Don’t Let Toxic Relationships Keep You From Building Wealth

Speaker 1 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people

Speaker 1 build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host.
Jade Washall, number one best-selling author and Ramsey personality, is my co-host today.

Speaker 1 Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in.
We'll talk about your life and your money.

Speaker 1 Jade, producer James, has requested that we address current events, which we seldom do on this podcast because we never know when you people are going to listen to it.

Speaker 1 Because by the time some of you listen to this, it won't be current anymore. But current events are that the stock market

Speaker 1 has dropped dropped dramatically in the last couple of days.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 cue the whining, screaming, and gnashing of teeth that everyone's going to die and we're all going to retire and have to eat Alpo routine.

Speaker 1 Not good for Democrats if the stock market goes down and fears of a recession are looming.

Speaker 1 Not good. Economics unseats more administrations than anything else in history.
So

Speaker 1 those of you worried about other things. Anyway,

Speaker 1 the reason, number one, most of the time we just talk about stuff here that you could listen to it three years from now and it would still be the same answer and it helps you all the time. It's

Speaker 1 called modular or evergreen content.

Speaker 1 But anyway, stock market's down. And

Speaker 1 so far, kind of a yawn, except it hadn't been down in a long time. It's been a couple years since y'all have experienced a downturn.
Like 20 was pretty dramatic. Took a a big old dive.

Speaker 1 There was something going on in March, if I remember, of 20, and the old market took a dive. And the world was coming to an end, and we were all going to die.
And, you know, then too. You remember?

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 2 what was it in March 2020?

Speaker 1 I don't remember. But it affected my memory, but I've got PTS

Speaker 1 Fauci. And so

Speaker 1 Fauci PTSD. But the

Speaker 1 anyway, here's the deal.

Speaker 1 If the thing levels out sometime this week, it's not even going to make the top 100 worst days. It's pretty much a yawner.
As downturns go, this one's not real exciting.

Speaker 1 Now, if it continued to dive day over day over day over day, a thousand points a day for four or five days, we'd have something to actually discuss.

Speaker 1 But right now, it's more of your emotions that we want to address. Because here's, why is the stock market going down, Dave? Why is it going down?

Speaker 1 Well, because the jobs report came out and said jobs suck.

Speaker 1 Worst jobs hiring, worst hiring quarter in a long, long time.

Speaker 1 More people unemployed. Nothing like the 80s, nothing like other times when there was real unemployment.
But it's actually a downturn there. There's some other indications.

Speaker 1 The Fed is screwing around again,

Speaker 1 which is a good way to get a president or a vice president unseated as well. If you want to throw them out, just screw with the interest rates, boys.
That'll do it. And

Speaker 1 so they're going to screw around with that, apparently. And,

Speaker 1 you know, everyone has declared there's a recession.

Speaker 1 One more time, people, you don't get to declare there's a recession. There's a definition of a recession.

Speaker 2 Well, have you heard people say vibe session?

Speaker 1 Have you heard that?

Speaker 2 No. It's the feeling.

Speaker 1 It's the vibe that we're in a recession. You know what? I'll go with that.
There is a malaise out there. There is a cloud, a fog, whatever out there, a vibe session.
I'll go with that.

Speaker 1 Because you can define that as a feeling. It's a feeling.
But a recession is not a feeling.

Speaker 2 You got to go with a recession.

Speaker 1 Recession is an economic fact. Gross domestic product, GDP, is the measure of all goods and services in the U.S., has to contract, be less than two quarters in a row, what it was before.

Speaker 1 That is the definition. Until it does that, it's not a recession.
That's right. I don't care.
Well, it feels, I don't care you feel.

Speaker 1 If you want to call it a vibe session or what it would a vibe session. That's right.
Vibe session. Vibe session.
It sounds like a session where we had vibes, but yeah.

Speaker 1 um like a music sounds like an album but the album cover an old vinyl from the 70s when drugs were good to your parents and so that kind of stuff anyway but yeah so

Speaker 1 all right investors are running for the hills they're selling off crypto and especially tech stocks so bureau of labor stats report the u.s economy added uh poor added poor jobs report uh ai is still a scare um this article from cnn says and it says uh recession fears are mounting overall

Speaker 1 and so the Fed, and they're worried about the Fed. So AI, the Fed, the jobs report, all pour into this idea that things are horrible.
And so the stock market is overreacting. And

Speaker 1 you might add that Iran

Speaker 1 and Israel might be getting about the dance. So

Speaker 1 not going to be good for Iran. I've been to Israel several times.
Not a group of people you want to mess with.

Speaker 1 There's a lot going on. There's a lot going on.
It's got everything screwed up and turned up. And so, And let me tell you about this.
Short term,

Speaker 1 the stock market going up or down is a bunch of drama queens.

Speaker 1 They run on emotion, on a daily basis.

Speaker 1 Overall,

Speaker 1 over an annual period or four or five months, it runs on numbers. But on a day-to-day basis, you can

Speaker 1 just shout, the sky is falling, the sky is falling. And

Speaker 1 Chicken Little will run. So what do you do out there when you see the stock market drop?

Speaker 2 I don't do anything.

Speaker 1 I'm tempted to buy

Speaker 1 because I think it's on sale.

Speaker 1 But I don't do anything because I don't day trade. Yeah.
I keep buying. I don't buy and I don't sell based on this crap.
I just keep buying all the time. Every month, I just keep buying.

Speaker 1 Dollar cost average. Gonna load my 401k up, gonna load my Roth IRA up, gonna load up my automatic draft on my checking account that goes into the mutual funds.

Speaker 1 And when it goes down, I'm going to smile because I just bought it on sale.

Speaker 1 Because 10 years from now, you won't even remember this crap.

Speaker 1 10 years from now, you won't even know who was president. You'll have to think about it.

Speaker 1 Quick, who was president 10 years ago?

Speaker 1 See, I got you. All right.
So anyway, but that's, see what I mean? It's just like

Speaker 1 you get all torqued out about this stuff.

Speaker 1 You mean there was a, oh, yeah, I remember. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Do you even log in and check?

Speaker 1 If I see this headline, he came in and James said we need to talk about the stock market. And I said, what? And he goes, don't you watch the news? And I said, no.

Speaker 1 I don't watch the news.

Speaker 2 I saw somebody post something about it on Instagram, and I was like, okay.

Speaker 2 But I think that the people who watch their accounts like that, that's where the temptation lies.

Speaker 1 Well, that's like a Dr. John Deloney anxiety-producing event.

Speaker 2 Don't do it.

Speaker 1 If you check your accounts every morning, you're a spaz. Okay.
Yeah. You're going to spaz out.

Speaker 1 It's not a hobby. That's just weird.
Don't. I don't even look at mine.
I look at mine once or twice a year. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And if I'm doing some kind of year-end final, I'll say, okay, how did it do compared to the other indexes this year? Do I need to move anything?

Speaker 1 But I'm just, you know. For 35 or 40 years, I have put money in, put money in, put money in, taken almost no money out.

Speaker 1 And there's a lot of money in there.

Speaker 2 Well, let's talk about that for a second, Dave, Dave, because we both said I'm the type of person, you know, I set my 401k contributions. I set, you know, all my contributions, they're set.

Speaker 2 They happen automatically. I'm not thinking about it.
But for somebody who might say, well, Dave, is now a good time for me to throw in some extra money? I'm at 15%.

Speaker 2 Can I go in with a lump sum and buy more?

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 Just because you don't want to build up the muscle of day trading and timing. You don't want to try to time the market.

Speaker 1 All the data, all the research tells us people who try to time the market make less money than people who steadily invest.

Speaker 1 It's just, there's like 15 or 20 serious research projects that reveal mathematically, if you steadily invest over a 10-year period of time versus trying to jump in, trying to jump out, trying to catch it, trying to make it,

Speaker 1 you just, you screw yourself by dancing with the devil. Don't do it.
This is the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 1 I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Jade Washaw. Ramsey personality is my co-host today.
Javier is with us in Salt Lake City. Hi, Javier.
How are you?

Speaker 3 I'm doing well. How are you?

Speaker 1 Better than I deserve. What's up?

Speaker 3 Um, so overarching question is that my mom took out a bunch of loans in my name. She's making

Speaker 3 minimum payments, but I'm trying to kind of get this whole thing sorted out and out of my name. How would you suggest that I approach her, the situation as a whole?

Speaker 1 How old are you?

Speaker 3 Um, twenty-seven.

Speaker 1 When did all this happen, hon?

Speaker 3 It started back in 22. I want to say 21, 22.
It was after my divorce.

Speaker 3 So I was kind of just throwing caution to the wind and just saying yes to everything.

Speaker 1 Oh, so you agreed to her doing this?

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 3 It all started because the landlord wanted to sell the house that she that I grew up in, that she's currently living in, and and she offered us a pretty good deal.

Speaker 3 And my brother and I, we bought the house together for my mom, and now she's struggling to make the payments. And I'm just waiting for the day that I get a call that, hey, your payment's due.

Speaker 3 And my wife and I, we can't afford the payment ourselves, so I just don't know what to do.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 2 You bought the house together for your mom.

Speaker 1 And then she took out credit card loans in your name, all with your permission.

Speaker 3 Yes, sir.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 whose name is on the mortgage? Yours?

Speaker 1 Yes, sir.

Speaker 2 And she's living in,

Speaker 2 but she's living in the house.

Speaker 1 Yes. Rent-free.
And the house,

Speaker 1 the property is titled to you as well, correct?

Speaker 3 Correct. She's paying the mortgage.

Speaker 3 It's just that her credit was too poor to actually take the loan out herself.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 going back to the other debt, the other loan, how much money are we talking about on the credit cards?

Speaker 3 Shy of thousand

Speaker 1 and what what does your mom make a year

Speaker 3 um she's self-employed she won't really give me a straight answer

Speaker 1 if you had to guess what what would you what would you say not much she doesn't work much she sucks blood off of her sons

Speaker 1 okay

Speaker 1 um she's a parasite it's a horrible thing to say about your mother i'm so sorry uh just an observation what's your living situation

Speaker 3 I am currently living in an apartment in Utah, and the house is in another state.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And your wife is not happy with this situation, I would assume.

Speaker 3 She is not, and I'm not either.

Speaker 1 Okay. All right.
Okay.

Speaker 1 And how old is mom? 55?

Speaker 3 Ballpark.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 and what is the house worth that she's living in?

Speaker 3 I would say $350 to $4.

Speaker 1 And what do you owe on it?

Speaker 3 I want to say $220, $250. I don't honestly know.

Speaker 2 Is your brother also on the mortgage?

Speaker 3 Yes, my brother's on the mortgage as well.

Speaker 1 And on the deed as well. Yeah.
Okay. So if you guys...
What's your brother saying about all this?

Speaker 3 My brother wants to keep the house, and he's just happy to go along because he wants to keep it for sentimental value. I personally agree with your team that it's just a house.
We can get another one.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so

Speaker 1 what would I do if I woke up in your shoes? This is going to be what is called a difficult conversation, my friend. Your mom has gotten away with this misbehavior, underproducing and

Speaker 1 unbelievable asks of her grown sons rather than taking care of herself. A 55-year-old woman ought to be able to build a sustainable life

Speaker 1 without sucking the blood off of her children, okay?

Speaker 1 Or man, for that matter, okay? So this is not positive. Your mom is not in a good situation mentally and spiritually,

Speaker 1 because otherwise she wouldn't have done this to her own kids. And, of course, you all aren't because you allowed it to happen.
Oh, no, you straight up endorsed it.

Speaker 1 So what I would do if I woke up in your shoes is I would go, how long ago did you get married?

Speaker 3 My wife and I, we got married

Speaker 3 a month ago.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 This is going to come down on your wife if you're not real careful from your mother. Your mother's going to blame her because she's the new thing on the scene, and about that time you evict your mom.

Speaker 1 So she's going to end up blaming your wife if you're not real careful. So your wife does not need to be anywhere near this conversation, nor do you quote her, nor do you even bring her up.

Speaker 1 She's not physically in the room. She's nowhere around because it's not her fault.
Okay. So you need to travel with your brother and sit down with your mom and say, guys, I can't do this anymore.

Speaker 1 I'm looking at the future, tenure, ten years into the future, and all I see is pain and trouble. There's a problem here.

Speaker 1 You're ruining my credit.

Speaker 1 I'm waiting for the phone call when you don't pay the mortgage. And so what we're going to do is we're going to sell the house.
We're going to pay all the debt off.

Speaker 1 And we're going to pay the taxes associated with selling the house, if there are any. There shouldn't.
No, there will be because it's not a personal residence.

Speaker 1 You may have have some capital gains on this. So you pay your taxes and then you say, as for my half of what is left over equity, mom, I'm going to give that to you as a parting gift.

Speaker 1 And you can go set yourself up a life with that.

Speaker 1 And I'm not going to do anything anymore in the future. That's it.
Brother, you can do with your half whatever you choose to do. If you want to help mom get a house with that, that's fine.
I'm done.

Speaker 1 We're selling selling the house we're paying off the credit cards and i'll give you my half of what's left over after that after taxes do you anticipate your brother holding up that process

Speaker 1 or do you think that he'll go along with it

Speaker 3 I think he would hold it up because he's not big on Ramsey. I found you guys because I found your book, Breaking Free from Broke.

Speaker 2 Well, I mean, forget about the Ramsey part, just the idea of you cleaning this up because it's very messy.

Speaker 1 It's nothing to do with Ramsey. It's got to do with your mother screwing her own kids over.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 I honestly think he would not go along with it because he's seeing it as an investment on his

Speaker 1 thing. He can buy you out.
That's another option. But, honey, we're selling the house.

Speaker 1 If he doesn't want to sell the house, then it's going to be a civil court action and the judge is going to demand that the partnership be dissolved by the selling of the house.

Speaker 1 We're selling the house.

Speaker 1 I'm not asking, we're telling you. This is what we're doing.

Speaker 2 If you want want to buy me out that's okay the way you need to think of this is this is saving your marriage by the way yeah because your wife is not going to sit around and let your mom be the reason that she's not in her new house you guys are in an apartment you've been married for a month if this messes around and causes you guys the future the future that she's envisioned you're going to have a much bigger problem on your hands yeah Mom, I love you, and I've done more for you than I should have, and I put myself and my future family in jeopardy because of you.

Speaker 1 And you continue to misbehave with this. My bills are not being paid.
You're destroying my credit and my future. We're selling the house.

Speaker 1 Little brother, if you don't want to sell it, you can buy me out. You got 10 minutes.
Ready, set, go. You're on the clock.
Okay? Because your little brother's codependent

Speaker 1 like you were until something woke you up. And again, this has got nothing to do with Ramsey.
Don't you blame it on your ex, don't you blame it on your new wife? And don't you blame it on Ramsey?

Speaker 1 It's not Ramsey. This is you stood up.
I'm a 27-year-old freaking man with a backbone, and this is madness, and the madness ends. It's not a sign of love to continue in codependency.

Speaker 1 This is not an act of love. There's no love in this discussion.
You can be kind, gentle. You don't have to be yelling and screaming, but we are selling the house.

Speaker 1 You can either do it voluntarily or I'll have a judge make you sell. the house.
We are selling the house. So y'all get your heads around that.

Speaker 1 Whatever flopping in the floor and foaming at the mouth you need to do, but get your heads around that. We are selling the house.
It's not an option.

Speaker 1 The only other option is: brother, you buy me out or mom, y'all buy me out. Get me off the mortgage and pay off all the credit cards.
And you got to do that in 90 days. And you got it ready, set, go.

Speaker 1 And if you're not going to do that, we are selling the house. The best thing for mom, by the way, is sell the house.

Speaker 1 Yes, put some money in her pocket, tell her to get a freaking job, self-employed for her is code for I don't work much.

Speaker 1 That's what that is. That's code.
This is the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 1 Jade Washaw, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America.
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Mac is in Seattle.

Speaker 1 Hey, Mac, welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 3 How you doing, Dave?

Speaker 1 Better than I deserve. What's up?

Speaker 3 So I am currently a business analyst. I work remote and I'm 28 years old.

Speaker 3 I have a fear of sooner or later becoming unmarketable. I make a decent wage, but I'm basically working off a bachelor's degree.

Speaker 3 And so I'm trying to decide if it's worth taking a student loan out to also cut time from my current job to either go back at an MBA or an MBA adjacent or completely do like a career shift into something that is a little bit more desirable, a little bit more fulfilling, but might even be a dip in terms of my compensation or who knows what a career would bring with that.

Speaker 3 It's kind of a question of do I continue to do something I'm good at, but not necessarily something I'm stoked about?

Speaker 3 Or do I kind of mix between doing that with an MBA or completely shift, you know, take the time now to shift into,

Speaker 3 you know, something completely different for the rest of my life, but also taking a financial risk with that?

Speaker 2 Well, I'm definitely not interested in you going into debt to further the education. And I'm certainly not interested in you going into debt for a job that you're not even really stoked about, right?

Speaker 2 So that's the first thought. My second thought is, what would be the other thing that you would do that might, you know, bring less money, but you're happier doing it?

Speaker 2 What is, what do you have in mind when you say that?

Speaker 3 So, for the longest time, I've wanted to be an architect, but I know that that market is a bit

Speaker 3 saturated. It takes a lot of credentialing to eventually get to a point where you can make a decent bit of a wage and have a good, healthy income.

Speaker 1 Okay,

Speaker 1 you're making decisions based on

Speaker 1 a wrong

Speaker 1 assumption. Here's the wrong assumption you're making: that degrees or credentialing cause people to be successful.

Speaker 1 Nope, they don't. Degrees put tools in the belts of people who are going to go leave the cave, kill something, and drag it home.
Credentialing puts tools in your belt.

Speaker 1 And so the reason some lawyers are successful and some aren't

Speaker 1 is not because of law school. It's not because of passing the bar.
It's because they chose to

Speaker 1 get it.

Speaker 1 They chose to get out in the market and climb and grow and be ambitious and read and continue their own growth curve and approach it.

Speaker 1 And so the reason some architects, you know, anytime I hear the market's saturated, I just think of lawyers.

Speaker 1 They're freaking everywhere. God, we can't get rid of them.
They're like roaches. They're everywhere.

Speaker 1 And yet, some of them make 500 bucks an hour.

Speaker 1 It's killing me. Same thing's true with architects.
There's always somebody that gets better at their job. That's right.
Continues.

Speaker 1 There's other people who can't seem to find a job making a living as a CAD

Speaker 1 supervisor, and they've got an architectural degree. But that's got to do with the person, not the degree, and not the space, and not the credentialing.
You know, I'm in podcasting, for God's sakes.

Speaker 1 You know who's got a podcast? Every human on the planet has a podcast. You know what's causes this this to be one of the top five podcasts in the entire world? Nothing to do with credentialing, buddy.

Speaker 1 I'll tell you that. Nothing to do with my dad gum degree.
Nobody even asked what my degree is. I got a PhD in DUMB.

Speaker 1 So what I want you to do is figure out what you want to do with your life and go be the very best at that. If you need to put some tools in your belt, fine.

Speaker 1 But don't sit at home doing remote work worrying about the marketplace.

Speaker 1 The marketplace is always going to kick you in the stomach if you suck, and the marketplace is always going to fill your wallet if you're awesome.

Speaker 2 I think that we need to make sure you leave here. Ken Coleman has a really great book, Find the Work You're Wired to Do.
And inside of it, there's an assessment that you can take.

Speaker 2 And I think it's really going to help you figure out what it is that you want to do.

Speaker 2 And then the book is going to help you walk through the results of your assessment so you can really narrow in and hone into what it is that you want to do. Because here's the thing.

Speaker 2 I don't want you going off spending a bunch of money when you have a bunch of question marks. Exactly.

Speaker 1 Land, I do want you to go get an MBA if it's part of the tools for your belt. It's an excellent degree field, but it's a horrible degree field for somebody that doesn't want to be in business,

Speaker 1 that wants to be an architect. So it would be a bad idea.
You know, don't do that. But hey, and business analyst with an undergrad, man, I got a friend of mine, he's a 42-year-old guy.

Speaker 1 He's a great, a 43-year-old guy. He made $250 last year.
He's got an undergrad. That's great.
He's got an undergrad in finance. He's a business analyst.

Speaker 1 But he's really good at it, you know, and he works really hard, and he's good with people, and he has common sense insights when he's doing his analysis, not just crunching numbers like some broke finance professor.

Speaker 1 So, you know, that's the trick, man.

Speaker 1 Don't believe this lie that because I got a degree, I'm guaranteed something, or because I go get another one, that's going to be what opens the door to a fully saturated market.

Speaker 1 You got to add the secret sauce to it. No, no, you boys, parents, teach your children that the cause of their success is them.

Speaker 2 That's right.

Speaker 1 Teach them to stand up straight, bathe regularly, shake a hand and smile

Speaker 1 and brush your teeth.

Speaker 2 You got to bathe.

Speaker 1 And don't send your mother on your job interview. Teach your children to have some moxie, some confidence.
Teach them to do hard things and scary things.

Speaker 1 And teach them to persevere when they get a little bit scared, not collapse in the floor.

Speaker 1 Teach them to have some skeletal structure to their character and to believe in God who loves them and is bigger than them and will carry them through when they don't think they can get through.

Speaker 1 Teach them these things and then let them get a degree.

Speaker 1 But quit worshiping it, not picking on you, Mac, but it's just, it's everybody out there. Quit worshiping at the altar of where somebody went to school.
Nobody gives a crap where you went to school.

Speaker 1 Nobody ever asked their oncologist, right, after they got a cancer diagnosis. Now, where'd you go to school? Nobody ever said said that ever.

Speaker 1 How many of you even asked your divorce attorney where he went to school? You didn't care. You just went, get me out of this.

Speaker 1 All you care is, didn't they do this job? Do they know what they're doing? And all you care is, did you put the tools in your belt while you were studying?

Speaker 1 Nobody has asked my GPA ever once since I left school. 40 freaking years I've been waiting for somebody to ask for my degree.

Speaker 2 No one has ever asked me for my degree. I don't even know where it's at.

Speaker 2 You know how some people have

Speaker 2 the little paper that people put in a frame and like put behind their Zoom.

Speaker 1 Man, I got mine, I got mine like framed. Did you? Yeah, I was so proud because I just barely got out.

Speaker 2 I got out okay, but no one, no one cared, no one ever asked me about it.

Speaker 1 You know, they had that little thing, what do you call it, the graduation ceremony? Uh-huh. Did you walk? You don't walk? I walked to work.

Speaker 1 I was working that day because I was hungry.

Speaker 1 The idea of spending money and taking a day off from work when I had a buck 67 in my checking account, that's what I walked. That's the truth.

Speaker 1 Oh, man.

Speaker 1 You know, oddly enough, though, my son graduated from business college.

Speaker 1 I got a degree, Daniel, several years, what, 15 years ago, 10 years ago, 12 years ago, whatever it was, at the University of Tennessee, same business school I did.

Speaker 1 And they let me do the commencement exercise.

Speaker 2 That is a full-circle moment.

Speaker 1 So I got to walk.

Speaker 2 That is very, very full circle.

Speaker 1 And I went up there like an academic type person or something with all the little hats and stuff. It was pretty cool.

Speaker 2 I had a full circle moment like that when I graduated with a music degree. The first cruise line I auditioned for to be a vocalist, I didn't get through the audition.

Speaker 2 But when we became talent agents, they were the first agency that we signed as

Speaker 2 working with. So I was like, wow, this is a full circle moment.

Speaker 2 I don't know if you realize this, but when I auditioned, you said, No, I'm not good enough to sing for you, but I'll hire all your singers.

Speaker 1 There we go. They'll remain nameless for now.

Speaker 1 It sounds like something cruises, yeah.

Speaker 1 Cruise Line Inc. Yeah, that's right.
This is the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 1 Jade Washall, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America.
Sarah is in Atlanta. Hi, Sarah.
How can we help?

Speaker 3 Hey, y'all. How are you doing?

Speaker 1 Great. How are you?

Speaker 3 I'm doing great. Thank you so much for taking my call.

Speaker 3 My husband and I, we have three small children. We have a four-year-old, a two-year-old, and a one-year-old.
And in January of this year, our four-year-old got diagnosed with leukemia.

Speaker 3 And so I'm, yeah, he's actually doing super well. So, you know, it's not been quite as bad as we thought.

Speaker 3 But I'm calling because my husband and I are wondering if we should pause our baby steps and just save money, or if we should go ahead and continue with the baby steps.

Speaker 2 Definitely pause and save money. What baby step are you on?

Speaker 3 Two?

Speaker 3 Yeah, we're on baby step number two. We only have $7,000 left on a car, and we could actually pay it off today.

Speaker 3 It would just be kind of a big hit to our savings account.

Speaker 1 How much is in your savings?

Speaker 3 We have about $11,000, thanks to our community

Speaker 3 raising money for us when he got diagnosed.

Speaker 2 What's the prognosis? Is it a situation where it's you're going to go through this line of treatment and then everything should be good on the other side? Do you have a timeline in mind?

Speaker 2 It sounds like you do.

Speaker 3 Yeah, so he,

Speaker 3 for most leukemias, it's three years of treatment, but the first eight months are like extremely hard. We're actually right at the end of that, eight months.

Speaker 3 He went back to school today, which is super exciting. I know.
It was great.

Speaker 3 And we're super blessed. We got something called Katie Beckett Medicaid, if you're familiar with that.

Speaker 3 It's a type of Medicaid that for families that make more than the Medicaid limit, and it'll come behind like a child and will cover the 20% that your insurance won't cover.

Speaker 3 So we're actually not looking at massive medical bills.

Speaker 3 The scary part part is that like at any point he could get an infection and we could be in the hospital for 10 plus days and I just may have to take FMLA.

Speaker 1 Okay. So that kind of works.

Speaker 3 My husband and I net about $100,000.

Speaker 1 How much of that is you?

Speaker 3 I make about $60,000 of that. Okay.
All right. With the gross, like, I obviously bring home less, but.

Speaker 1 Number one, Jade's right. The very first, and you've already done this.
And if I'm in your situation,

Speaker 1 we got grandbabies that age. There's job one,

Speaker 1 beat leukemia.

Speaker 1 No other job. Total focus.
Okay. Job one.

Speaker 1 If there's any crumbs left in our lives, emotionally, spiritually, financially, after we do job one, we can talk about doing other stuff. But it's only if there's crumbs left.
Okay.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 I would never

Speaker 1 personally, nor would I ever recommend you do anything except beat cancer. That's it.
Yeah. Okay.
Period. Now,

Speaker 1 it sounds like you're entering the second season, which is lighter by your explanation. I don't know anything about that, but I'm going off of your explanation.
Okay. Yeah, that's correct.

Speaker 1 And this is more of a,

Speaker 1 you've gone from very intense to a maintenance, if you will.

Speaker 1 I'm using layman's terms. I have no idea what I'm talking about.
That's what I think I'm hearing. Is that right?

Speaker 3 Yes, it's actually called maintenance.

Speaker 1 You know what? Wow. Stumbled into it.
Who knew? Okay. And so,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 in other words, we've kind of gotten past A, the panic that when you say that C word over my child.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 then we've also now gotten the other side of the tough medical, eight months of hell. And now we're,

Speaker 1 you know, now we're going to put the finishing touches on the death of cancer, right?

Speaker 1 And, but that's going to be a little more gradual. We've gone from a sprint to a marathon.

Speaker 1 Are these metaphors working at all?

Speaker 3 Oh, my gosh, absolutely.

Speaker 1 Yes. Okay.
All right. I'm just trying to understand.
I want to make sure I understand before I, so what I want to say is, what we always say is when you're facing a storm,

Speaker 1 stop

Speaker 1 your

Speaker 1 baby steps. Stop your total money makeover and address the storm.

Speaker 1 And so what you and your husband have got to decide is mathematically, financially,

Speaker 1 a month from now, two months from now, with the eight-month period in the rearview mirror, do we feel like we're out of the storm?

Speaker 1 It's still raining, but the wind quit blowing and the lightning quit crashing, or do we feel like we're in a predictable, sustainable environment where we feel safe to go ahead and pay off the car, safe to resume our financial plan without putting the cancer treatment process in jeopardy at all.

Speaker 1 That's the way I'd look at it.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 1 When you feel safe.

Speaker 1 Yeah. When you feel safe, then you go again.
So like if you lose your job, which is nothing in compared to what you're doing, but it's still a thing.

Speaker 1 You know, once you get the new job and you get a paycheck, you push play again and you go. You're the other side of the unemployment storm, right?

Speaker 1 Once you

Speaker 1 have a child, a pregnancy,

Speaker 1 it's not in the same bucket emotionally, but it is still a situation where we stop, we pile up money, mommy and baby come home, we push play again. So when we get the event,

Speaker 1 the situation, no matter how scary or negative or positive it is in our rearview mirror, then we push play and we go.

Speaker 1 But we don't try to do...

Speaker 1 We don't take it down to $1,000 and try to beat cancer in a four-year-old. No.

Speaker 2 No, that's just stressful.

Speaker 1 That feels stressful.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I think, yeah, it's just we've had some stints where he's gotten an infection and we've been in the hospital for a long time.

Speaker 3 And I've actually, we've both worked through it, like working from the hospital. And it's very hard emotionally.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, you're probably going to do that anyway because you want to just keep careers. You want to keep life moving.
But that's not got to do with hitting the total money makeover baby step goal.

Speaker 1 That's just got to do with we just got to keep this thing rolling. We got to keep the wheels on the bus, you know.

Speaker 2 Well, yeah, that's a different posture when you're working because you need some, you know, you need to keep working versus there's no money in the account.

Speaker 2 If I don't work, you know, we won't be able to pay the bill. You know, that's a whole different level of situation.

Speaker 1 How many of those trips has he had?

Speaker 3 When we first got diagnosed in the future,

Speaker 1 the infection trip.

Speaker 3 Only one so far.

Speaker 1 All right. Yeah, so hopefully you can't.
So it's the only cloud.

Speaker 1 It's the worst cloud still hanging over this situation, other than we know we've got some discomfort, but nothing like we've had before going forward, right?

Speaker 3 Yes. No, he's like 99%

Speaker 1 prognosis. That's so

Speaker 1 great.

Speaker 3 It's honestly,

Speaker 3 when you live in the hospital as much as we do, you realize how lucky you are when this is all you're facing.

Speaker 1 So we've got a lady here named Shauna that

Speaker 1 came into my office

Speaker 1 17 years ago or no, 14, 15 years ago and said, my three-year-old has leukemia and she worked in accounting and you can't do accounting. Your brain doesn't work when you're getting it.

Speaker 1 So anyway, we paid her and paid her through all of it, and the ladies took care of meals, and the guys took care of keeping the grass cut.

Speaker 1 And then pretty soon we had a little ball-headed three-year-old running around the office, and we're celebrating with her.

Speaker 1 And the other day, we gave away Ramsey scholarships, and she walked across the stage and gave me a hug,

Speaker 1 graduated from high school, and I got to take a picture with her the other day. So there is a good ending to these stories.

Speaker 3 Yeah, we have so much hope and we have such a good community too. So that makes all the difference.

Speaker 2 We can hear it in your voice. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You really can. You're very joyful and attitude's everything here.
It really is.

Speaker 1 It's a lot of it. So, hey, we're with you.
If you need any more help, you call us back. But, you know, just use good common sense.
Babe, take care of baby first.

Speaker 1 And then once we're clear of the storm, don't let the worries of the world keep you from going and winning what might be, but use good wisdom okay

Speaker 2 thank you all so much i appreciate it thank you god bless you sarah wow that's a good differential dave because in in in her case yeah this this has the ability to be a three-year stint but it's but not it had two two seasons that's right so thinking through okay do i need to truly be paused for three years or is there a point where i can i'm okay if you are if you are yes but in her case there it seems like there might be a point before that where they can make a foot on the gas they make up some money in the bank.

Speaker 1 They're only $7,000 away. They're not $107,000 to that thousand away.

Speaker 1 It'd be nice to have that car payment gone while they're doing this. I'm sure.
And it'd be nice to have that stability.

Speaker 1 And guys, just remember, if you have an emergency come up and you have zero debt and $25,000 in the bank for an emergency fund, sometimes, not that kind of emergency, but some emergencies are a mere inconvenience.

Speaker 1 The drama starts to leave your life when you get your crap together. I know, that's right.
Hello.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 that's what these calls remind me of.

Speaker 1 She's a hero. What a great mom.
Wonderful. Wow.
This is the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 1 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships.

Speaker 1 Jade Washall, Ramsey Personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today. Open phones here at 888-825-5225.
Tyler's in Orlando. Hi, Tyler.
How are you?

Speaker 3 Hey, I'm good. How are you?

Speaker 1 Better than I deserve. What's up?

Speaker 3 Hey, I have a question about a real estate deal that I did with one of my friends.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 3 All right, so I gave him $9,000 back in September, and then

Speaker 3 as of he was supposed to sell the house.

Speaker 3 It was part of a down payment for a house that he bought. And he was supposed to pay me back by January 4, or I gave him $8,000 in September.
He was supposed to give me $14,000 back in January.

Speaker 3 And then he showed me a picture of the bank account with all the money. Then I gave him $1,000 more, and he bought another house.
He did a 1035 exchange to another house.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 then he was supposed to pay me back, I think, 25K

Speaker 3 plus some extra for the taxes.

Speaker 3 And that was supposed to be due in April.

Speaker 3 He's given me $2,500 back

Speaker 3 out of the right now, as of now, he owes me $29,500.

Speaker 3 I have it all in contract and in writing. And today's the date, I actually made a new contract last month and said that he owes me the full amount $29,500

Speaker 3 by August 5th, which is today.

Speaker 3 And if he doesn't pay me back that, then he has to pay for all the court fees, attorney fees, and $1,000 extra per month in interest.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 1 Why has he not paid you?

Speaker 3 I don't know. I mean, he has to.

Speaker 1 Oh, did the house sell?

Speaker 3 No,

Speaker 3 he always says that it's going to sell.

Speaker 1 Oh, the house hasn't sold. He doesn't have any money.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Do you think contracts magically make him have money?

Speaker 3 No.

Speaker 1 He doesn't have any money. That's why he's borrowing from someone like you.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Have you seen the properties?

Speaker 3 Yes, I have. And right now.

Speaker 1 So the first one sold, right?

Speaker 3 He said it did, but it didn't.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Was it ever rented? Was the first one ever rented?

Speaker 3 Did he ever rent it out?

Speaker 1 Was it yes? Did it ever have rental income?

Speaker 3 No. No.

Speaker 1 Then it is not involved in a 1031.

Speaker 1 Only income-producing property can be in a 1031.

Speaker 1 Flips do not qualify for a 1031.

Speaker 1 So he didn't. And besides that, if it didn't sell, he can't roll it into the other house.
So that 1031 tax-deferred exchange did not occur. Okay.

Speaker 1 So basically he owns two houses right now, neither one of which have sold.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And how old are you?

Speaker 1 23. And how old is he?

Speaker 3 Maybe 30-ish.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 1 And why did you think this was going to work?

Speaker 3 I mean, I was skeptical of it. I mean, I had the contract, so I wasn't, like, too worried about losing the money.

Speaker 1 Well, you're learning a very harsh lesson that

Speaker 1 I learned early in business, and that is that contracts don't make bad deals good.

Speaker 1 Contracts are simply pieces of paper that say what happens when everything blows up and melts down.

Speaker 1 They don't make bad people good, and they don't make bad deals good, and they don't make money appear on the scene that's not there.

Speaker 1 But I have a contract is never a defense for getting into a really stupid deal.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 you might end up spending $30,000. So the other house,

Speaker 1 you probably lost your money. But anyway, let's play it through.

Speaker 1 The current property that we're waiting on both of them to sell, right?

Speaker 3 Yes, sir.

Speaker 1 Do either one of them have $29,000 worth of equity?

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Well, I guess if I were in your shoes, I would try this. I think this will be much more successful than

Speaker 1 suing on a contract because that's a three-year process. It's going to cost you $15,000, $20,000 in legal fees.
Right now, you've got $2,500 of your $9,000 back.

Speaker 1 So right now, you're only bit to the tune of $6,500, right?

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay, that might be the most expensive tuition that a 23-year-old's paid lately, but if you pay tuition to the School of Life and that's all you pay instead of $65,000, it's not too bad.

Speaker 1 But let's see if we can salvage this. It doesn't sound like he's a liar, except about the part on the house, the first house selling and the 1031.

Speaker 1 It sounds like he's a neophyte, doesn't know what the crap he's doing. He took some TikTok thing on how to buy real estate.

Speaker 1 And I kind of know that because he's got a 23-year-old as this financier who came up with a whole 10 grand, okay? This is not like a high roller here that's got an ultimate real estate experience.

Speaker 1 So I think he's just dumb is what I'm saying. Okay? Yeah.
I don't think he's evil.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I bet if the house is sold, you would have had your money. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I think he hoped the house would sell and you'd have your money. And you were naive,

Speaker 1 that's being kind, to think that a contract was suddenly going to make sure that money appeared.

Speaker 1 Contracts don't do that. He has no money, dude, until the house sells.

Speaker 1 So why don't you go to him and say, instead of suing you, my financial advisor suggested that I take a second mortgage lien on your property and that you sign a lien for $30,000 on both properties.

Speaker 1 So now you have a $60,000 position.

Speaker 1 If he doesn't, and put terms to that, that that has to be paid on sale or within six months, whichever is first, and he can go refinance and buy you out, okay?

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 1 Now, if he does not, then

Speaker 1 you don't have to sue. You merely have to foreclose.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 1 And foreclosure is a lot cheaper and more efficient than a lawsuit.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 1 So go to him and say, instead of suing you and instead of you and me going to court and all of this, I'm waiting on the house to sell. You're waiting on the house to sell.

Speaker 1 I'm either going to sue you this week or you're going to give me a second mortgage lien for $30,000 on both properties. And then you don't screw him.

Speaker 1 Whenever you get your money, you release the other property. But whichever one sells first, you get your money.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Does that make sense?

Speaker 3 Yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 1 And don't do this again.

Speaker 1 Did you learn your lesson?

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay. If you get out by the skin of your teeth, don't act like you're a pro.

Speaker 1 You just lucked freaking out if you get out of this deal. This is a deal where you deserved to lose $9,000.

Speaker 1 If you get out and don't get what you deserve, you can buy the t-shirt better than I deserve and learn your lesson and move on. Wow.

Speaker 2 He'll be lucky if he gets his money back.

Speaker 1 I have done so many stupid things that I deserved to lose money. So I can say that to you, son.
Oh, my gosh. Yeah, you just, you walked up on the thin ice and said, please crack.
I want to be wet.

Speaker 2 But he had a contract.

Speaker 1 I know.

Speaker 1 The ice promised me it wouldn't crack. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, boy. Yeah, when you're doing business with broke people, please expect them to do broke people things.

Speaker 1 And we know the guy is broke because he borrowed $9,000 from a 23-year-old.

Speaker 2 Well, who knows if these properties are going to sell for what they hope?

Speaker 2 And if there's even going to be any profit. No idea.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 it'd be fun to foreclose on it and see if you really wanted to know.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's true. That might be interesting.
This is the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 1 So I've learned so many

Speaker 1 silly little sayings from other generations

Speaker 1 because I'm on the air with

Speaker 1 the cool people around here. And I, so I learned that like when Biden forgave the student loans, that that was sus.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, suspect.

Speaker 1 Sus. I didn't know what I had learned what sus was.
So there you go. And I learned about FOMO.

Speaker 2 FOMO, yes.

Speaker 1 Fear of missing out.

Speaker 2 That's a real thing.

Speaker 1 Apparently motivates people to do really stupid things with money. Facts.
Sometimes. And other things, too.
I'm going to give you a fear of missing out, and it's not a stupid thing to do with money.

Speaker 1 And you should not be doing it if it is a stupid thing. I'll help you with this.
The Live Like No One Else cruise is almost sold out.

Speaker 1 We have the entire ship on Holland America, March 22nd through the 29th. The Jade Warshaw will be with us.

Speaker 1 All of the Ramsey personalities will be with us. Sharon, my wife, and I will be on there for the entire seven-day cruise.

Speaker 1 Plus, Stephen Curtis Chapman, who not only is Emmy Award-winning 67 Doves or something like that, but last week Stephen got inducted into the

Speaker 1 Grand Old Opry. That's great.
Yeah, he was telling me about it. He was at the house Monday night with a bunch of guys, and

Speaker 1 he was last week, and

Speaker 1 just tears in his eyes. It was a huge, huge honor for him because he grew up, of course, singing country music, and he's one of the world's best-renowned Christian artists, as you know.

Speaker 1 And so, anyway, we're going to Turks and Caicos, St. Thomas, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas.

Speaker 1 We'll be doing events and things, and performances, and talks, and whatever else you want to call it on the ship the entire week. It's going to be a blast.

Speaker 1 It's almost gone.

Speaker 1 You can still get a room, a state room, but you need to get your deposit of $600 down before the cabins are gone.

Speaker 1 You don't have to pay for the whole thing up front, but you don't need to go on the Live Like No One Else cruise

Speaker 1 unless you are Baby Step Four and Beyond.

Speaker 2 Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 We don't tell people to go on vacations when they're in one through three, and that includes vacationing with us.

Speaker 2 I heard George was going to be bouncing at the doorways.

Speaker 1 Bouncing what?

Speaker 2 You know, the bounce.

Speaker 1 He can't bounce anything.

Speaker 2 George was going to be security checking.

Speaker 1 The kid bounced.

Speaker 1 He's not.

Speaker 1 Was he at the daycare? Checking.

Speaker 1 Where's he going to be a bouncer?

Speaker 1 Where's George going to be? That's not even funny, y'all.

Speaker 1 That's just insulting. Oh, man.
So, hey, this is a chance for you to celebrate your

Speaker 1 process through the baby steps, a milestone in getting to baby step four or beyond, maybe seven. Maybe you do your debt-free scream with us.

Speaker 1 Maybe it could be the world's largest debt-free scream at sea. Because if it's the only debt-free scream at sea, it by definition is the largest debt-free scream at sea.

Speaker 1 So, we're going to do that for sure. Maybe we need to get the Guinness book and

Speaker 1 give them a room or something on there. So, ramseysolutions.com/slash cruise, get signed up.
We'd love to have you go with us. Matt is in New York.
Hi, Matt. How are you?

Speaker 3 Hey, Dave, doing great. How are you?

Speaker 1 Better than I deserve. What's up?

Speaker 3 So just a quick question. I'm getting married next year.
I have a full-time career in the military as well as two part-time jobs.

Speaker 3 Just opened up a Roth IRA and put in an initial $22,500.

Speaker 3 Looking to see how much you suggest I put into it either on a monthly basis or an annual basis, being that I'm also trying to save up for a home as well.

Speaker 1 Good for you. Are you debt-free?

Speaker 3 Thank you. Yes, I am.

Speaker 1 Good for you. How old are you?

Speaker 3 Thank you. I'm 24.

Speaker 1 Thanks for serving your country, sir.

Speaker 3 Thank you for your support. I appreciate it.

Speaker 2 Yeah. So if I'm you, you've already paid off your debt.
Do you have three to six months of expenses saved up?

Speaker 3 Yes, I do.

Speaker 3 I have about maybe 8,500 to 9,500 saved up.

Speaker 2 Okay, good. So yeah, officially you're in 3B or 4, whichever one you choose.
And what I would do, so you're investing 15% of your income.

Speaker 2 So if that allows you to max out that Roth, I would max out that Roth.

Speaker 2 Now, most people would say 15% of your income every single month until that's gone, until you've used up the 15%, until you've maxed it out, right?

Speaker 2 And then you could move on to another investment vehicle. So do you think you can max it out?

Speaker 1 Yes, absolutely. Okay, then yeah.

Speaker 3 Because

Speaker 3 I'm also looking for, I mean,

Speaker 3 I'm definitely money hungry,

Speaker 3 to put it in the easiest way. So I'm trying to find

Speaker 3 all sorts of multiple side hustles and everything.

Speaker 1 Everything you can.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I heard you say you have two other part-time jobs. So you max out this Roth.

Speaker 2 What other things do you have available to you through the military that you can put money into? TSP.

Speaker 3 TSP, Thrift Savings Plan.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Okay.
Yeah, so I would,

Speaker 1 what we want you to do at baby step 3B, 3B is saving for a house and or investing for retirement. Obviously, the more you put into retirement, the less you'll have to save towards a house.
Agreed?

Speaker 1 Correct. So the most you would put in at your stage would be 15% of your household income, your total income, until you're married.

Speaker 1 Once you're married, the total income of the household needs to go into retirement, a maximum of 15%.

Speaker 1 Some people back the 15% down a little until they get their down payments saved. Some of them do the whole 15%.
We suggest not doing more than 15% 15% at this stage.

Speaker 1 Instead, put it all toward the rest of everything else towards the house.

Speaker 1 But if you want to do 10% or you want to do the Roth and that represents 8%, I don't know what your income is and all that, but

Speaker 1 whatever you guys want to do and then start saving towards that house, that's great. Who's paying for the wedding?

Speaker 3 My fiancé and I had actually,

Speaker 3 our parents offered to help us immensely, but my fiancé and I both felt like

Speaker 3 we would feel personally more accomplished if it was paid off ourselves. So we are, we're paying for the wedding ourselves.
Wow.

Speaker 1 What's the budget?

Speaker 3 We're looking at about $27,000 right now.

Speaker 1 Is that money already saved?

Speaker 3 Yes, it is. We have about

Speaker 3 $46,000 in a joint account as of now.

Speaker 1 Okay. No more joint accounts until you're married, except the wedding fund, okay?

Speaker 3 Yes, that's exactly.

Speaker 1 And don't buy a house for somebody you're not married to.

Speaker 3 Yes,

Speaker 1 absolutely. I appreciate it.
I'm curious why you felt like you should not have mom and dad pay for the wedding. That's a traditional thing.

Speaker 1 It's not a, it doesn't mean you're like a deadbeat if your father-in-law pays for the wedding.

Speaker 3 No, absolutely. I mean, and they, and like I mentioned, they did, they did offer to pay for it.

Speaker 3 I don't know.

Speaker 3 I guess it's something personal,

Speaker 3 you know, personally that

Speaker 3 I feel.

Speaker 3 Just being able to say that, you know, I paid for something myself. I saved up and I paid for something myself.

Speaker 1 How'd they take it when you told them?

Speaker 2 Were they a little disappointed?

Speaker 3 They were taken back that we didn't want help, but

Speaker 3 they're going to wind up giving us a huge gift

Speaker 3 in exchange.

Speaker 1 Okay. All right.
I guess we can use that towards the house.

Speaker 3 Yes, absolutely. And with the military.

Speaker 3 With the military benefits, we don't have to put a down payment on the house. But I'm not sure,

Speaker 3 I haven't looked into it that much.

Speaker 3 But being that we don't have to put a down payment, I'm not sure how exactly that works.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 you do need to put down a down payment. Don't use a VA loan.
VA loans are more expensive than conventional.

Speaker 1 Okay, so. So you need to do a Fannie Mae with a traditional down payment and above your emergency fund and above your wedding.
So there you go. Very cool.

Speaker 3 Very cool.

Speaker 1 That's interesting. I have not, you know, that's from a generation, not him, but that's from a generation that doesn't want to pay their student loan.

Speaker 2 Well, everybody's not like that.

Speaker 1 I know. Everybody's not like anything.

Speaker 1 And I paid for both my daughters' weddings, and I did not think poorly of my sons-in-law

Speaker 1 in the least.

Speaker 1 I had no expectation they would

Speaker 1 do that. That was kind of like, I'm an old southern dad, and

Speaker 1 what I did, you know. Like, here's the budget, and y'all do it within that, and don't ask for any more.
That's it.

Speaker 2 But if they had said, you know what, dave we got it would you have been like oh man or would you have been like

Speaker 1 i would have been a little bit taken aback like he was and i was like yeah i would have been like huh

Speaker 1 yeah i mean

Speaker 1 it wasn't like i'm gonna give them yeah oh well yeah that's it's there's nothing wrong with it it's just um just different yeah not an it's not an expectation of character um

Speaker 1 or lack of character, folks, if your

Speaker 1 in-laws pay for your wedding. I just, I'll say that out loud.
I don't, I don't think that's true. So

Speaker 1 if they don't, there might be something else going on there, though. Sometimes

Speaker 1 he didn't say that, but

Speaker 1 if there's a lot of strings attached, you don't want to activate the mother of the bridezilla, all that, you don't want them to come out of their cave and all that.

Speaker 1 You know, there's all kinds of stuff that you might want to do that for. But oh, well, okay.
Cool. This is the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 1 Jade Washall, Ramsey Personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America.
I am Dave Ramsey, your host. Katrina is with us in Salt Lake City.

Speaker 1 Hi, Katrina. How are you?

Speaker 3 I am fantastic. Thank you so much for asking.
How are you?

Speaker 1 Better than I deserve. What's up?

Speaker 3 All right. So I am going through a divorce, and it's really hurting me financially.

Speaker 3 So I'm wondering if I should take money out of my business account that I'm actually trying to sell because of the the divorce and use some of that money to buy things for my primary job.

Speaker 1 What is your primary job?

Speaker 3 I am a school teacher, and tomorrow I go back to school. The kids come back next Tuesday, but I need to buy some supplies for the students to come back to school.

Speaker 1 Oh, sorry, they don't furnish you supplies for the classroom like they should?

Speaker 3 Well, they give me $50.

Speaker 1 They should make you every school teacher in America.

Speaker 3 Well, yeah, thank you. They give me $5 as students, but I've already spent that.
I bought glue sticks and colored pencils and

Speaker 3 pencil pouches for the students.

Speaker 1 So what are you talking about spending?

Speaker 3 I need paper, hand sanitizers, folders, and journals.

Speaker 1 What are you talking about spending?

Speaker 3 I'm thinking I need about $200.

Speaker 2 What type of business do you have? What's the nature of it?

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 in the evenings, I run an escape room,

Speaker 3 but I have to sell it according to the divorce decree. I have to sell it so I could pay

Speaker 3 back some of the equity that I owe to my soon-to-be ex-husband.

Speaker 2 Do you take a you take you take a payroll from the business?

Speaker 3 I don't. It doesn't make enough money, so I just I run it

Speaker 3 and then like it pays for

Speaker 1 $200 changes your life, you have other problems.

Speaker 3 Well, right now,

Speaker 3 I just I'm out I'm barely finished baby step number one. I've been using your Every Dollar app.

Speaker 1 If you have to choose between you eating and buying your children hand sanitizer you eat

Speaker 3 okay I get that.

Speaker 1 Okay and so if you you know you if you're down to nothing if you have no money and $200 is a huge amount to you Where you get it from doesn't matter. It's where you spend it that matters.

Speaker 1 You don't have the option to be this generous to these students Contact a local church and ask them to help you if they've got some journals laying around and maybe they've got some hand sanitizer they can give you from the children's ministry and help you fund this, help you get the thing set up without you spending the $200 at Target.

Speaker 1 And, you know, let's go that route because it sounds like this $200 is a lot of money to you. Yeah.
And you need to work on the other side of that, and that's the overall income.

Speaker 1 I think I'm tutoring instead of running a game.

Speaker 1 Today's question of the day is brought to you by Why

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Speaker 1 That's the letter Y R E F Y dot com slash Ramsey might not be in all states.

Speaker 2 All right, today's question comes from Nora in Pennsylvania. She says, I've been married for almost 30 years and my husband and I have adult children.
My husband runs his mother's family business.

Speaker 2 He will inherit the business when she passes, but he says that the business is not going to be mine if anything happens to him.

Speaker 2 He says his will is going to state that our children will get the business and that he will not be providing for me.

Speaker 2 Oof, I've explained to him how upsetting this is and that I shouldn't have to go to my children for help when it is his responsibility to care for me. I live on a fixed income,

Speaker 2 my adult life as a stay-at-home mom. What can I do to protect myself legally?

Speaker 1 Wow. You can't.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 you have a marriage problem.

Speaker 2 My goodness.

Speaker 1 You don't have a legal problem. You're married to a jerk.

Speaker 1 And that's a problem.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I thought this question was going in one direction

Speaker 1 and went off into the ditch. It sure did.
Yeah. So, honey, you need to go see a marriage counselor, and he's not going to go with you because he's right about everything.

Speaker 1 He doesn't need any help if you ask him. And, of course, everybody else listening to this knows he's the one that needs the help.

Speaker 1 But you need to go to the marriage counselor, and the marriage counselor is going to explain to you that your marriage is over

Speaker 1 if you don't get some serious work done on it.

Speaker 1 That rattling you're hearing under the hood means the engine's about to blow, kiddo.

Speaker 1 And this does not describe a loving home where the husband is gentle, kind, and serves his wife.

Speaker 1 I didn't hear anything like that in here. Oh, no.

Speaker 1 So sad. Nora, I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 But yeah, you need to go see a marriage counselor today. Tell him that he ought to go with you, but he won't.

Speaker 1 And then the marriage counselor will give you words to speak to him that lead to either him coming to the table or the end of your marriage. You can't go forward with this.

Speaker 1 And after 30 years, he still chooses his mommy. Wow.

Speaker 1 After 30 years, he's still a mama's boy.

Speaker 1 Old men that are mama's boy are kind of pitiful. Ah, that's the worst.
Mama's boys are pitiful, period, after four years old. But old men, mama's boys, seriously pitiful.

Speaker 2 And he's going to be one even after she's gone.

Speaker 1 That means this guy is in his 50s. Yeah.

Speaker 1 He's an old man, mama's boy. You can title the thumbnail on YouTube.
Old man's boy. Old man, mama's boy.
There you go.

Speaker 2 I thought she was going to say something.

Speaker 2 As I was reading it, I thought, okay, this is his mom's family business. It's going to pass to the children.
Maybe she didn't want to run the business. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 Because there's part of that where it's like, I don't want this responsibility, but that took a hard left turn. Ooh, gracious.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, mamas, don't let your boys become

Speaker 2 leave and cleave.

Speaker 1 Choose carefully, my darling. Choose carefully.
Choose a man who loves his mother from a distance.

Speaker 1 This is who you guys are. That's right.
Mom, I love you. Over there.

Speaker 2 Listen, I say that, but when the day comes when my son gets old enough where he has to go over there,

Speaker 1 it's sad. I think it's one of the hardest child developmental things I've ever witnessed.

Speaker 1 As we raised kids, girls separate from their mom, but boys, when boys stay right there until they separate, when they separate, it's brutal.

Speaker 1 And it usually comes somewhere around 16 or 17 years old for people that become men. Oh, man.
But boys who are mama's a boy at 50, they never did cut the cord.

Speaker 1 And so they're still tugging on her apron strings. Mommy, mommy, mommy, I I want the business, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy.
Would you take care of mommy? Mommy, I want to make sure you love me, mommy.

Speaker 1 Oh, brother, I think I'm going to puke. Oh, gosh.

Speaker 1 No, I want to do that. We do have a manhood crisis in this country for sure.
Wow. I mean, this is not masculinity.
It's not toxic masculinity. It's just a child.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and a controlling child. A very controlling jerk of a child.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Goodness gracious.

Speaker 1 And And here's the thing,

Speaker 1 Nora's husband, if you happen to end up listening to this, if you're not who she says you are,

Speaker 1 you need to understand how screwed up your marriage is that your wife wrote this letter to a nationally syndicated show that has hundreds of millions of people downloaded every month.

Speaker 1 So if you're not this and she sent this in, you got stuff going on, dude. So you still deserve bus tracks over your butt.
So we threw you right in front of the bus still.

Speaker 1 That's what happened.

Speaker 2 Maybe he'll write in a letter next.

Speaker 1 I hope so. I wish he would just come on the air and let us talk to him.
How fun would that be? That would be compelling podcast material. Oh, man.

Speaker 1 Wow. Ouch.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's this is a here's what's interesting.

Speaker 1 The number one

Speaker 1 thing that will keep you from building wealth

Speaker 1 is screwed up relationships.

Speaker 2 That's so true.

Speaker 1 When you can't handle screwed up relationships and put reasonable, gentle, kind, strong boundaries in place and keep the screwed up people at a distance and the right people up close and you can't function with other humans, you're going to struggle building wealth.

Speaker 1 Period.

Speaker 1 This is the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 1 Jade Washall Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. Nathan's in Philadelphia.
Hi, Nathan. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 3 Hey, Jade, thanks for taking my call. I've been listening to your show for a while.
I never thought I'd have to call in, but life kind of threw me a curveball.

Speaker 1 Okay, cool. How can we help?

Speaker 3 So I have started dating a girl, and I have found out recently that she is close to $150,000 in student debt

Speaker 3 for a doctorate degree that she does have, and she's been working for a year with that.

Speaker 1 A doctorate degree on what?

Speaker 3 Physical therapy.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Okay. So she's got a PhD and she's a PT.
Okay.

Speaker 3 Correct.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 So I don't have any debt. I've been kind of proud of that.
And I've been finding that as I'm going through this relationship, that that's been a big deal for me, I think.

Speaker 3 So I'm just trying to figure out how much do I factor that into the way I, I guess, pursue this relationship. And then, two, how do I talk to her? about it.

Speaker 2 Have you asked her what her philosophy on debt is going forward?

Speaker 2 Does she plan to utilize more debt? That sort of thing?

Speaker 3 I think that I've made my position somewhat clear as far as I don't like debt. So I haven't straight up asked her how she feels about it going forward.

Speaker 2 If I were you, if I were you, this is just what I would do. I'd want to do a little bit of undercover detective work.

Speaker 2 So I'd probably ask her a little bit more about her views before I reviewed all of my views because I would not want her to say something

Speaker 2 to appease me.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I'd want her to I'd want to know the full business and then I'd say, well, here's the way I feel, you know, and then see where the conversation goes from there.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 2 How long have you been dating?

Speaker 3 About four months.

Speaker 2 What do you think? She might be the one.

Speaker 3 It's a little early.

Speaker 3 No, I like her. I feel like her relationship outside of this has been really good and I've appreciated getting to know her.
But that's one thing I feel like it's really taking a lot of my,

Speaker 3 it's been adding stress to my life just thinking about even claiming my debt yet. So like I'm trying to figure out if I'm overreacting.

Speaker 3 Because I think, I mean, with our combined income, assuming, you know,

Speaker 1 I'm a lion, obviously, a lot of things will have to happen.

Speaker 2 I wouldn't not continue a relationship with somebody because they had debt, but I would not continue with a relationship with someone if they had an opposing view from that point going forward.

Speaker 1 Okay. Yeah, like if she said, oh, I hate this,

Speaker 1 if we ever got together and we're married, we would throw everything at it and get it done. Like that guy does on the radio.
I'd want to do it that way.

Speaker 1 If she said something like that, she's a keeper, dude.

Speaker 1 But if she says, oh, no, I plan to keep this debt and pass it to my grandchildren,

Speaker 1 I think debt is wonderful. Then she ain't for you.

Speaker 3 I think her expectations of how much, how quickly she can pay this off is different than reality, just based off of what

Speaker 1 different.

Speaker 1 That's different.

Speaker 1 The expectations are just information. Uh-huh.

Speaker 2 And that's a big point of this. You know, what Dave said is so true.
A lot of this is information.

Speaker 2 You got information at some point that informed you that debt's a bad idea, living in debt, you know, continuing to go into debt is a bad idea. That's information she may not have come across yet.

Speaker 2 And the way our culture is, it's just telling you car loan, student loan. That's the way.

Speaker 2 So if she, if she comes in contact with the same information that you've got that led to your life change, let her, you know,

Speaker 2 have that moment as well.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 that has to do with all of it, not just the death.

Speaker 1 I think what Jade's saying, and I think, Jade, I thought that was really wise. Ask a lot of questions, don't make a lot of statements.

Speaker 1 And just fish around a little bit. And then,

Speaker 1 you know, you can kind of open it up. Because honestly, what you're trying to ascertain, I think, we think is not whether she has $150,000 in debt.
Is that a deal killer?

Speaker 1 That is not a deal killer, we think.

Speaker 1 But what is a deal killer is someone who's going to mishandle money and be chaotic and stay in debt the rest of their life. That makes for, especially for someone like you.

Speaker 1 You've told me like six times how you hate debt and this has got you stressed out. Can you imagine a whole life of being that stressed the rest of your life? No, you're not marrying that woman.

Speaker 1 That's a hell on earth. That'd be awful, especially for you.

Speaker 1 Now, if someone loves debt and they think just like her, then they can get married and they'd be just fine in their chaos.

Speaker 1 But, you know, so being in agreement and being aligned on money is the number one cause of divorce and so the inverse of that is true it's the number one area of happiness for couples that stay together Because when you agree on money, you are agreeing on your value system.

Speaker 1 Jesus said your treasure is where your heart is. You're agreeing on your dreams.
You're agreeing on your fears. You're agreeing on what stresses you out and what doesn't.
And these things matter.

Speaker 1 Even if you're a spender versus a saver,

Speaker 1 you can still be aligned on the values of the subject. And I think that's what you've got to fish out.

Speaker 1 But you need to run like your hair is on fire if this lady intends to stay in debt the rest of her life and she thinks this is wonderful because it will destroy you, Nathan, especially you, because of the way you outline this whole thing on the air.

Speaker 1 Yeah. That's a big deal.

Speaker 2 That's a good differential between

Speaker 2 the philosophy of how you view money in debt versus just personality characteristics. Like

Speaker 2 I tend to be a saver or I tend to be a spender. But if the philosophy at the core is the same, but we still avoid debt and we still don't go into debt, then you're okay.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So, Nathan, if you said,

Speaker 1 we would say that someone who said

Speaker 1 along those lines,

Speaker 1 okay,

Speaker 1 I'm not going to date anybody who has debt. So if you want to keep dating me, you got to get out of debt.
I would call you a Pharisee. Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's not the right thing.

Speaker 1 You know, but and you know, you made this mess, you figure it out. Well, then I wouldn't want my daughter to marry you.
Right. I agree.

Speaker 1 But we did teach our kids that they weren't going to marry anybody who is perfect and that they aren't, by the way, because they learned early on in the Ramsey house that the axis of the world does not run through the top of their little head.

Speaker 1 And so the inmates don't run the asylum. That's not how it works at our place.
So

Speaker 1 even when the grands come to visit Papa Dave, we still have a certain level of reasonableness in the house. So and

Speaker 1 yeah, yeah. And so that's not, there's nothing wrong with that.
That's a good, so you want to be aligned on where we're going

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 why we're going there. Absolutely.
That's the big thing, the going forward. You're looking into the future and and

Speaker 1 you know, so you, you know, in a sense, There's a lot of things that we do in our lives that are that way, like a job interview.

Speaker 1 Are you a cultural fit? Right. And you align with the values of that organization and what they're trying to accomplish.

Speaker 1 If they run perpendicular to who you are, then in 20 minutes after you get there, you're going to be going, oh, this is a toxic workplace.

Speaker 2 Well, yeah, it does you.

Speaker 1 It's not toxic. You just joined a group that don't think like you joined.

Speaker 2 It does you no favors to change your answer in order to get the thing.

Speaker 1 Exactly.

Speaker 1 So then you're just going to be

Speaker 1 like you said, set somebody up to change their answer

Speaker 1 to get you. That's right.

Speaker 1 That's a bad thing hey guys big announcement right now everybody tune in hold your breath listen listen listen listen listen turn up your radio turn up your podcast listen we're changing things at the ramsey show

Speaker 1 oh my gosh they're changing yes so this show is a three-hour talk radio show when you guys get it on a podcast without the commercials it's about 38 minutes or 39 minutes or whatever.

Speaker 1 And same thing on YouTube, right? And there's tens of millions of you on all these different formats, literally.

Speaker 1 So the third hour, the third segment of the talk radio show that is on podcast and on YouTube and all that kind of stuff, the third hour starting today is now going to be on the Ramsey Network app for free.

Speaker 1 You could consider it like the after-show or something.

Speaker 1 So the only thing it costs you is your email.

Speaker 1 Okay, so jump on and download the Ramsey Network app in the App Store or Google Play, and you can get the the third hour of the YouTube or the third segment of the YouTube, whatever we want to call it.

Speaker 1 I still think in hours because the whole thing started on talk radio, right? And the third, it's three hours I'm sitting here, Jade and I are sitting here doing this with commercials and everything.

Speaker 1 Okay, so anyway, third segment on YouTube and all podcasts is now on the Ramsey Network app as of today.

Speaker 1 It's completely free.

Speaker 1 But the podcast folks are, the podcast world is wanting our show to be shorter. So it is just now, started right now.
Okay.

Speaker 1 And those of you in talk radio, you're going to get what you've always gotten. Okay.
We're not changing a thing.

Speaker 1 So if your station carries all three hours of the Ramsey show, then you get all three hours. We're not turning nothing off there.
Okay.

Speaker 1 But the apps, you're going to the Ramsey Network app in the app store. It's completely free.

Speaker 1 It's going to be great because there's a bunch of other stuff that's in the app that we built, like searchable. Very good.

Speaker 1 So you can search a whole subject and get all the calls around leasing a car or all the calls around the debt snowball. It's a cool app.
So it's completely free. Ramsey Network app.

Speaker 1 You're going to still get everything you've always gotten. Check it out.