Broke Is Normal—Do You Really Want to Be Like Everyone Else?

Speaker 1 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 actual amazing relationships.

Speaker 1 Jade Washaw, Ramsey Personality, number one best-selling author, and is my co-host today. Open phones here at 888-825-5225.
Merry Christmas, America. Allie is with us.
Allie is in Phoenix. Hi, Allie.

Speaker 1 Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 2 Hey, thanks so much for having me.

Speaker 1 Sure. What's up?

Speaker 2 Yeah, so I have a question around a large lump sum of money I just inherited.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 I have two older sisters. They're twins.

Speaker 2 And they are quite a bit older than me. They're technically my half-sisters.
And my dad came into their life when they were two.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 16 years later, I was born. So they're about 18 years older than me.

Speaker 2 And great dad, he unfortunately passed away when I was

Speaker 2 four and they were in their early 20s and I just found out this past Thanksgiving that through his company's old life insurance there's a hundred thousand dollars in an account that I am set to inherit solely

Speaker 2 how old my mom I'm I'm in I'm 26.

Speaker 1 Okay, so this company, your dad left you as the beneficiary for a $100,000 life insurance policy, and why was it not dispersed to you then?

Speaker 2 It was in a custodial account.

Speaker 1 Well, at 21, it becomes yours.

Speaker 2 Yes, she did not want to tell me about it because she was afraid I would misuse it.

Speaker 1 Okay. She doesn't really have that option legally, by the way.
Okay, so you're now, how old?

Speaker 2 I'm 26.

Speaker 1 Okay, all right. So you have $100,000 and you're going to go pick up the check now, right?

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 1 Good. However, however,

Speaker 2 her closing comment to me after informing me of this account was, you know, he was your sister's dad too, even not by blood.

Speaker 3 Okay, and she would be right about that.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 2 My question to you is, you know, when he passed, my sister stepped in. They financially helped take care of me and my mom.
They were there every second. They moved back in with us.

Speaker 2 They are my best friends, my everything.

Speaker 1 So what do you want to do?

Speaker 3 There's obviously something that you want to do. What do you want to do?

Speaker 2 Well, my holdup is I am in the market to buy a house, and this would be awesome to have. to put towards the down payment

Speaker 2 but i do think they deserve something why Why?

Speaker 1 Why do they deserve something?

Speaker 1 They did not move back in and take care of you all because they thought they had money coming to them.

Speaker 1 That's true. They moved back in and took care of you because your family, they loved you.
You're a little girl. And your mom needed help.

Speaker 1 And they came in and helped their mother and their little half-sister.

Speaker 1 They didn't do it for money. You're under no obligation to repay that act

Speaker 1 with money.

Speaker 1 Yeah. That's like saying, oh, I used to change your diapers, so you need to share this with me.

Speaker 1 No, it's your freaking job when you're the mom. You change the diapers.
That's what you do.

Speaker 1 You don't get to play that card later as a way to get paid back.

Speaker 3 Now, if you just, in your own heart, you thought, man,

Speaker 3 I want to share this, and it has nothing to do with you feeling off the bus.

Speaker 1 Now, this is guilt.

Speaker 1 This is your mother is a travel agent for guilt trips, and she's a bit of a control freak because she illegally withheld this information from you for the last five years.

Speaker 1 I mean, she could get her butt sued

Speaker 1 if you were a jerk.

Speaker 1 I mean, what she did is straight up illegal, okay? It's not criminal, but I mean, she just can't, you can't do that. It's not, it's just well, I thought that, you know, she might misuse it.

Speaker 1 It's not her option. The law says at 21, it's yours.
The custodial rights dissipate.

Speaker 1 They disappear at 21.

Speaker 1 So, you know,

Speaker 1 there's a lot of guilt and passive-aggressive floating around your whole family.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 I think you know. I personally, your dad left your name on it.
If he wanted their name on it, he would have put their name on it.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 If your mother could have talked him into it, he would have put their name on it.

Speaker 1 And so she's now trying to fix this the way she wants it afterwards. Sorry.

Speaker 1 I don't need to be mean about this

Speaker 1 and I don't want you to be unkind to anybody. And I appreciate that you love your half-sisters, and that's wonderful that you have a great relationship.
I'm glad you do.

Speaker 1 But it should not be based on money. It ought to be based on love and family.

Speaker 1 And And so

Speaker 1 you are not lesser of a person

Speaker 1 if you only follow through on your father's intent. Your father left you

Speaker 1 this money.

Speaker 1 He did not leave it to them.

Speaker 1 So you do whatever you want to do. I don't want you to share it out of guilt.

Speaker 3 I don't either, but I will say, I mean, I will say if I was left,

Speaker 3 there's four of us, if I was left on my dad's insurance policy $100,000, and if I just was privy to the fact that my siblings got nothing, I think that I would be inclined to divvy it up.

Speaker 3 And I'm not saying that that's right or wrong. I just can understand,

Speaker 3 I can understand it. And I agree with you, Dave.
I don't think it should be done out of guilt at all. You should never do any generosity without a cheerful heart, period.
But

Speaker 3 I can understand it. And I think I can understand it.

Speaker 1 I can understand it if you want to do it. Yeah.
But I am not okay with this coming from your mother who illegally kept this information from you for five years. Definitely.

Speaker 1 Well, you know. No,

Speaker 1 he loved them, too.

Speaker 1 You know, he loved puppies, too. So maybe we ought to give some to the Humane Society.
You know, oh, brother.

Speaker 3 I mean,

Speaker 1 that's not good. That is good.
You're killing me here.

Speaker 3 Yeah, because then she might decide that she should have some too. Yeah, he loved me, too.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Wow. He He loved all God's little creatures.
You know, it's, gee, you're killing me. So,

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 I think the situation, if you go to like with your brothers and sisters, you're talking about that, I think that's

Speaker 1 dependent. Why did your dad not leave them on the policy? Well, because they're misbehaving.
Sure, sure. Okay, then

Speaker 1 you'd be violating his memory and his intent and his blessing to do that. Or

Speaker 1 he just screwed up the paperwork. He wasn't watching what he was doing.
That's also possible. And that was a mistake.
If that was the case, then I might want to share it. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And I think that's the thing.

Speaker 3 She knows what's really at play here. And I think that you were.

Speaker 1 I'm 100% sure she is his blood daughter. The other girls aren't.
Yeah. And 100% sure he left it to his daughter.
Yeah. There's no question in my mind.

Speaker 1 I'm reading his mind. And

Speaker 1 it's just that

Speaker 1 the wife didn't like that.

Speaker 3 Yeah, she did.

Speaker 1 Sorry.

Speaker 1 The way it works. This is the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 1 Jade Washall, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Thanks for hanging out with us.
John Deloney and I are doing the Money and Relationships Tour this spring.

Speaker 1 These cities are selling very, very quickly. If you'd like to come, we'd love to have you.
Putting a new twist on this.

Speaker 1 At each stop, we're going to put out a bunch of topics before the show while you're sitting in the audience getting ready, and

Speaker 1 you're going to vote on what we talk about that night. So you're going to form the content for the show that night.

Speaker 1 And we'll be in Louisville, Kentucky, April 21, Durham, April 23rd, Atlanta, April 25th, Phoenix, May 5, Fort Worth, May 7, Kansas City, May 9. You don't want to miss this.

Speaker 1 Ramseysolutions.com slash tour, tour, the Money and Relationships Tour. And that's Dr.
John Deloney and me coming to a town near you. Lexington, Kentucky is on the line.
John is with us.

Speaker 1 Merry Christmas, John.

Speaker 2 Hey, guys. How are you guys doing?

Speaker 1 Better than we deserve, bruh. What's up?

Speaker 2 Good. So me and my fiancé, we're wanting to get married, but we're kind of running into a tricky situation.

Speaker 2 So basically, she has a lot of health issues, and she takes a lot of medications and some of those medications are just ridiculously priced. I mean like one of them is just is five grand a month.

Speaker 1 What is her health problems?

Speaker 2 So she has diabetes type one

Speaker 2 epilepsy seizures and

Speaker 2 she has a bunch of other stuff but here recently because we have a seven month old She recently got diagnosed with postpartum depression.

Speaker 2 So she's having a pretty tough time now.

Speaker 2 But basically, we want to get married, but she's on Medicaid right now, which covers, which fully covers the cost of her medication.

Speaker 2 And if we get married, they would use my income and deny her Medicaid.

Speaker 3 And then what would the prescription cost on your insurance?

Speaker 2 So, and that's kind of why I'm calling you guys because I'm a little

Speaker 2 confused about this insurance. Like, I have, I don't know a lot about it.
Um, I mean, I see our deductible would be eight grand, which seems like a lot.

Speaker 3 Yeah, but then you could look and see what, how, how your prescriptions are covered. Have you called and just asked them and said, Hey, I'm getting married.
I'm moving my wife to my insurance.

Speaker 3 Here's the medications that she's on. What would it cost me?

Speaker 2 I have not.

Speaker 3 I think that's your first step.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 Okay, because I thought, so the deductibles on insurance

Speaker 1 may or may not apply to prescription drugs. We don't know in your policy.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Even if it does. Even if it does.
It's an $8,000 out-of-pocket, not $8,000 a month.

Speaker 3 Which is something you could plan for for the year.

Speaker 1 What do you make?

Speaker 2 I take home about $32,000.

Speaker 1 Okay. All right.
And what do you do for a living?

Speaker 2 I'm an HVAC. I'm just starting out.
Okay.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 you're just getting your apprenticeship behind you and you're starting to make some tech money, which means your income is going to double in the next three years, agreed? Correct. Yeah.
Okay.

Speaker 1 That's good. That's a good trade, Bian, man.
Good for you. And

Speaker 1 so, but here's the thing. One of the ways you want to look at major situations like this is, okay, I've got this barrier.
Number one,

Speaker 1 what can I do about it? Which Jade gave you a great suggestion. Go ahead and get more information gathered up because you may be worrying about something or you may have made an assumption here.

Speaker 1 I mean, I have no idea. It may be that some of those particular drugs have a generic form

Speaker 1 that can be bought for $500 a month. I don't know.

Speaker 1 I mean, it wouldn't be that unusual to hear a story like that once you decide, hey, we've got to figure this out because we're getting married. Okay.
And now,

Speaker 1 then you pan back and say, all right, even if

Speaker 1 it's $7,000,

Speaker 1 we've got to figure out something else because

Speaker 1 we don't want to be on Medicaid

Speaker 1 for the next 40 years and not married.

Speaker 1 Right. So you have to have a long-term perspective on this.
It says, okay, I've got to fix this because this doesn't play well long-term. This month.

Speaker 1 If it is $7,000 a month and that's the only option, which is probably not, but if that's that's the only option, this month sucks. That's right.
That's right.

Speaker 1 But you cannot let that be the only thing that says, I'm going to determine this because we know we don't want to be on welfare for the next 40 years. That's not a good life plan.

Speaker 1 So we've got to find a way to get off of welfare,

Speaker 1 which is what Medicaid is, boys and girls. And

Speaker 1 so let's get off of that and

Speaker 1 let's find a way around that. So private insurance, generics,

Speaker 1 other solutions to the medical issues. Start talking to the docs and say, okay, Medicaid's off the table.
So,

Speaker 1 how are we going to make sure she's okay?

Speaker 3 That's right.

Speaker 3 And even if you do call and find out that the prescriptions are covered with her health conditions, you're always going to want your deductible laying around because you never know what's going to pop up that's going to send somebody to the ER or they'll have to have a procedure done.

Speaker 3 So, that's something that you really should weigh heavily.

Speaker 3 And we say it all the time when people have three to six months of emergency funds, one of the things you weigh in is the health of you or your spouse.

Speaker 1 So something to think about. Yeah, it sounds like you got a high deductible HSA, probably.
Yeah. And so that sets you up to have a good emergency fund.

Speaker 1 And you're probably budgeting to recoup that deductible once a year. That's right.
And, you know, because you're probably going to burn through it with,

Speaker 1 you know, an ongoing struggle with epilepsy and ongoing struggle with some of these other issues. So

Speaker 1 cool. Hey, John, that's a good question.
You're a good man. I'm glad you're looking at this through the right eyes and figuring out how to solve it.
Appreciate you joining us. Alex is in Denver.

Speaker 1 Alex, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Merry Christmas.

Speaker 2 Hey, Merry Christmas. Thanks for taking my call.

Speaker 1 Sure. What's up?

Speaker 2 I had a question today, not about gift giving, but gift receiving.

Speaker 2 So long through shirt, we've been using you guys at baby steps since about late 2022, so a little over a year.

Speaker 2 We're just finishing step two. We're on to our last $8,000.
We should be done by about May of this year, being all paid off.

Speaker 1 So we're excited.

Speaker 2 But the issue is, so I found out that my wife has been saving some of her discretionary income on the side, some of the cost of changing spending money that she's had over the years.

Speaker 2 And she bought me what I would consider a pretty expensive Christmas gift.

Speaker 1 What?

Speaker 2 About $850.

Speaker 1 What?

Speaker 2 It's something that I've wanted for years.

Speaker 1 I'm a nerd. I like Legos and Star Wars.

Speaker 2 It's the Lego Millennium Falcon, the giant one.

Speaker 3 How long did she save up her fun money to do this?

Speaker 2 Probably six or seven months.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 And so the thing is, I'm still in the trenches. My mind is at paying off of our debt.

Speaker 1 How come hers is off-screen clear? How come hers is.

Speaker 1 How come hers is not in the trenches?

Speaker 2 I don't know. I thought it was.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Was the fun money, I just have a question. Was the fun money something that you guys decided was going to be on the budget? And it is.
And you have a line item too?

Speaker 3 Yep. Okay.
And you've been spending yours on what you consider fun

Speaker 2 for the most part. Usually mine goes towards day trips and vacations for us.

Speaker 3 Okay. And then she's.

Speaker 2 So a little, little like, you know, out in the local area, going to a nice restaurant every once in a while.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 3 And then she's, instead of spending hers on what she would consider fun, whether it be for her or both of you, she's stacked it up for this gift.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 3 And what you're thinking is, don't stack it up for the gift. If you're going to do anything, put it on the debt.

Speaker 2 And yeah, I mean, it's your tenth of our remaining debt. Why wouldn't we just, you know, pay off that much more of it?

Speaker 3 Well, because you guys said you had fun money. No, I disagree.
Well, I'm not saying that that's right, but I am saying that you guys created a budget. You both shook and agree on it.

Speaker 3 You spent your money on one way. And now you're, now that you see

Speaker 3 she stacked up hers, you're like, ooh, wait a minute. I want to, the truth is, Dave is right.
You guys shouldn't have been doing fun money to begin with if you're for it.

Speaker 1 We're not going out to eat. We're not going on vacation.
We're totally intense and totally focused. And I don't know how in the crud you come up with $850 in a super gazelle-intense budget.

Speaker 1 You should have been putting

Speaker 1 every dollar out. And anytime you have money left at the end of the month, you throw it at the desk.
That's right. You don't stack it up in the corner.
This is not a squirrel fund.

Speaker 1 So, I mean, you do whatever you want to do, but that is not following the baby steps. Neither of you.
When you're in baby step two, neither one of you are.

Speaker 1 When you're in baby step two, you're throwing everything.

Speaker 1 You don't see the inside of a restaurant unless you're working there. We're not going on vacation.
We're getting out of debt. And so you guys are, you've been

Speaker 1 focused, but you've not been intense.

Speaker 1 And so you do whatever y'all want to do in your plan. Our plan is all this money should have been going towards the debt, all of it, all along.
You would have been done by now. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, probably.

Speaker 1 Probably. This is the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 1 Jade Washaw, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Student loan debt is an epidemic, and defaulting on debt makes you feel even worse.

Speaker 1 But our question of the day sponsor, Why Refi, refinances defaulted private student loans. And they build a custom loan based on your ability to pay.

Speaker 1 You'll have a payment you can afford with a low fixed interest rate that you couldn't get anywhere else. Go to yrefi.com slash Ramsey.
That's the letter Y, R E F Y

Speaker 1 dot com slash Ramsey. Might not be in all states.

Speaker 3 All right, today's question comes from Rick in Michigan.

Speaker 3 My wife and I have no debt, a fully funded emergency fund, a paid-off house, and we have about $150,000 saved for a down payment on our next home.

Speaker 3 We follow the Ramsey plan and we are baby steps millionaires. Congrats.
We are so close to having enough to pay for the next house in cash between savings and the proceeds from our current house.

Speaker 3 However, my wife wants to move sooner than later. She has suggested getting a mortgage again and keeping some of the down payment savings to use for monthly payments and other such ideas.

Speaker 3 I love my wife, but I know these aren't great financial decisions. I don't want to buy a house.
in a manner that's not financially responsible and then resent her for pressuring me into it.

Speaker 3 Am I being a jerk here?

Speaker 3 No, I think you're being a really smart guy. And I think you're holding up your end of what you guys said the deal is because when you walk through the baby steps, you know, there's seven of them.

Speaker 3 And part of that is you kind of draw this line in the sand and you go, okay, like we're not people that borrow money anymore. Right.

Speaker 3 And in this case, it would be really frivolous and stupid for you guys to go into debt for a mortgage when you don't need to. That's just, I mean, truly, that's stupid.
You don't need to do it.

Speaker 3 So I I think that you're right. You have some conversations to have with your wife.

Speaker 3 Something is pulling her in another direction. I don't know if it's comparison.
I don't know if it's something she saw some ladies at church doing. I don't know.

Speaker 3 Something is pulling her in a direction.

Speaker 1 Quit looking at houses until you have the money. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
And when you go look at a nicer house, you come home and your brain, you get house fever. True, true.

Speaker 1 And you have to take like cold showers and stuff to get rid of it.

Speaker 1 It'll destroy your brain. It'll rot your brain.
And so

Speaker 1 that's what happens. I mean,

Speaker 1 Instagram or physically visiting the house or looking at the Mozilla or whatever else, quit doing that. You know, don't go test drive a car when you've got the money to buy it.

Speaker 1 All it does is stir you up and cause you to act like a four-year-old.

Speaker 3 That's such a good point. You're right.
They're looking at houses too soon. You need to wait till you have the money.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Just save up. And then when we're ready to make the move, then we'll start talking about

Speaker 1 looking. And

Speaker 1 this is the budget we have. And we don't need to look at houses more expensive than the money we have.
Facts. And, you know, it's a simple thing because it causes this.
So, you know, no, honey,

Speaker 1 the process that got us here to a millionaire at our age

Speaker 1 was to get out of debt, house and everything.

Speaker 1 I cannot go back into debt.

Speaker 1 I can't do it.

Speaker 1 And it's not an act of love towards you for me to cave and do something that's not good for our future and our family. So, no.

Speaker 3 Yeah,

Speaker 3 I'm reading this again. She's desperate.
She's like, oh, she saw something.

Speaker 1 I'm guarantee you. She got the fever.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Laura's in Tampa, Florida. Hey, Laura.
Merry Christmas. Hey.

Speaker 2 Merry Christmas, Dave and Jade. I am so excited to be talking to you guys.

Speaker 1 Happy to talk to you. What's up?

Speaker 2 Well, my husband and I are baby stubs millionaires, and I have you guys to thank for that. So I really appreciate everything you're doing.

Speaker 2 Yeah, my question is, given my disability, I'm wondering if you think I can successfully start and run a franchise as long as I start debt-free.

Speaker 2 And if not, is there anything else that I can do to earn six figures ever again?

Speaker 1 What is your disability?

Speaker 2 I acquired a brain injury about six years ago, and I haven't worked since.

Speaker 2 I was a marketing director, and I coached independent contractors, top producing independent contractors in real estate. And I've got these great skill sets that are just kind of sitting here with me.

Speaker 2 And it's driving me crazy.

Speaker 3 Well, what are the limitations that you face because of the brain injury?

Speaker 2 Sure. So I can work about two hours a day,

Speaker 2 about four to five days a month. I have really bad days where I can't get out of bed.

Speaker 2 And then I have some mild cognitive impairments, so I make more mistakes than I used to before.

Speaker 2 Yeah, those and there's I mean there's a lot of chronic conditions, but that's the that's what really applies to the work situation.

Speaker 3 And what type of franchise are you trying to open up?

Speaker 2 Well, we have a cleaner at our house and she's fantastic.

Speaker 2 I was thinking I know that she's interested in talking with me, but if I could bring her on as a GM in residential cleaning services and her portfolio comes with us, that maybe that's an option.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 3 And so you're saying I can have her hire a bunch of cleaners and i'll just run the thing

Speaker 2 and she's my partner that's where my mind is right now

Speaker 3 interesting uh i i'm not gonna lie i'm hung up on the two hours a day four to five days a month now i'm not saying that your your screen says is it possible to make six figures again i think so um okay

Speaker 3 But this is definitely a limitation.

Speaker 1 Dave, what do you think? You can work two hours a day.

Speaker 2 Correct. My brain starts to, cognitively, I start to decline after about two hours of problem solving, and that's when I make more mistakes, and things get a lot harder for me.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 So whatever it is you're going to run, obviously we have to be able to do it with that number of hours.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 then everything else has to be delegated to the rest of the team. And

Speaker 1 can you make six figures? Absolutely. You make six figures.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 I don't know if it's in house cleaning or not. I don't know about that.

Speaker 1 But I think you've,

Speaker 1 you know, you've figured out what we've got to work with here. Now, and so what we have to do is we have to have something that makes

Speaker 1 that we can leverage those two hours into

Speaker 1 to lead others to run things on the other six hours a day out of eight that

Speaker 1 the place is running and I'm not running it.

Speaker 3 What made you choose house cleaning? Is that something you're passionate about and know about or is it just because you have someone who is a

Speaker 1 possible partner?

Speaker 2 Exactly.

Speaker 2 I know that daily operations is where I need someone to take over so that I can do more of the high-level stuff of scaling a business.

Speaker 2 So she's the only person I have in mind as a potential GM and that's her expertise.

Speaker 2 But that's not my passion at all. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I would not not build something that you didn't have passion about because it's going to be too hard.

Speaker 1 Whether you're facing brain injury or just doing a small business is hard,

Speaker 1 number one. Number two, I would not build something that is dependent upon a single individual.
I want a concept that works, and then I'll look for the individual to plug into it.

Speaker 1 And if that individual doesn't work, I'll plug a different individual into it. But we don't do org charts in our organization charts in Ramsey based on the person that's here.

Speaker 1 We do the organization chart based on the proper way to run the business and then the people that are here populate that chart.

Speaker 1 So every time I have built something for, built a job for someone,

Speaker 1 that's really messed me up because then that person leaves and you're screwed.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 2 I think I'm in a place of just pulling straws because I just want something.

Speaker 1 I appreciate the ambition, and you do have capacity to do something.

Speaker 1 But don't, you know, there's no rush. You're millionaires.
You're okay.

Speaker 1 You're not, you know, it's not like you need the money to pay the bills. You just need something to do because, you know, you're a doer.
And so that's a good thing. But

Speaker 1 let's take the steps and say, all right, what am I passionate about? What can I plug into?

Speaker 1 How can I build this out in such a way that we're backfilling for these deficits, but we're utilizing the gift that I do have, which is very powerful powerful two hours a day.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And some people don't work but two hours a day anyway.
They just sit around the rest of the time. So

Speaker 2 do you think, do you think franchise is still then on the path?

Speaker 1 I don't think franchise answers your question. What answers your question is building a system of some kind.
It could be a franchise. But

Speaker 1 what you're looking for is you just need

Speaker 1 a duplicatable system of some kind that you can delegate out and run. And

Speaker 1 hang on, I'm going to send you the assessment for Ken Coleman's finding the work you're wired to do and send you the book as well. I think you'll enjoy that and it may spur some ideas.

Speaker 1 This is the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 1 Jade Washaw, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host. Open phones at 888-825-5225.
Brian is in Atlanta. Hey, Brian, how are you?

Speaker 2 I'm all right. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 Sure. What's up? So

Speaker 2 I recently found some of your videos scrolling Facebook and started listening to some of your stuff. I haven't done any of the things that you talk about, but I'm trying to get started.

Speaker 2 I recently bought a truck. It was a horrible decision that I didn't know better at the time.

Speaker 2 And I'm a prime example of just because you make more money doesn't mean you you fix the problem if you don't know how to spend it.

Speaker 2 Because I doubled my income three years ago.

Speaker 1 And celebrated it with a truck payment.

Speaker 2 I did.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I have just steadily gone downhill.

Speaker 2 And I've been trying to sell it, but I owe a little bit more than it's worth because I took the hit of depreciation on a brand new truck.

Speaker 1 Man.

Speaker 1 How much did you pay for that truck?

Speaker 2 Over 60 grand finance. No money down.

Speaker 1 Man, oh, man.

Speaker 2 I was raised that credit was everything, and I've worked my butt off to have really good credit, and it's done nothing but hurt me.

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 2 I have an opportunity because the truck's a limit,

Speaker 2 and Toyota Corporation is going to have to buy it back.

Speaker 2 However, the state I'm in has a 20 cents per mile deduction for depreciation.

Speaker 2 And that's going to mean I have to pay a little bit over eight grand just for them to buy out my loan.

Speaker 2 I don't have eight grand sitting in the bank. That would be a loan that I'd have to get just to get out of this law.

Speaker 1 But you would be

Speaker 1 trading an eight grand loan for a

Speaker 1 $60,000 loan.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I got like $46,000 left on it, yes.

Speaker 1 Okay, sure.

Speaker 2 But I have the credit. I can go to the bank and sign the payment and get a signature loan for eight grand.
It's just, is it the right move?

Speaker 1 And then they pay off the loan or they take the truck?

Speaker 1 They pay off the loan and take the truck so then you don't have to sell your truck for 46 000 then

Speaker 2 could i know i've had it for sale for 46 000 for a while oh okay all right so it's not what's it worth

Speaker 1 uh

Speaker 2 it's uh

Speaker 2 last time i looked it's uh about forty trading in i think the mid 30s that the value plummeted on these things because all the recalls got it

Speaker 3 uh and it just it killed the value of these trucks so they're you're getting a better deal selling it back to them.

Speaker 2 I think so, yeah,

Speaker 2 it's just now I'm trying to

Speaker 1 yes, I would rather be eight thousand dollars in debt than forty-six thousand dollars in debt.

Speaker 3 I mean, it's similar to what we would tell anybody if they were upside down in a car. We tell them to go to the loan to the bank, get a loan, clear the difference, and get something in cash.

Speaker 3 And this is very similar to that.

Speaker 1 So, I think the only difference is your buyer happens to be Toyota, but yeah,

Speaker 2 yeah,

Speaker 2 yeah,

Speaker 1 okay. And how quick is all this coming through?

Speaker 2 I have a bunch of documents I have to get together and send to them to get an offer to find out what they're actually willing to pay for the truck.

Speaker 2 But it'll probably be the first week or so of January.

Speaker 1 Oh, so they'll cut you a check pretty quick then.

Speaker 2 Yeah, they're going to cut it to the bank.

Speaker 1 That's what I mean. I got to pay the difference.
That's what I mean.

Speaker 1 Do you have? Yes, I would do that deal.

Speaker 3 Yeah,

Speaker 3 and you might have something, I don't know, just talking to you, you might have something laying around that you could sell to get the money to clear the difference without taking out a loan.

Speaker 1 Just a thought. And you got to have to get a little truck of some kind, a little $5,000 or something to get around in.

Speaker 3 I don't know.

Speaker 3 That guy sounds like he's got a lot of little things with engines laying around that he could sell.

Speaker 1 Just kind of got that feeling now. Adamson spoke in.
Hey, Adam, welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 2 Thank you very much.

Speaker 1 How can I help?

Speaker 2 So I had a question about interest-bearing loans. My understanding is that interest-bearing loans between brothers is prohibited.

Speaker 2 If I put my money in a savings account and I'm getting 4% interest back, am I just removing that responsibility from my loan because now the bank is then charging another believer interest

Speaker 2 using my money?

Speaker 1 You're not in charge of the bank and the bank is not a brother.

Speaker 2 Well, what if the bank is being run by believers?

Speaker 1 It's not. A bank is an institution.
It's not the employees. If an individual, individual, we can have a discussion about an individual loaning an individual money, but institutions don't have souls.

Speaker 1 And I promise you, banks don't have souls.

Speaker 1 Sure. Right.

Speaker 2 But then on the back end of that, if somebody goes to a bank, like if I were to go to a bank and borrow money for a mortgage, I'm using the money of other believers.

Speaker 2 Am I enabling them to recharge?

Speaker 1 Yeah, how do you know that? They didn't loan you the money, though.

Speaker 2 Right. The bank pooled a whole bunch of people's money, and so I don't know who the money belongs to.

Speaker 1 Exactly. So you can't make that judgment.

Speaker 1 Again, you can't make that judgment.

Speaker 2 Right. It just seems like that's a way to sort of obfuscate what's happening so that removes responsibility from anybody.

Speaker 1 No, that's not the intent. The intent is

Speaker 1 that's not the intent of the scripture to start with.

Speaker 1 And banks didn't all get together and go, you know, there is this line in Deuteronomy. And to get around that, we're going to create this whole system.
No, they didn't do that. I promise.

Speaker 1 They didn't think a thing about Deuteronomy, not once. And so, no, that's not, you're not doing anything wrong.
It's like saying,

Speaker 1 if I do business, if I buy a pizza at Pizza Hut, but they take credit cards for other people to buy a pizza and put them in debt. Am I supporting Visa putting people in debt through Pizza Hut?

Speaker 1 No, you're not. You're just buying a pizza.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, you're really working. You're probably working hard here to be guilty of something.

Speaker 1 That's a good way to put it, dude.

Speaker 2 It's something that I don't really hear anybody talk about. So I'm sort of.

Speaker 1 I'll help you.

Speaker 1 I'll tell you why, okay?

Speaker 1 Because the scripture that you're referring to does not say interest in the Hebrew. It only says it in the new

Speaker 1 King James. The rabbis in Judaism do not teach what you're talking about.
Thus, Jewish people have been in the banking business from day one, okay,

Speaker 1 from the time there's been Jewish people. So

Speaker 1 most scholars, even evangelical scholars, will tell you that the actual Hebrew word there is better translated usury than it is interest.

Speaker 1 And so it's not really

Speaker 1 a situation of Christians can't charge interest at all. Usury is the overcharge of interest.
Christians should not overcharge interest.

Speaker 1 And so there were states decades ago that had usury laws that prevented interest rates from being above a certain level because of that. And it came from that scripture.

Speaker 1 But the word usury there is a,

Speaker 1 when you do the word studies on it and you get down into scholarship on it, is more akin to overcharging of interest than it is the charging of interest.

Speaker 1 So you could make the case that credit cards are userous because they're 18 to 28 percent. That's a usurus, an overcharging of interest rates.
Probably can't make that case with a mortgage rate.

Speaker 1 And I can make the case that you shouldn't be borrowing money at all

Speaker 1 because there's not a single positive reference in the Bible to debt. But I can't tell you that borrowing money is a sin.

Speaker 1 As a matter of fact, I'm positive that the Bible never never once refers to debt as a sin. It refers to it as lacking in sense.

Speaker 1 You're a slave,

Speaker 1 you know, it's a curse upon you if you go into debt, all these negative connotations, but never once is it a sin issue, and never once is it mentioned as a salvation issue. It's not.

Speaker 1 It's just instructional from Scripture to avoid debt. It's instructional in scripture to have a budget.
It's instructional from scripture to live on less than you make, to not co-sign.

Speaker 1 There are instructions all through scripture regarding money. This is one of them, to not overcharge, particularly your brother, a userous amount of interest.
But

Speaker 1 dude, when you fall down the Pharisee rabbit hole where you're trying to unpack every

Speaker 1 uncross every T and every jot and tittle,

Speaker 1 you really can't pull the thread long enough to make to keep the sweater from to keep the sweater intact. And

Speaker 1 doesn't work and so you walk in grace brother walk in grace and be good and be kind be compassionate be wise and um

Speaker 1 don't try to figure out how the banking system is somehow uh

Speaker 1 built on uh dodging one bible scripture that doesn't even mean that in the hebrew this is the ramsey show

Speaker 1 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 actual, amazing relationships.

Speaker 1 I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Jade Washall. Number one best-selling author Ramsey personality is my co-host today.
Open phones at 888-825-5225.

Speaker 1 Zachary's in Houston. Hey, Zachary, how are you?

Speaker 2 Oh, I'm doing all right.

Speaker 1 How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. Merry Christmas.
How can we help?

Speaker 2 So I'm in a bit of a situation that I'm looking for some guidance on. My wife and I just started your program about six months ago.
We're $43,000 worth of consumer debt down so far.

Speaker 1 Good.

Speaker 2 And I just lost my job a few days ago.

Speaker 1 Oh, no, right before Christmas. That sucks.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was pretty exciting to get a layoff right before Christmas.

Speaker 1 What do you do? What kind of work were you doing?

Speaker 2 Construction superintendent. So I was making about $160,000 a year.

Speaker 2 I've got a job lined up to start again in January

Speaker 1 for 170. Oh,

Speaker 1 this works.

Speaker 2 I'm going to kind of manipulate your system a little bit for my own peace of mind. And my wife and I are debating.
I want to stop Baby Step 2 right now because we have two vehicles in our house.

Speaker 2 That's all that's left. And I want to do a six-month emergency fund and then go back to attacking everything.

Speaker 3 That's just because you're feeling some type of way because you lost your job?

Speaker 2 Correct.

Speaker 1 Okay, but did you get severance?

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 1 Okay, so

Speaker 1 how many checks are you going to miss?

Speaker 2 Theoretically, just two.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 So where's the panic?

Speaker 2 But it definitely has you nervous.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it makes you nervous, but there's no reason to panic.

Speaker 2 Well, for a long time before I took this job, I tried to out-earn my stupidity, and that didn't work.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 So I took the job and like I said, we got pretty serious about it six months ago.

Speaker 2 I don't know. It's just peaceful.

Speaker 1 What does your wife work?

Speaker 2 Nothing. We're a single family

Speaker 1 income. Or a single income family.
No, I would not reorganize the baby steps because you got scared once.

Speaker 2 So you just keep going and tackle the cars and then move on to it.

Speaker 1 I mean, if you push pause on everything

Speaker 1 a couple weeks while you get your paycheck started again,

Speaker 1 that's fine.

Speaker 1 But are we going to, because of the layoff, are we going to, in January, not pay down on the cars and instead build up an emergency fund because we got laid off back in December? No.

Speaker 1 No. That's just being, that's fear-based.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 It is.

Speaker 1 It's also not wise.

Speaker 2 Well, that's the reason for the calls.

Speaker 1 Yeah, how much do you owe on the cars?

Speaker 2 We owe $13,000 on my truck and $24,000 on her car.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 1 So we're not bad.

Speaker 1 That's where we were. Sometimes when I flip this around a little bit, it wakes my spirit up and I shock myself a little bit.
So I'm going to do that to you. Okay.

Speaker 1 Instead of building your emergency fund because you're scared, sell both cars because you're scared. That's good.

Speaker 1 You ain't that scared. Well, all of a sudden.
He got silent. All of a sudden.
Here's the kicker.

Speaker 2 Here's the kicker that we've been waiting for that hasn't happened yet. I own a little bit over a million dollars worth of real estate that's been on the market between eight different houses.

Speaker 2 And when interest rates spiked, sales stopped.

Speaker 2 So we've kind of been waiting for one of those to sell to just go ahead and pay everything off and be done.

Speaker 1 See?

Speaker 1 All of a sudden, you start thinking different different when I sold your cars.

Speaker 1 That's what I did. I do that kind of stuff to myself because what that does is it says, okay, you're not really that scared.

Speaker 1 You're just trying to intellectually manipulate a system that's not really broken. So work the system, dude.

Speaker 2 In fairness, I do have photos out to a dealership to buy my truck because I have a ton of equity in app.

Speaker 1 That's good.

Speaker 3 Hey, didn't you say that?

Speaker 1 I really wasn't suggesting you sell them. I'm just saying if you're that scared, that's that's the move you would make.

Speaker 1 But you're not that scared is what that points out.

Speaker 1 So that, because then all of a sudden I found out we got a million dollars worth of real estate floating around in this conversation that didn't come up when we first got laid off a few minutes ago.

Speaker 1 So, you know, no, you're going to leapfrog through all these baby steps when that other stuff sells so fast anyway. And no, you don't need to sell your truck.
And no, you don't need to stop.

Speaker 1 If you want to take a...

Speaker 1 a heartbeat, take one month off of don't pay down on debt, pile up cash for one month out of your budget, whatever you can live on, living on nothing, and then reapply that cash to the debt when you get comfortable again, the other side of that, and start, push a pause button on the baby steps, then push play again later on.

Speaker 1 That's fine. But no, we're not going to do them out of order because you got laid off.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and you really have to think through this because the point of part of the point of the order of these steps is you want to actually finish paying off the debt.

Speaker 3 If you were to do these out of order, number one, it'd take you forever to save up the three to six months because you're still paying payments every month.

Speaker 3 So it would elongate that part of the process. And then people would be like, oh, I got three to six months.
I can just let that debt simmer.

Speaker 1 The car doesn't really kind of count. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And then before you know it, you haven't done anything. And so do it the right way.
It works for a reason. And, you know, you're not the exception of the millions of people who've done this.

Speaker 1 Layoff and the fear that goes with that is my motivator to kick this thing into gear and get it finished. Boom.
That's it. I'm just going,

Speaker 1 I'm going to use that as my push button. Jaden's with us, and I will bring Jaden up in a minute here.
So here's another thing.

Speaker 1 You guys listening out there,

Speaker 1 if you've listened to the show for a long time, you've heard this happen before. And Jade, you alluded to it a minute ago.

Speaker 1 The Bible says out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

Speaker 1 So what's going on inside of you comes out of your mouth before you realize it, in other words.

Speaker 1 And so, it often happens on the show when you and I, or any of the other personalities, ask someone, okay, how much debt have you got? And they give us like their credit card debt and something else.

Speaker 1 I'm like,

Speaker 1 and how much do you owe in your car?

Speaker 1 And they, oh, yeah. Yeah.
Because they didn't have that in the debt column in their head. Yeah, that's right.
And so, out of that, what that tells us is in their heart,

Speaker 1 that's not debt. That's right.
Because it's so freaking normalized

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 you've normalized the backache to where you've always had a backache. And you go, oh, yeah, I forgot about that ache.

Speaker 1 Doc says, what hurts? Oh, nothing. What about your back? Oh, yeah, yeah.
Because I've gotten used to that backache.

Speaker 1 You know, and it doesn't no longer feel that way. And so,

Speaker 1 and they do that with student loans, too. That's right.
They put it in a different column in their brain, store it back in the corner. Like, how much debt you got? And how much on the student loans?

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 And so it's don't recategorize this stuff because society has. Because society is stupid.

Speaker 1 Normal is broke in America. Looking good, driving good.
A student loan that's been around so long you think it's a pet.

Speaker 1 And you recategorize these things in your brain. Don't do that.
Don't do that. Put it all right where it needs to be in the crosshairs and pull the trigger.
Knock it out. Knock it out, baby.

Speaker 1 This is the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 1 Jade Washaw, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

Speaker 1 Jaden is in Casper, Wyoming. Hi, Jayden.
Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 2 Thank you for taking my call, fellas.

Speaker 1 Sure. Merry Christmas.
What's up?

Speaker 2 My wife's been pestering me for quite some time now to take her on a vacation.

Speaker 2 I'm not sure right now is the time to do it. We're both pretty young.
I'm 25. She's 21.

Speaker 2 We got a little one on the way here before too long, and we're getting ready to purchase a property we intend to build on.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 3 Do you guys have debt?

Speaker 2 No debt. No debt.
We've been very fortunate in that way. Community college educated.

Speaker 1 Okay. What's your household income?

Speaker 2 I bring about $50,000. $0,000 home after taxes, and she brings about $20,000.
And that's part of the issue, is that next year, her income will be going away.

Speaker 2 She's a preschool teacher now, but with the little ones, she's going to stay home.

Speaker 3 Do you have an emergency fund saved?

Speaker 2 We do. The thing that concerns me is that after the down payment on the property,

Speaker 2 that's what we'll be left with, is with our emergency fund. And so to take that vacation, we kind of having to dig into that a little bit.

Speaker 3 Well, a vacation is not an emergency, so I would not dig into the emergency fund to

Speaker 3 take a vacation ever.

Speaker 3 What does she want to spend?

Speaker 2 She wants to go somewhere warm, you know, Wyoming this time of year. You want to kind of leave it a little bit.

Speaker 2 About 2,000.

Speaker 3 2,000? Okay. So have you run, have you run out the numbers on what? Here's the thing.

Speaker 3 I'm not saying no, and I'm not saying when, but you can decide when. You can look at this and go, okay, my wife wants to take a vacation.
We've never taken a vacation. We're debt-free.

Speaker 3 We have an emergency fund. We're also trying to move in this house.

Speaker 3 What can that look like? And when is the time to take it? Because if you just tell her no and you kind of just swat it away like a gnat, she's going to get irritated.

Speaker 1 Well, no, that's not your position anyway. It's your position for two.

Speaker 1 She's not a child.

Speaker 1 Okay. The two of you ought to sit down as two adults and go, okay, yeah, vacation is a good thing.

Speaker 1 Emergency fund is a good thing. Having a baby is a good thing.
Buying this piece of ground is a good thing. None of these are bad things.

Speaker 1 Now, where where do they fit in our lives with our goals as grown-ups?

Speaker 1 You know, you can't just be a kid on the cereal aisle throwing a fit. You have to be like an adult, both of you.

Speaker 1 And so I don't want you being her daddy and have to talk her off the ledge. I want her to grow up and look at it and say, as a grown woman who has a child,

Speaker 1 What is responsible

Speaker 1 for me?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I want to take a vacation. I'd love to take a vacation.

Speaker 1 But as a grown woman looking at this, I can't afford to do it right this second because I'm not going to be working next year after the baby comes. Or as a grown woman looking at this,

Speaker 1 I've got a child on the way. I really want to do this.
You know, we do have $86,000 in the emergency fund.

Speaker 1 We probably can go ahead and take a vacation because you've overfunded the emergency fund, Bubba. I don't know what's in this emergency fund.

Speaker 1 But I mean, she needs to participate in this decision as a grown-up,

Speaker 1 not as someone who

Speaker 1 has a parent that they're married to.

Speaker 3 That's right. And if she's laid out how you guys can do this, then

Speaker 3 it's wise, then you've also got to be open to the business.

Speaker 1 You've got to be a grown-up, though. It can't be, I want it, I deserve it.
You know, I don't, bull crap. That's what 14-year-olds do.
That's not what grown women do. Grown men do.
No.

Speaker 1 So, no, you have to be emotionally mature and say, what is good for our family.

Speaker 1 And if, in the midst of that, we can do this reasonably and we don't leave our family vulnerable with no emergency fund because we went on vacation, that would be stupid. Yeah, that's not true.

Speaker 1 Or leave our family vulnerable since you're going to be quitting work and staying home with the child and you can't make your bills because you went on vacation last winter because it's cold in Wyoming, which is not a shock to anyone in Wyoming, for sure.

Speaker 1 And so, you know, that kind of, so I mean, what I want to do is just pull her into the conversation as a grown woman, not as someone who's, I can't get my husband to let me do stupid stuff.

Speaker 1 I mean, this is just, that's ridiculous. That's not a conversation you want to have in a marriage.
It needs to be the two of you are, we have this child, we have this future, what makes sense.

Speaker 1 And yes, vacations are part of the equation. I got no issue with that at all.

Speaker 1 But, but where they fit is your point, Jade. Absolutely.
You know? Where and when.

Speaker 3 Yeah, they don't strike me as people who are

Speaker 3 not smart with their money they've paid off their debt they've got an emergency fund there looks like they're trying to do this house the right way i have a feeling that he's laser focused and sometimes has to remember like hey we can we can do some things sometimes that's just my my spidey sense could be could be yeah could be loose loosening the nerd up a little bit loosening up the nerd yeah but she needs to do that with reason that's right not with emotion that's right yeah and that that's a fair that's a fair request for a grown-up stephen is in little rock arkansas hi stephen welcome to the ramsey show merry christmas

Speaker 1 merry christmas how are y'all better than we deserve sir how can we help

Speaker 2 okay so here's my situation i'm 20 years old i'm engaged and i'm planning on getting married in june

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 uh that being said we're looking to get an apartment together in june

Speaker 2 because that's what you do you move in together once you get married Facts.

Speaker 2 I'm completely debt-free.

Speaker 2 She has a little bit of student loan debt, but that's kind of

Speaker 2 beside the point. The question for me is my grandma opened up a credit card for me to use strictly as a gas card.

Speaker 2 And that's my only credit card. And she always pays it on time.
But that being said, I have

Speaker 1 a point. Oh, you're 20 years old.
Why's your grandmother pay your card?

Speaker 2 That was her way of saying that she wants to support me through college.

Speaker 1 That was her gift for me. Okay.

Speaker 2 And so I can totally afford my own gas, but that's just a gift she wanted to give to me.

Speaker 2 But I know that I want to get this apartment, and I really like the sound of what y'all talk about of letting your credit score roll over to nothing.

Speaker 2 But I'm afraid that if I say, hey, Grandma, thank you. Let's close this card.
I appreciate the gesture. I can pay for this,

Speaker 2 that my credit score will plummet, but it won't flip and disappear before that time in June when I'm trying to get an apartment.

Speaker 1 Honey, you don't have to have a credit score to get an apartment.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 That's mythology. We've done this about six times in Ramsey in the last six or eight years.

Speaker 1 One of the personalities will jump on the phone and call 15 apartment complexes and say, hey, I'm moving to Nashville.

Speaker 1 Do you guys, I don't have a credit score because I'm just out of school and I got zero credit score.

Speaker 1 Do you guys

Speaker 1 rent to people without a credit score? Nine out of ten say they do. Some of them, a couple of them, want an extra deposit, but most of them are just, no, it's no big deal.
Come on over.

Speaker 1 That's just complete mythology that people have spread out there among your age group. It's just not true.

Speaker 2 Exactly.

Speaker 1 Nine out of ten don't care if you have a credit score.

Speaker 2 Awesome. I did not know that.
I was under the impression that my credit score would plummet and that might jeopardize whether or not we'd be able to move back.

Speaker 3 When you stop borrowing money, your credit score will go away.

Speaker 3 It's not going to plummet. It's just going to disappear.

Speaker 3 But to Dave's point, he's right. There are plenty of places that you don't need a credit score to go.
And so you'll just do your due diligence and find one. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I just, you know,

Speaker 1 I can't rent from those guys because they require one. I can rent from these people over here, though.

Speaker 3 And by the way, that's a great litmus test because when you move into an apartment, you want to have a super or whoever's in charge that uses their brain because things are going to happen.

Speaker 3 You're going to need to talk to them about things and you want something fixed, right? You want somebody who uses their brain. So that's a great way to start.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And if the only way they approve you is by a number, that's not using your brain, by definition. No, no, very good.
Good stuff. Yeah, you can look those calls up.

Speaker 1 We've had different personalities do this over the years and they're on the YouTube channel and you can see them making phone calls to the apartments and it's recorded and you can hear the conversation.

Speaker 3 Yeah, George did one on the fine print, remember? Yeah, that's the one I remember. And he did.
He went out and he was able to call them, and there were plenty that did.

Speaker 3 You just have to call around a little bit. It's not going to be the first, it may not be the first doorstep that you go to.
That's all.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And yes, you need to, it'll be good for your marriage to get off the grandmother doll.

Speaker 1 I know.

Speaker 3 That's right.

Speaker 1 Wow. Good for you.
Good for you, Stephen. Well done, sir.
This is the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 1 Jade Washaw Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. Thanks for being with us.
Christmas is here.

Speaker 1 Can you believe it? Wow. Hey, last-minute shoppers out there, it's game time.
Don't miss a last chance to grab a life-changing book or set of tools this Christmas to help people really.

Speaker 1 I mean, You can either give them a great book that changes their life or an ugly tie. You get a choice, you know? Total money makeover is 30% off.
Building a non-anxious life is 30% off.

Speaker 1 Breaking Free from Broke is on sale. Georgia's first number one.
Questions for Human Decks are just $12. All kinds of goodies.

Speaker 1 And in most places, we can still get it to you, but you need to go there today.

Speaker 1 Ramseysolutions.com slash store. Chris is in Seattle.
Hi, Chris. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 2 Thank you much.

Speaker 1 Sure. What's up?

Speaker 2 Well, I'm calling in to understand kind of what my focus should be. I've got a three-year-old kid at home.

Speaker 2 I've got a wife who's been battling cancer for the last 10 years roughly, but it's taken a tough right-hand turn in the last few months and gotten different prognosises ranging from, you know, a couple years to maybe five at most.

Speaker 2 So trying to figure out what should my focus financially be on whether making the here and now as enjoyable as we can versus trying to make sure we're still saving for the future of my son and I.

Speaker 1 Wow, I'm sorry. It's tough.
How old are you guys?

Speaker 2 38, 37. I got a three-year-old son at home.
We've been together for almost 20 years now.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 Well, the turn of events, the prognosis change, would change my strategy, I think.

Speaker 1 Okay, because

Speaker 1 you're saying they've

Speaker 1 put her on a clock and it's a shorter one.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. We had some new reed diagnosis kind of progression of disease.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 Well, what we teach folks to do, and it's

Speaker 1 you're not working the baby steps. You're fighting cancer.
So what I would do if I were in your shoes, what do you make?

Speaker 2 Together we're just over 250. So I'm making about 130 or so myself.

Speaker 1 I would just

Speaker 1 pile cash as high as I can pile it

Speaker 1 and do nothing else. I mean, I would do that with the same intensity that I would have

Speaker 1 getting out of debt or something if you were in a

Speaker 1 more normal situation. And so, and when we're piling the cash as high as we can pile it, I've got two things I want to accomplish, three things I want to accomplish with that pile of cash.

Speaker 1 One is obviously any kind of care

Speaker 1 or

Speaker 1 trials or anything that you need to write checks for, you write them, right?

Speaker 1 And so, we'll take care of her, in other words, that's that's the first goal of the pile of cash. The second goal would be to do

Speaker 1 some things

Speaker 1 to make memories

Speaker 1 and, you know, the trip you want to do or the

Speaker 1 thing you need to purchase to make things more comfortable around there right now.

Speaker 1 The thing you've got to be careful with on that one is that you don't go out of control with that.

Speaker 1 Because in the name of that, people do some really stupid things. You know, like,

Speaker 1 I don't want to hear later that you spent $200,000 on some trip. That's not what I'm talking about, okay?

Speaker 1 But I am talking about, okay, there's some things that if we were just, if everybody was healthy and we were leaning in, getting out of debt, we wouldn't be doing this thing, but we're going to do it in this case instead, whatever this thing is.

Speaker 1 But reasonable dollar amounts and not getting sucked into,

Speaker 1 in the name of we have a short clock, we're going to do anything, we can get away with anything because you can't, because you've got to live with it later, right?

Speaker 1 So anyway, do some things like that that are good and strategic, wise things. Do anything for her to take care of her, fight cancer, do some things for the family.

Speaker 1 And then the third thing is you're piling up cash for

Speaker 1 someday,

Speaker 1 what day, I don't know,

Speaker 1 that this is behind you. You just take that money and push play on the baby steps and you throw it at the debt.
And you go after the debt then.

Speaker 1 And you go, you know, you go work your baby steps when you're the other side of this.

Speaker 1 She's healed and she's here or she's healed and she's in heaven. I don't know which one it is.
But But either way, it's one of those two, and this is in your rearview mirror, so to speak. And

Speaker 1 then you start executing a good financial plan at that point.

Speaker 1 But right now, we're just going to stack cash to fight cancer, have a good life, and any cash that's left over in that stack is not wasted because we'll be able to use it to start

Speaker 1 the new version of our journey later. Does that all sound fair?

Speaker 2 That does, yeah. We've been, I mean, up to this point, we've made a pretty good progress, I'd say, financially with everything and we've been living fairly frugally.
It's just a matter of

Speaker 1 I don't care if I don't care if you save 200 grand is what I'm saying. Just pile it up.

Speaker 1 There's no downside to that.

Speaker 1 And then if you need to, if you want to fly to Paris and do a clinical of some kind, fine. Book a first-class ticket and let's go do a clinical trial in Paris.
I don't care. I'm making that up.

Speaker 1 I have no idea. But I mean, you know, but

Speaker 1 I've certainly got friends that have fault cancer situations and um

Speaker 1 found it very handy to have a pile of cash while they were doing it

Speaker 1 that's what i'm saying that's right so um man i'm so sorry chris i hate that for you guys so sorry uh how old is your is your baby

Speaker 2 three years old okay wow so he it's hard for him to grasp other than just mommy's sick yeah yeah

Speaker 1 wow so she's down right now then

Speaker 2 Well, we just started new treatment on last Saturday, so it's in its kind of wait and see how things react.

Speaker 2 But she's going to be stepping away from work after the new year and kind of play up a year from there.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And the new treatment just a beefed up chemo or what?

Speaker 2 It's kind of the next new thing on the line. It's just kind of attack things from a different angle and see if we can halt progress again and hold it as long as we can.

Speaker 2 Just new side effects that are unknown, how she'll react at this point.

Speaker 1 Tough stuff. You know, the cure is brutal sometimes, yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, Chris, I'm sorry. But yeah, I really wouldn't focus on any financial goals other than just being wise with the cash flow so that we're able to stack cash to those three goals I talked about.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Okay. Just

Speaker 1 give yourself a lot of grace, a lot of room and live this out and

Speaker 1 lean into it, fight cancer with everything, every fiber of your being. And that includes the fibers of the dollar bills coming out of your wallet.
Same thing. Wow.

Speaker 3 That's tough stuff.

Speaker 3 There are times, though, I mean, it's good to reiterate, there are things that pop up in life that supersede what you're trying to do financially.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 You're in the middle of a storm. You push pause.
That's right. You don't work the baby steps in a storm.
Whatever the storm is. I mean, you lose your job.
That's right. And

Speaker 1 you don't have the income to fight it. You know, you don't, somebody's ill like this.

Speaker 1 You've got to stop and focus on that. There's a tragedy of some kind or another.
You have to stop for a minute. You do.
And

Speaker 1 get your bearings, get your feet back on the ground, and

Speaker 1 then decide from there what the next steps are and where you go.

Speaker 1 That's not a baby step. It's a just push pause and walk away.

Speaker 1 And use the resources that you have coming in, your income, to

Speaker 1 navigate the storm to to be ready and to push your way all the way through it so yeah that's a that's a big deal chris i'm so sorry that's tough very tough we'll be praying for you brother

Speaker 1 and for her obviously um

Speaker 1 very very cool uh uh

Speaker 1 open phones here at triple eight eight two five five two two five i co-signed with a girlfriend of six years on a car Uh oh. Uh oh.
Now we've been broken up for two years. Uh-oh.
Uh-oh.

Speaker 1 And she's been late on multiple payments. Uh-oh.
She is not eligible for refinancing because of her credit. Uh-oh.

Speaker 1 We're going to coffee. Baby doll, you're selling your car.
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 You don't? I'm going to sue you because you're destroying my credit. Basically.
Yeah, see, you made a mistake.

Speaker 1 You signed with your ex-boyfriend on your car, and now you can't pay the car, so now you're selling it.

Speaker 1 People

Speaker 1 do not buy crap with people you are not married to. Hello.
I know that's right. Wow.
This is the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 1 If you want to hear the next segment of the Ramsey Show after this one's over, you'll do that on the Ramsey Network app.

Speaker 1 That's the only place you can hear it except for a few talk radio stations here or there. So the Ramsey Network app you can download for free, and it not only gives you lots of access to

Speaker 1 portions of this show and other shows that don't necessarily make the air, so you get a you know, kind of a behind-the-scenes look.

Speaker 1 You can search the show for certain topics and find callers calling in about certain topics. That's pretty cool.
And you can also send us an email.

Speaker 3 All right, today's Ramsey Network app question is from Davey. He says, I'm wondering why baby step one isn't start your first budget and giving every dollar a name.

Speaker 3 Then, baby step two would be save your $1,000 emergency fund and so on. Since you always emphasize budgeting first, why isn't that number one?

Speaker 3 I don't know why this is making me laugh.

Speaker 1 I mean, yeah,

Speaker 3 budgeting is a budget. You're right.
Budgeting is the foundation of everything we teach. Matter of fact, some folks in here that I work with, we call it like baby step zero or just kind of like

Speaker 3 there is that thought to it. It is the foundation.
But I mean, listen, the reason it's not like that is because it's not like that.

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 1 the reason it's not like that is it's not a financial milestone. It's a tool and a practice that

Speaker 1 hits a financial milestone. All the baby steps are financial milestones.
So it's not a financial measure. It's

Speaker 1 the same reason insurance, you know, buy health insurance is not a baby step. It's not a financial milestone.
It's something you need to do. Buy life insurance is not a baby step.

Speaker 1 It's something you need to do. Do a will.

Speaker 1 You do it the minute you find out. Do a will is not a baby step.
It's a tool. It's an item.
It's a practice. It's a habit.
It's a thing you need to do that causes you to hit the financial milestones.

Speaker 1 That's good. That's why it's not a baby step.
And so all of those other things fall in the same category as the budget does. There are things you need to be doing.

Speaker 1 Living on less than you make is something you need to do, but it's not a baby step because it's not a financial milestone. $1,000 is a financial milestone.

Speaker 1 Getting all your debts paid off except your home, baby step two, is paying them off smallest to largest in that order using the debt snowball is a financial milestone.

Speaker 1 Finishing your emergency funds, a financial milestone. 15% of your household income, measurable amount of money going into retirement is a financial milestone.

Speaker 1 Addressing kids' college needs in baby step five is a financial milestone. Six is paying off your house is a financial milestone.

Speaker 1 All of these are money things that we're measuring as we make progress on money.

Speaker 1 They're not the thing. Get a job.
Take extra jobs are not a financial milestone, but they're things you need to do to create, you know, create an income would be necessary. That's right.

Speaker 1 You know, in order to do these things. So increase your income.

Speaker 1 You know, these are all tactical things you do to hit the milestones. That's why it's not.

Speaker 1 And it's, I think the question was semi-serious.

Speaker 3 So you're not going to rewrite the base?

Speaker 1 You're not going to re-release them

Speaker 3 on Davey's plan.

Speaker 1 We're going to stay with Dave, not Davey. There you go.
That's what we're going to do. All right.
Emmanuel is with us in Dallas, Texas. Hi, Emmanuel.
What's up? Merry Christmas.

Speaker 2 Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas.

Speaker 2 So the numbers, just to get through it quickly or efficiently, the numbers are $94,000 in debt.

Speaker 2 $56K is from a car.

Speaker 2 The car max value would be $40,000 to $43K. and I'm paying $1,200 per month for that.

Speaker 3 Ooh, why?

Speaker 2 Yeah, so yeah, right. Exactly, exactly.
So my story is kind of like a five-year timeline. Straight out of college,

Speaker 2 I moved to California so I can continue my college relationship after working at home. The job I had was like miserable and there just wasn't any growth in it.
So I decided to just take the jump.

Speaker 2 I followed love and things were working out. I ended up becoming a mortgage loan officer and so I made great money at a young age

Speaker 2 making like over 10k a month but you know that that didn't last for a long time. The industry died because the rates crashed.
After that I got into recruiting

Speaker 2 same thing. I made amazing money.
I was making $50 an hour and I was sugar daddy. Everything was fine.
But then

Speaker 2 the economy, you know, it crashed, that mass layoffs again. And so now,

Speaker 2 you know, now I'm pretty much just, I've been doing everything. It's not a work ethic problem.

Speaker 2 It's things just haven't really been swinging my way, but I've still been working and it's just kind of like a paycheck to paycheck situation.

Speaker 1 And yet you still, you bought a $56,000 car? What's your question?

Speaker 2 So that, that, no, no, no. That, that is a result of like me having to deal with like family dynamics and family issues.

Speaker 2 So through all of, through all of that.

Speaker 1 Wait a minute. I'm sorry.
There are no family dynamics that require a $56,000 car. That's absolute bull crap.

Speaker 2 Okay. Okay.
So

Speaker 1 you had to impress somebody in the family? I mean, what kind of ridiculous family dynamic causes you to buy a $60,000 car you can't afford?

Speaker 2 Right, exactly. So if I could explain,

Speaker 2 I'm dealing with like a super difficult mother-in-law.

Speaker 1 Are you married?

Speaker 1 Are you married?

Speaker 2 No,

Speaker 2 we're engaged.

Speaker 3 Okay. Got it.
And she told you to buy the $56,000 car.

Speaker 2 No, no.

Speaker 2 That was as a result of, that was just like, so I keep having to put my foot down with the mother-in-law because things just, it's kind of a situation like she does things that are just not acceptable.

Speaker 1 I'm so sorry. What the crap does this have to do with you owning a car?

Speaker 1 What's the car?

Speaker 2 I'm calling for clarity.

Speaker 1 I know. But what does a mother-in-law have to do with you buying a car? I don't understand.

Speaker 2 It was a crazy. So all of this is happening

Speaker 2 while we are two under two. I have a daughter that's two years old and my son is two months.

Speaker 3 Okay. So

Speaker 2 I got laid off.

Speaker 3 You got laid off.

Speaker 3 You got

Speaker 1 two young kids.

Speaker 3 And was it your wife that wanted you to get the car and you felt pressure from her?

Speaker 1 Or your fiancé?

Speaker 2 I got the car because I told her I don't ever want to have to

Speaker 2 rely on my mother-in-law because I've been living with them because my family lives.

Speaker 1 Not relying on your mother-in-law does not require a $56,000 car, honey. Yeah,

Speaker 3 we got to reframe it. We got to reframe what's in your mind because I think in your mind, you thought somehow that was going to give you some sort of freedom.

Speaker 1 I don't know how, but maybe you were borrowing her vehicle.

Speaker 3 I don't know. But the truth is.

Speaker 1 $5,600 car. Yes.

Speaker 3 You got to sell that car immediately.

Speaker 3 Don't sell it to CarMax because they're not going to give you the best value. You need to do it private sale.
So look it up. My guess is that you'll get pretty close to the 56 that you owe on it.

Speaker 3 You have to get out of this immediately. And it sounds like there's not the right boundaries between your fiancé's mother and you.
And so you and your fiancé are going to have to deal with that.

Speaker 3 You've got two under two. So I heard you say that I think you were laid off or between jobs.
So you've got to get a job very quickly. So your homework list is, I sell the car private sale.

Speaker 3 I get a job i draw boundaries with the people who are not my parents and even boundaries with this she's not even your in-law yet because you're not married so you need to get married so that's on your list number three no number four is get married this weekend yeah you got a bunch of this crap out of order so um and then you can just look at mother-in-law and go i you don't have a vote on my car You don't get a vote for my car.

Speaker 1 Immediately, yes. Yeah.
Yeah. And no one has a vote on your car.
Your wife,

Speaker 1 she's not even your wife yet. So let's make her your wife, and then the two of you decide on cars.
But a $5,600 car will allow you to not borrow other people's car.

Speaker 3 And you need to, and this is for anybody listening who feels discombobulated, like my guy who was just on the phone. You got to sit down and have a moment with yourself.
Maybe you have a journal.

Speaker 3 Maybe you just, you got, if you don't sit and say, what was my part in all of this? You won't change.

Speaker 3 If you're saying, well, it happened because we got two under two and it happened because I got laid off and it happened because grandma and it happened because my mother-in-law, you're never, then you're never at fault.

Speaker 3 And that means you never have to change. And that's not how life works.
You're going to have to sit down and go, okay, what did I do? I'm the one that said, yeah, I'll sign my name right here.

Speaker 3 That's the truth. You're the one who signed for the car.
So you're responsible for it.

Speaker 1 I felt pressured and I made a stupid decision. Boom.
There we go.

Speaker 3 Easy done it. Easy does it.

Speaker 1 I've done that. I've done that myself.

Speaker 1 We've all done that.

Speaker 1 That also helps you to not react to pressure ever again.

Speaker 3 That's right. You won't do it again if you take responsibility for it.

Speaker 1 My tolerance for people telling me what to do with my money is pretty low.

Speaker 1 Like zero now. This is the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 4 What up, what up? It's Dr. John Deloney from the Dr.
John Deloney Show with some amazing news.

Speaker 4 The latest episode of United States of Anxiety is available right now exclusively on the Ramsey Network app.

Speaker 4 This docu 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.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 1 What's up, Kelsey?

Speaker 3 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?

Speaker 4 What does crippling anxiety mean? Paint me a picture of that.

Speaker 4 All right, so you ready to jump in?

Speaker 2 I'm ready to jump in. We're going to check in with Kelsey 30 days, 60 days, 90 days.

Speaker 3 I cannot even function because I'm just crying.

Speaker 3 My mom left us when I was four. I truly felt like for a while I had no family.

Speaker 4 She's experiencing things that really hurt a long time ago.

Speaker 1 Tell me about this boy.

Speaker 3 He triggers me a lot. Scared of losing Paul, scared of doing the wrong thing, scared of not being enough.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 3 How do I get my inner child out of this relationship? Because I feel like she's running the show.

Speaker 4 One of two people that's supposed to never leave took off.

Speaker 3 I was this...

Speaker 1 I was this burden. You burden.
That's right.

Speaker 4 To the one person

Speaker 4 who should carry it, all of it. Did you ever tell that little girl that it wasn't her fault?

Speaker 2 I don't know what to do.

Speaker 4 You either have to choose to let this guy love you, or you got to choose to let this guy go.