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. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality number one bestselling author, co host of the Smart Money Happy Hour on the Ramsey Networks. And my daughter is my co host today. Thank you for joining us, America. The phone number is triple 8825-5225. Cheryl is in Medford, Oregon. Hi Cheryl. Welcome to the Ramsay show.

Thank you, Dave and Rachel, for taking my call. This is a first time caller and I'm a little I'm happy to be here.

Well, we're honored to have you, Cheryl.

Big breath. So I have a question. I'm in my late sixty s and I'm married happily to my husband. We have five adult children. I've been listening for about a year. And what's changed in my situation is my mom passed away about five months ago.

I'm sorry.

Thank you. She was sick for a while, so it still was hard. But the situation is she left. We grew up on a piece of property there and she's been there since about 1958, and we all grew up there. And now this property is in a trust and we're all trying to figure out how to divide it amongst us. And it's just been really volatile. Not that I haven't contributed to it because I'm a woman, but I just want to do and honor the Lord and just honor my sister and my brother. But it's difficult because they've all put a lot of money into the ranch. And my mother has it in the estate that she wants it divided amongst us. And we've kind of been an outsider because we've ranched in other places. And now we're here now, and we're just trying to figure out our role.

What is the trust asking people to do and what is it they don't want to do?

The trust has asked that we divide it equally amongst ourselves.

How is that fair if they put money into it and you didn't?

Let's see, how do I go about that? They invested it in areas that benefited them, in kind of an area that.

They wanted to how did it benefit them? They didn't own it.

Did they make money off of that?

Yes. One was in Hemp, trying to grow Hemp for a couple of years and building a building that utilized that resource. And then another was, yeah, but that.

Building now has a value regardless of whether Hemp is in it or not.

Correct. $50,000.

Yeah. And if they built that building with their money, your mom didn't, that should be their money, right?

Correct.

If I was them, that's how I would see it.

Okay.

Which is let me tell you, the whole idea that they would build a building on someone else's property without having everything lined out in the trust in detail was pretty stupid because it sets up a big argument. Your mother and your brothers and sisters should have their butts kicked for not doing this properly because it leaves you in a lurch. So what is it they're wanting to do, the brothers and sisters?

My sister has moved a lot of property let's see has moved buildings onto the property and put buildings on the property, some of them legitimate and some of them not. And then she wanted $150,000 for providing care for my mother.

But the trust doesn't allocate that.

No. And then she lived on the property, and her children did. 50% of her children did at the same time for the last five years.

With no rent.

Correct.

Okay. All right. I guess the negotiating is that I assume you guys have an estate. Who's the trustee?

My brother.

Oh, Jesus. Okay.

The youngest.

So he's really caught in this. Bless his heart.

Yeah, he is.

Okay. So his job, unless you guys come to a mutual conclusion, otherwise he doesn't have a choice. He legally has to follow the terms of the trust, whether he wants to or not. His only out is that everyone agree to something different and go along with it, but otherwise he's going to divvy this up, straight up. He has to, because otherwise he's liable for suit. He has a fiduciary trust responsibility as the trustee to execute the terms of the trust. If he doesn't, any one of you that are the beneficiaries would have cause against him.

So, Cheryl, the fact that you know that there's know that they've put money into it, how are you feeling? Are you on one side saying, yeah, you got to divide it up a third, a third, a third? It's what it says. Or are you like, I want to be fair in this and do the right thing. I just don't know what it is. Where are you at in all of it?

Well, it's kind of complicated because all the assets are on one part of the property. It's worth 2.2, but some of it's exclusive farming, and so you can't really do anything with it and not necessarily can build on it. And that's the part that we've been interested in. But then when we research it, it's going to be pretty expensive to try to put things that we have to do to live there, and we live about an hour away.

Why don't you just sell it?

And that's a possibility, too.

Your part. Just sell your part.

We've just wanted to farm it's kind of our way. We have cattle. We don't have a place for them. We have a couple at the ranch right now.

So you're thinking about moving on the property?

Well, we've been thinking about it, but it's been a while.

Next door to all these people that you disagree with. Well, that sounds joyful.

That's what I'm concerned about.

Yeah, I guess so. That doesn't sound fun at all. Like next door to my brother who's still mad about something that happened 15 years ago. Oh, my God. I would have to have real, good, solid, loving, harmonious relationships before I'd want to live next door to them. And I don't know if this story you're telling me ends there, so you need to consider that part of it. But here's your bottom line on the whole thing. Let's pretend that you wanted to allow your hemp brother and your sister tenant to get a little more than you got because they put buildings on it. In my mind, the care that she provided for your mom is offset by the fact she got free rent. So that's absolute bull. I'm dropping that one if I'm you. But she gets nothing. She already got it. It's called free rent. And so then whoever brought buildings on will take the value of those buildings out of the equation and then split what's left three ways. Then they get their buildings back. Because you should not benefit, I don't think, ethically from them putting a building on the property because you didn't put money in it.

It's their money. Again, the whole thing was dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. That you all let that the family did this. Doing this stuff is how people end up not speaking to each other generationally. You end up with the hat fields and the McCoys. And so, yeah, it's just dumb. But anyway, that's water under the bridge. But let's say that you said, all right, we're going to take the buildings off now. We run an appraisal, then you get your buildings back. So you got your buildings back and then I get my third of what's left. I would agree to doing that. And no 150,000 that is exchanged for the free rent. If you all agree to that, then little brother, the trustee, can go along with that. Otherwise he has to execute the trust. He does not have a choice. This is the Ramsay show. If you're buying a home in today's market, it takes more than hope and an Internet search. You need a team that you can trust through thick and thin. That's why I've recommended Churchill Mortgage for 30 years. The experts at Churchill know their stuff and will take care of you the Ramsay way.

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Dr. John Deloney Ramsay personality is my co host today. Debbie is in San Francisco. Online. Five. Hi, Debbie. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Maybe not. I think I messed it up. Try again. How about now? Debbie, you there? I am here. There we go. What's up? How can we help?

Well, I just want to know if there's ever a time when it would make sense to pay off home debt with traditional IRA. My situation is that I recently retired. And before I retired, we were cruising along. We owe on our house about 65,000. We had everything paid off. My husband's self employed and had a business credit card that he would pay off every month through that. And all of a sudden, we had a situation after I retired where we had a series of unfortunate things happen. So now I'm sitting here, and it's like, we owe $64,000 on the house. We now have a brand new car loan that I didn't plan on buying for another year or two, and we're basically retired. My husband's still doing a little bit.

Of side work, but how old are you?

I'm 65.

How much is in your retirement?

We have $1.1 million.

Why did you not just take out money and buy a car?

Because it's all in traditional.

I don't care.

Yeah, well, okay, so that's my question.

You have no money except your IRAs?

Well, we had about $40,000, but now it's down to about five.

You have no money, basically, except your IRAs.

Correct.

Yeah. A million dollars in traditionals. Yes. Way to go. You're millionaires. You're amazing.

It's great, but I'm so the fact.

That it feels all trapped kept it from feeling amazing. But let's just take a minute here and go, hey, Debbie's a millionaire. Let's just stop and say that. Right?

Well, thank you.

Yeah, and her old man is, too, because he took the ride with her, so there we go. All right. So what do you own? A stupid car. Okay, so we owe 32,000. Okay. So you need 100 grand, so you're going to take out 150.

TADA.

Yeah.

Okay, so it's my stupid tax, right?

No, you have to pay taxes on it. Yeah, you might as well pay some taxes.

Okay, so I'm so relieved that you're saying this.

Yes. The only time we tell people not to cash out retirement at your age to pay off debt is if they don't have enough. Like, if you told me, I have a $500,000 mortgage and I have 600,000 in my retirement, I'd be going, that's a hard one. Right, but you're not looking at that. You got 900 grand left over when we finish talking. Right. And then the other time we tell people not to use retirement is if they're not over 59 and a half, so they get penalized. So you don't cash out your 401K when you're 45 because the government takes 10% plus your tax rate, and they kick your butt. So all you're going to get hit with is the taxes that you have never yet paid on these earnings.

I'm going to sleep so much better tonight.

Okay. Yeah. You're debt free by the end of the week. You got a couple keystrokes on the computer to do to get the money out and get over there, and then you're fine. And you've got mandatory required minimum distributions at 72. You know that, right? Yes. Okay. That we are very aware of that.

But I just felt like I had screwed everything up.

No, you haven't screwed everything up. The only thing you did, you probably bought. I might go back and revisit that car decision. It sounds like you got absolutely panicked, but either way, you got the money, you're millionaires. I mean, you can make a $40,000 mistake when you have a million. You can't make a $40,000 mistake when you have 40,000. It's kind of a problem. But you set yourself up, and it's not even a mistake because you actually own the car. And now we're just paying it off. The only big mistake was that. So that's the process. All right, let's go to Joel in Houston. Hi, Joel. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hi, Ramsey. How are you doing?

Better than we deserve. How can Dr. John and I help?

Well, thank you so much for taking me on. But, see, I'm calling you today because I'm very nervous about the new student loan payments resuming and everything. So I'm 24 years old, I make $60,000 a year, and I am soon to be married, so I'm currently engaged.

Congratulations.

Thank you, sir. Thank you. I appreciate it.

What do you do?

Yeah, so I work in logistics, transportation logistics.

You got a supply chain degree and you make 60 grand?

Yes, sir.

Well, that sucks. You need to make more than that. You're probably worth 80.

I'm working towards it yet. It took a while to get to 60.

No, I'm telling you, dude, the marketplace right now is about 80 for a newly graduated I mean, you got a four year degree in supply chain.

Yes, sir.

Okay. Yeah, you're underpaid. I'll just tell you, you need to go look at anyway, how much student loan debt have you got?

So I have about 30,000 on a car.

30,000. Joel and you make 60.

Okay.

How much is your student loan debt?

18K.

Okay. Your fiance, what's she do?

She works for a government facility. It's a children's assessment center.

They take care of children that have what's she make?

Whatever. She makes $19 an hour.

And she has a four year degree?

Yes. Criminal justice.

Okay. The two of you are vastly underpaid, so we're going to work on your careers for sure. You bought a car you can't afford. Sir, the car is in Cray. Cray land. Nutty. Nutty. A $60,000 car, you make 60, and you have a $30,000 car that doesn't work. You don't have a student loan problem. You got a car problem.

Yeah.

Nervous laugh means you're going to keep it. What's that mean?

And listen, dude, I drove the streets of Houston. That's where I grew up, in a 1988 Tercell easy hatchback, $1,000. You don't need a $40,000 car when you're broke.

That is true. It was just an emergency I had.

No, it was not a $30,000 emergency.

It wasn't.

The beer just fell in my mouth, officer no, you bought it.

Okay, man. Nervous laughs aside, the number one mistake newly minted college graduates make is they go buy a car they can't afford. So you're not dumb. You just did what most college graduates do. You went and bought a car you can't afford. And if you don't hear this loud and clear, it's going to hold you back. Because if you didn't have a, what, $650 car payment making $60,000, you wouldn't be calling me about the student loan debt. So if I woke up in your shoes, if you were my son, and you call me my nephew, and you call me and you said, I'm getting ready to get married, papa Dave, what should I do to get ready to have a great life with this woman I'm in love with? I would say work on your career. You're underpaid. You're worth more than you think you're worth in the marketplace today. You're a stud. Supply chain is an excellent degree field. Way to go. Good choice. And you bought a car that indicates you were doing drugs. So stop doing stop. Stop. Get rid of this would be Papa Dave talking to my nephew. I'd be going, you're out of control, dude.

You got to sell it. So the best thing you can do for the future Joel and the future Joel's wife is to get rid of this car and get you a beater and get rid of the student loans as fast as you can by living on beans and rice. Rice and beans. And work on your career choice, and she needs to work on hers. You go get a four year degree to make $19. You can make $19 at Target if you didn't even get out of high school. So that's just ridiculous. Again, you both have accepted positions, and you've somehow justified or rationalized it that you're both worth more than you have been so far. But it's time to work on those two areas. If I were you, that's what I would do. Yeah.

My dad's a criminal justice professor. I know that's underpaid. I know that's too low. And there's a number of things you can do across that whole bunch of.

Stuff you can do with criminal justice, but that's not $19.

Right?

And by the way, when we say that, that's when she says, well, I really love working with these kids.

I get that.

But right now, you can't afford to follow your heart or do your passion thing or whatever Instagram is telling you to do because y'all got bill, quit.

Your job and work with the youth group of the church. But that doesn't make sense. You got bills to pay, right? You do work with a youth group of church and work a job. That's how you do that. You do both. You can't mix the two up and be underpaid. It doesn't work. Hey, man, we're going to put you guys through Financial Peace University as our wedding gift. Hold on. Austin's going to pick up and we were messing with you pretty hard. But if you listen to what we said, it's going to help you. This is the Ramsey show. Look, life insurance has one job to replace your income for your dependence. If you die, that's it. So if someone tries to sell you high cost life insurance that doubles as savings or an investment strategy scams like Whole Life, Cash Value, Variable Life, then run Term Life from Xander. Insurance is a much smarter way to protect your family's future. Xander shops all the top companies to find you the most affordable term life rates. Then you can go build wealth with what you save, not by falling for those crap policies. Go to xander.com to learn more.

That's xander.com or 803 564282. Jade Washaw. Ramsay personality is my co host. Today the Ramsay Show question of the day. Sponsored by Neighborly, your hub for home services. From repairs and maintenance to remodeling and upgrades, Neighborly's trusted home service providers have trained local experts to handle almost any job. Download the Neighborly app and you can connect to all the help you need. These are great people.

They are. Today's question of the day comes from Paula in Georgia. My son's school is running a food bank, so I sent him with some highly requested items such as peanut butter, canned soup and tuna fish. When my husband saw them, he insisted we don't donate quality items like these and instead only donate rice and beans. I'm aware that you've told people to eat beans and rice if they're on a tight budget and cannot afford to indulge in nicer foods. However, I also know that you value generosity and giving, and I didn't see anything wrong with donating something other than beans and rice. Do you believe that the same principle applied to those on a tight budget should also be applied to recipients of food banks?

Oh, brother.

I don't mean to laugh, but that's just so silly that'silly it's silly.

Yeah. Number one, when we say beans and rice honey, it's a metaphor. Yeah, a metaphor is a representation philosophically of an actual item. I am not suggesting that people only live on beans and rice. I am suggesting that you quit spending sedadga much money on food, especially eating out all the time. So probably prime rib is not on your list, or lobster tail, but possibly even some Hamburger Helper might make the list. You don't have to just literally do beans and rice. It's a metaphor.

I think this guy was just looking for an excuse to be a tight wad, be a cheesecake.

He didn't have to look for an excuse. He already was.

I mean, goodness gracious. And it's not like tuna fish is that big of an upgrade from rice. I mean, come on now.

And here's the deal. What we're talking about is you limiting your consumption so you can create margin to move ahead. We're not talking about? Those poor people don't need any good food. What in the world, dude? Seriously? Seriously?

Yeah.

That's horrible.

Yes. They need some good food. Send them some good food, you cheap skate. Your wife is right. Your son is even better. Learn from them, sir.

Yeah.

Oh, my gosh. If you're going to give something away, be generous with what you're giving.

That's right.

I'm going to give you a car, but it doesn't really run because you can figure that out for yourself. What in the world?

You know what, Dave, though? Okay, so I've been here about 13 months, 14 months. I am shocked at how many people I've encountered that think the beans and rice, rice and beans thing is literal.

Let me tell you what's worse, okay? 30 years of doing this, I have had precisely 4732 offers to co author a beans and rice cookbook with other listeners. I made that up. But it's close to 4000. I mean, it's unbelievable. And apparently it would be a bestseller if we could just get the people that wanted to co author it look with me to buy it. But yeah, people keep asking me about it. Beans and rice cookbook? No, it's a metaphor. It's a metaphor.

You can eat different food.

Look it up. Look up metaphor. It's good for oh, my gosh. Yeah. But we don't need to be going out to eat every night. It's some fancy, fancy thing. Or, for that matter, for fast food. Because it's fast, but it's not necessarily food. You're working so that you can learn. Put yourself as. A guy I used to work for would say, we're working so I can get enough money that I can read the menu from left to right.

I know that's right.

I don't start with the price. I get to start with a thing and pick what I want. Price is irrelevant. But when you're broke, you self manage your consumption, not other people imposing on you their beans and rice. Oh, my gosh.

Yeah.

Then you're entering into, like a judgment kind of zone, I think, and it's.

Like, well, just be generous if you yeah. You kind of missed the Washington, DC. Hi, Ayla. What's up?

Hi, Mr. Ramsey. Hey, I was wondering if we should pay off our current mortgage and relocate for a cheaper mortgage.

What's making you ask that question?

Pay off your current mortgage or relocate and get a cheaper mortgage? What would be cheaper than a paid off mortgage?

So we bought a house that needed to be fixed up, so we fixed it up, and now we just had a realtor come out and tell us what we could list it as. My husband was in the military and just got out and his job fell through, so it kind of shook us. And we just wanted to move somewhere with the proceeds to have a cheap enough mortgage to be covered by my disability.

Okay, so you don't have the opportunity to pay off your mortgage. You're talking about moving to a less expensive property because you're scared about his income.

Right.

Why do you think he's not going to get an income?

It's not so much that he wouldn't get one. We're just kind of thinking about reprioritizing our time. The house that we bought is a historic house, so it takes a lot of maintenance. We do a lot of the work ourselves.

That's a different discussion.

What do you owe on that house?

I already don't like the house. I hate that we have spent so much time on it. We can get some good money for it. And get something I like is a good, reasonable move. I'm using his lack of a job and a cheaper mortgage as my excuse is not okay.

Okay.

You see the difference?

Yeah. We're both on the same boat.

The boat where he doesn't work.

Just that he has more flexibility and we're not doesn't work much. How old is not right now?

How old is he?

We're 25 and 26.

Okay. He needs to get a career, Darlin. It's not good for him to not work much.

I'm not saying he won't work.

I am saying he needs to get a career where he works.

Okay.

I'm hearing the code words in your language. He's not wanting to work much at all.

And that's worrying part of it is.

He got knocked out of the saddle and didn't get the other job, and he's lost some of his confidence.

And you're clearly worried because you're talking about selling your house and relocating so that you could only live on your disability. Like you said it with your own words.

I don't think that that came out right. He wants to work. That's not the issue. The issue is that we want to be more flexible with not having to deal with the house and not having a mortgage that's so high.

Is the mortgage more than 25% of your take home pay?

It is now that he's not working.

But before that, was it.

No, it wasn't.

Okay, so your mortgage amount is not your problem. If you want to get rid of a house that's a money pit where you work on it all the time, I don't blame you. I would do that, but let's not couch that in. He wants more flexibility, and when I'm talking about his job, your answer is he wants more flexibility. It wasn't when I was talking about the house repairs. You said that, so I didn't misunderstand you. You said it real clearly. So what we need to do, let's parse this out and break it up. Number one, the two of you need to get really good, cool, strong careers that you're passionate about. I will send you a copy of Ken Coleman's book from Paycheck to Purpose. Number two, it doesn't sound like your mortgage is off.

Me neither. And I'm actually wondering number three, I.

Would sell a house. It's a Money Pit, and I had to screw with it all the time. It drive me nuts.

That's true, but I don't know that if it's a Money Pit, that's one thing, but I don't know. I'd be interested to know more. She's in Washington, DC. Where does she plan on relocating? Where she's going to?

They may be moving to a whole different city, too. That's possible. Which would be less expensive, for sure. Yeah. I'm getting rid of the Money Pit, but I'm also getting a career.

Yeah.

They need and probably getting a house about the same price range that in the Money Pit when I make the move. That would be my advice to you guys. Don't mix these things together and create some kind of false narrative that's not really going on. Okay. That's what I heard you saying. I think you were saying it whether you wanted to or not. This is the Ramsey show.

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Balanceofnature.com or call 1802 468751 and get this special offer by using discount code KLG. George Campbell, Ramsay personality, is my co host. Today. Open phones, a triple 8825-5225. You jump in, we'll talk about your life and your money. Johnny is with us in Irvine, California. Hi, Johnny. Welcome to the Ramsay show.

Hi there. Thank you for taking my call. How are you guys?

Better than we deserve. What's up?

Great. Well, I'm calling to see what you guys would do if you were in my shoes. I'm 22 years old. I fully support myself. I take home about $5,000 per month. I have zero debt. I have $60,000 in savings, a $3,000 emergency fund, and I've been listening for the past year or so. And some of my friends and mentors are into long term real estate investing, so I've been saving towards that for the past couple of years. Ideally, I'd like to start building some long term wealth, and so I just wanted to see what you guys would do if you were. In my shoes.

Wow. You are beyond ahead of the game. Well done. Very well done.

Thank you.

Well, I probably have a different view on real estate investing than your mentors.

Sure.

And I probably own more than they do, given that I own about 600 million worth. Okay. But anyway, I do not believe in borrowing money, Johnny. And you've heard that listening to the show. And I don't for my real estate investing, I pay cash for it. And so the first real estate investing I did, and I've always loved real estate, that I did after going broke and starting completely over. And with this new I don't borrow money thing as a part of the guidelines was I didn't do real estate investing at first. I just started piling money in mutual funds. And when I got enough in an index fund is what I used, an S and P 500 index fund. It took me about five years to buy my first income producing property. I paid cash for it and then I took all of those rents, net of expenses and any other money I could and I threw it in an index fund until I had enough to buy another property. And then I took all the rents from the two properties and any money I could scrape together from anywhere else, book royalties or whatever else.

And I bought another property for cash. And every time I bought another property for cash, I had more cash flow to buy another property faster than I did the one before. Does that make any sense?

Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

That is a very long term play versus what you have been considering until this phone call.

Sure.

Because you're thinking about getting up a down payment and going buying a nice little duplex in California.

Exactly.

Yeah. And I'm telling you to wait and pay cash for it, which your friends aren't going to like, and I don't really care. They're wrong.

That's true.

But you called knowing you were going to get a different take, which tells me you're actually interested in this take.

I am, yeah. I've just been curious what to do because I feel like I've been saving decently and I'd like to continue that. But once you get a certain amount of money, I feel like it burns a little bit of a hole in your pocket, you're ready to jump into it.

Yeah. And you've done really well, Johnny. I mean, let's face it, you're 22 years old, you have $60,000 in the bank and no debt at all, and you're making five K a month. You're killing it. Ding ding. Very impressive.

And it doesn't sound like you lead a super luxurious lifestyle. You're a saver.

I try to be, for sure, there's a balance.

So the key is to keep living on less than you make.

What would be interesting, if you want to be really nerdy, I don't know how nerdy you are I'm real nerdy is. And I've done this a couple of times, and it always works. That's why I'm putting you up to it, is if you say, all right, when I'm 42, would I rather own $10 million worth of real estate with $8 million worth of debt, or would I rather own $3 million worth of paid for real estate?

Yeah, I think the clear answer is the 3 million.

Yeah. And then here's the exercise. Run out the purchase snowball, which is not a debt snowball, but the way I talked about a while ago, rents, buy more, buy more, buy more, buy more. Everything's folded back into the next deal. And the slower start ends up with a faster end. The faster start ends up with a slower end. My way is slower start, but has a big time payoff at the end because it hockey sticks from an exponential mathematical equation perspective. Does any of that make sense?

Yeah, definitely it does, because when you.

Get all this property that's sitting there paid for, you are buying more property faster than you would have if you had a whole bunch of property that's not even close to paid for. And it's not cash flowing nearly as generously. So the math says I can buy more property faster. Now, it's ridiculous what my real estate fund now looks like from my real estate income now, because I'm at the back of the story, right? But I can't get people to think long term. And I might have just got 122 year old to do it, though.

I'm impressed. He sounded interested.

Yeah.

We can just get off TikTok.

We'll get there for real. Jake is in Des Moines, Iowa. Hi, Jake. How are you?

Hey, guys. It's an honor to speak with you. Thanks for having me.

Our pleasure. How can we help, sir?

Yeah. So I'm 35 years old, have no debt, and am about to step into baby step six. And my question is, you talk about baby step seven, living and giving like no one else. I have no problem with the giving aspect of things. The part that is a little tricky for me to wrap my mind around is the living like no one else because I am a pastor. And so to be stepping into baby step seven, hopefully here in the next five or six years, I'm trying to imagine life in my 40s, living like no one else while being a pastor and living in the community of people who have paid for my financial success, you could say. I don't know how else you would put it, but how should I think through that as I look forward to the next five or ten years?

Yeah. Well, don't muzzle the ox as he treads out the grain. You've probably read that scripture, right?

Yeah.

And a worker is worthy of his hire. You've probably read that scripture, right? So are you a good pastor and you're worth what they pay you?

I sure hope so.

Then if you use that money wisely in Christianity, we would call that good stewardship, wouldn't we? I think you're modeling for those people what the results of good stewardship are, that it ends up with wealth. But we're taught by Karl Marx, not by Jesus, that wealth is evil. Wealth is not evil. People are evil, particularly some of them in your church. I'm kidding. But not much. But yeah, anyway, so you're always going to have a hater whether you win or you lose. If you do it at scale, yeah. If you lose, you weren't a good steward, and you're horrible and you worked your whole life and you have nothing to show for it. And we call that being a good steward. That's not a good steward. That means you did a bad job handling your money. So you're supposed to model for your congregation. How to be a good husband, how to be a good dad. Right, right. How to be a great leader. We're supposed to model in Christianity, it's called a witness. And yet my friend Craig Rochelle says, why is it that wealth is the only blessing from God we're supposed to apologize for?

And I've got several friends that are pastors that are a decade and a half ahead of you, and they're facing the exact same thing, because they have systematically, carefully invested in their 401 KS and in their Roth IRAs and in their retirement programs. And some of them have bought real estate carefully, and they don't have jet airplanes. They're not on TV. It's none of that junk. They're just good guys as a pastor, and they've been careful with their income, and most of them are millionaires because they did the stuff I teach. But now there's always some duber that says, well, pastor should never be a millionaire. Yeah, that's what I want. I want my pastor to be broke and stupid. No, I don't either. Pastor should never listen. I want his marriage to be something I can look up to. I want his kids to be something I can look up to. I want the way he handles money to be something I can look up to. Because obviously the book he is reading has having an effect on his life. And I want to know more about what that book called. The Bible says, then, but not if you're but you're always going to be criticized, Jake.

Whether it's about your message or the car you drive, it's going to be someone out there.

And if you're a Christian, you have to drive a used Accord, because that's what Jesus said. They were all in one Accord.

Oh, that one still gets me.

This is the Ramsey Show, 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. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality number one, bestselling author and author of the brand new book coming out in two weeks. Building a non anxious life is my co host today. Thanks for joining us. Open phones at peter is with us in Miami, Florida. Hi, Peter. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. Thank you.

Thank you. How can we help?

So I'm wondering what role you think I should play in helping my financially irresponsible mother.

One of the things that it's weird about that question for a lot of us is when we face that is it seems like money is in a different category than other misbehavior. If you changed out her misbehavior for something else, a different kind of misbehavior or irresponsibility, how would the answer change? It shouldn't, really, should it? It ought to be the same answer. So in other words, if we wanted to go extreme and say, how do I help my mom who's addicted to cocaine? Right. Well, it wouldn't be give her more.

Right.

It would be help her break the habit and transform her life. That's help. Help is not doing more of the bad thing. Help is correcting the behaviors. And of course, that involves the person on the other end wanting the help.

Yeah. I usually run into parents don't want your help. They want your solution.

Right?

Yeah. She just has no issues coming to me again and again and again and again and a nibble here and a bite here. And I know that the big bite is coming, but hold on.

Why wouldn't she come to you? Because you give it to every time.

Right, I know.

And so at this point, I don't even blame her.

You're a dependable enabler. Yeah.

I don't even blame her anymore.

I am. And the nibbles I don't mind, and I know that that's a bad thing to say, but that's what got her to the bites. And next thing I know, she's telling me that she rents her house because she's been bankrupt, et cetera, so she can't get a mortgage, and she can't, frankly, afford a mortgage down here anymore. So she came to me because she needed money for movers. She needed money for her security deposit her first month, last month, which I did all of that. And then I sort of dug into her finances and realized that you can't even afford this rent. So I tried to get ahead of that, and fortunately, I'm doing very well for myself and my family, but I'm doing well for myself and my family. And I've got two young children and a wife and a mortgage and a business to run.

Peter, how long has this been going on? No, you giving her money. You giving her money. How long has that been going on?

Probably five, six, seven years.

How old is she?

About 73.

Oh, wow. And she's stone broke.

Yeah. And recently widowed, which only made me softer. My stepfather passed two years ago, three years ago. So obviously that I was trying to help.

And what do you make?

Family household income is probably three quarters of a million.

Okay. It's not a matter of you can't or can you can mathematically. It's a matter of what's good for her. She's 73. She's probably not very employable. I guess she has Social Security. I'm sorry.

She does have a full time job.

Okay, I retract that statement. What does she do?

She's a customer service, and she has been for about 20 years at the same job, but she's one fall away from not being able to work anymore.

Yeah. Okay. So I'll tell you the financial answer, and I'll let John tell you the psychological answer. Okay. The financial answer, if I'm in your shoes, is I'm going to sit down with her and say, mom, you have this coming in from your Social Security. You have this coming in from your job, and these are your bills. Let's do a budget together. And you can make your bills or you're within $400 of making your bills or whatever it is. Okay. I am not going to write checks just from today on without us having a sense of control over what's going on here. So I'll help you and coach you with your money, but it looks to me like you have enough to live on, and I'll help you and coach you live on that. Or if you don't have enough to live on, I'm going to give you $2,000 a month so that you have enough to live on. It's 24,000 out of 750,000. You can afford it, but you say, this is what we're doing. But then she needs to just you're becoming bitter, and I would, too.

Yes.

Because you feel like an ATM machine.

Exactly.

And there's an entitlement that goes with this on her end. And so I would shut all of that down and just say, okay, this is a system, and we're going to live by this system and draw some boundaries. And mom, if you don't want to do that, if you don't want to live on the budget that you and I put together and that I check on you to make sure you're living on that budget, then I'm not going to help you anymore. And you're going to have to just figure it out because it's not good for you what I've been doing. And I'm sorry I've let you down. John, what would you do?

Yeah. I wonder if you're more frustrated with yourself than with her. Right.

It's just every time I try to get ahead of know, for example, when she was looking at this rent, I said, you know what? I'm just going to buy her an apartment, and then she can just pay me what she can afford. I was going to buy her an apartment outright, and I was scrambling because she was looking for a rental that she couldn't afford. None of these places could she afford because we kind of not a deep dive. But we looked at her finances, and then I realized, okay, this is just easier for me to buy an apartment. At least then I can consider it a quote unquote investment of some sort. And I presented her with it, and she said, no, I don't want to live there. I'm just going to rent this other place.

Hold on. And that's where you, who are clearly a special businessman, to be able to make the money you make. You're clearly very smart, and I would be willing to bet nobody in your sphere blows past you like that. But she does.

Right?

And I don't want you to consider sitting down at the table and saying, I'm looking at the fact that you may be around until you're 93. 20 more years. We have to put some things in concrete right now. I want you to tattoo this phrase on the middle of your forehead. Choose guilt over resentment every time, because right now you're backing yourself into a corner because you won't set boundaries. And you're beginning. Every time your mom calls, you get angry.

Yes.

And your mom, quite frankly, deserves better than that. And that means you have to set the boundaries up. And then she, as a 73 year old adult, can say, hate you. You don't even love me, and you walk away. She's a grown up, and she gets to do that. I would hate that, but she gets to do that. Your job is to create boundaries that are sustainable for 20 years from this point forward. And by the way, sit with your wife and you all decide what you all are going to do to help her before you sit down with your mom.

Yeah. How much you're willing to do. But the unlimited thread being pulled on the sweater is killing both of you. Yeah. You got to cut it. This.

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Jade Washaw Ramsay personality is my co host today open phones at triple 8825-5225. Jane is in Knoxville. Hi, Jane. How are you?

I'm pretty good. How are you, Dave?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

Oh, need so much up. I need one of them swords to slay a huge dragon. I may be your toughest case you've ever had. Anyway, my husband is fixing to be 65. I'm around 59, and we have ten kids. I'm homeschooling. My last one, she's 15. Anyway, long story short, I had to go to work. He got really sick, and so he can't work like he used to. So I'm now working. I started working this past year, and we definitely need help. We have quite a bit of debt, and I don't know where to start. So I have a car that we made a huge mistake and got a new vehicle, and we owe about 54, maybe 53,000 on it, which is, I know, crazy, but we didn't really have a good vehicle for me to go to work in, so we did something stupid. So long story short, that was my first question. Do we sell that to try to get out of this debt? But I finally realized that we're old enough. We need to wish we had these things in plan. But I've been a home school mom all my life, so this is all new to me.

What's the car worth?

Probably 42, 43.

What's your household income together now?

We make almost about 85, maybe 80 to 85?

Yes. You need to sell it.

Okay.

Yes. You shouldn't have bought it. Yes, you shouldn't have. Who's got the loan?

Hyundai.

Okay. How bad is your credit?

I have good credit.

Run over at the credit union or your local bank and get an unsecured loan for $15,000. Buy a $3,000 car and cover the 12,000 hole you're in and sell it.

Okay. Could you say that again?

You got to borrow the amount that you're in the hole okay. In order to sell it, plus $3,000 to get a car.

Okay.

Because you got no car, right?

No. He has his truck for the farm.

But we don't have a car. Get you a little $3,000 car to get around, and you don't need $43,000 car to go to work.

Okay. So is that the first thing to do? We have a tractor payment of 40.

And a small $40,000 on a tractor.

Yes. We have a 500 acre farm that he's trying to still take care of. Like I said, he got COVID really bad and got really sick, almost died. So it changed our lives two years ago.

You live on the farm?

We do live on the farm. That's a long story. But we can't sell it because we found out it's in a trust that his parents had put in. So we take care of it. We have no money to take care of it, but what we make and so we can't sell it.

Sell the tractor and lease the land. Okay, let somebody else farm it. Your husband's sick and you can't afford the tractor and you're not making any money anyway.

Sell the tractor, lease the land. That sounds great.

Let somebody get another farmer to lease it. What's? Your husband been growing on it?

We have corn. I'm trying to think what all he does. Corn, soybeans. They've done a lot of different stuff, too. I'm not even sure.

I mean, if it's pretty standard deal is another farmer in the area farms it and you get a percentage of the crop as your lease payment.

Okay.

That's a pretty standard arrangement. I assume that can go to you. I don't know. You don't own it.

I know it's a terrible situation.

I don't know if it goes to the trust or not.

No, it doesn't.

If you make money on the farm, you don't have to give it to the trust, right?

No, we don't, because we have to pay the taxes and all the stuff for it. It's just in a trust. I mean, all the land is tied up in a trust. I'm sorry, what did you say?

That's okay. I'm aghast.

Yes. So am I.

This is not a blessing. So this is his family farm? His grandpa had it, yes. His grandpa's grandpa had it?

Yes.

Okay, and so they put it into a trust so that it doesn't get sold.

That's exactly. And then we didn't realize that we actually paid money for the house when we moved here, but we did not know until after they passed away that they actually put the house in with the trust. So we don't even own the house.

Okay, wow. And so I assume upon your death that the trust goes to your kids.

Yes.

They're cursed with this as well.

That's exactly right.

Yeah, exactly right.

I guess there's no way to do anything about it. I don't know.

I don't either, but I'm going to see an attorney and try to figure out because my obligation to a toxic situation is pretty low. I mean, what happens to this beautiful plan if you all just move off?

I don't really know.

Quit paying the taxes. Trust will lose it if you don't pay the taxes because you're getting no benefit from this thing at all.

No, we're not.

And there's no penalty on that.

Sucked us dry. That's why we are where we are.

Who is the trustee?

My husband is.

You need to go see an attorney.

Okay. Do you recommend one that might no.

I go to an estate planning attorney there in Knoxville. Ask around, find out who does good estate planning work because this probably needs to be busted up. I hate to sell family land like this but it has become a curse rather than a blessing.

That's right.

And I love land and I love family, tradition and legacy and I'm about as the older I get, the more emotional I get about that kind of stuff. But this has not been a blessing to you and it's not going to be a blessing to your kids.

That's right.

Because it's poorly structured and so you all need to figure out what the flip? So go yeah, spend a little money on an attorney, let's get out of the car, get out of the car deal and get out of the tractor deal.

What other debt is there?

We have a personal loan for about 30 that we just had to live on since he got sick and that's really it.

Because you have so many payments you can't breathe.

Yeah, that's right. And nothing really and nothing coming into sale.

Well once you get out of that car and tractor you'll be able to throw something at that personal loan and knock that out and then that'll be it.

Right?

Yeah. Just tear that down and tear down whatever hole you're in on the car. And you may be in a hole on the tractor as well but maybe you can get a farmer to take that tractor and buy it as a part of leasing the deal if you want to investigate that. But also investigate busting up the trust which by the way will solve the whole problem because now you're in control of the asset. You could sell off 50 acres of this and all of a sudden you've got some money and you're debt free and keep a 450 of it. I mean you'd be just fine.

So Dave, somebody passes away and you're part of a trust or you're part of their will, you can't just simply decline and say I don't want it.

Well you can fail to perform the things they're asking to perform. The weird thing here is that he's the trustee. The trustee is who has the control. And so depending on, I'm not an attorney but depending on how the trust is written, the trustee is supposed to execute the terms of the trust. But also if somebody's going to break it up it's going to be the trustee and her husband's the trustee.

Yeah.

So if it was some third party attorney or his uncle or somebody was the trustee then you might not be able to get anywhere with it. But when you're the trustee of your own trust it's weird. Yeah. So somebody was trying to do something good and honorable and nice and keep it in the family but instead they handcuffed the family and have left them in a toxic situation. So that's what you've got to be careful of, of these things that go in perpetuation small example of that that's not nearly as emotional is we just went through the if Dave dies this year meeting with my family and with the leaders. I have to do this Monty Python meeting every year. I'm feeling much better. It's just a flesh wound. And we just talk about what happens this year if Dave dies. So one of the tenants is it's written down and that we go over in that meeting every year, is that nothing that we do at Ramsey Solutions is to be kept alive because it was Dave's dream.

Okay, that's good.

You're set free from sacred cows. That's good. You should put a bullet in all sacred cows and eat them, turn them into hamburger. Although you would not.

I was going to say, do we have to eat them, Dave?

Can we? I want to eat them, but I'll be dead. And you're a vegan, so we're turning.

Into a leather jacket.

How about that? There we go. Now we're talking. Get some use out of that burger, out of that beef aloe. But anyway, yeah, the sacred tech cows. And that's what these things become, especially generationally like this, where you're like, four generations down and what you can't have.

The foresight to know what's going to happen.

I turned the kids loose and the Ramsay team loose from doing something that I thought was good 30 years ago or 20 years ago. Kill it, move on. I want them turned loose emotionally and legally. You go to the next thing. Go to what God has given you to do.

That's good.

This is the Ramsay show. George Campbell, Ramsay personality, is my co host. Open phones at triple 8825-5225 royalty is in the house. One of the top YouTubers in America today, or in the world, for that matter. Graham Stefan has become good friends with me through George. I was good friends with George long before that. I've been blessed to be on his show a couple times, and he's dropped by here once before and they were in town, so he and Jack and I just did a version of his iced coffee house. And did I say that right?

Iced coffee hour.

Iced coffee.

It's like smart money. Happy hour.

Be in the house. But there we go. Yeah. So if you don't know who Graham is, you need to check him out. $130,000,000 worth of real estate he has sold in his life. He does a YouTube channel on finance and on real estate, and it's a lot of fun to check out graham Stefan. Be sure and do that. And last month, they had about 100 million viewers on all of their various forms of TikTok and everything else, and four and a half million subscribers on YouTube. So if you don't know who he is, it's because you're not in that format. And that's the only way it's possible.

You're not that hip.

All of us who hang out, anything around that know who Graham Stephanie is. Welcome back.

Thank you so much for having me back on.

So good to have you. So, first. Question because you and I both share this huge love of real estate and these interest rates ticking up highly unusual across the landscape of the last 20 years are you seeing what are you seeing out there? Slowdown prices, what are you seeing?

It's definitely slowed down a lot. So what I've noticed, a lot of the smart money, it seems to be either buying real estate in cash or they're waiting on the sidelines. And I think a lot of people look at real estate from an investment standpoint and think, why would I buy real estate today making a six to maybe 7% return, when I could use the same money to buy Treasuries without any work, any risk, at five and a half percent? And there seems to be a tipping point right now where deals are very difficult to come by. There's a lot of competition and sellers are locked in to these very low mortgages. They have very little incentive to sell. If they have a mortgage that's 4%, why would they sell and replace that with a seven or 8% mortgage? It doesn't make a lot of sense.

Yeah. Investors aside, consumer to consumer, seems to be having that discussion. Oh, absolutely. They're saying, yeah, I could sell my house, the price is still really good, but then I got to go buy a house at three X or four X, the interest rate, and yeah, I could refinance it later, but they're really not thinking that way. They're thinking, I'm just going to wait on this a minute.

Yeah, well, I think 60% of mortgages right now are locked in 4% or less.

Yes.

Substantial.

Yes. That's almost all of them. The number below 2% is bizarre. That's out there. So, cool stuff. So stock market is doing well. Yeah, like you said, the treasury is there but that's the little secret everybody in the media, the mass media in particular is talking real estate and failed to mention that the S and P in the last twelve months has done about what, 16, 18%?

About that at the peak it was up almost 20% yeah wow and that's.

Just the S and P if you just bought an index fund, which people do with their eyes closed right? That's a no brain, no thought thing if you actually invested and thought about it and studied a little bit, you could do better than that yeah and.

Graham, I'm curious a lot of your videos of course for YouTube we have to be a little salacious, right? There has to be a little doom and gloom to get the people to click but what are your real thoughts when it comes to the economy? What's going to happen in 2024? Where do you think things are heading?

Are you dooming and glooming on your YouTube?

Yeah, you got to because other wise people don't click though my videos, I like to be pretty unbiased I like to share the fact, present the entire picture, let people come to their own conclusions. But if you don't make a somewhat negative title, no one negative sell. The videos itself usually are pretty positive overall, but you have to lean into that because otherwise people just don't pay attention.

But you seem like an optimistic guy just talking to you. You are very optimistic about the future, about finances, where the economy is going, and you're invested in the stock market and in real estate.

Yeah.

Well, I think you could do well regardless of how the economy does. I think that's a component of it, and it might be a bit short term in terms of the next few years. I have no idea what could happen. Everything that I would think is going to happen turned out opposite. I would have no prediction in terms of what might happen. But I think long term, I believe in myself, my ability to make money. I think for most people, they have a lot more direct control than they think.

And you're betting on the American economy long term?

I think so. And of course, I diversify. I have international exposure as well, but it's a small component. But I do think that's important.

Yeah. The interesting thing is that people get confused between investing and speculating. Speculating is a purchase that you're going to turn fairly quickly. It's not an evil word, it's just not investing. Investing always involves a long term hot time horizon, and when you're investing with a long term time horizon, let's call it five years or more, 100% of the time I'm comfortable with the stock market. Oh, it's down then get in. It's on sale. 100% of the time, I'm comfortable with the real estate market. Well, I don't know, five years from now, you're going to not be doing that. You're going to be glad you bought a property. So a long term time horizon, like you said to me, it just smooths everything out. And then you've got historical track records and things start to kick in. Do I know what it's going to do between now and this time next year? So I could do a flip? No, that would scare the crud out of me. That's why a lot of home builders aren't building specs right now. Yeah, you can't predict it. I mean, economists and weather forecasters are the only people can be wrong half the time and keep their job right.

Absolutely. And then you could be right once.

And then you're forever.

You're a genius.

That was my one thing.

You could write three books.

Well, I'm curious, Graham. You're getting married next year.

Yes.

Very exciting.

You didn't know we I didn't. Thought you knew about.

News.

No, you did not break.

Well, I'm curious.

You were asking Dave in an interview earlier which little teaser there about his relationship with his wife Sharon and marriage. Is there anything you're curious about? Kind of maybe nervous about when it comes to finances and combining those.

Not really. Macy and I are pretty attuned when it comes to money. And she's naturally very frugal like you.

Yeah.

And to some degrees, I would say it's a good balance because I'll certainly go out I don't fret anymore of going to dinner and spending $100 on the bill. Whereas five years ago, that would be like, well, if I spend $100 here, I could cut back $100 over here and then it balances out. And if I skip this over here, then I don't do that anymore. So I've really come in to enjoy.

Your money a little bit.

Yes, I'm still frugal, but not to the same degree.

Notice that's when he got married, now it's lightened up a little bit.

It lightened up just a little bit.

A little bit, yeah. So you and Macy are both tight wads, and so later you'll make little tight wads. This is great. Yeah. A bunch of cheapskate.

What are you willing to splurge on these days as you've started to let go of some of that and enjoy.

It a little more?

I would say experiences are something that in the past, I would usually forego that to work more. So I would say experiences I would say dinners are something that I've really been enjoying and going out to eat a few times a week. And I would say saving time, which is something that I've never really done.

Spending money for time, saving convenience if.

I could, like, for instance, if I get a nicer seat on the airplane. But that means that maybe I could work a little bit better. If I have a slightly larger seat, I could put my computer in front of me. And if I could get something else done, I see that as justifiable expense. So there's certain things that I could do to save time.

Well, if you need any tips on spending, ask Dave. He's really good at enjoying his money. He loves experiences. He's traveling all over the world. So that's part of know give, save, spend.

You got to have balance. Yeah. So what's the biggest advice with you having one of the largest YouTube channels on real estate and money in the world today? What's the biggest piece of advice in this current environment you've got for folks listening?

I think it really just depends on what their objective is. I mean, my big thing is always save as much as you can. Spend less than what you make. I think those are just important qualities to have in terms of career, though, because that's where I've really gotten the biggest benefit, is just the channel and the outreach. Savings certainly helped, but the income that I made from that was certainly a big catalyst. But I truly loved what I do, and I still do.

It's.

Like, to me, work never felt like work. It was always something fun. And that's where things came really easy for me. And I feel like if people could find what they truly love to do where it doesn't feel like work to them and they could spend all day doing it, that's how you typically will succeed in areas where others just can't keep up.

Exactly.

That's your unfair advantage, I think.

You're more creative. You're more energetic and you have to watch because you work all the time. It's just fun. It's fun. Congratulations and congrats on the marriage. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you. Give Macy our love. Good stuff. Graham Stephan. Be sure and check out his shows on YouTube, the Graham Stefan show. And one more time, the name of.

The show, it's coffee hour.

Check out Dave Ramsey on there. I messed it up. I didn't want to mess it up again. Be sure and check it out. Thanks for stopping by, my friend. Thank you so much. This is the Ramsey show.

Hey, what's up, guys?

Jade warshaw here. Now, Christmas is coming up fast, and that means you're about to feel the pressure to drop loads of cash on presents, decorations, plane tickets, you name it, but you're not going to reach for that credit card. It's still early enough for you to make a plan for all that spending. With an every dollar budget right now, you can get an entire year of all your premium features for just $50 with our Black Friday sale. Head on over to EveryDollar.com Black Friday to get that deal.

Now, Ken Coleman Ramsay personality is my co host today. Open phones at deborah is with us in Los Angeles. Hi, Deborah. Welcome to the Ramsay show.

Hi. Thanks so much. I've been listening to you guys for years and appreciate all you oh, thank you. You're very welcome. I have a question for you. I've been listening for a long time and yesterday I went in to adjust my own investments because we've been focused on other things. I wanted to get everything set up in the four different types of mutual funds you mentioned and the guy who is not a Ramsey certified financial pro, but he mentioned a term that I'd never heard before. When I brought up mutual funds, he asked me if I'd considered ETFs and I have no idea or I hadn't heard what that was. He explained it to me and it sounds very similar to a mutual fund. So I was just wondering if you could clarify what the difference is and why a mutual fund is better than an ETF.

I don't know that a mutual fund is better than an ETF. ETF just means exchange traded fund. And for purposes you would use it for, they're very similar. They're almost identical. It's a group of stocks. If you're buying an exchange, typically what people will do for an ETF is something like an index fund, like an S and P 500. And so it'd just be a group of stocks in there. Now, sometimes brokers will try to get you to buy and sell in your portfolio a lot, and they like an exchange traded fund for that better. And so if you're setting it up to do like you'd set up a brokerage account to buy and sell stocks in, I would not use it for that. But if you're using it like a mutual fund just to buy and hold, you're going to find it's almost identical that you're not going to notice any difference in the practical use of it. So sometimes I hear things like, well, Dave Ramsey's against ETFs. I'm not against ETFs, I don't mind. What I want you to have is a diversified portfolio, mutual funds, ETF is either one of those will give it to you.

What I don't want you to do with an ETF is start buying and selling all the time. And I don't want you to use any vehicle of investing that prompts you to constantly be jumping in and out, jumping in and out, jumping in and out. Because every time the news is good, by the time the news is good on the stock market, you're late, you should have already been in. By the time the news is bad, it's already too late for you to get out. And so people that try to jump in and out based on the news and you're not saying that, Deborah. I'm just saying but in general, if you're trying to use an ETF to time the market, we call it, then that use is not something that we would tell people to do ever, because I don't time the market, I just buy and hold. I never sell it, I just buy and keep. Well, the stock market went down. Yeah, I know. Stock market went up. Yeah, I know. And if I just sit there, then but, but for your purposes, Deborah, I think he's fine as long as you're going to stick with it and as long as your planner is not recommending the ETF for purposes of timing the market or buying and selling or constantly trading on your funds.

I don't be trading on my funds all the time. I buy them and hold them. The only time I sell a fund is if it's just completely underperformance category over a long period of time. And I don't remember the last time I sold one. It's been a long, long time because I play long ball all the time. Play long ball. I'm always thinking, what's this going to be ten years from now? What's it going to be 20 years from now? Not ten days from now, not ten months from now. The emotions don't drive it. And again, Deborah, you're not being accused of any of that. But I'm trying to couch my ETF answer here so I don't get misunderstood again, because I'm not anti ETF, I'm anti timing, and I'm anti constantly trading because it's effectively gambling. If you try to play the market, you can really you're no longer investing, you're speculating. That's correct. From a statistical standpoint, not a spiritual standpoint, you are gambling. Right. And sometimes I hear people say in the Christian world that I'm in, they'll say stuff like, well, all stock market is gambling, and you shouldn't be doing that.

Well, you don't understand what gambling is. Gambling is not based on gambling is based on it's a game of yeah. Meaning you don't have any control or any insight over the output. That's right. Investing as you buy a piece of real estate. Why? Because real estate's always gone up. And real estate in that neighborhood is a great neighborhood. It's got nice trees, and it's going to be good and whatever. Or if you're in Arizona, nice cactuses, or whatever, it going to but we have actual outputs that we're measuring, and we can look at the probabilities. And it's not just a deck of cards. It's not a slot machine. There's a complete difference. And there's a difference in the spirit by which you go at those things. So none of that has to do with Deborah. But Deborah, thanks for the question. Jessica's with us in Madison, Wisconsin. Hi, Jessica. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hi, thanks for having me on.

Great. How can we help?

So my question is, I had received some money when my dad passed away. We used that money to pay off vehicles and use it as a down payment on our house. And all we had for debt then was a mortgage. Since then, we've bought a tractor and built a barn. We were told to just let the money ride in the market. We were never going to touch it. That was retirement money. As I've been listening to your show the last couple of weeks, I'm wondering if that was the best advice we were given and if we should pull the money from the stocks and pay off our debt.

Yeah, and then you need to quit buying crap you can't afford, like barns and tractors.

It's stuff needed for our bull.

You're buying stuff you can't afford. Okay. You know how I know you did that? You borrowed on it instead of paying for it. If it was such a dad gum good investment, you would have already used Daddy's stock money on that. Hello?

Yes, I'm here. Yeah, my question is, do we pull the money from the stocks?

No, you don't. Unless you're going to quit borrowing money on the next thing that you rationalize and justify. But if you stop rationalizing and justifying your purchases on debt because you're going to eventually run out of this if you keep this behavior pattern going. But if you stop the behavior pattern and say, I'm never borrowing again, we're going to pay cash for everything we do from this point forward, then, yes, we did this. But the last time you paid off all your debts, what'd you do the next time? Thing that came up you went back in debt. And so if I tell you to pay off this debt, next thing that comes up, you're going to go back in debt. I don't want that for you. That's not a method to prosperity, that's a method to bankruptcy. And so you got to spit, shake and pinky swear with your husband, we're not borrowing money anymore. If you're going to do that, then, yeah, take the money out and pay off the debt. But otherwise you're destined to live a life of put and take. We're going to pay it off, then we're going to go back in debt, we're to pay it off, then we're going to go back in debt and eventually we don't have any money to pay it off.

Eventually you run out of the nest egg doing that. So you've got to break this pattern. And you were very clear. We used some of the money, cleared off all the debt. How did we celebrate? We bought a tractor and a barn and went back in debt. You've got to break that cycle. You can't do that again and again and again. There's an end to it and the end ain't pretty. So that's what I want for you. And there's no rationalization, no justification. You got to be done, you'll be done, you got to decide. We're done. It's an investment. It's always an investment. Everybody says everything's an investment that they want to buy, but most things aren't. Yeah.

And this is a key point about.

Tractors aren't investments or the barn. So what happens is, when you feel the need to have something, you have to go, okay, what's the least amount of thing that I need to do what I want to do? Could we have done a shed that we could have paid cash for? What's behind the these purchases, not prospective opportunities. I'm going to need this barn one day. If we don't need the barn now, then we don't need to buy the barn now. And I think that's where people have got to start looking at this and going away, what do I really need? Do I need a big tractor or do I need an old used tractor? That'll do the job and that's what people have to do, or else you justify debt. Almost every one of us buy a different thing when we buy it with debt than if we had bought it with cash. I agree with that 100%. Almost every one of us. Yeah. And you buy a bigger batter cooler. That's correct. Crazier, nuttier, dumber thing. You got to find a way because it doesn't feel like it's real money when it's the bank's money.

That's absolutely right. And that's the trap of this. It's a siren song and you'll crash this puppy on the rocks and that's what the sirens do to you. Look it up. This is the Ramsay Show,

live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods, moving and storage studios. It's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at Dr. John Deloney Ramsay, personality, host of the book, own host of the book, author of the book, the Number One Bestselling Book, own Your Past, Change Your Future, and the brand new book Building a Non Anxious Life, which is on pre sale now, all of those things. And host of the Dr. John Deloney Show on the Ramsey Networks. He's my co host today. Thanks for hanging out. James is with us. James is in Orlando. Hi, James. How are you?

Hey, how you doing? Thank you so much for having me on.

Sure, man.

What's up? So I'm having trouble getting to pay off my debt. I've tried many different things, make budget apps, different, things like that, and I've just come to the realization over the past few days, actually, that I lack the discipline really needed to stop living paycheck to paycheck. And the saddest part is, I have a really good salary.

What's your really good salary?

I make 170.

Oh, that's impressive. Okay. How much debt do you have, sir?

Collectively I have 27. $28,000. What kind of woke me up on this is I ignored my debt for years, and then both of my credit cards were canceled, and I settled one of them, and that was fine. And then the other one I honestly completely forgot about until a few days ago when I was served because they're suing me for the debt. And that kind of woke me up where I said, I need to stop pushing things. I think I kept pushing things forever because I said, Well, I have a good amount of money coming and my next paycheck, and I'll deal with it then.

But how long you been making 170, James?

Just for about six months.

What were you making before that?

I was out of work for about a year during COVID which really hit me hard. And so during that, I was doing Uber and making about 20,000. A year. Before that, I was making 90.

What do you do?

I work in politics.

Okay.

Consulting.

Okay.

So is that cyclical? Does that go away in another nine months?

No, this will be my salary, at least for the next few years. I don't anticipate it changing or changing jobs. Some things to keep in mind, too. I have to have two places to live because my job commutes a lot between here in Orlando and in New York City. Some of my colleagues that I work with do hotels, but most people just end up having two places of residence.

Do you currently have two places of residence?

Yes.

And how much is the New York apartment?

The New York apartment is 2000.

How much is the Orlando apartment?

1200, but my girlfriend and I split it.

Okay, sorry.

The 1200 is what I pay in my split.

Okay, so this is $40,000. So basically, you've been spending somewhere all of your money for the last six months, which is $85,000, other than some rent is unaccounted for.

Yeah.

Where are you spending your money, James?

So it's a combination of me living beyond my means?

Yeah.

It'S a combination of that. But also, there are some key different things that I just don't have that I think. So, for instance, I don't have a car. I do need to get a car, and instead of because my credit is and I've been worried about, where is.

$80,000 gone in six months?

You're starting to sound like Congress.

I've been renting cars a lot instead of buying my girlfriend's out of work, so I've been covering a lot of her expenses, and then I'm living beyond that.

So the whole thing on splitting the rent was bull crap.

She does that. But beyond that but beyond that, I've been covering a lot of things, so I definitely need to get my stuff together. The other thing to keep okay, here's.

What I do in these situations, and I have to set a new set of things instead of going, I'm just not good at this. I've not got any discipline. And you keep naming off all these things that you are that you actually aren't. It's just what you do. That's not your actual identity. So what I decided a year a few years ago, I had the blessing of going completely bankrupt and losing everything. So I didn't have a choice. I was in an extreme situation. The only way I could eat was to behave. The only way my children had a warm home was to behave. I didn't have a choice. And so what I've done with folks like you over the years is I want you to put yourself mentally in a space as if you don't have a choice. Let's just pretend this, okay? Let's pretend that you go to the doctor this afternoon, and he says, you need $27,000 by Christmas, or you're going to die. All of a sudden, James, you would be a person of discipline. All of a sudden, your budget would be perfect. All of a sudden, your stupid decisions would go away because you would have one goal.

I want to live. I want $27,000 by December. And suddenly all of this bull crap that's running around in your head would become laser focused, and you'd be going, $27,000. James got one goal. Stay alive, get $27,000. No other goal matters. No other crap matters. My colleagues have two apartments. Who gives a crap what your colleagues do? You are a broke guy making 170. You got to change some crap. Really? You got to get up in your face, man. Get up in your own grill and go, that's enough. I've had am. This is crazy. I'm ashamed. I'm disgusted with how this looks and how this feels, because that's what you've been telling me, and I'm so disgusted that I'm going to change it. And if you get sick and tired of being sick and tired, James, that's when you change your life. Yeah, because stupid people don't make 170 grand a year. They don't they don't even get hired. Okay? You couldn't even have gotten the job if you were stupid. So you're not stupid. But, budy, you've been doing some stupid stuff, hadn't you?

Yeah.

So stop it for real. Just pretend you need $27,000 by Christmas or you're going to die. And all of a sudden, I'm not renting any cars. I'm going to go get me a $4,000 car and put it down here in the driveway, or I'm going to Uber somewhere, and I'm going to Uber. I'm not renting any more car. I'm going to quit. We are not going out to eat. And hey, chick, you need to get a job where you need to move out, because I'm getting rid of this $2,400 apartment for two broke people if you don't. And, oh, by the way, I'm getting out of this New York lease for sure. And we're going to rent a cheap, stinking hotel over across the river and haul your little butt over the Staten Island Ferry over there and get to work. And you don't have to spend that kind of money to work in New York, because you got to change some stuff, man. If I'm you. That's what I'm doing. But you got to turn this disgust into behavior change, the shame into behavior. Change. This is the Ramsay show, folks. Changing your family tree takes more than rice and beans and side hustles.

It's also about transferring the big financial risks off your family by having the right kinds of coverage in place. That's why my team created the coverage checkup quiz. It only takes about five minutes to find out what types of insurance you need and don't need to protect your finances. Make this quiz one of your regular checkups, starting right now@ramsaysolutions.com. Checkup. That's Ramsaysolutions.com checkup. I'm Dave Ramsay. Your host, Rachel Cruz is my co host. Today open phones at triple 825-5225. If you like what you hear, help us out. We need your help. Subscribe to the show. Click the subscribe button, click the Follow button, share the show. Clip a link out, click cut a link out and send it to your friends. Or click the Share button. Anything like that that you can do helps us. It moves everything around in the algorithms and lets people out there in the land of YouTube and podcast know that we're there. If you're listening on your local radio station, thank you for that. Tell people that we're there on Talk Radio 680 talk radio stations right now. Thank you very much. And even TBN. We're on TBN every day.

So if you get that app or you're watching that on your cable provider, either one, thank you. Thank you for. Hanging out wherever you are and help us spread the word and leave a five star review. Say something nice. Saying something nice on the internet. That would be cool. That'd be a new thing to say. Something nice on the Internet. Jacob is in Fort Worth, Texas. Hi, Jacob. How are you doing?

Well, sir. How you doing?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

Hey, I was just calling because obviously I enjoy listening to you and respect your opinion.

Thank you.

My fiance and I, we're looking to move from Fort Worth back to our home state of Minnesota.

Cool.

And so I was looking to get your opinion about kind of what to look for when buying our first home and looking at a fixer upper versus a house that's already in pristine shape, maybe in a growing market. Our idea is that we're not going to be here forever or in that home. So we're looking to grow equity in the smartest way possible.

Fiance? Did you say fiance?

Yes, sir.

Yeah, my fiance and I when are you getting married?

Well, we keep pushing it off. We've been engaged for about two years, but we originally from Minnesota. We moved down to Kansas City for two years and then we moved to Fort Worth kind of on a whim and then decided so we're hoping to get married at the end of next year, but our goal is to buy a home first.

Don't. Do not buy a home with someone you're not married to. You're going to get yourself into legal, relational, spiritual and financial trouble. Don't do it. Don't do it. I talked to a gal yesterday that called me. She had been living with a guy for eight years. They had two cars in their names, four credit cards in their names and a house in their names, and he left. You know what? She is screwed. She can't sell any of it because he won't sign the titles to any of it. He won't pay the payments on any of it. So she's being forced into bankruptcy because of this right here. Don't do this. Go to see the preacher and get your butt married before you buy a house, okay? Because you're going to get in a mess, dude. You're going to get in a serious mess. Don't do that. I've been doing this 30 years. All I've heard is pain around this subject. No one ever gets blessed by what you're trying to do here. Don't do it. Please don't do it. Now, once you get up there and you're married because you're going to go get married this weekend now and you know it's her.

Y'all been together two years, so I'm like, just get the license.

You guys are married.

You're acting like you're married. You're basically married.

Painter, get off the ladder.

You got this.

Jacob. I believe in you.

I debated about know part of it was going to get our license. Like you just said. And then the other part of me was thinking about, like, it was her special day. So I kind of wanted everything to happen at once. But our goal is to this is our biggest investment and we're not looking to a lot of people take out loans and they have these fancy weddings that cost so much money, but that's not really what we're looking for for the long game. But it is still her special day.

Yeah, it is her special day. So don't screw it up with buying a house before the special day. And then you all have no special days.

Definitely. Okay, so you recommend just going to get a simple license. I don't care.

I mean, you all figure it out. Figure out well, the point is what our special day looks like. But I would not put your name on a deed with someone that you are not married to. You're creating what your attorney would tell you is called a general partnership with no general partnership documents. And I've seen all kinds of horrible things happen to people in these situations. Some of them are just mean, some of them are sad, but it's a mess. One guy, his fiance got killed now and there was no will. She got killed in a car wreck and now he owns a house with her mother. Talk about awkward. Yeah, talk about awkward. That's a mess. So don't do that now. Okay, now, so you all figure out how you're going to get married, but before you buy a house together, get married now. Let's pretend you're married and then we'll answer your question. If you're brand new married, I would not buy a fixer upper. Fixer uppers are hard work. It's tough. It's distracting. I would want you to focus on each other and be in love instead of hanging curtains and tiling and peeling old wallpaper.

Because let me say this, it's romanticized. On HGTV. It feels like, oh, my gosh, we're going to fix this house up and get what we want. All of it. And it does end up being usually more expensive. The time frame is longer. You're dealing with contractors. It's a second job, is basically what that is. And for your first year of marriage.

You live in dust. Perpetual dust. It's dust.

Some people do it well, but it sounds a whole lot better than the actual reality of it.

There's nothing good about it. I've renovated one house while I lived in it. It's a disaster. I'm sitting in a lawn chair on plywood floors because everything's ripped up, watching the Super Bowl. One time I told Sharon, I said, you might be a redneck if you're sitting in your own house inside, in a lawn chair on a plywood floor, watching the Super Bowl. That's what renovating a house is. It ain't chipping. Joanna, I'm just telling you, nobody's hair is done. The makeup's not right. It's all bad. Okay? There's no reality in reality TV, HGTV has ruined your perception of this thing. So, no, I would not do a fixer upper. Not my first house. If you're going to do a fixer upper, don't live in it while you're doing it. Live somewhere else. Fix it up over there, then move in it. If you want to get some equity from some work being done, it can be a little bit of light work. Like, we got to tear all the landscaping out and we got to run a coat of paint through the thing. That's okay. But this idea we're going to knock down walls and the decorator is going to prance through and tell you no.

And the kitchen is no. You're killing me. No, don't, please.

Your expectation, though, may have to lower that depending on what you guys can afford. That won't be this top of the line either, though, right? So there's a medium there of like.

But that's a good point. I forget that these reality shows that aren't reality, that have nothing to do with they're scripted as they can be. And the hilarious thing is, people in the industry call them unscripted TV, but they're more scripted than a dad gum sitcom. They've romanticized it between commercial breaks. The whole thing gets done. No. It's eight months later and you're still sucking drywall dust while you're trying to sleep. It's nasty. I grew up in a construction business. I've done probably 1500 rehabs in my life. I used to do it for a living. You don't want to do that. It's not what TV portrays it to be. You're right about that. I had not thought about that part of the problem.

Sounds dreamy and romantic. Yeah, it's not fun.

Yeah. I know it's shocking to you people, but those people on The Bachelor could have got a date without the TV show. It's shocking, I know, but yeah, if they were really looking to not be a Bachelor, he probably could have worked it any anyway, so yeah, that's funny. Rachel's favorite show? Is that your favorite show still?

It's moved on to the real housewives.

The Real Housewives.

We can talk reality TV another day. Dave, you will not like my reality TV.

No, I don't like any reality TV.

And the Kardashians new seasons out, you know? I love it. I think it's all fantastic.

You are so culturally relevant.

You kept mentioning Tiger King even like, six months ago. I was like, oh, Dave, no one watches that thing.

That was a thing during the Fauci pandemic.

But, hey, we did during the Fauci pandemic.

We watched Tiger King.

Yeah, but Love is Blind talks a lot about money. There's a lot of conversations around it.

None of it makes sense. Yeah. All right. There we go.

You never know.

Good luck, Jacob. I hope it works out for you, my brother. Sorry you called in and got a speech, but I don't want bad things for you.

I love you.

I want you to win.

You see how I feel growing up?

Yeah.

That's what I got.

What Rachel got at the end in a living room still in counseling for it. This is the Ramsay show.

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Jade Washaw ramsey personality is my co host today. Sam's in Austin, Texas. Hi, Sam. How are you?

I'm doing pretty good. How y'all doing?

Better than I deserve. How can we.

You know, I'm calling have over the years. Last couple years, we bought a house. Things seemed to be going okay. And then we ended up getting kind of taxed on the actual build of the house. And that just kind of started a slippery slope where we started having to pay more than what our mortgage originally was. And we ended up relying on a lot of credit cards. And it got really bad. And right now, I'm especially in collections for a lot of cards, and my wife has a few. She was sued. I got a case coming as well, and I just don't really know where to turn or how to turn this around. It almost seems kind of hopeless.

Sorry. Sam, how much credit card debt is their total?

Probably around probably 15,000 to 16,000.

And how much income do you guys bring in every month?

Every month, about 6000.

How much is your house payment?

2100.

How much are your car payment?

We only have one car payment, and it's 250. And as far as the mortgage, when we were being taxed on the improvement, after about a year of having a lower payment, it was about 2700. And now we're down to I finally paid off the overage on the escrow, and now the 2100 is about normal.

Okay. All right. And what do you guys do for a living?

I'm in technical support, and she works in a dental office.

Okay. Your mortgage is high. Your car payment. All car payments are bad. This one's not super bad. The credit cards are the way you were talking, I thought you were going to tell me you had 100,000 in credit card debt. The weight that you're emotionally carrying, listening to your voice, I'm pleasantly surprised. It's only 15.

Me too.

Yeah.

I think the mortgage being a third of your take home is really what's?

And it was higher than that for a while, but even that where else are you guys just disorganized and you were living in panic and money just flying out of there and you had no idea where it was going?

That's a pretty good way to put it.

Yeah. Okay. Because your numbers aren't as bad as the they don't indicate you should even be behind.

Yeah. And I agree with you there because when I sit there and kind of add up numbers and look at it that way I look at it, I'm like, okay.

How many kids have you got?

We have five total.

And how old are they?

They range from teenagers down to seven.

Okay.

How many are in daycare?

None. They're all in school.

Okay.

Our oldest, she works, but she just graduated high school.

Yeah.

The main thing is that okay.

How many credit cards are you behind on?

Probably I would say it's pretty good number. Probably about eight to ten.

So there's a whole bunch of little ones.

Yeah.

And you're behind on almost all of them?

I've got four myself that I two.

Have gone to collections?

No, they're pretty much all in collections, but I have four that I've made payment arrangements with. But two of them have filed lawsuits.

Yeah. You said your wife got sued on one of them, right?

Filed lawsuits, yeah. Oh, that's cute. On how much?

Hers is a little bit over 3000. The same for mine.

Oh, man.

Okay. Let me just tell you, you live in Texas, am I got that right? Is that the truth? That's correct. Okay. Well, their lawsuit is useless. They can't garnish she wages or take a lien on a house in Texas.

Right.

Their lawsuits hanging out there in the ether. It's just dangling out there in the nothingness. There's nothing they can do about it.

Because with hers we hired a lawyer and they're working on the case. It was the fear thing at the time.

That's the thing, Sam. Looking at the numbers that you've given us, maybe there's more debt out there that you haven't mentioned, but I think that what you're feeling is way more emotional than it is financial. It's like, oh my gosh, I've got twelve credit cards, they're suing us. It's like all these things going on. And if you just stop for a moment, if we really look at the numbers and look at the math, there's no reason that we can't list these from smallest to largest. Because like Dave said, most of them are probably lower balances because there's tons of them and they're only equaling up to 15,000 to 16,000. So my guess is that if you can just kind of pull all of this out of space, get it down on paper, like I said, list them smallest to largest, figure out what it looks like for you guys to get an extra $1,000 in every month, and you're knocking them out like dominoes, you're going to feel so much better.

How many cars do you own?

We have two that we use for getting the kids around. Our oldest son has his own that he uses for school.

And you bought it for him.

He's a stepson, and his dad gave it to him as a gift.

Okay. All Right.

Yeah. It's just a little truck.

Okay. I'm just trying to find out what's going on here. All right, so what did this lawyer tell you he could do that the law has done for you in Texas.

No, they just basically said that they could either get the case dismissed or work out some type of lower settlement. Essentially, that's all they offered.

Okay, well, the case is not going to get dismissed. You owe the money you lost, right? You owe the money. You didn't pay it. You lose. Ding. Okay. Now then can we settle it for less? Well, sure. It's $3,000. They can't collect it in Texas. So of course, you can settle it for less. You can do that with all of these, by the way. And next time, don't use a lawyer. What did you pay the lawyer?

750.

Okay. I sure hope he gets 750 off the balance. At least earns his keep. I don't know how he took your money in good conscience. All right?

Now, the main thing I worry about is because I've heard that I understand they can't charge my wages, but they could take it from my bank account.

Not unless you give them access to your bank account.

Well, they can take a lien on it in Texas. That's True. Well, don't keep if you got a bunch of money in your bank account. I guess we'd pay the bills.

Yeah, I mean, I really don't at the time, but at the current moment but working on this here and building up.

No, I'm just saying, if there's $10,000 in your bank account, you wouldn't have called me.

Yeah.

So you don't have any money in your bank account. So it's not a big fear.

Yeah.

Okay. So anyway, what we've got to do is A, get organized and get a very detailed plan and B, let's prioritize. First thing is houses paid are food. Then house, then lights and water. Then car. Are you behind on the okay, good. Stake current on the car. Go to work. And we're going to get you on an every dollar budget with Jade and put you in one of her webinars. When's your next webinar?

Oh, gosh. It's not till November.

I don't know that we have.

All right, we'll get you plugged into an every dollar webinar so you can learn how to do a budget with your wife. And we'll put you into Financial Peace University because basically what we're going to do is we're going to take care of food, shelter, clothing, transportation and utilities. First. You've got the money to do that. And then we're going to force rank these things and work them through and lump some settlement. All of them. Each smallest to largest. I'm not paying payments on them anymore. I'm going to lump some settlement. You're behind. The lawsuit has got no teeth where you live. Okay? So just argue with them and say, I'm broke. I owe you $3,000. You say it's $5,000 after you added a bunch of fees. I have 2000. If you'll take that and give me that in writing, that that's a settlement in full. Remember that phrase. And no electronic access to your checking account. As jade said, they will never know where your checking account is. But settlement in full, in writing, and then I'll send you $2,000. Oh, you won't do that. Did you know there's nine other credit cards that will?

One of them is going to take the money. I got you on the phone. Last chance. Going once, going twice. I'm going to the next card. Okay, second card. Here's what we're going to do. I just tongue up on the other guy because he's an idiot. Let's see if you are. All right. And we're going to settle this. Going once and going twice, and you're going to work your way through this. And then you cycle back through. After you finally get one to take the money, then you pile up a little more money and you start the whole process again. Remember last time I called you when you didn't take the deal? You sure you don't want to take it? Because I'm here with another deal and I'm getting ready to go on to the second one. Going once, going twice and this is how you deal with these people, because credit card collectors are scum. You can tell they're lying if their mouth is moving. So beat the snot out of them and get this cleaned up. That's what you do. This is the Ramsay show, our scripture of the day. James one, two, and three.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Franklin Roosevelt said, when you're at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on. Amen. Kristen is with us in Madison, Wisconsin. Hi, Kristen. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. Hi, George. Thank you so much for taking my call.

Sure. What's up?

So my husband and I were newly married. We just finished baby step one. This month. We have $45,000 in consumer debt in baby step two. And as we're laying them out smallest to largest, we also have some other pretty big expenses that aren't necessarily debt. And we're just having a hard time figuring out where they should fall in our snowball.

What are they?

So we have two vehicles. One of them we own outright. One of them we have a loan for $6,200, and the one that we have a loan on is broken down. The rear differential is completely seized up. It's not drivable. It's going to be about a $2,000 fix. We're hoping to eventually fix it and then sell it to get rid of it. Also. We bought a house at the beginning of this year, and two weeks after we closed on our house, the pipes in the bathroom burst. And so that is currently completely gutted. We don't have a shower sink.

We do have a functional or just.

In that bathroom at all. That's the only bathroom we have in our house. So we've been showering at our mother in law's house. We've been going over there to do that. For how long then? For about six months. Seven months? Yeah. She's two blocks away, which is great. She's super close. Pretty big.

Nothing great about this. This sucks. Oh, my gosh. What a mess.

What do you guys wouldn't cover it. Well, that's the other part. I lost my job recently, so currently my husband is working you all need.

To write a country song.

Dollars an hour.

We showered. My mother in laws and I lost my job there's a lot.

Wow.

So what's he making?

He's making $18 an hour right now.

Doing what?

He's a machine operator.

What were you making?

I was making sixty K. I was a restaurant manager.

Why did you lose your job?

I was working in a restaurant. I loved my job. The hours were not great. I was working 60 to 70 hours a week salary, so I took a different position in the same it was another restaurant manager position, and I moved over to that. It was going to be 45 hours a week, and that would salary also, so that would allow me a little more time. But a couple of weeks into that, they decided that I was not a good fit and they let me go.

When was that?

That was in June.

Why haven't you worked since June?

Well, that's the other thing. My husband, he had his driver's license suspended and the car broke down.

Why did he have his driver's license suspended? I can't believe this.

It's been suspended for quite a while. He had to wait a couple of years. There was a period of time DUI. For the points. Yeah. And then for the points to fall off. And so he's eligible to get it reinstated now, but it's about $800 to pay all the fees for everything, and then our insurance would go up.

Okay, so your excuse is you're a full time driver for an $18 an hour guy? I'm calling bull crap. That was a dumb idea. You make more than he makes.

Yeah, so we were able to share. We were working in the same town. We were driving.

Yeah, back when.

But now with him being but now.

With you not having a job, you used driving him as an excuse to not get a job. So get another job, girl.

Couldn't you drop him and then go work and then pick him up or he gets a ride?

That's what you did before?

Yeah, I've been doing applying for jobs. There were a couple I got to the second interview restaurant manager positions, and they ended up really not going anywhere. But now what I'm looking at is.

What would be wrong with Mike working 60 hours a week now, what was wrong with it then? You were broke?

Yeah, it was mostly the schedule and driving back and forth and not being available to pick him up because I had to stay late to solve a problem at work.

So you lost $60,000 because he didn't buy an Uber? Yeah. You guys need to both be committed to 60 to 80 hours a week making $20 an hour, and you will solve a lot of these problems you have in a heartbeat. Instead, you're living in a house that's not even habitable because you don't even have a toilet or a shower, and you haven't worked since June. You guys have got to go create some money.

Girl, you went from 100K down to 36, and you got 45 in debt. So if we get you back to.

Work, your problem, your income, the fact you guys don't make any money is your problem, and you don't work much.

Yeah.

He needs a new job making 25 an hour and two extra jobs making 20 an hour. And you need the 60, 70, 80 hours a week, 60 to 80,000 to be the restaurant manager job and buy them an Uber if you're stuck at work.

I mean, can you wait tables in the meantime?

Yes.

So that's what our next plan was. I can pay $125 to reinstate my CNA. I have to go take the test, but then I would be able to get my CNA license back, and that's.

I'm sorry, what is a CNA license?

Certified nurse assistant.

And what would that pay?

$25 an hour.

Why would you want to do that when you can make 60 as broke as you are? Why don't you go get you some money?

I've been applying for restaurant manager positions. I had two where I went to the second interview, second interview process. I've applied for more than those, but those are the ones where I was interviewed.

And you guys need to sit down and figure out the way on the short term, not what your dream is. But the thing you can do that is moral and legal, that allows you all to work the most hours and make the most money for about two years so you can get your shower fixed and get your debt paid off. But you're not going to do it with all these theories and all these limitations, and you're finding all kinds of reasons to not do this stuff. Really, honestly, 50 grand solves your whole life. $50,000. You could have made that since June if he was working overtime and you were still working. And so you really have an income. Your perception of work and your perception of income on a temporary basis needs to change. That is your issue. Because you guys need to $18 in a world where most people are making 25 to 30. Okay? And no, you don't go get a CNA to make $25 an hour when you have the income potential of 60 to 80,000 at a restaurant. And in the meantime, until you land that, you go get six jobs and you guys work your tail ends off.

I'm fixing my freaking toilet and my shower. This is crazy. Y'all go make some money, girl. We want you to win. But you guys spend a lot of your mental in talking to you. There's a lot of mental gymnastics on why we can't create an income. There was a lot of them. I mean, you're like a world class gymnast.

Well, I know life has happened to you.

I know it has.

But you guys stuck in your head.

And you got this loop going, and I'm trying to force you even if you get mad at me, I'm doing that because I love you. I'm trying to force you to rethink your view on work.

Well, every question that was well, there's a story behind I know, but at some point, we just have to put it down and do it anyways and go to work anyways. Do the job we don't want to do anyways.

Yeah, exactly. $50,000 changes your whole life. You could go make 50 to 100,000 more than you made in the last twelve months. In the next twelve months, between the two of you, changing your view on work, that's how fast your life can turn around. And the desperation that you feel every day when you go to your mother in law's to take a shower will go away. That puts this hour of The Ramsay Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember there's ultimately one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace Christ. Jesus.

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Hey, guys, I'm Rachel.

And I'm George.

And you've probably heard our voices before on The Ramsey Show.

And do we have a surprise for you.

Yep.

We have our very own show, smart Money Happy Hour, where we talk about pop culture, current events, and, of course, money. George it's a great show. And what else do we talk about?

So much. Rachel not enough. And yet too much. We talk about guilt. Tipping, because tipping is out of control and I won't stand for it anymore. Which is why I'm sitting.

I'm glad you were taking such a stand.

And we also talk about something else. I'm passionate about Disney adults. Why is it a thing?

Listen, some adults. Still find the magic.

Sure.

We also talk about toxic money traits and girl math. And if you don't know what those are, you have to listen to the podcast.

Yeah, there's a lot there. You guys, it's pretty fun.

We keep you relevant, is what I'm trying to say.

We help you out.

So pull up a chair to the be hour you wish your friends were having. We promise you won't regret it. And if you don't have friends, we'll be your friends.

We will. We're great friends. So make sure to check it out on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or the Ramsey Network app.