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From the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people

build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships.

Dr.

John Deloney, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, PhD in counseling, and host of the really popular Dr.

John Deloney Show on the Ramsey Networks.

Be sure and check it out.

He's my co-host today.

The phone number here, triple 8-825-5225.

Derek is in North Carolina.

Hi, Derek.

Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Good afternoon.

How are y'all doing today?

Better than we deserve, sir.

How can we help you?

All right.

So I'm 24.

I live in North Carolina.

I'm about $151K in debt.

I currently work at full-time,

working, sorry, making about $32 an hour.

I commute to work and back from work about two hours every day.

Wow.

And I am.

That's weird.

I have an agreement with my father that I can live at home completely for free.

Where I work down there, I would be losing quite a bit of money to pay off my debt

if I were to live down there instead.

So

I take the time to commute.

What's this $150,000 in debt, brother?

So

probably

two-thirds of that is a parent-plus loan.

I had made an agreement with my dad before anything was taken to take the debt out

and that I would pay him back in full for that.

And the rest of it is my student loans.

So it's all student loans?

I take that back.

About 4,000 of it is car loan.

Okay.

All right.

And

you had originally promised when it was all done to pay the parent-plus loan.

So morally, that is yours.

I got that.

And good for you.

So what's your degree in?

Yeah, so one thing I'm a little embarrassed by is that I went for a software engineering degree out of state, and I have heard

the rant about that, that that

was probably not the best use of my money.

But here I am.

Do you have a software engineering degree?

Yes.

Oh, good.

Okay.

Why are you only making 50 grand?

So

after I graduated last year in May, I spent

most of the rest of the summer and fall probably sending out about 600-something applications, and it was, I barely got anything back.

I tried every single

reference that I knew, and eventually I was reached out to by a company that basically

I work as a contractor

for a company that contracts me out to a bank,

and it's a junior software engineering

job.

Now, if you were to take a quiz with us and you were coming on board here, would you come out of Dev 1 or Dev 2 or Dev 3?

If I were to guess, probably Dev 1.

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

How can we best help you today, sir?

I believe that.

I'm just, I'm very stressed.

I've been dealing with a lot of things in life lately, and my debt is really stressing me out.

And

I think my own calculations, I think, have been incorrect about how long it'll be to pay off.

But

I'm just very stressed that I'm not going to

be able to do really anything with my twenties.

And I'll be kind of just stuck doing nothing but paying debt off.

And

that will be part of it.

That's going to be part of it.

Why does it say on my screen that you told our phone screener you were struggling with an an addiction?

Oh, I apologize.

I didn't know how best to put that in there.

I have been struggling with a pornography addiction and masturbation addiction for a very long time.

And I didn't mention that as much because I actually, just last week,

just in the last few weeks, I should say, I've been

a Ramsey-affiliated development coach actually reached out to me, and I've actually been getting help with that.

Good.

So hopefully,

I have been doing much better lately on that, but that is.

How much are you spending on that?

It was probably

on and off, depending on a month or whatever.

That addiction was kind of

helping drive me to do maybe 30 to 50 months.

Not very, not a lot, and it wasn't like all the time.

30 to 50, what?

Dollars, sorry.

A month?

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

Sounds unbelievable.

It would be low.

Yes.

I was starting to get to the point of that sort of.

Okay.

All right.

The numbers that you're giving me, I would agree with you that you're going to be in debt a long time.

So there's something needs to change.

Because life is not a snapshot.

Your life is not going to stay exactly the way it is today with the exact same income and the exact same debt for the next eight years.

Something will change and it'll get worse or it'll get better.

So let's be proactive and let's cause it to get better.

You don't make much for a Dev1.

Dev1 ought to be running 70, 80 grand.

Okay?

And so let's start on the income side.

When you just send out applications in the digital world, you are sending them out into nothing.

No one looks at them.

We hired about 150 people at Ramsey last year.

We had 15,000 applications

because people just send in stuff,

they just send stuff randomly or they buy some software that sends it to everybody.

And we don't even look at those.

We don't have time to go through them all.

And that's what happened to your 600 applications.

No one saw it.

So the way you fix that is you use Ken Coleman's material and you begin to find some people in the software world, in the development world, and you begin to connect with them and you you find, or you see a job over at this certain location that's paying 75 or 80, and then you start asking yourself, who do I know that works over there, even if they're not in the software, that can help me get my foot in the door?

Who do I know that knows somebody that works over there that will help me get my foot in the door, even if it's a two degrees of separation?

And that's called the proximity principle.

I'm going to send you Ken's book on that.

And I want you to go to kencoleman.com and look at his resume and his letter writing templates that are all free there for you to look look at.

And I want you to look for a job.

Your job sucks.

It does not pay enough and it's too far away.

I agree.

Okay.

I do have a question about that job.

So

it is sort of a type of, it's not a guaranteed, but it is potentially a work to hire thing to where if I who wants to be hired at this.

It's two hours away and it doesn't pay enough.

Why do I want to be hired?

If they're going to pay you 80 grand and you move down there, okay.

But I ain't driving two hours anyway.

My house is 12 minutes from here.

No way I'm spending my life in my car.

Not for a little bit of rent money.

But we got to get your income up before you start bailing out on your dad's generous offer.

But let's get your income up and then, and your living situation up, and you keep working on your addiction issues, and you'll begin to work through this gradually.

But you you got to get the income up from working more, side jobs, side hustles, side contracts, in addition to working a full-time Dev1, Dev2 job.

And yeah, but if you can get a great bump in pay, move down there.

Yeah, I'll take the job.

But we don't want to make this bad deal permanent.

Statistics show that half of Americans don't have enough life insurance, or they don't have any at all.

I don't understand this, John.

Why don't people want to take care of their family?

They think they're going to die or something.

Well, I used to be one of those guys, I didn't even think about it.

And one of my buddies said, Hey, the only reason to not have life insurance is if you hate your wife and kids.

And I immediately went and got term life insurance.

That's a gut punch.

And oh, you're telling me, and for decades, Dave, I've sat across people who've lost a spouse.

They've lost somebody important to them.

Me too.

They don't know what to do next.

Me too.

I mean, you're going to have a crisis here.

And, you know, you got two options while you're sitting and talking to a young widow.

She's concerned about how she's going to invest all this money properly and not mess this up, or she's concerned how she's going to eat tomorrow.

That's exactly.

These are the two options.

And terminal.

Take care of your dadgum family, man.

Term life insurance can replace income, pay off debts, cover funeral expenses, so your family can actually have the opportunity to just be sad.

Yeah.

To just miss you.

That's exactly what it's supposed to be.

It's saying I love you to your family.

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Natasha is in Chicago.

Hi, Natasha.

How are you?

Hi, Dave.

I'm good.

How are you?

Better than I deserve.

What's up?

So I've been waiting for you and Dr.

John for this phone call.

I need help choosing a beneficiary for my will and estate and avoiding a fight at my Monty Python meeting.

Hmm.

Sounds like a fight is a brewing.

Well, given the dynamics of my family, yes, I'm predicting one could happen.

Okay, so tell us about the players and what's going on.

I have a sister that is three years older than me with a learning disability who doesn't understand, but doesn't quite grasp the concept of money and time.

I have three older siblings who are in their adult years with kids.

I'm the youngest.

My dad is 66,

and my mom passed away 10 months ago in October.

Okay.

You're not married and don't have kids.

You're not married and don't have kids.

No,

I'm single.

Okay.

So you're the baby and

you're how old?

I just turned 31.

Okay.

And what is the extent of your wealth?

I'm almost done with baby step three.

I have a $500,000 life insurance policy.

That's term.

I have a car that currently has both me and my dad on it.

I have bank accounts that have two names on them and a retirement package at about $59,000.

Whose name is on the bank accounts?

My dad's philosophy was: in case something were to happen to me, he wouldn't have a fight at the courthouse with getting my money.

So he

has equal access to your bank account.

It's just his name on it.

He doesn't log in or do anything with it.

But he can.

He's one of the owners.

He can, but he doesn't.

Okay.

He just put that on there in case I were to drop dead.

Yeah.

Well, there's a thing called P.O.D.

paid on death that does the same thing

without him being an owner of the account.

So you did that wrong.

But anyway.

So what is the fight about?

I mean, there's half million dollars.

You have a half million dollars in life insurance.

Why?

Who's counting on your income to eat?

No one.

I kept kept hearing

get a term life insurance policy.

Not if you don't have anybody counting on you.

You need enough money laying around to bury you so you're not a burden, but you don't need to leave somebody a half a million dollars.

So probably going to save that money.

You've got enough money to bury you, right?

Almost 10 grand.

That's my baby step three, which will be done in one to two months.

Yeah, okay.

And that's your burial, that and the car is being sold, and whatever's in your bank account will bury you.

And that's the big deal.

You said you own a house?

No, I'm renting.

Okay.

Is this for your estate?

Like if you were to pass away suddenly,

you think there'd be a fight over who gets your life insurance money?

Or is this about your father's estate?

No, it's about me.

I'm worried that with whoever I pick, because I don't want to choose a family member, that they're going to fight me on it, saying that family comes first before anybody else.

Well, honey, there's not much there.

Yeah.

And they don't get a vote.

You'll be gone.

If we get a car

and a little bit of money in a bank account that's used to bury you, you don't own a house.

We're getting rid of the life insurance policy.

There's not really anything to fight about here.

Okay?

Okay.

I just worry about them arguing because I'm going to do what you do.

I don't think you need to.

I don't think you need to have a big meeting about it.

I think you just,

you know, you can designate whoever you you want to leave this to.

That's the issue is I don't know who to leave it to.

Okay.

Who do you plan?

What was your plan?

A close friend.

Okay.

Then leave it to them.

And you need to take your dad off all the stuff then because he's going to scarf it all upon your death.

Okay.

And just put paid on death POD and just have a will that the car goes to the close friend.

And

you don't really, you know, and then you can just say, Hey guys, I don't have a lot, and what little I got, I'm gonna leave to this friend over here.

I just want to let y'all know, and you can just tell them that and a casual conversation.

There's not a big need here.

Do you struggle with anxiety in other parts of your life?

Yeah, okay,

Dr.

John, you may remember me.

I called in a year ago saying that my family was pressuring me to not rent and get a mobile home.

Well,

a clever definition of anxiety is a potential future worry that you drag back and try to fight with it in the present.

And so for whatever it's worth, you can take it from me and Dave.

You're 31 years old.

Statistically, you're not even close to halfway done with your life yet.

And you've got a long way to go.

And so if you're like most Americans, you've got enough to worry about just day in and day out.

I would not put this on my list of things I need to worry about today.

who gets your car when you die is probably not a big thing to worry about.

Yeah.

Realistically, what I want to do is, because I don't want my family to have any of this, I was just going to say, hey, donate my car to charity.

That's fine, or whatever you want.

But do a will that says that.

And then if it comes up or if you want to casually mention it, it's fine.

But I'm with John.

I'd be worrying about other stuff.

Where we see people run into problems.

What do you worry about, believe me?

Well, Natasha, where we see people run into problems, and we always tell people to have this Monty Python meeting, the I'm Not Dead Yet meeting, is

if you had three or four kids and you were going to leave one of your kids out of that will,

you want them, when you pass, to be mad at you, not mad at their siblings.

But you don't have that same situation.

So if your siblings want to badmouth you when you're gone,

you won't have to hear it.

You won't be disrupting anyone else's relationship by your being scared to have a conversation now.

Yeah.

I just wouldn't lose sleep over it, man.

You're doing a good job.

You're in baby step three.

You're getting there.

You are taking care of your life.

I would echo Dave here.

It seems that you don't want anything to do with your family, yet your dad has some strange hooks in your life.

And if you want to be done with your family for whatever reasons,

I would go ahead and go all the way and take him off the account.

Just have at least some reasonable boundaries because

these accounts and car title things are boundary violations.

Ray's in Nashville.

Hey, Ray, what's up?

Hey, how's it going?

Better than I deserve.

How can I help?

Well, so I'll give you a little backstory here.

So I'm 23

and I actually just moved down here from Vermont back in March.

And I just finished saving up my

emergency fund.

Good.

I have no debt.

Good.

No debt whatsoever.

And

yeah.

So, what's your question, right?

Looking, well, my question is:

I want to buy a house in like the Franklin Thompson Station or Spring Hill area or even Columbia.

What do you make of it?

Well, only 65.

You just chose the 11th wealthiest county in the nation.

Yeah.

I'll bet you do.

Expensive place to buy a house.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You're probably going to Murray County, my friend.

Yeah, I guess.

I mean,

where you can find something you can afford.

Yeah, I've been looking at the market for a while and

skyrocketing around here.

So, yeah.

But

Cork has a list of tech moguls and country music stars that own it.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, I mean, it's beautiful out there, but there's a reason, yeah.

So if I'm you, I'm going to go a little further south and get something I can afford.

You're 23.

You've got plenty of time.

You know, it's not going to be your last house.

I can promise you that.

So you've done a good job staying debt-free and you're saving you up some money.

Good.

Yeah, I'm just going to move into a marketplace that, because

when you make $65,000, it's just really, really difficult to buy in that county.

It's,

you know, the math, the math just doesn't work.

Hardly, I mean, there might be a little corner here or there or something that could be done, but it's the

median house price in there would be

roughly double of the nation's median house price.

And don't be a 23-year-old who, man, is debt-free, but then is so desperate to get a house,

gets themselves way over their head when it comes to buying a house that you can't afford.

Yeah, take your time and do it right.

Do it smart.

And if you're a little bit further out, hey, the market's going to come to you.

Don't worry about it.

I'm old.

I've watched it come to me several times.

What I thought was out in the country is downtown now.

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Lorraine is with us in Arizona.

Hi, Lorraine.

How are you?

I'm doing well.

How are you guys doing?

Better than I deserve.

What's up?

My question is more of a what would Dave and Dr.

John do?

So I'm currently on baby step three with $5,000 in savings.

My income is $64,800 a year.

We have our house on the market for $405,000,

6.24% interest rate.

We owned the house for less than two years.

The new bills around us is selling for $350,000, and they're offering really good interest rates.

So I don't know how we will compete.

We may be coming to the table with,

we'll have to bring money to the table to close.

Recently divorced after 24 years of marriage, and the house that I'm staying in is 51% of my monthly budget.

And in October, it's going to go up $200 because of taxes.

What's the house?

What is I owe on the house?

We owe $393.

We don't own it.

Why do we owe $393 after a divorce?

I guess you do, right?

Well, we still co-own it, so we co-own the property.

Well, why is he not co-paying it?

He's moved out, so he's in an apartment.

I thought you said you got a divorce.

Are you in the process of a divorce or the divorce is final?

The divorce is final.

He's in an apartment, and

I'm in the house.

I got that.

So the divorce decree has you paying a bill you can't afford?

Right.

Is there any, where are you going to get the money if you have to bring money to the table?

That is the what would Dave and Dr.

John do?

I don't understand the divorce decree.

Is the divorce decree that you're going to get why did yeah, why did you sign up for a divorce decree that said I'm going to pay the payments until this house that we can't pay, that we can't sell sells?

So

we're explaining the difference.

So let's say, for example, if his rent is $2,200, then I apply $2,200 to the mortgage, and we split the difference.

But with it going up, now it's even more.

So what did you exactly get in this divorce decree?

Is there any asset?

Did y'all get anything but problems?

Just problems that we have to uncouple.

So you got debt.

This is all you got.

There's no money in the divorce.

Yes, we have debt.

Yes.

We also have a house in Florida that we're that with a property manager and we're renting.

And that lease ends May of next year and we're hoping that the renters will buy the property.

But there's equity in that property.

What is that house worth?

So it's around probably $375.

We owe around $320.

on that property, but the same issue is happening there.

New bills in the area is offering low interest rates and the prices is less.

Okay, I can help you with that one.

I'm not waiting until next year.

I'm going to offer it to the tenant now

and get rid of that house.

I don't know what you're doing with a Florida house when you're broke, Florida rental house.

Right.

So you need to get rid of that house now.

Both of them need to go now is the answer to your question.

And wouldn't it be cool if you got enough equity out of the Florida house if they bought it right now to cover the hole that you're in in Arizona?

We have reached out to the property manager and they're talking with them, but they need to make sure that they qualify.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

The property manager has a vested interest in this not selling so that the property manager can continue to collect property management fees on a renter.

They don't get any, unless the property manager is getting a commission on the sale, are they?

He's going to facilitate both, which is kind of weird.

So do I reach out to the private sector?

Yeah.

I don't want them squirreling this sale.

Okay, so reach out to the renter myself.

Yeah.

Okay.

I don't even mind paying the property manager or the real estate commission.

That's fine.

I'm not trying to cut them out.

I'm just trying to make sure a sale occurs.

You need to get out of this house.

That would be amazing.

Yeah.

And if you got enough money out of that, wouldn't that be cool to cover the hole that you're in in Arizona?

And then, boom, we're gone.

We're done.

Right.

We're done with both properties.

That's going to be my plan.

That's what that's that's plan A.

Any other blind spots or any other?

Yeah.

Um,

I don't know uh

I'm not familiar with any market in Arizona that has

gotten in trouble like that

where they where the builders that's very weird I kind of think you're panicking in the middle of this because you're broke and so you're you're maybe dealing off of bad information I want you to get a real estate agent from the Ramsey Trusted Group in Arizona and have them come out and look at that house and let's see if we can get that house listed properly for what it will sell for.

I mean, if everything else in the neighborhood is going for $350,000 and you've got it listed for $405, well, nobody's going to do that.

But if there's some kind of a difference between your house and those houses, lot size or attributes of the house or something like that that justifies the difference, then that's a different thing.

But an agent should not list a property $50,000 over valuation, especially when it's a divorce and they need to get rid of the stinking house.

We need to price it in such a way that it sells.

So you need to get another agent to look at that.

And I'm also going to contact a Ramsey trusted agent in Florida, if I'm you, and have someone outside the property management world look at this house and tell me what it's worth.

And, you know, even if you pay some commission out to, I don't mind paying people to do stuff as long as it gets done.

It's this thing where everybody's getting lined up to get a chunk of this deal and there's nothing here because nothing gets sold.

So I need both of these properties gone ASAP and you guys to move on with your lives.

This is rough.

Yeah, the only thing I can think of, Dave, is if there's a HELOC on that property or something.

But I've never heard of a divorce decree where

somebody quote-unquote gets the house, but then it's my job to turn on and sell it because I can't afford it.

And that's not a win.

It would have been a better decision.

The job is we carry the house together that we bought together until it's sold together but if if that would be normal ex-husband decides he needs a $2,200 a month apartment and we're going to deduct that from what he's paying in this then he can go get himself a live in the back of somebody's house until we get this thing covered yeah yeah bad deal yeah just a bad deal all around bad idea yeah

yeah

good point i need a twenty two hundred dollar rent while I've got a house two houses right that I can't afford while my ex-wife and my kids can't can't eat

That's probably not a good plan.

Right.

Yeah.

Good point.

Good point.

Jason's in California.

Hi, Jason.

How are you?

I'm doing pretty good, Dave.

How about yourself?

Better than I deserve.

What's up?

So we recently had a few things kind of happen that have recently took out our emergency fund, and now we're finding ourselves in some debt.

And we, you know, we're very fortunate that we do have investments in retirement and some property and some

assets we can draw on to pay for it.

I was just thinking if there's anything else I should do

before we pull out money from investments to cover the debt.

By investments, you don't mean retirement accounts.

You just have money in the in like a brokerage account or something.

So we have a couple of things.

So one, we have we have some retirement accounts from Roth IRAs.

We have

about a little over 200, 200,000-ish.

I haven't checked.

We try not to look at it.

So we have about $200,000-ish in the retirement account.

About $85,000

in just straight investment accounts, so it's not a tax-advantaged account.

And then we have a rental property as well that we have to do.

And

what was the debt you took on and for what?

So we had some issues at the rental property that kind of creeped up on us and had to happen at once, and then a medical issue.

So right now we're looking at about 15K that we need to figure out.

We'll take it out of the 85.

Why would you borrow money when you got $85,000 sitting there?

So

yes.

I mean, at the time we were just like, well, we don't want to pull more money out and pay the extra taxes on it.

No, instead we'll pay interest to a stupid bank.

No, get it out of there and pay taxes on it and fix the debt and pay the dadgum debt off.

No, absolutely not.

And dude, I think this rental property is not a blessing.

It sounds like it's a curse.

You can't afford it.

well it you know it's great

you can't afford to do the repairs on it

no yeah it was poor planning on us we didn't have enough yeah set aside to like cover a surprise yeah uh well no it's not a surprise it's a rental property nothing on a rental property is a surprise it's guaranteed it's gonna happen so i think you probably need to sell the rental house because i think you got a rental house you owe more on it than you're not cash flowing enough to screw with the thing and you're walking around acting like you got an investment sounds to me like you got a mess over there but for sure don't borrow money to fix stuff like this when you got 85 grand laying over in a brokerage account.

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Well, I'm excited about this idea.

Have you ever wanted to watch us do this show in person?

Now, lots of people come, and we've always got 50 to 200 folks outside the window here.

We in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, our studios are on the glass, and so you can come and watch us do the show from 1 to 4 Central Time every weekday, Monday through Friday.

But here's an idea: we decided we're going to take the Ramsey show on tour.

So, we're going to take this show out,

put it in the theater, and let you guys come watch.

That's kind of fun.

We're going to do that this fall.

You can experience live QA, raw confessions, crowd debates, and a local debt-free screen.

It's all happening live in your town.

Rachel, Ken, and George will be doing the show in Chicago on September 30th.

Jay, John, and George will take the stage in Orlando on October 2nd.

Tickets are a whole $39.

And there's only 300 seats.

We keep it small.

You guys are going to be asking the questions.

We're not taking call-ins.

It'll be walking up to the mic, ask a question.

And this is the kind of thing that you don't get through the headphones.

You don't get this in your earbuds.

You're going to experience the whole thing with 300 of your closest friends.

So it's going to be a lot of fun.

You got to be there.

So again, Chicago, September 30th.

We're announcing this today.

These seats will be gone in a heartbeat.

They're only $39.

There's only 300 of them, okay?

So, and Orlando, October 2nd.

And grab your tickets at ramseysolutions.com slash the Ramsey Show Live.

Or you can click the link in the show notes, and we'll get you on there.

John, this is going to be fun.

Yeah, I can't wait.

It's going to be a blast.

It's my favorite thing to do is get on the road and tiny little theaters like this.

People asking questions, Q ⁇ A is going to be, it'll be off the rails a little bit.

Yeah, the only difference is we really can't screen your call that's right so if you're if you insist on being very weird it's probably going over the air so um you know we can't we can't help you we can't protect you from yourself you know so um where kelly might actually school you up if you called in here right now kelly would say don't do that that's weird you're gonna get yourself in trouble or she might say say that really loud because you're gonna get yourself in trouble but either way it could happen either way kayla is in canada hi kayla welcome to the show

hello i am a long time listener, but unfortunately, not a long time doer.

My husband and I started FPU over the weekend, and we are going all in on the Ramsey plan because our plan has sucked.

Fun.

We're in baby step two, and our only debt is a $55,000 personal loan to a family member.

And so due to a lot of why our plan has sucked, since we've been married, I've had a bit of trauma around money and basically have been squirreling away a ton of money in different savings, not a ton, but money in different savings accounts.

So it's been holding us back from paying off this loan because I can't let go of these savings.

And you know, we've decided as a couple that we're going to pay off from our savings, get it down to $1,000.

And so that's about $9,500.

Good for you.

Try something new if what you were doing wasn't working.

I like you.

Yeah, that's what we're going to do.

But my question is: we also have $8,000 that we've been setting aside every month

in our kids' savings account.

So

$8,000 a month every month.

Every total of $8,000.

Sorry, no, no, no, sorry.

Total of $8,000.

So in Canada, every month we get what they call a child benefit check.

It's based on your income and it's towards raising your kids.

And when we had our first daughter's two, when we had her, we decided we were going to put this money aside in the savings account and eventually invest it.

And it's not for education.

We want to save it until she's of age to buy a house because we live in a very expensive part of the world where what's your household income?

Our household income,

have it right here.

We have our take-home is $9,000 base pay a month.

And then my husband gets commission as well and it's been averaging about $1,500.

Okay.

And your question is whether to use the kids $8,000?

Yeah, do we throw that total?

No.

No.

Okay.

No.

Your brain's going to not like you, and your brain's going to wake you up in the middle of the night saying, you stole money from your children.

And you don't want your brain telling you that.

Not

for eight grand, okay?

Now, I got to tell you,

I would stop putting the child credit money in that account.

You are not ethically or morally bound to do that.

That money's for taking care of the kids.

And we put that in the budget because we take care of the kids.

So that's just part of the income of the family.

Just like child support, it's part of the income of the family.

Same thing.

It doesn't have to go into the kids' name.

It costs more than child support.

It costs more than you're getting from the government with this benefit to raise kids.

So,

you know, you're spending more than that anyway.

So just put it all into your budget, use the whole thing, and then lean into this.

And really, you're just getting started, and you're going to knock the remaining $44,000 out really quick, or $46,000 out really quick.

Yeah, that's the hope.

Well, Kayla, can I tell you something?

It's going to sound like I'm being mean, but I'm not.

I'm just, it's the pot talking to the kettle here, okay?

Yep.

Part of taking care of your kids is financial.

Part of taking care of your kids in your situation is you're an anxious mess and your house is electric, isn't it?

Yep.

Yes.

So part of taking care of your kids is saying that...

That anxiousness, that worry, that constant fretting, not sleeping, snapping at people that you love, you're going to do the work on yourself for that too.

Okay.

We're going to send you a copy of Building a Non-Axious Life by Donald Trump.

I've been there.

Okay.

I've actually listened to your book already, Dr.

Johnson.

So thank you.

Well, good.

I'm going to send you a hard copy also, just as our gift.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

You're going to do this, Kayla.

You're going to push all the way through.

You're just getting started.

But no, I don't tell folks to take money out of their children's accounts unless it means the only way the family can eat.

And that's definitely not the case for you guys.

And the $8,000 doesn't really even speed up the thing anyway.

You're going to do it so fast with your great income.

If you get this budget cranked down to beans and rice, you're going to be just fine.

You're going to be just fine.

Melissa's in Chicago.

Hi, Melissa.

How are you?

Hi, Dave.

Thank you for taking my call.

Sure.

How can I help?

So I'm 23 years old, and me and my sisters always have this

talk about when it comes to dating, how do we tell potential candidates that although we can financially support ourselves as we're doing right now that that's not necessarily what we want in a relationship without coming off as a gold digger

I'm sorry not necessarily what you want in a relationship what is it you what is it you don't want in the relationship

So basically, I want to be able to support myself 100%, which is what I'm doing right now.

But in a relationship, I don't want that to be,

you know, what is normal nowadays, which is 50-50 living together and splitting bills and things like that.

At what point in a relationship do I say, hey, that's not really for me?

We're going to combine everything and we're going to take on the world together.

And at what point do you make that conversation?

Exactly.

Yeah, you do that when you find somebody.

And then you decide to get married and then you combine everything and go get them.

Yeah, but I mean, at what point in the obviously not the first date yeah right yeah

let me let me let me see your credit report

here's the biggest thing

here here's what i think people are trying to game and this is a direct derivative of how much dating apps have screwed up human interactions

but you have already made a checkbox for the person you want to marry, which is all well and good, but you in turn have made yourself a checkbox too.

Here's the greatest gift you can give somebody that you meet.

Show up and be fully you.

And you're a person who works really hard.

And you're a person who at 23 is paying your own bills.

You don't owe anybody any money.

And you may be a person who one day...

I'm not dating a guy who lives in his mother's basement.

and spends 52 hours on Call of Duty, but hasn't ever had a call to real duty.

Right.

And you're not a gold digger if you say, one day I want to be a stay-at-home mom.

Or one day I like, that's not gold digging.

That is saying, here is a value i have and i want to be with somebody who is anchored into those same values

yeah and i wanted to start off the call with that of being a whole stay-at-home mom but i i just thought that was just jump into it but no no there's nothing wrong with that as long as that but we're just talking together in other words you have to be married to someone who is as productive as you for that to work and who shares those same values it's not going to work if somebody says oh i don't want to date somebody who

is able to support themselves at 23 and wants to be a stay-at-home mom someday then run run from that person Yeah, that's a good question.

Don't apologize for who you are.

Not a match.

Not a match.

Don't apologize.

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Welcome back to the Ramsey Show.

Dr.

John Deloney, Ramsey personality, is with me today to answer your questions.

Jonathan is in Lexington, Kentucky.

Hey, Jonathan, how are you?

Hey, I'm going to be better than I deserve.

What's up?

So, I just wanted to run something by you guys.

Never really been in this position.

So, I went through a pretty rough divorce over the recent years, and it's kind of left me with all the marital debt.

When was it final?

It was final.

It was actually finalized mid-last year.

So, it's been a year.

So, yeah, yeah, just about a year.

And it's kind of

at the point.

I am 32.

How long were you married?

We were married.

We were together in total about two years or 10 years.

Married.

How much marital debt did you get with your broken heart?

I think I got, it's right around 40.

Okay.

On what?

Mainly credit cards and then vehicle loans.

How much is on the car?

On the cars.

I think one's hers was like 20 and mine was, I got it down to like 10.

Okay, so you're paying for her car in the divorce?

Yeah, because my name is on it

and I kind of got stuck with it.

Mm-hmm.

So

what about what?

I mean, it's over now, but here's a suggestion for those of you out there listening.

She sells the car.

We can't afford it.

We're going through a divorce.

Okay, anyway, we're past that.

Now, next thing.

And so you've got about 10 in credit cards.

Yeah.

And what do you make?

So right now, I'm just north of 50 a year.

What do you do?

I work in solar.

Okay.

Right now, my actual title is warehouse manager.

I'm also in the field doing logistics and all kinds of stuff.

Any idea how the bill changing is going to affect your job?

What's that?

Any idea how the tax credits going away at the end of the year with solar is going to affect your job?

Yeah, so the residential customers are going to be the ones that will be...

Oh, you're doing industrial solar.

Yeah, we do both.

Yeah, you're not going to...

Your residential customers are going to dry up.

Yeah.

So we're getting hit right now, but yeah, that's going to slow down.

Oh, it's going to slow down.

You're going to get jammed between now and the end of the year.

It's got to be installed, not just purchased by the end of the year for the residential customer to get those credits.

So, all right, so you're making 50K, but you're working like a bazillion hours, right?

Yeah, I'm working.

I work about probably about

on average 50 hours a week.

Okay.

And

like I've tried doing things right.

She's paying her car payment right now.

So from what I learned, she got a whole different car

well where's the car

it she went she sent it back to the dealership

from what i understand

that kind of defeats the purpose of i'm on the hook for the loan you just got repo

yeah so well that was stupid

much

Much communication with her.

She's not the easiest to deal with.

I can tell.

And

so that car, you're not paying anything on that.

So you have $10,000.

You have $20,000 worth of debt.

You make $50K and you work all the time.

So you haven't got time to spend anymore.

You got kids?

Yeah, I was going to say we have one kid.

Our child.

He's three.

He'll be four in February.

So you're having to talk to her about that, aren't you?

Yeah, and that's even that is a fight in itself.

I'm sure.

I'm sure.

Okay.

All right.

Well, baby, you don't have to worry about the 20K right now.

It's going to worry about you later.

I'll come back to that.

But right now, you got 10K on a car and 10K on that.

So 20K, you're debt-free.

No, wait, you're not getting overtime.

You're on straight salary?

No, yeah, I'm hourly, but yeah, it's overtime.

Oh, the overtime is the 50 grand.

Yeah, roughly.

Yeah.

What are you getting paid overtime?

How much are you getting paid?

Because it doesn't sound like a lot.

$24,000 an hour.

Yeah, okay.

So I started here about a year ago because of the job I did have from the mass amount of court dates she drug us to.

I ended up losing the job that I was making a lot of money at.

Okay, so let me stop you a minute.

John, I'm hearing in Jonathan's voice a lot of pain.

Yep.

You're frozen, brother.

And a lot of heartache.

And it's kind of clouding your brain's math skills, but that's because your heart is so broken that it has flooded your brain.

Yeah, you're not wrong.

So you're getting taken advantage of in multiple different places of your life, and I think what you need more than anything right now is to recognize.

You ever been to the beach, dude?

Yeah, I grew up in Daytona Beach.

Okay, so you've been there when you feel like...

You can't swim anymore and suddenly you stand up and the water is up to your waist, but you thought it was up to your, like over your head.

That's where you are right now.

Yeah,

you've proven to yourself in the past that you can work and you can make great money.

You're crushing it right now.

You're working a ton of hours, you're trying to hold together like being a good dad, even though this woman is wrecking you financially.

She's making it very hard to be a good parent, all those things.

But if nothing else, after this call, just in the water you're in, stand up.

You're working way too hard in an industry that is literally going away underneath you with one stroke of the pen in Washington.

Stand up

and use the next few months to get back into a job where you can make that kind of money.

You're that good of an employee.

You're that good of a man.

You just got hit right in the mouth in the part that hurts the most

in your romantic life and being a parent, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Access to my son is

had a price tag put on it,

and it's very limited at that,

even though I'm doing everything.

I'm trying to do everything.

Well,

you're trying to make somebody happy who's not going to be happy.

We've already concluded that.

So, I need to put her in a box over here in my mind and just let her sit there.

And then let's get back to building up the things we can build up.

The things you can control, she's not on the list.

The things you can control are what you do with your money, what you do with your time, and what you do with your spiritual walk, and your emotional recovery from going through a tragedy of having your heart ripped out and stuff down your throat.

I can hear it in your voice, dude.

What I'm telling you is, is you are like 10 times better than you feel like you are.

You are in a much better place.

You only need to pay off 20 grand, and then we'll go back and deal with the repo later that the stupid chick did, and she's going to get hammered with that too.

But you can deal with that for pennies on the dollar later.

But right now, 20 grand makes your life whole.

Stand up.

It's not that deep.

The water's not that deep.

You can do it.

And work more there, work more somewhere else, add hours everywhere, work like a crazy man.

And let's just get this mess cleaned up as fast as we can.

Cut up those credit cards.

Quit using them.

Don't go out to eat.

Don't go out for a beer with friends.

Just work and work on healing your heart.

Make sure you're in church on Sunday.

And, you know, that's where you are.

So your math is not as bad as your hope.

Your hope is really low.

Your math is not bad.

You can push through it once you know you can.

And that's what John and I are both hearing, listening to you.

You're in a much better place than it feels like you are.

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Not in all states.

Today's question comes from Molly in California.

Molly writes, I have two preteen stepkids.

My husband and I recently went through their iPads, which their mom has full access and control over.

We saw that the kids have their own Apple Pay accounts and they are free to buy whatever, whenever.

My husband and I don't agree agree with any of this and think this creates bad habits since she's not teaching them how to save or even how money really works plus the money isn't earned it's just given how can we start teaching the kids the right way to handle money and should we do anything about the apple pay accounts

My guess is, Dave, they can't do anything about the Apple Pay accounts other than when they walk in the door, the iPads go in a box.

And when they're at dad's house,

they get a ringside seat and how money works.

And I always.

And for that matter, how life works.

How life works.

I always tell parents, when you get divorced and your kids are sharing time at either house, you transition from a day-by-day, hour-by-hour influence to a 10-year influence.

You want that 25-year-old to look back and say, thank God this parent held the line because this parent didn't.

You can't win the who is the cool parent or who's the free parent or who's the whatever parent because often they're and when parents won't be adults and co-parent together for the best interest

of the kids it gets real competitive and the kids are the losers there yeah

the normal situation like this is there's not the ex-wife is not going to take input from y'all zero i mean that would be normal it'd be unusual for your husband and his ex-wife to be on good enough terms that he could have a sane discussion about this and say, hey, I know what you're doing there, and we're going to start teaching the kids to work, to save, to give, to spend wisely.

And

is there any way we could work together on this?

And let's talk about these Apple Pay accounts.

Or, you know, is there a way we can, you know, let's talk through instead of them having just unlimited access because they're not in Congress, so they don't get unlimited access to money.

And so is there any way we can talk?

If you could do that, that would be the best thing and get her on board.

But you can't fix, otherwise, you just, you can't do anything about the time they're with her.

So they go over the, you know, well, I mean, mom allows us to smoke pot.

Well, you don't do that at our house.

You know, mom allows us to drive her car and we're 12.

Well, but you can't do that at our house.

And so, I mean, I'm sorry.

And you don't need to talk bad about mom, although apparently she's nuts.

But, um, but you don't have to tell, don't say that to the kids.

Whatever you do, don't say that to the kids.

So, anyway, as all you can control is when they're at your house, as for me in my house.

And so,

you know,

a less extreme situation and a less controlling situation even than you've got is like when grandkids are at my house.

I don't know what you, your mom and dad may do that, but Papa Dave, we don't do that here.

This is my house.

Well,

I'm at Mimi's house.

Yeah, well, guess what?

Mimi lives with me and we own this house.

And our house, this is what we do.

Yeah, well,

we're in a discussion.

This is what we're doing.

And

we don't do that here.

And you might do that over there, but you don't do that when you're here.

And so it's up, I can't control what you do somewhere else, but when you're at my house, this is what you're going to do.

And so you guys just keep saying that.

And, you know, I'm definitely picking up the iPads, putting them in a box when they walk in the door.

Pre-teens don't need to be having unlimited iPad access, even if there's not an Apple Pay account.

But that also means, Molly, you and your husband have to be off the screens when the kids are around.

And y'all are going to have to do things like play board games together or go run around and throw the ball outside.

Y'all are going to have to create a world that feels good to their nervous system and recognize you can't compete with unfettered digital access.

You just can't.

So we're going to play a long game.

Dave, I've seen parents be successful in this very slowly through teaching kids the joy of generosity.

Allowing them to do a small job, get paid for it, and then show them how fun it is to give money away.

And other than...

And the money that they earned.

That's right.

They got to earn the money.

There's no joy in giving other people's money away.

And be a part of it.

I like giving your money away sometimes.

I know you do it.

But that doesn't give you as much joy as giving your money away.

It gives me almost as much joy as me giving your money away.

But anyway, yeah.

But no, seriously, teach your children to work

age appropriately.

We don't send four-year-olds to the salt mines.

We might send 14-year-olds there.

But just because they're 14.

But

teach your children to work.

teach them to save, teach them to give, like John's talking about, and teach them to spend wisely and actually use cash.

So here's a funny one.

Rachel was telling me this the other day.

So the fun uncle, Uncle Mac,

her uncle,

gets these plastic coins from the dollar store.

They're not real coins.

They're gold coins, but they're not coins.

They're plastic.

And spreads them all over the yard and hiding them, has a treasure hunt.

So the, you know, the pre-kindergarteners all come in with these coins.

Well, one of the kids thinks he can go to the store and buy buy stuff with it for real and they didn't tell him any different so they went in and he he didn't want to give up the plastic coins but he finally gave up the plastic coins to buy something and then she slipped around and paid with actual money but the kid was parting with those plastic coins like he had really

he really was clutching them got them you know they were my it's my money and you may not have to give up some of my money to buy this thing toy yeah that's how it works and so he put those plastic coins up there like he was paying for something and in his mind he just purchased something and he gave up something that he treasured.

And that transaction, that feeling is so important for us to do that.

There's a dignity.

There's dignity in that.

I'm empowered.

It's locus of control.

I've got control of this.

I get to choose to do this.

I'm choosing to make the trade of my hard-fought treasure that I dug up out of the yard for this toy.

And there's a trade there.

And I swept the porch and I got this money.

I'm choosing to make this trade to buy this child a toy who is not going to have a toy for Christmas otherwise, and I'm going to be the person that gets him a toy.

And that generosity breaks loose inside of them.

And the DNA of generosity is inside of every human.

All you got to do is source it.

You're exactly right.

And that's the kind of stuff you guys can do

in your home.

You can control what you can control, but you cannot control what they do over at Disney Mom.

Right.

Unfettered access to the internet

with sex trafficking the way it is

is absolutely asinine.

Yeah.

It's that line Sean Ryan gave us, man, gave me that

when you give your kids those devices, you're not giving your kid access to the world.

You're giving the world access to your kid.

And I recently saw somebody said, the day you're ready for your kid to see pornography, that's the day you should hand them a phone and or an iPad.

And that should send chills down the spine of every parent.

But here we are.

This is a real-life situation of a parent who left a marriage and wants to be the cool mom.

And it's all going to be cool, mom, and whatever my kids want, mom.

Okay.

As for me in my house, we don't do iPads here.

I have a prediction.

This woman, when her teenage daughter is 13, is going to dress like a teenager.

I have a prediction.

I see that coming.

That's why they call you the prophet, Dave.

I had a college professor who said, Dave, you have a firm grasp on the obvious.

I can see this coming.

She's going to be a friend to her children.

Good luck with that.

You're trying to be a friend to a teenager?

They just need love.

They don't need friends.

Can I tell you this?

I mean, this is a private moment.

I have a couple of riding mowers for

one of them is old one of them's a newer one and we're at the end of the mowing season here we only got a couple of times before it gets cold here in nashville and so

to have those things serviced it's insanely expensive someone's got to come all the way out there and do it and so i just ordered the parts i've never done this kind of work and my son's 15 and i said hey saturday you and i we're gonna figure it out we're gonna get the youtube out and figure it out we turned on some country old country tunes and we spent about six hours changing all the wires and parts on these mowers.

And when they cranked up, to see he we were high-fiving each other, and Sunday night, we were both a little surprised.

Well, he was surprised.

He's like, Dad, you can do you can do grown-up man stuff.

But

he told me last night, Sunday night, Dad, this is the best weekend I've had in a long time.

It's just two guys, no screens, no internets, no buy, like buying a bunch of stuff.

We just did stuff together.

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William is in California.

Hey, William, how are you?

I'm doing fantastic.

Thanks for coming to work today, Dave.

Thank you, sir.

How can we help?

So my question is,

I'm kind of stuck between baby steps three and four.

And I guess my question would be, does a defined pension benefit affect Baby Step three and four?

Meaning, I have a defined pension.

For every year of service I do somewhere or I work at a government agency, I get a percentage of my top rate of pay.

So

are you contributing?

Yes.

Well, so I have

the city that I work for pays 19% into my pension.

I pay 9%, which I have no control over.

That's what I pay is 9%.

I understand.

But I also do a 457 on the side.

So my question is,

I'm almost, I'm about three months at baby step.

I have about three months of bills in my emergency fund, but I'm kind of at a stalemate to where

I can't seem to get ahead anymore.

Well, you got rid of all your debt except your house.

You should have margin.

Well, so, I mean, I would say life in the last

12 months has changed because I now have a driver.

So car insurance, fuel, that kind of stuff kind of ate up my margin, you could say.

Well, how about that driver getting a job?

Because she's still a teen and enjoying volleyball, travel ball.

Yeah, I guess.

Enjoying free gas and car from dad that he can't afford.

Yeah, well, I mean, we want our kids to do better than we did, right?

So it's not that I don't have money in the the bank and I don't have any debt other than a mortgage.

So I want to make sure my kids, you know, enjoy their teen years as long as they're acting like a proper teen.

So straight a student, no troubles.

So reward that behavior.

Yeah, so on that justification, you could buy her a Bentley.

No, I'm smart in that.

I'm not going to waste that kind of money.

Or the 10-year-old car that's paid off.

There's no debt signed to it.

It won't hurt her to pick up part of the gas and insurance.

It'd be good for her and good for you.

So So anyway, I'll rest my case.

As far as your 9% going in, I would count half of it toward the 15%.

You need to get your three months done as soon as you can, three to six months of expenses set aside, and then you adjust your budget.

And

you need to be putting 15% of your income away.

You're putting 9% away now.

Because you don't have control of it, though, I'm not going to count it as a full 9 towards the 15.

If I'm you, you can do what you want to do.

You are obviously doing what you want to do.

So,

you know, that's,

I just,

yeah, I don't count the pension's full amount, even though they're mandatory, because you don't have control of what it's invested in.

If they manage it well, pensions do sometimes go broke.

I'm not projecting this one to go broke.

I don't even know what it is, but they do sometimes go broke, and you don't have any control of it.

The rates of return on the pension are nowhere near as good as if you could put it in a good mutual fund in a 401k or Roth IRA.

And long before you do 457s, you do 401ks that are Roth and you do Roth IRAs.

457 is the last on the list.

That's simply deferred comp.

And it's taxed like a traditional 401k and it's not the best thing on your list.

of things to do.

So I'd sit down with a Smart Vestor Pro, lay out a couple of Roths, one for you, one for your wife.

If your wife has a traditional 401k, I might put the money over there instead of in your 457.

But as far as your 9% that's mandatory goes, I would count it as about half.

So I'd count it at 4% or 5%.

If we called it 5,

then you still got to put in 10% of your household income if you're the only working person.

And that's what we're going to do there.

So good question.

Thank you for joining us.

All right.

Bailey is in Texas.

Hey, Bailey, how are you?

Hey, Dave.

Thanks for taking my call, man.

Sure.

What's up?

So I'll give a little backstory.

I'm currently 25.

I was living in Dallas when I was 24.

March 2024, I was in a single car accident

leaving a golf course, my first time,

client outing during the week.

We drank too much, I had a tree going 60.

So I've been living with a spinach injury, paralyzed from the chest down about 16 months now.

But

early in that process,

we got first fight lawyers and like ultimately we've worked through settlements and losses throughout this year and a little bit of last year.

And we've reached a settlement of

they sued the management company for 12 million, but I think ultimately I'll get around six.

I've already committed three into like a personal injury annuity, which will feed me $14K a month, 40 years guaranteed, but it's for life annuity.

So if I live past the 40 years, it'll still

be all.

yeah, like I'm I'm just I'm the point where like I'm about to get 2.7 in cash.

My main question is like what should I I need to maximize that the most.

I've been talking with trust officers and I want to do some there.

You don't need a trust officer.

Okay.

It's now your job to manage this money to take care of you for the rest of your life.

And if it makes 10% a year

and that's 270,000, you'll be okay.

Right?

And you've got the other money, and you've got the other money as well.

So you need to sit down with a good investment broker and begin to learn about investing.

So just go to ramseysolutions.com and click on SmartVestor Pro

and

find one of the people that we recommend.

We're not in the investment business, but these are people that we have vetted.

And the main thing we do with them, Bayley, is we want them to have the heart of a teacher because their main job is to teach you.

So you you are making the decision that they're, but, but, you know, so sometimes even I know a lot about the stuff, but sometimes my smart investor pro call me up and go, hey, here's something that changed in the tax law.

Here's something that changed with the investment landscape.

I want to teach you about this.

And based on that, you may want to look at this.

And I look at it and I go, yeah.

Or I look at it and I go, nah, I don't think I want to go that way.

Okay, cool.

I just wanted their job is to bring me new information and teach me.

And old information and teach me.

And remind me of the old information that we agreed to a long time ago that keeps me on the tracks.

right?

And that's what we're doing.

Gotcha.

Billy, do you have a lot of people who want to get their hands on this money?

Parents, family, brothers, sisters?

That's starting to happen, yeah.

Yeah, no is a complete sentence.

Yeah.

Okay.

You need to get a pastor or some people in your corner that aren't after money that coach you up and allow you to set some boundaries with these other people.

Okay.

It's your job to manage this money, and it's not your job to help everybody else with it.

You've got a mess on your hands, and you need this money to take care of you.

Yeah, so would you advise no money in the trust at all?

Yeah, yeah, I don't want any of it in there.

There's no reason for it to be in a trust.

Why would it need to be in a trust?

I've heard just it protects it.

Like, if I was ever in office again, they couldn't touch that money.

And that's pretty much the only thing that I've got to do.

Have you got outstanding litigation that may be coming at you?

No.

Okay.

I've got no expenses, no dependents.

No, there's no, there's, I have no limitations.

But you will have expenses one day.

And I'll tell you, my oldest friend in the world has had a similar situation as you, almost about the same age as when he got an erect.

Okay.

His health is

better than all of ours, except the fact that he's paralyzed.

And

25, 30 years ago, I never in a million years would have thought this.

And so

people will try to get their hands on your money.

They'll try to tell you what to do with it.

And so you understanding what you're doing with this and then not getting sucked into, we need rental properties and you're an idiot if you don't do this and online gambling.

Like there's going to be so many temptations to everybody's got an idea for other people's money and it's usually broke people that have these ideas.

This has to last you the rest of your life.

And with medical technology, you can live a long, long, long time.

Yeah.

Right.

So what do you think is going to keep it liquid, like in my account?

Like, how much should I take to like a fiduciary investor or advisor?

Like all of it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

But you're going to, you're going to put it in there.

You are the fiduciary.

You're in charge of you.

We're not giving this money to a babysitter.

Your new career is managing millions of dollars for the rest of your life.

Yeah.

And so that's what I mean by you've got to get with someone with the heart of a teacher.

All fiduciary means is trust.

That's all it means.

Do I trust this person's input?

I don't trust anybody to take over this and handle it for you.

It's your job to handle it.

It's your job.

I got me a man, says people right before they lose all their money.

No, you are the man.

You are in charge.

You learn it.

You stay on it.

You get people on your corner to advise you, but you are the man.

If you're tired of living paycheck to paycheck and feeling like you can't get ahead, join one of our free Every Dollar Trainings.

There are new trainings every week this month, and they're all hosted by one of the Ramsey personalities.

I think Rachel's doing it this week.

We're going to be showing you how to stick to a budget, and typically a person finds a good amount of margin, thousands of dollars of room when they're using Every Dollar so they can get out of debt, start building wealth.

We show you how to actually do this stuff.

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Jefferson is in Sacramento, California.

Hi, Jefferson.

How are you?

I'm wonderful.

Thanks, God.

How are you doing?

Better than I deserve.

How can I help?

Better than I deserve as well.

So in 2015, I met my wonderful wife when I was

in a very tough situation with work and life and drugs, smoking weed, and all that.

And when I met her, gave myself to God.

2016 got baptized.

And since then, I've been buying houses, investing on houses, and a little bit later, and

stocks as well.

And but when in 2022,

I did a class in AFCO, which is if you want to become like a missionary or do work for God, that's when I fully gave myself to God and really stopped smoking fully,

stopped doing edibles, and no

bad videos or anything like that, photography, and trying to just be a better man.

But since then, after made close to $2 million in the past 10 years,

but

things started getting wrong and the wrong path, and all the investments that I did, everything backed fire all at the same time.

Like lost $10,000 here, $40,000 there, $100,000 there.

And then

my guys started messing up at work.

I had to start putting on credit cards after credit cards.

And at that time, I were going vacation and enjoying life as well.

But now I'm in close to $800,000 in credit cards, including personal loan and business loan and $2,200,000.

$200,000.

Yes.

Were you not working during this time?

I was working,

but I have not been working fully the past year and a half since the company I was working with, they went bankrupt.

Yeah, but I mean, how do you spend $800,000 screwing around?

I'm confused.

I don't even know.

It just accumulated with the

price.

Yeah, you do.

Where'd it go?

Oh.

I mean, you said you used credit cards to cover your guys who weren't doing their work.

What are you talking about?

Yes.

So a lot of it went to like they broke something at work or lost tools, so I had to buy more tools or I put in.

I thought you worked for someone else that just went bankrupt.

Yes, I was working with them.

I was subcontracting with them.

Okay, what what business were you in, sir?

I do construction home remodeling.

Okay, so you had a remodeling company.

Correct.

And who were you doing remodeling for that went bankrupt?

What kind of a company was that?

It's called Zotex, and they went off because they were, I believe.

I mean,

why were you not just doing remodeling on your own?

Why were you doing it for someone else?

Because I have a C-15 license, which means I can do flooring, and I was using their license as partnership to do the full remodel.

And I worked with them for almost five years.

Now I'm working and studying to get my own business.

But you did all of that, and then your guys messed up jobs because you weren't watching the jobs and you had to cover the whole thing.

That's how to take that.

Correct.

We were doing four.

So your business sucked, and it was losing money, Handoverfish is where a lot of the 800 went.

Correct.

Vacation as well, at least $150,200, and back to the church as well.

You borrowed money on a credit card to give it to the church?

No, no, that's just the money that I made from because on

every two, three years I would buy a house and resell it.

Okay, do you own any houses now?

Now I own two houses and I'm trying to sell one, but the prices keeps dropping.

So I

what is the house worth?

It was worth close to $600.

Now I dropped to $520.

And what do you owe on that house?

$450.

You're going to get a little bit out of that.

And what about the house that you live in?

What's it worth?

This one, probably what I pay for, $5.50,000.

And I owe $5.30, $5.20.

So you barely get out of two.

Okay.

Have you got your business back up and running?

How are you guys eating?

How are you paying bills?

So that's when

things start slowing down and not having work.

That's when you started buying food with credit cards, paying bills with credit cards.

Yeah, but that's not the 800 grand.

No, there ain't that much food on the planet.

The $200,000 vacation you borrowed.

That's part of it.

You went on a $200,000 vacation for real?

Well, not one in the past 10 years.

If you calculate.

But while you were making no money because you weren't working and you were going on vacation.

Okay.

When I was working, I was going vacation and making money.

Everything was good.

No, it wasn't.

You were putting it on a credit card.

There's nothing in this story that's good.

Except the part where you came to God.

Okay.

Yeah.

No, it's not good.

That's when last year it went so long.

Okay, so have you got an income now?

Yes or no?

Barely.

Barely.

Does your wife work outside the home now?

No, she takes care of all of us.

And how are you eating?

Just four credit cards.

You haven't figured out the problem yet.

Okay.

So dude, you need to go get some jobs.

I'm not paying everything.

I just stopped paying on my credit cards.

You need to go get some jobs.

You've got to get some income coming in.

Wow.

I don't know, man.

I don't know where to tell you to start exactly.

I think the crisis here is in you paying attention to the adult stuff.

No vacations,

no eating out, and we work.

And we we pay attention to our work.

And then nobody tears up our stuff, steals our tools because we're on the job.

Anybody tries that gets fired instantaneously because we're on the job because we work and we work and we work and we pay attention to what's going on.

You don't get to coast.

And you've been just running around in circles, man.

You're going to have to really get focused and go run these jobs.

Apparently, you do know how to do construction, but you suck at the math part.

And you need to start bidding these jobs at a profit margin and get a profit margin coming in and make some money.

You've got the ability to do that in freaking Sacramento, big time.

So you go get your license passed.

In the meantime, you do anything you can do legally with the current license you have and you work your butt off.

And no more vacations and no more purchases of any kind.

You don't get to buy anything.

You've done all that.

That is all in your past.

You are now

Mr.

Frugal, Captain Frugal McDougal.

That's you, man.

And so you don't buy nothing and all you do is work and pay bills.

And maybe you can turn the corner on this mess.

Maybe.

I don't know.

Dave, what is the...

I know this is a deep source of pain.

What's the moment when someone says, I need to go sit down and at least put bankruptcy on the table?

Oh, $800,000 in credit cards.

Well, the problem is that personal finance or that debt is not the problem.

Debt is the symptom.

And this guy, his debt is the symptom of about six things.

Yeah.

None of which are fixed by bankruptcy.

Because if it got wiped tomorrow, he'd go figure out another way to borrow money.

He's currently up like Christmas, man, every sixth wave of a Sunday.

He's spending money like left and right, buying rental properties, buying stock, trying to, he's trying to do

ADD.

We got stuff going in every direction.

We're buying stock.

We lost money on that.

We bought rental property.

We're losing money on that almost.

You know, mama's not working.

He's not working much.

He's not paying attention to his business.

And bankruptcy doesn't fix any of that.

You're right back in the same mess from the exact same causes once you bankruptcy treats the symptom.

Now, if you get in there and you're making $200,000 a year and you can't keep the, you can't turn the corner and settle with the credit cards, which you could, but if you, you know, let's say it was $10 million instead of $800,000, if you can't turn the corner and you're doing everything right and you fixed all the stuff you were doing this wrong, you might have to look at that someday.

I will never tell you to do it.

Yeah.

Because 99% of the time, it's not the problem.

Yeah, most of the time, it's the stuff that's causing it that's the problem, including when I went through it.

So, I'm no exception, I'm no better.

Man, I'm sorry, what a mess.

What's up, guys?

George Camel here.

If you've been thinking about making a real difference in your community, this is your moment.

People are drowning in money stress right now, and you can be the one who helps them by leading a Financial Peace University class.

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So, if you're ready to help people ditch debt, save money, and actually sleep at night, go to fpu.com/slash lead to learn more.

That's fpu.com/slash/lead.

Welcome back to the Ramsey Show.

I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Dr.

John Deloney, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today.

Katrina is in Canada.

Hi, Katrina.

How are you?

Hi, I'm good.

Thanks for acting.

Thank you for taking my call.

Sure.

What's up?

So my question today is I am debating on leaving my job to open up a cleaning company.

I have currently been working on the side since I was on maternity leave.

I have an 18-month-old

just recently separated and moved away from his father.

So

it's us primarily.

And

I'm struggling with child care.

So looking at making this switch to open up a bit of time and schedule and actually almost, I think, make more than what I'm making now.

So

yeah, that's the outline of my question.

I'm confused.

What are you doing with an 18-month-old while you're cleaning?

So right now, dad has him during the day two days a week.

And then

he is actually paying, and sort of in lieu of paying any child support right now, he's paying for child care.

So we we have two different ladies that we alternate between as

we have not been able to get into a daycare.

It's about a two-year wait list here.

I've actually been on the wait list since I was pregnant.

Okay, so you have child care during the day, and instead of working a job, you're going to open a business.

Correct.

Yeah.

So right now I'm working Monday through Thursday at my day job.

But it has nothing to do with the 18-month-old because the 18-month-old has day, has care during the day covered.

For now.

Yeah, the cost is really high.

No, that's not what I said, but I mean the flexibility that you need for the 18-month-old, you don't need flexibility.

You have it covered.

For now, he can't sustain it because the cost is really high.

So because we haven't been able to get into a daycare.

So it's about double the price of what daycare is to have the nannies.

And

for three days a week.

So I work Monday through Thursday, and I'm doing cleanings on Fridays.

And I've had a lot of things.

No, No, but you said he was keeping the baby two days a week, and the nannies were keeping him three days a week.

And three days a week is double the cost of daycare.

Uh-uh.

Wild.

Yeah.

It's actually they're making more than I am when I ran out the numbers.

I have all my numbers available.

But hold on.

If he can't, if this isn't sustainable for him, you're going to have to take him to court for child support.

He's going to have to pay one or the other.

Right.

And so he's agreed that if he's not paying for the child care,

he will pay child support.

But it's it's sort of a

bit of a tricky situation.

We just separated.

We're kind of working it all out.

But basically, the cost for the nanny per month right now is over $3,000.

The daycares that I've been looking at are $1,600.

If we could get, yes, Canada, it's

crazy.

On the wait list for daycare since I've been pregnant.

Okay, so

let's go back to your original question.

The original question question is, do I quit my job?

I've been cleaning on Fridays, and I'm making some money.

What I don't want you to do, what I was trying to push against with the whole series of questions is I don't want you to have the false idea that you get to not work and take care of the kid.

You're a single mom.

You're going to be working.

And when you say flexibility to take care of the 18-month-old, I'm saying you're not going to have much.

The worst thing you can do if you want flexibility is be run your own business because your boss is a jerk.

Fair enough.

If the kid gets sick, you still got to go to work when you own the business.

That's correct.

Yeah.

The kid gets sick, you work for somebody else.

You might have some PTO or something.

But when you run your own business,

you know, this idea that somehow that's going to make everything easier, no, it's going to make it harder.

You might make more money, but it's going to make it harder.

Right.

Okay.

So now, how many clients do you, what are you making on your cleaning now?

So right now, because I'm only able to take the Fridays, I'm making after expenses anywhere from $350 to $400

doing that like per day.

So if I fill up my day with eight hours, I'm charging $50 an hour.

My expenses are pretty low because I make a lot of my products.

They're all like child safe and pet safe.

So my expenses are pretty low.

But when I look at it, if I were to swap, this is sort of what we've been discussing and thinking about.

Why are we discussing anything?

He's gone.

Well, because he's going to potentially, instead of paying the nanny, that will then become child support.

So if I balance it out where I can build up.

That needs to happen anyway, whether you do this or not.

Yeah.

You've got these things all tangled up together.

Yeah.

Okay.

It's a simple thing.

You need to make the right decision for your career based on the numbers and the flexibility.

And the child support doesn't enter into it.

The child support should be an independent discussion.

So anyway, what do you make at your day job?

So currently I'm at 60% of my

salary and I'm making $3,600 per year.

Why are you at $60?

$600 a month after

because that's the only thing I can work currently with the hours that I have available.

And so that was my return to work schedule.

It could go back up to the 100%, but I so you make $36,000 a year.

$3,000 a month.

You make $3,000 a month.

Sorry?

You make $3,000 a month.

I bring home $2,500 after tax move.

Yeah.

And so you'd have to fill up one more day to do that.

Okay.

Can you get enough clients to fill up one and a half more days?

Oh, yes.

Yeah.

And

beyond that, but

I've had to turn down regular clients.

I have very good relationships with a couple of top realtor teams as well.

I would get on the phone with them and have a bunch of stuff lined up, not just hope,

because hope is a good way to go broke in running a business.

Totally, yeah.

And so if you're going to walk away from $3,000 a month, make sure you're walking into $4,000 a month.

Or $5,000 because you're already in the business.

It's already set.

It's already set.

I want you to run five days a week, six days a week.

I want you you to run cleaning, and then we work child care out, and we figure that child support crap out and all that.

But I want you to walk into a business that makes you more than you are making now the first month you do it.

Not, I just thought I had a bunch of clients, but then it was harder than I thought, and I only had one day, and now I'm screwed because I walked out of a paying job, and I just was dreaming.

No, I don't want you to dream.

I want you to actually tack this stuff down.

and run it like it's a business.

So have it all set up.

Have the clients say, all right, I'm going to start with you September 1st.

And they sign an agreement to that.

And I'm going to start with you September 1st.

And they sign an agreement for that.

And I'm going to start with you September the 14th.

And we're going to sign an agreement for that.

And I'm going to start with you.

And then I'm going to quit my job effective September 1st.

And I'm going to go do this stuff.

But don't do it on, oh, I've turned away a whole bunch of people.

So I know I can.

No, that's.

Don't be, don't be ditzy and try to run a business.

And here's the other thing.

I'm telling you the number of newly single moms who try to handshake deals with a guy they're separating or divorcing.

Don't do that.

Go through the process and get it written down in a legal binding contract.

You will find yourself hung out to dry as a single mom, and I don't care how handshakey we're trying to do things right now, he'll disappear.

I get that call over and over and over and over again.

Oh, he already has disappeared.

from your life, right?

Just not the kids yet.

So

don't make agreements based on handshakes in the present.

Let's go through the process, get this stuff in writing, legally binding, so that you and especially that baby have some protection moving forward.

It's way too easy to put off making a will.

And believe me, I've heard every excuse in the book.

But not having the time is one excuse we can kick to the curb right now.

Because these days, most folks can make a legally binding will on their laptop between loads of laundry.

If you're wondering if you can make your will online or if you need a lawyer, we have a quiz to help you figure that out in less than five minutes.

Just go to ramseysolutions.com/slash willsquiz.

Ramseysolutions.com slash willsquiz.

Buying or selling a home in in the middle of all this drama that's called the real estate market is scary because if you get your information from Tic Tac and your broke friends, you live in drama land.

The way you cut through the drama is facts, ma'am, just the facts.

Facts are your friends when there's drama or trauma.

Dr.

John Deloney says that all the time.

You want to learn about the housing market?

Facts, the actual trends.

We've got a site up for you to give you what's really going on.

Median home prices went up about another $10,000 last month.

They were $441,000.

Now they're $400,000, went down $1,000.

I'm sorry.

They're $439,000.

So they dropped a tiny bit, basically steady.

Number of homes for sale is over $1 million still for the third month in a row.

And 15-year fixed rate dropped a bit, down to 5.86%

from 5.95%.

So basically, everything's flat, is what it amounts to.

And if you want to know more about this, go to ramseysolutions.com or click the link in the show notes and we'll help you.

Cassie's on the line in Mississippi.

Hey, Cassie, how are you?

Hey, how are you, Dave?

Thanks for taking my call.

I appreciate it.

Sure.

How can I help?

Well, I am at full retirement age

in March, and I started drawing my Social Security, but I'm still working,

so I have income.

But I'm thinking of retiring to Nashville, where I have my three grown kids live with my grandkids, and just trying to find out if it's financially feasible to do that.

I do own my home in Mississippi.

Well, I owe about $4,000 on it.

What's that home worth?

Don't have any other debt.

It's about $220,000.

And what do you make now?

That's right.

Currently, I make $60,000

with my Social Security.

I make that another $30,000.

I am an executive administrative assistant.

How old are you?

And I am 67.

Okay.

All right.

And how big is your nest egg?

Well, not big enough.

I have about 500,000 in

401k in IRA.

Good.

Okay.

All right.

And that's it.

So what does it take you to live a month in Nashville?

Well, that I don't know.

Yeah, there we go.

There's a piece of information we need.

And what part of Mississippi are you in?

I'm on the Gulf Coast.

Okay.

It probably won't be substantially different depending on neighborhood you pick out.

Okay.

Housing costs will be your main difference, but your cost of living won't be much different than the Gulf Coast.

Things like electricity, food, gas, that kind of stuff.

Okay.

Housing will be your big difference.

And you may see some differences there.

And again, that all is neighborhood dependent on how close you are going to be to the kiddos and which neighborhood the kiddos are in in Nashville.

So here's the thing.

If you took $500,000 and invested it with a good Smart Vestor Pro,

you're old enough to draw against it without any trouble.

And if it created 10%,

that without touching the $500,000, if you lived off the 10%, that'd be $50,000.

I'm just doing round numbers.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

And 50 is really close to your 60.

Mm-hmm.

So you probably can do it.

Okay.

I mean, you got $80,000 a year to live on, and and you got 220 000 from the sale of your house you need to get you an inexpensive little condo of some kind and pay cash for it and i wouldn't have that eighty thousand to live on if if i retired i would only have 30 my social security no huh you misunderstood you said you had a half million dollars right okay at 10 percent 10 percent of 500 is 50.

oh okay

if it's invested at 10 to 12 percent and you lived off of 10 percent that'd be 50.

i don't want you to take that much off.

I'd rather it be less because I want you to leave that 500 alone.

I don't want to touch it.

But, I mean, if you get $40,000 or $50,000 a year off of that or $30,000 to $50,000 a year off of that and you got your $30,000 in Social Security, and, you know, you probably, you might even pick up some personal assistant work around here, around Nashville, two or three days a week or something, too.

And I think you can make the move.

You're just going to have to be careful and watch what you're doing, and you're going to have to have have the 500K invested well.

Okay.

So would you take the sale of my home?

And buy a one-bedroom or two-bedroom condo cheap.

Pay cash for it.

Okay.

And that's your retirement home.

Gotcha.

That's what I was thinking.

No house payment.

That helps your expenses be low.

So you wouldn't consider renting my house?

I wouldn't consider renting my house.

No, you don't need a rental property in the coast, and you're in Nashville.

Yuck.

Right.

I want my 60-year-old, seven-year-old mother to have no.

I don't want anyone to ever be able to come take her house away from her.

Right.

Right.

Gotcha.

Okay.

Yeah, sell it.

I can do it.

Load up the truck and head to Beverly, kid.

But before you do that, come make some trips and figure out where you might live and what it's going to cost you to live and sit down with a SmartVestor Pro.

Go to ramseysolutions.com and they'll help you do

the analysis on the investing and they can teach you about investing and teach you what you can pull off of that and you say well based on that I think I can live okay and if you had a debt-free house and you didn't have a house payment and you had a you know you're 30,000 from Social Security and some income coming off of that what's it take me to live you're probably not spending all 80 right now

and Dave or I'm sorry 90 that you're making now I'm telling you I

Maybe it's just I'm paying attention to it because my parents are older.

I have heard the question from what I would call aging parents:

should I?

Should I move?

Should I sell this?

Should I be closer to the grandkids?

And I'm not hearing the words, can I?

And

more and more and more,

I think there's this idea, like, I think I'm going to retire.

And if you ask, can you?

That question never even popped into somebody's head.

And so I always want people to look at the math problem on this thing as well as the emotional, relational side.

Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Like, should I move around the kids?

Like, before you answer that question at all, ask, can you?

Like, mathematically, and then start asking the harder, do I want to move my life, make new friends, and that kind of thing.

Be around the kids and whatever.

But man, more and more,

I'm hearing people get to be 60, 70, and just think this stuff happens now.

This is the stage I'm in.

And there is a math problem to all this stuff.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Matt is in New York.

Hi, Matt.

How are you?

Hey, guys.

Thanks for taking my call.

Sure.

Just a little guidance on this situation I got here.

Okay.

So I have about

$6,000 loan on my truck that I currently have.

And it needs some work, but it gets me back and forth to work.

And I do use it to do side work, which is a good part of my income as well.

I really, I have also $6,000 in the bank, and I was wondering what you feel about switching baby step two and three

just due to the truck needing work.

I don't want to pay off my loan.

What's wrong with the truck?

On missions.

It's a good running truck overall, just emissions, some exhaust work, kind of like converter.

It's not a lot of money.

Kind of like converter could be a lot of money.

The rest of that's not a lot of money.

Yeah, I can cheat the system.

My plan was to try to pay it off in a year and just try to get the passes to.

It's only $6,000.

I know.

So you think I should keep the job?

What's your income, honey?

I just started a union job.

So right now I'm taking home $2,800, but my bills are $2,550.

So there's not much room in between to save.

Are you married?

At the moment?

Basically, but no, not yet.

No.

I am not.

Why'd you take a job that's barely, I mean, barely keeping you afloat?

Making $30,000 a year in New York?

Well, I was making probably about $150,000 to $200 more a week at my other job, but this union job that I got in five years after my schooling, I will make $100,000 a year.

So, and that's as a foreman in a union.

So, that's kind of

a pet.

That's five years of crossing your fingers hoping this $6,000 truck makes it.

I know.

So, I was thinking about getting like a commuter because it's a lot of miles.

Please don't.

I think I'm going to get

an extra job.

Yeah, dude, don't do that.

Don't do free.

And I'm going to pay off the truck today.

Because you're going to get an extra car for this commute, and something's going to happen in two and a half years, and you've got two and a half more years of barely surviving.

That's a lot.

Hoping the taxes don't go up.

Signing up for this union deal might not have been your smartest move, but if you're going to stick with it, you're going to have to have some other income coming in because you're starving to death on that.

Hey, George Camel here.

So, you're thinking about buying or selling your home.

It's exciting, but there's a lot to think about, and all those decisions can feel overwhelming.

Well, here's the good news: you don't have to tackle the process alone.

Ramsey's Real Estate Home Base is the place to find all of your free tools and resources for help to get prepared to buy or sell your home with confidence.

You'll find calculators, start-to-finish guides, a podcast, and even an in-depth video course hosted by yours truly, What's Not to Love?

So, if you're ready to take the next steps toward your home goals, go to ramseysolutions.com/slash real estate.

That's ramseysolutions.com/slash real estate.

Mo is in Wisconsin.

Hi, Moe.

How are you?

Hey, Dave, longtime fan.

I'm good.

How are you?

Better than I deserve, sir.

How can I help?

So,

you know, my wife and I,

we've been living sort of very conservatively.

I'm a doctor in training, and now I have a big contract coming up.

That's $650,000 a year.

Way to go.

She makes about, thank you.

She makes $100,000 a year.

And so we're projected to make $750,000 at the end of after a year of working.

Sweet.

What kind of doc are you?

Yeah.

Cardiology.

Oh, wow.

Good for you, man.

You've worked hard to get there.

I'm proud of you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The training's been very arduous, and I feel like I want to Porsche.

And my wife

is is in agreement too that, you know, I've deserved a nice car.

I deserve a nice car.

The thing is, is I'm not sure

if I can afford it.

And so that's why I called in today.

Okay.

Do you have any money?

Yeah, so I've saved up about $60,000, which is,

I would say, like an emergency fund type situation.

We own two homes.

One is in Florida, where I did the beginning of my training, and that one is being rented out, and it's generating $1,000 a month after all the taxes and bills are paid.

Does it have a mortgage on it?

Yeah, it does.

It has $150,000 left on it.

And your current home, what is it worth?

That one is $300,000, or it's worth about probably $450,000.

We bought it just a year ago, and we have $300,000 left on it.

So how much do you have in cash to buy your car with?

Well, that's the thing.

I'm going to get a sign-on bonus of between $75,000 to $100,000.

So

I wanted to use that to get the car.

So you want to buy a $75,000 car?

No, the car itself is, I was thinking about a $200,000, $250,000 car.

Remember that part where you opened the show, opened the call, and you said, I'm a big fan.

Hey, hold on.

What about your business?

How much?

You've listened to the show.

Have you ever heard me told anybody in any situation to get a car payment?

No.

No.

You know,

I know you say don't do the car payment, and I'm just

searching for, I don't know, some kind of approval.

No.

Oh, it's crazy.

I'm not going to give you approval.

Do something stupid.

I love you too much to tell you to do something stupid.

You've done too good a job.

Listen, you've been a grown-up for so long.

For just a minute here, you want to be a four-year-old, and I'm not going to let you.

you.

All right.

If you want to buy a $250,000 Porsche, I'm fine with that, with your income, as long as you are debt-free and you have your emergency fund in place and you pay cash for it.

I see.

So I would probably wait a year or so until I'm debt-free and then do it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That sounds good.

And what's the house in Florida worth, you said?

It's worth about $250,000.

I'd probably sell it.

Okay.

Sell it and then then even if it's cash flowing, you know, $1,000

a month.

$1,000 a month is nothing.

You want a $250,000 car, you make $750,000.

And you're screwing around with $12,000 in Florida.

Yeah.

It's nothing.

I got a property manager.

Oh, bullcrap.

It's burning too many calories for what it is.

It's not worth it.

I would use that money

to build my new life.

This is a new chapter.

You just close this other chapter.

That house is part of it, and you're trying to act like it's some kind of smart rental property thing it's not and just you know start your life fresh and if you want to buy a 250 000 car you are able to do that when you can pay cash for it um it's a lot but you could do that yeah um and

you deserve it when you can pay for it until then you don't deserve it i deserve it because i work hard

everybody works hard

Okay, your work has paid off beautifully.

Again, I'm proud of you.

You got an incredible income, and you've worked really hard to get here.

I don't doubt that.

But working really hard to get to do something

that's not financially smart is not a plan.

I want to work really hard, so I want to hurt myself.

No, that's not a reward for her working hard.

No, I want you to get a nice car.

I'll tell you what I would do.

In the meantime, I'd put that house up for sale, and I'd take some of that signing bonus, and I'd go buy a used Porsche for cash.

That's not the 250, and get you one and enjoy the ride.

Because honestly, they're great cars.

I've driven them, most of them, including the 250 one.

And the difference in the 250 when you're driving it and the $75,000 version that's a few years old is not much.

But the difference in the gastrointestinal distress when it hails outside is a lot.

Yeah, you better have you want those doctor parking spots inside the parking garage.

Yeah, dude.

The cardiologist spot inside the garage.

Here's another way to look at this.

With this income, in one calendar year, you could have completely paid off your house.

You could have no house payment.

For the rest of your life.

For the rest of your life.

And if you give yourself six more months, you don't even have kids yet, I'm assuming, you could have a fully funded, you could have $250,000 in cash just ready for that kid to be born into to go to college.

Like you have an opportunity if you will just

drive a hundred thousand dollar Porsche.

Yeah, yeah, drive a hundred thousand dollar Porsche.

And if you can suffer through that, and for 24 months, you change the trajectory of everyone in your family.

And Dave, I used to always tell grad students, whether med students, law students, if you will just

three to five years early on this purchase.

From changing everything.

Yeah, everything.

If you'll delay the purchase that long.

And

I know you've been working hard and I know you put in the hours and you're a smart guy or you wouldn't have been, you can't do this.

You can take a heart out of a person and put another one in.

Like,

you're obviously good at what you do, man.

But, dude, dude, dude, dude, two years and you change everything.

And let's just be real clear.

You called me and asked me if you could get a car payment.

So,

you know, we can't, we can't, you know.

You're not that smart.

I'm just kidding.

No, dude.

Dave, you know what?

You nailed it because I've been there when

it's like I would go to all day as dean of students, then I would go to a crisis call in the middle of the night.

And then I'd be like,

my grown-up is used up.

I'm like,

I just want to get a bag of Twizzlers and some gummy bears at 4 a.m.

on my ride home.

And it's like,

chase it with a mountain dew.

Just be a grown-up for a few more minutes, right?

Yes, you're right.

My adult gets all used up, but I just want to act like a kid.

And you can do that.

You can afford it.

I could do it.

But man, it just costs you.

Just costs you.

Yeah.

That's a great way to put that, Dave.

I've never thought of it that way.

It's well, we all do it.

I mean, we run.

I've been under control.

I've been under control.

I just want to hit that guy, right?

And it's, it's, oh, yeah, that one.

Yeah.

And, but, yeah, the,

yeah.

And the, you never struggle with that.

The cost of that.

Um,

yeah.

I've been nice.

I've been nice.

I've been nice.

He really needs his nose broken.

Um, but the uh uh yeah, that that's a

real thing.

And uh um

the what what I'm trying to tap into with all these docs, because they get this doc-itis thing, is they do, they be, they're such a grown-up for so long because, I mean, while he's been doing fellowship, residency, med school, you know, the guys he went to high school with a decade ago started partying.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

A decade ago.

They're already in the lobby to see him because their hearts are huge, right?

Because they're about to explode.

Yeah.

And so he's got an extra 10 years of being a grown-up, but he also gets the payoff of $650,000.

That's right.

$650,000 income.

And I don't want a doctor who's underpaid.

So I want my doctors to be paid.

Pay my cardiologist as much as you can get away from it.

I want them to be paid a lot.

So I'm happy for you, Moe.

And I'm just going to call on the grown-up Mo that's down inside there to stay alive for a couple more years.

And if you do that, you're going to be in a lot better shape.

You're going to enjoy the car more

because it won't feel like a guilty pleasure.

Instead, it'll feel like something you earned.

Yeah, you're awesome, Mo, dude.

You're awesome.

Our scripture of the day, Proverbs 3, 21, my son, do not let wisdom and understanding out of your sight.

Preserve sound judgment and discretion.

Thomas Sowell said, Two things that seldom seem to go together are genius and common sense.

I have noticed that to be true.

Jeff's in Mesa, Arizona.

Hey, Jeff, how are you?

I'm good.

Thanks for taking my call, Dave.

Appreciate it.

Sure.

How can I help?

Well, I just retired.

I'm 64 and

trying to decide

we're living in a 30-year-old home and we need to do some remodeling

and how to go about doing that.

We've got

about $80,000 in a Roth.

I've got about $40,000 in a high-yield savings.

But being on a fixed income, you know, my wife's working part-time, just trying to figure out, do we do a HELOC?

That's your entire nest egg?

What's that?

That's your entire nest egg?

Is that $80,000?

No, I have, well, yeah, nest egg.

I'm on a pension, so I get a pension.

How much is your pension?

$4,700 a month.

And then I'll have my Social Security come in pretty soon.

What kind of work are you going to do on the house?

Bathroom remodels and a kitchen remodel and some some paint.

We paid cash for some new flooring last year.

Good.

And some new windows.

That's what you're going to do this year.

Last thing you need is debt.

You have no nest egg to amount to anything and you're living on a $4,000 pension.

And you can't afford to have a payment.

You don't have any room for that.

And so, yeah, I mean, you're going to do these repairs a little bit at a time with cash.

You do, you know, break the repairs down into different projects and save up.

And, okay, now we're going to do the bath and save up like you did the other stuff.

You saved up and paid for it.

And

you said you're 64.

Yes.

What did you used to do?

I was a school teacher.

Okay.

All right.

Personally, what I would do if I woke up in your shoes is I would take a bunch of students

as tutoring at $50 an hour, and I would let that help me save up and do this repairs.

Okay.

What did you teach?

I taught physical education and social studies.

Okay.

All right.

So, and you've obviously had a lot of years in the classroom.

And the good thing about tutoring is you can pick and choose the parents.

Yeah, I still have my teaching certificate.

Yeah, true.

Yeah, could you go back and double teach?

I can go back and substitute teach, and that'll bring in probably $1,500 a month.

Yeah.

Could you double dip?

Some states allow you to go back and you start over as your first year of service, but you can get your pension plus become a first-year, you draw a first-year teacher's salary again.

Can you do that?

I have to separate for one year and then I can go back and do that.

Because if you did that, and let's say you, you, I don't know what the first year salary is where you work, but it's 35K.

That's a bathroom the next year is another bathroom and then two years is your dream kitchen i mean that wouldn't how you drew it up but man you could be 67 68 and have everything paid for with cash and then finally be done man but or run a nice little tutoring business that creates it creates about the same income yeah either one something like that that's personally what i would do uh reverses sitting there and going i'm 64 i'm doing nothing Oh, I'm taking out a loan.

No, I'm not doing that.

And the collateral on the loan is the very house I'm trying to retire in.

I'm trying to retire in.

Yeah, that scares me even more.

Yeah, that takes some of the joy out of this idea of retirement.

Well, and let me say this.

My guess is it makes these bathrooms that we quote-unquote have to remodel way less have to.

And it may be one bathroom that we need to because there's some plumbing issues and went up, but you can put one off just for theesthetics or whatever.

But it'll slow down the down the trajectory if you've got to pay cash for it.

Yeah, that's a possibility.

That's one way to do it.

But no, I would not take out a loan ever, but I really would not take out a loan in your place.

That's really, really scary.

Bailey's in Missouri.

Hi, Bailey.

How are you?

I'm doing okay.

Good.

How can we help you?

I have a...

I've got a question for you, and if you need more information, just let me know.

But I'm 29.

My husband just turned 36.

We just started listening to you guys in May, and we're, I mean, we're all in.

We're trying to do all the things.

We're just feeling a little stuck.

A lot of the reason because both of us work for the public school education system, and we can't opt out of

our pension.

So that's almost $1,200 a month that

frustratingly we can't get to.

We just bought a house in February, and

that's one of our biggest expenses.

It's technically under the 25%, like your rule, but

we're looking at anything to squeeze the budget because we can't even get, you know,

$200 extra a month.

We have $270 in student loans between the two of us.

And you're two teachers.

Well, I'm not a teacher.

I'm not a physical therapist I just work for the school district and yeah my husband what do you make is

I make 85,000 a year and he makes close to 70

okay so we got a hundred and fifty thousand dollar income

can you do work on Saturdays and Sundays doing private PT clients

I do I

also just started started listening you guys do first steps so it's like baby through three years old right

Yeah.

And he's he's trying.

He's he's doing side hustles.

Right now he's in football season.

He's a football coach.

So

okay, yeah, I mean, it's you got a lot of student loan debt.

I mean, obviously.

And that's the PT debt, a lot of church, probably.

Actually, yeah, it's it's a he's got a little bit more than I do.

Oh, I love Mozrome.

Okay.

Cool.

Well, that's.

He went back for a specialist

stupidly just to raise, like, get up on the steps on a teacher's salary.

Yeah.

Admittedly.

And it didn't.

It didn't, the ROI on that's not there, obviously.

Okay.

Correct.

Well, we got 150,000 plus side hustles of 50, and we need to tear into 300.

And so if you throw 100 at it a year, because your side hustles allow you enough to live on, that's three years of beans and rice, rice and beans.

I'm with you.

This is a plan.

Let's do it.

This is strenuous.

You do have a mess.

Yeah, I mean, we only take home

$8,200 a month.

We have so much going out with pension and I self-spatial Social Security on top of the 13% they require.

Okay.

But are you getting a tax refund?

No.

We actually get a lot of requirements.

Are you putting any money in that is not required into any kind of retirement?

Oh, no.

No.

Only the required amounts.

Okay.

Yeah, you're just getting docked left and right.

And so any side thing you can do to

try to get dug through the, I mean, because, again, we need to find $100 a year, and your $8,8,300 is $100 a year.

And so if we can make enough with side hustles to live on, we throw that whole $100 at it, and we're done in three years.

But that's really beans and rice, and that's a lot of extra work for three years.

But, I mean, you've been 10 years and making this mess so three to clean it up is probably not bad

yeah

yeah

is there any possibility that you can leave the school system and make more make more

honestly it's a it's a very nice gig for me because

i know it's a nice gig but you can't afford it no no i mean no no no i no it it is 85 is not bad that's very good pay okay that's good pay for a piece very good pay okay for having summers off that i can work extra

so oh i forgot about that yeah y'all are both going to be just working full-time at a couple different places in the summer and that's a way y'all could really get ahead huh

yeah i think so we we do have two um two under two

man

well that's what it's going to take you're going to have to burn the candle kiddo and uh because you made a big mess and now you're going to need a big shovel that's what it amounts to i think you got the right stuff you're analyzing it the right way i don't have any argument with what you're looking at.

Thanks for the call.

That puts this hour of the Ramsey 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.

Up next, we are headed out to Chicago and Orlando for the Ramsey Show Live.

Yep, you heard me right.

We are taking this show to you.

This is going to be everything you love about the Ramsey Show, except you get to be a part of it.

Part of what, George?

The Ramsey Show Live.

Okay.

That's what I'm telling them about.

Ramsey Show Live in here?

Nope, we're doing it on the road.

You're going to Chicago with me and Rachel Cruz September 30th.

Are you free?

The windy city.

I like it that time of year.

You know what else I like, George?

I like the deep dish.

Oh, okay.

Maybe we'll have some deep dish.

You mind if I finish the promo?

Is that okay with you?

Okay.

Okay.

Appreciate

Questions and answers, real conversations, and I'm sure a few surprises here and there.

George, are you in here talking about Tiara's live?

I am, Jade.

I'm trying to talk about it.

Nice.

So that means it's actually happening, right?

It's happening.

If I could tell the people, I think it could actually come to fruition.

Listen, just tell me when and where.

You don't know?

Okay, we're going to Orlando.

You're going to join Dr.

John Deloni and I October 2nd.

Yes.

Okay, great.

I'm going to go pack now.

Thanks for watching.

Please, please do that.

Go.

Pack.

Hey, George, speaking of packing, is this like sweater weather or is it not that cold yet in Chicago?

What is happening?

Can I please just get to how they buy the tickets?

Geez, I thought it was a good question.

Okay, this is not an arena tour.

This is a one-night-only event in Chicago and Orlando.

General admission is only $39.

Plus, there's a VIP experience if you're bougie like that.

But here's the thing: there's only 300 seats available.

So get your tickets now at ramseysolutions.com/slash events.

Hey, how come you get to go to both cities?

I just go where they tell me, man.

Hey, have you been there the entire time?

Maybe.

Okay, and also, are you reading a children's book?

I'm expanding my mind, George.

That's how we got those PhDs.

Yeah, that's probably where you got that jacket.

Okay.

See you on the road, John.