Do the Right Thing Even When It’s Hard

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From the Ramsey Network in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio, this is the Ramsey Show.

I'm Rachel Cruz, hosting this hour with my good friend and best-selling author, Dr.

John DeLor.

What up?

And if you want to give us a call at 888-825-5225, we are taking your calls about life and money.

First up, we have Sarah in New Jersey.

Hey, Sarah, welcome to the show.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

I appreciate it.

Absolutely.

How can we help today?

Okay, so my dad passed away a few months ago, which hallelujah.

He's with the Lord.

And my oldest brother has power of attorney.

He's had it for years.

He's the executor and the trustee.

He said that there is basically nothing left to inherit.

And my other brother and I know differently.

So we want to know, is there anything that we can do to try to

recoup what dad wanted us and our children to have?

Yeah, I actually just talked to some people who've experienced something similar.

And yes, but it's going to require getting law enforcement involved.

Okay.

Sarah,

how do you know that there's something else?

Was there another document?

Was it just what he told you verbally?

Or how do you know something else is there?

Right.

In 2017, I saw a document, an investment document, and dad had at least $250,000 in an estate.

Okay.

And then between his pension and Social Security, he would have added minimally

another $250,000.

We're thinking more like $3,000 to $4,000, $100,000

over the last seven years.

Okay.

And when he passed away, did he have any liabilities?

Did he have debt?

No.

He was completely debt-free.

How about the home?

He lived, no, that was my brother's home.

Oh, so he lived with your brother?

Right.

Okay.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Yes.

He lived with my brother.

He and my mom lived with my brother for seven years.

Okay.

So is there a chance that your brother decided that this is what he was owed for having taken care of him or trying to backpay himself or something?

No, because my dad paid him rent every month.

Okay.

Have you seen the will?

Yes, I had to go one to the county and actually get my own copy.

And we did not know that there was a trust, except that we finally saw in the will that there was a trust.

And the only money he put in the trust was the account with about $30,000.

Because I think most of my dad's other money was basically cash in his accounts.

So, you know, my bigger concern here is

your thinking, to Rachel's point.

It's like 2017, you saw this.

Who knows if your dad and your brother thought it was a good idea in 2019 to move everything into crypto and he lost it all?

Who knows?

Oh, no, no, he did not.

I know you think he didn't, but I'm telling you right now, when documents come out and families sit down around the table, there's always, that's why Dave Ramsey for years have been saying,

Let everybody in your family know on a regular basis what the status of stuff is.

Right.

Because people think and they assume, and you probably, if you're like me, have already spent your, what you think the number is minus your third.

In your head, you've already allocated that, and now it feels even more, right?

Oh, you haven't?

I do that all the time, man.

No, because I've dealt with my brother for 10 years.

Okay, so what's your brother saying to you, Sarah?

When you and your other brother come to him and say, hey,

where's our inheritance from dad?

What does he say?

Well,

he told my other brother that in 2021 that dad gave him money for his divorce settlement and to pay his attorney.

And that and my brother said, where's the rest of the money?

And he goes, oh, dad said I could just have the rest.

Yeah, so you're going to have to get, you're going to have to call a non-emergency line and let them know.

And they may direct you back to the courthouse.

They may send out a, because here's what it is.

It's theft.

Oh, oh, yeah, I know.

I know, but think about think about it this way.

It's as though he stole a bicycle from you.

Right, right.

But he stole money.

And it's right.

You're going to have to go sit down and they're going to do some sort of forensic accounting and somebody's going to have to get on the case and it's going to take weeks and or months or whatever, but they're going to have to go through it all and figure out where that money actually is.

Right.

Okay.

So you think we need.

Okay.

Well, and I think we asked you that, Sarah, we did ask you this, but I can't remember what I'm sorry, what you said.

Yeah.

You have seen the will, correct?

Oh, yes.

I've seen the will.

And what is supposed to be owed to you?

What does it say on the will?

The will says that it's supposed to be split between the three of us.

Okay.

Okay.

The total amount of what was.

So yeah, so what you're going to have to do is figure out what the total was at his death, everything.

And since there is no death, there's nothing else to pay.

So it would be that total.

Right.

And you have not seen that, correct?

No.

Oh, no.

Because he's supposed to, of course, give us an accounting and he has not done that.

Yeah.

And usually they have two years to do something like that.

I mean, every state's different.

The folks I was talking to, there was two years, and it was to settle the account, right?

To sell all the assets and then divvy them up and all that kind of stuff.

Right.

Yeah.

But he, now the will is a pour-over will, so everything is supposed to go in the trust.

And the trust says that he's supposed to get half of it, and then the rest is split between the two of us.

Do you guys have an attorney that's working with you?

Well,

that's where we're going from this point, whether we need to get an attorney or do we go right to the police.

You know what?

Yeah, do that that first.

Rachel, you're right.

Don't call local sheriff's office yet.

Go get an attorney and let them know what you're working through.

Yeah, you'll pay them some, you know, retainer up front to be able to go through everything.

That's the right move.

That's the right move.

Yeah.

But yeah, so I mean, and is this in character for your brother?

Like, is this not shocking?

Is this shocking to you?

Are you thinking, like, oh my gosh, or is it like, oh, no, I'm not shocked that he's doing this?

No, it's not shocking to me.

I realized many years ago he's a narcissist.

But unfortunately, my other brother was was devastated that he would do this to us and he said

um what kind of a christian man is he to do this to dad and and you know our families yeah so that's you know because he professes to be a christian well and we got we have to you have to put that stuff aside and yeah i would get an attorney to file file a legal motion to give you access to the to the to give a full accounting of of accounting yeah of everything

yeah and and and my prayer is sarah that yeah this all gets worked out and there is is close to half a million in there, you know, and your dad's legacy lives on.

But but also the cynical side of us that sit in this chair and we hear every story imaginable.

To John's point earlier, I mean, leave a little bit of a

realistic idea to Sarah that who knows, like you may get into this and think, oh my gosh, this whole story that I made up in my head of what I thought actually isn't even reality.

Yeah, he may show you the receipts and say, hey, there was no money in that account.

I don't know what you saw, but there's nothing there.

Or it will say this account was liquidated on this date and that money was deposited in this account, right?

So it's easy.

It's an easy trail to follow.

Yeah, for sure.

There should be a good pay-per-trail for it.

And by the way, maybe telling your brother, hey, here's the deal.

We know there's money in an account.

We're about to hire an attorney.

This is going to become a criminal matter.

You can do what's right.

Yeah, it's illegal what he's doing.

Exactly.

Or we're going to go down this road.

You're going to end up in jail for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Right.

Yeah.

That's what, I mean, because my brother and I have discussed all these different things.

I know.

Can I tell you this?

Stop talking about it.

Go act.

Y'all are making yourselves crazy.

That's why I called you because I thought before we act, I want to call you and see what kind of advice, you know.

And that's that's kind of what we've been thinking.

Yeah, no more stories, no more like, can you believe?

I thought it was a Christian.

We're not doing any of that.

We're just going to call the attorney before the day is over.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

No, absolutely right.

Oh, Sarah, I'm so sorry.

I'm sorry for the passing of your dad.

And that money

caught up in relationships and families.

It does, it absolutely.

So, Sarah, I'm really

sorry for you guys, and I hope you get clarity.

I hope you get the answers that you're looking for for sure.

So, thanks for calling.

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Up next, we have Matthew in Pennsylvania.

Hey, Matthew, welcome to the show.

Hey, guys.

How's it going?

We're doing well.

How are you?

I am doing so great right now.

So great.

Fantastic.

I'm so glad.

What's up?

Yeah.

First of all, sorry if I sound like very overhyped.

I just love you guys so much.

I've heard about you guys so much.

I've seen so many of your videos, and I'm a big, big fan.

So this is just a true blessing.

It really is.

Dude, we love it.

We have to hang out with George Campbell backstage, and he's such a downer.

So it's good to hear somebody that's like positive, man.

It's great.

Oh, man.

I love George Camel too, but I love Dave and, you know, Jade also.

Like, they will tell it straight up.

That is true.

Seriously.

Yeah.

Rachel are too nice.

So what's up, dude?

How can we help?

Awesome.

So

this is a two-part question for me.

I am 26 years old and

I've had some thoughts about,

you know, potentially dating again i did i was in a relationship but um i moved off that a year or so ago but you know going forward in my next relationship i just wanted to know like

how do i deal with the relationship and also like financials also you know how do i ask the question how do you feel about debt and when should i ask that question first date dude first i'm just totally kidding don't do that don't do that pathy's like can i really see your tax returns to know there's ramsey weirdos and then there's those that ask about debt on the first date.

Don't be that person.

I mean, I don't know.

John's the relationship expert, but I would think, Matthew, you know, as you're dating someone, important conversations hopefully are being had in general, right?

Learning about the person, understanding them.

You're hearing about their family, their likes, their dislikes, what they think about spirituality.

You know, what do they value around money?

I don't know.

I see it always, you know, people ask this question for me.

And again, maybe it's because I talk about money all the time, so I'm super comfortable with it.

But to me, it's just part of building a relationship.

It's a part of a person.

And as you get to know that person, you're going to know and ask questions and be curious about that part of their life in general as you're dating.

And to John's point, it's not usually on the first date.

But if you continue to go on dates, you know, I mean, it's like, what are you talking about?

You know, we should be talking, having a good conversation, right?

Of getting to know the person.

And that's just part of a person.

I'll say this too, Matthew.

This is something I learned and I was surprised by it.

When I was doing my counseling practice coming back in graduate school, I remember being caught off guard by clients would come in and tell me literally everything.

They would tell me about their sex intimacy lives on session one.

They would tell me about traumas.

They would tell me about everything in their life.

And if I ever asked them, hey, how much money are you making?

What's your financial situation?

How much do you owe other people?

Nothing.

They wouldn't have that conversation.

And so it is a such a, our culture has turned it into such a binary, you're a winner or you're a loser based on this number.

And so it is, for people like me and Rachel, we just kind of talk about everything all the time.

Can I?

But it's a sensitive question.

Yes.

Okay.

So you're saying more, though, John, in like what you have, what you don't have, your number, all of that.

But...

I mean, I don't know, but when it comes to values of like, oh, hey, because he's asking, you know, about debt or like, you know, different things, it's not necessarily about what they have.

Now, if you get into those numbers, which you need to, that can probably feel more personal.

But from a values conversation, do you think it still is like touchy?

No,

I think to, let me put it this way.

I would not not date somebody because they owed money.

I wouldn't not marry somebody because they were in debt.

If they said, I have student loans.

I'm never paying these back.

I think that's stupid.

I don't care about any of that kind of stuff.

Then we're going to talk about values, right?

But I think there's an entry point into, so dude, tell me about your job.

Are you successful?

Do you like where you are?

What are your dreams for yourself?

That turns into, well, I owe this much money.

Like, oh, gosh, how quick are you going to pay that stuff off?

And it can be a fun,

inquisitive, curious conversation.

And then if that person says, I'm never doing that, you can be like, oh, I'm one of those Dave Ramsey crazy people.

What's that?

And you can kind of talk through that.

I don't like owing anybody anything.

And that's a way to get into a values-laden conversation.

My fear is always that people who are raised,

who come from Ramsey households or who discover this thing and get so passionate about the freedom they feel.

That's the first thing to talk about.

It's like, hey, do you, do you know, do you, are you getting out of debt?

What's your what baby step are you on?

And they're like, what are you talking about?

And so I don't want you to sit down with a person you've gone on one, two, or three dates with and be like, all right, how much money do you make?

And begin going through like George Camill or Rachel Critique.

Are you going after the match with your 401k full?

Right.

Are you funding your 401k fully?

Like those questions would be bananas in the first or second.

It'd be like saying, hey, tell me about your ex-boyfriend.

What were your three favorite things and your three things you hated, the worst of like you wouldn't do that, right?

But there's ways to get to some of those answers as you're learning about each other.

And yes, it will naturally come up, but particularly focus on the values part of this conversation.

And then when you start thinking about like, I think this person maybe is the one, then you start getting into the nitty-gritty of like, hey, we're talking about merging households and budgets.

And I don't want to marry somebody if we're not going to share a checking account.

Like that's when you start having those deeper, more like,

are we doing this or not?

Conversations.

Matthew, you said you want to jump back into the dating pool.

Did you find that money was a barrier

in past relationships at all?

Or you're kind of newer to this and you're thinking, okay, how do I navigate that part of my life with this new knowledge of how to handle money?

Well, I've listened to you guys for some time now and I've heard a bunch of stories about how, oh, one couple started dating, but then it didn't go the way they wanted just because of financials, or like how one how a couple got married, you know, but then like one's a spender, one's a saver, or the other way around, and it just turned into some sort of a nightmare.

Well, that's gonna be every relationship,

every relationship is gonna have people that bring different strengths.

I'm a spender,

and my wife is a planner and a saver.

And if I owe money, I can't sleep at night.

A mortgage doesn't bother my wife at all, not even a little bit.

And so when we sit down, I know that I'm a spender, she's a saver.

I know that debt makes me clinically nutty and it makes her, it doesn't, it doesn't bother her.

And so we're bringing both of our uses to the table to say, as for us, the household that we're building, who are we going to become?

My wife knows she married somebody that just doesn't want to owe anybody anything.

Great.

Okay, cool.

I know that I married somebody that is going to say, hey, we made a plan.

Let's stick to this plan.

And I'm glad I have that accountability.

So if you're trying to find someone who saves just like you save,

you're destined for a pretty boring life.

But you want to have somebody that has the same values as you do.

Yeah.

That's really important, Matthew, because, yes, some of the calls we get on this show, to your point, there have been, you know, extreme circumstances that are heartbreaking that, you know, whether it's financial infidelity or one spouse just continues to spend and is not saving at all for retirement.

And the other spouse feels like, oh my gosh, I'm not safe here because I don't feel like we're going to have any money.

And like all of those, again, are

the product of other things happening underneath the surface that they never really address to begin with.

So I do think it's really important

that you are putting weight to this subject in life because it can make or break a relationship 100%.

But what John's saying too, make sure not to get legalistic in the sense of, because I, and I'm like, John, I'm a spender, Winston's a saver.

Winston has the Excels and the Excel sheets and the five-year visions and the tech.

I mean, this, you know, the Excel sells with the formulas and it's crazy.

Like, I'm like, okay, that's great.

I don't, I don't want to look at that.

I get a migraine.

Like, no, thank you.

It's fine.

But again, our values and where we're going as a couple in a family are exactly aligned.

But how we're doing it may be from our habits or the way we look at money may be a little different, but it's not detrimental.

It's just who we are.

And you don't want to lose that either.

You don't want to lose who you are because that's the beautiful part of a marriage is you both bring yourself.

But again, it's the deeper conversation of the values, Matthew.

Here's the way I'll say this: there's a difference between values and beliefs.

That's good.

People who are married have to share values, but you want your beliefs to be different.

I don't want to read, it helps if they're lined up.

That's great and cool.

It makes things less volatile.

But the reason I read new books is try to learn new things.

So I have a belief about something and I get to change my belief.

That's why you listen to this podcast.

That's why you have friends.

You read parenting books.

I believe this.

I don't believe that.

But our value is we're always going to talk to each other before we make a decision.

We're a family who believes in this.

We're a family who, you see what I'm saying?

So identify those values.

And when you're dating somebody, you want somebody that's aligned on values.

But when it comes to beliefs, I'm of the opinion that the more fun, the more varied the beliefs, the more fun you can have if you're both anchored into the same values.

And that leads to a richer, fuller, more adventurous, and more wisdom-filled marriage.

Okay, so thank you for that.

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All right, next we have isaac in virginia hey isaac welcome to the show

hey how y'all doing hi we're doing great how can we help

so my wife and i inherited my grandparents house on our family farm and

we've looked into renovations and stuff for it and we're running into issues of it just going to cost so much to renovate and do an addition we can do a new house cheaper

and so we're like okay we'll fix it up a little bit rent it out and we're running into problems with um

i guess family wanting us to know don't build a new house and not wanting more houses on the property i guess what would the advice be as far as moving forward there do we push to do the right financial thing or do we just tear it down and build a new one on the same spot

anytime a family anytime a i i'm saying of a couple i would say a person too but you and your you and your and your wife right anytime you feel like you are hemmed in with an either either-or

decision, do we either make a foolish financial decision or spend more money than we can afford right now to do a thing to keep family happy, or we

blow everything up?

And I always want folks to back up out of that either-or situation and artificially put three, five, ten other variables on the table.

Just to go through the exercise of we're not trapped in this one or that one.

Very few decisions are either or.

Okay.

And there's always more context there.

My first question for you is,

did your grandmother, did your grandfather, did they let you know, hey, we want you to have this land and this house?

Okay, tell me about that conversation.

They didn't want us to buy a house, what, like 13 years ago when we bought the house we're in because they were sure they were going to die really soon.

Okay.

And so they said like, we want this to be y'all's, right?

Yep.

Okay.

And what did you want?

Well, that's where we always wanted to be, but like five years ago, for $300,000, we could have renovations and additions.

We could have a dream house.

Now you're looking at $600,000 to $700,000.

Right.

Which

we could afford, but it's just, to us, it's just foolish.

It's not like our

income hasn't grown as much as housing price should have.

Right, right.

So, how is your family chirping in on this?

So, well, in order to build a new house still on the property i would have to put it on land that i own 50 50 with my father

that's and he's he's had a rough year

um

he my mom left after 42 years and so he's he never liked being pushed on anything before and uh he really doesn't want to be pushed now so you if we're honest another variable on the table is you don't really have this option yet

i don't have that option but and then it's like, well, we're going to tear it down maybe and build a new one because I can build a new one cheaper than I can renovate or do it.

Change square footage and finishes.

I can build a brand new house and not have any compromises.

You could, but if the co-owner of that lands, there's no, you can't.

Well, no, the house, the house as it is, I own outright.

Okay.

You're saying if you keep it, rent it out and built a new one, then where the new one is.

That was

okay.

Okay.

But now we're to the point of just tearing it down and building a new one on the same site.

So could option three or five or 10 or whatever, wherever we are, could it be to do nothing for one year and just relax for a second?

Let your dad heal a little bit,

let the smoke clear a little bit.

Maybe.

Because it feels like there's this impulse.

We got to do something.

We got to do something.

We got to do something.

And you really don't.

Yeah,

we don't have to.

We're just kind of drowning where we are.

And I don't live on the farm as it is now.

And so, like, my life, my kids' life, our overall family life would be better.

Isaac, do you want to live in that house in general?

Like, do you want to move on family property?

So you do.

So the idea of being in that house, if it was a dream house, that's great.

You guys are all good with that.

Yeah, it doesn't have to be

a house.

You want to be on the farm.

Okay.

And we like the house as it is with the plans we have for the addition and stuff.

It's not

like a Nick Mansion.

Could you live in it for two years?

Yeah.

Is it livable?

Could you just live in it for two years?

Yes, you could.

You'd have to upgrade the flooring.

We've already started doing some demo.

I mean, if you did paint and carpet, could you live in it?

Like, plumbing-wise, all of that.

Okay.

So, what I would probably do, if that's where you guys want to be,

we just are worried we'd never do anything if we did that.

Yeah, but that's a few, that's a that's that's a problem for future you, right?

Like, you're like, fix the carpet, make it livable.

You'll exhale and be like, all right, we're gonna do this for 24 months, and we're not gonna owe anybody anything.

We're gonna sell our house, get out from drying.

You'll actually probably make better decisions doing that

living in it than saying, Oh, let's just make the biggest, best thing we could ever do renovation-wise.

You'll probably end up saving money, honestly, once you're in it and saying, okay, what do we want?

But also, also, Isaac, like, this is always the sticky part when family gets involved with property and all of this, right?

Is that this was inherited to you and the land, right?

You own the land as well, correct?

I own the land the house is on.

And how many acres is the land that you have now that came from your grandparents?

I have 10 acres, but

it's the outbuilding.

It's just a partial design.

Yes, and no one else,

How big is the farm?

Where is everyone else living that's speaking into this decision with you?

My father lives next

60 yards away from my grandparents' house.

Okay, different plot of property, though, right?

I mean, he owns that.

That's what you're saying.

Who else is on the farm?

That's just us.

It's just us.

So then who's mad that you would tear it down and build something new?

My father.

Okay.

All right.

Well, there's the thing.

So I would move in for a month, or I mean, for a year, for two years.

Because here's the problems I'm hearing that you need to solve right away.

Right away, in the life you have right now, you're drowning.

You have a life raft right here.

It's not a boat, but it's a life raft.

It's a free house.

It's a free house.

Let's put five grand in it and paint it and get the flooring updated and maybe even get the kitchen counters redone.

And let's exhale for 24 months, one year, two years.

And then let's get dad.

Dad's in a season of deep grieving.

Who is he?

What's going on?

All that stuff.

Having you right there, having the grandkids around, that might give him some extra life.

And then y'all can begin talking bigger picture.

If it comes down to it in a year or two, you might say, Dad, this is mine.

I'm going to tear this down and build it.

And we're going to go rent a two-bedroom apartment until that day comes.

But my hope would be through a relationship, you don't get there.

But Rachel's right.

If you go run in right now with a dream, without having lived out there, without having just experienced the ups and the downs and the winter and the fucking.

I've done all that.

I mean, I grew up in my father's.

Okay, okay, okay, that's fair.

That's fair.

My whole life.

Yeah, yeah, no, I hear you.

So where are you guys financially, Isaac?

How much debt do you and your wife have?

I don't know the total.

We have a separate farm business.

But that's business.

Consumer debt.

Like, do you guys have credit cards, car loans?

Like, where are you guys at?

Oh, no, we have like two payments left on her car.

My truck's paid off.

We have our mortgage, basically, and I think she has a little bit of student loan, but I think it's going to be paid off by the the end of the year.

Okay, there's a lot of I thinks in there, Isaac.

So you guys,

how much financials?

But I do know her student loans are all but done, and we have two cars on this left on her flat.

Perfect.

How much do you guys have in savings?

Um,

less than yeah, before you go knocking anything down, you need to know the yeah, okay.

So I would be looking at savings, Isaac.

How much equity do you have in your home?

If you sold it right now versus what you owe, how much would you all walk away with?

Low side, like 125.

125.

Okay.

So I would, for you, for your sake, Isaac, you need to get your financial take in order.

You need to be able to write all of these numbers, you and your wife on the same page.

It's a great, if it's a house that you guys can live in, I would sell yours, go ahead and move in, and then from there, figure out, do we cash flow

renovations and or do we tear it down and build something with a reasonable mortgage?

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Up next, we have Cam in Ohio.

Hi, Cam.

Welcome to the show.

Hey, how are you guys?

Hi, we're doing well.

How can we help?

Hey, so I just feel like I'm always buried in debt, buried in stress, anxiety.

I had a pretty good job.

It's a sales job.

I netted about $140,000 last year.

My wife does her own thing, and she makes about $25,000 a year.

We have debt with main mortgage.

We owe about $276,000 $276,000 there.

I have a second mortgage that I owe about $130,000.

And then we have a truck loan for $18,000 and a car loan for $6,000.

All of our payments combined monthly are about $4,500 a month.

And I just want to know what the best way is to start getting out of debt and be less stressed.

I've made some mistakes financially in my life that I want to get out of.

And I just, I don't know what the best way to do it is.

I mean,

we have about $11,000 in our savings.

I dump $600 a month into my Roth IRA to max that out every year.

And I also pay $100 a month for life insurance for my wife and I.

And so I just, I don't know.

Can I tell you, Cam?

And I don't know what to do.

I want to tell you this before we turn over to Rachel.

She'll walk you through.

She'll give you 100% if you follow the path.

It'll work, okay?

But I want to tell you,

we take calls.

I've taken thousands of calls over the years.

There's a particular

tone that somebody, when they call in, that you can hear it in their voice, they're done.

They're done with the stress, they're done with anxiousness, and I can hear that in you.

And it fills me up with joy because I know I can give you a path out of this thing, okay?

You just have to be willing to surrender and say, what I've been doing is not working.

I make too much money

to

be this sick into my stomach all the time.

Are you in?

Yeah.

Yeah, I am in.

That's awesome, man.

Awesome.

That's great.

Kim, what is the second mortgage for?

Is that on your primary home, like a HELOC, or do you guys have a second property?

Yes, so it's on our primary home.

So we bought our home five years ago with a good interest rate.

We have a 2.8% interest rate on that.

But then it had an unfinished basement and needed a roof.

So I got a second mortgage to finish the basement and put a roof on it.

Okay.

And when did you guys do that?

How long ago?

A year ago.

Okay.

Okay.

So I would lump that mortgage, both mortgages into baby step six.

So our seven baby steps is really walking through how to get out of debt, get to a place where you're saving for retirement and paying off the mortgage.

So if the basically a HELOC, right, that you took out, you borrowed money on your house, if it's more than 50% of your income, we lump that into a second mortgage.

So what I'm going to be thinking through with you right now is the

car payments is really what you have.

I mean, it's about $24,000 in vehicle debt that you all have.

Now you have $11,000 in

savings, which is great.

You're funding $600 in retirement.

You're doing the, you know, you named off a couple of things, which are all

good things.

I would just reorder how you're doing them because you're trying to do 18 different things at once and you're not getting traction.

Is that right?

Is that how you feel?

Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

So what I would do, if I were you, I would pause all retirement, including the Roth, because you're putting $600 a month, is what you said, right?

To max it out, which is great.

But that's nice if you have $600 to give when you don't have all these payments, right?

So I would pause all retirement of what you guys are doing.

And do y'all have kids?

One.

Yes, we have.

You have one.

Okay.

And is your wife, is she home with

the kid?

Okay.

Well, she does, she works out of the house doing nails, but she likes to do stay-at-home moms.

Yeah, good for her.

Well, she's bringing in, yeah, some great money doing that.

That's awesome.

About two grand a month.

I mean, yeah, that's a great side hustle.

So if I woke up in your shoes, I would pause that retirement.

I would throw 10,000 of the 11,000, which is going to make you really nervous at the car.

So I'd pay off your truck today.

And then you would have $14,000 left on your truck.

Now, how much is the payment for the $6,000 car?

$250,000.

$250,000.

Okay.

So that frees up $250,000.

So even in this call, we just freed up close to $900 a month that you can now throw extra at

the truck, which you'll have, again, $13,000 left.

So I would work to pay this off completely.

And you guys make great money.

I mean, you're making $165,000.

So, I mean, I would do everything to get this paid off.

Gosh, to, I mean, maybe in the next six months or something, you know, to have an aggressive goal.

Because the faster you guys can do this and get some traction under you, the faster you're going to see some wins.

Because what's great is you freed up that $250 payment.

Once the truck's paid off, how much is that payment?

A month?

330.

330.

Okay.

So then you get to that point.

And what you're able to do then is go back or have some savings, go back and rebuild your savings after the truck after the cars are all paid off to about a three-month.

I would probably do three-month emergency, three to four-month for you guys.

And then you can press play back on retirement.

And then the big tackle then is going to be these mortgages.

and i would keep them separate for now because i'm assuming your four your first mortgage is going to have a better interest rates we're not too concerned about interest rates but on something like this um i probably wouldn't consolidate at this point i'd probably keep them separate and start paying off the 130 get that paid off and then the and then the 270.

so you kind of emotionally feel like you have four hundred dollar four hundred thousand dollars of a house to pay off in baby step six is what that's going to amount to

so with my with my savings at $11,000, I had like 20 the other day, but I was listening to you guys' show.

I took nine of it and I dumped it on our car to pay it off a little bit quicker.

But I also, about six months ago, picked up my real estate license.

And I have a couple deals right now that if I close on them, I'll be able to wipe my vehicle debt.

Oh, my gosh, amazing.

With that,

here's the thing.

Would you still deplete that 11 or 10?

Yes, yes, yes.

Get it done.

Yes.

Get out.

And here's two things I want you to feel, okay?

Number one, project out nine months to where you don't owe anybody anything okay yeah

to get there in that time frame it's going to be miserable no going out to eat y'all y'all eating whatever you got left in the fridge somebody going to to the grocery store and getting bare minimum at 730 at night after a long day of work like that's what you're signing up for it's going to be miserable and You continuing on this path for the next nine months is going to be miserable.

So what you're choosing is you're choosing your heart.

People like to think, like, I don't want to do this because that's too hard.

I'm just going to keep living my life, which is miserable.

And so, I'm going to choose my hard that's going to get me to where I want to go.

That's number one.

Number two, I want that anxiousness of we only have $1,000.

All we have is enough money in case one or two of our tires blows out with the cost of tires these days.

It is designed to be just take the edge off, like just the sharpest, dull that tip of that pointy knife of fear just a little bit and to fuel you.

Because I promise you, if you only have a thousand bucks, you're going to hustle

on those two real estate deals because you want that.

The moment you get those things paid off, you're going to start building back your emergency fund.

And then you're going to be your own credit card.

And that's what three months in an account, if you've got 20, 30 grand and you've done two deals and you were able to knock that out with that money.

I'm telling you, man, you will sleep.

You will laugh different in your house.

Your marriage will be different.

I mean, everything changes.

yeah and then you'll knock this

dude then knock out 10 real estate deals plus your income and you're out of your house in the next 36 months too you got like it becomes this snowball effect powerful small one cam do you guys do a detailed budget every month do you and your wife sit down and say here's exactly where the income's gonna go

We haven't.

I'm not surprised made a mistake because we started making really good money.

Yeah.

And I always told myself I wouldn't grow into it.

And then guess what?

I did it.

Bro, I've done the same thing.

All of us are there.

Lifestyle creep.

No, I know.

So seriously, Cam.

I mean, I think it'd be a really great exercise because you, I know how you feel.

Like John said, I can, I can hear it in your voice.

You feel out of control.

You're like, oh my gosh, like there's like our money's going everywhere.

I feel like there's no track, you know, all of it.

But I'm telling you, if you do a plan, if you guys sit down and do a monthly budget, we're going to give you every dollar for free for the next year.

Kelly will pick up when we're done with this call.

And what this is, it's not only a budgeting app, but it's going to be able to ask you about a 15-minute questionnaire at the beginning when you sign into the app.

And what it's going to do is it's going to give you all these recommendations and it's going to walk you through this whole process of what we've done on the phone, but it's going to extend, which is wonderful.

So, again, you just need a plan.

You guys need to sit down.

You need to live on nothing.

You need to live on nothing.

This is going to be a challenge for you, but it's going to be good for you and your wife to do.

Throw everything you guys have at these cars, get them paid off, throw everything at an emergency fund, get it built up.

And I'm telling you, Cam, you're going to feel different.

You're going to feel different, even just that.

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Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio.

And we have some breaking news.

We are so excited about this.

There is now a co-branded Ramsey and Fairwinds debit card that is now available on it.

It's got dead as normal, be weird.

So all of your purchases that you make.

They're putting the number up there.

Is it on the front?

Oh, no, it's on the front.

No, it's fine.

And I think it's a, I don't think it's like a, I don't know.

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Okay.

This isn't mine.

Yes, it is.

No, it's not.

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Mine's coming, I think, in the next like three business days.

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But the Fairwinds, yep.

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It's beautiful.

So great.

But Fairwinds is incredible, you guys.

It's a credit union that's partnered with Ramsey, and they want what we want for you, which is working the baby steps.

You want your financial partner, your bank, to be for you in this process of getting out of debt and saving.

And Fairwinds credit union does that.

So they are absolutely incredible.

We are so excited to partner with them and the new debit card, which will be, yeah, can I tell you what I love about the debit card?

Dave and I were talking about this.

I love this is a way to literally change the way servers and restaurant folks think of Ramsey folks and people who are getting out of debt.

I want it to be when they see that card, they know they're going to get so generously tipped.

Like a good tip, yeah.

Yeah, they're going to be like, oh, these are amazing people.

And it's a way to,

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And because we've been weird, we can honor you and take care of you in a pretty remarkable way.

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All right, let's go to Susan in Missouri.

She is up next.

Hey, Susan, welcome to the show.

How are you all doing today?

Hi, we're doing great.

How are you?

Oh, trudging through life right now.

Okay, what's going on?

A couple weeks ago, my husband asked me for a divorce.

Oh, gosh, Susan.

He's pretty serious about it.

Of course, I don't want it, but that's just how life is.

And right now,

we don't have any debt.

All our cars are paid off.

All of our

collections are paid off.

The only debt we have is our house.

Property's worth about $400,000.

We ever took a little bit.

And we only have $159,000 left on it.

We have about $84,000 in savings.

And he has a traditional pension, and I have a regular

401k.

Yep.

He started and said that he's not going to touch my 401k as long as I don't make a claim against his pension.

Whoa.

What?

Yeah.

How much is in your 401k?

About, right now, about $375,000.

Okay.

I put in 19%, and my company matches 12.

Okay.

Here's where I said, whoa.

He walked in unbeknownst to you and just said, I want to divorce.

I'm tired of being married to you.

And then started flexing on you.

If you don't do this, I won't do that.

Yeah,

there had been a couple signs coming up, and I saw them, and then we had a argument one night and it wasn't anything like serious.

And he said, I'm done.

And he left three weeks ago.

Man.

Well, before you start making handshake deals with him, I would sit down with your attorney to make sure this is all right and fair.

Because if you've been paying all the bills for twenty or thirty years and he was able to and his pension's worth seven million dollars or, you know what I mean?

Like if it like it may not be apples to apples.

Before you started shaking hands and saying, This is this is cool.

I won't do this, but you do that, sit down with an attorney.

That's one thing.

But right now, I'm more concerned about, you know, if you do get to that point, I want to save the house.

I want to stay in the house.

Okay.

What has he said about that?

With you guys, have you talked about that at all?

No, he's not returning any phone calls or speaking at this point.

So I can't even get to that point asking.

Yeah, but your goal is wanting to keep the house.

Right.

Okay.

And I've done some of the simple math as far as

the cash revenue and savings, selling off.

we've got some classic vehicles, selling them off.

And I've come to the realization that I would probably need about $50,000 to pay them off, to buy the whole property outright, but and still retain the loan,

the $159,000 loan.

The question is,

I do have that $375,000 in my 401k.

Would that be it?

I mean, that's the only place I could think to go to get that to pay him off.

Because taking out, you know, like a second mortgage wouldn't make sense because the first mortgage plus a second would be well above

what I could pay every month for mortgage payments.

So you're saying you wouldn't be able to afford the home without taking money out of your 401k?

Correct.

The mortgage right now is about $16.50 a month.

And I'm always trying to stay at the rule of

one-third of your income.

for your

housing.

Yeah, but

borrowing from your 401k in this situation, because all this is hypothetical right now, he may just sign the house over to you and be gone.

But if you had to write him a check for 50 grand, you taking that from your,

what I would, I'm going to tell you is not a humongous, it's not bad, but it's not a humongous 401k.

You're going to be taking that out at 30 or 40% interest.

It's like going to a bank and asking for a 40% loan.

You can do that.

Yeah, how old are you, Susan?

46.

Okay.

Yeah, no, I would not touch the 401k, Susan.

I would figure out a way within the equity and the payment plan back to him

if he's willing to negotiate.

And this will be probably your attorneys, I'm assuming, you know, doing a lot of this kind of mediation.

Yeah.

To figure out how you can keep the house and have a plan that's reasonable for your income.

But yeah, it would be, it would not, I could, I, I would not feel good to say, take money out of your 401k and be hit with that amount of fees and taxes and all of it because it's before 59 and a half.

And I will feel good about saying just don't.

Yeah, don't do that.

Yeah.

I would rather see you either if he walked out and say, okay, then I'm keeping the house.

And if he says, absolutely not, I want this and this and this,

at the very least, we're going to put this on a payment plan.

Cool, then I'll pay $400 a month for the next however many years.

And he probably won't even live that long, but $150,000 in cash, you just walked out of my life.

Yeah,

he absolutely wants his share of the house.

He's already.

Well, he's going to want a whole bunch of stuff, but he just left his wife.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so here's the thing.

When somebody files for a divorce, the day they file for divorce, it becomes a business transaction.

That's it.

And most people want to preserve the relationship.

Well, there's this, and I still want to be a...

It is a business transaction.

Yeah.

And it's heartbreaking.

And you have to be honest, by the way, you have to be really honest about, I know that this has blown your life to smithereens,

but if you can't afford the house payment plus the taxes, plus the taxes that are going to keep going up in your local area, if you can't afford the house, you can't afford the house.

And that's another layer of heartbreak.

The $1,650, well, I mean, it's going to go up to $1,750 because we just have an increase in our insurance.

But that is a doable number for me as far as being able to pay him.

Well, that's going to be the is that you can figure out a way to get

to be able to pay him what he needs and then figure out how to stay in the house and maybe do a lower payment plan and over and be able to pay him off fast.

You know, we want it.

We want you out of that.

I don't want you, I don't want you in that forever.

I know.

I'm being ridiculous.

No, yeah, no.

But the idea is: like, what can you do to be able to stay in?

And that's what I would fight for.

But I would not borrow from the 401k.

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Up next, we have Monica calling in from Georgia.

Hi, Monica.

Welcome to the show.

Hi, thanks for having me.

Yes, absolutely.

How can we help today?

I am set to get a large inheritance from a family trust, and I was advised to keep it separate from

my husband and keep it in a separate account and not spend it on anything that was

not like in my name.

Com-mingling it with your husband.

Are you guys about to be divorced?

No.

Okay.

Is he cheating on you?

No.

Do you love

me?

Are you happily married?

Who gave you this advice?

I'm fascinated to know.

An attorney.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And

to my friends that are attorneys, the people who come into their offices are dividing up assets or they're solving these ugly problems.

And so I understand that that comes from when all you see is problems, that it's easy to say, like, hey, here's a potential problem.

I get that.

But yeah, our philosophy is, yeah, is that you guys are one, you know, in every aspect.

So he gets an inheritance, you get an inheritance.

That means your household gets this money, not just you as an individual.

Again, unless there is something happening, you know, abuse, addiction, whatever it is, then there is a reason.

How much are you getting?

Anywhere from like one to three million.

Okay.

Yeah.

And the only

debt that we have combined is a mortgage on our home, but I'm not on the loan.

So it was advised for me not to pay off basically his loan.

Again, from an attorney.

Yes.

Okay.

So there's two schools of thinking, Monica, that happen in the financial space when it comes to marriages.

There's one extreme side, which sounds like what the attorney exactly would say, right?

That when you get married, you keep your assets.

Anything you build from the marriage on is yours.

It's all his.

Your paycheck is yours.

His paycheck is his.

His debt is his.

Your debt is yours.

You basically live like two.

You're basically.

College roommates.

Yeah.

Your roommates are like a business partner, right?

That

we are separate in this part of our life.

So that's one school of thinking.

Another school of thinking where we tend to lean or where, you know, I do, I know John does.

is that your marriage is bigger than a financial transaction.

Your marriage is saying that you and I are one in every aspect of our lives, and we are doing this life together.

That's why we chose to get married to share a life, which means we share parenting, we share household chores, we share our money, we share our expectations about sex, like whatever that is with inside the marriage.

Like we share these things because we are doing life together.

And when you do that, what ends up happening is there's a deeper level of unity and connection that's created because you see yourselves as one.

Like you see yourselves, you know, as I'm doing this life with you as a partner, and I'm not keeping this one part of my life separate because I don't trust you fully.

And I say that with an asterisk, which I said at the beginning of this call, you know, if there is something, a big issue in the marriage that you have to protect yourself, then that's one thing, right?

Again, addiction, abuse, like whatever that may be.

But overall, Monica, we just see a quality of marriage,

people that have a very deep quality connection.

There is something about that transparency, that vulnerability to say, I'm giving this part of my life to you, and you're giving that part of your life to me, and we're doing this together.

So, I guess at the end of the day, Monica, you guys get to choose what kind of marriage you want.

But we see the benefit from not only a financial aspect, getting ahead quicker.

Financially, you get ahead faster when you work together, but also from a relational standpoint.

There's data on marriages about people who share their finances and they have better outcomes on a number of different metrics.

Yeah, I mean, we sh we share everything

for the most part, and I've never made a payment on our mortgage.

So

do you all have kids together?

Yes, we have kids and we are happily married.

How long have y'all been married?

A decade, 10 years.

So the court would say

you have participated in this house.

Yeah, no, I understand what you're getting at.

My family has

a pretty large trust, so this would just be like one disbursement.

So

they were basically advising me with a family attorney to keep it separate or to have him basically sign off on some things that like

it's not his, even if I pay for things that are ours.

And so what you're choosing to do if you make that call is

now

I'm uncoupling our unity here, and this is going to be mine.

And then we're going to go about having our regular life.

Yeah, and I don't even think he cares either way.

That's the funny thing.

I promise you, this will become a deal.

Yeah.

I promise you.

Because it's.

Money flows.

The value which you owe your life is how money flows.

So what you're setting up a value system within your marriage, Monica.

You are.

Here's what it says.

It says, there came a dollar number.

There came a dollar amount when I didn't trust you anymore.

And here was the number: one to three million dollars.

That was the line.

And everybody always wonders, like, how hot would the person have to be?

Or how bad would it have?

He found out it's one to three million dollars.

Was when you said, okay, you can't participate in this.

I'm going to create a separate thing.

And I know you're getting wisdom from other people, right?

But that became the number that the unity in your marriage was worth.

Yeah, well, that's not the case.

Exactly.

So

I want to provide an alternative voice than the one you're getting, which is basically,

I want

basically a prenup now in the middle of my marriage.

I want to add an addendum to our marriage contract that says anything I get now over here from this account, whether it's a job, whether it's a trust, whether it's I wrote a book and it becomes what that one's, that stuff's going to be mine.

You can't touch that.

And then we'll go back to regularly scheduled programming.

I'm telling you right now, it'll alter your marriage.

Yeah.

And the house that y'all have that's in his name, did he own that house before y'all got married?

No.

He just bought it that way?

Have y'all talked about that before?

No, the house is titled in both of our names.

I just, I'm not on the long.

Oh, I mean, that doesn't matter.

Yeah.

No,

I could pay off the house.

But it's under his name is what they're saying.

Well, yeah, but the title is under his name.

Yeah, but it's y'all's house.

Yeah, but you're both on that.

Yeah, no.

Yeah, it's y'all's house.

And you may want to say, hey, we just got $3 million.

Woo-hoo!

Let's go

let's go let's go have a retreat that's my dream that's what's so hard monica i think is is uh where i'm having a little bit of difficulty is instead of seeing this gift that you've got from your parents who did incredibly well and they're passing on their legacy um you know that you're not looking at your husband and you guys aren't kind of celebrating inside like holy crap no but we got three million dollars celebrating

no you're not you're no you're supposed to do a prena i mean you're not though you're not saying gosh we get to be out of debt we get to do all this together we get to this is our life Our kids, I mean, we get to create all this.

It's not that.

It's, hey, make sure you, Monica, make sure you sign this paper that he can't freaking touch it.

He can't touch it.

It's mine.

And anything I buy with this, Monica, you just said,

he can't participate in.

Like, does that not sound like really sad to you in a marriage?

It sounds like very, very cold, but that doesn't really shock me.

Yeah.

Does it shock you that that's the advice you're getting?

No, it's just I think that

like a worst-case scenario planning is kind of like the background I come from,

where

my husband's side of the family is very much like together.

What do you want, Monica?

What kind of marriage do you want?

No,

I want the one-minded, one-track.

I just, you know, I figured I'd talk to somebody who doesn't have any skin in the game.

Totally.

You're talking to two people.

This is what we would do in our house.

And let me tell you, Dave and Sharon Ramsey, we have a state meeting plans every single year.

And not once have my parents, nor have I had any feeling

towards any of the spouses that this over here.

The only time I see it that I can actually very much understand, it's not in our case, but some family businesses, there's voting stock and that the voting stock stays with the family member, the blood family, if there is a separation.

That I understand because you don't want to commingle next.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Within something like that, that makes sense.

And I think there's some complicated estate planning out there that, but, um, but man, that kind of, I don't know why that Bob, that really hurts me where I'm like, well,

it's not that we're winning, it's that I'm winning over here.

Yeah.

And so your family may not like it, Monica, but you and your husband get to choose what kind of marriage you want.

And if they don't agree with that, that's up to them.

That's their issue, not yours.

But going forward,

I would implore you to, you guys work together in this and you'd see yourselves as one because that creates a beautiful marriage in life.

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Today's question question comes from Bethany in Connecticut.

Bethany writes: I'm 46 years old with no kids and no debt.

I'm an aggressive saver in CDs and money market funds.

I have $250,000 saved for retirement and a three- to six-month emergency fund.

I only spend money on the necessities and get by as cheaply as possible.

Everyone says I'm doing a good job of saving money, but mental health-wise, I have a hard time getting into the market due to anxiety and OCD.

How does someone manage mental health while also managing their market?

Are there helpful strategies such as only looking at

one's portfolio once a quarter or once a year?

Is there a way I can do it myself?

I don't want to be completely hands-on, but I don't want to give up all control either.

It's a great question.

I think a lot of people have some fear around putting money in the market.

And usually that fear comes from not knowing enough.

Because I guarantee you, Bethany, I think you're smart.

And I think if you sat down with a financial planner and actually looked at some of the investments that you could do, whether it's mutual funds or index funds, and you're able to see the pattern of the market, you're able to see a long-term track record with some of these funds.

I think it will give you more peace to know, okay, my money could be making

a lot more, double what it's making now in CDs.

But there is a level of risk to it, sure.

But also,

you're 46 years old, and you probably aren't going to touch any of this until you know the next 15 years.

That was the big switch for me, which was my Smart Vestor Pro.

I'm fortunate, I will say that.

I'm very lucky that was also a college roommate of mine.

And so, when we were going back and forth with this years ago,

he finally said, Hey, if you're thinking you're going to take this money out at some point in the next few years, or if it starts going down, you're going to pull all this out and pay the penalties, I'm not your guy.

And that for me was, oh, if I invest money in retirement,

this thing's on a 40 or 50 year ride, me checking this every month, me honestly checking it every year is a choice to be falsely optimistic or falsely pessimistic because I'm 49 years away, 25 years away.

So for me, I'm an anxious person and I'm also an anxious investor.

I like the idea of like investing in real estate so I can go see it.

I can go touch it.

I like the idea of having extra cash in the bank.

But when it comes to investing, I had to make the decision.

This is going to be a ride I'm going to get on until I retire.

Yes.

And when I made that decision, I honestly don't look at it very much at the details.

What's the market?

Because it doesn't.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter to me right now because I'm playing a 20 or 30 year game.

And so my Smart Investor Pro, to be honest with you, we work together on goals.

We check in, but he'll text me and say, hey, you're about to get an email from our company.

Don't open it.

Because he's known me forever.

He's like, you're going to freak out.

You're going to act stupid or whatever.

Or, hey, the market's up 21%.

Just remember, that's like, it's, it's a big deal.

He's a psychologist more than he's a money guy for me, right?

100%.

And so, Bethany, that's how I handle it.

I just don't check.

I know the people who check it up and down every day.

I just know when I made that choice, I'm on a ride that's going to be however many years, a multi-decade ride.

I'm not going to lose a ton of sleep over it in the short term.

100%.

Yeah.

And we look at ours just once a year.

and kind of reevaluate where is everything, how are we feeling, you know, but it's, but that's it.

i don't i mean unless it's for work and i'm trying to figure out you know if the rates went down or i don't know you you know you can kind of just keep a pulse on it but i don't do it from an emotional sense of my own money either because it's yeah it's the long game and rachel uh

i don't think this is an anti-ramsey sentiment um

i think when you pay your house off like once you've got when you're on the other side of baby step six

My wife and I, like, I was like, hey, I feel more comfortable with more than six months cash.

And she's like, okay.

But it's a, we are consciously choosing together to not make, to make less on that spread, right?

It could be making this in the market.

Right.

It's only making this in a high-speed market.

It's good to have some cash available.

That's a margin that I've bought myself that I pay 2% or 3% a year a tax on, and I call it my sleep tax.

But like, I think if you get there, if you decide like, hey, I'm putting money, I'm putting 15% away for retirement, I'm doing those things, I want a little bit more money.

I don't owe anybody anything.

I'm fine with that.

Totally.

I'm fine with that.

Yeah, absolutely.

That's good.

All right.

Let's go to Sarah, who's in Texas.

Hey, Sarah, welcome to the show.

Hey, thanks for taking my call.

Yeah, I had a quick question.

Me and my fiancé, we're in a bind.

So we both have car payments and we're both upside down.

So combined, our car payments are about $1,800 a month.

Yeah.

And we,

yeah, I know.

It's stupid.

I know.

Are y'all driving Lamborghinis?

What do you drive?

I'm curious.

I know, just basic, you know, a GMC Acadia and an F-150.

And the F-150 is a 2015, and the Acadia is a 2021.

Terrible interest rates.

Did you get these at like a

sub pro?

I mean, did you, I mean, did you buy them off a lot?

It's like a handshake deal off a lot somewhere behind the lot.

No, car dealership.

It was just the credit was so bad.

So he had his truck before I got my car.

My other car that was paid off, I loved it.

It was just down in the dirt and the engine was smoking when I pulled into the dealership.

Okay.

Sarah, what, I want you to separate these out.

Tell me your car.

How much, how much is it worth?

Oh, I owe $32,000 on it still.

Okay.

My payment is $1,100 because we got behind, so we had to do this promise to pay thing.

It was $8.15, but now it's bumped up to $1,100.

Okay.

In 2015, F-150, he still owes $20,000 on it, and his payment is right at $700.

How much do you make?

A year.

So combined, with you.

No, don't combine it.

Me, myself, right around $55,000.

Oof.

Okay.

How about him?

He's about 52, 53.

Okay, what could you sell your car for

today?

What does Kelly Blue Book say?

I think it's like 17.

Have you looked?

I have.

Okay,

an individual, not dealer.

So not as an individual.

I haven't.

Okay, so I would do that.

So I would would give it a couple thousand more because you can usually get more from an individual.

A dealer is going to buy it as close to wholesale as possible.

So, what did you, what was the first, what is the number you said for the dealership?

17.

Okay, let's just bump it up to 20 just for fun.

Okay.

How much could he sell his for?

I think his is valued at like 8

from a dealer.

From an F-150, did he wreck it?

No, he did not wreck it.

It's just F-150s are made of gold.

So, both of our cards have about 100,000 miles.

His is about 100,000.

Still, though,

I almost guarantee you a 2015 F-1000.

I'm going to, yeah, $12,000 to $15,000.

Or do you think even more?

They're expensive.

I like trucks, and they are so cost.

It's like cartoons.

It's not $8,000.

No.

No, dude.

I thought that's what it said.

So it's also a two-wheel drive.

I mean, there's going to be a bunch of nuances here and there, Kickknacks, and we're going to have to go back and forth if it's extended cab or like a single, like all that stuff.

I could almost guarantee you, I could be wrong, that it's worth more than eight grand, unless it's been wrecked, it was, it was underwater.

I will look into that.

Yes, yeah, and private party, too.

Yep.

Okay.

Even if there was somebody that owns a lawn crew that will roll up and give you 10 grand cash for it, like it's,

I haven't seen a truck worth $8,000 in a long, long, long time.

Okay.

So, yeah, we'll be a little bit more.

And you're in Texas.

You know, they like

their tasks.

They give you a truck with your birth certificate.

Yeah.

I haven't dug too much into hit.

Okay.

So, Sarah, Collie.

Okay.

So,

man, okay.

So, for you, and I'm going to talk, I'm going to, I'm going to separate the two because you guys aren't married yet.

Once you're married, we combine it all together and right off into the winds.

But for you specifically, yes, getting rid of this car is huge because it's more than half of your annual take-home pay.

You know what I mean?

Or half of what you make.

And so you are.

You have way, way too much car, which I know.

That's why you're calling because you're feeling it.

Yeah, it's your we both are so all of our finances are combined we have four kids together okay

okay

hang on the line we're gonna hold you over because i want to unpack this one yeah and we'll we'll walk through some of this math with you we're gonna go to a break but we'll be right back

All right, welcome back.

We have Sarah on the line from the last segment.

She was calling in because their car payments and car loans, they are feeling it.

So she owes $32,000 on hers with $1,100 going out every month in a payment.

And her husband owes $20,000, or I'm sorry, her fiancé owes $20,000 on his.

He makes $52,000.

She makes $55,000.

And just kind of trying to figure out the math here to get them out of these payments.

Does that sound right, Sarah, so far?

Yes.

Okay.

And are both of your credits shot?

Because you mentioned that.

Okay.

They are.

Yeah.

So we have completely stopped paying on the credit cards because even the minimums is like, okay, well, we're not going to pay our rent.

So we rent right now for $2,000, then daycare, $700.

It's everywhere.

Okay.

Your rent is $2,000.

How much do you guys, I mean, you're running your household as if you're married.

So I'm going to ask this.

How much do you, how much hits you?

I pretty much do.

How much hits your checking account every month?

After taxes, after insurance, everything?

I would say right about $8,000.

$8,000 for both of you.

Yes.

Okay.

Okay.

Well, that's, yeah.

Then the

$2,000 rent, that's in line with it for being about a fourth of your take-home pay because that's what we're wanting,

shooting for.

So that's not completely out of control.

But then again, you add on these car payments and everything else on top of it.

It's a lot.

So

have you guys gone down to maybe a local credit union or a local bank and talked through a loan process?

Because the ideal situation, again, your credit's shot, so it may not work.

But it will not refinance.

But no, no, not a refinance just to get a personal loan.

And I would get a $25,000 loan for you.

And

pay off the difference of $20,000, go get a $5,000 crappy car for just the time being.

And your husband, you know, do the same if he's able to.

Because

honestly, what John was saying about trucks, I mean, I'm praying he can get more, but he may only need like a $6,000 loan

to get it paid off to get the difference if he can sell it.

And it's not a refi, it's just we're paying this thing off.

We're done with it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I would rather have a $20,000 loan than a $32,000 loan.

Right.

So we're just kind of moving it, but lowering it at the same time, which means you're getting rid of these cars and driving crappy cars.

Do you guys have any, you don't have anything in savings?

No, nothing.

So we just started y'all's financial piece last week through our church.

Oh, good.

Okay.

So all the steps are hitting us and we're like, ooh.

Yeah.

Well, yeah.

The thing I think you have to metabolize here is this is, you've got these car payments.

Y'all have done things that aren't wise with money.

We all have.

Y'all have to metabolize

to truly get out of this mess.

It's going to be 36 months of not a lot of fun.

Yeah.

And if you're willing to do that, you can get out of this.

And that might mean you're taking a second job.

He's taking a second job.

And you're like, I don't have time to that.

And I would tell you, you don't have time not to because I can hear you drowning.

And you're going to find yourself, this car is going to fail you before you pay it off.

And you have to roll that.

It has been in the shop.

That's right.

Already.

You have to roll the negative equity.

And you're going to end up on fifty thousand dollars on it on a 79 used like whatever volvo right so it's like at some point you and him have to say we're drawing a line here we're not going to go out to eat we're going to take second jobs we're going to maybe move apartments that's fifteen hundred dollars instead of two thousand we're going to do that for three years or two years so we can get out of this once and for all and if you don't have that level of burn it to the ground and and grow something beautiful out of the ashes if you don't have that you're just going to keep playing a shell game yeah that's right yeah there has to to be an extreme change.

I mean, it's almost a 180 at the way you guys have been thinking about money, doing money.

I mean, all of it.

It's got to be a complete different shift.

And you guys are in Financial Beast University, which I'm so thankful for.

But we're also, if you hold on the line, Kelly's going to pick up and we're going to give you our all-new every dollar.

And we're excited about this because within the app, you're not only able to budget and create a monthly budget, which will be so great for you, Sarah, and to sit down for you guys to look and be like, hey, we are literally, this is our plan for what we're spending on groceries, lights, rent, gas for the car, and that's it.

Daycare and insurance.

And like, we're paying for nothing else.

We're not Amazoning.

We're not going to Target.

We're not going on vacation.

We're not going to decorate anything.

Oh, that looks nice.

Doesn't matter.

We're not doing anything, but we're literally putting every single penny we can find towards this debt.

And when you start to have that motivation, it's incredible.

And to have an app like Every Dollar, that not only can you do the budget, but also it's going to look over your entire financial plan because with Every Dollar, we're adding in so many coaching elements and it's going to look over your entire financial picture.

And people are finding thousands of dollars of margin in just 15 minutes.

So for all of you listening, we have a premiere coming about the all-new Every Dollar on September 25th, where you get to see real success stories and how you can be the next one and how you can plug into this and start your money journey.

So if you want to turn on your YouTube notifications to get notified when the premiere drops, make sure to do that.

And again, that is going to be September 25th, is where the all-new Every Dollar Premiere is here for you guys, and we're really, really excited about it.

So, Sarah, again, Kelly's going to pick up, and we will hook you up for a year's worth of that Every Dollar subscription to get you guys in and moving.

So, we are cheering y'all on.

All right, next, we have Crystal in Oregon.

Hi, Crystal.

Welcome to the show.

Hi, thank you for having me.

I'm honored.

Absolutely.

How can we help?

I am a single mother of one

and I own a home.

I have an LLC in cleaning houses and then I coach high school basketball on the side, but I have a credit card that's just eating me alive.

Okay.

Wow.

Good for you, Crystal.

Yeah, good for you.

That's awesome.

What a take on the world.

I was a basketball coach for a few years.

It was one of my favorite jobs I've ever, ever had.

It's way more fun than being a YouTuber.

It was awesome.

Yeah,

it's very rewarding.

Okay, so tell me about this credit card.

What's going on?

I think I had a few years that were really difficult.

So I feel like a lot of it is food to feed my daughter and I and things like that.

Sure.

I'd say I haven't used it in about a year, but it doesn't go down.

Okay.

How much do you owe on it?

I owe about a little over $9,000.

$9,000.

Okay.

How much do you make a year?

I make about $58,000.

$58,000.

Okay, good for you.

That's great.

And what's the payment each month?

The payment right now is like $330,000.

Okay, perfect.

But then the interest on it is like, I think it's like $200.

Okay.

It's like I'm only paying off $100 of it here and there.

Yeah, extra.

Okay.

After you pay all of your bills, Crystal, like from

your, you say you have a house, so your mortgage, lights, everything, do you have any margin left over?

I have

after like all the bills with my house and everything, I have $1,000 left for food and gas.

For food and gas.

Okay.

Perfect.

Okay.

So, yeah, I mean,

a couple of things, Crystal.

I mean, you can,

you know, that thousand dollars, I mean, there's

for food.

I mean, food's expensive.

It's hard.

But

if I'm just thinking through, if you can find $1,000 a month, you can get this paid off in nine months, right?

Meaning,

I don't know if there's extra work you pick up, a little bit on the side, cutting expenses where you, where you're like, listen, we're having peanut butter and jelly and spaghetti every day.

Like, that's what we're doing for the next five months.

Like,

cutting the grocery budget.

Like, we're cutting where we can.

We're adding extra because I'm honestly sitting on this side

of the phone call.

I was expecting, I was holding my breath when you said I was thinking 22 to 30,000 on the credit card.

That's what I was thinking.

So when you said nine, I was like, okay, Crystal can do this.

Crystal can do this.

And here's the thing.

Here's what I hate about this.

It may be that you have to go and say, I can't do my side hustle of coaching this year because it only pays $2,500 for the season.

I got to go get job X and because I got to

get $6,000.

Yeah, the basketball, the basketball paid, my daughter goes to a private Christian school, so I took on the basketball gig to help pay for my portion of sending her to that school.

Okay, there you go.

So, but here's the thing.

It's going to be every decision you make is going to be a trade-off.

Yep.

And do I want to keep this thing around for two years and pay $400 a month on it?

Or do I want to just grit my teeth, make some really deep cuts and be done with this thing in seven months and then get on with my life yeah yeah yes and I think my biggest question was is that I do have a purse account from a previous job that's at about 7300 right now is that something I should consider cashing in to help pay this off a what account a purs

okay I don't know if I know what that is

as long as there's not fees attached to it or you get penalized or something I don't know something weird but yeah

if you're able to get that but and hey stay on the line crystal um Kelly's gonna pick up we're gonna give you an Aldi gift card.

Aldi is an incredible place to shop for your groceries because

it's so inexpensive.

It's amazing.

And the quality is great.

And they gave us some gift cards.

So, Crystal, stay on the line.

We're going to give you an Aldi gift card to help, at least for this month, get it.

Let's get you launched out of here.

Absolutely.

We've all done dumb things with money.

I've done them with zeros on the end.

One of the biggest mistakes I see people make with money is not having a plan for it.

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Go download every dollar for free in the App Store or Google Play today.

Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio.

I'm Rachel Cruz with Dr.

John Deloney and we're going to go to Gail in Pennsylvania.

Hi Gail, welcome to the show.

Hi, good afternoon.

Thanks so much for taking my call.

Absolutely.

How can we help today?

My husband and I, we are 55 and we are

about to

be selling our home and we are purchasing a home together with my parents.

We'll all be living together in the home, and

we have a great relationship and want to enjoy some years together.

And then, as they need help, as time goes by, we'll already be there.

And that is simple for all of us.

So, my dad is a disabled veteran, and with that,

has an exemption from property taxes, which is about $10,000 a year.

So

if my husband and I are on the deed for the house, then we do not have that exemption and we would pay those taxes.

Or we can not be on the deed and save that tax amount each year.

And I know the

I've heard Dave talk many times about

if you're not on the deed, it doesn't count.

And I get that.

But I was wondering if you would have anything other to say in this case.

I would

the way you're setting it up, I would probably

have get a, this would be overly formal, I would probably get a lease, a renter's lease, and say I'm renting a room from the owner of this home.

Okay.

And at some, when, and if your father decides that I'm going to deed this house over to y'all, that might be the cleanest way to do that.

And if you've got a sibling, just prepare for that to be a nightmare when y'all untangle all that.

Well, I'm an only child, so

you wouldn't even have to worry about that.

That would probably be the way I would do that.

So

what does a rental lease do for us?

It allows you to, I mean,

you could just move into his house, right?

I mean, that's essentially what it's going to be, Gail, from like a legal standpoint.

You're going to be

nowhere else.

Yeah.

So basically, your parents are buying a house and you and your husband are just moving in with them, is what that is.

And then if you end up paying part of the mortgage, you are paying into an asset that you don't own legally.

And so what John's saying is some, some type of,

I mean, I'm assuming you guys are going to help with the mortgage, right?

Or are they just going to buy a house and you guys are just living there and then you get to live there for free because you're taking care of them?

Is that the is.

Well, so there won't be a mortgage for it.

When we sell our home, we're going, we'll contribute $150,000 toward it, but there's no mortgage.

There's no ongoing payment other than utilities and upkeep and all over.

But $150,000 of

your money, though, is going to be in this asset that doesn't have your name on it.

And so I don't know the tax implications, but legally, you're giving your parents $150,000 gift for them to purchase a home.

Okay.

Because y'all are going to feel like it's all working together.

But if you want to do this so you don't have to pay property taxes and you're all going to buy one house together, then legally, yeah, you're giving them $150,000 gift.

They're going to buy a home and they're going to let you live in there rent-free or they're going to charge you rent for it.

And here's what I would say.

The reason I would recommend a lease is two reasons.

One,

if,

can I just give you some worst case scenarios just because this is what we deal with?

Mom passes away and dad has dementia.

And he says, get out of my house.

I don't want y'all here.

Or

I'm trying to think of worst case scenarios.

He rear-ins somebody and they sue him and they want to take this.

I want there to be a

protection at all when you just give $150,000 this way.

I would prefer you to have

$150,000 in a high-yield savings account and y'all pay rent towards this thing every month.

But I do get the idea that y'all don't want a mortgage, but it's illegally, y'all are giving them a gift.

And I don't know what their tax implications are.

If they're going to have to pay taxes on that gift, I don't know how that's going to work.

And I would meet with probably in a state attorney, Gail, just to get a wording within a will that when they pass or if when one of them passes, you know, what that looks like.

It's just a domino effect that we see.

Right.

We've already done that part with the estate attorney and have

those pieces.

That's great.

So that's with the death aspect.

But then, I mean, as John's saying, like things can happen when they're alive.

You know, that could affect the house.

Something happens to them, a situation legally, medically, I don't know what it is.

And they need to be aware of that.

Dad's house is a widow.

Mom suddenly gets remarried four months later.

And the only reason we say those things is because those are the calls we get

and i know and you're it's easy to be like that will never happen and it usually doesn't happen that's just that's the calls we get all the time sure we have we have addressed a lot of those with the estate attorney okay

um

yeah so at the end of the day if your name's not on the deed

yeah if your name's not the deed it's not your house

And so I would feel comfortable living with my parents under this arrangement, but I want to sign a lease agreement that says I'm renting this room for $100 or this part of the house or whatever for $100 a month or $100 a year.

I don't care what the number is.

And also, I don't ever want somebody to come back and say, hey, we think y'all are committing tax fraud or you're taking advantage of X, Y, or Z, right?

A system, yeah.

Yeah.

And I mean, again, from a legal standpoint, your parents would be able to do whatever they want with this house because their name is on it, that you have no ownership in this.

And so if that's the, and I don't know why this,

this may be wrong.

I don't know.

It, there's a little bit of more peace because you all are older.

I don't know why.

It just feels like there's probably less complications than it feels a 25-year-old couple moving into their 50-year-old parents' house.

100%.

Yeah.

So, for some reason, the age gives me a little bit more peace of the stage of life you guys are in.

Because we do get calls with young couples that want to entangle themselves with parents and all of them.

I'm like, you have a whole life ahead of you that's about to get really messy, really fast.

And let me say one more thing.

And this is not directed at you, Gail.

This is just in general.

The more you try to game a system

and go around things and undercut things to avoid paying this, or I want to not pay that, so I'm going to do this.

I just want to ask what's, at the end of the day, I'm going to ask myself, what's my integrity worth?

And if I know this is actually my house, but I want to take advantage of your thing.

So I'm going to put someone else's name on it.

I'm going to put someone else's name on it, but it's actually mine.

I'm going to say my integrity is not worth $10,000.

It's not worth $1,000 a month.

Do I want to write that check and property tax every year?

God, no.

But my integrity is not for sale.

And so that's just something to think through.

I don't think that's you in this situation, Gail.

But if I know, actually, this is my house, but I don't take advantage of a government benefit because of your military service.

So you put your name on it.

We're going to do all this rigamaroo.

Part of me kind of feels kind of gross about that.

Yeah.

No, that's fair.

Yeah.

People hiding information in order to get it.

Yeah, part of that kind of feels gross to me.

I think there's a VA benefit that's amazing amazing and wonderful.

And as a taxpayer, I'm glad we have that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I wouldn't do this arrangement right now, Gail, because of that specifically, right?

That maybe

when they do need your help in 10 years, maybe you guys make some arrangement then.

But yeah, no, that's a great point, John.

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All right, let's go to the phones.

We have Abby in Oregon up next.

Hi, Abby.

Welcome to the show.

Hi, thank you for taking my call.

Absolutely.

How can we help?

So I've had a complex situation with my mother.

I'm an only child, and she has struggled financially

most of my adult life.

She's now almost 70,

and she doesn't have any retirement.

She's currently unemployed.

She hasn't yet started taking Social Security because she's waiting for the full amount at 70, which is in February.

And she's been inconsistently employed for years and years.

So I don't think Social Security is going to be a lot anyway.

And so now I'm facing two issues.

One is term, she's come to me for the first time saying she's totally out of money

and is trying to figure out how to pay her bills this month.

And then long term, how to set boundaries for the fact that she's just not going to have much income for the next, you know, 20-some odd years of her life.

And

I don't know how to support her.

while

you know having healthy boundaries, I guess.

And

she also has some mental health issues involved with OCD and hoarding and stuff so she's there's lots of complexity to this but yeah

and Abby you're you're an only child you said yeah okay man

yeah does she live near you from like a distance yep okay about an hour away an hour away okay and how are you financially where are you at

I'm stable.

My husband and I just moved

to kind of a simpler home and downsized a bit so we could pay off debt and I've got a little bit of debt left I'm trying to pay off but I make a pretty good income and now that we have lower monthly expenses for everything else I should have that paid off in about a year and a half to two years okay so how much how much do you guys make a year

combined we're about 150 150 okay and what's the debt left on

I have a truck that and a camper trailer that I do travel nursing.

Okay, okay.

And so that'll be paid off the next year and then you guys will be debt-free.

Correct.

And then just the house was left.

And the house, we only owe in Oregon.

It's really living houses in Oregon are pretty expensive.

So

we only owe about $94,000 on this new house.

Oh, good.

Okay.

Well, that's, yeah, that's really encouraging.

Okay.

So, Abby, like,

this is, I appreciate you having the courage to call.

There are millions and millions and millions of adult kids who are facing this same dilemma.

Yeah.

And

before you get into the solution part of this conversation, conversation, how do I get healthy boundaries?

What do I do about this call?

I think you and your husband need to sit down and be honest about

how are we going to care or not care for my aging mother.

Yeah.

That's a harsh way to say.

I've been having conversations this last month.

But I think it's because if you know deep down, I'm not going to let my mom go into a

under a bridge and into a shelter.

Right.

right.

And I'm going to move her into this back bedroom here.

Then that frames what boundaries look like.

What if, hey, mom, we're going to give you this much money, but you're going to live, now you're going to live by my rules, right?

Like

the reverse of how you grew up.

Then you can have a different conversation.

If your boundaries are, you made your choices, mom.

I don't care about you, whatever.

I wouldn't wish that, but

it's your life, right?

I want you to be honest about your stance on where's your your lines going to be.

Otherwise, you end up choosing resentment over guilt.

And she doesn't deserve that.

Y'all don't deserve that.

It's just a way to set your house on fire from the inside out.

And so coming up with this is the boundary is going to be, then you can begin to say, okay, mom, I'm going to pay this bill.

Or, you know what?

You're letting your lease go.

You're going to move in with this now.

Or I'll give you this much money.

Or I'll pay the bill directly.

We're going to pay $200 a month.

We're just going to make this a regular thing.

Like y'all get to start having the more practical conversations after that.

Yeah, that makes sense.

I think I'm trying to find kind of a middle ground, which is always easier said than done.

I don't know if there is one here.

Do you think there is one?

So

she owns her home,

just recently paid it off.

But she doesn't have the money for property taxes that's coming up.

Which is going to be around $4,000-ish, somewhere in there.

She just switched her homeowner's owner's insurance to monthly so she could pay that slower, which was good.

But her house is practically condemnable.

She hasn't had flowing water for years.

It's you can't move around in the space.

It's not a safe space.

But I have tried over and over again to get her to leave, and she won't.

She has this grandiose idea in her mind of what she wants her home to look like someday.

And

so,

you know, unfortunately, that's her only asset.

You know, if she could, even as it is, she could still get, you know, in Oregon, she could get $250,000 for that house.

And so that could be a source of income if you invest in it.

But I can't convince her to do that.

And there's even like really great, we don't have Section 8 here.

We have like a voucher program where people get a voucher and they can live wherever they want to rent.

But she doesn't want to rent.

She wants to own.

But $250,000 won't buy you another house here very much.

But you have to exhale and know my mom's not well.

Yeah.

And so I trying to address a situation, an irrational situation.

I don't mean that like in an erratic bananas, right?

But like somebody who is not critically thinking well, who's cognitive processing is well, trying to solve that problem with data and facts isn't the solution.

Yeah, that's what I'm running into.

The solution is I don't know what to do next.

I care about you.

And here's, if you want this money, here's what that's going to look like.

Okay.

Because

she's going to get a mathematical reality forced on her one way or the other.

You're going to come take her house because she's going to get behind on

property taxes.

Or her neighbors are going to call for all the stuff in the front yard and they're going to take her home.

Or she's going to get your support and begin to make some changes.

And I'm afraid it's going to be a good thing.

No, no, no, no.

I was going to say, if Abby, because, yeah, I mean, I'm with you, Abby.

I'm like, oh my gosh.

because I'm asking you, John.

Yeah, if Abby, if you can't reason with her logically, like you're saying, is there just a natural unfolding of real consequences of the real world?

You don't pay your property tax, mom.

So they're going to take it.

And so, like, do you know what I'm saying?

That's why I started the call with Abby.

Y'all are, you and your husband have to decide, not if, but when it comes to it, are we going to let her move in the back bedroom?

Because that's going to be our option.

Right.

If she loses everything.

Right.

And you could sit down and maybe she'll hear that.

I doubt it.

Hoarding, especially in elderly populations, is a that means she's in a really tough spot, right?

She's been struggling for a while.

And so

sitting down and having a heart-to-heart isn't going to get us there.

Right.

If she could get on some medication, if she would get some support and all that, but you may have, I'm confident y'all have been down that road for years and there's to no avail, right?

Yeah, I'm still trying, but yeah.

Yeah.

Would she respond to the words, mom, they're going to come take your house?

Yeah, I've tried that.

I've tried that, but they're going to condemn your house and they're going to take it away because just the fact that she hasn't had water running for a couple of years is a huge red flag for the city.

Absolutely.

So, I mean, they could easily come condemn it tomorrow and then she'd lose everything.

And I've been trying to tell her that, but it doesn't, it's not getting through.

And so I feel like it's hard for me to make any like true progress forward with her because she won't do any of the things that make sense.

And so I'm stuck trying to do it her way.

But then do I just put money into a sinking ship that isn't like,

like, if I just pay her bills for it.

Because it's not even good for her to stay there.

Yeah, it's unhealthy and unhealthy.

You know what I mean?

So there's a part of you that's like, it's kind of like a, like a blessing in disguise if something happens to the home.

And then, you know, Abby could, her husband could be there at that point.

Assuming that she would even move in with you guys, right?

Or take the voucher program and go somewhere else.

But yeah, I'm going to suggest to the as best you can.

This is hard because it's your mom right nobody wants this but traffic in reality what is what is true and what is real not what is what what we want to happen

Hey, what's up?

Dr.

John Deloney here.

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All right, next up, we have Jesse in Wisconsin.

Hi, Jesse.

Welcome to the show.

Hey, thanks for taking my call.

Yes, absolutely.

How can we help?

Okay, so recently, within the last couple months, I had my grandfather had passed away.

And

it's just me.

Thank you.

It's just me and my dad as next to Kin.

He had gifted us with

in his assets with money cash-wise, he's like $850, I think.

And then he also owns 80 acres of land up in up in Wisconsin.

My question is, is all of the assets and all the money is going to be put into my name?

Not your dad.

Not my dad, because of my dad has kind of lived like a kind of like a rough life, if you could say.

So without money coming back and getting taken for taxes back, whatever it's all going to go into my name but my question is is is it best for me because this is my dad's going to live off this money for the rest of his life it's just just the way that it's going to be is it best for me to put bro can i just stop real quick that's going to put you in a really awful position yes this is one of those ideas that looks good on paper and man you are now basically your dad's dad

dude it's been like that pretty much forever but i understand what you're saying i hate you're in that position man I hate that for you, brother.

Yeah.

I guess what you're saying is my thing was to put it into my name and then do I reinvest the whole, his whole half because we can make more money off of it that way?

Or do I kind of take so much out, pay a pen, because I'm going to pay a penalty on it, pay a penalty on it, and put it into CDs or some kind of quick money?

Do you understand?

Not really.

What do you mean you're going to get a penalty on it?

Well, so there is a Roth in some of the accounts.

I guess I don't know.

Do I reinvest all of it or should do I take some out and kind of get rid of the problem like what you just said?

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

I mean, I would keep it within, if you can, shelter it tax-wise with the Roth, all of that.

That would be ideal.

What is the $850,000?

What is it divided up in?

What is it all sitting in right now?

Well, he has a financial guy here locally where I'm from, and it's in I think half of of it, most of it was in a Roth.

And then he has it into some more aggressive stuff too.

I'm actually going to meet up with him tomorrow to kind of like finalize all the paperwork.

But that was like my question.

Do I, you know, keep reinvesting it and just throw it all back in there?

Or, I mean, is it better for me to take some out?

Well, I mean, some of it you can use for your life to get you ahead financially.

Things like a home if you have debt.

So where are you, Jesse, financially?

I own a house.

I own two houses.

I don't really have any debt.

I've kind of paid everything off.

I don't have any debt.

Even on the homes, no mortgages?

I have one mortgage on my house.

I'm down in another town, and I own my other house up in another town or locally.

Okay, where are you living?

Are you in one of those houses?

Are you living in one of those houses?

Yes, I'm living in one.

And then the other one I bought.

I'm kind of refixing up.

My grandmother passed away about three years ago, and she gave me, she left me in her house.

So I'm living in that house right now with no, I mean, I just pay taxes.

Okay, okay.

So, how much do you have left on the other mortgage?

Like $83,000.

Okay.

And the home that you're fixing up, are you planning on selling that?

Or

you are?

Okay.

How much would it go for?

About $150,000.

Okay, that's great.

And how much, how much?

Where does your dad live?

Wherever, ever.

I mean, sometimes he's with with a different girlfriend right now, you know.

So, what expectations, financial expectations, is this money going to have to supply for him?

I'm trying to make it, I'm, I'm trying to be the smarter one, trying to make this, make the most of it.

You know what I'm saying?

I know, but here's the problem: you're using big,

I'm going to make the most, I want to do the best, I want to try to get the growth.

You have an actual true math problem in front of you.

And the more specific you can be about that, that much

problem, which is your dad, the better off you can plan for this thing.

Here's what I mean: if you decide in your head, I'm gonna put 425 for my dad, and I'm gonna keep 425.

That's what me and granddad shook hands on, and your dad goes into acute liver failure and it's gonna cost you $3 million to get a liver transplant or whatever, you're gonna have a hard choice to make, right?

And so, or if he blows through it all in two years, right, and he has nowhere to go, are you gonna let him live on the street or is he gonna move into your back bedroom?

And so, it's you having that root-level conversation and then saying, Here's here's the dollar amount.

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah, okay.

I mean, I guess, yeah, but that 425, let's say, is it worth keeping it in there if he's 60, 61 years old?

Does he need your money?

Is he asking you for it?

Well, he's going to, I mean, dude, he's going to need it.

Is he working right now, Jesse?

Does he work?

No, no.

He doesn't.

No.

How is he paying bills right now?

I mean, I think he does like little

side jobs or something like that, you know.

Okay.

But no, there's no like full-time.

I mean, honestly, okay, so you're, so you, there was a handshake with your granddad that said this money is going to go in your name, Jesse, because you're responsible.

But this part of this money or half of this money is supposed to go to your dad to make sure that he doesn't live on the streets, right?

That this is his.

It was 50-50 on the will, but me and my old man had made this agreement where we were just going to put it into mine.

Okay, then you, if it's in the will, brother, keep it separate.

Keep it separate.

I know.

There's a part of me, Jesse.

I don't like the idea of you feeling, you having to be the caretaker of your dad.

There's a part of me.

And tell me, John, I don't know if this is right, but I mean, my knee jerk is to say, Jesse,

split it down the middle.

Your dad takes his portion.

He gets to decide what to do with it.

But you're not the bank anymore.

Once the money's gone, dad, it's gone.

So you can either choose to invest it, live on it wisely for the rest of your life.

Or if you squander it away, like you can't come to me for money.

Like we're done.

This is it.

This is the, like, right.

I would just like keep it short and simple and clean instead of you holding all of it and trying to pay your dad dividends.

And when he needs it, he comes to you and you're kind of like the bank.

Like, that feels off to me.

I almost would go.

I would almost go 50-50 and let your dad get it.

It's one or the other.

It's 50-50, or you understand I'm going to be his full-time caretaker.

But you're trying to do both.

Right.

I think just, you know, I guess you said, like, figure out that conversation first and then, you know, invest, invest just by half.

Cause if you invest, you know, the majority of it, we should be able to, you know,

it should be okay, but I need to have that conversation first to make sure I don't want to be involved, you know.

Absolutely.

Oh, 100%.

Yeah, 100%.

And you could even say, hey, dad, I'm going to meet with a financial planner.

Why don't you come to the meeting too and see what they have to say?

And you take your half.

You get to make a decision on what you want to do.

I'm going to make a decision with mine.

And maybe it's the same decision.

Maybe you both decide we're going to invest it, but I would keep it still separate in the investments.

Because if he starts messing with it, you know what I mean?

Pulling money out.

I don't like the idea of a 61-year-old man coming to his 40-year-old son saying, hey, I want to buy a car.

Yeah, that's the thing, too.

If I'm going to take that money out, I'll just take out some money at the get-go, get a car, you know, house and stuff, and then reinvest whatever else.

But you don't need to do that, Jesse.

He needs to do that with his house.

I got a lot of stories about that.

I know.

Here's the deal.

You don't want to be his caretaker, but you are living in the reality that you kind of have to be his caretaker.

Right on.

Okay.

And so you have to decide, I'm either going to go all in on this role

or I'm going to sit down and have a hard conversation with my dad and say, dad, there's $425,000 in an account.

I'm not managing it for you.

And when it's gone, it's gone.

Don't come to me for it.

Right on.

And I'm going to talk to that financial guy, too.

And like I said, tell me and have him be there.

And we're going to, you know, otherwise, you can say it's going to be just a mess.

Yeah.

It already is a mess.

You've been put in an incredibly awkward situation.

And I hate this for you, but I also want to applaud you, brother, for trying to be a good man to yourself.

Yeah, for sure.

For sure.

So, Jesse,

if I were in your shoes and I had half of this money, I would pay off whatever debt I have, including the mortgages.

I would take some cash out if you don't have cash, just as an emergency fund, and stick it in a high-yield savings account.

And then, yes, I would leave the rest in investments.

And that could be index funds, mutual funds.

Don't do anything crazy, Jesse.

Don't do crypto.

Don't go and like do some skiing thing over here.

Like, keep it simple.

Mutual funds, index funds.

Let it grow at 10%.

Your money will double every seven years if you leave it alone.

So just do that quick math and just know where it can grow to.

Our scripture of the day comes from Proverbs 19:2.

Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way.

As a rock star, I have two instincts.

I want to have fun and I want to change the world.

I have a chance to do both.

Bono.

That's pretty good.

I feel like he does that.

What band was he in?

I'm just kidding.

Totally kidding.

I was going to put you on the spot there.

I'm not good with music, but it is you too, right?

No, it's Coldplay.

I'm totally kidding, Gadsha.

Okay, I was like, oh man, that's a very classic.

I'm terrible.

I can name the Backstreet Boys, but that's about as far as

the same.

James Chiles just passed out in the...

I'm really proud of you, Rachel.

I'm sorry, James.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And he says a lot of great stuff.

I feel like he is definitely a philanthropist at heart.

And financially.

And in action.

Thank you.

And in action, yeah.

With his money.

He is.

It's great.

The old Deal Bono.

Oh, man.

All right.

Let's go to Darren in Oklahoma.

Hi, Darren.

Welcome to the show.

Hi.

Thanks for checking Mark Hall.

Huge fan of the show.

Oh, thank you.

Thanks for calling in.

How can we help?

So I'm 50.

My wife is 46.

Happy to say we are completely debt-free.

Good for you all.

On a personal side.

So all of our personal finances, our home, all of our cars,

no credit card debt.

It's all paid off.

Now, we also, we have an LLC and we own 15 single-family homes.

Nine of those single-family homes still have

small mortgages on them.

And when I say small, most of them are less than $10,000.

Some are around the $20,000 to $30,000 range.

But all total equity-wise in those rentals is about $1.5 million.

My CPA

is telling me this.

As these mortgages are getting close to being paid off, my CPA is saying, look, you've enjoyed this cash flow for you know for all these years

and because you have these mortgages coupled with the expenses that you have with the rentals with insurance and things like that taxes you know you've enjoyed a luxury of not having to very have a very high tax burden As these mortgages start getting paid off, your tax burden is going to increase.

So his advice to me is as these mortgages get down to $4,000 and $5,000, go borrow $10,000 against that house to keep that mortgage going.

Stick that $10,000 in your checking account or do whatever you want with it because that money is not taxable.

Therefore, your tax burden over the next few years is going to continue to stay low because you have these mortgages to help offset that income.

Now, I've kind of, on a personal side, I've kind of lived by Dave's principles for the last 20 years of, hey, you know, all this debt needs to go away.

And that's what we've done on a personal level.

But from a business standpoint, what my CPA is telling me makes sense.

However, because of how I've conditioned myself for the last 20 years to be, you know, completely debt-free, it's hard for me to do that.

So, you know, what are your thoughts on that?

If Dave was sitting here, I think he'd say fire your CPA.

You know, I kind of figured that might be his response.

Yeah.

And when he's talking about saving on the taxes, is it because you're not able to write them off?

What does he mean by that?

Or the income coming in, it changes your tax bracket.

What's he saying?

That's it.

Because

without those mortgages to take off of that taxable income, it's going to change my marketing.

You're having to pay for it, yeah.

That's correct.

So he says, you know, borrow this money and reinvest back into the houses if you want to because that money's not taxable.

And whereas if the mortgage was completely paid off and every dime of that is going into your pocket every month, then your tax break.

You're going to be making more money on it.

Sure.

Right.

Correct.

But also, you know, the way the taxes are staggered, and again, your CPA knows the numbers.

I understand this.

But it's not going to be.

the full, I mean, the full amount.

Like it's you, once you hit that bracket, yes, the things of the income above that bracket will be taxed at that new tax level.

But to avoid the taxes by taking on more debt is what we would say that you're continuing to take on risk.

And you're continuing to live in a system at which people own you.

I mean, you don't own it free and clear at that point.

And so taking the hit on the income to pay taxes to be free.

I mean, I take that all day versus freaking trying to play this game where I'm borrowing on this and borrowing on that.

I've been, I've been hearing about this for months now.

So take one of your houses.

I want to play this out mathematically.

Take one of the houses that you own.

Okay.

Is it $100,000 houses, $200,000 houses?

They range from about $100,000 to $200,000, yes.

Okay, so you're doing mostly low-income housing, right?

You got 15 of them?

Well, in this area, that's considered a fairly nice home.

Okay.

Northeast Oklahoma, you know, $200,000.

I mean, I've got a 3,000 square foot home on the golf course that's paid for free and clear that I paid $310,000 for.

So

really nice.

Okay.

So $310,000, what do you rent that house for?

Oh, the $310,000 is my house.

Okay, you're right.

$200,000.

I've got a $200,000 rental.

I rent it for $1,500 a month.

$1,500 a month.

Okay.

So that one has no mortgage.

No mortgage.

All right.

So what do you pay annually on taxes on that house?

About $1,000.

Okay.

Total tax burden on all 15 homes is about $6,000.

The complete tax burden?

That's correct.

Taxes in Oklahoma are dirt cheap.

Okay, so if you had 15 houses and you went and borrowed $10,000 on them

and you put that money in a checking account,

what is 15 times 10?

150K.

What is

150K times 6%,

which is the minimum you'd get a loan for?

Points are $9,000.

You need to fire your CPA, dude.

Because his little trick just costs you three grand.

What you're paying in interest to the bank.

You see what I'm saying?

You're going to pay for the banks.

You're outweighing the interest of what you're going to.

Yeah.

Then you're paying more in interest to the bank.

Taxes.

If you were in California and your taxes were 700%,

right, and I'm being ridiculous, right?

Or in Texas, the property taxes are astronomical in Texas.

Right.

Then you might be able to prop this game up.

And

I still think there's a mathematical case where I'm right.

But in just your situation, you're paying six grand total on all the property taxes against these places.

Are you talking about earned

income tax?

It's the income tax side.

All right, there you go.

So I'm my going to go ahead and get it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But still, I'm like, you know, from the tax bracket, which I don't have in my head right now, you know, you're offsetting the 6%.

To your point, though, the interest you're paying versus if you're going to bump up a few percentage points to pay extra.

So, I mean, like, when you know, when you actually run it out,

well, what is it?

What's the difference?

You know, because you're paying something to loan this, to get, to take money out of this home to loan, to loan it, right?

And so

fees and interest and you know and all of the above yeah and so at the end of the day what are you really saving because you know while these houses are great you you know they're not you know 800 000 homes that you're renting out right that you're gonna be taking you know correct so here's the thing i saw i hear i hear this all i hear this all the time i hear um and i'm just gonna get an egregious name right elon musk doesn't have doesn't make a salary he owns this much like hundreds of millions of dollars of stock and he he goes to a bank and he takes a loan out against that stock, and then he gets that loan and he gets to spend that interest-free.

Okay.

And I'm hearing, I'm going to move this over here.

You're playing, you got 15 houses.

It's not a small,

you got a good business going.

Yeah.

I'm telling you, at least off the front of the top of my head, and I can't do the math.

I do the math on the property taxes, not on the earning income tax.

And you're,

but I'm not playing that game for one reason.

I don't keep up with it.

100%.

I want to own my houses.

I don't

mind paying the taxes.

I'm not going to play a game where I loan this bank money and you borrow money from me and I'm going to give it to you.

I'm going to own it.

100%.

You pay the taxes.

All right.

Thank you guys so much, John.

Great hour of the show.

Thank you, America, for listening.

And remember, there's ultimately one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.