parents?

Yeah. Originally, when we renovated the first floor during COVID we stayed there for four months.

How old are you guys?

35 and 37.

Ooh. With three kids. So a family of five going in.

I don't. I don't know any wife in America that would want to take three kids and their husband and move back in with their in laws. Like, what? What's. I don't understand the urgency.

Me neither.

You seem like there's, like, you gotta panic. Here's the deal. I shared a room with my brother my entire childhood until my sister went to college. And was it great? Nope. Did I hate it? Yep. Did we all live? Yep. Like, would it be cool to have a dining room? Absolutely. Do you have to have one? No. Like, I don't understand what this. Like, you've got something, like. Like, on fire inside of you. What is it, man? Enough to sell your home?

I don't know what's gonna happen before the election or during election.

So now we're talking. Homie, listen, I've been there. I've been an anxious, lunatic. Mass, I sold my house and moved my family into a residence hall, a dormouse. I've been there. You got to take a breath and don't do the next wild thing you're trying. Brene Brown calls it dress rehearsing tragedy. You've already. You've already created this. This new tax hike that's going to happen, and you've already figured out how you're not going to pay for it. You've already figured out this other bad thing that's going to happen, and you're trying to solve it now. And you're trying. You're thinking about that. Mandy, your family needs a stable presence right now. They don't need running around and selling this and moving this and going into my mom and dad's house. I've been where you are, and I've been so scared. And I walk around, my family's asleep, not knowing what's coming. I've been there, man. You got to go talk to somebody. I'm telling you, you're going to end up making a huge mistake, either relationally, either financially, or both.

So what do you suggest is weight? I didn't realize. The addition is around $300 a square foot for, like, top of the line.

I don't want you borrowing money for anything. If this is a home that y'all.

Love, about 250 to 300 in our savings, in our stock portfolio, you suggest we just pay it outright instead of taking a heloc?

I would never put my family's house on the block for a living room ever. Or for garage.

Well, we already have a garage with a sunroom attached to it, so here's the thing.

It's not about that.

Here's the thing. A. My take on this is a. I don't want you making this decision until a couple of things are a little bit more in focus. Number one, you and your wife have to be on the same page, and it doesn't sound like you are. It sounds like this is kind of one of your crazy things. And she's like, dude, cool out. We're fine. That's what it sounds like from what you've said. Number two, I'm with John. If you guys do get on the same page and decide you want to move on? Yes. Do it all in cash. Whether you decide to add an addition to your existing home, whether you decide to move forward. The keys here are. We're using cash. Um, and if we're doing the down payment deal, we're putting all the equity on the down payment, because ultimately, we want this house paid off. And I don't want that payment to be any more than 25% like I talked about before. So those things need to get cleared up. I just. Right now, based off what John asked you, based off of what you said, it feels like you're running away from something, and a house should be something that you run towards and you're happy about, and you both want to do it.

And it's not like this thing that you do out of panic or fear. It's a thing that you do out of. This is the next right step for our family. And you can take your time, and you have think things through, and there's choices. And right now, it just feels like somebody pulled the fire alarm, and he's like, where do we go? The election?

And, christian, listen, I've been there. And here's the worst part. You go with you. Whatever you sell, whatever you buy, you go with you. So tonight after dinner, I want you to hold your wife's hand and say, I've never said this out loud, honey, but I'm scared, and I'm gonna go talk to somebody before I just take the whole family on another adventure. She will probably breathe and sleep deeper than she has in months. Your move, my brother. We'll be right back.

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You're listening to the Ramsey show. I'm Jade Warshaw. Next to me is doctor John Deloney. John, did you watch the debate last night?

I actually did not. I was on that text thread with you and Rachel Cruz and others, and then I got caught up this morning. But I think it's important to have this conversation based on this last caller. Yeah, I don't know anybody. The whole building is buzzing. We have a thousand people that work here. It's buzzing. My phone was blowing up all evening, all morning.

Stayed up till midnight.

Yeah. And I did watch some of the after stuff. If anybody watched that last night and is at peace, you should probably go see somebody, right? I don't know. Somebody who's not. Their heart's not beating a little bit faster.

Yeah.

Like, completely unbothered what is happening. And my. Like, please, if you've ever been at the slightest bit convinced that the person in the White House is gonna save you.

Oh, now we know.

I think, the answer, we all got our answer. And so what that means is we have to look in the mirror.

Yeah.

And say, okay, ask for me at my house. What's this gonna look like?

Yeah.

And the worst thing you can do is, as my great mentor, doctor Andy Young, used to say, facts to your friends, man, when you're heading into a crisis.

Yeah.

What is true here. What is true here is maybe in your house we go out way too much and we've got to start putting some money aside.

Yeah.

Maybe in your house. All right. We're about to buy a fancy car. We're not buying that car. Maybe. As for you and your house, we got to pay some. It's time for us to take control of our money.

Yeah.

It's time.

Yeah.

And by the way, if you already know, you're going to vote for. Turn the news off.

Turn off.

Turn it off.

That's the word.

If you already know, don't just based in this.

No, don't waste in it.

But here's the deal. As for me and my house, that's where we are. And we've been saying that. Dave's been saying that for 30 years.

Yeah.

It's the person in your house that's going to make the most difference. So my hope is that people start meeting their neighbors and they start asking each other like, hey, man, how can we figure this thing out? And let's go from there.

Yeah, let's go from there. I have zero to add to that because it's exactly right. And I would be beating a dead horse by beat it. Well, I mean, it's true. You know, I probably fed into it a little bit too much last night. I stayed up late. And you're right, John. The one takeaway is I just got to do what I got to do. Like, I got to do what I have to do for my family. And the changes that. I mean, it sounds trite, but it's true. Like, the change that you want to see, you have to start doing those things in your own home. If you want taxes to go down, which means you get more money in your pocket, then that means you've got to do the things in your own budget to get more money back in your pocket. If you want, you know, there'd be more jobs. Then you need to start applying for more jobs. It's like, do more and do those things and try not to let. It's like, there's just things you control, the controllables.

There you go.

There's things that you can control, and there's things that you can't control. And, you know, if you need to.

Make your phone calls and make your. Send your emails, send them, make your phone calls and get on the horn.

Can I just say this? Like, this is. I'm gonna get off my soapbox after this. If there was ever a time. Pray for your leaders. Pray for the people who have leadership over you. That's the best thing you can do. And all the energy that you want to put into commenting on social and, oh, my gosh, I can't believe this.

Da da da.

Like, if you're that person, like, spend some of your time praying for our leaders and pray for our country. Pray for yourself. Pray for your own interaction and reaction to all this stuff, because everybody who's listening to this is not a christian person. I am. So just filter it through. This is what Jade thinks. We're thermostats in this world, and we have the ability to set the temperature by the way we react and the things that we say and how we handle the things that might cause other people to, like, do that. And so, like, let's do that. Like, let's be thermostats, and let's set the temperature at a nice, comfortable 68.

68.

Is that good?

A buddy of mine was texting last night. He's a. He's a pastor. He's a great friend. And he just said, I'm praying for our country. And I just wrote back, pray louder. Pray louder. And. And then after a while, I was following along with the debate, I said, I don't think you've got the right number. And he said, I keep getting a return to my prayer. New phone. Who disgrace?

New phone, who does? Wow. Okay. But, yeah, just so you know, like, we know what's going on, but we are not going to. I know some of y'all are like, get into it, guys. Get into it. We won't. We shunt.

As for me and my to Portland and talk to Jessica. What up, Jessica?

Hi, John. Hi, Jade. I'm so excited to talk to you guys. You are my heroes.

We're happy to talk to you. I'm glad you're here.

That's a low bar, Jessica.

At least watch the Marvel movie all the time. No. Thank you so much.

What's up?

But I'm hoping that you can help me with a huge mess. My husband and I are on baby step six, and we've kind of landed into this big financial mess not of our own choosing. My husband's dad and his wife are at the end stage of their life. My husband's dad is on hospice care right now, and he's got maybe a couple of weeks left. And his wife is borderline dementia. And she doesn't really have the ability to hold it together enough to keep track of their finances. So it's something that my husband and I have taken over for them just in the last couple of weeks. And what we found out is super scary. They have about $70,000 worth of debt and only 18,000 saved. And their monthly income is. It was almost 7000 with him alive. But then when he passes, it's probably going to drop down to around $3,000 a month. And that's all that they have, all that she has to kind of keep things running for the rest of her life. Part of that 70,000 is an rv trailer that he just bought last year, and he owes 53 on it.

But it's only worth. We went to look to see what we could sell it for, and we think we can maybe sell it for 35, maybe 40 if we're lucky. And what we're wondering is, because it needs a repair. Also, it's broke. So it needs about $4,000 worth of repairs just to get it sellable.

To be worth 35.

And I just wonder. Yeah, to be worth 35. And his name is the only name that's on it. His wife's name is not on the rV. And we're wondering if we can let it go back to the creditors.

No.

Or if we should.

No, don't do that.

To pay it off.

No, don't do a voluntary repo? That's going to be horrible. I wouldn't do that. They've got 18,000 saved. Assuming that you have control over this money, I would just take that $18,000 and bridge the gap and get rid of it. Zero it out. And then that puts them at, what, $22,000 in debt?

Yes. Yes. The other 22 is a car that they owe ten on. And what is the rest of it? There's a trailer.

How much is the trailer?

The trailer is only three and we already have it sold, so as soon as we get the money for that, that'll be fine.

So it's just the car? Yeah.

And is there any life insurance here when he passes?

Yeah, there.

There might be about 30,000, but I'm worried that they're not going to pay because it's a non smoking policy and he only stopped smoking a year ago, so I don't understand. I don't know if they're going to say, well, he only stopped smoking a year ago, so now we're not going to pay. I don't know how that works.

You'll have to get with somebody to find out the clarity on that. But I think that you can clear out a lot of the just craziness of this by selling. Like you said, you sold the trailer already. Do the same thing with this rv. If you need to close the gap, use that 18,000 that they have saved, or at least keep a thousand of it, but use the 17,000 to do that and then the $3,000 a month. Okay, so tell me about the mother in law. Tell me. I hate to ask these questions, but, like, timeline? Like, what's the situation if she ends up, you know, being alone? Is she coming to live with you guys? Is she going into care, a care facility?

She doesn't. She's not a good patient. She would make a terrible patient in a care facility or a hospital. She really actually doesn't want to live after he dies. She. I feel like she's going to deteriorate.

Very quickly, so she's going to have to come stay with you guys.

Well, she's a smoker, and we don't want her to smoke in our house.

Well, then. Then you might end up putting her in an apartment where she's got a, you know, a care nurse or something like that, whatever it is. My point is that judging by the numbers, you guys are going to be on the hook for figuring out the best way to do this. And I want to make sure that you guys, get the power attorneys of attorney that you need ahead of time so that when the time comes, we do, you can make the call. Like, if we're selling their house, we're selling that house so that we can provide care for her.

They have no house. They have no assets whatsoever.

Okay.

Are their siblings involved?

No, we're the only ones.

Then you guys are definitely going to be the ones that are making these calls. And just know, financially, put yourself in the best situation that you can. Because where these numbers fall might leave you guys on the hook to be shelling out a little bit of cash, unfortunately, but you're on top of it. This is the Ramsay show. Hey, guys, it's Rachel Cruz here to tell you about a faith based alternative to health insurance that can make healthcare more affordable. Christian healthcare ministries. CHM allows members to share each other's healthcare costs. And it's as easy as one, two, three. Step one, choose the healthcare provider you want. Step two, submit your eligible bills. And step three, get reimbursed. CHM members take care of your eligible medical bills. With no network and the freedom to choose your healthcare provider, CHM is the best option for christians who want to take care of their families and help other believers find out more@chministries.org. budget. That's chministries.org budget. You're listening to the Ramsay show. I'm Jade Warshaw. Next to me is doctor John Deloney. And if you haven't, guys, I want you to check out our Ramsey trusted pros.

If you're talking about buying a house, if you're talking about selling a house, our Ramsey trusted pro shop the market and compare insurance quotes so that you don't have to. So your pro will compare quotes, discounts and bundling deals for you at no extra cost. Ramsey trusted pros will make sure that you have all the coverage that you need and nothing that you don't. Ramsey trusted pros are interviewed, vetted, and coached to make sure they're market experts who have your best interest at heart. So you want to make sure that you have the best coverage. That's what you need to do. Before I said buying and selling a house, it goes to show what I was talking about. I'm talking about insurance here, people, not.

You gotta have insurance for houses, too, man.

I mean, you do. But what I'm talking about here is if you're trying to get insurance for all the things that we say that you need insurance for, which is, you know, for your home, obviously, for your auto, life insurance, renters insurance, even identity theft insurance is a big one. What else?

There's a lot umbrella insurance on that last call. Like, you've got a husband who's passing away.

Yeah. Ooh, life insurance.

And then you have a kid saying, how am I gonna take care of mom? She's not doing well. And there's $30,000. That may be a fraudulent policy.

Yeah, let's talk about that.

Not helpful, guys.

Talk about that, John, because so many people, I cannot tell you how many times I say, do you have life insurance? And they go, oh, yeah, I have it through my work. No, that is not like you're doing good. If you get $25,000, it's a high five policy.

That's enough to get you through the funeral.

Yes.

That's not to pay a bill.

That's it. And we're talking about ten to twelve times your income. The whole purpose of insurance is to mitigate risk. It's to cover the things that you can't afford to pay for. And one of those things, when it comes to life insurance is, who are the people that are dependent on your income? In this case, the wife with dementia would have been extremely dependent on his income. So if he passes away, which we know, you know, over time, then she needs that money. And so we say ten to twelve times what you were making in a year. That's what you need for the people who depend on your income. So when it comes to insurance, term life, you need it, guys. You need it. And if you're like, Jade, all of this is so overwhelming for me. I used to be that person. We will do this for you again. If you don't have the right coverage, if you're not sure how to find it, if you go to ramsaysolutions.com coverage, we'll make sure that you have everything that you need. And by the way, let me just throw this in, because it's important to note it's not a baby step.

Okay? So for all the folks listening, because I know we have a lot of people who are in baby step one, baby step two, this is not you going, well, and I'm out of debt. I'll do that. No, you do it as soon as you find out about it. And I get it. You're like, Jade, that's the last thing I want to spend money on. Don't you know I have bills? Yes, I do. But you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow.

But I do know this. I've sat with multiple women whose husbands are dead in the next room. And they look at me and they have said these almost identical words. I don't know what I'm gonna do next. And my conversation shifts from how do we grieve and who do we call to? We're gonna have to help you get a job on Monday.

Yeah.

Don't put your spouse is in that position.

Even a car accident.

Right.

Because you don't have the right coverage and you hit somebody.

And then they hit somebody. I remember those who.

It's a lot, but we're here for you. Like, we're here for you. We will take the hard part out of it again. Ramsaysolutions.com coverage. Let us do that for you. All right. Whoo. Let's go to Jaden, who's in Denver, Colorado. What's going on, Jaden?

Hi, there. Yeah, so I'm 20 years old. I make about 40,000 a year, and I have three kids at home. I'm 22,000.

Yeah. You broke out for a minute.

I'm sorry. So, yeah, I'm 20 years old, kids at home. I make about 40,000 a year, and I'm $22,000 in debt.

Okay.

I'm just trying to figure out just how to pay off this debt and kind of just setting example for my kids. So kind of do the same thing that I did.

Is it just you raising the kids or do you have a wife?

Oh, I have a wife. Yeah.

Is she working or is she at home with the kids?

She's at home with the kids. She was working right before she had the baby. And then the company, they had sold to another company and let her go.

Okay. So did she. So she chose to stay home. Bye. By default. Not because that was the plan. It was like, as a reaction.

Right. And, I mean, childcare out here is this extremely expensive. So that's another factor of it, too.

What do you do for a living, man?

I work in asphalt.

Okay. Is there. What are the ways you can get this income up? You got three kids. You're in Denver, Colorado. There's just no way you can support a family on that Mandev, and you know that.

Yeah, I know. We've been, you know, just nickel and diamond. It, um, right now I have applied for other jobs. I'm trying to get h vac certified and become a plumber and electrician.

Okay, great.

Are you. Are you actively in a program?

No, I get into after applying. So.

Okay.

I applied about last week.

What will it cost? What does that cost?

Um, so if I go through the company that I applied through, they pay for the schooling, and I just have to sign an 18 month contract with them.

Okay, and what will you make? What will that. How will that change your income.

Coming out of school? The foreman let me know that they. They had a guy coming out of school at 38 an hour.

Okay. And you'll be able to work full time at 40 hours, right?

Yes. Yeah. Right now, I'm making about 22 an hour, working 60 hours a week.

Okay. Okay. So that's gonna be a nice jump for you. How old are the kids?

Oh, I have a five year old, a three year old, and a three month year old.

Ooh, Lordy. Okay. Yeah, you're in the thick of it. So the five year old's going to be going to kindergarten soon. Yeah. That'll help. Yeah, help your wife out. And what was she doing before this? What was she earning? Does she have a degree? Tell me more about her.

So she was doing a housekeeping at a local hospital.

Okay. What was she earning?

She was getting about 35 a year.

So there was a time. There was a life where you guys were making, you know, almost 80,000 a year, and now you're down to 40. Is there a situation where you can make this work with childcare?

As of right now, no. Like, I've. I've tried. I got sisters and brothers all around and kind of, like, reached out to them about, you know, maybe paying them to watch my kids, and it's just. It's not.

It's not happening.

Yeah, it's not gonna happen.

So even, like, a part time, is there a. I just want to make sure you guys are attacking this from every angle. Even, like, a mom's day out where she can work part time, something where she can bring in. I mean, even $800 a month would change you guys's world right now.

Or she gets a job at a daycare center.

Mm hmm.

Right. Yeah, I really haven't thought about that.

The other alternative, brother, is you're going to get done 60 hours pouring asphalt in this madhouse summer heat, and then you got to go drive uber, man, y'all just don't have enough money, right? And, bro, I've had two kids. I haven't had three. I don't even. I can't. I can hear how tired you are, but I've never even personally experienced this. I wouldn't wish that on anybody working asphalt out in the summer to go. Have to go drive. But, man, y'all got to have some more money.

When does this h vac thing turn around for you. When do you expect to be making that salary? That hourly?

So, yeah. So starting out with them, I'd be making so 24 an hour and two nights a week for five years. I'd be going to school. So as soon as I. In about five years.

Oh, it's five years, this five year turnaround.

Yeah. So about five years, I'll be making close to 40 an hour.

Okay. We gotta. Yeah, you gotta do something.

You can't hold on for four, five years.

Yeah. What's your living situation? Are you in a renting. Are you in a house? Tell us more.

Yeah, I'm renting right now. My wife talks about buying a house.

But you're not near it. You're not near that. Hey.

Yes, that's exactly what I told her.

You're between a rock and a hard place. And the only thing that's going to change this, this is not something you can cut, cut away at a budget. Although we're going to make sure you have a budget before you leave here. We got to find ways to get the income up. And unfortunately, I think some of it lies with you. But I think your wife holds a key in this as well. I think there's something she can do part time on the side. At nights, you guys have to look at your schedule. And you're playing a game of chess to find out when there's hours that you, you can do something. Whether it's from home, whether it's getting in your car and driving around. And she brings the kids with her to do the delivery. But you've got to get creative. There's not going to be anything fun about this, but you are going to find margin. This is the Ramsay show from the Ramsey network. It's the Ramsey show. I'm Jade Warshaw. Next to me is doctor John Deloney. We're taking your calls about your life and money. So give us a call. The number is 888-825-5225 and we will take our best shot at giving you our advice.

What we would do if we were in your shoes. That's how you have to filter this. You're grown. But we're telling you what we would do. Okay, so we're gonna go straight to these phone lines where we've got Jordan. He's in Portland, Oregon. What's going on, Jordan?

Hey.

Hey.

How are you?

I'm great. How can we help?

So I'm trying to think of the question that it was, oh, how can I better budget my money? I feel like I'm in a pickle. I make decent money. In fact, I think I make real good money. And there's really no excuse why I should be broke.

Well, what's really good money?

Well, let's see here. Last year, I did about 270. About 280. And the year before that, I did about two or 330. About 330. And I'm in sales, so I average, like, on a bad year, I'll hit 100. And my best year, 330. I average about 2200.

Okay, great. What, uh, can I ask what kind of sales?

So I'm a freight broker. I work in trucking.

Sweet. All right. Is it just you? Do you have a family?

Uh, yeah. Wife and five kids.

Wow.

That's why you be broke, Jordan. You got lots of mouths to feed, my man.

Yes, sir. Oh, and my two nieces live with us now.

Why not? Why not?

Wow. And so I'm guessing your wife's not working, or is she taking care of the kids? Tell me more.

Yeah, she's a. She's a stay at home mom. She takes care of the kids and holds down the castle.

Okay, so she's queen of the castle. You're making 280,000. You said, how can I budget my money better? Are you using a budget, or is that something you know you need to start?

Yeah, it's something I know I need to start. I was doing good for a while, and then my buddy mentioned, he said something about, oh, yeah, you gotta, you gotta get this Dave Ramsey book. And I thought he was talking about the chef. I said, no, I don't need to know how to cook. He said, no, not Gordon Ramsay, Dave Ramsey. And he just kind of gave me some insight. I googled it, and there's, like, 20 books, and I didn't know where to start. And there was a phone number, so I called it, and someone answered.

I'm just kidding. And what happened? So what?

So I was doing good for a while. I paid off my cars. I was saving money. Paid off the truck, paid off the car. Pay it off, like, 80% of all of our credit card debt.

Did you cut up the credit cards?

No, I still have about five of them.

They have balances, one of them has.

So my wife has an older one that's about 17, 18,000, and I have one that's currently about ten or 11,000.

Okay, okay. What else? What other debt do you have?

That's it, though. We sold our house. We just rent.

Oh, gosh. So it was like that. Did you sell your house because it was a drain on you? Or because of another reason.

It was we got. I ended up getting like this, some kind of loan where the. It was, it started off at 4%, but then it fluctuated with, like, the market.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah.

So you're out of that. You're renting now. This is a wonderful time for you guys to just hit reset. If I'm you, you need to pay off these credit cards. You need to cut them up today. If I told you right now, if I said, go get those credit cards and cut them up, would you do it?

Seriously?

Yeah.

Unless you've given up on your question.

You know what? Yes, I would do it right now.

Get them, bro. John and I will fill the space. Go get those cards.

My heart's racing right now.

And listen, your heart's racing. I want you to feel that because that is the security you have outsourced to that stupid piece of plastic and the power we're trying to give you. As the great rage against machine said, I want you to take your power back to where you are, your own bank. You have an emergency fund sitting in a savings account that if anything happens with you and those 117 children that you have, that you're fine, you got no worries because you're your own bank. But you have put all of your like, hopes and dreams and potential. You're gonna bail me out on visa, man, and they don't deserve that role in your life.

That's so true. Do you have any cash around?

Oh, my bad. We asked two questions. You got any cash?

I have about 900 and checking in 1100 and savings.

Perfect. That's perfect. That's all you need for right now because we're going to get you on the track to answer. The question that you called in with is, how can I budget my money better? The first step to budgeting your money better is putting your money back in your pocket and stop giving it away in debt payments every month, stop giving it away to credit card companies. And you go from being a dependent person, a person who's dependent on credit cards to a person who's independent on the money that they have. So case in point, you got those bad boys ready?

Yeah. And, uh, I thought I had five. I have six.

Oh, even better.

They're having their own babies in there, man. You got a fertile myrtle house going on there.

Here's what I want you to do. I want you to tell us the name of the card as you're cutting it up and tell us once it's clipped, hold it up. Say American Express gone forever. Clip it.

You want to just. You want to use the card shredder or. Yeah, I'll use a card shredder. That's safer from my mind. Hold on. I got the card shredder right here. All right, turn this bad boy.

Turn it on. Crank it up.

Here it is.

All right.

This one's a us bank.

Let her go.

Bye, Felicia.

There it is. And then I got two coals right there. Another coal.

So you got enough khakis, brother? You're good.

Khaki?

No. Then I got freedom unlimited.

Oh, you're about to find your own freedom. Come on, now.

I got capital one. Venture one.

Oh, what's in your wallet?

Money venture one, platinum.

Oh, that one felt good. When they mailed you that one, you felt like he was somebody, didn't you?

I did, yeah.

Let it go. Shred them. What else you got? There they are.

That's it. That's all six.

They're all. Dude, that's it.

Is that your wife? Yellen, what are you doing?

I need you to see. There is a whole. Dude, Jordan, there is a whole studio audience, audience of people here at this show. They are cheering for you. They are ripping their shirts off. They are so proud of what you just did because those people know that you just changed your life.

I feel like I'm gonna throw up.

I know. Never forget this feeling right here.

Ever.

Never. Game on.

Damn it. Yeah. Game on.

Game on, brotherhood.

Game on.

When your next paycheck come?

Next Friday, all my bills are due and I don't think I have.

You're going to make this happen.

You got.

You've got your emergency fund. We're going to give you everything you need. When we get off this call, you're going to have every dollar. We're going to hook you up with the coaching that you need. You're going to do everything you need to get on track. We're going to get these bills paid off. We're on it now. Because the key to getting out of debt is you can't keep creating it. You can't keep depending on it. It can't keep being that security blanket. And when you rip that off, John, you feel it.

That's exactly right. And, brother, listen, we're going to get, like she said, we're going to give you total money makeover the book for free. We're going to give you a year subscription to every dollar that attaches to your bank so you and your wife can learn to budget together for free. We're going to hook you up with some phone number so you can call a financial coach and you can help you figure out which bills and how to tell this creditor. We're going to move this one to overdose here to help you navigate what's coming your way. Yes, they will pick up when you call. But listen, today is your first step towards being free.

Really free.

Today is your first step to taking back your house. You make a quarter million dollars. I want you to feel like it. Proud of you, my brother.

So proud. Few people would do that. This guy's bought in. This is Ramsey network. You're listening to the Ramsey show. I'm Jade Warshaw. Next to me is Doctor John Deloney. Hey, thank you for being here. We're glad you're here. We're glad you're a listener of the show. Whether you listen on podcast or YouTube or all the other ways that you can enjoy the show. Thanks for being here. And if it's really meant something to you, do us a favor. If you can like the show, subscribe to the show. But more importantly, man, share the show. If you share this with other people, it's a wildfire. It can't be stopped. And that's something that you can do for free. And it helps everybody involved. So if you wouldn't mind it, we would love it if you did that Ramsay show. Question of the day.

All right, today's question comes from Bethany in Alabama. I homeschool, and I also have two work from home jobs. My husband is a Christian and works in a christian environment. That's usually how they set it up.

Something bad's about to happen.

I know, but he goes back and forth between saving and overspending. He makes twice as much as I do, but he's currently in spending mode. That's a nice way to put that. I've had to use my savings to pay bills since he spent so much. The last time we talked about it, he said that due to inflation, it's impossible for him to spend less. He even said that the problem is my fault for staying home and not making as much money as he does. He constantly wants to keep up with his coworkers. As far as toys. They think it's nonsense to save a lot. As we should be. Oh, golly. As we should be trusting God. And God doesn't require over sacrifice. Don't even know what that means. How do we get out of this mess?

Wow. I'm reeling from that. Okay. The thing that's clear here is you guys aren't on the same page about anything as it relates to. Truly, honestly, it sounds like how you're raising your family and how you're handling your money, and you'll go to a.

Church with strange doctrine.

Yeah, very strange. Yeah, we're taking some things out of context there, but that's another. That's another conversation. It sounds like there's some animosity there. He's feeling some type of way about you staying home with these kids and raising them as homeschool.

I think it's deeper. I think it sounds like he is a toddler with a salary, and he thinks he gets to do whatever he wants whenever he wants.

Yeah.

And if she has a problem with it, then she can just go fix it herself.

True. Yeah. But if I'm like, when you throw out. Listen, let's be real. You're married. I'm married. You get in the heat of an argument, there might be something you throw out that is off base. Right? Like, you shouldn't have said that. But when you say certain things that are kind of like, out of the blue, it's like, wow, you really have a problem with that. Otherwise, why would you just even up and say that?

There you go.

And I'm like, the fact that he's saying it's your fault for staying home. Not. Not. It's your fault. I mean, it would really help if you could make more money, but if you say staying home, you're indicating that you don't think she's doing much while she's at home, and she's not making enough money either. So that's problem number one. You guys need to get on the same page. Number two is now he's over here saying it's impossible for him to spend.

Spend less as bull crap on a stick in a box. It's just not true. Like, a few years ago, I went on a guitar buying binge. You know what I haven't bought in years? Guitars. And I'm just trying to think of toys. Cause I've got to spend money on other things that are more important.

That's true.

Right? Things got expensive. We even cut out bacon, for God's sakes. The Delaunay's cut out bacon. It's. It's expensive.

Well, there's another side to that where it could be that he's okay. Let me. Let me play the other side of that, which is some people just are. They're such tight wads. And it's like, you want me to cut back even more. There's nothing left to cut. And I don't know if that's the situation here. It could be what John is saying. It could be what I'm saying.

Well, she's saying he's buying so much toys and that she's having to pay his bills.

Yeah.

Because he's spending so much.

Yeah. It's not good. She said, I think it's nonsense to save, he thinks it's nonsense to save and that we should be trusting God. So now we're to the third question, the third problem, which is you guys have, it's even like went into your spirituality of like how you believe and what you believe and what this means and what this doesn't mean. What do you recommend, John? I put you on the spot. I'm like, I'm a roll this to you.

Well, I mean, it's like, it's like they got a faith based budget, which means we're still spinning and hopefully God will pay the bills. And it just doesn't work. It's just not life. And so I guess, Bethany, what I would tell you is this. Your marriage is in way more trouble than you're willing to admit. It's in a, it's in a, it's in a mess. And your husband is using your stay at home, you staying at home. Your husband is using theology. Your husband is using everything to avoid the responsibility of being an adult husband and father. He's acting like a child. And I'm confident that there's another side of the story that if he was telling his side, that's right, that, Bethany, you're not, your hands aren't cleaning this either. You all have to sit down with somebody and the conversation has to begin with. I don't think our marriage is going to make it unless we control alt delete and build a new marriage from the ground up. Ready? Go. Short of that, you're not going to fix it over here and solve this. You can play whack a mole. And if he's listening to his buddies like this more than he's listening to a wife who's homeschooling, working two jobs and saying, please help your marriage is, it's on real, real, real shaky ground.

Yeah.

This is not good.

This is not good. It reminds me of a joke.

I don't know if I can let it rip.

All right, there's this joke I'm not gonna tell as well, but it's basically.

Joe, put your finger on the dump button, buddy.

Like there's a guy and he's on a, on a stranded on an island and he's like, he sees an airplane go by, but he doesn't signal it. He says, God will save me. And then he sees a boat go by and he doesn't signal it. He says, God will save me. And then, like, one other thing comes by, he's like, it's okay. God will save me. And he dies on the island. And when he gets to heaven, he's like, God, why didn't you save me? And he's like, bro, I sent you an airplane. I sent you a boat. I sent you a guy to come get you. And you said no to all of it. So anyway, yeah, and listen, if you're.

Let'S say, if you're buying toys, and I'm sure that's four wheelers, guns, guitars, grills, whatever that. Yeah, those are. Those are purchases that you need to sit down and talk through with your spouse. And if you're having to pull from savings to over pay bills, you don't have enough money to just have said, hey, you buy whatever you want, I'll buy whatever I want. And if you're a husband and this, I'm just using that because it's here. But it includes wives, too. If you think I don't have to ask anybody because this is my house, then you do not have a marriage. No, you don't have a marriage. You're not building something together to move everybody forward. You're a selfish child. You've got to work together to build a future. And, man, Bethany, we'll be thinking about you. Man, this is a tough one. Tough, tough, tough one.

That is tough. Thank you for the question. Speaking of questions, let's take another social question. I've got one here. Okay. This one is Karen from Instagram, and she says, the economy really has me nervous. I know the stocks I have through work are down, and I want to save as much as I can. I was wondering if it would be better to keep money in the bank or credit union. I see videos saying that the banks are going to crash, and it really scares me. I don't have a whole lot of money, but it's mine. With the cost of everything going up, my anxiety is crazy. What do you say to that?

I'll say, what do you say? I mean, what do you say, jade?

I say, you know, one thing about the stock market is it's a roller coaster. You ride it when it's up. You ride it when. When it's down. And the way we talk about it here is really the idea of dollar cost averaging. No matter what you're putting aside, you know, whatever that percentage is every month, especially if you're out of debt and you have your emergency savings, you're doing 50, 15% every single month, no matter what. If things are going up, if things are going down over time, that averages out. And we can look, you can look back on a 20 year track record, 30 year track record of the S P 500, and you'll see there are times an economic, you know, dishevel or whatever, where it goes down, or if there's a war or something crazy happens, the great recession. But then it pops up, and it pops up and usually goes like never before. And so there's really nothing to fear other than the moment. Like, in the moment, you're like, oh, my gosh. But that's why we say when you invest, listen, this is not like your normal bank account. You don't need to be checking that every single day.

You'll drive yourself nuts, because somebody could hiccup. Joe Biden hiccups. And all of a sudden, something happens. You know what I'm saying? So don't check it every single day.

I just got a note for my smart vested pro.

What do you say?

The S P 500 had its best may since 2009. So here's the deal. There's always going to be wars and rumors of wars. There's always going to be people telling you it's all coming down, and it's all, wow.

Yeah.

As for me, in my house, Karen, I've got money in a high yield savings account. Because cash makes me feel a little bit safe. I also have money in my investment, in the, my mutual funds.

Yeah.

I don't have money in stocks because I'm not better than the super AI computers that they're using to trade those things. I can't win that game, and you can't either. So have a little bit of cash, have an emergency fund, and then put the rest in. And listen, if all the banks go under, you're gonna have way bigger fish to fry, sister. So just who.

That's so true. If all the banks go out, I know, like, a can. I need cans of beans.

That's right. You need wood for fire. Like, it's, it's. Yes, we're good.

This is the Ramsay show. You're listening to the Ramsay show. I'm Jade Warshaw, joined by doctor John Deloney. We're taking calls all hour long. Triple 8825-5225 is the number to call if you want to get involved. And we hope that you do. We're going to New York, New York, where we've got Harrison on the line. What's going on, Harrison?

Hi, Jane and John. How are you guys today?

Excellent day.

Great. Well, my question is about a whole life insurance policy and if I should take the cash surrender value and use it for a partial down payment on a condo.

Yes, yes. For cashing out the whole life policy. We'll talk about more about the condo. How much is the. How much is the cash out?

Cash surrender value is about 50k right now.

Okay. Um, do you already have term life insurance in place?

I do not, but I do not have any dependents, so I didn't know necessarily if that was needed.

Right now you don't. How old are you?

I'm 23.

Yeah, right now you don't. But down the line there's going to be somebody who depends on you, is my guess. Do you want a family one day?

Yeah, someday I'd like a family.

Yeah. I think it's worth it for you to lock in now at a great rate. I mean, you're young, you're healthy. You know, lock into a 15 year or 20 year deal term and you'll pay like $12. You know, it's $12 a month. It's so cheap. It's maybe not that, but it's super duper cheap. And you can get ten to twelve times, you know, your income and you can name a beneficiary on there for now. And then as that changes, as you develop and have a family, you can change that. But I am definitely doing that. But I'm, you know, I'm going to make sure I have the term life in place first, and then I'm going to cancel out this whole life policy. Get my 50,000. Let's talk more about this. This home situation. What are you trying to buy?

Yeah, so right now I'm renting and I'm just looking to kind of move into a condo instead of the apartment I'm in. So at the moment, my price range is about 250,000 because that's kind of what I think I can afford.

That's awesome. And I love that you're telling people that there's things you can buy for 250,000. How many bedrooms is it?

It's going to be a one bedroom. It won't be overly glamorous? That's all I'm in right now.

Yeah. Okay, cool. Is there any debt? Tell us more about your financial picture. Do you have debt? Do you have other money saved?

So I have no debt. No debt at all. And currently I'm making about 70,000. And I've got, with this 50,000, it would be almost 100,000 saved up.

Nice. And now that 100,000 that you have saved over here, we like people to have three to six months of basic expenses before they start saving an additional down payment. So would you say that, is that 100,000 or is that other money that you have? Does that also make up your three to six months of expenses?

Yeah, I should have clarified. That is on top of my emergency fund.

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Okay, so great. What do you have as your emergency fund?

I have about 15k right now is my emergency fund.

Okay, so what does that get you? Three, four months?

It's like three to four, yeah.

Okay, excellent. So you got 100,000 to put down on this property. So you're putting almost half down, which is really sweet.

Yeah, that was my goal. That's the only way I can get the monthly payment within that 25% of your take home range. So that was my goal, to try to get to 100,000.

Dude, you're rocking it. I have no complaints. I have nothing to say other than why did you take out whole life to begin with?

Well, so that's actually where I think Doctor John might be able to help. Because this policy was taken out for me when I was born. It was something a financial advisor told my parents to do, and they've been paying into it ever since then. But now that it's coming on to me to start paying it, it just doesn't make sense to me because of the rate of return is so poor.

I'm glad you see that.

But the problem is, like, my parents kind of treated as this, like, sacred cow, and I don't know how to get rid of it without making them upset.

Just go make fajitas, man. Like, here's the deal. Like, you, you just choose guilt over resentment, brother. And this is. This is going to be step one of a number of issues over the course of your adult life where you and your parents diverge. It might be who you vote for, it might be on whether one of your kids should play sports. There's just going to be these. These debates, whether they should bring their dog over to your house for the holidays. And you don't want their dog. Whatever. You got to do what, you know, a to be right, and especially what's right for you. It's not dishonoring, it's not, um. Like, it's not disrespectful. It's your policy. They handed it handed it to you. And what a cool thing. There's $50,000. Here you go. I wish they'd invested it and they were able to give you a hundred thousand dollars, but here's where we are. And so the next right thing is, I'm gonna buy a house, and I'm gonna take this money and apply it to my home. Thank you all so much. And if they wanna fight you on it, you tell.

I'm not gonna fight you guys. I'm not gonna fight you. I love you and I respect you, and I'm doing the next best right thing for me. And there's. And here's the deal. Choose guilt over resentment. If you don't, you keep paying into this thing that you know isn't a good use of your money, that keeps you from moving into this house, just to make them happy. Over time, every time they call you, you're gonna get annoyed. Every time you get a text, you're gonna go, ugh. Every time your mom call. And they don't deserve that. It's not fair to them. That's because you didn't put up a boundary.

Can I add one in?

Yeah, go for it.

If you think that they're gonna act a fool over this, give it back.

That's fair. Yeah, they've given it to me, so I don't think they're gonna act a fool over it.

You do. You think they're going to.

There's going to be some pushback, I'd say.

But if you think it's enough that it has the ability to mess up thanksgiving, give it back.

Okay, sounds good. That makes sense.

Fair enough.

And rent.

There you go. Ooh, I love that call. Thanks for the call. That's. I love. Listen, he's doing everything right. And it's really hard when mom and dad. When you know you. It's just hard when you know something. And your mom and dad are older than you. They think they know something. And I'm like, his path is working out for him really, really well, and they invested into something that had a really poor rate of return. Like, he's right, so.

But he's about to get a house. But you said something that was real important that I want to double click on. Sometimes people give gifts as a way to try to control you, and especially when parents aren't. When that transition. I'm not looking forward to it. When you shift from I can tell you what to do to I'm gonna walk alongside you. Right. And I'm gonna try. I might try to influence you. But you're grown up, and I raised you the best I could, and you get to make your own choices sometimes. We'll say, let me help you with that down payment of your first house, or let me buy that first car.

Yeah.

And it's gonna come with some strings to it, because that's. That's the next way I can control you. I can just be overly generous. Right. And there comes a moment when, is that $50,000? Would that be nice?

Absolutely.

Is it worth losing my relationship with my parents? Nope.

But the moment. The moment if he. I don't think he will get to this, but the moment he would get to saying, you know what, mom and dad? Thanks for the gift, but I'm gonna give. That's gotta cause them. If it doesn't cause them to look inward and go, what is happening? Like, why? I mean, that holds up a mirror. It's like, you know, like, remember beauty and the beast? He had the mirror and he could see what was going. Like, it holds up the mirror that you have to go, what am I doing that would cause my child to give me back $50,000?

You entitled, Brett. And if I want to respond like a child, then your kid was right. Yeah. Oh, man.

Yeah.

Good on it. Good on him.

Yeah, I think he's fine. I think he'll work it out. I don't think he has to give it back, but. All right, let's see. Let's go into Justine, who is in Sacramento. Oh, I don't think I can make it. I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do that to her. We'll take her. We'll take her the next time I'm asked this question. All right. Theresa says, I've been gazelle intense for so long. How do I spend money again? My husband and I are on baby step seven, and we're struggling psychologically to spend small amounts of money for myself, even when it's in the budget. But I want. I want more of what I want than I need, such as home decor, clothes. So she's. They've been gazelle intense for a long time. She doesn't know how to get.

It's gonna sound cheesy. And for people who are struggling, baby step one. This sounds nuts, right? Cause there's all of. But it's a true thing and it happens. We get this call a lot.

Yeah.

The first thing is you're gonna practice. You're gonna put money in the budget that you promised yourself. You're gonna spend. Even if it's a little thing. The second thing, and this is what I had to do, is just me being vulnerable here. I matched it. I'm gonna give this money away, the same amount that I'm gonna spend on myself. And it'll. Let me exhale. Right? Let me exhale. I'm gonna buy this guitar, but I'm gonna figure out a way to give this much money away. Okay, now we can. It was just this weird psychological game I played with myself, but it was my way of practicing.

Mm hmm.

We're not running for our lives anymore. It's okay. It's okay.

I like that. I like that. It's kind of like the opposite. Some people say, you really know you can afford something if you can buy it twice. Have you heard people say that?

No.

It. It doesn't shake. Like, let's be honest, it doesn't hold up. But that kind of reminds me of that. Like, you're matching it with something to prove that, hey, this is fine. I gave a little. I spent a little. And then, you know, they're saving a little, too. There's three things you do with money. Give, save, and spend. And as long as you're doing those three things and the proper ratios, you're in the clear. This is the Ramsay show.

If you own a small business or lead a team of professionals, you're probably sick and tired of getting advice that doesn't help from people. You didn't ask whether it's the business professor down the street who's never actually made payroll or the get rich quick influencer on tic Tac. Everybody's got got an opinion on what you should or shouldn't be doing in business. What you need is a guide. Who actually does this stuff? That's why almost 200,000 business leaders listen to the Ontario Leadership podcast every Monday to hear me take calls from real leaders and help them win in any stage of business. If you're looking for theory, you won't find it here. We are practitioners. I started Ramsey solutions on a card table in my living room over 30 years ago. And now it's a $250 million company with over 1000 team members. I've done everything stupid you can think of and survived it. So if you want real business and leadership insight, listen to the entree Leadership podcast where you listen to podcasts.

All right. All right. You're listening to the Ramsey show. Thanks for being here. I'm Jade Warshaw. Next to me is doctor John Deloney. If you want to get involved in the conversation. You can do that. Give us a call. The number is 888-825-5225 and we'll get you in the mix. Hey, if you're selling a house or. Or if you're buying a house, let me tell you a little something. We want you to do that the Ramsey way, all right? When you do it the Ramsey way, it makes home ownership a blessing instead of a burden. And so we've got this Ramsey trusted program, which is really the only way that you're going to be able to find an agent that you can trust to keep you on track with what we teach here at Ramsey so that you can get the best offer on your house or find the best home for you. So what we do is we send you some of the top agents that are in your area. These are agents that we trust. You get to review their stats. You get to interview them. You get to decide ultimately which one that you're going to work with.

And so the Ramsey trusted agents, these are folks with years and years of experience. They're going to help you make wise decisions when it comes to pricing, when it comes to marketing, making, and even choosing the best offer if you're selling a home. So we want you to go to Ramsay solution. I'm sorry. We want you to go to ramsaysolutions.com agent in order to find a free Ramsey trusted real estate agent for you. Again, that's ramsaysolutions.com agent. We'll get the job done. All right, let's go to the phone lines. We've got Justine. She's in Sacramento, California. What's going on, Justine?

Hi. Thanks for taking my call. I have a question about retirement. I am full time working and putting into the state retirement system. My husband retired at 50 and is getting his pension about 80,000, but now is employed in a second career. We just found out in April when we filed our taxes that we make too much money to contribute to Roth IrAs. So my question is, do we go to a traditional IRA, or do we just go to a brokerage account, since he's already receiving his retirement?

You could do a backdoor Roth IRA if you wanted to. You could work with one of our smart mister pros to make that happen. It kind of sounds shifty because you say backdoor, but it's not. It's just basically the idea of you putting the money into a traditional and immediately rolling it over into a Roth IRA. So it'd be nice to work with somebody in order to do that, but I always say work with a smart fester pro, because at this stage, for you, you might be looking into other bridge accounts that you want to be able to access ahead of time, in case, you know what I'm saying, your husband has the pension, but if you want money there, that's aside from retirement, if you decide to retire early. So I would work with a pro for that reason alone. Do you know what I'm saying when I say it like that? Does that make sense for you?

Yes. Yes. Absolutely.

Yeah.

I just didn't know since he was already getting his pension and mine's going to be a guaranteed pension, I hope it's a teacher's pension when the time comes. And so how we continue, because we're, he's 50 and I'm 49, so, or 52 and 49, so we still got a long ways ahead of us. So we still need, you know, to make sure we're comfortable and everything as we move through our second half of our life.

Absolutely. Do you already have, do you have any money set aside and I IRAs or old 401 ks or anything like that?

Yes. We've been doing Roth Ira Iras for years alongside. But this was the first year, I think, between his pension and his new job, the salaries just outpaced what we needed. And so this would be the first year that we cannot contribute to the Roth Ira.

Great problem to have. Hey, well done.

It is.

I'm happy for you guys. Yeah. So, yeah, you can do, like I said, you can do that back, backdoor Roth Ira, but get with someone just to make sure that that's the next step in your, you know, wealth building journey, because like I said, you guys are further along. I'm not sure how much you have. It might be good to do that. It might be good to split it, you know, and do some other things as well. So I would do that. Thanks for the call. I love it. You know, if you're doing really well, you know, and you find that you can retire early, it's nice to have a bridge account that you can get into that you're not going to have any penalty for if you haven't reached 59 and a half yet.

Yeah. And I always want to caution people this, this kind of obsession with, let's just retire. Let's just retire. Let's just retiree. Go towards something. Oh, yeah, don't, don't cross the finish line just to say I quit. Go towards, I'm going to begin to do these next things. I'm going to learn these hobbies. I'm going to travel. I'm going to visit people. Like, have a thing that you're going to do that's going to give you purpose and meaning and a reason to wake up every day. Because doing nothing, man, is not all it's cracked up to be. Psychologically, emotionally, physically. Everything falls off a cliff if you're not working towards something.

Yeah. It's like, social. I don't know. Like, what is it called when you're atrophy? Yeah, it's like. It's like atrophy. What's like, you're not using your brain, you're not using your body. You're not. You're not doing the things you always used to do. Like, that can't be healthy for you. Yeah.

And there was a. There's a movement for a while, like, let's all retire at 2030, whatever. And some of the feedback was, I hung out with my friends on the weekends, and I want to do that all the time. Then I retired. Oh, dude. All my friends work all the time because they still have jobs. And so it's not what you think it's gonna feed. It's not gonna feel like you think it's gonna feel.

Yeah.

And so just be prepared for that. But I always want to encourage people to go towards something.

Yeah.

Even if it's volunteering, serving, whatever it is, go towards a thing. Don't just get to this finish line. Like, I don't have to do it anymore because your body will go, go, cool. Yeah.

I'm like, you have half your life yet left. If you. If you retire at 60 or 59, you have literally half of your life to go. Like, I don't know. I choose to live to 100. So I don't know about the rest.

Of you guys, but I've got some miles on my body. I will not make it that long.

But you don't want to live to 100, John.

Not. There's 0% chance that.

Don't say that. All right, let's go to the phone lines. We've got Josue, who's in Los Angeles, California. What's going on, Josue?

Hi. Thank you all so much for taking my call. I've been trying to get on the call for a week now, so I'm glad you guys answered. I have questions. So I got a potential opportunity for employment, but it is across the country. I'm asking to relocate. They're asking me to relocate over to Louisville, Kentucky, from Los Angeles, and it is a significant pay bump. So my question is, if it's worth doing the job to go and relocate for the money and, you know, potentially giving up a company that has really good culture and, you know, has been such a pivotal organization for me in my development as a leader.

Is it the same type of work?

Yes, it's similar. So it's still managing a team of parking attendants. However, this is going to be more in the hospitality industry rather than the commercial industry.

Is the culture you're moving into a terrible culture?

I am not sure of the culture. I try to make as many connections with people, and I get a lot of mixed, mixed reviews. Some people say that they hate it, that the leadership doesn't support them as much, and other people say that leadership is great and just make sure that you have good relationships with your clients and that you'll be fine. Other people feel me about it.

Are you a leader that's moving into it? Are you moving to a leadership role?

I'm already. I'm currently a leader here at my current company. And I would be. It'd be kind of like a lateral move, just more pay, basically.

How much more pay?

So I'm currently making $30 an hour, roughly. Comes out to 62 per. $62,000 per year. They're offering $85,000 a year with a $5,000 incentive for relocation.

Not to mention, probably a decrease in state income tax, probably a decrease in cost of living.

Fair.

Oh, yeah.

Cost of living is a huge one. Yeah.

Have you been to Kentucky before?

No. So I've only been to Tennessee. I've never been to Kentucky, so I'm not sure what to expect. But I did do a little bit of time in military contracting, so I did move around it, which is, you know, relocating isn't an issue for me. It's just. Are you married? Concern is. Nope.

Dude, I'd hop on a plane and fly out here, shake people's hands.

Yeah.

It's a $500 southwest flight. That definitely be worth it.

Yeah.

And, yes, I moved across the country. Jade moved across the country for an opportunity, a better opportunity for our families. And we had to leave some stuff, and we gained some stuff, but we.

I know I did, and I'm sure you did, too. I dug deep on the culture. I dug deep. I knew it. I was coming from south Florida to Nashville. I'd been to Nashville. I'd lived in Nashville before, so I knew what I was getting into. And so I think for you, I mean, I can tell you off the bat, culturally, it's going to be totally different if you go from California to Kentucky. But if you're up for it, great. You know, it might be worth the money to you. But I agree with John. Get out here, see what it's like. See if you like the folks. See if you like the culture there and spend more than a day, you know, like, try to. Try to spend a couple of days and really get into it.

If I was in your world, you know what I would do? I would come out here and rent a car and go use the service of the team you would technically be leading.

I like that.

I thought about that. But I have to make a decision today whether I'm taking it and putting in my two weeks notice.

Oh, shoot. Well, good luck to you.

Welcome to Kentucky, my man. Welcome to Kentucky.

Yeah, at this point, try it. Listen, you can always go back.

Yes. And you're gonna have to get in line of all the people leaving Los Angeles to move to Nashville or Louisville. So you're gonna have to. There's some traffic dis away, but, yeah, we'll see you soon. Hey, come out to Louisville and then come visit us in Nashville. It's just a hop. Skipping away.

All right, Josue, we'll see you on the flip side. Can't wait to see what you decide. This is the Ramsay show.

Sadeena.

From the Ramsey network. It's the Ramsay show where we talk about your life, your money. We help you build wealth, do work that you love, and create actual amazing relationships. I'm your host, Jade Warshaw. Your other host for the hour is doctor John Deloney. We're going to get into into it. Gonna get involved with questions about your life and your money. So you can call us. The number is 888-825-5225 and we'll give you our best advice. All right, we've got some folks on the line. We've got Bridget from Indianapolis, Indiana. What's going on, Bridget?

Hi. How are you guys?

Great.

Okay, so my question is, I inherited some gold from my grandpa worth about $13,000. And I wasn't sure if I should cash in the gold and invest the money into retirement or just keep the gold and let that grow.

If you're keeping it for, like, a future investment, I would sell it today. If you're keeping it because your grandpa, it was like a cool, sentimental thing. It's like a really nice, awesome thing that is going to be generational and you don't want to sell it, then I would. I would hang on to it.

Okay, got it.

And then let's do this. Take gold away and pretend he left you a. I don't know, watch night. Yeah. 1971, Les Paul deluxe, where he'd put p ninety's in it. Not that I'm saying that's what I want, but I kind of want that. And could that go up in value? Yeah, it could. But it's a cool guitar and his grandpa's guitar, so I might keep that. But if I don't play guitar and I don't really care, I might sell it.

Right.

It's kind of like that.

Okay. So. Okay. So if you're looking for a purely investment standpoint, the selling it and investing it is definitely better. Correct. Okay.

All right.

Thank you so much.

You're welcome. Love the call. Thanks for the call. Yeah, I agree, John. That's very, very good. All right, let's take another one. We got Jessica. She's in Columbus, Ohio. What's going on, Jessica?

Hey, there, guys. How's it going?

Great. How can we help today?

All right, so just a quick little layout of where I'm at. I am divorced, and I am, after the divorce, moved in with my parents due to health issues and then the divorce and everything. So I am currently on disability. Excuse me. And I have a lump sum of money in my account, and I'm trying to decide. I am in baby step three, I believe, because I have no debt or anything like that. I have my emergency fund for six months, and then I have this other money, and I would like to do something to be growing it. I do have it all in a high yield savings account, but I would like to not be in step three forever, but also being on a fixed income with disability. I live, you know, Penny to Penny. So I'm trying to figure out, like, what's the best thing to do with this extra money? Because I don't have retirement. I don't have, like, I can't do a Roth IRa, right? So just trying to figure out how I can, like, set myself up for the future with being on such a tight monthly budget, but while having this money that's just sitting there.

Let me ask two quick questions, and then, Jayden, you hop in. The money. Jessica, how. How. How fresh is this divorce?

About a little more than two years.

Okay, so this is 24 months. What's the nature of your disability?

Like, I'm not able to work at all right now, but it's kind of like. It's like an 18 month thing. Like, we'll revisit. So it's not for sure if I'll be on the disability income, like, long term or temporary?

What's the nature of the disability?

Do I have to open that can of worms?

No, that's fine.

I'd rather not.

It does. It does play into an ability to, like, if you think you're never going to be able to work again and you're going to be living with your parents indefinitely for the rest of your life, that's going to. That's going to be one trajectory. If you're in the middle of.

I will say, like, it's kind of like it'll take a miracle from God, but I hold hope for that. Okay. But I don't see a reason. Not like, living with my parents at this point because I would just be alone anyways. We kind of enjoy being together. But that also being said, like, their finances are not the most super stable, so it makes me, like, extra. Like, I need to have mine as good as possible.

Okay.

Okay. I want to ask another question. I don't want to drill too deeply, but. But it sounds like you and John understand something that maybe I don't understand the nature of your disability. Is it like a physicality or is it more of.

Yeah, no, yeah, it's health.

It's.

Yeah, it's physical health.

Okay. My question and my slight pushback on that is going to be whenever people call on the show and they're lucid and they're energetic, I'm like, there's something you can do. Maybe it's something where you're working from the phone lines. Maybe it's something where you're doing a lot different of a type of work than what you were doing before. So I just want you to keep your mind open for that.

Yeah, yeah. And I have, like, I have tried things, but there's like. Yeah, there's issues that have made it not, and that's why I actually got my. My disability ruled, because there was, like, they even felt confident there really wasn't anything I could stay consistent at, at this time and actually be, like, dependable for.

Yeah. Okay.

That is enough for me to actually, like, make significant funds off of.

Okay, how. Let's talk about the baby steps. So, baby step three, you mentioned that you already had six months of emergency funds. Yes, yes. Okay. So technically, you're on your baby step four. So it's about. That would be investing 15% of your income. So what are you receiving for disability every month? What do you get? It's like 1160, 511, 65.

Yes.

A month.

I'm sorry, what, 1000? Yeah, 1165 a month. Yes, Zachary.

Okay. I gotta push back again. I got pushed back again with. With the disability. You're telling me there's nothing that you would do, that you could do, even on the side, to make more than 1100 bucks a month? I'm just pushing.

No, not at this time. No, not at this time.

But maybe later on down the road.

I mean, I'm hopeful for it.

Okay.

But I'm not there right now.

How did they calculate such a low return?

It's based off of how many years I worked paying into Social Security, to my understanding.

Yeah, that's right. Okay, so you're on, baby. Step four. What's the lump sum that you have, that you're looking to invest?

I have, like 12,000. Like, I have. I mean, I have more than that in my account, but if I subtract all the things, I could have my bucket for my high yield savings.

That's right.

So, like, the bucket that has just, like, here's a chunk of money is 12,000.

So what I would say is keep the six months of expenses in the high yield savings account and anything above and beyond that, if that's $12,000 for now, you could look into just put investing it into a brokerage account and investing it into, you know, great mutual funds. We always say you split them over four types. And if you wanted to work with a smartvestor pro to get you started on that, you 100% could. And again, it's four different types. Growth, growth, growth and income, aggressive growth and international. And you kind of split it equally amongst those. If you're like Jade, that's. That's too crazy. Even if you just threw it in an index fund for now, until you're ready to explore that kind of next step, I'm fine with that. And I don't know what your expenses are, working from home, if there's anything left above that. Yeah, I'm investing it because you don't really have, you know, your baby steps feel a little bit different because your income is so low. Anything you have above, you know, living and whatever obligations you have with your parents. Yeah. Invested into that brokerage account. And that's really going to be what you're doing for now.

If things change, give us a call back and we'll kind of recalibrate with you and see what that means moving forward. But listen, I hope that. I hope that in 18 months, when you guys revisit this, I hope that it's a. It's a better story for you and it allows you to get out there and get moving. That's tough, John. That's really tough. This is the Ramsay show.

Hey, folks, there's a lot of half baked investing advice out there, but here's what you can do to get more confident about this stuff. Check out the Smartvestor program. Smartvestor connects you with local financial advisors who have the heart of a teacher. They'll help you level up your knowledge and build a retirement plan based on your goals, not theirs. Go to ramsaysolutions.com smartvestor to get connected and get more confident about your plan. That's ramseysolutions.com smartvestor.

Ramsey Solutions is a paid, non client promoter of participating pros. Learn more@ramsaysolutions.com smartvestor.

You're listening to the Ramsey show. You know what, John? I have to be honest. I've kind of become a little bit of a nerd when it comes to budgeting. Like, it's like a, it's like a weird game that I like playing. And I love, every month, redoing my every dollar budget. There's, like, the button that you push, and it takes last month's budget and puts it to this month's budget. And then you go in there and you make the tweaks. And I. Every once in a while, my husband gets to it before I do, and I'm like, dang it. Because I just like, I don't know. I like doing that.

It's like, as a nerd. And I'm pleased to announce you've, you far surpassed me. Congratulations.

It's like, you know, like, okay, like, if you're a person who makes lists, and then you love the feeling of being able to check. Put the check next to the list. You're like, jade, I know nothing about this.

Are you the kind of person who does a thing that was on the list, and you write it on the list so you can mark it through 100%.

I want credit. It didn't happen if I didn't write it down.

You should call my friends at better help.

Oh, my goodness. But if you're like that, even if you're not like that, everybody needs a budget, John, I say all the time. Budgets are like toothbrushes. Everyone needs one. Without it, things get ratchet. Let's be honest about that. So the best way to budget is the every dollar budget. It's the best way to make the most of your money. You create it, you stick to it, and that's the plan, right? Every dollar. It's simple. It makes it so simple to plan your spending. You can track your expenses in there, which is the daily habit. Right? It's like brushing your teeth. The daily habit with everydollar is every day you go in there and you track your transactions. It's like a little game. It makes you feel like, I did something I won today. And you get to save for what matters most to you. It's all in one easy to use app. It fits right into your lifestyle, and honestly, it fits right into your pocket because the app is on your phone. Or, of course, you could use the desktop model if that's what you like. But you can keep a pulse on your spending.

You can make progress on your money goals, and you can do all of that with every dollar, let me say. Especially if you're married. If you're married, you need every dollar because that is, it bridges the gap in communication.

It's a nice way to say that. I like to say I can't hide.

No, you can't hide.

All the things I buy automatically show up on my wife's phone. So here we are.

There you go. And we need that. It's transparency at its finest. So download every dollar for free. You can do that in the app store or on Google Play today. I love it. I love it when it rhymes at the end. All right, let's go to Trent, who's in San Diego, California.

Hi. Thank you for taking my call. I really appreciate it.

You bet. How can we help today?

So just a little background here. I. We've had about $138,000 in debt we've paid.

Hey, Trent, do me a favor. Talk directly into your phone, brother.

All right. Can you hear me?

Perfect. Yes.

All right. So we paid about 100 or $52,000 of debt off in the last, basically since February. Looking to try and speed that up a little bit. So my question today is, we have a car that we're upside down on. It's about $14,000 upside down. We owe about 37 on it. We have two other loans, a student loan for about 20,000 and a loan that we took out to put down for a down payment on a house, about 25,000. We have three kids under three. So the car situation has been kind of hard for us. We have one car that's paid off and one that doesn't really suit our needs. It was more something I wanted. And so now we're trying to figure out, do we sell that car? Do we keep it? You know, kind of how. How do we proceed? Because we do want to ultimately we have three boys that are under three, and we want to have. Try again, you know, for potentially a girl.

So we're needing, like, a van or something with a second row of seats. Got you. Okay.

Yeah, yeah. Maybe a suburban or something like that.

Well, we'll get what you can afford. Okay, so here's the thing. I just want to get. I want to clarify myself. So, you said you do have one car that's paid off. What type of vehicle is that?

That's a four runner Toyota forerunner.

Okay, and then. Then you've got this other vehicle that's that you're upside down on. 14,000. What kind of vehicle is that?

It's a Tesla model three.

Ooh.

Trent gets what Trent wants, doesn't he?

Well, you know, it's. I've had a lot of cars. That's kind of a problem. And so now I'm letting my wife be the voice of reason here, and she's. She's fine with me having it, but, you know, it's just, at this time, it doesn't fit three car seats very well.

That's the least of its issues. That's the least of its issues. The biggest issue is how it's causing you to be deeply in debt. So, again, for clarification, for me, you said you had 138,000, but then you said the debt you've paid off. So what is your current debt?

Current debt is 84,000.

Okay, 84.

About 30,000 in the bank right now. That were. I just obviously, that we owe that 14,000. Do we pay that off and then, you know, buy a different vehicle for me to drive? Or do we pay off the smallest debt first and kind of go from there?

No, I think in this case, I would clear that vehicle out, because that's going to. When I think about the debt snowball, the first thing that I'm thinking about is, where can I find money to save to throw at this debt snowball? And so, in this case, we are looking at the cars first to say, is there money saved here? Of course there is, because there's a car payment involved. And since you have cash, this is ideal for you, because you could really take the 14,000 and get right side up on this loan and just clear that car out. You net zero on that, and then you've got 16,000 left in savings. And so let's think about what a reasonable amount of that would be to go towards a car that works for your family, and you can decide what that is. I mean, you've got this four runner over here. I don't know how old it is, you know, how many seats it has. But for right now, I want you purchasing something for your family as it is, not necessarily for what you think your family will be in the future. Either way, if you get something with a third row of seats, you're going to be fine.

But there's nothing that says you have to go out and buy a 2020 vehicle, right?

Yeah. My wife's car is a 2024, and it fits the car seats, but you can't. And it has a third row, but you can't put car seat in that third row. So that's kind of where we're like, she would upgrade. I would take her car or not upgrade, but change her vehicle, but I go away for work from multiple days at a time. So it does make it a little bit more challenging knowing that I want to make sure she has.

When you say she would upgrade, what does that mean? Because we're talking about selling this Tesla and downgrading to something in cash.

I was thinking she would maybe change vehicles down the line and I would take her vehicle if we saved up enough to pay cash for a vehicle that, you know, was bigger, that could fit more, that could tow.

Got it.

But that's assuming you have a fourth kid down the road. She's not pregnant, is she?

Not yet, no. But, you know, it's definitely something that we're within the next year we are looking to do once we have all this.

How much do you make a year, Trent?

230.

Okay, this is going to sound crazy, but you're broke.

Okay.

You have an incredible salary.

Yes.

And you owe $84,000. And you shuffle around depreciating assets, and so you make a quarter of a million dollars. And you have dreams of these. An $80,000 suburban for your four kids. And, dude, I love that dream. It's cool. But I don't think you're grasping the reality that your family right now isn't safe because you owe $84,000. And so until you've at least zeroed out and then you can begin to make some forward progress with your quarter of a million dollar salary. See what I'm saying? Like, in your head, you make this money and this money keeps coming in and keeps coming in. But you wouldn't be calling us if it wasn't also flying out the back door somewhere.

No, I agree. And that's why I'm here. I definitely, like I said, I see the need to sell the vehicle and I bicycle to work if it made sense. But it's just one of those things that right now, I've. We have that cash, and that's where I'm looking to decide what makes sense to buy. Do I still find something that I can fit? Car seats that I can drive around my kids in, or do I buy something? That's.

How often do you drive them around?

Actually, quite a lot. I mean, I'll get into my wife's vehicle and drive them, but it's, you know, I'll take them hiking my days off because unfortunately, my schedule allows that, you know, when I'm at work, I'm at work and I'm home, I. I get multiple days home in a row with them.

That's good. That's cool.

So what you do next is going to determine how quickly you want to get out of debt and how quickly you want to get right side up on this situation. You might decide, hey, I'm going to buy a beater. Like a complete $8,000 beater. I'm going to drive that. I'm going to put my wife in the forerunner because it's a little bit better. And that gets you closer to paying off this, the student loan you have. Then you turn around, you pay off that personal loan you had, and then in the end, you're debt free. And trust me, you'll be able to upgrade car quickly with a $230,000 income and no debt.

I know you work hard for your.

Money, and the key to keeping more of it in your pocket is by making a plan for your spending with a budget. And everydollar is the budgeting app that I use personally, because it's perfect for looking every dollar you make in its little president face and telling it exactly where you want it to go. Just like you told that guy in traffic, exactly where you wanted him to go. And even better, everydollar walks you through the entire budgeting journey. So you always know your next right step. Download everydollar for free in the app store or Google Play today. Hey, you're listening to the Ramsey show. If you want to give us a call, an unfiltered call about your life and your money, we will take it. The number is 8888-2522 by the way, my name is Jade. Next to me is Doctor John Deloney, and we're your host today. So we are the ones who will give our advice. If you wanted George Camel's advice or Rachel Cruz's advice, you should have called on a different day. Because sometimes they host or Ken Coleman or Dave Ramsey. So there you have it. All right, let's go to the phone lines.

We've got Andy in Portland, Oregon. What's going on, Andy?

Hey, guys.

Oh, I'm so excited you guys took my phone call today. So I am doing the baby steps with my wife. We just started like a month ago, and I've been super gung ho about it and my wife annoyed with me already. I'm just going to roll through the debts. So we have $10,600 on a car loan. We've got $7,700 on a credit card, and we have $4,600 in student loan debt that we have left to pay off. I have, in a savings account, $12,000 in cash.

Okay.

I want to take the $12,000 and pay off the car because that will free up a bunch of cash for us to just hammer out the rest of the little debt. And my wife does not want me to spend that money.

She's scared. Right? Yeah.

What plan number is this? Meaning?

What's that?

What? What? I'm trying to think of the right way to say this. What, what plan? Are you a guy that's always got, like, an idea?

Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

And so she's been with you on a bunch of different of your ideas?

Yes.

And so this is just so for you, maybe the light bulb has finally come on and you see a path to freedom and you're gung ho. And she sees this as just another one of, you know, one of Andy's. One of Andy's things. And she is unwilling to give up the most stable thing in her life, which is twelve grand in a checking account.

Yeah. Yeah.

I don't blame her. And so how do you create sturdiness and stability in this relationship with her?

That's a great question.

And he's like, I wasn't ready for that. I thought you were going to tell me how to pay these debts off.

Here's. Here's what I'm going to tell you. I know I pass it over to Jade, but here's what I would tell you exactly as I just rolled it out to you. She needs to hear you say that. And this is the word that every man I know hates to say out loud, but this is the only path towards healing this type of disconnection. And that's you being vulnerable. And that looks like you taking her out for. For dinner or taking her out for breakfast, or in your guys case, because y'all are broke, going out for a walk and you stopping at a park bench and sitting down and looking across the bench and saying, I've taken you on a bunch of wild goose chases, trying to find my. Trying to hack my way to safety and security. And I'm sorry because I've given you an unstable partner in this adventure called life. I really want to do my part to help us be safe and be free. And I'm not ever going to wild goose chase you again. And. But here's the path forward and here's the book, and here's the way we're going to navigate this.

And I'd love for you to join me here. I'm scared about how I've led this family, and I'm scared about what comes next. If we keep owing all this money, will you join me? And then at that point, maybe she might say, hey, what did you do with Andy, my husband? And she may say, I still don't feel comfortable with it, but at least she sees you recognizing what she now has been experiencing. Can you do that?

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay.

And then when the time is right, after you've done what doctor John just said, then you let her listen to this call and she hears us say, yeah, you take the 12,000 and you take ten of it, and you pay off the car and you keep, you know, the 1000 aside and you throw the other thousand at the student loan and you knock it out using your income. And you roll through this really quickly and you're going to have more peace than you've ever had before, because not only are you going to have this debt gone, but you freed up all these monthly payments and now you can save more money than you've ever had. Saved six months of expenses, and it just sits in a high yield savings account, just sitting there, making you feel all warm and cozy on the inside. Right? And then you move on to baby step four, where you're investing 15% of your income. And so that's how this works. Um. You really came for John's answer, not mine. I think you knew the answer to mine, so.

But here's the big question. Will you do this?

Oh, absolutely. Yeah? Yeah.

You know your wife better than Jade, and I do. What is she going to say if you sit down and say that to her?

Um, honestly, she'll probably cry.

Yeah.

Oh, that's crazy.

Yeah. I want you to start thinking in terms of stability or a better way to say, this is, let's start solving for peace. Let's don't solve for the get rich. Let's don't solve for the scam. Let's don't solve for the. Oh, yeah. Then we can. Let's solve for peace. You'll be countercultural and bananas in today's world. I'm a solve for peace in my house. And there's gonna be some tension because once you put. Once you get that, that, that car paid off and your checking account, your savings account has $1,000 in ithemenous, you're going to sleep a little bit shallower. And Jade and I are both going to tell you, good, because you should be nervous and scared, and that's going to encourage you to go get some more money, not buy stupid stuff, cut your grocery bill to the bare bones. And you're going to look up in six months, and you all are going to owe nobody anything. And you're going to start to exhale for the first time. And you didn't even know how shallow your breathing was. Is that fair?

Yeah.

I want that for your home, brother.

Thank you very much.

All right, hang on the line. Here's what we're going to do. I'm going to give you a peace offering that you can slide across the table all cool like. Okay. I'm going to give you a copy of building a non anxious life. And I want you all to use that as a roadmap in your house. Okay?

That'd be awesome. Thank you.

Well, hold on. I'm not done. I'm also going to give you every dollar, the best budgeting app on planet Earth. I'm going to give you a year subscription, and I'm going to upgrade it for you. Jade's gonna pay for it. I'm not going to, but Jade will. And it's gonna be a way to connect to your bank so that you can look her in the eye and say, I'm not gonna make a bunch of crazy purchases anymore. When I buy something, it's gonna be because we budgeted for it and we planned it. And both of us are gonna get notified when this happens. And look at her and say, I'm all in. I'm asking you, will you be all in? Okay.

Okay.

Cool.

That's awesome.

Here's what those things are going to cost you. You got to call us back when you're debt free in about six months. Fair deal?

Absolutely.

Done. All right, cool. Stay on the line, brother.

Ooh, what a call. Thank you for that call. You know, John, I think that. I think that what he's facing is what a lot of couples face, which is that feeling of you, you finally found something that you think is going to be the breakthrough moment. And with, with this plan, it is a watershed moment. Right? But you have this wake of all the other things you've done and tried and got bought in for buy in from, from your spouse that didn't go so well. And so they're seeing a trail of, like, failed mishaps. And you're like, no, this is the one. This is the one. Like, I think a lot of people needed to hear, like, how do I navigate that conversation? Because this is the sure thing, right? It's like, I don't know.

That's just such a, this plan works 100% of the time.

It works 100% of the time.

And Avon or Tupperware or essential oil, like, whatever, all the other, like, I got, hey, there's what we're gonna do.

I'm gonna do this quick star.

Right? And so they just don't have that kind of track record, so.

But you have to do it. You have to undo the damage of all that before you can slide this over and say, hey, here's the real one.

And this type of healing will take time because I'm confident that his wife is going to say, the moment we pay this car off, I'm going to walk through and you're going to be sitting on your laptop looking at cars. I know that's what's going to happen because you talked me into a truck one time. You talked me into the new Tesla then another time. And. And so I think it's a matter of saying, okay, here's how I'm going to change. I'm going to change the way I'm living inside this marriage. Will you join me? And that's a control out. Delete.

Ooh, it's a big one. But then, now the onus is on him to really show a different person going forward. And I have different habits. We're accountable for our habits. So I'm excited for them. I can't wait for them to call in and see how it goes with them. This is the Ramsay show. You're listening to the Ramsay show, our scripture in quote of the day. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move. You always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. That's one corinthians 1558. Then we got Sandra Day O'Connor, who said this, do your best. You do the best you can in every task of no matter how unimportant it may seem at the time. No one learns more about a problem than the person at the bottom.

Wow.

Love it. Good stuff. All right, let's go to the phone lines. We've got Ronnie in Shreveport, Louisiana. Louisiana.

Yeah. Thank you for taking my call. I have about four different collections that are rather huge, large. And I have a problem that my children don't really care too much about them. So I didn't know how the best way, maybe, if I wanted to get rid of them. I don't need the money, but I have a coin collection.

Okay.

I have a depression glass collection. I have an extensive record collection, vinyl. And I have a collectible card game collection.

Okay, so depression glass, man.

Yeah, I want to know that too.

I think James Charles drinks from a cup like that a lot. What is that?

It's the colored glass from the twenties and thirties that were made. The first mass produced type.

Glass is like that green color, green.

Pink, amber, cobalt blue, amber, you know, all kind of. There's alien glass which is same as depression glass made during the depression era. Basically made during the twenties and the thirties.

What's your.

What's your card collections? You into baseball cards?

No, it's not baseball cards. It's. You've heard of the game magic the gathering?

Oh, Ronnie, it's not just a game.

You collect. Wait a minute, I didn't. I don't think I realized that you could collect lots of. It's like Pokemon, sort of, except it's.

The very first game to come out like that. And I have an extensive collection of all the early stuff, which is worth a lot.

When you say worth a lot, what do you mean?

I have one car that's worth a hundred thousand dollars.

Whoa. So you need to, like, consign this. Like you need to go on. Do you watch that show on Netflix? Golden auctions?

I never really looked at that.

Listen, I would get online today.

Why don't your kids watch it? I don't know what magic the gathering is. It sounds intense, but why don't your kids want 1993?

It's a collectible card game. I have not only just the cards, you collect the cards and you play a game with it. And so the. I have all the early first printing of stuff, and I have the. The first about six couple expansion centers just still out now. They're still producing cards, very popular around the world.

So why haven't you sold them? I mean.

Well, I haven't sold them because I don't really need the money to sell them. So I don't. I just want to know maybe if you know, how do you. How do you get rid of something like that? At first, I thought, well, I can just go sell them at a cart shop. But now a car shop can't even buy what I have because I got unopened boxes that are worth $10,000.

Have you gotten them rated, like, professionally?

No, they're not graded, but I know how to grade them and everything. Because I've been doing this for a while.

I would. I'd start walking down that path if you. If, you know, you've got.

Is the car to have this worth a lot is part of a whole set.

Yeah.

And the set is worth $300,000 with car.

But you keep telling us how much it's worth. Who's telling you how much it's worth?

He's got it.

That's just.

That's just me going online, looking at what they sell it for. Now get that much for.

But who's selling it?

Different. Different car shops around the country, like drill and toad and Alphabet unlimited.

But, I mean, that means they're buying it, right?

They're buying it and they're selling it. Yes, but.

So I would start there.

Okay.

Or look into these auctions. Look into all sorts of things that you could do and.

Open boxes.

Yeah, we understand that, dude. We understand that. What we're saying is take the next step to selling them, which is you vetting out different companies, whether they're just people selling them, you know, and they're just offering you top dollar, or you put it on an auction block and see what you can get for it. Like, really look into this because there's a lot of money to be made there. I don't know. I'll be honest. I don't know a whole lot about the depression glass. I don't know. Your record collection could be worth a lot. It could be garbage. We really don't know. But until you get it out there.

It'S probably where I got about 8000 albums.

Right. But until you get 80,000, until you get it out there and somebody says, I will give you this for it, we really don't know. So that's the next step.

And let me. Let me tell you this, Ronnie, and this is hard to hear. Okay. I've sat with a few older folks with things in their home that they, in their head, had numbers attached to.

Mm hmm.

And that was. They were. They were literally drowning in stuff, and I. And I was trying to help them go through their things. One person was able to just say, the piece is not worth this. And I'm calling an imaginary because you don't have a check in your hand, right? So until you're holding money, it's not real money. But they finally were saying, I want peace in my home. And I left one other elderly person's house. It was heartbreaking. I mean, literally unable to move because of how much the potential this stuff was worth. And I knew it wasn't worth what they were saying was in their mind, but I just couldn't have that. They wouldn't hear it. And so I think you have to ask yourself, if you don't need the money and you like having these collections. I can hear your dislike, your voice as you're describing this stuff to me and jade. You like having things that in your mind are worth thousands and thousands of dollars, then just keep them. Your kids will figure out what to do with them when you're gone, if you want to sell them.

And that's actually the man, actually, the magic cards is what they probably interested in the most.

Right?

Cool.

Now, my, I mean, I have a financial advisor that's saying, might be ought to sell some of this stuff just to, to get the money and invest it and stuff like that from.

I don't think you want to sell it. You know, I think he wants to increase his portfolio percentage. Take. Do you want to sell it?

I don't want to sell it right now. No.

Okay, then don't sell it.

Yes.

Then don't sell it. Because I can tell right now you don't want to sell it. And the reason I know that is you have this imaginary, I mean, this. Imagine this incredible thing.

I'm realistic to know that. Whatever, like a hundred thousand dollar card, I could probably get 50 for it.

Okay. But I'm saying you got the Internet. If you want to sell this, you can.

Yeah. You're going to get like half of anything that you have as a collection now.

Okay.

The glass, I can. I know dealers that might can, you know, buy the glass.

But. But here's what I'm saying. You don't want to sell them. And so that's fine. You don't need the money. You don't want to sell them. That's cool. And again, I know you don't want to sell them because you haven't sold them yet.

That's true.

So when you want to sell them, you got the Internet. You can pick up the Internet and you can figure out who to sell the stuff to if you need the money or if you just want to start offloading these things because you want to give your kids cash instead of these things. But these things still bring you joy. Keep these things.

Yeah, I mean, I felt like we were just chasing our tail in that call because it just kept going back to the fact that he has it. Like, I'm glad that you have it. And listen, if you have steely dance pretzel logic, I'll buy that off because that's hard to find. You know what I'm saying? So anyway, yeah, I'm with John Jay.

You're officially on friendship probation for being a steely Dan fan. What? Jade, James, Charles, you, too. What?

Hold on.

I'm still bitter.

Tell me there's something wrong with Donald Fagan. I don't.

I'm just still bitter about the heavy metal win over Metallica that one time. Just because he's not a real musician.

Jay, don't worry about it. Oh, my God. I know, right? I'm not gonna worry about. I'm gonna let this roll off. I'm gonna act like you never said that. John, Ronnie J.

And I will split them up. We'll take care of the records for you.

Yeah, that's right. We'll take care of that. Oh, my goodness. That's a good call. Thank you for the call. Ronnie, it is hard to part with things that you've had. I don't know, like, there. There's a reason that people collect things. And a lot of times it doesn't start with financial gain. It starts with a feeling it gives them or, like, it make. It's nostalgic. It makes them think of a time. I don't know. So it's hard to part with that.

But I think it's important. Here's two important call outs. Number one, if somebody's leaning on you to start selling it, whether it's your financial advisor or your kids, they want to. They want a piece of the action, right? You have realized, or if you're broke and you people around you like, hey, you got to sell some of this stuff to pay your bills, then there's going to come that moment.

Yeah.

But also there's going to come a moment when you collect whatever is you collect in your 65, you're 75, and you realize, I can't take this with me. Right? And so then you got to ask yourself, what am I going to do with this? Am I going to be charitable with it? Am I going to sell it and give the cash to my kids or give the cash to a local organization or whatever? But at some point, man, it's gonna sound awful at some point. You're no longer here.

That's right.

None of us get out of this thing alive, and none of us can take our, our magic cards with us, right? Or in James is quasi folk music with him or whatever Steely Dan does.

Well, I'm gonna act like you're not saying the things that you're saying right now about Steely Dan.

Actually, I'm not. I don't know enough about Steely Dan.

I want the nation to take to the comments right now and settle this for us once and for all. One of the greatest bands duos of all time, Walter Becker, America.

This is the first time I've said this on the show, but that's not great advice you just heard.

America will decide. This is the Ramsay show.

Hey, folks. Dave here. You want to hear even more life changing content from Ramsey? Download the Ramsey Network app so you can catch all your favorite shows all in one place, like the Ramsey show, smart money, happy hour, and the doctor John Deloney show. You'll get real talk about life, relationships, money, and your career. Plus, the app lets you browse by topic, like debt, business, or selling your home. Get the content you want whenever and wherever you want to listen. Download the Ramsey Network app today.