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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual, amazing relationships.

I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Dr.

John Deloney, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, and host of the super popular Dr.

John Deloney show on the Ramsey Networks.

He's my co-host today.

PhD in counseling, so if you need some, he's here.

Phone number is 888-825-5225.

Matt is in Long Island.

Hey, Matt, what's up?

Hey, how you doing, Dave?

Better than I deserve.

How can I help?

Okay.

So I currently work about 70 to 75 hours a week between two jobs.

I'm married with two kids, and I'm on baby step number six.

I wanted to know if it would be wise

to stop working my second job and kind of spend a little bit more time with my family rather than trying to pay my house off early.

Yes.

Okay.

We don't recommend 80 hours a week when you're on baby steps four, five, and six.

When you're on two and you're getting out of debt and three, you're trying to build your emergency fund, yeah, you pour the coal zone.

You burn the midnight oil, you kick butt, you take six jobs and sell so much stuff the kids think they're next and all that, right?

But then when you move from baby step, when you're out of debt and you have your emergency fund and you move into four, five, and six, which is safe for retirement, kids, college, and pay off your house, you move from intense to intentional.

Okay.

And so intentional is not 80 hours a week

as a pattern.

I wouldn't do that

as an ongoing thing.

You'll hit the wall because those three baby steps take typically six, seven years.

And so how much do you owe in your house today?

About $350,000.

Yeah, it's going to be a while.

So yeah, I would relax a little.

I mean, if you cut back to 60 hours, you feel like you're on vacation.

Exactly.

When I don't work the second job, I don't know what to do with all the time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, you're going to spend it with your kids, not on Netflix

and not on Instagram.

Yeah.

Hey, and dude, expect that to feel a little bit itchy.

Yeah.

Like, nobody tells us as parents, and I love my kids more than life itself, but sometimes it can get boring.

And the next deal can feel like a little bit of a rush, right?

Or the next email to an employee that's bugging you can feel like a rush.

Just expect to get a little bit itchy when you cut.

20 hours out of your week and you're sitting around a table like drawing pictures of dragons again or whatever or throwing the same frisbee, it can feel a little bit boring, but man, that time you don't get back, and it becomes magical over time.

Yeah, it's worth it.

It's worth that investment.

You want to make deposits into that account.

McKenzie's in St.

Louis.

Hi, McKenzie.

How are you?

I'm good.

How are you?

Better than I deserve.

How can I help?

So I am calling.

Me and my husband just agreed to start on the baby steps about two days ago, and we have

a AC and furnace that needs replaced that we know is coming up soon that costs about $11,000.

We currently have about $10,000 in our high-yield savings and about $12,000 in our checking.

But we have our

the first loan that we're going to go at with our debt is a student loan that's about $17,000 or $18,000 left on it.

That's your smallest loan.

I don't know.

Correct.

yeah how much debt do you have

um we've got about 99 that's not our house and then about 185 left on our house okay and 17 is a student loan of the 99 what's the rest of the 99

so those are my husband's student

loans of 56 and then we have a minivan that has 24 left on it okay so that's the second one and then so 17 24 56 is your order of attack, right?

Correct.

Are those broken up into a bunch of smaller little loans that you've added together or did you already did you already consolidate them?

Yeah.

No, that's all of them together.

Okay, then we wouldn't list them.

We list them by the loan balance, not by category.

So

17,000 is not your smallest debt then.

Okay.

So our okay.

Our highest interest

nope forget about interest interest rate doesn't matter all we're doing is listing the debts smallest to largest regardless of interest rate pay minimum payments on everything but the little one and attack the little one so uh how many student loans make up the 17

um i think he has about four or five

okay and how many how many student loans make up the 56

that's like seven or eight of them okay so that's gonna be so the the car is gonna end up being last probably

yeah which would be normal so we're gonna plow

we were gonna do his student loans and then the van because those are both about 400 a month so that would open 800 well you're gonna work okay if you want to work your system you can okay i'm telling you how to work ours

okay okay

um

I mean, it's up to you.

You get to do what you want to do.

But the way you work hours is, is you work it smallest to largest, regardless of interest rate or payment amount.

And

that system is actually proven because the completion rate of people who start that system is very high.

And the reason is, is they get positive feedback as they knock off those smallest debts in the early stages.

And because right now, you're two whole days into this.

And right now, it's all still theory.

You have no proof yet.

But when you pay off that first one, you get a little bit of proof.

And you pay off another one, you get a little bit more proof.

And the more proof you build up, the more excited you get and the more sacrificial you get in your lifestyle because you start to see that this is going to work.

And I'm willing willing to pay.

I'm willing to work extra.

I'm willing to sell stuff.

I'm willing to move ahead.

I mean, you may end up even selling the van.

What do y'all make a year?

What's your household income?

He makes about one,

we make 82.

He makes about, your phone keeps cutting out.

He makes about what?

One what?

He makes $130,000 and I make $82.

Okay, so you've got a $200,000 household income, $212,000 household income.

Okay.

Yep, and we were doing things backwards.

So he was putting into his 401k.

We stopped that.

We had a college savings for our kids.

We stopped that.

Good.

And that's temporary.

Those are temporary because you should be out of debt in a year or so.

Yeah, I agree.

Yeah.

So get in attack mode.

Now, the heating and air, back to that.

That's why you called.

It's not bad.

It's just limping.

And it's old.

And the heat and air guy keeps telling you every time he comes out to service it that you're going going to have to get a new one.

Ash, we just had the electric company come in our house because our electric bill is

plastic.

So we had them come in and tell us where we could save money on it and what was wrong.

Yeah, and of course they recommend you get a new heat and air system.

Yeah.

A lot of people recommend you get a heat and air system that sell heat and air systems.

It kind of goes with that territory.

So here's the thing.

The one you have is going to make it another year.

Okay.

And if it doesn't, you're going to fix fix it and it's going to make it another year

so you need to take the money from that account and out of your checking and out of your savings down to one thousand dollars and throw that twenty and get this debt snowball rolling fast and then you guys crank up

crank up the uh the budget and let's get this thing knocked out you probably are going to be debt-free in about eight months if you do that maybe nine if i'm doing the math right in my head so and then you'll then you'll buy a heat and air system with cash at the time.

But the whole thing's not going to completely collapse, and you're not going to freeze to death in the interim.

You're just not.

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Michael's in Georgia.

Hey, Michael, welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Thank you, Dave.

Thanks so much for having me.

I got a question about our will.

My wife wife is 63,

or 62, I'm 64.

We have two children and adult children, and we have right now our will divided 50-50.

My son has a history of blowing money, and we have stopped helping some years ago.

Also, there's other concerns.

He's in a lifestyle and a relationship that we don't agree with.

And so the question is really simple.

Is it appropriate to change the will where

one adult child is a beneficiary of a decreased amount?

Yes.

It's totally appropriate.

But the goal is not to be a punishing force.

Exactly.

The goal is to, I don't want to finance things I don't agree with

with my death.

Okay.

And so

my value system is not matching.

And so

I'm not going to

finance, you know, an extreme situation that I always use just to kind of illustrate the concept.

And it's not what you've got.

But I mean, if your kid's doing heroin and you leave them a bunch of money, you kill them because they're going to overdose because they're now a well-financed heroin addict.

And so, you know, you're not doing them a favor to finance.

their bad choices

from the grave.

And so

is this something we communicate?

Yes, God, please, yes.

Otherwise, you're going to destroy his relationship with his brother.

The sibling.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a daughter and a son.

Yeah, you're going to destroy it.

Because you're going to leave all this to the daughter.

And then when you pass it, he's going to be pissed at her like she did something and she didn't do anything.

So,

and, you know, and,

you know, John makes some.

How, what's the gentlest?

Because, again, you'd want to make sure you're not using.

If it's me, I would have a tendency to be

doling this out as punishment.

And I have to make sure I get my heart right that I am not doing that, but instead I'm doing this to not

finance the wrong thing.

That's been a two to three year process of making sure my heart is right.

This is something we could have done some years ago.

Yeah,

how do you gently have this conversation?

Well, like you say, if you're worried about him blowing money, I always like like there to be a path to redemption and so um

if there is no path there's no path and then there's not a gentle way other than to treat the person with dignity and respect and be kind and say it and expect the blowback that you're going to anticipate

but don't become somebody you're not in an effort to have a hard conversation right um the other side of it is if this person has a history of blowing money a history of addiction, a history of whatever, and you've cut them off financially, being able to say, I want to love and support you, but I'm not willing to do it in this way.

If you get on this plan, if you want to sit down and get some support in these ways, man,

I'm all open.

But as of right now, here's my decision.

Yeah, and this is not our relationship I'm cutting off.

It's just the money.

Right.

Yeah.

I still love you, and you can't do anything that you can't do anything bad enough to make me not love you.

Yeah, even logistically, you got

a child who's single.

You got another one who's got two kids.

So you could we present it even logistically no

I think you're just telling the truth

no just tell them the truth

we're not aligned on these things honey and you know we're not aligned on these things and you know we love you anyway but we you need to know also that we're not we don't feel right about leaving money to finance things that we're not aligned on and so I just want to let you know that your sister has nothing to do with this but we are changing the will because of these decisions you have made

and so um and and if you decide not to do that anymore, then we can talk about that.

But it's not a punishment.

It's because we just don't send money to things that we don't think it's morally or ethically correct to send money to things we don't agree with.

And so, you know,

and so on.

You know, it's, and I don't know that the conversation needs to be lengthy.

I really wouldn't get into who shot who.

Very short.

Very short.

And always, it's kind of like

a termination of employment.

Here's the hard thing.

I'm going to be back here in a week.

Or I know this is hard to digest.

This is challenging, whatever.

If you want to talk further about it, I'd love to circle back with you on it.

But this is, I just wanted you to know this is some choices we've made.

Because at that moment, it's fight or flight.

Nobody's, everyone's defending themselves and lashing out or shutting down.

Don't try to explain it.

Right.

Not in that moment.

Don't give a whole bunch of details as to why.

Not in that moment.

It's just these a couple of things here you know we're not aligned on.

And you know, based on that, your mom and I have talked about it.

And we don't think it's morally correct for us to leave money to things that we're not aligned on.

But it doesn't mean we don't love you.

Here's the biggest thing out of this.

I just was having a conversation with somebody outside of this building recently about this very thing.

You will poison their relationship with their sibling.

If or with aunt, uncle, whoever you leave this money to, if you don't have the courage to have the conversation while real life, have the conversation.

I talked to a sibling whose parent called and said, I'm moving all the money to you and will not have the conversation.

And I said, well, circle back and say, I don't want the money for destroying my relationship with my sibling.

Yeah.

It goes wrong every time.

That's just, that's cowardly.

Correct.

Yeah.

So, yeah, you've got, you've got to.

And the way we always make fun of it here on the air is like, if you're going to piss somebody off with your will, do it while you're alive.

You know, it's that kind of thing.

Because you are going to get blowback on this too, by the way.

Don't expect this conversation to go well.

It goes poorly 100% of the time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's not going to go well.

But what's the saying you use?

I can't remember.

It's regret is

guilt over resentment.

Yeah.

Choose guilt over resentment.

You're going to feel guilty about taking the money, whatever.

Otherwise, you're just going to live every moment resenting your kid for future behavior they may or may not do after you're gone.

And they don't even know they're doing it right.

Yet.

So, yeah, that's the whole thing.

Patrick's in Grand Junction, Colorado.

Hey, Patrick, what's up?

Hey, Dave.

I am assuming you are doing better than you deserve, so I will jump right in, buddy.

Okay.

My wife and I are 45 years old, and we have six kids from 18 down to 10.

And they have all gone through your homeschool Dave-Ramsey curriculum.

Awesome.

And yeah, they are doing great.

My 15-year-old son.

came to us with an Excel spreadsheet that he printed out, and he said, Mom, when can I start a Roth IRA?

Wow.

So three, my first three kids started their Roth IRA at 15.

My fourth kid, he's 14 years old.

He wants to start his this year and they're really doing good.

That's right.

I've never told a parent parent this before.

Get your kid a video game system or something.

I will consider it.

Okay.

Dave, my wife and I think we might be able to complete baby step number six this year

at the very worst early next year.

Congratulations.

Totally, yeah, obviously, totally debt-free.

My question, and I have 10,000 more questions after this, but I know we don't have a lot of time.

So the main question, how do I protect my home once it is totally paid off?

I'm self-employed, and I'm just concerned that once I have this nice, juicy asset, you know,

if the worst thing happens, maybe you get sued, someone gets hurt on a job, and all of a sudden someone wants to come after your home.

What's the best way to protect it?

Do I put it in a trust?

Do you have a suggestion, you know, for us?

Well, number one, your business where the liability that you're concerned with should be an LLC.

Is it?

No, it is not.

It's prior to the correct.

That's the first thing.

That's the first thing.

The business needs to be an LLC because that's your biggest source of.

Then

if someone gets hurt or harmed in some way associated with the LLC, the only thing they could sue is the LLC.

Got it.

Okay.

Yeah, and the assets in the company.

And you do business in the name of the LLC all the time.

You never again do business in the name of Patrick.

And so once you've got some assets and you're running a business that enough assets that you're worried about having a target like this, then you definitely do an LLC there.

If you want to go one step further, you can just drop the house into an LLC if you want.

Some people put their homes in trusts.

I did that with one house,

but these days everything we have is LLCs, and I got a bunch of them.

And I actually am very poor.

I don't own a single thing.

There's zero things in Dave's name.

So if you want to sue me, you just have at it.

I don't own anything.

It's really a bad target.

It's not a target-rich environment.

But now, some of the LLCs that we have, they own some stuff.

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Paul is in Minnesota.

Hey, Paul, welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hey, Dave, thanks for taking my call.

Appreciate it.

Sure.

How can we help?

Well, my wife and I are

currently about $57,000 in debt minus our house.

We have

baby step one complete.

We have the, you know, the thousand dollars saved up.

We just were trying to recover from just years of making making bad financial decisions and just kind of don't know what to do to kind of take that next step.

It just seems like whenever we try to get ahead,

something comes up, we have to, you know, dip into our savings or eliminate our savings.

And, you know, we, some months are good, other months for paycheck to paycheck.

And we're just trying to find a way we can sustain more income and just kind of get ahead of this debt.

Okay.

So what's your household income?

Take-home pay after taxes

between our two main jobs is about $60,000 to $65,000 a year.

I started my own business last year doing interior detailing, and that kind of fluctuates.

That's probably added another $15,000 a year.

On top of this?

Correct.

Okay.

So you're dealing with $80,000 a year situation.

And when you said take-home pay, you've stopped 401ks temporarily.

Yep, we don't have retirement through our jobs.

Okay.

Unfortunately.

Okay.

And do you have any other expenses coming out of your checks other than taxes?

No.

Okay.

Where's health insurance?

Our health insurance is we just locally purchased it through the state.

It's about $230 a month.

Okay.

And you're buying that separate as a budget item.

Okay.

All right.

Correct.

Okay.

So we got $80,000 to deal with, and you have fifty seven thousand dollars in debt what is the uh debt on

um so we have about eighty five hundred in a personal loan um ninety five hundred in credit cards um the big ones are going to be our two vehicles about twenty thousand dollars between the two and then um just about twenty one thousand in school loans okay all right

and uh what's your house payment

um

so we have insurance and taxes and all that um rolled into it So it's $1,520 a month.

How many kids do you have?

We have two boys, seven and four.

Okay.

All right.

Well, $80,000 a year with a $1,500 house payment.

You should be able to make progress on this.

Okay.

Substantial progress.

So

I think the devil's in the details inside your every dollar budget.

And, you know, I don't know whether you're still going out to eat.

I don't know if you're still going on vacation.

I don't know where the leak is in this.

but

what I'm looking at is $7,000, $8,000 a month, $7,000 and some change a month minus $1,500

minus food, lights, water.

I think I can find $1,000 in there to put on these debts.

Are the car payments real high interest?

I think one is about 9%.

The other one,

I can't remember what the other one is.

I want to say it might be a little over.

So these car payments are $400 or $500 apiece, right?

Yep, $300 and like $195.

So they're not.

So that's not it.

Okay.

You seem to acknowledge there's some leaks somewhere.

Where is this money going?

You know,

I try to ask myself the same thing.

I think the income might be a little off.

Like I said, my interior detailing business fluctuates quite a bit.

It seems like on average, I mean, when I'm mapping it out,

that's only $1,000, twelve hundred dollars a month sure if it if it averages out okay yeah um so some months you make four some make months you make nothing probably okay but still that's not

I mean you should be able to make it and make progress without the interior detailing the interior detailing could all go towards this

So yeah,

are you doing a detailed every dollar budget, you and your spouse sitting down and every dollar has a name before the month begins?

We don't.

It's more so we use it to track.

Yeah, we use it to more so track our bills and make sure we're paying everything that we need to pay for.

That's not what I'm supposed to do.

You've got to get around in front of the money instead of behind it.

You can't look in the rearview mirror and say, what happened?

It's too late.

The money's gone.

You have to tell it what to do before it leaves, and then it will go to the correct things.

That's where your leaks are, is just in the chaos of the disorganization.

And

here's how I know that from 30 years of doing this.

The most often often thing people say after they do their every dollar budget, they download the app, they put the money in there, and they often say, I feel like I got a raise.

And all it is is the money is being, it's more efficiently deployed.

That's all it is.

And so you have this sense of power, this sense of empowerment.

And the other thing they say is, What have we been doing?

Where has all this money gone before?

They can't, you know, it's like it just disappeared.

And

I've heard this from people doing the Every Dollar Budget ever since we first built the app long time ago.

And it wasn't nearly as sophisticated and didn't tell you what to do and help you walk through the baby steps and everything else like it does now.

But back then, but I mean, it just, even when I was doing budgets with a yellow pad, and you would just write down, kind of like I just did in my head with your stuff just now.

You know, you got $7,000, you got $1,500, and then we take off lights and water and a $195 car payment, a $350 car payment.

I still got money.

Where's the money going?

Seven thousand.

And that's what you were saying.

And it's like everybody has that same reaction to their own budget when they do it.

I feel like I got a raise because I made my money behave.

And that old John Maxwell saying starts to, you know,

hit that emotion of a budget is people telling their money what to do instead of wondering where it went.

A budget is not a form of medieval torture.

You don't find it in the dungeon with the thumb screws.

It's not there, okay?

In the stretch machine or whatever, all that stuff, right?

But

it's not a form of medieval torture.

It's simply you're doing it on purpose.

You're being proactive instead of reactive.

And anytime you do that in any area of your life, it increases your dignity and lowers your anxiety.

And I'll say this.

In any area of your life, when you discover, oh my gosh, we've been eating out to the tune of $1,600 a month, or

this has never happened in my house, but you're you're buying so many bullets or guitar things that, like, we have this much extra gummies, like gummy bears, we have this much extra money.

There is

like an order of things that happen.

You feel ashamed, you feel super, super excited, and then the 30 days, the next 30 days happens, and it's not fun at all.

No.

It feels like you just got $1,600, you didn't.

You located it, but now you have to actually not spend it on stuff, and that's hard.

And that's discipline.

I remember when we first started Financial Peace University with the videotapes a long time ago.

I went to visit one of the classes and this old country boy was in there and I said by the way, by the way, videotapes for you young folks, they used to take YouTube clips and put them on inside of plastic and then just you had it at your house.

Okay, go ahead, Dave.

I stopped in and this small group, this old country boy was in there and he goes, yeah, I done figured out why we ain't got no retirement.

We've been eating it.

Yeah, $1,200 a month on restaurants.

And that was a long time ago.

I've never heard anybody spend $1,200 on a restaurant.

But man, it was wild.

Yeah.

But yeah, we ain't got no retirement because we've been eating it.

And everybody cracked up and they all could relate.

That's exactly what it was.

Or bullets or whatever it is.

It could happen.

Firearms.

They could cause issues.

But expect to be embarrassed.

Like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I've been spending this.

Expect to be like, yeah, we're rich.

You're not.

And expect the next 30 to 60 days to be miserable because then you have to change your behavior.

If you've been eating out three times a week, you have to figure out how to eat at home.

If you watch a news channel that makes you uncomfortable and you think buying bullets is going to solve that discomfort, I don't know anybody that that does that for, you're going to have to just sit in the discomfort.

And if you have latent fantasies of being a rock star and you're in your late 40s and you haven't realized it's not going to happen yet, Dave, I'm talking to myself here.

Don't buy that thing because it's not going to help.

It's not going to help.

It's not the guitar, it's not the problem.

It's not.

I'm the problem.

It's me.

As the great philosopher Taylor Swift once said.

We'll just end on that.

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 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.

Term life insurance.

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They're the only people I trust.

Go to Zander.com or call 800-356-4282.

Thanks for hanging out with us, America.

Did you know that two-thirds of Americans die without a will?

That's 70% of you.

That's dumb.

That's just straight up dumb.

You're going to leave the family behind.

They're not going to know what's going on.

You're going to increase your cart costs through the roof.

And then the government is going to

tell your family what's going to happen

instead of you doing it.

Just because you wouldn't sit down and do it.

Well, I might die.

You're going to die.

We've done research.

100% of you are going to die.

It's just a matter of when, and you don't know when.

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This is the month you do your will right now.

And if you've moved states, your will is invalid.

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Probate law is not federal law.

It is state law, and state laws are different from state to state, particularly if you leave a state like California or Texas or Louisiana.

All three of those have weird laws.

And so Texas is a republic.

It thinks it's its own country still.

It has weird laws.

California, well, enough said.

And Louisiana's got a lot of French stuff woven into their law where most of the other law is English-based.

And so it's different.

And so, yeah, you're going to, you need a different, you need a will when you move.

If you'd get a, if you have something change in your life, a divorce, a death, you need to do your will again and update it.

And so get your stuff done, people.

It changes everything when you do.

All right, Marcus is up next.

Marcus is in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Hey, Marcus, how are you?

A lot better than I deserved, Ulster Dave.

How are you?

The same, sir.

How can I help?

Dave, I'm in my third year of bankruptcy,

and it's been pretty rough.

About two months ago,

the mother of my children, she decided to do some drinking and driving.

She almost killed herself and my young children.

My twins are four years old, and I recently gained full custody due to the circumstances of that.

And it's been pretty rough, man.

I've depleted my emergency fund, and

my back is pretty much up against the wall.

And

I'm calling because I've been weighing the option of selling my home and just renting because

10% interest rate with the bankruptcy is just hard.

I don't know if I can do two more years of it.

I'm on a five-year term, and

I made about $60,000 last year, and bankruptcy took 30 of that.

So I'm pretty much.

So how much debt is in your chapter 13?

It was $70,000,

$74,000 to be exact.

I called my mortgage company, and they let me know that $61,000 is what's owed on the house.

The house is in the chapter 13?

Yes, sir.

Yes, sir.

I was facing foreclosure, and that is why I filed chapter 13.

I see.

Okay.

And so you owe the whole thing is the house.

You don't have any other debt in the chapter 13?

I had about,

I believe, 25 to 3,000 in consumer debt.

But it's almost all of the house, in other words.

That's correct.

Yes, sir.

So the house is the problem, so the house might be the solution mathematically.

I got you.

I'm catching on.

So you owe, like, how much on the house today?

They gave me a payoff of 61.

What is it worth?

They said I owe

the tax or the property tax said about $100.

No, that's not what I asked.

I asked what it's really worth.

What are you going to put it on the market for?

Tax appraisal is not appraisal.

Yes, sir.

I understand.

What do you think the house is actually worth if we put a sign in the yard?

You have any idea?

$200

to $200.

Okay, yeah.

All right.

So you put $140 in your pocket and you're free.

So you would sell.

I'm just asking.

I'm making sure I understand this is exactly what you're saying, correct?

Yes, sir.

That is the option I'm wearing.

Yes, sir.

And you got four-year-old twins, full-time?

Yes.

Yes, sir.

Who's taking care of them while you're at work?

I've been lucky enough to get some daycare vouchers, so they're in a daycare, and my mom's helping with pickup and drop-offs.

Okay.

What do you do for a living, sir?

I'm a delivery driver

for a company in here in Raleigh.

How old are you?

I'm 38 years old.

Okay.

Wow.

Okay.

What I don't want to do, and I'm thinking this reason I'm pausing and flipping around, I want to make sure I get all the answers to these details, because what I don't want to do is you obviously need some relief.

Your language and the way you describe the situation and everything coming into the, early in the call when you first got on the line,

I mean, you're...

You need some relief.

And I don't want to give you relief

in return for doing something dumb.

I mean, if it feels good today, but it sucks as a five-year decision, I don't want to do that one, okay?

But I don't see a downside of selling this house right now.

As long as you say, okay, the plan is I'm going to sell the house.

I'm going to be free.

I'm going to relax for a little bit, breathe a little bit,

get out from under the bankruptcy.

It was not a blessing.

We probably just sold it to stop the foreclosure rather than gone into bankruptcy to stop the foreclosure would have been the plan.

And

then

and then but but what I want to do on the back side of that is not just my only strategy doesn't mean to be get away from the pain.

My strategy needs to get away from the pain so that I can go do A, B, and C to prosper.

Yes, sir.

So, yeah, I'm with you.

Let's get away from the pain.

But I want you to decide what are you going to do with $140,000?

So I spoke with my bankruptcy attorney, and I still have a meeting with them, but they informed me that

after, I guess I make the sale, the proceeds would go to the trustee.

So

and I'm guessing that means that the bankruptcy and everything will be clear.

I'll be discharged of that.

And then they return the proceeds to you.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yes, sir.

Do you know how that process works?

Is that like a 30-day thing?

It depends on your trustee.

The bankruptcy trust, Chapter 13 trustee is a local office.

And if Raleigh's Chapter 13 is efficient, you'll get it inside of a month.

Most of the Chapter 13 trustees, I know several of them, are excellent at what they do.

They really run a good shop.

The guy here in Nashville is the best in the nation.

He actually leads a lot of the associations.

He's a friend of mine.

And he runs an incredible shop.

But most of the

Most of them do a good job, but just talk to the Chapter 13 trustee office about it.

Say, how long can I expect to get this?

How long before?

And so forth, because I need to go rent something and I don't have any money.

I do have a fear of

finding something to rent with bankruptcy being on my history.

Do you think that's going to be a big obstacle?

Well, you know, you've got $140,000 in your pocket, so you probably can work that out with a deposit.

Okay.

Or a prepayment of rent.

I'll prepay for six months and I'll give you a deposit if you're nervous about my 13.

But I'm out of the 13.

I got no bills.

Exactly.

No debt.

I have zero debt and I'm out of the 13 and the stuff that caused it is all in the rearview mirror.

And I have $140,000 in my pocket.

If you wanted to rent from me and I was the landlord and we have houses we rent, I would rent to that guy.

I would make you prepay for a couple months in advance just to get a, you know, get, let's get a head start, three or four months or something.

And just, you know, because I don't want you to go blow that $140,000 and then not have any money to pay my rent, right?

If I'm the landlord.

But yeah, I think you can work it out with that.

Yeah.

But you sound like a guy that needs relief.

Yeah.

And then ask yourself, does 48-year-old Marcus want to be a delivery driver?

And if this is the time to go get retooled and get some skills or to begin thinking about what are we going to do next, man, this is your moment.

Yeah, if you used $10,000 to go to code school and you decided you were going to be a code, a software engineer next, that'd be a good use of some of the money or whatever.

If you use some of the money to retool and get yourself to the thing where you go to something other than the get-by job.

Hey, you guys, more than a hundred million Americans carry medical debt, and that is so scary.

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That's chministries.org/slash budget.

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

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

I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Dr.

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

John Deloney Show on Ramsey Networks.

He's my co-host today.

Haley is with us in York, Pennsylvania.

Hi, Haley.

How are you?

Hi, doing well.

Thank you for having me.

Sure.

What's up?

So my question is basically, when is the time to use your emergency fund?

My emergency fund.

Right.

Well, so the

question came from, my husband and I had a surprise tax bill.

It was about $3,500.

And the question then came, do we pay from our emergency fund?

That's fully funded.

We don't have any debt.

Or do we take it from, we have a kind of a fund going to make a renovation on our house?

So he wanted to take it from that fund because he didn't want to touch the emergency fund.

But then I said, well, isn't that the appoint of an emergency fund to use it for unexpected expenses?

So just kind of wanted to get your opinion.

This is like Rocky Four, Dave.

So did the

how do you have an unexpected tax bill?

And have you fixed the problem that caused that?

Yeah, so I think what happened is it's because of all the COVID child tax credits

that then they took away that we didn't realize we've had someone doing our taxes.

And

yeah, we've never had to pay and we haven't done anything differently.

So that was the only thing that we could guess.

So he made sure to look with his Okay, if I get a surprise 3,500, I'm not guessing.

I'm going to know.

Sorry.

Like, I'm going to know, or I'm going to fire somebody and get somebody that knows.

Okay.

Because here's the problem.

It happens again if you don't know what caused it and you don't make an adjustment.

Agreed?

Right.

Yes.

Okay.

So it's not sustainable.

We got to fix that.

I can tell you what Dave and Sharon would do.

We would take it out of the renovation money.

So would the Delonies.

Okay.

Because

we touched the emergency fund last.

If we have excess savings somewhere else for something else that is not immediate, you're saving up to do a renovation, and the tax problem just delayed your renovation a little bit.

And that's what it is.

Otherwise, you're going to have to delay the renovation anyway because you're not finished saving for it.

And you'd have to put the money back in the emergency fund before you restarted doing the emergency before you restarted saving into the

renovation fund.

And so you'd have to stop everything until you got your emergency fund put back.

And

I don't want to do all that.

So, no, it's just, let's just sidestep that and go straight into it and take the money out of there.

Dave, I'm just kind of just stuck on, oh, we got a surprise bill.

Let's just pay it.

I mean, I'd go see another tax person.

I'd want someone to walk me through exactly what just happened, especially if you've never had that happen previously.

Generally, taxes piss me off.

Surprise taxes double piss me off.

Yeah, I saw the building, the roof came off one time, and they're like, Dave got a surprise tax bill.

That's just what happened.

But again, like, it's one of those,

I had that this month.

Like, our electric bill went way, way up.

And

it was easy just to go, well, that stinks.

And I want to stop the, let's figure out what just happened so that doesn't happen again.

Exactly.

And the terms is there something running or

an issue.

Some kind of a thing going on.

Let's source the problem and nip it.

Yeah.

Nip it in the bud.

Pat is in Michigan.

Hey, Pat.

How are you?

Fine.

I'm good.

Thank you.

How can we help?

Well,

my husband and I are in our late 70s,

and we're afraid we're going to outlive our savings.

How much money have you got?

Well, we got about 30,000 in savings and about 190 in CBs

for a 1k money market.

All right.

Do you know when you're going to die yet?

Whenever the Lord decides to save us.

I'm starting 65, so I'm still trying to figure that out myself, myself, kiddo.

All right.

So,

how much of the savings are you using to live?

In other words, how much over budget are you?

We're about $500 over budget every month.

That's $6,000 a year.

Right.

You have $190,000.

Dividing $6,000 into that, I don't think you're going to run out of money.

Okay.

If you stay at this budget,

what is your income?

Social Security and what else?

Just a minute.

Let me grab my

information here.

That's okay.

Now, I mean, what are your sources of income?

Okay, our earnings is Social Security and two small pensions of $5,023 a month.

That's your total budget a month.

Yes.

Okay, and you're spending $500 more than that on $190,000.

Now, is the $190,000, you said it's in CDs?

Some of it's in CDs and about $80,000 in the money market from our 401k or

IRA, whatever it is.

Okay.

And so that's making you,

say, $6,000 a year in interest

between the two, isn't it?

Yeah, I think so.

Yeah, and that's about what you're overspending.

So if the 200,000 the 190

grows by 3%,

that's approximately, it's not quite, $6,000 a year.

And if you use that interest to supplement and you don't touch the $190,000,

the goose that's laying those little golden eggs is going to sit there and lay forever and you'll never run out of money.

Now, if you keep cranking up

and five years from now you're spending $8,000 a month more or $8

or $2,000 or $3,000 a month more than you got coming in.

You could run into a problem that way.

Okay.

But if you stay right where you are, mathematically, you're not going to run out of money.

Does that make sense?

Yes.

I also want to ask you, we have a car payment of $220 a month.

What's the balance on the car?

$5,000.

Should we pay that off?

Yeah, you said you had $30,000 in savings, right?

Right.

Yeah, take $5,000 of that money and pay it off today.

Okay.

Yeah.

I already feel better.

Okay.

You like paying off debt, I know.

Yeah.

And I like people being able to live on what they make because we just reduced your $500 to $200

because we got, or $300,000, because you got rid of a $200 car payment.

So now you're only $300 over budget.

Ta-da.

Isn't this magical?

Hey, thank you for calling in, kiddo.

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Kira is in Texas.

Hi, Kira.

What's up?

Hi, thank you for having me.

Sure.

I have a question about my 19-year-old son.

He decided that college is not for him, so he's not going to go back in the fall.

We told him that he had to get a job.

We wanted him to get one within a month.

It's almost been three months, but he's finally working at Walmart part-time,

$14 an hour.

And he also receives about $10,000 a year in dividends that he gets in four payments.

So

he's very bad with money.

Like his dividend rolls around and there's zero in his bank account.

He has to borrow gas money.

Like my main question is, what would be the best course to take to like kind of open his eyes to

I am not spending my money wisely.

I should be doing this and this.

What happened eight years ago when you were going to teach him work ethic and you didn't?

We tried.

I feel like we tried.

We're pretty good with money.

We tried to teach them that.

We don't go out to eat very often.

Like all through their growing up, we don't go out to eat.

And I don't know if that's like the main thing, like he eats out all the time.

When he was in college, he's

extra.

That's what the main thing is.

He doesn't work.

Walmart at $14 an hour is what 16-year-olds do.

Not grown men.

Where's he living?

We're in Texas.

No, where does he live?

In her house.

He's with us.

Yes.

And we pay.

I'm telling you this.

We pay everything.

Because I love you.

But that's the problem.

He can't learn something that...

Let me put it this way.

What he's doing, his behavior, makes perfect sense in his world.

He gets checks that fall from the sky every quarter.

He has no rent.

And he has a mom and dad that said, you have to get a job.

And he goes, okay, I'll work six hours a week.

And y'all pay his cell phone.

You pay his insurance.

You pay for everything.

Well,

that's one of the things is he's supposed to pay his car insurance.

He's supposed to do a lot of crap he doesn't do.

But you don't make him do nothing.

Right.

You don't take it away.

And the only way this changes, literally the only way this changes, I've worked with this age group my entire career.

The only way this changes is if y'all sit down and you and your husband come to an agreement that you're going to weather the storm because hell's coming and you're going to sit down and say, at the end of this month, you're out.

Or two months.

Part of the problem with that is

he would move in with his bomb.

Okay.

Well, that's good.

And she kind of coddles coddles him.

That's fine.

Kind of.

She is coddling.

No, wait a minute, honey.

You got the coddling thing down, okay?

Everybody's coddling.

You can't hand that off to her.

You got that down to a science.

Everyone is.

This kid has coddling from every direction.

He's just a coddler.

He was in college for a year.

Honey, the kid's got to move out.

I mean, I'm not going to argue with you about this anymore.

You know,

all you can talk about is the stuff he doesn't do.

He has no problems.

Your job is to help him have some problems.

That's it.

That's That's exactly right.

He doesn't have, there's no reason for him to change his behavior.

Or think about it this way.

His life is a weight room.

And every time he gets under the bar to start lifting weights to get stronger, to deal with life, one of the parents, you or his mother and

whoever she's with, run in there and take all the weight off the bar.

And so now you've got a kid who's 19 who has never lifted the bar in his life because each parent keeps running there saying, I don't want to be the bad one.

You don't want to be the bad one.

And now you got a 19-year-old that literally does not know how to lift anything heavy.

And so it's abuse.

Y'all are robbing this young man.

And I get the pickle you're in.

The moment you say, hey, you got to get out, he's going to go, okay, I'll just go over here.

Then that's fine.

You can't control that.

But you can control your part in the equation.

Quit trying to control his part.

That's right.

You can't control his part in the equation.

Okay.

This is a kid who thinks going to class is hard work.

That's funny.

Or six hours a week is hard.

Yeah, now I've got a job.

Part-time.

He's smoking a lot of pot.

A lot.

Yeah.

There's no ambition anywhere in this guy.

Well, and man,

geez.

Here's the thing, Dave.

I heard somebody say this about a year ago, and man, it has been

like a knife right in my chest because he's right.

And he said, I don't want to hear another person say, quote unquote, these kids these days,

because it's not, the kids haven't changed.

It's the adults in their lives who have changed, who are not expecting, not giving these young people, especially 17, 18, 19, and 20-year-olds, the gift of experiencing hard challenges and overcoming those challenges so they can feel a sense of confidence to go do the next thing.

He should have had a part-time job when he was 15 or 14 so that he could learn how to do that so he could have the privilege of having a full-time job when he's 19 or 20.

Drop out of college, fine, but you got to go be a part of the workforce.

Workforce is hard, right?

But he's been robbed every step of the way by adults in his life that can't get along, can't be unified.

And here you go.

For his own good.

This is what we get.

For his own good.

Golly, it breaks my heart.

The only thing we're unified on is coddling.

That's it.

Or using him to out-parent the other parent now that we're divorced or whatever the mess is.

But adults need to come together on behalf of these young people and say we're robbing them of the experiences that life's going to throw and hit them right in the mouth with.

And, you know, the thing that there's a couple of things I always go back to in remembering all this is teach your kids to do hard things.

Yes.

And Andrew Andrews talks about you're not raising kids to be great kids.

You're raising kids to become great adults.

And if you're doing that, then that involves teaching them adult skills.

Right.

Age appropriately with increasing intensity so that when they are age age appropriate, they are able to leave the nest.

And the mother eagle, the nest is filled with down,

but it is a nest built with thorns.

And then as the baby eagles grow, she begins to pull the down out of the nest, and the thorns begin to stick them.

And it becomes increasingly uncomfortable to stay in the nest if you are a baby eagle until you finally stand up on the edge of the nest and fall out

and spread your wings and fly.

That's a sword, dude, yeah.

Because an eagle that doesn't leave the nest is eventually known as a turkey.

And so this is how this works.

So yeah, you make it increasingly uncomfortable to live there

because it is good for your child development, people will tell you.

It is good for your dignity to pay your own light bill and buy your own milk and clean your own clothes.

Instead of your mommy doing it, it's just good for your development.

And I've watched it with my three as they grew up and left the nest and didn't have to.

We weren't mad at them.

There wasn't any anger.

There wasn't anything.

But just when they quit living under our roof and they had to do their own stuff, they walk different.

Yeah, they're right.

They talk different.

They carry themselves differently.

And you're doing them no favor delaying their development.

And this kid, he needs some hard work.

I want some problems for him.

I want him to have some problems to solve.

He's had no problems in a long time.

And so, yeah, desperately needs trouble.

And by the way, getting a neighbor, if you've got young kids, getting a neighbor that will let your nine-year-old come over and sweep the front porch for a dollar, those kind of things are amazing.

And we're not talking about sweatshops.

I'm not talking about like, you got to pull, like, you do eight-hour days.

It's not what I'm talking about at all.

But letting your kid mow the yard, letting your kid go out and do some things,

letting them take feedback from a neighbor that you trust or from somebody at your church that you trust.

Hey, you did a good job here, but you missed this corner right here.

It builds dignity and character.

And I'm telling you, man, you got kids that just walk differently when they know how to work.

The one that always kills me on that was I was cutting grass.

I was 12 years old.

My neighbor, and I have no idea.

He was the nicest man, but his nickname was Slugger.

Slugger Carnahan.

I cut his grass for $3.

And he came out there with one of these little fork things.

And he goes, quit cutting the weeds.

Use this and dig the weeds out.

When you cut the weeds, you spread the weeds and I get more weeds.

And he walked around and made me go over his whole yard and dig them out.

It wore me out.

12 years old, man.

Three bucks.

Yeah.

$3, man.

And his name's Slugger, so you don't,

you got to do it.

I mean, it's like it's not an option.

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Julie's in Kansas City.

Hi, Julie.

How are you?

I'm good.

Thank you for taking my call.

My question is

about preparing

financially for

disability in my future,

and it will be before typical retirement age.

I'm 45 right now.

I have a degenerative disease that'll

I will probably be real tear bound within 10 years.

What do you got, huh?

Multiple sclerosis.

Yeah, I was thinking.

Okay.

So it causes me a lot of nervous system problems, and I work full-time right now with accommodation.

But in the conversation with my doctors, it has been about,

you know, how to plan

quality of life, right?

Good.

Good.

Okay.

And

you already, I'm sure, because of the diagnosis, know a lot more about this than I do.

I've had several experiences with customers over the years and friends,

and the

fatigue and stress with one of my friends seems to accelerate her symptoms.

Yes, that is very true for me as well.

Okay.

And so anything you can do to lower that, and in her case, they gave her the same prognosis.

That was 20 years ago, and she's still walking around fine.

Not fine.

She's got MF, but she's not wheelchair-bound.

But she's managed, she's really, really managed the fatigue and the stress.

And I think that's part of her

doing so well.

So back to your question, how do you get ready for this from a financial perspective?

What do you make?

I teach in higher ed.

I am at 92 right now, and that's with teaching overload and teaching from classes.

And I'm assuming you're single.

I am divorced a year ago after 24 years.

Okay.

And so you make 92, and how much money do you have in your nest egg today?

So the divorce was quite messy.

There was a lot of financial issues

behind the scenes that I didn't know about when everything started.

So after everything was said and done,

I am no longer, I don't have any commercial credit card debt.

I have about $50,000 in retirement.

And

because of the particular institution I teach at, I'm part of the public school teacher pension.

So 15% of my paycheck goes into teacher pension.

I never see that money.

First thing I want to do then is I want to investigate

at the point that you were declared disabled,

what does the pension look like?

Do you know that already?

Yes.

When I ran that, there's an option for a lump sum that is about $75,000, and then that would be $2,200 a month after that lump sum, or altogether, if I don't do the lump sum, it's about $26,000 a month.

Okay.

And that's 10 years from today.

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

So you're already doing your research.

Well done.

That's good.

That's good information to have.

I would rather know

what could happen, even if it's very, very dark.

And you got $50,000 as well in a retirement.

Do you have any debt?

No debt.

My car is paid off.

I am renting right now.

The marital home was sold, and that covered

a large portion of the commercial debt that he had run up.

Okay.

Gotcha.

Okay.

And so,

all right.

Well, the math answer to the equation, and you already knew this before you called me, but I'll just say it out loud again, is

if this occurs 10 years from today, the lower your expenses are and the higher your nest egg is,

the easier the process is going to be financially.

Okay.

No kidding, Dave.

I already knew that.

Okay.

So the point being, stay out of debt.

You probably do get into a house, something modest.

And it would be really cool if you could get it paid off

because that lowers your expenses and increases your sustainability mathematically, okay?

And because you've got the biggest item in your budget line item is housing.

It always is.

And so if you've got a zero there or you only got property taxes and insurance there because it's paid off, then you've got a real sustainable situation.

And, you know, the $2,400 and the money you can make off of the $50,000 and the $75,000, which, by the way, that 50,000 by then, by the time this all happens, will be 200,000.

Okay.

If it's invested in good mutual funds.

And then, yes, I would take the lump sum if this occurs, the 75,

if that's the actual number that it happens and the way everything goes down, and I'm going to roll that into an IRA and invest that in good mutual funds.

That will give you a better rate of return than the pension will.

Right.

Yes, if I could choose not to participate in the pension, I would

yeah, but I'm just saying, when you get to the point that you're declared disabled or you get to the point that you're retired and they offer you a lump sum on a pension, always take it.

And always take it.

Take as much as they'll let you take and then roll that because it'll create more money for you than it will if it's left there.

That's the bottom line.

And when you die, the pension dies with you and the money that's in your investment accounts does not die with you.

It goes to your heirs.

So,

you know, that kind kind of thing.

But anyway,

so if I,

you have done such a good job analyzing all this stuff, and you're such a detailed person.

You get peace from the knowledge.

I can tell by talking to you.

And so if I'm you, I'm going to run some spreadsheet stuff out into the future and go, okay, if I get a house, I'm going to sit down with my Smart Investor Pro, start talking about investing this 50K in some good mutual funds.

So it will double about every five to seven years, something like like that.

And

that it should, if it's making 10, 11, 12%, that's how often it's going to double.

And so that's how I'm getting to 200 on this.

And

of course, the 10 years is not set.

Could be 8%, could be 18,

could be never.

And the more of a plan you have, you get peace from that,

the more I think that helps your prognosis, but I'm not a medical doctor.

Yeah,

one of the difficulties over the last two years with the divorce has been like it really just I have a lot of disease progression.

Yes.

And then also just

trying to get my, just like my cortisol and all those stress things down.

And Julie, let's change.

I'm going to change a word.

Can we change one word?

Yeah.

Let's change the word progression

to flare up.

Yeah, flare-up.

Because major traumatic moments, major traumatic seasons does exacerbate MS symptoms, right?

And maybe it did push it down the track a little bit.

Or maybe it was a flare-up and it goes back.

Yeah.

So here's a question I want you to take to your doctor, okay?

What must be true for me to push this thing off seven years?

Excuse me, I was coughing.

What must be true?

So they said about 10 years.

All right, cool.

Let's make a 15-year plan.

What?

Exercise, counseling, therapy, trauma work.

What must I do now?

And it may not work, but let's go out guns ablazing on trying to push this thing down the track, not just resigning to the fact that it's 10 years and I'm wheelchair bound forever.

And by the way, you're in a great job where if you are

wheelchair bound, you can still teach, you can still be involved with students at some level.

But let's see if we could, if a doctor will make a plan with you and see what would happen.

The Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by YReFi.

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Might not be in all states.

Today's question comes from Corey in Indiana.

Corey writes, My mother-in-law just died and left $75,000 to my wife.

I told my wife to use the money to pay off our debts, and she responded by asking, How dare you think of a way to spend my money?

I had to walk away from her at that point because she's been using my wages since we got married to pay off her debts and have always been willing to sacrifice or delay things to wipe them out.

We currently owe about $25,000 in credit card and unsecured loans, which would still leave her with $50,000.

I've tried to explain to her that if we keep paying the loans from my paychecks, it's only going to keep us further from getting ahead in life.

How do I get her to understand this concept?

Oh boy.

Y'all need to go to a marriage counselor, ASAP.

Because y'all are living separate parallel lives.

Y'all aren't living a united marriage.

Y'all are co-managing a household.

Sounds like two children.

That's it.

My chick.

My money.

It's like four-year-olds in kindergarten stealing a toy.

Yeah.

Or like trading lunch.

Like, those are my Cheetos.

Well, this is my bologna sandwich.

Well,

and then somebody gets a package of Twinkies and it's like, well, these are my, like, man, y'all have bigger issues here.

Because this is y'all's wages and this is y'all's debt and this is y'all's inheritance, quite honestly.

And until you're able to come together in that way, y'all are going to continue to run parallel lives and have bigger and bigger challenges.

Yeah.

We

are aligned on our

desired future, and we are in agreement on how we are going to get there.

And then we don't have a separate life.

That's why, when you walk down the aisle, the preacher says, and now you are one.

He didn't say, and now you are roommates with rights.

And that's how that works.

And I still go back to it.

You guys hear me, if you listen to the show all the time, you hear me quote it all the time, because I was just fascinated because I had never heard it.

And a buddy of mine that is in an old school church, traditional, he pulled out the Book of Common Prayer and showed me the marriage vows from the old days.

And, you know, we all know, or most people know, or have heard, in sickness and in health, richer for poor you know until death do its part right we all kind of that's kind of the and that's part of but there was a part another portion to it that somehow they quit using unto thee all my worldly goods i pledge

in other words and we are now one

and um

and when yo mama dies we are going to get 75 grand that's how that's going to work and so it's a different thing corey to answer your real question how do i get her to understand this concept about paychecks?

This isn't a math problem, and I think that's the challenge, is y'all are both solving two different problems.

She is solving an emotional relationship problem, and you're running around trying to solve a math problem.

And

it's kind of like trying to measure from here to over there using gallons.

Both are good measurements, but it's the wrong measurement for the wrong application.

This isn't a math problem.

This is a marriage problem.

This is a togetherness problem.

Y'all are both walking around thinking the other person's better or worse than each other and that contempt that somebody from on high is casting judgment or taking from the person down below you, it's just rotting out your marriage.

And so y'all need to go sit with somebody and level out.

Yeah, we are in agreement on our goals, and we are going to combine all forces to get to those goals.

And we're going to be honest about all of our debts.

Yeah.

And we're going to work on them together.

Yep, exactly.

Mike's with us in New Jersey.

Hey, Mike, what's up?

Hi, Dave.

How are you?

Better than I deserve.

How can I help?

Good, good.

So I have a question.

I know you always preach the

pay off your mortgage if you can.

Yes, sir.

So

I have $690,000 in a high-yield savings account.

I have $233,000 in a trading account, a stock trading account.

I have about $95,000 in an IRA.

And my wife has about $150,000 in a 401k through her job.

Wow.

Way to go.

Now,

the mortgage on the home is $419,000.

We don't have any debt, no credit card debt.

Cars are paid off.

The only debt we have is the mortgage.

The mortgage rate is it's a 30-year loan at 4%.

We're six years in.

We have a daughter, and that's all.

I'm just trying to see if the wise decision is to pay the mortgage.

If your house was paid off, would you go borrow money on it to put it into investments?

No.

Why not?

It's the same thing.

I don't know.

I just wouldn't do that.

It's the same thing.

I know it's the same thing.

If I would borrow money.

If you take money out of your investment and pay off the mortgage, it's the exact same mathematical transaction as to borrow on your home to put money into an investment it's the opposite we're just reverse engineering here

yeah and i feel like also having the mortgage is is a good write-off also no it's not whereas if i didn't have it now no it's a horrible write-off

it's a horrible write-off so you have four hundred thousand at what rate

four hundred nineteen thousand at four percent it's a 30-year loan because you have sixteen thousand dollars in interest a year and you know what that saves you on taxes

six thousand

So you're giving the mortgage company $16,000 to keep from giving the government $6,000.

That's a dumb butt trade.

That's a write-off.

Yeah.

Okay.

You're trading dollars for 30 cents.

Yeah.

Bad trade.

Okay.

That's how a write-off works.

You probably are actually itemizing, but only 8% of Americans itemize.

And that's the only time you can do a write-off.

But you've got enough of an income.

I get paid on a 1099 amount of money.

So you're itemizing.

Yeah, you're not.

You're not.

you're not but yeah you can so i don't anyway so

number one you would i'd pay off your mortgage today number two okay here's why

i've never in 35 years talked somebody into paying off their mortgage and them come back and go wow i hated it so much i went and got a new mortgage

yeah i've never in one time

tens of millions of listeners over 35 years that I recommend, never a single person has said, Dave, that's a dumb.

I felt so horrible not having a mortgage.

I went and got me a new one.

I've never heard that.

No, no.

And here's the other thing.

We studied 10,000 millionaires.

Not a single millionaire out of the 10,000 we talked to said, I made my money by borrowing on my home and investing that money.

None of them said that's how I became a millionaire.

Not one.

That strategy is mythology in people's brains, but it never actually occurs in the real world when you get out in the wild.

The number of millionaires that said, I borrowed money on my house, invested it, and that's how I got rich, was precisely zero out of 10,000 of them that we talked to.

Zero did that.

Also, zero said, I got rich on my airline miles, too.

So there you go, you know, and so on.

And, you know, this is what you're doing.

So anyway,

if I were in you, I'd just pay off my house.

And if you hate it, and I'm wrong, you can go get your mortgage.

And you won't hate it.

You won't hate it.

Yeah, there's something about you get that little girl at home.

There's something just telling you, man, there's something about

going to bed at night, knowing they can't ever take that house away from that little girl.

Yeah.

It just changes everything.

Got a place to live.

Yeah.

Got a place to live.

It changes everything.

It's very weird that we don't quantify the weight associated with this in our relationships,

in our spirit, physically,

the way you manifest in your body the weight of debt.

None of us quantify any of that.

All we do is go, well, the mortgage rate's cheap.

But, dude, man, when you can breathe deeper, because you haven't got a backup.

I call it my sleep tax.

So, what?

If it's 2% difference or 3%, I don't care.

That's my sleep tax.

I get to sleep.

I pay that happily.

Nothing to think about that.

You spend hours researching before making a major purchase like a home or car.

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To protect your biggest assets, I recommend using using Ramsey Trusted Pros.

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships.

Dr.

John Deloney, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author and host of the very popular Dr.

John Deloney Show on Ramsey Networks.

He's my co-host today.

Jesse's in Texas.

Hi, Jesse.

How are you?

Hi, thank you for taking my call.

Sure.

How can we help?

My question is, I'm 27 years old.

I stay at home with my two young children right now.

My wife works.

We're in about $100,000 worth of debt.

And I do deliver food on the evenings to make some extra money.

But really, my question is, how do I balance

working?

Because it's kind of when she comes in, I'm out the door.

How we balance that marriage and family time with also trying to take care of this debt at the same time.

What does she make?

About $60,000.

Okay.

And what kind of debt is the $100,000?

$60,000 is student loans,

about $27,000 in a car, and then the rest is credit card debt.

You need to sell the car.

Yeah.

Yeah, we've looked into that.

I know right now we're like upside down.

I think about $10,000 in it.

Yeah, you need to to sell the car

yeah

you've got a car you can't afford and you don't drive a 27 000 car with 60 000 income yeah

um and i don't i don't think you're really upside down 10k on 27.

um

and you know unless you traded did you trade negative equity from the other deal into it

No, no, we just didn't put anything down on it.

Yeah.

Okay.

And dude,

I'm saying this because I love you.

I don't, I don't know that you're in a position right now to be a full-time stay-at-home dad.

Yeah, we thought about that.

It's just that a lot of the daycares in this area, we're looking between 2 and 3 K.

And that's probably about what I would be able to bring in a month.

Why is that?

Why is that?

I just, that's before we had the first baby.

No, not the daycare costs.

I know daycare costs are just are breaking people's backs all over the country.

I get that.

I'm talking about why do you think you could only make $2,000 a month?

I don't buy that.

I mean, yeah, I mean, that's just what I was before I stopped working.

Yeah, I was working about $2,400.

What would be

the cost of daycare?

I just worked in a meat market in a grocery store.

That's what I'm leaning on.

Like, if you made it your mission to

double and triple serve your family for two years and get this debt out of control, I'm just telling you right now, y'all aren't going to be able to make it.

Oh, and that kind of money and trying to get a home and raising two kids on 60K.

It's not a values question, dude.

It's a math problem.

Yeah.

And my wife is in the process of trying to get, she's been in the same industry for about 10 years, and so she's trying to make more money herself.

That's kind of why we're going to she can miss it.

She's not on the phone.

I want to push on you.

Yes, sir.

Like, if...

If you have capped yourself out and said, the only thing I could ever do to serve my family is to work in a meat market and make $2,300 or $2,400 a month, then I'd want to spend some time with you over some nachos, man, and challenge that because I don't believe it.

I think you're selling yourself way, way short.

And if that's the case, then for a season, I'm going to work at a meat market and I'm going to come home, I'm going to high-five my wife and kiss my kids, and I'm going back out because for centuries, men have left their home for years to serve and honor their families.

And that's what I got to do right now because we owe $100,000.

Yeah, and that's kind of where, because like right now, I'll probably make $1,000 to $1,500

just doing deliveries.

Like when she comes in the door, I leave.

And so we figured that with the cost of the daycare, you know, then we're looking at really, I need to bring $3,500 in or something along those lines before we would break even on me having a job or like a full-time job, you know.

Yeah.

Well, here's what John's saying.

I don't get the full-time job.

And you keep the delivery.

Correct.

Yeah.

It's every stinking night if that's what you got to do to get yourself out, get your butt out of this problem.

So here's the thing.

The point of the conversation is you seem to think there's a process by which you can avoid pain here.

There's going to be pain here.

You just should choose it instead of letting it choose you.

Yeah.

The pain could be

the ongoing financial stress and the toll that that takes on your marriage.

And you don't do anything about it in the name of nurturing kids and in the name of I need to be home when my wife is home because I don't ever see her.

And how do I have life balance?

Well, you have life balance when you get your butt cleaned up because you made a mess.

That's when you have life balance.

But right now, you're not going to have life balance because your life is out of balance.

And I'm not saying this, people can hear this as I'm shaming them.

I'm not.

I'm just telling the truth.

Kids will baste in the angst of a home that is buried financially.

And so, if you are staying at home and your wife is making 60K and y'all have a hundred grand in debt,

that house is going to be a stressful, chaotic place, period.

It just is.

Because there's never going to be enough month at the end of your money, ever.

And the irony is the very thing you were trying to protect, you're cooking it.

Yeah.

They're going to baste in that stress and that anxiousness and that frustration and the fights.

And yeah, dude, there's just a season when you have to say,

I got to get after it.

I'm going to strap on a tool belt and it's not coming off till I get this mess cleaned up.

Get after it.

I want more than anything for families to be in a position to choose for somebody to stay home.

I love that with all my guts.

But y'all have a math problem that you got to solve, man.

Yep.

And, you know, those kids, they like to eat.

So there's that.

Okay.

Wendy's in Oregon.

Hey, Wendy, what's up?

Hi there.

My husband and I have three kids.

We raised identical twin boys and our older daughter, who just got married to a great guy with an amazing family.

And so what we we actually did financial piece years ago went through that program.

So we had already already had, sorry about that.

We continue to tell the kids, we will provide room and board for you when you go to college, but we will not have any money for you for college.

We're sorry, the option was mom got to stay home with the kids.

So we were able to do that, which means no college money, which was something they were always clear about.

So our daughter was able to do that for her first two years before she got married.

And now our boys have each chosen not to go to college, but they're heading into trades, which is great.

So now we're at the point where we're happy to have them still live here, but we're trying to determine what that looks like for them paying us every month.

They just need to go get an apartment.

If you think so.

Oh, I'm sure.

Well, they do have some great friends and they love to go get.

Oh, I love my kids too, but they need to go get an apartment.

Yeah.

Matter of fact, the two boys could do it together because they're both going in the trades.

They're twins.

They're used to living together.

They can split expenses and just go be roommates.

That'd be awesome.

And yeah.

And then our house is clean all the time.

Yeah.

And they can come over and visit.

You can have dinner.

And, Wendy, can I tell you something?

It's okay that you don't want them to live there.

You're still a good mom.

It's okay that you want them to be gone.

The hurricane that is 18-year-old boy, like you're not a bad mom, but I think Dave's right.

I'd much rather you say, hey, guys, we're going to pay your first two months.

Y'all get out.

Yeah.

At least that's what I would do if I was in your case.

Yeah.

And if you're going into the trades, better be working, son.

Got to pay rent.

Choose that's what you chose.

Strap on the tool belt.

Seems to be a theme.

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Brandon's in Michigan.

Hey, Brandon, how are you?

Hey, Dave.

Hey, John.

How are you both today?

Better than I deserve.

How can I help?

Good.

First off, thank you both for your time.

Dave, thank you again for giving me a couple of minutes on the show.

I'll try to be conscious of the time, but I do need a quick minute to just provide us some information.

Okay.

So, first things first, I'm 27 years old.

I dated and married my high school sweetheart, and we've been together for six years now.

We got a couple beautiful boys at home.

And

a few years ago, my wife and I, we were renting and we were working, growing our family, and we were able to put money aside at the time and pay down our debt.

So, got some student loan debt, our cars.

The situation we found ourselves in a year and a half ago was

our middle child passed away, and it was Sud C.

And it was unexpected and unexplained.

And obviously, we weren't prepared for it.

And we weren't financially prepared.

How old was your baby?

He was a year and a half old.

Yeah and a half.

Thanks.

And you said it was

Sid's, or what'd you say it was?

It's it's Sud C.

It's like Sid's, but for non-infant, a little bit older.

Oh, I got you.

I'm so sorry.

Oh, my gosh.

What was your name?

Thank you, guys.

His name was Carter.

Carter.

I'm so sorry.

Yeah.

Thank you, guys.

Anyway, so here's ultimately my question.

One of the outcomes of his loss was I needed to get my family out of the house.

My wife held on to memories in each room, and it was haunting her.

So I needed to get her out of the house.

And we ended up purchasing a home.

And it was at a time when we really weren't ready to be purchasing a home.

But here we are now a year later.

So ultimately, this is my question.

I'm 27 years old.

I'm trying to lead my wife.

I'm trying to raise my other sons the best I can.

My wife and I, we want to continue to be fruitful and to multiply and to grow our family.

But what I'm finding is even after allocating every single dollar of income I bring in,

we find that expenses continue to go up and we keep spinning our wheels.

So my question is:

How much is your house payment, honey?

Mortgage is about $2,000, not including expenses.

What's your take on monthly?

monthly after taxes and benefits.

It's about $57.50 a month.

Okay,

what benefits are coming out of your check?

I don't put anything away for retirement right now.

It's just basically

everything, medical, dental, insurance.

Gotcha.

And you've got vision.

And you've got debt other than the home?

Yes, sir.

We've got about 3,000 left.

We only have one working car right now, and it's got about 3,000 left on it.

And I have 18,000 in student loans.

And then, of course, there's the mortgage.

What's wrong with the other car?

We don't owe anything on it.

It's just old.

The alternator went out, I don't know, maybe eight months ago.

And like I said, we're kind of spinning our wheels.

I work from home, so it's not really needed right now.

So we haven't put the money back into it to get it up and running.

So kind of work.

What's it worth if you did get it up and running?

It's honestly a salvage title.

After putting money into it, maybe I could sell it for three, four grand, but I'd have to deduct whatever expenses go back into it.

Yeah, well,

an alternator is not three grand.

Sure.

No, yeah, I understand.

You find a buddy that turns a wrench and go put an alternator on the thing, get it sold, and that'll pay off some of your debt.

That's thing one, but you've got bigger issues than that.

Sure.

And again, we're not drowning, Gave.

Well, you're trying to be financial.

You've had a tragedy, honey.

I've had a trauma.

Sure.

And so you guys are hurting.

And it's just hard to do

efficient mathematics and financial management when your heart is broken.

It takes a minute.

So give yourself permission to spend a little.

It may take a minute for the family to get back up.

It should take a minute if you're not whacked.

And it is.

It is.

I mean, it takes a little while for y'all to get up.

I don't disagree.

Maybe you shouldn't have bought this house, but the house's not killing you.

It's a little high, but

it's not disturbing me horribly.

But I don't think you're going to make tremendous leaps forward

the year after you lose a one and a half year old.

Sure.

What's the state of your wife?

How's she doing?

We've grown a lot the last year and a half.

And I'm sure you guys have your own experiences with grief.

It just comes and goes.

I'm at a point where I can.

How's your wife doing, Brandon?

I don't know.

Not good, Dave.

But we're okay.

Hold on, Brandon, Brandon, Brandon, Brandon.

You keep saying that we're okay.

You're not.

Okay.

And that's okay.

Yeah, it's okay to not be all right, but I want you to own it.

Okay.

And let me put it this way: it's exhausting to try to continually be wallpapering over this hurt inside your house, right?

Okay.

Yeah.

So here's the thing.

If you don't make any financial progress for the next two years,

18 months, one year,

but the two of you are able to move

through

some of this and get some healing during that time, that's a victory.

Okay.

I don't think you're going to do both at the same time.

Do you?

Okay.

Yeah.

Here's the way I usually, when I sit down with a couple who's been exactly where you are, here's what I always tell them.

The marriage and the life that y'all had is over now.

It's over.

And so the same goals, the same timelines, the same trajectories, the same career goals, everything changes after that.

And so the challenge is, will we choose each other

to stay married?

And child loss is one of the big indicators of marriages that really, really struggle because people grieve differently.

Yeah.

And y'all have probably experienced, I can't believe you're already moving on and I can't believe you're still

can't get out of bed.

Y'all have probably grieved at different different trajectories because that's what grief is.

It's just different for everybody.

And so we're going to decide, we're going to rebuild a life together and it's going to be really tough out of the gate.

And so like Dave said, dude,

staying square for the next 24 months is a huge win.

It's just recognizing we got a new marriage.

We got a new house.

We have a new everything.

And we wanted five kids.

Well, right now, we might still have five kids, but there are going to be a bigger gap between them.

And there's a six-year gap between my son and my daughter.

Not how we drew it up.

We had some losses along the way.

That's what we got.

And right now, our house is a pretty magical place.

And there was a lot of pain to get here.

You get what I'm saying?

Yeah.

What's important for me is that you and your wife, a year into this, y'all go sit with somebody

and y'all say, okay, we have been in the black hole for a year, rightfully so.

We're going to stay.

in a dark place for a while, but we're going to keep the lights on.

We're going to keep going.

We're going to keep grinding.

What does it look like to begin to

not heal, but what does it look like to start turning some light switches on?

What does that feel like?

What is the pain associated with that?

And what does that look like to start raising the blinds a little bit?

Yeah, that's that's with a good therapist.

Yes, you're sitting with a professional that will walk with you.

Yeah,

and you should feel a little bit crazy, you should feel a little bit stuck, you should feel a little bit like, why all that stuff is right and good.

Um, but yeah, Dave, you nailed it.

Like, give yourself some grace during this season, man.

You are a good husband, and you're an incredible father, and you are keeping the lights onto that place.

And, man, it's an honor to talk to you.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm so sorry.

Yeah.

If you can function perfectly in the middle of a tragedy like that, you're a psychopath.

Right, right, right.

Then I'd be worried about you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

If you're wondering, what do we do and what day is it?

That's right where you should be.

Yeah.

Yeah.

If my brain's

spinning out of control all the time and I, you know, I get distracted and suddenly

a wave of grief catches me off guard and knocks me off balance.

That would make you a normal human being.

That's right and good and holy.

That's right.

Yeah.

Because what you've been through is one of the most horrible things a human can experience.

And I'm so sorry.

It shouldn't be that way.

I hate it for you, brother.

I hate it.

Give yourself a little room.

Get some help to walk through that.

That's the best thing you can do for your money, oddly enough.

But money's not our motivator in this conversation.

Hey, what's up?

Dr.

John Deloney here.

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if you want to know what's really going on, just go over to ramseysolutions.com/slash slash market, and we got it all there for you.

And you can click the link in the show notes if you want to.

It'll drop you right in there.

Teresa is going in Ohio.

Hi, Teresa.

How are you?

Hi, Dave.

Hi, Dr.

John.

Thank you for having me.

Sure.

How can we help?

My question is both a financial and a moral one.

My parents are both approaching 80 years old and not in the best of health.

My father is adamant about a full-blown funeral, and he's very much against cremation.

But the only thing they have prepped for is to buy the burial plots like 25, 30 years ago, and they have nothing.

They have no, they live with a family member, so there's no assets that they own.

They're both living off of Social Security, my dad on a disability Social Security that he's had since 1989.

And I guess just morally, now that he's been in and out of a nursing home on a

mild start to the dementia,

I just want to be prepared.

I'm torn.

Oh, so you're torn because they're asking you to pay for the funeral?

Well, there's no other means to do so.

And I have siblings, and I don't, I've tried to talk to my dad because he is somewhat with us, you know, as far as conversation.

And

he just feels that cremations are morally wrong.

And

he thinks that everything's been paid for.

And then my mom looks at me and says, no, it's not.

Well, does somebody look at him and say it's not been paid for

we've tried we've tried and he just said what i don't care

he in in his mind he thinks it's all been taken care of because he has his plot he'll tell you where it's located and what tree it's by and there's a lot more to that and my sibling lost a wife about two three years ago now and he said you know it was over twenty some thousand dollars for the funeral well that's not true no shouldn't be yeah it feels like got

your false.

It can be, but it doesn't have to be.

So,

what do you guys make?

What are you, you and your husband?

Are you married?

Yes, I'm married.

My husband and I are actually

on our second round of the Dave Ramsey plan, and I, during COVID, we fell off that plan.

But we plan to be out of debt by November of this year, and our home was paid off the first round.

Excellent.

What's your household income?

We both make $75 a year

each.

So $150?

Yes.

Yes, sir.

Okay, cool.

So,

you know, what I would do is

I get the aggravation from you that this is dumped in your lap, so to speak.

And I don't blame you for that emotion, but it's not 20 grand.

I think if I'm you, I'm going to

go down to the funeral home and go, hey,

what is the cheapest casket and the cheapest process?

And I think you're going to find, you know, five to seven.

They sell caskets at Costco now.

Okay, I did not.

They do.

And they're really cheap.

And they're nice.

I looked at one the other day.

If there's somebody planning to get a casket at Costco, it's your one-on-one, Dave Ramsey.

Oh, man.

George would do it.

George would do it, but he's a smaller casket.

No, he needs a little casket.

That's a smaller.

Yeah, but the, yeah, I'm seriously, I think you're going to budget this thing down.

It's not going to be a big old pile of money.

And

the actual math is not going to be that aggravating, but the emotion of the aggravation is still going to be there until you turn it loose because it's not going to change.

It's not going away.

Everything you've described is, there's no out for this.

And the good news is you make $150,000 and you're almost out of debt.

You'll be able to.

you know, so five grand, seven grand or whatever, and you just go, okay, I'm just going to plan on taking $5,000 or $7,000 out of my emergency fund uh or out of my savings or something when he passes and i'm gonna put him in the uh the cheapest possible burial arrangement that is not cremation and um

i would shop and i you know when you call a funeral home go down there and talk to him and say i'm gonna go to two or three funeral homes so y'all better give me the deal because i'm i'm actually shopping price i'm pre-planning and this is all about price so you better give me your cheapest one or you're not gonna get this deal okay And tell me about, you mentioned them, but let's say the total bill is $7,000 and we're making that number up.

Who knows?

Why wouldn't you call your siblings and say, hey, everybody's going to pitch in $1,500 on this deal?

I believe that two of them would financially be able to, but one would not.

So, I mean, and that's fine.

I'm going to say, okay, look, we're going to cover this, and I'd like for everybody to put in if you can.

Yeah.

And here's the bill.

And by the way, once you get this information nailed down and it's all pre-planned and you know exactly what it is, because you're doing this while there's no emotion, you've not got a loss at this moment.

And so you're pre-planning it.

And so

we're shopping it like we're buying a car or something.

It's very calculated.

Go ahead and once you get the place, you go, okay, this place will do it for $5,600 or whatever.

And the number is, and it may go up a little.

during the time, if he lived 10 years or something, you may see some inflation, but send that number to your siblings and say, dad is expecting us to do this.

I'm aggravated about it, but I've reconciled with that and I'm going to put in, and I'd if you can put in your part of this, I'd appreciate it.

Um, and I, uh,

you know, it, it, I wish they had taken care of it, but they hadn't.

Yeah.

And just, you know, you can share that with them in whatever means you want to share it.

But I would give them the information and let them begin to process the emotion and the frustration and also have some time to prepare mathematically for that.

That's it.

And tell me about the one sibling that you think couldn't pay anything.

Why not?

There's more children in the home and they're younger.

Okay.

There's quite a difference.

I would ask you

to not take that from them.

Yeah.

Give them the opportunity.

Give them.

But you'd send it to everybody and let everybody choose.

If I found out my brother and my sister went behind my back and did something because they quote unquote thought I couldn't handle it, that would be hurtful.

And now it would be hard for me to say, hey, I can't can't do this, but I can do this.

And it's okay to say.

So let me know if you can do your part or what part you can do.

That's how I would leave it.

And just leave it open-handed.

And then you be prepared to write the whole check emotionally.

Okay.

And it's not going to be that much.

It's not as much as your aggravation.

Your aggravation is a little bit.

Yeah, your aggravation is valid.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's just, it's, it's, you know, they should have done a better job.

Dad gum, you know?

And I want to prepare, you know, our kids and our grandkids for

not obviously going that direction.

And I appreciate everything I've learned from you.

I do want to add that, you know, with my job, I've had a lot of stress, but I learned that, and I've seen it in the last eight months in paying down my debt.

I don't have to be a slave to my income.

I'm going to be able to live and

breathe a little bit.

Yeah, breathe.

Yeah.

Get your breath back.

Good for you.

Proud for you.

That's cool.

It's a good question, and it's a valid question.

Thanks for calling in with that.

You know, it is

make a will month.

So, you know, it's time.

You know, here's the thing: it is an act.

We get these calls of this sort around death, around the estate, around wills or not having a will or somebody arguing or being cut out of the will or whatever all the time.

And it is an act of love to your family to systematically, like a nerd, prepare

everything

having to do with your last 90 days.

And, you know, and you've got a will, you've got a full-blown,

you know, estate plan, you've got everything, all your financial information is in a location, a singular location where everyone knows where it is and they can find it.

And then

it's just execute the existing plan flawlessly and there'll be no problems.

And you've taken care.

I do not believe in prepaying for a funeral.

That's ridiculous.

The cost is silly.

You're better off to just put your money in a mutual fund, but it is smart to pre-plan it.

And in this case, I would pre-plan it in detail.

And by the way, it does feel gross to quote-unquote shop.

I get that.

And

if they're a smart business, they will take advantage of you not wanting to shop.

And so they will inflate the price.

They do.

So let people know, just like Dave said, hey, we're going door-to-door here.

We're going to run through a couple of homes here.

What does this cost?

Dirty little secret is it's a huge margin.

Huge margin.

Huge margin.

And so, yes, it feels gross, and do it anyway.

Our scripture of the day, Galatians 1:10, Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings or of God?

Or am I trying to please people?

If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Jordan Peterson said, you cannot hit a target that you refuse to see.

You cannot hit a target if you don't take aim.

And I'll add, if you don't pull the trigger.

Some people will go, ready, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim.

Oh, shut up and fire.

Seriously.

That's Dave Ramsey, though.

Hey, you want to go get a cup of coffee?

You want to talk about my idea?

You want to get some more coffee?

Hey, I just need to talk to 17 other people about my idea.

It's like, dude, just start the business.

Just go.

Just go.

You've got plenty of wisdom.

Hey.

You want to go to lunch?

I quit.

To start the business.

It took me, for about 10 years, I used to take meetings.

These people would come in.

They wanted to tell me about an idea, something that we could do and what Ramsey should be doing.

And they had this great idea.

And I finally quit because I finally figured out that ideas are a dime a dozen.

People who do them aren't.

Yes.

They're harder to find.

Ideas are everywhere.

Everywhere.

But people that actually execute, they're hard to find.

Melissa's in Oregon.

Hey, Melissa, how are you?

Hello, gentlemen.

Thank you for taking my call.

Sure.

How can we help?

Well,

I'm considering a change in career a bit.

I am about three days away from completing my master's degree in professional clinical mental health counseling.

Ooh, terrible choice.

Terrible choice.

Says the guy with a PhD in counseling.

Morons do that, but well done.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It's been a long, hard journey.

I've continued to work full-time as I've gone through my master's program.

But I did borrow for most of the schooling itself.

And after about two and a half years now, and on top of clinical hours, I've been doing about 60 hours a week plus school.

And I'm almost done and my site is asking me to come on full time.

And I'm nervous about giving up my job that I've had for 13 years with my benefits and my 401k and becoming a 1099

employee.

And

I bring home about

$3,000 a month.

What would you make if you start 1099?

Well, that's the thing.

It kind of depends on how many clients you have and how many show up.

I mean, what do you think you're going to make?

I'll be doing $35 an hour to start, which I'm getting about $26 an hour.

Wait, wait, what?

Why $35 an hour?

Why would you have to do that?

I know I pay my steroids way more than $35 an hour, like $135 an hour.

Yeah, I live in a rural area, which the benefit of staying at my site as I continue to,

I will be, I could become independently licensed.

I live in a border town, and I can get independently licensed in Idaho.

It's about 10 minutes away at my site.

But I'm also continuing, I'm taking specialized classes in play therapy to become a registered play therapist, and that requires a higher level of licensure.

Okay, so here's what I would do if I was you, okay?

Here's exactly what I would do.

I would work out arrangements with my supervisor.

Number one, if this is the only supervisor you have,

I would shop around.

And I know

in a rural area, you kind of do

what you got to do.

Are you married?

I am single.

Okay.

So, why do you have to stay there?

Well, but the site, they are qualified for what's called a HERSA grant.

So, basically, with two years of age- Yeah, why do you have to stay in an area if you can't get but $35 an hour?

I'm going to go somewhere and get $135 an hour.

But they will also pay

off my student loans, my 30K of student loans, by being there at that site within two years of being employed there.

Is that after you've done your, after you've got full licensure?

So after you've given them your 3,000 hours plus your additional play therapy hours, then they're going to pay your loans off after that?

No, it starts

after my degree is confirmed and I get licensure, which I'm probably about a month away from.

You're going to have your 3,000 hours post-graduate done right when you graduate?

No, Idaho only requires a total of 10, excuse me, 1,000 hours with 400 being direct.

And they will actually

allow you to have your internship hours to qualify.

And I've done all that while I'm working full-time.

I have to have that supervisor level.

So here's what I would do.

I would meet a need in your rural area, which is people who see clients on Saturdays and Sundays.

And I would sign up personally for six to 12 months of really exhausting work seven days a week.

And I would do it at a lot more than $35 an hour or I'm moving.

I'm serious.

That's like 1970 pricing.

I have never, I know a bunch of marriage counselors that make $100 to $150 a year.

A bunch of them.

Okay.

And if you can't do that there because you're convinced that the people in that area economically can't do that, then

you need to go somewhere else.

I really would.

But in terms of if you, because the answer to the equation is, yeah, no wonder you're nervous at $35 an hour and you don't have any customers.

But if you're at $75 or $100 an hour, I'm not nervous anymore.

If I've got customers, because you're going to make so much more than you make now that what little you lose from not having 401k, you can just go get your Roth IRA with a Smart Vestor Pro.

It's not a big deal.

You can set it up and you're 1099, so you can do a simple IRA as well, which is a 401k for single employee or small companies.

And you can do a setup.

There's all kinds of stuff you can do to replace that.

Buy your own health insurance.

You can replace benefits with money when you make more money.

And so that's what the core of the $35 argument is.

I want you to make more money.

You've gone to all this trouble.

You've gone to all this exhausting process of doing your hours, doing everything while you're working full-time.

For God's sakes, cash the check now.

Yeah,

something about this arrangement doesn't sound right, and I would really want to check through to make sure you're not getting taken advantage of.

So, Dave, it's not uncommon for

graduates to have to pay a supervisor for their hours.

And some supervisors will say, hey, you come work for me.

They're billing out at 100 bucks an hour or 100, whatever it is.

But I'm going to pay you $35 an hour while you work towards your hours and you're paying me to supervise you to sign off.

On $10.99?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

But

there's two problems here.

One is you've backed yourself into a corner by borrowing a bunch of money for a graduate program.

You have a math problem.

You may not be able to.

$30,000?

Do what?

She's $30,000 in debt.

That's what I mean.

But she may not be able to quit her job to go work for $35 an hour

at $10.99 to pay off that $30,000 worth of debt.

So you're saying that $35 an hour because they're taking their cut off the top of her.

I'm saying if that's the case, she's saying that's not the case.

What they're going to do is they're going to pay her way below market rate and then say, we're going to pay your student loans off.

That's still not a deal.

That feels like a bad deal.

Still not a deal.

Yeah.

It feels like a not good deal.

If I could have made twice as much money, I don't care.

I'll pay my own student loans off.

That's right.

That's exactly right.

And I can pay my own benefits and I can pay my own

or triple the amount of money.

Yeah.

Don't sell yourself short.

That's what we're trying to say.

Make sure you get the details ironed out.

And really, when making any decision, the more options you have, the more power you have, and the higher the quality of the decision will be.

When you've narrowed it down to one possible outcome, you don't have any power,

and you have a higher probability of making the wrong decision.

And meaning I'm going to own, this is the place.

She's got it all worked out, that this is the place.

And it doesn't have to be the place.

It can be something else.

And they know that you owe $30,000.

They also know that you've decided they're the only option, which means they can kind of pay you whatever they want.

And that's never a good place to find yourself.

So, but all I have to say is I'm glad you're going to be a therapist.

We need more good ones, and especially in rural communities, man.

But I'm with Dave.

Man, if you can retain autonomy, please, please go do that.

Yeah.

If you're clear and you're able to get a licensure and just go, then go.

That's what you need to do.

That puts the Sour 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.