The Road to Financial Freedom Begins With Hard Choices

live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions. It's the Ramsey show where we help people build wealth, do work that they love and create amazing relationships.
I am Rachel Cruz, hosting this hour with my good friends

and hosts of the Dr. John Deloney Show,

as well as bestselling author, John Deloney.

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Up first, we have Sierra in Cincinnati. Hey, Sierra.
Welcome to the show. Hi.
Hello, hello. How can we help? Yes, I was just calling to inquire.
I've been recently addicted to listening to the show, and so I'm wanting to pay down debt and get into a position to invest more so I had a question in regards to if I should possibly rehome my dog even though I don't want to um to get out of dog boarding fees when I'm traveling for work oh no okay um how often most people listening like their dogs more than any people in their life. Uh, Sierra, how often are you traveling? I'm sorry.
How often are you traveling? Um, so with my new job, I travel a little less than I did before. Um, so probably it just goes with the storms, um, potentially like five to six months out of the the year and i'm usually gone from like 10 to 14 days at a time okay and what's the what's the boarding situation are you going to like an actual border do you have someone come and and pets it so i have a sitter now um that's pretty consistent and look at my bank did it like an overview of all my spending and for my dogs i spent about ten thousand dollars last year oh wow yeah if you're going half the year i mean how long have you had or should i like maybe talk to my sitter to try to see if we can negotiate something that's what i was wondering or.
Or is there some... I just wonder if there's other options.
I always hate just like a... This is my only option.
I would say get rid of the dog. Oh, my gosh.
I know. I know half America just hung up on like...
They just are going to send mean cards and letters to James about me. How much are you making a year? So my base is around $79,000.
And and what my additional pay when I'm traveling. Um, I usually like last year, I think my growth, uh, is about 87.
Okay. But this isn't, this isn't financial me.
This is actually for the dog. But I just also got a raise too.
So this year my growth would probably be around 90 to 95,000. Amazing.
Okay, how much debt do you have? So, a lot. That's okay.
So, I have $20,000 for my car, and then I have a credit card with $10,500 on it. Okay.
And then student loans is $70,000 plus $5,000 of interest, so $75,000. Okay, so you're right at $100,000 of um, of debt, making 95, spending 10 grand on the dog per year.
Might be going down because you have a new job. And how long have you had the dog? Um, they're five and six.
You have two. Five and six.
Ah, okay. But it's like for the dog's sake they only get to see you half the year, right? Yes, but they're excited when they see me when I come back.
Sierra, all dogs are excited. They haven't gone for five minutes.
Okay, here's what I would do, Sierra. I just wonder if there's anyone in your life who wants a dog as well.
And you can co-parent this dog. You're out of your mind.
And for like six months out of the year, this dog goes and lives with your friend who's like great with a dog and loves it. And you guys.
So it's not like a consistent, like it, like a storm could happen today or a storm can happen a couple months from now. It's not like consistent.
Like right now I'm in down season, but like storm. Yeah, I understand.
I'm just saying. There's no friend like that, Rachel.
I'm joking like the co-parenting. You could totally have a friend that's like, oh, I love dogs.
And Sierra's like, I can't... I have some of the greatest friends on the planet.
I don't know any friend that'd be like, anytime, Jaren, I drop your dog off for six months. That'd be awesome.
I don't know that person. Maybe.
Maybe. I think you're right.
I think you're right. What brought you to this question even that you're considering it? Do you think it's the right move? No, I don't.
I don't know. I don't know if I would.
If I track my expenses and just cut everything out, I'm looking at including $ 200 a month towards the dogs when i'm not traveling um just to like build up an expense uh like right now i'm at like 2800 in expenses a month okay um because my last job used to give me per diem so the per diem helped out with the dog cost. Sure.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally.
I mean, because here's my thing. I'm like, Sarah, you'll be out of debt in what? Probably two and a half years.
Like, if you really. When I ran, it was like three, like almost four years with the student loan.
Yeah, I think you can do it faster. I would pick up an extra job.
I mean, I would do things because. Especially during the slow season.
Can you work right now um i've been trying to think of options um i'm not in an area where there's like uber or doordash or anything in that nature okay yeah i would i would get creative on the income side and be able to pay off your debt faster because here's the thing the debt is so temporary you could be out of debt in's just say, two and a half years. And then, you know, your dogs will be eight.
Dogs are forever. It'll be eight.
You'll have like another two years. Yeah, maybe that's the question.
Do you want to go get, during your off time, if you're home for a month or two without a big storm, do you want to work on those days that you're home, work, put in eight, 10 hours a day, just bust it,

go throw boxes at Walmart, go pick up a shift at McDonald's or whatever. Work really hard on those

days. And over the course of a year, you'll probably earn about an extra 10 grand.
If those

dogs are worth that investment, then you've answered your question. That's a good way of,

yeah, that's a good way of framing it. That if you had to work extra and make $800 a month.
To cover the cost of those dogs. Is that, is that investment? Is that worth it for you? Uh, yeah, possibly could.
It's just like, they'd be in the house more if I work more. Okay.
But I mean, you have to just make that call for yourself. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah.
And there, I mean, there's a, there's a lifestyle question for sure of the happiness of the dogs, right?

I'm like, yeah, if you are going to have to...

Yeah, and I spoil them too, so...

Yeah, but we spoil our dogs, not for them,

but we spoil them for us, right?

I spoil mine too, but the dogs don't care, right?

My son found a couple of old cow bones

in this old field and he brought them home.

The dogs are the happiest they've ever been with these old cow bones. They don't care.
We spoil them for us, right? Yes. If you need an anchor when you come home, you've been gone for a month, you need an anchor to get home to so you don't come home to an empty apartment, I totally get that.
I totally get that. The sucky part here is math doesn't care about any of this the math is you you owe a hundred thousand dollars and you make 90 and how quickly can we get that debt paid off yes I think that's it I think it's just it's the sacrificial question and is it what is that sacrifice worth it getting rid of them to gain an extra 20 grand over two years and how quickly does that help you become debt-free faster and if that's not worth that sacrifice you're like no i will be in debt six months longer in order to keep the dogs or whatever you know it ends up being for you and that's great too so no i i i can't sit here in good faith and say yes you need to sell these dogs but i can i can't say if it was if it was me i I probably would.
I wouldn't sell them.

They're not for sale.

And I like my dogs more than almost every person I know.

And so I'm a dog guy, but yeah.

That's a hard one, Sierra.

$20,000.

I don't know.

I would find option C.

See if there's a good friend who will take them.

That friend does not exist.

I believe that friend is out there, Sierra.

This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show.
If you are a listener of the show and you've been listening for a while, we actually have a survey that is out and it is live. Oh, great.
The segment after I told this poor woman to sell her dogs, we're going to do a Ramsey survey.

Oh, everyone's going to be like, what do we not want to hear?

John telling people to sell their dogs.

By the way, George Campbell, the guy who loves his two dogs more than any human.

It's absurd.

He didn't hear the whole call, though.

I know, but he was with me. He walked by and said, sell the dogs.
But he didn't have all the context. I think George would give both of his feet and one of his hands for his two.
For Olive and Blue. What are their names? Olive.
The fact that you and his friend know the names of his... We talk about these dogs all the time on Smart Money Happy Hour.
They get brought up more more than mia his daughter that's how much you know he they have to wipe their butts they wipe their do you know that oh yeah i do that's what i told george i put george on friendship probation you have to do that i was like you don't have a dog at that you know why because god didn't make that dog and then the dogs have to sleep and then the dogs have to sleep in the bed oh it's a whole thing, if you want to hear more about George's dog, make sure to check out this survey. But for real, we want to know your favorite parts of this show, what you like, what you don't like, what you want to hear more of.
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Going to the phones, we have Lisa in Houston, Texas. Rich Tone.
What's up, Lisa? Hey, Lisa. Hi.
How are y'all? We're doing great. How can we help? Good.
A question. My husband and I are both in our late 50s.

We have nothing saved for retirement.

What can I do?

Well, I should say that for myself, I'm clinically and legally blind, and he works offshore,

so he's not home a lot.

So I'm just trying to figure out what can we do. Who helps with your caretaking while

he's gone? Nobody. I'm here alone.
Oh, good grief. Oh yeah, I can maneuver pretty well, thank God.

My goodness. So y'all have no pension, no social security, anything? Are you getting any disability at all, Lisa?

No, no. In my life, we've been married almost 37 years.
I've only worked maybe four years, if you connect all the days together. So I don't have anything like that.
Does he, though? Yes, I'm sure he does. He's been working several, but yes.
Okay, y'all need to combine your money, because y'all are going to be retired together. Okay.
Well, that's what I'm saying. I don't have any money.
Like I said, I haven't worked in years.

I know.

I don't think you're hearing what I'm saying.

Oh, no.

I'm talking about it.

Go ahead.

No, it's okay.

Like, you haven't worked, but you've kept that household up while he's gone, right?

Oh, right.

Yes.

Yes.

And so his money has, the money that he's earned, and the money, it's y'all's money is

what I'm trying to say. Right, right.
It is. It is.
We share a bank account and everything. Perfect.
So does he have a retirement with his company or does he have mutual funds or a 401 or social security? Social security, I believe he would have that. As far as 401k, the company's with his, this company bought out two years ago.
So I think they just started the 401k, but he hasn't gotten into it yet. He's been at this company for two years.
Okay. Lisa, how much does he make a year? About $101,000.
Okay, $100,000. And what kind of debt do you guys have? Well, I have a SBA loan on my home, car debt.

Do you need to know the amounts or what?

Yes, I would love to.

Okay, the house, $85,000.

The car, $45,000.

Credit card debt, we have maybe three cars all together.

It's about $25,000.

Student loan, $16,000. And you said there's an SBA.
That can't be the right one. What loan do you have on your house? Yes, it's an SBA.
What happened is we paid off the house back in 2014, but when Harvey hit and my husband's company folded back, they went bankruptcy. We had to live off of whatever money we had in his 401k.
And he didn't get another job offshore until a year later. So how did y'all get an SBA loan? Had he taken it out with his company and y'all just took that money and used it for your expenses? It was because of Harvey, the flood.
Yeah, we were flooded out our whole city. Yeah, I was in Houston.
I remember that. Okay.
Yeah, we didn't have house insurance at that time because he had lost his job a year before. And so therefore we didn't.
You took out the $85,000 to fix the home and to live off of? Okay. Yes, yes.
Okay. And nothing saved.
Yeah, any cash?

Well, I do have $9,000 cash, but I'm saving to get a roof.

I'm going to need a roof before August.

A roof on the home?

Yes.

Okay.

So, yeah, I mean, this is a tough one, Lisa, just because of the reality of these numbers and where to get you guys in order to start looking into retirement. I mean, he probably will not be retiring anytime soon.
Is his health, is his health okay? It's okay. Okay.
Yeah. So I think that you guys just need a game plan.
I think you've, and to a degree have kind of just been floating and, you know, using debts to fix issues. Also, you know, kind of patch up things in life and there's not really been a plan.
So what I would do is I would sit down with you guys together tonight and you both really need to be on the same page, like in a really deep way. John was mentioning that earlier, but like what you're going to have to do here in the next seven, eight, nine is i mean it's a decade of saying hey we're gonna we're gonna have to do something completely different the way we've been doing money and you both have to be bought into that and so what it's going to look like lisa is to be paying off the smallest debt first so you're going to work on those student loans so 16 000 you're going to next cut up the credit cards, start paying those off smallest to largest.
And if there's three of those, so the goal here is to write down all of your debts separately. So if you have two student loans, write them as two different loans, three credit cards, write them as three different because the goal here is to write out every piece of debt you have and you're going to pay off the smallest one first and you're going to work your way through.
But I mean, this is without with without any extra income and just him. Yeah, it's gonna it's gonna take you guys probably three to four years to get out of this.
And so my my challenge to you, Lisa, is, you know, we've talked to a lot of people on the show with a lot of different situations and a lot of obstacles in life. And we've talked to people that have been legally blind and that they that they haven't gotten disability or they haven't been able to apply for government assistance or anything like that but they you know they've done things creatively to think through hey how in any way can I bring in an extra so like even you Lisa being able to bring in four hundred dollars five hundred a month I mean just something because the more that you guys sacrifice lifestyle don't live on anything and you throw as much as you can at that that's that's really the only way to get out of this I wish there was a magic wand just to wave and change the whole situation but your steps are going to be Lisa to get out of debt first and then beyond that save some cash and then start looking into retirement that's why i'm saying it's going to probably be a good decade and then i would start lowering my expenses because when you guys get to the point of retirement i want you to be able to yes use social security but also be able to cash flow um your lifestyle at that point from the decisions you're making today.

Okay. And if you were my mom, I don't want to over sensationalize this,

but I have a couple of buddies that worked offshore out in the Gulf. And your husband's

time out there is short and you know that, right? He can't keep doing that late into his 50s.

That's hard work. That's a young man's game.
so y'all are making a six-figure income i would get maniacal about paying this stuff off there's no reason to have a 45 000 depreciating asset car in a driveway when you can't drive because of your vision and he's gone a month or two or three at a time right that's that's a used camry house you don't need a big old fancy nice car on the driveway you sell that asap and knock that debt off but y'all just gonna have to get radical and i hope he'll be there with you um i think the words i would start with are i'm very very scared about our situation would you be willing to make a radical shift with me because i mean mean, Harvey, it was in 14, it flooded, it was a zoo. That's 10 years, that's 11 years ago.
And y'all still haven't messed with those debts. So let's get on it.
So we are really excited to announce that there is going to be a twonight virtual event talking about investing. This is a subject that I know can be very complicated in a way.
It can be intimidating. And so being able to break it down, kind of put the cookies on the bottom shelf, talk about investing in a way that makes sense.
And then above that, to be like, okay, how do we really build wealth? And so there's this event with Dave Ramsey and George Camel, and it's called Investing Essentials. And it's going to be absolutely fantastic.
It's a virtual event. Again, they're going to walk through how to maximize your 401k and mutual funds, get the most out of your money and invest with confidence.
Plus, it's really the only place that Dave talks about his personal playbook when it comes to real estate investing and explaining how Dave has made hundreds of millions of dollars on property investments. Now, you can get clarity and confidence when it comes to the subject of investing and building wealth long term.
So make sure to check out Investing Essentials. It's happening on March 4th and 5th.
And again, it's virtual. You can just watch it from your home.
And tickets start at $199.

$199.

You can get yours at RamseySolutions.com slash events.

Or if you are listening on podcasts or YouTube, click the link in the description.

This was one of our biggest events last year.

Virtual events.

People loved it.

Dave opens up his actual portfolio.

Like, y'all want to know how I do it?

Here's how I do it. Talks about it.
Yeah. It's awesome.
It, really great. So everything again, from investing into the market and real estate is that event.
Ramsey solutions.com slash events. All right, going to the phones.
We have Ben in Kansas city. Hey Ben, welcome to the show.
Good afternoon. I have a long time listener.
Uh, really believe in your systems. I'm in a situation, the last of my three kids is graduating from college in May, and she is entering dental school.
And over the years, I've heard you and Dave and all talk about the fact that be careful about taking student loans. And her dental school is going to be approximately $400,000 over the four years.
And I'm trying to find out what solution or what ideas you might have to finance that so we don't have to take out the traditional school loans. You're not going to like our answer.
Okay. I my whole career um in higher ed that's my that's been my whole world until just a few years ago when as my son says i became a youtuber um and i also studied the mental health of attorneys physicians health professionals and at the very top of that list is dentists.

And I believe personally,

I didn't do a financial study.

I believe it's because they get out of school

with three or $400,000 in debt

and then they immediately go in

and are told they have to buy a practice

or buy into a practice

or just to start open up their own shingle. They got got to take out another million-dollar business loan to get this thing going.
And then they find themselves on a 50-year treadmill that they will never be able to get off of. And so the thing I would implore you to do is please don't take out half a million dollars in debt.
And I know it's your daughter's dream. I love dentists dentists that's i've got i've bought many a dentist a nice car with the work that i've had done um but it's such a crushing burden and i've just had the blessing yet the heartbreak of sitting behind closed doors with dentists man when their worlds are falling apart because they owe so much money yeah so there's not there's not an easy thing you.
I wish I was, man, but I'm sorry. It's become so insanely cost prohibitive.
And I do know I'm not one of these end of timers. Like if med school is expensive because you have to hire a surgeon who knows how to take a heart out of somebody and put another one in there, you got to hire that person out of the marketplace to go teach at a college, right? That's expensive.
So med school is going to be expensive. Dental school is going to be expensive.
I want dental school to be done right and done great, all that. So I'm all about it.
But I can't, having seen the psychological toll of owing half a million dollars on day one of your brand new job, I can't in good conscience say you just go find a student loan and go knock that out. So are there alternatives that we could look at as far as financing it? Can I help finance it? What other options are out there other than student loans? Well, with these types of schools, I mean, I put law school in this, you know, if you're getting your MD, dental school, you know, there are situations where we've talked to people that have done it debt-free, but they're very creative.
They're very unique. It's a very kind of a small sliver of whether it's, you know, these types of working for the school, internships, like there's like different types of ways that you can do it, different programs, specifically when you're looking at law, specifically when you're looking at medical and even dental.
And again, I don't even know where to direct you in that, but we have had people call and we've had someone, we had someone just a few months ago on the debt free stage and they were, they went and I think was their law degree they got, and they got it completely paid for. So again, there's like these creative

alternatives, Ben, that you can look into that are out there. Again, they're very, they're, they're slim.
It's there. What's, what's your finances, Ben? Where, where are you and your wife? Well, I'm 64.
My wife is 60. So approaching retirement, still working full time.
We're completely debt free. So, you know, we're we and we had a 529 account for each of our kids and that helped them through their undergraduate and they all got scholarships as well.
So that helped a lot. and we haven't even applied for scholarships yet for dental school.
We're going to be starting that process. Is there anything left in any of the 529s from the other kids that have already completed school and are not going to go back? There is.
The total amount at this point in time is about $66,000. With all the 529s in your kids' names, not just hers? Yes.
Okay. Yes.
Okay. So I guess the creative adventure dude would be, and like I say, this is me spitballing, there's not an easy solution here until graduate programs decide we're going to intentionally, and I think it's going to have to be a university and a public partnership.
And you know how I feel about partnering with a government on anything, but we all need doctors. We need good attorneys.
We need good dentists, but we also need doctors and attorneys and dentists that can breathe at night so they can sleep, so they can show up for the least of these. And they can't with this kind of money.
So if you immediately walk in, and so now you down to $344,000 because you got $66,000 and if your daughter can punt her entrance for one year and get a job and make $50,000 and live with you guys and now you're down to $300,000, right? So I would tell you to try to figure out a way to cash flow it and then if you get some scholarships down to a certain, I mean, that's what I tell you to figure it out. And if you have to postpone a year or two, they'll, they'll punt your admission for a year.
They'll defer it for a year and you can figure it out that way. But again, it's a long shot.
It's just hard. Yeah.
And I would say for her, Ben, to go down that road, what John is saying, because I've known, I know two people that are dentists and they had to buy a practice and or pay into i mean like it was there was so much debt on top of their school yes like there's um and you know kind of unlike a doctor that just kind of plugs into a hospital right like an attorney who can could literally practice law from their house you have to go buy dentist chairs and tools yeah it's a it's a different it's yeah it's a it's a different road and so i would implore her to go on this discovery and go and enter seriously go and ask and talk to two or three yeah dentists and just ask because we did a um documentary ben and we will put the link in the show notes here on the show called borrowed future and one of the guys that we interviewed he was a dentist a million dollars a million dollars in debt, a million dollars in debt. Hey, Ben, let me ask you this.
Um, what, how many schools does she applied to? Three different schools. And so she got into just one or all of them are about 400,000.
She just got into one. Okay.
Um, is it a private school? Is it a for-profit school? Is it a reputable school? It's a reputable school, but it is a private school. Okay.
Which is going to turn... Maybe it is going back to the public schools that she didn't get admitted to and either asking the admissions counselor.
I know with the law school admissions folks I worked with, they were remarkable about telling candidates, here's how your candidacy could have improved when they would trickle back back and ask and maybe it's applying to more and more public schools across the country and just giving it a shot especially you defer enrollment for a year but private is going to be your most expensive option my hope would be you could find a great state dental school for a couple hundred grand and that's that is what it's gonna cost and I don't have any don't blink an eye about that. But then that would give your family a chance to rally around her and to do this without borrowing money.
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That's the letter Y, R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey may not be available in all states. Today's question comes from Jessica in Nevada.
Jessica writes, my partner and I have been together for four years. Both of us went through horrific divorces.
We live together and have part-time custody of our young children from those marriages. We are about to have a baby together, but do not want to get married even though we are in a committed, loving relationship.
How can we provide security and protection for each other and our baby in case something happens to one or both of us? My partner has a very well-paying job. I'm a teacher.
Once we have a baby, I'll probably work part-time or stay at home for a while. So how can we provide security and protection for each other and our baby in case something happens to one or both of us? You're not like my answer, but get married and give your kid a legal foundation for which, good gosh, what a mess.
I mean, that's what you need to. I mean, um, are you going to sit down with the wills and estates attorney? I don't know the state of Nevada.
They may have some specific, uh, some different legal things, but the greatest gift you could give your kid is to process and heal from the horrific divorces. And both of y'all go to the therapy that you need and get the care that y'all need.
And then don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. And so y'all had a, like, you went through a really tough car wreck.
That doesn't mean we never drive again, but that means we do need to get over the anxiety of getting in a car again. We got to practice driving.
We got to get a new car, but we're going to have to get back out on the road sometime. And so the safest thing you can do you is get married and then if one of you dies then this there's legal protections across the board there but i'd go talk to an estate attorney if you aren't going to do that i don't have an answer for you other than that yeah because i do feel like some people it's um it's like this avoidance of like i don't want marriage because it hurt last time so we're going to just not deal with it and do it our own way.

Exactly.

And because of that,

what you miss so many opportunities to probably heal from those traumatic

divorces of what you're saying.

And it actually causes you to face this fear of,

yeah,

of like,

I don't want to do this again.

I'm so scared.

But yet we basically are married from like an emotion,

right?

We're living together.

Like there's a level house.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But we think we've avoided a potential hurt because we don't have this. Legal standing.
Right. Yeah.
And what it's like, it's like actually a better analogy is we were driving in a car and we got in a wreck and we got hurt by our seatbelt. And so we're going to drive again, but we're never wearing a seatbelt again.
And what that means is if you get in another wreck, it's going to be way bigger mess. And the likelihood you're going to get hurt is way worse than what it was.
And so you chose to get back into a romantic relationship. You chose to both share a house together.
Have a baby together. You both chose to make a human together.
So the only thing you're not doing is protecting yourself with the, um,

with the legal protection of a licensed marriage.

Yeah.

And dude,

I'm, I'm being getting this,

I've been getting this question more and more and more.

Like,

I don't want to get the government involved.

If you have a kid,

the government's involved because they haven't,

you made it one of their citizens.

You've done that already,

right?

If you buy a property with somebody,

you've got the government involved.

So it's cool to be like,

I don't want them involved. They're involved.
So move is there a site what's the psychological um like play here when you're not married and doing all of this right living together having a baby together and then from not just from a legal standpoint but what does that do emotionally psychologically to say like oh well we've entered a marriage is does something shift in that it can and if it's you've got you know if if they did go through horrific divorces which i believe then yeah if you have trauma surrounding an old behavior and you re-engage in that new behavior you're gonna have to deal with it right yeah yeah yeah um but is there a level of commitment like is there something about the seriousness there's something about that it does yes you you have to be all in i wish there's another way to say it but if you're not all in then when things get rocky which they will you so much easier to leave yeah you hop so much easier to leave and so what you're what you're almost guaranteeing is any bumps in the road in the future it's just going to be messier except quite honestly jessica and she's an and I'm going to over gender this, but you're in the bad spot here because if his name is on this house and you don't have a job and you become just baby mama or live in girlfriend and y'all break up, you're in a mess, right? Having to reenter the workforce. So in a weird way, a marriage may protect you more right now.
And so again, meet with an estate attorney in Nevada and work that stuff out individually. But yeah, man, I hate this for you because y'all are in a mess.
You're trying to you're trying to go swimming without getting wet and you're already in the pool, man. You're already in the pool.
All right, let's go to Richard in Anaheim, California.

Hi, Richard.

Welcome to the show.

Hey, guys.

Thank you for taking the call.

Really appreciate it.

Absolutely.

I know you're kind of south of everything going on there, but you guys good?

North of the fires.

Yeah, we're good.

We're very safe.

Is it Anaheim south of Santa Monica, right?

Yeah, we're Orange County.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, sorry.

I used to be a geography teacher. John doesn't know.
It's California geography. Yeah, how can we help? So here's what I'm asking.
I'm going to be, I'm 50 years old, basically, with three children, you know, all toddlers under the age of 10. and you know

I'm tired of just the

day-to-day rat race. My job, you know, pays for our bills, but I don't ever have anything saved.
My wife is a stay-at-home mother. I'm taking care of the kids and we homeschool.
Okay. It's very, very important to us.
We're very religious when it comes to that. So that's a non-negotiable for getting a job.
Um, but you know, I'm, I'm, I own my home. I have 300 grand in equity.
You know, um, I had been on the job a long time and I'm just, you know, I'm just staying above water. Cost of living is just so expensive here in California.ia you know my monthly uh nut that i have to pay part of my french is you know eighty three hundred dollars a month you know my mortgage is forty nine forty nine hundred dollars i have you know one debt which is my car payment you know i owe like seventeen thousand my wife's car is paid off um you know so i'm just hey richard just at the point yeah you're just running running there's no traction you should move i want to move to another state and move to another state considering i did it and pay cash i did it and it was some things were really great some things are really tough and the good thing is that um we got a chance to start over make a new life and the bad thing is is i went with me so any of my old stuff that i didn't like about myself or my parenting or how i was as a husband it came with me so i had to deal with it here but you should move what's your wife say richard my wife's open to it it's just all her family is all within um a 20 mile radius within here in southern Southern California.
So it's a little bit of a challenge. That's what I did.
They're older. It's not good.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's hard. Yeah.
And that's, it is hard. And you know, it just, I could go and pay cash for a house in another state and not have any debt.
My income is going to stay the same in the next 10, 10 years. It's not going to fluctuate that, that much going up.
know, I make $137,000 a year. What do you do for a living? I do national accounting.
Okay. Okay.
Yeah. Travel.
I travel a lot and I thought I'd get a second job on the weekends, but then I'll never see the kids because I'm, I travel. Hey, Richard, Richard, Richard, I can hear it You travel, and every minute you're traveling, you're thinking I should be moving.

And when you're at night and the kids are in bed, you're looking up other real estate in other states,

here's what you're doing.

You're slowly making yourself crazy.

Just move.

And here's the beautiful part.

If you hate it, y'all can move back.

But right now, I think you need to go.

Ask your wife, can we do 24 months?

that's what we you need to go. Ask your wife, can we do 24 months? Can we commit to a new town and a new area? There's going to be a lot of grieving.
Family's not going to like you. They're going to get mad at you.
I went through that. Doing holidays is going to be weird.
And so you may need to budget a little bit more for travel over the holidays. We'd have to do that too.
And then get out of there, man.

Go do something else.

And this has nothing to do with California.

It just has to do with you're done in this area and you want a little bit more.

And you're trying to justify it any other way of like, uh.

But everything's coming out.

Stop being angry about it.

Just make your next move, man.

It's not worth your soul and just being angry and all the time.

And that's the thing is like there's not a light at the end of the tunnel. It's going to be the same life over and and over until you do something different yep right change it and you can always go back you can always go back yep well thanks so much the guys in the booth thank you john always been a great host and thank you america we'll be back live from ramsey solutions it's the ramsey show where we help wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships.
I am Rachel Cruz, hosting this hour with my good friend and best-selling author, Dr. John DeLaube.
What up? And so we are answering your calls on life, money, relationships, career, anything and everything. Give us a call at 888-825-5225.
And if you're listening live, yeah, we are here for the next two hours. So we'll be here by the phone.
So give us a call. The last hour, I'm not going to lie, it was a heavy one.
It was a sad hour. I know.
Should I sell my dogs? Should James Child cut his beard? It was a whole thing. It was a heavy, heavy hour.
So we're going to lighten it up a little bit. It's going to be great.
And our board is full of calls from all around the country. So let's dive in.
Let's have Michael start us off this hour and what's up, Michael in Chicago. Hey, Michael.
Hi, guys. Thank you for having me.
And thank you for taking my question. You got it.
What's up, man? So my parents asked me for 40 to 50K for a down payment for a second home. Oh, God.
No, don't do that. Okay.
Can Mike finish his question? Okay, go ahead. So they currently live about 10 hours away from the rest of us siblings and they don't have the down payment for that home.
The reason for them not being able to move and be closer to us is my father is waiting to finish five more years at his job to collect a pension, and they're wanting to have the flexibility to be closer, but to have their own place. I'm 25 years old, just got out of my own debt, and I'm really unsure what to do.
Yeah, I would say no. Why are they coming to you, Michael, and not another sibling? I'm the most financially secure right now.
My other three siblings are living paycheck or just getting out of their own student loans. Okay.
So what they're asking you is a couple of things. They've created a set of principles for their life.
We're going to stay here for five more years. We don't want to be uncomfortable when we travel.
We want to have our own place. Problem is they're grown adults, but they can't afford these principles they've put into motion.
So they come to their 25 year old child and said, you make our dreams that we can't afford. You make our principles concrete because we can't.
Right. And you, it's not your job.

And by the way,

this will mess up your relationship. I would tell you, there's a financial reason to not do this, but the main thing is, dude, it will mess up your relationship with your dad.
Worried about. Yeah.
So do you have $25,000 in cash you can just hand them? Yeah. I'm debt-free now.
Quite a bit in a savings account right now that he's aware of, obviously. He helps me look at my financials.
He's the only one I talk to my financials about. You need to stop doing that, by the way.
Yeah. He's violated that trust, and so you need to get a smart investor pro and have that person do that.
i love my dad more than life itself and him and i don't go through the the intimate details of our of our finances together um i have a person and he's got a person and that helps preserve our relationship right i hate this for you man uh how do you can you predict at all michael um just from the pattern of who they are is it more your dad wanting this you think or your mom um so it's

obviously this for you man uh how do you can you predict at all michael um just from the pattern of who they are is it more your dad wanting this you think or your mom um so it's obviously a complex situation um all of us kids were all over the country when they decided to move down south away from us and now my two of my siblings are getting married in the next few months and uh you know wanting to have children obviously pretty quickly. So I think a lot of it has to do with them wanting to be closer to us during those times, obviously being stuck at that place that they're at right now due to their current position.
Yeah. Well, they wouldn't be able to come up a ton anyways because he's working still, right? I mean, how often would they be able to come up realistically? Yeah, that's a good question, too.
And I don't know. So I would ask them that.
And honestly, Michael, for them, I'm like, I mean, just do an Airbnb for two weeks. Like, if they're coming up.
I mean, for them, financially, that makes more sense. Instead of having an asset here.
You know, we had some friends and their in-laws, yeah, were out of state. They weren't asking them for money, but they were considering buying a condo.
And after they ran out of the ran all the numbers like well we're really probably realistically only going to be here a total of maybe six weeks throughout the year like if you put it all together your kids are here you can stay with them or get a hotel i don't know it's just from a financial standpoint um it doesn't make sense if you can't pay cash for a second home for it just to be there for your own leisure but you're paying a mortgage on something that's literally just sitting there there. It's not good.
I wouldn't even suggest that to them. If they called us and were like, hey, I want to take out a loan on a second home, here's the situation.
I would probably tell them, no, I wouldn't do that anyways, let alone borrow the down payment from your son. Yeah.
I'm planning to talk with them in a few months about it to the both of them and just let them know. But obviously, I wanted some advice.

The language I would use is thank y'all so much for reaching out.

And that means a lot to me that y'all have noticed how I've turned my things around.

That's pretty cool.

I've got some pretty clear financial goals that I'm trying to hit.

And so I'm not in a place where I can loan money to family members.

And any response they have is they've got to own it, man. Right.
I think, I think the biggest thing for me is my parents have allowed me to be as, you know, in this position and, and obviously I feel, what does that mean? What does that mean? They really pushed and, you know, so how I got successful is just, I got lucky doing what I do for a job and lean on my parents a lot. And they had to take out some loans to get me, you know, to the point where I'm at now.
More specifically, it has to do with obviously just the job that I have now. And, you know, I thought about changing my careers at one point.
And I glad I stayed with it because it's, it's been very, very successful. Yeah.
And I hear that. And I think we can give, I mean, my parents paid for my college, right? I mean, like there, there are things that our parents do to give us a leg up that is a hundred percent, um, being aware of that and saying that and the gratitude in that.
I mean, that I'm not ignoring that at all, but also, Michael, you 25-year-old man who made decisions with his income where you could have gotten a second home, two cars, and you could be living paycheck to paycheck, even though you make a lot of money. You could make other decisions, but you haven't.
You've chosen to do things to get out of debt and to save. And you've done those, Michael.
They didn't do those for you. And your siblings are an example of like, your parents, I'm sure, helped them in well but they've chosen a different path so like i give yourself credit do you know what i mean like you you've yes our parents have helped us and we will always have that gratitude and acknowledgement always but also there's a point that we become adults and we get to make our own decisions and from there is and this isn't even at that level here's what i know for certain if dave ramsey and sharon ramsey i don't know how this happened they fell on hard times and they had nowhere to go they have three amazing kids one of them sit next to me that would say y'all come stay at the house right we'll help you out we'll help you get on your feet this is not that situation.
Sure. And so your sense of, you're thinking of your parents'

investment in you as some sort of 401 that they put forward and if they put that on you shame on them parents don't pay for their kids college as some sort of vehicle investment vehicle so that they get a demand a return so that when they want a different color car you have to be their bank right your parents aren'titute. They've made a series of choices starting a few years ago and they're like, screw this.
We're moving out of here. We want to move far away.
And they did. Yeah, that's a great point.
It's a second home. It's a luxury.
Yeah. You're right.
If they couldn't pay for food, then I'm all about it. We're going to help out mom and dad.
We're going to honor our father and mother. I'm all about that.
But dude, if it's to pay for their second loan of money for the second home, I'm going to say no, man. And I'll say this too, Michael, knowing my parents with the grandkids, they're very emotional right now with this dream of, oh my gosh, our whole family's about to there's going to be babies.
Their emotions are probably driving this as well. And so for five years, they're going to be okay.
They're going to be okay. They're going to be all right.
And mom can come stay with you anytime she wants. That's right.
Thanks for the call, Michael. Hope that helps.
Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Rachel Cruz with Dr.
John Deloney, and we are answering your calls about life, money, relationships, anything and everything. So give us a call at 888-825-5225.
Up next, we are going to Los Angeles and talking to Jessica. Hey, Jessica.
Welcome to the show. Hello.
Thank you very much. Absolutely.
How are you guys doing? We're doing good. We're doing okay.
We're actually about an hour out from L.A., so we are not near the fire. Oh, good.
Oh, so sorry. We're thinking about you guys, man.
Yeah, for sure. What a mess, mess, mess.
Yes, yes. Prayers to everybody who's going through losing their house, and yes, we've been praying for everybody.
For sure.

How can we help?

So our question is,

we did Financial Peace University probably about eight years ago.

So our house bills are beautiful.

I heard the guy earlier say

that just his mortgage alone is $5,000.

Our house bills altogether

come out to about $6,000 per month. Okay, okay.
But we started a business in 2020, and we got ourselves into $250,000 in debt, which is credit cards and personal loans. Jessica.
$100,000. I know, I know.
$100,000 of that is under the business, And then the other is we used our personal credit cards. Me and my husband, we actually did go through some turmoil after 2020 and we were not on the same page.
So that is part of what happened with the debt. So now we started going to church or we're going to counseling, and there is major potential in the business.

But we also have in our home, we do have, I don't know after closing costs and things like that, but we have some equity in our house. We owe $400,000, and we could potentially sell it for $650 to $750.
So the question is, do we look into selling the house and getting the debt off of our shoulders and then growing the business? Or do we grow the business and try to pay off the debt while staying in our home? I would do the latter. I wouldn't sacrifice the house for this because to a degree, the business is still a dream, right? You don't have multiple years of it absolutely killing it, right? I know it has potential, but I would not sell my house on potential, no.
Give me some numbers around the business. Like, what kind of business is it and where are you guys at in it? Okay, so it is a wellness center and med spa all in one and the biz bills the business bills including paying ourselves is 17,000 and we make on average about 20.
Okay is that is this your only stream of income when you're paying yourself out of the business or do. Or do you guys have other jobs? This is it.
Like you both are full-time in this. We both are full-time in this, yes.
Okay. So it's making $3,000 a month net.
Is that what you're telling me? Yes. Okay.
And that's if something doesn't come up unexpected in the business. Sure.
So what are you seeing in the business that's causing you to think there's going to be this upward trajectory versus it just continuing to be this and you make three grand a month? Uh, like I said earlier, my husband and I, we were not working together on, on the business. So I, um, I was doing it by myself, um, for the first three years.
And just recently, for a year, we've been working together. But we, like I said, started going to church and counseling.
And now, as of now, we are on the same page. We're actually fasting right now for it.
So we're looking for answers as far as if we work together and we kill it in the business. Okay, yeah.
So I hear all of that. So not to, I don't mean to keep being devil's advocate here because everything you've just laid out is incredible.
I mean, I think from a spiritual perspective that you guys are united in that. You're working on your marriage with a professional.
I mean, like you're doing so many incredible things. So is your thought process, because we are becoming more of a united team within our marriage, how is that going to correlate to bringing in more business? Just, just because you guys, just because you guys are just a great team.
Is that what you're thinking? Like we're just in a healthier spot. So it's going to show up in the business.
Yes. Okay.
Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. So I...
Please don't do that. I would...
Yeah. I'm going to need more evidence, business evidence, not relational evidence, that this business is really taking off because my hope is that it will, but I think you need to see numbers Jessica first and foremost um in order to to make this proclamation that like yes it's incredible right so um giving it another you know 12 months because you guys how much you guys making a year off of it how much are you paying yourselves like how much will you make this year we we are paying ourselves and with those numbers that we paint ourselves the um six thousand six thousand total a month i'm sorry a month a month between the both of you total or each individually six thousand between the both of us total okay your bills are How are you paying your bills? How are you guys eating?

So that the what we're paying ourselves with what we're paying ourselves like we're just barely barely barely getting at home okay yeah okay so what i would do i'm trying if i woke up in your shoes um and you have this belief because you've put so much sweat equity into this business and like you said, like, okay,

relationally, like we're killing it and I think it's going to help in the business,

like give it a try.

Like I think continuing to try, but you guys have to make more money and it's not going

to come from the business because you're only pocketing three grand a month.

I mean, like, you know, from a net standpoint, you're only netting three grand a month.

And so you're barely above water in this. And so you guys are going to have to find other streams of income.
You're gonna have to get another job until this, until this business, yes, um, surpasses. And then you guys can go full time back into it, uh, where that's your only job.
But you guys, I mean, I would not recommend, um, living on that tight of a tight rope, right? You're walking walking a tightrope basically financially. So if I were you, I think I would feel more comfortable, yeah, having a completely another stream of income.
And maybe that's him going and, you know, getting another, I mean, I know you want to work together in the business, but I don't know if you guys can afford that right now. Yeah.
And so, yeah, so I would. I would.
And again, my prayer is that this does take off completely. And it might.
I mean, yeah, I mean, Medspot's in LA. It's great.
I mean, a great market for it. I mean, it really is.
So like, I really pray that it does. And then I pray that it's killing it.
And you're like, oh my gosh, husband, I need you back here because I am overwhelmed with work. There is so much, you know, so much happening.
I need you back and you're going to make more. You know what I mean? Like when it starts making sense for both of you to be there, that's what I would do.
And then I would not. Oh, you're saying for him to get another job? Yeah.
For him to get another job? I would, yes. I need to do that also? Do what? Would I need to do that also? Like a per diem? I'm a registered nurse, so would I do that also? I would to start to do that also like a per diem i'm a registered nurse so

would i do that also i would just start knocking out some of this debt yes yeah okay and then in

the meantime so is it pretty much doing financial university again and then because what do we do

with the people who are calling right now the the debtors are you guys starting to call with

Are you guys behind on bills?

Yeah.

So remember we said that, um,

Thank you. now, the debtors.
Are you guys behind on bills? Yeah. So remember we said that, oh, so the numbers that I was giving you was without what we owe the credit cards.
So monthly, we owe $10,000 in credit cards. And that's not getting paid? No.
for the past couple of months we stopped.

Oh God, sister.

Yeah, lead with that next time.

You got to close your med spa.

You can't afford it.

You got to go get, be a full-time nurse and then work all nights and weekends too.

Yeah, you're about to get sued

and they're about to start collecting on you.

You owe $10,000 a month.

How much credit card debt do you own?

Do you owe?

That number at the beginning we said was...

$250,000?

Yes.

Yeah, y'all are in a bid.

This is not a time to be starting a business

that nets a profit of $36,000 a year.

Y'all need to go make a whole bunch of money right now.

And I guess the good news for you is you've got a golden ticket in your pocket, which is you're a registered nurse. Yeah.
You go work all you want and make a bunch of money. Yeah.
I mean, you guys can't, you can't afford your bills right now. And that's, that's the, that's the reality.
And I'm so sorry that that's what it's come down to. But I mean, you, you can't get behind on these credit cards that you already have for another couple of months.
So yeah, you're right. Yeah, both of you have to get full time jobs outside the med spa.
And then maybe this dream can come back into fruition down down the road. But it can't it's not a reality today.
You can't do it. I'm so sorry.
Welcome back to the Ramsey show. When it comes to getting your money in order for the new year, there's really one foundational place principle that you have to have when it comes to getting control of your money, and that is a budget.
And so when it comes to budgeting, when it comes to getting control of your money and that is a budget and so when it comes to budgeting when it comes to everything else of getting yourself in control of your money we're going to talk about all of that on our live stream on January 23rd it is a free live stream called take control of your money it's hosted by Dave Ramsey and Jade Warshaw and it's this idea of paycheck to paycheck living is so such a reality for so many people. And to break that cycle to do something different, there are elements of budgeting, there's elements of getting out of debt, there's elements of looking towards the future and how you're going to build wealth.
I mean, all of this is so, so key when it comes to winning with money. And so this live stream is for you.
And George Campbell and myself, we're going to be joining the live stream a little bit into it and we're gonna do some live Q&A. And so you'll be able to ask your questions and we can answer them right there.
And when you sign up, you'll be entered to win our cash giveaway. So we're giving five people $4,000 each.
So make sure you sign up at ramseysolutions.com slash live stream or click the link in the description if you're listening on podcast or watching on YouTube. Again, that is January 23rd.
It's our free live stream for the new year, kicking it off. And it's all about taking control of your money.
All right, let's go to the phones and go to Catherine in Bellevue, Washington. Hey, Catherine, and welcome to the show.
Hi, thank you for taking my call. Yes, absolutely.
How can we help? I am looking for a little advice on building my retirement starting at 42 years old. All right, so great.
Okay, what are your questions around it? Basically, I just don't really know where to begin. There's so much information out there and where to get started.
And I don't have any support at work as far as 401ks or Roth IRAs or anything like that. Okay.
So your company does not offer a 401k? Correct. Correct.
Okay. So really, yeah, the two, the two best streams, do you own the business or you, you're an employee? I'm an employee.
I'm a nanny and a house manager for Celebrity up here. Oh, okay.
That's great. Yeah.
Okay. And how much are you making a year?

$170.

$170.

Okay.

Yeah.

So for you, are you like a 10, why am I blanking?

A $10.99? $10.99.

$10.99.

Thank you.

I collect a W-2 every year.

Okay.

Okay.

So yeah.

Do you have an LLC?

Like, would you apply for a SEP?

Or is this just, you're just a W-2 employee going right into your...

Thank you. the w-2 every year okay okay so yeah do you have an llc like would you apply for a sap or is this just you're just a w-2 employee going right into your i'm a w-2 employee yeah it's a massive uh they have a pretty massive network so i'm one of probably 300 employees okay okay okay yeah i was gonna say because if you were able to um yep get around that in any way you could do like a yeah a self-funded um 401k or something for self-employed but i don't think that would work with the w-2 does your employer offer 401 no okay so katherine if i were you i would yeah i would do the roth ira um you do yeah because i think it's 121 000 this year or i'm not sure in 2025 uh If you make above that, you're going to have to do what's called a backdoor Roth IRA.
And so if you make above that income limit, which you do, you're going to have to, yeah, just do what's called a backdoor Roth. And if you sit down with a SmartVestor Pro, we can get you connected to one, or at least look at options in your area after this call.
But what you'll do is basically open up a traditional Roth and through all their fancy signages and all the things you kind of basically sign back over and you just basically turn it right into a Roth right there at that sitting. It just takes some signatures and it's completely legal, but it's just called the backdoor Roth IRA.
So that's an option that you can do. You can put up to $7,000 in that.
And then above that, I mean, from a tax perspective, there's not a ton you could do. I mean, I would be investing.
And so looking into just some good growth stock mutual funds and putting some money away. And so here's the key is 15% of your income is what you want to be investing.
And so once you max out that Roth, and then I would look above that and say, okay, what's left of that 15%? And then I probably would, I would get, you know, you can do even an index fund or just a mutual fund. But when you sit down with a SmartVestor Pro, they can really help you with that because the tax advantage is not great.
You will pay taxes when you take that money out at retirement, which the Roth you won't, you'll be paying taxes before that. And so that's, yeah, that's kind of the sucky part of it.
But I don't, I mean, I don't know any other great option when it comes to that. That's what I would do though.
But I would continue to invest that 15%. And do you have any debt? I don't have any debt.
Okay that's great. Yeah so our formula just so you know Catherine kind of what we say is match beats Roth beats traditional so you always want to start with the match of like a 401k you don't have that so that means you'll just jump over to the Roth max out the Roth and then anything else you'll just go to any type of like kind of traditional accounts but there's not really great in the retirement lane for you that I can think of.
But again, I would sit down with a smart investor pro and look at all of your options. But if I were you, I mean, even, do you have a HSA? No, I don't.
Okay. Any health insurance at all? I do have health insurance.
Yes. I just don't have the savings account with it.
Okay. Yeah.
okay yeah because that's another option you could put some money and let that grow and cash flow some medical expenses that would be another avenue but yeah okay yeah that's that's what I would do if I were you the combination of those two things the backdoor Roth and the 15 percent will get me to the finish line in retirement. Yeah, absolutely.
It should. Again, I want you to run your numbers.
I don't have a computer right here. 42? I'm 42.
How long do you think you're going to make $170,000? There's lots of money to be made up here. So as long as I'm healthy and strong, I can do it.
And you're single, Catherine, did you say? Yes. Okay, perfect.
Yeah, if you go to RamseySolutions.com and just Google Ramsey Solutions investment calculator and put that in, put in your numbers, it's actually very encouraging. Compound interest will shock you more.
I'll do it for you right now. What's your name right now? I mean, I'm sorry, what's your age right now? 42.
42. 42.
All right. Let's pretend you worked until 67.
How much do you have in investments right now? Nothing. I'm starting at zero right now.
Starting at zero. Okay.
So what's, Rachel, what is 15%? Yeah, you'll get about 30. About 30? A year you put away? Yeah.
Okay. So if you put away $30,000 and your annual return let's just say 10% put zero at that red oh yeah yeah yeah alright so I'm doing this for you with the Ramsey investment calculator good gosh if you put away is that right $30,000 between now and 67 and your annual return is about 10% it may be well I well, I guess 30 would be on 200,000, so put, sorry,

put 25 to be conservative.

I'll put 20 just for fun.

You'll have,

if you'll put $20,000 a year and you make

10% return on that from 42.

Is that monthly? Oh, monthly, yeah.

I was like, oh my

gosh, we're all going to be.

Yeah, you'll have $2. half million dollars oh wow okay yeah so that's that's if you put and that's pretty conservative that's very conservative you put two thousand dollars a month in retirement okay and you put that away and making 170 with no debt you can put more than that and if you feel comfortable doing a little catch-up we're okay with too.
I would be a little bit paranoid being 42 with nothing, right? So I'd want to see that quicker. So I might, if I have no bills and no expenses and I'm 170 plus a house manager, which means some of my meals might get covered.
That means some of my bills might get covered. I might take that money and roll it over.
But hopefully you hear the main thing here is intentionality with every penny you got. Yeah, for sure.
And Catherine, I would really encourage you to sit down with a SmartVestor Pro. I do this once a year, my husband and I do, to look at retirement, run these numbers.
And again, I give them so much credit because I swear every time we go, there's some new thing that they're like teaching me. And they're like, oh yeah, this with this tax, you know, thing here.
And you can do this with your giving. I mean, they're just, they, they, they live and breathe this stuff and they can be so, so helpful and just give you the confidence to know, okay, this is my plan.
It doesn't have to be too complicated. It actually, you know, I can kind of set something up and I'm going to be great.
So you're doing great, Catherine. You've done an excellent job up until now.
So that's awesome. If you stay on the line, Catherine, I'll have Christian pick

up and just make sure you get that website to our SmartVestor pros and interview a couple there in that Seattle area and find one that you trust and that you love and start investing. Excited for Catherine.
This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show.
Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. We're taking a call now from our Ramsey Network app.
And this question comes from Cassie. All right, let's hear from Cassie.
I was listening to an older episode recently and it sparked a question. The caller was a young man with a family well on the journey to financial freedom.
The host congratulated him for doing so well and encouraged him to stay the course and he said he couldn't wait to plan a wonderful vacation in the future. Shouldn't there be some room for fun and joyful living while on the journey? Seems like most of your callers are so focused on the goal, they forget to have fun.
Oh, Cassie. Well.
Actually, Ramsey in Latin means fun ruiner. We hate fun around here.
We don't want you to have any fun. So I think it would be your definition of fun.
I've just become such a huge fan ofthur brooks recently i keep the best he's just the best and he talks about like in the latter part of your life the second half of your life the people that really do have the most joy is when their wants become smaller and smaller that it's actually it's not like what what what's my next thing to get it's actually oh yeah i just don't need as much as i thought i did like the joy joy in that. So what I would say, Cassie, is like during a time of sacrifice, of getting out of debt, it's not forever.
On average, 18 to 24 months could be longer, right? Three years of your life. Maybe your joy and what you consider fun looks different.
In America today, fun is getting a new car, going on a trip. Like, you know what I mean? Like there's a level of fun that I think we all are just like,, oh yeah, fun, fun, fun.
But what if fun is different? What if fun is having friends over, which we're doing tomorrow night on a Friday night, order some pizzas, game nights, kids watch a movie after, have adults hang out and you're at a house, you're not paying 100 plus at a restaurant to take everyone out. You just, you switch things up.
So I don't think it's not about- Instead of paying for a big wife and i when we were like we'd go for long long hikes yeah and we had hard conversations and we had fun conversations and we laughed a lot yeah and so yeah it just looks different i think i think cassie here underneath this question what it sounds like is hey it looks like getting out of debt when you go scorched is really hard. And the answer to that is yes.
And we will all tell you, yeah, if you owe a bank, if a bank is running your marriage and a bank is running your life and a car dealership is running your work life because you have an abusive boss, but you can't quit because you already have that card that you promised the car company you'd'd pay back that i don't care how much like um little sparkly vacations you're going on you're not having fun your body is in fight or flight it's trying to survive and so yes for two years for three years sometimes jade's case seven years right yeah right right yes it is scorched earth the goal is um to get to safety. Then you get to safety, man.
Yeah, of course. I don't know.
I mean, I don't know that you'll find a group of people that have more fun than we do. We're pretty off the rails.
And fun looks different for everybody. I'm in the woods.
Y'all are going on trips. Jade, I mean, everybody's doing stuff.
George is wiping his dog's butt because that's what George does. But like we are all, Dave's in Kabul, right? Like we're all over the place having so much fun.
But our fun's not having us. That's right.
When you have the fun, that's, yeah, being all loans, right? And owed by, you know, all these banks and stuff. Yeah, to John.
I think that's a great point, John. That's not fun.
It's not fun. And again, I want to expand our viewpoint of fun.
I just think we get such in this rat in a wheel. New purse.
I don't know. It's all this stuff that we're like, ooh, that's fun.
That's fun. I'm like, is it really though? Yeah.
Is it really? Is it really life-giving? Because the life-giving stuff probably isn't going to cost you a ton. And we know that the research says that no.
There's only so many purses you can have. That's right.
Now, except for guitars and really fancy hunting rifles, adding those do bring extra joy to your life. So much joy.
And that's just science. Just hashtag science.
It's in the brain. It's in the brain.
Let's go out to Indianapolis and talk to Sarah with an H. What's up, Sarah? Hey, Sarah.
Yes, hello. How are you guys doing? We're doing all right.
How about you? Okay, now, until 48 hours ago, I felt okay about my situation. Then I started watching your program on YouTube, and now I'm kind of freaking out.
So I want to, like, get some feedback here. Okay, perfect.
Hold on, hold on. Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, will you do me a huge favor? Excuse me? Do me a huge favor.
Take a humongous deep breath as deep as you can. Okay.
Hold it. Okay.
Five, four, three, two, let it out. Okay.
All right. We're on your team.
We're on your team. All right.
What's keeping you up at night? Okay. Now, I've been in a difficult marriage since day one.
Okay. And in 2012, I filed for divorce.
And then to get a peaceful divorce without really any problems, I had to give up maybe everything.

All I got was a car, $10,000, and child support.

I had to give up everything else.

My father helped me, and I was able to get a house.

And everything moved on okay.

But under pressure, we kind of got back together.

Thank you. I was able to get a house and everything moved on okay.
But under pressure, we kind of got back together. We stayed together for like maybe four years or so.
Things were going okay. So we decided to get married.
Remarried. During that period, excuse me? Remarried? Are you talking about your ex? Or a different guy?

No, not a different guy. The same guy.
Same guy. You got remarried.

In what, 2019?

Okay, around 2019.

2018, 2019.

And then during that time

my husband was paying the bills

on his house because he did not sell his house

and I was paying all the bills

on this house I'm living in.

Now, when he sold his house

Thank you. So my husband was paying the bills on his house because he did not sell his house.
And I was paying all the bills on this house I'm living in. Now, when he sold his house, he started paying the bills on this house.
Now, after we got married, things got worse again. And it's not working out.
So I'm going to file for divorce again. And my kids now graduated.
They have their own lives lives so I feel it's going to be easier to get a divorce the same thing here he says if you go to court I'm going to fight you over the house because it's in my name and I'm going to make everything difficult so I decided guess what let's just get a divorce I don't want anything from you and I I'll just keep my stuff. I forgot to say something.
When we got back together, our finances stayed separate. We no longer have the same bank account or anything.
We're totally separate. But what house is he going to fight you over? The one that you and your father purchased together? Yes.
Why is his name on that home? No, his name is not on the home. Okay, what's your what's your question we're coming up against the clock what's your question now now my question is now my plan was now i'm going to keep the house okay uh and i have a hundred thousand dollars in the bank okay so i had it in a cd but i got some advice from the bank and they said you can invest it in the market and it can get you like money and stuff.
So I was wondering whether I will be able to kind of be independent on my own because he's the one who brings most of the money, not me. Yes.
If you get divorced, you have $100,000. And so I won't get into the investment side of it.
You have $100,000. If you get divorced, the first thing you need to do is to create your own checking account and your own budget.
I do. And ask, where is money coming from that I'm going to use to survive, pay my bills? Do you have a job? Yes.
I'm a teacher.

I have a master's degree.

I'm a teacher.

Amazing.

Amazing.

My wife's a lifelong teacher.

Amazing.

So what you're going to have to do is to create a world where that, what you make as a teacher,

funds your life, pays your house note, whatever your remaining mortgage is, pays your light bill, your electric bill, your food, and any travel you're going to see to go see your grandkids whenever your kids have babies. And the $100,000 should be invested, and I want you to get with the Smart Investor Pro.
If you hang on the line, we'll get you connected there, okay? Should I cut on everything as long as I have a mortgage, or can I spend money, for example, go get my hair done, get my... It's going to all depend on you sitting down and doing a budget.
Yeah, so Sarah, what I would live off of, I would keep this $100,000. I would take some of it out of the market for an emergency fund.
I would get six months of your, well, four-ish months of your expenses. So you have to do a budget, what John's saying, and you have to say, okay, here's how much food costs, here's how much my mortgage is, here's how much the lights are going to be.
Here is everything that I spend money on month this is how long this is how much it's going to take me to live and you have to make sure that the salary you make that your income every month can cover those bills and ideally that you have margin and you're not living right up to that paycheck and so having that margin is going to be really key and so that that's going to be step one and then from there there, I would multiply that by four, whatever that number is,

take some of that cash from that $100,000,

put it in a high-yield savings account for an emergency fund,

and then start thinking about investing above that.

Hang on the line here.

So we'll get you hooked up with a SmartVestor Pro.

And actually, we're going to pay for you to have one session with one of our financial coaches,

and they'll walk you through the budgeting part of this.

Hang on the line.

We'll get you taken care of. hey what's up guys episode two of 90 day money makeover is available right now on youtube this series follows real people as they take on the challenge of transforming their finances and their lives in just 90 days.
In this episode, watch as they face new obstacles, celebrate wins, and push forward on their journey. And of course, I'll be walking alongside them every step of the way.
Okay, now here's a little sneak peek of what the new episode is all about. Me and Dara, back in November, have a new son, a baby boy.

We have $87,000 in debt.

I've been in debt since I was like 18 years old.

I gave birth to him.

I knew.

I said, I cannot leave him with someone that I don't know.

I don't care if we're eating rice and beans, Sean, I told him.

There was no going back.

When you guys called into the Ramsey show, it was like, I think that we should push them harder. Baby Jonathan being born is a wake up call for us to finally change.
I can't go on another month. Wake up call.
You know, for the next 20 years, this is important. We've got to get this right.
You want to pay off your debt. You want to get your time back.

You want to get your home.

Nothing usurps those three.