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. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us, America. The phone number is 8825. My co host is number one best selling author many times over, Ramsey personality, host of the Rachel Cruz show, and my daughter, Rachel Cruz. Open phones here again, triple 8825-5225. Stephanie's in Dallas. Hi, Stephanie. How can we help?

Hi, Dave. Appreciate you taking my call.

Sure. What's up?

So I feel like I'm on the edge of losing everything. I have very much been financially responsible to my best extent. But I find myself in a very difficult career situation, and I'm very afraid of making the wrong step and everything falling apart.

Wow. Where did all of this loss of confidence come from? Actual financial facts or something else?

I think it's something else. I have. I have or have had a great career, but I have been unemployed now for eight months.

What's your career?

So I work in M and A. And also, let's just say it.

What were you making?

245,000 a year.

Okay. That doesn't sound like someone that's about to fall off a cliff to me. But then you haven't had a job for eight months. Why?

Honestly, it's been a lot of factors. It's been a tough job market, first of all. But part of the reason is that I'm located in Dallas. It's high competition here. But also, I have not wanted to move. I've wanted to stay in the Dallas area. So I haven't looked outside of Dallas, and I have two teenagers that I'm really struggling not to have to move them and change their schools and all of those things. And so you're a single mom.

How long you been divorced?

That's correct. I've been divorced over three years. About three and a half years.

Okay. How long were you in that position? The M and A.

My career is about 25 years. I've been at the 345 range now for up until now, about eight years.

Okay. Okay.

What was the cause of the job loss, Stephanie?

To begin with, I was laid off, actually, because the m and a activity went down because the interest rates on companies being able to borrow investment capital shot up. And so I was actually laid off in December for my company. And that's also part of the struggle, is that that industry is having some difficulty right now, and it's high competition. People that have been without work.

Well, there are people doing m and a's without borrowing money to do it. You know that, right?

That's correct. And I've been trying to find those people.

Well, I mean, they may not be in Dallas, but you've also got the double. Dallas is not oil driven like Houston is, but it is somewhat oil driven. And that's. That's hitting that market too. Okay. Wow. How old are the kiddos? What? Year? In high school.

Yeah. So I have a boy that's 14 and a girl that is twelve.

Okay. All right. All right.

Are there other areas in the country that are experience that have more openings than just Dallas?

Yeah. She can get a job.

Yeah, I have started. I mean, that's the thing is, I've started in the last couple of months. You know, I tried for a while to kind of hold on and say, okay, I'm going to try to work this out. And then after about six months, I said, oh, yeah, this isn't going to.

What have you been living on during this eight months?

Who? So for the first seven months, I did get unemployment and so I was living off of unemployment and a small amount of child support that I get. So it was 3500 a month.

What's it take to operate your house?

So my expenses are 2500.

Okay. So you need 4000. You need $4,000 a month burn rate, $48,000 a year. Long way from 250,000. So you got two choices, Stephanie. You're wise enough and you're math oriented with what you do for a living to know that obviously doing nothing is burning. Gonna burn through any cash you've got and you're gonna reach an end point. And yeah, you're gonna have some of those fears that are currently irrational but they'll become real fears of losing things. Okay? So you've got to get employment, period. Now, you got two options. One is take the same skill set that you're using because obviously you're an analyst. Okay? You know how to run analysis on financial products and so forth. And that applies to. That skill set, applies to a lot of things in addition to mergers and acquisitions. Okay? So you can. You can land a job making a hundred if you want to camp out in Dallas till those kiddos finish up their little high school careers and you just make less. And. And that's okay. Meanwhile, maybe you keep looking in Dallas or the kiddos are moving because mom's gonna make 300 in Charlotte or Atlanta.

Yeah, that's okay, honey. They're gonna be okay. They're pretty resilient little characters and, you know, their life is.

But even 150 in Dallas.

Anything you can land with for survival. So I think you probably stay. I think you've been staying right in the m and a lane, and I want you to step out of that lane and go for a broader swath in your look and in your thought pattern on what you're going to take and then decide, am I going to settle for something less using this same skill set for the next five years?

Yeah.

And finish these high schoolers up. Is it worth that to me? Because basically you're saying it's going to cost you $100,000 a year, $150,000 a year. So in order for these high schoolers to stay put, you're willing to give up 600 grand.

Yeah.

I'm not. I'm moving a high schooler's butt. Okay.

I was like, I'm staying. Staying with other friends.

Yeah. Yeah. No, not for 600.

But if you're, if you're in a good position, though, that's the thing, is you to run your household is four grand a month.

Yeah.

So there. I mean, it's. It's a total choice of values at that point.

You can do whatever you want to do. But I just. I'm. Teenagers survive far worse things than moving.

I agree. But if it's. But my thing is, if it's something that, like, obviously, if she was not going to be making enough, if she was making 60 and she's like, I can't even find that. You know what I mean? Like, then that's one thing. I get it. But you're. I mean, I. You're totally fine making 150 more than.

Fine in her position, but here's what I'm hearing, okay.

If you were to. This lady lived her life.

She lived her life for her husband and her kids. The husband dumped her. Now she's living her life for her kids, and her confidence is eroding. And yet she is an amazing lady, and I want her to be who she's supposed to be. And that's good for her kids.

That's fair.

That's good for her kids if she steps into who she is.

I agree.

That's good for her kids if they do it in Charlotte or Atlanta. That's not a bad thing, though, kiddos. They're okay.

Yes.

Ask people who grew up with a mom or dad in the military. They live in a different high school every month. And they just. I know.

I'm not saying that they're not resilient. I'm just saying she's in a really blessed position to have a lot of to have those two options of what we're talking about.

Hang on the line. I'm going to send you Ken's two books, paycheck to purpose and proximity principle. That'll give you some reading. And I want you to get yourself back out there, kiddo. You need to land something. It's been too long. Now. Go get something. This is the Ramsey show. Buying your first home is a big deal and sets the stage for your financial success. So work with a mortgage advisor you trust, not just some random website. Churchill mortgage is Ramsey trusted because they help you avoid hidden traps and expertly guide you through every step. Learn more at this is a paid.

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Suite 100, Brentwood, Tennessee 37027.

Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, is my co host today. Another Rachel is in Winnipeg. Hi Rachel, how are you?

I'm well. Dave and Rachel, how are you folks doing today?

Great. How can we help?

Good. I have a question for you. So I am moved out. I'm fully on my own, which means I don't see my folks all that often. I also have a little bit of debt. So I work a full time job and a part time job this upcoming weekend. We have a long weekend and so I was able to get some hours in my part time job, obviously when I get through those baby steps, as soon as possible. But I was offered some time to come up to my folks cabin and spend the weekend with them. And I think I'm just having a hard time reconciling paying off my debt as soon as possible versus spending intentional family time. And I wanted your advice on how to balance both of them.

That's a great question. How much debt do you have?

About 22,000 canadian, some of student loans and some of credit for debt.

What's your income?

At my full time job I make 54,000 a year. And then at this part time job I'm going to be making 15 an hour.

Okay. What do you, what do you project being done?

One year, ideally, if I can. I mean, as soon as possible, but yeah, ideally a year, year and a half.

Yeah. And you're how old?

I'm 27.

And your parents are how old?

In their sixties.

Okay. So in the scope of your life, if you didn't see them for an entire year, you would not be an unusual humanity?

Yeah, that's true.

I mean, again, people are deployed in the military, people do all kinds of things and that are uncomfortable for short periods of time to create long term comfort. So the trade off, however, is $15 an hour. So it's not. It's not like you're, you know, what are you gonna lose, $200 or something? I mean, it's not, you know.

Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. I think you back kind of your way into it, Rachel, and just say, hey, my goal is in a year and a half, I wanna be debt free. So what does that mean? And you can kind of back it out. And that way you can kind of calendar out and say, you know, every other month I'll go spend the weekend there, and I can do that time wise and mathematical to still hit my goal. Does that make sense? Like, I think when it's kind of arbitrary and it's like you're kind of just, like, floating a little bit of, gosh, what's my life looking like? How much am I working? You know, when I pay off my debt, when all of that is up in the air, I think it is hard to prioritize. But when you have kind of a rigid, systematic plan, it kind of gives you that permission to say, oh, yeah, I had this weekend budgeted, quote, unquote, to not work, to go see them. And that still works in my timeframe. So that way, you can actually enjoy your time and you're not second guessing yourself constantly.

Yeah, it sounds kind of rigid, but I think the more I think rigid you are during it.

Well, that gives you. That gives you the permission to not do some of them and to do some of them. If you had a system, it's like a spending plan or a budgeting plan. Same thing. The thing that I do want you to address, and I'm not accusing you of this, it's just a possibility. So you can take this. In other words, for what it's worth, sometimes when I'm in these situations, I act like, in my little drama brain that everything is forever and this isn't forever. So when you get right down to it, you're gonna miss four weekends?

Yeah.

You know, it's not. It's not like you're never gonna see your parents again or one of them has a terminal illness. It's not a. You know, it's none of that. It's like four weekends at the lake and with my parents, and I'm 27. It doesn't sound real devastating when you kind of put it that way.

Not forever.

Exactly. Yeah. But in my little mind, I'm like, I never see my parents. You know, my drama brain kicks in right. And it's like forever and it's not. It's not forever. And so sometimes it helps me to quantify it. And I think if you use those two, that. That on the emotions and what Rachel's suggesting on the budget and go, okay, I am going to give up two of the four, and that's going to cost me $500 towards my process. But I'm still going to make my goal. And I'm actually probably going to pick up and work later a couple of nights that I wouldn't have in order to make up for that. So I can still hit my goal. And I think you can do some stuff like that and then you feel okay about the process. But.

Yeah. And I would say too, Rachel, you know, this is a problem like a lot of just families have with kids. I don't want to be away from my kids. Working parents are like, oh, my gosh, you know, if I travel, like, whatever it is and kind of what you're saying, it can be so built up in your head and this sounds so cheesy, but it's just true. Winston, I. We got a twelve month calendar we put in on one of our walls in our house. And when it's like, I know for me, with traveling and speaking and stuff, it's like, oh, my gosh. It can feel. It feels overwhelming. I'm like, oh, I'm doing too much. And then you lay it all out visually and you're like, okay, this feels better because here's a week there. That's good. Here. Here you actually start to see it, you know?

Yeah. It quantifies it and it does away with the drama.

Yeah. And same with the budget. That's why we always say to have a written budget or on the everydollar app, see it visually because it kind of takes that out.

But it help me with the math because I can't do it in my head right now. How old were you in 2003?

I was a sophomore in high school, so 16.

Okay. All right. And so we had a senior in high school, sophomore in high school and a middle schooler, and I went on book tour for total money makeover, and I was gone 42 days.

I remember this.

Gone.

Well, can we back up? Cause talk about drama, Dave. I remember. Okay, so I was a sophomore.

Okay.

I remember you sitting us all down. We had a family meeting, which was a normal occurrence in the Ramsey household. We have family meetings, you know, someone's messed up, so we're all gonna have a. Whatever it is. Like, there's family meetings.

Rachel's done something.

I've done something. It probably was me, honestly, where it's like, all right, we're gonna here. But I remember, and you laid out this whole thing about how you love. It was like this whole speech. And we're like, what is he getting, Athenae? And he's like, I'm going on book tour for about a month and a half. And I remember I was like, okay, see ya.

See ya.

It genuinely was like, okay, I don't know. So to your point, things can be dramatic, especially in a parent's head, or, I don't know, in the person's head.

My work life balance is not good. I'm sorry, children. Rachel's like, eh, no big deal.

Well, and I will say. Cause you were present other times. I mean, most of the time, plenty of. We weren't abandoned children.

You were not abandoned children with a workaholic father. No, but I think the same kind of thing falls into this because we get the Bork life balance question all the time. It's like, I'm afraid I'm gonna see my children if I'm getting out of that. Oh, stop it. Yeah, you know, get your butt to work. You know, it's just, and that's what I have to tell myself too, you know? And I'm like, okay, this is a sacrifice I'm gonna do. And that book now, by the way, has sold 10 million copies. So, you know, that little 42 day book tour worked out okay. So, you know, so is the, is the price worth it? Is the price you pay worth it? You know, and that, that's what we're looking at. And then to keep it all in.

Sync with your life, too, because, yeah.

It'S just, it's good that what you're talking about, writing it out like that, that gives you perspective.

Yes, that's right.

And you go, okay, 42 days, out of the scope of my life. Four weekends for her. Out of the scope of her life, you know, is not. And all of a sudden, the little drama child inside my head starts to calm its butt down.

Or the guilt of the parent, whatever.

It is, that's drama. That's parents guilt. You know, it's like, I'm not nurturing. It's, oh, brother. And the kids like, yeah, whatever.

I was at least.

So, yes, you can. When you're in baby step two and you've got two little kids and you're working six jobs, and for a period of time, you don't change as many diapers as the other one does. And that could be the husband or the wife. Maybe the wife's, you know, working 36 hours shifts as a nurse. I don't know, whatever it is. But there's all kinds of stuff you can do for short periods of time. And the kids are truly yawning at your drama. They're truly not affected because you're not doing this for a decade.

I was gonna say it's. That's not your. That's not the life pattern.

It's not a life pattern, and it's not for a decade. The way, if you're working really hard when you're at home and I need to spend time with the children, turn off your television. You're supposed to be spending time with your family or your phone, binge watching Netflix or doom. Scrolling Instagram is not family time. Yeah, now we got what you're spending your hours.

The Olympics are on, and we're in a middle of a political season.

You know how much. You know how many of the Olympics I've seen this week? Zero.

You what?

I'm not an american. I know I'm a communist, but, um. No, I mean, seriously, I've not watched it.

Oh, it's so good.

I'm sure it is.

Yeah.

See? There we go. This is the Ramsay show.

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The Ramsey cash giveaway is here. It starts today. You could win the grand prize. Unbelievable. One of our biggest giveaways ever, $10,000, man. If you want $10,000, you could, like, fill up your card twice. If you got $10,000, you could get two or three dozen eggs. If you got $10,000, you might be able to pay down a student loan. Or, man, that's a lot of money. However you spend it, you can't win it without entering, and there's no purchase necessary. Got to be 18 to play. Go to ramsaysolutions.com giveaway now through August. August 31. And while you're there, shop our $12 sale. Your chance to grab one of our best sellers at only $12. By the way, hardback books these days are selling for $32 to $35 each. Okay, I just bought a fiction book that a friend of mine wrote this week, and shocking what they charge for them now. It's awesome what we charge, too, by the way. But now it's $12 on sale. The sale is something for you no matter what you're facing, whether you're battling anxiety, doctor John Deloney can help. Struggling with money. Rachel Cruz and Jade Warshaw and me and George Camel can help.

Or you're feeling stuck in your professional life, Ken Coleman can help. There's lots of best sellers there. Ramsaysolutions.com store Kelly is in Minneapolis. Hi, Kelly. Welcome to the Ramsey show.

Hi. Thank you for having me.

Sure. How can we help?

Well, my husband and I have been working really hard and paying off our debts, and we're looking at being debt free outside of the mortgage by probably late October.

Nice.

We're really excited. But there's one debt in particular, my student loan. It's about $6,000. And I've recently learned that my employer started a student debt retirement match. So if I'm not already contributing with that 4% match, which I'm not currently, I can report my student loan payments, and they will treat that as if I'm contributing and then match the 4%. So I'm wondering if it makes sense for that particular loan to continue paying it monthly just to get that 4%.

Match and keep the loan around longer than necessary. No.

Right? I don't know if it's worth it.

No, it's not. No, I wouldn't. I wouldn't stay in debt to get your employer 4% now. Between now and the time you pay it off, can you get the 4%?

Yeah. The next couple months or whatever?

Yeah. You got three or four months worth of it. But 4% does not justify staying in debt. No, let's get rid of the debt as soon as you can. Darn. I wish they found that a year ago.

Yeah, I know I can actually. I've looked and I can report all the payments I've made this year, so that's awesome.

Oh, definitely do all that paperwork for sure.

Yeah, I'm already on it.

Just scraping the free money off the table. Yeah, definitely. That's cool. Yeah, yeah. No, now, Kelly, that the problem with some of these assistants, anytime we get help with these types of things, the problem is it causes us to, you know, to think illogically. And that is. Oh, I'm gonna stay in debt. Which the purpose of the assistance is to get out of debt. So, you know, it's. But, yeah, I just gather up everything you can get out of this, but get out as soon as you can. The faster you get out of debt, honey, the faster you're going to prosper. It is that simple. Sammy is in Phoenix, Arizona. Hi, Sammy, how are you?

Hi, Dave. Hi, Rachel. How are you guys?

Great. What's up?

Well, I have a question regarding a loan. I know your favorite question. Basically, I live with my mom and husband. We would like to sell our home eventually move out of the city. We have a decent amount of repairs we need to do to the home to be able to sell it. We don't have good credit. We don't have savings. We've heard about the home equity loan. We have a decent amount of equity in the home. We don't know much about it. What do you know about that?

What do we know about it? Well, home equity loans, is it a good idea?

No.

Okay.

No, I mean, you're just borrowing equity on your home is what you're doing. You're just. You're going backwards when it comes to you owning your home. So my question is, what are the repairs?

One is a brand new AC, which is about $10,000.01 is the pool being fixed? Which is about eight to twelve that we've gotten estimates for. And then the last small thing is a small, old, you know, very old, lots of miles. Used car for my mom because she's currently using my car.

Okay, so just a car in general that has nothing to do with the house?

Yeah.

Okay.

What does your mom make?

She makes about 80,000.

What do you make?

I don't make much. I just. I'm part time, wandering here and there because she has my car right now and she makes a lot more than.

I could what does your husband make?

My husband's about 45.

Do you guys have kids?

Not yet.

Okay.

Okay.

And then the house. Tell me how much. If you sold the house today, how much would it be? How much did you sell it for?

We could probably sell it as is maybe 350.

Okay.

We did all these repairs, maybe 400.

And what's the house? How much do you have left to.

We bought it for 170, and we owe about 130 on it.

Okay. Here's what I would do. I would sit down this week and tighten your budget down to nothing and go get a $2,000 car, and then I want you to go get a $40,000 job, and that will pay for the repairs.

When you guys household income or you're making 125?

Yeah. You only need 20. You only need 20 grand for the repairs. You need 20,000. You need $20,000. Whoa, whoa, whoa. You need $20,000? Go get it.

Yeah, well, the AC, we're supposed to do it in the next, like, month, or else it's going to totally go out.

How do you know? Who's the AC genie? How do they know?

We've had a few people over now, and it has a compressor, and our bill is like, $700 a month.

Yeah.

Because of it.

Yeah.

So we don't have a lot of ten grand. That's ten grand. So ten grand is ASAP. So, I mean, yes. I mean, if I were you, I'd go get.

I want it. So your husband's working overtime, you're working overtime, and you guys are three of your piling their money in the corner as fast as you can pilot, and getting an AC as fast as you can. It's still working. When it goes out, we'll call it an emergency. It's not out yet, and you do need to replace it. But I'm not talking about waiting. If you get a job making 40k now, you got a household income of 165. I think you could come up with ten grandd.

I don't know how to find a job that pays that well for me.

Well, you don't have to be looking. What you haven't been doing. That'd be a first step. And I mean, that. That's only $20 an hour. $25 an hour. I mean, you're my targets, paying $20 an hour. So go over at target and then run over to Walmart right after that. They're both paying $20 an hour. And just stack up these jobs and go get. You need some money. Money comes from work, not borrowing. And. And then you get the AC fixed, and then you start talking about fixing the pool. And you do all this with a $2,000 car. Y'all have the money. Y'all got it. You just need to tighten down what you're spending to nothing by being on a budget and get your incomes up. All of you take extra jobs, all of you, until you get past this emergency. Now, I don't think you're going to do it, though.

Well, tell me this, would you? I mean, does it get messy, though, if the house is in their name? Mom's living there, though. Or the house is in my, like. You know what I mean?

Like, living there free and using their car.

Yeah.

I'm taking her money.

Yeah.

I mean, we're fixing the AC. Yeah.

I'm just thinking of, like, there's always those layers when you have people that don't own the home that are in the. You know what I mean? Like.

Yeah, I mean, if she won't go get a job and you're taking mom's money, that mom might object.

Yeah.

Okay. But. But, hey, everybody's diving on the ball here. We've got a fumble.

Yep.

And it's, you know, we got to recover here. We got to recover. We got to recover, everybody. Game on. It's a household emergency. I mean, air conditioning in Phoenix is an emergency.

Yeah, that's important. Yeah. Yep.

It's a hundred degrees, but it's a dry heat. You're killing me. It's like sticking your head in an oven. It's a confection oven, is what it is. It's dry. Yeah, hot. Love Phoenix.

That's what they always say, though.

It's hot. It's really hot.

But I will say we were in Utah, and the no humidity thing is different.

It is different, but it's still.

It is still very hot.

This is the Ramsey show. Are you working the baby steps? One of the smartest and most impactful changes you can make is to ditch your cash value life insurance plan, if you have one, and replace it with a term life policy. Listen, the only thing a cash value policy is good for is overcharging you for the life insurance and then paying you a crappy rate of return on your overpayment. Stop wasting your money and really focus on getting out of debt and growing your savings. For over 25 years, I've trusted and used Zander insurance to find the best rates on term life insurance from the top rated companies. They keep the whole thing simple. You can apply online or over the phone, and they even have low cost plans that don't require an exam, go to zander.com or call 803 564282 even if you don't have a cash value policy. If you're one of the 70% of people who have no life insurance or not enough, it's even more important to get this done. 803 564282 or zander.com. rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality, is my co host today. Open phones at triple H 825-5225 most of you are aware there are two types of student loans, government insured student loans and private student loans.

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This is pretty, well, this is cool. This is a great solution. If you've got a private student loan that's in default. Of course we teach personal responsibility. Of course we teach not waiting on the government to fix something. They're not going to fix your private anything. I'm just telling you. So our team vetted why Refi? We're thrilled to work with them. Have been thrilled to work with them. They're trustworthy. They help people live the Ramsay way. This is a good company. It's a good solution for you. If you have a defaulted bad private student loan, they're different. And so you need to remember why Refi? That's the letter yrefy.com and that'll get you going. And they are our new sponsor. You're going to hearing, be hearing them every day when we do the Ramsey question of the day, funding may not be available in all states. There's your little disclaimer thingy, right? So today's question of the day is brought to you by Y refi. If private student loan debt is taking away your peace of mind and you don't see any way out, you need y refi. Why refi? Refinances defaulted private student loans that other places won't touch.

They give you a low fixed rate loan built for you, and it actually works out for them, too. So here we go. Go to yrefi.com ramsey. That's the letter. Yrefy.com ramsey may not be available in all states. Today's question comes from Elise in Indiana.

Elise says, I am a 28 year old mother of two children. My fiance and I have been together for six years, and I have been the only one working. Two years ago, he started to learn how to trade stocks. At the time, neither of us were familiar with the process and knew it would take him some time to learn. He started out investing in Tesla, Apple, and meta. The past two years, he's invested an unreal amount of money for my paychecks, which has caused some bills to go unpaid. Whenever I'm stressed about the money going being wasted, I get scolded and accused of being controlling. He doesn't want to get a job because they don't pay enough. He says he will do doordash, but makes excuses not to go. We agreed that he would get $1,000 for my tax refund to trade with, and he blew it. In a week, he has put over $1,500 into yet another platform and maxed out one of my credit cards. I work from home, and he yells when I'm on work, calls and gets mad because my job is a priority. Oh, my gosh. My job is paying the bills and funding his trading.

I don't understand that. This is his dream, but I can't do it anymore. At least I can't.

I don't understand how your dream. I can't do him anymore.

That's terrible. Yeah, no, I'm done. I'm completely done with him for six years, and nothing's happened.

No, I'm done. And then this guy's got too many strikes. He has four strikes. Well, yeah.

Here we are.

Yells he doesn't work. He steals your money.

He.

And he calls you controlling. Strike four, and you're out.

Buddy has too much pride to go make any kind of money.

Lazy and won't work.

Yeah, yeah, and we got a lot, Elise. We could probably go to ten about this guy.

Yeah.

So I think. I think he's your problem.

You chose poorly, darling.

I'm so sorry, man.

This guy's a bum and you know it. After you wrote this down, Elise, and you reread it before you hit send to us, you had to go, poor girl, I hope she's okay. You had to look at your own story and go, oh, my gosh.

And let us be the strangers from the outside to say, because when you're caught up in this and you've been with someone for six years, that becomes your norm. Right? Like, there's a level that, like, you kind of almost become. Well, I don't know, any different. Like, it's. It. You don't feel the pain as much because it's been the norm for six years. So just if you were my outside.

My daughter, I would show up in the front yard, back to u haul up, put him in a corner and move your butt out. Okay. This is. I mean, this is. The guy's abusive, he's lazy, he's a thief, he's awful.

He's not bright. I mean, just.

He's not a smart, smart guy. Was it Forrest Gump said, I'm not a very smart man? Yeah, that's. This is. This guy. Oh, my gosh. Wow.

Sorry, Elise.

I mean, it's the essay.

You're not going to be able to convince them otherwise. You're not going to be able to show. Yeah, we're not. You're not married to him.

That's probably his kids. But you're the only one earning money.

I'm a mom of two children and my fiancee. I don't. Or maybe. Maybe he is the dad.

Yeah, but then six years. Two kids have been there six years. So anyway. But either way, I mean, you're the only one producing anything here. As soon as you get rid of this boat anchor, your boat will go really fast.

And you're not crazy, Elise, either.

No, you're not.

Can make you feel like, oh, my.

Gosh, nothing crazy staying there ten more minutes. Oh, this is awful.

Get out.

Elise, I'm so sorry. What a heartbreak. Yeah. And here's the thing. I almost feel like I need to yell this because you haven't moved out for six years, you're somehow thinking you can't do this on your own or he's somehow going to turn around or some other kind of dysfunction. So I really need to get my papa Dave hat on and just stomp my foot really loudly and say, get out. This is crazy. Okay, I did it. I just got it out of my system. Because, I mean, if you've been there six years, you've already. This is not your first ride on him. Yelling, controlling, being lazy, taking your paycheck. Good God. What a parasite. Unbelievable. See, I hope we weren't unclear, darling. Okay, Kelly. Kelly is with us in Los Angeles. Hi, Kelly. How are you?

Hello.

How are you guys doing today?

Great. How can we help?

I have a question. I'm a new listener. For me, I'm kind of nervous. I'm sorry.

Okay.

For about two weeks, and a lot of the things you talk about, I've made the mistakes of credit card debt, and I overspending and not budgeting. I work for the state of California. I'm 56. I just paid off $2,800 of credit card.

Good for you.

You catch on quick, kiddo. Good job.

Yeah, yeah.

I told myself, what's the point of listening and not putting it into action?

Yeah.

I paid off $2,800. So I've been working for the state for 26 years, so my health insurance is there for life, kiddo, before I.

Run out of time, what's your question? Right quick?

My question is about. I have a car lease, and I know that's. That's a no no. And it's. It's over in the end of this year.

Okay.

I don't know what to do after that.

I'll need a car.

Yeah. I want you, between now and the end of the year, to save up a few thousand dollars and get you a beater. Cardinal.

Okay.

So you can turn. So you can turn this thing in.

Oh, okay.

Are you over? Are you over on miles?

Get 200 miles over.

Oh, you're not bad. Okay, that's good. You may have to write them a small check, so you need to get ready for that, too. Is the car torn up? Is any excessive wear and tear?

No, it's a 2022 jeep Grand Cherokee.

Okay. But, I mean, you haven't messed it up or something because they. They only charge you for two things when you turn in. Being over on your miles and excessive wear and tear. And if you've got limited or little of that, you can just hand them the keys. But of course, you've got to have transportation, right?

Yes, correct.

So we need to get you some money saved up between now and then. Yeah.

And I would do that.

And that gets rid of your car payment. That's very cool.

Yeah. I would get your emergency fund first, Kelly. And then car I mean, I would be saving up about a couple thousand first before you do anything, and then go back to your debt, snowball. But having that set aside so that when at the end of the year, which is like five months from now, yeah, you're able to get a car. So that's great.

If you saved $1,000 a month, that'd be $5,000 car. And you didn't do anything else between now and then the year. I'm gonna call that a win.

That's a win.

That. That'll get you there, and you got no car payment. And then you go into next spring finishing off your debt snowball. Hang on. We're gonna put you through financial Peace University and sign you up for every dollar for free as our guest, as a brand new listener, thank you for calling in, Kelly. We're proud of you.

Hey, guys. George camel here. No matter what platform you use for news or entertainment, you and I both know it is way too hard to keep your feed from getting junked up with bad content. I know I'm not the only one who's gone searching for the Ramsay show, only to find myself two paws and twelve videos deep in a kitten hole on YouTube, which is great, but not what I'm looking for right now. And heck, if you're tuning into this digitally, there's probably some weird, scammy suggested content trying to play in the sidebar right now.

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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. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. My co host today, number one best selling author many times over, host of the smart Money Happy Hour, along with George Camel and my daughter, Rachel Cruz. Ramsey personality. We're here to help you. The phone number is triple 8825-5225 Molly is with us in Austin, Texas. Hey, Molly, how are you?

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

Better than I deserve. What's up?

I just inherited about one and a half million dollars.

Wow.

And I'm getting married in a little over three months. And so I want to know if I should get a prenup or not.

Wow. How old are you?

I'm 22.

Whoa.

Where'd the money come from?

My grandpa was a successful businessman and, like, hardware stuff. And so I have, like, he had about half a million dollars in stocks, and then he loaned his business about a million dollars. And so I get loan repayments on that. And then he owned his business building and then my mother's house, and just various accounts they have.

Are you getting the. Getting cash? One point million dollars cash, getting a.

Half million cash, and then payments on.

A million through all the rest.

Yeah.

So half a million in cash, half a million in stocks, and then the rest in business notes mostly.

Yeah. Okay. Before this happened, did you have any money?

Um, I was pretty good with my money and had a pretty.

How much money did you have?

Before this happened, I had $10,000.

Okay. You didn't have any money. Okay. And, well, I know it's. It's not. It's not like you had. It's not like you already had a half a million dollars. There's a little difference in a half a million or a million and a half and $10,000. Okay. Now, the fiance, does he have any money?

Um, not a ton.

What's he do?

He graduated college, and, um, his parents have a franchise called Mosquito Joe that he was going to take over, but he has, like, he's done some work to start it up. But I'm just a little concerned that the inheritance has made him less or it created less pressure for him to work.

That's a different question than do I need a prenup? Okay. That is, you need pre marriage counseling.

Okay.

When is the wedding scheduled?

Um, November or. No, sorry. Um, yeah, no, November 20.

I'm sorry, November what? November 20. This year?

20Th.

So two or three months. Have y'all been through pre marriage counseling yet?

We did one group thing, but not, like, individual.

You need to do some intensive marriage counseling where you say to him what you said to us. Okay, that's very important. Okay. Because here's the problem. Money does not cause people to have problems. It exposes problems that they have. It magnifies the good and the bad in you and in him. And what you're saying is this has magnified a lack of work ethic or something along those lines, a lack of motivation or whatever we want to call it, a. And this seems to have made it worse, it feels like, to you.

Yeah.

Okay.

Did he know he was. That you were going to be getting this money? Was this conversation, or was it a little bit out of the blue for both of you?

Well, so we had been together about, like, five years, and then my dad passed away, so that's how I inherited.

I'm sorry, Molly.

Wow. Yeah. You've been through a lot, kiddo. All right, so the point is this. Yes, I do want you to get a prenup, and I'll come back in a minute and explain why. I don't believe in prenups very often, but occasionally I do. What I don't want you to do is to think your prenup is going to fix your fiance. It doesn't. It just helps you escape him if it goes completely bad. Okay? So you've got to. You've got to go in and have real clear relational goals with him, and that's 90% of solving the problem you called. About 10% is the prenup piece of paper. If you've got to fix a future spouse with a prenup, you shouldn't get married is my point, because the prenup won't fix them. It's like doing a contract with a crook. Contracts don't make crooks suddenly honest. They're still gonna find a way to crook you.

Yeah.

Okay. Contracts are not magical documents. They don't suddenly give people character. And prenups are not magical documents. They don't suddenly solve relationship issues that have been exposed by this newfound money. So I want you really, really, really lean into that. And a good friend of mine asked me this morning. He said his daughter's getting ready to get engaged, and he wanted advice on what to tell the young man talking to him about his hand in marriage to his daughter. I said FPU and pre marriage counseling. You have a pre marriage counseling alone? Will set you up detailed, in depth. Rachel and Winston did it. Denise and Bill did it. Daniel and Allison did it. And, I mean, they're married. These poor people are married into the Ramsey family. They need counseling, so. Right. And deal with the family of origin. That looks like this one. Oh, my God. And so, yeah, you. You gotta do it, Molly. That's the thing. Now, the reason I would tell you a yes on a prenup is not because of what you're concerned about. With him, it's because anytime there is a great disparity, like a huge pile of money, like you've got versus no money, like he's got.

It brings out weirdness in the extended family. Like. Like his mother leans over and says, well, honey, you don't have to work so hard. You know, it brings out weirdness in the extended family. And there's always crazy in every family, folks. And if you think there's not crazy in your family, that means it's you. So you. You've got to know that this million and a half, it's going to warp your relationship with them. And one of the things a prenup does is it helps him not be susceptible to the other family influences that are weirded out by this money. Okay.

Okay.

It doesn't fix him, but it gives you guys some tools to say, look, this money's just not accessible for that. It's not accessible for Mosquito Joe. Sorry, we're not doing it, by the way. Mosquito Joe is a great little franchise. We're actually a customer.

Yeah. And Molly and you guys have a great financial process.

Yeah. And you guys, I mean, y'all been together, what, since 16 years old? 17.

Yes, ma'am.

Yeah. So, I mean. And again, not that you can't marry your high school sweetheart by any means, but, I mean, I do. I do think a good counseling or therapy, honestly, before you walk into this, is going to be huge because there's habits or routines or just this kind of, like, way you guys have been doing life since you're 17, that having a professional sit down and kind of just shake up the dynamic a little.

Bit, change the high school romance into, which is good.

Yeah. I'm like. Because it's a. It's a totally different ballgame. And you're kind of feeling that now all of a sudden, when you're out on your own, and here's your soon to be husband thinking, oh, my gosh, is he gonna. Is he gonna, you know, carry his weight? And all of that needs to be exposed and fleshed out beforehand so you're not crazy, Molly.

This is. This is a flag because the disparity is so wide. I would get a prenup otherwise. I would not, folks. And I don't think the prenup's going to fix the relationship. This is the Ramsey show.

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Rachel Cruz Ramsey, personality, is my co host today. Open phones at triple 8825-5225 if you guys want to help us out, we would appreciate it. We need your help, and a bunch of you have been helping us out. We know that because the numbers around here are way up. Thank you. You can help us. Bye. Just subscribing to the show on the platform that you're watching or listening or click follow or subscribe makes a huge difference. Also, share the show. You've got a share button. Send a link to one of the shows. Say, hey, listen to this. Watch this. You can just cut out a link and email it to your friend. Go, hey, check this out. And we've all done that. We've all told someone about a good book or a movie and a good friend recommend a good book this week. And I picked it up immediately. I'll be reading it soon. And so I get my best books is through people who know what they're doing, sending me an idea. There we go. So check it out. And also, of course, the five star reviews make a big difference. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Donnie is in Charleston, West Virginia. Hey, Donnie, what's up?

Hey, Dave. It's good talking to you.

You too. How can I help?

So me and my wife are kind of young and dumb. We've done stupid with the waters, as you'd say. We're new listeners to the show. So basically, to get right to the point, we're just kind of wondering if we have an income problem or a budget problem.

Okay. What do you think it is?

I think it's a budget problem and she thinks it's an income problem. She's looking into a new job.

What's your income?

We make 110,000 years household.

Mm hmm. What does she make?

She makes 60.

Mm hmm. Okay. And she thinks she can make more.

Uh, yes. She's a travel CNA and she's looking into taking a contract in Pennsylvania.

You're in Charleston.

Dollar an hour pay.

But I'm sorry, you would move to Pennsylvania.

She would just go to stay there. During the duration of the contract.

How long's the contract?

It's built in for about 16 weeks, but it's indefinite, so it could be as long as she wants it to be.

Hmm.

Okay. And how much would she make instead of 60? She would make what?

So she's making about 27 an hour now. She'd go up to 35.

Okay, you guys have debt. Are y'all. Are y'all trying to get out of debt, or you just try?

Yes.

Okay. How much debt do you guys have?

What? This number makes me sick. We are just shy of 94,000.

On what?

Credit cards, personal loans, and car notes.

What do you owe on the cars?

75,456 on.

And break that down. Which cars? Which.

So she has a 2024 Ford Bronco. She owes about 44 grand on it. And she also has a 2018 Ford Fusion, which she owes a little under 16 on. And I have a 2010 Chevy Silverado, and I owe about 15,000 on it.

Why do we have three cars?

Very dumb mistake.

Okay. There's not three people there, right? There's just. How long you been married?

Since May.

Okay.

And you can almost. Yeah.

So, Donnie, here's the thing. I tried for years to out earn my stupidity, and it always would catch me from behind and tackle me. So before I let my brand new wife be gone from me for 16 weeks, to make a few dollars more, I would sell the crap out of every car sitting in your driveway and get you two $2,000 hoopties and have a wonderful first year of marriage.

Okay.

You need to amputate the Bronco, buddy. You ain't gonna do it, though, are you?

Well, it's hers.

I don't care. It's not hers. It's ours. We just got married.

I agree. But in her mind, it's probably hers. And he's gonna have to convince her.

I mean, yeah, you gotta convince her, but she.

Does she want to do this, too? Like, meaning, like, this plan? Does she want to get out of debt? And, like, because part of the sacrifice of. Of going and moving away for four months, there's obviously something there. But hers is the income problem, is what you're saying or what she's saying.

She's trying to out earn the Bronco, and the Bronco is going to run her over and leave tire tracks. Yeah.

I mean, just looking at the simple math really fast, I'm like, you can almost cut this in half by selling two of the cars.

Hello. Ding, ding, ding, ding. 6th grade, buddy.

You can go down to $54,000.

Your brand new newlywed wife wants to trade four months time with her husband for her Bronco. Bad trade.

Okay, so how would you guys recommend going about the negative equity? That's a big problem we've got with all three vehicles.

I would borrow the difference.

Okay.

It still is going to be a whole lot less debt than you have.

Yeah.

But you guys are. You guys are car poorer. Is your problem. These cars? Have you got $90,000 in debt? 75 of its cars.

Yes, sir.

Yeah, you got a car problem.

Which, honestly, Donnie, on the joyful flip side of it, this is amazing, because you can actually do something about it. Some people call us and they have $100,000 in student loan debt that you got to just grind it out.

Yeah. You can't sell the student.

Yeah. This. You can actually make a big dent, like, really quickly. Like, this is. This is the best case scenario. The best case scenario. Right. Like, you can actually do something drastic and what it. What a gift. See it as a gift of, like, oh, my gosh. We can actually make really big strides. It's gonna take some, you know, making some changes, but it's a car.

Yeah.

When I was gonna get that later.

When I was a new husband, I was a stupid husband. So let me tell you how not to do this, because I've done it. Honey. I talked to these guys. We're gonna sell your car. That's not how you do it. Okay. The way you do it is I love you so much. I want to spend time with you. I do not want you to be away from me. And I feel like we're trading all that time away just to keep a Bronco. That bronco doesn't mean anywhere near as much to me as you do. Much better sales technique. Okay?

Yes, sir.

And you guys, Donnie, lay this out. Seriously, together tonight. Sit down. And you guys do a timeline and just look at. Run numbers. Get a sheet of paper on a pen and a calculator and just sit there and just do a. Run a bunch of numbers, a bunch of timelines, and, like, actually get a plan in place. Did you guys even think about selling the car? I'm just curious.

We have.

Okay.

I actually had a second car myself just from listening to your guys show. I recently went out, got a personal negative equity on it. Got rid of it as well.

Good.

Great. Perfect. Yep.

Yeah. So you called up and said, do we have a budgeting problem or an income problem? The answer is neither. You have a car problem.

Okay.

Thanks for calling, man. I hope that helps you. I hope you go do this stuff because you're otherwise, you're going to struggle for an extra five years more than you needed to. If you dumped every car in your life, got you a couple of hoopties, you could be completely debt free in a year.

A year with $110,000. Yeah.

Income.

Yeah.

And you're brand new married, and you spent the whole year together instead of apart. Yeah. Really hard to be apart right after you're married. Very difficult. Wow. Good call, man. Thank you for your question. Open phones. At triple 8825-5225 there are folks who are forced to be apart. Like, we have a good friend whose daughter got married to a green Beret, and three months later, he was gone for nine months. So. Of their first year of marriage, he was gone the last nine months of the first year, doing things that he can't talk about in places he can't talk about. Because that's what people like green berets do, and that's what keeps you people free out there. So, thank you. We salute you. But, wow. I mean, it's a brand new married couple and.

Oh, my gosh, that has options. And I think that's the other thing. It's kind of, like, been. The theme, I feel like, of this show is when you have options. That's a gift. Take the option, sell the car. That's an option. Right. When you're a military family, you don't have the option. You have the option. That's your job.

She knew what she was signing up for.

She can still be a nurse. She's an option to still be a nurse. Where you guys are in West Virginia and sell the car and you guys can move forward on the. On the progress. So that. That's such a gift. It's a gift when there's options, right. If you don't have the option, you know, if it's just student loans, there's no option to sell anything. You know, to sell. To sell an item, you gotta pay off the debt. Right. So see it as a gift, Donnie, for sure. And you guys, you can make such quick strides, and you're still so young in your marriage. Do it. Do it. You have plenty of life to go get a bronco again.

I can promise you. I've been married 43 years. And the cars that we were driving when we got married are completely irrelevant in our life today. This is the Ramsey show. Don't rely on politicians or the healthcare system to do what you can do for yourself. We teach personal responsibility on the Ramsey show. And that's why I'm excited to tell you how you can take your family's health into your own hands. A medical emergency kit from the wellness company. I got mine. And I can tell you this is not some rinky dink first aid kit with band aids. It comes with real prescriptions prepared by leading doctors to treat over 30 common illnesses. This kit can treat infections like strep throat, pneumonia, utis and bronchitis. Because you have the prescriptions on hand, like a Z Pac, amoxicillin or ivermectin. And if you start your meds faster, you get well faster. The kit gives you peace of mind. No doctor visits, no pharmacy lines, no copays. Wellness company medical emergency kits help put you in control of your family's health. So go to urgent care kit.com ramsey. Answer a few online questions and get your kit rushed to your door.

Use the promo code Ramsey for a 15% discount at checkout. That's urgent care kit.com ramsey. Promo code Ramsey. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, is my co host. Thank you for joining us, America. Andrea is in Pensacola. Hi, Andrea. How are you?

I am doing amazing. How are you doing, Dave?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

All right, so I work in food service, I work a $14 an hour job, and I have made $60,000 by working a crap ton of overtime in 2023.

Good for you.

I've been looking forward to going on vacation because my grandmother's turning 90. So the have $65,000 in the, have $24,000 in my Ross Ira, and I had $10,000 in Yotta Bank. I had $4,000 in regions. That was my emergency fund. But we had a storm here and we needed a new roof, which I was able to pay completely. And the car got a nail in the tire and so we had to replace the tires. So the checking accounts down to $400. And my grandmother's birthday is next week. And should I go ahead and take some of the money out of retirement accounts? Because yarn is currently frozen and.

I've.

Been working really hard for this vacation, but I don't have any money in my checking account. All in retirement.

Where is the, where is the birthday?

The birthday is in Colorado, so I'd have to go from Pensacola to Colorado. It's a very long drive.

And then once you get there, is it, do you have people to stay with or what does it look like? For that, I'd have to stay with.

My aunt, but they wanted to go to a.

You there? Did we lose you? I think we lost you.

Oh, no.

Let's see if we can get you back. Rachel's in Atlanta. Hi, Rachel. Welcome to the Ramsey show.

Hi, there.

Hi. How can we help?

Well, I just need to ask a question, and it may seem obvious to you, it's just not completely obvious to me, so. I'm 66 years old, and my financial advisor has said that I should wait till 70 to take my Social Security, but I'd like to take it now. We do have quite a bit of assets, but I would just like to have more money now to spend as I'd like to, rather than waiting until I'm 70.

Okay. Financial advisors are there to teach you, not to tell you what to do. They should have the heart of a teacher. And so the first thing I want you to do is to go back to your financial advisor and say, why are you telling me this? Okay, did you understand why he said it or she said it?

Well, he basically said, you know, if you wait until you're. I think that's about 1700 a month. Now, if I take it. But if it. If I wait till I'm 70, it'll be a little over 2000. And he just said, you know, everything goes up and the more money you can get, the better.

Well, I think that's not necessarily true. Okay. In order to do that formula, we have to know when you're gonna die, right?

We don't.

Okay. And so basically, we're trading $300 a month for the rest of your life, whatever that is, for $1,700 times 3600 times 36 months. Okay. And so we're talking about 18,000. We're talking about 50 grand. Okay. So the $50,000 extra that you get during the three years of not waiting were you to invest, that would provide you with more than the $300 of income that it's going to increase. So he's wrong.

Okay.

So hypothetically, let's. Let's say you weren't going to spend it. It sounded like you want to spend it, which I'm okay with that. Okay. But. But mathematically, if we want to measure out which way is the best way, if you get 1700 now times 36, okay, that's gonna be almost $50,000. All right. Probably is $50,000, but it's right around there. Okay. And so if you make 10% on $50,000, that's $5,000 a year. That's a little over $400 a month, and you've got the $50,000 in your hand. So if you didn't spend the 1700 and put it all into an investment to offset the fact that you are not going to get 300. Instead, you're going to get 400, and you have $50,000 in the bank. You see what I'm talking about?

Yes, sir, I do.

Yeah. So you take it. Now, he's wrong.

Okay.

Even if you're going to spend, and.

Even if you want to spend it, enjoy it, because to your point, I mean, in the later years of life, right, health, everything. I mean, things start to. It can go down.

Yeah.

And so while you're feeling great and want to enjoy life, you know, I need.

I probably need to sign up. I'm 63. Because here's the thing. Social Security, um, it is absolutely sucks beyond belief. The amount of money I'm going to get out versus the amount of money I have put in in my life. I have a negative rate of return. I have lost money. It's a tax. And so I'm taxed even more if I don't take it all, as much out as I can before I die. I've lost all of it because you, you know what you get after you die? It's called zero. You know, and so, yeah, I'm taking this now, especially with the number.

Look at you, taking Social Security.

Well, I hadn't even thought about it.

I know. Getting up there in age, day.

There we go.

Getting up there in age. Take what you deserve.

Well, I mean, I don't know if I'll do it at 63, but I probably do need to actually look at the calculation. I haven't bothered. It's not a life changing event for me. But the point being, it's just that get as much as you can get of it back before you die, because you've gotten screwed by them with this whole system. It's called socialized retirement.

I think we have Andrea back, too.

Oh, good. All right, let's go back to Andrea. Okay. Andrea is trying to get to her 95 year old grandmother's, 90 year old. She's going to stay at her aunt's, and she's going to drive from Pensacola to Colorado. She needs the money to do that without taking it out of her retirement account. Okay. Number one thing we don't analyze. Are you with me, Andrea? Yes, I am.

Perfect.

Number one thing is we don't analyze this whole thing based on a pity party of how hard you've worked. I'm sorry. You worked. You're like an adult and stuff. That's what you had to do. Okay. I've worked really hard. And I deserve it. Sorry. You don't get to do stupid stuff because of that. And cashing out your retirement stuff is bad for you.

I'll throw the pity party with you.

Angela, it's okay. It's bad for you. I want you to go. I want you to go. But we're not. If we want. If we go, we're not going to do it because of those feelings. Because those feelings will cause you to do stupid stuff your whole life and get you broke. I know, because I used to fall for that all the time. Now. Got that out of the way. The. So you need. How much to go over there?

I was thinking $3,000.

Okay. Did you actually run a budget of what you need to go over there? You need gas. It's not $3,000 worth of gas. What else do you need?

Probably food.

Okay, and it's next week?

Yes.

And in the 10,000 is frozen. What was that?

The 10,000 in again Yada bank account?

It was. Graham Stephan was recommending it at some point.

The.

I bought a bank.

I'm sorry. And.

Like, a savings account.

Why is it frozen? Did it fail? I don't. I'm not familiar with what you're talking about.

Synapse went into.

It's in that deal. Okay, now I know what you're talking about. So, yeah, it is a bank failure. So you've got an FDIC frozen account. Oh, okay. All right.

I also do have about $3,000 in I bonds, but they aren't a year old yet.

I don't care. Go cash them. That's it. Cash on. Go cash them and go on vacation. Yeah, you can't get to the ten k. It's a failed bank. You're gonna have to wait on the FDIC to do that. The other thing, if you cash out your Roth Ira, you're gonna lose so much money. Oh. When you're your grandmother's age, you would call me up and choke me if I let you do it. So, no, you know, no, no, no, no. Yeah, cash out the I bonds, kiddo. Oh, by the way, anything else you got, put it on Facebook, marketplace. Let's have a huge garage sale at your house this week, and sell everything in sight. And let's go see Granny. I want you to go. I just don't want you to catch out your retirement to do it. I don't want you to use your feelings to make your decisions with. Use math and logic and wisdom and grown up emotions. It's a valid thing to want to go? I want you to go, but I want you to do it smart. This is the Ramsey show. Hey, small business owner. Does it feel like there's never enough time in the week?

If you're sick and tired of barely keeping your head above water or never having enough time to work on the important stuff, then you need the entre leadership system, the blueprint for building a self sufficient business so you can spend less time running your business and more time growing it. Go to ramsaysolutions.com moretime and download our free getting started guide today. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, is my co host today. Open phones at triple H 825-5225 James, do you have the numbers on what that thing this video did on social? I don't know them off. It was millions of millions, but I don't want to super exaggerate. Might have been 10 million. Not top my head, but I can go look. Okay. If you get it, that'd be great. So our social media team goes back through the archives of this show, and they found a talk or a call I took. Gosh, it had to be before 2019 because it was in the old studios. We've been in this building since 2019. And I could tell by the background, obviously, in the. In the video, and they posted a clip of it. And sometimes we around here are a little bit caught off guard by, you know, we may post ten clips.

One of them will have, you know, a million views, and one of them will have, you know, 40 million views or something. And so on Instagram. I've got about 5 million people on Instagram or something like that. And so you find it, 5.8 million on Instagram. We're looking at 5.8 million. This thing viewed on Instagram when they posted it, which we don't understand sometimes. Why these, why some of them take off, and you guys are so responsive to some of them and other ones just that we think are really cool. Don't take off. Anyway, this thing blew up, so we're going to play it, and then Rachel's gonna tell us why it blew up. No, I'm kidding.

I was like, I haven't seen it. I haven't seen it.

All right, watch. Careful, then.

Here we go.

I have 35 credit cards.

Okay. Are you. Are you ready to endure some pain to get rid of this mess?

It's going to leave us with Harley.

And are you ready to endure some pain to get rid of this mess?

Yes, I am.

What about your husband?

Oh, yes.

Yes, yes.

Okay. And the two of you need to sit down together. Go on everydollar.com and do your budget tonight, okay? Download it to your iPhone or your Android or your desktop. It's free. Check comes in, all the money goes out. And then you're broke and you can't figure out how to go to the grocery store.

Yes, exactly.

You're not living by any kind of plan. This money is owning you. You don't own it, and you got to get the other side of it. And the budget helps you do that. You're telling your money what to do instead of wondering where it went.

Okay.

And then you and your husband are in agreement. We're going to sacrifice deeply because I am so sick of living like this. And when you get sick and tired of sick and tired, you're ready to change your life, kiddo.

Yes, you can.

You can do it. And you call me back if you need help, okay?

Okay. Thank you, Dave.

It sounds like a call I've done 5000 times.

Well, 30. Say 35 maybe. That was it, though. 35 credit cards.

Yeah, but, I mean, it's a lot, but, yeah, it's. It's a George Costanza wallet, right? I mean, it's, you know, I don't.

Know what that means.

On Seinfeld, George had a wallet that was six inches thick.

Yeah, Seinfeld.

A whole different world.

Okay. I know. I'm friends.

Another generation.

Friends versus Seinfeld. Sorry, but no, I mean, I don't know either.

I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know why 10 million people want to see that.

It's probably $35,000. And everything you said in there, though, is all true. You want to be the one controlling your money, not your money controlling you. You actually want to be able to have a say. You're exhausted of how you've been living. I mean, it's. It is all of that pent up tension when it comes to feeling lost and hopeless with money, right? I mean, it's.

Yeah.

It's the exact pain points so many people feel.

So reach the point of being sick and tired, of being sick and tired. And Les Brown, the great motivator. I've said it a thousand times. Always said, you should finally say, that's it. I've had. Had it. That's what I was asking her. Challenge, are you ready?

Yep.

Because you've got. Because change is painful. Doing something you've never done before is scary.

Yep.

It's frustrating. It's painful. But you're gonna keep getting what you've been getting. Unless you change the mix. If you keep making a cake and it's strawberry and you want chocolate, you should change the recipe. You know, you don't be surprised. Chocolate again. Who knew? Well, of course, it's the same stupid cake. You made the same stupid recipe. So you keep doing that in your life. It's the same thing. And so if I keep eating what I've been eating, my body's going to continue to look exactly like this one.

Any level of growth, and I'm. And I'm thinking, you know, relationally, financially, physically, like any of that. I mean, all of it, there's a level of change that is so uncomfortable, but you have to be uncomfortable to grow. If you keep staying where, you know what I mean, how you've been, you're gonna. There's no pain involved because there's no friction. It's just. You're just doing the same thing over and over again. Right. So when you are changing, it's gonna be uncomfortable and there's gonna be some pain, but that means that you're growing. You're growing in an area of your life, and you're not stagnant.

It's not. It's not change. The pain is not for nothing. It's transformation.

Yep.

It's the. The strain of the caterpillar pushing out of the cocoon allows it to become a butterfly. It's transformation. It's not accidental. And so you can count on you becoming the next awesome version of you hurting. It's going to be painful at times. You know, no discipline seems pleasant at the time. The Bible says no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but ding, ding, ding. But it yields a harvest of righteousness. So, no, you know, no time, you know, you and Winston got the whole family doing cold plunges. At no point in doing a cold plunge is this. Yeah, we put the little babies in there, too. No kidding. No, but I mean, you got. You got. At no point is this fun. Yeah, but the result is inflammation is down, all these other things, and, you know, the result is it's, you know, you pay a price to get better, and that price is the pain of change. And until you have enough pain where you are today, you will not walk towards the pain of change. The pain of today can be just simple, just simply disgusted with myself, or it could be I'm about to get foreclosed on.

I mean, the pain of today can be a lot of different kinds of pain, but you can. You can manifest pain today. You can just get sick and tired of being sick and tired.

That's right.

Yeah. That's a disgust. Right. And then you go, okay, 35 credit cards. I'm broke. I look like I'm in Congress. I'm not living like this anymore.

And then giving her a tool. Every dollar, I think people are, they're needing something to help them in this, in this world of money. They're needing a tool. They're needing something to assist them because it is. It's hard to do it on your own.

Right.

I mean. I mean, I have a trainer to help, you know, with working out. You have. You have areas of your life that you get advice from and you have experts to help you. And now in the world of technology, you're able to, in a great way, you know, have an app on your phone that is guiding you. Just as Winston and I, we sat down two nights ago and did our August budget on everydollar. So I'm like, to have something assist you in it is such a gift, you guys. So the everydollar budget, it's that if you go to everydollar.com and create your first budget for free and start actually doing this, that's a gift in of itself, of having a tool come alongside you as well.

Yeah. But then you have to do it. You have to stick to what you wrote down. And if you wrote down something that's different than you, the way you used to live, and it says, okay, we're not going to spend anything on restaurants this month, and we've been living at restaurants prior. That's. That's a big change.

That's right. Yep.

And, you know, it'll be about 30 minutes before that little devil on your shoulder says chick fil a. No, the devil. The devil would not say chick fil a. That's Jesus chicken. But he might say. He might say Chipotle. Might say Chipotle. Yeah. I don't know. What would the devil say? But anyway, you see what I'm saying? There's gonna be some kind of little thing reminding you.

Taco Bell. Taco Bell.

Oh, that's definitely the devil. No question. That's the devil. Yeah. Okay, so. Oh, my gosh. So anyway, whatever it is, you go, okay, what's the temptation? Yeah. You know, I used to watch those cartoons when you're a little kid with Fred Flintstone and he would have a little. Little devil on one shoulder, a little angel on the other shoulder. Right. Whispering, and what's the temptation? Somebody's going to try to drag you back to your land of stupid that you're trying to leave, even though you have a roadmap with your every dollar budget on how to leave the land of stupid. Drive on, boy. Drive on. Get through, get through, get through. Push through. Get through. The old country song. If you're going through hell, keep going. You know, keep going. There's nothing on the other side. Deloney talks about that. If you're going through a hard time, the fastest way through a hard time is straight into it.

Yep.

Not trying to back up. Not trying to run around it, not trying to avoid it. Run right straight through it. And that's true of change. That's changing. True of transformation. And that's why we teach to that snowball, because you get out of debt fast, we want you to lean in with intensity. And. And this is why the everydollar system works. So I guess. I guess that's what that was. I don't know. I. It is a bit of a mystery.

I was waiting for something so profound. I'm just kidding.

Yeah, really. It's a bit of a mystery to me that the things I've said, like, 80,000 times occasionally go viral, and other times they're just flat.

And it could be the 35 credit.

Cards that might have been. It was a good opener. Good teaser. Yeah. 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. Open phones at triple 8825-5225 Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, is my co host today. Thank you for joining us. Carrie May is with us in Minneapolis. Hi, Carrie May. How are you?

Hi, Dave. I'm good.

Good. What's up?

Well, about a month and a half ago, my house was hit by a tornado.

Oh, my lord.

Me and my three kids were home. It was horrifying. And when we went to make the claim, we called the insurance, and we were informed that our insurance had been dropped a few months ago.

And so we have no insurance in the house.

We moved in in February. This was a new build. We moved in February of this year.

And you put permanent because usually when you do a new build, you have builders risk insurance, which is different than homeowners. When you move in, you put a new homeowners policy on it. Did you do that?

So we had the builder's insurance that started in July of last year, and it was supposed to go through July of this year.

It doesn't go through once you move in.

Correct.

So what we found out was that they had dropped our insurance during the building, not even when it was completed, but during the building. And the bank never got informed of this. When we went to sign the mortgage, the bank never verified that we were switching from the construction loan to a permanent homeowner's insurance.

But you didn't. You didn't know you were supposed to switch from a builder's risk to a homeowners?

No.

Okay. Did you have a builder or a realtor or anybody involved in this?

We had. Well, it's a manufactured home, so it was a company that built the house offsite and put it on the foundation, but they were doing the contracting. We went through a title company, and we went through the bank. And, yeah, they couldn't believe it when we called them. And they were like, they did not know how it happened, how it happened that we did not have insurance.

Okay, how much do you owe on this house and how much is left of it?

The house needs to be taken down to the foundation. There's 277,000 on the mortgage. And then what the bank did do, because they did realize what a mess up they had on their end, is they backdated forced hazard insurance, which only covers the mortgage. But I don't know if that means it's going to cover the entire mortgage or if they're going to look at, well, there's still value in the foundation and things like that and subtract that. I'm not sure how that works.

That's really good news. I am not sure how you. They may have some kind of a blanket policy for all of their loans that is force placed, and they have the ability to legally backdate. Normally. You cannot backdate insurance like, oh, the house burned down, let's go buy some fire insurance. You really can't do that normally, but if they've got a blanket policy for all of their loans, it's what's called force placed, meaning that a bank can force insurance onto your property if you have a lien with that bank, a mortgage with that bank, it's forced placed if you haven't paid your homeowners to protect themselves only.

Right.

And that's what this is. And they generally have a blanket policy for their whole portfolio, so maybe that's how they're able to do that. The good news is the house was probably only cost you about. You didn't put a lot down on it, did you?

We put 70,000 into it.

But you're gonna get the lot.

I mean, yeah, we have the. It's a two and a half acre lot, and then plus we put in.

The septic and what's the lot worth?

We bought it for 36,000.

Okay. All right. I'm so sorry. What a mess. Okay. Let's run two possible scenarios down. I think what's going to happen is, is the bank's gonna pay off the mortgage. You're gonna end up with a lot, and you're probably gonna lose some money if you sold the lot first versus what you put into it, but you're probably not going to end up owing $270,000, which is really, really good news. Agreed.

Right.

So I'm sorry you've been through this. Is everybody okay?

Yes.

Okay.

Where are you guys living now?

We're living with my parents, an hour away.

What's your household income?

75,000.

Okay. And nobody was harmed?

Nobody was harmed.

That's important.

So scary.

Okay.

Yeah.

So what would I do if I were in your shoes, if I went through all of that, is I would sell the lot, put the 40 or 50,000 that you can get out of the lot, whatever it is, in my pocket, and I'm gonna start the whole idea of homeownership over again and go, I lost 20 grand and nobody got hurt, and that's where we are. Okay. That's not bad. That's really not bad. That's not. That's better than we started the call with. Okay. And that's probably what you're. I'm gonna give you a 90% probability that's what's going to occur. And by the way, I'm also gonna tell you, don't do manufactured housing again.

Yep.

Okay. So the good news is you got out of manufactured housing because it goes down in value, does not go up. And so this time we're going to buy a stick built normal built home, or build a stick built normal built home. One of the two with 50,000 down. Now, we don't have 70,000 put down because we lost money on this overall transaction. I think that's what's going to happen. Scenario number two. Pull all of this together, including copies of the policies, the insurance policies that if you haven't got them, call the insurance company and tell them to send them to you. If they don't send them to you, your attorney is going to make them send them under discovery. Okay. Because most states have a requirement of 30 days of written notice before they cancel insurance coverage. The bank claims it didn't get written coverage. You claim you didn't get written coverage. They're going to have to prove they gave written coverage. A written notice of the coverage being canceled.

So I should say that after the fact, I did realize that we had a letter that said that, oh, you're screwed.

Okay.

Yeah.

So what that means is you're not very organized and you don't keep your mail open, then your bills paid.

Right?

Okay.

Right.

That exercise cost you 20 grand. So change that habit. Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah. So they did give you a proper notice. So they're. They're not at fault then. Okay. All right. Because I'm guessing that Minnesota requires the same as most states, which is a 30 day notice. Tennessee does. I know. And most others. So, yep, you're gonna sell a lot, and you're gonna get out by the skin of your teeth, it sounds like, because of force placed insurance. I'm so sorry y'all went through this. What a horrible lesson to learn, folks. Being organized and opening your mail and knowing what's going on is a big deal. So $270,000 deal here. This is the Ramsay show.

Hey, good folks, doctor John Deloney here. Don't you think life is too short to hate Mondays? Listen, you're worth loving the work you do and where you do it. So guess what? Ramsey solutions is hiring. If you're ready to join an amazing team that's all about changing lives and spreading hope, we want to see your application. Right now, we're hiring for technology, sales, marketing, writing, copy editing, and creative roles. Check out all our job postings@ramsaysolutions.com. careers. That's ramseysolutions.com careers.

Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality. My daughter, number one best selling author is my co host today. Well, the live, like no one else, cruise on Holland America in March. Going to Turks and Caicos, St. Thomas, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, with all the Ramsey personalities, plus Steven Curtis Chapman, Monit Shohan, and others, is almost sold out now. Almost means not quite. So you can still get a cabin. And the ultimate debt free celebration. This vacation is for those of you who are on baby step four and beyond. And we're going to have, as I said, Stephen Curtis. So, Rachel, Stephen was over at the house Monday night, and, you know, he's a Grammy award winner. 67 doves. Major, major deal. Last week, he got inducted into the grand old opry.

Oh, that's great.

And he was tearful talking about Ricky Skaggs. Our buddy Ricky did the induction surprised him. And he had actually done an appearance on the grand Dole Opry when he worked at Opryland when he was 19.

Oh, yes.

Steven's not 19 anymore. So Opryland those were good days. Pretty cool. So he's going to be with us on the cruise. All of us. All the Ramsey personalities will be doing events and talks and other things. Monit will do a cooking demonstration. She's off the food channel and all this stuff, it's going to be pretty stinking cool. You can put a $600 deposit down before all the cabins are gone. You should do that before all the cabins are gone because it's almost sold out. Go to ramsaysolutions.com cruise. We'll be cruising March 22 through the 29th. And this is a high end, nice cruise. This is Holland America. This is not Walmart on the seas. This is a pretty nice deal. Okay. So check it out. And you're gonna. You're gonna love it. Not that I hate Walmart, but Walmart on the seas is unappealing. All right. Now Melissa is in Philadelphia. Hi, Melissa. How are you?

I'm good. How are you?

Better than I deserve. How can we help?

Okay, it's a little complicated. Sorry. I'm at a crossroads, and I feel very stuck. And I'm sorry. A little nervous. I'm a single mother, a beautiful daughter. She's about to turn 15 in October. And I left her father eight years ago, my husband of 25 years. We had her late. We do a miracle. And I've been on my own with her. We share custody. That's a different story. But I've been trying so hard to make it because he was always the breadwinner. And I don't know at this point if I should go back to school, but my age, I feel like I'm running out of time. How old are you? I'm 56.

Oh, you're out of time, that's for sure.

I mean, to start, like, a whole career, like, you know, 2030 years.

Yes, I hear you.

You ever hear of the Sistine Chapel? The famous painting in the Sistine Chapel painted by Leonardo da Vinci. You ever heard of that?

I haven't heard of it. I heard of him, but not of that.

There's a famous painting on the Sistine Chapel. It's on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel, 44ft off the ground.

You've probably seen. It's. Right. God and Adam. They're touching fingers.

Two guys touching fingers. Yeah. Okay. Yes, that's it. It was painted by Leonardo da Vinci laying on his back on scaffolding. He was 77 years old.

Wow.

Colonel Sanders never fried any chicken till he was 72. Multi millionaires all over the world with Kentucky fried chicken because of him. You're not done, kiddo. As long as you're breathing.

I. I have nothing. I really do. I mean, I'm not saying nothing, but I mean, I. One good thing, I'm my, uh. I'm under 5000 in debt.

Good.

You know that I owe.

So your daughter is 15. How long have you been gone from the husband?

Eight years, 2016.

Okay. And you've been surviving since then? As a scrappy she bear.

It's been hard.

You're a war, you're a warrior princess. You are tough as nails.

I don't feel that way, honestly.

I guarantee you, you freaking survived. You got no debt and you raised a 15 year old. My God, these are mammoth tasks. Seriously, you need serious. You're tired. I don't blame you for that. You have a level of emotional. You have a level of emotional fatigue and you've never completely regained all of your confidence yet. But you are a pretty amazing lady. Now, what is it you want to be when you grow up, Melissa?

Okay, so back in my twenties, I was. Started college to. My goal then was to become an account CPA.

Good.

And I did. I did go to college for what it was under two years, and I dropped out. Life happened. My grandfather passed. I'm not making excuses. My one friend told me, warned me back then, don't do it because you won't come back. And she was right.

That's all behind us. Is that what you want to do?

I do. I've done bookkeeping throughout the years.

That's what you want to do. So what do we need to do? Let's go do it. What do you got to get?

I don't know.

Gotta get a two year degree and then go get your CPA.

Should I. Should I go back to college? Get put, go into that debt?

I don't. You're not going into debt. We're just going to go get a community college and get a two year degree in accounting and pass your CPA.

It takes more than two years, doesn't it, for CPA? Or is that just a test? I mean.

Oh, you just pass a test for years. You're an adult. You're not a 21 year old.

Okay.

Yeah, I mean, check, check in, check in Pennsylvania. What you've got to do, start talking to the community colleges. And what I want you to do is gather up a bunch of online options and a bunch of community college options. They're very inexpensive. And go take whatever you need to take and then take the test and go be. Go be your next self. You're awesome.

Thank you. I don't.

Well, none of this. None of this is going to cost a lot of money.

Well, I'm looking at my other dilemma was, I'm, you know, online, there's a lot of things popping up. Be a bookkeeper, make your own business. And, you know, without college, and I click on certain links, and some of them are, in my opinion, scams because.

Yeah, most of that's a bunch of crap. And you. Most. That's get rich quick. You know that.

Yeah. And that's not what I want. I don't.

Why don't you go. Why don't you go talk to five or six different people that own accounting firms and ask them if they need some help? And what of your education they would pay if you went to work for them?

Okay.

And let's go ahead and just get.

Around here where I'm at. But I could definitely look into that.

Look anywhere. Doesn't matter. Wherever you want to be, the new you can live. Wherever you want to live. Your Melissa.

Other than this. You know what's funny? My. My, um. My self esteem. Well, my whole life has not been. Well, you know, it was at times, because I know deep down who I am, but there's been a lot of. A lot.

Yeah. You've been through hell. Um. Hey, so Deloney, doctor Deloney, our guy that's got a PhD in counseling around here, he does a lot of work with trauma situations.

That's what I've had.

Yeah, extreme trauma. And he says that one of the things you need to remember when you're in trauma or have been through trauma is that facts are your friends, not feelings.

Okay.

So what I've been yelling at you for the last few minutes because I'm your friend and I love you, is our facts. I've been telling you the facts that I've already discovered in a short conversation about Melissa.

Wow.

Those weren't feelings. I don't have any feelings. I don't know you, okay? I'm just observing who I'm talking to and feeding it back to you. So facts are your friends. And that'll also be true when you go talk to some accounting firms and you do some you talk to, like, Liberty University, about their online programs. They've got the largest online program in the world. You ought to go check them out. You go talk to the local community colleges. They're very inexpensive to go to, maybe even free.

I was gonna say some states, they're free.

Yeah, some states are completely free. And go gather up a bunch of facts.

Yeah. And Melissa, hold on the line because Christian will pick up. We'll give you Ken Coleman's assessment and his book just to kind of, you know, get some, again, facts on paper about who Melissa is. And then Christian, throw in John's books as well. Building a non anxious life and, yeah.

What'S this building non anxious laugh will do it.

No, I know, but on your passenger, on your past change. Sorry, John.

That one's. That's better for her situation. On your past change, your future.

That's all good.

Those are both of those. And give her the get. The get clears, the get clear assessment and find the work you're wired to do. Book. And all of that will help. Yeah, that, all of that. Because that's, that's what you need to do. Sorry. Sit down and make some lists of, a list of actually what is going on, not what the feelings are about what's going on, because you've been in just freaking survival mode for so long, you haven't looked up and realized exactly where you are.

And Melissa, go talk to those people like Dave said, because you may find too cash. There's a position over here that I may not need as much over. You know, the degrees and this is a great fit and pays great. And I can just kind of plug in here. You never know. So talking to people and who you know is so key to.

Yep. Go get em, girl. Go get em. You're a warrior princess. This is the Ramsey show. Are you planning to sail with us on the live like no one else cruise? Then you better book your cabin before they're sold out. If you're on baby step four and above, come aboard March 22 through the 29th of 2025 as we set sail for Turks and Caicos, St. Thomas, San Juan and the Bahamas. Join me, the Ramsey personalities, and a ton of special guests for the ultimate debt free celebration. Book your cabin because they are going fast. Head to ramsaysolutions.com cruise today. Rachel Cruz, number one bestselling author, Ramsey Personality, co host of the Smart Money Happy Hour. My daughter is my co host today. Why? David is with us in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Hi, David. How are you?

How are you doing?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

Okay, so my question is. So just a backstory. About a year ago, my wife's grandfather had passed away, so we had moved down with grandmother just to keep her in good spirits. So, um, recently it was brought to my attention that when full circle happens and she passed away, the house will be given to us. Now, one thing I don't want to wait around on. Is that. So? My question is, do I follow the baby steps and still save up for a house and purchase the house? Or, since this house is being inherited to us, do we stay here?

I think there might be some other reasons to stay there, but I wouldn't stay somewhere because of a house.

Correct? Correct.

I would live where I'm supposed to live my best life and what is good for you and your wife. And if you're there temporarily to care for a family member, that's nice and noble, but that does not mean that you are directed by God to spend the rest of your life in that particular location. So you just got to decide that. Right? And so the two of you need to say, okay, ten years from today, where do we see ourselves living?

Mm hmm.

You have any idea the answer that question?

I don't.

Okay. Do you think it's there?

Um, no, I really don't.

Okay, then inheriting that house is irrelevant.

Okay.

Because when you inherit it, you're gonna sell it.

Yes.

And that's also one thing I did talk to my wife about, like, the emotional aspect. Are we just going to sell the house anyway? If that's the case, then we can do look for a house.

You can look for a house anyway because you're not going to stay there now. Are you going to stay there until she passes to take care of her?

Um, most likely that would be the plan. I know she said that, um, she wants to. She wants to. She's going to be retiring soon, but also when she gets to a point to where, like, she can't take care of herself, she's saving a lot of money just to, like, do the nursing home route.

We're talking about grandmother. Yes. Grandmother still working. What? How old is grandmother?

She retires next year. She's 64. I want to say.

Oh, good lord.

Yes. That's the biggest thing.

I'm like, I'm 63. If you're waiting on me to die, it's going to be 30 years. Okay? You don't need to be taking care of me. I'm 63. You guys need to go live your life. A 64 year old does not need to be cared for unless they've got an illness.

Yes. Understandable.

You don't need to hang around, wait on her to get old. Whoa. No, I think y'all. Y'all need to really start thinking about David, huh?

How long have you guys been married?

We actually been married a year.

Okay.

Ah, okay. All right.

Yeah.

Yeah. You went there to help take care of grandpa when he was sick. That was sweet. It's time to move back to where you're gonna have your life.

How far away are you guys from them?

Um, we were living about 45 minutes away and I'm actually still communicating up there to work.

Yeah, you need to move up there and start talking about saving up money, get out of debt, build your emergency fund, buy a house. There, brother. That, that's, um.

And then in 20 years, in her eighties, if she needs help, y'all can make that decision. But that's, I mean, that's a long, that's a long time.

Yeah, a long time. Hello. Yeah, it took, took me a second when I realized grandmother was still working. Okay. I always think of grandmother as old and yet I'm married to one. What do I know? Okay. All right, here we go. Lori is with us in Atlanta, Georgia. Hey, Lori, what's up?

Hey, thanks for taking my call, Dave. I appreciate it.

Sure. How can I help?

My situation is I have a, I'm trying to get my car payment lowered and currently I owe 23,000 on it and I'm not really getting a lot of breaks in terms of lowering it. And I'm just wondering if I should be paying in addition to the car payment, you know, a little bit more or should I be thinking about trading in this car and getting an older one for less money?

What do you make?

About 40.

And you owe 23?

Yes.

How much money have you got in.

The bank right now? About ten.

Okay. What's the car worth?

You know, I'm not really certain what it's worth. I honestly am not sure about that.

Okay. You're trying to fix this without feeling any pain.

Yeah, exactly.

And it's painful because you bought a car that's too expensive. What we have found is mathematically cars are the largest things that we all buy that go down in value and you don't want to own vehicles with motors and wheels totaled all up to equal more than half your annual income. You broke that rule.

Okay.

So you need to move down in car and you should, you should be in a car around $10,000 or $15,000 and it should have no payments.

Okay.

Okay. So what that may mean is that we sell this car, write a check because you're probably upside down. Is that your guess too?

Yeah.

Okay. And then maybe you buy a $5,000 car and start saving for another 5000 on top of that to get a 10,000 and then start saving and put another 5000 on top of that and get a 15,000 it may be a three year or a two year process to move back up from a $5,000.00 payments all the time. Car up to a 15 and get rid of this thing.

Okay.

It's bringing you more pain than it is joy.

Yes, it is.

Okay.

No kidding.

Yeah. And I can tell that in the math. I mean, it's. If you. Even if you hadn't realized it, it is bringing you more pain than it is. So, yeah, it's very easy to hold on to something like that. And the weird thing, Rachel, too, is cars. We all tend to think they're more permanent than they are. Like, we're. Like, a car is a big deal. You just sell a car, houses now. You start selling a house. That's a big deal.

That's hard, right?

That's. Uproots. Everything but car. I mean, you just got to clean out the glove box, take the license plate off. It's really. There's not a lot to sell on a car. I mean, you can get it. Just. Stupid car. There's another one right there. Another one right there. Another one right there. They're everywhere. So you and so. But I have that tendency to. I feel like if I'm in a.

Car, get emotionally attached or something.

Well, no, I just feel like it's like. It's like a rule. I have to keep it if I bought it or something. I don't know. I did that with a truck a while back. You probably forget that truck, but I bought this truck, and it was a big old. It was a nice truck, but it rode. I was horrible. I've been driving a raptor and has a better ride, and I drove that thing for about four months, and I thought, why am I driving this car? I hate this car. And I don't hate cars. I love cars. So this is dumb. So I just sold a stupid truck, and I thought, well, that was kind of freeing idea. I'm not. I'm not stuck with it, you know, I can just get rid of it. It's just a car, you know? It's a car. Give me another raptor. Life goes on, you know? It's, like, just a car. So, yeah, that's. That's the way I. It's trying to train myself and everybody else to hold these things with a little bit more of an open hand. Becky, or. I think it's. Becky is with us in Los Angeles.

I didn't go the same school you went to. Christian. Hi, Becky. How are you?

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

Better than I deserve. What's up?

So I'm on, baby, step seven. Thank you for changing my life.

Is it. Is it Becky or is it Bessie?

B E c K Y.

Okay. All right. I thought he spelled it wrong. Okay, how can I help? I'm sorry. I wasn't positive. All of a sudden, they're back in the booth talking like I'm an idiot, so I couldn't figure out what's going on. Okay, all right. So how can we help you, Becky? All right, I'm on.

So I'm on, baby step seven. I own my home. I have 2401 ks who are worth just under a million dollars total. Way to go, actually. Thanks. I'll be 59 next week. So I'm, you know, getting closer to retirement age. I make about 200,000 a year, and I'm not eligible for a Roth Ira. So right now, I'm just. Just putting the maximum amount I can put in every year into my 401K.

Is your four hundred one k of a roth option?

No. Well, it does, but I don't think I'm eligible.

Oh, you're eligible for our one case. Don't have an limit on them.

So 401K, Roth is okay.

Yeah. From this point forward, I wouldn't change everything. You got the million you got in there? Over. But from this point forward, your contributions ought to be in a Roth and get with a smart vesture pro at random. You can do a backdoor Roth even if your income exceeds the limits. I do backdoor Roths every year. Mine come far exceeds the limits. So you can do all that and keep maxing stuff out. You're making a lot of money. You got a lot of money. You're a millionaire. Starting from nothing. You're amazing. Way to go. Our scripture today, Philippians 317, joined together in following my example, brothers and sisters. And just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do. That would be Paul speaking, not Dave and Rachel. Dolly Parton said, if your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are an excellent leader.

Love, Dolly.

Well, Miss Dolly, you are an excellent leader. Dream more, learn more, and do more and become more.

Yeah, she one of those compassionate kinds.

Generous, inspiring.

Have you ever met her?

Lives in our neighborhood? No, I have not. And it's. She would be one of the two or three people on the planet on my bucket list. I've not met. You know, I'm not a big person. I'm not a big star. Chaser. I don't really. Not really impressed much with those folk. I mean, I like, like them. I know a lot of them, but.

It'S not a big show biz. A little bit.

Yeah, a little bit, but very little. But I mean, but she's. She's so iconic, man.

Dolly's the best.

All right. Todd is in Indianapolis. Hey, Todd, how are you? Good.

How are you, Dave?

Better than I deserve. How can I help?

Sure.

Well, thanks for taking my call. Hey, I just had a question and wanted to see about your philosophy from a 15 year mortgage perspective versus maybe going a 30 year mortgage, but possibly paying it off like a 15 year mortgage type deal, whether it be making biweekly payments and then making an extra monthly or making an extra mortgage payment each quarter.

Yeah, there's a couple of numbers that bother me when I think about that concept. Okay. The Federal Reserve has done a study that says when it comes to mortgages, 97.3% of the mortgages are not systematically repaid or prepaid. Okay? Not systematically prepaid, which means if I take out a 30 and I promise to pay it like a 15, I'm claiming to be in the top 2.7% of the people out there. As far as my discipline goes, I don't want to make that claim about me, because I know me better than that. The second thing is, I have read and discovered there's a guy named David Bach, years ago, came on the scene after I did that, wrote a book called Automatic Millionaire, and he makes the very valid point in that book to do as many things in your life as you can that you put on autopilot that are automatic discipline. For instance, you automatically have money withdrawn going into your 401K. You automatically have money coming out of your checking account to pay your insurance. So you don't have to think about it. It's paid on time, okay? You don't pay late fees on your utilities because of auto withdrawal.

All those. Anything I can do that's automatic. That helps my discipline be automatic. I don't have to think about it. I don't slip up. It's not an accident. It's just there, it's done. And if I have a 15 year mortgage, we do know one of the time it's going to be paid off in 15 years or less. That's the second data point. The third one is that we find, as we studied 10,167 millionaires in the largest study of millionaires ever done, that the typical millionaire, Todd, that we run into that has one to $5 million in net worth. They're not a multi, multi, multi. They're not got 30 million or 50 million, but they got that first million, second million, third million. Typically in that one to 3 million. In particularly, there's two major things that show up almost every time. One is 800 to a million, two or something like that in their 401K, again, automatically done. Or their Roth IRA automatically done. The second thing we find is they have a home that is paid for. That's six or seven or $800,000. Those two things combined give them a net worth of one to 3 million.

Typically, those two things show up all the time as a paid for home. And then when we interviewed them, we found two types of millionaires that we were interviewing out of these 10,000 ones that were doing ramsey stuff and familiar with us and ones that had never heard of us. Okay. It was about 50 50. We tried to find a group, a large group that had never heard of us because we didn't want the research to be biased. Okay. And so the group that does not follow us typically paid off of millionaires in America. America typically paid off their home in 11.7 years. The group that did follow us pays off their home in 10.2 years. The difference doesn't matter. It wasn't enough that we went, ooh, ramsey's way cooler. We're not, we're just right there together. We were a little bit better, the ramsey tribe, but not a lot better. The bottom line was, though, what we could say conclusively is that millionaires pay off their homes in twelve years or less on average. Okay. So all of those reasons say, don't do it. Do a 15 year and a 15 year fixed rate where the payments less than a fourth of your take home pay.

Yeah, that's right. And I think what's hard, too, Todd, is in today's market. Right.

I'm like, oh, stretches you? Yeah.

The price of houses and all of it. And I feel like this is the one place that some people like, oh, we'll just do a 30 and, and.

Promise myself I'll pay it.

Like a 15. Yes.

And then you don't.

And then things end up happening. And if you're not on a plan and you're not intentional with it, you know that it's not going to happen. So the systematic approach that you just get in easily fall into it and it's great.

So, yeah, you have all these things come at you while you're trying to do this. Promise to pay yourself 30, like a 15. Prom dresses and transmissions.

Would you say, though, out of that 10.2 years and 11.7 years, that some of them had 30 year, but because they were on a plan to pay it off early, they just.

We don't, we didn't ask. Yeah, we did not.

Like, I'd be curious if that's a.

We didn't get that piece of psychological. We just know that they did it right. We know what the average was. They got. They did it early. And so in my case, what that means is, though, that you need to take out a 15 and do it even faster.

Mm hmm. Do it.

If you can't do it on the 15, you can't do the millionaire.

You'll get a better interest rate, too with the 15.

That's true. Like, as much as a half a percent right now. It's pretty crazy. It's a big deal. Amber's in Sacramento. Hi, Amber. How are you doing?

Good. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

Well, not doing great, actually, to be honest. My husband's been working in the mental health field for the last eight years, the last three of which he's been fully remote, which hasn't been a great transition for him. He really hates his job, to put it simply, he took the career assessment in last August and decided that he really wanted to be in law enforcement. He's been. He applied and has been working out and doing all of the testing, and he's been successful. Even got his conditional offer letter and everything. But he was supposed to start in a week, and we just heard today that he didn't pass his psych evaluation, so he will not be joining. And on top of all of that, I'm three weeks postpartum, so our whole world just got turned upside down. This is something we've been looking forward to for so long. I just don't know what to do next.

I'm so sorry.

Two weeks in, ithemenous at work because he thought. He thought he was in what can.

What came back on the psych evaluation. Do you know, like, the details of that? Because that's interesting.

A mental health professional didn't pass the psych eval.

That's right. Yeah. He passed the written test for psych, but not the, the person to person.

What was the, what was. Did they tell you what the objection was?

They did nothing.

Okay. Is there an appeals process?

Uh huh.

There is.

Don't do it.

Yeah. And are there other forces around?

Maybe the guy doing the in person eval had too much Red Bull.

That's what? Yeah, he said they were, let's just say an expletive.

Yeah, I would do it. Yeah, I would just do it.

Doing appeal.

Yeah.

And by the way, that particular law enforcement individual group, it's not the only place to do law enforcement. There's like one in every city. Hello. Or two. You can apply in a different locale.

No other agency is what he's told me. It's not anywhere else.

That's not true. He could apply at 15 tomorrow and they're all hiring because people are leaving law enforcement because of the way law enforcement is treated. So, yeah, it's a great time to go into law enforcement. I'm assuming he's okay. If he's okay mentally, I don't want him doing it if he's not. If he's not okay mentally. But yeah, I would go through the appeals process and I would go somewhere else. Yeah. This is not the only girl on the planet. There are other pretty girls. Bad metaphor since you just had a baby, but okay. Yeah, there's lots of. Lots of fish in the sea as. Right.

Congrats to amber on the baby.

Sorry. That puts this hour of the show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the prince of peace Christ Jesus.

Doctor John Deloney here. Mental and emotional health challenges, broken relationships, it's all just part of life. But they don't have to define you. The Doctor John Deloney show is here to help. It's a caller driven podcast where you can get practical advice on dealing with anxiety, loneliness, depression, relationship challenges, your kids and so much more. Listen to questions from our callers, or if you're walking through a tough situation and need some help, give me a call. You were never meant to do life alone. And that's what this podcast is all about. Follow along on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or the Ramsey network app. Remember, you're worth being well.