Bad Money Habits and Good Relationships Don’t Mix

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 dr john deloney number one best-selling author a couple times over and host of the Dr. John Deloney Show, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today.
Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225.
Madison is with us to start off this hour in Atlanta, Georgia. Hi, Madison.
Welcome to the show. Hi, Dave.
Hi, John. Thank you so much for taking my call.
Sure. What's up? So I'm in a predicament that I've actually made myself.
I got married, second marriage for both of us, not quite six years ago. and at that time, I had been through a pretty bad divorce and had a pretty traumatic first marriage.
So definitely was healing from that and met this wonderful man, so nice to me and kind to me. And I just felt head over heels in him.
Um, I knew he was broke. I knew he didn't have any money and that, that just didn't matter to me.
He was just so nice to me and I loved being treated nice. So, um, we got married.
Um, I did have him sign a prenup because I was, uh, expecting to inherit a large amount of money from my parents' estate at some point.

I hadn't at that time, but I knew that that would be in the future.

And so he did sign a prenuptial agreement and didn't have any problems with that.

However, I started our relationship with just paying all the time.

I paid for everything.

We'd go out for dinner, I would pay.

I already had a place where I lived that I paid for and, you know, et cetera, et cetera. So I understand how I've kind of set a pattern.
And at the time it didn't bother me. And, you know, I might want, I also want to add this man's a Christian man.
He knows the word of God. You I really have put this in God's hands and asked for His help.
But I just, I just can't figure out where, why there's just, there's no spirit of generosity with Him. He just, I've brought up several times, you know, can you please pitch in, just kick in.
I don't expect half and half. I have plenty of money.
I don't, I don't need his money. It's just on principle.
Just, I just need to know that I'm not just the only one that's supporting us. I feel like I'm, I'm the breadwinner.
So he doesn't earn an income. He, he did.
We are both retired now. Um, he does not have any retirement.
How old are you, Dash? I'm 60. He's 64.
Okay. He took Social Security early.
He was working at that time, and then when you start taking Social Security, you can only work so many hours. You can only make so much money.
So that knocked his availability down to where he really couldn't work very much. But since then, we've both retired and relocated.
So what do you feel like the core question is? I think I'm just trying to figure out if I'm being taken advantage of. Is this just something where I'm being, you know, I've brought something up several times and I just, nothing changes, nothing, it just stays the same.
And I don't know if I, well, I guess what my next step should be. Hold on, this isn't a money issue.
This is a respect issue. you don't respect the man that you're married to because like i i bring home i i i bring home a quote-unquote income to the house but my wife my god almighty if she disappeared the house would go away so i don't look at her and say wow you're not contributing to this thing And I'm paying for dinner all the time because my money is our money.
Right. And the home that she keeps and runs and her small business, like that's ours too.
But there's a mutual respect there. So this doesn't have to do with money.
And you mentioned earlier, you don't want a thing. You don't want your marriage to be where you're paying for everything it is that is the world you set up so yeah the only thing you can do from this point forward is to create something new but this is a respect issue this isn't a i just need him to pitch in issue have you been very clear about what you need or has it been a, ah, you know, like, man, I sure am paying for a lot.
And he might be thinking, well, it's our money. Have you been very clear with him? I'm not.
No, I'm very afraid of confrontation. I get very nervous about talking about something like this.
And then you end up in resentment land because you spend a ton of time having imaginary conversations in your head don't you yes yes that's cruel and unfair to him and doubt yes so if you're going to be mad on your brain too yeah if if you're going to be mad at him he at least deserves to know what he could do give him a path back to relationship because right now he married somebody with a lot of money and he might think he's fulfilling his duties as your husband by being the fun-loving guy that just whatever whatever partridge in a pear tree he needs to know you don't respect him yeah i do i do love him and i don't want uh i don't want anything to end i don't What does he need to do to be a person that you would respect?

Because he doesn't. I don't want anything to end.
What does he need to do to be a person that you would respect?

Because he doesn't need to work.

You guys are retired.

No.

It's not a work ethic thing.

What is it that he's supposed to do that makes him valid in your mind?

I think just pitching in, say, I don't know, $1,000 a month, something. Pitch in from what? Where's he got money? He has Social Security money and he gets other money from...
So you guys don't have your finances combined at all? We do have a joint checking account, but he's never put any money in it. So, no.
But does he have an avenue to do that? He could, yeah could he could put money in there yeah because he's on the he's on the account but if he's looking at your vast amount of money in that account and he looks at his piddly his piddly um government check yeah see what i'm saying like he needs to know and i again i i think he to put $1,000 in that account, and that's not what the issue is going to be. Yeah.
If he started depositing $1,000 a month in that account, you'd be right back here in six months. I don't know if I would be.
I don't – it's really – to me, it's like you just said. It's not about money.
It's more about respect. And I think because this has gone on for so long and, you know, I've allowed it to go on so long and this pattern's been set now, I want to rewrite the rules, I guess.
Well, since y'all are married, y'all get to rewrite them together. Right.
And so I think it's a matter of sitting down and having a conversation and say, hey, we've been married for a few years. I need you to do this to have me have positive, respectful feelings towards you.
And what can I do for you so that you can have positive, respectful feelings towards me? Yeah. Let's put all of it on the table.
Let's give each other a chance for success. Yeah.
A hundred percent of what you don't say, he can't hear. Right.
Yeah. I've been married 43 years.
I'm still working on that. Dave, I am too, man.
I am too. The things that are in Sharon's head that I have never heard are amazing.
But you're in trouble for them. I'm always in trouble.
You better fix them. What's wrong? Nothing.
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Shay is with us. Shay is in Daytona.
Hi, Shay. Hi.
So just to cut right to the chase, I just took out my first student loan ever. Super nerve-wracking.
It's for my master's in social work, and it's about $45,000. That's without the interest.
So I'm just trying to figure out what's a great path to start on that, like how to tackle it super fast because I don't want to be with this yet for like 10 years. You just took out your first loan for a semester, or you just finished a degree program and you have $45,000 in the hole? No.
So it's, I've, it's six, it's like 6,000 a semester. Um, but they just gave it all to me at once.
So it's 40 grand, 45 grand is what they gave me at once. Who's they? I've never heard of that ever.
It's financial aid, FAFSA.

So they just cut you a check and deposit it for $45,000?

Well, not into my bank.

It goes directly to my school, and then they start paying it that way. So it's already given to my school, and my school just takes it out.

Okay, so you're starting your master's, and you just finance the whole thing.

Well, Dave, I bet what's happened is they have you've been approved for the entire program i bet they don't have a check for 40 i bet your university doesn't have a check for 45 000 because they wouldn't prepay like that because you could quit you can drop out it could be a whole thing but my guess is you were approved for the program and the school gave you a letter that said you've qualified for $45,000 in federal aid,

and every semester you're going to have to re-up and re-up and re-up and re-up.

Okay.

That's my guess as to what happened.

I've never heard the company prepaid. So you're just starting your master's?

Yes.

And you're spending $45,000 to get a master's in social work.

To make what kind of money?

Not enough. It's about 90 grand, which would be the salary for it.
There's no way you'll make 90 grand. That is the salary in Florida for it.
Where? Right now. I work at a hospital.
And a starting social worker with LMSW makes $90,000? Not starting out, no, but I've been doing social work and case management and all that stuff for years. So with the experience, and once I get it, I'm already making $15,000 right now, so they're bumping it up.
Wow. That's that's extraordinary i'm good for them because that's that's a that's a field that needs more people that drastically is usually underpaid i would i as a as a guy who's i've taught graduate school and mental health programs i've lived this world what i would plead to you is to you make fifty thousand dollars a year I would cut back for the next three years and cash flow this program.
Please, please, please don't chain yourself to the federal government and then try to go into a serving profession. It's a recipe for burnout and it's just going to melt you from the inside out.
Please don't do this. Yeah.
Yeah, that was one of my big fears. It's just like I definitely don't want it lingering for so long, too, and when it comes to money, I just have really bad anxiety over it.
The way it doesn't linger is you don't take it. Don't take it.
Don't take the check. Pay cash for your degree is what John's saying.
$6,000 a semester. Go pay it outright for the three semesters plus your 3,000 hours, whatever you have to do.
Your hospital not got any financial matching for education? No, because I'm not a nurse. They only have it for nurses.
Okay. And what enticed me to it was because they said at first that they would.
And then when I got here, they said, oh, sorry, no, it's just for nurses. Yeah, I'd find another place to work, too, while you're at it.

I'm serious, 100% serious.

If they're going to lure you in and then they're going to bait and switch you,

that's a company without integrity.

I wouldn't work for them.

Gotcha.

And I know this is a radical shift, but I would go to the school and say,

hey, I need my semester by semester cost.

And they're probably going to tell you, well, it depends if you take six or nine hours, whatever, and say, what is a full-time and what is a part-time student going to cost? And then you make $50,000 a year until you find another job where you'll make 60. I want you to cash flow this program.
So what we're trying to tell you is that uneasy feeling inside of you when you called is real. It's right.
And it's telling you, don't do this. And we're telling you, it you it's right don't do it the best way to get this degree is pay cash for it and um you know look for someone maybe another maybe another employer that pays 90 when you're out but also uh will help with the education like this one promised but it was reneged on uh and so let's do a couple things here that are pretty radical but if you kind of just you sound pretty chill and if you kind of just allow all this to happen to you it's going to step on your face don't allow this to happen you need to stand up square your shoulders and head straight into this with your teeth you know with with a warrior yell girl i mean you need to get after it.
John's in Jackson, Mississippi. Hey, John,

welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave, how's it going? Better than I deserve.
What's up? I have a question about getting an SBA loan to purchase a business. What's your thoughts on that is? Never.
Never? Never, under any circumstances. Okay.
It's a disaster. why would you buy a small business?

Well, so I travel 10 months out of the year, and my wife stays at home with kids, and it's a taxing life. We're trying to find a happy medium for everybody, and we stumbled what we think is a good opportunity, per se.
And we just... What is the industry that the business you're looking at is in? Making signs.
Okay. And how much is the purchase? Approximately $1.2 million.
Yes, sir. For a signed franchise? It's not a franchise.
It's a person that started the business, and he's looking to retire.

All right.

Let me give you a different way to skin this cat, maybe.

But 80% of small businesses fail in the first five years.

Okay.

The number one cause of small business failure when we survey them, and we work with 10,000 small businesses in Entrez Leadership right now, is what's called cash flow problems. Cash flow problems is a phrase that means a lot of things, but it primarily means two things.
I can't pay my debt payments, and I didn't pay my taxes on time, and I get screwed by the federal government and um so you're going to have a million two floating around around your neck trying to drag you down while you're trying to run a business this guy's already been running for a few years and uh that's like trying to swim with an anchor tied around your ankle uh it's a bad plan so So let's go at this a different way. What is the net profit on his business? He pays himself a salary.
No, what's the net profit on the business? On average, over the last four years, is around $250,000. Okay.
A million two is a little rich. Yeah.
Okay. We know that part of it.

We're in the beginning process.

Okay.

Here's how I've taught some people who hand the business to the next generation and want to be bought out,

or they have an employee or a buyer like you that want to be bought out.

I don't want you to get payments on a million two and Fauci decide we're having another quarantine.

Me neither. Okay.
That'll put you into bankruptcy court, sir. It did a bunch of people.
And because nobody making signs, they were making plexiglass, but they weren't making signs. So you were screwed if you'd done this two years ago.
So learn a lesson from that. Now, what you can do is agree to pay him 80 or 90% of the profits after you take a basic small salary out until he gets his million.
And about a million is about what it's worth. But if you make $250,000 a year on it and you gave him 90% of it, you'd have him paid out in four and a half years.
Versus getting a loan per se. Exactly.
And he'd get his money really, really fast that way. But you're living on a wage to get till you get him off your back.
But if profits go down, you're only committed to give him a percentage of profits. So you're not bankrupt then.
SBA will come take your house, dude. There's a time in your life and in the baby steps for renting, but you don't want to do it forever because when you rent, you're still paying for a mortgage, just somebody else's.
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Hey, Justin, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, thank you, Dave and John.
It is awesome to talk to y'all. I'm excited.
Absolutely. How can we help? So my wife and I are on baby step two and we're trying to get really gazelle intense to pay off our debt.
And I wanted to see if you and Dr. John could speak to the physical and mental challenge of working 80 to 90 hours a week on the physical side being like, you know, fatigue, lack of sleep.
And on the mental side, you know, your mind is telling you to call it a day when you still need to grind out, you know, those last few hours to make a really good week. Why are you losing sleep? You have plenty of sleep time left.
Well, I guess like, you know, a day you, you work 16 hours and you have, you know, an well i guess like you know a day you you work 16 hours and you have you know an hour commute and you know eating and stuff like that you make it you know five to six and on a longer day you know you make it four hours of sleep i often see folks try to continue the life they were living before they went gazelle and and they try to squeeze it in meaning i used to watch um all the shows well now i have to just watch my two and there's an hour right there or there's an hour and a half and i want to go to every single little league game well during gazelle intensity you're gonna probably have to miss some games because you gotta work some shifts and that's okay because you're playing a longer game. But I would wonder how much all-in are you? Yeah, if there's some of that, and yeah, check your actual time audit on where your actual hours are going, number one, then sleep is necessary.
The second thing though is, is you're not asking yourself to do this longterm. This is a short sprint, right? It's not, it's not, this is not sustainable for five years.
Um, and that's not what we're asking ourselves to do. And I got a feeling just in talking to you that you have done, uh, in maybe in sports or something else you've done something where you stretched yourself to a limit and um if you have if you're a person who's done that you've experienced what with any of us that have done that physical or mental or otherwise you never return to the same shape after that that's the benefit of the stretch yes.
Yes, sir, I have. God has really blessed me with a body that I can handle a lot.
Yeah. And so, you know, once you've done a half marathon, you've done a marathon, you've done whatever the thing is that pushed you physically and mentally or whatever, then it changes your level of confidence.
It changes the way your swagger, the way you look at the world after that, because you accomplish the goal and, you know, you break the tape and you go on through. So that's the way that I have done it.
Number one, I look at it as a short-term play, and so it's not going to kill me, because right before you die from hard work, you pass out. Don't worry about it.
I mean, it's okay. So it's not going to kill me, and it's short-term.
And then the second thing is I'm going to get more benefits than just the money. In this case, you're doing it to make a lot of money to get out of debt, okay? But I'm going to get character benefits, emotional, psychological, spiritual benefits, even relational benefits, because as a couple, we now know we can do things we didn't know we could do before.
As an individual, I now know I can do that, because before I did, and it gives me a different level of, well, if I can do that, then I can do another thing. And if I can do that, then I can do another thing.
And that's what this is versus being the typical fat American sitting on their couch watching Netflix and never stretches themselves at all and Justin there's some incredible neuroscience that is obviously this doesn't um you can't you can't game or hack this system but you've known people who get under a squat bar and they feel that weight and they get that weird smile and there's been people who get under that bar and it's like ah too heavy and they get off one of those people says this pain is going to be worth this watch this and the other person says i need to opt out of this pain right now and so there's it's the your mindset as you're driving home you can be like i'm so tired i hate all this. I'm so tired.
I just clicked another click. How long have you been married? We've been married five years.
How's she doing with all this? That's interesting you ask that. One of the other kind of hard things for me is like, say that she has a day off and I'm at work.
You know, when it's those last few hours when I still got, you know, four hours left and I'm already tired. And she sends me a text like, you know, I miss you.
Ready to see you. I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, man, I'm ready to see you too.
I want to come home. But I'm like, you know, I need to stay here another few hours.
Yeah. It's like, I know you lost 50 pounds, but here's some fresh baked cookies.
But also, also, again, that's your mindset, bro. Cause she's reaching out saying, I want you to know i'm not at work with you but i'm in this with you right and it's real easy for you to be like oh yeah you know i mean so yeah i do your best to i mean you're all in a short sprint i do do your best to roll that out so the good news is she's not she's not whining about she's not going ha ha oh yeah you never you're never home with me why aren't you ever home with me she's not doing that to you she just saying man i miss you i wish you were here because i'm i'm married to a country girl it's a hillbilly and if they learned one thing at her house growing up it was unbelievable hard work she has no patience for people that won't work hard especially if it was her husband and so i got the opposite i'm like get your butt out of here and get this mess cleaned up what's wrong with you you know and so it was she kicked me out the door you know and so occasionally now when i don't need to work she's like would you go to work and get away you know like and so um you know so the uh uh but she but that so i had the benefit of a spouse that was beyond supportive supportive Supportive is not the correct term.
She supported you with her foot in your butt. Yeah, that's it.
But, I mean, in your case, you've got a sweet one that's being sweet and saying, I miss you, but I'm proud of you. So you might even tell her that.
Just go, hey, listen, when you do that, it makes me not angry with you, but it makes me angry with this whole situation. It makes it hard to work five more hours.
So if you would do that and just add to the end of it, I'm proud of you. You got this.
It sure would help me. When my wife was pregnant with Josephine after we had had Hank, she gave me a list.
It was not a long list, but it was a short list. But she gave me a list of questions I was not allowed to ask in the hospital when she was in labor.
And I said, why did you do this? And she said, because I know you love me. And I know you're going to ask, how are you feeling? Does that hurt? Are you okay? Do you need anything? And she said, when you ask those questions.
It makes me want to strangle you. I want to set my eyeballs on fire.
Just enough to look at your face. Your eyeballs on fire.
Right? So she said, the best way you can love me is don't do this. I'll let you know if I need and so i think for you just like dave just said if you let her know hey when you reach out at ah man i know you're telling me that you're proud of me you love me but it just makes me hate being at work and which makes me hate myself and makes me hate all this yeah can you just text me and say i'm so proud of you and i'll know that you miss me when you're when you're running the stadium stairs um you you have no memory of doing that when you look at the scoreboard at the end of the Super Bowl and you won.
You make that catch, yeah. You have no memory of running the stadium stairs.
Your brain allows you to do only the celebration. Justin, you're a stud, man.
I'm proud of you. And I think you're going to be okay.
The good news is you're smart enough to talk about it and say I'm tired. You You're smart enough to even take a look.
Okay, I got to take a day. I'm done.
I got to take at least a day. I can't breathe.
You know where your limits are, but pushing those limits is not a permanent thing. It's not a way of life.
It's a moment in time, and the benefits are going to exceed the pain. I can promise you.
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or for a more personal touch, give them a call at 800-356-4282 so our producer james went through the archives and a thousand years ago when blake thompson was producing this show he actually did a comedy bit on detanol uh john thought i made that up just a few minutes ago and i couldn't take credit for it because actually blake made it up and james found the old comedy bit yeah does it have a date on it it doesn't but i i would it's gotta be 20 plus years yeah it's over 20 years ago easy it was before there was color on tv all right here's from from over 20 years ago what the Ramsey show, then called the Dave Ramsey show, might have sounded like. Nationally syndicated talk radio host Dave Ramsey has often said that there is no magic pill for getting out of debt.
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Oh, this show used to be so good, Dave. What happened? Well, we brought on co-hosts.
Yes, co-hosts. Got rid of Blake.
Got rid of Blake. The good old days.
He used to walk uphill both ways in the snow.

Yeah, that was probably done on a cassette tape, actually.

I'm trying to think.

I know the voice on the disclaimers, Blake.

The other voice, what I think was.

Bill Hampton.

Is Bill Hampton?

Yeah.

Is it?

Okay.

So, yeah, it's over 20 years then.

Yeah, maybe 25 years old.

Yeah, that's funny.

I don't care who you are. Still works, though.
all right we'll have five orders on the ramsey i guarantee somebody will ask for they can't find it on the website oh you guys were advertising jordan is in los angeles hi jordan how are you i'm doing well dave thank you how are you doing Better than I deserve. What are you? I'm doing well, Dave.
Thank you. How are you doing?

Better than I deserve. What's up? Uh, yeah, so I just have a couple of questions because I'm in just like a constant financial panic, anxiety, worry.
A lot of it stemming from the environment outside of me. Um, I can go into numbers with everything from personally in a bit.
I'll give you a little background. So I, I had like a, uh, I did have a lot of early success in my late teens, uh, early twenties.
I'm now 27, um, within the entertainment industry and also just working my, my butt off. I've always been a good saver.
Um, and then, uh, unfortunately COVID hit, which shut down my, every, my, my little role I had going on. And then also at the same time, it came down with a, with a pretty severe debilitating, um, underlying disease of Cushing's disease, uh, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, uh, that has developed throughout the years.
So, um, all of that has just led me to think that what is my future going to look like? Because it's very hard for me to do physical labor. My work right now is pretty limited.
And I've just been stuck in this rut of, I don't want to, I'm anxious to, when I have to spend something as small as like putting 20 bucks in for gas, all the way up to my rent. I'm just living in this fear and panic for my future.
And I've been trying to think of an income stream because of my ailments. It makes it very difficult.
And I've always been stopped going. So that's what's frustrating because my body is holding me back.
I have like that entrepreneur mindset, but I just don't know what it is for me. Jordan, how do you think we can best help you today, son? I don't know how to manage what to do with the money I currently have.
Okay. How much money do you currently have? So I have, I'm incorporated.
I incorporated when I was younger after I got a pretty nice job. I have a, in my business checking right now, I have about $24 about 24,500.
I opened up a business CD, which has about 92,000 in there. I have a checking account of 8,000 right now.
I have a savings account of 52,500. I have a checking CD of 40,600.
Um, I have, I, uh, I, I did have, I wasn't in mutual fund when i was younger and there was some issues with the the accountant who was advising it um and so those got liquidated and during my time when i was young i just watched a bunch of videos and of course i bought a bunch of precious metals with a lot of that how much is that i have about 40 ounces of gold and 900 ounces of silver, which I believe right now is close to $100,000 total. Okay, so you've got about $400,000.
Are you making any money? Currently, and I do also have, I opened up a robo-advisor in Schwab recently because I just felt like I was just doing nothing with my money. Do you have a house, man? Where do you live? I do.
I live in Los Angeles. I'm still renting.
Do you have an income? At the moment, I do not. I'm in SAG.
Okay. Nobody's working now.
Yeah. I would be willing to bet, just just friend to friend you struggle with anxiety when you were younger right i started in my late teens yes what's the first time you remember that that that your body kind of took off on you and it scared you uh in terms of my health or my anxiety you both because they work together um yeah well uh about 20 year 19 19 years old my anxiety took off my health ailments kicked in a couple years later yeah and that's and and and again i don't want to get over my skis here and this this we could talk for hours on it but a autoimmune body is a body that is so red lined out that it's been trying to shut you down for a long time and it will find another way to shut you down right because it's it's tired of it's tired of fighting and swinging and running from everything and that's what you just described right and when you struggle with anxiety as a younger kid it sometimes looks different than it does when you're an adult but then when you take that angst and then you go put it up on a stage or on a screen and all those voices telling you what to, how to look and what to stand and what you shouldn't do and where you should go, man, that's just a, that's like taking a blender and putting it inside of a, you know, a jet engine, right.
And spinning that sucker up. And it doesn't surprise me a, that you've been very, very successful because you clearly brilliant, and you have been able to keep some of the anxiety demons at bay through achievement and accomplishment and attaboys, and it also doesn't surprise me that your body said, I'm shutting you down.
I caught up with you. Yeah.
Does that sound familiar? Oh, very. It's very frustrating because, again, I will work and do whatever I have to do.

Here's what's important.

I don't think you're afraid of work.

Yeah, no, you work.

Dave's going to talk to you about the money.

I want you to know that if Dave, if you follow Dave's steps and clean up all your money and

that's all you do, you're going to go with you on that journey and you're going to have

cleaned up money and you're going to have an ounce of security there.

And then your brain's going to leapfrog to the next thing. And you know right because it's been leapfrogging on you for years yeah so what what you've you while you've been an incredible income earner and it's apparent that you've done something that uh had incredible talent because people paid you a lot of money for it uh so uh what you'd never had in any of these situations is a sense of control.
You didn't feel like you're, you felt like even though you had a big old pile of money, you still didn't feel like it was all in control and it's still today doesn't feel like it's in control. So I think there's probably a two-pronged approach here and that would be you called on the perfect day with dr john deloney

here is um you're getting a sense of control in your life a sense of uh the chaos pushed back and you choosing to set up really firm boundaries with a whole bunch of things to say this is what i do this is what i don't do this is what i do this is what i don't do and you've got some very clear kind of a black and white type response to everything because your creative brain allows you to work out about 73 scenarios simultaneously instead of yes or no. And you just need to get real simplified and go to yes or no.
And so, no, we don't do precious metals. Let's go ahead and cash those out and get those into cash.
No, we don't walk around with no income. So let's try to figure out something we can put our hand to.
Yes, we're going to send you a book called Own Your Past, Change Your Future from Dr. John Deloney.
Read through that because there's a whole lot of what's going on in that book is going on with you. We'll send a building on anxious life too.
I think that would be a good book for him. Can we get it out of here? Yeah.
Okay, good. Let's send them both of those and throw in a total money makeover book.
We'll help you with the money part too. But it's controlling the controllables that's going to get this moving.
This is the Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, It the ramsey show where we help people build wealth do work that they love and create actual amazing relationships i'm dave ramsey your host dr john deloney number one best-selling author of the Dr.
John Deloney Show on the Ramsey Network, one of the more popular YouTube and podcasts

in America today.

He's my co-host, open phones at 888-825-5225.

Jennifer is with us in San Antonio, Texas.

Hi, Jennifer.

Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hi.

Thanks for speaking with me today. Sure.
I really appreciate it. I love you, Dave, but I think my question is probably a little more for John, so not to, like, hurt your ego or anything.
Hey, he's got two PhDs. I just have one, and mine is in his ego.
Trust me, it's doing just fine. Sorry, sorry.
Sorry, my bad. I just, I was like, I never thought I'd call Dave Ramsey's show and then not want to like totally focus on Dave Ramsey and Papa Dave.
You're so sweet. You're awesome.
You're sweet. How can we help? I'll be okay.
How can John help? What's up? I'm calling because, so I had a bankruptcy in 2021 and, you know, I'm debt free. And well, I'm debt free after, you know, paying the KGB, I mean, IRS.
And then I was one of the very few that had their public service. You know, I worked for the federal government and I was one of of the very few that had their loans forgiven.
I worked for the federal government for 13 years, and I feel like a lot of shame. I feel shame about the bankruptcy, but then I also feel a lot of shame about public service, forgiveness in a way, because, like, I mean, I took advantage of the program that was available to me and I like I'm proud of serving the government so long but I guess I feel a little I don't know I tell people not to like count on it all the time and that there's you know all the data shows that very few people are ever going to have it happen to them and don't want them to count on it you know I just happen to be in that window where it worked for me and so it's like i won the lottery but i'm like ashamed that i won it a little bit and yeah so jennifer jennifer i'm actually going to change direction a little bit is that okay okay yeah um when it comes to shame i can talk about it all day But lucky for you, you call the number where there's more than just academic answers.
I actually think the person you want to talk to is Dave. He's been there.
Okay. Well, see, what do I know? The guy with the PhD doesn't know.
I can talk about it, but Dave can talk from a lived experience, which is much more valuable. So what caused your bankruptcy? I made good money, but I have a disability, and I was only going to work like two weeks, a month.
After my brother died, the disability became so extreme, all these medical issues that had come up. So even though I was following the Dave Ramsey plan, like...
Wait a minute. Stop.
What's the nature of your disability, honey? I have major depressive disorder. And after my brother died, I became, like, suicidal.
And it was real extreme. And so...
And you had debts that you couldn't pay because of that yes i was making bare minimum payments and then i went to the bishop to even get help so for a year about 18 months the bishop and i literally sat down at my church like every month like how can we dig you out of this hole but the medical bills were still so high that I still couldn't,

even though I had this big shovel, the medical bills just kept coming. And then I couldn't, I was really struggling to work over and over.
Hey, do me a favor, Jennifer. Will you take a real, real, real deep breath as deep as you can? Take it super deep and I want you to hold it for three, two, exhale.
There's a lot of people in the world that are giving you a lot of advice and running their mouth and telling you you should be doing this, and Dave and I are not going to do that. We're sitting here with you, okay? Okay.
You don't have to. I can hear you trying to outrun the shame in a circle right on the phone with us.
You don't have to do that. Okay.
Okay. Here's the thing.
We're with you. When I filed bankruptcy at 28 years old, the reason for my bankruptcy was I had borrowed too much money.
I had borrowed it in such a way that it allowed the banks to come and take my freaking head off. It was my fault.
I don't think a person who has issues with depression becoming depressed after the loss of their brother is something you did wrong. So my actions were shameful.
Your actions were not shameful. Well, I feel like the debt actions were shameful that I put myself in such a bad position.
You were vulnerable because of that, but you probably would have made it without bankruptcy if you hadn't been unable to work for a period of time. Yeah, the bishop said that.
Actually, when we sat down, I mean, every month, He's like, if you weren't been unable to work for a period of time. Yeah, the bishop said that.

Actually, when we sat down, I mean, every month he's like,

if you weren't so sick now, I think we could help you.

Like he was helping me even with rent, you know,

but at one point he said, you know, tithing and, you know,

because we're stewards of the Lord's money, you know, he's like,

this is a hand up, not a hammock.

He's all, but every month I see that you're putting everything you can yeah into pain he's all but i think this might be our only okay so let me ask you this um yeah it's obviously the loss of your brother that tragedy is in the rearview mirror are you doing things to deal with the depression issues yes i see that so what i did in my case was in my case was i did something some things to deal with my stupidity and so i'm not going to make the same mistakes again and therefore i don't have to sit and be wringing my hands about the shame of the bankruptcy. The bankruptcy in my case was caused by me.
So there was shame. It was shame inducing for sure.
Okay. But the way I dealt with it to answer your question was I said, okay, what steps do I have to take to be a different person that causes this to never happen again? If I take those steps, then the things in my rearview mirror, it's just one of the many stupid things I've done in my life that I don't have to do again.
Yeah. And Jennifer, can we agree that sometimes you feel things and those feelings aren't true? Yes.
Okay. That is true.
I know that to be honest. I know, but listen.
Not all the time, but it does come up. Here's what you're going to do.
I want you to keep a journal with you of the things you feel when you feel like you're taking advantage of folks and you feel like you should have. I want you to write that down and I want you to hold it at arm's length and ask yourself, is this true? Okay.
And I want you to be objective about it. Cause if you can't be objective, take it to your counselor and say, is this true? Cause the answer is going to be no.
But when you have a feeling and you begin to believe that feeling, then your body's off to the races. Yeah.
Zero shame. Zero.
For the student loan forgiveness. None.
And the shame on any part you had with irresponsibility, you say, I'm not doing that anymore. Any part you had with taking on too much say, I'm not doing that anymore.

Any part you had with taking on too much debt, I'm not doing that anymore.

But the depression taking you away from work, I'm not blaming you for that one, kiddo.

That one's in your rearview mirror too, though.

The beautiful thing about life is the rearview mirror is smaller than the windshield.

That's called grace.

Walk in that, kiddo.

This is The Ramsey Show. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.
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Williams in San Antonio, Texas. Remember the Alamo.
What's up, William? Oh, good afternoon, Dave. Afternoon.
I had a rather unfortunate financial incident in our marriage. last fall.
My wife got victimized in an Internet fraud and not only lost a sizable amount of cash, but also took out some loans to help these people. and some of those were short-term credit card, things like buying gift cards.
And then there were two installment loans. One was for $23,500.
One was for $17,500. The rest of them, the smaller credit cards and such, I'm using the snowball method to take care of those, but I need advice on the installment loans.
When it comes to this fraud, it's usually one of two things. Usually it's some sort of romantic interest or it's some sort of somebody crying out for help with medical assistance or some sort of injustice.
What is it in your situation? It would be the former. my wife and i have been having been having some uh problems been together for 25 years and uh things just kind of uh i don't know they happened and i didn't didn't see the warning signs.
How's your marriage now?

But it's much better.

I've been getting therapy, and she has been too,

and we've been making some inroads, man,

just basic stuff like how we speak to each other.

I'm proud of you, man.

That's hard. Try it.

Well, here's the thing.

I have a bunch of people tell me, well, I would divorce somebody that would do that, and I'm not going to throw away 25 years. I said I would make a full year of a concerted effort to get this thing turned around financially and emotionally, and part of the emotional thing is me.
I realized I needed to do some work. And so we're both doing therapy, and it seems to be benefiting.
Well, you're a beacon of light for men who find themselves in emotional situations without the right tools in the toolkit. And you can do one of two things.
You can just take up your toolkit and go home, or you can storm the gates of hell

and try to find more tools,

and that's what you're doing, man,

and I'm proud of you.

I'm proud of you.

Amen.

Thank you.

It's awesome.

What's your household income, sir?

Oh, $69,000.

Okay.

Does she work outside the home?

No, we're both in our mid-70s.

No, we're both retired.

Oh, boy.

So there's money there to take care of the short-term stuff.

You mean money? You have a nest egg?

We still have some resources, a 401k, and I have some money in my account.

All the debts are in her name.

How much money is in your account?

$45,000. And how much money is in your 401k? About the same.
And not counting these two installment loans, how much miscellaneous is there? The little credit card mosquitoes. Yeah, I'm going to say $9,000, $10,000.
I've got an income tax refund check coming in. $2,000 is going to get knocked off for that.
I would write a check out of yours today and pay off all the credit cards. That leaves the 40 and close all the accounts.
Okay? Now, that is a gesture on your part towards the healing that you're searching for. The 40 is still sitting there.
We'll come back to that in a minute. Then I want to meet with her and her therapist and your therapist and however y'all are doing this marriage stuff.
And somehow you've got to get some checks and balances and start to incrementally rebuild trust that you're not throwing good money after bad. And this doesn't happen again.
Cause in the back of your mind, you're, if I clean this out and this happens again, I ain't got anywhere to go. That's what's happening in the back of your mind.
So you've got to know that this is solid going forward before you write any more big checks. But $9,000 in the scope of your life, you would pay that right now for healing.
And I would. Yeah.
Yeah. Let's get rid of all the mosquitoes get it down to 17 5 and 23 5 and then let's just sit there with those two while we work on this relationship and as your trust reaches closer to 100 and that is going to require some demonstrations as well as on her part and your part and healing and some time to rebuild.
And as that is rebuilt and you approach 100% on that, then I'm going to start trying to figure out where to get those paid off. But right now, I want to clear the white noise, the clutter out of my mind with all these little bills that, because every time you write a check this it picks the scab it opens the wound and i'm trying to get it down to writing just two checks that's very perceptive you're right now i mean i get pissed off all all over again every time you do this and you have to go through the whole process you've been doing in therapy start forgiveness again you start have to go back through the whole thing and you just you start having all these conversations between your ears we all do this that's how i know i i wouldn't be guilty of it no not me but yeah but i mean yeah you write checks for things you're that remind you of bad things it's bad so dave at what point does and again in service of choosing reality just owning this is where we find ourselves do two people in their 70s have to commit to going back to work for a year and earn another forty thousand dollars to pay these debts if she's of good health i mean i would talk to her therapist about this i'm not going to intervene in that But if she's of good health, she's trying to re-earn trust.
And I'm 12-stepping here. But make good, make amends.
I think she goes back to work. Yeah.
And starts working on these other two loans. I think that's not because of financial, but just I think that's a representative movement towards owning this.

It will give a place for that energy to go, too.

You know, make amends.

It is a 12-step thing.

And so you've got to go back

and where you can correct the wrongs.

It's part of being repentant or sorry, you know?

And nobody wants to work in their 70s,

and that's where we find ourselves, right?

Nobody wants to get scammed

by a romance on the internet, but that's where we find ourselves. This is The Ramsey Show.
All right, Dave, you have some strong opinions. Possibly, yeah.
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're, 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 guys, 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. 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 Every Dollar Budget app makes it easy for you to plan

and 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 Every Dollar 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.
So no more excuses. Go download Every Dollar in the App Store or Google Play today.
Thank you for joining us, America. Dr.
John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. The Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by Y-Refi.
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All right. Today's question comes from Marissa in Alabama.
Marissa asks, how do you tell the difference between having the talent of compassion or discernment and the compulsion to help as a trauma response? Is it possible that a quote-unquote talent may have developed as a survival mechanism and another talent not developed well due to trauma? I mean, my gut reaction here is it doesn't matter. It's an academic exercise.
If you are helping other people to the point that you can't eat or stay whole or you are in an abusive relationship in order to keep other people from getting mad at you, then that's not healthy.

I often say that the skills people learn when they're kids to survive can become some of the greatest skills professionally for them.

But if all it says doesn't matter.

And I'm like, skills people learn when they're kids to survive can become some of the greatest skills professionally for them um but if if all it says doesn't matter i don't think it matters um am i missing the question dave no it feels like there's kind of two possible feelings for me i mean one is um i don't trust a guy that doesn't walk with a limp. Correct.
So if you got it all together and you're perfect, you're full of crap. You scare me.
If you survived. Yeah.
But I went through bankruptcy. I lost everything because I was stupid, which informs my ability to do this.
Right. But I'm not doing it as a healing mechanism to get over my past trauma i'm utilizing the that experience to give insight to the future that's a healthy way to do it yes i guess if you're doing it as a coping mechanism or you can be a parasite you can be a vampire using other people so that you feel better right that's a coping mechanism that's not a heat you're not Correct.
Absolutely. So if the trauma, the damage from the trauma, the wound is what's driving this, I think that's a problem, isn't it? Yeah, and that's one of my rules is I don't talk about things.
You shouldn't be in the business of trying to sell things or help other people with open wounds, right? And how do you know the wound's still open? Can you talk about what happened and your heart rate doesn't take off as though it's happening in real time that's how you know can you talk about your mom passing away from an ugly three-year bout of cancer and you're not overwhelmed with emotion you might still be sad you might still feel heavy but you can have the conversation that's how you know if you're overwhelmed with emotion you're not in a position to help someone else who moms have cancer. That's right.
Dr. Young used to teach us, don't bring your chaos to other people's hurting situations.
But here's the thing. If you're good at a thing because you've got a scar that's healed.
God bless you. Use it.
Yeah. Get out there, man.
Get out there. A scar that's healed is the trick, I think.
Yes i might be wrong but i know you're 100 i you know uh and that doesn't mean um i mean i i still think it's okay for people to criticize me and say how can you possibly give financial advice you're the guy that went bankrupt you know and i'm i get it you know i get that but i do insight because of that, that someone who's never been bankrupt doesn't have.

Right.

So here's another way to look at this. So let's say you're a child raised in the home of two alcoholics, people who struggle with alcohol.
Adult child of an alcoholic. And you learned how to get really small and to make sure the people around you were okay.
And you just learned that. Is it okay to then go into a job where you are ahead of hospitality somewhere, where your job is to disappear and to help other people have a great experience? No, it's not a bad thing.
If you're doing it out of a compulsion because you have to, like you were talking about earlier, then it's not healthy because you're never going to become a whole because you're always going to be looking for healing out there. But yes, if you have some talents that you learned while trying to stay safe and survive, that's amazing.
That's like our friends who go over and they are Navy SEALs and they come back and they walk with business leaders who are going through challenging times and how to communicate under stress. And that's fantastic.
You learn new talents under duress and now you're using those to help the rest of us that's amazing um so so is if she says the phrase the compulsion to help as a trauma response that would that be functioning out of the wound and not out of a healed wound absolutely yes okay yes so if you yeah if you feel like it's a compulsion to help out of a trauma response then it's wrong but if you got discernment and compassion because of trauma that's a healed wound and that's a scar here's the difference i have to versus i get to compulsion if i have to like when someone calls and says hey can you come serve at this local church thing like You're like, I've got to do this. That's not a good thing.

That's childhood nonsense.

If you say, you know what, I get to go help over there.

That's pretty cool.

Then that's a gift.

Then I would say, you're well, go get it done.

That's interesting.

I like that.

Great question.

Very interesting question.

You know what? The other thing about a question like that I always think of is,

a Bible teacher used to tell me, probably if you ask that question, you don't have a problem. Right.
Or you've recognized a problem and now you have a path to healing. Yeah, but I mean, you're seeing things at a proper angle.
Yeah, and I'll tell you, my initial, that question was, I just think the modern mental health ecosystem, universe, whatever, wants us to second guess and deep dive and yada yada on every single thing. And I think there is so much research coming out saying go do the next right thing.
It's a lot of navel gauging. Go do the next right thing.
And if you can help people based on what happened to your kid, man, that's the gospel, right? That's restoration. That's all things made new.
Go use what happened for good if you're healed. Yes.
Or if you're, you know, doing it out of a healed place. That's right.
You know, so forth. Good.
Phone number here is 888-825-5225. David is in Grand Rapids.
Hi, David. How are you? Hi, I'm doing great.
Thank you for having me. Sure.
What's up? Well, my wife and I, we've always refused to go into debt for anything other than a mortgage.

Good.

This last week, we just paid off our house.

We did a 15-year mortgage, paid it off in four years, four months.

You're amazing.

Thank you.

How old are you?

I'm 33.

What's the house worth?

It's about $390 right now. Way to go.
go how much in your nest egg in your 401ks and stuff yeah so our raw buy arrays um between the two of us we got about 360 6 000 dude you're gonna be a millionaire when you're 35 way to go that that's the goal then we have mutual funds also that's's about 118,000. 118.
Wow. Good.
Good for you. Our, our total annual income between the two of us is approximately $120,000.
Um, the question I have long story short, my in-laws own some hunting property. My father-in-law passed away this past May.
My mother-in-law is ready to sell the property. She wants to keep it in the family if possible.
We would love to buy it. She's willing to sell it to us for $122,000, and she's willing to do a 0% land contract.
No. And the terms are...
Absolutely not. You have the money.
Write her a check. Okay okay cash out your mutual fund cash out mutual funds absolutely you don't want to be in debt to your mother-in-law it changes the way thanksgiving dinner tastes i'm not kidding borrowers slave to the lender the air in the room changes when you sit down with your master.
Right. Don't do it.
You know how free you felt when you paid off that mortgage? Yes, exactly. Don't screw that up.
Yeah. Okay.
Especially, on a hierarchy, I'd rather owe a bank than my mother-in-law. And my mother-in-law is awesome but man yeah this is this is bad bad bad bad juju

right here yeah and you got the money would it be dumb of me to buy the property or what should i

no you got the money i would i'd buy it for 100 grand you got 180 in your mutual fund how big is

the property uh it's about 55 acres i mean if the value is right i don't think it's a problem

um but pay cash for it or don't do it. If you can't pay cash for it, don't do it.
And never do a land contract. You'll get screwed over six ways from Sunday on that.
Ooh, I could do a whole segment on land contracts. This is The Ramsey Show.
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The question is from Brianna.

It says, I was one month from my lease being up and I had to leave early due to a domestic

violence incident.

I notified the property management company and sent them the email with proof of the

protection order.

But just the other day, I went to check my credit and they put a $4,000 debt into collections.

I'm appealing it, but if that doesn't work, should I just pay it?

Okay. What happened to you is wrong and horrible, but it does not release you from a lease.
A protection order does not get you out of a lease. You're appealing to their mercy at that point? Yeah.
If they want to let you out, if you were working, if you were one of my tenants, I would let you out.'re you can't just send them the email and go i'm out it's not a get out of jail free card no pun intended um so you know you are liable for that last month i don't know how it got to four thousand dollars for one month you had one month left on the lease and now they're going to four thousand dollars i'm not sure what flip were you renting but um or they added a bunch of fees yeah or something or maybe the bozo stayed behind torch the place i don't know i don't know what happened here but you are still liable even though you had a protection order even though you sent an email that does not this is not a one-way thing where you just go oh i'm out no you're not out unless they choose to let you out and they didn't respond you don't have a response from them or at least you didn't mention it if you do saying we're going to let you go if you've got that response then you owe zero because they said we're going to let you go so that you're free but i don't think you got that i think you just sent this to them and you thought that got you out that's the way this is worded anyway and it does not get you out i'm not an attorney but it doesn't get you out so um uh you know what i would do i don't know if you need to appeal it um i would just call the property management company that's i'd go in person if you're in the if you're in the town go over there and try to meet with a senior person and uh see if you can negotiate you you're gonna to have to pay some money because you just kind of walk. You were in a horrible situation.
You needed to leave. I'm not telling you you did something wrong, but the assumption that you made that it got you out of the lease was incorrect.
Right. And so you're going to owe some money.
Now, you got to go figure out what and what you can settle it for. If it's a four thousand dollar of legitimate charges or a bunch of them that are just beefed up or whatever you might settle it for that equal to that one month's rent and uh but you're going to end up paying something i think i don't think the judge is going to go oh well you had a protection order you don't have to honor your contract it's like saying i got a protection order so i have to pay my car payment no that's not how it works so uh sorry you know you're going to end up paying something brianna and i've this sooner you can get to somebody and get a settlement negotiation begun you're better off to do it in person and you're better off to do it with the actual people not the stupid lawyers um but if you can that pulled off, that's going to be your best route because you're not going to get out of Dodge on this without paying something.
Joe's in Chesapeake, Virginia. Hi, Joe.
How are you? Hey, Dave. How's it going? Better than I deserve.
What's up? So beginning of this year, my wife and I decided to take our debt seriously, And now we have paid off $30,000 in student loans and credit card debt. Good for you.
Mostly from my job. And I've been fixing and flipping lawnmowers, trucks, equipment, tractors, all kinds of stuff.
Cool. How much money you made doing that? Honestly, normally about $4,000 to $5,000 a month wow good for you yeah you're good at this sir yeah i've been working working hard i'm i'm a uh caterpillar mechanic that's my career so um i just kind of you know buy it buy what i can and fix it up well you know how to turn you know you know how to turn a wrench good for you man yes.
Yep. My question is, I'm at the point where I need to start my emergency fund,

three- to six-month emergency fund.

Good.

And I've been looking at the high-yield savings account,

and I see that the rate of return is the one I found that I applied for was 5.31%.

Mm-hmm.

My mortgage, I only owe 119 on it, the house that we built ourselves, and the interest rate on that is 4.3%. So my question is, why should I not just put all of my income into the high-yield savings account as long as the rate of return is greater than the interest owed.
Because if you make 1% on $100,000, it's $1,000. You don't have a $1,000 problem.
You have a $119,000 problem. The secret to paying off your mortgage is not making 1% spread on a high-yield savings account.

The secret to paying off your mortgage is do what you did with the $30,000 and pay off your mortgage.

Okay. The actual math of this theory that you're running won't buy you a biscuit.

Okay.

That's what I'm saying.

So you're making more money on tractors than you'll make on this in a week uh-huh you follow me yes sir if you got a hundred thousand at five percent and a hundred thousand at four percent the spread is one percent one percent of one hundred thousand dollars is one thousand per year. You make that in a week flipping tractors.
Okay. So it's not enough to screw with.
So just pay off your mortgage. Get your emergency fund done, and then go ahead and go through the baby steps, four, five, and six, and you'll be in great shape, man.
Yeah, and I like to take that $1,000 and divide it monthly. $83.
83 that's your sleep tax and you'll more than make that back 83 a month to sleep deeper than you've ever slept in your life because nobody can take your house yeah yeah just just pay it off as fast as you can just nail it hammer do it do it do it don't mess around with it don't play games good for you good question all right sam's in syracuse hi sam how are you

i'm good dave how are you better than i deserve what's up hey so i kind of i feel like it's a dumb question but um you're in the right place a couple of dumb guys we got you so I've been with my girlfriend now for almost a little over a year.

Um, Dumb guys, we got you. Hey, so I've been with my girlfriend now for almost a little over a year.
I accumulated a large-scale debt before I got with her while I was in the military. And I want to move forward with our relationship.
We've discussed it for the last two months or so.

I have the money set aside for the ring. How much? About $3,500.
How much in debt do you have? I would say it's roughly around $50,000. And what's it on? It's a few things.

So one of them is a credit card, which is $25,000.

One is from a repo from a previous relationship.

What do you make a year?

I make about $65,000 a year, I would say.

I call it about $4,200.

$26,000. $26,000.
Okay. Almost like I've done this before.
Okay. And you're saying you want to wait to get out of debt to get married? And that's the thing.
I've heard a few different answers to that question that I have. Unless they're this answer, they're wrong.

The correct answer is get married. Okay.
If you're pledged to get out of debt and she's pledged to get out of debt with you and you're aligned and in agreement on your money, get married. That's one of the big reasons why I fell in love with her.
Don't tell her I think I've got 5050,000. Tell her I have $49,462 in debt, and it's exactly this,

and this is exactly what I'm going to do to get out

because I'm the kind of man you want to marry because I'm getting this done.

I'm a go-getter.

That's who you need to be.

Don't give me, I think I make, I think I'm in debt.

Get it exact and kill it.

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