Quit Aiming Forever and Shoot Something Already!

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. George Camel, number one best-selling author.
Ramsey personality would be my co-host today. He's also the host of the super popular YouTube show, The George Camel Show with a K.
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The phone number here is 888-825-5225. Dusty's in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Hi, Dusty. How are you? Hey, Ben.
Doing pretty good. Good.
What's up? I have a question on what I should do. I'm planning on building a house on my parents' land during the next year or two.
And I want to know how to go about it. So I've been listening to your show for about four months now.
And in that time, I've been fortunate enough for you. I've paid off about $26,000 in debt.
Good for you. And I'll be debt-free right now in about the next three months.
I should be completely debt-free. And I want to know, should I – so I live next to my parents right now in a tiny house that I built last year.
So my question is, should I save up for a down payment and get a construction loan to finance the house? I'm doing a Barn Dominion, one of the

Barno kits. Or should I just save up and try to pay it all out in cash and be able to do it, you know, over the next probably three years to be able to build the entire thing? I have been in construction for the past 13 years, so I'm, you know, pretty handy on that stuff.
Cool. So so you're single no no i'm married

i'm married with uh with uh one kid and i got one on the way wow in a tiny home that's impressive yeah or crazy i'm not sure which but yeah okay that's also that's also a big factor now my wife It's about 500 square feet.

She said she's okay in it, that she doesn't need, you know, immediate big house or anything. But I don't know, I kind of feel a sense of urgency with the next kid coming on the way.
Okay. So explain to me, the land is going to be retitled to you.

So a couple years ago, I did a business on the land, and they had to do a quick claim deed just to put my name on it.

So I don't know if that would—

On the whole piece of land?

Yeah, yeah, on the whole piece.

Okay, so your parents live on the land too?

Yes.

So you now own the property that they live on?

We'll see you next time. Okay, so your parents live on the land too? Yes.
So you now own the property that they live on?

Well, see, I'm not sure.

I mean, the quick claim deed, I'm added on to it, but they're also still there.

I mean, they still have their name on the land, and my name is added to it also.

Okay. And I'm guessing this is generational land.
No? Yeah, so. Was it your grandpa's? No.
No, my dad bought it. Now, his plans are he wants to give each of his kids a portion of the land.
It's split into five lots.

He owns all five lots, and they're all tied into the same.

It's already platted and subdivided?

Yes.

Deed one of the lots to you then, exclusively you,

without their name on it.

Okay.

Do not do this where your parents own the property,

the dirt under your barn dominium. No.
Or own a portion of the dirt. No.
Okay. The quitclaim deed is probably either done poorly or wrong.
You guys need to look at that because if they probably, I guess they put some percentage of an undivided interest or something into your name um but that means you now own all a portion of all those lots that are your brothers and sisters right that was dumb okay it's unclean and when they do things that are unclean like that because everybody's just going to get along then they don't get along then you're screwed. So let me ask you what happens if you get these tracts of land or how big?

Five acres, you said?

Two and a half.

Two and a half.

Okay, so you get two and a half acres completely in your name.

You build a barn dominium on it, and three years later you decide to move to Kansas City.

Can you sell it?

You own it, but relationally, is everybody going to lose their freaking minds yeah 100 yeah that's 100 i would not build on it then it's i mean it's where i grew up and i yeah i'm pretty i'm me and my wife are both hard sale on raising money. Let me just tell you what.
You're 100% going to stay there

and and I'm pretty, me and my wife are both hard sale on raising money.

Let me just tell you what, you're 100% going to stay there if it goes toxic,

if it goes sideways, if your brother gets into cocaine,

if your mother has dementia and shoots somebody, all kinds of crap, man.

I've been doing this 35 years.

Nothing works like you think it's going to work.

When stuff happens, you've got to have some autonomy, and you don't have any. It's as if you never left home and live in their basement.
This is really bad. I personally wouldn't do what you're doing, and I would advise you against it.
Not because I think your parents are bad people. I don't, or that you're bad people, or that you really don't think you're going to stay there.
You really think you're going to stay there. And you really might.
But the truth is most people don't. The truth is 40 years from now, the chances of you being on that piece of dirt is almost zero.
That's the truth. People just don't.
Life changes. Things come up.
Different things occur in family situations. You don't want to be over there.
I don't know what's in your future that's positive or negative that would push you away from that dirt, but you have no ability to leave it with the deal you're doing. And that is just bad medicine.
And if you're going to go forward though, at least for God's sakes, get it in your name. Don't be building on something that's got your parents' name on the dirt.

100% of that lot is in you and your wife's name. At least you've got the legal option of turning the property over if you need to,

even though relationally you don't think you would ever want to.

I get that you don't think that's going to happen, Dan,

but what you don't get is you think you're doing six things that cause cancer. I'm a cancer doctor.
I seen cancer for 35 years. You're doing all the stuff that causes cancer and you're going to have cancer.
And I don't know. I don't know how to stop you from doing it.
So that's the problem. And so I have to come at this from the negative because it's what you and I see every day, George.
Yeah. These are handcuffs made of dirt.
So is there an alternative here there an alternative here Dave where he goes all right I'm going to buy land elsewhere that that is mine that I will build on that's what I would do that feels like the best alternative you know even if it's down the street I mean it's in the neighborhood but my kids live you know in a 30 minute radius from us I would be heartbroken if they moved to Kansas City you know I'd be heartbroken if they moved away with my grandkids. I don't want that.
But I don't get to decide that. They get to decide that.
And he's surrendering his autonomy. He's surrendering his ability to make a decision for his family unit, no matter what happens.
It's like chiseled in concrete. And he might be pouring six figures into something that he can't get back out.
He can't get it out. That's frightening.
Because he... We want real estate to be an investment.
It's going to go up in value. But if you're unwilling to sell it under any circumstances because of the dirt handcuffs...
The four siblings now that are upset about it. That's...
Oof. The number of times I've gotten the call from Dusty, your wife,

that says my husband and I built on his dad's property and we can't sell it,

I've gotten that call 50 times.

Easy.

And it's never a good call.

So you guys do what you want to do.

I'm going to try to talk you out of it.

I doubt I did, though.

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Dan's in Mobile, Alabama.

Hi, Dan.

Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Thanks, Dave.

Thanks for taking my call.

Sure.

What's up?

All right.

So I just graduated from undergraduate college debt-free.

Woo!

And I am planning on going to graduate school in clinical psychology,

but I'm going to have to go into debt and take student loans to pay for the degree. Is this a bad decision? Yes.
Okay, so what should I do instead? That's a good question. You said you had to, as if someone was forcing you to.
Why are you going to grad grad school for critical psychology what's the goal uh to be a practicing clinical psychologist in private practice okay so you have to have a master's to do that right okay and where'd you get your undergrad um at the local public school uh south alabama okay And do they offer a master's? Not to my knowledge. They don't offer a master's.
I know other programs near me offer a master's, but I think that the application deadline for that is too late. So would you recommend um taking a year off and applying to master's programs and why did you okay you went through the undergrad and got a degree in psychology in undergrad and you pay cash for it that's right and then why did you suddenly decide i have to go to a school i can't afford to do my grad work because you could have gone gone to a school you could afford, but you chose not to, and now these deadlines have passed you.

Why?

Right.

Well, I assumed, I guess, that I needed to get a doctorate degree

in clinical psychology to practice.

You don't.

You have to have a master's.

Right.

A master's will get you licensed in most states, anyway.

There may be a few that require a doctorate now. I don't know.
What's it going to cost you? Well, it's quite a bit. It's $35,000 a year.
And you've researched all the programs, even online ones, and that's the best deal? No, that's not the best deal. You can get this degree for $20,000.
That's the point. Have we done the research to see if we can find a more affordable option and then see what it would take to cash flow that? Okay.
That's what I would do. I've seen some programs that I thought were ridiculous.
They were around like $70,000 or somewhere $50,000, and I didn't even consider those. Yeah, that's good.
You did do a little shopping, but you can get this degree for half of what you're talking about. Okay.
And nobody cares where you went to school, by the way. All they care is did you pass your boards and can you help them? Right.
No one ever went to a marriage counselor and said, wait, wait, where'd you go to school? Nobody ever did that. Ever.
All they want to know is can Dan guide me with his psychological training through this rough spot in my life? I need a guide. Can he help me? That's really what they want to know.
You want to be a healer. Good for you.
Right. You're a good person.
Yeah. And so if, I mean, you call to ask.
I think, number one, even let's pretend you had $50,000 cash in your bank account. I would still tell you not to pay $35,000 for this.
I'd still tell you to go get a better deal, a better deal. because there's something about this particular critical psychology path

at this particular location that romanced you. Or it was just the one option and that's now what I got to do.
We didn't look for more options. So no, I would not go in debt.
Because here's the thing, you got to get out, you got to, it's a two-year process to finish your master's, get licensed, pass your boards. And then you've got to get out and actually start making money.
And in most states, you're going to have to put some hours under your belt before you can get licensed. So it's going to be a while before you make any money to pay this, to get a return on investment into this degree.
And even then, um, you're going to have to choose carefully how you choose to practice psychology because you can do it, psychology, not as bad as sociology, but they both are very tough. You can get into some very underpaid situations with those.
And, okay, now I make $26,000 a year after spending all this money as a school counselor. No okay and then people come out with two hundred thousand dollars and you know you're not dan but people come out with two hundred thousand dollars in uh student loans because they did their graduate work at some school they shouldn't have and they end up in a school counselor role this is just don't do i'm begging you use some common sense or use some wisdom.
Pay cash for it and pay less for it because it's going to be a while before you monetize it. And that might mean taking a year off and working your tail off and getting a few side jobs and saving up.
It might or it might mean going and sitting down in the, you know, some of these schools, they actually need students. So, oh, the deadline passed.
Oh, kiss my butt. I'm going to go sit down with the guy who runs the administration office and go hey i got money you want me in and they're going oh look an opening just occurred look at that we can we can squeeze you that deadline thing oh you know i mean come on yeah seriously it's not like you have a line around the block at most of these schools to get into uh graduate work on psych so um sorry it's not like they have a line around the block at most of these schools to get into graduate work on psych.

So, sorry, you're not getting into law school or med school here.

This is psych.

So, yeah, seriously, I think you go poke around, try to stay on the track.

But if you end up taking six months off or you end up taking a year off, okay, then go pile up a bunch of money,

and you have a little bit of a war chest to go at this. Erwin is with us in Cleveland, Ohio.
Hi, Erwin, how are you? Hi, Dave and George. I'm way better than I deserve.
Thanks for having me on. Oh, good.
We're glad to have you, sir. What's up? So I've got a question for you here.
I've got around $200,000 left on my mortgage, a 3% interest rate,

and I have been absolutely laser focused on getting that paid off. And so the strategy that

I've taken is I opened a high interest savings account, which gets me about 4.125%. And rather

than paying any extra money on my mortgage, I've been putting it in that account. And I've got

around $120,000 saved up in there right now. Your high yield savings account pays what?

Thank you. mortgage, I've been putting it in that account, and I've got around $120,000 saved up in there right now.
Your high-yield savings account pays what? About 4.125%. And your mortgage interest rate is what? 3%.
Okay. So I had spoke with my financial advisor about that strategy, and I put it into Chad CPT, which seems to know everything, and both of them came back and said that that was a good strategy to put it in there.
And then once I hit that $200,000, just pay it off in one lump sum, because I'm actually making more money on that interest than I would be if I just paid it off slowly as I went. So I just wanted to ask you guys if you thought that was a good idea or not.
You called the right place. I don't think it's a good idea.
I'm going to disagree with AI and tell you that it's much wiser to pay off your mortgage.

It's what I did, Irwin, personally.

And we did our millionaire study.

Not one said, well, the money I would have put toward the mortgage, I invested instead,

and that's how I became wealthy.

We found that wealthy people actually pay off their mortgages 10 years on average.

And so I would absolutely pay it off, and I wouldn't wait until you had $200,000 to do it. So, dude, 1% on $120,000 is $1,200.
We don't have a $1,200 problem. We have a $200,000 problem.
You have fixed the $200,000 problem because you're a genius and you're able to live on less than you make and save money. Okay.
So you're saying, because what I've been doing is taking my bonus checks and putting a light in. I'm saying all of this gyration you're doing, fire your financial advisor and quit looking up crap on the Internet to get advice for anything except whose birthday it is.
Oh, my gosh. No, no.

Yeah.

Pay cash as fast as you can, as hard as you can on this mortgage.

You're doing all these double backflips. You look like one of these Olympic divers all for $1,200.

And $1,200 doesn't spit against the measure of $200,000.

Pay off the mortgage and start investing that payment you were making

and then come back and tell us it wasn't a good move. Oh wait, wait, the $1,200 is income.
It's

taxable. So it's not $1,200.
It's $800. You did all of this for less than $1,000.
AI ought to be ashamed of itself. But it's not that smart.
This is the Ramsey Show. 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.

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.

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Go to Zander.com or call 800-356-4282. George Campbellel Ramsey Personality is my co-host on the debt-free stage in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions.
Dane is with us. Hi, Dane.
How are you? Hi, Dave and George. How are you? Better than we deserve, brother.
Welcome. Where do you live? Live in Sacramento, Dave.
Oh, beautiful. Love Sacramento.
Welcome to Nashville. And how much debt have you paid? Sure.
So $216,765.21. Excellent.
And how long did this take? It took eight years and four months. Wow.
And your range of income during that time? Sure. So it started about $80,000 and then up to $128,000.

Cool.

What do you do for a living?

I'm in client relations sales for a local government association out in California.

Okay.

Well, that will put you in Sacramento for sure.

Okay.

Cool.

Very cool.

And the $217,000, what kind of debt was this?

It was my house, Dave.

Yeah!

Woo!

A guy in California owns his house paid for. That is really weird weird way to go weirdo i'm proud of you thank you what's the house job uh well i actually had a few uh kind of life changes so actually sold it uh recently so uh that was kind of part of the journey uh selling the house but i got you okay all right well, man.
Congratulations. How's it feel to be free? It feels amazing.
It feels free. You know, you feel so relaxed and can do so many other things, obviously, coming out here to Nashville to be a part of your show today and obviously being able to be more generous to whether at church or just everyday life.
And it's great. So in the selling of the house, you buy another one then later? No, not right.
Not, not right now. You will someday? I think so.
Yeah. Very good.
Yeah. Just kind of got to get through this process.
Good for you, brother. Yes.
Well done, man. All right.
What happened eight years ago that put you on this journey? What was the moment that woke you up? What's your, uh, your why? Why did you do this? And, and what, what motivated you? How'd you get connected to us? Sure. Yeah, no, it was actually in September of 2015.
I was on a work trip and was traveling around and the show was on the radio station that I was listening to and I hadn't heard of the show at all and I thought I was doing pretty well. I had paid off my credit card debt and student loan debt and just figured I was going to have a 30-year mortgage to manage for the next 30 years.
And I think, Dave, at the time you were yelling at someone to pay off their mortgage. And so that took how important that is.
And I listened to it and I started thinking about it and I was like, well, this would, you know, I can do this too. And obviously for the rest of 2015, I, you know, kind of wasn't serious about it.
And then in 2016, it was game on. Okay.
Very cool. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? You paid off your house.
Boy, I mean, a few things. For me, the budget was key.
Certainly having that financial plan, telling your money where to go every month was important. Financial Peace University, my son's here as well, and their mom, Kristen, got me into an FPU class about five years ago.
That was obviously key. And so that was definitely want to thank her for that.
And, you know, like a reason, right? A reason to change your family tree, right? And then a community of support was helpful as well. So I would listen to your guys' show in those times when I would kind of get down a little discouraged about the journey that I was on.
And this is, you know, I've still got four or five years left and it would help. Wow.
That's impressive. And, you know, the kids got a front row seat.
Were they even born when you started the journey? They were, yes. Wow.
And you went, was this part of legacy of just, I want my kids to grow up not knowing debt? Absolutely. Yeah.
I mean, just having them see to kind of go through that, the journey and the challenge and that they can be debt-free as well. And they were actually very involved.
We built kind of a debt chain at home and they would cut the links off of it when we pay off. Yeah.
That's a core memory right there. Absolutely.
Yeah. Yeah.
And just one of the things I just wanted to say too is that we just, I know back then I said 2015 was when I first heard the message and I'm sure Dave in Georgia was the 10,000th time you guys had said that, but that day it reached me and changed my life. So thank you so much to you and the team for what you guys do.
Well, in this day, your debt-free scream is reaching someone today. So it does go full circle.
The ripple effect. It does go full full circle you're paying it forward by celebrating this uh so openly congratulations very very well done powerful dane very powerful good stuff so the why is the boys and they got to watch the whole thing happen and they'll never have debt because they've seen how dad acts certainly so yeah it's kind of came from my my mom here as well and they you know taught me to give me the foundation of hard work and sacrificing for your goals uh my parents so it's you know obviously we all get somewhere with someone else and i try to do my part going forward yeah well congratulations brother very proud of you all right bring the boys up let's introduce them what are their names and ages sure so this is cohen right here he's nine and this is Caden.
He's 11. All right.
Very cool. Very cool.
Well, congratulations, you guys. You're heroes.
So proud of you. So you say the key is the budget.
And what else? Certainly the FPU, Financial Peace University. And I think, you know, like I said, having a reason.
And the community. That was the other thing.
That's important. Plug it into something that is telling you to do it and that is supporting you rather than tearing you down.
Because there's always some bozo in the background yelling not to do it, too. So you guys, you really worked your tail off and pulled this off.
I'm so proud of y'all. Way to go, hero.
Thank you so much. Yeah, those young men have got a dad they can definitely look up to.
That's pretty cool stuff. All right, Dane and Caden and Cohen.

Here we go, baby.

$217,000 paid off.

House and everything in California.

Did this in eight years and four months, making $80,000 to $128,000.

Count it down.

Let's hear a debt-free scream.

Okay, three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yeah! Mortgage-free in California.
Those two things just don't go together. You don't hear that in a sentence very often.
I thought it couldn't be done. It's impossible.
Wow. The things you and George teach are impossible.
Oh, wait. Until you do it.
Oh, wait. Then there's Dane.
Yeah. He kind of messes up.
Dane screwed it up. Yeah.
That whole, well, no one does that. Well, so you can't say that anymore.
So we messed that up. I'm curious, Dave, doing this for 30 years now, like he said, you know, have things changed as you've been yelling at people to pay off their mortgage? I'm getting accused of yelling a lot in this segment.
I've noticed I'm forceful with my opinions, but I usually don't yell. Well, not unless someone needs a little slapping around.
That's rare these days. Okay.
But are more and more people saying, I'm going to hang on to the mortgage because of fear, because of the market. Have you seen a trend over 30 years when it comes to mortgage payoff?

You know, debt payoff in general, there's always been somebody trying to find a shortcut. You know,

I'm going to borrow money and instead of paying off my debt, I'm going to put it in a high yield

savings or, you know, there's always some kind of angle. I'll get a hang lock.
Instead of just

doing it, we human beings look for a scam. We look for an angle.
We want an angle. And, you know, just do it.
Stand around and talk about it. You know, you could have already had the garage swept while you were discussing how to sweep it.
Sweep the dadgum garage. I mean, come on.
That sounds like my dad right there, right? I mean, you know, you've been talking about this and trying to decide whether you're going to get a blower or a broom or what kind of broom. Just get started.
Start sweeping. Just sweep.
You know, I mean, everybody's got to try to find some thing where they figured out the universe. Well, the universe has already figured it out.
God's figured it out. He told you, borrow or slave to the lender.
How long you want to be a slave? Stop it. You know, you've got to into it.
And so that's what Dane did. He leaned into it and he knocked it out.
There's no angle. But it's human nature.
So yeah, for 35 years, I've been hearing people looking for an angle. You know, how can I keep this debt and still be debt free? My financial advisor told me it.
My broke friend that I went to happy hour with,

seven beers and two joints later,

told me I should keep my mortgage.

You know, well, of course he did.

He's a moron.

And then we did our millionaire study,

and it turns out millionaires actually pay off their mortgage in 10.2 years on average.

The baby steppers pay it off in seven years on average,

and Dane is right there in the middle.

Yeah.

Eight years, four months.

Yeah, perfect.

He's on a lot.

Imagine, seven years from now, eight years from now,

you could have no mortgage if you wanted to, if you so chose. But don't discuss how to sweep the garage.
Just sweep the garage. Start sweeping.
Extra payments. We're talking about your dadgum theories.
Don't overcomplicate it. Aim, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim.
You don't need strategies. Aim, aim, shoot something! Gosh! See, he does yell.
This is the Ramsey Show. We have it on tape.
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George Camel, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host. Karen is with us in Los Angeles.
Hi, Karen. How are you? Hi, good.
Thank you for taking my call. Sure.
What's up? Well, I have some questions. Well, one question.
I recently, my husband passed away. away oh i'm sorry and when did he pass he passed june 15th oh just the other day okay wow yeah just a minute ago oh my how long were y'all married 24 years how old was he 55 years old what.
Wow. What happened? He was, you know, it started with COVID, but what happened was he had a heart attack and he died in his sleep.
I'm so sorry. How are you doing? Thank you so much.
It's a roller coaster. I have my good days and I have my bad days, but, um, I, I feel very grateful in so many ways because he did die in his sleep.
And I kept telling him that he was in need of a doctor and I kept pushing and pushing and he wouldn't listen to me. And so I, I knew, I knew something was going to happen.
So I was expecting it.

And so that's a weird thing to say wow okay yeah so you're doing okay though I I'm trying I'm worried about my kids. Okay.
How old are your kids? 23 and 17. Are they living at the house with you? Yes, they live at the house and we've been staying very close, but in two weeks I go back to work.
My work has been very, very generous with my time. And, um, but in two weeks I go back to work and so they're on their own a lot.
So,

um, time and um but in two weeks i go back to work and so they're on their own a lot so um well the 23 year old needs to get to work i guess well she's in school full time oh okay good she back in school yeah yeah well not yet she took the summer off um he died right when summer school was happening and she just dropped out which was okay I understood

but my son kept going, and today's his last day, so we're going to take a little vacation. We're going to go away for vacation for a week, and then when I get back, I'm going right to work.
Good for you. What do you make at work? How much money? About $80,000.
Okay. So how are you set up financially? Are you okay? Well, we had life insurance, and so I'm financially secure now.
We were a mess. But as soon as the life insurance was in progress, I started listening to your show.
And I took all the steps that you promote. Wow.
And so I paid off every bill we had, and we had a ton of bills. I mean, we had $80,000 worth of debt.
And we don't own a home. We lost our home.
and I had $40,000 worth of debt and we don't we don't own a home we lost our home and man I had forty thousand dollars worth of IRS bills and all that all that's paid it's all paid how much life insurance did you get 1.5 million good so the problem is I didn't pay off I didn't know what to do about I had leased a car, and I didn't know what to do. You don't talk about leased cars very often, but you're not positive about them, and I know that they're not a good value.
Yeah, I'm positive we don't do them, but you did it. It's okay.
I did it before. Here's what you do.
Who's the lease with? BMW. Just call BMW and tell them you need the early buyout.
Early buyout. Yeah, which is like the payoff.
I want to pay the car off. I need the early buyout.
I want my title. Okay.
That's what I wanted to know. And it's like if you had a loan, you're obviously not going to pay the interest for all the years remaining.
You're just going to pay the payoff on the principal balance, right? Yes. And that's what you're asking for.
It's the same thing. Okay.
So that's the smartest thing is to early buyout and then keep the car. Yeah.
You don't hate the car, right? Oh, I love the car.

It's so awesome. But I know that it's a bad investment and I thought you were going to tell me to keep it for the three years or I didn't know what you were going to say.
Pay it off and keep it. You've got the money.
You're okay. How much money will you have left over once all that's done? 1.4 something something something

yeah where is that money kept right now

I put it in Vanguard and in my retirement account as much as I could at work. So it's invested.
Yes. Okay.
And Fidelity. Okay.
Not Fidelity. I think I opened a Chase account.
I don't know. I spread it around a little bit because I was confused and I needed to get it FDIC insured.
I would recommend you get connected with a smart investor pro. You can find one at ramsysolutions.com.
I want to make sure this money does grow for you and that it can help you replace that income and grows at a good rate for you. And we start talking about buying a house out of it at some point, not necessarily today, but at some point.
In the meantime, yeah, just get the lease paid off, and you'll be heading in the right direction. And Karen, anything you need, you holler at us.
We'll help you any way we can, okay? It hasn't even been two months. Goodness gracious.
And she's on it. She's game on.
Wow. She jumped right at it.
I probably didn't have a choice on some of it. Joseph's in Dallas.
Hey, Joseph, what's up? Hi, how are you guys doing? Better than I deserve. How can I help? So I just had a question.
How do I convince my wife to pay off her student loan and the rest of our debt and do it, like, as efficiently as possible? What caused you to want to do it? Well, I just don't like debt, but we've ended up racking up. We chose to rack up more debt out here.
We have some credit card debt. So something changed, and you decided to get intense and get out of debt.
When was that? Well, I just never liked it. No, that's not true you but you went into debt you're ready to do something what happened the other day two weeks ago five months ago something happened and you went i want to get out of debt maybe you start listening to this show i don't know what happened i guess yeah i did start listening to your show like my high school one of my high school teachers had mentioned you guys years ago, and I was like, okay, like, that's cool, but I didn't have any debt then either, so I was like, I was just going through life.
So you waited to get some to go, all right, now I'll start listening to the show. Yeah, pretty much.
Like, it only took us 10 months to rack up our debt that we have now. How much debt do you have? I think about $41,000 debt.
The reason George are asking you the same question, reason George and I are asking you the same question of how, what got you fired up? Because something happened that you got new information that made you so excited that you were willing to sacrifice and get very intense and get out of debt. That was not there before.

And that's what happens with your wife.

It's exactly the same thing.

You expect her to just wake up one morning and suddenly out of the blue feel exactly

like you when you didn't used to feel this way.

But now something happened and you got new information.

You thought, gosh, it'd be worth it to sacrifice.

And when I look at this, when I step back and look at it, it scares the crap out of

me.

We went this far and dead in just 10 months.

We can go to the car around. We got to go back and get off the interstate the other direction.
And, um, we got to repent. We have to do a 180 and, um, you know, and that's, that's what does it for her.
It's not, honey, we got to do this because I'm smart and I figured it out. No, it's here's, this is terrifying me that we went this far in.
Let's look at this. And I get really not terrified.
I get excited when I talk about getting out of it. Let's talk about how our life would look if we got out of it.
What would we do if we didn't have any debt? How much wealth could we build? And where could we travel? And what kind of generosity could we do? And let's dream with her into the future. Ask her what she would want to do if we were debt-free and give her a reason to be excited about it other than you just did some math.
She needs her own catalyst to get this journey started. And then we need to show her that there's a new Joseph.
You've got to actually change some habits. It might be you selling some stuff, getting rid of an old subscription where she goes, oh my gosh, you really want to do this, don't you? And I think that's part of it.
It's got to be more than just words. It's got to be action with that.
Absolutely. Financial Peace University is the best way.
If you just wanted a silver bullet, Financial Peace gives you the language. Yeah, we'll do that.
Helps you dream together. We'll give you the class to go through.
You and your wife go through financial peace on us. And if you can get her to go to the class, I'll convince her.
You won't have to. This is The Ramsey Show.
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Thank you for joining us. The phone number is 888-825-5225.
Gina's in New York City. Hi, Gina.
How are you? I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve.
What's up? So about five years ago, we lost our house. We lost about a half a million dollars in a failed business.
Prior to that, we were always really good with our finances. But since then, we've been renting and we don't have a savings.
We don't have a retirement. We don't have anything.
All we have is a property that my father-in-law gifted us that's worth about $1.6 million, no mortgage. And we don't know how to move forward.
Do we mortgage that and do something else with it? Do we continue renting? Our expenses really is just we cover what we make, what we spend. So we're just not sure what the best decision would be.
We're kind of afraid to move. I'm sorry.
That's devastating.

So really, during the last five years, since all this happened, you've really not made any progress.

Right.

Why?

So we put two kids through state college.

We didn't have them incur any debt.

We covered their college.

I have another son that's going to college next year. My other son's in the Navy because he didn't go to college.
We were paying for half his wedding, the reception only. So it's just been like, and then everything just seems to be getting more and more expensive.
So what we're making maybe where there was a little left. a little left, I make $42,000 a year.
My husband makes $115,000 a year. Okay.
Well, the thing is you're not made any progress during the five years since the horrible event. Okay.
So typically what happens is, you know, after there's a forest fire, things start to grow back. And nothing's growing back here because you're continuing to spend everything you make.
You make $150,000. And so, you know, you can't continue to do what you're doing.
That's the answer to your question. You've got to, you know, you've got to get to a position that you say the thing we learn from the failed business and the lost home and our heart being broken and our emotions being gutted.
The thing we learn is we don't borrow money. The thing we learn is is that we're going to live on less than we make and this is what Sharon and I went through I mean not only we were 28 you're not 28 but um you know it gutted us emotionally we couldn't you know uh we were numb uh we were uh well I walked for a year blaming everybody else.
I was a victim. And then I discovered that I was a victim of my own stupidity, that I signed up for the trip I got to take.
And that was a harsh discovery. And that began healing.
I said, okay, I'm going to take responsibility. And the responsibility is I don't borrow money borrow money anymore.
And the responsibility is, is I'm going to be on a budget. And the responsibility is we're going to be tithing at our church.
And the responsibility is Sharon and I are going to be in agreement on every dollar that leaves this place before it leaves. And we're freaking hardcore about it.
And we're going to live on less than we make. And if that means looking at a kid and saying no, we're going to look at a kid and say no.
If that means looking at a relative and saying no, or a friend, we're going to say no, because I got one goal here. Me and Sharon are never going back to this mess again.
And that was kind of the way we did it. It was a long time ago, but you can tell by the emotion in my voice, I remember it.
So I know how you feel. You're kind of weak in the knees.

But, you know, you guys have really got to look at what we've gone through an extreme thing,

and the way to recover from an extreme thing is extreme discipline.

Does that make any sense?

Yeah, I agree with that.

And I don't think what you've done i mean paying for kids weddings not evil paying for their college is not evil uh you know you haven't done anything that's evil here that's not the point but you you just did it like it didn't matter and as if this other stuff hadn't happened and did it anyway and and left you and your husband broke and still broken. You're still scared.
You're still terrified as if this was, as if this happened a month ago instead of five years ago. And I want you guys, I want to see some emotional healing and financial healing for you and your husband.
Your kids will they'll make it they'll be all right lots of kids parents have gone broke and they turned out okay what's what shrapnel is left from this thing do you guys have any debt you're still trying to pay off um minimal we didn't really have debt so we have like you know we have three cars two are paid off. One I owe about $ on i have about 5 000 on an american express and 8 000 on a different credit card with zero interest but that's it can i tell you gina you're the way you're talking that's it it's minimal that freaks me out and i think you need that level of intensity to never go back to this spot again right and so And so before we cover kids' college and pay for a wedding, we got to clean up our debt because you guys have nothing in savings, you told me.
Mm-hmm. We got to put our own mask on first here.
You're still spending more than $150,000. Right.
You got to stop it. So, and I understand, but I'm telling you that you can't keep doing the same thing over and over again, expect the different results.
So, uh, um, the land, the 1.6 million, that's a curious thing off to the side of this story. He just handed you the keys to this.
Um, well, he owns, um, my husband's first generation. So he, he owns a few properties and he gave one to each of his kids.

That's the one that we got.

It's a six family building.

We don't take anything from it.

Why?

Because it's rent stabilized.

So it doesn't make a ton of money as it is.

And we just let it kind of accumulate.

My father-in-law is still alive, so obviously he still takes from it. Oh, he does? No, not obviously.
He gave it to you. It's not obvious.
So you own it, but he gets the profits? Mostly, yes. We take about $1,200 a month from it, and that was included in the $150.
So it's not really yours, though, emotionally in the sense that if you wanted to sell it, that would cause a problem. Well, he says we can if we want to take a loan out on it.
Our problem is not. A loan? I don't want to take a loan.
You said it's paid off. I said sell it.
Right. right yeah sell it and buy you a house i i don't know that i would need to buy a house that costs that much and i don't want to cost that much i just don't want to own this like you're you call me up you're completely broke broken and emotionally wounded and over here to the side you have a paid for $1.6 million property.
You're making 10 grand a year from. These two things are incongruent to your story, but it makes me think that you don't really have the relational option to sell it.
I don't think your father-in-law is going to go along with you selling it. He's going to have a fit.
And then go buy you a $600,000 house and put some money in some mutual funds or buy another piece of real estate that you own that actually makes a good rate of return. Because this thing sucks on the rate of return.
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I talk to people every day who want to know how to do better in two areas, money and relationships. That's why I'm pumped to bring the Money and Relationships Tour to a city near you.
Join me and Dr. John Deloney for a night that will challenge the way you think about this stuff and possibly change how you live forever.
Starting April 21st, we'll be in Louisville, then on to Durham, Atlanta, Phoenix, Fort Worth, and Kansas City. Grab your tickets at Ramsey solutions.com slash tour before they're gone.

George camel RamseySolutions.com slash tour before they're gone. George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host today.
Today's question of the day is brought to you by Why Refi? If private student loan debt is taking away from your peace of mind, you don't see any way out. Well, you need Y-Refi.
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That's the letter Y-R-E-F com slash Ramsey might not be in all states. Today's question comes from Michael in Ohio.
How do you reconcile paying off debt prior to funding college? We started on our journey to freedom from debt last year and our son will be attending college within the next two years. My focus has been earmarking cash specifically for his college tuition and expenses with early debt payoff as a secondary priority based on the timeframe of when that cash is needed.
What's your advice to parents with a more imminent timeline to college? Imminent. So intense.
Okay. So we're talking within the next two years, son is attending college.
They've got some consumer debt. They're trying to help pay for juniors college.
What say you, Dave? Why this order? Because baby step two is pay off your consumer debt. Baby step five is safe for kids college.
Well, this is not really saving for kids college. This is almost budgeting.
Because this is a current budget line item. Because it's here.
Cash flowing. And so what it's doing is, it's whatever we're paying out of our pocket for the kids college because it's upon us it's imminent to use his word um because of that it's a budget item it's not really a baby step and so what that does then by mathematical necessity is it reduces the amount of money you put towards your debt because you have this expense line in your budget.
It's going to slow down your debt pay off.

But that's not because college is more important.

It's because college is on top of you. Now, having said all of that Michael in Ohio,

Junior is going to community college for the first two years

because he's got a mom and dad that are broke. He's not going to Harvard.
Hello? The number one reason people go into student loan debt is not to get an education. It's because they chose to go to a college they

couldn't afford. The University of Tennessee at Knoxville, an in-state school for a Tennessee resident is right now $14,000.

Vanderbilt, here in Nashville, is $75,000. If you have extra money and you want your child to go to Vanderbilt, that's fine.
But you do not go in student loan debt to go to Vanderbilt versus go to the University of Tennessee. And you can't convince me it's better because I went to the University of Tennessee and people that went to Vanderbilt worked for me.
Ouch. Sick burn.
So there's that.

So college selection is what's important. It's the number one thing because people,

they, here's what's, here's the irony of it. And we talked about this in Borrowed Future in the

documentary. The irony is, is that people are stupid about education.
That's the irony of it. We talked about this in Borrowed Future in the documentary.
The irony is that people are stupid about education. That's an irony.
We're dumb about education, if you think about it. We don't shop for the price.
So what we want is we want Junior to go to college. We want him to get an education.
We want him to get a degree in something that's useful, not left-handed puppetry or German polka history, you'll end up a barista. Okay.
So, and $200,000 in debt and you got it from a name brand college that all your friends would think is fancy. So you're a fancy barista.
Hello, two nose rings. So there we go.
And I want to know what juniors buy-in is in this college process. Hello.
That's number two, isn't it? He feels entitled to it. I'm thinking Junior's signing up for scholarships.
As hard as old dad is working here to save money because it's imminent, love that word, I think Junior needs to realize it's imminent, and he needs to be doing three essays a night registering for free money called scholarships. Oh, and Junior needs to plan to work while he's in school.
It's not child abuse. It's really not.
Little snowflake will make it. They'll be okay.
Well, and the data shows 15 to 20 hours a week, part-time job, you have a higher GPA than those who don't work. So he'll be okay.
He'll actually be smarter. He'll actually be smarter.
He'll develop this interesting thing called work ethic while he's there. I want him to be able to study and play beer pong.
That's what you're saying, actually. You don't realize it if you've ever seen it.
It's a well-rounded education, Dave. It's a rounded, little round white ball.
Yeah, I got you, George. I saw what you there thank you and um so yeah we're we're we don't get a degree in beer pong we're gonna work oh by the way it's interesting when i'm speaking to adult audiences 5 000 people in the audience and i say if you went to college how many of you went to college and people raised their hands like most of the audience right how many of you worked while you were in college almost everybody in room raised their hand.
The number of people that went to college and worked zero hours while they were in college is almost zero. So Junior's going to be working.
Junior's going to be getting scholarships. We're going to choose a college that is inexpensive and in the area because we don't have any money.
And he's going to graduate and go be successful because he understands that the reason for an education is it's not a magic bullet that makes you successful. It puts tools in the belt of someone that knows how to work hard, be honest, apply themselves in the marketplace, and those tools help you to be successful.
But no one ever became successful because of their degree. They became successful because of hard work, moxie, confidence, being competent in the marketplace, and kicking butt and taking names.
That's how you become successful. I had a guy working here one time.
He came in my office, and he said, you know, he had more degrees than a thermometer. And he said, you know, people that have as many degrees as I have, when they they work for big companies they make a lot more than i make here and i said yeah but you work for a small business he said yeah i know i said well that's you know the rules of small business are different your race is effective when you are i couldn't care less about your dad gum degrees all i care is can you do something with them that brings money into this place and I'll share some with you.
Hello, that's how this works. So make yourself a value, boys and girls.
That is what makes you valuable. It is not the fact that you went to college somewhere and therefore the society owes you an income because you have a degree.
Society doesn't owe you squat, and you will find that out as soon as you walk out there because it will spit in your face. And then you'll be going, I sure hope Biden will help me.
He's asleep in the basement. You're not going to get any help.
So not coming, not coming boys and girls. So that's the, that's the rant there, Michael, you're doing a good thing.
Put it in the budget. I'm not disagreeing with you, but then don't tell me, oh, well, my son told me he's going to this school.
See, that's the thing. 17-year-olds didn't tell me anything at my house.
I told them stuff, but they didn't tell me stuff. I solicited their input and then told them what we were going to do.
You're paying for it. There's rules.
And you've said, Dave, here's the rules. You have to graduate in four years with this four-year degree.
And it's interesting. You know, I told my kids, I said, here's the syllabus.
That's the list of classes you take in order to graduate. And so if you take all of these classes and you pass them all, you know what they give you? A degree.
It's magical. And you know, if you take all these classes and you pass them all in four years, you know what you get? A degree.
If you do it in three years, you know what you get? The exact same degree. You know what you do if you do it in eight years? A degree.
The exact same degree. So take the freaking classes.
Show up. What are you doing? I mean, we're laying out on top of the dorm, getting a suntan.
It's spring. You're killing me.
And you missed the class that it took to graduate?

Well, the average student.

That's right.

The average anything.

You don't want to be.

You don't want to be average.

We're not signing up for average.

Golly.

57% of the people that start college do not graduate.

That's scary.

That means 43%.

Nationally, we have a graduation rate of 43%.

Thank you. start college do not graduate that's scary that means 43 percent nationally we have a graduation rate of 43 percent if you got a 57 57 percent do graduate i got that backwards 57 43 percent drop out rate if you got a 57 on a test at any one of those colleges they would call it it an F.
But they walk around acting like they did something,

graduating 57% of the people.

That means 43% of you leave without the degree and with the student loan.

Don't do this.

It was a lie. You were sold a lie.
That's why they brag about acceptance rate, Dave, not the graduation rate.

Mm-hmm. Pay cash.

They ought to brag about the job rate after we left the school and got the degree. That's the thing you ought to be bragging about.
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Nine years ago, we got word that a friend of a friend, a young church planter at that time was 30 years old, that he had a small congregation that had kicked off and was booming, but it just kind of gotten the whole thing going up in Indiana.

And we got word that his pregnant wife had been murdered in their home and reached out, got in touch, and began a friendship over the years. And now Davey Blackburn is with us today.
He's continued to be a friend and has a brand-new book out called Nothing is Wasted,

A True Story of Hope, Forgiveness, and Finding Purpose in Pain. Welcome back, my friend.
Yeah. Thank you, Dave.
This is an honor. Thank you, George.
Absolutely. Nine years later, this ends up as a book.
Yeah. Wow.
Yeah. That's got to be simultaneously fulfilling to talk through the ministry and what has happened out of this tragedy, this disaster, and also, God, just draining.
I mean, I'm talking about this all the time, even though it's nine years ago. Yeah, it is.
But it's also very cathartic, especially to see how many people are healing because of it. Every time we go and share the message, you find out that pain's the common denominator of life.
Whether they've gone through this degree of pain, everyone has dealt with pain. It's kind of the thing that equalizes the playing field for us as humans.
I skirted over it, but take a second and tell the thumbnail version of the story. You're 30 years old.
Your wife's pregnant. You've got a little baby.
You went to the gym, if I remember. Yeah, I left for the gym on a Tuesday morning.
Three men were on a random crime spree in indianapolis broke into the home three doors down from me saw me leave for the gym that morning and decided to break into our home and amanda got caught up in that we had a 15 month old at the time and um she was 13 weeks pregnant with our second and she was shot three times and when i came home i found her and she was uh still breathing very laboriously but unconscious and when we got her to the hospital the doctors revealed to me that she had three bullet wounds that prognosis was very grim and how long did she live after that about 24 hours later she was pronounced officially deceased yeah okay yeah and the the toddler was in the house. Yeah.
He was in his crib the entire time, untouched, unharmed. So our world turned upside down.
Yeah. You went from a picture perfect little life, so to speak, to the opposite in the spectrum in one morning at the gym.
Right. Right.
So what was the next step out of all the grief? When did you kind of go, hey, I need to share this message and nothing is wasted ministries began? Yeah. Well, there was a long process, right? You know, now looking back on it, my counselor told me we want God to heal us and poof, but he normally heals us in process.
And so I had to go through a long healing journey, but being a pastor, I was immediately beginning to share the story. And unfortunately, because our story was such a national media story, I was also thrust in front of a couple of national television media outlets.
And so I started sharing that story. Now, looking back on it, it was cathartic and helpful to begin to share that story because that's part of your healing, to externalize the things that have gone on in your life and to be able to find where God is in the, in that story.
But I had, I really had no choice. I had to begin sharing that with my congregation.
And as I did, I found that people with their own pain stepped forward and they were finding healing in the midst of whatever they were going through too. Wow.
That's powerful. I don't care who you are or where you studied or how you grew up.

You're 30 years old. Your wife gets shot three times and they leave the baby in the crib.

That's got to change your relationship with God. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
It, uh, gotta be a little anger.

There was a lot of anger. There was a lot of rage.
There was a lot of confusion because my,

my idea as a believer was as long as I'm following after God and I'm in the middle of his will, then everything's going to go well for me. I'll be healthy, wealthy, and wise, right? But then you find out, well, Benjamin Franklin's the one that said that.
Scripture doesn't say that, right? And so then you look into scripture and you go, wow, actually the people who follow Jesus the closest, they had a lot of very tragic endings to their life. And so what it began to do is reorient for me who God really is, that his promises are actually a lot sweeter than the real shallow promises that I was holding onto.
And that in the midst of difficulty, trauma, tragedy in our life, he is walking with us. And so I found that, you know, Elizabeth Elliott says, there'll be situations that we go through that there's no explanation for why it happened, but God brings us something even greater and that's incarnation.
He's walking with us. And so in the midst of wrestling with God, the really deep, dark, despairing questions that I had to bring to God, he really showed up in profound ways that made it undeniable that he's not just real, but he also cares.
He's a loving father, and he wants to journey this valley with me. I seem to remember, and I may be wrong, you can correct me, that the phrase nothing wasted came pretty quick in the story, that nothing is wasted.
Talk about where that came from, because that's the title of the book. Yeah.
Well, while we were in the hospital, we were waiting on test results to come back, and I put on Pandora radio station at the foot of Amanda's bed, Elevation Worship. I knew she would want to listen to Elevation Worship if she could hear anything.
And Pandora is randomized. You don't get to choose what comes up, right? But the first song that came up was the song, Nothing Is Wasted.
And that was the first moment where we felt, I was sitting there with her sister, and we looked at each other. No words were necessary.
We knew that God was stepping into that moment. And he was bringing what scripture calls a peace that passes all understanding.
And this is what we felt like he said. He said, this is not going to end the way that you want it to, but I promise you, I'm not going to waste this.
And then later that week, as we were preparing for her funeral celebration of life service, we, it reminded us of what she was doing as a business endeavor. She was refinishing furniture.
She was going to all these antique shows all over Indianapolis. And she had asked me to go pick up furniture.
Like I was American pickers off the side of the road, you know, that people had thrown out. And I remember looking at her the first time I did this and going, what are you going to do with this dresser? This is garbage.
Nobody is going to buy this. And she said, Davey, trust me, give me a little time and I'm going to turn this into something beautiful.
And she would over and over and over. And that week after she passed away, I felt like the Holy Spirit said, Davey, trust me.

Give me a little time and I'm going to turn this into something beautiful. And that's the cover of the book? Is some furniture being refinished? We actually got to, as a team, creatively direct that.
And that's her sister that is modeling for that and refinishing that furniture, yeah. yeah wow very cool um so you eventually were able to forgive the guys the men that did the murder yeah they were convicted finally they were convicted seven years later it took seven years for it to go to trial um and you know i came out originally saying i've chosen to forgive because i was a pastor i'd preached messages on forgiveness forgiveness.
I knew the right thing to do and the right thing to say, but now I was confronted with this for the first time in this kind of a gravity. And so I knew that forgiveness was a decision, but I didn't feel like forgiving.
And a couple of things helped me on that journey. The first thing that really helped me on that journey is realizing that unforgiveness was going to destroy me and it was going to destroy the people that I love.
You know, it's like, it's like a cancer that just rocks. Your toddler will pick up on it every time you walk in the room.
If you don't let God transform your pain, you'll transfer it onto other people. And so I didn't want that to happen.
So forgiveness was more for me releasing that bitterness is, you know, and trusting God that he's the better Avenger that he's going to, he's going to ultimately make this right. No matter what happens here on earth, he's the one that settles accounts.
And, um, and then I also remembered the way that I heard the gospel was a very unconventional way. I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, Gardendale, First Baptist.
I went to this Easter play there and the pastor comes out and he said, Jesus was murdered for my sin and for your sin. So at eight years old, that's how I heard the gospel.
Jesus was murdered for my sin and for your sin. Then at 30 years old, my wife is murdered.
Well, in that moment, at that Easter play, the scene starts back up and Jesus on the cross says, Father, forgive them for they don't know what they're doing. And God drew me back to that moment and said, hey, are you willing to be a conduit of forgiveness the same way that Jesus offered forgiveness to you? Wow, that's powerful.
The book is Nothing is Wasted by our friend Davey Blackburn, a true story of hope, forgiveness, and finding purpose in pain. He's got a wonderful ministry helping people that have been through all kinds of trauma that's in 200 churches across America.
Be sure and check all of that out. You can find him at Davey Blackburn and learn all you need to know.
Nothing is wasted because it's not. Love you, my friend.
Yeah, thanks for stopping by. Proud of you for telling this story.
Thank you, guys. This is The Ramsey Show.
Hey, guys. George Camel here.
Do you ever feel like insurance companies only care about your money and not what you actually need? Well, there's a better way. When you go to Ramsey's Insurance Resource Hub, you'll start feeling confident that you're getting the right coverage that's truly best for you.

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a Ramsey-trusted insurance pro who will only get you what you need at the best price. Go to

ramseysolutions.com slash insurance, ramsaysolutions.com slash insurance. George Camel, Ramsey personality is my co-host.
He also is my co-cruiser. He and the other Ramsey personalities and my wife, Sharon, will be spending seven days on the high seas with you.
If you get one of the last few remaining cabins, we're going to be on a almost brand new Holland America high end, very nice ship. And we will be going to Turks and Caicos, St.
Thomas, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas. No one will be on the ship except Ramsey people.
So you're stuck with other people trying to get out of debt. Boy, can you imagine bringing someone that did not like us onto that cruise and sticking them on there for seven days? That would be hell for them.
That's a good revenge plot right there. Because we've got events and speaking.
We will be the only entertainment on there. Well, and the people we're bringing with us, which includes...
Free cruise. I'm buying.
And they show up

and they go,

oh my gosh.

See what you did, yeah.

Stephen Curtis Chapman

will be with us.

Dove Award winner.

Multi Grammy Award winner.

Stephen, I was with him

the other night

and he told the story

he got inducted

into the Grand Ole Opry

the other day.

One of the first Christian artists

to ever get inducted.

He was very emotional about that.

Wow.

Don't blame him a bit.

That's quite an honor.

He'll be with us. Dina Carter, country music star, will be with us.
Remember, Strawberry Wine, she'll be with us. And a bunch of other folks, including Manit Shohan from the Food Channel will be doing a little food demonstration.
We'll all be doing different speaking. Deloney, he'll be helping your mental health on the high seas and so forth.
So I think Coleman's going to help you with seasickness, actually. Is that his specialty now? That's his specialty.
No, I'm kidding. Hand's good he's the dramamine yeah i'm looking at the lineup it's just amazing how many friends we get to bring on board yeah magicians comedians i don't know why there's any seats left for anybody else with all the people we're bringing that's true we're bringing a crew yeah it's a crew so everybody wanted to help on this it's kind of amazing so there we go all right the live like no one else crews because if you're not on Baby Step 4 or beyond, you shouldn't come.
So everybody wanted to help on this. It's kind of amazing.
So there we go. All right, the Live Like No One Else Cruise,

because if you're not on Baby Step 4 or beyond, you shouldn't come.

We tell people not to be going on vacation and all that kind of stuff while you're in debt, and we're not hypocrites.

You shouldn't even buy our cruise.

So we want you to come and celebrate, though.

If you've gotten 4 and beyond, it's a good way to do it.

There's a few cabins left, and you know what's left after that, George? What's that? FOMO. Ooh.
Catch the next one if it ever happens. Who knows? I wouldn't count on it.
RamseySolutions.com slash cruise. Yep, we're doing it.
And fun on the high seas. Jacob is in Spokane, Washington.
Jacob, what's up in your world? Hey, not much. How's it going over there? Better than I deserve, man.
How can we help? Good. Hey, just want to say I love you guys, and I've been listening to you since 2007 when my teacher showed us your program, and now he's my financial advisor.
Wow. Back in high school.
Yeah. You went through the high school curriculum.
Cool. Almost 20 years ago.
Cool. How can we help? So I just finalized a divorce and I owe her $150,000, which is her half of the equity of the house.
And I have $70,000 saved up. And it looks like a HELOC might be the only way I can go because I owe her the rest of the money by the end of August,

basically. So I know I'm a little bit behind, but we had kind of made plans to make payments up

until the end of the divorce. So she changed it over and said that she wanted to buy a house.

So yeah, I was just wondering if there's any other options other than HELOC.

Okay. What's the balance on the first mortgage?

110. What's the value of the home? About 430, 440.
What's the interest rate on the first? 2.25. Okay.
So you would borrow 80 on a HELOC and you make what? 130. Okay..
Okay. So I don't tell people to borrow money, but you're already in debt.
You're in debt to your ex-wife, and we're going to change that to another kind of debt called a HELOC. And so you're not borrowing money.
You're changing the money. You're changing the type of debt.
You follow me? Yep.

And so, yeah, that's what I would do.

The only other thing I could think of, Jacob, is why are you keeping the house?

It's in a great school district for my kids.

Are you keeping the kids?

I love the house.

We're doing 50-50, but, yeah, I want to keep them in the school district

and just want to keep them from having to move back and forth. One's four and a half, and one is like five months.
Neither one of them care. You're the only one that cares.
Well, I also don't think I can sell a house and get the money in time. Is the divorce final? Yes.
It's finalized, and then I just made sure that I could get the loan. So, and then as I'm going through it, I'm like, I just decided to call you guys and just see if there's any other options that I could look into.
You're under a time crunch, but here's what I would do. I wouldn't just go, well, I'm just going to stay in the house forever.
What you could do is do the HELOC, then list the house. When it sells, you immediately pay off the HELOC

and take whatever's left as your new down payment. Yeah.
Here's the thing. You could keep the house

if you want, but most of the time in 30 years of financial counseling with folks that they're in

this situation, they keep the house for all the wrong reasons. And when you tell me you're keeping

a house for a four-year-old and a five-month-old, that's the wrong reason because they don't care. They truly don't care.
You're just being emotional in the middle of this horrible catastrophe called a divorce, and I don't blame you for that because your heart's broken and you want to try to be a good dad and all that kind of stuff. But you just want to, you know, I'm not sure keeping the house is a smart thing to do, but if you want to get a HELOC just to get her off your back, that's fine.
But honestly, where you are five years from now should be a completely different world than where you are today. And it probably is going to involve a different house because your next wife probably doesn't want to live in the house where your ex or her ex, your ex wife used to live in the same bedroom.
So just doubt it. I just doubt it.
I just, that's just humans been dealing with them a long time. It helps to move on in that way to get rid of the physical place.
You had a 12 year old and 14 year old and they had friends that were deep and you've been there for 15 years and a lot of ties in the community that's fine but a five month old does not have any feelings except food and wet diapers these are the feelings they have and um i you know we've got babies in the grandbabies in the family right now and they need two things a dry butt and a full belly and that's pretty much what they need and most humans that's that's about all they need yeah that's it most adults that's a good day but i mean honestly i'm picking on you jacob you're going through a hard time but it's okay to sell this house and um it doesn't make you a bad dad and i i'm challenging the decision making paradigm you're using to make the decision but it's okay to take HELOC, and it's okay to keep the house, and it's okay to work it through with the numbers you've got.

That's what you wanted to know, and you always get more than you wanted to know when you call here.

That's how it works, folks.

Because I'm really here to help you, not just help you do what you want to do.

There's a difference.

And it's free.

So you gave them more than they even paid for on top of that. That's impressive.
You got a lot for that price. Well, all of you listening to the show on the YouTube or the podcast, the show's about to end.
The last 40 minutes of the show is now on the Ramsey Network app. The Ramsey Network app is completely free.
It does not cost you a dime. You can listen to the whole show or watch the whole show on the Ramsey Network app.
But the last 40 minutes of the show, as of this week, we are moving over to the Ramsey Network app for a lot of different reasons. But change is about the only thing you can count on around technology, and so it's changing.
Those of you that listen on radio, on talk radio, you're going to keep getting exactly whatever your city's been getting not changing a thing there so we continue to do the show but uh again if you want the last 40 minutes of the show the thing to do is go to the app store or google play download the ramsey network app there's a lot of cool stuff there including you can email us and we'll be answering some questions from the app. You can search all of the calls.
Uh, we've got them logged back for several years and we built an algorithm in there. And so you can search a call by a certain subject, find three or four times we've answered on that subject and listen to it.
Like maybe should I get a HELOC when I'm getting a divorce that could come up, you know, it's like it's come up before, I promise. So you're going to get the same little speech.
And so you can get stuff answered, and you don't have to wait through, you know, sit through five hours worth of listening just to get the answer you're looking for. But the whole thing is there.
All the segments are there every day on the Ramsey Network app, including the last segment that begins in just a few moments. And again, if you're on the Ramsey Network app, but the podcast world and the YouTube world, the show is ending for you now.
And we really appreciate you. I was so glued into the app.
I didn't pay attention, Dave. I just searched horse.
Don't recommend searching horse in the Ramsey Network app. Did you come up? Find out for yourself.

Yeah, I'm right there, Dave.

Thanks, team. Thanks for putting that in there.

Go check it out. Ramsey Network app in the App Store.

Google Play. George.

Mistake. Unbelievable.
Big mistake.

This is the Ramsey Show. We'll see you next time.
Hey, you're still here?

What are you doing?

You do know that the rest of today's show is playing right now over on the Ramsey Network app, right?

All you got to do to finish the episode is search Ramsey Network in the App Store, Google Play Store,

or just click the link in the show notes to download the app for free.

Yep, you heard me right, for free.

Then right there on the home screen, you can watch the rest of today's show.

Bada bing, bada boom.

All right, I'm getting out of here.

Enjoy, we'll see you on the app.