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This is the Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about their money, their profession, and their relationships.

We're so excited to have you with us.

The phone number for you to jump in today is triple 8-825-5225.

Triple 8-825-5225.

Alongside the esteemed Dr.

John Deloney, I am not a doctor, but I've played one on TV.

Ken Coleman.

That's not true.

I've never played a doctor on TV, but I'd like to say that.

You're a resident doctor back there when we're trying to figure out how the world works.

I think you have to do that.

You have a doctorate in helping me navigate politics, which is a gift.

I don't know how any of this stuff works, like pragmatically and mechanistically, and you help with that a lot.

They should release our conversation.

They should not because we'll be sit together unemployable.

Yes, we do solve it all.

Man, if they would just ask us.

That's true.

We would help.

But hey, we're here to help you win today.

We start off in San Antonio, Texas, where KC is joining us.

Case, how can we help?

Yes, sir.

How are you today?

Well, we're having a blast.

What's going on with you?

My starting question is: I had about $50,000 stolen from me by the parents, and

I'm now in in a lot of debt, and I'm trying to figure out how to navigate the complex waters of starting over life.

I used to work at a top-tier trillion-dollar company in Texas, and

after everything that happened, I'd like to try to get back to

a life that I enjoy.

Okay, you just dropped a bomb on us, and I feel like we're missing a sizable amount of details.

So, let's start with

you're 50 or somewhere around 50, and your parents stole 50,000 from you, and somehow you have to start your life over.

Bridge the gap for us.

First of all, how did they steal that money from you?

Great question.

We got to kind of rewind a long time ago.

Back in the today, what they call a child influencer.

Back in the day, they called child actors.

I used to be a child actor.

I had a trust fund.

That trust fund was stolen from 1982.

I didn't find out about that uh theft until way later and basically in my 40s and when i found out about that theft which is currently in excess which has a judgment in excess of seven hundred thousand dollars uh because of the the money that was constantly um accruing interest because of the judgment um when i approached the parents about that theft

I had a joint account with Fidelity Mutual

that I was putting money into.

And this is where the word theft is probably a gray area because it was a joint account with not just myself, but the parents were also on it.

And when I approached them about the first incident, they said, you know what, why don't we empty this

fund, this

money that we have here.

We'll keep that money and then we'll just use it to kind of

help assuage me into seeing it their way rather than my way.

That makes no sense.

None.

And where's the judgment stand?

Where does that stand?

So the current judgment is active.

It currently gets

9% interest every year from 1988.

But what I'm saying is they don't have it.

They can't pay you.

No, no, no.

It's definitely against them in the courts.

I know, but then you're never going to see that money.

They don't have it.

Oh, yeah.

No, they'll never.

No, they'll never.

Okay, so your parents have been crooks for your whole life.

Correct, and lying to me about it the whole time.

Right, right.

So, like, it's that old, it's that old wives' tale.

Like, there's a rattlesnake in a paper sack, and you put your hand in there and got bit.

And now, at age 50, you're surprised when you put your hand back in there, you got bit again.

That's just who they are.

They steal from their side.

I would say more like I was living in a sack with rattlesnakes getting bit all the time.

And when I left the sack,

they pour to the rest of the parents.

Okay, so, all right, so let's skip forward to today's call and and how we can help you.

That was about 10 years ago that you discovered that you worked at one point for a trillion-dollar company.

How much money were you making and what were you doing?

I actually was doing really well there.

It was a fantastic company, energy company.

Why don't you work there anymore?

I do not, unfortunately.

They work.

Why?

Oh, why?

It's a JIT manufacturing company.

So, as

they sell more, they produce more, they hire more.

No, no, you're not answering the question.

So let me do this.

There's a reason why I'm asking these questions so that John and I can kind of get where you are.

I'm going to ask you again, how much money were you making?

Don't tell me how great the company was.

Just answer the question.

How much money were you making at your highest moment with this company?

75K as production manager.

And you were okay, great.

Now, why aren't you working there?

What is the reason that you left or you were told to leave?

What happened?

The company had a downturn in 2024.

They were producing less vehicles

than

all right.

So now, how can we ⁇ what is the key thing that you would like John and I to help you with today?

Because of the debt and the theft, it gives you a sense of anger, disappointment, and frustration as you deal with normal people, which isn't fair to the normal people.

So my question is maybe not just for me, but for all these child influencers out there that are going to have the same thing happen to them, hopefully not.

What is it that you can do after these situations to

kind of get back on your feet?

Okay, so

Dr.

John, help me with

mental and emotional anger.

So, here's the thing.

You have to, A, grieve the fact, and we don't have a psychology for that in our culture.

No, I hear you.

I hear you.

You have to grieve the fact that your parents should have been your chief advocate and that money, you should have a million dollars in an account right now.

You don't.

Right?

And every second, listen to me carefully.

Every second you think about your mom and dad is a choice to be miserable in your present because you can't change one thing about how they ruined your life, period.

And

I'm going to press on you a little bit.

They have nothing to do with you getting laid off.

None.

No, sir.

They have nothing to do with you not getting a job the following week, throwing boxes at Walmart just to bridge the gap.

Right?

Now,

that grief, and I would say you're probably being pretty kind to them right now on the phone, the trauma you endured as a kid, because parents don't just steal from their kids in a vacuum.

You probably lived in a hell too, right?

So that stuff you're going to get with a therapist and work through because that's real.

And you have a math problem.

And so the key to,

let me say it this way.

When your body knows you're not in control, when you're not driving the car that is your life, it has all kinds of ways to try to keep you safe.

Anxiousness, depression, dysthymia, over and over fatigue, chronic pain, all these other ways to try to keep you safe from what's actually like melting you from the inside out.

So what does that mean for you?

is A, you got to sit down with a professional and say, here's what happened to me, because that's wired into your nervous system.

Number two, you have to choose i'm not going to carry around my a cinder block that is my mom and dad every day of my life because it's just ruining you the third thing is you have to go do and this is aa language the next right move which is

List out your debt smallest to largest.

You borrowed that money, not them.

You borrowed it.

I got to go get one job, two jobs, three jobs, and begin chipping away at this thing.

If you made $75,000 at a trillion dollar tech company, there's going to be another tech company in Texas that will hire you, I promise you.

And maybe not making $75,000 to start with, but they'll pick you up, and you have to start walking through with your actions the next right move to get this crap tail.

It's about you taking ownership of what comes next.

Let's be real.

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Erin is up in Washington, D.C.

Erin, how can we help?

Hi.

How are you doing today?

We're having a blast.

What's going on with you?

Well, I am a 63-year-old widow, and I just got engaged, and I am wondering, after marriage, should I combine my finances with my soon-to-be husband?

Yes, yes.

And congratulations.

Yeah, how about that?

And the thing is, he was my high school crush.

Bro,

come on.

I love it.

I'm a huge Dawson's Creek fan, so I love this.

This is awesome.

Great reference.

I think America wants to hear a short version of how this happened.

Obviously, a horrific loss for you.

How did you reconnect with the high school crush?

Guaranteed Facebook.

Yes, it was.

Cinema Freamer Quest.

John Deloney won.

Yeah.

Nice.

Okay, and how long have you guys been dating before getting engaged?

We started in November and we got engaged a little over a month ago.

Okay.

Are you living in the same community?

No, no.

Oh, no.

I'm on the East Coast.

He's in the Midwest.

What's going to happen?

Have y'all seen?

Yeah.

Well, it's very expensive to retire in Washington, D.C.

So I will sell my home.

I'll buy a less expensive home in the Midwest where he lives and where my family's from.

And

then I'll be completely debt-free.

The only debt I have now is my mortgage because my late husband was a Dave Ramsey fan

and set me up for success even after he left.

When are you guys getting married?

Next year.

Okay, the way you said that, I could have heard it wrong, but the way you said it, it sounded like I'm going to buy a home.

There was no we.

Yes,

I have quite a bit more money than he does, and he has $180,000 in medical debt.

Okay.

Now, the thing is,

it was a botched surgery.

We have proof the surgery was botched.

I'm trying really hard to get him to sue the hospital for malpractice

because

my thought is, in all likelihood, they will just drop

the debt and we can each go on our merry way.

Well, let me ask you this.

Did you combine finances with your first husband?

Yes,

we shared everything.

So

I'm going to guess here, the only thing that's giving you pause, which would call you, which would create this urgency to call us today and say, hey, should I, is this $180,000 in medical debt?

Yes, because otherwise he's very responsible financially.

Except for the medical debt and his mortgage, he lives debt-free.

He does not use credit cards.

He pays cash for everything.

Are you guys planning to live in this house that you buy?

Yes.

Okay.

John,

I feel like this is in your lane here.

This is not a money thing.

Okay.

Aaron, how much.

It is kind of.

Aaron,

how honest can I be with you?

Can I be direct since we're best friends now?

Oh, yes.

He says that to everybody.

I do.

I do.

I don't have any best friends, so I try to pick them up from show callers.

Here's the deal.

I want.

I guess I wouldn't have a job if old flames who reconnected on social media told each other 100% of the truth.

And so what I hear a lot of is, oh yeah, no, I know he is fill in the blank, or I know she is fill in the blank.

And then people move across the country, they sell out, they cash out, they send money, they help with X, Y, and Z.

And then there's this other shoe that drops.

So I guess what I want to say for you and for everybody listening, and you may have already done this, is there's got to be some due diligence.

What does that mean?

Before you sell your house and buy a new one next to him, I would love for y'all to pull credit reports together and walk through it.

Have you guys done that?

I have not yet.

But I do plan on sitting down and doing that.

And as far as selling my house and moving there, this is my hometown.

My parents are still alive.

All my family is there.

I have nobody here.

Okay, so you're going there anyway.

Let's just say

that anywhere.

Perfect.

Perfect.

Okay, the second thing is, is you making peace with the following.

If you marry him, that 180 grand is y'all's debt.

And often the money becomes the proxy war for, I want to marry this guy, but I also want to marry a man with a little bit of initiative.

And he won't even, he won't even call a lawyer for $5,000 and have him write a letter to clear $180,000.

Right.

And I am going to work on him on that when I see him next month.

You can't work on him.

You can say,

I would challenge you to use this language.

In this next marriage, that's going to be my last one I'm ever a part of.

Here's what I'm looking for in a partner.

And it's a big deal to me that for me to feel safe is that I'm married to a guy with some initiative that

when grave injustice is done to somebody, including him, that he's on the phone making it right.

And then he gets to, if you come in and say, you need to, and you need to, and you need to, man, he's going to clam up like all of us would, right?

Because he's going to feel the shame and the frustration and the, hey, can we just move past this?

And hey, by the way, you've got a whole bunch of money.

You can just pay it off.

And it's you saying, here's what I want in this new marriage.

Isn't it okay for her to ask for closure on this issue because

it's her massive heartburn to realize that she might be inheriting $180,000?

It doesn't make it about love or relationship, but just her fear of this issue.

And that's what I was getting at, that it seems like they're on board with money.

Theoretically,

you guys are on board.

But yeah, the idea of living separate finances and all that just because he's got this, by the way, you described it as, it's not his fault.

I mean, any one of us could go in for a surgery and it gets botched and we're stuck.

You know, it's like no one did anything irresponsible here.

But that also sounds like also, I'm telling you, Aaron, I hope I'm wrong.

It sounds like a story, too.

Like, oh, yeah, we'll just get it taken care of.

They screwed this up and we'll get it squared.

Because if it was that easy, if they botched it, I've heard of a head of hospitals coming in and saying, hey, we're going to clear this debt and we're also going to pay you $50,000 as some sort of entry settlement to just end this thing.

I had the same feeling, John.

So there's some.

Aaron, I don't want her to bank on that.

It feels like, Aaron, the way you set that up, you're banking on, well, you know, we get a lawyer involved.

They're probably going going to wipe it away.

And when you said it, I went,

they probably would have if it was truly that cut and dry.

Yeah.

All that, all, all, all what you hear me say is, I want you to do your due diligence, and it's not unloving, it's not unromantic, it's not un Christian, whatever you want, whatever adjective you want to put there, it's none of those things for you to say, hey, we're both going to bring our credit reports to the table.

I want to see where we both are.

And if he says, oh, we don't need to do that, I told you, I'm dead free.

Say, yeah, I know.

I want to see this, what I'm walking into.

And then he gets to decide: do I want to be married to an amazing woman

or am I going to let my ego run wild and I may not have been telling the full truth?

Here's the second piece.

When you say there's wealth in equity, that you've got way more money than he does, tell me how much way more do you have.

Okay, he has

about a half a million dollars in his retirement account, and he has

a home that has maybe a quarter million in equity.

I have about a half million dollars in equity in my home, and I have a million and a half dollars in retirement accounts and other investments and savings.

And the other thing I mentioned is my parents are still alive, but I am going to inherit between $4 and $5 million when they pay.

This is one of the rare moments when I'm going to strongly recommend you walk in with a prenup.

And here's why.

Let's say he's totally on the up and up.

When there's four or five or six million dollar difference, then he's gonna have a cousin somewhere that thinks he just won the lottery.

Or he's gonna have a parent or a kid.

And I'm just telling you from years of doing this show, my fear is you're gonna walk out there, he's gonna sell his place, he's gonna move into your house, your parents are gonna pass away, and then if he disappears, he gets going to take half of it.

So that would be my recommendation because there's such a gap there that y'all sit down and discuss, discuss: hey, when my parents die, here's how this is gonna go.

Um, and it's not to say y'all gonna combine fighting.

I gotta jump under real quick, ask you a question.

Would you at least recommend premarital counseling

before we think prenup?

I think you do premarital counseling before you do everything, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I have an icky feeling about the prenup, do you?

I do.

Let's talk about it when we come back.

I'd like to learn more about that.

I'd love that.

Perfect.

All right, we'll talk about it.

I've been doing this show for over 30 years, and some of the saddest calls I've taken are from situations that are completely preventable.

Yeah.

And what's so hard is I feel like one of those, especially the ones that I'm like, oh, it's terrible, are people that call in and their spouse has passed away suddenly and they don't have life insurance.

We actually took a question of a lady and she had three kids pregnant and husband didn't have life insurance.

And I'm like, I can't even imagine.

Or even if it was opposite, right?

If a mom passed away, there's a dad with kids and trying to figure out how am I going to afford child care?

How do I outsource some stuff that maybe she was doing?

And it just takes the grief and the sadness of something like a sudden death to a whole new level.

Like when you have to think through how am I going to pay my bills

next week.

Yeah, in the middle of all that grief.

Like it's just, it is, it's terrible.

And so life insurance is the one thing, especially as a mom with three little kids that I'm like so big on for people to get because it's inexpensive.

Xander is the place that Winston and I actually get all of our life insurance.

And we keep re-upping it because I'm like, I just want it there.

Like there's something about that safety of knowing.

that you have money if something suddenly happens.

And it doesn't cost much because Xander shops among a gazillion different companies.

It doesn't cost much.

You just have to admit that someday you're not going to be here.

You got to say it out loud and you got to say, I'm going to say I love you to my family by taking care of them and taking the time to put this stuff in place.

The cost of stinking pizza.

There really is.

So that is one thing to do to say I love you to your family.

So we've used Xander for all of our family's needs for insurance for many years, including, of course, term life insurance.

To get a free quote, go to 800-356-4282.

That's 800-356-4282 or go to xander.com.

All right, so we were talking to our last caller about

moving into a second marriage.

She has far more net worth.

He's got some millions more.

Millions more, four to five million was the range.

And John recommended a prenup.

And

I'm bringing this question back up because I had an initial icky thought.

And some of you hardcore range fans go, well, Dave talks about that.

And it's not that I disagree with Dave.

I just,

in full admission,

I'm a purist.

And I don't like prenups.

I don't like the concept.

I understand them.

But it just felt gross to me.

And in this particular situation, the amount of money felt like, huh.

And so I wanted to be able to follow up here, John, on this.

Why is it that that's the position that you took on that one?

So

I'm with you.

The idea, I don't have one.

I don't have a pre-nup.

Neither do I.

And so I'm a purist when it comes to speaking about, and then what I do at my house, right?

I don't have one.

We got married without a net, right?

And so I think there is what I would call an

over-prenup schization.

I just made that word up completely.

I like a lot of syllables.

Where it's like this thing you got, I don't necessarily agree with that.

When you come in with different,

with this much of a, what I'll call a wealth inequality, somebody's going to be a multi-millionaire and then somebody's not.

It's less about that particular couple.

And I want to protect that couple and their goals and their life from a brother who's not well, a sister who's not well, cousins who come out of the woodwork, who accidentally turn an ankle on your property and sue you for a million dollars and burn your umbrella policy.

It just becomes a way to say, hey, look, my parents are going to pass away.

They're going to leave me $5 million.

These are earmarked for their grandkids, for my kids.

And I want that in writing so that a cousin doesn't think or a wacky neighbor or an old best friend doesn't feel like, ooh, we just won the lottery because you married somebody who's super wealthy.

All right, I totally track.

Now, let me turn this to the relationship guy.

You advise a lot of marriages.

You're writing on this issue right now.

Okay.

How then

does she reveal, hey, I want a preno?

How do you, in other words, I have an icky feeling when I hear it.

For sure.

And you would 12.

So then how do you relationally bring that up to have the least amount of negative impact?

I guess is the question.

I think what I would do, let's make the assumption, and I don't know this about that caller, that she's got two kids.

Right.

Two grown kids who then have their own grandkids, right?

I would sit down and say, hey, this money from my parents is earmarked and designated for their heirs.

Got it.

Not for us to spend wildly.

You have $750,000 in total net worth, as she said.

I'm going to come in with about a million dollars.

We're going to have a great life together.

And maybe when they pass, we're going to take this money for a particular goal for us.

But I want you to know this money is designated in our lineage for our kids and our grandkids or whatever.

And that to me is a way that

if he can't hear it.

I like that.

Hey, wait a minute.

I want $5 million.

Now there's something revealing.

That's fair.

And what I like what you did there is you actually took the emotion out of it by saying this is just a function of this money is over here.

We are over here.

We're here.

Okay.

That's all right.

I like that.

Very, very clear.

And we're going to take some of it.

Yeah.

We're going to have some fun.

Yeah.

Right.

Hey, you know, we're constantly hearing in the headlines, John, all the time, right?

Is Powell going to

lower interest rates, which isn't always tied.

In fact, it's rarely tied to what you see in the mortgage rates.

Those are tied to the 10-year treasury bonds.

Okay, so some of you are kind of going, wait, what determines you?

Again, stop using facts and data.

I know, right?

If you want to know where mortgage rates are going to go, pay attention to the news about the 10-year treasury note.

And that's going to help you because it's very, very common that when the treasury notes drop, so do mortgage rates.

And conversely, when they go up, mortgage rates go up.

That's just a kind of an FYI, but we hear about the news all the time about

real estate market.

And here's the deal.

For those of you that are thinking about buying or selling a home, we acknowledge and want to make sure you understand this may be the biggest financial transaction most of you make.

You don't want to do it on your own.

And so we want you to be tied into experts.

If you go to ramseysolutions.com slash market, ramseysolutions.com slash market,

we've got a ton of free tools, up-to-date market trends to help you buy a home or sell with confidence.

So make sure you use that valuable resource so that you do not walk into this major decision blindly and do it on your own.

Ramseysolutions.com slash market.

Okay, Richard is up in Atlanta, Georgia.

Richard, talk to us.

Hey, how are you guys?

We're having a blast.

I have a very strange scenario, and I know that it's very weird.

I'm an airline pilot, and I travel all over the place, and sometimes I can be in two or three countries in the same day

on a regular basis.

It is very unsafe to carry cash, and I also couldn't carry cash because I can't really carry six or seven different currencies.

And it may be one week that I'm in Barbados and the next week I'm in London.

Well, you can't carry so many currencies in your money.

Sure.

And your debit card gets shut down on a regular basis.

I've tried debit cards and they're listening to your show and that doesn't work either.

So what's the best solution for paying for lunch in Barbados and

dinner in Jamaica?

later in the same day without a credit card.

Let me ask a silly weird scenario.

Yeah, you are.

A very, very complex.

I'm going to ask a silly question because

I don't know.

When you are traveling for said airline,

do you have a per diem or no?

You're responsible for your own personal meals.

So you get a per diem, but your per diem is basically just a blank run of money that you're given.

So you have to go use your own credit card.

And if you spend more than the per diem, well, that's on you.

If you spend less, well, that's on you too.

So they don't give it to you.

You don't have a company card and you don't have a, it's, it's, you're responsible for the transaction and you get reimbursed.

Correct.

Yeah.

And they just put a line item on your paycheck that here's per diem that you were gone X number of hours a month and

you know, here's your per diem at this rate.

All right, I'm going to ask another seemingly silly question.

My wife and I

took a European extravaganza.

We country hopped a couple of years ago.

That is my debit card in every country.

I guess what I'm not understanding is if I couldn't do that, how come you can't do that?

So it depends on the country, and your credit, your debit card can get shut down.

So if you go into it.

Shut down by who?

The bank, because the bank calls it fraud alert.

I tried to go.

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

Okay, no.

Here's the deal.

My wife and I visited five countries on the trip I just told you about, and we called our bank ahead of time and told them, these are the countries we're going to.

And my card was not shut down at all.

And I did that same thing in Latin America.

I didn't do five countries, but we did several.

Never had a problem.

That's the issue is, is I can tell you I'm going to go to London this week, and then an hour and a half, two hours before, instead of going to London, I'm now going to Jamaica, and the bank may be closed if it's late at night.

I can't always close.

I got to tell you, not true.

I got to tell you,

I hate to be the ambassador of no

because that's what I feel like right now.

But,

okay, if I find out an hour from now that I'm going to Jamaica,

I bank with a regional bank here in Tennessee, and they have what's called an 800 number.

And there's always somebody on the other side.

They closed on weekends.

My banks closed on weekends.

They have no

small town.

Okay, well, then there's your answer, maybe.

Maybe we get with a bank that's got an answering service 24 hours a day, and then you can call them and go, hey,

I'm going to Jamaica.

Gonna be on the plane in an hour.

I need you to know that no fraud.

Right.

Well, if you're with the Red Dirt Idaho Community Savings Bank,

that's probably your limitation.

And I'll tell you this.

So what do you do?

Jamaica and change over to Barbados kind of thing, though.

I'm not going to get a good exchange rate skidding.

Well, I may be in Jamaica.

I may not be originating.

I may not have phone service where I'm at.

I may be in Jamaica and not able to get into the touch of the bank.

Okay, so you fly with a major airline and they're routinely putting you in places where you don't have sell service.

I'm not buying it.

They do.

I feel like I'm up against a guy who really thinks he's going to get me to go.

All right, pal.

Here's what we're going to do.

No, no,

I promise I'm not.

Let me tell you something.

Let me tell you something else I do.

I actually opened because I'm paranoid.

I opened a sub-account in my checking account, and they issued me a new debit card just for that.

So when I leave the country, I have a limited amount of cash in that because I don't want them having access to my whole thing.

And in case that card gets taken, and I have, I'm with you, Ken.

I've never had it denied.

Man, if you're going to a tiny little country, put a hundred dollar bill in your pocket.

I think we solve this entire call, Richard, by saying get a bigger bank and get a better sell service.

I'm not sure cricket's working for you over there.

Mama, Papa, my cuer crece a unrimo alarmante, y la roba que me compreha, me que dora muy pe queña, muy pronto.

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So much, George.

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And just a year ago, get this.

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Quick program note earlier this week, Dave Ramsey and George Campbell hosted a show and did a breakdown on the big, beautiful bill and need to do a quick correction here.

They had mentioned that you could use HSA money for gym memberships, but that was actually part of an earlier version of the legislation.

It did not make it in the final bill, and so we always want to correct ourselves if we give errant information there.

My goodness, how in the world do they keep up with these gigantic bills and what all's in them?

You know, Congress themselves never reads these things.

So good on our team for catching that.

I mean, the very congressmen who voted for it, no idea what's in there.

None.

None.

None.

None whatsoever.

Unless it's one of their pet projects.

That's right.

Dude, you're going to get me all fired up.

Oh, don't get fired up.

Peyton is waiting for us in my old stomping grounds in the 757.

John, your name is John, not George.

It hurts, but I'll accept that.

I know.

Well, I just said his name.

Virginia Beach is the area.

Payton is there.

Payton, how can we help today?

Yes.

I want to say thank you, John and Ken, for all the work y'all do.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you, sir.

But my question real quick is just,

I have a car that got totaled out.

It's a little hooky.

It's worth about $1,500, but I haven't gotten a settlement offer yet.

But I'm curious about salvage titles as far as if I get the offer back and I get the vehicle back.

I'm somewhat mechanically inclined, so I can fix up the issues.

It'll make it roadworthy.

But I'm curious, is it reasonable in a bad financial situation to keep it?

And is it financially wise to drive it as salvaged?

Or would it be better off to sell it, you know, even to a junkyard, worst case scenario,

and then try to buy another hoopie, you know, for roughly the same price?

Because I already put about $800 into it to try to fix it up and make it as reliable as I could get it.

And so you're struggling financially or you're trying to really get through baby step two.

So the idea of any more additional outlay is tough.

Is that what I'm getting?

Yes, sir.

And how much more would you have to put into it to get it road worthy?

Well, I mean, just replacing the light, you know the light housing is really the main thing it was uh destroyed and the front bumper cover was pulled off some dents on the fenders and stuff that's not a big deal it's really just the light housing oh i know what's it going to cost is it going to cost you more money or is the insurance money going to cover that

the insurance money should cover yeah all of the repairs that would need to be made to it well if i were in your shoes if i heard everything right john i i if i had the and by the way i can barely put gas in my own car so this is never an option for me you know i mean i'm not mechanically inclined but if I could do what you're saying and I could get the car right back on the road and I was in the middle of baby step two, that's what I would do.

I'd keep driving the thing.

Yeah, you're worried about the salvaged title.

Nobody cares.

That thing ain't worth anything.

That's it.

If you have a $15,000 car or a $30,000 car, it gets wrecked and it becomes, and you have to have a salvaged title on it, you won't be able to resell it.

This $1,500 car, you're going to sell it to somebody else for $1,000.

And as long as they're holding a title of some sort, that's a good thing.

If you're a little lucky.

I mean, this is going to end up being Fred Flintstone.

You know what I mean?

That's the day that you, you know, and so keep going, man.

Be encouraged.

This is the season.

Go ahead.

Sorry, not to cut you off, but just with the salvage title and getting it insured, I just, as far as I understood it, though, if it gets in another wreck, then insurance won't cover anything on it.

Yeah, but dude,

it's $1,000.

This car is not worth insuring.

You need insurance,

umbrella insurance for what any damage you do.

but as far as insuring this car i wouldn't insured for a penny this thing is just we want this baby to stay alive long enough for you to get through baby step two and and uh keep moving forward do you know what i mean

understood i i guess the only the only reason i ask is just because of the fact that if it gets in something else happens to it let's say in worst case scenario because i mean i didn't get the accident somebody hit it while it was parked

I don't have another thousand dollars, you know, to buy another hoopie right now.

So that's the only reason I have to do that.

But I mean, when you're in baby step two and you burn your emergency fund, the first thing you do is go refill that emergency fund.

That's right.

So you pause, you go back to paying minimums on everything to get that emergency fund back up.

Yeah.

And, bro, it's the worst.

But that was

the only question I had, too, is like, finding a thousand dollar vehicle is really tough.

Like, I was lucky to get that $1,500 one.

So while having it under a salvage pile like that, should I increase my emergency fund a little bit to put an extra buffer in there to buy another

one?

No, you're in baby step two.

Yeah.

Baby step two,

you're going to be okay.

Put your energy onto paying this other nonsense off.

That's right.

Yep.

Okay.

Okay.

And I know, hey, dude, the exposure you feel, that nervousness, that's the fuel in your jetpack that's going to get you through baby step two.

Yep.

And by the way.

It should be uncomfortable, is what I'm saying.

You're a mechanical guy, right?

Yes.

Okay.

If something were to happen to this current rust bucket that you're driving,

somebody's giving away a car, somebody's given up on a car somewhere to where you could go out and work a little overtime.

So, I mean, you have the option to keep finding hoopties that until you get through baby step two.

You actually can do this far more.

Like, if I was in your shoes, I'd really be in trouble.

I'd be riding a bicycle, you know?

But, but, but John's right.

We don't change the rules because you're driving a hoopty.

And more importantly, we don't change the rules because it's uncomfortable, because by definition, the rule is designed to keep you uncomfortable to get you through this as fast fast as possible.

Yeah, great statement.

Roberto is up next in St.

Louis.

Roberto, how can we help?

So, thanks for taking my call.

Sure.

So, I get a quick question.

I have been running a small business for the past 20 plus years, and I've done pretty well.

And so, what's going on is I've landed a couple of contracts with some school districts in my area, and I'm receiving a check here in the next month or so for about $45,000 or so.

And so, so I contacted my

tax lady

and I asked her what I should do with my taxes, whether if I should go ahead and pay them quarterly or if I should send them aside to pay at the end of the year.

So with doing that, knowing that my taxes are going to be roughly $13,000 to $15,000,

my question to her was, can I take that money and have my business buy a pretty much a company vehicle?

Or should I just go ahead and set that money aside, pay for the taxes, and just let it ride?

I'd write a quarterly check, dude.

Me too.

What did she say?

She said that she would have to look into it.

What would be the best in my best interest?

All right.

Well, that's surprising because most tax people go for the, yeah, just go spend it.

And it doesn't sound to me in anything you laid out to John and I right there that you need a truck.

It's one of those things that sometimes I do, just, you know, haul equipment, haul ladders.

But you're not going to skirt around the end of your tax bill.

That's exactly right.

It's a false choice when people say, well, I'm going to go create another

expense in order to lessen my taxes.

If I was running a small business like you and I got this $45, I'd do exactly what John said.

I go ahead and pay the quarterly estimate, and that way I'm staying on top of things and I'm not messing around with the IRS.

So, no, I would not go buy something.

I don't want to mess with the IRS.

If you were getting a check for $4.5 million and you had a good

partnership with your financial advisor and your tax person and y'all figured out how you can take that quarterly and you can postpone it and invest it here and take, that's, but you're dealing in way more zeros there.

That's Dave Ramsey kind of money.

I don't have that.

It doesn't sound like you have that.

Like, I'm going to pay that quarterly, and here's what I'm going to, any,

I made 2% on the gap between, dude, I'm going to have a sleep tax.

I'm going to know there's not a chance the government's going to come for me at the end of the year.

In fact, they may write me a small check.

That's what I'm going to do.

But I want you to follow your tax professional's advice.

But anytime someone says, hey, you're going to have a $14,000 tax bill, so pay for a depreciating asset that's going to be $50,000.

And that will help you.

Man, that's just...

Yeah, in that case,

I wouldn't do that.

And a lot of tax pros will do that.

Ramsey tax pros are not going to, they're not going to tell you that.

And so in this case, be smart.

You get windfalls like this as a small business owner, sock it away, you know, for the taxes.

At the end of the day, to me,

I wouldn't be bothered if you took option two that you threw out to us, which is I'm going to put it aside to the end of the year and see if there are not over my skis on text tax stuff.

You can do that, but because you've put it aside, and so your tax pro is kind of going, all right, set all of it aside,

the whole 15 that we're anticipating.

And then as we do your books, if you did have more expenses, what I estimated was going to be 13, 15, well, you know what?

You're actually only going to owe nine.

But the point is, it's all sitting there.

And so either one of those options is best, but going out and buying something to try to play games with taxes, John laid that out beautifully.

And that's just, it's not, the juice isn't worth a squeeze on that.

So I do not like messing with the IRS for one.

And on a second note, I was looking at something just to kind of offset the, you know, not $40,000, $50,000

truck.

You know, that's ridiculous, but something $15,000, $18,000.

I wouldn't do much.

Well, you've got the cash to do that on your own.

Yeah, Yeah, that's true.

Use the $30,000 that you are going to take home in profit and take a piece of that and go buy that truck.

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This is the Ramsey Show where America hangs out to talk about their money, their profession, and their relationships.

And we're so glad you've joined us.

Alongside Dr.

John Deloney, I am Ken Coleman, and we're here together for you.

The phone number to jump in, 888-825-5225.

That's 888-825-5225.

Jennifer is up in Miami.

Jennifer, how can we help?

Hey, Ken and John.

I am a huge fan of the show and I am just so excited to be on with you guys.

Thank you for taking my call.

You bet.

All right.

So I have been struggling with debt.

I have about $63,000 in just different forms of debt.

And I just feel like no matter how much I sell, how much I think I'm getting ahead, I'm just not like the interest is accuing and I don't know where to go from here.

I have a few ideas, but I really wanted to get your input before I did anything.

Okay, what do you think is the reason why you're unable to get beyond minimum payments?

Well, I am going beyond minimum payments, but like I'm doing a baby step.

So while I'm attacking one, the other one is just accuing more and more.

And so I'm unable to get ahead is what I'm doing.

Well, no.

So that's what threw me off.

You got to change your language.

You're too busy looking at the debts that you're making minimum payments on instead of looking at the amount of progress you're making in the snowball.

So are you walking through the debt snowball where you're taking your lowest?

Okay, are you making progress on that?

Like, this is what's happening.

I pay off one, and then I go back to my spreadsheet where I have them all listed.

I update it, right?

Because

the interest accumulated, and it's higher, even though I just paid off one.

It's higher because the interest is going up the total the total debt you owe is higher or that one

how is that possible

it is possible because it's happening

tell me how that works you'd have to have you would have to have loans at 70%

interest

yeah some of them are like up to 30 I mean

I can break it down for you

no no because because I believe you but you're again you're focused on the wrong problem okay

all right

you need to be focused on it.

The problem is it's not getting better.

No, it is.

It is.

So let's walk through.

On your debt snowball, what have you paid off to this point?

Anything?

Have you knocked any of the debts?

Yeah, yeah.

I can't remember which one I paid off.

I did pay off one.

I can't remember.

It was like maybe $4,000.

Was it your lowest debt?

I believe so.

Okay, here's what's throwing John on.

I'm not sure why I chose that one.

Okay, see, all of your language tells me you're not doing this the way we teach it.

So, let me go back just for a moment.

And we're for you.

We're not criticizing you.

Okay.

But all your language is like, I've got a spreadsheet, but then when I asked you, what was the lowest debt?

Because that's how we teach it.

We teach smallest to largest.

So let's make it up.

And let's say you have a $2,500.

It rates it.

That's why.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right.

Once it's paid.

All right.

So here's my point.

You have knocked off one.

Oh, I remember.

It was an Amazon.

And how much was it?

$4,000.

$4,000.

Okay.

It was like $4,000.

What's next?

What's the next smallest debt on that?

So then I paid.

Now I'm up to another one that was around $4,000 or $5,000, and it's down to like $1,400.

You're making progress.

You're making progress.

You keep going.

And then eventually you're going to get into these bigger ones that have the huge interest rates.

And that's where you will make progress.

But you're not going to make progress on a debt that is higher up the snowball plan that has a crazy interest rate.

You paid, that's what you did, and that's the stupid tax.

John, weigh in on this because you're hearing the same thing I'm hearing.

Yeah,

mathematically, Jennifer, I guess I want to challenge it, but I'm not looking at your spreadsheet.

That's right, you're taking two years to pay off.

Would you say whatever, of course?

Okay, so in my business, right, it's seasonal a little bit.

Like the summer's really slow.

So last season, when it was really slow, I kind of survived.

Like credit cards were my crutch.

So a lot of this came from last season.

And I'm a little bit concerned, like a lot concerned, that this summer I don't have that crutch.

In fact, I don't want to use my cards.

But I'm just worried I'm not going to be able to like pay more.

I'm not going to be able to get it down like I have been doing because I believe summer is going to be really slow.

So I'm just like kind of freaking out.

And I'm like, all right, should I get a loan to help me?

Because I didn't know about it.

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

I need some dental work.

And so

like,

so here's the thing.

You need a job.

Yeah, you've got to get a job.

You have a math problem.

You don't have a debt rearrangement problem.

Yeah.

And so I, I, my job makes, I can, you know, my average is like $6,800

a month.

And like my debt, I got it down to, I think it was like $63.

So Yeah, but Jennifer, and by the way, we are on team, Jennifer.

Yeah, yeah.

But listen, what you just laid out for us isn't sustainable.

If you have a business.

Well, I'm worried it's going to get worse over the summer.

It probably is.

And what I said to you, you're not hearing me because I think you're calling going, guys.

I got to use debt to keep myself alive.

And we're going, no, you don't.

So we're kind of at an impasse.

And what we're trying to tell you is, if you're in a business that is so seasonal as in the summer and it dips so low that you have chosen to survive off of credit cards, the only way to dig out of this is to actually then offset your down season by you're going to have to get a job.

You're going to have to make more money.

John's right when he says this is a math problem.

You can't, you'll never get out of this if you go, well, gee Williakers, my business sucks in the summer and I got to bail myself out with a loan or a credit card and then I'm back to paying off that debt.

You are constantly adding to

the hill that you're trying to climb.

And the answer is, number one, cut up the credit cards.

Number two, come up with a different business or number three, supplement your business by doing another job or something to bring in the same amount of income so that you don't go backwards in the summer.

And I'll throw a

three plus and a four, okay?

Listen, I have a buddy who runs sound.

He does the monitors for a famous rock band.

The moment they get off tour, technically he's unemployed.

Now they're going to go back on tour the next summer, the next year, and immediately he lives in Las Vegas, he goes to Vegas and starts running sound at shows and casinos.

And so

that's part of that cycle.

That's number one.

So if you're, like Ken said, if your business goes dips that low, then you have a math problem.

The other side of this is to look at your debt repayment across a 12-month.

Consider yourself a farmer.

Yeah.

Right?

If you get a big, if you have a huge month in October and you take all of that and dump it into your debt so far that you can't pay your bills in June and July, that's not a debt problem.

It's a, you're not looking at your 12-month calendar with in reality.

So it might be that you got to put some money away because you know that it's going to be slower in June and July.

Ramsey has seasons when we all, Ken and I are 100% commissioned.

There are certain months a year where we get bigger checks.

We know that.

Around Christmas,

around the when summer starts, right?

We know that.

And so we're going to spread that out over the course of a year when it comes to buying things and whatnot.

But this idea that you just taking two months to pay off a $4,000 debt and your $63,000 earns that much $4,000 interest, it's not mathematically possible.

So I think it's spreading it out or just really crushing a job in the summer.

You've got to take debt off the table.

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Houston, Texas is where we're going next, and Sarah is waiting.

Sarah, how can we help?

Hello.

I am hoping somebody can tell me how I can financially

exit my marriage.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

What does that mean financially exit?

I have been married since 2001.

I am 50 years old and a stay-at-home mom.

My husband is in his mid-60s

and is retired.

He takes care of all the finances.

Is that a nice way of saying he controls the money?

That probably is a very nice way of saying it.

I signed a prenuptial agreement,

and I had no idea

what that was,

and I don't have access to it.

I don't have access to anything.

That's not accurate.

He might be controlling it, but you do have legal rights to see the prenup that you sign because it's your prenup too.

It is.

I don't have access to it.

He carries a key to the filing cabinet,

and it's on him 100% of the time.

Okay,

you're in a very abusive situation, and you know this, right?

Yeah.

And that's why I'm asking, what did you mean by financially exit as opposed to just exit?

I'd like to just exit the whole thing, but

y'all are a financial show.

Yeah.

You've got to sit with an attorney.

Yeah.

You've got to sit down with the attorney.

I've done that.

Okay.

Well, the attorney.

They need all of that information.

Say what now?

The attorney needs

the financial information that we have.

I know the mortgage information and they need the

prenuptial agreement.

I know, but if you're married to an abusive person who won't share that and controls it and keeps it on their body, this is is like

a James Bond episode.

Like,

if you're married to somebody like that, the attorney knows if this person is unsafe and won't turn that over, that then they make a filing and there's a disclosure.

They have to put all this stuff on the table.

And if they won't, which he probably will not voluntarily, even with a subpoena, then you get

a forensic tax person who goes through everyone's underwear drawer and goes through every receipt, and you'll pay them a jillion dollars.

But that's how this is done if somebody wants to be controlling and abusive like that.

You're in control.

And by the way, a prenup will talk about pre-existing assets.

It won't mean that you don't get a big chunk of what he has earned while y'all are married.

Oh, I know.

I do know this.

I know that part.

I know that I would get half of the house.

So tell me what you're, tell me, are you trying to get this information without him knowing you're talking to an attorney?

Is that the problem?

Yes.

Okay.

That may not be possible.

Yeah, I don't think it is.

I think you have to do what John just said.

The only way he's going to do this is under court order.

That's exactly right.

It sounds like that's your only path unless you're sneaking around, you know, in the middle of the night.

You know, he has too much allergy medicine and you're pulling the key around his neck.

This sounds like a bad lifetime movie.

Yeah.

Rarely is somebody that controlling that's not abusive either physically and or emotionally.

Is that true also?

Probably emotionally,

not physically, definitely not physically.

That's good.

Okay.

Not physically.

Then I think you have to sit with your attorney and say,

I'm not able to get this information because I'm in an abusive marriage.

And then we've got to go to step two.

And that means you have to have a place to live, and you're going to have to have food and water.

I mean, you're going to have to have, there's four walls you've got to deal with, right?

Do you have a hunch on this, Sarah?

I think you do, but I'm curious to know if you did what John is suggesting, do you think that would wake your husband up, or do you think he would dig in deeper?

Go to war.

He would go to war.

Okay.

Oh, bless your heart.

I'm so sorry.

Yeah.

This sucks, Sarah, but

I'm with John on this.

This marriage is in deep, deep, deep trouble, and you got to do what's best for you right now.

And I think John's right.

I mean, you've already gone to speak to an attorney.

What fear do you have about going the next step and filing papers?

My kids will hate me.

Yeah, they won't because they live in this mess, too.

How old are they?

I have

three that are in high school.

Yeah.

Do you think they're aware of your relationship being in the state that we're all aware of?

Two of them do.

Two of them do.

Sarah, let me tell you this.

Everyone in that house feels the tension in that house.

Yeah.

There's a lot of tension.

Yes.

There is no laughter between my husband and I.

There is

no relationship.

He is not my friend.

Oh, man.

And so listen.

And I am not his.

I'm going to say something very hard, okay?

And I want you to hear it in the spirit of which I'm saying it, okay?

This is going to sound mean, but I want you to hear me say, I love you, okay?

I don't want you to use an imagined response from your children as the excuse to not go do what's the next right, scary, hard thing for you.

And

there's a reason we don't let teenagers vote and buy beer because they're teenagers, because they're full of feelings, and they don't always have,

they don't always lead with critical thinking and rational thought.

And that's not their fault.

It's just brain development, right?

Right.

And also, let's acknowledge, Sarah, this is not what you expected.

It's a nightmare.

And this is really hard.

Yeah, this is hard.

But my prayer is, and I mean this, because

I never

love to hear the advice that we're giving at this case.

I mean, I just hate this, but my hope is that it wakes him up.

I think you're probably right.

He'll dig in, but maybe not.

I don't know.

But I think you've got to make some moves going forward because I think you're in a prison.

You're in a financial and emotional prison.

Yes.

And that means your kids are too.

Yes.

Yeah.

And usually, not always, but usually

he showers them with stuff so they will quote unquote love him.

And then he gets to do whatever he wants whenever he wants.

It's actually not

that.

He is very goal-driven.

And

his goal currently is to be able to finance the children's college education.

What kind of money does he make?

You have any idea?

He is retired, and we are living off of his investments.

Okay, I'm a stay-at-home mom.

This is too much

for me

to stay.

I need people to go back to school, go back to work.

You know, I didn't ask this question, and I think I know the answer, but I'm going to ask it.

Have you shared with him,

at least at the level that you're sharing with John and I, what's going on?

I mean, does he know how bad this is from your point of view?

No,

we have gone through four marital counselors in in three years.

Two of them I felt like were not seasoned enough or on the verge of retirement.

One of them fired us, and she

was the one who saw the issues.

Yeah.

So I think he actually is aware of what

you feel.

Or this word gets thrown around a lot, diagnostic, I mean, gets thrown around on the internet a lot, and I'm in no way going to make any sort of diagnostic

guesses here, but this sounds like a true narcissist.

That was the word she used.

And so, like, somebody who carries a key, that's a power play.

That's a flex, right?

That's somebody that not only is going to keep you from, is going to use information as power over you, but they're going to make sure you see it.

That's somebody who's not well.

And there are some extraordinary people.

I know them, especially in the Texas, in Texas, attorneys who have dedicated their lives to helping women in this exact moment, who don't know up from down, who are not allowed to live in their own home.

And so, if you've already gone,

my recommendation would be to sit down with your attorney and say, okay,

what's step two?

And I hate this for you.

Ken said, I hate having to give this kind of wisdom.

We're hurting for you, Sarah.

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Let's go to Lauren in Detroit, Michigan.

Lauren, how can we help?

Hi, guys.

Thanks for taking the call today.

You bet.

I had a question.

My husband and I are finally able to live together after being married for three years.

But I own my my house and he doesn't, he, he rents, but because of our jobs, you know, his house is the

better option to live at.

I'm just not sure what to do with my house.

It's got that great interest rate.

It's, you know, I'm not, I'm not sure what to do.

What's it worth if you were to sell it today?

Um, probably

two

over two hundred, two, twenty

one twenty-two, one hundred twenty-two thousand.

Sell it today and put a hundred thousand down on a new house.

Get out of his rent house and you find yours.

Who cares about that stupid interest rate, man?

No.

You don't want to be a long-distance landlord.

People are parking their whole lives on a once-in-a-millennium interest rate.

Yeah.

Let's play this out a little bit.

Let's play it out.

Because I hear the doubt, and we love doubt.

Doubt's not bad.

Love it.

Let's put this to the test, okay?

So let's say you keep it at that fabulous interest rate that you're in love with.

What do you think you would rent it for?

Any idea?

Well, I think it depends on the runner.

My daughter, she's an adult.

She's actually interested in either renting it herself or buying it.

Give her a great deal.

Let's keep playing this out.

Let's play the renting thing out because you presented us with, I kind of emotionally want to keep the house.

Am I right?

No, I don't think I'm emotionally tied to it.

You seem very confused by John's suggestion.

You don't want to give up your this is the last attachment to your former life.

Oh,

is this true?

Oh, and you may have gone through a divorce or somebody passed away and you got up and you dusted yourself off and you worked your butt off and bought a home and you've paid off half of it.

And by moving in with this person, your husband, by the way, this is the period at the end of that former sentence, right?

Yeah.

Well, I am just so nervous.

I just hate the thought of so much of that new house payment going to so much interest.

It just makes me sick.

So much so that you're going to have a $100,000 brick tied around your ankle when you move in with your husband after three years in a new state?

No, it's, I mean,

I'd move right not right now.

That's right.

Let me go back to where I was going.

Let me go back to where I was going.

Here's why you shouldn't keep the house.

Number one, you're going to be long-distance landlord.

I don't care if it's your daughter renting or someone else, true or false?

Two hours away, yeah, yeah.

The answer is yes, Ken.

Okay, next, okay, all right.

So and let's add to that issue.

I'm not, I don't know home repairs.

I know you don't.

I know.

I'm getting ready to make this situation worse.

All right.

So you're two hours away and you don't know anything about home repairs.

You have to hire somebody.

Now, let's talk about how much actual money you would make on renting this house.

Okay.

What I was trying to get at, I never got an answer from you, is what is the market-based rent for that house?

You don't have to tell me now because we don't need to get bogged down, but here's what I'm going to tell you.

You will be shocked if you run the numbers, John, at what you can get in rent versus your mortgage payment, okay?

And let's just say you cleared three, four, 500 bucks a month.

Is that a fair guess?

I could, yeah.

Okay, all right.

Let's say 500.

Let's be aggressive in my example.

Okay.

Okay.

500 a month times 12 is $6,000 a year.

That's your gross that you're going to get.

Then you got home repairs, somebody taking care of the house.

That's all on you.

So you aren't even going to net $6,000 a year.

All that nuisance, all that worry for

maybe

$3,000, $3,500, $4,000 a year.

It's just not worth it.

That's why we were so quick to say sell it and move on.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

When you lay it all out like that, man, I really was stuck stuck on the interest rate too.

It's 2.875%.

I know, and I wanted to destroy the emotion around that because guess what's going to, guess what?

When you get a call at 10 o'clock on a Saturday night and you've just settled down with some ice cream to watch a movie and the person who's renting your house goes, we got a water pipe burst.

And you're going to go, ha,

man, that's a bummer.

But 2.875%.

I'm doing the happy day.

And you're going to call somebody and then you say, cool, it's going to be $6,500 to repair it.

We'll get it done on Saturday.

And then your tenant's going to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, in our lease, you have to put me up in a hotel and I have to actually have two rooms because there you have to

sell the house.

But you know, no, no, no.

Because what you're going to do is you're going to go, man, that's a bummer.

Just out of pocket, $10,000.

But boy, that interest rate is.

I love that interest rate.

No, no, no, it doesn't sound so good anymore.

So you would just sell it for anything I could get for it and then just put it in the middle.

No, that's you being dramatic.

No.

Sell it for market value.

I mean, I'm like, that's what I'm wondering.

What is the, what you guys would recommend.

I would get a real estate pro in that area and do and sell the house.

Or I'm not opposed to you cutting your daughter a deal.

You got $100,000 in equity, and maybe you say, I'm going to knock off 25 grand for you because I love you.

Or 50 grand.

I mean, you picked a number.

I'm going to sell it to you for $150,000.

I'm going to take $50,000 into my

three-year-old marriage that we're finally combining our households.

Honey, I'm not living in your gross rent house because sick.

We're getting a new place, and I got $50,000 to to put down on it yeah and then your your daughter's got a great start

that's an odd i like that option that's actually what i wanted to do and i talked about that with her too like if that's what they decided to do with her and eventually like i was going to say get married but i was going to say

as a parent uh don't do any um sweetheart deals just for the daughter this needs to be a big girl deal now you cut her cut her a break on the the overall total, but don't start getting tricky with financing.

She needs to be a big girl, and she goes and does it just like everybody else

and buys the house from you.

We're not going to shake hands, and you just pay the mortgage.

That's my only concern.

Then you're going to blow up every Christmas from here.

I told her,

well, I told her flat out, like, I'm 42 years old.

I can't start out, you know what I mean?

Like, get a full house payment.

Like, I need to have that chunk to put down to make sense where I'm at in my life.

I don't want to start over.

So we gave you nothing.

We gave you two really good options, but they're both sell the house and let's, let's move.

And you said you were ready to go today.

I think this is the last piece.

Yeah, this is great.

List it.

Listen, go to ramseysolutions.com and look up the real estate pros, interview two or three of them, have them come over and look at the house, go with the one that you like the most, that feels like they've educated you, and let a pro walk you through this process and to begin to exhale and get excited about this new chapter.

Can you do one exercise for me?

I want everyone listening at home in this similar situation to do this exercise, but will you do this with me?

Can I do it as well?

You can, can.

Okay.

All right.

Are you ready?

All right, Lauren, close your eyes, and I want you to picture

that interest rate.

What's the number?

2.75?

Three?

2.875?

2.875.

I want you to see those numbers.

Okay.

Now,

I want you to open your eyes real quick.

That's a little palate cleanser.

Close them again.

And I want you to imagine you're looking at your laptop,

at your checking account, that has $105,000, which is what you've cleared.

Oh, I like it.

Which number do you like looking at more?

Big one.

That's right.

Bank account.

Sell the house.

Awesome.

And America,

stop holding up your life for a freaking interest rate.

If you gotta move, if you gotta change jobs, go,

go.

I loved that visualization because I was envisioning her money in my account.

I don't know if that was supposed to be what happened, but boy, that's where I went.

Okay, America, quick question.

Are you

on track with the baby steps?

Some of you may go, what are you talking about?

I'm new to this whole show.

If you'd like to know where you stand on the baby steps or where you should be next or what are these things, you can take a quick quiz to check your progress.

Great place to do this.

If you go into the show notes and click on the link that says, Are you on track with the baby steps?

Quick little quiz, fabulous information, going to give you a status report.

And we all, I can tell you this as humans, John, you know this as well as anybody.

We want to know where we stand.

Always.

All the time.

So that's a fun little quiz.

Check it out in the show notes.

Des Moines, Iowa, one of John's favorite places to visit.

It's Des Moines, yes, but I'll call it Des Moines.

Boy, that's awkward.

I missed that one completely.

Owen is up.

I was way off.

Owen is up.

Owen, how can we help?

Hey, that's pretty nuts there.

It's Des Moines.

No, he knows.

I know, I know.

That was a joke, and I responded in kind.

Sorry to throw you off.

All right.

All right, good.

Good.

So my wife and I are public school teachers and coaches.

We'll make $6,800 starting in September.

Excellent.

We have $30,000 in savings.

My wife had $19,000 in student loans, and we paid that down to $5,000.

I'll tell you why in a second.

I have $23,000 left on mine.

The reason we paid hers down to $5,000 is because there's a program through our student aid where if we work five consecutive years in a low-income school, which we do, we can get up to $5,000 each after that five years.

In three years, we'll hit that.

My question is, and I think I kind of already know the answer, do we pay mine also down to $5,000 and just wait for that?

Or do we just use our savings completely pay it off and then just kind of start over working back our savings I have two

one question and then one lived experience comment okay the first question is do you have to is it reimbursement or is it you will just get this money back

It's not reimbursement.

I also have a teach grant, which would kind of be that.

Like if I didn't do the low income, it would just get turned into a loan.

But no, I think it would just pay off, or I'm sure it would just pay off my remaining balance.

So I really want you to get clear on

if you walk in, do they have to see a balance?

You're going to have to pull up, here's what I owe on my student loans, and we will pay what's left.

I've not seen it happen that way.

What I've seen, basically, it becomes a rolling bonus.

And you have to prove that I had these student loans, I paid them off, and here is

the reimbursement, if you will.

But I would get some really clear insight into what that is.

And then here's my comment.

I trust those programs zero, none.

And I've got

none.

And I'm watching states lose federal grant dollars by the day because they're not doing something or somebody's mad at somebody.

I don't trust any of those programs.

And I had some of the most extraordinary young men and women as law students

who took less market money to go work with low-income folks, to go work government jobs, to go work as attorneys at nonprofits with this promised payback and it didn't come through.

And

it just kills me.

So you've got the money, bro.

I would rather you guys have five years of peace in your house than some carrot that government officials dangling out in front of you three to five years from now.

Okay, perfect.

And I do have one follow-up.

We do currently put 15% in our OS IRA.

According to Baby steps we should stop doing that can you tell me why

yes because I because I want you paying off your debts first I don't want you borrowing from your future self this doesn't really apply to you because you have the cash right now to be debt-free by the end of the day

right and and so I would be cashed I would be debt-free by the end of the day immediately your wife and you you you're gonna have your you're gonna you're gonna pay off your I mean you're gonna start investing you're gonna start replenishing your emergency fund and you all are gonna start your new life off to the races, my friend.

Okay.

And I want to make sure you understand for everybody else listening, we have a lot of people, it's a really good question.

The reason we have you pause on the investing 15% while you're still in a baby step two

and three is because of momentum.

We want to use every nickel that comes in the door to go to that current step.

Make sense?

Yes, makes sense.

So it's all Dave developed that, which it's genius, you know, years and years of counseling people people on the air.

He figured it out.

These baby steps are designed to do one thing and one thing only, give you the absolute most momentum possible.

Right.

Is this a tough journey?

It's the title of Jade's book, Money's Not a Math Problem at that point.

It's a psychology problem.

Kyle is up in Memphis, Tennessee.

Kyle, how can we help?

Yes, I am calling in because I would like some guidance on baby step one.

I'm an independent contractor driving a semi-truck,

and I know the normal baby step says to save $1,000.

My question is, with having a semi-truck and maintenance and things like that, what would be a good

amount for baby step one?

Do you have two separate accounts?

In other words, do you have a personal account, a check-in account, and then do you have a checking account for your business, the trucking?

Yes, yes, I do.

Yeah.

Well, first of all, the answer is: no matter what the scenario is, we never tell somebody to have more money in baby step one.

And bring the audience in, maybe new to this.

Baby step one is $1,000 in a savings account for your garden variety emergency.

And we do this on purpose.

It's as little as we think because it covers most of your emergencies and allows you to, again, put every dime that comes in the door towards your debt, which is baby step two: taking the smallest debt first, knocking that out.

And then we take that, what we're paying towards that, and we begin to roll it like a snowball and knock out all the debts.

The reason I asked you the question about your separate accounts

is because if those finances are different, do you have debt in your business?

I do.

Okay.

How much?

I have right at $43,000.

What do you make in your business before you pay yourself?

The

right at $200,000 a year.

And then what's your draw?

What are you paying yourself?

I have only been paying myself the amount of what my personal bills are.

Real quick question.

Are you sitting at a stoplight getting ready to turn left or right?

I feel like I hear the blinker clicking.

No, I.

Do we have an egg timer?

You got the emergency flashes going, huh yes oh okay

he's a safe driver kid you guys every day and

I called in spoke to someone and they said whenever it's your turn

pull over I love it

you're good here's what I would I would consider I would consider trying to pay your business debt off as fast as possible but you're going to keep the nerd term in businesses retained earnings account which is basically a business savings account it actually is about investors shareholders blah blah but think of it that way and you got to keep those things separate that's right right.

Absolutely.

So, yes,

I'm at Sim Steakwine.

Okay, so having a small account that's going to serve as your emergency fund for your business, I like the fact that you're paying yourself what you need to survive, but that means you got to take the rest of that and pay that debt off of your business so you can begin operating because then you're going to be able to take $200,000.

That's right.

Minus, I think Dave likes to,

he says he's never gotten here with Ramsey Solutions because we keep expanding with cash, but having up to 25% of your operating cost in retained earnings, and then the rest of that, it just becomes yours, dude.

Or you get to invest in hiring another driver or whatever you want to do with your company.

Okay.

That was my, that's what I wanted to ask about baby step one is

for maintenance and for like what on that aspect to be able to keep the

that's business operations dude that's not

you personally that's why i started off immediately with do you have separate accounts so we got two journeys we got debt on both sides of the aisle, but they are two separate

journeys here to knock the debt out on both sides.

Okay.

Yeah.

That gives the guidance and

a way to start moving forward.

But let me tell you this.

If you know I have this much gas, I have this much for oil changes, this much for tire rotations and new tires and whatever,

that is not a retained earning.

That is a business expense that you need to account for every month.

Similar to if my kid needs braces, I need to have that money.

I know that's coming every three months.

My kids got to go get their braces adjusted or whatever.

That's not a surprise.

That's something that me and my wife save for every month because we know that's coming.

So just be honest about your business expenses on a recurring basis.

Hey, George Camel here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

this is the ramsey show where america hangs out to have a conversation about your money your profession and your relationships and we're so glad you've joined us the phone number to jump in is triple 888-825-5225.

888-825-5225.

Alongside the combustible, the incomparable, Dr.

John Deloney, I'm Ken Coleman.

We're excited to be together for you.

And we're going to go to Charlotte where John is standing by.

John, how can we help today?

All right, guys.

I am kind of...

Just trying to figure out where to get started to actually be able to not live paycheck to paycheck.

Okay.

All right.

Well, the first thing we want to look at is: what do you think the big problem is?

Is it too much going out the door or not enough coming in the door, or do we have some type of combo?

I think it's a combo, even though the

money going out the door is a temporary issue, it feels like.

Tell me what that means.

So, I have twin boys that are three years old, and daycare alone is $516 a week.

Oof.

And why is that temporary?

Because once they're into school age, that $2,000

a month will be able to go somewhere.

You're a positive guy because I would not think that two years of that kind of expense is temporary.

We don't want to suffer for two more years.

That's one part of the problem.

Let's talk about the income.

What are we making and what are we doing for a living?

So

for for me, I'm a firefight paramedic, and

my wife, her 100% of her wages basically goes to the kids' daycare.

Sure.

And so all my money handles everything else within the life.

What do you make?

I make about $53,000 to $54,000 a year.

Do you have options for overtime?

Yes.

Does that figure you gave me include overtime or is overtime above?

No, I do not.

That is my base.

Okay.

What could you make in overtime?

I could,

honestly, I could work almost as much as I wanted.

Well, what I would want you to know is what is feasible when we say that.

Okay.

And then what could we make over the course of a year?

So in other words, could we go from 53 gross to 73?

I'm just giving you an arbitrary number.

You need to know what's possible.

All right, what kind of debt?

Give John and I your debt picture.

Real quick, are you on, as a fireman paramedic, are you on, what, 36s, 24s, two on, one off?

How do you do that?

24 on, 48 off.

And what do you do on your 48 off?

Try to fix the house that we have.

All right, I got to tell you, brother, y'all are drowning right now.

Yeah.

And so it's not time to wax a surfboard when y'all are underwater.

And so I would tell you, whether that is doing a mindless job, whether that is your kids go to daycare three days a week or two days a week and you've got them the other days, is that easy?

It's a no.

Good grief.

And I've sat with you guys in the middle of the night in the middle of the road and watched houses burn down.

I know how hard y'all work.

And this is just a 24-month season.

And

whatever you can do on those 48, or if you can stay over for another 24, or if you just want to get your mind off of car wrecks and cleaning things up and training and go throw boxes at a Walmart.

Man, you've got those 48s.

Using those hours, man, would be such a blessing for 24 months.

And like you say, in 24 months, everybody exhales, right?

That's exactly where I just keep telling myself just a little bit longer.

I just started, I guess,

that's not the mindset.

That's not the mindset.

Let's tackle your debt because I want to show you, John, and I'd like to walk you through where we could put some of that additional income we're talking about to actually increase your income as well.

Give us your debt picture.

Go smallest debt to largest.

Right now, my smallest debt I would say is my car payment.

Okay, how much total do you owe on the car and then give me the car payment?

So, I bought it last year because my vehicle went out, and it's I'm at $26,000.

You owe $26,000.

What's the car payment?

$419.

What's it worth?

I would say $26,000.

It was a brand new car.

Okay.

Okay.

What's your next largest debt?

My house.

Okay.

So the only consumer debt you have is the car?

Yes.

Everything else is in the debt settlement that I pay every week or every three months.

Dude, bro,

you buried the lead on us here.

What is your consolidated debt?

I've got a cough.

I've got an itch, and I've got stage three cancer.

Like, you got to say all of it.

So

I owed before I started my settlement,

I had 12 credit cards because I was just getting a new credit card, maxing it out, getting a new credit card.

How much is the combined debt consolidation?

$25,000.

Okay, so we got $26,000 in a car, and we got $25,000 in one big lump sum credit card debacle.

Is that it?

Correct.

Okay.

What is that minimum payment on that?

John's getting a bowl of mailocks.

$217 a paycheck.

So $434 a month?

Correct.

Okay, so I just want you to see that what we're looking at here in our debt payments, okay,

is

almost $900 a month.

Boy, that would be nice to get back in your bank account.

Yes or no?

Yes.

Okay.

So that's the mindset we got to have.

I knock this debt out.

I give myself a $900 raise.

We're not waiting for the twins to go to school to get some type of financial break.

You have agency.

You have opportunity to go with the agency in the sense of John laid out what you could do to make more money.

So

if I'm you, I'm looking at if I could escape from this car.

Do you have any cash and savings at all anywhere?

Any cash?

Zero.

Okay.

Okay.

Here's the thing.

I did I'm I'm I'm I'm getting all burnt up I'm gonna talk to you direct is that cool brother

absolutely okay

you have two days off every other day period correct you have a $26,000 car that you cannot afford in one month you could save up four thousand bucks

in extra money

and go buy yourself a lame car.

Everybody at the station is going to make fun of you.

Who cares?

In one year, you could earn $25,000 extra dollars and pay this whole debt settlement off.

That's right.

You are waiting for life to happen to you by walking around and fixing a gate and messing with some sheetrock.

And your soul is burning down inside your chest, dude.

And the thing that you have that very few...

I know, and very few callers on this show have is four extra days a week to work.

Two grand a month is what John's telling you.

That's it.

You're free.

Two extra.

Free.

Two extra grand a month.

You tell me you can't earn that?

I absolutely can.

Get after it.

Let's go, dude.

Sell the car, like John said, and go make the extra money.

And you just gave yourself a $900 a month raise by paying that debt off.

And then imagine having an emergency fund of three to six months of your expenses.

How would you sleep then, John?

Much better.

Yes.

Dude, this is literally in the palm of your hand.

Right now, get on the phone and get a second job and start tomorrow.

Game on day one.

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Time for our question of the day, which is brought to you by our friends at YReFi.

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And I'll read the question as well.

Oh, I'll do it.

Today's question comes from Brooke in Illinois.

I started a new job this week and I'm 15 weeks pregnant.

After years of trying, it's truly a blessing to be this far along.

Amazing.

I've been there.

Congratulations.

I didn't expect having to change employers, but I lost my job and had to find another quickly, so here I am.

My new company provides four months paid maternity leave after four months of employment.

I don't feel comfortable telling them until after my four months of employment and I think I can hide it until then.

Oh man.

What should I say in this discussion when I tell them the news?

I'm open to sharing my infertility journey as I do think that would help help them understand my situation, but I'm not sure that's necessary.

I hope to be with this employer for a long time, so I really want to make a good impression and not be labeled as the girl who started a job while pregnant.

Help.

I got some strong feelings on this one, Ken.

Share it.

The last thing I want any new mother in the world to do, particularly somebody because I've been down this road,

that when you get the most incredible, joyous news of your life, the first thing you think to do is to hang your head.

And I hate that.

Now, when you said you've been down this road, you mean you hired somebody that this happened to you?

No, I've experienced, yes, I've had this happen, but also I've experienced infertility in my house, right?

Okay, gotcha.

And so

what I want everybody in this situation, you and your husband, doing, is cheering from the rooftops, right?

And there's a reality here.

So my question number one would be: is this a big multinational corporation that has some detached HR that has a inflexible, here's just how we do things, or are you working at a place like here that if we had a four, I don't know what our, I don't think we have this policy at all, but if we had a four-month policy and somebody got pregnant at month three, I'm confident that we'd be like, oh, that's amazing.

Go get them, right?

So I.

That would be my first thing.

The second thing is, I don't ever want you compromising your integrity

for some

down-the-road kind of thing.

I want you to be fully honest, fully whole, fully you, fully celebrating.

And if your company fires you, you dodged a bullet like the matrix.

That's right.

And you don't want to work for a company that is that soulless and that

lacking that much integrity on their side.

So that's my take on it.

I can't add anything to that.

That's exactly what I was going to say.

You have to tell the truth.

I think this is actually a powerful story.

And I think anybody with a heart is going to go,

well, that's a bummer.

We sure, you know, know, it's a bummer for us because we hire you and now you're going to go away.

But my gosh, we're happy for that.

And let's flip it around.

So

they are right

if you hold this to go, oh, she's somebody who will hide stuff from us.

Yeah, 100%.

You got to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth.

So help you got.

That's the deal.

And you let the chips fall where they may, because here's the deal.

You're not going to change the pregnancy.

Right.

So life is already dictated.

This is my reality.

Yeah.

Just please don't go in there.

And this is easy for me to say.

Please don't go in there and apologize.

I'm so sorry.

I I walk in there and say, after years of infertility, we're pregnant and I'm having a, we're, that drives me crazy.

People say that, but I'm pregnant, I'm having a baby, and can we talk logistics?

Yeah.

And that's what I do.

Yeah.

Love it.

Jen is up in St.

Louis, Missouri.

Jen, how can we help today?

Hi, I'm so excited to speak to both of you.

It is truly an honor.

Thank you for being you and being awesome and being a part of this team.

I am a longtime Ramsey fan, so I'm going to try to use your terms to kind of of cut to the heat of what I'm asking about.

I got talked into starting.

Can you hear me?

Yep.

I got talked into starting a VUL policy.

I have a gazelle-like intensity.

My husband and I both do.

We have two full-time jobs.

We have real estate.

We have multiple streams of income.

So we were left with a lot of liquid money we weren't sure what to do with.

I own a school for young minds, and I really want to dedicate my life to that.

I had a goal in my head to be financially retired.

I have a number I want to hit in 12 years when I'm 55.

I got talked into VUL policy, but after listening to you all for a few months, I think maybe I paid a giant stupid tax.

At the velocity of which I put money into this for about 11 months, I don't know what to do.

So I would love your advice.

All right, I want to make sure we catch everybody up.

When you say VUL, you're talking about a variable universal life policy, otherwise known as whole life.

Yeah.

I mean, you know what we believe about whole life.

I mean, mean, I was on with Dave earlier this week.

I do.

And I mean, every time he gets the call, I just get nervous and I slightly move my chair to the right because I feel the heat emanating off.

Spontaneously coming up.

John has been in the same position.

Yeah, yeah, oh, yeah.

Good day to call in with this because we're not going to go on a giant rant.

You can't see because of where how we show the show, but there is burn marks at the top of the studio, right above.

You know, I never noticed that.

It's charred.

Yeah, Dave doesn't have any hair on the top of his head, and the smoke and the fire shoots up.

True story.

That's why Dave is bald whole life.

Hold on.

You got it.

So

hold on.

If I can add one more.

Oh, yes.

Not yet.

Let's just bury the city.

You should not have bought it.

You're aware of it.

You don't need me or John to pile on.

Get out of it.

Don't put another nickel in it.

I want to hear her.

Yeah, right now it's time for her, but I'm different.

Okay, go ahead.

Well, my brother is that at 55, I want to have income to replace replace the because right now I work in tech I work in tech and I run the school.

Okay.

And I want to have enough income so that my daughters don't suffer the lack of income that I will that that will shift down to.

So that was the rule, right?

The other piece of this is that I was talking to it because we have health concerns in my family.

And it was like, what if you have a health concern and then you want income if, you know, you're not dead, but you're still alive and you get expensive.

I know, but

you're taking your money, you're handing it to somebody who's going to invest it, and they're going to pay you an embarrassingly low rate.

They're going to take the money and build themselves a new building and drive a newer car.

And so take the money you're already putting in there and put it in the exact same market they're putting it in, except keep the return.

Or put that money into insurance if you've got some type of real health thing and you've got doctors saying there's a high probability.

The point is we want you to take care of your money.

This is not a good product.

It's never been a good product.

You've heard us rant on this before.

And if you need more on this, I'm going to cede the balance of my time to the gentleman from Texas because he's actually nicer than me.

This is a bad idea.

You know it's a bad idea.

Here's what I'm curious about.

You are clearly brilliant.

Brilliant.

And so you've mentioned probably four times, maybe five.

that you were talked into this.

I'm wondering if the bigger issue here is you're not a woman who gets talked into anything,

but you did on this one and you're kicking yourself and you're trying to do some mathematics, like some gymnastics to make this thing okay because you did a thing that you don't like to do.

Tell him what he's doing, Bob.

Pay the stupid tax.

You're still awesome.

I almost said a swear word.

You're still rad.

You're awesome.

Go on and don't make this mistake again.

How would you suggest how I could achieve what I'm looking for?

Is it just putting into Brokerage's account all of our extra money into that?

Well, it depends on it depends on the nature and the acuity of your health issues if if I've got money in high yield savings account that I have decided this I want access to it is worth the potential return on it and then I put the rest of it yeah and brokerage and cancer and real estate could be that now again you need to this is a medical professional I'm not telling you to do this but if you know the specificity of this we've got a history of this maybe long-term care insurance absolutely so this is again the a long-term care is far more safe.

Am I right, John?

Is this a policy?

What are you worried about your daughter suddenly starving from?

Well, I grew up poor and I have a scarcity mindset, which I'm working through.

I

really, really created space around that because I've kind of become a bear and fearful, and then I make stupid mistakes.

Okay, real quick.

When I'm asking big questions, I'm with you.

We're the same person.

What is your net worth right now?

What do you have in retirement?

So we have over a million dollar net worth, and we've filled every bucket you can normally fill.

Stop it, Jen.

You just lost the sympathy of everyone in the studio audience in all of America.

You're fine.

I'm going to send you Building a Non-Axious Life, my book, as a gift to you because you've got deeper rooted challenges and I've lived your life and I'll not your life, but I've got these same scarcity challenges.

And I want you to read this book and use it as a roadmap for what comes next.

You're fine financially.

Hey guys, George Camill here with some exciting news for our Financial Peace University coordinators.

If you've ever led FPU or even just thought about it, you've got to join us for our coordinator rally happening on July 24th.

It's packed with insider updates, powerful stories, and encouragement from me, Jade Warshaw, and Dr.

John Deloney.

It's totally free, and when you register, you'll be entered to win our $3,000 giveaway.

So just head to fpu.com slash rally to save your spot today.

That's fpu.com/slash rally.

Hey, if you're tired of living paycheck to paycheck, and I know there's a lot of you out there because the data tells us so, and I've been there before, it's exhausting.

No shame in your game, but we do want to say, come on into the pool of having margin.

The water's real nice.

I got a big floaty, a little Arnold Palmer in the cup holder, and a really wacky straw.

It's great.

It's great over here in the debt-free pool.

We'd love you to join us.

It's a free.

It's a free jazz playing in the background.

Thank you.

Absolutely right.

uh free every dollar trainings is what i'm attempting to set up this is free did i mention that it's free and uh it's hosted by one of our ramsey personalities george just hosted one a couple days ago uh we're going to show you how to stick to a budget using every dollar and uh we're going to help you find nine thousand dollars of margin using every dollar so you can get out of debt start building wealth you can sign up for free at everydollar.com slash webinar i should mention not only you learning in a low pressure setting you also get a chance to ask questions and did I mention that it was free?

I did.

Everydollar.com slash webinar.

See you there.

Robbie's up in Omaha.

Give me a Peyton Manning, Omaha, real quick, John.

Do you know what I'm talking about?

You don't watch football, do you?

I do.

Yeah, never.

He missed the moment.

The moment's gone.

Robbie is there in Omaha.

Robbie, how can we help?

Hey, oh, my gosh.

Thanks for taking my call.

I just randomly called you guys out of the blue, just kind of out of

really just being extremely stressed out.

Okay, well, we're here for you.

What's going on?

Thank you, guys.

Yeah, so currently in the process of a divorce,

it's

pretty nasty overall.

We

combined between the two of us, we have,

and I'm just speaking

my debts and our joint debts.

We have about 500K

combined.

Does that include a house or is that not included a house?

It does.

It does include a house.

Give us the

breakdown.

Yeah, give us the breakground, excuse me, the breakdown minus the house, please.

Okay, so minus the house.

I have $170,000 in student loans.

Okay.

I also have $20,000 in personal loans.

We both have

we both each have our own cars.

Hers is $9,000.

Mine is $7,000.

Is her name on that one, or is your name on both?

My name's on both.

Okay, so let's call it $16,000 in cars, correct?

Yep.

Okay.

And a quick question: Were y'all married when you were in college?

Not, no, it was after college.

Okay.

Okay, what other debt do we have left?

Yeah, so

I also have $9,000 of medical bills, and

we each have combined $8,000 in credit card debt.

Okay.

Is the divorce final?

No.

We're in the mediation process right now.

Okay.

What's nasty about it when you when you say that?

Um

it's

I mean, it's it's been

just nonstop

harassment for a very long time and uh just just more on the

emotional and mental uh

load.

What is your what is your income?

So my income, um, it was 73,000 annually right now

for the last two months.

It's dropped down to only 10,000.

I transitioned

and now

you are making $73,000 gross and you said you just transitioned into a job where you're making $10,000 gross for the year?

Yeah.

That's not even real.

What is happening?

Give me the details as quickly as possible so we can dive in on this problem.

So, so I worked in, I worked a job where I

had to move into

third shift.

And

prior to that, I did not have legal counsel.

I was trying to make all my payments on time.

I was

trying to make all of our payments on time.

And she just left me with everything.

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

I get that.

I'm sorry.

How do you go from, what is your job to where you're only making $10,000 a year?

Are you in healthcare?

Yep.

Okay.

I don't understand.

How did you roll down to $10,000?

Like, you can, you can go to Starbucks today or go to McDonald's and double that.

Okay.

What are you doing to make $10,000 now?

So I'm

working at the Y trying to build my.

Okay.

Did you get let go?

Did something happen in your medical practice?

No.

No.

So, so I

so as soon as I moved to third shift, that's when she came in and filed a temporary order and

I lost custody of my kids.

Okay.

I lost

custody of my kids.

So you have a restraining order out against you right now?

No,

I have no restraining order.

Okay, let me ask.

I'm so sorry.

I got to lean in.

We have limited time.

Okay, so we don't have a lot of time for a backstory.

I got to get some facts.

Yeah.

What specifically did you do in healthcare?

What was your title position?

What were you?

Were you a nurse?

What were you doing?

No, no, no.

So I wasn't in healthcare.

I was in corrections.

Okay, so you were a corrections officer?

Yeah.

Did you lose your job?

No, I resigned

because

in order for me to even try to get custody of my kids back and because she took

full custody.

Because of the schedule change, my lawyer said, it doesn't matter how much you make right now in order to get even joint custody, you have to have a schedule that

is in the best interest of the kids.

Okay, got it.

Okay, got it.

Now, here's my only question: I understand the lawyer, and I'm no lawyer.

I can't push back.

John, you may have an opinion on this, but again,

you have a massive income problem, and your lawyer is an idiot if your lawyer isn't considering the income because you got to take care of you, not to mention the kids.

So, why aren't we working a job in the same YMCA schedule in corrections or something else?

So, I am actually just about to get a job that

is more in the health involvement.

How much will you make when you get that job and when will that happen?

$78,000 a year.

Okay.

And when does that start?

Yeah.

So, I don't have an official start date.

Right now, I'm going to,

it's through a company.

um

okay

until you have a start date um and I and I'm I'm hoping that you're trying to be coy because you're in the middle of a divorce you want to be careful about what you say because what you're yeah the way you're putting it out doesn't make a lot of logical sense yeah I'm struggling

you your attorney's advice you can't if you file bankruptcy today you're basically gonna discharge like 30 grand you can't discharge 170,000 right and so the idea that you're gonna bankrupt this money away is false and so this,

the next layer is, I don't care what, what, how much money you make, just go do this thing or you're going to lose your kids.

You're going to lose your house and your kids and your car and your food.

You don't have any money, man.

And so the idea that you're going to go for making 75 grand third shift, I get that's a miserable life.

I know those guys.

The guys who work third shift in corrections are just studs.

And that doesn't mean you hit the pendulum so far, you start working for less than, my son probably makes more than that.

And And he's 15.

Like, you got to go say, okay, cool.

I'm going to go throw boxes.

I'm going to go run deliveries.

I'm going to work like crazy during these hours when my wife has a kid so that I can have all my days off.

And if you don't have a start date, awesome.

It sounds weird, but great.

Go get a whole bunch of jobs in between.

But you've backed yourself into a crazy corner and dude, you owe a hundred.

How did you get $170,000 for a corrections job?

It wasn't for corrections.

What was your degree in?

Yeah.

Criminology and criminal justice.

Go get a freaking job.

Yeah, go be a policeman, dude.

Go to the academy.

This is nuts.

Dude, unless you're trying to hide money for a divorce, which I hope to God you're not doing because that's going to come out.

Something's not adding up to this.

I tell you what, I do want to do because we spent so much time just excavating some facts from you.

Can we set him up?

Let's get him one, our gift, a session with a financial coach to kind of map out the future here once we get the freaking job.

Our scripture of the day comes from Isaiah 54, verse 2: Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back, lengthen your cords, and strengthen your stakes.

And then, quite a pivot from Isaiah 54

to our quote of the day from Ozzy Osbourne.

Okay,

you've got to try and take things to the next level, or you'll just get stuck in a rut.

Might as well have been a quote from Farmer's Almanac.

We're going off the rails.

I'm not sure what the team did there, but I'm just here to read what they put in front of me.

You know, there you go.

Michael is joining us now in our backyard, Nashville, Tennessee.

Michael, how can we help?

Good evening, guys.

Thanks for taking my call.

You bet.

What's going on?

Yeah, man.

I'm wanting to make a retirement plan for January of 27.

I meet the retirement

protocol for my company,

but I'll only be 54.

And

I want to see if I can make the same money after I retire.

Okay, how do you think you're going to go about doing that?

So through work, sorry, through work, we have a...

a pension plan.

I have two options on my pension plan.

One is that at retirement, I will have

$80,000 a year on pension.

My last year's income was roughly $144,000.

Taxable income was $120,000 after I

funded my retirement stuff.

So I'll be at $80,000 there, and my

$457 will be, you know, they're projecting $450,000, but right now it's at $404.

So I would like to, you know, he'll make that 120 to

140.

Okay, now when you say that, I want to make sure we're on the same page with you.

When you say that, you mean through pulling out,

you know,

pulling out from your retirement accounts, or are you saying go above and beyond?

And by going out, I'm going to work another job while pulling retirement from my old job.

So, man, I'll tell you, ideally, I would like to be able to retire and live.

live off you know that that money invested what are you gonna do brother

man i'll tell you something, man, guys.

Probably like most of y'all, I've worked

since I was big enough to push a lawnmower.

So

I'm a family homebody.

So

here's the thing.

All the data tells me that the moment a, and this is not universal, gendered, but I'm going to make it so the day a man quits work and does not have a purpose, his body shuts down.

Health outcomes worsen.

Everything falls off a cliff.

So when you tell me, I just want, dude, I've been working hard my whole life, dude, I'm with you.

I've had a mowing job since I was eight years old.

Like, I'm with you.

This idea that I want to do nothing, I'm telling you right now as my neighbor and my friend, it's going to kill you.

I see that.

I see that.

I'm involved with my family.

We're all Christians, not that that matters, but yeah, I might do something, but I just want to know that I can take this money and my

and my

so that would whatever I got would be, you know, what, fluff or, you know, mad money or whatever.

So what's your total, what do you have total in retirement?

I have 404

and a 457, and then my pension will be 80,000 a year.

And you, and so could you live off of just the pension alone of 80,000?

If you run some numbers.

Close.

Okay.

So here's the practical answer to your question, okay?

Here's Here's the practical answer.

John Ken, I want to know, can I live off of what I got right now?

So you got to run a budget and you currently have a budget, I hope.

I know it.

It's not written down.

So what I need to write down.

Bro.

Hold on.

You're hilarious.

Michael, just listen to the question you're asking us.

I want to stop working.

I want to keep making the exact same amount of money I made when I was working.

I don't want to really do anything but kind of be a family guy.

And And I kind of got it all up in my head.

We are telling you, we're promising you as your neighbor here in Nashville.

This is a recipe for a car crash.

Yeah, it's not going to work.

So let's get to the tactical, okay?

First thing is, you need to download every dollar.

It's our budgeting app, it's the best thing.

And you need to start tinkering with it and plug in real numbers and no longer have this, I got a general idea.

No, no, we need to know what we actually need to live on.

Okay, I'm talking your basic four walls: food, clothing, utilities, your housing, transportation, all of that stuff.

Okay.

And then, and then, you know, what you and mama think retirement life is going to look like.

You know, what's our weekend thing?

Are we, are we going down to so, uh, you know, to the, to the, what's the chicken, the hot chicken place in Nashville?

Hattie B's.

Hattie Bees.

Well, what are we doing?

You know, and so here's the deal.

First things first, what is our actual operating budget?

Okay.

Second,

do we have any debt?

If we have debt,

we need to clear debt.

Do you have any?

So I have a $168,000 left on my house.

So it's $1,000 a month.

Okay.

House.

And then the rest is just the

living expenses of the house.

So you have no consumer debt?

No.

Great.

So we checked that off the list.

So we now got a budget.

And so now, Michael, you need to call John and I and go, you know, I need to know if I've got enough.

Once we have a budget, we know what it's going to take to live.

Now we start matching it up with, we know we have $80,000 coming in from the pension.

And so we go, okay, what is the take-home on that?

Okay.

And so we start matching it up.

And then we've got $450,000 over here.

And if I draw, how much would I need to draw from the $450,000 to make up the difference of the $80,000?

Okay.

You still tracking with me?

Correct.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

And so then we have a number.

And then we go, if I draw that much, can I draw from the 450 enough to offset what's missing from the 80 if I need a little bit more?

And that's what you've laid out to me.

And so can I draw, hold on a second, hold on.

Can I draw that out and not touch the principal?

I think it's going to be tight.

And I think you would also need to sit down with what we call Smart Vestor Pros.

Go to Ramsey Solutions.

If you don't have one, get one.

Interview three, four, five, and sit down and let a pro look at your retirement nest egg and what you want to do and what you want to live off of.

And by the way, they're going to need to know a real budget for them to advise you.

Can I tell you something, Michael?

Yes, sir.

This is not a baby step.

This is just John and my friend Michael, who are neighbors here in Nashville.

You're 54, is that what you said?

I will be

when I want to retire.

Okay.

Give me a ballpark.

You don't have to tell me the job because we're on national radio, but what do you do for a living-ish?

I'm in safety.

You're in what?

Sales?

In safety.

In safety, there you go.

Okay.

Can I tell you,

I would sit down.

It's going to be a cheesy exercise, and it's not the dollar amount you asked, but

it's going to be an important conversation to have with yourself.

I would love for you to have an imaginary conversation.

You can write a letter.

You can just do it in your mind.

and have a conversation with 65-year-old you.

And here's the question I would ask: if you work two more years and put all that down and pay your house off,

are you going to be glad you did that versus getting out and having an asset that you still owe money on as you're trying to also retire and do these fun things that you want to do?

That's just me.

I don't think I would pull that trigger at 54

until my house was paid off.

That's just me.

I think it's great advice.

Right.

So I've got a

plan, two options on pension.

Okay.

I can, they have a formula.

I plug in today.

Second option on the pension is we're allowed to take 50%

of our,

this is the 80 grand, not the 457, 50% of that up to a certain age, we can get as a lump sum.

Right now, that lump sum, but if you take 50%, the 80 goes to 40, right?

But the, so the lump sum

in addition to my 457 right now is about 620,000 lump sum.

So it'll be $620,000 plus the $4,000

and then $40,000 a year.

Dave can do that math in his head.

I would recommend you sit down with a Smart Vestor because I would be tempted to take, if the math works, to take that lump sum, pay my house off, and then put the rest in an investment if it's going to accrue faster than your pension, which I bet it will.

But do not do that based on my advice.

I would sit down with a Smart Vestor Pro and rattle that off.

That's what I would do.

And then take the 40, but I also would not quit my life at 54.

You're You're halfway home, brother.

54 is young, man.

Yeah.

Keep on working.

I love your advice.

Lights of purpose, man.

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