How A Bigger Paycheck Could Lead To Bigger Problems

Девочка-пай 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'm george camel joined by dr john best bestselling author of Building a Non-Anxious Life.

I guess I'm an aspiring bestselling author, John.

I just pre-launched a book, and I hope that it's successful as yours.

It's called Breaking Free from Broke.

It's on pre-sale right now at ramsysolutions.com slash store.

Work hard, George.

Aspiring.

May you accomplish all of your dreams.

But we're both YouTubers, so we succeeded in that regard.

Well, you're crushing me on YouTube.

If that's success. Well, let's take some calls.
The number is 888-825-5225. We'll help you take the right next step with your money, your mental health, your relationships, whatever it is.
We will give you our advice. That is a guarantee.
All right, let's start with Jessica in Boston. What's going on, Jessica?

Hi, so I'm wondering how my husband and I have, we're a family of five. We have three kids, five and under.
We both work. We make a very good living north of 300K a year, which almost 50 of is tax-free because my husband receives VA disability pay monthly.

But we've had several crises, I guess, come up the past two years. And we were debt-free, but now we, due to the unexpected occurrences, we're now living beyond our means, paycheck to paycheck, have no savings,

and our emotional, our physical health is taking a toll,

our marriage is taking a toll, and we want to stop living paycheck to paycheck. How do we get out of this, and how can we repair the relationship along the way? I'm sorry to hear what you're going through.
Yeah, what happened? What were the crises? Yeah, so we, the height of the real estate market, right, we sold our first house, you know, this is our opportunity to get debt free, We were probably, I want to say, between $ 65,000 in debt. Um, at the height of the market in 2021, we sold our first home, uh, walked away spot free, um, paid off the entirety of our debt.
Um, and then I got pregnant with our third child. I was only six months postpartum.
Um, and I was actually struggling with postpartum depression in the interim.

We had major complications.

I was in preterm labor for almost three months, and I am the breadwinner between me and him. very high-pressured software, sales, technology sales, I should say, job, and which forced me to need to take a medical leave of absence due to my postpartum getting so bad.
It was literally for the safety of myself and my family that I had to take a medical leave. And the day I returned to work, I was laid off.
In turn, we literally two weeks. Yeah, it was bad.
So I want to say a month prior to me going back to work, we had just closed on a new home, our forever home, and the bills piled up quick. So how much debt are you in now? It's probably, I want to say between $22,000 to $25,000 total.
And what kind of debt? Yeah, so it's unsecured loan debt, credit card debt. Should I include the car or no? Yes, that's debt, isn't it? Okay, then it goes up from there.
So I would tack on an additional $60,000. So you're probably $85,000 in consumer debt.
Are you back to working now? I am. I am.
I found a new job fairly soon, within a month, and I am working. Are you still making $300,000? It takes some time to build the pipeline again.
Okay.

What's your husband do?

Yeah, he works for the government and he was a Marine

and now he works for the government

as a safety inspector for OSHA.

So I'm going to let George talk you through

this debt situation,

but I want to say a couple things, okay?

Okay.

The first thing is,

I'm

really, really glad you're still here.

Thank you.

And making that call

when you're holding a baby

is one of the scariest calls you can make, right?

It is.

Yeah, because there's that demon

telling you that they're going to take your baby away.

People are going to say you're crazy and they're going to lock you up.

And I'm so, so proud of you for doing that that's hard and we're good now right for the most most of the time well i still have moments yes there you go um let me ask you this way you're always going to be around here right yes okay good um the second thing is if you haven't already there's gonna come a moment when y'all are gonna have to and the quicker you get here the quicker you can begin to do the walk the path that george is gonna lay out for you you're gonna have to make peace with grieve the crap out of but make peace with here's the life we had and now here's the one we're in right now okay the more you try to quote unquote get back to what we had the more you're going to make yourself nuts because you're just going to run in a circle you're going to be dragging what used to be right so we used to have 60 000 cars we don't anymore we're a camry family now we used to have a humongous house, and we had our forever house. It's not our forever house anymore.
You and me are forever husband, but the house isn't, and that's okay. And we used to make $300,000.
Now we don't, and maybe one day we will again, but that's not the world we're in right now. And so when you make peace existentially with those moments, then, remember we had a Lexus? Yeah, but now we got a Corollaolla and it gets us where we need to go and you got a bunch of dope marine tattoos but you're gonna look awesome smoking hot getting out of a camry that's just the world we have now right yeah and it's not less than it's just different it's different and it'll be back it'll be back you're you're a hustler your husband's a brilliant guy i mean you'll be back but let's make peace with that new world right and that new world is awesome by the way it's top one percent of planet earth it's a great world just we gotta let go of what used to be used to be awesome and then we got laid off and it sucks and here we are now now it's awesome again just a different kind of awesome okay so jessica this is going to start with some simple math but it's going to end with some sacrifice and behavior change.
You ready for it? Absolutely. Okay.
Is your husband on board too? This is an important factor. He is.
He knows how you feel about all this. Okay.
We're going to get you to solid ground and I'll give you some options. It'll be a choose your own adventure.
My guess is your take home pay is somewhere around 15 grand a month. Yes.
Okay. So let's look at what our expenses are.
What do we need to keep the household running? And you're going to do that with a budget. I'm going to gift it to you.
It's called EveryDollar. I'm going to give you the premium version.
It's going to have paycheck planning, connect to your bank account, all the good stuff. Your homework is to list out every single expense you have as a family and ruthlessly cut out the stuff that doesn't matter that you don't need right now.
You got that? Okay a rough estimate of what that would add up to five grand for cutting out or the total expenses that would keep the house running food shelter utilities transportation all that probably 12 12 grand Yep. With our nanny included, child care included.

Oh my.

Okay, remember those sacrifices I mentioned, Jessica?

This is where we might have to figure out how to get that $12,000 down to $5,000.

So we have $10,000 to throw at the debt and we can be done in eight months.

That might mean selling the cars if you can't make those sacrifices.

It might mean letting the nanny go for a season.

This is not going to be fun, but your life on the other side is going to be way better for it.

So hang on the line.

We'll gift you every dollar.

We're wishing you the best.

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I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney.
Today's question of the day is brought to you by Y-Refi. Y-Refi refinances defaulted private student loans, defaulted meaning when the borrower can't make the required payments.
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Might not be available in all states. Today's question comes from Andrea in Arkansas.
My husband's mom inherited the family hunting ranch. Oh, I would love to get this call one day, which is worth about a million dollars.
My husband and I pay most of the expenses. We use our personal equipment to maintain it, and we are the ones who schedule and host hunters.
I also handle all the bookkeeping. Andrea, call me.
So I told my mother-in-law that an LLC needs to be created for the amount of business we do. She met with her attorney and now the ranch is now only in hers and my husband's name.
I feel like she's trying to cause a rift between my husband and me. I'm trying not to judge their family history, but every one of the other four kids are divorced.
This seems to be her way of creating an easy way out of it if we were to divorce. My husband and I have a strong relationship and he assures me not to worry because this will change nothing in our marriage.
But I'm the one doing all the legwork and hoping this doesn't mess up our relationship. Am I wrong for voicing my opinion in this matter? What happens if my husband unexpectedly passed away? We have two questions.
We have two kids that will need to be cared for, and we earn nothing from the ranch. Those last four words tell me a whole lot.
That's really the resentment. She's putting a whole lot of work in.
She's getting $0 for it, and her name's not attached to it. So there seems to be that's all playing into this picture.
Yeah, this is a mess. They use their personal equipment to maintain it they're the ones scheduling doing all that she's doing the bookkeeping and she's the one handling telling the mother-in-law to meet with this person and i i personally don't know the full story i don't know if the mother-in-law is being malicious if this is really a strategic move this was inherited family land property right that she inherited.
So the daughter-in-law doesn't have a right to this land even though she's doing work for for this property right and i yeah so there's multiple things happening here i think george i think one of them is um you're running a business that doesn't make any money stop stop running a business that doesn't make money who is making the money that's the question the only thing i could think of we are nothing so like the husband she's not getting anything the husband's not is mom making all the money yeah so husband is using all of his tools and stuff like that to help because he wants to help out mom and he's the one good kid he's the um all the other kids are divorced and causing problems and he's the one good kid. So he's just going to dump some money into this thing.
That's one thing. If it's mom's property and she wants to bring on your husband as a co-owner of an LLC in case she passes away, it's easy to go to him.
I wouldn't lose sleep over that. But the fact that you're asking this question tells me there's something else going on here.
And if you had trust in your mother-in-law because of the way she has treated you in the past, and this came up, you wouldn't think twice about it, right? If my in-laws, one of my in-laws, my father-in-law or my mother-in-law, was to do a joint venture with my wife that I helped with, I wouldn't think twice about it because I trust both of them implicitly forever. This tells me there's other trust issues and that mom's maybe been trying to cut you up for a long time and this is another way she kind of edged.
Anyway, whole thing's messy. So I would ask this way.
Number one, if your husband likes hunting on this property and it's fun and he likes doing it and he likes to make a little side money, side money bringing in hunters in y'all figured that out even if you bring in side money and all it does is pay the taxes on the land and pays for the feeders fine um if husband's trying to do this to win's mom's favor and maybe one day she'll leave it to him hopefully if she and now we're getting into messy stuff and if you're running a business that's not earning anything you'll need to have have that conversation. Whole thing's a mess.
But I want to go back to this one question here. Am I wrong for voicing my opinion on this matter? If you are a part of a marriage where both people have a voice and both people can be heard and to say what's on their hearts and on their minds, no, no.
If you have voiced your opinion and your husband said, I don't care, don't worry about it, then nagging or complaining or going to war is not going to solve the problem. Then your marriage has deeper issues, which is your husband doesn't care what your opinion is on these matters.
He's going to do what he's going to do. You only need to address that core issue, right? Yeah.
And talk to him. You said, what happens if my husband unexpectedly passed away?

Figure out what the will looks like and what the estate planning journey looks like and

what will happen with this LLC that he's a part of.

I think you have a right to know what would happen there.

But I also wouldn't, I feel like there's just more resentment here because of the effort

she's putting in.

So maybe she goes, I'm going to back out of this and y'all can hire a bookkeeper.

That's exactly right.

You can hire a bookkeeper. You can hire somebody who is booking these hunts.
I'm going to step out and just be with the kids. There you go.
And it's not a job. It's not like we're going to lose money on it.
And y'all knock your lights out if that's something y'all want to do on the side. Not much to lose here.
That's right. All right, let's go to the phones.
Daniel is in Cleveland up next. What's going on, Daniel? Hi, thanks, guys, for taking my call.
Sure. How can we help? So I'm 23 years old.
My wife is 24. We have a three-month-old daughter.
My wife stays at home. I'm a nurse.
Our yearly income is probably around $60,000. We bought a house around six months ago.
Uh, we have about $150,000 loan, um, at like 5.6% interest, I think. So my question is we have about a hundred thousand dollars in our, in a high yield savings account.
I mean, it looks like we'll end up getting another hundred thousand, um, from like an inheritance basically, uh, within the within the next month. We have zero debt.
I'm just, I guess, just like looking forward, I guess, should I be paying off my home? I just don't know exactly, I guess, what to do with the money. I just don't want it to sit there.
Yeah. So the $100,000 and the high yield, does that include your emergency fund? Is that built into that? Yeah, that's built into that.
Yes. Okay.
So what number would that be? Let's separate it out. I think probably around $20,000.
Okay. So $80,000 is freed up.
You've got $100,000 coming in from the inheritance. You owe $150,000 on the mortgage.
I would pay off the house as soon as that inheritance comes in. Okay.
That's going to lower your expenses. You've got a stay-at-home wife.
It's going to free you up with more margin to build wealth, to give, to up the lifestyle, whatever it is you want to do with that. But that's absolutely what I would do, especially as you filter it through the baby steps.
Are you guys currently investing 15% of your income? No, we're not. So I haven't invested anything yet.
I'm just starting to try to, I honestly haven't listened to Dave Ramsey much other than in the last few months. Cool.
Welcome to the cult, brother. We're glad you're here.
That means you're trying to better your finances and your family's future. So I love that.
So I would begin, I'm sure as a nurse, you have a retirement plan, right? Yeah, I think they match like, I think 4% on a 401k. So I need to do that.
And then my wife actually has a Roth IRA that her father set up a long time ago. She hasn't put much money into it since then, but she hasn't been building.
You can deposit money into there because of a spousal Roth IRA. So even if that spouse isn't working because you're married, you know, she's married to you, you can have, you know, that earned income from you going into that account.
So you could max out two Roth IRAs, you could put the 4% to get the match and invest that way. And I'll walk you through this in my book, Breaking Free from Broke, and show you that path to building wealth.
So I'll send you a copy of that. But the spark notes here is I'd get that house paid off.
What's your mortgage payment? It's around $1,200. Okay.
So I'm guessing principal and interest of that is a big chunk. Oh, yeah.
I mean, I think we're paying $800 in interest, just the way that they set up the loan. Dude, what a gift to be 23 and 24 and not a payment in the world with plenty of money in the bank.
If you just keep living like that, you're going to be a multimillionaire giving very generously. You know what? If you pay the house off tomorrow, you just got a raise to $72,000 a year.
Yeah, because of the – it makes sense. I mean, I guess, like, for us, I just feel like I'm at of a pivotal point because I'm just don't know exactly what I want to do.
I also am thinking about going back to school, um, to try to increase obviously our yearly income. I'm really hoping my wife can continue to stay home.
No house payment with money in the bank. You can do anything you want and it'll give you the margin to do that without needing seven side jobs.
So you can be there with those young kids. Bro, you don't have a house payment.
This is a great place to be. You won.
You won. If you don't screw this up and go take out stupid student loans because if you're an anesthesiologist don't take out any loans.
Grind it. Take this extra money and spend it.
Invest it in yourselves. Bro, George, you're right, dude.
You won. You won.
If you never have a payment again at 23 years old, you're going to be just fine, my man. Thanks for the call.
This is The Ramsey Show. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.
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Give us a call at 888-825-5225. If you want to jump into the conversation and talk about your money, your life, your relationships, your mental health, your boundaries or lack thereof, we want to help you take the right next step.
Shelly joins us up next in Dallas, Texas. Shelly, welcome to the show.
Hi, thank you for taking my calls. I'm really just calling because I've been listening to the show a lot and I know the baby steps and everything.
And I know that I'm in a position where I can afford therapy, but my question is, it's just, well, it's not more of a question. It's just an emotional issue around spending the money on therapy.
I just feel bad. I know I need it and my husband supports me, but you know it just makes me feel bad to spend it costs a lot and my insurance doesn't cover the license therapy part of it.
So what's it going to cost for you to get this help? Well I was looking at like BetterHelp and you know there's I even saw some more affordable too but um so I did sign up with BetterHelp but I'm just feeling like I'll try it for you know the first four weeks and then cancel it I I start something you know I'll start it and and I started therapy before but it was just costing like a hundred a week and then I was do you feel like this is a a wasteful expense in your budget right now? Like, hey, this money should be going toward this? What's behind that? I start feeling like, I don't know, and it's part of my anxiety. It's part of the reason why I think I need therapy.
Well, I think it has nothing to do with money. I think money is the excuse that presents itself that gives you an out so that you don't have to go through this fire where healing's on the other side of it.
Yeah, it could be. I don't know.
I think you should go. It's all confusing.
honestly I don't the feelings might be confusing but even if you guys

were up to your eyeballs in debt

and you need to go to counseling we would tell you to stop paying off your debt pause and go to counseling get the help you can care that you need yeah i it's i'm trying to wrap i'm trying to it's it's you can tell yourself i know this is so important my health But it just feels, it just hurts to pay. I don't know.
I was raised poor.

You know, grew up in a poor family, and we're doing really well now, and I just feel like. That's it right there.
You know, we need to pay for the future. You know why? Because when you grew up, other people, those people over there, they got counseling.

They took, quote unquote, took care of themselves.

We don't got time for that.

We don't need that.

Only weaklings and wimps do that.

Yeah.

Right?

Those people.

You didn't even want to say, oh, I need therapists because you would, in my family, it would be like, oh, well, you're crazy.

You know what? In your family, tell me if I'm wrong. In your family, you didn be like, oh, well, you're crazy.
You know what?

In your family, tell me if I'm wrong, in your family, you didn't say that you needed anything.

No, I actually struggled with eating disorder and everything starting when I was a teenager.

Now I'm in my 40s and having panic attacks. And I had a traumatic event last year, medical, with neuropathy for chronic pain for like eight months in my face.

It's time. It's time.
And I like eight months in my face. It's time.

And it's time. I can't sleep without heavy medicine.
It's time.

It's time. Whatever it takes.
If there was a medication, Shelly, that was $300 a month,

but it changed your life, would you say that was a worthy $300 to spend that wasn't wasteful?

Yeah. And well, I am spending a lot on my psychiatrist for the medicine.
So that's have to have that or i just can't function but your psychiatrist has been telling you for a long time i'm going to give you these meds but you need to go talk to somebody haven't they yeah he did say cbt would help me correct it's time i think we need to refile this in our brain as this is not a wasteful thing that i could be spending in this and And this is, it's too much in our budget into, hey, this is like paying for insurance. This is keeping the lights on.
This is paying for the internet bill. This is going to add so much

utility and value to my life that I can't imagine not doing it. And it may not be forever.
This may

be a season that you go through and then it's over. Yeah.
Yeah. I was kind of wondering about,

I know everyone's different, but I was wondering about like on average, kind of how, how long it

could take, you know, I've had

Thank you. yeah yeah i was kind of wondering about i know everyone's different but i was wondering about like on average kind of how how long it could take you know i've had friends tell me oh it took so and so a year to to really but if you struggle listen if you struggle with the tunnel if if you've struggled with disordered eating since you're a child and you grew up in a pretty tough place and it's a pretty tough situation and if you think so little of yourself that the idea of spending money to make sure you're whole and well so that you can show up for you and for your husband and for others if that shuts your body down or sets off your body's alarms it's going to be a while

so i think it's counterproductive i'm telling you it's counterproductive to say okay i'll give you four and then i quit that's like going to the to the car dealer and saying or to the mechanic and saying hey uh everything's broken on the car you got 30 minutes and then i'm just gonna come pick it up.

Yeah.

I want you to

completely reframe

this.

And I put the

stress on myself that I feel like I have to hurry and fix myself in this amount of time. Right, and you're not somebody, listen, I used a bad analogy, you're not somebody to be fixed, okay? You're not broken.
Your body's working exactly as it should, given the set of circumstances you grew up in,

plus some genetics.

And what you're going to learn is

different ways your body can get through a day.

That's what counseling is going to do.

It's going to let you practice.

It's going to teach you relationship.

It's going to teach you some new skills.

Over time, your body's going to learn,

hey, we weren't safe then.

We're safe now.

All of that is worthy of an investment. Go.
Don't think twice about it. And listen to this.
This is important. Your feelings are not designed to tell you the truth.
Your feelings are designed to keep you safe given a set of circumstances. So this morning, I did not feel like writing in a journal.
I didn't. But I did it because I'm a better husband and a better dad on the other side of that.
When I get all this crap out of my head and out of my body and onto a piece of paper, I will not feel like working out when I get home tonight. I won't feel like it at all.
I'm tired. It's the weekend and I'm going to go do it because I promised myself I would, and it makes me a better fill in the blank, fill in the blank.
So your feelings, I feel like I want to quit. Cool.
I get that. I'm going to acknowledge those feelings.
That's real. And then I'm going to keep going.
And I feel like I'm wasting money. Cool.
Your body grew up poor. It put a GPS pin in poverty.
It put a GPS pin and stopped spending money on quote unquote, you getting well. Cool.
I feel that. And I'm going to go anyway because I'm going to get well.
I'm worth being well. That's a good word, John.
And tactically, Shelly, adding this as a line item in your every dollar budget that says Shelly's therapy. And then what's going to happen is December, it's going to feel like, oh gosh, that $300 came out for those sessions.
Then January, it's like, oh yeah, we have that in the budget. Then February, it's like, oh yeah, we've had this in the budget.
And all of a sudden it becomes normal, especially as you excel through the baby steps and you get to a different place financially. There's expenses in my wife and I's budget that, you know, 23-year-old George would be like, whoa, that guy's blowing some money.
And to us, it's, no, we're buying ourselves peace. We're buying our time back with some of these things.
And therapy is not a luxury. It is financially for people who can't afford it, but it's not a frivolous expense.
It's definitely worth being well. And John talks about this in his new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, which I'd love to send Shelly a copy of that, John, if you don't mind.
Absolutely. And stay on the line.
I'm going to hook you up with three free months of BetterHelp with my friends there, okay? I'm going to take that excuse away. Three free months of BetterHelp.
But if you and your therapist decide, hey, it's probably best if you keep going, I want you to keep going and stay plugged in. That's very kind of you, John.
You wield that kind of power here on the Ramsey Show. I don't.
I've got an extraordinary partner with BetterHelp, and they really, really care about people getting well. And so it's their generosity, not mine.
That's very kind. So hang on the line, Shelly.
We're going to send you a copy of Dr. John Deloney's bestselling book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, and three months of better help on us to get you started on this path.
We are cheering you on and I'm proud of you. That's not an easy thing to call into a national radio show and put that all out there and go, I'm struggling with this.
I want to get the help I need. And I know a lot of people are benefiting from this call who probably need to take that next step too, John.
Dude, I remember being a six foot two, 195 pound Texas male sitting at my kitchen table while my little boy was asleep and my wife was asleep in the other room, weeping at my kitchen table because I knew I had to. And I also felt like such a wimp and such a weakling and such a coward and all those things.
And I went and it's changed everything. Go get the help and care that you need.
Thanks so much for the call, Shelly. More of your calls coming up.
The number is 888-825-5225. We'll be right back.
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That's B-Y-R-N-A dot com slash Dave. 888-825-5225.
This is The Ramsey Show. I'm John Deloney, joined here by my good friend, George Camel.
Let's go out to Alexis in Phoenix. Hey, Alexis, what's happening? Hi, can you hear me okay? Absolutely.
What's up?

All right. So I'm 15.
My mom just told me this morning that my parents have had to dip into their savings the past two months. Okay.
My mom has stayed home with us and homeschooled us for 10 years, and she's going to have to get a part-time job. and I'm just wondering

like how my savings

and how me saving for my future fits into that because I kind of feel guilty having extra money every month or having my own money putting into savings while they're struggling. Yeah.
Man, they are lucky to have you as their kid. You are the oldest 15-year-old I've ever talked to.
It's fantastic. Okay, I'm going to tell you something really hard to internalize, and you're going to hear these words, and your guts aren't going to believe me, okay? Okay.
It's not your job. You are doing an incredible job planning for your future and your parents have made grown up choices like whatever job your dad is working at is a choice he's chosen to work and that's his trade that's what he does and your mom made a choice we want to stay at home that was a collective values-based decision that they made and then there was a math problem they ran into.
And like adults all over the country, brave adults are saying, okay, this is what we wanted. This isn't going to be, this isn't the way this is going to work out for a while.
So we're going to have to alter our plan and do something else. And so I'm actually proud of your parents for doing that.
It's awesome. It's just going to look different.
Okay. The greatest thing you can do for your parents is you take care of your business in the classroom you take care of your business like as a teammate around that house right make sure you take care of your responsibilities with excellence which i know you do and be sober-minded be intentional about planning for the future what college is going to look like what it's cost, where are you going to go, what are you going to study, all of those things.

That's the way you support your parents,

not by taking your part-time job money and trying to keep the lights on.

Now, there may come a moment when they ask you for that.

It doesn't sound like that's what's happening.

It sounds like your mom sat you down like a good mom.

She actually sounds incredible.

Sat you down and said, hey, we have some hard realities that we're dealing with, and so I'm going to have to go to work, and so home's going to look a little different for a season. Is that what happened? Yeah.
I applaud her, because a lot of parents would try to hide that. They'd be ashamed of that.
They'd be scared of that, and your mom did the right thing. She sat down and told you a hard truth, and that also means that she trusts you.
Does that make sense? That she thinks you're wise enough to hear that, that scary stuff, okay? But keep that in your mind and in your heart. It's not your job, okay? Yeah.
Do you believe me? Yes. No, you don't, but it's okay.
It's okay if you don't. So there are some tactical things you can do, Alexis.
One is, you know, you're 15, you're starting to enter that age where you can go get some part-time jobs. And one thing you can do is instead of going, hey, Mom and Dad, I want the new iPhone, it's $1,200, you can go work for that and save for that, and you cover your own expenses of things that are kind of the luxuries in your life.
You don't have to go pay the water bill, but you can cover, you know, going out to the movies with your friends. It sounds like you already do that.
Yeah. Oh yeah.
Yeah. I just, I wasn't sure if that was okay for me to continue to have like.
Absolutely. I think that's great.
Yes. Flexing that muscle at 50.
I wish John and I were that smart at 15. Goodness gracious.
I didn't know what day it was when I was 15. And yes, you, listen, we often think that pain is some zero or that grief is some zero.
And what that means is that George loses his job and I get a flat tire and I am upset. I'm whining about my flat tire and George goes, oh yeah, you think that's bad.
I lost my, listen, grief and sadness aren't some zero. You can go have joy while your parents are making life adjustments at their home.
Because one doesn't, you not, you just sitting at home and not having fun and not hanging out with your friends and spending your spending money by going to the movies. You doing that doesn't help the bills get paid.
You see what I'm saying?

It's just you joining into their misery,

into something that you didn't cause.

It's not your job, okay?

Yeah.

And so, yeah, go have fun with your friends.

I love what George says.

If you know, hey, now's not the time to go ask for the iPhone,

whatever, 13 or 17 or whatever number they're up to now.

That's cool.

That's fine. But do go have joy in your life okay I'm gonna do one one better for you Alexis I'm gonna gift you Financial Peace University and one thing you can do is you're casually hanging out living room watching Financial Peace University and you go hey mom dad if you want to join me like I'm learning so much in this if you guys want to join me I think it'd be really cool for us to go through it together and not as a plate from a place of shame of like hey mom i need you just tell me you guys are broke this might be good for you i called a couple of idiots on the radio i got you solved telling the person who wiped your butt you know seven years ago this so uh just go watch it yourself and i think you modeling that might inspire them motivate them give them some hope and when the time comes you're going to get older and they're going to be asking you for advice.
That's right. And so it's a great place to be.
So hang on the line. Jenna's going to pick up.
We're going to gift you Financial Peace University for one year as well as every dollar premium. And you can get on a budget at 15 and they might see you doing that and go, what was that you did? That's pretty cool.
Go ahead and send her Anthony O'Neill's debt-free degree to Jenna. And she can reading on now, thinking about what college is going to look like in the future.

All right, let's go to Vanessa in Charleston.

Hey, Vanessa, what's going on?

Can you hear me?

Yes, ma'am.

What's up?

Okay.

I'm so grateful to talk to you.

Thank you.

I'm struggling with some issues.

All right, bring it on.

We are too.

Okay.

There's so many details.

I'm going to try to keep it nice and tidy.

Okay.

I'm 51 years old.

I've dated a man for about 10 years.

We've lived together.

I'm wanting to end the relationship.

Kind of my issue is when we met, I sold the house that I'd raised my kids in.

And I had went through Dave Ramsey, and I had cleared all my debt.

So when we met, I was debt-free, and I had a little bit of money in the bank. About four years ago, we bought a house close to my daughter, and it was real small, and then another house came up around the corner, and it was in foreclosure.
I got a decent deal on it, so I bought it. I own another house about 20 minutes away.
And part of my issues are, number one, I'm wanting to end the relationship with my boyfriend. My other issue is I'm having some domestic issues with my daughter, if you will.
And I think maybe some space, some time, some part, you know, some space between us would be good.

So I have a total of four houses.

What's your mortgage total on those four houses?

I'm broke.

When I leave the relationship, I'll have nothing other than these houses and my income.

Is his name on the deeds?

No, not on these.

So your name only is on all these deeds?

That's right. Okay.
So can you sell all four houses yes i think it's time to start fresh yeah so my issue with it is i mean you know my daughter's having some issues um you know um is having four is having being broke and having all of your money tied up in these four houses going to help your daughter no no no I guess where I'm struggling with it is well I mean two of the houses are rented out do I sell the rentals and try to save the house that I'm in which is not necessarily desirable to me it's the nicest of the houses but it's nice to me because I'm close to grandkids, but my daughter and I are having some issues trying to decide whether or not to put space between us or what, you know what I mean? Or do I... When are the leases up for the renters? When do I...
The first of the year. Okay.
Then we say we're not renewing the lease. I'm selling the properties.
Here's what I want you to do. Start thinking of it this way.
You're trying to look at this as a math problem, as a mothering problem, as a mental health issue problem, as a relationship problem. Whenever my life gets this chaotic, I'm going to clean up my environment and take as many variables off the table as possible.
And right now you are leveraged to the gills in four houses that you can't afford and it doesn't sound like you even want them. And if I'm you, again, I would talk to an attorney before you start dividing all this up because he may be claims to this and that.
I'm going to take the variables that I can control off the table. I can't control the relationship mess.
I can't control my daughter's situation. We're going to have to work through that.
I can control how chaotic my life is trying to run four households at the same time. I'm going to sell the houses and clear that debt.
George, what do you think? Agreed. Awesome.
All right. Hey, that's the first hour of the Ramsey Show in the books.
Thank you for listening. We'll be right back.
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That's fieldofgreens.com slash Ramsey to save 20% on your first order. 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 relationships.
I'm Ramsey personality, George Campbell, joined by my good friend and one of America's favorite Johns, Dr. John Deloney.
And we are here for you, America, taking your calls at 888-825-5225. Maybe you need some advice, some motivation.
Maybe you need to take that next step with that broken relationship, the toxic boss, the debt that's been hanging over your head for far too long, and you're just ready to make some changes and live a better, more peaceful life. That's what we're all about on this show.
Mary is going to kick us off in Cleveland, Ohio. Mary, welcome to the show.
Hi, how are you doing today? Doing well, how are you? I'm going to be honest, I'm a little nervous and anxious right now. We got you, Mary.
It's just us here. Just us girls.
Let's talk. Okay.
What's going on? So, I'm calling in because my husband is a gambling addict and has been since January of this year when it became legal in Ohio. It has caused the heaviest toll on our marriage, on our relationship, our family.
And I'm at the point where I have tried many routes with this, trying to be very gracious on how I go about it, trying to be respectful as a wife, trying to support his mistakes, but trying to get him the help he needs.

And nothing is working.

And at this point, he is very adamant about continuing to do it.

And I'm at the point where I feel that I need to, you know, take my daughter and take a step away, not divorce,

but maybe take some separation until he figures figures it out but I honestly don't

want to have to do that but I don't know what else to do right now what makes you think that or what's happening that you feel like I need to get me and my daughter out of this to be safe I think you're right I think you're right by the way but I want you just to articulate. Something else is going on.
What's happening in your home? It's just an extremely tense environment. We argue all the time.
Are you arguing because he's losing thousands and thousands of dollars or arguing because he's just glued to his phone all the time and he's angry because he wins and loses, or as is most of the time, the gambling behavior and the addictive actions that are like this compulsion is indicative of a much bigger issue in your marriage. Y'all don't talk to each other.
You don't listen to each other. There's no intimacy.
It's just become a mess, and gambling is the way he's choosing to handle that global dysfunction inside your home. Correct.
Okay. All of it? Yes.
And I mean, the lying is the biggest thing as well. Sure.
So anytime somebody has a boundary inside of a marriage that they're thinking about laying down, right? Like this is my final straw. This is my line that I won't cross anymore.
I always want to encourage them to have an or what statement because the person they laid the boundary down is going to want to know. Can you give an example? Yes.
So you need to have an or what statement. You sit down with your husband and say, if we don't go to marriage counseling by the end of this weekend, or if we don't have a date on the calendar by the end of this weekend, and it's next week, and if you don't go, here's the or what.
Me and our daughter are moving out. Okay.
Period. You just have to be prepared for the or what, because the or what comes with a lot of complexity and i know it sounds super cool to be like you like you're gonna you can google this and on these stupid websites they're gonna tell you like just leave him you don't deserve that sounds all well and good but there is a significant financial complexity to this right yeah and i I mean, I really don't want it to have to come to that sense to love him

and we have a family together.

Of course you do.

I want you to keep this front and center as you move forward.

You are simply doing what you have to do to keep your family safe

and responding to somebody that's thrown a grenade inside your home.

Yeah.

You're not the one doing this, and he will paint you as the villain here. He has.
That's right. Because he gets to do whatever he wants to do, whenever he wants to do it, with quote-unquote y'all's money, and you're just whining and nagging and complaining and on.
Online gambling, online sports gambling is destroying individuals and homes across this country, period. And dude, I always watch the fights.
I love watching the games. I love having some fun with my friends.
So it's not that I'm like this fuddy daddy that sits in my house and plays bingo all the time. I love the whole environment.
And yet this is destroying people. And you've told him that, and he has told you, I don't really care what you have to say.
I'm going to keep doing whatever I want to do. Yeah.
And I mean, it's, it's been the past few months. Um, I guess to give just some quick context, uh, so pretty much in a lump sum, he has spent between $30,000 to $40,000.
Has he lost it? Oh, yeah, like he's lost all of it. Okay.
There's no, I mean, he's won a couple thousand here or a hundred here, things like that. But he's altogether, since the beginning of this year, it's been around $40,000.
And can we be honest? This is what you know about. I promise there's more.
This is all I know about. Let me ask you some, a very tactical question.
If you move out, do you have, do you have a job? Do you have money? Yes, I have a job, but we, so he's in nursing school. So hold on, hold on, hold on.
He is making choices. You're keeping yourself safe.
If he's in nursing school, then he gets to take care of his, pay for nursing. He gets to make all those choices on his own.
You need to have your four walls covered for you and your baby if you choose to. Do you have your own bank account? Yes, I actually did.
Probably about two months ago at this point, that was one of the steps I took was separating our finances. We never recommend that except in this moment.
Does your check direct deposit into that account? It's still in our joint, and I will just say, so pretty much because we don't have any financial security right now. So with my job and his job, we get paid each week.
So I get paid and then he gets paid the following and so on and so forth. So with our money that we have right now, I want to take money from my check and put it into ours.
But then all the bills come out from our joint because we haven't switched any of those yet. So all of like pretty much each paycheck that we get each week is going towards bills, going towards groceries and gas.
And then there's nothing left. I want you to get with a friend and I want you to map this out.
Okay. And you're going to have to move your direct deposit to your new account.
And you would know as well as I do, he's going to hit the roof, isn't he? Yeah, he already did when I, I mean, everything I do, he does. That's right.
Are you safe? Yes. Okay.
He's not going to hit you or hurt you? No. Okay.
So we are getting with a friend and we're going to map this out. What's an apartment going to cost? What are the light and water bill going to cost? And we're going to get all this mapped out and lined out.
We're going to make sure that our check can cover that. And you might need to get some new hours and all that kind of stuff, childcare, all those things.
And then we're going to sit down and be very articulate and clear about my or what statement. This changes, or here's what I'm going to do.
You can't control anything he does. You can only control what you do.
I hate that you're in this situation. Stay on the line.
We're going to hook you up with every dollar so you can begin to control what you can control if and when you have to step away. We'll be right back.
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This is The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbellel joined by Dr.
John Deloney this hour. The number to call to ask your question is 888-825-5225.
Jane joins us up next in Lawton, Oklahoma. Jane, welcome to the show.
Hi, how are you? We're doing great. How can we help you today? Oh, okay.
So this is tough. So I've been married about two years and before we got married, I agreed to not sharing the bank account.
I understood his reservations. I do have a full-time job.
All right. And a couple of months ago, I thought, well, maybe I really do need to learn to manage my finances better because according to him, like I haven't proven that I know how to manage money.
And I started listening to the Dave Ramsey show because I thought that, you know, I do love the Ramsey network, and I have realized that my problems are a lot more intense than just a financial disagreement or a communication issue.

you know he's gone half of the time with his job and he doesn't leave he will not give me

money for groceries any necess. Anytime I bring that up, he tells me I need to manage my money better.
Do you have a debit card? Do I have a debit card? How much money, control and access does he give you to money? Oh, zero. So you can't spend a dime if you even wanted to? No, I mean, I have

my money, like my paycheck, but that's it. Okay.
And you're working full time? Yes. Do you have any kids? I mean, I have one daughter.
How old is she? Uh, 10. Okay.
Is he the dad? No. Okay.
are you safe

yeah

I mean, physically, yes. All right, I'm going to trust you.
The data suggests that guys who act like this are physically abusive as well. and I would even go as far to say maybe hasn't thrown a punch, but has created a world that is so unsafe for your body that it shuts itself down and tries to get small because there's a bear living in that house.
Yeah. I mean, I've been through some pretty traumatic things in my life, but like on paper, that would be way worse than this.
I've never had a panic attack until recently. So I know like full on like panic attack.
Okay. And I know like I'm educated enough to know that like your body starts to do things when.
It's trying to your attention yeah right so what's keeping you there well i mean i do i mean i did make a vow to him and i take that seriously but i mean i have a couple of thousand dollars in debt now that i didn't have before because i have to put gas and groceries on credit cards sometimes. And he makes about four times what I do.
Sure. I don't want to weave this back and forth into a finance situation than out of a finance situation.
You're in an extremely toxic environment. You're in an unsafe environment.
And if we haven't crossed lines yet we will at some point and when even when the way you started the call he told me i haven't proven my like just those words alone let me know this is very much a father-daughter relationship far far more than it's a husband and wife creating a future together right i mean he i mean if he does control everything i mean not just money and if something's not up to done the way he wants it done i mean he will threaten to put me out why are you why i mean trivial stuff like that's not besides the vow which i mean this sound like a marriage. If you just talk, hearing you say this out loud just sounds like toxic roommate situation.
What is he actually signing up for when he signed up for this marriage? I had recently asked him that. And, I mean, he was like, well, I married you because I love you.
Is this love? I don't think love should feel like this it does not this is control this is power and i i this is this is i'm speaking on behalf of john deloney not on behalf of the ramsey network here and so um i i take a much broader view of the word fidelity i think you can cheat on somebody and never sleep with another person, but if you steal from somebody, their dignity and their autonomy and their ability to have feelings and thoughts and a partnership in a relationship, that's not fidelity, right? You are cheating that person out of their life.

You're cheating that person out of connection, okay?

And so I take a much broader view.

I think, and some people are very narrow,

like you got to have sex with somebody else.

Otherwise it's not cheating.

I have a much broader view than that.

But I'm listening to my sister Jane here and you're slowly drowning and you know it

and your body's trying to get your attention.

And so I guess what George and I are asking you,

two guys who love our wives,

and we're not perfect, man,

Thank you. and you're slowly drowning, and you know it, and your body's trying to get your attention.
So I guess what George and I are asking you, two guys who love our wives, and we're not perfect, man, but I'm trying to sit across the table from you and say, what are you doing? Why are you here? Why are you staying? What's the hook? You got a couple thousand dollars. Who cares? You're too tough and resilient and brave.
You'll have that paid off in no time. Like something else is here.
Like what's the hook? Why are we staying? I mean, I don't know that I could. Well, I mean, some of it's like I want to say that like I gave my all.
I don't think you're being allowed to give your all because the person you're connected to is saying, you can take your all and flush it down the toilet. Go make the bed the right way.
Yeah. Are you scared to leave? What would be the repercussions if you said, hey, I'm out? I mean, I just want a stable life for my child.

This is not it.

Your child is absorbing, top to bottom, what love looks like, what marriage looks like, what equality looks like. Absorbing it into their DNA.
me.

And I think that's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to do it.

I'm going to do it.

I'm going to do it.

I'm going to do it.

I'm going to do it.

I'm going to do it.

I'm going to do it.

I'm going to do it.

I'm going to do it.

I'm going to do it.

I'm going to do it.

I'm going to do it.

I'm going to do it.

I'm going to do it.

I'm going to do it.

I'm going to do it.

I'm going to do it.

I'm going to do it.

I'm going to do it.

I'm going to do it.

I'm going to do it.

I'm going to do it.

I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it.
I'm going may need to take a structured 30-day break. I'm going to go move

in with a friend for 30 days. We're going to be very clear on when I come, when I come back,

what the conditions of coming back are going to be. But, and again, you're, you're not,

you got to make this choice. You're, you're an adult.
I don't see that going over well.

Do you see your current situation going over well?

Well, I mean, I probably wouldn't have reached out to you guys. I know, I know, I know.
And I hope you hear that we love you. I'm worried about you.
Neither options are easy. Let's just make that very clear.
Staying is really hard and leaving is going to be hard. But one leads you to where you're free and that your daughter's safe and you're safe and you can get to a better place financially

instead of living in this prison.

And we just want what's best for Jane.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm scared to make a decision.

Yeah.

And...

Do you have people that you know and trust

that can sit with you and hear the entirety of the story?

Yeah, a little bit. Have you opened up do they know yeah what do they tell you to leave okay if your friend was in the situation what would you tell her i mean i i never imagined myself in this situation um no that No, that's what makes these abusive situations so surreal.

Because it's like, there's no way that's happening.

I've heard that over and over.

There's no way this is happening to me.

And it may even be, in your case, happening again, right?

Yeah.

I've never experienced anything quite like this.

But I'm just scared of what I'm really just, I don't know what, I mean, I know what I need to do. Here's what I want you to do.
I want you to reach out to a couple of friends, to reach out to a local counselor in your community, not to go, quote unquote, get well right now, but you need someone that's going to walk alongside you as you have a very challenging road ahead of you, whether you stay and try to figure out how to make this thing work, or you decide to create an alternative life outside of this relationship. But listen, you're worth being well.
All right, Dave, you have some strong opinions. Possibly, yeah.
I think so. Okay, because you really prefer credit unions over big banks.
So why is that? Well, credit unions, for one thing, are non-profit, which means that the members, the customers, own the credit union. So any profits that the credit union makes goes back into customer pricing.
So you get better interest rate on savings, cheaper checking, and so on, that kind of thing. But what's more important than that, though, is the fact that the customer is the owner changes the spirit on the credit union.
So I find very few credit unions that aren't very customer-centric. Yes.
Well, and I think we have found one that is incredible, and that's Fairwinds. They are an incredible credit union that is really out with the heart to help the customer.
You know, that's why we're partnering with them because they've got a scope to be able to handle the Ramsey audience and they're the right kind of people with the right kind of values. And they've done a really, really good job with customer service and the deals that they're offering.
The Ramsey tribe is incredible. Yeah, absolutely.
And you're right, their customer service is unbelievable. Winston and I just signed up and we got an account.
And I'm not kidding. It took less than five minutes.
It was so user-friendly. The step-by-step approach was unbelievable.
And then the next day, my phone rings and it says fair wins on my phone. So I answered it and talked to someone there and they said, yeah, they give calls to every new customer.
And so again, they just really care about your experience. And I so, so appreciate that.
So again, you guys, I know it can be a pain to switch banks or to open up new accounts, but Fairwinds, again, they make it so easy. Plus anything that you can do at a traditional branch, you can do with them at fairwinds.org or on their app and you'll have free access to over 33,000 ATMs.
Hey you guys know how much I hate banks in general and so for me to do this is a big deal. Talk to our friends at Fairwinds and check out the combined checking and savings bundle that they created just for the Ramsey tribe.
You guys it's incredible. Yeah you, it's so easy to join Fairwinds no matter where you live.
So go to fairwinds.org slash Ramsey to learn more. That's F-A-I-R-W-I-N-D-S dot org slash Ramsey.
I talk to people every day who want to know how to do better in two areas, money and relationships. That's why I'm pumped to bring the Money and Relationships Tour to a city near you.
Join me and Dr. John Deloney for a night

that will challenge the way you think about this stuff and possibly change how you live forever.

Starting April 21st, we'll be in Louisville, then on to Durham, Atlanta, Phoenix, Fort Worth,

and Kansas City. Grab your tickets at Ramseysey solutions.com slash tour before they're gone welcome back to the ramsey show i'm george camel host of the entree leadership podcast the fine print and co-host of smart money happy hour join this hour by the host of the dr john deloney show you guessed it america it's dr john deloney.
But how funny would it be if it was a different host? If it was Dan. Hey, my name is Dan.
I'm hosting the Dr. John Deloney Show.
It's kind of like us, me and you hosting the Ramsey Show. That's true.
At least Dave took his first name off of it to make it less awkward for all of us. It's great.
Well, we are here for you, America, taking your calls about life, money, mental health, relationships, career. It all kind of blends into one blurry thing we call life, and we're here to help you take the next step and help you make a breakthrough in that.
So 888-825-5225 is the number to call. Renee joins us up next in Orlando, Florida.
Renee, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you.
So just a little bit of backstory. My husband and I were in our mid-30s, and we both work in frontline positions at one of the major theme parks in the area.
And we also have a six-year-old son. And for the last three months, we've been living in a hotel because we could no longer afford our rent in our apartment.
And financially, we are just not in a place to buy a house.

We've been able to secure an apartment, but the real issue is we ended up falling for, as you would say, George, the stupid tax of getting into payday loans and installment loans. loans and now we're like $25,000

in debt and we make like

$75,000 in debt and we make like $75,000 a year. But between the weekly payments on those loans and our regular bills, we're suffocating under our debt.
And we don't know how to get out of it. We were just turned on to your show, the Ramsey solutions, maybe like a couple of days ago from a coworker of mine.
And we've found hope in it so far, but we've been hearing stuff on the show, like baby steps and emergency funding. We don't know what any of that stuff is.
And we just, we don't know how to start know where to go from here we don't have anything in savings we don't have anything for retirement we don't have anything for our kids um and we would like to have more children someday and set up a stable future and a stable home life for them eventually so so sorry to hear all about this for me gosh are you. Are you ready? Yes.
Like, when George starts talking here, you have to say you're ready. And what that means is you're ready to quit your jobs if you have to.
You're ready to move out of the area if you have to. You're ready to change everything.
Are you in? Yes, we're ready. My husband and I, we've already started looking into schooling to get different jobs, you know, stay in the jobs that we have right now so that we can fund the schooling that we're going to because the company we're at, they will fund higher education for free.
and my husband, he currently has a bachelor's in psychology and wants to go to school for a master's of social work

to be a guidance counselor

and I'm looking into real estate school because I don't have any desire to go to college per se and throw money into a system where there's no guarantee of me getting a job in that field. So, okay.
So you're ready. So George is going to walk you through it.
So I love that you guys want to further your education and get out of this hole, but right now we're in survival mode. And so I'm not thinking about school.
I'm thinking about how are we going to put food on the table and stop living in hotels and make sure our six-year-old is taken care of. And so A1 is to stop going into debt.
Are you guys done there? Are you still having to take out these payday loans to get by? No, we're done. We did take out some credit cards a couple months ago, but we have since stopped using them.
Cut them up. Can you physically cut them up? Yes.
Cut them up. And throw them away so you don't know the numbers anymore.
Okay. And then we're going to pay those off completely, and we're going to close all of those accounts.
And we're not going to look at credit card companies and payday loans as a blessing to get us through next week. They are snakes.
Okay. They prey on people in your situation, okay, who are working their butts off to try to make it work and who want the best for their little kid and just can't make the ends meet.
They prey on you. They give me and George, they give us free flights, and you pay for them.
Okay? They are not your friend. So once we're saying no to debt, let me ask the interest rate on these payday loans, because I think it's going to make us all throw up.
Too much to want to say. Is it in the hundreds? Probably.
I mean, we're spending $1,200 a month on these payday loans. Alone.
What other debt do you have? We both have car payments, and I've looked into selling them off, and we are basically upside down on both of our cars, because, again, it was a buy here, pay here kind of place, so astronomical interest rates. Okay, you have two car loans, you've got the payday loans, you have the credit cards.
What else? The credit cards were actually not in debt on. We make those payments.
Zero balance. Okay.
We just stopped using them. But we also have like medical bills and collections.
I have maybe $1,200 in medical bills and collections and my husband has $1,400 in Corrections. Okay.
So what we're going to do is A1 is we're not going into more debt. That's baby step zero.
We're going to stop the bleeding. Your next step is to scrape together $1,000 as quickly as possible.
That's going to go into a savings account. I know that sounds like, how are we going to do that? We have no margin.
And this is where we go. Obviously, you guys aren't living lavishly.
All of your money is going to debt. We haven't lived lavishly in a long time.
So right now, your expenses... I haven't gotten a haircut in a year.
Your expenses are your four walls, is what I'm guessing. Food, utilities, housing, transportation.
Yeah, basically, and then anything my kid needs. Okay.
Our kid needs. This might mean that we are working 60, 70-hour weeks, and we're trading spots to take care of the six-year-old for a few weeks just so we can get out from being underwater.
That means your husband gets off of work and he doesn't come home. Yeah, that's what we've been doing.
My husband's been doing double shifts six or seven days a week because he can. My role at this theme park, they don't allow overtime.
Have you talked to your employer, your leaders there, and explained what's going on? Yeah. And there's...
Could they put you up in some of their housing on the property temporarily?

They don't have it.

I mean, they have it for the college kids, but not for actual. Do you have somebody who could watch your kid for you? We will now because, like, our closest family is three hours away.
but we recently acquired an thank God, um, in a complex that's an hour away from work, but we actually have friends that live in the complex that would be willing to, so it might be for 30 days from time to time. Well, it might be for 30 days.
You ask them, tell them, Hey, we're in a mess. And the moment you get off, you're going straight to drive Uber or deliver Uber Eats or deliver Instacart.
And all we're trying to do is get $1,000, get $1,000. You are going to get $1,000 in your account and you're going to take a deep breath for the first time in a long time.
Okay? And you're going to do whatever it takes, even if it's I'm staying with friends, I'm going to get plugged into a local church and do whatever you can to get there. Baby step two is listing all the debts smallest to largest, regardless of the interest rate, and attacking it with a vengeance, with all the margin you can muster up, with all the income you can create, with all the expenses you can shave down, and it might be hard at first, but when you knock out that first debt, you are going to be on cloud nine, and you're going to feel like, oh my gosh, we can do this thing, and you're going to knock out the next debt and the next debt.
And what does that do? It frees up the payments on those, now giving you a bigger snowball to keep rolling. And that's called the debt snowball method.
Okay. And once you do that over the next, you know, it may, what's the total amount of debt you guys have? I would say between 25 and $30,000.
You guys can do this. Easy.
You make 75 got $25,000 to pay off. We've heard much smaller incomes with much bigger numbers, and they were able to do it.
So I want you, the key to all of this is just believing that you can do it. And we're going to help you and walk with you by giving you one year of Financial Peace University, watch all nine lessons with your husband, and to get fired up, to give you knowledge, to give you motivation, we're going to give you one year of every dollar premium to get on a written plan, a budget every single week.
You're tracking every expense, making every dollar stretch as far as it can go. And I want you to call us back when you're debt free and share your story because it's going to give so many other people out there hope who didn't think it was possible for them.
Hang on the line. Jenna's going to pick up.
We are rooting for you. We are in your corner.
Please call us back if we can help in any other way. This is The Ramsey Show.
Listen, guys, I've heard just about every excuse for why folks think they can't get ahead with money. So let's go ahead and settle this right now.
The truth is you get to decide what happens with your money. And if you want to start winning with money, you have to get on a budget.
The EveryDollar budget app makes it easy for you to plan every dollar you've got coming in and every dollar going out. Plus it's free.
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This is the Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell joined by Dr.
John Deloney. If you're a fan of this show, be sure to check out my friend Dr.
John Deloney's show. It's on YouTube and podcast, and he does it right next door to the studio, and it's a real good one.
And if you want more from me, which is a rare small group of people, you can check out Smart Money Happy Hour, a podcast I have with Rachel Cruz. That's real fun.
And then a brand new YouTube channel where I'm making, hopefully, fun, entertaining, personal finance videos, breaking down all the traps and trends to help you guys. So go check that out.
You're blown by me, numbers-wise. Well, I think it's because I went all in.
I'm a YouTuber, like a true YouTuber. Yeah, you're like a YouTube native.
Quick edits, highly produced, a lot of pop culture and memes, you know, less sad calls that are people in really tough situations. So I have that going for me.
And they're short. Well, it's crushing, dude.
You're long-winded. I'm short-winded.
You told me not to talk about your height on the air anymore, so I won't. Leave it alone, John.
All right. Let's go to the phones.
Caleb is up next in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Caleb, welcome to the show.
Hey, guys.

Thanks for taking my call.

What's going on?

Well, I'm having some financial struggles with my girlfriend.

Really, like, I'm doing all right myself.

We have a separate bank account.

You know, I've never really thought of combining them or anything,

but she just hasn't been handling her finances very well.

Thank you. You know, I've never really thought of combining them or anything, but she just hasn't been handling her finances very well, and it's kind of putting, like, a real strain on our relationship.
In what way? What's your involvement with her money? She hasn't been able to help out with any of, like, the bills. We live together.
Ah, there it is. Okay.
So a lot of combined bills. she hasn't been able to help out with any of like the bills we live together ah there it is okay so a lot of combined bills she can't pay the bills

no like she she can hardly even pay her own bills why and is she working full-time Yes and no.

We just recently relocated.

Okay.

And that... yes and no um she just recently relocated and that that was the issue like she took a job that didn't really pan out and so for about a month or two there she really didn't have the income coming coming in coming in okay and you know on top of that she didn't really have any money saved up to fall back on so she was putting stuff on credit card so you're are you covering all the bills right now yeah like so like the household bill is the problem financial or is the problem you're growing increasingly, disgusted is probably a strong word, but you're growing increasingly frustrated by the character of the person you're trying to play house with? Yeah.
Are you starting to believe, I don't know if I want to be married to someone who rolls like this? Yeah, I mean, that's definitely, I think you kind of hit the nail on the head right there okay because here's the deal one george and i are both going to tell you if if you're not married and we can say there's a moral issue fine but there's there's a legal issue if you're not married paying each other's bill playing house playing each other's bills it just makes for a. If you own a house together, the whole thing is just so complex.
And so we would tell you, man, if you're going to play house, get married, because at least there is some legal protection as you separate things out if things go sideways. If you're just dating, it just turns into World War III and IV and V.
But beyond that, man, both george and i are married we both are all in

on the woman that we are with and if there's a season where we got to do extra that's what i mean there's no problem there that doesn't seem to be your issue that seems to be like you're just getting increasingly frustrated that this is who i'm dating this is like come on and she's just like, nah, you got it. Is that right?

Yeah,

I mean, that's

definitely... like come on and she's just like now you got it is that right yeah i mean that's definitely you're going down the right right hole there i mean what what kind of frustrates me is i feel like a pressure like she wants the our relationship to move to like the next level what is the next level you guys are already living that would be like marriage or kids uh and i'm not comfortable doing that with her because of her finances have you told her that hey hold on it's not because of her finances it's because of her character They are expressing themselves in her finances.

Don't get those two screwed up because she's going to make you a bunch of promises

and say, okay, well, I'll pay my credit card off

and I'll go get another job.

That's not going to cure the underlying,

which is, eh, I'll do whatever I want.

I don't have to participate in creating a home together.

And also, in her defense,

y'all are kind of just making up the...

I mean, you're just... It's very wishy-washy and it's hard to it's hard to anchor into wishy-washy right yeah yeah i agree have you had a conversation with her yet about all this yeah i i have and it just ends in like argument and yelling and stuff I'm just kind of at my wit's end because as, even as we speak, like she's getting like opening up new credit cards, account card accounts and stuff like that.
Have you, have you said to her, have you said to her being in debt scares me to death? And when you borrow money, I can't breathe. And moving forward in my home, the home that I want to raise kids in and build a family with, we are going to be people who don't borrow money.
And so if that's the way you want to get through your world, I love that you are opting out of relationship with me. Have you said that?

No, I haven't.

Have a backbone, man.

You got to stand up and speak your virtues out into the world.

Because you're going to wake up three years from now,

you're going to have two kids,

you're going to be considering a wedding,

and you are not even going to know what day it is.

You're going to be so frustrated.

Is that fair?

Yeah.

I would never, and listen to me,

don't go tell them, hey, I called these guys on the radio, they told me to dump your butt. That's not what we're saying at all.
I'm telling you, the only thing in the world you can control is your thoughts and your actions. So you go be a person of character and say exactly what you need and what you feel.
And then she gets to opt into that, and y'all create a life together, or she gets to opt out of that and have a bunch of shiny plastic toys that's it i know i made that sound real simple i know it's super way more complex than that but caleb this is this is eating you alive man this is turning into resentment this is turning into you feeling like you're enabling her poor decisions and if i'm in in your shoes, I just go, this relationship isn't working. Our values are too dissimilar for this to work.
And I wish you the best. And you know what that means? Someone's got to move out, and it's going to get real awkward real quick.
Because your first thought is going to be like, I've been paying the bills. And she's going to say, bye, Felicia.
And then the whole thing starts over. Then George and I high five, and we're like, told you so.
But we won't do that. I know the next few steps are going to be real hard, but what's even harder is just sticking this out, hoping things change, and it just gets worse.
And then you've got a lot of resentment. And John Deloney, he quotes another super smart psychologist guy who said, choose guilt over resentment.
And you're going to feel guilty. You're going to go, ah, she's already going through a tough time i can't believe i do this to her but man it's gonna choose that over hating the woman that you you love right or hating your mother-in-law or hating your dad like choose guilt choose the boundaries right um and it goes back to um i don't think i'm a lot of talked about it yet but i think i've talked it a little bit.
It's a secret? Well, it's just I got a new book coming out in the fall. But one of the discussions comes from the great Michael Easter.
It's hard. Life is hard if you are overweight by 100 pounds.
It's hard. And it's so hard to lose 100 pounds.
So you're not toggling between a one's real easy and one's real hard. My life is super simple.
If I'm 100 pounds overweight, and my knees hurt, my back hurts, and I'm exhausted. And it's it's that's not you're choosing between a real fun time and a hard time losing weight.
They're both hard. Right now, what he's choosing is nobody taught that dude how to say his needs out loud.
And nobody taught him how to build a, sit down with somebody and build a picture of what marriage could look like for us and building a life and a home together. No one's done that.
Doing that will be almost impossible. And living with somebody that you don't share their values and they are just digging a hole that expect you to clean up, that's hard too.
So it's not an easy, one's easy and one's hard. They're both hard.
You got to just choose your heart, right? One's going to lead to freedom. What's the path? That's right.
That's a good word. One path heads to freedom.
Wishing you the best. Choose your heart, man.
That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. My thanks to all the folks in the booth keeping the show running.
My co-host, Dr. John Deloney, and you, America, will be back with you before you know it.
What up, what up? It's Dr. John Deloney from the Dr.
John Deloney Show with some amazing news. The latest episode of United States of Anxiety is available right now exclusively on the Ramsey Network app.
This dou-series follows real people from my show as they embark on a 90-day journey to transform their lives, and I personally walk alongside them every step of the way. Okay, now here's a sneak peek of what the new episode is all about, and don't forget to click the link in the show notes to download the app.
What's up, Kelsey? So I've lived with crippling anxiety for as long as I can remember. How do I stop it from constantly coming up in different areas of my life? What does crippling anxiety mean? Paint me a picture of that.
All right, so you ready to jump in? I'm ready to jump in. We're going to check in with Kelsey.

30 days, 60 days, 90 days.

I cannot even function because I'm just crying.

My mom left us when I was four.

I truly felt like for a while I had no family.

She's experiencing things that really hurt a long time ago.

Tell me about this boy.

He triggers me a lot. Scared of losing Paul, scared of doing the wrong thing, scared of not being enough.
It just feels like it would be exhausting to be Kelsey. It is.
Whenever somebody's playing whack-a-mole with their anxiety, when it just keeps moving, that tells me the underlying system's not okay. How do I get my inner child out of this relationship? Because I feel like she's running the show.
One of two people that's supposed to never leave took off. I was this burden.
You're burdened, that's right. To the one person who should carry it, all of it.
Did you ever tell that little girl that it wasn't her fault? I don't know what to do. Do you either have to choose to let this guy love you or you got to choose to let this guy go?