When Are You Going To Clean Up Your Financial Mess?

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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, Rachel Cruz, number one best-selling author, host of the Rachel Cruz Show, and co-host of Smart Money Happy Hour.
My daughter is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225.
Jamie is in Tampa, Florida. Hi, Jamie.
How are you? I am doing good. How are you? Better than I deserve.
What's up? Well, the basic question I have is what I should do with my mother-in-law's situation. Man, if I could answer that, I'd be rich.
My in-laws gave us a piece of property in 2006. We couldn't afford to build on it at the time, so we saved.
And we ended up building our house in 2012. After a couple of visits from my in-laws, They ended up asking us if they could build a small home on the back of our property.

The property that they gave you?

Correct.

So it's titled to you and your husband?

Correct.

Okay.

They were living in upstate New York.

It was a lot. My mother-in-law taking care of her home and my father-in-law.
And she was, you know, talking to my husband daily, multiple times a day about what a struggle it was. So we felt like, yes, this was a good idea.
We could help them when they lived here. And so they sold their home in New York and used that money to build a house in the back of our property.
Well, during the building process, we kind of all realized at the same time that technically they did not own it, that we owned it because it was on property in our name. It caused a huge fight.
My father-in-law stopped the builder from building, and we had a couple of days of discussions. I'm sorry, why was this a surprise? I guess because we never really had conversations about it.
You don't need a conversation. They deeded the property to you.
Did they just forget that they did that? Or did they think when they were building on the property that automatically the land under that is theirs? Like, is that what they thought? Right. That's the assumption.
Yes. Because they were paying for that house.
They didn't think about the land underneath the house. Yes.
So this was 10 years ago. Every six months for the past 10 years, we've had a fight about ownership of their home.

My father-in-law passed away about three years ago. My mother-in-law since then has just become more and more angry about the situation.
How old is she? She is 80 and in good, very good health. In January, there was a huge fight where she accused us of doing this on purpose for the sole purpose of taking her home, in essence, taking her money.
She wants to be able to leave this home to her kids equally and her will. so we assured her we were never going to deny her access to this home.
Like she said, you could kick me out at any time. Well, we're not going to do that.
But it's just constant, the fighting. So now we haven't spoken to each other since January.
And she got a lawyer to send us a letter accusing us of elder exploitation and demanding $180,000 lump sum payment. And what is your all's net worth? Net worth probably over a million.
Okay. So how much land is involved in the total tract? An acre.
No, no, no, no. I mean the whole property, including yours.
Yeah, an acre. How do they build on the back of an acre? It's an accessory dwelling.
It's just a one-bedroom, one-bath, 900 square feet, and that's how the county defines it as well. We share all the utilities, like it goes through my home.
She built a tiny house on the back of your acre? Oh, yeah. I should have clarified.
It's a tiny house, yes. Oh, jeez.
So she's not only not speaking to you, she's in your back window. Oh, yeah.
I should have clarified. It's a tiny house.
Yes. Oh, geez.
So she's not only not speaking to you, she's in your back window. Oh, yeah.
Eight feet away. Sorry, Jamie.
That's not funny. No, every lawyer I talked to said the same thing.
It's terrible. They laughed at first.
Every lawyer you talked to said the same thing, which was what? Basically that, yes, she may have improved the property.

This is the exact words of one. The value of those improvements is largely offset by her continued occupancy,

meaning that she's gotten $180,000 worth of value.

There's not a tiny house in the back corner of an acre on no planet is worth $180,000 worth of value. There's not a tiny house in the back corner of an acre on no planet is worth 180 grand.
True. It's just, Oh my God.
The drama of some people. Okay.
Yeah. So, cause you're thinking like 50 acres.
I thought there was a hundred acres and she was in the back 40 or something. Oh, no.
No, she's in the back window. This is bizarre.
Oh, my gosh. So what are you going to do, Jamie? We don't know.
Morally, I feel like I should give her money. No.
I don't morally giving her anything. Okay.
Okay. No, you didn't do anything wrong.
I agree. And the funny part is the son-in-law stopped construction on the tiny house in the back corner of the other house.
Oh, my God. The brother-in-law.
Father-in-law, yeah. Her son-in-law.
Our son, yeah. Because he wants his cut of the tiny house.
No, no, the husband. The husband.
The mother-in-law The father-in-law stopped son yeah yeah because he wants his cut of the tiny house no no the husband the husband

the the mother-in-law the father-in-law stopped construction because he's mad at them the father-in-law i thought you said it was a son-in-law no father-in-law okay and he stopped the construction yes yes correct of the tiny home all right so um what a horrible trying to do something nice that went bad story.

Correct.

So, no, you know what I'm going to do?

I'm just going to hire an attorney.

You've got the money.

Okay.

Go give somebody $10,000 and keep her tied up until she dies.

Oh, wow.

Jeez.

I mean, that's really all you can do here.

That hurts my heart. You're not going going this relationship's not going to be healed this woman's lost her marbles and um and we can't find them they're somewhere in the backyard near a tiny house near them near jamie right next to you jamie wherever they are that's where the marbles are but shoot okay i mean really mean, really, there's not a...
Well, you want reconciliation. I mean, the perfect world is that there is reconciliation.
Is your husband, Jamie, is your husband on the forefront of this emotionally and in it? Or do you feel like you are more holding the pieces together of everything that's happening? Do y'all both have emotional ownership in it? Or is it more you, more him? Well, no, we're kind of equal in that. But I'm kind of the go-between right now because he has completely written her off.
Okay, because that's her son. So I feel like his weight in this is so he's done.
He needs to make the decision because it's the most painful for him. Yeah.
But if it was my situation here, I would just say, you know, you hired a lawyer, so I guess we've got to, and I would just stall and file continuances and do in-depth depositions with every expert on the planet and just tie it up for five years, and then it won't be there. It's awful.
But, I mean, that's all you can do other than try to make an angry old woman that did a crazy bad deal happy. I don't know how you do that.
I know how you do it for the rest of you listening. Don't do this ever.
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or for a more personal touch, give them a call at 800-356-4282. a couple of cool things going on around here right quick uh dr john deloney and i are in the middle of a six city tour uh we've been running in and out of nashville this week because we were in louisville last night we were in durham north carolina with thousand folks.
And tomorrow night we'll be in Atlanta. You can still get your tickets to that.
And then a week away we'll be over in Phoenix and then to Fort Worth and then to Kansas City. Kansas City sold out.
Fort Worth is almost sold out, but you can still get a ticket. And Phoenix is a little bigger venue.
You can still get a ticket there for sure. Atlantaanta if you want to come tomorrow night you can get tickets but thank all of you for turning out it's been a lot of fun we were in dpac the uh durham performing arts center last night and it was kind of fun rachel i sent you a picture i sent rachel a picture she and i were on that stage in 11 years ago on 2014 doing the legacy journey tour at that time and uh some of these venues like this, the famous people that do the venues, it's very cool because you can go backstage and you've got like Ozzy Osbourne signed the back wall or Metallica or John Lennon or something like that.
And then there's Dave and Rachel signed the back wall. So I took a picture of it and sent it to Rachel to remind 11 years ago we were on that stage.
But thank all of you for turning out for these things. We appreciate it.
We're having a good time. John and I, by the time we get done with Six Cities, we're going to get good at this.
And so we're getting better every night already. So love to have you do that.
And all of you that purchased the book Build a Business You you love that was launched last week. Uh, my latest book teaching small businesses, the clear path of mastering the five stages of business to grow and run your business properly.
Thank you so much for that. Uh, the, you know, one week after a book launch, you get the, uh, the lists, the bestseller lists, and it came out number one, number one bestseller.
So thank you guys for that. We appreciate you.
And the New York Times picked it up and ran it on their bestseller list. Their bestseller list is not based on number of books sold.
It's just based on, I don't know, I think they like it or something. I don't know what they just, they just decide what they're going to put on there.
And so they put it on at number five on New York times, but it was the number one selling

book in the week, uh, by numbers. So that, that makes it according to book scan.
And so it shows

up on all the, um, all the bestseller lists that use the actual sales to categorize the bestsellers,

which I kind of thought that's what a bestseller is, but anyway, that's how it works. So thank you

guys. We appreciate you very much.
And this one is really fun, Rachel. So Ramsey fans tell us all the time that groceries are one of the largest line items, and it's a frustrating line item in your every dollar budget.
It's frustrating because, you know, like you have to get a mortgage for eggs these days or something, right? And so 59%, that's six out of 10 people say it's a challenge to save money on groceries without sacrificing quality. So we've been working on this behind the scenes and going, okay, how can we help our audience by partnering with someone in that world to get you guys the best possible deals and so forth? And we ended up settling on the folks at Aldi.
They've got fresh meat, organic products. We got some claps in the audience right here in the live studio audience.
They give you a great selection. They've got fresh meat, organic products.
Their Aldi exclusive products are fun. They're sassy with their labels like Ramsey is, so we like them.
And they're really good quality and they're really cheap. The lowest prices of any national grocery chain and shoppers save big.
The family of four can save $4,000 a year shopping at Aldi versus some of the others. And so they're a brand new sponsor, a brand new partner here.
And Rachel, you know, the young moms that you run around with and that you know, and that are in our family, Aldi's a big deal. Well, it is because it's a simple grocery shopping experience if you've been, and they make it quick.
It's not overwhelming. Like I feel like some other of the competitors you walk in and it's just like this, like acres and acres and acres of land of grocery aisles.
It's really simple. And honestly, it is, it's the prices.
After you get done shopping, you look at the toll and you're like, oh my gosh, but it's all good stuff. Like it really is the quality, their meats, their produce, all of it.
So I know it is one store in all of my content and for years and years and years, when we talk about groceries, I always mentioned Aldi even before they came on as a partner with Ramsey. But because it is true, that is what you get.
You save money and you get good quality products, which is what we're looking for. And it is.
It's when we talk to families, and I know this, having three little kids, it is the number one budget buster is food. Like when we do our every dollar, but even, oh, I hate to say it, we're at the end of the month.
And I went in today and did my transactions. And I may have upped our grocery line items.
I was like, crap, we have one more week. I've got to get stuff.
It's just, you just end up spending a lot. But with Aldi, you're able to do it in all these trips and get good quality stuff and keep it within the budget, which is.
Well, when we started talking about this, gosh, about 18 months ago with our internal team, our broadcast team. And they're like, okay, go find a partner and rachel's like uh go get aldi well yeah because you because you were the one you're like the focus group and it's growing too and it's like i think it is the fastest growing grocery train in america right now so they're popping up even within nashville like they're popping up everywhere so there should be one near you guys and so if you are a family or not a family like whoever you are if you need to save on groceries when it comes to your budget and your money Aldi's the place to go really proud to have them as a new partner yeah they're amazing quality stuff at a good price and no frills and uh good sassy labeling I like it their marketing is fun they're icon of people and all their I don't know you're I'm seeing them more and more on social media and stuff they're funny oh that's cool that's good good so stop overpaying start shopping at aldi go to aldi.us to find an aldi store near you a l d i dot u s james is in chicago hey james how are you good hey how are you guys doing better than i deserve what's up i have a situation with my car I want to get some answers on.
So I have a Jaguar. I owe $38,000 on it.
It's a 14% interest on the loan. You really wanted a Jaguar, didn't you? I really did, yeah.
Things have changed now. The Jaguar doesn't run.
And the Jaguar dealership quoted me $35,000 to replace the engine. What the flip? What'd you do to this brand-new car, dude? Yeah, that's the thing.
I'm not really sure. Something happened with cylinders and maybe potentially oil, but the engine shot.
It cost a lot of money just to tear down that engine, so I think a lot has to do with the labor costs also. So they, instead of fixing the engine, they suggest replacing the whole thing.
What year model is this thing? It's a 2018 Jaguar wagon, the Jaguar XF Sportbrake, So it's kind of like a pretty rare Jaguar. So somehow you blew the engine on a relatively new car.
I did, yeah, less than 80,000 miles. That's weird.
But it was 2,000 miles over my warranty. So I have no warranty.
My question, I guess, is i'm really stuck i was wait a minute did you do you i mean that's very strange from a mechanic standpoint well did you get a second opinion james or did you just go to the dealership so the dealership they're the only people that diagnosed it um i have gotten other quotes did they a cause? What caused it? Was it your fault or the engine failed? The engine failed. Like you didn't change the oil ever in 80,000 miles or you ran the oil out of, forgot to put the plug back in at the Jiffy Lube and it blew, I mean, did something like that happen or the stupid engine just failed at 80,000 miles? From my understanding, the engine failed.
There is not any signs that I failed. The car was not due for an oil change.
Okay. It was not leaking oil or anything like that.
Okay, so there's two possible ways you go in probably both of them. Number one, I'm contacting an attorney.
I would sit down and talk to the general manager at the dealership in person and i would say 2 000 miles over warranty you need to call jaguar this ain't cool this is bogus this engine should not have failed jaguar needs to stand behind this engine even though it's out of warranty they need to do it as a pr campaign because otherwise we're going to have another pr campaign that's going to be ugly. And you don't want that one.
And I'm going to sit down with a general manager, not the people in the shop, the guy running the dealership. And then I'm going to go see an attorney if they won't fix it.
Okay. I'm not sure you've got anything to stand on, but I'm going to do that.
The second thing I'm going to do is I'm going to buy a used Jaguar engine from a salvage

yard and have anybody but this dealership change the engine out, and that will be $8,000 or $10,000.

It will not be $35,000, and you need to fix the car. It's too expensive to just let it sit there

melted down. Rachel, do you ever get these sketchy text messages that are like, hey, you need to update your address and verify so we can get you the package you didn't order? Yes, I have.
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Make sure to check it out, you guys. Joey is with us.
Joey is in Cincinnati. Hi, Joey.
How are you? I'm doing well. How are you both doing? Better than we deserve.
What's up in your world? Well, I've had a very stressful past week. I found out that I was pregnant with my second child and my partner was just not ready to take on that responsibility.
So he left. The good news is, is that I don't really have much debt.
I just have a car payment. And now I'm just confused on where to go from here.
I started out with your debt snowball. And since I only one thing I was ready to you know attack it pay $1,600 a month extra and wipe it out by the end of this year but now since the baby's coming I don't know what to do.
Do I still do that? Do I save for the baby? Like what do I do at this point?'m just so confused i'm sorry kiddo how old are you 32 so i i feel like i'm too old to be having these problems who's the uh who's the dad of the other kid same guy yeah i'm sorry yes you're so you have two children with the guy that left. Well, yes.
One and then one baking in the oven. That's what I mean.
Okay. I count baking.
Okay. Um, all right.
What do you make? Um, after taxes with no side hustles, it's4,500 a month that I take home by myself. I started listening to your show a few months ago, so I started doing side hustles.
Now I bring around like $5,500 home. I just don't know if that's sustainable long-term as the pregnancy gets.
No, it won't be. It won't be.
That's not reasonable. You've got to take care of you and the baby is as as you progress in the early stages you you know you got to work around maybe morning sickness or something but you can work for a while longer but then you're going to run into this so uh no what we teach folks to do when you have a baby on the way or you're facing some uh some kind of a storm of some kind is stop the baby steps, stop your debt snowball, and pile up cash.

So I want you to stack cash.

I want you to get the biggest possible pile of cash you can get between now

and baby.

Treat it like you're paying off debt.

Okay.

Have you got health insurance?

Yes.

Okay. So can you save $2,000 a month? Definitely.
I can definitely do that. What could you save? What's the most you could save? With the side hustle, I think maybe like $2,800.
Okay. I'm going to call it $3,000 for five months.
That's $15,000. And then it slows down to maybe $1,000 a month as you reach towards the delivery date.
Okay? So maybe you're going to have between $15,000 and $20,000 piled in an account. That gives me a lot more peace for you delivering this baby with a smile.
Okay. Have you got health insurance? Yes.
Good. Okay.
So you need to contact them and find out what your out-of-pocket is going to be for labor and delivery with your health insurance policy. And with appointments, OB appointments and everything.
Yeah, the whole thing. I want you to have a baby budget okay to get ready for that part of it so here's the here's what happens at the end of this story it's going to be a great story at the end of the story you come home with a brand new beautiful baby and you've got 15 or 20 000 in the bank you write a check and pay off your debts, and you finish.
You start your baby steps again, and you build your emergency fund. And now you're a mama bear against the world, and you're going to be one of those warrior princesses that goes and makes things happen as a single mom.
You're a hero. You're a a hero you suck at picking men but you're a hero or he or he sucks he sucks he sucks but you picked him yeah i mean he's awful oh my gosh and besides that i don't know the i don't know the laws in ohio but most states have a law that if you make a baby you get to help pay for it men and so i'm going to go ahead and contact human services in your area and find out what we can do to get this deadbeat jerk to start writing checks for these two children how old how old your first one he's 12 now he's 12 years old you've been with this guy 12 years 14 years that's that's a that's a grief in and of itself is a relationship that i mean that's a that's a divorce so he did he mention the fact that he needs to start writing checks to you for kids well he asked me how much money much money I want.
I'll tell you how much money I want. I want a third of your salary.
To be honest, all of my emotions, because this has been so shocking, because I had an IUD, so I wasn't planning for this. All of my emotions have just been spent on, like, surviving.
I agree. Not dealing with him.
But at some point in this process, he gets to be the financial daddy, whether he wanted to be or not, because that's what the law says. And I don't know what child support ratios are in your state, but you need to find that piece of information out and you need to let him know that that piece of information is coming his way.
That I can do.

Yeah, because, I mean, if he started writing you a check right now for $3,000 a month,

wouldn't make me mad.

It helps these numbers, right?

It does.

It definitely does.

And how much?

I don't want to make him agree.

I don't want responsibility, so I'm leaving.

Tough, buddy.

You made a baby.

The law says you've got responsibility.

That's how this works.

Do you have a good support system around you?

Do you have family or anyone?

I have a church that I started going to,

and I also have an international students group that I volunteer at.

And while they're like little kids, they feel like family to me.

Now, I want you to go sit down with your pastor at the new church, and with no shame, say this is where I am. And I just want to let you know I'm here trying to learn about God and start my life fresh spiritually because this is a new church to me, and I've got this situation with these two kids and I'm by myself.

And I think you'll see if it's a decent church, and it probably is.

You're going to see some wonderful people start putting their arms around you

in a lot of different ways.

But they won't do that if you don't tell them, okay?

They're not mind readers.

I know.

You're going to be okay. As a matter of fact, fact you're gonna be better than if this hadn't happened you're gonna be okay you're stronger than you think you are right now yeah you're at you're at the bottom of it emotionally right from a from a relationship breakup the news of a pregnant i mean you're yeah you, it's, it's exhausting.
I can only imagine. So it goes up from here.
It really does. But yeah, man, we, we run into, to single moms all the time on the show and it is, it is incredible, incredible what they do when they rise to the occasion.
And you're going to be that you're a great mom already. I mean, you have a, you have a 12 year old.
So man, we were cheering for you. I did want to ask from a financial standpoint, how much do you have left on your car to pay off? You said it's your only debt.
Yeah, so I have $14,000. Oh, perfect.
Okay, that's great. Yeah, because to the number...
I did put like a big lump sum in it. No, no, no, no, no, no.
I want you to pile up cash. I know, but that was two months ago.
Yeah, she already months ago she already did it she already did oh you already put a lump sum on oh i'm sorry i thought you want to yeah yeah no no no so yeah but but to the numbers earlier joey you could see that yeah i mean by the time baby comes and when you come home everything's good you'll have this car paid off yeah when baby comes home and you're healthy and the baby's healthy and there's no problems and you don't need this money for anything, you write a check and pay off the car that day. You're free.
So you don't really lose any ground net net on your get out of debt plan. Okay.
We're just doing the hokey pokey a little bit. We're setting it to the side and then we're going to put the right foot in and the left foot in, right? Okay.
Thank you both. Hey, Joey, listen, if you need us, we're here.
You call anytime. Okay, kid.
Okay. We got you.
You call that pastor today. You call human services and find out what your rights are on child support.
Those are two calls you make today and you start stacking cash, stacking cash, stacking cash. You're going to be fine.

You're a lot stronger than your voice sounds right now, I can tell.

This is The Ramsey Show. Hey guys, what's up? It's Jade Warshaw.
And look, if there's anybody who knows about student loan debt, it's me. My husband and I had $280,000 of it, but we were able to dig ourselves out and you can too.
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Again, that's laurelroad.com slash Ramsey. So Dr.
John Deloney and I are on tour. We were in Durham, North Carolina last night.
We're in Atlanta tomorrow night, April the 25th, doing the Money and Relationships Tour. We'll also be in Phoenix on May the 5th, Fort Worth on May the 7th, Kansas City on May the 9th.
You can still get tickets to these, except Kansas City is sold out. I think there's some singles in the seats available.
If you want to sit apart and there's more than one of you, you could come. Or if you want to come as a single, you can get into Kansas City, but they're basically gone there.
RamseySolutions.com slash tour. We'd love to have you.
If you're on YouTube or podcast, click the link in the show notes. Rachel, last night, one of the things Dr.
John and I talked about was one of the topics that the audience selected, the audience votes on the topics each night for these, was the marriage advantage. And we were telling them that one piece of research that's been out there, I think it's been done probably five or six times.
I've seen it over 30 years. I've seen, you know, fresh versions of the same research has confirmed, the most recent piece confirms what we call the success sequence.
And these numbers are statistically mind-blowing to me. Okay.
The success sequence is this. If you are a millennial or younger and you graduate from high school or higher and have not had a baby yet, and you get a full-time job and have not had a baby yet, and you get married at age 20 or older and have not had a baby yet, and you get married at age 20 or older

and have not had a baby yet.

In other words, if you graduate from high school, get a job,

and get married at age 20 before you have children,

you have a 97% probability of being outside of poverty in the middle class. Only 3% of the people that follow that basic sequence that was very standard in 1960.
You would be shamed in a neighborhood if you didn't do those things in 1960. If you had babies out of wedlock, meaning you weren't married when you had babies, you had a 97% chance.
And you graduated from high school. You graduated from high school.
And you got a job. You got a job.
So you were being effective. And you get married at age 20 or later, and then and only then do you have babies.
And you're married. You're not shacking up.
You're not my partner. We're not.
It's not any of that. Okay.
It's that's when you follow that sequence, you have a 97. There's very few things in this life that you have a 97% chance of doing.
Very few things. I'm not sure I have a 97% chance of getting home without getting in a car wreck.
I mean, really, that's those numbers are staggering. They're staggering.
You're right about that. Point taken.
Everyone knows. I was like, everybody in the booth is nodding about Dave's driving.
I drive like I'm in a race all the time and I have my whole life. But aside from my driving, that's not the point, okay? 97%.
I mean, so if you like know a teenager, tell them, here's a 97% chance that you're not in poverty in America, that you're in the middle class. Just do these simple things in freaking order it changes everything the audience was

sitting there with their mouth open when i was going through this stuff and then we start pulling

out the other numbers which if you're 35 years old and you're married your net worth is on average

15 times higher than a single female and five times higher than a single male

Thank you. 15 times higher than a single female and five times higher than a single male.
Interesting. Single meaning including people you live with that you're not married to.
Wow. Well, again, because it's two incomes coming together.
It is two incomes coming in. But guess what? There's two incomes coming in if you're shacking up, but they don't count.
To that study. Yeah.
Correct. Yes.
Because it's not a household. Yeah.
So they didn't count that. And you can just decide, I'm going to leave.
I don't want the responsibility. You can just decide that.
And thus you end up with it. Totally totally men in their 30s and 40s make 26 percent more income that are married than unmarried males in the same bracket i think our wives must be whipping us like a rented mule and sending us out the door that's all i can figure get your butt out there and get to work i you have a reason to work.
You've got to pay for stuff. Yeah, because it's more than you.
I mean, yeah, there's a nobility to it. I don't know.
There's a lot of reasons for it, but that's the actual data. These are actual facts.
And we can have, you know, theorize about what causes that. Yeah.
But it's very interesting. The advantage of a good, long-lasting marriage.
Oh, men in a good, high-quality marriage live nine years longer than men that aren't. I know.
She's nagging on me about eating that again. Don't tell me I can't eat that again.
You're bothering and quit trying to make me healthy you're killing me as a matter of fact you're not you're making me live 10 years longer on average i mean that's isn't that interesting women live five years longer on average not as much we're no we're not as much help to you as you are to us That's exactly what I'm saying. You're welcome.
You're welcome, man.

Oh, man.

You know what?

And from no data, just Rachel's life, I know so many great single women. I do too.
So many great single women. I don't know where all the dudes are.
I'm like, guys, come on. Come on, guys.
Make the first move. Come on.
But man, they just... The first move is become a great single guy.
That's a big move right there. I know.
I know. But.
Be eligible. Be an eligible bachelor.
Yes. It's so funny.
There's some old phrases. You know what's funny is so many girls on our team like that we do like, you know, shoots with and content.
All of them, the ones that are single are like literally, if he says, I own a home, they're like, oh my gosh. Because the amount of guys that just don't yeah they're just kind of like i'm good i'll just like it's just like there's not this like feeling of uh proactiveness as much right i know it's not true for every guy so i'm not gonna like you know stereotype paint with too broad a brush but yeah i know but i do find that a lot a lot of girls that are in their like late 20s and early 30s that are you know they're ready they're like i would love to be married but all these guys that they meet i gotta find somebody i gotta find somebody that's up yeah and if they own a home they're just like oh my gosh this is amazing he owns a home right so it's just like man he's got a job yeah exactly i know so oh man that's interesting though that's very interesting.
Yeah, it is. And, you know, these are things you can control.
They're variables you can control. Of choices in your life, which you can do, yes.
You make choices. Yeah, yeah.
And you can control your choices and create, when you control the controllables, your path to high-quality relationships, to happiness, your path to wealth, you have a higher probability of hitting those. And so that that's very interesting.
You know, the other one we throw out, this was a big hit on Instagram, but, um, that the data shows us that couples that can agree on four things have a very high probability of staying together. If they agree on these four things before marriage, the number one cause of divorce in North America days is money fights and money problems.
So when you can agree on money, what we're going to do with it, how we're going to handle it, debt, savings, investing, all that kind of stuff, lifestyle, all that. When you can agree on that ahead of time, not perfectly, but align on the values around it, the principles around it.
Number two, agree on religion, be in the same religion and regularly attend a house of worship of your religion, whatever it is. And number three, agree on kids.
Are we going to have them? How many and how are they going to be treated? Who's going to run the house, us or them? Are we helicopters or are we in charge of the asylum? And number four, how do we deal with the extended family? How do you deal with his mother, her father, whatever, all that stuff? How do we deal with all that? And so extended family, and it tapers off like that. I mean, but if you can be in in-depth pre-marriage counseling agreement on those four things, your probability of your marriage sticking is very high.
I can give you about four other variables that will get you up in the 90 percentile that you will still be married 25 years later. And so you graduate from school, graduate from college, again, regularly attending a house of worship, make $50,000 a year or more, household income.

You put all these things in there, the numbers just go up, up, up, and up on probability of success.

And these are controllables.

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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.

Rachel Cruz, number one best-selling author, host of the Rachel Cruz Show, co-host of Smart Money, Happy Hour, and my daughter is my co-host today.

Open phones here at 888-825-5225. Catherine is in Pittsburgh.
Hey, Catherine, how are you? Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for having me.
Sure. What's up? Hey, I am getting involved in my mom's estate.
She's 74 years old and her husband is 77 years old. They are both retired and they live on an income between Social Security and retirement of about $47,000 a year.
My mom had inherited from her sister on a payable upon death account a fairly decent amount of money that she spent within a month before a family member contested the will. and 10 years, my mom is being forced to pay that money back to the tune of $160,000.
And my mom is not in the position, they own their house free and clear, but I'm not sure exactly how to navigate this next step. They're charging her with embezzlement because she has not paid this money back.

So she can either go to jail or somehow if we can come up with some soluble financial plan.

So she's in credit card debt to the tune of about $125,000.

So she does not qualify to put a loan against her house, which is probably around $250,000 value.

I'm confused how she lost this.

Yeah, exactly.

Payable on death is a simple thing.

It is, but it—

Unless she fraudulently did a transaction, there shouldn't be any criminal involved.

The will— The will does not supersede pay a bond death. According to the courts and the lawyers that we've had, which I'm not saying they were quality lawyers at this point.
I mean, it's just been in the court system for 10 years that it's just been back and forth between that lawyer and this is my aunt's estate and when she died she didn't the lawyer that designed her will three months prior to her passing from cancer was he left his her husband completely out of the will didn't acknowledge him didn't recognize. So that's why part of this reclaimable estate comes into play, because they were married

over 15 years.

So he's entitled to 50% of her reclaimable estate, which she had left the house to my

mom also with her daughter.

So they're co-owners on that house.

What's the status of that house?

He's living there.

He's living there.

My hope is to be here. um, with her daughter.
So they're co-owners on that house. And what's the status of that house? He's living there.
He's living there. My, the whole plan was my aunt too.
Um, so she's a co-owner on it, but nobody's, but there's no ruling against her on that. Correct.
Why can you offset that? Well, we, we offered to give him the house in exchange because he's lived there all these years, but he doesn't want the house because he's in the early stages of dementia and his family just wants the money. Could you sell the house? Then sell the house.
Well, the other person that owns the house isn't on board to sell the house. My aunt had given, when she wrote in the deed, she gave us us a dollar amount, like if we wanted to buy each other out, this would be the dollar amount.
So I presented that offer to the other owner and said, hey, you know, I'll buy you out. And she's like, I don't want to sell.
And I'm like, okay, what do I do now? Then the lawyer says that I have to do a partition lawsuit in order to force the sale, which then it goes to public auction instead of market. So you get half the price of what you would if you'd actually sell it on the market.
No, it doesn't necessarily go to public auction. The partition sale can just demand the sale within 90 days, and you put a real estate agent on it.
Okay. So I know that that's an option.
That's where the money needs to come from, because apparently she's got to pay this back. I'm a little shocked.
I'm not an attorney but i was under the impression pay on death uh superseded any will and i and i but i don't know i'm i'm not an attorney and i'm certainly not an attorney why didn't she put her husband in the will was she of sound mind is that what he came back to and said no she was of sound mind she he he doesn't read or he doesn't write and she was afraid that his family would take advantage him because they've always just been like that. So she put my mom in charge so that my mom would always make sure that he had a place to live, the taxes and insurance were always paid, and yada, yada, yada.
So that was the ultimate plan, but, of course, we can't talk to him or anything because of this case that's been happening. Yeah, I'm going to force the sale of the other house and find the money to pay this back.
Your mom and dad's house, what's it worth? Around $250. Okay.
And the balance on this judgment is how much? $160. Okay.
And she's got $120 in credit card debt. Right.
So I don't like anything in this conversation, and you don't either. It's not fun.
But before I go to jail, I'm selling my house. Well, they live in Ohio, so I wasn't sure that I don't – my lawyer's checking in to see what those laws are, if they can force that sale or that lien on that sale.
No, no, I'm talking about your mom and dad's house. Right, but, yeah, that's what I'm saying.
It's in Ohio. This property and this same thing is happening in Washington.
They have changed this. What I'm also confused about is, are they saying because it was a federally insured bank that she wrongly took the money on a POD account or a paid-on-death account, and they're calling that a federal crime.

She's actually been charged with a federal crime.

Correct, yes.

You're sure?

Yes, yes, most definitely.

Okay.

Then they had to, because it's a federally insured, an FDIC bank, that, you know, monkeying with them makes it a federal crime is the problem.

But I don't understand how she monkeyed with them.

I think it's a federally insured, an FDIC bank that, you know, monkeying with them makes it a federal crime is the problem. But I don't understand how she monkeyed with them.
I thought it was a civil matter. But, again, I'm not an attorney.
I'm just aghast at this whole story. Well, and that's what our, we went from our paid, because he doesn't do, our paid lawyer, he doesn't do criminal law again it's this it's my uncle's family that's forcing the state to to file these charges again it's not the state it's the fed um yeah okay okay so so that's it's fbi and that's what it's the fbi saying that if you monkey with a federal bank it's the fbi that files the charges.
Well, that's what we don't understand, the embezzlement charges, because technically she was entitled to this money. That's what I mean.
Because it was a table upon death account. I don't understand them either.
It doesn't make sense at all. She doesn't understand how.
If you did a fraudulent transaction and stole the money out of the account, I can imagine that the feds would get down on your head. That makes sense.
Right. But this was not any way it was simply functioning off of the pod the paid on death i don't know again i'm just

i'm practicing law here on the air which is really dumb because i'm not any good at it so um all

right so i yeah i i'm forcing the sale of the other house with a petition if i can't pull that

off your mom and dad have to sell their personal home if there's no other way to stop these criminal

charges because i'm not putting a 74 year old in jail i will sell my home before i do that

Thank you. I can't pull that off your mom and dad have to sell their personal home if there's no other way to stop these criminal charges because I'm not putting a 74-year-old in jail.

I will sell my home before I do that.

I'll sell her home before I do that.

But I can't even imagine how we got here.

But you don't sound like someone that's blowing this out.

It sounds like you actually know what you're talking about, and so that makes me think I don't, because I don't know how we got here. Wow.
Scary. Man.
People, do your will. Tell everybody in the will how it's working and then tell the rest of them to shut up before you die.
If you're going

to piss people off, do it before you die. One last hoorah.
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Might not be in all states.

Today's question comes from Ian in Louisiana.

My partner and I recently had our first kid before we were together.

I used to save money like crazy.

Fast forward to now, and I realize she has a massive amount of credit card debt and student loan debt. She also has a mortgage on her house that's very high.
She has a job, makes her payments fairly regularly, but there's no sense of urgency to pay anything off. For the first time in my life, I feel like I can't save any money because I'm trying to keep her and our household afloat.
I don't know if there's a situation. I don't know if there's a solution, but there's a resentment building in me and I don't know what to do.
Well, this goes back to what we were talking about in an earlier segment last hour of playing house and just trying to do life together. It's not working.
Yep, it's not working because, I mean, I don't know if there know if there's a solution well you guys are living together and you have a baby maybe you get married and go to about seven marriage seminars or a lot of therapy yeah and or yeah yeah and start working together as a team and all of a sudden stuff starts moving and happening but this whole idea of just trying to play like we are married and we're doing life together, but we're not really. And because of that, she has these over here.
I have this over. You can't build a life together.
You just can't. You can make a human together, but you can't seem to pay your bills together.
Well, I mean, seriously. I mean hey she has a house you don't that's a good point yeah you know so i mean so what would i do if i were in your shoes i'll stop all the sarcasm it's hard for me but i will stop it for for a moment it's a it's a spiritual gift but i'll stop it for a moment okay what would i actually do if I sat down with you and was not just poking fun at you? I would say, young man, the best thing you can do for this young lady, for you, and for this baby, for your future, the highest probability of you being able to have a quality life and build wealth is for you to get married.
as a part of getting married, sit down with a good marriage counselor

and act like you're doing pre-marriage counseling. It's too late, but you need to do pre-marriage counseling and start learning to work together.
I would put you into our class, Financial Peace University, where you both have a point of discussion about debt, about budgeting, about living on a plan for our future. But you're hovering around the fringes of this, throwing grenades back at her, and she's been doing the best she knows how to do while you stand on the outside looking in.
And it's time for you to step up. You made a baby.
So step up, take care of business, be a man. And the two of you sit down together, get married, and start planning a future together.
And then you have footing to have a discussion about, honey, I need to be – it's very important for the future of our child and the future of our marriage that we are on the same page on getting out of debt, on the same page on spending, on the same page on saving money and investing for the future of this child, on the same page with money in general. And we've got to spend some time and effort on that.
It's time for us both to do adulting stuff. And I've let you down to this point, but I'm not going to anymore.
And I would be very proactive in that discussion and in that part of your relationship and then and only then do you have the footing relationally legally everything else to bring her to the table and have a discussion a serious adult discussion about let's let's both be grown-ups and let's get this mess cleaned up um so but uh yeah that that's what i would do Now, i don't know if you're going to do any of that i kind of doubt it actually and so i think this is going to if you don't i'll go ahead and tell you what's going to happen you're both going to struggle and this kid is in a world of hurt because its parents are nuts that's that's what's really going to happen if you don't fix this so So it's going to be a long hard life and so but you can turn it around lots of people turn it around they just make a decision today i'm going to change and you think that's the beautiful thing about human behavior you can just look at it and decide that stuff that's simple dave is in phoenix hey dave how are you? Doing well, thanks. How about yourself? Better than I deserve.
How can I help? Yeah, so my wife and I were hoping to gain perspective around our financial situation and whether it's reasonable for us to start thinking about scaling back from, you know, a traditional nine to five situation. How old are you? 39.
We're both late thirties. Okay.
And what's your net worth? It's around 2.8 million. Way to go.
Great job. What is it you want to do with your life? Well, you know, maybe.
I hope you're not going to tell me to sit on your butt. Yeah, you know, do nothing.
Yeah, I mean, we've been, you know, we've put off traveling. We've been together for about eight years, and, you know, that's something that we wanted to do.
And so I know that you can travel and still work and stuff. And we would still want to work and earn an income.
What do y'all do for a living now? Yeah, so she does hair, you know, kind of like hair and makeup stuff. And then I do online stuff, e-commerce stuff.
So you don't have a 9 to 5? Yeah, that's it. That's a nine-to-five.
It's nine-to-five. You do e-commerce in your living room? Mm-hmm.
Is it flexible, or you have to be on the clock at nine with your job? You work for somebody else? I do, yeah. Oh.
I work for a company, so I'm employed. Oh, I misunderstood.
And is she on her own? Does she freelance or is she working like for an agency?

So she does a chair rental, but she's still a regular client, so she services.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right.

So where did the $2.8 million come from?

Just like 20 years of being frugal and working hard.

I thought you said you were 30. 39.
39. Almost 40.
39. Yeah, basically 40.
Okay. Yep.
And then there was some liquidation of some stocks and that sort of stuff. Is your house...
It's broken up between... I'm sorry? Is the 2.8 include your home? No.
So we actually rent, uh funny enough but the 2.8 is broken down between

there's about 1.8 in cash that sits in like cds and high interest savings accounts

why there's about a million in uh what do you have 1.8 in high yield savings

i don't know i don't either maybe you go buy a house dave

yeah no i'm serious i mean let's say you made 3% on that and you could have made 12. 9% of millions, $90,000 a year you're losing.
So, yeah, you need to get that invested. That's a sidebar, though.
So you need to get with a SmartVestor Pro and sit down and start laying out an investment game plan. But, yes, you could start doing freelance with your skills from the road, from your laptop, and you guys can travel, and your wife could go to two weeks a month and you guys could travel, and your income wouldn't drop that much.
What I don't want you to do is do nothing because it's not good for the soul yeah your soul your soul is better when you are serving you're happier when you find some way to add value to someone else's life and just going around the world and collecting margaritas doesn't do that might for a year yeah it does not it does not do that it does somewhere around the somewhere around the 11th day it starts to go away i'll tell cabo dave that i'm just telling you cabo dave cabo i'm speaking from experience somewhere around the 11th day but i'm still i'm still plugged in when i'm in cabo but you are you are anyway the this idea that we completely retire and kick back at 39 years old and have no gainful anything is not a good plan.

But you guys can shift what you've been doing.

You can change how you're doing it, though.

Yeah, for sure.

And I would.

I definitely would.

And I would get a house, Dave.

And get a house and get that money invested.

Yeah.

Great job, though.

Well done to both you and your wife.

Yeah.

Incredible.

Great job.

Incredible.

Young millionaire. Mm-hmm.
Wow. It's amazing.
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Listen, guys, I've heard just about every excuse for why folks think they can't get ahead with money. So let's go ahead and settle this right now.
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Jennifer is in Seattle. Hi, Jennifer.
Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hi, thank you.

What's up?

So Jennifer is in Seattle. Hi, Jennifer.
Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, thank you.

What's up? So my husband and I moved back to my hometown about a year and a half ago with our four kids. We purchased a pizzeria that was failing.
We basically purchased assets because no processes, employees. We had to change everything.
And my question is, do we continue or do we close? We are currently, we have cut all costs, you know, cost of goods are down, all of that. Why was it failing and why is it failing? Great question.
It was failing because it was, the previous owner was using expired products. The culture of the employees was toxic.
So we were able to turn all that. We turned the culture and we're slowly going upward, but we made mistakes in the beginning that basically have us by the throat.
My husband and I are not taking a wage, so we're basically off tips. We almost lost our house last year.
We can't pay our taxes, but I don't know what to do. We don't feel like this is forever.
I'm ready to move on, to be honest, but I don't know what the wise decision would be. And the one person that I wanted wisdom from was you in this arena.
It's been rough.

It's scary.

You work your fingers to the bone, then you've got bony fingers.

100%.

Yeah.

It's no fun.

Okay.

Here's what you need to do.

You guys need to have a logical reason to chart an increase in profits forecasted over the coming 12 months. Okay, so like for instance, what were your profits three months ago for the month?

Profits.

We haven't been, to be honest, we've been just slowly going backwards.

So you're not moving up?

No, no, no.

We're not in the profit arena. I think, I guess, my statement about moving forward is, you know, we're losing less and less.

So I guess we are not. We are month to month, yeah.
So you're not profitable. We're not, no.
And we took advice from a business owner we trusted. We've never been in business.
We were debt-free when we moved here. And we didn't know.
You know what you don't know, you don't know. So how much debt do you have? All sorts of stuff.
We a lot, uh, personal credit cards. We have 37,000.
Uh, we were slapped with an $8,000 penalty from LNI from an employee that we inherited. Uh, we didn't know, um, we had to fire our, uh, accountant.
So, you know, that gets all put on me and we owe like 15,000 to the DOR and then we purchased the business by an owner contract. So we owe him about $115,000.
$115,000 or $15,000 to the DOR. And then we purchased the business by an owner contract.

So we owe him about $115,000.

$115,000 or $50,000?

Sorry, $115,000.

$115,000.

$115,000.

$115,000.

Yeah.

So you didn't have any cash when you started?

We had a little bit from the sale of our house where we came from.

And we put everything here. What did you used to do for a living before you moved there? We were pastors.
We did fine. We took your glass.
We taught it. It was great.
And we've actually encountered three personal traumas within like a six-month period after everything started to fall apart.

So our mind space is not in a good spot.

And, you know.

So we're stuck.

There's two things that determine when you walk away. Number one thing you determine is when you're out of gas.
And I don't know where your husband is, but you're out of gas. I'm out of gas.
Yeah. You ain't got any fight left.
Your fight all left. No, and I'm super strong.
I didn't say you're not strong. I said you're out of gas.
It's a different thing. You can have a car that is very powerful, but when it's out of gas, it sits.
It doesn't matter how strong. It doesn't matter how many horsepower the engine generates.
It's out of gas. So, yeah.
The second thing is Henry Cloud wrote a wonderful book called Necessary Endings.

Henry's a good friend and one of the best writers, I think, on the planet on these kinds of things. And he says in anything, whether it's a job, a business, a relationship, whatever, you have a necessary ending when you lose hope logically that the future is getting better.
A crazy example, in other words, that has nothing to do with your story, would be like if you're married to an alcoholic and they promise they're going to get better, they promise they're going to go to rehab, they crash, they go to rehab, they crash, they go to rehab, and you finally go, I don't think this is going to get better. This has to end, and you end the relationship with the alcoholic.
Okay? That's an example. Okay.
In business, it would be I can't see logically a business way out. I don't see how this is going to turn a profit before we all starve to death over here.
Right. We're close.
Yeah. And I don't hear the profits coming.
coming i mean if you told me there's some kind of a uh a chart with the profits and it was hockey stick up and to the right and we were just at the bottom of the hockey stick but we're heading up that's a plausible hopeful thing that we could reach and get a hold of but so far i haven't heard that you guys even know how to make a profit with a pizzeria. So what are, can you sell the assets like they were sold to you? I think so, yeah.
We for sure have a contract, and we've thought about that. We actually reached out to a real estate agent.
Yeah. If they would just take over your contract with the, if they would just take over your contract with the former owner, that would be a win.
Okay. And then you go clean up the credit card debt.
You go clean up the 8K, the 15K. You can do that when you get jobs again.
Yeah. Right.
But that 115, if someone else can take that over, is what you're saying. Yeah.
The contract of the business. Yeah.
If the former owner that you owe money, the 115 to, would agree to let someone else take over and release you from liability on that contract, and that's all you get for the business, I'm going to call that a win. Me too.
Okay. Yeah.
We'll be having a party. Yeah.
Yeah. And then you go have to fight through the rest of the debt.
How hard is that to sell? It's not that hard at all. I don't know what assets are here, but you've got a pizza oven.
You've got restaurant goods. You've got somewhat of leasehold improvements.
I assume you're leasing the building. Correct.
Yeah, we're in a big grocery store on a popular highway to the beach. Yeah, but you don't own the real estate.
estate. No.
No. Okay.
But you've got this location and the lease would be assignable as a part of this too. And you could get out of that.
Yeah. So if you can assign the debt to the former owner and assign the lease and call that a day, I'm probably taking it because I think you're out of gas and I don't think you see your way to sunshine.
I don't. Yeah.
I don't, I don't hear it. Would your husband agree, Jennifer? Does he feel this too? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
And we are, we're loyal. We don't quit.
We just keep going. But listen, winners quit all the time.
We quit doing stuff that's stupid. And, and beating your head against the wall, you know, you quit doing stupid stuff stuff i quit doing stupid stuff all the time i quit all time it's called experimenting i found something that didn't work the hypothesis didn't play okay and your hypothesis in this didn't play you guys go get some jobs and get get your emotional sanity back your spiritual sanity back and you can actually relax and lay your head on the pillow again.
You've been through hell. I can hear it.
I'm letting this thing go. If you can get it sold,

I'm going to work real hard to get it sold in the next 90 days and get my life back

and then go back into the pastor or go back into something else. What if one night could change your future? You don't have to stay trapped in the same old patterns that have left you stuck in your money, relationships, and your life.
You can break the cycles that have kept you from moving forward. Dr.
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Krista's in Asheville, North Carolina. Hi, Krista.
Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Oh, my gosh.
Hi. Hi.
What's up?

So I was calling because I have some questions about how to combine my finances with my fiancé.

We're getting married in 12 days.

Yay!

Yay!

I know you guys really preach, you know, combining your assets and finances, and I really want to do that.

Unfortunately, my fiancé is really just kind of crushed by student debt, and he recently had a loan go to collections last week, and so that kind of turned our world upside down, and now I'm not sure how to move forward with combining our assets. How much student loan debt does he have? Oh, he has around $80,000.
And what does he make? He makes $22 an hour. Why? So he's a physical therapist assistant, and he went to a private university outside, out of state.
So he really just collected quite a bit during that time. And the loan that went to collections was $10,000.

You can make $25 an hour at Target.

Yes.

He actually just had an application yesterday.

He's moving on to a different job and has a lot of work.

Is his degree in physical therapy?

Yes.

How much more was he making?

Wait a minute.

Did he get his PT?

He has his PTA.

Oh, for assistance online.

Thank you. so how much is he is he wait a minute did he get his pt he has his ppa oh for assistance yeah and pt assistants don't make but 22 or he just has the world's worst job i don't know what they make a pt generally makes in 70 or 80 grand no he makes an average of about after taxes he makes about 42 000 a year um i a year.
But I mean, that's the market for a PT assistant with a PT assistant certification. Well, that sucks.
Yeah. I wouldn't pay money to get that degree.
I know. And I mean, we've moved on from that.
He's looking at new jobs with great prospects. We're excited about that.
That's good. What are those going to pay? Do you know? More than 42?

Yeah. So the first year he'll be making around $26 an hour, but after the first year he'll bump up to about 39.
Okay. And what do you make?

I'm self-employed, so I make my monthly amount kind of ranges every month, but I average about $4,000 to $5,000 a month. Profit, taxable income? After everything, it really kind of drops down to about $38,000 a month.
So you're not making any money either. Yeah.
How long have you had this business? This is my second year in business. Okay.
Is it growing? Yes. Good.
It needs to. Okay, good.
Good. Because, I mean, if you're going to run your own business, it's hard work because As you've noticed, you want to make more than minimum freaking wage.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Okay.

Good.

Because, I mean, you're pouring on the coals, girl, to do what you're doing.

I can tell.

All right.

So you're going to have a household income of approaching $100,000.

Why can we not pay off $80,000 in debt?

$100,000?

Where are you getting that?

He's going to $39 an hour. In a year.
She's in a year she's making 40 yeah that's where i got that well in a year though okay but i mean why can you not pay off you can first you could not be in collections and get current on the payments and then you could just pay the stinking thing off in the next year and a half two years so that's kind of what i'm asking um advice wise I really want to set up our first year of marriage for success. You know, I really want to tackle this debt.
Yeah, exactly. Unfortunately, for this to make sense, I kind of have to give you a really quick backstory about our past year and why we're in this situation.
I live in Swannanoa, North Carolina, and I live in one of the neighborhoods that was completely wiped out in the flood. Our home is still standing, but it needs some repairs.
And shortly after that, about three months later, we had both of our cars' converters stolen out of them, rendering us with no cars to get to and from work, so I had to take out two additional loans earned cars.

Why don't you get a converter and put it in?

It's illegal for a California emissions Prius to have an aftermarket pardon, so insurance

drove them off as total losses, gave us $800 and said sorry.

And obviously, $800 is not enough money to buy a car, so I bought my... If they write it off as a total loss, they have to give you the entire value of the car.
Right. Which they deemed at $800.
I don't care what they deem it to be. It wasn't $800 before the convertitor got stolen.
I agree. You have to go back and fight your insurance claim.
You got screwed. I know.
I, so you own the house that got gutted? Yes, and our house is not gutted. It's still standing, and it's completely paid off.
Are you living in it? Yes. Okay.
But it still has damage from the floods? It does have some damage. It needs a new roof on our property.
It has our house and it has my trailer in the backyard, which is where I hold all my inventory for my business. And it needs a new roof because things are leaking all over my merchandise, which is going to cost around $8,000.
So honestly, I'm trying to figure out what do I tackle first. Do I pay off these car loans, the trailer roof, or do I immediately start tackling these loans? Are you doing your business online? I have a storefront and I have business online, but one of my stores got completely wiped out in the flood as well.
So that's kind of where my… Where's the bulk of your business coming from, online or storefront? Storefront. Rent a storage, a mini storage, even if it's inconvenient because you don't have $8,000 for roof and you can't let your inventory get ruined so move your junk move your junk okay and uh then start saving money and then what you've got to do is you have to prioritize the um you have to prioritize these issues okay we have a roof we have car issues we have um uh a on the house issue, and we have $80,000.
This has nothing to do with why you called, by the way. You still are going to combine your finances because you've combined your life, and you've got as much mess as he's got.
When your roof is leaking all over your inventory, that's probably worse than being behind on your student loans.

So,

you know,

you've got,

you guys are sitting,

you both are walking into crisis upon crisis.

So you just got to prioritize.

How do you eat an elephant a bite at a time?

So let's force rank what we're doing with these things.

Let's work our butts off.

And every dollar we can squeeze goes to force rank.

Number one,

every dollar we squeeze goes to force rank.

Number two,

after that.

And,

uh,

so I'll help you get current current on the student loans, one. Move the stuff to mini storage.
Then number two, build the roof and bring the stuff back out of mini storage. Number three, upgrade your cars and get moving again on those.
Just do something like that and you lay it down. And you guys have got enough money combined if you both get in gear and both work 27 hours a day i mean you're just going to be working like maniacs to clean this mess up and um how much you guys own the cars as much as it is an actual mess um how much you guys have on the cars i have a twelve thousand dollar loan on my car and he has a seven thousand dollar loan on his okay those cars were worth more than $800.
I don't understand how you accepted $800. I would not have accepted that.
If you're going to total my car, the policy says you have to pay the whole bill, the value of the car. And so you may need to contact an attorney and go back and fight this insurance company on this.
But what they're doing is they're trying to dodge anything in your area on claims because they've gotten slaughtered on claims in your area. And so they're screwing people.
It's a state farm. Yeah, I appealed it and I reported it to the state agency.
Unfortunately, my claim was just kind of denied. So I was given a final offer of $800 again, and they said that was the best.
Yeah, I can give you a final offer. I'm going to sue your butt, State Farm.
Is that who it is? No, it's a local company based in Asheville. Okay, yeah.
I'm going to file suit on them for For $15,000 or $20,000, I'm going to give them a hard time. So you've just got some things like this.
You've got to line out some stress points and decide, okay, this month we're going to attack this one. This month we're going to attack this one.
The other possibility is load up everything and leave and go somewhere else and rent a house and start your lives with careers and your storefront in a new location and sell the property.

And that'll clean up a bunch of the debt.

That's a possibility, too.

Hey, what are you still doing here? You know the rest of the show is happening on the Ramsey Network app, right? So you got to jump over there to continue watching. You can download it for free.
Just go to your app store, type in Ramsey Network. It's completely free.
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So jump onto the app and let the fun continue.

All right, go on now.

Don't make it weird.

Okay, I got nowhere to go, so you need to go.

Okay, bye-bye now.

All right, this is getting weird over there, guys.