You’ll Never Be Able To Borrow Your Way out of Debt

Live from Nashville, Tennessee, this is The Ramsey Show, where we help people with their money, their relationships, their life, building wealth, getting out of debt, all of it. I'm John Deloney, joined by my good friend Jade Warshaw, and we are live.

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Let's go out to Chicago, Illinois, and talk to Jake. What's up, Jake? How we doing, brother? Hey, guys.
Can you hear me? Yeah, I got you, man. What's up? Awesome.
Thank you so much. God bless you both.
Thank you. Just calling for a relationship question.
I've got a girlfriend now I've been dating just for over a month, and she comes from of the country actually. Um, but she's been in the U S for a couple, a couple of years now, and she's trying to get rid of her debt.
She's on the baby steps doing every dollar, but she tells me like she's being overwhelmed because she's trying to also, or, um, her family overseas is asking for money. Unfortunately, they grew up kind of in poverty, so they're struggling.
And I'm just trying to get relationship advice from you guys on how to handle that on the sideline and be supportive and give advice. Where is she from? I just want to say that South America.
Okay, that's fine. So that's a very, very, very, very, very common thing.
Millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars are sent back home when one or two or five or six family members make it to the U.S. And so being this new relationship for a month, I would sit with her and keep my mouth shut.
I know that's right. And I would say, man, I know that's really hard.
I know that's tough. I know you're in a pickle.
I know if I want you to sit and hear her, and unless she specifically says, do you have advice for me on how I can get out of this situation, which I doubt that question will actually come, I want you just to be present with her because she's probably pretty sharp and she's probably pretty smart and she probably needs you to be near her and needs your uh emotional support more than she needs your your your facts does that make sense yep yeah i got you um yeah jay do you have anything there i mean i guess this kind of is what it is man y'all been together a month this difference you were married five years or something like, I agree. I think the cultural difference changes the rules slightly because that is true.
Like depending on what your background is from, or even if you have family that are still there, there's a lot of cultural differences where, yeah, it is kind of like a family household. And it's like, listen, everybody contributes and she's probably still bringing some of that mindset here, even though she now lives in the States.
And to John's to john's point i 100 agree i wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole and i would let her do her thing for now and as the relationship progresses you know maybe there's a time where you guys talk about it when you're like engaged and that sort of thing but right now let her do her thing and jake this is a question that took me about 20 years of being married before I realized it would have been smart for me to ask. And that is, do you want me to give you a solution here or do you want me just to listen and be with you? So if you ever feel like you're getting trapped or you feel like she's asking you veiled advice, questions, whatever, just say, Hey, do you want me just to sit with you? Or do you actually want me to tell you what I think you should do next? And give her an option on how you should proceed.
Does that sound good? Yeah, I like that. Okay, all right, brother.
Well, thanks for the call, man. Best of luck to you.
Let's go out to George in Tampa. What's up, George? Hey, guys.
How's it going? We are rocking on to the break of dawn, brother.

What's up?

Well, hey, I just have some death stuff going on.

We just bought a house, and we're thinking about moving back to Texas, basically,

and the house we bought for $740,000.

Currently, I owe $690,000 on it.

We have $150,000 due loans and $25,000 on the car as well.

We've got some work stuff going on, so just trying to figure out. What's the house worth if you sold it? We think.
I mean, we've been talking to a realtor lately, at least. We're hoping at least get $740,000 up to anywhere.
She wants to put it on for $799,000. But in this market, that's what we're kind of afraid of.
So you think you'd only break even? Worst case, yes. Okay.
You'd break even minus fees, so you'd actually lose money, right? Exactly. Yeah.
So, I mean, plus the money we've been putting into his interest. So we only put 5% down originally.
Yeah. Why are you moving so quickly? Well, two things.
We want to get around family. We have a one-year-old, so we want to get around family we have a one-year-old so we want to get around family and then we're trying to figure out what to do next we like we actually live in um sarasota but we kind of bored with it already we didn't know that when we first got here kids kind of changed things and kind of just went into life start buying stuff and but you bought yeah you bought a house for three quarters of a million dollars Well, I was I mean I was another thing that's happened I was making a quarter million and my wife was making 60 and then didn't seem like that crazy thing at a time which now I'm thinking about it it was crazy and then my job they did a comp plan change and then the markets kind of shifted in my field which is you know I'm probably make like still good000, but I'm just, we've been talking about like maybe resetting, going back to renting for a bit, stacking the accounts again, paying off the student loans and kind of getting back on track.
Can you tell me more about the other debt? Well, we have student loans. We went to private education.
How much? Well, $151,000 left. Okay.
Anything else? uh just a car payment which I'm still something that's 25 grand left on it 25k okay and there's nothing else no credit cards nothing yeah I had money in the count we have about you know 37k and the accounts right now and then I got a I got the retirement accounts to nothing crazy I got like 50 grand in retirement and then that's weird i know i need to sell it my coinbase account has 15k yeah okay so here's the thing the good news um is you've got some liquid cash sitting around here you're going to liquidate the coinbase um i would if i were in your shoes to make this right side up the The good news is you can turn around and pay off your car today. Today.
And then you can take the other 12,000, put it with the 15,000 and take that 27 and put it towards the student loans. And now you're back in a situation.
You got $125,000 of debt and that's a lot more manageable knowing what you guys's income potential is yeah right so i don't i don't think that the solution to your situation is necessarily selling the house unless you can no longer afford it that's the yeah we can but it's coming to the point where it's like is it becoming more worth it in a way because we we really want to move and that's not a factor that's kind of playing in too much i don't know so you don't love the house that is a big factor if you don't love the house um i don't want you to move at a loss if you don't like the house i'd like to wait till you got right side up and just be patient yeah uh what percentage of your income is the house after good question of your take-home pay take-home pay i mean that's a great question i don't know that answer to be honest you don't top my head i should but that's okay let's figure it out let's think about it so what are you guys taking home right now taking home i get paid bi-weekly and right now i'm getting paid around five grand bi-weekly and then she is that's 10 probably pulling yeah she's pulling in like you know 2k on her checks right now okay so that's 12 we're coming on commission so very slightly but usually around 12. she's okay pulling 2k a week or 2k a month uh 2k a week uh 2k every she's semi-monthly so two payrolls a month okay so 14 000 that's all you need to look at figure out what 25 of that're going to see, okay, can we actually afford this? If you can't, that's a good indicator.
It shouldn't be any more than $3,500 a month. So that's what you're looking at.
I would not sell the house simply to pay off this debt. If you hate the house and you're right side up, be my guest.
But I don't think it's the solution that you need to get your behavior on point. There you go.
And I will say one time I took a check to closing to get out and it changed my life. So make the right call.
We'll be right back. Statistics show that half of Americans don't have enough life insurance or they don't have any at all.
I don't understand this, John. Why don't people want to take care of their family? They think they're not going to die or something? Well, I used to be one of those guys.
I didn't even think about it. And one of my buddies said, hey, the only reason to not have life insurance is if you hate your wife and kids.
And I immediately went and got term life insurance. That's a gut punch.
For decades, Dave, I've sat across people who've lost a spouse. They've lost somebody important to them.
Me too. They don't know what to do next.
Terrifying. You're going to have a crisis here.
You know, you got two options while you're sitting and talking to a young widow. She's concerned about how she's going to invest all this money properly and not mess this up, or she's concerned how she's going to eat tomorrow.
That's exactly right. These are the two options.
It's saying I love you to your family. Term Life Insurance.
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Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm John Deloney, joined by Jade Warshaw, 888-825-5225.
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All right, let's go out to Chicago. Let's go back to Chicago and talk to Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike.
What's up, Mike? How we doing? Hey, real well, guys, and great show. Appreciate you taking my call.
Question for you. So I have a pretty gifted athlete in the family, and she has the opportunity to play volleyball at the Division I level.
And the question really is she's had offers to play at Ivy League schools pretty much throughout the East Coast, but do we take the route and go to Division I that's not ivy fortunately i'm in a position where i could afford to send her to an ivy league college but do we go and send her somewhere and go for free or is there a lot of value or is there value in her pursuing that ivy education would she play would she just walk on to the team or is she, does she have an opportunity? Yeah. Yeah.
Great question. No, they, um, no, she would be, you know, a big, big member on the team, but it's really comes down to, I'm in business, I'm a business guy.
So is there value in her, uh, playing at one of the Ivies and spending, you know, as a family, probably a half a million dollars for that four-year education. Where'd you get that number? Where'd you get half a million dollars? I know.
Tell me about it. No, no, no.
I mean, my world is universities, and that seems like a lot. It's $100,000 a year, at least.
Yeah, that's what admissions has told me. That like, you know, a Cornell or a Brown or a Dartmouth or a Harvard.
It's up to a hundred grand a year. A hundred grand a year.
Is that tuition, room, board, everything all in, travel? Yeah, that's all in. Yep, you betcha.
Yep. Okay.
I can tell you, let me give you my perspective. I played D1 volleyball on scholarship.
I also had the, and I had that at a couple of different universities, but one of them was also offering me an academic scholarship of presidential. And the advice that I was given is choose education first, because if for some reason, you know, I go on and I don't want to play overseas or I go on and I decide that I don't want to keep playing volleyball I'll keep my scholarship right like I don't have to go on the the team scholarship I can go on the academic side and so part of this might play out in your situation as well where it's go go the route that serves what the future is so if education and you can afford it if if that's what you're going towards then that's's great.
I don't know what her plans are for volleyball. If she's wanting to go on to be an Olympic athlete, is she wanting to go on to play overseas? If that's the case, then D1 might be the route.
But if she's got these other, I mean, John, you can speak to the educational side better than I can. Yeah, Mike, it's been several years, man.
The last study I read said essentially this. If, and again, this is before everything blew up and there's been all the drama on all these college campuses before all that stuff.
If your kids could get into a Ivy League school and it was not going to put your family out of business, that there was an ROI to them attending. And the ROI weirdly was less about the particular education and more about the people that they would be going to school with because those people would leave and start businesses and hire your daughter or your daughter would hire, start a business and hire these folks.
And it's the creme de la creme, right? The other side of that is, um, I went to a tiny little NAia school and i did all my grads work at a gigantic d1 school and my family's doing all right jage family's doing all right and i can't imagine someone with a straight face can look with at you and say pay me four hundred,000 over the next four years. That just seems out of whack to me.
It must have gotten just insane the last 36 or 48 months. But, yeah, I have a hard time telling you to go spend half a million dollars when you have it free right in front of you.
at the same time. If I could do it without hurting my family

and my kid wants to go to an Ivy League school,

I'd probably send him. Let's get bigger numbers.
What's your net worth? I don't know. Enough.
Plenty. Yeah, enough.
I'd rather not get into huge detail. All right.
Tell me what the pause is on your end your end uh there's really not you know i just think that uh it's not a huge pause on my end but i do work in the field of business and i didn't go to ivy and like yourself i think i'm doing okay and i do know people that did go to ivy and um they're probably not doing as well as well as people like you and I. So tell me about your kid.
You know, I think she wants to probably go into medicine. That would probably be something that she wants to do.
So that's why I'm encouraging that direction for her to go to the Ivy. But the offers that she has from non-Ivy are very reputable schools as well.
But I know how challenging it is to actually get into an Ivy and to have the ability to use athletics, like I've always told her, to use athletics as a vehicle to do something bigger and better in your life. And this is a prime example of an opportunity that's really hard to pass up.
Um, but, um, it's quite a bit

of money and for her, it's, I would do it for her and I would do it for all of my kids, but

I just wanted to get your perspective, um, because you talk about money and deal with scenarios

often. So I'll tell you the doctor that saved my life, the doctor that I call regularly and the

doctor that I eat with on a regular basis. Went to a research, a giant research university.
Sure. Yep.
And is extraordinary in medicine, is now a professor at a top tier medical school after practicing medicine for all these years. I think the only patient that continues to nag him to death is me.
It sounds like you have an extraordinary daughter who knows hard work, who's also brilliant, who's also learned hard work and work ethic from her dad and learned character from her parents. And to be honest with you, those type of students are going to, you can send her to a local community college and she's going to hit everything, every pitch that comes down the way out of the park.
So I think it's, you're, you're one of the rare families that would actually say that let's talk about fit and let's talk about where your daughter wants to be. Like what group of young people is she going to thrive being around? I think you made a great statement earlier in the conversation about the research as to who is at these schools and sort of like next steps and what happens after graduation and the network because you can't play volleyball forever and you can't play athletics forever.
So I think that's sort of the thing that's in the back of my wife and I's mind is like the value and sort of what will happen and who she can interact with and meet and relationships that can be formed. But I still have a little bit of reservation.
Hey, you get it. I'm telling you right now, I, I, I was a Dean of students at a law school at a public law school.
Some of the most brilliant, competent, amazing kids of character. They were, they're amazing.
So you can't just lump that into these different places. I'd actually, gosh, I'm thinking out loud here, and I've got no data to back up what I'm saying, but I would almost be more tempted if there was going to be, we're going to go into some sort of AI field, some sort of research field, some sort of quantitative, let's go down rabbit hole.
I'd be more likely to send a kid to an IV there than in medicine. I want my kids around gritty, hardworking, let's all study, let's all figure this thing out and serve our communities.
And you can find those kids anywhere, anywhere. I don't think you're in a wrong spot.
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Welcome back to The Ramsey Show, 888-825-5225. Let's go out to las vegas and talk to luke hey luke what's up brother hey what's going on how you guys doing today we're doing all right good man how can we help so i'm about to come into a large lump sum of money i'm not sure the exact number but seven to eight hundred thousand an accident settlement What kind of accident and uh uh it was uh one two vehicle accident with me and a semi-truck interstate are you okay i have uh two pretty serious injuries um uh i've had a couple surgeries already and I'm going to need a lot more in the

future. So I want to get your guys' advice on how I can properly manage this money so I don't have to worry about medical bills in the future and set up my family for success.
What's the nature of your injuries? Because I know some surgeries that can cost $800,000 without blinking. So I will need at least one spinal surgery where I'll have to fuse two of my vertebrae, and then I'll need at least two full knee replacements.
Oh, gosh. Jeez, man.
Are you, when will you be able to work? Will you be able to work? What's the prognosis on that? Well, the accident was actually about three years ago. I've been working for the past year and a half.
Me and my wife bring home about $60,000 a year. And we have about, I'm not sure the exact number, but we have about $20,000 in debt, most of it tied up with two vehicles and then just some credit cards.
Okay. Okay, so the $60,000 a year, is that what you've been making or is that like a decrease in income since the accident? It's actually an increase since my accident.
I went to a small trade school and got certified in welding. I got a job that's not too hard on my injuries.
And my wife, she's a salesman or saleswoman for her family business selling pools. Okay.
Well, I mean,000 to $800,000 is a lot of money. Obviously, you can do the basic things, clear out your debt, right? You got $20,000 in debt, you pay that off.
You make sure you set aside six months of expenses, right? Put that in a high-yield savings account. What's the situation with your home? We're currently renting.
I spend about a third of my income on just renting. And basically all of what I make just goes to bills.
And then what she makes is like food, gas, and all the other necessities. And we're saving as much as we can with whatever's left.
Okay. So then that would be the next thing in the equation is to figure out, okay, what's our, what's our dream for a home? Do we want to purchase a house anytime soon? If we, if so, what's the price range? Do we want to put a really nice down payment down and invest the rest? Do we want to buy something modest in cash? That's the type of conversation I'd be having.
If I were you, If we're talking about $800,000, I probably wouldn't want to spend more than, I don't know, $500,000. Hold on a second.
Luke, I'm going to ask Jade a question on your behalf. Is that cool? Yeah, go ahead.
So, Jade, I would, man, I'm overly conservative. I want to make sure I clear these surgeries first.
I would think, right? Well right well what's your insurance like uh i get i get insurance through my uh to my job um they pay for a very actually significant portion of it um the only thing that i really need to worry about when it comes to medical is the high deductible yeah okay great man yeah i mean that. Yeah.
I mean, that's the assumption. Uh, what's your out of pocket max? Is it the same as your deductible? Uh, yeah, it's a 3,500.
Okay. Yeah.
Honest. Amazing.
And I'd like to get to the point. That's why I said I would not, uh, if you're thinking about getting a house, choose a modest amount so you can still have a big chunk of this to invest.
And if I were you, I'd go to RamseySolutions.com slash SmartVestor and get with a SmartVestor that's going to help you invest this. And then I think that you're set up like, this is not the type of money that I'm set for life.
I never have to do anything. But if you're smart with it, it really, really, really gives you an amazing jump off.
And I think at that point, you just keep doing what you've been doing. You make $60,000 a year.
You keep getting raises. You invest 15% every single month.
You set aside for your out-of-pocket max every single year. And you just keep going.
This is great in that way. I hate that you got in an accident.
The other thing I would I would plan for Luke is I'm assuming you work hourly as a welder. Yeah.
So those, when you have spinal surgery and when you have two knee replacements, you're going to be out of work for a season, right? For, from both knee surgeries, my doctor said roughly six months. Okay.
Probably. So want to hold that amount of money that you would have potentially earned, and would you put that in a high-yield savings account? Yeah, I'd maybe do a separate since this is kind of a outlier.
I'd keep your normal three to six months of expenses, and then kind of like what we would treat if you knew you're getting laid off or something, I'd start stacking up knowing that the six months of no work is coming and put a separate thing there and say, okay, this is for that surgery because you're going to have the ability to do that. And that's one of the things that going into this and saying, however we choose to live, let's do it without a payment.
That's going to make your life a lot less stressful knowing that you have no debt. You don't owe anybody.
Nobody can take your house. That's going to give you a lot of peace.
All right. Awesome.
Thank you, guys. Hey, we wish you a great recovery, brother.
We wish you health and healing, my man. Let's go out to Columbus and talk to Brianna.
Hey, Brianna, what's up? Hey, how's it going? We're doing all right. How can we help? Oh, just trying to get past my, graduate my degree of dumbness.
I went to that school too. Oh, yes.
So I have a question for you based on what do i do with my negative equity um do i pay off my negative equity before or after i take it to carmax and see how much they'll give it you're not taking it to carmax that's number one tell us more about the car tell us what you owe and tell us what it's worth it is a gmc terrain i owe 16 000 and it is worth six to eight oh man did you roll negative equity into it no i did not i have 13 interest Wow. And I've had it for a year.
Wow. Okay.
The dealership said that they replaced fluids in the transmission and such when they then told me just like a month ago that's not the case because I've been dealing with this off and on for over two months so is the car falling apart on you um the uh transfer cakes went out on it we got that fixed uh the torque converter is starting and which is making the transmission act up okay what a mess okay. My husband and I are thinking of just leaving it set.
My husband is actually completing a job to give us money for a hoopty for him. We've been, we've spent so much money in the past two years.
This is our third vehicle in two years that we've had to strained money into. Okay, so...
And the other two were paid off. What other debt do you have? Let's put this in perspective.
What other debt do you have? So the debt terrain, a 2012 Dodge 1500, that's around the same. and then wait when you say around the same you mean that you owe 16,000 and it's only worth eight no it's the truck is worth uh the payments or the loan is for 16,000 not sure the what it's worth okay here's the thing that need to, here's what we need to talk about when it comes to these cars really quickly before we go.
The key here is that we want to be in less debt. So if that means you taking out a small loan from the credit union in order to clear this difference so you can get rid of the vehicle and you're buying the cheapest cash car known to man, that's the only way that you're going to get out of this.
And you've learned a very hard, but very valuable lesson to never have a car payment again. You don't want these cars to be any more than 50% of your annual salary.
That's the rule going forward. And this is the Ramsey show.
Welcome back. This is the Ramsey show, So 888-825-5225.
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Today's question comes from Evie in Massachusetts. She says, I do not feel comfortable sharing finances with my boyfriend, though he's been eager to do so.
He's supposed to contribute to our monthly bills, but it is always a few months behind. His truck and boat payments are set up to auto withdraw from my accounts.
At any given time, he owes me around $15,000. This has been going on for five years.
He works for himself, but that work is only really busy for four to six months of the year during which he makes really good money. He wants to get married, but I cannot allow myself to be legally tied to him unless he turns everything around.
I had a recent cancer diagnosis and feel like I need to make a will to protect my assets for my children and I'm scared to let him know my wishes. Honestly, he's a good man who loves me and my children more than anything.
I love him and trust him. I'm just at the end of my rope with his inability to manage money responsibly.
I think in addition to why refi, this question is also brought to you by some sort of hemorrhoid ointment because I have those based off this call. There's a delusion going on here.
Yeah, I think the first thing Evie needs to do is go to a mirror and look in it. He does have an inability to manage money and you do too.
You've got his truck and his boat payments coming out of auto withdrawing from your account. You're sharing money with somebody you're not married to.
And you've got kids from, I'm assuming, a previous marriage. My, my.
And y'all are all tangled up in this mess with no legal protection. And it's an absolute wreck.
And by the way, if you quote unquote love him and trust him, your body wouldn't be screaming at you to not have this level of vulnerability and openness with him there's something else here i think you want to love him and you want to trust him and he's not proving trustworthy and you're finding yourself in a situation that you don't want to be in jade these things like it just it's like by degrees right yeah and you wake up and you are completely underwater and you can't you can you can't breathe, and you're chained to the bottom of the pool

and you don't even know how it happened and it's just easy to blame somebody else.

But wow, wow, wow, wow.

I mean, I feel like just looking at, I mean, obviously we could point out the obvious things.

Like you said, you're not married and you're sharing finances.

Everything is coming out.

Like there's some things that are very obvious, but then there's like, listen.

This guy only works six months out of the year. He only works six months out of the year but i'm like the track record doesn't know the financial track record is terrible if you're saying it's been like this for five years yeah that for me and i i'm not the expert here but i'm like that feels that's tad amount to uh just using you that feels that's the way it feels.
I only getting that from this you know one letter here but that let me say this behavior is a language yeah he's told you for five years i don't care what you think i don't care what you feel i don't care about your kids i care about working really hard for a couple of months out of the year half the year i care about my truck and i care about my boat and um let's get married all right like you said it best he cares about himself and at the end of the day evie's got to care about evie well what would cause her and so many of us to get comfortable with the situation that's clearly so dysfunctional again like it happens by degrees i think it can be that we we so badly want and sometimes we feel like we need a situation a job a marriage a relationship to work because we can't see ourselves on the other side of that that we just we just wash over all the negativity. Other times it happens,

like I say,

it happens just one inch at a time.

He comes home and he bought a truck

and he auto-drafted it out of your account.

He says,

hey,

can we do this on your account?

I'm just gonna put it all in the account.

That big check's coming next month

and it'll be fine

and that check doesn't come next month.

And then he's like,

he gets a boat

and it's fun for the kids

and suddenly you wake up

and it's been five years

and you realize, oh, I'm building a life with somebody that I don't trust, that doesn't work, that doesn't tell me the truth. And I don't know how to untangle this.
And the easiest way to untangle things is just to start pointing fingers at other people. And really the first place you got to go is the mirror.
When you find yourself all wound up, you got to go to the mirror first. So what then, what would we say are action steps for her? Because she wrote us a letter.

She's like, I'm at the end of my rope.

I don't, she thinks it's just a money thing.

We know it's far beyond that.

So what's the action steps?

I think action step number one is to sit down and say,

from this point forward,

I'm not auto-drafting stuff out of my account.

I have to protect me and my children.

So your stuff goes to your account.

So we separate the funds.

That's numero uno. That's number one.
Number two, if you're not going to contribute financially, you're not living in this home. And that's a bigger question, which is, you keep asking me to get married.
You want to build this life. And you are not showing me on a day-to-day basis that that's the world you want to create.
And I can't, like, she's trying to, she's thinking logically about, like, logically about like, I gotta protect my family. She's just doing it in a sideways way, which I need to make a will to protect my assets.
No, you need to stop letting somebody else just take money out of your account. It's almost like she's thinking through a marriage lens of, hey, we're sharing our money, we're making a will.
If I'm sick, he's taking care of my kids, but they don't have that institution in place. To protect them.
Yeah. Right.
And she doesn't, she's not, doesn't have a person that she trusts or is a person of integrity that's doing this with her. Right.
So I would begin to say, what can I control out of this situation? I can control my bank account. I can control what money comes out of my account.
I can control whether I'm going to continue to play a house for five years with somebody that I don't trust and that doesn't work even year round. I mean, those are the hard, hard conversations.
And by just looking at this, I think we all know what that means. Yeah.
Well, big red flag is I'm scared to let him know my wishes. And if you are with somebody for five years and you can't sit across the table and be honest and vulnerable and open, I mean, that person's not for you.
That's a tough situation that you find yourself in. So Evie, I'd call somebody who can walk through this with you because it's a tangled mess.
This is like a whiplash on an open-faced fishing reel, man. This is hard to just untangle all by yourself.
So get somebody with you and walk alongside you. At the end of the day, you're worth more than this mess that you all have created together.
We wish you peace in your relationships. Let's go out to San Antonio and talk to Jesus.
What's up, Jesus? I'm up against a clock, so get right to your question, all right? I got you right now. Thank you guys for taking my call.
You got it. What's up? So my car just broke down.
I still owe $6, car loan and i had thirteen thousand dollars of student loans i've done my first baby steps i saved a thousand dollars of an emergency fund i paid my credit cards off and i currently have a job that makes eighty seven thousand dollars a year apart from the need for a car i just don't know how to save and as silly as it sounds i just started listening to the ramsey show so my mind is changing on how to. I guess my biggest question is what's my action step, my next action step? I mean, so you've got the $6,000 car, but it's broken down right now? Correct.
How much is it going to cost to fix it? But maybe $3,000. Okay.
That's a lot for a $6,000 car. Have you been putting that kind of money into it a lot lately? No, not at all.
Not at all're getting it fixed that's for i mean you got to be able to get around so how quickly could you if you temporarily like pause the baby steps right quick how quickly could you get that money together to get this car fixed car fixed i have it already oh i have it already but i was going to refresh approved by my bank with a $25,000 loan. No.
No, no, no. You just told me the car was broken down and it cost $3,000 to get it fixed.
Fix it. Fix it.
The goal is to get out of debt, brother. Not get more debt.
Get to zero. Yeah.
John makes a good point. If you don't hear anything else from this call, you can't solve a problem while simultaneously creating it.
Debt is your problem. If you keep borrowing money, you're going to continue to be in debt.
So you've got to draw a line in the sand. You say, I'm not borrowing money anymore from this point forward.
Spend $3,000, get your car fixed, and then it's on to baby step two. You list the debts out from smallest to largest.
So the car comes first. You put as much money as you can to that debt till you pay it off.
Then you attack the student loan. That's it.
All you can do is add side hustles to this to make it happen faster. That's it for hour one here on The Ramsey Show.
We'll be right back. Hope to see you soon.
Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show. I'm John Galoney, joined by Jade Warshaw.
We're here to help you with your money, your relationships, your mental and emotional health, your work, whatever you got going on in your life. We've got an opinion, and it's going to be worth about what you pay for it, which is nothing, but give us a buzz at 888-825-5225.
We are live. Let's go out to Laredo, Texas, and talk to Joshua.

Hey, Joshua.

What's up, man?

Hi, Dr. John Deloney and Jay Walshaw.

I'm fanboying so crazy right now.

I can't believe I'm talking to you guys.

Dude, we're fanboying too.

It's great to hear from you.

What's up?

Well, I'm just having a lot of trouble with how to emotionally,

how to deal with my mother and my wife's relationship

and my mother's relationship with my sons. What's going on? Yeah, what happened, man? I just feel like my mom could do a lot more for her own grandkids and to be able to fix a relationship with my wife.
What happened between her and your wife? So whenever my wife and I started our high school sweetheart pretty much and my mom didn't like me going out with her and then when I was a we went to go ask for her hand she said that she didn't want me to marry her because she thought her family was going to take advantage of me. I asked her

why, and I honestly don't remember what she said. And then now that we have kids, my wife feels like she could do a lot more of a grandma, and I feel the same way too.
How have your conversations been with your mom? Have you brought it up to her? I brought it up to her before, and she says that bad because at first my wife

sees would see favoritism

between my oldest and my youngest. Hey, Josh, I don't want you to offload this on your wife.
I want you to take responsibility on this phone call with me. What are you experiencing with your mom? Is she treating you and your

kids and your wife differently?

I feel like

she just...

Let's don't traffic in feels

right this second. Feels are important, but not right now.

Is she

treating everybody differently?

Not out of her

character. She's just like that.

I don't know what that means.

Well, I just

Thank you. not out of her character.
She's just like that. I don't know what that means.
Well, I just... She always helps out everybody else before herself and her own family.
That's what I feel. Okay.
And have you sat down and said, hey, mom, I would love for you to be more involved in our family. And here's a couple of ways that you could do that.
No, not like that. Not necessarily.
Okay. I think at some point you as her son, don't pawn this off on your wife, but you as her son sit down with mom and say mom um i have this picture of you as grandma of our little ones and you've been our ride or die and i would love for you to show up in these ways and then i'm gonna list these pick them up kids up from school show up after school come be with us go to holidays do sunday lunches after church or whatever the things are instead of this amorphous, well, I think that this, and I feel this, you see what I'm saying? Let's make this pretty specific and give your mom a chance to show up in the ways that you guys would like to see her show up.
Or the hard part of this relationship is she might not. That's very true.
I think that if you have expectations, it's unfair to at least not communicate them. And then they're just a bad guy and they don't necessarily know why.
But at least if you said, here's what I thought it was going to look like or here's what, you know, and some of it may be fair, some of it may be unfair, but at least you're talking about it. Then at least she has a chance to chance to say okay now she can do with this whatever she will and if she decides yeah your expectation is different than what i thought i was going to do then at least you can kind of put the situation to bed as opposed to having this continuously like unmet expectation that you never talk about that feels it's just kind of cruel because your mom doesn't know what standard to live up to and here's the other deal josh um does your wife know that your mom didn't want y'all to get married yes she knows and my wife doesn't feel comfortable with her anymore because of a lot of stuff that has happened in the past and that's another another major like what issue on like well like that one time that i told you when we're gonna get engaged my mom said that she thought her family was gonna take advantage of me and then she would she would talk about her parents really bad because she would be hanging out at the house pretty late and we weren't doing anything bad it's just that she thought that it was that her parents were bad parents and stuff like that what made her think that that? Is there something specific? Is it a financial thing?

Is there more to that?

No, not that I can think of.

I don't know.

I mean, we were just teenagers and we were just hanging out.

How old are you now?

At home, I'm 26 years old.

How long are we going to hang on to that?

Mom said some dumb, rude things about your girlfriend's parents when y'all were dating. However many years ago.
Now y'all have kids. The situation's changed.
Is she still hanging on to that or is it you guys hanging on to that? I think it's us. Every time your wife comes in, does she look at her and go, oh my gosh, I can't believe you married her.
Her parents and family are disgusting. They're taking advantage of you.
Does she still talk like that? No, she just keeps quiet. Okay.
Maybe she's ashamed of what she said about you guys when you were dating, and now your wife's turned out to be a pretty amazing woman and a good mother to your kids and a good co-creator of the world y'all are creating together and she doesn't know how to reenter that conversation. Who knows? My guess is your mom saw her little boy dating falling head over heels for some girl and she didn't know how to say, you're my baby boy and I don't want you dating anybody and she just ran her mouth is that a possibility? Yes, that is a possibility Have your wife's parents taken advantage of you? No So I think that the time now is to stop wishing your mom would live up to a standard that you guys are kind of it's kind kind of amorphous.
And I think it's time to let things that were said when you all were teenagers go and let's sit down with mom and say, we miss you and we want you in our life in this way. And I know that you didn't want me to marry her.
I did. We've got a family and we want you to be a part of it.
You get to choose. Cause I really don't, I mean, Jade, tell me if I'm crazy.
I don't have another option, Josh, than just to sit here and have this weird, these weird feelings. And your wife's going to have to forgive.
Am I crazy? No, no, no, no. And also, like, I would never like, also as growing up,

I would never defend my wife

and certain things that would happen with my family,

the way they would treat her.

Now I'm realizing what I've been doing wrong

and I'm trying to change that and putting boundaries.

So I think maybe that could be a thing

why they would react a certain way.

And you're also allowed to say,

nobody is allowed to talk about my wife that way.

And if y'all choose to talk about my wife that way, then y'all are choosing for me to leave because I'm going to walk out the door and my family's coming with me. I hope you will choose not to do that and apologize.
Take your wife's by both hands and look her in the eye or hold her face and look at her eye and say, I did not stick up for you when I was a kid and I'm sorry. And I let things go and I shouldn't have and I'm really sorry.
But a lot of what you're talking about sounds like y'all are trafficking in the

past and you've got two kids, you're 26 years old, you're a grown man, you're creating a life

together. And if you want your family with it, you got to give them a chance to step up.
Does

that sound right, Jade? 100%. All right, let's live moving forward, man, and give your family

a chance to step up or to step out. This is The Ramsey Show.
Hey guys, George Camel here. As a new dad, I see a lot of things in a new light.
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That's why I'm pumped to bring the Money and Relationships Tour to a city near you. Join me and Dr.
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Grab your tickets at ramsaysolutions.com slash tour before they're gone. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show.
I'm John joined by Jade Warshaw. Hey, take a quick minute, not a minute, take a quick 10 seconds and wherever you happen to be listening or watching to the show, please hit the subscribe button or the like button.
Leave a five-star review. It just makes such a difference.
It kicks the show up into algorithms and it puts this important information in front of millions and millions of people who otherwise never would have seen it and all of us are worried and all of us are looking around saying hey what we're doing is not working but nobody has a light in the darkness and that's what this show is it's totally counter-cultural don't owe anybody anything live free let your families go through life with peace inside your home. And, man, just a quick like and subscribe can help get that information and that spirit into so many more homes.
So thank you so much for doing that for us and for your neighbors, for you. Let's go out to Pittsburgh and talk to Tyler.
Hey, Tyler, what's up, brother? Hey, Tyler. Hey, I'm doing good.
How are you? That's you, man. I'm John.
Good to see you. I can't see you.
Good to talk to you. How about that? Let's just start the whole thing over.
Hey, Tyler. Hey, how you doing, John? Great, great.
What's up? Hey, nothing much. So I'm looking to purchase a McLaren 600 LT Spider.
The car is $230. Well, that's just a couple hundred grand.
Good for you. Thank you.
Thank you. But it's probably going to be the biggest purchase of my life next to the house that I live in.
Can I tell you something hilarious? I'm currently negotiating with James Childs over like a 98 4Runner. Like literally literally he just stuck his head in to talk about it.
So go ahead with your McLaren purchase, Tyler. So I really, I mean, I'm just looking for some professional advice here on the purchase because obviously it's a, it's a pretty hefty price tag.
Um, I think I'm in a good financial position to afford the car. What's the cost? I wanted to turn to some experts.
The cost is $223,000. Wow.
Wow. I just don't even know how to act.
Okay, cool. I'm going to act really nonchalant.
Cool. Okay, cool.
What's your net worth? It's around $1.4 million right now. Nice.
Okay. Looking good.
Let's find out, are you paying cash for the car? I can, but I know that there's also benefits with a leasing structure. I own a small tech company, so I also am earning about 5.3% right now on my high-yield interest savings account.
So, you know, if I should leave some

money in there or if I should pay cash for the car. I mean, if you're calling us, the only way I would get this car is if you paid cash for it because you can afford it and it's done and done.
I'm assuming that you don't have any other debt laying around that would change my mind here. Uh, I've got $15,000 on another auto loan, but that's locked in at 3.5 right now.
And since my savings account is earning more than that, did you say you have a $15,000 loan laying around? I do. Why? You could be totally free.
I could be totally free. And I know that that's what you're big on.
The big reason why I'm not is because it's locked in at 3.5. But it'd be locked in at zero.
It'd be locked in at zero. Have you factored in the depreciation? You're losing money because you're taking a 5% count against your 3-point whatever it is, but your car is going down in value.
Right. And so your calculation, you think you're winning and you're not.
And you're saying based on depreciation only. No, I'm saying number one, you're not because there's a psychology to this, and I know that nobody wants to factor that in.
But part two is, yeah, the car is worth less money every day you drive it, and you keep saying you're locked in, and I keep going, yeah, that's the problem. You're locked in.
No matter what happens to your finances, no matter what this car bottoms out at, you're still paying that same amount of money across the board. Dude, I'm just telling you what I'd do in my house.
I'd pay it off right this second. You're a millionaire.
You have a $50,000 card. What are you doing? Well, let's keep talking because I want to know more.
I want to know what's your income every year. So I'm on salary with my company for about $110,000 a year, and then I pull a bonus that's between about $90,000 and $120,000 a year.
Okay. Depending on how well we do.
Okay, so that puts you at about $200,000 a year and then I pull a bonus that's between about 90 and 120 a year okay how well we do okay so that puts you at about 200,000 a year it's not looking good I'm just letting you know right now Tyler it's not looking good for you let's keep let's keep rolling out the numbers tell us about your home so this uh lakefront condo um I I visit Cleveland with some family. It's fully owned and it's

about $300,000 is the appraised value. That's what it's worth and it's fully

owned. What other properties? Do you have any other properties that have mortgages?

Nope. Nope.
It's fully owned. That's the only property.

Okay. So it's really just this $15,000 car.
And then between the property and your other

investments, you're at $1.4 million net worth but your income is 200,000 yeah you could say 200 yep and I'm maxing out the 401k maxing out the IRA so I think you're doing really really really really really really well but here's just a couple of rule of thumbs I have a feeling that you're going to go and do what you want to do, but let me just give you some just food for thought here. Typically, we would say if you are a baby steps millionaire, your net worth is a million dollars or more.
You have the ability to buy a brand new vehicle outright. At that point, you've done well enough that if you spend the right amount, you should be able to put that money in a pile and burn it to the ground and your heart rate shouldn't change.
Right. But then there's another parameter to that where we say, OK, but it shouldn't be any more than half of your annual salary.
And if you do this McLaren, you are at more than your annual salary. So if you said, hey, I want to buy a one hundred thousand dollar car outright or I want to buy, you know, even if you said it was like one hundred and five or one hundred and twenty, I'd probably be like, yeah, let's do it.
But I really do think because of your annual salary, I think that this is too much car for you. I think if we took that $223 and I, you know, did a Wile E.
Coyote and I put some dynamite on it and blew it up in the middle of the desert, I think that you would start sweating.

Yeah, I know what you mean.

You're right, absolutely.

So I don't think it's, I mean, it's my opinion and it is mine,

but I don't think you're quite, I wouldn't do it if I were in your shoes. Can I ask you, like if somebody called and they made 60 grand a year

and they had a paid for a condo and they said they wanted to buy a 60 thousand dollar car i would say please don't do that because you're putting yourself you're putting yourself at a pretty significant financial risk what is it about this 200 and a quarter of a million dollar car what is it about this car that's that's that's gotcha gotcha by the guts and i think that's going going to be the game-changing question, hopefully, is that they only made 345 of these cars. They're an extremely limited production, so it's rare, and it's pretty much being considered a collector's item at this point.
And I think it will maintain its value, if not appreciate, over time, because obviously cars of this caliber are depreciating rocks most of the time. Is it a P1? There's no denying that.
No, that'd be a million-dollar car, man. I wish.
Okay, which one do you have? Because I'm just doing a cursory look here, and it said outside of the P1, McLarens are losing 30% of their – they depreciate pretty quick. You know what? I won't argue with you.
I drive an old truck. I'm clearly biased.
I'm clearly biased here. I just don't put money in depreciating assets.
If you think it will go up I just can't imagine spending a whole year's salary on a car. Well there's a part of this scale.
Let's be honest. Let's go back to that half of your yearly salary.
There is a part of that equation that if your net worth were a certain amount, I'd probably throw that. I Jade would throw that out the window.
So you can hold me to that. At 1.4 and knowing that if you were pulling out of this investment tape to make that happen and make you go down to 1.2, I just don't feel comfortable with that.
If you had called me and said, hey, my net worth is even 3 million, I might be like, oh, okay. Yeah.
What's your cash position? How much cash do you have in the bank? In the bank right now, I've got about 350,000. And that's's aside from the $1.4 million? That's a part of the $1.4 million.
A large number of the $1.4 million is obviously the condo that I own and then the EBITDA. Yeah.
I'm the sole owner. If I'm you, if I woke up in your shoes and I loved cars the way you did, I feel like it's too soon.
I'm still sticking to that 50% rule.

If my net worth were higher, I'd probably reconsider.

So do with that what you will.

I want to try to convince you to get a nice new Highlander.

Stop. He's not getting a Highlander, John.

Get a Highlander.

I'm not even getting a Highlander, John. Hey guys, good news.
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Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. And right here in Nashville on the debt-free stage, right inside Ramsey Solutions headquarters, Jay and Yvette are here from Raleigh, North Carolina.
How much have you guys paid off? We have paid $91,168.80 in student loan debt. A student loan debt? Yes.
Let's go. Not that we're counting each penny.
Oh, I was. Wow.
How long did that take? It took us about nine months. What? Nine months? Okay.
All right. Tell me that story.
So about a decade ago, my brother gave me this year, Ramsey book. Yeah.
So I opened it up. It took me a few years.
I'm a little bit hardheaded sometimes. So it took me a few years and I opened it back up, got along, got my budget sorted out a little bit better.
Once we got married in December 17, 2022, my wife and I, my wife and I sat down. We had a planning and financial and planning meeting in which we laid out the plan for our next so many years, five years or so financially, what we wanted to do and what kind of life we want to have for and how we're going to serve God.
And so we looked at, we laid out, what was it, three years worth of debt repayment that we was going to take. And we didn't want to put life on hold just so that we can pay off debt for

years and years and years and get off and stay on that treadmill.

So basically we sat down, had the meeting,

had a planning session and I had laid out this.

It'll take us maybe a year,

year and a half if we make sacrifices. So what were you making? Because you did this in nine months.
Yes. So when we first started out, we were making about $125,000 between the two of us.
Okay. I am a registered nurse and my husband is a technical engineer with Cisco.
Okay. So then once we finished the plan and we realized we need to increase our income if we want to do this in less than three years, which is what we calculated it would take us to do if we stayed with the current income.
So then as a registered nurse, I had some options on what I could do. So we talked it over and we're like, okay, let's do travel nursing.
So we looked into it. He's the numbers guys.
He lays out the budget and he looks into them. We research, we look to see what areas each you know region of the country we're paying so we decided to move to Missouri St.
Louis Missouri for about a year and then there increased our income drastically I would say and that's the reason it took us nine months so what'd you increase it to between the two of us ended up being about two a little over two hundred thousand dollars holy crap us. Holy crap.
Wow. That's amazing.
So you dropped it from three years to nine months. Correct.
And that took, though, what y'all did, we talk about this off air a lot. Just like, man, somebody calls and they say, hey, I want to live in Manhattan.
I want to be a book editor. I want to pay off 100 grand of student loans.
And we always say, man, one of those variables has to give. And y'allall said we are going to make a one-year sacrifice living in a town with a community of people we don't know a place we don't know but we researched it here's where we can get the most ahead the most bang for our buck right the lowest cost of living plus the highest return and i'm assuming jay you can work from anywhere work from home that's amazing and y'all just moved somewhere y'all still live there have y'all now moved we are on our way home actually come on i love that just hold on we're going home so the book you're holding is the total money makeover what tell me what was the the light bulb moment like what made you go you know what yes this guy knows what he's talking about i'd say over over years of uh listening to the on the radio, it takes a while for it to sink in.
It's not a distinct moment. And that's the same as any kind of journey you're on.
It takes some time for things to sink in. Same for you, Yvette? I would say just looking at it and just like three years is a long time.
And we had just gotten married. And of course, I want to have a baby.
So I'm like, three years is a long time. We both agreed that we would wait to get out of debt before we started family planning.
So I'm like, three years? Or cut it down to a year if we move and just do what needs to be done for a year. Again, make that sacrifice for a temporary sacrifice to get a long-term goal going.
It's not sustainable if you're planning on doing it for years and years and years but gazelle mode is designed so that you can do it in a short period that's right wow so tell us what it's like you know paint us a picture of what it felt like before you got a hold of you know total money makeover and ramsey principles and then paint us a picture of what your life feels like as any man trying to leave lead a, you have a lot of pressure on your shoulders. And so you don't want to be not able to provide for your family.
And ultimately having a system that both tells you, yeah, there's a lot of scary things out there, but you have a way to deal with it. A system that works that's biblically based that you can actually apply and you know, even if it fails, you're still trying your best.
That's what mattered to me. But what's important as well is that it did not fail.
We're here. That's right.
Hey, Yvette, can you speak to those who are out there, they are in love with somebody who loves himself a spreadsheet and they don't. And they have dreams, I know, I can see it.
And they have dreams for what they want their life to be. And if it wasn't for that spreadsheet loving friend of theirs or marriage partner, there's, they would just go on about their life.
There can be some shame there. There can be some, Oh, I brought this dead into this marriage.
There can be that heaviness. Right.
And it sounds like you, you, yep, here it is. It's it's on a table and we're there's a lightness about you that was like yep i did and we're gonna go make this right and we're gonna get on about our lives what would you say to that person who doesn't want it on the table doesn't want to talk about it is carrying that well this is my dad i brought this into the marriage or this whatever relationship i'm in what would you say to that person for me first of all i didn't really feel the burden that i brought the debt into the marriage or this whatever relationship I'm in.
What would you say to that person?

For me, first of all, I didn't really feel the burden that I brought the debt into the marriage because it was very clear that, okay, this is ours now. Before we got married through premarital counseling, we just, yeah, we decided that we were going to put our things together and become one.
So I didn't really have any burden on that in that regard. I love that.
However, as far as bringing things into the table, when he brought it over, we had probably a two hour long business meeting that for me, and I was just like, I need a break. Can I get a little bit of a break after five minutes? Like do it in fragments for me.
That was one of the greatest two hours of Jay's life. Yes.
For me. But after that meeting, and once I saw the numbers and it made sense, I was like, okay, let's do what we need to do.
And the most important things out of all of this is the fact that we came under one unified plan. I saw the plan.
I agreed with the plan. I knew what it would take to put that plan into action, but I also saw the work that he put into it and that together we could do it.
So it was just selling me on that together. We can do it together.
We can do it. So we agreed, we unified ourselves and we did it.
It took six months after we were married before we actually did the travel nursing. So it was not forcing it on her to, to up and leave.
I can't put that on my wife. That's not, that's not, wouldn't be fair.
So it took six months. So once late, we laid it out and then we saw the numbers six months later it wasn't like hey we're married we're jumping right and doing it good for you guys so who is your biggest champions uh through this time i would say our families they've been through the journey with us just kind of like hearing like sorry guys we can't do this we're getting out of debt i'm sorry we can't we can't do this weekend we're trying to get out of debt so for they were very patient with us just understanding as well just like hey I'm sorry this got a little too much and of course the budget we we stuck with the budget and even with us if there's something that needs to be that we need to buy or want to buy rather it's just like where's the money coming from I'm the spender so she keeps me alive a little.
Oh, you're the spender, Jeff? Which is weird, right? Yeah, the nerd is the spender. Interesting.
But we have a question. That's like Dave.
Yes, we have a question. All right.
Is it in the budget? There you go. There you go.
Well, Jay and Yvette paid off $91,000. Say the number again.
I'll let you say it 91,168.80 in nine months you packed up you moved across the country y'all made a whole bunch of sacrifices and you knocked us out because you've got bigger dreams ahead we're so proud of you thank you come down to it count it down let's hear your debt-free scream. Ready? One, two, three.
We're debt-free! Oh, yeah! Amazing. Amazing.
Wow. So, Jade.
You know when they count one, two, three, it's going to hit different than when they count three, two, one. Yeah, dude.
We talk about this all the time.

It's almost always how fast you get out.

Like, what kind of sacrifices are you willing to make?

Will you move?

Will you sell everything?

Will you take new jobs?

Will you just get super, super uncomfortable?

So, and I love the way you said it, so we can get on with the rest of our life.

Yeah.

I love it.

I love it.

I love it.

If you are listening out there in Radio Land or podcast land, this could be you too. This could be you too.
We are rooting for you and we're here with you. We'll be right back on The Ramsey Show.
Listen, I know a lot of you would rather watch paint dry in slow motion than file your taxes, but thankfully you don't have to dread filing when you've got Ramsey Smart Tax. It comes packed with everything you need to file online before the big deadline.
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That's ramsaysolutions.com slash smart tax. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show.
I'm John Deloney, joined by Jade Warshaw, 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225.
All right, we are heading into the fall and it's time it's time those of you out there who

went B-A-N-A-N-A-S 2, 5. All right.
We are heading into the fall and it's time. It's time.

Those of you out there who went B-A-N-A-N-A-S with your money this summer,

going to every summer camp and sending your kids to every whatever traveling,

we'll just pay for it later.

Well,

later is here.

So this fall,

let's get your money in the right place.

I want you to join Rachel Cruz and the EveryDollar team for free live training, free live training on Wednesday, August 28th at 1 Eastern time, 12 Central to help you get clarity with your money. You can register for free at www.everydollar.com slash webinar.
And I have heard if you say www, it means you're 100 years old. Go to everydollar.com slash webinar.
Over 100,000 people have registered for this free life training in the past, and now it's your turn. The number one way to eliminate debt is to budget.
The number one way to build wealth is to budget. And the number one way to get on the same page with your spouse about money is to budget.
The number one way to eliminate stress in your financial life, you got it, is to budget. It's time.
You know it's time. No shame.
Let's just sit down and get this stuff squared away. Everydollar.com slash webinar, August 28th, free with Rachel Cruz.
Let's go out to the 505 Albuquerque, New Mexico and talk to Esmeralda. Hey Esmeralda, what's up? Hey guys, you know I just had a question.
I'm right now engaged. I've been with my fiancé for five years.
Five years? Tell him to let's go. I know.
We're kind of not in a rush. We'd like to get all our debt and all our baggage out of the way before we kind of tie the knot.
Why? Trust me, you're going to bring plenty of baggage into this marriage, both of you. He was married before and got out of the divorce, some debt, and I guess he just kind of wanted to start fresh in this new venture.
Oh, so you're saying he wants to clean up his debt before marrying you? Is that it? I believe so, yes. How do you feel about that? Are you fine to jump into it together? You know, I've been supportive 100% of the way, and I'm ready to get our life started, but I do understand where he's coming from.
What's the debt? How much is it? So I think he's about $25,000, $30,000 in the hole right now, and I have a little bit of debt myself. How much? I have about $40,000.
Uh-huh. $35,000 is my car and $10,000 in, I guess, personal loans and credit cards.
Did you know that you can go further, faster, together? You know, I've been listening to Ramsey and everybody on the Ramsey Network for about a couple of months now. And I'm really kind of just trying to get everything in control.
And I really want to get debt free and I want to jump into this. I'm ready.
Yeah, I think you tell him that. Getting him on track with me.
Yeah, I think that's the conversation you need to have because it's one thing to not be in a rush but five years is like like a snail's like a snail past you it's pretty slow um yeah it's crazy how the time has passed listen and this is not just for you this is for anybody listening debt is not a reason to postpone your life together if you're with the person that you know you want to marry debt is not a reason to postpone that work together pay it off together get married like that it's not i know a lot of people call in and they say well as soon as i get myself together then well you know as soon as i pay off my debt then well and i'm like uh i've been with the same person for like 25 years i'm still getting myself together i got a long way to go so you're gonna figure it out the bigger conversation is that you're on the same page about money do you see what i'm saying it's not about hey i have 50 000 let me clean it up she has 70 000 let her clean it up the big because you could both clean up your debt but if the behavior hasn't changed that same person is going to go back into 50 or 70 thousand dollars of debt so the most important thing is if you want to get your quote get yourself together before getting married then decide what your views are on money and debt going forward so that's that's the only thing that you need to get on lock you know financially beforehand so i'd be asking him i'd, we both have debt. You know, we both had lives before we met each other.
We both made mistakes. Okay.
How do you feel going forward? Because I've been listening to this Ramsey thing. And maybe don't even say that first.
Just say, let him say what his views are. And then you go, okay, got it.
And then you say, well, if they're opposing, say, well, I've been listening to this, you know, Ramsey network, and i really don't want to mess with debt anymore i really want it out of my life i know that we have plans to clean up our debt but i don't even want to go into debt anymore after that and those are the things you need to be talking about and i i really want to build wealth and i really want to be one of those people that invests you know 15 percent of their money into their 401k like those are the things that you need to be talking about. Not paying off your debt before you say I do.
We've been really good about putting into our 401k, getting things set up. We're doing really well in that aspect.
It's just kind of, I guess, taking control of the little bits of debt that we have outside of that. Once it leaves the account and goes directly into the 401k, it doesn't bother us.
It's having to pay it is, I think, what kind of scares him. And he says sometimes he doesn't like to look at his bank account and see how much money he has.
And he's kind of nervous about that. So I thought about maybe combining our bank account.
No, no, no, no, no. No, as the great Beyonce said, not until he puts a ring on.
No, no, no. Oh, she also said, no, no, no, no, no.
That's right. Dude.
Okay. Esmeralda, no, do not combine your bank accounts.
Yeah, don't do that. What you're trying to do is fix his problem by taking control of it yourself.
If his problem is he's an ostrich and he's burying his head in the sand, he needs to be a big boy and come up and go, no, I've got to look at this with both eyes wide open, see what it is. If you say, oh, you're afraid to look at it, I'll just put it in my account and I'll just do it for you.
That is something that you definitely don't want to start. Here's what I want to walk through with you.
And before you get off the line, we're going to give you Financial Peace University. I think you and him need to go through it together and let us teach you all the parameters around this.
Because even you talking, Esmeralda, I can tell that you're wanting to do the right thing, but you're doing a lot of the right things in the wrong order and it's going to cause you to go slower. So it's going to walk through the baby steps.
Every dollar app too. And, um, I haven't really gotten all the use out of it that I know I can, but I, you know, I kind of need him to be on the same page with me as well.
That's true, but you do. But right now you guys are doing your money separately and he won't marry you right now.
So you got to take care of you. You can't keep waiting around for him.
Yeah, you really can't. Because you might also find right now, right now they're in the financial side of things.
I've heard nothing but yellow and red flags. Okay.
So you guys get to deal with those. But I want Esmeralda to come away from here and know, okay, I know what I'm doing.
I'm walking these seven baby steps. The first one is I'm getting a thousand dollars saved.
And if I have more money saved beyond that, then I'm going to throw it at baby step two, which is I'm paying off all of my consumer debt, everything except my mortgage. And I'm not investing by the way, until I do that, because I need that money to pay off this $40,000 of debt.
And then you're going to save up, Esmeralda, three to six months of expenses, your expenses, what it costs to live your life and do your budget. And then Esmeralda, after you've done that, then you would begin investing 15% of your income every single month.
That is your gross amount, the amount before taxes is what I want you putting away. And so I want you focused on those first four baby steps on your own until this guy decides that he wants to put a ring on it.
And Esmeralda, I think you can be okay sitting down and saying, I want to do the rest of my life with you. I'm ready.
And Jade, it always feels like an excuse to me. Yeah.
It always feels like, well, whenever this happens, and then whenever this happens. It's only $25,000 a day.
He should have been had that paid off. I know.
And Esmeralda, probably sell your car. We could dig in that on another call, but probably sell your car.
Most of yours is that vehicle. I'm just saying him.
If that was the problem, it's $25,000. Bro.
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