Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions. It's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual Amazing Relationships. Jade Walsh, best-selling author. Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Open phones as we talk about you right in front of you. The phone number is 888-825-5225. The call is free Some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. Tyler is with us in Topeka, Kansas. Hey, Tyler, welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. Hi, Jade. Thanks for taking my call.

Sure. What's up?

My wife and I, along with our two boys, are ready to purchase a home financially. Emotionally, we're both at different places and having a hard time coming to an agreement on what to spend and even whether now is the right time.

Okay. What's the problem? What do you want to do versus what she wants to do?

We both want to move into a home, but my wife really enjoys the security of having a large amount of money in the bank.

Okay. What's it going to cost you? What are you looking to spend? How much do you have saved? Tell me more.

We've got up to $80,000 for a down payment buying probably no more than a $300,000 home.

Okay. Is that $80,000 just the down payment, or do you have more money that you have set aside for your 3-6 months?

Yes.

What's yes mean? Which is you have an emergency fund in addition to the $80,000? That's correct. Okay, cool. What's your household income?

140 to 160, depending on commissions and bonuses.

Okay. There's no reason to not buy. I don't understand. No hesitation whatsoever. This is the time to do it yesterday. You all go find your house. Every guideline you gave me fits and makes good common sense. It fits everything we're talking about. The only trade-off is she wants to keep $80,000 in the bank and watch it go down in value while the house goes up in value. You're trading a $300,000 house for what is now a $250,000 house because in 20 minutes, that $250,000 is going to be $300, while you sit around and watch your cash.

Okay.

Yeah, this is not the time to wait. Because you understand what I'm saying? The 80 is still going to be 80 a year from now. The 300 is going to be 350 a year from now.

Okay, I got you.

Then it's going to be 400, and your 80 is still going to be 80.

You probably need to sit down and explain that with the right attitude. Not my tone of voice, but Jade or Rachel's tone of voice.

I don't know about mine.

Maybe Rachel's.

Yeah, Rachel's always the friendly one. She's a nice personality. It takes great joy in that. But anyway, I think I would start with some of that. I understand how you feel, but 10 years from today, waiting is not going to be our best plan. Would you agree? Say something along those lines and say, 10 years from today, the house that we can buy for 300, we won't be able to buy anymore, and the 80 will not have gone up. The longer we wait, Ramsey personalities Realities, plus Stephen Curtis Chapman, plus Monique Shohan from the Food channel, plus Dina Carter, fabulous country music star. Remember Stralbury Wine? Oh, man, what a great song. Anyway, and just a lot of folks on the crews with us that are unbelievable talent, and you're going to have an absolute blast. We're going to be with you the entire week. It's a seven-day, very high-end cruise.It's not at one of the cheapies. This is not Walmart on the Sees. This is Holland America, the good stuff.I vouch for that.Yeah, I've been in ways we would never think otherwise. When all gets to be too much, think about contacting better help. Betterhelp is 100% online therapy staffed with licensed therapists. It's convenient, flexible, and suited to fit your schedule. By the way, therapy isn't just for those who've experienced major trauma. It's for all of us who are ready to get out of the comparison spin cycle and find our own peace and joy in the life we're creating. Stop comparing and start focusing with Betterhelp. Visit betterhelp. Com/deloney today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P.Com/delonie.Jade Walshaw, Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. Sam's in Birmingham. Hi, Sam. How are you?I'm doing good, Dave.How are you all? Better than I deserve. What's up?I'm going into my third year of law school this next year, and I financed law school through student loans. Now my grandmother, who has a lot of money in checking account, she is offered to pay my student loans through our loan servicer so that I can pay her back without interest. I'm just wondering if… Because I've heard you go against inter-family loans and saying that that might rub the relationship, and I don't want to do that with my grandmother. I was just wondering if I should tell her that that's a good thing to do or if just taking a gift, maybe less than the full amount of the loans. I just am wondering how to navigate that.Yeah. Wow. How wealthy is your grandmother?She's very wealthy.What's very wealthy? I don't know what that means. Is she worth $10 million or $1 million or $500,000? What's very wealthy?I would say 2 Every million.Okay. How many grandkids does she have?She, including my mom, she has four.Kids or grandkids?Grandkids, I think maybe five or six.You don't know how many cousins you have?Well, some of them zero, then obviously she cannot advance you against your inheritance because the answer is zero. Yes, sir. If it's all coming to your mom and her brothers and sisters, and they're not leaving any to the grandkids directly, which is not that unusual, by the way, then you don't have an inheritance out of this. Or if your mom wanted to agree to accept the amount that your grandmother gives you less as an advance on her inheritance, and it go through to you now, that's okay. If you guys, the three of you, want to talk that out, you and granny and mom, okay? I'm fine with that. If you don't want to talk about it, don't do it. But in no circumstances are we going to do alone. If I'm you.Who's having these conversations? Is it you and your grandmother Are you working directly or are you finding out about this by way of your mom or whoever? How does the conversation look?It started with a phone call with my grandmother and my mom on the line. I told my mother and grandmother that she probably needs to talk to her, a state planning attorney, and my grandmother's like, Well, I can go down to the bank and get the money right now.I'm like, Well- You can, but you also get screwed by gift tax. Your advice was correct.Yeah, I wanted to see what the relationship was because it does feel presumptuous in many ways to be like, Hey, just give me my inheritance in advance. I could see that feeling awkward.No, he didn't bring it up, though.Yeah, he didn't bring it up.I'd say, Granny, I'm not comfortable doing a loan. If you and mom want to talk about a way that this is an advance on some of the estate plan and either mom's share or my share or however it works is reduced by the amount you want to give me to reduce the student loans, I can talk about that as a gift, and we'll put it on the student loans, but I don't want to be in debt to you, and I'll just work it out. But thank you so much for the kind offer. I honor you. I appreciate that. I know you've got plenty of money. But the idea of me having to pay my grandmother payments makes me ill, and I would never want to do that because I love you too much. That's how it sounds. Does that make sense?Yes, sir. That's where my head was at on it. Thank you all very much. Yeah.Thank you for calling in, man. I appreciate it. Family does this stuff. Mom and dad are going to loan the grown kids money to buy a better house so their grandkids have a better place to live. But we'll do it at 4% interest because it's going rate is six, and I can't make that down at the money market anyway. You just pay me what I was going to make on the money market. I've heard that story, I don't know, a bazillion times. Sometimes it all works out, but usually at least one or two people in the equation. Here's what I discovered, okay? When we went broke, Sharon's dad, who is one of the nicest men. He may be a saint. He's one of the nicest men I've ever met, and just a kind, good man. We went broke, and he loaned us some money to keep our house, to bring the house up current. When we filed bankruptcy, we could keep the house. I never thought anything about it because I'd borrowed it up to my eyeballs and just went bankrupt. Hello. I mean, you know. That's where I came up with the saying, Thanksgiving dinner tastes different when you eat with your master.Don't I know it? Because here's the thing.It bothered him not at all. He never thought a thing about it. He's the nicest guy. It didn't bother him a bit, but he was the master. It bothered his daughter, my wife, not at all. Because as far as she was concerned, Daddy was helping, and that's what daddies do. Not a big deal. It about killed me.You had sweaty armpits.Yeah. That's how I lost my hair right there. I'm just saying. He never said an unkind or shaming thing to me once, never one time. And yet I carried all of this. It just ate at me in silence. It was after I paid it off. Years later, when I'm learning this borrower to the lender thing. I'm learning this. I'm going, Well, that's what happened. I changed my relationship with my father-in-law, who I love dearly, to master. Even if your master, when you're a slave, is a kind master, you are still a slave.That's so true, Dave. We did the same thing. We were upside down on a Hummer, of all things. Oh, God. We knew- That's almost as bad as my Jaguar. I know. It's bad.My Jaguar was the one. That's the same stuff.But bad credit, couldn't get a loan for the difference. Our mother-in-law, who I would agree, one of the most generous people I know, lent us the money. I couldn't pay it off fast enough because it just… From their point of view, it's generosity and it's kindness, and they uphold all of that.Well, they hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. That's where the old-time preacher would say, Leave and cleave. You leave your father and mother and you cleave, an old English term that became part of the biblical lingo because of King James version of the Bible. But you leave your parents and cling to your spouse. Your husband has not done that. You have a marriage problem. I agree. He's still married to his daddy.100%. Whether they're intending to use him or not, it's not a fair situation. Just reading what you've wrote, there's nothing fair here. If he's doing a job and it's above and beyond what other workers are being paid for the job that they're doing, yeah, that's unfair. Now, there is something to be said for- But we can't even have that discussion because he won't talk to her.He listens to Daddy. Yeah.But I mean, back when I used to work in the cruise business, they would say, I signed my contract, you signed yours, which was basically a saying of, Hey, Don't complain to me now that this is not fair because you knew what you were getting into when you signed it. There's part of it. I'm like, the more that he continues to sign that contract, he's saying, Yes, I agree with this.The problem is not your father-in-law. The problem is your husband.Yeah, because he's agreeing.He needs to stop. What's wrong with this? And he's not listening to his wife. Now, if we stop there and say, Okay, I'm going to quit doing that. I'm going to listen to my wife, and my wife says this is unfair. Now we can talk about, Oh, is it unfair or not? Well, here's some good rules for family Family business, and I coach a lot of family businesses. Got a world famous podcast called Entree Leadership, where I coach family businesses every single week. Millions and tens of thousands of them are being coached by us right now by Ramsey. We deal with them All the time. Here's the guideline. It's very simple. You do not invest money in a business you do not own. I don't care who owns it or what the promise was, period. If I walked up off the street and said, Hey, Mr. Employee, would you put money into my business? Well, they'd have to be brain damaged to do that. The only time you'd be brain damaged enough to do that would be your own stupid family. No, we're not doing it with a stupid family either. No, number one. Number two, when you work in any business, you're only worth what the marketplace says that position is worth.You're not worth any more because you're the golden child or any less because you're family. We get to work our family for free. That's why we had a lot of kids. No, that's not the plan. This is not what we're doing. And so, Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, makes exactly Exactly the same percentage on royalties on books, exactly the same percentage on speaking gigs that Jade sitting beside me makes. Rachel Cruz makes the same as John Deloney. Now, they don't have the same income, but they have the same percentage of their deal. Now, one of them may sell more books or less books. One of them may have more speaking or whatever, right? But that's not the point. The point is they're on the same schedule, and she gets paid for that, not because she's my daughter. She doesn't get paid less because my daughter either. That's a simple formula that you should go with. The third formula with family business is, if you say you're going to turn over a business to a family member, you need to never say that unless you say when. Someday it'll all be yours. When you're 76 and I'm 104, what crap is that?That vague stuff. Nobody knows what you're talking about. When you say to a 30-year-old, someday it'll all be yours, he thinks next week, and you think a decade from now. You need to say, not someday. You need to You need to work hard, someday it'll all be yours. Oh, brother, how about I don't want to be in the landscaping business with you? There's a whole new idea, too. I'd rather start my own thing. I could make three times as much money as you're paying me. All that can come up only after we can have some basic family business principles in place for operating a family business and treating each other with equity and with dignity and with high communication levels. Then you don't get to play the role of resentful wife either. You have to play the role of supportive wife then. That's right. If your husband wants to do this, he likes working with his dad, and he's being treated fairly, and I I don't think you're saying you just don't like these people, but you're starting to not like them because they're standing between you and your husband, and that's a fair complaint right there.Yeah, she said, I'm stuck in the middle.How do you get stuck in the middle? You can't get stuck in the middle of one.Thank you. I'm like, there's a party there that should not be there. A party of one.I think you and your husband need to sit down and discuss who's in charge here of your life, you and him or his daddy. Then once we decide that, then we can have a discussion about who gets paid what and if we want to take this business over and under what circumstances. But this is where it is.Those are tough conversations. Yeah, it is. Because when you're in it, if it's your family, sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees. But then if you're the in-law, it's like you can't say. You know what I mean? There's certain things that as the in-law, it's like you can't say to your family in-law, right? Because it just creates- She can't talk to them at all.No, she can't. She's not got any footing to do it at all. Plus, she's pissed off. Yeah, she is. So it's not going to go well.If you write a letter to a radio show, you're pissed. All right.Just put it in that bucket right there. I don't care how much language. I really like them you put in there. You wrote a letter to a podcast. I'm just saying that's what… Honey, you got a marriage problem, and You need to stop being angry with your father-in-law. He's not the problem. Your husband's the problem. The two of you being on the same page and him putting you and him as a family unit ahead of everything else starts the conversation. That's where it is. Leave and cleave. It's an interesting study. Look it up. The number of people who never leave their mother, never leave their father after they're married, and the damage that does to their marriage relationship, it's everywhere.Yeah, 100%.It's hard to do it when you live in the basement. Oh, gosh.You took it, too. You always take it to the next level.Always go there, too. Just helping you with this.Oh, boy. Yeah, that's important.Open phones at 888-825-5225. Jade, you know why we will always have a compelling and entertaining show? Because human beings are going to do stupid stuff. We human beings When we do stupid stuff, me and you included, we're just downright entertaining.Yeah, 100% every time.This whole building wealth thing, the math is sixth grade. It's the stupid humans that mess it up. It doesn't require any thought. I mean, there's not that much to it. Live on less than you make. We'd be out of business.The funny thing is it's the same stuff over and over, and we've all done it.But it's relational. Yeah. I was reading a thing the other day. It matters more in terms of wealth building. It matters more who you marry than where you went to school.All day. I believe that all day. So important.In that case in point right there. This is The Ramsey Show. All right, let's cut to the chase. It's easy to get discouraged about crazy house prices and interest rates. But when you have the right real estate agent to help you buy and sell the right way, you'll have confidence to make smart decisions. Ramsey trusted agents aren't just experts who guide you through buying or selling. They're someone you can trust to have your back from the first call to closing day. Find a Ramsey trusted agent near you at ramseysolutions. Com/agent. Ramsey solutions. Com/agent. Thanks for joining us, America. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Jade Warshaw. Ramsey personality is my co-host. The best way to make the most of your money is by creating and sticking to a plan, to be intentional. A plan in the money world is called a budget. Just tell your money what to do instead of wondering where it went. Every dollar makes it simple to plan your spending. It is the world's best, most robust That's what you do when you're broke. You go get a four-pack of Angel Soft. You get the smallest- That's good.That's what I'm functioning. I'm functioning in broke Dave. Broke Dave, he didn't make His income was not what our coffee budget is. It's the old man. That's broke Dave. But, Dave, you're okay. Jay, you're okay. You can afford the car. Buy the car, pay cash for it, enjoy it. Happy wife, happy life. You know the federal That's federal law. Wife gets the good car. That's federal law. That's right. Okay. Zachary is in Indianapolis. Hey, Zachary, what's up?Dave, Jade. Nice to talk to you guys. How are you?Better than we deserve. How can we help?What I've got going on, This year, I've paid almost just under $20,000 off in debt, including just credit cards, and I've already cut my truck loan in half. Good for you. I've got $14,000 left, and I basically stay with my girlfriend pretty much every night. I have an apartment. She has a house that will be them ELPs, Endorsed Local Providers. They live there in your neighborhood, but they're the best of the best in your area, and they have become Ramsey Trusted Agents. Be sure and check them out. If you want to find out who is Ramsey Trusted in your area, you can do that for free at ramseysolutions. Com/agent. Then you talk to them and you interview them and see if you find the same thing that we found when we talked to them and we interviewed them and we coached them because we do all of those things. Yeah. Marie is with us. Marie is in Philadelphia. Hi, Marie. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.Hi. Thanks for taking my call.Sure. What's up?I'm currently living in hotels. I can't seem to find an apartment. I've been looking for a roommate. What should I do?You can't seem to find an apartment. Why?My credit score is abysmal. Okay.Are you working?Yes.What do you make?I take in 87 a year before taxes.Eighty-seven thousand dollars a year?Yes.Good for you. What Who are you?I'm an occupational therapist.How'd you end up homeless?Well, I moved from state to state for love and a relationship, and That did not work out. My only real option at the time was to find a hotel for temporary housing, and I really didn't have anything saved up. I wasn't prepared.Do you have any money now?No, because I'm basically spending $2,200 a month just to keep a roof over my head.But you make 87,000.Yeah.You must have a lot of debt payments. Where else is your money going?Yeah. I have a car lease, and I have my student loan debt.How much are the student loans? Tell me the amounts, if you don't mind.Yeah, I think they're probably at 275 right now in student loan debt.Two hundred and seven-five thousand dollars?Yes.Okay. What else?And then car insurance, my phone, and food. That's really what I've got money for.Tell me about the car lease.It ends next month.Okay, good.That's about $340 a month. I'm not even sure if I'm going to be able to get a car by the time that's over.So Dave asked you the question, and it was a vague answer. I want to know financially what put you here because you've got the 275 in student loans. How much is that for you per month with your income?It's about $1,000 a month.Okay.Are you current?No.Have you been paying it?No.Are they federal?Part of them are federal and part of them are private.Okay.Marie, I'm struggling, okay? You've not paid that. You paid a $300 payment, you make 87,000, and you paid a hotel bill. That's all you've done. Where is all your money going, kiddo?It is going to eating out. I only have a microwave here, so I can't really cook traditional meals. I'm eating out and just trying to survive with food and drink. It goes my phone bill, my car- Eighty-four thousand is $7,000 a month.Minus taxes, you should be getting $5,000 a month coming home.I take home $2,200 every two weeks because I put in about $300 every paycheck into my 401k.Well, I I reckon you need to stop that. Okay, let's stop your 401k, and that gets you to 4,800 then take home pay, which is pretty close to what I'm talking about. Then you can start to Even with eating out and even with a hotel bill, you can still stack some cash. I can't tell what's going on in the numbers, but numbers generally talk to me because I've done this a long time. I think what I'm hearing is a highly educated, very intelligent lady whose heart got broken. Let me take that further, got crushed, and you've been in a spiral emotionally since, and everything's out of control.Yeah.Is that right?Yes.Okay. All right. Because the numbers aren't telling me anything else because you're too smart, you're too intellectually bright to have to be in this situation if you were functioning at a normal level. Right now, you're functioning with a broken heart, and it's clouding everything. You're spending all of your calories and your emotional energy going over and over and over this and feeling ashamed for having chased somebody that dumped you and feeling bad that the guy wasn't worth your trouble and all the different things or whatever it is we do when we're in your situation, and normal humans do it. You're not a bad person, you're not a weak person. You're just been stomped on and you're hurting, and it causes your math to get screwed up. Does that make sense?Yeah.Okay. Because here's what I hear. You've got plenty of money to go rent an apartment. Lots of places will rent somebody with bad credit an apartment. You just put up a good deposit, and you get out of 2,200 a month, and you get straightened out. Where did you move from to move to Philadelphia?I moved from Voorheath.Where's that?In New Jersey.Okay. Just a few hours away. Do you have family back there?My mom is further south in Jersey, down by the shore. My dad is in South Carolina.How's your relationship with either one of them?Awful. We don't talk. We're not speaking.All right. Here's what I want you to do. Jade and I are going to help you, all right? We've got Ramsey Preferred coaches that we have trained to coach people on finances. Okay? I'm going to pay for you to have one for free as my gift.Thank you.Because you're hurting and you need somebody to put their arms around you, and we're the people that are going to do it. Okay? Then I'm also going to have that person recommend to you to get plugged into a good local church. Between the coaching on pulling the money together to deal with an apartment and to deal with getting an inexpensive paid car with this lease running out, we're going to get you back to sustainability, okay? But you need some human beings in your life because you're wandering out there in the middle of a huge crowd called Philadelphia completely alone.Yeah.That's not going to lead you to where you want to go. You need community. You need human beings with their arms around you, helping you, loving you, and showing you the way, and even maybe helping you a little bit with the money stuff. But we're not going to give you We're just going to... You got plenty of money. Your money is just out of control because your heart's messed up. Okay? Yeah. We'll walk with you, kiddo, and you need to get out of this hotel, and you need to get out of this lease, and you need to throw your shoulders back and get your dignity back because you're worth way more than you sound like you think you're worth. So you hold on and we'll pick up. We're going to get you hooked up with one of our coaches, and they'll plug you into a good church. And between the two, we're going to get you in community and get yourself squared around. Hang on, kiddo. This is the Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Isaiah 58:11. The Lord will guide you always. He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame.You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. That's for our last caller.Yeah.Elizabeth Elliott said, Of the one thing I am perfectly sure God's story never ends with ashes.You know what? Mini-rant. Because that and the last collar and the collar before with the car that was breaking down, I think I think the number one factor that people sleep on is community. I think it's the number one thing when it comes to your life and your money, having a church family, a community around you. And here's the thing, I get it. Anybody listening there like, Jay, don't follow Jesus. I'm not into that. I really don't care. Being in a place where people will love you and care for you, it is such an answer. It's a place where you can go when you need somebody to look after the kids. It's a place where you can go if you need somebody to help you go down in the car dealership and buy the right car, somebody who has a car that they're selling. It's someplace where you can go where you're heartbroken and people will put their arms around you and pray with you. It's a place where you can go when the election is going crazy and you are fearful of the future. There's so many things that come up in normal everyday life that...I mean, we say it all the time, you don't want to go through life alone. I'm telling you, it's the number one thing that will help you keep it together in life. That's it. That's all I have to say.No, It's a community. Psychologists say it regulates. You regulate yourself off of others, and you only go crazy in your own head. You don't do that because even if your family's nuts, I mean, in her case, she's a strange from her mother and father, and they're separated, obviously. Divorced, probably, or whatever. I don't know what her story was. I grew up on a street in suburban Nashville, and it was like something out of a book. We didn't knock on the neighbor's door. We just walked in. All the kids played hide and seek outside until 10:00 at night. We jumped over plywood in the middle of the on our bicycles. And yes, we had no helmets. It was a long time ago. I'm a dinosaur. But I got to tell you, if a neighbor built a deck on the back of their house, all of the kids and the men from the neighborhood are up there swinging a hammer. Yeah. Twelve When you're years old, I'm driving nails in the neighbor's deck. I can show you the nails I put in. Like I knew what I was doing. But that was what we were taught, that you're there for your neighbor, you're there for each other, you're in community.My grandmother died. I remember My parents jumped in the car and took off and dropped us on the front porch of one of the neighbor's houses and took off to go eight hours away and so on. That's the You got to have… It's a support system. You're not sustainable as standalone. Dr. Deloney talks about this a lot, that we are the loneliest culture at this moment in time. I don't know exactly if I was going to… I don't know if we need to blame that on something or not, but if you were going to blame it on something, I think I'd blame it on the smartphone.I 100% would blame it on that.The idea that people got confused at some point that Facebook friends are real friends. They're not. They're not there at 2:00 in the morning to help you change a tire, I'm just telling you. You got to drop one kid off because you're going to have the other kid in the emergency. You're getting ready to have the second baby. No Facebook friend. No, they're not real. They're virtual, which means not real by definition. This idea that... We've gotten disconnected. We don't need to go next door for a cup of sugar. How old is that? Is that 1950s or 1970s? I don't know. But I was raised in the '60s and '70s as a kid. We literally, not Not metaphorically, literally walk next door for a cup of sugar. Mama would say, go over to Irene's, and she'd call with a phone that was connected to the wall, and Irene would meet little skinhead Dave with his Shaved head at the front door. No, I wasn't a skinhead. I had a skinned head. I got you, Dave. Just be clear for you idiots out there on the internet. But you're right. That's mad. That stuff, if you want to talk about privilege, regardless of race, that's a privilege.It is. You have to work. Quadruple is hard to create it because, like you said, that digitization that's taking place, you have to say to yourself, You know what? I'm making a batch of cookies. I'm going to make a I don't want to bring it to the neighbors, too. I'm going to share this with them. You have to create these opportunities to share your life with people.Because it's weird now.It's weird now. Yeah, that's right.That's true.But you can't do life alone. Man is not meant to be alone. I hear that sometimes in these calls. I'm like, this person doesn't have anybody to reach out to. The moral of my story here was there's always someplace you can get plugged in, and maybe it's not your neighbor's, but there's always a good church community somewhere that you can get plugged into, but you got to get plugged in. So important.Yeah. Well, I once met a jerk who went to church. Well, good. That's where he needed to be. 100%. He needed to be in church. That's where A jerk's ought to be. It's their only shot, not being a jerk.It's your only shot.Zig Zigler used to say, I can't go to church. There's hypocrites there. Hey, wait a minute. I'm confused. Where did you want them to be? Where'd you want those hypocrites to hang out? What's their only shot, man? I know, right? Oh, my gosh. You're exactly right. There's a connectivity thing here, and the quality of your character is shifted. It's weird that your fears in your own head can become this monstrous bogeyman. But when you actually sit down with a friend or someone who cares, really cares, and you spit them out of your mouth, by the time they come out of your head and land on the table in front of you, they're little tiny lofiers. They're cute. But In your head, they were a big freaking deal. Oh, yeah. That's what community does. It does. Sometimes this show does that. Sometimes we're your community. Oh, 100%. We're okay with being part of it, but we're not real either, so we're virtual. Well, I mean, we're people on the other end of a podcast, for God's sakes. For God's sakes, we are YouTubers. That's the lowest, I mean, right there. That's the bottom of the barrel.I mean, you don't want YouTubers as your community, I'm just saying. Bottom of the barrel. We're big-time YouTubers, man, I'm telling you. I I mean, we're on TikTok. If that didn't ruin it, just tell them the truth. We're on TikTok. Oh, God, that right there ruins it.I had a video that did 7.7 million on TikTok, and I didn't know how to feel about it. Like, Get the content you want whenever and wherever you want to listen. Download the Ramsey Network app today.

Ramsey personalities Realities, plus Stephen Curtis Chapman, plus Monique Shohan from the Food channel, plus Dina Carter, fabulous country music star. Remember Stralbury Wine? Oh, man, what a great song. Anyway, and just a lot of folks on the crews with us that are unbelievable talent, and you're going to have an absolute blast. We're going to be with you the entire week. It's a seven-day, very high-end cruise.

It's not at one of the cheapies. This is not Walmart on the Sees. This is Holland America, the good stuff.

I vouch for that.

Yeah, I've been in ways we would never think otherwise. When all gets to be too much, think about contacting better help. Betterhelp is 100% online therapy staffed with licensed therapists. It's convenient, flexible, and suited to fit your schedule. By the way, therapy isn't just for those who've experienced major trauma. It's for all of us who are ready to get out of the comparison spin cycle and find our own peace and joy in the life we're creating. Stop comparing and start focusing with Betterhelp. Visit betterhelp. Com/deloney today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P.Com/delonie.Jade Walshaw, Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. Sam's in Birmingham. Hi, Sam. How are you?I'm doing good, Dave.How are you all? Better than I deserve. What's up?I'm going into my third year of law school this next year, and I financed law school through student loans. Now my grandmother, who has a lot of money in checking account, she is offered to pay my student loans through our loan servicer so that I can pay her back without interest. I'm just wondering if… Because I've heard you go against inter-family loans and saying that that might rub the relationship, and I don't want to do that with my grandmother. I was just wondering if I should tell her that that's a good thing to do or if just taking a gift, maybe less than the full amount of the loans. I just am wondering how to navigate that.Yeah. Wow. How wealthy is your grandmother?She's very wealthy.What's very wealthy? I don't know what that means. Is she worth $10 million or $1 million or $500,000? What's very wealthy?I would say 2 Every million.Okay. How many grandkids does she have?She, including my mom, she has four.Kids or grandkids?Grandkids, I think maybe five or six.You don't know how many cousins you have?Well, some of them zero, then obviously she cannot advance you against your inheritance because the answer is zero. Yes, sir. If it's all coming to your mom and her brothers and sisters, and they're not leaving any to the grandkids directly, which is not that unusual, by the way, then you don't have an inheritance out of this. Or if your mom wanted to agree to accept the amount that your grandmother gives you less as an advance on her inheritance, and it go through to you now, that's okay. If you guys, the three of you, want to talk that out, you and granny and mom, okay? I'm fine with that. If you don't want to talk about it, don't do it. But in no circumstances are we going to do alone. If I'm you.Who's having these conversations? Is it you and your grandmother Are you working directly or are you finding out about this by way of your mom or whoever? How does the conversation look?It started with a phone call with my grandmother and my mom on the line. I told my mother and grandmother that she probably needs to talk to her, a state planning attorney, and my grandmother's like, Well, I can go down to the bank and get the money right now.I'm like, Well- You can, but you also get screwed by gift tax. Your advice was correct.Yeah, I wanted to see what the relationship was because it does feel presumptuous in many ways to be like, Hey, just give me my inheritance in advance. I could see that feeling awkward.No, he didn't bring it up, though.Yeah, he didn't bring it up.I'd say, Granny, I'm not comfortable doing a loan. If you and mom want to talk about a way that this is an advance on some of the estate plan and either mom's share or my share or however it works is reduced by the amount you want to give me to reduce the student loans, I can talk about that as a gift, and we'll put it on the student loans, but I don't want to be in debt to you, and I'll just work it out. But thank you so much for the kind offer. I honor you. I appreciate that. I know you've got plenty of money. But the idea of me having to pay my grandmother payments makes me ill, and I would never want to do that because I love you too much. That's how it sounds. Does that make sense?Yes, sir. That's where my head was at on it. Thank you all very much. Yeah.Thank you for calling in, man. I appreciate it. Family does this stuff. Mom and dad are going to loan the grown kids money to buy a better house so their grandkids have a better place to live. But we'll do it at 4% interest because it's going rate is six, and I can't make that down at the money market anyway. You just pay me what I was going to make on the money market. I've heard that story, I don't know, a bazillion times. Sometimes it all works out, but usually at least one or two people in the equation. Here's what I discovered, okay? When we went broke, Sharon's dad, who is one of the nicest men. He may be a saint. He's one of the nicest men I've ever met, and just a kind, good man. We went broke, and he loaned us some money to keep our house, to bring the house up current. When we filed bankruptcy, we could keep the house. I never thought anything about it because I'd borrowed it up to my eyeballs and just went bankrupt. Hello. I mean, you know. That's where I came up with the saying, Thanksgiving dinner tastes different when you eat with your master.Don't I know it? Because here's the thing.It bothered him not at all. He never thought a thing about it. He's the nicest guy. It didn't bother him a bit, but he was the master. It bothered his daughter, my wife, not at all. Because as far as she was concerned, Daddy was helping, and that's what daddies do. Not a big deal. It about killed me.You had sweaty armpits.Yeah. That's how I lost my hair right there. I'm just saying. He never said an unkind or shaming thing to me once, never one time. And yet I carried all of this. It just ate at me in silence. It was after I paid it off. Years later, when I'm learning this borrower to the lender thing. I'm learning this. I'm going, Well, that's what happened. I changed my relationship with my father-in-law, who I love dearly, to master. Even if your master, when you're a slave, is a kind master, you are still a slave.That's so true, Dave. We did the same thing. We were upside down on a Hummer, of all things. Oh, God. We knew- That's almost as bad as my Jaguar. I know. It's bad.My Jaguar was the one. That's the same stuff.But bad credit, couldn't get a loan for the difference. Our mother-in-law, who I would agree, one of the most generous people I know, lent us the money. I couldn't pay it off fast enough because it just… From their point of view, it's generosity and it's kindness, and they uphold all of that.Well, they hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. That's where the old-time preacher would say, Leave and cleave. You leave your father and mother and you cleave, an old English term that became part of the biblical lingo because of King James version of the Bible. But you leave your parents and cling to your spouse. Your husband has not done that. You have a marriage problem. I agree. He's still married to his daddy.100%. Whether they're intending to use him or not, it's not a fair situation. Just reading what you've wrote, there's nothing fair here. If he's doing a job and it's above and beyond what other workers are being paid for the job that they're doing, yeah, that's unfair. Now, there is something to be said for- But we can't even have that discussion because he won't talk to her.He listens to Daddy. Yeah.But I mean, back when I used to work in the cruise business, they would say, I signed my contract, you signed yours, which was basically a saying of, Hey, Don't complain to me now that this is not fair because you knew what you were getting into when you signed it. There's part of it. I'm like, the more that he continues to sign that contract, he's saying, Yes, I agree with this.The problem is not your father-in-law. The problem is your husband.Yeah, because he's agreeing.He needs to stop. What's wrong with this? And he's not listening to his wife. Now, if we stop there and say, Okay, I'm going to quit doing that. I'm going to listen to my wife, and my wife says this is unfair. Now we can talk about, Oh, is it unfair or not? Well, here's some good rules for family Family business, and I coach a lot of family businesses. Got a world famous podcast called Entree Leadership, where I coach family businesses every single week. Millions and tens of thousands of them are being coached by us right now by Ramsey. We deal with them All the time. Here's the guideline. It's very simple. You do not invest money in a business you do not own. I don't care who owns it or what the promise was, period. If I walked up off the street and said, Hey, Mr. Employee, would you put money into my business? Well, they'd have to be brain damaged to do that. The only time you'd be brain damaged enough to do that would be your own stupid family. No, we're not doing it with a stupid family either. No, number one. Number two, when you work in any business, you're only worth what the marketplace says that position is worth.You're not worth any more because you're the golden child or any less because you're family. We get to work our family for free. That's why we had a lot of kids. No, that's not the plan. This is not what we're doing. And so, Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, makes exactly Exactly the same percentage on royalties on books, exactly the same percentage on speaking gigs that Jade sitting beside me makes. Rachel Cruz makes the same as John Deloney. Now, they don't have the same income, but they have the same percentage of their deal. Now, one of them may sell more books or less books. One of them may have more speaking or whatever, right? But that's not the point. The point is they're on the same schedule, and she gets paid for that, not because she's my daughter. She doesn't get paid less because my daughter either. That's a simple formula that you should go with. The third formula with family business is, if you say you're going to turn over a business to a family member, you need to never say that unless you say when. Someday it'll all be yours. When you're 76 and I'm 104, what crap is that?That vague stuff. Nobody knows what you're talking about. When you say to a 30-year-old, someday it'll all be yours, he thinks next week, and you think a decade from now. You need to say, not someday. You need to You need to work hard, someday it'll all be yours. Oh, brother, how about I don't want to be in the landscaping business with you? There's a whole new idea, too. I'd rather start my own thing. I could make three times as much money as you're paying me. All that can come up only after we can have some basic family business principles in place for operating a family business and treating each other with equity and with dignity and with high communication levels. Then you don't get to play the role of resentful wife either. You have to play the role of supportive wife then. That's right. If your husband wants to do this, he likes working with his dad, and he's being treated fairly, and I I don't think you're saying you just don't like these people, but you're starting to not like them because they're standing between you and your husband, and that's a fair complaint right there.Yeah, she said, I'm stuck in the middle.How do you get stuck in the middle? You can't get stuck in the middle of one.Thank you. I'm like, there's a party there that should not be there. A party of one.I think you and your husband need to sit down and discuss who's in charge here of your life, you and him or his daddy. Then once we decide that, then we can have a discussion about who gets paid what and if we want to take this business over and under what circumstances. But this is where it is.Those are tough conversations. Yeah, it is. Because when you're in it, if it's your family, sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees. But then if you're the in-law, it's like you can't say. You know what I mean? There's certain things that as the in-law, it's like you can't say to your family in-law, right? Because it just creates- She can't talk to them at all.No, she can't. She's not got any footing to do it at all. Plus, she's pissed off. Yeah, she is. So it's not going to go well.If you write a letter to a radio show, you're pissed. All right.Just put it in that bucket right there. I don't care how much language. I really like them you put in there. You wrote a letter to a podcast. I'm just saying that's what… Honey, you got a marriage problem, and You need to stop being angry with your father-in-law. He's not the problem. Your husband's the problem. The two of you being on the same page and him putting you and him as a family unit ahead of everything else starts the conversation. That's where it is. Leave and cleave. It's an interesting study. Look it up. The number of people who never leave their mother, never leave their father after they're married, and the damage that does to their marriage relationship, it's everywhere.Yeah, 100%.It's hard to do it when you live in the basement. Oh, gosh.You took it, too. You always take it to the next level.Always go there, too. Just helping you with this.Oh, boy. Yeah, that's important.Open phones at 888-825-5225. Jade, you know why we will always have a compelling and entertaining show? Because human beings are going to do stupid stuff. We human beings When we do stupid stuff, me and you included, we're just downright entertaining.Yeah, 100% every time.This whole building wealth thing, the math is sixth grade. It's the stupid humans that mess it up. It doesn't require any thought. I mean, there's not that much to it. Live on less than you make. We'd be out of business.The funny thing is it's the same stuff over and over, and we've all done it.But it's relational. Yeah. I was reading a thing the other day. It matters more in terms of wealth building. It matters more who you marry than where you went to school.All day. I believe that all day. So important.In that case in point right there. This is The Ramsey Show. All right, let's cut to the chase. It's easy to get discouraged about crazy house prices and interest rates. But when you have the right real estate agent to help you buy and sell the right way, you'll have confidence to make smart decisions. Ramsey trusted agents aren't just experts who guide you through buying or selling. They're someone you can trust to have your back from the first call to closing day. Find a Ramsey trusted agent near you at ramseysolutions. Com/agent. Ramsey solutions. Com/agent. Thanks for joining us, America. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Jade Warshaw. Ramsey personality is my co-host. The best way to make the most of your money is by creating and sticking to a plan, to be intentional. A plan in the money world is called a budget. Just tell your money what to do instead of wondering where it went. Every dollar makes it simple to plan your spending. It is the world's best, most robust That's what you do when you're broke. You go get a four-pack of Angel Soft. You get the smallest- That's good.That's what I'm functioning. I'm functioning in broke Dave. Broke Dave, he didn't make His income was not what our coffee budget is. It's the old man. That's broke Dave. But, Dave, you're okay. Jay, you're okay. You can afford the car. Buy the car, pay cash for it, enjoy it. Happy wife, happy life. You know the federal That's federal law. Wife gets the good car. That's federal law. That's right. Okay. Zachary is in Indianapolis. Hey, Zachary, what's up?Dave, Jade. Nice to talk to you guys. How are you?Better than we deserve. How can we help?What I've got going on, This year, I've paid almost just under $20,000 off in debt, including just credit cards, and I've already cut my truck loan in half. Good for you. I've got $14,000 left, and I basically stay with my girlfriend pretty much every night. I have an apartment. She has a house that will be them ELPs, Endorsed Local Providers. They live there in your neighborhood, but they're the best of the best in your area, and they have become Ramsey Trusted Agents. Be sure and check them out. If you want to find out who is Ramsey Trusted in your area, you can do that for free at ramseysolutions. Com/agent. Then you talk to them and you interview them and see if you find the same thing that we found when we talked to them and we interviewed them and we coached them because we do all of those things. Yeah. Marie is with us. Marie is in Philadelphia. Hi, Marie. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.Hi. Thanks for taking my call.Sure. What's up?I'm currently living in hotels. I can't seem to find an apartment. I've been looking for a roommate. What should I do?You can't seem to find an apartment. Why?My credit score is abysmal. Okay.Are you working?Yes.What do you make?I take in 87 a year before taxes.Eighty-seven thousand dollars a year?Yes.Good for you. What Who are you?I'm an occupational therapist.How'd you end up homeless?Well, I moved from state to state for love and a relationship, and That did not work out. My only real option at the time was to find a hotel for temporary housing, and I really didn't have anything saved up. I wasn't prepared.Do you have any money now?No, because I'm basically spending $2,200 a month just to keep a roof over my head.But you make 87,000.Yeah.You must have a lot of debt payments. Where else is your money going?Yeah. I have a car lease, and I have my student loan debt.How much are the student loans? Tell me the amounts, if you don't mind.Yeah, I think they're probably at 275 right now in student loan debt.Two hundred and seven-five thousand dollars?Yes.Okay. What else?And then car insurance, my phone, and food. That's really what I've got money for.Tell me about the car lease.It ends next month.Okay, good.That's about $340 a month. I'm not even sure if I'm going to be able to get a car by the time that's over.So Dave asked you the question, and it was a vague answer. I want to know financially what put you here because you've got the 275 in student loans. How much is that for you per month with your income?It's about $1,000 a month.Okay.Are you current?No.Have you been paying it?No.Are they federal?Part of them are federal and part of them are private.Okay.Marie, I'm struggling, okay? You've not paid that. You paid a $300 payment, you make 87,000, and you paid a hotel bill. That's all you've done. Where is all your money going, kiddo?It is going to eating out. I only have a microwave here, so I can't really cook traditional meals. I'm eating out and just trying to survive with food and drink. It goes my phone bill, my car- Eighty-four thousand is $7,000 a month.Minus taxes, you should be getting $5,000 a month coming home.I take home $2,200 every two weeks because I put in about $300 every paycheck into my 401k.Well, I I reckon you need to stop that. Okay, let's stop your 401k, and that gets you to 4,800 then take home pay, which is pretty close to what I'm talking about. Then you can start to Even with eating out and even with a hotel bill, you can still stack some cash. I can't tell what's going on in the numbers, but numbers generally talk to me because I've done this a long time. I think what I'm hearing is a highly educated, very intelligent lady whose heart got broken. Let me take that further, got crushed, and you've been in a spiral emotionally since, and everything's out of control.Yeah.Is that right?Yes.Okay. All right. Because the numbers aren't telling me anything else because you're too smart, you're too intellectually bright to have to be in this situation if you were functioning at a normal level. Right now, you're functioning with a broken heart, and it's clouding everything. You're spending all of your calories and your emotional energy going over and over and over this and feeling ashamed for having chased somebody that dumped you and feeling bad that the guy wasn't worth your trouble and all the different things or whatever it is we do when we're in your situation, and normal humans do it. You're not a bad person, you're not a weak person. You're just been stomped on and you're hurting, and it causes your math to get screwed up. Does that make sense?Yeah.Okay. Because here's what I hear. You've got plenty of money to go rent an apartment. Lots of places will rent somebody with bad credit an apartment. You just put up a good deposit, and you get out of 2,200 a month, and you get straightened out. Where did you move from to move to Philadelphia?I moved from Voorheath.Where's that?In New Jersey.Okay. Just a few hours away. Do you have family back there?My mom is further south in Jersey, down by the shore. My dad is in South Carolina.How's your relationship with either one of them?Awful. We don't talk. We're not speaking.All right. Here's what I want you to do. Jade and I are going to help you, all right? We've got Ramsey Preferred coaches that we have trained to coach people on finances. Okay? I'm going to pay for you to have one for free as my gift.Thank you.Because you're hurting and you need somebody to put their arms around you, and we're the people that are going to do it. Okay? Then I'm also going to have that person recommend to you to get plugged into a good local church. Between the coaching on pulling the money together to deal with an apartment and to deal with getting an inexpensive paid car with this lease running out, we're going to get you back to sustainability, okay? But you need some human beings in your life because you're wandering out there in the middle of a huge crowd called Philadelphia completely alone.Yeah.That's not going to lead you to where you want to go. You need community. You need human beings with their arms around you, helping you, loving you, and showing you the way, and even maybe helping you a little bit with the money stuff. But we're not going to give you We're just going to... You got plenty of money. Your money is just out of control because your heart's messed up. Okay? Yeah. We'll walk with you, kiddo, and you need to get out of this hotel, and you need to get out of this lease, and you need to throw your shoulders back and get your dignity back because you're worth way more than you sound like you think you're worth. So you hold on and we'll pick up. We're going to get you hooked up with one of our coaches, and they'll plug you into a good church. And between the two, we're going to get you in community and get yourself squared around. Hang on, kiddo. This is the Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Isaiah 58:11. The Lord will guide you always. He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame.You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. That's for our last caller.Yeah.Elizabeth Elliott said, Of the one thing I am perfectly sure God's story never ends with ashes.You know what? Mini-rant. Because that and the last collar and the collar before with the car that was breaking down, I think I think the number one factor that people sleep on is community. I think it's the number one thing when it comes to your life and your money, having a church family, a community around you. And here's the thing, I get it. Anybody listening there like, Jay, don't follow Jesus. I'm not into that. I really don't care. Being in a place where people will love you and care for you, it is such an answer. It's a place where you can go when you need somebody to look after the kids. It's a place where you can go if you need somebody to help you go down in the car dealership and buy the right car, somebody who has a car that they're selling. It's someplace where you can go where you're heartbroken and people will put their arms around you and pray with you. It's a place where you can go when the election is going crazy and you are fearful of the future. There's so many things that come up in normal everyday life that...I mean, we say it all the time, you don't want to go through life alone. I'm telling you, it's the number one thing that will help you keep it together in life. That's it. That's all I have to say.No, It's a community. Psychologists say it regulates. You regulate yourself off of others, and you only go crazy in your own head. You don't do that because even if your family's nuts, I mean, in her case, she's a strange from her mother and father, and they're separated, obviously. Divorced, probably, or whatever. I don't know what her story was. I grew up on a street in suburban Nashville, and it was like something out of a book. We didn't knock on the neighbor's door. We just walked in. All the kids played hide and seek outside until 10:00 at night. We jumped over plywood in the middle of the on our bicycles. And yes, we had no helmets. It was a long time ago. I'm a dinosaur. But I got to tell you, if a neighbor built a deck on the back of their house, all of the kids and the men from the neighborhood are up there swinging a hammer. Yeah. Twelve When you're years old, I'm driving nails in the neighbor's deck. I can show you the nails I put in. Like I knew what I was doing. But that was what we were taught, that you're there for your neighbor, you're there for each other, you're in community.My grandmother died. I remember My parents jumped in the car and took off and dropped us on the front porch of one of the neighbor's houses and took off to go eight hours away and so on. That's the You got to have… It's a support system. You're not sustainable as standalone. Dr. Deloney talks about this a lot, that we are the loneliest culture at this moment in time. I don't know exactly if I was going to… I don't know if we need to blame that on something or not, but if you were going to blame it on something, I think I'd blame it on the smartphone.I 100% would blame it on that.The idea that people got confused at some point that Facebook friends are real friends. They're not. They're not there at 2:00 in the morning to help you change a tire, I'm just telling you. You got to drop one kid off because you're going to have the other kid in the emergency. You're getting ready to have the second baby. No Facebook friend. No, they're not real. They're virtual, which means not real by definition. This idea that... We've gotten disconnected. We don't need to go next door for a cup of sugar. How old is that? Is that 1950s or 1970s? I don't know. But I was raised in the '60s and '70s as a kid. We literally, not Not metaphorically, literally walk next door for a cup of sugar. Mama would say, go over to Irene's, and she'd call with a phone that was connected to the wall, and Irene would meet little skinhead Dave with his Shaved head at the front door. No, I wasn't a skinhead. I had a skinned head. I got you, Dave. Just be clear for you idiots out there on the internet. But you're right. That's mad. That stuff, if you want to talk about privilege, regardless of race, that's a privilege.It is. You have to work. Quadruple is hard to create it because, like you said, that digitization that's taking place, you have to say to yourself, You know what? I'm making a batch of cookies. I'm going to make a I don't want to bring it to the neighbors, too. I'm going to share this with them. You have to create these opportunities to share your life with people.Because it's weird now.It's weird now. Yeah, that's right.That's true.But you can't do life alone. Man is not meant to be alone. I hear that sometimes in these calls. I'm like, this person doesn't have anybody to reach out to. The moral of my story here was there's always someplace you can get plugged in, and maybe it's not your neighbor's, but there's always a good church community somewhere that you can get plugged into, but you got to get plugged in. So important.Yeah. Well, I once met a jerk who went to church. Well, good. That's where he needed to be. 100%. He needed to be in church. That's where A jerk's ought to be. It's their only shot, not being a jerk.It's your only shot.Zig Zigler used to say, I can't go to church. There's hypocrites there. Hey, wait a minute. I'm confused. Where did you want them to be? Where'd you want those hypocrites to hang out? What's their only shot, man? I know, right? Oh, my gosh. You're exactly right. There's a connectivity thing here, and the quality of your character is shifted. It's weird that your fears in your own head can become this monstrous bogeyman. But when you actually sit down with a friend or someone who cares, really cares, and you spit them out of your mouth, by the time they come out of your head and land on the table in front of you, they're little tiny lofiers. They're cute. But In your head, they were a big freaking deal. Oh, yeah. That's what community does. It does. Sometimes this show does that. Sometimes we're your community. Oh, 100%. We're okay with being part of it, but we're not real either, so we're virtual. Well, I mean, we're people on the other end of a podcast, for God's sakes. For God's sakes, we are YouTubers. That's the lowest, I mean, right there. That's the bottom of the barrel.I mean, you don't want YouTubers as your community, I'm just saying. Bottom of the barrel. We're big-time YouTubers, man, I'm telling you. I I mean, we're on TikTok. If that didn't ruin it, just tell them the truth. We're on TikTok. Oh, God, that right there ruins it.I had a video that did 7.7 million on TikTok, and I didn't know how to feel about it. Like, Get the content you want whenever and wherever you want to listen. Download the Ramsey Network app today.

in ways we would never think otherwise. When all gets to be too much, think about contacting better help. Betterhelp is 100% online therapy staffed with licensed therapists. It's convenient, flexible, and suited to fit your schedule. By the way, therapy isn't just for those who've experienced major trauma. It's for all of us who are ready to get out of the comparison spin cycle and find our own peace and joy in the life we're creating. Stop comparing and start focusing with Betterhelp. Visit betterhelp. Com/deloney today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P.

Com/delonie.

Jade Walshaw, Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. Sam's in Birmingham. Hi, Sam. How are you?

I'm doing good, Dave.

How are you all? Better than I deserve. What's up?

I'm going into my third year of law school this next year, and I financed law school through student loans. Now my grandmother, who has a lot of money in checking account, she is offered to pay my student loans through our loan servicer so that I can pay her back without interest. I'm just wondering if… Because I've heard you go against inter-family loans and saying that that might rub the relationship, and I don't want to do that with my grandmother. I was just wondering if I should tell her that that's a good thing to do or if just taking a gift, maybe less than the full amount of the loans. I just am wondering how to navigate that.

Yeah. Wow. How wealthy is your grandmother?

She's very wealthy.

What's very wealthy? I don't know what that means. Is she worth $10 million or $1 million or $500,000? What's very wealthy?

I would say 2 Every million.

Okay. How many grandkids does she have?

She, including my mom, she has four.

Kids or grandkids?

Grandkids, I think maybe five or six.

You don't know how many cousins you have?

Well, some of them zero, then obviously she cannot advance you against your inheritance because the answer is zero. Yes, sir. If it's all coming to your mom and her brothers and sisters, and they're not leaving any to the grandkids directly, which is not that unusual, by the way, then you don't have an inheritance out of this. Or if your mom wanted to agree to accept the amount that your grandmother gives you less as an advance on her inheritance, and it go through to you now, that's okay. If you guys, the three of you, want to talk that out, you and granny and mom, okay? I'm fine with that. If you don't want to talk about it, don't do it. But in no circumstances are we going to do alone. If I'm you.Who's having these conversations? Is it you and your grandmother Are you working directly or are you finding out about this by way of your mom or whoever? How does the conversation look?It started with a phone call with my grandmother and my mom on the line. I told my mother and grandmother that she probably needs to talk to her, a state planning attorney, and my grandmother's like, Well, I can go down to the bank and get the money right now.I'm like, Well- You can, but you also get screwed by gift tax. Your advice was correct.Yeah, I wanted to see what the relationship was because it does feel presumptuous in many ways to be like, Hey, just give me my inheritance in advance. I could see that feeling awkward.No, he didn't bring it up, though.Yeah, he didn't bring it up.I'd say, Granny, I'm not comfortable doing a loan. If you and mom want to talk about a way that this is an advance on some of the estate plan and either mom's share or my share or however it works is reduced by the amount you want to give me to reduce the student loans, I can talk about that as a gift, and we'll put it on the student loans, but I don't want to be in debt to you, and I'll just work it out. But thank you so much for the kind offer. I honor you. I appreciate that. I know you've got plenty of money. But the idea of me having to pay my grandmother payments makes me ill, and I would never want to do that because I love you too much. That's how it sounds. Does that make sense?Yes, sir. That's where my head was at on it. Thank you all very much. Yeah.Thank you for calling in, man. I appreciate it. Family does this stuff. Mom and dad are going to loan the grown kids money to buy a better house so their grandkids have a better place to live. But we'll do it at 4% interest because it's going rate is six, and I can't make that down at the money market anyway. You just pay me what I was going to make on the money market. I've heard that story, I don't know, a bazillion times. Sometimes it all works out, but usually at least one or two people in the equation. Here's what I discovered, okay? When we went broke, Sharon's dad, who is one of the nicest men. He may be a saint. He's one of the nicest men I've ever met, and just a kind, good man. We went broke, and he loaned us some money to keep our house, to bring the house up current. When we filed bankruptcy, we could keep the house. I never thought anything about it because I'd borrowed it up to my eyeballs and just went bankrupt. Hello. I mean, you know. That's where I came up with the saying, Thanksgiving dinner tastes different when you eat with your master.Don't I know it? Because here's the thing.It bothered him not at all. He never thought a thing about it. He's the nicest guy. It didn't bother him a bit, but he was the master. It bothered his daughter, my wife, not at all. Because as far as she was concerned, Daddy was helping, and that's what daddies do. Not a big deal. It about killed me.You had sweaty armpits.Yeah. That's how I lost my hair right there. I'm just saying. He never said an unkind or shaming thing to me once, never one time. And yet I carried all of this. It just ate at me in silence. It was after I paid it off. Years later, when I'm learning this borrower to the lender thing. I'm learning this. I'm going, Well, that's what happened. I changed my relationship with my father-in-law, who I love dearly, to master. Even if your master, when you're a slave, is a kind master, you are still a slave.That's so true, Dave. We did the same thing. We were upside down on a Hummer, of all things. Oh, God. We knew- That's almost as bad as my Jaguar. I know. It's bad.My Jaguar was the one. That's the same stuff.But bad credit, couldn't get a loan for the difference. Our mother-in-law, who I would agree, one of the most generous people I know, lent us the money. I couldn't pay it off fast enough because it just… From their point of view, it's generosity and it's kindness, and they uphold all of that.Well, they hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. That's where the old-time preacher would say, Leave and cleave. You leave your father and mother and you cleave, an old English term that became part of the biblical lingo because of King James version of the Bible. But you leave your parents and cling to your spouse. Your husband has not done that. You have a marriage problem. I agree. He's still married to his daddy.100%. Whether they're intending to use him or not, it's not a fair situation. Just reading what you've wrote, there's nothing fair here. If he's doing a job and it's above and beyond what other workers are being paid for the job that they're doing, yeah, that's unfair. Now, there is something to be said for- But we can't even have that discussion because he won't talk to her.He listens to Daddy. Yeah.But I mean, back when I used to work in the cruise business, they would say, I signed my contract, you signed yours, which was basically a saying of, Hey, Don't complain to me now that this is not fair because you knew what you were getting into when you signed it. There's part of it. I'm like, the more that he continues to sign that contract, he's saying, Yes, I agree with this.The problem is not your father-in-law. The problem is your husband.Yeah, because he's agreeing.He needs to stop. What's wrong with this? And he's not listening to his wife. Now, if we stop there and say, Okay, I'm going to quit doing that. I'm going to listen to my wife, and my wife says this is unfair. Now we can talk about, Oh, is it unfair or not? Well, here's some good rules for family Family business, and I coach a lot of family businesses. Got a world famous podcast called Entree Leadership, where I coach family businesses every single week. Millions and tens of thousands of them are being coached by us right now by Ramsey. We deal with them All the time. Here's the guideline. It's very simple. You do not invest money in a business you do not own. I don't care who owns it or what the promise was, period. If I walked up off the street and said, Hey, Mr. Employee, would you put money into my business? Well, they'd have to be brain damaged to do that. The only time you'd be brain damaged enough to do that would be your own stupid family. No, we're not doing it with a stupid family either. No, number one. Number two, when you work in any business, you're only worth what the marketplace says that position is worth.You're not worth any more because you're the golden child or any less because you're family. We get to work our family for free. That's why we had a lot of kids. No, that's not the plan. This is not what we're doing. And so, Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, makes exactly Exactly the same percentage on royalties on books, exactly the same percentage on speaking gigs that Jade sitting beside me makes. Rachel Cruz makes the same as John Deloney. Now, they don't have the same income, but they have the same percentage of their deal. Now, one of them may sell more books or less books. One of them may have more speaking or whatever, right? But that's not the point. The point is they're on the same schedule, and she gets paid for that, not because she's my daughter. She doesn't get paid less because my daughter either. That's a simple formula that you should go with. The third formula with family business is, if you say you're going to turn over a business to a family member, you need to never say that unless you say when. Someday it'll all be yours. When you're 76 and I'm 104, what crap is that?That vague stuff. Nobody knows what you're talking about. When you say to a 30-year-old, someday it'll all be yours, he thinks next week, and you think a decade from now. You need to say, not someday. You need to You need to work hard, someday it'll all be yours. Oh, brother, how about I don't want to be in the landscaping business with you? There's a whole new idea, too. I'd rather start my own thing. I could make three times as much money as you're paying me. All that can come up only after we can have some basic family business principles in place for operating a family business and treating each other with equity and with dignity and with high communication levels. Then you don't get to play the role of resentful wife either. You have to play the role of supportive wife then. That's right. If your husband wants to do this, he likes working with his dad, and he's being treated fairly, and I I don't think you're saying you just don't like these people, but you're starting to not like them because they're standing between you and your husband, and that's a fair complaint right there.Yeah, she said, I'm stuck in the middle.How do you get stuck in the middle? You can't get stuck in the middle of one.Thank you. I'm like, there's a party there that should not be there. A party of one.I think you and your husband need to sit down and discuss who's in charge here of your life, you and him or his daddy. Then once we decide that, then we can have a discussion about who gets paid what and if we want to take this business over and under what circumstances. But this is where it is.Those are tough conversations. Yeah, it is. Because when you're in it, if it's your family, sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees. But then if you're the in-law, it's like you can't say. You know what I mean? There's certain things that as the in-law, it's like you can't say to your family in-law, right? Because it just creates- She can't talk to them at all.No, she can't. She's not got any footing to do it at all. Plus, she's pissed off. Yeah, she is. So it's not going to go well.If you write a letter to a radio show, you're pissed. All right.Just put it in that bucket right there. I don't care how much language. I really like them you put in there. You wrote a letter to a podcast. I'm just saying that's what… Honey, you got a marriage problem, and You need to stop being angry with your father-in-law. He's not the problem. Your husband's the problem. The two of you being on the same page and him putting you and him as a family unit ahead of everything else starts the conversation. That's where it is. Leave and cleave. It's an interesting study. Look it up. The number of people who never leave their mother, never leave their father after they're married, and the damage that does to their marriage relationship, it's everywhere.Yeah, 100%.It's hard to do it when you live in the basement. Oh, gosh.You took it, too. You always take it to the next level.Always go there, too. Just helping you with this.Oh, boy. Yeah, that's important.Open phones at 888-825-5225. Jade, you know why we will always have a compelling and entertaining show? Because human beings are going to do stupid stuff. We human beings When we do stupid stuff, me and you included, we're just downright entertaining.Yeah, 100% every time.This whole building wealth thing, the math is sixth grade. It's the stupid humans that mess it up. It doesn't require any thought. I mean, there's not that much to it. Live on less than you make. We'd be out of business.The funny thing is it's the same stuff over and over, and we've all done it.But it's relational. Yeah. I was reading a thing the other day. It matters more in terms of wealth building. It matters more who you marry than where you went to school.All day. I believe that all day. So important.In that case in point right there. This is The Ramsey Show. All right, let's cut to the chase. It's easy to get discouraged about crazy house prices and interest rates. But when you have the right real estate agent to help you buy and sell the right way, you'll have confidence to make smart decisions. Ramsey trusted agents aren't just experts who guide you through buying or selling. They're someone you can trust to have your back from the first call to closing day. Find a Ramsey trusted agent near you at ramseysolutions. Com/agent. Ramsey solutions. Com/agent. Thanks for joining us, America. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Jade Warshaw. Ramsey personality is my co-host. The best way to make the most of your money is by creating and sticking to a plan, to be intentional. A plan in the money world is called a budget. Just tell your money what to do instead of wondering where it went. Every dollar makes it simple to plan your spending. It is the world's best, most robust That's what you do when you're broke. You go get a four-pack of Angel Soft. You get the smallest- That's good.That's what I'm functioning. I'm functioning in broke Dave. Broke Dave, he didn't make His income was not what our coffee budget is. It's the old man. That's broke Dave. But, Dave, you're okay. Jay, you're okay. You can afford the car. Buy the car, pay cash for it, enjoy it. Happy wife, happy life. You know the federal That's federal law. Wife gets the good car. That's federal law. That's right. Okay. Zachary is in Indianapolis. Hey, Zachary, what's up?Dave, Jade. Nice to talk to you guys. How are you?Better than we deserve. How can we help?What I've got going on, This year, I've paid almost just under $20,000 off in debt, including just credit cards, and I've already cut my truck loan in half. Good for you. I've got $14,000 left, and I basically stay with my girlfriend pretty much every night. I have an apartment. She has a house that will be them ELPs, Endorsed Local Providers. They live there in your neighborhood, but they're the best of the best in your area, and they have become Ramsey Trusted Agents. Be sure and check them out. If you want to find out who is Ramsey Trusted in your area, you can do that for free at ramseysolutions. Com/agent. Then you talk to them and you interview them and see if you find the same thing that we found when we talked to them and we interviewed them and we coached them because we do all of those things. Yeah. Marie is with us. Marie is in Philadelphia. Hi, Marie. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.Hi. Thanks for taking my call.Sure. What's up?I'm currently living in hotels. I can't seem to find an apartment. I've been looking for a roommate. What should I do?You can't seem to find an apartment. Why?My credit score is abysmal. Okay.Are you working?Yes.What do you make?I take in 87 a year before taxes.Eighty-seven thousand dollars a year?Yes.Good for you. What Who are you?I'm an occupational therapist.How'd you end up homeless?Well, I moved from state to state for love and a relationship, and That did not work out. My only real option at the time was to find a hotel for temporary housing, and I really didn't have anything saved up. I wasn't prepared.Do you have any money now?No, because I'm basically spending $2,200 a month just to keep a roof over my head.But you make 87,000.Yeah.You must have a lot of debt payments. Where else is your money going?Yeah. I have a car lease, and I have my student loan debt.How much are the student loans? Tell me the amounts, if you don't mind.Yeah, I think they're probably at 275 right now in student loan debt.Two hundred and seven-five thousand dollars?Yes.Okay. What else?And then car insurance, my phone, and food. That's really what I've got money for.Tell me about the car lease.It ends next month.Okay, good.That's about $340 a month. I'm not even sure if I'm going to be able to get a car by the time that's over.So Dave asked you the question, and it was a vague answer. I want to know financially what put you here because you've got the 275 in student loans. How much is that for you per month with your income?It's about $1,000 a month.Okay.Are you current?No.Have you been paying it?No.Are they federal?Part of them are federal and part of them are private.Okay.Marie, I'm struggling, okay? You've not paid that. You paid a $300 payment, you make 87,000, and you paid a hotel bill. That's all you've done. Where is all your money going, kiddo?It is going to eating out. I only have a microwave here, so I can't really cook traditional meals. I'm eating out and just trying to survive with food and drink. It goes my phone bill, my car- Eighty-four thousand is $7,000 a month.Minus taxes, you should be getting $5,000 a month coming home.I take home $2,200 every two weeks because I put in about $300 every paycheck into my 401k.Well, I I reckon you need to stop that. Okay, let's stop your 401k, and that gets you to 4,800 then take home pay, which is pretty close to what I'm talking about. Then you can start to Even with eating out and even with a hotel bill, you can still stack some cash. I can't tell what's going on in the numbers, but numbers generally talk to me because I've done this a long time. I think what I'm hearing is a highly educated, very intelligent lady whose heart got broken. Let me take that further, got crushed, and you've been in a spiral emotionally since, and everything's out of control.Yeah.Is that right?Yes.Okay. All right. Because the numbers aren't telling me anything else because you're too smart, you're too intellectually bright to have to be in this situation if you were functioning at a normal level. Right now, you're functioning with a broken heart, and it's clouding everything. You're spending all of your calories and your emotional energy going over and over and over this and feeling ashamed for having chased somebody that dumped you and feeling bad that the guy wasn't worth your trouble and all the different things or whatever it is we do when we're in your situation, and normal humans do it. You're not a bad person, you're not a weak person. You're just been stomped on and you're hurting, and it causes your math to get screwed up. Does that make sense?Yeah.Okay. Because here's what I hear. You've got plenty of money to go rent an apartment. Lots of places will rent somebody with bad credit an apartment. You just put up a good deposit, and you get out of 2,200 a month, and you get straightened out. Where did you move from to move to Philadelphia?I moved from Voorheath.Where's that?In New Jersey.Okay. Just a few hours away. Do you have family back there?My mom is further south in Jersey, down by the shore. My dad is in South Carolina.How's your relationship with either one of them?Awful. We don't talk. We're not speaking.All right. Here's what I want you to do. Jade and I are going to help you, all right? We've got Ramsey Preferred coaches that we have trained to coach people on finances. Okay? I'm going to pay for you to have one for free as my gift.Thank you.Because you're hurting and you need somebody to put their arms around you, and we're the people that are going to do it. Okay? Then I'm also going to have that person recommend to you to get plugged into a good local church. Between the coaching on pulling the money together to deal with an apartment and to deal with getting an inexpensive paid car with this lease running out, we're going to get you back to sustainability, okay? But you need some human beings in your life because you're wandering out there in the middle of a huge crowd called Philadelphia completely alone.Yeah.That's not going to lead you to where you want to go. You need community. You need human beings with their arms around you, helping you, loving you, and showing you the way, and even maybe helping you a little bit with the money stuff. But we're not going to give you We're just going to... You got plenty of money. Your money is just out of control because your heart's messed up. Okay? Yeah. We'll walk with you, kiddo, and you need to get out of this hotel, and you need to get out of this lease, and you need to throw your shoulders back and get your dignity back because you're worth way more than you sound like you think you're worth. So you hold on and we'll pick up. We're going to get you hooked up with one of our coaches, and they'll plug you into a good church. And between the two, we're going to get you in community and get yourself squared around. Hang on, kiddo. This is the Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Isaiah 58:11. The Lord will guide you always. He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame.You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. That's for our last caller.Yeah.Elizabeth Elliott said, Of the one thing I am perfectly sure God's story never ends with ashes.You know what? Mini-rant. Because that and the last collar and the collar before with the car that was breaking down, I think I think the number one factor that people sleep on is community. I think it's the number one thing when it comes to your life and your money, having a church family, a community around you. And here's the thing, I get it. Anybody listening there like, Jay, don't follow Jesus. I'm not into that. I really don't care. Being in a place where people will love you and care for you, it is such an answer. It's a place where you can go when you need somebody to look after the kids. It's a place where you can go if you need somebody to help you go down in the car dealership and buy the right car, somebody who has a car that they're selling. It's someplace where you can go where you're heartbroken and people will put their arms around you and pray with you. It's a place where you can go when the election is going crazy and you are fearful of the future. There's so many things that come up in normal everyday life that...I mean, we say it all the time, you don't want to go through life alone. I'm telling you, it's the number one thing that will help you keep it together in life. That's it. That's all I have to say.No, It's a community. Psychologists say it regulates. You regulate yourself off of others, and you only go crazy in your own head. You don't do that because even if your family's nuts, I mean, in her case, she's a strange from her mother and father, and they're separated, obviously. Divorced, probably, or whatever. I don't know what her story was. I grew up on a street in suburban Nashville, and it was like something out of a book. We didn't knock on the neighbor's door. We just walked in. All the kids played hide and seek outside until 10:00 at night. We jumped over plywood in the middle of the on our bicycles. And yes, we had no helmets. It was a long time ago. I'm a dinosaur. But I got to tell you, if a neighbor built a deck on the back of their house, all of the kids and the men from the neighborhood are up there swinging a hammer. Yeah. Twelve When you're years old, I'm driving nails in the neighbor's deck. I can show you the nails I put in. Like I knew what I was doing. But that was what we were taught, that you're there for your neighbor, you're there for each other, you're in community.My grandmother died. I remember My parents jumped in the car and took off and dropped us on the front porch of one of the neighbor's houses and took off to go eight hours away and so on. That's the You got to have… It's a support system. You're not sustainable as standalone. Dr. Deloney talks about this a lot, that we are the loneliest culture at this moment in time. I don't know exactly if I was going to… I don't know if we need to blame that on something or not, but if you were going to blame it on something, I think I'd blame it on the smartphone.I 100% would blame it on that.The idea that people got confused at some point that Facebook friends are real friends. They're not. They're not there at 2:00 in the morning to help you change a tire, I'm just telling you. You got to drop one kid off because you're going to have the other kid in the emergency. You're getting ready to have the second baby. No Facebook friend. No, they're not real. They're virtual, which means not real by definition. This idea that... We've gotten disconnected. We don't need to go next door for a cup of sugar. How old is that? Is that 1950s or 1970s? I don't know. But I was raised in the '60s and '70s as a kid. We literally, not Not metaphorically, literally walk next door for a cup of sugar. Mama would say, go over to Irene's, and she'd call with a phone that was connected to the wall, and Irene would meet little skinhead Dave with his Shaved head at the front door. No, I wasn't a skinhead. I had a skinned head. I got you, Dave. Just be clear for you idiots out there on the internet. But you're right. That's mad. That stuff, if you want to talk about privilege, regardless of race, that's a privilege.It is. You have to work. Quadruple is hard to create it because, like you said, that digitization that's taking place, you have to say to yourself, You know what? I'm making a batch of cookies. I'm going to make a I don't want to bring it to the neighbors, too. I'm going to share this with them. You have to create these opportunities to share your life with people.Because it's weird now.It's weird now. Yeah, that's right.That's true.But you can't do life alone. Man is not meant to be alone. I hear that sometimes in these calls. I'm like, this person doesn't have anybody to reach out to. The moral of my story here was there's always someplace you can get plugged in, and maybe it's not your neighbor's, but there's always a good church community somewhere that you can get plugged into, but you got to get plugged in. So important.Yeah. Well, I once met a jerk who went to church. Well, good. That's where he needed to be. 100%. He needed to be in church. That's where A jerk's ought to be. It's their only shot, not being a jerk.It's your only shot.Zig Zigler used to say, I can't go to church. There's hypocrites there. Hey, wait a minute. I'm confused. Where did you want them to be? Where'd you want those hypocrites to hang out? What's their only shot, man? I know, right? Oh, my gosh. You're exactly right. There's a connectivity thing here, and the quality of your character is shifted. It's weird that your fears in your own head can become this monstrous bogeyman. But when you actually sit down with a friend or someone who cares, really cares, and you spit them out of your mouth, by the time they come out of your head and land on the table in front of you, they're little tiny lofiers. They're cute. But In your head, they were a big freaking deal. Oh, yeah. That's what community does. It does. Sometimes this show does that. Sometimes we're your community. Oh, 100%. We're okay with being part of it, but we're not real either, so we're virtual. Well, I mean, we're people on the other end of a podcast, for God's sakes. For God's sakes, we are YouTubers. That's the lowest, I mean, right there. That's the bottom of the barrel.I mean, you don't want YouTubers as your community, I'm just saying. Bottom of the barrel. We're big-time YouTubers, man, I'm telling you. I I mean, we're on TikTok. If that didn't ruin it, just tell them the truth. We're on TikTok. Oh, God, that right there ruins it.I had a video that did 7.7 million on TikTok, and I didn't know how to feel about it. Like, Get the content you want whenever and wherever you want to listen. Download the Ramsey Network app today.

zero, then obviously she cannot advance you against your inheritance because the answer is zero. Yes, sir. If it's all coming to your mom and her brothers and sisters, and they're not leaving any to the grandkids directly, which is not that unusual, by the way, then you don't have an inheritance out of this. Or if your mom wanted to agree to accept the amount that your grandmother gives you less as an advance on her inheritance, and it go through to you now, that's okay. If you guys, the three of you, want to talk that out, you and granny and mom, okay? I'm fine with that. If you don't want to talk about it, don't do it. But in no circumstances are we going to do alone. If I'm you.

Who's having these conversations? Is it you and your grandmother Are you working directly or are you finding out about this by way of your mom or whoever? How does the conversation look?

It started with a phone call with my grandmother and my mom on the line. I told my mother and grandmother that she probably needs to talk to her, a state planning attorney, and my grandmother's like, Well, I can go down to the bank and get the money right now.

I'm like, Well- You can, but you also get screwed by gift tax. Your advice was correct.

Yeah, I wanted to see what the relationship was because it does feel presumptuous in many ways to be like, Hey, just give me my inheritance in advance. I could see that feeling awkward.

No, he didn't bring it up, though.

Yeah, he didn't bring it up.

I'd say, Granny, I'm not comfortable doing a loan. If you and mom want to talk about a way that this is an advance on some of the estate plan and either mom's share or my share or however it works is reduced by the amount you want to give me to reduce the student loans, I can talk about that as a gift, and we'll put it on the student loans, but I don't want to be in debt to you, and I'll just work it out. But thank you so much for the kind offer. I honor you. I appreciate that. I know you've got plenty of money. But the idea of me having to pay my grandmother payments makes me ill, and I would never want to do that because I love you too much. That's how it sounds. Does that make sense?

Yes, sir. That's where my head was at on it. Thank you all very much. Yeah.

Thank you for calling in, man. I appreciate it. Family does this stuff. Mom and dad are going to loan the grown kids money to buy a better house so their grandkids have a better place to live. But we'll do it at 4% interest because it's going rate is six, and I can't make that down at the money market anyway. You just pay me what I was going to make on the money market. I've heard that story, I don't know, a bazillion times. Sometimes it all works out, but usually at least one or two people in the equation. Here's what I discovered, okay? When we went broke, Sharon's dad, who is one of the nicest men. He may be a saint. He's one of the nicest men I've ever met, and just a kind, good man. We went broke, and he loaned us some money to keep our house, to bring the house up current. When we filed bankruptcy, we could keep the house. I never thought anything about it because I'd borrowed it up to my eyeballs and just went bankrupt. Hello. I mean, you know. That's where I came up with the saying, Thanksgiving dinner tastes different when you eat with your master.

Don't I know it? Because here's the thing.

It bothered him not at all. He never thought a thing about it. He's the nicest guy. It didn't bother him a bit, but he was the master. It bothered his daughter, my wife, not at all. Because as far as she was concerned, Daddy was helping, and that's what daddies do. Not a big deal. It about killed me.

You had sweaty armpits.

Yeah. That's how I lost my hair right there. I'm just saying. He never said an unkind or shaming thing to me once, never one time. And yet I carried all of this. It just ate at me in silence. It was after I paid it off. Years later, when I'm learning this borrower to the lender thing. I'm learning this. I'm going, Well, that's what happened. I changed my relationship with my father-in-law, who I love dearly, to master. Even if your master, when you're a slave, is a kind master, you are still a slave.

That's so true, Dave. We did the same thing. We were upside down on a Hummer, of all things. Oh, God. We knew- That's almost as bad as my Jaguar. I know. It's bad.

My Jaguar was the one. That's the same stuff.

But bad credit, couldn't get a loan for the difference. Our mother-in-law, who I would agree, one of the most generous people I know, lent us the money. I couldn't pay it off fast enough because it just… From their point of view, it's generosity and it's kindness, and they uphold all of that.

Well, they hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. That's where the old-time preacher would say, Leave and cleave. You leave your father and mother and you cleave, an old English term that became part of the biblical lingo because of King James version of the Bible. But you leave your parents and cling to your spouse. Your husband has not done that. You have a marriage problem. I agree. He's still married to his daddy.100%. Whether they're intending to use him or not, it's not a fair situation. Just reading what you've wrote, there's nothing fair here. If he's doing a job and it's above and beyond what other workers are being paid for the job that they're doing, yeah, that's unfair. Now, there is something to be said for- But we can't even have that discussion because he won't talk to her.He listens to Daddy. Yeah.But I mean, back when I used to work in the cruise business, they would say, I signed my contract, you signed yours, which was basically a saying of, Hey, Don't complain to me now that this is not fair because you knew what you were getting into when you signed it. There's part of it. I'm like, the more that he continues to sign that contract, he's saying, Yes, I agree with this.The problem is not your father-in-law. The problem is your husband.Yeah, because he's agreeing.He needs to stop. What's wrong with this? And he's not listening to his wife. Now, if we stop there and say, Okay, I'm going to quit doing that. I'm going to listen to my wife, and my wife says this is unfair. Now we can talk about, Oh, is it unfair or not? Well, here's some good rules for family Family business, and I coach a lot of family businesses. Got a world famous podcast called Entree Leadership, where I coach family businesses every single week. Millions and tens of thousands of them are being coached by us right now by Ramsey. We deal with them All the time. Here's the guideline. It's very simple. You do not invest money in a business you do not own. I don't care who owns it or what the promise was, period. If I walked up off the street and said, Hey, Mr. Employee, would you put money into my business? Well, they'd have to be brain damaged to do that. The only time you'd be brain damaged enough to do that would be your own stupid family. No, we're not doing it with a stupid family either. No, number one. Number two, when you work in any business, you're only worth what the marketplace says that position is worth.You're not worth any more because you're the golden child or any less because you're family. We get to work our family for free. That's why we had a lot of kids. No, that's not the plan. This is not what we're doing. And so, Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, makes exactly Exactly the same percentage on royalties on books, exactly the same percentage on speaking gigs that Jade sitting beside me makes. Rachel Cruz makes the same as John Deloney. Now, they don't have the same income, but they have the same percentage of their deal. Now, one of them may sell more books or less books. One of them may have more speaking or whatever, right? But that's not the point. The point is they're on the same schedule, and she gets paid for that, not because she's my daughter. She doesn't get paid less because my daughter either. That's a simple formula that you should go with. The third formula with family business is, if you say you're going to turn over a business to a family member, you need to never say that unless you say when. Someday it'll all be yours. When you're 76 and I'm 104, what crap is that?That vague stuff. Nobody knows what you're talking about. When you say to a 30-year-old, someday it'll all be yours, he thinks next week, and you think a decade from now. You need to say, not someday. You need to You need to work hard, someday it'll all be yours. Oh, brother, how about I don't want to be in the landscaping business with you? There's a whole new idea, too. I'd rather start my own thing. I could make three times as much money as you're paying me. All that can come up only after we can have some basic family business principles in place for operating a family business and treating each other with equity and with dignity and with high communication levels. Then you don't get to play the role of resentful wife either. You have to play the role of supportive wife then. That's right. If your husband wants to do this, he likes working with his dad, and he's being treated fairly, and I I don't think you're saying you just don't like these people, but you're starting to not like them because they're standing between you and your husband, and that's a fair complaint right there.Yeah, she said, I'm stuck in the middle.How do you get stuck in the middle? You can't get stuck in the middle of one.Thank you. I'm like, there's a party there that should not be there. A party of one.I think you and your husband need to sit down and discuss who's in charge here of your life, you and him or his daddy. Then once we decide that, then we can have a discussion about who gets paid what and if we want to take this business over and under what circumstances. But this is where it is.Those are tough conversations. Yeah, it is. Because when you're in it, if it's your family, sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees. But then if you're the in-law, it's like you can't say. You know what I mean? There's certain things that as the in-law, it's like you can't say to your family in-law, right? Because it just creates- She can't talk to them at all.No, she can't. She's not got any footing to do it at all. Plus, she's pissed off. Yeah, she is. So it's not going to go well.If you write a letter to a radio show, you're pissed. All right.Just put it in that bucket right there. I don't care how much language. I really like them you put in there. You wrote a letter to a podcast. I'm just saying that's what… Honey, you got a marriage problem, and You need to stop being angry with your father-in-law. He's not the problem. Your husband's the problem. The two of you being on the same page and him putting you and him as a family unit ahead of everything else starts the conversation. That's where it is. Leave and cleave. It's an interesting study. Look it up. The number of people who never leave their mother, never leave their father after they're married, and the damage that does to their marriage relationship, it's everywhere.Yeah, 100%.It's hard to do it when you live in the basement. Oh, gosh.You took it, too. You always take it to the next level.Always go there, too. Just helping you with this.Oh, boy. Yeah, that's important.Open phones at 888-825-5225. Jade, you know why we will always have a compelling and entertaining show? Because human beings are going to do stupid stuff. We human beings When we do stupid stuff, me and you included, we're just downright entertaining.Yeah, 100% every time.This whole building wealth thing, the math is sixth grade. It's the stupid humans that mess it up. It doesn't require any thought. I mean, there's not that much to it. Live on less than you make. We'd be out of business.The funny thing is it's the same stuff over and over, and we've all done it.But it's relational. Yeah. I was reading a thing the other day. It matters more in terms of wealth building. It matters more who you marry than where you went to school.All day. I believe that all day. So important.In that case in point right there. This is The Ramsey Show. All right, let's cut to the chase. It's easy to get discouraged about crazy house prices and interest rates. But when you have the right real estate agent to help you buy and sell the right way, you'll have confidence to make smart decisions. Ramsey trusted agents aren't just experts who guide you through buying or selling. They're someone you can trust to have your back from the first call to closing day. Find a Ramsey trusted agent near you at ramseysolutions. Com/agent. Ramsey solutions. Com/agent. Thanks for joining us, America. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Jade Warshaw. Ramsey personality is my co-host. The best way to make the most of your money is by creating and sticking to a plan, to be intentional. A plan in the money world is called a budget. Just tell your money what to do instead of wondering where it went. Every dollar makes it simple to plan your spending. It is the world's best, most robust That's what you do when you're broke. You go get a four-pack of Angel Soft. You get the smallest- That's good.That's what I'm functioning. I'm functioning in broke Dave. Broke Dave, he didn't make His income was not what our coffee budget is. It's the old man. That's broke Dave. But, Dave, you're okay. Jay, you're okay. You can afford the car. Buy the car, pay cash for it, enjoy it. Happy wife, happy life. You know the federal That's federal law. Wife gets the good car. That's federal law. That's right. Okay. Zachary is in Indianapolis. Hey, Zachary, what's up?Dave, Jade. Nice to talk to you guys. How are you?Better than we deserve. How can we help?What I've got going on, This year, I've paid almost just under $20,000 off in debt, including just credit cards, and I've already cut my truck loan in half. Good for you. I've got $14,000 left, and I basically stay with my girlfriend pretty much every night. I have an apartment. She has a house that will be them ELPs, Endorsed Local Providers. They live there in your neighborhood, but they're the best of the best in your area, and they have become Ramsey Trusted Agents. Be sure and check them out. If you want to find out who is Ramsey Trusted in your area, you can do that for free at ramseysolutions. Com/agent. Then you talk to them and you interview them and see if you find the same thing that we found when we talked to them and we interviewed them and we coached them because we do all of those things. Yeah. Marie is with us. Marie is in Philadelphia. Hi, Marie. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.Hi. Thanks for taking my call.Sure. What's up?I'm currently living in hotels. I can't seem to find an apartment. I've been looking for a roommate. What should I do?You can't seem to find an apartment. Why?My credit score is abysmal. Okay.Are you working?Yes.What do you make?I take in 87 a year before taxes.Eighty-seven thousand dollars a year?Yes.Good for you. What Who are you?I'm an occupational therapist.How'd you end up homeless?Well, I moved from state to state for love and a relationship, and That did not work out. My only real option at the time was to find a hotel for temporary housing, and I really didn't have anything saved up. I wasn't prepared.Do you have any money now?No, because I'm basically spending $2,200 a month just to keep a roof over my head.But you make 87,000.Yeah.You must have a lot of debt payments. Where else is your money going?Yeah. I have a car lease, and I have my student loan debt.How much are the student loans? Tell me the amounts, if you don't mind.Yeah, I think they're probably at 275 right now in student loan debt.Two hundred and seven-five thousand dollars?Yes.Okay. What else?And then car insurance, my phone, and food. That's really what I've got money for.Tell me about the car lease.It ends next month.Okay, good.That's about $340 a month. I'm not even sure if I'm going to be able to get a car by the time that's over.So Dave asked you the question, and it was a vague answer. I want to know financially what put you here because you've got the 275 in student loans. How much is that for you per month with your income?It's about $1,000 a month.Okay.Are you current?No.Have you been paying it?No.Are they federal?Part of them are federal and part of them are private.Okay.Marie, I'm struggling, okay? You've not paid that. You paid a $300 payment, you make 87,000, and you paid a hotel bill. That's all you've done. Where is all your money going, kiddo?It is going to eating out. I only have a microwave here, so I can't really cook traditional meals. I'm eating out and just trying to survive with food and drink. It goes my phone bill, my car- Eighty-four thousand is $7,000 a month.Minus taxes, you should be getting $5,000 a month coming home.I take home $2,200 every two weeks because I put in about $300 every paycheck into my 401k.Well, I I reckon you need to stop that. Okay, let's stop your 401k, and that gets you to 4,800 then take home pay, which is pretty close to what I'm talking about. Then you can start to Even with eating out and even with a hotel bill, you can still stack some cash. I can't tell what's going on in the numbers, but numbers generally talk to me because I've done this a long time. I think what I'm hearing is a highly educated, very intelligent lady whose heart got broken. Let me take that further, got crushed, and you've been in a spiral emotionally since, and everything's out of control.Yeah.Is that right?Yes.Okay. All right. Because the numbers aren't telling me anything else because you're too smart, you're too intellectually bright to have to be in this situation if you were functioning at a normal level. Right now, you're functioning with a broken heart, and it's clouding everything. You're spending all of your calories and your emotional energy going over and over and over this and feeling ashamed for having chased somebody that dumped you and feeling bad that the guy wasn't worth your trouble and all the different things or whatever it is we do when we're in your situation, and normal humans do it. You're not a bad person, you're not a weak person. You're just been stomped on and you're hurting, and it causes your math to get screwed up. Does that make sense?Yeah.Okay. Because here's what I hear. You've got plenty of money to go rent an apartment. Lots of places will rent somebody with bad credit an apartment. You just put up a good deposit, and you get out of 2,200 a month, and you get straightened out. Where did you move from to move to Philadelphia?I moved from Voorheath.Where's that?In New Jersey.Okay. Just a few hours away. Do you have family back there?My mom is further south in Jersey, down by the shore. My dad is in South Carolina.How's your relationship with either one of them?Awful. We don't talk. We're not speaking.All right. Here's what I want you to do. Jade and I are going to help you, all right? We've got Ramsey Preferred coaches that we have trained to coach people on finances. Okay? I'm going to pay for you to have one for free as my gift.Thank you.Because you're hurting and you need somebody to put their arms around you, and we're the people that are going to do it. Okay? Then I'm also going to have that person recommend to you to get plugged into a good local church. Between the coaching on pulling the money together to deal with an apartment and to deal with getting an inexpensive paid car with this lease running out, we're going to get you back to sustainability, okay? But you need some human beings in your life because you're wandering out there in the middle of a huge crowd called Philadelphia completely alone.Yeah.That's not going to lead you to where you want to go. You need community. You need human beings with their arms around you, helping you, loving you, and showing you the way, and even maybe helping you a little bit with the money stuff. But we're not going to give you We're just going to... You got plenty of money. Your money is just out of control because your heart's messed up. Okay? Yeah. We'll walk with you, kiddo, and you need to get out of this hotel, and you need to get out of this lease, and you need to throw your shoulders back and get your dignity back because you're worth way more than you sound like you think you're worth. So you hold on and we'll pick up. We're going to get you hooked up with one of our coaches, and they'll plug you into a good church. And between the two, we're going to get you in community and get yourself squared around. Hang on, kiddo. This is the Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Isaiah 58:11. The Lord will guide you always. He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame.You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. That's for our last caller.Yeah.Elizabeth Elliott said, Of the one thing I am perfectly sure God's story never ends with ashes.You know what? Mini-rant. Because that and the last collar and the collar before with the car that was breaking down, I think I think the number one factor that people sleep on is community. I think it's the number one thing when it comes to your life and your money, having a church family, a community around you. And here's the thing, I get it. Anybody listening there like, Jay, don't follow Jesus. I'm not into that. I really don't care. Being in a place where people will love you and care for you, it is such an answer. It's a place where you can go when you need somebody to look after the kids. It's a place where you can go if you need somebody to help you go down in the car dealership and buy the right car, somebody who has a car that they're selling. It's someplace where you can go where you're heartbroken and people will put their arms around you and pray with you. It's a place where you can go when the election is going crazy and you are fearful of the future. There's so many things that come up in normal everyday life that...I mean, we say it all the time, you don't want to go through life alone. I'm telling you, it's the number one thing that will help you keep it together in life. That's it. That's all I have to say.No, It's a community. Psychologists say it regulates. You regulate yourself off of others, and you only go crazy in your own head. You don't do that because even if your family's nuts, I mean, in her case, she's a strange from her mother and father, and they're separated, obviously. Divorced, probably, or whatever. I don't know what her story was. I grew up on a street in suburban Nashville, and it was like something out of a book. We didn't knock on the neighbor's door. We just walked in. All the kids played hide and seek outside until 10:00 at night. We jumped over plywood in the middle of the on our bicycles. And yes, we had no helmets. It was a long time ago. I'm a dinosaur. But I got to tell you, if a neighbor built a deck on the back of their house, all of the kids and the men from the neighborhood are up there swinging a hammer. Yeah. Twelve When you're years old, I'm driving nails in the neighbor's deck. I can show you the nails I put in. Like I knew what I was doing. But that was what we were taught, that you're there for your neighbor, you're there for each other, you're in community.My grandmother died. I remember My parents jumped in the car and took off and dropped us on the front porch of one of the neighbor's houses and took off to go eight hours away and so on. That's the You got to have… It's a support system. You're not sustainable as standalone. Dr. Deloney talks about this a lot, that we are the loneliest culture at this moment in time. I don't know exactly if I was going to… I don't know if we need to blame that on something or not, but if you were going to blame it on something, I think I'd blame it on the smartphone.I 100% would blame it on that.The idea that people got confused at some point that Facebook friends are real friends. They're not. They're not there at 2:00 in the morning to help you change a tire, I'm just telling you. You got to drop one kid off because you're going to have the other kid in the emergency. You're getting ready to have the second baby. No Facebook friend. No, they're not real. They're virtual, which means not real by definition. This idea that... We've gotten disconnected. We don't need to go next door for a cup of sugar. How old is that? Is that 1950s or 1970s? I don't know. But I was raised in the '60s and '70s as a kid. We literally, not Not metaphorically, literally walk next door for a cup of sugar. Mama would say, go over to Irene's, and she'd call with a phone that was connected to the wall, and Irene would meet little skinhead Dave with his Shaved head at the front door. No, I wasn't a skinhead. I had a skinned head. I got you, Dave. Just be clear for you idiots out there on the internet. But you're right. That's mad. That stuff, if you want to talk about privilege, regardless of race, that's a privilege.It is. You have to work. Quadruple is hard to create it because, like you said, that digitization that's taking place, you have to say to yourself, You know what? I'm making a batch of cookies. I'm going to make a I don't want to bring it to the neighbors, too. I'm going to share this with them. You have to create these opportunities to share your life with people.Because it's weird now.It's weird now. Yeah, that's right.That's true.But you can't do life alone. Man is not meant to be alone. I hear that sometimes in these calls. I'm like, this person doesn't have anybody to reach out to. The moral of my story here was there's always someplace you can get plugged in, and maybe it's not your neighbor's, but there's always a good church community somewhere that you can get plugged into, but you got to get plugged in. So important.Yeah. Well, I once met a jerk who went to church. Well, good. That's where he needed to be. 100%. He needed to be in church. That's where A jerk's ought to be. It's their only shot, not being a jerk.It's your only shot.Zig Zigler used to say, I can't go to church. There's hypocrites there. Hey, wait a minute. I'm confused. Where did you want them to be? Where'd you want those hypocrites to hang out? What's their only shot, man? I know, right? Oh, my gosh. You're exactly right. There's a connectivity thing here, and the quality of your character is shifted. It's weird that your fears in your own head can become this monstrous bogeyman. But when you actually sit down with a friend or someone who cares, really cares, and you spit them out of your mouth, by the time they come out of your head and land on the table in front of you, they're little tiny lofiers. They're cute. But In your head, they were a big freaking deal. Oh, yeah. That's what community does. It does. Sometimes this show does that. Sometimes we're your community. Oh, 100%. We're okay with being part of it, but we're not real either, so we're virtual. Well, I mean, we're people on the other end of a podcast, for God's sakes. For God's sakes, we are YouTubers. That's the lowest, I mean, right there. That's the bottom of the barrel.I mean, you don't want YouTubers as your community, I'm just saying. Bottom of the barrel. We're big-time YouTubers, man, I'm telling you. I I mean, we're on TikTok. If that didn't ruin it, just tell them the truth. We're on TikTok. Oh, God, that right there ruins it.I had a video that did 7.7 million on TikTok, and I didn't know how to feel about it. Like, Get the content you want whenever and wherever you want to listen. Download the Ramsey Network app today.

hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. That's where the old-time preacher would say, Leave and cleave. You leave your father and mother and you cleave, an old English term that became part of the biblical lingo because of King James version of the Bible. But you leave your parents and cling to your spouse. Your husband has not done that. You have a marriage problem. I agree. He's still married to his daddy.

100%. Whether they're intending to use him or not, it's not a fair situation. Just reading what you've wrote, there's nothing fair here. If he's doing a job and it's above and beyond what other workers are being paid for the job that they're doing, yeah, that's unfair. Now, there is something to be said for- But we can't even have that discussion because he won't talk to her.

He listens to Daddy. Yeah.

But I mean, back when I used to work in the cruise business, they would say, I signed my contract, you signed yours, which was basically a saying of, Hey, Don't complain to me now that this is not fair because you knew what you were getting into when you signed it. There's part of it. I'm like, the more that he continues to sign that contract, he's saying, Yes, I agree with this.

The problem is not your father-in-law. The problem is your husband.

Yeah, because he's agreeing.

He needs to stop. What's wrong with this? And he's not listening to his wife. Now, if we stop there and say, Okay, I'm going to quit doing that. I'm going to listen to my wife, and my wife says this is unfair. Now we can talk about, Oh, is it unfair or not? Well, here's some good rules for family Family business, and I coach a lot of family businesses. Got a world famous podcast called Entree Leadership, where I coach family businesses every single week. Millions and tens of thousands of them are being coached by us right now by Ramsey. We deal with them All the time. Here's the guideline. It's very simple. You do not invest money in a business you do not own. I don't care who owns it or what the promise was, period. If I walked up off the street and said, Hey, Mr. Employee, would you put money into my business? Well, they'd have to be brain damaged to do that. The only time you'd be brain damaged enough to do that would be your own stupid family. No, we're not doing it with a stupid family either. No, number one. Number two, when you work in any business, you're only worth what the marketplace says that position is worth.

You're not worth any more because you're the golden child or any less because you're family. We get to work our family for free. That's why we had a lot of kids. No, that's not the plan. This is not what we're doing. And so, Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, makes exactly Exactly the same percentage on royalties on books, exactly the same percentage on speaking gigs that Jade sitting beside me makes. Rachel Cruz makes the same as John Deloney. Now, they don't have the same income, but they have the same percentage of their deal. Now, one of them may sell more books or less books. One of them may have more speaking or whatever, right? But that's not the point. The point is they're on the same schedule, and she gets paid for that, not because she's my daughter. She doesn't get paid less because my daughter either. That's a simple formula that you should go with. The third formula with family business is, if you say you're going to turn over a business to a family member, you need to never say that unless you say when. Someday it'll all be yours. When you're 76 and I'm 104, what crap is that?

That vague stuff. Nobody knows what you're talking about. When you say to a 30-year-old, someday it'll all be yours, he thinks next week, and you think a decade from now. You need to say, not someday. You need to You need to work hard, someday it'll all be yours. Oh, brother, how about I don't want to be in the landscaping business with you? There's a whole new idea, too. I'd rather start my own thing. I could make three times as much money as you're paying me. All that can come up only after we can have some basic family business principles in place for operating a family business and treating each other with equity and with dignity and with high communication levels. Then you don't get to play the role of resentful wife either. You have to play the role of supportive wife then. That's right. If your husband wants to do this, he likes working with his dad, and he's being treated fairly, and I I don't think you're saying you just don't like these people, but you're starting to not like them because they're standing between you and your husband, and that's a fair complaint right there.

Yeah, she said, I'm stuck in the middle.

How do you get stuck in the middle? You can't get stuck in the middle of one.

Thank you. I'm like, there's a party there that should not be there. A party of one.

I think you and your husband need to sit down and discuss who's in charge here of your life, you and him or his daddy. Then once we decide that, then we can have a discussion about who gets paid what and if we want to take this business over and under what circumstances. But this is where it is.

Those are tough conversations. Yeah, it is. Because when you're in it, if it's your family, sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees. But then if you're the in-law, it's like you can't say. You know what I mean? There's certain things that as the in-law, it's like you can't say to your family in-law, right? Because it just creates- She can't talk to them at all.

No, she can't. She's not got any footing to do it at all. Plus, she's pissed off. Yeah, she is. So it's not going to go well.

If you write a letter to a radio show, you're pissed. All right.

Just put it in that bucket right there. I don't care how much language. I really like them you put in there. You wrote a letter to a podcast. I'm just saying that's what… Honey, you got a marriage problem, and You need to stop being angry with your father-in-law. He's not the problem. Your husband's the problem. The two of you being on the same page and him putting you and him as a family unit ahead of everything else starts the conversation. That's where it is. Leave and cleave. It's an interesting study. Look it up. The number of people who never leave their mother, never leave their father after they're married, and the damage that does to their marriage relationship, it's everywhere.

Yeah, 100%.

It's hard to do it when you live in the basement. Oh, gosh.

You took it, too. You always take it to the next level.

Always go there, too. Just helping you with this.

Oh, boy. Yeah, that's important.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. Jade, you know why we will always have a compelling and entertaining show? Because human beings are going to do stupid stuff. We human beings When we do stupid stuff, me and you included, we're just downright entertaining.

Yeah, 100% every time.

This whole building wealth thing, the math is sixth grade. It's the stupid humans that mess it up. It doesn't require any thought. I mean, there's not that much to it. Live on less than you make. We'd be out of business.

The funny thing is it's the same stuff over and over, and we've all done it.

But it's relational. Yeah. I was reading a thing the other day. It matters more in terms of wealth building. It matters more who you marry than where you went to school.

All day. I believe that all day. So important.

In that case in point right there. This is The Ramsey Show. All right, let's cut to the chase. It's easy to get discouraged about crazy house prices and interest rates. But when you have the right real estate agent to help you buy and sell the right way, you'll have confidence to make smart decisions. Ramsey trusted agents aren't just experts who guide you through buying or selling. They're someone you can trust to have your back from the first call to closing day. Find a Ramsey trusted agent near you at ramseysolutions. Com/agent. Ramsey solutions. Com/agent. Thanks for joining us, America. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Jade Warshaw. Ramsey personality is my co-host. The best way to make the most of your money is by creating and sticking to a plan, to be intentional. A plan in the money world is called a budget. Just tell your money what to do instead of wondering where it went. Every dollar makes it simple to plan your spending. It is the world's best, most robust That's what you do when you're broke. You go get a four-pack of Angel Soft. You get the smallest- That's good.That's what I'm functioning. I'm functioning in broke Dave. Broke Dave, he didn't make His income was not what our coffee budget is. It's the old man. That's broke Dave. But, Dave, you're okay. Jay, you're okay. You can afford the car. Buy the car, pay cash for it, enjoy it. Happy wife, happy life. You know the federal That's federal law. Wife gets the good car. That's federal law. That's right. Okay. Zachary is in Indianapolis. Hey, Zachary, what's up?Dave, Jade. Nice to talk to you guys. How are you?Better than we deserve. How can we help?What I've got going on, This year, I've paid almost just under $20,000 off in debt, including just credit cards, and I've already cut my truck loan in half. Good for you. I've got $14,000 left, and I basically stay with my girlfriend pretty much every night. I have an apartment. She has a house that will be them ELPs, Endorsed Local Providers. They live there in your neighborhood, but they're the best of the best in your area, and they have become Ramsey Trusted Agents. Be sure and check them out. If you want to find out who is Ramsey Trusted in your area, you can do that for free at ramseysolutions. Com/agent. Then you talk to them and you interview them and see if you find the same thing that we found when we talked to them and we interviewed them and we coached them because we do all of those things. Yeah. Marie is with us. Marie is in Philadelphia. Hi, Marie. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.Hi. Thanks for taking my call.Sure. What's up?I'm currently living in hotels. I can't seem to find an apartment. I've been looking for a roommate. What should I do?You can't seem to find an apartment. Why?My credit score is abysmal. Okay.Are you working?Yes.What do you make?I take in 87 a year before taxes.Eighty-seven thousand dollars a year?Yes.Good for you. What Who are you?I'm an occupational therapist.How'd you end up homeless?Well, I moved from state to state for love and a relationship, and That did not work out. My only real option at the time was to find a hotel for temporary housing, and I really didn't have anything saved up. I wasn't prepared.Do you have any money now?No, because I'm basically spending $2,200 a month just to keep a roof over my head.But you make 87,000.Yeah.You must have a lot of debt payments. Where else is your money going?Yeah. I have a car lease, and I have my student loan debt.How much are the student loans? Tell me the amounts, if you don't mind.Yeah, I think they're probably at 275 right now in student loan debt.Two hundred and seven-five thousand dollars?Yes.Okay. What else?And then car insurance, my phone, and food. That's really what I've got money for.Tell me about the car lease.It ends next month.Okay, good.That's about $340 a month. I'm not even sure if I'm going to be able to get a car by the time that's over.So Dave asked you the question, and it was a vague answer. I want to know financially what put you here because you've got the 275 in student loans. How much is that for you per month with your income?It's about $1,000 a month.Okay.Are you current?No.Have you been paying it?No.Are they federal?Part of them are federal and part of them are private.Okay.Marie, I'm struggling, okay? You've not paid that. You paid a $300 payment, you make 87,000, and you paid a hotel bill. That's all you've done. Where is all your money going, kiddo?It is going to eating out. I only have a microwave here, so I can't really cook traditional meals. I'm eating out and just trying to survive with food and drink. It goes my phone bill, my car- Eighty-four thousand is $7,000 a month.Minus taxes, you should be getting $5,000 a month coming home.I take home $2,200 every two weeks because I put in about $300 every paycheck into my 401k.Well, I I reckon you need to stop that. Okay, let's stop your 401k, and that gets you to 4,800 then take home pay, which is pretty close to what I'm talking about. Then you can start to Even with eating out and even with a hotel bill, you can still stack some cash. I can't tell what's going on in the numbers, but numbers generally talk to me because I've done this a long time. I think what I'm hearing is a highly educated, very intelligent lady whose heart got broken. Let me take that further, got crushed, and you've been in a spiral emotionally since, and everything's out of control.Yeah.Is that right?Yes.Okay. All right. Because the numbers aren't telling me anything else because you're too smart, you're too intellectually bright to have to be in this situation if you were functioning at a normal level. Right now, you're functioning with a broken heart, and it's clouding everything. You're spending all of your calories and your emotional energy going over and over and over this and feeling ashamed for having chased somebody that dumped you and feeling bad that the guy wasn't worth your trouble and all the different things or whatever it is we do when we're in your situation, and normal humans do it. You're not a bad person, you're not a weak person. You're just been stomped on and you're hurting, and it causes your math to get screwed up. Does that make sense?Yeah.Okay. Because here's what I hear. You've got plenty of money to go rent an apartment. Lots of places will rent somebody with bad credit an apartment. You just put up a good deposit, and you get out of 2,200 a month, and you get straightened out. Where did you move from to move to Philadelphia?I moved from Voorheath.Where's that?In New Jersey.Okay. Just a few hours away. Do you have family back there?My mom is further south in Jersey, down by the shore. My dad is in South Carolina.How's your relationship with either one of them?Awful. We don't talk. We're not speaking.All right. Here's what I want you to do. Jade and I are going to help you, all right? We've got Ramsey Preferred coaches that we have trained to coach people on finances. Okay? I'm going to pay for you to have one for free as my gift.Thank you.Because you're hurting and you need somebody to put their arms around you, and we're the people that are going to do it. Okay? Then I'm also going to have that person recommend to you to get plugged into a good local church. Between the coaching on pulling the money together to deal with an apartment and to deal with getting an inexpensive paid car with this lease running out, we're going to get you back to sustainability, okay? But you need some human beings in your life because you're wandering out there in the middle of a huge crowd called Philadelphia completely alone.Yeah.That's not going to lead you to where you want to go. You need community. You need human beings with their arms around you, helping you, loving you, and showing you the way, and even maybe helping you a little bit with the money stuff. But we're not going to give you We're just going to... You got plenty of money. Your money is just out of control because your heart's messed up. Okay? Yeah. We'll walk with you, kiddo, and you need to get out of this hotel, and you need to get out of this lease, and you need to throw your shoulders back and get your dignity back because you're worth way more than you sound like you think you're worth. So you hold on and we'll pick up. We're going to get you hooked up with one of our coaches, and they'll plug you into a good church. And between the two, we're going to get you in community and get yourself squared around. Hang on, kiddo. This is the Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Isaiah 58:11. The Lord will guide you always. He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame.You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. That's for our last caller.Yeah.Elizabeth Elliott said, Of the one thing I am perfectly sure God's story never ends with ashes.You know what? Mini-rant. Because that and the last collar and the collar before with the car that was breaking down, I think I think the number one factor that people sleep on is community. I think it's the number one thing when it comes to your life and your money, having a church family, a community around you. And here's the thing, I get it. Anybody listening there like, Jay, don't follow Jesus. I'm not into that. I really don't care. Being in a place where people will love you and care for you, it is such an answer. It's a place where you can go when you need somebody to look after the kids. It's a place where you can go if you need somebody to help you go down in the car dealership and buy the right car, somebody who has a car that they're selling. It's someplace where you can go where you're heartbroken and people will put their arms around you and pray with you. It's a place where you can go when the election is going crazy and you are fearful of the future. There's so many things that come up in normal everyday life that...I mean, we say it all the time, you don't want to go through life alone. I'm telling you, it's the number one thing that will help you keep it together in life. That's it. That's all I have to say.No, It's a community. Psychologists say it regulates. You regulate yourself off of others, and you only go crazy in your own head. You don't do that because even if your family's nuts, I mean, in her case, she's a strange from her mother and father, and they're separated, obviously. Divorced, probably, or whatever. I don't know what her story was. I grew up on a street in suburban Nashville, and it was like something out of a book. We didn't knock on the neighbor's door. We just walked in. All the kids played hide and seek outside until 10:00 at night. We jumped over plywood in the middle of the on our bicycles. And yes, we had no helmets. It was a long time ago. I'm a dinosaur. But I got to tell you, if a neighbor built a deck on the back of their house, all of the kids and the men from the neighborhood are up there swinging a hammer. Yeah. Twelve When you're years old, I'm driving nails in the neighbor's deck. I can show you the nails I put in. Like I knew what I was doing. But that was what we were taught, that you're there for your neighbor, you're there for each other, you're in community.My grandmother died. I remember My parents jumped in the car and took off and dropped us on the front porch of one of the neighbor's houses and took off to go eight hours away and so on. That's the You got to have… It's a support system. You're not sustainable as standalone. Dr. Deloney talks about this a lot, that we are the loneliest culture at this moment in time. I don't know exactly if I was going to… I don't know if we need to blame that on something or not, but if you were going to blame it on something, I think I'd blame it on the smartphone.I 100% would blame it on that.The idea that people got confused at some point that Facebook friends are real friends. They're not. They're not there at 2:00 in the morning to help you change a tire, I'm just telling you. You got to drop one kid off because you're going to have the other kid in the emergency. You're getting ready to have the second baby. No Facebook friend. No, they're not real. They're virtual, which means not real by definition. This idea that... We've gotten disconnected. We don't need to go next door for a cup of sugar. How old is that? Is that 1950s or 1970s? I don't know. But I was raised in the '60s and '70s as a kid. We literally, not Not metaphorically, literally walk next door for a cup of sugar. Mama would say, go over to Irene's, and she'd call with a phone that was connected to the wall, and Irene would meet little skinhead Dave with his Shaved head at the front door. No, I wasn't a skinhead. I had a skinned head. I got you, Dave. Just be clear for you idiots out there on the internet. But you're right. That's mad. That stuff, if you want to talk about privilege, regardless of race, that's a privilege.It is. You have to work. Quadruple is hard to create it because, like you said, that digitization that's taking place, you have to say to yourself, You know what? I'm making a batch of cookies. I'm going to make a I don't want to bring it to the neighbors, too. I'm going to share this with them. You have to create these opportunities to share your life with people.Because it's weird now.It's weird now. Yeah, that's right.That's true.But you can't do life alone. Man is not meant to be alone. I hear that sometimes in these calls. I'm like, this person doesn't have anybody to reach out to. The moral of my story here was there's always someplace you can get plugged in, and maybe it's not your neighbor's, but there's always a good church community somewhere that you can get plugged into, but you got to get plugged in. So important.Yeah. Well, I once met a jerk who went to church. Well, good. That's where he needed to be. 100%. He needed to be in church. That's where A jerk's ought to be. It's their only shot, not being a jerk.It's your only shot.Zig Zigler used to say, I can't go to church. There's hypocrites there. Hey, wait a minute. I'm confused. Where did you want them to be? Where'd you want those hypocrites to hang out? What's their only shot, man? I know, right? Oh, my gosh. You're exactly right. There's a connectivity thing here, and the quality of your character is shifted. It's weird that your fears in your own head can become this monstrous bogeyman. But when you actually sit down with a friend or someone who cares, really cares, and you spit them out of your mouth, by the time they come out of your head and land on the table in front of you, they're little tiny lofiers. They're cute. But In your head, they were a big freaking deal. Oh, yeah. That's what community does. It does. Sometimes this show does that. Sometimes we're your community. Oh, 100%. We're okay with being part of it, but we're not real either, so we're virtual. Well, I mean, we're people on the other end of a podcast, for God's sakes. For God's sakes, we are YouTubers. That's the lowest, I mean, right there. That's the bottom of the barrel.I mean, you don't want YouTubers as your community, I'm just saying. Bottom of the barrel. We're big-time YouTubers, man, I'm telling you. I I mean, we're on TikTok. If that didn't ruin it, just tell them the truth. We're on TikTok. Oh, God, that right there ruins it.I had a video that did 7.7 million on TikTok, and I didn't know how to feel about it. Like, Get the content you want whenever and wherever you want to listen. Download the Ramsey Network app today.

That's what you do when you're broke. You go get a four-pack of Angel Soft. You get the smallest- That's good.

That's what I'm functioning. I'm functioning in broke Dave. Broke Dave, he didn't make His income was not what our coffee budget is. It's the old man. That's broke Dave. But, Dave, you're okay. Jay, you're okay. You can afford the car. Buy the car, pay cash for it, enjoy it. Happy wife, happy life. You know the federal That's federal law. Wife gets the good car. That's federal law. That's right. Okay. Zachary is in Indianapolis. Hey, Zachary, what's up?

Dave, Jade. Nice to talk to you guys. How are you?

Better than we deserve. How can we help?

What I've got going on, This year, I've paid almost just under $20,000 off in debt, including just credit cards, and I've already cut my truck loan in half. Good for you. I've got $14,000 left, and I basically stay with my girlfriend pretty much every night. I have an apartment. She has a house that will be them ELPs, Endorsed Local Providers. They live there in your neighborhood, but they're the best of the best in your area, and they have become Ramsey Trusted Agents. Be sure and check them out. If you want to find out who is Ramsey Trusted in your area, you can do that for free at ramseysolutions. Com/agent. Then you talk to them and you interview them and see if you find the same thing that we found when we talked to them and we interviewed them and we coached them because we do all of those things. Yeah. Marie is with us. Marie is in Philadelphia. Hi, Marie. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.Hi. Thanks for taking my call.Sure. What's up?I'm currently living in hotels. I can't seem to find an apartment. I've been looking for a roommate. What should I do?You can't seem to find an apartment. Why?My credit score is abysmal. Okay.Are you working?Yes.What do you make?I take in 87 a year before taxes.Eighty-seven thousand dollars a year?Yes.Good for you. What Who are you?I'm an occupational therapist.How'd you end up homeless?Well, I moved from state to state for love and a relationship, and That did not work out. My only real option at the time was to find a hotel for temporary housing, and I really didn't have anything saved up. I wasn't prepared.Do you have any money now?No, because I'm basically spending $2,200 a month just to keep a roof over my head.But you make 87,000.Yeah.You must have a lot of debt payments. Where else is your money going?Yeah. I have a car lease, and I have my student loan debt.How much are the student loans? Tell me the amounts, if you don't mind.Yeah, I think they're probably at 275 right now in student loan debt.Two hundred and seven-five thousand dollars?Yes.Okay. What else?And then car insurance, my phone, and food. That's really what I've got money for.Tell me about the car lease.It ends next month.Okay, good.That's about $340 a month. I'm not even sure if I'm going to be able to get a car by the time that's over.So Dave asked you the question, and it was a vague answer. I want to know financially what put you here because you've got the 275 in student loans. How much is that for you per month with your income?It's about $1,000 a month.Okay.Are you current?No.Have you been paying it?No.Are they federal?Part of them are federal and part of them are private.Okay.Marie, I'm struggling, okay? You've not paid that. You paid a $300 payment, you make 87,000, and you paid a hotel bill. That's all you've done. Where is all your money going, kiddo?It is going to eating out. I only have a microwave here, so I can't really cook traditional meals. I'm eating out and just trying to survive with food and drink. It goes my phone bill, my car- Eighty-four thousand is $7,000 a month.Minus taxes, you should be getting $5,000 a month coming home.I take home $2,200 every two weeks because I put in about $300 every paycheck into my 401k.Well, I I reckon you need to stop that. Okay, let's stop your 401k, and that gets you to 4,800 then take home pay, which is pretty close to what I'm talking about. Then you can start to Even with eating out and even with a hotel bill, you can still stack some cash. I can't tell what's going on in the numbers, but numbers generally talk to me because I've done this a long time. I think what I'm hearing is a highly educated, very intelligent lady whose heart got broken. Let me take that further, got crushed, and you've been in a spiral emotionally since, and everything's out of control.Yeah.Is that right?Yes.Okay. All right. Because the numbers aren't telling me anything else because you're too smart, you're too intellectually bright to have to be in this situation if you were functioning at a normal level. Right now, you're functioning with a broken heart, and it's clouding everything. You're spending all of your calories and your emotional energy going over and over and over this and feeling ashamed for having chased somebody that dumped you and feeling bad that the guy wasn't worth your trouble and all the different things or whatever it is we do when we're in your situation, and normal humans do it. You're not a bad person, you're not a weak person. You're just been stomped on and you're hurting, and it causes your math to get screwed up. Does that make sense?Yeah.Okay. Because here's what I hear. You've got plenty of money to go rent an apartment. Lots of places will rent somebody with bad credit an apartment. You just put up a good deposit, and you get out of 2,200 a month, and you get straightened out. Where did you move from to move to Philadelphia?I moved from Voorheath.Where's that?In New Jersey.Okay. Just a few hours away. Do you have family back there?My mom is further south in Jersey, down by the shore. My dad is in South Carolina.How's your relationship with either one of them?Awful. We don't talk. We're not speaking.All right. Here's what I want you to do. Jade and I are going to help you, all right? We've got Ramsey Preferred coaches that we have trained to coach people on finances. Okay? I'm going to pay for you to have one for free as my gift.Thank you.Because you're hurting and you need somebody to put their arms around you, and we're the people that are going to do it. Okay? Then I'm also going to have that person recommend to you to get plugged into a good local church. Between the coaching on pulling the money together to deal with an apartment and to deal with getting an inexpensive paid car with this lease running out, we're going to get you back to sustainability, okay? But you need some human beings in your life because you're wandering out there in the middle of a huge crowd called Philadelphia completely alone.Yeah.That's not going to lead you to where you want to go. You need community. You need human beings with their arms around you, helping you, loving you, and showing you the way, and even maybe helping you a little bit with the money stuff. But we're not going to give you We're just going to... You got plenty of money. Your money is just out of control because your heart's messed up. Okay? Yeah. We'll walk with you, kiddo, and you need to get out of this hotel, and you need to get out of this lease, and you need to throw your shoulders back and get your dignity back because you're worth way more than you sound like you think you're worth. So you hold on and we'll pick up. We're going to get you hooked up with one of our coaches, and they'll plug you into a good church. And between the two, we're going to get you in community and get yourself squared around. Hang on, kiddo. This is the Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Isaiah 58:11. The Lord will guide you always. He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame.You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. That's for our last caller.Yeah.Elizabeth Elliott said, Of the one thing I am perfectly sure God's story never ends with ashes.You know what? Mini-rant. Because that and the last collar and the collar before with the car that was breaking down, I think I think the number one factor that people sleep on is community. I think it's the number one thing when it comes to your life and your money, having a church family, a community around you. And here's the thing, I get it. Anybody listening there like, Jay, don't follow Jesus. I'm not into that. I really don't care. Being in a place where people will love you and care for you, it is such an answer. It's a place where you can go when you need somebody to look after the kids. It's a place where you can go if you need somebody to help you go down in the car dealership and buy the right car, somebody who has a car that they're selling. It's someplace where you can go where you're heartbroken and people will put their arms around you and pray with you. It's a place where you can go when the election is going crazy and you are fearful of the future. There's so many things that come up in normal everyday life that...I mean, we say it all the time, you don't want to go through life alone. I'm telling you, it's the number one thing that will help you keep it together in life. That's it. That's all I have to say.No, It's a community. Psychologists say it regulates. You regulate yourself off of others, and you only go crazy in your own head. You don't do that because even if your family's nuts, I mean, in her case, she's a strange from her mother and father, and they're separated, obviously. Divorced, probably, or whatever. I don't know what her story was. I grew up on a street in suburban Nashville, and it was like something out of a book. We didn't knock on the neighbor's door. We just walked in. All the kids played hide and seek outside until 10:00 at night. We jumped over plywood in the middle of the on our bicycles. And yes, we had no helmets. It was a long time ago. I'm a dinosaur. But I got to tell you, if a neighbor built a deck on the back of their house, all of the kids and the men from the neighborhood are up there swinging a hammer. Yeah. Twelve When you're years old, I'm driving nails in the neighbor's deck. I can show you the nails I put in. Like I knew what I was doing. But that was what we were taught, that you're there for your neighbor, you're there for each other, you're in community.My grandmother died. I remember My parents jumped in the car and took off and dropped us on the front porch of one of the neighbor's houses and took off to go eight hours away and so on. That's the You got to have… It's a support system. You're not sustainable as standalone. Dr. Deloney talks about this a lot, that we are the loneliest culture at this moment in time. I don't know exactly if I was going to… I don't know if we need to blame that on something or not, but if you were going to blame it on something, I think I'd blame it on the smartphone.I 100% would blame it on that.The idea that people got confused at some point that Facebook friends are real friends. They're not. They're not there at 2:00 in the morning to help you change a tire, I'm just telling you. You got to drop one kid off because you're going to have the other kid in the emergency. You're getting ready to have the second baby. No Facebook friend. No, they're not real. They're virtual, which means not real by definition. This idea that... We've gotten disconnected. We don't need to go next door for a cup of sugar. How old is that? Is that 1950s or 1970s? I don't know. But I was raised in the '60s and '70s as a kid. We literally, not Not metaphorically, literally walk next door for a cup of sugar. Mama would say, go over to Irene's, and she'd call with a phone that was connected to the wall, and Irene would meet little skinhead Dave with his Shaved head at the front door. No, I wasn't a skinhead. I had a skinned head. I got you, Dave. Just be clear for you idiots out there on the internet. But you're right. That's mad. That stuff, if you want to talk about privilege, regardless of race, that's a privilege.It is. You have to work. Quadruple is hard to create it because, like you said, that digitization that's taking place, you have to say to yourself, You know what? I'm making a batch of cookies. I'm going to make a I don't want to bring it to the neighbors, too. I'm going to share this with them. You have to create these opportunities to share your life with people.Because it's weird now.It's weird now. Yeah, that's right.That's true.But you can't do life alone. Man is not meant to be alone. I hear that sometimes in these calls. I'm like, this person doesn't have anybody to reach out to. The moral of my story here was there's always someplace you can get plugged in, and maybe it's not your neighbor's, but there's always a good church community somewhere that you can get plugged into, but you got to get plugged in. So important.Yeah. Well, I once met a jerk who went to church. Well, good. That's where he needed to be. 100%. He needed to be in church. That's where A jerk's ought to be. It's their only shot, not being a jerk.It's your only shot.Zig Zigler used to say, I can't go to church. There's hypocrites there. Hey, wait a minute. I'm confused. Where did you want them to be? Where'd you want those hypocrites to hang out? What's their only shot, man? I know, right? Oh, my gosh. You're exactly right. There's a connectivity thing here, and the quality of your character is shifted. It's weird that your fears in your own head can become this monstrous bogeyman. But when you actually sit down with a friend or someone who cares, really cares, and you spit them out of your mouth, by the time they come out of your head and land on the table in front of you, they're little tiny lofiers. They're cute. But In your head, they were a big freaking deal. Oh, yeah. That's what community does. It does. Sometimes this show does that. Sometimes we're your community. Oh, 100%. We're okay with being part of it, but we're not real either, so we're virtual. Well, I mean, we're people on the other end of a podcast, for God's sakes. For God's sakes, we are YouTubers. That's the lowest, I mean, right there. That's the bottom of the barrel.I mean, you don't want YouTubers as your community, I'm just saying. Bottom of the barrel. We're big-time YouTubers, man, I'm telling you. I I mean, we're on TikTok. If that didn't ruin it, just tell them the truth. We're on TikTok. Oh, God, that right there ruins it.I had a video that did 7.7 million on TikTok, and I didn't know how to feel about it. Like, Get the content you want whenever and wherever you want to listen. Download the Ramsey Network app today.

them ELPs, Endorsed Local Providers. They live there in your neighborhood, but they're the best of the best in your area, and they have become Ramsey Trusted Agents. Be sure and check them out. If you want to find out who is Ramsey Trusted in your area, you can do that for free at ramseysolutions. Com/agent. Then you talk to them and you interview them and see if you find the same thing that we found when we talked to them and we interviewed them and we coached them because we do all of those things. Yeah. Marie is with us. Marie is in Philadelphia. Hi, Marie. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hi. Thanks for taking my call.

Sure. What's up?

I'm currently living in hotels. I can't seem to find an apartment. I've been looking for a roommate. What should I do?

You can't seem to find an apartment. Why?

My credit score is abysmal. Okay.

Are you working?

Yes.

What do you make?

I take in 87 a year before taxes.

Eighty-seven thousand dollars a year?

Yes.

Good for you. What Who are you?

I'm an occupational therapist.

How'd you end up homeless?

Well, I moved from state to state for love and a relationship, and That did not work out. My only real option at the time was to find a hotel for temporary housing, and I really didn't have anything saved up. I wasn't prepared.

Do you have any money now?

No, because I'm basically spending $2,200 a month just to keep a roof over my head.

But you make 87,000.

Yeah.

You must have a lot of debt payments. Where else is your money going?

Yeah. I have a car lease, and I have my student loan debt.

How much are the student loans? Tell me the amounts, if you don't mind.

Yeah, I think they're probably at 275 right now in student loan debt.

Two hundred and seven-five thousand dollars?

Yes.

Okay. What else?

And then car insurance, my phone, and food. That's really what I've got money for.

Tell me about the car lease.

It ends next month.

Okay, good.

That's about $340 a month. I'm not even sure if I'm going to be able to get a car by the time that's over.

So Dave asked you the question, and it was a vague answer. I want to know financially what put you here because you've got the 275 in student loans. How much is that for you per month with your income?

It's about $1,000 a month.

Okay.

Are you current?

No.

Have you been paying it?

No.

Are they federal?

Part of them are federal and part of them are private.

Okay.

Marie, I'm struggling, okay? You've not paid that. You paid a $300 payment, you make 87,000, and you paid a hotel bill. That's all you've done. Where is all your money going, kiddo?

It is going to eating out. I only have a microwave here, so I can't really cook traditional meals. I'm eating out and just trying to survive with food and drink. It goes my phone bill, my car- Eighty-four thousand is $7,000 a month.

Minus taxes, you should be getting $5,000 a month coming home.

I take home $2,200 every two weeks because I put in about $300 every paycheck into my 401k.

Well, I I reckon you need to stop that. Okay, let's stop your 401k, and that gets you to 4,800 then take home pay, which is pretty close to what I'm talking about. Then you can start to Even with eating out and even with a hotel bill, you can still stack some cash. I can't tell what's going on in the numbers, but numbers generally talk to me because I've done this a long time. I think what I'm hearing is a highly educated, very intelligent lady whose heart got broken. Let me take that further, got crushed, and you've been in a spiral emotionally since, and everything's out of control.

Yeah.

Is that right?

Yes.

Okay. All right. Because the numbers aren't telling me anything else because you're too smart, you're too intellectually bright to have to be in this situation if you were functioning at a normal level. Right now, you're functioning with a broken heart, and it's clouding everything. You're spending all of your calories and your emotional energy going over and over and over this and feeling ashamed for having chased somebody that dumped you and feeling bad that the guy wasn't worth your trouble and all the different things or whatever it is we do when we're in your situation, and normal humans do it. You're not a bad person, you're not a weak person. You're just been stomped on and you're hurting, and it causes your math to get screwed up. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

Okay. Because here's what I hear. You've got plenty of money to go rent an apartment. Lots of places will rent somebody with bad credit an apartment. You just put up a good deposit, and you get out of 2,200 a month, and you get straightened out. Where did you move from to move to Philadelphia?

I moved from Voorheath.

Where's that?

In New Jersey.

Okay. Just a few hours away. Do you have family back there?

My mom is further south in Jersey, down by the shore. My dad is in South Carolina.

How's your relationship with either one of them?

Awful. We don't talk. We're not speaking.

All right. Here's what I want you to do. Jade and I are going to help you, all right? We've got Ramsey Preferred coaches that we have trained to coach people on finances. Okay? I'm going to pay for you to have one for free as my gift.

Thank you.

Because you're hurting and you need somebody to put their arms around you, and we're the people that are going to do it. Okay? Then I'm also going to have that person recommend to you to get plugged into a good local church. Between the coaching on pulling the money together to deal with an apartment and to deal with getting an inexpensive paid car with this lease running out, we're going to get you back to sustainability, okay? But you need some human beings in your life because you're wandering out there in the middle of a huge crowd called Philadelphia completely alone.

Yeah.

That's not going to lead you to where you want to go. You need community. You need human beings with their arms around you, helping you, loving you, and showing you the way, and even maybe helping you a little bit with the money stuff. But we're not going to give you We're just going to... You got plenty of money. Your money is just out of control because your heart's messed up. Okay? Yeah. We'll walk with you, kiddo, and you need to get out of this hotel, and you need to get out of this lease, and you need to throw your shoulders back and get your dignity back because you're worth way more than you sound like you think you're worth. So you hold on and we'll pick up. We're going to get you hooked up with one of our coaches, and they'll plug you into a good church. And between the two, we're going to get you in community and get yourself squared around. Hang on, kiddo. This is the Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Isaiah 58:11. The Lord will guide you always. He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame.

You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. That's for our last caller.

Yeah.

Elizabeth Elliott said, Of the one thing I am perfectly sure God's story never ends with ashes.

You know what? Mini-rant. Because that and the last collar and the collar before with the car that was breaking down, I think I think the number one factor that people sleep on is community. I think it's the number one thing when it comes to your life and your money, having a church family, a community around you. And here's the thing, I get it. Anybody listening there like, Jay, don't follow Jesus. I'm not into that. I really don't care. Being in a place where people will love you and care for you, it is such an answer. It's a place where you can go when you need somebody to look after the kids. It's a place where you can go if you need somebody to help you go down in the car dealership and buy the right car, somebody who has a car that they're selling. It's someplace where you can go where you're heartbroken and people will put their arms around you and pray with you. It's a place where you can go when the election is going crazy and you are fearful of the future. There's so many things that come up in normal everyday life that...

I mean, we say it all the time, you don't want to go through life alone. I'm telling you, it's the number one thing that will help you keep it together in life. That's it. That's all I have to say.

No, It's a community. Psychologists say it regulates. You regulate yourself off of others, and you only go crazy in your own head. You don't do that because even if your family's nuts, I mean, in her case, she's a strange from her mother and father, and they're separated, obviously. Divorced, probably, or whatever. I don't know what her story was. I grew up on a street in suburban Nashville, and it was like something out of a book. We didn't knock on the neighbor's door. We just walked in. All the kids played hide and seek outside until 10:00 at night. We jumped over plywood in the middle of the on our bicycles. And yes, we had no helmets. It was a long time ago. I'm a dinosaur. But I got to tell you, if a neighbor built a deck on the back of their house, all of the kids and the men from the neighborhood are up there swinging a hammer. Yeah. Twelve When you're years old, I'm driving nails in the neighbor's deck. I can show you the nails I put in. Like I knew what I was doing. But that was what we were taught, that you're there for your neighbor, you're there for each other, you're in community.

My grandmother died. I remember My parents jumped in the car and took off and dropped us on the front porch of one of the neighbor's houses and took off to go eight hours away and so on. That's the You got to have… It's a support system. You're not sustainable as standalone. Dr. Deloney talks about this a lot, that we are the loneliest culture at this moment in time. I don't know exactly if I was going to… I don't know if we need to blame that on something or not, but if you were going to blame it on something, I think I'd blame it on the smartphone.

I 100% would blame it on that.

The idea that people got confused at some point that Facebook friends are real friends. They're not. They're not there at 2:00 in the morning to help you change a tire, I'm just telling you. You got to drop one kid off because you're going to have the other kid in the emergency. You're getting ready to have the second baby. No Facebook friend. No, they're not real. They're virtual, which means not real by definition. This idea that... We've gotten disconnected. We don't need to go next door for a cup of sugar. How old is that? Is that 1950s or 1970s? I don't know. But I was raised in the '60s and '70s as a kid. We literally, not Not metaphorically, literally walk next door for a cup of sugar. Mama would say, go over to Irene's, and she'd call with a phone that was connected to the wall, and Irene would meet little skinhead Dave with his Shaved head at the front door. No, I wasn't a skinhead. I had a skinned head. I got you, Dave. Just be clear for you idiots out there on the internet. But you're right. That's mad. That stuff, if you want to talk about privilege, regardless of race, that's a privilege.

It is. You have to work. Quadruple is hard to create it because, like you said, that digitization that's taking place, you have to say to yourself, You know what? I'm making a batch of cookies. I'm going to make a I don't want to bring it to the neighbors, too. I'm going to share this with them. You have to create these opportunities to share your life with people.

Because it's weird now.

It's weird now. Yeah, that's right.

That's true.

But you can't do life alone. Man is not meant to be alone. I hear that sometimes in these calls. I'm like, this person doesn't have anybody to reach out to. The moral of my story here was there's always someplace you can get plugged in, and maybe it's not your neighbor's, but there's always a good church community somewhere that you can get plugged into, but you got to get plugged in. So important.

Yeah. Well, I once met a jerk who went to church. Well, good. That's where he needed to be. 100%. He needed to be in church. That's where A jerk's ought to be. It's their only shot, not being a jerk.

It's your only shot.

Zig Zigler used to say, I can't go to church. There's hypocrites there. Hey, wait a minute. I'm confused. Where did you want them to be? Where'd you want those hypocrites to hang out? What's their only shot, man? I know, right? Oh, my gosh. You're exactly right. There's a connectivity thing here, and the quality of your character is shifted. It's weird that your fears in your own head can become this monstrous bogeyman. But when you actually sit down with a friend or someone who cares, really cares, and you spit them out of your mouth, by the time they come out of your head and land on the table in front of you, they're little tiny lofiers. They're cute. But In your head, they were a big freaking deal. Oh, yeah. That's what community does. It does. Sometimes this show does that. Sometimes we're your community. Oh, 100%. We're okay with being part of it, but we're not real either, so we're virtual. Well, I mean, we're people on the other end of a podcast, for God's sakes. For God's sakes, we are YouTubers. That's the lowest, I mean, right there. That's the bottom of the barrel.

I mean, you don't want YouTubers as your community, I'm just saying. Bottom of the barrel. We're big-time YouTubers, man, I'm telling you. I I mean, we're on TikTok. If that didn't ruin it, just tell them the truth. We're on TikTok. Oh, God, that right there ruins it.

I had a video that did 7.7 million on TikTok, and I didn't know how to feel about it. Like, Get the content you want whenever and wherever you want to listen. Download the Ramsey Network app today.

Get the content you want whenever and wherever you want to listen. Download the Ramsey Network app today.