Stuck in a Financial Pit? Here’s How to Climb Out and Stay Out

Welcome to the Ramsey Show, where we help you win in your life.

We're going to help you win with your money, win at work, in your work, and win with your relationships.

All three of those are coming together, and hopefully, you're winning.

I'm Ken Coleman.

Jade Warshaw is the voice

and the fabulous face that you see next to me.

And we are here together.

We're going to help you out.

Take your phone calls.

888-825-5225.

888-825-5225.

Partner, you ready to go?

You warmed up?

Did you see that?

I warmed up.

Salt cleanse on the throat or any kind of loss.

Stretch the hammies.

Okay.

Warmed up the voice.

Okay, I like you stretch your hammies for sitting here for three hours.

That's pretty good.

We're going to start it off in Springfield, Missouri with with Isaac today.

Isaac, how can we help?

Hey, guys.

So I'm 26.

I'm married with two kids, and I own a business that we just opened back in June.

It's really taking a lot of time from us.

My wife and I are both working at it full-time, and we're not making much money yet.

And so we're just kind of stressed about bills and stuff.

We're kind of wondering how we can organize our lives better to be able to make more money and move forward okay what kind of business is it

so it's a it's a franchise that a friend of mine and i bought into and it's a cookie store

and it sounds like we got a myriad of issues so i heard we got to organize but then we've got to figure out if this franchise can actually work so which is the bigger problem spending or budgeting the money the little bit money you're making are you making any money at all what's the bigger problem here because i heard several things

So I guess to get more specific, so we have that business.

I'm also a realtor on the side.

And so any extra time I have, I'm spending on that trying to sell houses and stuff.

I'm new at that too just a few months ago.

So I'm just barely starting to make money.

The business itself,

the cookie shop, isn't making really anything.

We're just barely breaking even.

And then we're just doing all kinds of little side hustles where we can.

DoorDash and Uber Eats and delivering for Walmart and stuff like that.

so let me ask this whole yeah I got an idea now what we're talking about so is it you

your buddy that you mentioned

they are the you're the two partners and your wife is also helping out just to because you can't afford to pay anybody give us just a little bit more clarity on that

yeah so we um

we did stuff the stupid way because we hadn't found Dave Ramsey yet and so a friend of mine he he's just a silent capital partner he put in money up front and helped us get into it.

They have a big loan on it.

How much?

It's a quarter million.

Ooh, mama.

And you owe 125 of that?

Yeah, so I owe, yeah, 70% of it, yeah.

Oh, no, well, that ain't 125.

Last time I did that.

Okay, so you owe 70% of it.

And the rest you owe to?

I'm the 70% partner.

Oof, and you guys aren't making anything.

You're barely making it, keeping the business going.

It's just barely making it.

Do you know why?

Do you know the problem?

Yeah.

Have you figured out what the problem is?

Well, kind of.

We think we do.

So

our sales were really, really good when we opened in the summer, and we would have made money, but we didn't have our expenses under control.

Once we got our expenses under control, we cut payroll costs really down.

We got control of our inventory costs, stuff like that.

We're doing a lot better on the expenses side.

But our sales went down till we hit the winter.

Part of that is because our marketing budget was kind of gone, so we weren't making as much because we just our marketing was suffering.

Did you expect that?

Did you expect that it would get slower during the winter considering, you know, it's the winter and folks aren't just out?

Yeah, and in Missouri, the winters are pretty brutal and cold.

So yeah.

Okay, so you expected this, but it was too early to have had any reserves kind of piled up is what you're saying.

Right.

Yeah.

So we're, yeah, we're just barely making it.

But yeah, my capital partner, he's out in a different state.

My wife and I are here and we're operating the business.

How many hours are you working, the two of you, on this cookie?

So

we've been able to bring our sales up just a little bit.

So we've been able to hire one more part-time person.

But my wife and I are both are each putting in about 25 to 30 hours a week.

All right.

So what I'm trying to figure out, Jade, is they got to make money.

You got to go out and get business.

You're a cookie maker.

I'm trying, if I'm you, and this is just me, I'm brainstorming ways they can make money.

If I'm you, I'm trying to host every party, every wedding, every, I want to cater every event with dessert.

I'm going to companies and saying, what can I do?

Because you've got to make money.

Otherwise, this is not going to do well for you.

And I want to know if my competitors are making money because if they're making money and I'm not, then I do know that I'm doing something.

not only doing something wrong, but I'm not taking advantage of every opportunity that's out there for my business.

Yeah.

Well, and I guess there's kind of another part, and that's just I'm really worried because I totally get what you're saying, and that's where my head is too.

It's like, I need to, we need to get our sales up, we need to get our sales up.

That's all we talk about with the business.

And so I'm trying to reach out and get catering orders and stuff.

But then we're worried because the more time we dedicate to that, and it's not a sure thing that money will, you know, the sales will go up.

That takes away time where we're doing like door dashing and stuff and we're trying to pay the bills on the personal side.

And so that's kind of where we're stretching.

Yeah, that's where I'm coming in.

I don't know.

I'm going to tell you something.

I'm going to do what we always do here, and I'm going to answer this the way.

Gokin style.

So I don't know what you're going to say, and I'm anxious to see what my partner says here on this.

But if I were you,

I got to take care of my family first.

I'm not worried about the cookie business.

I'm really not because I hear it in his voice, and I think there's a greater reality here.

And I'm going to try to keep the cookie thing afloat with other part-time people.

This is already a slow season.

You and your wife have got to be spending time actually making real money, taking care of the family.

And I'm not sure that there's a future on this cookie deal.

And I'm the kind of guy that go, I don't want to prolong misery.

I want to cut bait.

At some point, I'm not saying it's now.

I'm not willing to say that because I don't know enough.

We have limited time, Jade.

But I do think the most important thing is, is that one of them has got a full-time, decent paying job that will at least take care of the family.

So again, this is ideal.

What would I do?

I'd go,

either Ken or Stacey has got a full-time job that takes care of our expenses so that our family doesn't go below water.

And then we fight to keep the cookie thing alive

until...

We can apply some lessons and hopefully get more foot traffic.

What do you think?

I 100% agree.

One of you needs to be working full-time

and find a full-time job instead of doing all these odds and ends.

I think that's also part of the equation here is you guys are burning the candle at both ends in many different ways.

Yeah, I'm curious to know.

I know you told us the actual debt.

I'm curious to know what you're burning every single month.

Like, what are you losing?

What are you losing every month?

Because you said you're not making money.

So we were losing money.

We've gotten to a point where we're either just breaking even or making about $1,000 or less.

And when you say break even, does that include you guys paying yourself or that's just you keeping things on and keeping things going okay yeah and then my next question before the next question i'd have before making this decision is have you ever run a successful business before or is this your first go around

uh being an entrepreneur so

So as a brick and mortar business, this is my first attempt at all.

I've done other like side hustles and stuff, like helped with marketing for other businesses, helped with bookkeeping for other businesses.

Yeah, I think this is going to be different for you.

And I think for me, there's going to be a moment, like Ken said, where you're going to have to cut ties with this because if you're not making money, you're losing money.

I'd give it a run, but one of you's got to go make a really good living and not all this DoorDashing and scrapping.

Let's get some comfort.

See if we can give this thing a run, or is it worth it?

At this point, just go, all right, I'm going to take my 70% that I owe.

I'm going to pay it back.

I'm going to learn something.

This is the Ramsey Show.

Welcome back to The Ramsey Show, where we coach you to win with your money, win in your work, and win in your relationships alongside Jade Warshaw.

I'm Ken Coleman.

Jade, are you fired up?

You're ready to go?

You got your talk ready for January 23rd.

I'm talking about the Take Control of Your Money live stream.

Let's get ready to

face out on the gigantic Jumbotron as I was walking to lunch yesterday.

I was like, hello, Jade.

It was too much.

But going to be a lot of fun.

Dave Ramsey and you.

That's right.

Are going to be teaching people how to stop living paycheck to paycheck so they can pay off debt and finally get ahead.

Also, I'm told, Rachel Cruz and George Camill will be joining for a Q ⁇ A, a little cameo.

Well, factoids.

Yes, they'll be.

So when you sign up, here's an extra little potential bonus.

You will be entered in our cash giveaway.

Five people are going to win $4,000 each at the Take Control of Your Money live stream.

That's this January 23rd.

You can sign up.

It's free, by the way.

Yes.

You can sign up for the live stream at ramseysolutions.com slash live stream.

That's ramseysolutions.com/slash live stream.

Can I put you on the spot for a little preview?

What can you tell us?

What will you tell us?

I will tell you that your money is the most expensive thing that you have, and yet most of us treat it without care.

We don't know where it went.

We just kind of guess about it.

And here's the thing: Ken, if I bought you.

Oh, I'm very excited.

What's your favorite luxury brand?

Well, Gucci category?

Yeah.

Can you give me a fashion?

Give me fashion.

Oh, Ralph, right?

All right.

If I bought you a brand new Ralph Lauren trench coat, like a really nice one,

you would treat it with care.

It'd be on a hanger.

You'd have to dry clean regularly.

You want to keep those nice.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm with you.

But you wouldn't get home, ball it up, throw it in the corner, step on it, wonder where it's at.

Wouldn't do yard work in it.

Wouldn't do yard work in it.

If I I said, Ken, where's your coat?

You'd know exactly where it's at.

I'd wear it in with a little bit of pride.

Meanwhile, most of us with our money, we're like, I don't know where it went.

Some of it's in my wallet.

Some of it's over here.

I don't know what I spent.

And it's so expensive.

We spend our time, our effort, our sanity, our sleep.

We spend so much to get it.

And then we just treat it like, I don't know where it went.

And so I'll be talking a little bit about that.

I like that.

Great metaphor.

That's going to put people in

a good place of tension.

Yeah.

The way you just set that up, a lot of people are like, ouch, I'm treating my purse, my shoes, my fill-in-the-blank better than I am my greatest resource, my money.

Not realizing it.

It's going to be fun.

All right.

Let's get back to the phones.

Melissa joins us now in Orlando, Florida.

Melissa, how can we help today?

Hi, guys.

Thank you so much for taking my call.

I am pretty new to the Ramsey Show.

I just started listening maybe about like a month or so ago.

So I'm still learning.

And I definitely want to change my relationship with money.

But I'm calling because I took out a loan back in, it was the end of 2019 to consolidate my credit card debt.

And I was paying it.

I was able to afford the payments.

And then the pandemic started.

So I ended up getting furloughed from my job.

And I also moved to a different state.

in 2021 and it was just a lot for me and I just couldn't afford the payments.

So I kind kind of just stopped, stopped paying, and I guess like I thought it like disappeared somehow.

I don't know.

But

I never really got anything.

Speaking of the example you just gave, she did not know where it was.

You were

a wish.

Maybe it just evaporated.

Yes, there was a lot going on during that time.

But

so I did, I remember seeing a couple emails from the company telling me to give them a call to like get back on track

and

again

didn't answer those emails, which I wish I did.

But

a few years later, now we're in 2025, but I did get an email from a company saying that they sold off my loan to a debt consolidator.

And they basically were giving me very little options as far as like paying it off.

I was trying to go.

It's for a little over $8,000.

Okay.

And what are they saying to you?

So they offered to pay it in full by end of December, which I couldn't do.

And then they also offered 90 days to pay it in full.

But they keep going back to paying it in full.

And I told them, you know, I have like medical bills and stuff that I'm trying to take care of.

So this is what I can afford.

And there's just a lot of back and forth.

And I just don't want to delay it because I just don't want any any legal issues or anything.

And then just some backstory.

I am currently, I live at home with my parents.

I'm a single mom.

Okay.

And I am planning on moving out this year.

So this whole thing just feels like such a setback for me.

Okay.

So it's a little discouraging.

Well, don't look at it as a...

Let's change our thought here because if your goal is to move out, don't think of this as a setback.

This is just something that's going to, when you deal with it, it's going to get you on a firmer foundation so that when you move out, you're in a great position.

So, this is like you cleaning house, right?

And you know, that feeling that you get after you clean everything out up.

It's like, okay, everything's in its place.

Everything's where it's belong.

It belongs.

I might be tired, but I feel good, right?

You've accomplished something.

Yeah.

So let's talk about your debt snowball because you said you've got some medical bills.

Are you listing them from smallest to largest?

Like logically, what debt comes next?

So I actually just paid off my two smallest credit cards because I started that process.

Good.

So my largest would be my car.

I have a few years left on that.

And then right now, my smallest credit card balance is probably like $400.

And what's your income?

Right now, a grocer net.

What do you bring home?

So every month, how much money do you bring home?

Each month, I bring home $3,800, but I also do get some child support as well.

How much is that?

That is

$800 a month.

Okay.

What are your actual expenses?

Like, what do you, like, you're living with mom and dad?

I know.

That's what I'm wondering.

What's your bottom line?

Like, you could make it if you only had this much coming in.

So I,

my biggest payment is my car.

Another setback was last year when I had my baby, I went on an unpaid maternity leave.

So I went about three months with no income.

So I had that I still had like the whole point of me moving home was to pay off my debt, which is also $8,000.

So I'm jumping in only because we have limited time with you, and I want Jay to be able to get to this.

So what is that minimum number that you need to just survive?

Because you don't have housing.

What's giving you a ballpark?

Is it $1,800, $2,000, $1,500?

What is it that you have to have?

I would say

for the month.

Yeah.

I would say about maybe

because with my minimums and my car, I would say maybe about like two, three thousand.

Well, I think we've just discovered the issue.

I think Ken just discovered it, which is you don't have a budget because people who have a budget know their numbers.

And I'm not saying that to be, you know, ugly in any way, but we've just discovered, I think if you have the budget, which we'll set you up with before you get off the call, you're going to be able to see, okay, here's what my life costs.

And here's how much margin I have after I I pay for everything that my life costs.

Um, right.

So, for you, you're in

a wonderful situation in the fact that you're not paying for housing, and you've got to capitalize on that to the fullest extent while you're there, okay?

Um, and you're going to be able to do that with the budget.

Um,

you're going to be able to say, Okay, here's the truth: I make I have $4,600 every single month.

How much is your car payment?

Um, it's $570,000.

And how much is the total amount that you owe?

I have about $21,000 left.

And what's it worth?

Do you know?

I don't know, actually.

Okay.

I'd be curious to know how much that's worth.

If you want to get out of this really, really fast, it might mean downsizing your car.

$570 is a lot of money to be paying when you're trying to

do things like save up to get out of your parents' house, pay off debt, take care of a one-year-old, that sort of thing.

So I'd be thinking about getting out of that car, but the budget is the number one thing.

And what you're going to to do is you're going to put your income at the top.

You're going to subtract everything that you think you might spend money on.

And then, Melissa, whatever is left goes to your smallest debts.

You should be moving very, you should be spending $3,000 a month on paying off debt.

I agree.

There's no reason why you're not.

You don't have a house.

You're about to not have a car payment.

Let's get going.

Hang on the line.

What are we going to give her?

We're going to help her out with it?

Yeah, let's give her every dollar premium and total money makeover.

I like it.

All right, you can do this, Melissa.

We're walking this through with you.

This is the Ramsey Show.

Welcome back to the Ramsey Show.

Here to help you win in your life.

We want you to win with your money, win in your professional life, and win with your relationships.

I'm Ken Coleman.

Jade Warshaw is alongside 888-825-5225 is the number.

West Palm Beach, Florida is where we go next.

Katie is there.

Katie, how can we help?

Yes, hello.

What a great opportunity.

I just want to say, and thank you guys for taking the call.

Sure, thank you.

I'm going through a divorce.

I

was married to somebody in the military.

He

brought me down to his hometown two weeks within arriving.

left me with nothing and because of jurisdiction I can't leave.

This town doesn't have a lot of work opportunities.

I've managed to kind of make it on my own without any family or friends here.

But

in my current situation, I will obviously want to get out.

I'm getting paid $13 an hour, and I'm living in an RV.

But I am very thankful for the blessings that have come my way.

But obviously,

I just want to see my way out.

My thing is, I want to go to school, and I don't want to get in debt, but I feel like that might have to be an option, and I just need, I guess, them.

Sure.

All right, let's start with two quick questions.

Number one, do you have kids?

Yes, I have two little ones.

How old?

Six and a four-year-old.

And nobody to watch them?

No, it's just been me.

So when,

because of Florida being 50-50, I

email, but I actually have the kids most of the time.

When does he

come?

When does your four-year-old go to kindergarten?

In the fall, or do you have another another year to wait?

He's in daycare, so yeah, this year he should be going to preschool.

Okay.

Okay, so you do have a daycare option.

Okay.

That's good.

Are you in no sense?

Yes.

And, you know, there's certain programs that help with that.

But right now,

I'm paying

the full tuition for both of my kids and not getting any assistance.

Okay.

And no child support.

All right.

So let's just try to get you some clarity.

Let's back out of the situation because this is tough, hard to see some things.

If

money were no object and I just gave you this degree or certification, whatever you're referring to and you're talking about schooling, and I just gave it to you today and you had that done, what would you be using the schooling for?

What is this

path direction you're thinking that you need schooling for?

Well,

I just,

it's not exactly what I want, but it's what he's

nursing.

No judgment.

So nursing.

That's what you've selected.

Yes.

Okay.

And

what would you make, have you done your research?

What would that allow you to start out at?

28, around 28.

28 an hour?

Okay.

Well, we've got a real challenge because you just literally have no money for the nursing program.

How much would the cheapest nursing program cost you?

From what I've seen,

and I mean the cheapest, because nobody cares what brand name is on the diploma.

We just need to.

Yeah, this is at the local community college.

I had the numbers, but it should have been more prepared.

That's okay.

I did look into it, and I have the numbers.

I just can't remember them, but it's absolutely the cheapest.

Okay.

Do you have a ballpark idea if you had to guess?

If you don't, that's okay.

I don't want to hold us up.

So we need to know that number.

Okay, so Katie, I'm talking like 14, it would be for an associate's 13,000, 13,840.

So 14.

So total with 14, that would allow you to become a nurse, 14 grand.

Okay.

All right, Jay, that at least gets us a target on the future.

The deadbeat dad thing, just real quick question, I'll get out of Jade's way so she can coach you on this, but

is there any legal recourse on this guy not paying you what he owes you?

So

I was able to get the military to pay me because he got out.

Right now, we're in a limbo with the court.

Okay, gotcha.

All right.

Okay.

Well, we got to get our income up.

We got to do better.

There's got to be a bridge, Jade, just on the income side.

There's got to be a bridge from where she's at, making $13 an hour now.

If we could get her to $20, $22, $24 an hour, I don't care what it is, Katie.

It's just you're you're doing something.

You don't have to have a degree to get that kind of money potentially.

Now, I know you're in a limited area.

So within reason, if we can get your income, is there a bridge or a second job, friends, old grandmas at the church you go to?

You've got to get really, really

innovative.

in thinking who can help with the kids when they're not in daycare so you can make more money to be able to cash flow this nursing program.

Help me understand the limited area.

Is it you're on base?

Is it

help me understand that

very very small town everybody knows everyone west palm you get a job you're west palm beach she's not in west palm where are you not i know south florida where are you

okeechobe okay okay listen i

i think there's more i i i have different questions to ask you because I'm thinking about how we can cut around your budget.

I thought I heard you say that you're paying tuition for a six-year-old.

Explain to me their daycare and after

the daycare.

I'm paying full daycare and aftercare for my kids for both because I don't

yes.

Is the six-year-old in daycare in kindergarten or is still in daycare?

He's in daycare.

The four-year-old's in daycare.

When does the six-year-old go to kindergarten?

I'm trying to figure out when your time and your money freeze up because daycare is super expensive.

Plus, there's the time aspect.

So I'm trying to figure out when they will be in school, you know, from eight to three and when you'll have that money freed up

The aftercare for my six-year-old is at the school

So because I get out around 430 and she gets out a lot earlier, so I don't have anybody to watch her because I've only been here I think a year all right I understand trying to get to know people.

Yeah, I'm just trying to understand when they both will go to kindergarten when will the four-year-old go to kindergarten

Should be this fall preschool oh you mean kindergarten yeah kindergarten.

Yeah.

Okay.

So that's going to be a huge, that's going to be a parting of the C's for you because you're going to get a lot more money back in your pocket and you're going to have built-in childcare for this portion of the day, which right now with a single mom, limited options,

we need to know when that's going to be.

So I think for you, that's going to open up a lot of opportunity.

In the meantime, I do think that there's other things you can do for $13 an hour.

For more than $13 an hour, I think you just need to expand your horizons, even if it's you finding work for home from home things, right?

I think the nurse idea is great and I want you to do that, but we've got bigger fish to fry in this moment.

And maybe just for the next 12 months until you can get your kids off to school, that knotline item is back out of your life.

You're starting to figure out what's going on with the child support and then you can start to devote money towards nursing.

So I think this is a dream deferred, not a dream denied by any means.

But I think the next 12 months is about you being in a survival mode and looking for work that you can do that's going to earn more money until you get to the position where you can get this degree.

Is that fair, Ken?

I agree.

Just from a logistics standpoint, Katie, because I'm trying to, I know you're overwhelmed.

Who would watch the kids?

And

when would you do the nursing program if you had the money today?

Somebody's got to watch the kids.

What's that?

Right.

And so I've been trying to plug myself into some churches, but it takes a while to build up friendship and trust.

So it's a work in progress.

Okay, so here's the thing.

You're doing the right thing.

Here's my point.

Jade's 100% right.

I want to see you get more income.

Let's solve the who can watch the kiddos while I'm making more money problem.

I think that's huge.

Let's get a budget.

Jade will help you out.

We'll give you every dollar or something along those lines.

Jade, you took, but I think real quick, let's get help for kiddos.

They know you're single mom.

They know you need a little help.

Let's get the finances completely under control.

Let's increase our income.

And once you're stable there, I think you can save up $11,000 to $12,000 faster than you think if you have better income and you got everything kind of under control.

You know where your money's going in and out.

I think that's the plan for me.

Please don't do the debt.

It's just going to put more stress on you.

I think it's worth waiting.

I agree wholeheartedly.

I would not go into debt.

No, it's just, and I get it.

This is the lure, by the way.

Well, she wants to, she's in a hot pot that's about to boil and she wants to jump out and jumping into debt is not the option.

Hang on the line, Katie.

We're going to take care of you.

Kelly, we'll get you hooked up with some great resources to kind of get control of the money.

And with that clarity comes confidence to move forward on the advice we've given you.

This is the Ramsey Show.

Welcome back to the Ramsey Show alongside Jade Warshaw.

I'm Ken Coleman.

Glad to have you with us as we coach you and others up to win with your money, win in your work, and win with your relationships.

Triple 8-825-5225 is the phone number.

Today's Ramsey Network app question is from Lewis.

We just finished paying off $100,000 in debt.

However, we have only $80,000 saved for retirement and have $15,000 saved for our teenager who will be going to college in three years.

I'm 50, my wife is 47.

Our annual household income is $175,000, and we only live on maybe half of that.

Should we not put money into our daughter's college fund at this point and just hope she can qualify for scholarships or cash flow college when we get there so that we can save more for retirement?

Any advice would be appreciated.

I like this question.

So I always like to set the tone for these sorts of questions by saying that there's no

requirement for a parent to pay for their child's education.

Like that truly is really a privilege for both.

A privilege for the parent if they can afford it and a privilege for the child if they receive it.

It doesn't make you a bad parent if you do not pay for your kid's college.

I know for me, my parents told me they were like, listen, there is no college fund.

You better be smart and good at sports, right?

And so the moral of the story here for you, Lewis, is as long as you're really communicating what the plan is.

And if the plan does not involve you giving them all the cash that they need for all four years or whatever it is, maybe they they go to a technical college, maybe they go to whatever they decide.

If you're not paying for the whole thing, what you do need to be saying is, and here's how we are paying for it.

You're going to get these scholarships or you're going to work part-time and have it thought through and talk to them about what that plan is, as opposed to leaving them hanging or

putting any room for them to think that student loans are an option.

And so in this case, I think it's up to you and your wife if you go, hey, this is, because you're going to retire.

Like that day is going to come and you're going to need the cash to be ready for it.

So there is an inevitability, an inevitability there that you can't get around.

And if you've sat with your smart investor and you've realized, hey, if we don't get on the ball with this, we're not going to have the money we need for when we stop working.

Then yeah, that is a reality that you have to face and say, okay, kids, this is all you get or you don't get any.

And here's what we're going to do instead.

And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

I know people who can't afford to pay for their kids' college and choose not to because they want their children to have skin in the game and they want them to pursue, you know what I'm saying, that side of it.

So this really is up to what you guys decide.

You have a really great

household income.

I'm wondering if you can continue to put 15%

aside and cash flow a portion of this.

Whatever you decide to do, I just want you to know that there's not, the only wrong answer is you not talking about it and coming up with a plan.

That's the only wrong answer.

Yeah, good answer.

Love it.

I can't add anything to that.

So I won't.

Let's go back to the phones kirk is joining us in denver colorado kirk how can we help today

yes i'm just calling about um just some financial uh question i'm i'm a pastor been in ministry my whole life uh we pastor a small church in wyoming and so we've lived in a parsonage all that time so we don't own a home or anything uh we've gone through financial peace in our church so we use cash for everything we're completely out of debt

But my wife's parents were involved in a tragic car accident that lost their lives.

And so they live in Missouri and they had a couple farms.

And so we sold one with my wife's brother.

We sold one and just put the money into Edward Jones.

And we made, we have about, I think there's about $460,000 in there.

And last year, we made 19% interest on that.

I think our cash interest was around $75,000.

Anyway, my question is, we've been talking with her brother about this other chunk of land.

And so

he, I don't know if he's thinking we should keep the land.

My question is, are we going to make more in interest if we would sell that and put it in a financial institution or keep the land thinking that the value of the land might go up someday?

Depends on the land.

And this is all stock market.

Yeah, but

well, yes, but we have historical averages on the stock market.

So we know what the stock market has done historically.

So you've got a range there of what that's going to do.

What matters is this land.

That's the asterisk in this.

What do you know about the land?

Is it just farmland?

Is it in an area that's...

What do you know about the land and the future around it?

Yeah, the land, it's north of Springfield, Missouri.

And so it's just a rural land.

It's just farmland.

It does have some water that goes through it.

So we're probably going to just sell it, not like...

uh to be developed but just someone who would want the farmland to run cattle or add to their farm or whatever

And so it's not in a county with like a big city.

So the value per acre is lower.

Maybe it's like $10,000 an acre.

We're not sure exactly what it's going to

come up to.

You're on the right track.

I would want to know what's the potential of this land over 15, 20, 30 years.

Because if it's a retirement, because you're asking apples to apples and these aren't apples to apples.

And so, you know, that's what I would be doing.

If I'm looking at this as retirement money, I'm either going to put it in the mutual funds the way we teach here, or I'm going to hold on to the land and at X age that we determine, we sell it.

So as you look to however many years that is from now when you would actually want to use it for retirement, what do you project or what do some land experts in that area project that land value to be?

That would be the answer that I'm looking for.

And based on that, then I make my decision.

And, you know, look.

uh you're gonna probably get much better return on getting that cash out now and putting it in mutual funds that would be my guess based on what you've told me but I would want to know for sure.

Is there anything?

Yeah, and

I'm just going to say I'm 58 years old, and so we're going to be retiring here soon.

What do you think you guys stand to make on that?

On that land,

I'm thinking maybe $750,000.

I'm figuring it's like 150 acres, so if my wife gets 75 acres of it and it's worth $10,000, that's $750,000.

I'd probably go buy a sign today and smack it in the dirt.

Me, and put that in, take that money

and put that away.

Do you need it?

That's the other question.

Are you banking on it?

Is it something that you need in the short term?

Not in the short term, but definitely through retirement, because like I said, we don't have a whole lot.

And so this $400,000, close to $500,000 that we already have in mutual funds, we're going to need to buy a house.

So we're thinking maybe $250,000 to $300,000 house.

So that's going to take a big chunk of that and then just live on the rest and put it in a trust and give what we can to our kids.

But the other question I had is:

is it just, I mean, does it cost you anything?

Is there any upkeep on this land?

Are there any animals on it?

Does it cost you anything?

No.

Is it just sitting?

Not really.

And her brother lives down there.

And so, like, fixing some fence, we actually lease it to a guy for we don't really make a whole lot on it.

He just runs some cattle on it.

So there is some upkeep on the land somewhat.

I don't know.

What would you do?

What popped in my mind is, is there a way that I'd want to make money with this land as it's appreciating in value so that I can make money two ways?

That's what was in my head.

And then cash out when you're ready.

And then cash out when I'm ready.

I like that if you can.

And if I'm not going to do that, then I'd probably cash it out and invest the money.

That's me.

I'm not saying that that's necessarily right.

It's just what my brain would be thinking of.

I'm trying to find ways to get money.

Right.

And that's why I said I take the 750 now because it doesn't sound like I actually agree with you, Jade.

I'd want to know what that looks like.

And then again, I'm comparing.

Where do I, so I'm with you.

I'm 100% going.

My goal here is to make more money.

And that's your goal, too.

So the question is, is what allows you to make the most money?

I think my gut tells me, and I'm not informed, but I told you what I would do to get informed.

I would add to it what Jade just said, which is,

could we be making more money than just leasing to the current guy who's letting cattle run on it?

Run all those numbers, at which point I'm going to go, if my money has a chance to grow faster by getting it now and putting it in the stock market through the mutual funds, the way we teach investing, and that's probably the way I'm going.

Yeah.

Because you got, what, 12 years before you're going to go after it?

What do you think?

It work until 70?

I'll be 59 in February.

I mean, I want to retire whenever I can, but yeah, so I'm figuring, you know, 60, 67, 68, something like that to retire.

Okay.

I will say I love a lump sum.

I love the idea of dropping a big old lump sum and letting that

do what it do, what it do.

Yeah, I agree.

And then, you know,

you got options.

I love that plan.

I'd probably sell that dirt tomorrow.

Yeah.

See what the wife wants to do, too.

Oh, she's got a good intuition.

Glad you brought that up.

This is the Ramsey Show.

Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

This is where we help you, America, specifically.

We help you win with your money, win in your professional life, and win with your relationships.

Alongside Jade Warshaw, I'm Ken Coleman.

We're both thrilled to be together for you.

So we'd love to coach you up.

Here's how we do it.

You give us a call, 888-825-5225.

888-825-5225.

Jade's our resident money expert.

I'm the resident professional advice expert.

Let's make Mo money

so that Jade can teach you how to keep more of the money.

That's our tango today.

So can we help you?

Let's go.

Christian starts us off in Portland, Oregon.

Christian, how can we help today?

Hi, Ken and Jay.

Thanks for taking my call.

Yes, I am just starting the new year off the right way with trying to get out of debt.

I'm following the baby steps.

I

just don't have a lot of accountability and I need direction.

And I really wanted to make a big deal about this.

So I wanted to call the show and get some

professional advice from people that

I trust.

Well, I've got good news for you because I'm sitting next to the budget queen.

Not the dancing queen.

The budget queen.

There it is.

Do your thing.

I think this man needs to know how to figure out a budget.

First off, Christian, I love that you're understanding the importance of accountability to the point where you're like, I'm going to call on the show, people are going to hear it, post about it on social media.

I actually really like that.

Some people kind of like to do their goals in the quiet and in secret.

And I, listen, I'm no psychologist.

I don't know, but I have a feeling around that.

I think that when people do their goals quietly, it's because they're afraid that if they don't accomplish them or if they fail, no one has to know, right?

And so, I love the accountability of you saying, no, I'm putting it out there.

So, my question is, what is it that you're trying to accomplish?

And what is it?

What is the thing that you're worried about being a roadblock for you accomplishing it?

Well, I've never really been good at my finances in the past, keeping a budget, keeping up like a record of my finances.

And I'm about 90,000 in debt.

It's 35 of it.

35,000 is an auto and the rest of it is credit card.

And

I work part-time,

seasonal on a farm in Oregon.

I don't make very much, but I'm very fortunate and blessed to have

a trust that I get money from every month.

But I've been very irresponsible.

It's $7,000 now.

So you get $7,000 a month from the trust and then you're working part-time on a farm.

What do you make

from your part-time work?

When I am working, which I'm off-season right now,

but usually about $2,000 a month.

And I work part-time because I have a two-year-old daughter and I watch her half the week.

I have her three and a half days.

Okay.

Do you have any support around you that could help with her?

Well,

so her mother watches her the rest of the time, and she is a big support

and my daughter and everything.

I know, but I'm talking about

you're a daddy now, and I'm jumping in here because I don't like what I'm hearing, and I'm not like criticizing you, but you need to be working full-time.

Even when it's your turn, your custody side of things, that means you see her after you come home from work.

That means someone is helping you, or you are paying for them to help you because you need to be making more money in this offseason.

Yeah, is the trust for life?

Yes, okay.

Um, I have a question.

You told me earlier that you've never been good at like managing your money or sticking to a budget.

Do you know why?

Why is that?

What do you do instead?

Um, well, I was never really taught that, and um,

yeah, I um um

am and when I get um around math or numbers, I choke up.

I didn't get very far in math in school.

Okay.

And

it's a very uncomfortable subject for a major.

Is it also fair to say that you haven't needed to budget?

Yeah.

No.

Well,

what do you mean by that?

Meaning, you've never had to worry about not having enough money.

So therefore, there was never a need to watch where this dollar was going and where that dollar was going.

Yeah, because $7,000 a month is, you can live on that.

$7,000 a month is a good check.

No, I haven't had that.

I haven't.

I only got,

it hasn't been that long since I've had that.

And it hasn't always been $7,000.

I started getting it in 2008 and it started off at $2,000.

Got you.

Which is why, by the way, Jade, I want him working, even though this is a nice blessing.

I still want him working.

Yeah.

So let's get into this a little bit.

I totally buy it.

None of us were taught this in college.

None of us were taught it in high school few of us were taught it in our own homes so it's very very important um and i'm also with you on the math despite popular belief i actually hate doing math and i'm not very good at it i made sees in it in high school and college so there we go um the good news for you is that we solve those problems here for you with every dollar so before you get off the call i want you to have the every dollar app it's a budgeting app and it's going to help you do the things that you said you struggled with which is making a plan for your money sticking to the plan with your money and doing the math on your money.

It does all of that for you.

The only thing that you have to do, Christian, is the only commitment you have to make is to make the thing, right?

Plug your numbers in and just to take atomic habits, habit stack it with something else you do, right?

So if you have a habit in the morning of you make up, you wake up, you make your morning coffee and you read the news on your phone, right?

You just add, and after I read the news on my phone, or before I read the news on my phone, I track my transactions in every dollar.

That's it.

If you can start that habit this year, you're going to see things with your money begin to turn around.

Because for most of us, we're just not, it's not part of our day-to-day rhythm.

And so we're not seeing the fact that we're overspending on food or we're not seeing the fact that we're overspending and accidentally spent the money for something more important on something less important, right?

And so for you, I think getting that habit into your life is going to be really important.

So that's numero uno.

The next thing I want to talk about is this car.

So you said you've got a $35,000 car

and then you've got another 55 or 60,000 in credit card debt.

So I kind of want to tackle the car.

What's it worth?

I think it's probably worth a little bit less than 35.

I haven't actually looked it up.

I don't know those numbers.

Okay, then that would be my second piece of homework.

Number one is every dollar.

Number two, I'm looking to see if this thing, if there's a break-even here or if, you know, if it's a very short amount of upside downness, I'm going to, I'm going to take that bet and I'm going to probably get out of this car because what are you paying every month for it?

$700.

Hey, my guy, let's get that money back into your wallet.

That's a lot of money

for somebody who's in $90,000 of debt.

So if I were you, I would get out of that vehicle.

I'd buy something far less expensive in cash.

And yeah, that's what I would do.

That's almost half of that debt.

Not quite, but almost.

Yeah, you're clearing out a big portion of it.

And then with these credit cards, you know, don't consolidate them.

Don't, you know, do a shuffle game.

Just list them smallest to largest and pay them off one by one.

Ken, what's he going to do with the career real quick?

I don't know.

We didn't have enough time to get into that.

What do you want to do?

If money wasn't an object, say it.

Go.

If money wasn't an object,

something to do with plants.

I work on a veggie farm.

I moved to Oregon so I could do permaculture design, which has a lot to do with, you know, plants.

So here's what we're going to do.

Hang on the line.

Kelly, let's get him a copy of Find the Work You're Wired to Do.

It's a best-selling book with an assessment.

It'll help.

This is the Ramsey Show.

The Ramsey Show continues.

Thrilled to have you with us, America.

888-825-5225 is the phone number to jump in.

We would love to hear from you.

We want to coach you up.

I'm Ken Coleman.

Jade Warshaw is alongside.

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just for telling us what you think.

If you're going to say anything mean about me, just go ahead and decide not to.

There might be a few of those.

You think?

A few.

A few.

Ken's sweater.

Yeah.

Today, my sweater is just very low-key today.

Yeah, you're doing good.

I can't help but that I like, you know, some bolder statements from time to time.

Yeah, you do good.

As do you.

Indeed.

But I think you pull it off better, and maybe people are going, he should probably try to keep up with you.

I'm playing your song, monochrome.

Yeah, I like that.

It's a good look.

All right, back to the phones we go.

888-825-5225.

Dag is joining us in Seattle, Washington.

Dag, how can we help?

Hi, Jade.

Ken, thanks for taking my call.

I've been listening to you guys for a few months or several months and just love everything you guys are doing.

Thank you.

So I'm heading in the direction of my retirement from my primary career, probably in the next

as early as three years, but could push that out a little bit.

So

I'm looking at the sunset of

my main career and what I'm looking to do as a second career and then also

building some some wealth in that.

I've already paid off, I kind of flip-flopped maybe five and six,

paid off the house.

So now I'm bolstering the college account for the kids and then trying to build some wealth tools.

And I'm playing it really conservative.

I've got some money in high yield.

So I'm just

looking for a little direction in

a couple of those areas as my sunset of my career kind of approaches.

All right, so direction in what you do for work after you retire from the main career and then direction in how to invest.

Is that what I'm hearing?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

And I, you know, I'm, I've been in public service as an emergency responder.

And just that, you know, the length of that career is wearing and tearing on the body a little bit.

And so I've

just dive in.

Let's dive in.

I have a sense that a guy like you calls this show, you have a couple of ideas that if there were zero resistance,

you would go, this is probably one on my list.

This is two on my list.

Am I right?

Sure, yeah.

All right.

So give me number one.

What would you do if there were zero resistance?

Let's say we fast forward and we walk away from public service and boom, we walk into this.

What is it?

It probably has something to do with

teaching in the

similar to the field.

So basically shifting my knowledge and experience into some kind of teaching environment

to to the new up-and-comings whether it's through my teaching LLC or at a local community college

certainly an option I don't have a teaching credential so I have to go down that route well what about instructing within the actual department

and I do do that

currently.

It's getting out of the emergency response side of things, kind of the wear and tear of the 24 and 48 hour shift.

Right.

So the question is, since you're working, are you working for a municipality or the state?

A municipality, essentially.

I wonder if there are some training instructing opportunities in different departments.

And so the idea here is,

here's where I would start brainstorming, Deg.

All right.

These people know me.

I've been a

city employee or county employee for X amount of years.

I'm in the system.

If I can get out of the environment, that's what I'm hearing you say, in emergency, and I can move somewhere else and still take some of that transferable experience and get into instructing, then I'm not having to go necessarily get any qualifications.

That's one option.

The other option is, yeah, over the next couple of years, you moonlight and get an online teaching degree and then decide I can go to the local high school.

I can go to the local community college.

You know, I think it's just laying out all the specific training/slash instruction options in your area.

Make a list.

Where could I go if there were zero

challenge or hindrances?

Then we look at that list and we go, well, I kind of like the idea of teaching at this local trade school, or I like this idea of teaching at this local public school, whatever.

And you begin to make the list of this is more desirable than that.

And I got my top two or three options.

And now I start asking the question.

and these I wrote about this, by the way, and I'm going to give you the book,

Paycheck to Purpose.

But I wrote about this, there's four qualifying questions.

Once we know, DAG, what I want to do, they are, what do I need to learn?

That's the education question.

Could be a certification, may have to be associates, may have to be four-year degree.

What do I need to do?

What experience will I need?

Okay, that tells me where I'm entering or I'm transferring certain experience.

Then it's how much is that going to cost me?

That's the finance piece.

And then finally, based on my finances, how long will this take me?

And those are the four questions, Dag, and they're in the book.

And I'll give the book to you at the end of the call.

And it's in the get-qualified stage.

But those four questions right there, that comes up with a plan.

And now it's not intimidating, Jade, because now he knows what he's got to do.

So

I think that's your homework there.

I want to get Jade in here on the retirement piece so she can give you some guidance there.

Yeah, tell me more.

The only thing that made my ears perk up is when you said that you were very conservative and you were utilizing high-yield savings accounts.

So I didn't know what percentage we're talking.

So tell me more about that.

Yeah, I so the you know, the houses, I'm fortunate that I got my house, I got my house paid off.

Nice.

I'm going to have a small pension, deferred comp.

And I've put quite a bit of money away to pay for my stepson's college and my goal is to have that a hundred percent by the time I retire okay

and but then I have some some extra in there that you know

I know that I can do better with that outside of a high yield how much extra and it just

I would say in the hundred ish range I'd be maybe comfortable with freeing up out of there.

Oh, that's

comfortable freeing up.

How much is in there total?

$240.

Oh, my goodness.

All right.

Great job saving.

Listen, if I were you, if I were in your shoes, I would keep three to six months of expenses.

You sound like a guy who wants 12 months of expenses, but I'd for sure keep six in there.

And then

if you don't have something that you know that you're intentionally about to do with this money, you know, you're not remodeling your kitchen or you're not about to do something.

It's not college money.

I'd invest it.

I would.

I'd be maxing out Roth IRAs every single year.

If you have HSAs, I'd max those out and then I'd throw the rest in a brokerage account.

And that's what I'd be doing.

I'd definitely be investing this money and getting a better rate of return somewhere between 10 to 12% if you're investing in the mutual funds that we teach.

The type of mutual funds we teach, I should say.

Yeah.

What gives you pause about that?

and i'm

say that again i'm sorry what gives you pause about investing it

um i think part of it is um

uh a good portion of the money i've saved a little bit of it was um

inheritance um probably about a third of that okay and i just want to be i kind of treat that as it's it's not really it yes i received it in inheritance but it's not really not really my money it's no it's your gift and I want to.

It is, but yeah, I just listen.

Can you imagine if I gave Jade a gift and then took it back the next day?

No one's taking that money back, it's yours.

Or if you gave me a gift and I just set it on the shelf and didn't use it to my advantage, boom.

Hey, get with the Smart Vestor Pro so you can learn about this and feel good about investing that money.

Yeah, come on, Dag.

This is the Ramsey Show.

Welcome back to the Ramsey Show alongside Jade Warshaw.

I'm Ken Coleman, 888-825-5225 is the phone number.

It's time for our question of the day.

It comes to you by and from our good friends, YReFi.

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slash ramsey.

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Alrighty then.

You have to turn your microphone on.

That's how that works.

You do.

Okay.

Today's question comes from Tyrona, New Jersey.

He says, I work for a small company with less than 20 employees.

Recently, I discovered that while my employer has been taking deductions from my check for my 401k, they had been holding the the money and making a few small deposits into my account throughout the year and then one larger deposit at the end of the year.

Huh.

I confronted my employer and their only response was that they were sorry.

Does this sound legal or unethical?

And is it time to seek new employment?

Yeesh.

That does not sound right.

I'm going to tell you that.

It does not sound right at all.

It smells very fishy.

Yeah, because you're missing out on time in the market if they're not investing the money into the funds that you chose.

This needs to be dealt with instantly.

Instantly.

Like sitting down with lots of leaders going, hey, look,

I got questions.

Don't go in accusing, but a lot of questions and good questions.

Good questions.

Why has this been happening?

Yeah.

You said sorry.

That implies a mistake.

Has it been remedied?

What are you going to do about all the back stuff?

But what's the tone?

I need to know tone because I'm having a strong tone.

I'm going to say serious tone.

A serious tone.

I'm not messing around here.

Oh, yeah.

Very serious.

I like that you asked this.

So I want to set this up well.

The questions themselves

take care of the tone.

In other words, you don't have to be accusatory, angry.

A really pointed, specific line of questioning.

Uh-huh.

Uh-huh.

Pre-thought out.

Maybe right there in front of you on your lap or on your phone.

And in the moment,

you're serious serious face we're not joyful about this no no smiles no amiableness yeah it is seriousness but I think the questions asked properly

make it very serious they go this is a person who did their homework this is a person who has follow-ups there is a line of questioning they they feel as though they are on a witness stand and that's how it should be you don't have to be ugly and accusatory because you're hoping to get to the bottom of this and get an actual solution But by doing this, you're going to find out really quick if this is a fishy situation or if this is a fixable situation.

That would be my take.

I like that.

I love a furrowed brow and but a nod yes.

Like, yeah.

That way, first question, how did this happen?

Yeah.

Oh, okay.

And stop talking.

Yes.

How did this happen?

That's a serious question.

Then the follow-up is,

has it been fixed?

Will this ever happen again?

What happens to the money that I earn that should have been put like these questions?

These are real questions.

These questions are going to imply a whole lot of seriousness.

That would be my posture.

Spoken from a guy, by the way, who's not done it well.

All right.

I mean, because I get it, I get how the heat should be pretty hot under the hood there.

It should be steaming.

But can we keep that in?

And can we ask the questions that way?

That helps us hopefully get some real responses.

I hope so.

Yeah,

this needs to be dealt with quickly.

Would you seek, I almost might seek an employment lawyer

on this.

Not lock up a lot of time, but maybe a consultation.

I don't think I, I mean, don't get me wrong, this is not the type of thing that would ever happen here, but let's just pretend I looked at my investments and said, wait a minute, like my thing didn't go in there.

I mean, I would go to my leader or, you know, who's over HR or whatever and say, hey, here's what I discovered.

I would not be lawyering at this point.

I'd be doing what you're doing, which is asking serious questions.

This is the thing, though, where they've already apologized.

And so essentially,

we have an admission of guilt here.

At this point, then I'd wait for the next round.

And if I see it again, because my thing is, if I see it again, then yeah.

I'm sorry.

I should have done a better job asking you.

If you know you've got to go have this conversation with the leader, which they do, I might consult at an employment leader.

Yeah, I probably would

at that point.

So I know what should be.

That's this is

very human.

Give me a look

they listen i don't want to say do anybody wrong but they should alone that smells over there that was a loan i get it let's go to denver colorado next where david awaits david how can we help

hi i'm starting to work the well i'm working baby step two and I have been using a credit card for all of my like day-to-day purchases and I pay that credit card off every month, but I'm looking to stop using it.

And I'm just a little hesitant to like start carrying a balance so that I have like the money to just use the debit card for other things and then like have to carry that as I pay that one off too instead of just like paying it off.

And so I'm not sure like, is it something where I should like wait a month or two and save up the extra money or should I just go and carry the balance and pay it off as quickly as possible?

So, okay, let me filter it through the baby steps.

So when you're paying off debt using the debt snowball method, what we say to do is you pay minimum payments on everything so that you're satisfying whatever your debts are for that month.

You're paying, you know, you're doing the things on your budget that are necessary for that month, whatever they may be.

I mean, everybody pays their rent or mortgage, you pay your groceries, you pay your minimums on your debt, and then the extra money after that goes to paying off your smallest debt.

So you do need to satisfy with your own cash, the things that the month requires, and which for you, that's going to feel some type of way because you're used to doing that with your credit card so essentially you're used to taking all of your income and throwing it to your credit card to paying it off and this month you're going to go no i'm going to take my income and i'm going to use it on my life and what the margin is i'm going to use to pay off that credit card and what you're going to discover there when you do that is what has been true all along which is that money was debt and you were borrowing it and now you owe it and have to pay it back that's what that's going to feel like you're going to you're going to actually feel that you've been in debt this whole time

does that make sense

yeah yeah listen i'm proud of you i'm glad that you're see you've seen the light you've had that moment what caused you to

to go you know i don't want to do this anymore

um

it just like it's a little hard to plan like when you're the bill is finished on the 20th of the month but you don't pay for it until the 15th of the next and

so it seems a lot easier more simple simple to manage the other way.

Well, listen, I want you to have every dollar.

That's going to be a great way for you to make this transition into using your own money.

And let me just say, and Ken, I know you can speak to this.

When you have been a person who

you've let credit cards run their scam on you, which what credit cards do is they say, hey, we'll make your life easier for you,

easy in the word, in quotes.

But what it really does is it steals your confidence to handle your own money.

That's what it does because you have this crutch that you've been relying on that's always there.

It's debt, but you don't feel like it's debt.

And then the moment you remove it, suddenly most of us are like, oh my gosh, I don't even know what to do with my own income.

It feels exposing.

And so

that you're going to feel that for a moment.

And then you're going to go, oh, wait, I actually make money and I work hard for my money and I should have the dignity of managing it and spending it in and of my control.

Okay.

There you go.

And what will change is, I was waiting for him to respond because the emotion that he's licking his wounds.

He really is.

But, you know, I love that he told you

why the call.

Why the change?

The stress of living off of that credit card way that a lot of people do that.

Yeah.

Well, I'm going to use it for this and then pay it off.

And for him, he's not wired for that.

Yeah.

And I'm just thinking about how light he's going to feel.

Yeah.

You know, when he just starts to do it this way, the way you've told him, and he goes, okay, now I am in full control.

I don't have that angst.

And you're not behind a month.

When you do that, you're always behind a month.

And so what happens?

You put everything on your American Express.

And then what happens if you lose your job?

Now you just owe the money, but you didn't get your paycheck.

So

there's method to the madness, people.

Good stuff.

Thanks for the call, David.

It's going to work.

Take a deep breath.

Maybe three or four.

And it's going to be great.

All right.

Don't move.

Quick break.

More of your calls coming up.

She's Jade Warshaw.

I'm Ken Coleman.

You're listening to The Ramsey Show.

Welcome back to The Ramsey Show.

I'm Ken Coleman.

Jade Warshaw is with me, and we are here for you.

888-825-5225.

Triple 8-825-5225.

A couple quick things here before we get back to the phones.

You need to be tuned in to a new show called 90-day money makeover.

I'm a little excited about this because my partner, my partner today, the colleague here next to me, Jade Warshaw, you put it on your old Instagram.

Ken, just tell the folks we're friends.

Partner, colleague.

We are friends.

Thank you.

I just mean in the, okay.

Sam and Jade and me and say, we all go to dinner.

We hang out.

We hang out.

Thank you, Ken.

Sorry.

Just put some respect on our relationship here.

Well, the respect was the colleague.

It's a broadcasting thing.

I'm I'm old school.

I was trained on things like that.

It's all just throwaway words.

She's my dear friend.

Thank you.

We actually hang out.

Let's get into it.

I was bragging on you.

You posted something on the Graham.

And I saw it.

And I was like, all right.

Because I'm not paying attention to your schedule.

I know, I know.

90-day money makeover.

You want to tell folks about it or I can tell them about it.

I'll tell them a little something.

All right.

So a while back, we said, what would it be like?

You know, we take calls on the show all the time, Ken, and we give them advice, but we don't know if they're actually going to take the advice.

So we thought it would be really cool to follow somebody who calls into the Ramsey show and actually help them take the advice.

And so we follow them over the course of 90 days.

And we've done a couple of these episodes and they have been really, really cool.

I remember you telling me about this one where you were out like on a farm.

Like I'm talking about on the farm.

It took you a while to get there, as I recall.

It did.

I was fighting for my life out there.

Let me tell you.

It It was great, though.

The life change that takes place over the course of 90 days is absolutely incredible.

And it really just, I mean, it's amazing.

So anyway, a 90-day money makeover.

It's available now.

The first episode came out yesterday.

It's on YouTube.

You can go to the Ramsey Show highlights page and watch it.

The first episode, we follow a single mom, Heather Hartman.

Let me tell you, Heather is amazing.

I feel like we're bonded for life after this, but she's such a strong, just strong woman, hard worker, but she was drowning in debt.

My production notes say that you may or may not have challenged her to sell some chickens, a calf, and even a calf.

Is this true?

When I met her, she had 50 chickens.

She had.

How much does a chicken fetch?

Bro, I don't know.

But you told her to sell them.

I told her to sell them.

She had three cows.

I waited to watch it.

Were you wearing overalls by any chance?

No, but.

Straw hat?

They convinced me to wear boots.

No flannel, though?

They convinced me to wear flannel.

Oh, I got to tune in just to see that.

Listen, I was in my Green Acres era.

I went.

Did you buy boots for this episode?

And they were ugly.

They were terrible.

What were they?

Do we know?

Amazon?

Oh, you didn't go to Timberland or anything?

No, because I wanted people to know that it was a joke.

I didn't want them to think that I was trying to.

I could see you wearing some really killer Timberlands on this episode.

Maybe next time.

Maybe next time.

I'm sorry.

I interrupted you.

So you coach her up in this episode.

Yeah, coach her up.

And she's gone through a lot.

She's divorced, trying to work through the divorce.

She's got children.

She's got debt.

It's a lot and a huge farm that she had.

So watch the episode.

She really really does change your life.

So again, available on YouTube or click the link in the show notes or you can just write on in there to the highlights.

As much as you laugh about going out to the farm, they made a good choice in choosing you, not me.

I mean, there's no chance you're getting this.

Listen, this J.

Crew Ralph guy out there on the chickens.

And I'm not

Jaden Ken.

Jadenkin on a farm.

Yeah, from a silly standpoint.

It wouldn't be much redeemable content.

They're like, they show me all these farm tools.

I'd be like, what do you do with this?

I have no idea, and I don't like calluses either.

Unless it's from a pickleball paddle or a golf club.

Those are the only two that I like to get away from.

Good to know, Ken.

All right, it's going to be fun.

It's really good.

It looks good.

I saw it on Jade's Instagram.

So it's very, very good.

The trailer looks great.

Yeah, it's very good.

I can't wait.

You know what we need to do?

We need to have you and Sam over and we'll watch it.

We'll do a watch party since we hang out all the time.

Yes.

People want to know that.

Not in the hot tub because we won't do that.

No.

I didn't know that was an option.

Well, you guys don't know this, but during the break, Ken told me about his hot tub, he told me about his new espresso machine, he told me about his deck.

I'm like, I need to come to y'all's house, Ken.

All right, you're welcome.

Take a call.

Moving on.

Jenny is on the line in Dallas, Texas.

Jenny, how can we help?

Hi, hi, Ken.

Hi, Jade.

Thank you for taking my call.

You bet.

I just have a question.

My husband and I have about $167,000 worth of debt, and I really wish I had found y'all sooner.

We are on baby step two,

and

the house is $125,000, and we have some consumer debt of $42,000.

And my question is, my husband has,

we've been married for seven years, seven plus years, and um

he has a separate account than mine we have two checking accounts and then he has a an emergency account that he only has access to and i'm not really sure how much is in there but it's he does use it for emergencies and for like we have all of our vehicles paid off and and they do need work from time to time so that has come in handy.

Okay.

And

he's kind of we we've kind of done this thing where he pays the house note and then I pay the consumer side of it.

And

he's wanting me to

like just get in there and

get us out of debt

as fast as possible.

And I'm like,

we need to put everything in one checking account, right?

What does he say to that?

He just says, well, I want you to have your own money.

And

I'm just

like, is there a,

can you see a reason for this?

Like, are you guys coming from relationships where there was lack of trust, where there was some form of abuse or control?

Is there a divorce?

You know, was there anything that would cause him to say, I want to keep mine over here and you over there?

See, and and that's something that I've asked him before because I don't have a problem with us having the same account You know that doesn't bother we've been together for over seven years I mean it's not I'm not going anywhere and he's not going anywhere, so

I'm not really sure and at this age I mean we're in our 50s, so it's not like we're spring chickens and we're just trying to I want to get all this well that's kind of what made me ask because if you're coming from previous relationships, I'm just trying to get into his headspace a little bit.

I'm talking to you right now, and clearly you're on board with it, which I, by the way, I think you're right.

I'm just trying to understand what's giving him fuel to that fire.

Did you have a season where you were spending like crazy?

Like, is there anything other than just him wanting it this way?

Honestly, I'm the one that...

you know, gets stuff paid off and he's like always, you know, bragging about me, you know, and and I'm like well if you really want to do this I want to do the scorched earth approach and he's not a fan of that which I I can get you know

um he does put you know a portion of his check every check into this other account that I don't have access to which is for emergencies and all of that have you asked for access to the emergency fund account

yes and what is he saying he just he just is kind of like, well, it's okay.

I've got you covered, you know, and I'm just,

it kind of frustrates me in a way.

Yeah, listen,

that's a red flag.

That's definitely a red flag.

I don't like that.

I feel like that's a controlling effort, if I'm just being honest.

And what I find, and, you know, Ken and I are both, you know, we both have been in long-term marriages.

Ken, I've been married 18.

You've been married.

Coming up on 27.

Right.

So here's what I know.

If I say to my spouse,

here's the way I'm feeling.

I'm feeling like we're separate in this area and I want us to come together in this area.

Or here's something that's causing me to really feel unsafe or on bad footing here.

Sam is going to come and go, okay, let's fix that.

The fact that he is not aware or caring about the things that are making you feel unsafe or making you feel separate from him is a red flag.

And I would take that to counseling immediately.

I agree.

Couldn't agree more.

I think this is a therapy session.

Marriage issue first, money issue second.

I also would say to you, let's get him on that page.

Let's chill out on the scorched earth and teach him the momentum once we get him on the same page.

Good hour, Jade.

Thank you so much for joining us here, America.

This is your show.

This is the Ramsey Show.