Stop Making Excuses for Bad Money Choices

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Live from Nashville, Tennessee, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people with their wealth, their jobs, their work, their relationships, with just about everything.

And I guess jobs and work are the same thing, James.

So there you go.

If you want to be on this show, we're taking live calls, 888-825-5225.

I'm John Deloney, joined by my great friend George Camill.

And we're taking calls from all over the planet.

888-825-5225.

Let's go out to Pennsylvania and talk to Nancy.

What up, Nancy?

Hi, guys.

How are you?

Doing awesome.

How are you?

I'm okay.

So, what you got?

Well, so I have a little

financial problem with what to do about my

dad's house.

All right, tell us about it.

Okay, so my mom just passed away in February.

I'm sorry.

Thank you.

And my father

decided three months after my mom passed away to make a phone call to a woman that he hadn't had an affair with over 40-some years ago.

And the problem is now

they're in love.

Okay.

How old is he?

85.

Okay.

That answers my next question.

Yes.

Wow.

So he's 85.

Mom passed away, and he immediately goes, I got the old flame over here.

How old is this lady?

She is in her 70s.

Oh, she's young.

Okay.

She's younger.

Perfect.

So my mom and dad were married 63 years.

And this is like a major shock.

to me.

I knew of

two affairs that my dad had had.

In my mind, I I assumed they were one-night stands.

Didn't know that

this particular affair had gone on for years.

How do you know this?

He spilled the beans to me,

told me everything.

It's been a total nightmare.

And the question now is: you know, he wants to move this woman into my mom's house,

wants to marry her.

And

he said she is not not interested in the house and that he'd be willing to sign it over to my brother and I

if we would pay off his reverse mortgage.

This is a terrible idea.

Stay as far away from this as possible.

Really?

I love this house.

I know, but here's the thing.

Every single part of this story has been about you.

And your pain is real and your heartbreak is real and the loss of your mom is real, and finding out like secrets from your parents' marriage past is real.

All that's real.

Yeah.

And you referred to his house as your mom's house.

That sentiment and that feeling is real in your chest.

It's not real on paper.

Okay.

And so getting in the middle of his chaos, of his desperation,

of his,

I mean, he pulled out a reverse more.

Like,

he's not trustworthy, is what I would say.

And I'm not saying, like, he's had his past issues with infidelity.

I'm saying he's not trustworthy.

Maybe a better way to say that is he is not

reliable.

He's making very impulsive choices.

Yes, he is.

But I can't lose this house.

Why not?

Is it because of the connection to your mom?

The thought of somebody else in there.

So you're wanting to live in this house or are you just going to keep it one day and rent it out?

Yes, I would keep it and rent it out.

So some stranger is just going to live in your mom's house and destroy it?

You're okay with that?

I would rather a stranger be in there than this woman.

This feels like now a vengeful tactic to

take the house so that he doesn't have it and this woman doesn't have it.

And you're not going to evict your dad, your 85-year-old father.

No, no, they would live there, I guess.

Like right now, like.

Of course.

So you're the landlord?

Of, of this, of your 85-year-old dad and his mistress?

Okay, can I tell you something?

Let me tell you this, Nancy.

So this is something that happened a few years ago.

I was moving to a new house and I had all of these, I was moving all my suit jackets.

Back in my former nerd world, I used to wear suits every day.

And I had.

Not well, by the way.

Not well.

Not well.

I looked incredible.

My wife actually says she misses old suit and tie-wearing guy, not dorky teenager YouTuber guy.

But that's a whole other story.

So I have a jacket.

When I started working in higher ed, my granddad, the greatest men I've ever known,

gave me an old tweed coat of his and said, this looks like a professor coat.

Had the patches on the elbows and everything.

It has never one time fit me, ever.

And I always kept it.

Right.

And I moved it house to house to house.

And I was going through clothes that don't fit and what doesn't fit and what works and yada yada.

And I ran across this jacket.

I smiled.

I tried to put it on again for the 50th time.

It still didn't fit.

And I put it in the keep pile.

Right.

And for the first time, I stopped.

And I picked that jacket back up and I looked in it and I said to myself out loud, My grandfather's not in this jacket.

And I put my fist in my chest and I said, He's right here.

Right.

And I put that jacket in the giveaway pile so somebody could wear it.

Right.

I understand that.

I also.

Here's what's going to happen.

I'm telling you right now.

Your emotions and your vengeance is going to get you in a situation

that's going to be very uncomfortable to get out of.

Right.

This house, though, the property that this house is on,

it's possible that somewhere down the line, it might be

worth more.

There's a developer coming through and building homes.

Do you want to be in the land development business?

No.

Okay.

And you're trying to justify it on the financial side and the emotional side, and I get that.

But if we're going to talk finances, let's talk about the fact that you're going to lose the step up in basis.

So you're going to get your dad's original cost basis, which could mean a huge tax bill.

Okay.

But if he deeds it over to you as part of an inheritance when he passes away, then it'll step up in basis.

Meaning, if the house is now worth $500,000, you would inherit it at that price.

But if he deeds it over now while he's still alive, what did he buy it for?

$50,000?

Yeah, probably.

And what's it worth now?

It was appraised at like about $500,000.

Exactly.

I would rather him do a prenup with this new wife of his

that says she can't touch any of his existing assets.

Okay.

That's the better move.

Okay.

And you inherit this house after he passes.

That's the smart way to do it.

I would work with an estate planning attorney and work through this whole thing with logic and facts and contracts and try to remove yourself as best you can from the anger you're feeling, which is understandable, towards your father and his decisions.

Okay.

And I'm going to say something ugly, but it's true, okay?

Yeah.

This is not your home.

I know.

Okay.

And so the owner of the home can do whatever the owner wants.

What you get to do is choose what type of involvement you want to have with his decisions.

I know.

But.

But what?

If

my mom would want me to.

Have that house?

Yes.

Okay.

Then tell him that.

Because George is right.

I don't want you paying taxes on $450,000.

Okay.

That makes sense.

I would much rather you get the house in full when he's done with it.

Or if he wants to sell it to you at $50,000, his original purchase price, maybe he can do that, I guess.

And this is for everybody listening: emotions are real, and feelings are powerful, and they're not designed to tell us the truth, they're designed to keep us safe.

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Let's go out to Houston and talk to Donald.

What's up, Donald?

Hi.

How's it going?

How's it going?

I'm great.

How about you?

I'm good.

All right, what's up, man?

Okay, so me and my girlfriend have been dating for five years, and I'm looking to get engaged soon.

So I'm looking at engagement rings, and I'm kind of between lab-grown or a natural diamond.

And it's the difference is a natural would be $70,000, and a lab-grown would be closer to $10,000.

Run, bro.

Blink twice if you're okay, Donald.

Are you all right?

I'm okay.

Are you okay?

Whose idea was a $70,000 ring?

That's my idea.

Definitely not her.

What do you make a year?

I make around $80,000 from my salary and around $200,000 from

my dad's business.

I own some shares in it.

Wait, so you're paid $200,000 a year from those shares?

Like dividends?

Dividends?

Yeah, $200,000 in dividends.

A year?

Yeah.

Okay.

Very confused.

Either way,

this is an insane ring.

You know that, right?

Yeah.

Does she have expectations?

Like, has this been the relationship thus far?

Oh, no.

Definitely not.

Why would you do this?

This seems like a guy that has a small sedan that drops it really low and puts a muffler that sounds like this

on it.

That was actually a great impression.

Hey, I only had that car for around five years.

I knew you had one.

Why would you spend 70?

Like, why?

What are you trying to?

Who are you trying to prove what?

Well, I don't know what to do with all this money I have.

It's kind of a

hole in my pocket.

I have around a million dollars in liquid assets.

Wow.

Do you own a home?

No, I don't.

Yeah, you should buy a ring for sure, definitely, instead of a home.

That's a good move.

Can you live inside of the ring?

Well, actually, I don't have any living expenses right now.

I'm kind of living in a vacation home for my parents right now.

Okay, so

money is a fake object to you.

It's just monopoly money.

Essentially, yeah.

So, like, you spending 70 grand, like, who cares?

Not really my money.

I don't believe you.

There's no way.

You just have a million dollars in cash sitting in a checking account.

No, so it's around almost half a million in the SP 500 between two different funds.

I have around $250 in

high-yield savings and around $300 in

like

kind of my I have an account in the business that gets used as

kind of used as business funds so I get paid interest off of that too

okay well you're you're doing well for yourself I don't know how much of it was on your own volition and effort but I'm not I'm not mad that you have family money but I do still think it's insane to spend $70,000 on a ring regardless of of your wealth now if you were like a billionaire I'd be like all right whatever but you don't even own a home.

You're living in mom and dad's vacation rental.

And so I think if I'm this woman, I would rather have a home than a $70,000 object on my hand that I'm worried about every time I leave the house because I'm going to get murdered or robbed.

Yeah,

I don't know.

This isn't passing the smell test for me, but I mean,

if you have a million dollars laying around, brother, do whatever you want to.

I just think $70,000 is insane.

You'll live to tell the tale, but she's going to keep it in the divorce.

Let me just put put that out there.

So I just, I have fears for the future of you two.

I don't know how much she knows about your wealth and how much you've amassed, but I think you're setting an expectation that this is the kind of lifestyle we're always going to live no matter what.

And that part worries me.

Let's go to Crystal in Chicago.

What's up, Crystal?

Hi, guys.

Thanks for taking my call.

You got it.

What's up?

So, okay.

Back in November, I was involved in a car accident.

I was coming home from work and this young man was flying down the highway.

He hit me, flipped me three times, and, you know, fortunately I survived.

Yeah, you okay?

Yes.

By the grace of God, I walked away with just a scratch on my hand and

hardly used me anymore.

Dude, I'm so glad you're okay.

Wow.

That makes two of us.

So

from the settlement, so after I got with $80,000,

once the lawyers took their cut and the deals were paid, I was left with $32,880.37.

And I had

my debt, $53,242

is what I owe out.

But as of right now, the beer that I had to purchase in order to get from home to work just went out on me yesterday.

And I need a car.

I also need a new

softwater system for my house.

And I just don't know what to do.

If I should save some of this money and pay toward some of my bills and pay toward some of my debts.

Yeah,

we'll walk you through it.

George will walk you through the numbers.

I just want to say this.

I've never received a lump sum check for 80 grand, right?

But every time I've ever got a commission commission check or sold something and I'm holding money in my hand, the amount of quote-unquote needs I have multiplies all over the place.

And so the temptation you have is to keep going back to that 80,000 number, even though you're only holding 30,

and to suddenly quote unquote need a nicer, newer car, need a water softening system, need new clothes, need

a savings account.

Like you're going to need all this stuff and that money money is going to evaporate before the day's over.

And so the challenge you have before you is a very disciplined response, not thinking like, I won the lottery, but thinking I have a chance to get ahead or not even ahead, but at least get caught up on how underwater I've been living my life.

Thank God I'm alive and get another shot at this thing.

I'm going to do this version right.

And so, man, you got a shot here.

So George, you can walk her through it.

Yeah, I would be force ranking the priorities.

Obviously, the biggest priority is getting out of debt, but you have a real need for transportation right now.

And to John's point, the temptation is, well, my beater died, so I might as well get a $25,000 car and a water softener, and then the money's gone.

And so I would get a reasonable car.

Is this thing worth fixing?

When you say beater, is it like, hey, $2,000 or in repairs, we'll get this thing running for another two years?

Or is this a transmission's out and it wasn't worth much to begin with?

It wasn't worth much to begin with.

I got it.

It's a 2003 Honda Accord, and I paid $2,700 for it.

I just was trying to get something to get through some work.

And I was, and I'm not looking to get a brand new car, not at all, but I was looking at

maybe $15,000 from like a CarMax or something.

But I would say seven.

I don't know.

Seven?

What do you make?

Well, I do pretty okay.

My salary is $95,852

a year.

But, you know,

I have my mortgage.

I'm a single mom of one,

and it just seems like everything, every year I've had something major happen.

You know, both my parents passed.

And guess what?

There's always going to be another thing that's going to happen.

And that's why you should be paramount to get out of debt and get an emergency fund, ASAP, especially as a single mom.

You need stability more than anyone.

And so I would get yourself a reasonable car, $7,000 to $10,000.

What is the need for the water softener?

Is it a health thing, a safety thing, or is it more of a want?

Well, no, in the area in which we live,

we have more hard water.

So it would just, you know, be for the washing of the clothes and to keep the pipes from rusting and things like that.

So is this like a whole house filtration system, like $4,000?

What are we talking?

Yes.

Yes.

So i did get in touch with a uh plumber and he was so kind he was going he's willing to do it for me um 1 500 from start to finish okay um

so i i have been kind of looking and pricing that out so in this so let's say 8 500 on a car for now 1500 on the water softener that leaves you with 22 to throw at the debt which brings your total debt down to about 21 000 left or 31 000 left what kind of debt is that 53

um overall outside of the house, it is student loans, credit cards, medical bills, and dental.

You got a whole bunch of potpourri debt here, and you're making six figures.

And so, we've got to figure out how to control the money that we have coming in.

And this inheritance will give you a boost, but it's not going to be the savior that you thought it would be.

So, we got to make a plan, and I'm going to gift that to you.

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Welcome back to the Ramsey Show.

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Let's go out to Knoxville, Tennessee, and talk to John.

What's up, John?

Hey, guys.

Thanks for so much for taking my call.

You got it, brother.

What's up?

Well, I've got a bit of a goalpost I'm chasing.

That's my root issue.

Kind of a long story short, plan for my grandfather.

No, hey, football, to be honest.

I was trying to make a goalpost joke.

I was heard of all this orange.

Well played, man.

You're going to get struck by lightning for that.

But okay.

All right.

So I know.

Tell me about your granddad.

Well,

my grandfather, he went to his forever home back in May, and I received the inheritance.

And

he passed away?

That's right.

He said there's only one forever home, and I believe that.

So

that's where he's at.

And I received about a fifty thousand dollar inheritance i'm also fifty thousand dollars in debt i know the answer

the number answer is to just pay off the debt turn around and start saving up for a home his wishes was to not do that he wants me to use it to buy a home because he saw in his last you know years how expensive homes are getting and sure enough yeah if if he if i would have received this two years ago i would have been able to afford a home but the homes that that would help me as a down payment on now are all decrepit and falling apart.

So

should I go ahead and get a house now and continue paying off debt with income?

Or do you guys think I'd be safe to wait another year to save that back up as a down payment and houses be even more outrageous next year?

Do you have a crystal ball?

Do I tell you that?

Yeah.

Just what I've been watching.

My wife and I used to own a home back in 2019,

and that house, we turned around and sold it for double what we paid for it in only a couple of years.

And every house we could afford two years ago is now out of reach.

So it just, it keeps going that way.

You're right.

There's two ways you can look at this, dude.

You can look at it as regardless of situation,

you on the way home, somebody pulls out in front of you and hits your car and you break your leg and you've got medical bills.

And your grandfather said, no, this money is for a house.

And so, like, no matter what, you can look at it that way.

And that's the letter of the law.

That's what he said.

Or you can get to the spirit of what your grandfather is trying to get for you, which is, I want my grandson

to have what?

Peace.

I want my grandson to have a place where he can drop his shoulders and exhale.

To own something.

To own something.

And right now, the lenders own you, man.

That's right.

And so that 50K, it does get you closer to the house if you use it to pay off debt.

It frees you.

Because what happens is

let's play it out.

You'll be the next caller on the show who goes, hey, I'm $50,000 in debt and I have a house that was way too much.

It was way more than I could chew.

I had no emergency savings.

What do I do?

Should I sell the house?

Or now I need a roof?

Well, that's not going to make grandpa happy either if you're broke and stressed.

And so this sets you up to buy a house.

So whether the money goes temporarily to debt payoffs so that you can be in a position to buy a house or it goes to the house now, I think the better move is to set yourself up to where this house is a blessing and not a burden.

That's what grandpa wants.

He just doesn't see your life as it is.

Did he know that you have 50 grand in debt?

Do you know the financial stress you were under?

Yes.

What it is, is $40,000 of a student loan, which my wife's getting her master's.

So, that's been interest-free paused.

Thankfully, her school is paying for the master's.

And then a $9,000 Toyota.

That's just my worker commute.

But he sees right now, I'm paying $1,500 a month in rent.

He wants me to pay $1,500 a month for a house.

One's an investment.

One is paying my landlady's mortgage.

I know, but here's the thing.

The math, I understand, but the emotion.

One has risk and one gives you flexibility.

And so right now, renting is buying you patience because you don't need to cover all the repairs and maintenance and all the headaches that come along with it.

And that's allowing you to focus on this debt payoff.

What's your household income?

Right now we're between $5,900 and $6,000 a month.

And what are your total minimum payments on all these debts?

You got $50,000 in debt.

The loan is paused, but it's going to be about $400 a month.

The car is $200 a month.

So $600 a month is what you'll free up if you paid off your debt today?

That's right.

And then how much can you throw on top of that towards the savings to get this emergency fund in place and eventually a down payment?

Probably Probably about $1,000.

So your monthly expenses are about $5,000 a month?

That's right.

And there's no wiggle room there?

There is.

There is.

I'm sure I could find another $500 or so.

Because that tells me you're going to save at most $12,000 in a year.

Would you agree for a couple making six figures?

That's not super impressive?

That's right.

So what if we said, hey, we're going to free up $600 plus, save $2,000 a month.

Now we're talking, this $2,600 $2,600 a month we're saving.

That'll get you to an emergency fund and a down payment real fast.

Because what I don't want, in the spirit of your grandfather's wishes, is for you to wait and go, well, the housing market kept shifting.

We never got that down payment.

The housing market kept moving.

And it takes you nine years to save up $100,000.

Or

you blame your grand, you go buy a house you can't afford or in a situation you can't afford, and then you're going to end up blaming your granddad on it.

Can I tell you what I'm hearing?

And you feel free to push back on me, okay?

Because I'm wrong all the time.

I'm okay being wrong.

Is that okay?

All right.

I hear a guy who is really pissed off at how expensive houses have gotten in the area where he lives.

And I hear a guy who's really upset that him and his wife are doing pretty well.

She's in grad school.

You're making decent money.

And y'all can't even buy a house.

And there's an anger in you.

There's an emotion in you that is...

shot you out of a cannon and you're about to set yourself up for a huge mess.

That's why I'm calling in.

That's right.

Like, here's the thing.

You're the guy at the bar, man, and somebody just bumped into you.

And you can set your drink down and hit that guy and go to jail, or you can just walk out.

And I guess me and George are the guy next to you saying, dude, let's just go.

Let's just go.

And let's wake up tomorrow and be like, dude, I would have totally worked him out.

But you know what?

You're not in jail.

You woke up in your own bedroom.

That's what we're saying, man.

I want you to have a house.

George wants you to have, we all want you to have a house.

Your granddad wants you to have a house.

But I promise you, I promise you, your granddad did not want you chained to banks.

Absolutely.

So if the house represents freedom to grandpa, then you getting out of debt is the best thing you can do to actually get to the root of what he was wanting, which is that freedom.

That's what we're solving for.

And can I be mad with you?

It's stupid

that we've had these policies and and we can go into them all day long, but that we're here where we are.

That there's not enough houses for hardworking people like you and your wife that are cheap enough for you to get in and have a great life.

It's not what we all signed up for.

And yet,

I have a family member that basically lives in the desert whose house got flooded with that flood in Texas a few weeks ago.

Like, it's not supposed to happen.

And yet, here we are.

So, what we're doing is we're going to go pull all the sheetrock out and take all the kitchen cabinets over and start over.

And that's where you are, right?

It's like, I don't want this to happen.

You're right to be mad.

You're right to be angry.

But don't make the next wrong decision based off that atmosphere.

Does that make sense?

Oh, absolutely.

I hate doing that.

Do what, brother?

Do what?

I wonder if I can give a shout-out.

Today's my 10-year wedding anniversary, and I know my wife's listening and want to say I love you.

It's amazing.

Congratulations.

And wife, listen to him.

He's fighting for a house for you.

He wants you to have a home.

And I know you're like, why don't we have a home?

He's trying.

He's trying to figure it out.

Fight with him.

Fight with him,

not against him.

And

I'm telling you, man, houses can be amazing when they're not a burden to you.

And if you owe 50 grand in debt, plus you still got somebody in grad school, plus you go try to buy a house that you're barely going to be able to get into.

It's just going to become a nightmare.

Don't do it.

Just wait.

And let this frustration and anger don't force you into the wrong next decision, but force you towards towards we're going to go save up this money so we can get ourselves a house.

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Today's question comes from Carissa in California.

My in-laws plan to leave their house to all four of their children.

Oh, gosh, don't do that.

Sounds simple.

Currently, three of the children live with them, including my spouse and me.

We are planning to move out in a few months as we're saving for a home of our own and hoping to start a family soon.

They've made it clear that to remain included in the will for the house, we would be required to stay living with them longer.

What's your advice on navigating the situation both financially and relationally?

Fly like an eagle.

Yeah, I'm out.

And for those reasons, I'm out.

Yes.

What a weird thing.

You gotta live with us longer to stay.

Bye Flicia.

Bye Flatia.

Run, run, run, run, run.

Go, go, go.

What does longer mean?

That just means I'm going to dangle this dollar bill over your head and you have to do what I say.

What in the toxic codependency is going on here, John?

Not to mention, if you stay in this situation, four of y'all are going to have to fight over this house.

This feels like a terrible reality show.

It does.

Yeah.

It's like Love Island.

No Islander, no, no love.

You're stuck here now.

Like, yeah.

I would, if this was me and my spouse, me and my wife.

Now, if this is a $5 million house and we stood down, there's a lot, maybe.

I would have a contract saying all four kids agree that this house will get sold upon their passing.

The moment it passes, right?

Because no one's going to be able to afford to buy them all out.

So that means we're all going to be living together in some sort of commune.

Or we're all going to pitch in money every month to keep it going so we can all use it.

We're going to rent it out and we're all going to collect.

No, that's complicated.

I would do what's best, and this is part of growing up.

I would do what's best for me and my family.

I would get with my wife, or in this case,

yeah, with her husband, and we're going to make a decision on what's best for us.

And if it's best for us to stay right now, for whatever reason, seems like there's a lot of you in that house, but if that's what's best for y'all right now, great.

We're going to revisit it in three months.

We already have the date on the calendar and the breakfast place where we're going to go meet, and then we'll do it for another three months.

But I'm not going to let somebody dangling something over my head control my life.

It's that simple.

The only part I like about this is that they at least have a will.

I know, good on them.

Good for you to get a will.

Having the conversation while they're still alive about what their plans are.

So there's no confusion in fights later on.

The fights can happen now.

Yes.

I like it that way, right in front of you.

And Dave always says that.

Like, if you're going to put somebody in your will or take somebody out of your will, have the courage to say it to their face.

Yeah.

Yeah, we just had to redo our will.

You know, we did mirror wills that kind of pour over wills.

And it was really, it's crazy because you have these, you have to have these conversations.

I had to talk to my in-laws and sister-in-law and brother and say, hey, are you okay being financial power of attorney, medical power of attorney?

Would you take care of our kids if something were to happen to both of us?

And so the will is simple.

The conversations can be difficult.

Yep.

But you got to have them.

It's so worth it.

And I sleep better at night knowing it's done.

Because here's the truth.

Two-thirds of Americans die without a will.

Here's what that means.

You're saying, I trust the government to decide what happens with all of my stuff.

Yikes.

Or as my friend John says, if you die without a will, it's because you hate your family.

There it is.

Because you hate your wife and kids or you hate your spouse.

Let's have the courts, the lawyers, and the public enter the most personal parts of our life.

That's fun.

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Get it done.

Just get it done.

Yeah, I rarely say this, George.

This is one of those few things that is inexcusable.

Like, you know, I work with people with traumatized situations,

and

there's behaviors that are bad.

There's actions people take that are detrimental to their life.

Usually I can sit down with somebody and walk through it and say, okay, I see how you got here, right?

This is inexcusable.

Get a will.

Just get a will.

Tomorrow's not promised.

So if you go, well, I'll do that later when I'm older, quote, get a will.

Get a will.

Is it uncomfortable?

Yes.

Do you have to have hard conversations?

Yes.

But get a will.

Let's go out to Ontario, Canada, and talk to Sean.

What up, Sean?

Hey, how's it going?

You're doing all right, brother.

So I am

looking for a little bit of advice here.

I'm about to start building a house for my family.

And we had originally done the plans up a couple years ago, and we are just rethinking a few things.

The original plan was to build a larger house to accommodate my in-laws to be be living with us.

They made a series of poor financial decisions in the past, and we predict that in the near future, they will most likely be living with us.

However,

we were raised as my wife and I were raised as Jehovah's Witnesses and we recently left that organization to follow Christ.

Her parents and my parents don't agree with our choices and because of that we are we are obviously if you know anything about that organization were shunned.

So they're kind of doing a soft shunning because they haven't been formally kicked out.

I've managed to keep that that way.

But we are still just trying to plan for the future because we're thinking they are still going to need a place to live whether they want our help or not.

And I'm just wondering if we should be doing that or if we should be

focusing more on building a smaller, more affordable house.

And that kind of brings me to a whole the financial side.

We just sold our house that I just actually finished building.

And

we got about $400,000 profit from that.

And I'm using that $400,000 profit to build the next house.

And once that house is built, it'll be worth about

$2.5 million,

depending on the market.

The reason there's such a large

return on investment is because I'm physically doing all the work myself.

I'm not hiring out sub trades.

So we save a lot of money on that.

Okay, so let's get to the question.

We're going to run out of time here, okay?

Sorry.

We'll get to the finance question there if we can get to it.

As for your parents and your in-laws or whatnot,

y'all are making, A, some big suppositions about their life.

B,

you are

already pre-planning to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars to help somebody that A, hasn't asked for your help, B,

is appearing to not want your help.

And doesn't even want a relationship with you.

Correct.

And so what I would, I'm telling you, having done this, experienced this, had this conversation a jillion times with different people, sit down and have a grown-up conversation.

You're a grown man.

And if they can't have the conversation or won't have that conversation, then that is your answer.

Like literally, I am building a house.

We are considering adding a space for y'all to move in if and when y'all need to.

is that something you would be interested in

so it's not so much that I think that they would even be interested in it

just from past experience we we personally had to help them move out of their house that they lost

and because we told them to stop doing what they're doing they they moved out of our house once they lost their house and moved in with my wife's grandparents My wife's grandparents are

aging and once they're gone, I don't know how they're going to afford to stay in that house.

I know, I know, but listen to me, brother.

You're trying to solve all of their future problems.

Yeah.

And they are repeatedly telling you, we don't want your help.

We don't want it.

Yeah,

I see what you're saying.

I just

can't stomach not

trying.

I get it.

You see the train coming and you see them on the tracks and you're like, hey, get out of the way.

And they're like, nah, we're good.

And you've tried to push them off the track.

You've tried to pull them off the track.

You've tried to invite them off the track.

And they're telling you, leave us alone.

Yeah.

And so, if I'm you,

I would probably put some money in an account because I see the train coming, and I'm at least gonna have to help with the aftermath of this situation.

Um, but I wouldn't add a million-dollar wing to a property.

Um, I'm not gonna use their potential challenges as an excuse for me to be irresponsible in the present.

In fact, it's gonna look like entitlement to them to go, well, why fix our problems?

They are, they're gonna build us a house for free.

Sweet deal.

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Live from Nashville, Tennessee, this is the Ramsey Show.

I'm John Deloney, joined by my good friend George Camille.

We're taking your calls on your money, your relationships, your work, and your whole life.

Triple 8-825-5225.

Let's go out to Kentucky and talk to Jennifer.

What up, Jennifer?

Hi, good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

What's going on?

I've been married about 20 years and we have three children.

And when I brought debt to our marriage, I was told I should declare bankruptcy to get rid of the debt before we have children, kind of instead of working together, which I did.

And after the humiliation of bankruptcy and ruined credit, I didn't want to go back through that.

And so I took financial peace.

And I learned a lot, but I learned over time that my husband has a terrible habit of not being able to let go of physical property and things.

And it has caused tremendous turmoil and stress.

We've had at least one home taken.

We are currently moved, and our other house has been on the market for a year.

And we have two mortgages, about $600,000 in debt.

Outgoing is about $7,000.

Incoming is about $5,000.

It's so far beyond impossible.

Yeah.

So you're going $25,000 into debt per year at this rate.

That's just basic living expenses.

And just trying to keep up.

How many properties do you guys have?

Two.

Only two.

One of them you're living in?

Yes.

Why did the last one get taken?

Well, that was years ago.

We've had one or two taken because he won't let it go and maybe tries to rent it out or wants to try to fix it up and sell it himself and it just doesn't work.

They get foreclosed on?

He can't afford the payment?

Yes.

Okay.

How has the house been sitting for a year?

Because he wanted to try to sell it himself from another state.

And I was like, can we just let it go?

Where is the other property?

In the Midwest.

Okay.

All right.

So

you said several things in a row.

So you've personally had gone through bankruptcy.

Were you married with him at the time, or is this a personal bankruptcy?

We had just

we were married, but we had our own.

He wanted to keep the finances separate.

But I had debt and he wanted me to declare bankruptcy so we could have children.

And I was like, Well, can we work together?

And I'm like, No, we need to do that.

And so I did.

I did it.

But then later, when it was all these debt issues, I'm like, Maybe you should declare bankruptcy.

I don't know.

And it's like, no, no, no.

Do you guys still have separate finances?

It is together now, but I recently actually just opened my own account because I started getting really scared.

Like, what's going to happen if I don't put some money somewhere from my income?

But I don't like living behind a person's back either.

Like, if you're married, figure out how to do it.

I know, Jennifer, but y'all have been living apart for your whole marriage.

It's never really been together.

Is that right?

Yeah, he was.

Because this isn't just money.

This doesn't happen in a vacuum.

This isn't just...

Somebody isn't that absurd

that you will declare bankruptcy.

That's a better option for us coming together.

You being bankrupt than it is us working together to pay off our debts

That in and of itself is such madness

that I know for a fact that doesn't just happen with money.

That happens with sex and intimacy.

That happens with travel.

That happens with where we're going to live.

That happens with jobs.

It happens with everything, doesn't it?

Yes.

Yes.

Y'all haven't been together in 20 years.

Y'all have created three amazing kids.

Right.

But y'all haven't been together in 20 years.

And now you're scared to death.

Yes.

Yeah.

What makes up the $600,000 in debt?

How much of that is the mortgages?

A majority of the mortgages.

Probably at least maybe $550,000 because there's also a loan on the other house where he wanted to fix up the other house.

He's got a HELOC on that or a home equity loan?

Honestly, I don't know.

I wasn't involved in that.

I mean, I had names on it, but I don't know anything about that.

Of course, your name's on it because he couldn't get the loan without your name on it.

So your A1 is to get all the facts, and that means we're both going to pull out credit reports.

You can do that for free.

Go to annualcreditreport.com and just lay it all out.

How much debt do we actually have as a family?

Now, what can we do to clean this up and focus on the consumer debt first while trying to list these properties?

And he needs to be working with an agent.

Hold on, hold on.

These have been for sale by owner, and he's just sort of figuring it out.

Jennifer, can I ask you a question?

I finally did get to that point.

I mean, I finally said, look, if we don't get this, like a person, like, I have to divorce you, like, I have no, like, I'm in a place where I don't even know what to say anymore.

What did he say to that?

Uh, he finally did agree because I mean, if he didn't, it was over.

I mean, but now we're all

our marriage.

So, this was an ultimatum?

Yeah.

Okay, so let me put it this way: your old marriage is over, period.

And what y'all are going to have to do now, if y'all want to stay married,

B, stay sane, is y'all are going to have to create a new marriage with a whole different operating system

and you're confident that he's in

started but then he went out of um out of state to go work to try to make some money to see if he can make ends meet so we haven't been able to really do any of it together because he's gone what kind of work does he do

well he's a um a teacher but he's been he also can remodel and do construction so he's been working to remodel someone's house out of state there was no work in the entire state of kentucky there was was no work for remodeling.

Well, this opportunity came about because of a conversation with a friend of ours.

And they're like, hey, we're going to remodel this house on our property.

I can do that.

And what do you make?

Are you working?

I am.

Yes.

Okay.

What do you make?

Oh, goodness.

I probably make maybe $2,300, $2,600 a month, maybe.

Okay, so you're making like

$12 an hour?

What are you doing for work?

I teach.

Okay.

And you're both teachers?

Yes, but he makes a do it more than I do because I was home with the kids for a long time.

Okay.

Have you guys ever just sat down and laid out all the facts and created a budget and said, hey, this isn't working.

We're not here to attack each other.

Let's just make a game plan.

We did finally make one as we were starting the financial piece before he went out of town.

But I mean, and I thought, okay, we're turning things around.

And it was, hey, I think, you know, we need to maybe change this.

And I don't want to do this again with the houses.

But then we even argue over like my car.

We've argued over my car and multiple cars, even of mine, over the years that are not practical or not affordable.

And it's like

now it's at the point where it's at a level of miles and at a level of maintenance need where it's even more not affordable.

How much do you guys have in car loan debt?

There's no car loan debt at all.

None.

Okay.

How much do you have in savings?

That's now gone.

Completely gone.

Okay.

So we are at babysit zero.

Yes.

So with your next paycheck, can you put away $1,000?

No.

And still cover the bills?

$7,000?

Is he bringing in money actively right now?

No.

Well, I mean, he'll get paid for a great job.

But, I mean, if there's $7,000 going out and $5,000 coming in,

I have no idea.

Jennifer,

let me cut to the chase.

As soon as he got you off his back,

he said, sure, honey, I'm going to do this thing.

And he found the next job out of town and he took off on you.

And he's hassling you over the phone.

He's spending money while he's gone.

No, he's really, he's really not.

He's really not.

He's staying with the friend.

Yes, because he's her friends and he's working from the time he wakes up until what, one the next morning almost every day on the house.

Okay, maybe he has made this change and it's just not translating.

Y'all need a marriage counselor.

You're on different planets right now.

Correct.

And y'all have a huge financial hole, but it's built on a house of a crumbling marriage.

And y'all have to get that aligned if you're going to move forward.

And as George said, you've got a math problem and it may be that you got to find a different teaching job in a different district because you've got to deal with your income problem and you've got to get some money and savings because you're in a very unsafe situation.

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Let's go out to the 512 in Austin, Texas and talk to Elijah.

What's up, Elijah?

Hi.

What's up?

Well, I'm trying to currently get out of my car, but the engine gave out on me, and now I'm wondering whether or not to fix it or try to sell it off as is without the engineer.

Oh, get out of your car.

Get rid of it, not like open the door handle.

I was like, man, you called the wrong show.

I don't know how to be.

Me and George are not mechanically inclined.

Yikes.

Okay, what's left on the loan?

$35,000.

Wow.

And what's the repair cost?

For a brand new engine, $16,000.

And for a rebuilt one, $10,000.

Okay, let's go with the $10,000 number.

And how much do you have currently, if anything?

I have a couple thousand.

Okay.

And what is the car worth as is?

I haven't checked on it in a while, so I'm probably sitting around $28,000.

Okay, and if you fixed it up, it's obvious that you're underwater on this car?

Yes.

Okay, what would it be worth if you got this engine repaired?

I haven't figured that out.

Okay, I would figure those pieces out.

The key is you don't want to make repairs if it's not going to ROI for you, if the car is not going to be worth that.

In this situation, I think it would be worth it to do the repairs, but you can't afford it in cash right now.

Yes, I can.

How much do you have exactly?

I have like $2,000.

$2,000.

And what do you make a month?

Around $4,000.

Okay.

So it would take you a long time at this point to save up that $10,000 to even do the repairs?

Yes.

Man.

I would at least find out what it's worth today and find out what that number is you're underwater on.

You might need to take out a loan to offload it and get out of the situation altogether, but it's going to hurt either way.

There's going to be a stupid tax to be paid.

What kind of car is it?

Four muster.

And are you certain there's no recalls on it?

There's no extended warranty or there's nothing there's nothing under the like in the fine print there?

I passed my warranty period by 2,000 miles.

I'm sitting at 62,000.

I think it's worth reaching out to them.

I did that and I don't have anything.

Really?

Yeah.

They just said we don't care about you.

Here's what's amazing, George and Elijah.

I was talking to a guy who came over early this morning to my house, was fixing my sprinkler, and he was talking about his engine blew up in the GMC.

And he just, I mean, he was heartbroken.

He said

that his young son said, why is granddad's car truck still running?

And he said, they used to have pride when they made these cars.

And they just simply don't anymore.

Robots don't have pride.

And these guys, anyway, sorry, brother.

This is the second story I've heard today.

Yeah, the key is you need the difference you're you're underwater on.

Whether you fix it or not, you're going to need the difference.

Is your credit shot?

Could you go to your local credit union and get a loan for the difference?

No, I haven't.

I actually already have a loan out because I messed up on it before earlier this year, and I had to take out a loan for it with my credit union.

So I haven't

gone back to them to see if I could take on any more.

money.

I would at least check because I'd rather see you instead of 35,000 in debt, 15 or 20,000 in debt, at least reduce your debt load.

And then you're still going to need something to drive around, right?

Yes.

You need a car for work?

Yes, I do.

Man, you might need to just go on Facebook Marketplace and find the cheapest beater you can find that's still running and has cold AC.

And that might be your next step.

But you're pausing the baby steps essentially.

You're in a store mode just trying to save up every dollar you can, working side hustles, trying to just get a beater so that you can still drive around and get to work to keep the income coming in, right?

Right.

What are your transportation needs right now to get to work?

Could you carpo, rent a car?

What are your options?

Public transportation?

Family helped me out, and then another time to just take Uber.

What other debt do you have?

I have credit card debt.

Okay, how much is that?

That is around

$5,000.

Are you living alone?

No, I don't live with family.

Okay.

So your expenses are super low?

I hope?

Yes.

What are your monthly expenses comparatively to your income?

You make $4,000.

How much of that's going out to bills?

Is that $1,000 to cover your bills?

$2,000?

Yeah, it's not $1,000.

Okay.

So what that tells me is within the next month, you should have $3,000 left over that can go towards this beater car fund, correct?

Yes.

Okay.

I think your best bet is to just sell the car as is to a private buyer and get as much as you can for it, because I don't know that trying to fix it up and then sell it's going to be feasible for you in the foreseeable future.

Okay.

But man, this sucks.

There's no easy answers here.

I wish I had a magic.

Just go to this website.

It'll solve all your problems.

The problem happened initially when a guy making 50 grand got a $40,000 Mustang.

And so this part is hard to undo because this is the ramifications of that, of what can happen: you go underwater on it, there's a repair issue, you have no savings.

And so you're going to have to borrow from family for now and use that income of yours and get it up and try to get out of the situation.

And Elijah, let me tell you the good and the bad here, okay?

Okay.

The bad is you're in for about 18 months of

like being embarrassed

Because you're a guy that likes a nice ride, right?

Yes, I do.

You're a guy that likes a nice ride more than he likes his own place.

You'd rather live with your mom and have a nice car, right?

Than

have a nice apartment and drive a chrome of your car.

And so this is going to be you for the next 18 months walking around town or driving around town or ubering around town.

And every time you want to hang your head in shame, I want you to hold your head up high and remember this moment and say the words, this will never happen to me again.

I'll never put image, I'll never put what other people think about me ahead of my own financial safety ever, ever, ever again.

Not for me, not for my family, not for anybody.

And then the good thing is, this may be that moment that frees you forever.

From what other people think because that's where you got that's where you end up in this nonsensical mess, dude.

And so that's my hope for you, man.

That's my absolute hope for you.

I'd also go do some more homework on a rebuilt engine, see if you can find one elsewhere for cheaper.

Because if you can find one for five grand, now it's feasible.

You got two grand at savings.

You'll make three grand in the next month to throw at it.

This might be a solvable problem or at least limit the damage.

So I would do more homework before you get to the business.

I would go to every single mechanic in the Austin area and shake someone's hand and look them in the eye and say, I'm in a mess.

Can you help out?

Or can you...

Look, can I outsource this to one of your guys and just do this off book and I'll pay them cash, but I'm in a mess and I literally literally need somebody in my local community to step up and help me out.

And

maybe you'll get lucky or maybe somebody will laugh at you and say, yeah, get out of here.

And you might do that 10 times, but maybe the 11th somebody will

have mercy on you and say, yeah, I'll let this mechanic of mine work on it on Saturdays and Sundays here in the shop for cash.

I mean, I'm just spitballing here, George, but

the cancer of our culture right now, one of many, is I care what other people think about me from the outside in instead of I'm at peace and I'm gonna I'm gonna enter into the world that way.

I'm gonna drive around in a car that I can't afford, live at my mom's house so that I can have this.

Like I'm gonna make all these other concessions so that I can have this nice thing.

And then, man, one thing goes wrong.

I got to borrow money to fix this nice thing.

And then now the nice thing explodes even further.

And it just, we just see this time after time after time.

House, car,

college loans with the promise of a job on the other end.

It's just, it's a constant drumbeat we hear.

Yep.

And it just breaks, it breaks my heart for Elijah, man.

Yeah, the cars are the number one wealth killer.

And when you do them with debt, it just makes that exponentially painful and risky.

And so think about it.

If you pay cash for a car, you can't be underwater.

You can always sell that car.

You have the title, free and clear.

But when there's debt on it, there's a high chance you're going to be underwater on it soon enough.

And most people that take on car payments don't have a fully funded emergency fund to cover the repairs.

So put yourself in a good position, drive what you can afford now, drive like no one else now so you can drive like no one else later, and I will die on that hill.

And you're talking to two knuckleheads who

did that exact same thing.

And we got our quote-unquote dream job and our quote-unquote dream spouses driving pretty crummy cars.

Welcome back to the Ramsey Show.

I'm George Camille here with Dr.

John Deloney.

So, John, I've got a YouTube channel, and what we try to do is help people build wealth, especially young people who go, I don't want to wait till I'm 65 to enjoy my life.

I get it.

But we also know if you don't think about the future, plan for it, invest for it, then you'll never have money and you'll retire broke, which is not okay in America today.

Because it's really easy to retire a millionaire, and yet most people don't.

Is it easy, George?

It's easy.

Well, here's the thing.

The math of it is easy.

Okay, there you go.

The dollar amount you need to invest is easy.

How do I easily diet and exercise?

It's easy, but it's hard.

And as you know,

it's harder to make progress.

There you go, yeah.

When you're 24.

We all had abs at 24.

Yes.

Right?

I mean,

I've always had a thing for gummy candies.

Just saying.

Okay, that's fair.

But I thought it would be fun, and I've done this on my channel, is use our investment calculator to show you exactly how much you would need to invest based on your age in order to have a $1 million nest egg.

Because here's the stat.

Only 3% of U.S.

adults have a million bucks saved for retirement.

Nearly half of Americans have under $10,000 saved, and 26% have nothing in any retirement account.

And some of that's due to, you know, living paycheck to paycheck.

Some of it's financial literacy.

But if you're listening to this show, listening to this segment, you now have no excuse.

You know too much to retire broke.

All right, bring it on.

Here we go.

So we're going to start with.

Save the day, GK.

Let's start with that 24-year-old with that.

A young Dr.

John, bright-eyed bushy-tailed ready to take on the world and this is also assuming you're following the ramsey plan which means we're not going to take on crippling debt and car payments and student loans and credit card debt but let's say you're ready to invest we recommend 15 into into retirement and we're going to even go lower than that we're going to go 150 bucks a month From age 24 to age 62.

Let's see what happens.

I've got it pulled up.

If you're watching on YouTube, you can see in real time we use this investment calculator on our website, which is free.

We'll link it in the description.

So you have nothing saved.

We're starting from zero.

And we're going to invest $150 a month.

And we're going to assume an 11% rate of return.

Now, John, people are already angry.

They're already typing comments on YouTube, going, Where's this guy getting 11% on his investments?

This is just historical data from the SP 500.

So if you look at the U.S.

stock market over the last 50, 70 years, you're going to see an average rate of return of 11%.

So we're going to use that as our number.

And what do we find, John?

1 million bucks.

And guess what?

68,000 of that was John's contributions.

964,000 was growth.

That is the power of starting early.

And you'll see what I mean as we move on to our next example.

Let's say you're 35.

You have nothing saved.

You got a hold of this plan a little bit later on in life.

And let's also say you work a little bit later.

65, nothing saved in retirement.

You would need to invest $375 a month.

which again is not even close to the 15% parameter we recommend.

Way lower.

But even then, at 11%, you'll see you have just over a million bucks.

But at this point, the growth was $916,000.

Your contributions were $135,000.

Is that real?

That's real math.

And here's the thing.

I love how math can be encouraging.

If 24-year-old me put $150 away every month.

That's it.

$150.

That's like DoorDash money.

That's like all of your subscriptions combined for a month money.

It's really not that much.

The problem is human behavior.

We don't have the consistency, the discipline to just put away that money and not go spend it elsewhere.

And we go, well, that's a problem for future John to deal with.

35-year-old John, when he's an adult and he's got like a family and stuff, he'll figure it out.

Except we know that that's not how life works.

I don't want to go back and just

give a whooping to 24-year-old me.

I know.

I feel the same way.

So don't get discouraged.

Let's move on to 45.

Or, you know what?

Let's actually do 15%.

Let's look at that 35-year-old who actually invests 15%.

Average household income is $80,000 in America.

15% of that is $1,000 a month.

All right.

So let's look at what happens when you invest $1,000 a month instead of $375,000.

$2.8 million.

So for those of you going, well, John, a million bucks isn't going to be anything when I, okay, how about $2.8 million?

Can we concede that's a lot of money, no matter where you came from?

Good.

And that's if you never get a raise.

35 to 65, 2.8 million if you invest 1,000 bucks a month.

Let's move on to the 45-year-olds.

A lot of people listening who went, man, I wish I could go back to when I was 35 and do this stuff.

Let's say you're 45.

You have not a dime saved in retirement.

Now, the truth is the math is going to differ here.

You need to invest more to still achieve a million bucks.

So we're going to pipe it up to $1,200 a month from $45 to $65, which again is still about a six-figure household income investing 15%.

And you can see you can still retire a millionaire at 65 years old with a million bucks in that account, even if you start from nothing at 45 years old.

I know, George, but here's the big thing you're leaving out.

My feelings.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Let's hear it.

How do you feel about this?

It just feels unfair.

I don't know.

I was trying to say something.

And now, here's the other thing, John.

People go, well, must be nice.

Who's got $1,200 to invest?

And I go, hey, how much is your student loan?

Well, that's $400 a month.

Hey, what's your car payment?

Well, that's $600 a month.

Hey, what are your credit card minimums?

Well, that's $200 a month.

I think I found $1,200.

Yeah.

If we got out of that debt, that's how much money would free up to then invest.

Therein lies the power and simplicity of the Ramsey plan.

When you don't owe people money, you have money left over.

When you have money left over and you're willing to make sacrifices for future you, you will invest said money.

So that's the big secret: live on less than you make, don't owe other people money, invest the surplus, and you will be unbelievably wealthy.

And that means, in the short term, not to minimize it,

you've got to be very intentional about driving

the car you need to survive, about

not going out and figuring out ways to have people over, to go out to the park.

Is any of that cool?

No, it's awful.

And postponing, in these days, postponing buying a house for maybe 10 years longer than it took me to buy my first house, right?

Like that's the reality.

Those are expensive.

But it is changing the way.

TV and Instagram says you should be living and saying, okay, based on this set of realities, we're going to live this way.

And so we're going to figure out how to have a great, wonderful life in

this little reality that we live in.

And my promise is, if you can choose to live in that, you can choose to find joy and laughter.

And yeah, it is what it is, man.

Well, what's crazy is to be truly wealthy, it has to be invisible to others.

Nobody can see the balance of my 401k, but they can see what's in my driveway.

That's the problem is we get way too excited excited about the thing going down in value in our driveway instead of the invisible number happening in an account somewhere in a 401k.

Because it doesn't feel real and it doesn't affect our life right now.

But the idea is we're still using either one of those proxies as some sort of value statement on what we're worth instead of doing the harder work on our spiritual lives, our relational lives,

our emotional and

mental health to say, no, I've got value just because

and I'm going to go do the next right thing for me and my family where we want to be when we're 65 years old.

And I don't want to be like this other family.

I don't want to have cut off my kids due to value differences and then have to go beg them to build us a wing in their new house, right?

Like, so we have to reverse engineer where we want to be at 65 and just choose that reality.

Yeah.

Do you want to be a financial burden to your family, or do you want to leave an inheritance to your children's children?

Right.

You get to choose.

But that choice,

as far as that calculator goes, that choice begins at 24.

That choice begins at 35.

Yeah, building wealth in 2035 starts in 2025.

I think that's an important.

That's the hard part to grapple with because we live for today.

Everything is just this ephemeral quick hit that we need as we scroll social media.

And the calculators, you know, only so many people get excited about a calculator.

I love a good calculation.

I love a good spreadsheet.

One time you and I were at a punk rock show and you're like...

Pulled out one of your earplugs and you're like, hey, hold on, check this out.

And you're like doing facts and figures in the mosh pit.

It was pretty cool.

That's true.

I stay away from the mosh pit as a guy who's short.

It's just most people's elbows are right where my face is.

So it's not ideal.

Not ideal.

But I hope that encourages you.

And listen, if you're 50, you're 55, even if you're 60, yes, it's going to be harder, but you have catch-up contributions.

Hopefully, you're making more than you ever have made in your entire life.

So there's still time to retire with dignity.

And I can even show you, John, from 50 to age, let's say 67, you're going to have to work a little bit longer.

You start with nothing.

You invest a thousand bucks a month.

You can still have $600,000 if you start at 50 with

So let that be an encouragement to you.

You don't need to have a $20 million net worth, but there's also no reason to retire broke and hope that social insecurity covers the bills.

Because if you've listened to the show long enough, you know, it doesn't.

I don't want you to be that person.

You can do better.

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

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

Me, Jade, Ken, George, even Rachel Cruz.

Wow.

We're going to show you.

Wow.

I was impressed.

I know.

We're impressed too.

We're going to show you how to stick to a budget and even find up to $9,000 of margin using Every Dollar so you can get out of debt and start building wealth.

Plus, you can ask us any of the questions you'd like during the live Q ⁇ A.

Sign up for free at ramseysolutions.com slash webinar.

So go out to Charlotte, North Carolina, and talk to Elizabeth.

What up, Elizabeth?

Hey, how are you guys doing?

Thanks so much for taking my call.

You got it.

What's up?

So I started listening to the podcast back in April because I was just really sick of being in credit card debt.

Welcome to the cult, Elizabeth.

Yeah.

And I just, I wasn't being able to save money like I wanted to.

So I'm in baby step number two.

I made my first budget and I can start seeing like where I was completely overspending.

And so I can cut back.

But I'm 51.

I'm married.

I have an 11-year-old daughter.

I've got about $20,000 in credit card debt.

And I am trying to attack this debt.

And, but I can't stop making myself contribute to my 401k and her 529 because I feel like I'm.

not doing what I can do to help us prepare for retirement in her school as she gets older.

And so I just, I'm just having a hard time following the baby steps in order and just kind of need some help trying to make that make sense in my head because I just really want to get rid of this credit card debt because I just feel like it's just hanging over my head and I just hate it.

So you want us to persuade you to pause investing altogether to get out of debt faster?

Yeah, and like my company offers a match and you know I always hear about the compound interest that you guys talk about and we have a good bit in our 401k already, but it's just, you know i just i feel like i would have to pause for a really long time and i just feel like i would put us behind what's your total debt how much total consumer debt so right now um i've got about twenty thousand dollars in credit card debt we own our cars we have a mortgage um left and a home loan that's got about sixty seven thousand on it and we owe about ninety seven thousand left on our mortgage Do you have a second mortgage?

Yeah, we took like, it was like, it's not a HELOC, but it was like a personal home loan that we took out.

So the consumer debt is your credit card debt of 20K?

Correct.

So that's the focus.

Is that across multiple cards?

Yeah, two cards.

Okay.

And what is your income?

What's your gross household or your gross income that you're investing off right now?

It's about $50,000 after taxes.

What about before?

It hovers because I kind of do a base salary and commission.

Okay.

So it's usually about like $57,000, I would probably say.

And how much are you investing as a percentage right now?

I was doing 15%.

Okay.

So about $300 a paycheck.

So right now you are investing $300 a paycheck and you get paid twice a month?

Correct.

So about $600 is what you'd free up.

Correct.

Have you calculated how much interest you're paying on that credit card debt every single month?

One's 19% and one's 15%.

So

are you doing the math at home?

Compound interest works both ways.

So here's what you're really doing.

You're basically borrowing money to invest.

Think about that.

Would you go into credit card debt to the tune of 20% APR in order to put 15% of your income into retirement?

To make 11% return.

No.

That's essentially what we've done and what we continue to do.

And the other part of this is you haven't found momentum.

I mean, you're 51 going, I got to clean this up.

I got to invest for the future.

You're trying to do 17 things at once and you're not making progress.

So at this current rate, how long would it take you to pay off your credit card debt while you're doing these other things?

Probably like, I would say two or three years, probably.

Would you agree that it sucks to be paying 20 grand of credit card debt over three years?

Yes.

So, what if we said, hey, we're going to buckle down for less than a year?

In less than 12 months, we're going to be out of this debt.

We're going to get an emergency fund.

Which, when's the last time you had a fully funded emergency fund?

Probably never.

I've got the $1,000, but never the fully funded emergency fund.

Picture that future for Elizabeth.

18 months from now, you have no debt.

You owe nobody anything except the mortgages, and you have a fully funded emergency fund.

How good would that feel?

It would feel great because I have anxiety about it all the time.

Okay, can I go one step further?

Sure.

How much of a gangster do you want to be right now?

I would like to be a big one.

Big time gangster.

So you're going to drink two ladles of our Colt Kool-Aid right now.

Are you ready?

Okay.

I want you to sit down with your 11-year-old,

and I want you to-is it a boy or girl?

It's a girl.

I want you to tell her, Mommy has a 529 account, which is where I'm saving for college for you.

But mommy borrowed a whole bunch of money on these things called credit cards that are no good.

And I'm going to pause putting money in for college, and I'm going to get this cleaned up.

Because here's what I'm hearing in you: I'm hearing

a weight,

like a ruck bag full of

weight, full of bricks of shame.

Yes.

You're a good mom.

In fact, you're a freaking amazing mom.

Okay.

And the reason I want you to sit down with your 11-year-old, because

shame eats secrets.

That's how it grows.

So I'm going to sit down with my 11-year-old and say, I made some choices early on and I've learned new things.

And I'm sorry.

We were going to have this much money.

We're going to have less than that now.

But your mommy is working really hard with dad and we're going to be free.

And your 11-year-old will go,

okay, can I have some chips?

And you'll be like, yeah, that's fine.

But you'll know for you, I sat down and stared this thing literally in the face and put on the table.

This is who I am.

I made some mistakes financially.

I have.

George has.

Dave has.

We all have.

And so I'm going to own that and I'm going to go do the next right thing.

But borrowing at 19% to make 11 for some future version of you because you feel ashamed in the present doesn't make sense on any level.

Right.

Are you doing this alone, Elizabeth?

No, I mean, like I said, I just kind of found everything.

And so

my husband is on board because he's feeling the same way.

Is he doing the same thing?

Does he also make money?

He's also investing.

Yes.

What does he make?

He makes um after taxes probably about 81

and what debt does he have is he not helping pay this credit card debt off no he's we we had we've had we're trying to combine everything right now we had everything separate okay what is trying to combine look like for you guys um we are basically opening we opened up a new account and we're basically getting everything set up to go into that account and be coming out good like our money think about this which is he makes 81 you make 57 57?

Yes.

Okay, so you guys make like $140,000 a year.

Isn't that crazy?

Yeah.

Like the gross number that flows through your hands per year is astounding.

And so you can knock out 20K credit card debt real fast, making $140,000.

Yeah.

Because are you bringing home like $8,000 a month as a couple?

Yes.

Okay, think about that.

I thought it.

That's what I kind of figured out.

Could you live off four and throw the other four a credit card debt?

Because that's five months.

You're debt-free.

That's just the math.

I think we could.

We're just, like I said, we're the budget and we figured out where we're overspending.

And so I think we probably could.

We're just going to have to work on it.

All right, so Elizabeth, I'm willing to put some skin in the game if you are.

Are you in?

Yes, I am.

How all in?

I'm all in.

All right, here's the deal.

If you promise me you're 100% all in, we're going to send you Financial Peace, the digital course.

I want you and your husband to watch online lessons, not just a bunch of YouTube clips, okay?

Okay.

Number two, we're going to hook you up with the Every Dollar app that y'all can use together and connect it to your bank account for a year, the premium version, okay?

Okay.

You promise you're going to use them both?

Yes, I will.

If you will make me a commitment that you two are, because this is going to require redoing how y'all do your marriage, right?

Right, exactly.

If you'll commit to this, I'll give you and your husband two seats to my Valentine's Day marriage retreat here in Nashville, Tennessee with Rachel Cruz at the Money Marriage.

Oh, wow, that would be amazing.

Are you in?

Yeah, I will be in.

It's Valentine's Day weekend.

It's a jilli.

It's an expensive ticket, and y'all can come to Nashville and come to the retreat on me if you're in.

Promise?

I would love that.

Thank you.

Our stakes are high.

Game on.

Game on.

I've put some of my cards down the table.

Now it's your turn.

Can't wait to see you in February during Valentine's Day weekend.

This is the time you change your life.

I was sick and tired of being sick and tired, bankrupt with a toddler and a brand new baby at home.

Scared, doesn't even begin to cover it.

But I got mad enough to change.

I started using God's and grandma's ways of handling money.

That journey became the total money makeover, a plan everyday people can use to take control of their money.

Millions have changed their lives following the plan in this book and found hope.

Start your makeover today at ramseysolutions.com/slash/store.

Live from Nashville, Tennessee, it's the Ramsey Show.

I'm John Deloney, joined by George Campbell, taking your calls from all over the planet on your life, your money, your relationships, your work, whatever you got going on in your life.

We're here to sit with you and help you figure out the next right move.

Triple 8-825-5225.

Let's go to the state of Kentucky and talk to Bethany.

It's actually a Commonwealth, Chunk.

The Commonwealth of Kentucky.

What's up, Bethany?

Hey, thank you guys so much for taking my call.

I'm excited to get your perspective on my situation today.

Go for it.

Okay, so

I'm a married mom of three kids, married to my best friend.

We are very blessed.

Financially, we're in a good spot.

We have about a $2 million net worth.

We've worked very hard, you know, ever since we got married 18 years ago.

And both of us have always worked full-time.

So, you know, early on in our relationship, we talked about goals.

And, you know, I never had a a goal to be a stay-at-home home mom or to work part-time.

But then things change.

And so now we're finding ourselves in a place where

our oldest is about to go into high school.

And I think for me, it's like the mom guilt of I don't have time to really spend quality time with my children.

Our youngest is seven.

And so I'm seeing, you know, the perspective of a teenager and then an early elementary student.

And I'm just seeing it all just kind of play out so quickly.

So I want to stay at home more.

And my husband has kind of come to where he's like, yeah, it's fine.

But I know he's just saying it's fine because he wants to make me happy.

And I want to make sure I'm not being selfish, I guess, in my desire to be at home more because it's not really

our goals.

I guess it's more like my goals have changed.

I think you're going to get yourself into trouble or you're ripe for resentment for both of you.

And that's a place in a relationship that's very, very hard, if not impossible, to come back from.

Yeah.

And so I'll tell you,

your goals are noble and they're great.

And your husband's goals, whatever they are, I'm certain they're noble and great.

He's not on the phone, so I don't know what his goals are.

I'm more concerned that this is the part, or let me say it this way.

The number of students who came to my university, wherever I happen to be working, and got dropped off, and that was the day their parents split up, was,

I can't count them all.

And it started with little moments like this.

Yeah.

When I start building my life, you start building your life and suddenly you wake up and that the kid of yours that's in elementary school is going off to college 10 years from now and you realize we are on two different planets.

And so what I really would love you all to do is to like circle all the way back and say, hey, who do we want to be?

And I'm with you.

I got a 15-year-old that I am working every day of my life to not pre be sad that he's going to be gone in three years because I literally love having him around.

Like, not just he's my kid.

Like, I love the kid around.

He's hilarious.

He's fun, all that.

And then I have an elementary school daughter that I can't wait till she goes.

I'm just kidding.

I'm glad she's here too.

But

I'm right in the same spot with you.

And my wife and I are doing the exact same thing right now.

Like, who do we want to be in this many years?

And how do we reverse engineer that right now?

But that starts getting on the same page.

Yeah.

Why doesn't he want you to stay at home?

Well, so it's not that he doesn't want me to.

It's just I think he makes comments like, you know, I kind of expected you to want to do this when they were younger.

You know, he's like, why now?

And for me, it's, you know, I want to be able to,

I guess, cook a, cook a good meal.

And, you know, instead of we're constantly picking up fast food.

What is he actually worried about?

Yeah, what's he saying?

Because

that's a grenade.

He just pulls a pin on and hands you.

I just thought you'd be somebody different 15 years ago.

Yeah.

Well, and I think it's because, you know, we've always talked about it and it's always been, and here's where I think it's coming from.

Neither of us come from a family that had a mom who stayed at home.

Both of our moms worked full-time.

Okay, but did either of y'all come from a home where y'all are multi-millionaires?

I mean, no.

Okay, so the whole, so that model doesn't work.

It doesn't matter.

Yeah.

Y'all are creating something completely new.

Is he worried about money being tight?

What's actually behind it?

No,

I don't think it's as much money being tight as it is the example we're setting for our kids.

Because

he said things like,

you know, so.

So he thinks because my mommy worked, that was a great example for me.

And if you stay at home, it's going to be a bad example for our kids because they're going to realize that having mom around is awesome.

What's going to happen?

What is he really scared about?

The kids are seeing the best example that this is what happens when you set yourself up for freedom, margin, flexibility, and options.

We get to have a present mom who's not stressed.

We get to do it.

We get to do it.

Having great experiences.

You're about to say something.

What were you saying, Bethany?

Well, I was just going to say, so,

you know, the oldest has,

you know, childhood memories of me working full-time.

The youngest, you know, is kind of in that age where she's just going to really, I guess, her memories are just kind of starting to get shaped.

You know, she's at seven.

And so I think his

concern is, you know, the oldest had a working mom.

I don't know how the youngest will perceive.

And I mean, I get what y'all are saying.

That's nonsense.

I'm telling you right now, that's not, let me, let me tell you how kids' memories work.

They work nervous system out.

Okay.

Okay.

And so

a kid is going to

have encoded in their body literally this was a safe place to be or this was an unsafe place to be.

I was loved and it was warm and it was a it was my home base or it was a place where I had to have some sort of mechanism to control for safety.

I had to perform.

I had to get straight A's.

I had to punch a hole in the sheetrock.

I had to get between mom and dad, whatever.

That's what they're encoded for.

And so if mom and dad were united working together because they both came from situations where money was tight and tough, that your oldest kid is going to benefit from a united mom and dad who are working towards a goal.

And I'm going to be honest, the data tells me your oldest kid missed out on some stuff too.

Yeah.

Right.

And your 11-year-old is going to have a parent at home, but it's also going to be encoded in mom and dad sort of split up little by little in the living room.

That's this idea that like my wife talks often about how my son would come visit her and her, when she was a professor.

My son knew my wife as Dr.

Deloney.

My daughter doesn't.

And she laments that.

But no way are we going to put that on the kids?

Yeah.

Right?

You get what I'm saying?

I do.

Your husband may not like you being a stay-at-home mom.

What are you going to do all day?

And if that's nonsense that's going through his head, y'all need to sit down and have that conversation.

But to blame it on the kid, well, what's the kid going to think of you?

Now, your 11-year-old doesn't get a vote.

She's 11.

And

I think I can see the value that I would bring in staying home more

because I'm a mom.

And I think because

I'm a husband, I'm a dad, and I see that value.

Yeah.

You don't need to pitch this like a chark tank.

Yeah, dude.

You're not trying to convince us.

George's wife just resigned a couple of years.

It was a year and a half ago.

Yeah, she was a rock star executive here, executive assistant here at Ramsey.

And after nine years, she decided, I'm going to stay at home with my family.

You don't have to convince us.

And my wife has worked and she'll go back to it.

So it's not like a.

Yeah, y'all need to sit down and get aligned.

Cause I think my gut tells me this is a way, way deeper issue, Bethany.

Okay.

In fact, I'd almost guarantee it.

He's got a picture in his head of what life's going to look like, and he may have respect issues that he's passing on to your kid.

Whatever.

Y'all need to get to the bottom of those things and come out as a united front.

This is not about the kids.

Yeah.

This is about you and your husband getting on the same page for what kind of life do we want to have and who do we want to become.

Start there.

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It is a weird time in the real estate market, and buying your or selling your home, it's a big deal.

And with all the clickbait headlines, conflicting data out there, it's hard to know what's really happening in the housing market.

So, we're here to make the latest trends easy to understand.

Median home prices stayed steady last month, about $441,000.

The number of homes for sale hit a million for the second month in a row.

So, there's a lot more supply out there, and it's really turning into a buyer's market.

Buyers have more options, more negotiating power, and sellers face some competition.

So the average 15-year fixed rate held steady at around 6% last month.

So if you're debt-free, you got a fully funded emergency fund, you have a solid down payment, now could actually be a great time to buy or sell your home.

And if you want to learn more about housing market trends and get some free tools to help you buy or sell with confidence, go to ramseysolutions.com slash market or click the link in the show notes if you're listening on podcast or YouTube.

All right, let's go to Maine and talk to Chuck.

What up, Chuck?

Hey, guys, how are you doing?

Good.

What's up with you?

So, I've got about $260 in change in my Roth IRA, and we owe $250.

My wife and I owe $255 on our primary residence.

And I was just about to pull the trigger on paying off the primary residence with the Roth from the Roth.

I'm 60, so there's no problem with any penalties or anything or any kind of any taxes.

And then, all of a sudden, a house popped up that we're thinking about buying for my daughter, our daughter and her husband.

My daughter's special needs.

She's autistic, high-functioning, and he's also autistic and high-functioning.

But

the jobs that they have, I don't think the income that they can make, I don't think they're ever going to be able to buy their own house.

So a couple years ago, we said we'd buy them a house, but we were going to be three years out from doing that because some other things.

But now this has popped up.

So we're trying to figure out, do we pay off our own house or do we try and pull the trigger on this one?

How much other money do you guys have in retirement?

So we're doing really well.

We've got my wife has $184 in her Roth.

I've got $880 in

a rollover IRA, in regular IRA, traditional IRA.

And my wife's got 130 in a 401k.

So we're doing really well.

And we've got two other, we've got our primary house, we've got a second house in Arizona, and we've got two rental properties in Arizona.

And those all have mortgages or are they paid for?

All the houses have mortgages,

but

they're worth way more than what the mortgages are.

Okay.

I mean, on paper, you are doing really well.

I think there's more risk here than you think because things are going okay right now.

So I would just caution you to not just throw money in random directions.

I would love for you guys to be able to retire with no debt whatsoever and then reassess the situation.

So for your daughter, what is the urgency to get them a house right now?

Can they rent?

Can they afford that?

They can rent, but I think it's more of just if something happened to us, we want to make sure that they're already in a house and they're taken care of, and they just have to take care of the taxes and insurance.

Did one pop up in your neighborhood that's going to be about that 260, and you think you can just cover it?

Well, it would be, it would be like

in this area, it's like 380.

But

so we would put two, we would put 260 down or 230 down, excuse me, and then have a mortgage for six months.

And then when my wife hits 59 and a half, she'd tap her Roth and we'd pay the balance off.

Can I tell you a rule of thumb I use for my house?

This is just a rule in the Deloney house.

Anytime my wife and I are faced with an either-or decision, we force ourselves to put two or three or four other options on the table just to see.

Because almost every bad decision I've made in my life, it was either this or that.

And I forced myself into a false binary decision here.

And so right when you're talking, the first thing that popped into my head was, what if you did both?

What if you sold one of those properties in Arizona, you paid the other one off, used your Roth, paid your house off, and then you got your kids into a $320,000 house?

You could do it all

and not have to play the shell game anymore.

100%.

The only issue is we've lost out on houses here.

Around here, houses are $500,000.

I mean, little, tiny, tiny little poster stamps, 1,000 square feet, are 500,000, 600,000.

It's crazy.

And this one popped up at 380,000 square feet, and it's 15 minutes from us for him.

Well, no, no, I mean, I mean, you can, you might not do it in that order, right?

You might put 260 down on it and pull your off and put 260 down on it,

and then put your other house on the market.

You'd have to be disciplined to do those things.

No, I see.

I would rather liquidate real estate, to John's point, than to just yank it all out of retirement as soon as I could.

Sorry, just real quick.

So that makes complete sense.

But what's going on is the other, the second house in Arizona,

if we sold that right now, there would be Catholic games on it.

We were planning on living in that house for two years, so we wouldn't have to pay Catholic games on selling that house.

And you've created a real complicated situation for yourself with this long distance.

No, we can't do that because we have to live.

So we're going to have to move our entire life out there and see how you find work.

Yeah, pay taxes and move all your life.

We're planning on doing that anyway.

We're trying to get out of the winters and split coasts, so we're going to do that anyway.

Okay.

I'm a fan of just living a simple life.

That's my simplifying my life would be A1.

And I want you guys debt-free before you go gift a house to your daughter.

And so that plan might need to wait.

I would personally liquidate the property, pay the taxes.

I wouldn't play the game that you're playing personally.

And I would just simplify it, have no debt.

Because right now you're saying, hey, things are going really well.

Sounds like you have a million dollars of debt floating around out there at the same time.

right?

Um, well, we've got 1.8 in real estate, and um, we've got 900 equity, so yeah, that's about right.

There we go, and so it looks good on paper.

You guys have an incredible net worth, you've done very well.

I'm not worried that this whole thing is going to implode, but I do think you're burning a lot of brain calories that don't need to be burnt.

And I would just liquidate.

I'm not a fan of being a long-distance landlord.

I would just sell a few of the properties, pay off your own mortgage, use any more profits to cover a house for your daughter.

But I would not want him to be taking on a mortgage for them either.

All right.

So we'll lose out of this opportunity, but there'll be other opportunities.

There's always going to, see, that's the thing with the real estate game.

People like, they're like, there's always going to be another opportunity.

There's also an opportunity to just simplify and not go chase down another real estate thing and just retire when you want to instead of work because you have to.

Yeah, that's going to cover 900.

You can retire as a millionaire, have,

and let's be honest,

your daughter's challenges.

That's been on, like, you've been under that squat rack.

That's been a heavy weight for you for a long time, right?

Her whole life.

You have an opportunity to live 15 minutes down the street from her, both of y'all on paid off houses.

You're still a millionaire.

You don't have to deal with property managers six states over.

Like, there just is this idea of solving for peace.

And a lot of times when we have chaos in our lives that we can't control, we spin up chaos other places so that we can play whack-a-mole with different variables and feel like we're doing something.

But we often realize when we step back, we just got stuck in the mud and we just hammered the gas.

So it felt like we were going somewhere.

You get what I'm saying?

Yeah, absolutely.

So pay off our primary house first.

Yes.

I would be, and then I would sell one of those real estate places.

I would get your daughter a house.

I created a domino idea of debt freedom.

Man.

So sell a property, whatever.

You could snowball it.

If all the properties are in similar mortgages, you could just snowball it, smallest to largest.

I would go personally go primary first because that's the house house I live in.

So I want the least amount of risk there.

And then go about the business of selling one, paying it off.

Let me ask on behalf of Chuck here, George.

I don't personally have a problem if he does this out of order, if he does it over the next 90 days, right?

So you don't have any consumer debt, do you, Chuck?

Just the mortgages?

Yeah, if you want to go

put...

75% down on your daughter's house down the street because you're only going to float that mortgage for a month while you get this other house paid off.

I don't personally have a problem with that.

Unless you're going to, well, it's going to actually liquidate the whole Roth then.

Because you have a way to do all of this without liquidating that Roth, too.

But I don't know.

It is what it is, man.

You're still taking about a third of your nest egg and depleting it and putting into real estate.

And so that's something to just weigh.

I would personally work with a financial planner.

Do you have a good financial advisor?

That's the big question.

And if you don't, I would jump on ramseysolutions.com, Chuck, and click on Smart Vestor Pro, and they can lay it all out for you more than we can in a quick show.

All right, so George, if this is you,

what direction would you do it?

And what order would you take?

I would sell my least favorite property today, put it on the market today, pay the taxes, use the profits to pay off my own mortgage, and then see what happens from there.

Do I need to sell one more to get daughter a home?

Okay, let's do that.

That's more.

So, you would let this house 15 minutes from y'all go this time.

There's always going to be another opportunity.

And truthfully, in every opportunity, you go, oh, we didn't know that it had mold issues.

That's why it was priced so low.

There's always something around the corner.

So, I would do your due diligence, do your homework, and realize there's always going to be another one.

We've all done dumb things with money.

I've done them with zeros on the end.

One of the biggest mistakes I see people make with money is not having a plan for it.

You got to have a plan.

You got to be intentional and you need to get a budget.

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today

all right take two seconds and hit the subscribe button for the show And if you're listening to us via podcast or on a streaming service, one of our friends over at Spotify,

hit hit the subscribe button it just makes such a difference for all of us it doesn't cost any money it takes two seconds and it really helps us out let's go out to savannah georgia and talk to emery what's up emery hey thanks for taking my call you got it what's up

well we are we have a lot of debt and we just kind of shifted our thinking the last couple months.

We've been Dave Ramsey fans our whole marriage.

We got out of $30,000 of debt 10 years ago, but then started going down the slippery slope.

My husband's about to be 40.

I'm 37, and we have three young kids at home.

We have two rental properties.

One's on the market right now in the Nashville area.

We owe $170,000 on each, and they're worth about $310,000 to $320,000.

We're hoping to get one at a time.

My question is, what to do with the profits?

Are you just selling one or both?

We are planning on selling both, but one at a time, because they're in the same neighborhood and they would compete with each other.

Ooh.

Ooh, fight.

Y'all should pick one.

You get one and he gets the other and y'all should compete.

What caused you guys living in Savannah to get two properties in Nashville?

We used to live in Murfreesboro and my husband went to MTSU.

Oh, so you became landlords by default?

Yeah.

Not by choice.

We worked the system.

We had the VA loan.

We lived in it a year, moved, lived in it a year and moved.

So we thought this was going to be a great source of income over the years.

It's been great, but we're kind of, I'm wanting to get out of it because I manage it primarily.

And we went into debt turning one into a furnished rental last year and renovating it.

So we have about $24,000 on a credit card left from that.

We've paid about half of it off.

It used to be over $45,000.

But we still have $24,000 left, and we want to get rid of that.

We have $31,000 on a car loan,

and we have our primary mortgage, which is $292,000

left.

And then we also have business loans.

So my husband moved here, and he started a land clearing business.

And so we have two loans with the business.

We're in our third year.

How much business debt?

We have an SBA loan of

that's

10.5 variable.

It's at $170,000 right now.

And then a machine loan at $90,000.

Goodness gracious.

Holy smoke.

So you're into the government for almost $200,000, and you're on a depreciating asset to the tune of $90,000?

Yeah, but they make us a lot of money.

We're in our third year.

Last year,

he grossed $330,000.

So he's doing really well.

He's a sole proprietor.

Really profitable.

He's doing really well.

Why aren't you guys doing really well?

Yeah.

You're in crippling credit card debt, bragging about how much money this business makes.

And you owe $200,000 to the government.

So if I'm tracking correctly, you owe $315,000 from this consumer and business debt.

Does that sound right?

The consumer and business debt, the $170,000 and the $90.

Credit card debt, the car loan, the business debt.

Yeah, plus the mortgages on the rentals.

That's why they're for sale right now.

Yeah.

We want to get out of it and we want to cash out.

We really want to start fresh.

Sure, no, we got you.

We got you.

We're just

going to walk away.

If you sell both rentals, you'll maybe walk away with like $240,000 profit.

I guess.

Yeah, about that.

And then, you know, capital gains and all the

capital gains.

So let's say there's 200 grand.

What would I do with 200 grand?

Yeah.

I would throw it at the consumer debt and the business debt using the debt snowball because that business debt is your debt.

You guys personally signed the dotted line there.

So there's no like LLC that owes that.

It's just you guys.

Yeah.

Yeah.

See, me personally, I'd, George, tell me if I'm wrong.

I would want to get the government off my back ASAP.

Is that wrong?

Or do you want to pay off the

snowballed it?

Most of it, most of that debt is going to be gone, and then it'll leave you with

that.

Is there one gigantic debt, that $170,000?

Yeah, it covered a machine and just a startup capital.

And then the $90,000 is for an excavator.

Well, you clear the rentals, you clear a bunch of this debt.

It's going to free up a whole bunch of income on top of that.

And then I think you also, you guys have been spending like you're in Congress, it sounds like.

Well, we don't, we don't, the 24 was just for renovations.

We're not like spending.

I know, but if he made 300 grand, where'd that money go?

Where'd that money go?

Well, he invested 10 grand in the renovations.

That went really quick.

Okay, this is boy math.

He can justify any expense because it's an investment.

You can't argue with that.

Yeah.

Okay.

And then he put 10 grand on the car,

but we did the rest on a loan.

And then then we, he put about 50 grand in investments.

Okay, I think what's happened is you guys are stuck in a broke person mindset of how much down, how much per month, how much down, how much per month?

Can I afford the payment?

Can I afford the payment?

You're also stuck in

social media entrepreneur hell.

This guy's one TikTok away from imploding your family.

Well, but I mean, it's like, we're going to do rental houses so we can get passive income.

I'm going to get some machines and do some excavator land movement stuff.

Yeah, I'm also going to do some investments.

I'm also, you see what I'm saying?

Like all these are all just like, you can just go on Instagram to these different businesses.

Right.

We're ready to move on though.

I know we got 140 and I think his eyes have been opened and he's he's ready.

Awesome.

My big fear is these excavator type jobs are boom and bust.

They have years where they just absolutely crush and then they've got years where the phone doesn't ring as much and you really got to get out there and hustle.

And so, while you're while it's raining for y'all, man,

God Almighty, pay off everything.

I know that's where y'all are headed, but

here's the math.

You guys will be completely debt-free, except for your personal mortgage, within a year if you do this stuff.

You throw 200 grand at the 315, you're down to 115.

Following

you throw 10 grand a month at that debt, it's gone in 12 months.

Yeah, yeah, that's it.

That's the actual math.

Now, you can argue, well, but that's how that would work.

You guys could be completely debt-free in that baby step six realm with just that $292 mortgage left 12 months from now.

That's you and your husband shaking hands.

No more of these quote-unquote investments.

We're going to pause.

I'm putting any money away.

Oh, you got one?

What is it?

Is he over there whispering to you, Sweet Nothings?

Oh, yeah.

No, he's here listening in.

He's on board.

But I have to be honest that the invest we have eight in a Roth, but the 50 was in crypto.

Of course not.

And I'm really trying to get him to just release that.

Because if you see the number, 50 in crypto, about 50 in credit card and car debt, like I just want to wipe it clean.

Yes.

And my deal was if we paid off everything and we started at 15%, that he could have a small percentage to do crypto if we could really get in a stronger position.

That was kind of my deal, I told him.

I will be impressed if he offloads the crypto because what's going to happen is one year from now, they're going to go, those Ramsey guys told me to sell my crypto and I could have doubled it, babe, to 100.

We could have been, we could have been bajillion.

That's what's going to happen.

And there's grandparents out there with garages full of beanie babies who had the exact same thing.

Like, yeah, dude, no, listen, beanie babies are going to crush.

All right, cool.

Yeah.

It's a gamble.

Yeah.

So it's a gamble.

And it's fine.

If you want to use some fun money for crypto, do that, but not when you're in crippling debt in every corner.

And so I would just get out of this.

Let's start from scratch.

Let's pay off the house.

Let's have an actual nest egg and retirement accounts.

And then we can go, hey, we're so unbelievably wealthy.

We can just throw throw money into these things for fun with no debt and not worry about it and not need it to grow and 10x.

Let's 10x the 10x to 1,000x.

I don't know.

I get it.

I'm on it.

That's it.

So you know what this means?

No more social media.

Hey, look over to your husband.

I want to hear him.

Are you in totally?

Oh, yeah.

I'm 110% in.

That's why we're calling.

Oh, yeah.

I love it.

Okay.

Okay.

If you're all in 110%, that means you're more than 100, which means you definitely do crypto math.

That means I want all the crypto is gone by the end of the week and you're debt-free, which is dope, and you're consumer stuff.

And then you just sell your houses, you're business-free, and then you're off to the races.

I like this plan.

Yeah, that sounds like a good plan to me.

I mean, I'm ready to hit sell.

Dude, that's so awesome.

I'm proud of you, man.

Hey, can I also say this?

It's hard to be in that place, isn't it?

Because you have been working really hard, haven't you?

It is.

And I gave up my career as a pilot to, you know, be home with my family and started this business.

And, you know,

it's been a good trade-off.

But I do want to be completely free of owing anybody anything.

My man.

I love it.

My man, my man.

Hang on the line.

We're going to hook you up with the premium version of every dollar for a year to get you guys, put a little gas in your jet engine here, to get y'all off to the races here.

Proud of you.

Sell it all, be free of all of it.

And then you're going to be building wealth like you can't imagine.

Today's scripture of the day is Proverbs 14:30.

A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots rots the bones.

Freddie Mercury said, Someone will always be prettier.

Someone will always be smarter.

Someone will always be younger.

They will never be you.

I needed to hear that, John.

Of course you did.

Thank you.

You needed to hear both of these.

I really did.

That was actually a really good proverb.

I don't know if I've heard that one before.

That envy rots the bones.

Yeah, envy, that's very rock and roll.

They kind of fuck.

Yeah, whoever picked this out for me on the show today, well done.

Way to go.

That was a good job.

Let's go out to San Antonio, Texas, and talk to the Tobes.

What's up, Toby?

Hey, how are you guys doing?

Great to get to talk to you guys today.

It's great to talk to you, too, brother.

What's up, man?

I have a very difficult dilemma.

I need some assistance on.

So my mother-in-law has early stage dementia.

Ah, man.

I'm sorry.

Yeah.

They're in their 80s.

Her husband is wheelchair bound and

give you kind of the financials of it.

Basically, memory care is about $6,000 a month starting.

She's in the lowest level of care, but each level it goes up, it's another $1,500.

They get Social Security of about $4K a month.

They have an apartment that the lease is through until November.

It's $2K.

And

they only have $100,000 left.

Oh, why?

He's not a nice individual, and it's become a huge family conflict all around the money.

We did talk a few weeks ago and I agreed basically that, hey, when they ran out of money, I would help them.

A week later after that, he's going to my wife asking for money.

And then now it's telling her to give her money.

And he's kind of resorted to emotional blackmail.

And it's just been very difficult.

And my wife's about as unhappy I've ever seen her.

And we're just kind of struggling for what's the right thing to do because honestly, I'm close to retirement and we have big plans for retirement.

Yeah.

And I, frankly, I don't really want to spend all my money.

I'm just a little short of my goal saving my whole life.

And I don't want to have to turn around and give all that money to take care of my mother-in-law.

And I know people might not like that, but it's kind of where we're at.

So we're struggling,

trying to figure out what to do.

So, can I just tell you right out of the gate, you got permission to struggle and be upset, okay?

Yeah.

When you retold that story, this may not be all of it,

but I hear in your voice, you're more mad that somebody, and I don't care if it's her dad or not, somebody is

grossly coming after your wife.

That's true.

I'm pretty fed up with it.

You know, I kind of got into it about a week ago.

And he called me later and apologized, which is completely unlike him, but it still didn't change anything.

Okay.

Does your wife have any siblings?

She has a sister.

She's also just retired.

My wife's just retired, but she doesn't make any money.

She doesn't have any money.

She had a government job and has a very small pension.

She lives basically paycheck to paycheck.

Okay.

So I guess what I want to back out all the way out, and George can walk you through the specifics here.

And I say this with all due respect, assisted living is a privilege.

And assisted living costs money.

And if you don't have money, you can't be in assisted living.

You can go into a Medicaid facility if that's all that we have.

Well, that's what we talked about is, hey, let the money run out.

Actually, there's some pretty good programs with Medicaid, but he

is, I think, partly just freaking out at the thought of not having a dime to his name.

That's true.

And

there's a mathematical reality to that.

And so

here's the order order of importance here, her order of steps.

You and your wife turn the phones off and y'all go plan a half-day retreat.

Okay.

And y'all decide what kind of life do we want to have over the next five to ten years and how much is that going to cost.

And both of y'all put your pain on the table, your hurts on the table.

Let your wife put her guilt.

I feel like I have to do this stuff.

My guess is she's probably been bailing her dad out emotionally her whole stinking life.

And we're going to put all that stuff on the table.

You'd be able to say, I've worked this hard for you and me to have this life, and this bitter, angry, entitled old man is going to, and when actually there's a program out there for him, right?

So put all that on the table, all of it.

Okay.

And then y'all decide together: here's what we're going to do moving forward.

We are not going to just wipe ourselves out when there's a program on the table to make this angry 80-year-old

not feel whatever he's feeling.

Or if y'all decide we're going to put this much money towards that, then y'all can make that choice, but I want y'all to do whatever comes next together.

And usually what happens is you get frustrated, frustrated, frustrated.

Dad calls out of nowhere, bombs her, she cries, you explode, and then y'all get y'all go to neutral for a while.

And then it builds and builds and builds.

Let's just go to a place and get it all out on the table.

Okay.

You are

spot on in terms of the emotional role of constant.

That's right.

And so let's let's take the explosion.

Let's just empty all the gas tanks out of all the combustible

liquids.

No more gas, no more jet fuel in there.

And let's just sit at a table and share a meal and say, okay, we're both frustrated.

Neither of us wanted this.

And here it is.

What are we going to decide to do next?

And then if y'all decide, hey, dad, we're not funding this.

Here's a great Medicaid program.

We're going to let this money run out and you're going to move into this place.

It's a great place for y'all.

Even if it's not a great, it's the place for y'all.

then just expect he's going to yell and kick and scream and throw fits, and he doesn't get a vote.

He's being well taken care of in the situation that he can afford.

Okay.

Right.

Or if you decide we don't want to fill in the blank, y'all can go from there.

How have they afforded their life thus far?

They've been very frugal, actually.

You know, they live in a

a person, a 55 and over apartment complex.

It's reasonably priced and been very careful with his money.

He's

has Social Security and kind of been working through his retirement savings.

It's just that he's in his 80s now and it's about out.

So

that's, you know, they've never done anything too extreme in terms of cars or trips or anything like that.

They've been to Google.

Okay, that's good.

So they don't have big expectations of what their life is going to be like at this point.

They've looked at the reality of it.

I would also look at options B, C, D, and E, because right now the option is either we pay $6,000 a month for assisted living or they hate us and they're homeless.

And the truth is there are way more options than that.

So let's look, hey, what would in-home care for a few hours a day be like?

What does the Medicaid option look like?

Let's lay out all the options and then go with the one that makes the most sense.

And then we can revisit it six months from now, a year from now.

And I think that will just free you of this forever thing and then throwing off your goal, which I also think there's something to that.

You mentioned, hey, I'm trying to retire.

I've worked my whole life for this.

And then a wrench got thrown into the plan, right?

Right, right.

What is that goal?

Was there a certain number?

Yeah, I'm really close to hitting my number.

Like, are you guys worth $5 million?

No, we're going to be, my goal is 2.5.

Amazing.

And you're going to hit that.

Yes.

Okay.

And the truth is, if you were at 2.2, you'd still figure out how to make all of that work and have a great retirement because you're that kind of guy.

Yes.

So it hurts because it messes up your spreadsheet, right?

I feel that as the nerd.

Don't put a ding in my spreadsheet.

But you also don't have to feel like obligated to cover their lifestyle for the rest of their life, no matter what, because you want to make everyone happy.

And so I want to, there's some middle ground here that you guys can afford to help a little bit, but you don't want to open the floodgates and just say, all right, I guess we're going to pay six grand a month for who knows how long?

Five years?

Ten years?

Yeah, average dementia patients live seven years.

Exactly.

So this could be, you can do the math.

And if you want, the question says, how do I convince my wife we can't afford it?

Math.

Math.

Hey, that oddly looks like 80 grand a year for what could be seven years.

That's hundreds of thousands of dollars, which means we can't retire if we do this.

And also, you know that afford, quote-unquote, afford, means different things to you and her.

True.

She sacrificed her childhood for this guy.

She sacrificed some of the things she want to do for this guy.

She's willing to say, well,

I'll just do this now, right?

And I, George, I have a it's not a hard and fast rule, but if people that I know or care about or whatever need something,

I'll be generous for a thing, not just an endless stream of money, exactly.

Right?

So I can help you out with this, I'll help you out with this.

When you call and say, I just need 10,000, I'm not gonna do that.

So if granddad needs something,

maybe we can help out with the thing, but not just

give me money, not a recurring, ongoing thing.

Yes, refund my life.

That's different.