A $60,000 Mistake Turned Into a Wake-Up Call

Speaker 1 Brought to you by the Every Dollar app. Start budgeting for free today.

Speaker 2 Normal is broke, and common sense is weird. So, we're here to help you transform your life from the Ramsey Network in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio.

Speaker 2 This is the Ramsey Show, alongside the fabulous Jade Warshaw. I'm Ken Coleman.
The phone number is 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225.
All right, we're going to get to your calls. We're coming up very soon.

Speaker 2 Really fun story from my colleague here.

Speaker 3 You may know her journey.

Speaker 2 She and Sam or hubs paid off half a million dollars in debt. She gets you, folks.
If you're in debt, she gets you. She really does.
Fun story I asked her to share.

Speaker 2 I've gotten to know her and Sam very well. And so that's coming up.
You don't want to miss that. Those of you who are kind of on that edge today, you're going, can I do this? Can I make it?

Speaker 3 You can make it.

Speaker 2 She's going to tell you how. It's going to be fun.
But first, Jack is up in Indianapolis, Indiana. Jack, how can we help today?

Speaker 4 Hey, guys, thank you so much for taking my call.

Speaker 9 I bought an RV for $60,000

Speaker 5 on a 15-year loan at 18%

Speaker 11 interest.

Speaker 3 Wow. Why'd you do that?

Speaker 10 I'm realizing how bad of a decision it was.

Speaker 4 It was to live in,

Speaker 10 to save up eventually for a house.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 5 I'm realizing

Speaker 13 the interest is

Speaker 5 $800 a month on just interest.

Speaker 3 My goodness.

Speaker 10 Only $50 goes to the principal, and I'm realizing it'll be like 16 months before I even scratch the surface under what I borrowed.

Speaker 6 So

Speaker 10 I was wondering, because obviously I want to get out of it now.

Speaker 14 I started the baby steps.

Speaker 10 All I had was like a thousand

Speaker 7 personal loan, 2,000 personal loan.

Speaker 10 I had some pseudo loans.

Speaker 15 I had some credit cards.

Speaker 9 But

Speaker 10 I only made $2,000 a month when I bought it, so I don't even know how I got approved for it.

Speaker 16 Right. But

Speaker 4 one by one, and I got rid of everything except for the camper.

Speaker 4 My income's about $4,000 a month now.

Speaker 6 Okay. So.

Speaker 2 Where are you living?

Speaker 13 I got a job as a truck driver.

Speaker 7 So in the truck.

Speaker 6 Okay.

Speaker 6 Okay.

Speaker 6 Are you okay?

Speaker 2 You don't sound very okay to me. And maybe it's just your voice, but I'm just sincere.

Speaker 9 I'm really nervous.

Speaker 5 I'm really nervous. I just.

Speaker 6 Okay.

Speaker 2 Yeah, no, I'm good.

Speaker 6 Okay, great. Okay.

Speaker 3 So you've got... Did I understand correctly when you said you got rid of all the other debt except this RV?

Speaker 16 Yeah, everything.

Speaker 16 Okay, good.

Speaker 9 I did make a little mistake.

Speaker 4 I know you're supposed to save $1,000 first.

Speaker 8 And with the first thousand, I put it towards the debt.

Speaker 6 Okay.

Speaker 4 But yes, I have my $1,000.

Speaker 11 Everything else is gone. Good.

Speaker 4 Except for this camper.

Speaker 3 And you still owe $60,000. What's it worth if you were to to sell it?

Speaker 10 The dealership offered 31.

Speaker 6 Oh, lordy.

Speaker 3 But what if you were to sell it private sale?

Speaker 6 Have you looked into that?

Speaker 13 I have it listed for 38.

Speaker 16 And

Speaker 4 I've been trying to call the show for a couple of months now.

Speaker 20 So I owe

Speaker 5 $48 on it now.

Speaker 3 You owe $48 on it now, and you could sell it for $31?

Speaker 2 $38.

Speaker 2 I just got it listed at.

Speaker 6 I have a list of one.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 it's a $10,000 deficit there. What keeps you from going down to a credit union or going down to a bank or getting any kind of loan

Speaker 3 to clear this out?

Speaker 6 Why don't we do that?

Speaker 4 I canceled my credit cards when I removed them and it brought my credit score down pretty low.

Speaker 3 What about a credit union?

Speaker 3 Have you gone into a bank to see? Because at this point, here's my thinking on this. My rationale is there's not a worse loan than the one you have.
And this is going, you're going down.

Speaker 3 You're going from $48,000 of debt to $10,000 of debt. I'm going to take that deal every time,

Speaker 3 even if the terms aren't great.

Speaker 3 Well, yeah, because you're going to knock it out. You make $4,000 a month.
You knocked out the other debt. Why can't you knock out this $10,000 of debt very quickly?

Speaker 3 That's true.

Speaker 4 Because I was trying to rent it as well to see if I could try to get money out of it.

Speaker 3 But every moment you wait, it's dropping in value because you're in such a bad loan, right? The interest alone is $800 a month. So time is not on your side, my friend.

Speaker 2 Listen, we're coming to you from the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio. I'd call our friends at Fairwinds and say, hey, I was just on the show with Jade.

Speaker 2 And here's my situation. And I've made progress.
Will you guys help me out?

Speaker 2 And if they can help me out, they will.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 to Jade's point, then if we can sell this thing and then they take over the loan for the

Speaker 2 minimal amount you're going to have left, you can knock that out. So, you want to get rid of this because this is a depreciating asset.
That's why she's telling you that. You got to get rid of it.

Speaker 3 I would only, and for anybody listening who's like, oh, Jay told him to get a loan. She told him to take it out on a credit card.
She told him to take a bad loan. We're going down, people.

Speaker 3 We're going from 48 down to 10. We're not going up.
He's not taking a loan to go into debt. He's taking a lesser loan to get out of debt.

Speaker 3 So that's the difference there for anybody who's who's trying to clock something that's not there.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And now

Speaker 2 is this truck job? What's your opportunity to make more money than the $4,000 a month?

Speaker 4 Well, in the beginning,

Speaker 10 it was like, that's what I was getting because I was in training.

Speaker 10 I also do all the services on his trucks because

Speaker 4 he owns a trucking company.

Speaker 10 So I do all the mechanic work on them for side money on cash when I am at Indianapolis because it is long haul.

Speaker 2 So as we look forward, how much more additional money can you make then than the $4,000?

Speaker 10 $4,000 to $6,000 a month, I'd say take home.

Speaker 6 All right.

Speaker 2 And long term, is this a great opportunity for you to get to the six-figure range?

Speaker 2 It seems like it, yeah.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 All right. Well, what's the lesson here

Speaker 2 that you've learned?

Speaker 6 You know, because a lot of times we'll teach out of this.

Speaker 2 I want people to hear from you today because you're sitting in this calling us with a pit in your stomach. So, what's the lesson for everybody else?

Speaker 7 Don't get the dealership markups, don't get the warranty stuff,

Speaker 4 don't buy new,

Speaker 15 like ask someone older than you.

Speaker 6 Yeah, you know, I haven't,

Speaker 10 yeah, it's uh, I'm definitely not doing that anymore.

Speaker 6 Yeah, how old are you, Jack?

Speaker 10 I just turned 20.

Speaker 2 20 years of age.

Speaker 3 You learned a great lesson at a young age, my friend.

Speaker 6 That's awesome.

Speaker 13 I wish it didn't cost 60 000.

Speaker 3 yeah that's all right but it's a good lesson to learn hey no one no one gets that if let me not no one few people get out unscathed when you hit when you walk into the real world right you get out of college you start your life as an adult few jack uh get out of this without making major mistakes that's how we learn and for you i want you to look at this don't look at it as oh my gosh my mistake i ruined my life just look at it as some research you did you did a little bit of research and you found out that buying an RV to live in or buying anything that goes down in value is not a good idea.

Speaker 3 Now you can stick that in your pocket and keep it as a knowledge base for later.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I love it. Makes me think of the old song.

Speaker 3 What?

Speaker 2 By Ray Charles.

Speaker 2 Hit the road, Jack. And don't you come back no more, no more, no more.
Hit the road, Jack. That's what he's saying to debt.

Speaker 3 That's good. Yeah, come on.

Speaker 6 You know?

Speaker 2 Sometimes I think of these old school things. Now, if Rachel were next to me, she'd have no idea what I'm talking about.

Speaker 3 I thought you were going to say something totally different.

Speaker 2 No, hit the road, Jack.

Speaker 6 I like it.

Speaker 2 He got on the road in the 18-wheeler. He's getting after it.
He's 20 years of age. He learned his lesson.
I love his lessons.

Speaker 2 He did a great job, America.

Speaker 2 You heard Jack, and he's going to be okay. He's going to do great.
He's only 20 years of age. He learned a big lesson.
Now he's on the road to being debt-free.

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Speaker 2 Ken Coleman and Jade Warshaw hanging out with you today. And

Speaker 2 Jade,

Speaker 2 Stacey and I, we've gotten to be really good friends with you and Sam. And as we get to know you guys, your story is so powerful.
And it occurred to me today that there are a lot of people,

Speaker 2 people coming in all the time. We have some people that are, you know, baby step one.
They're just trying to get

Speaker 2 $1,000. That's a scramble.

Speaker 3 It's tough.

Speaker 2 There are some people that are in Baby Step 2 and they're looking at that mountain and they're just trying to get some momentum.

Speaker 2 And it just occurred to me that you've got some incredible stories, not the least of which

Speaker 2 is from the mountain that you climbed. Yeah.
$500,000. You two went through.
We were at dinner recently and we were talking about some of the crazy things and crazy stories.

Speaker 2 So I want just to bring it in.

Speaker 2 Because story is what connects to people. Right.
Take us to one of

Speaker 2 maybe the more memorable moments from your journey of paying off that kind of money. What comes to mind?

Speaker 3 I mean, if I really think about it, the story, the story that stands out probably most to me is probably that I've had it moment, Ken.

Speaker 3 Because I think we've all been there where you've kind of understood, hey, I need to make some changes with my money. I probably need to get on this plan that Ramsey's talking about.

Speaker 3 And you start it and you feel like you're doing the thing, but you're still so frustrated, right?

Speaker 3 How many people have started the Ramsey plan and they kind of feel like they're taking two steps forward, one step back? Because life hits, right? Life hits, the emotions hit.

Speaker 3 And sometimes you just kind of want to throw up your hands and go, is this going to be worth the trouble?

Speaker 3 And I remember that, at least for me, I woke up in the morning and the first thing that woke me up in the morning was my phone buzzing. And when I looked at the number, it was 1-800-PAY-ME.

Speaker 3 which is what I call the debt collectors.

Speaker 22 It was a credit card.

Speaker 3 And, you know, back then I was kind of in avoidance mode. So I just hit

Speaker 3 the button so that it would go to voicemail. And then five minutes later, it buzzed again.

Speaker 3 And then 10 minutes later, it buzzed again.

Speaker 2 That's not how you want to start a day.

Speaker 3 Well, that was the way I started my day. Every day.
That was just the way it was because what I didn't realize, I wasn't doing what the plan taught.

Speaker 3 I wasn't paying minimum payments on everything and then putting the extra money to the smallest. I was just trying to put all the money on the smallest debt.

Speaker 3 So I had these bill collectors blowing me up. And it went on throughout the day.
And that day, Sam and I had to run an errand. Back then, we were doing a bunch of side hustles.

Speaker 3 And a lot of times we'd get paid in cash. And then we'd have to take the cash to the bank to deposit it so that we could actually pay our bills.

Speaker 3 And so that day we were going to deposit like 300 bucks in cash to the bank so that we could pay our rent. And on the way to the bank, the phone buzzed and it buzzed again and it buzzed again.

Speaker 3 And when I tell you, Ken, I. lost it.

Speaker 3 I lost it. I was like,

Speaker 3 pull the car over. That's what I told Sam.
I said, pull the car over. And he's like, okay, okay.
Like, is it me? What did I do?

Speaker 3 But, you know, Sam, he's like, when Jade gets like this, I just need to listen. Right, right.
So he pulled the car over and I proceeded to just go. go off.
I was like, we've been working this plan.

Speaker 3 We've been doing everything right. What do we have to show for it? You know, and I was so angry.
And the worst part of it was, here we are. I'm going off.

Speaker 3 We're sitting in our Jeep, which has payments on it. The AC barely works, right? And it's South Florida, so it's hot.
And, you know, the moment you slow down, the AC stops working even more.

Speaker 3 So we're just sitting in this hot butt car,

Speaker 6 just,

Speaker 3 you know, and I'm crying. And Sam is like, oh my gosh, like, what do I do?

Speaker 3 And I remember I picked up the money that we were supposed to be depositing and I said, let's just give this to the credit card company so they can stop calling me. It's $300.
They wanted like $298.

Speaker 3 And back then, that felt like the world. I would have done anything to get that money in that moment.
But I feel like I had already, I was already doing the side hustles.

Speaker 3 I was already working full-time. I was already doing everything and I was ready to give them my rent money.

Speaker 3 And Sam was like, we can't do that. He was like, we can't do that.
We have to stay the course. We have to do what we know to do.
And I remember for like the next two hours, we just sat.

Speaker 3 And it was kind of like we went after all the emotions subsided, we sat and went through it all with a fine-toothed comb. It was like, what are we missing? What are we missing here?

Speaker 3 What are we doing wrong? Because it shouldn't feel like this. And that's when we figured out, hey, we're not doing it correct.
We're putting all of our money to the smallest debt.

Speaker 3 We're not, we're not paying the minimums first. We don't have $1,000 saved.
That's why it feels so tight. That's why we're trying to give them rent money.

Speaker 3 That's why, and sometimes that's what we have to do when we feel those moments of frustration, like our emotions are taking over. We have to stop and go, what am I missing?

Speaker 3 And it's almost like you need to do an audit and go back over your behavior because when you're in this plan, there's so much that we're throwing at you. Save $1,000.
Do it like this. Stop eating out.

Speaker 3 Stop your withholding. Stop your, you know, change your W-4, all that kind of stuff.
And it can be hard to remember it all.

Speaker 3 And before you do it, you think, before you know it, you're missing something, something's a little bit off. And it's all with the best of intentions.

Speaker 3 But that's just one of the many ways that our emotions can make us want to give up. They can kind of throw a wrench in the whole thing and everything just grinds to a halt.
And

Speaker 3 I really care about that because I hear it all the time in calls.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm going to ask you, from from your journey, plus the calls that you've now, you've sat in thousands of calls. Man.
All right.

Speaker 2 What is one of the most prevalent, one of the most obvious emotions that you see in this debt-free journey, getting control of your money? What's an emotion that you see pretty commonly?

Speaker 3 I mean, what I just gave an example of would be frustration, but what we hear a lot here on the calls, it's anger. It's that anger of, wait a second, I did everything right.

Speaker 3 The culture said I'm supposed to, you know, go to college. If I go to college and get a good degree, I'll be successful.
So I get a student loan for that because that's what they said to do.

Speaker 3 And I did it. And then when I graduated, I was told that I could celebrate and get a car loan because that's what you do when you graduate.
So I got my car loan.

Speaker 3 And then I got married and I bought a house. I did everything right.
Why am I up to my eyeballs in debt and stress?

Speaker 3 Or maybe you're a person who it's kind of like what Dr. Johnny, Dr.
Johnny, Dr. John Deloney would say.

Speaker 2 Please start calling him Johnny Deloney. Dr.

Speaker 3 Johnny.

Speaker 2 That's funny.

Speaker 3 You know, he would say, not by my hand, but in my lap. And a lot of us are dealing with that.
It's like we didn't cause the financial struggle, but here we are left to deal with it.

Speaker 3 And it makes us mad. You know, I thought the government was going to pay off my student loans.
I waited. I did the public service student loan thing.
They didn't come in.

Speaker 3 They didn't hold up their end of the bargain. So there's a lot of things that have caused us to be disenchanted with the whole thing.
And that anger is real.

Speaker 2 So in my hearing, I think I'm hearing this. Correct me if I'm wrong.
What you really believe based on your own experience

Speaker 2 and then coaching a lot of people

Speaker 2 is that winning with money isn't just about our process. It's also winning with the emotions that come with this process.

Speaker 3 Is that absolutely? I think that is.

Speaker 2 That's the key to winning, though, with those emotions.

Speaker 2 How do you deal with those emotions and stay on track?

Speaker 3 You know what I learned? It's endurance. You have to embrace endurance because endurance produces maturity.
That's truly what the Bible says. That's exactly what it says.

Speaker 3 But I learned that running a marathon.

Speaker 3 When I ran, and I'm talking about an actual marathon, a financial marathon. I can vouch for this.

Speaker 6 It's a tissue.

Speaker 3 She's a warrior princess.

Speaker 3 When I started, when I said, I want to run this marathon, the first thing that came was, oh my gosh, it's going to be hard. Oh, my gosh, it's going to last for three months.

Speaker 3 There's a long time period that you have to embrace. There's discomfort that you have to embrace.
I remember midway through training, my Achilles was hurting.

Speaker 3 My quads were hurting, but you have to run anyway, right?

Speaker 3 Then you go out there and some days it's raining and the weather's not good and you have to run anyway because you know if you just follow the process, if you just do the training, you will cross the finish line.

Speaker 3 That is a given. And millions of people have done it before me.

Speaker 3 So if I just accept the process, if I can get to a point of acceptance that I have to just endure this thing, a hard thing for a long period of time, I can win. And money is exactly the same way.

Speaker 3 The conditions are not always going to be favorable. There's going to be pain.
There's going to be discomfort. You're going to have to do it day after day after day.

Speaker 3 And sometimes it gets harder before it gets easier. But if you keep going, you will cross your finish line.

Speaker 2 So that's a fun example right there of just a smidge of something I know you're very excited about. I'm holding in my hands.
Something really, really cool.

Speaker 3 Look at that, Ken Coleman.

Speaker 2 It's first of all, it's a fabulous picture of you.

Speaker 6 Thank you.

Speaker 3 Good gracious. Well, for those listening, it's a book.

Speaker 2 Did you do a couple push-ups before they took that picture?

Speaker 3 That was after the marathon.

Speaker 2 So, for those listening, I'm holding in my hands your brand new book.

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Speaker 2 All right, let's go to Elijah who's joining us in Oregon. Elijah, how can we help today?

Speaker 3 Strong name. I like it.
Hey, man.

Speaker 1 How's it going? How's it going? Hey, good.

Speaker 21 That's what everyone always tells me. I'm happy to have it.
That's right.

Speaker 8 What's going on?

Speaker 21 So basically, I'm going to try and tell this story as concisely as possible,

Speaker 21 but it is kind of a tricky one. So basically, I was engaged to a girl, and we were together for a few months.

Speaker 21 I mean, engaged for a few months. We were together for over a year.
But she started expressing doubts and ultimately she told me she wanted to end the engagement.

Speaker 21 And around that time, we found out that we were pregnant together.

Speaker 6 Oh,

Speaker 13 yeah.

Speaker 21 So

Speaker 21 I was adamant about, hey, I think we should really try and stay together for the kids' sake. I think we should follow through with staying together.
And so she was open to it for a little while.

Speaker 21 I moved her into my place. She has two kids, so we moved the whole family.

Speaker 21 And but ultimately, I think she just kind of felt trapped to me in my place, and she ended up leaving and going back to her place.

Speaker 21 She got her ex-boyfriend, one of her other kids' fathers, to help her move. And he was kind of helping her out for a week.
And yeah, and so she left. And

Speaker 21 I was working on wildfire at the time. And when I got off, I guess she, you know,

Speaker 21 her ex-boyfriend kind of went out of state to go work a job. And so she kind of started reaching out back out to me for help.

Speaker 21 And she doesn't really want to be together, but

Speaker 21 she's been asking for a lot of financial support. And she hasn't really guaranteed me that I'm going to even get to have like a relationship with my, you know, with our baby on the way.

Speaker 21 She's pretty adamant about just wanting to

Speaker 21 raise her on her own and then just kind of receive child support. And so she's not open to any kind of 50-50 custody or anything like that.
And

Speaker 21 so I wanted to be helpful to her. Obviously, she's the mother of this child, you know, that we created.

Speaker 21 but it's really hard to not kind of feel like I'm just sort of being taken advantage of.

Speaker 21 We had kind of agreed on that I would give her a little bit of money out of each paycheck to kind of help her out.

Speaker 21 She was getting a little bit of child support from her other fathers, but

Speaker 21 even that she hasn't really been getting lately because they like lost their job. The other ones working under the table.

Speaker 3 Do her other two kids have two separate dads? Are there three dads total?

Speaker 21 Yeah, two separate fathers. That would be her third father to have a kid with her.
Yeah,

Speaker 2 I hate this that this is happening to you because this is tough, really tough emotionally. But man, you've dodged a bullet.

Speaker 6 This

Speaker 2 I'm just listening. I'm not.

Speaker 6 Okay.

Speaker 2 No, I mean, I'm saying, like, just you have dodged. This is not a woman that I think you want to settle down with.
We've got two other dudes, two other kids. She is taking advantage of you.

Speaker 2 She doesn't want you in the picture. She doesn't value you, assuming that everything you're telling telling us is true.

Speaker 3 Let me ask you straight up, Elijah.

Speaker 3 What did you do? Did you do anything or are you completely innocent holding a bag? Like, did you do anything to cause this to come to an end?

Speaker 21 I mean, I want to try and be as honest as I can.

Speaker 21 The reason I'm calling you guys is because I feel like what she and I have been doing is like, I'll talk to my people and they'll be like, well, she's taking advantage of you.

Speaker 21 And then she'll talk to her people and they'll say, well, he's not stepping up as a man or whatever. Okay.

Speaker 21 And so I would say that the main problems, I can tell you what she's expressed, what her problems with me were.

Speaker 21 A lot of them were just kind of like household issues. Like it would be stuff like I would put on an audio Bible at night and accidentally wake her up, and she thought that was inconsistent.

Speaker 6 Not you listening to the Bible. Come on.

Speaker 21 I mean, I think it was more clear.

Speaker 6 All right, hold on a second.

Speaker 2 All right, hold on a second. I think everybody knows that I took you at face value.
My Bible. But now I'm starting to doubt you when you drop the Bible.
That's the first thing that she griped about.

Speaker 2 Are you shooting me straight?

Speaker 19 Nothing.

Speaker 21 I'm telling you this because

Speaker 21 that was the night before she left.

Speaker 6 How late at night was it?

Speaker 2 Okay, I got to do a follow-up. America needs to know this.

Speaker 6 How late at night was it?

Speaker 21 I don't know. It might have been 10 or 11 or something.

Speaker 20 Was she in bed?

Speaker 21 It might have been in the middle of the night. It might have been like I woke up to get a glass of water and I was having trouble sleeping or something.

Speaker 6 And so you're right next to her?

Speaker 2 So you're right next to her listening to the Old Testament?

Speaker 6 I'd be pissed too. I don't care if it's the Bible or not.
I'm trying to sleep. Go to the the living room.
I mean, but that doesn't sound like, but that doesn't sound like worthy of this.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I was trying to get at, did you do anything? Like, did you cheat? Did you, were you being a jerk in some kind of way?

Speaker 6 Okay. Do you just listen to your Bible too?

Speaker 6 All right.

Speaker 2 Do you, do you not understand?

Speaker 6 No, it was like.

Speaker 21 Yeah, I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 Well, I just want to ask you, you laughed when I said it, and I don't mind being laughed at. You know, it happens all the time.

Speaker 6 I'm sitting right here. It really does.

Speaker 2 Do you not understand what I mean when I say you dodged a relationship bullet here? As hard as this is, and I hate that the custody thing is a thing. I got a lady in the front row.

Speaker 2 This is a wise woman. I can just see.
And she's giving me a thumbs up. So that means I'm right,

Speaker 2 which is rare, too.

Speaker 2 You know, you've dodged a bullet. And I share that to say this is painful.
This is tough.

Speaker 2 But I think you need to understand that what you have a responsibility to is child support. That's right.
So I would on the finally tie this up, in my opinion.

Speaker 2 And then I got an outlier towards the end here. And I want to get out of the way, let Jade weigh in.
But I'll say that I think part of your healing needs to be, I really dodged a bullet here.

Speaker 2 This is a very complex relationship. I was in.
It's messy. She does not seem like long-term material to me.
I'm not judging folks. I call balls and strikes.
Okay.

Speaker 2 And so we dodged a bullet. That should help you recover a little bit quicker.
Two,

Speaker 2 I'm okay with you continuing to give her the money that you agreed to because you said it was a small amount.

Speaker 2 And I would keep your word unless she does something that would then morally disqualify her. And you go, well, you didn't keep your word.
I'm going to keep it mine.

Speaker 2 And then I would wait for the judge to decide.

Speaker 21 She continues to ask for more and she's been spending on things that aren't essential.

Speaker 6 That's not your problem.

Speaker 6 Tell me what.

Speaker 6 Hold on a second.

Speaker 2 Sorry. Hold on.
It's not your problem.

Speaker 2 I don't care how many times she asks. You give her what you agreed to unless she violates the agreement.
Then you don't have to give her anything.

Speaker 21 And then I'd wait for the judge to tell you because the judge is going to tell you well and i want to know what that amount is what are you giving her now it was uh i basically went off of what she got child support from from her other people and it was something like um

Speaker 21 it was something like 250 to 300 out of every like couple weeks and so it was only like 500 a month but i went back and ultimately i was giving her because she would continue asking for more and ultimately it was like two to three times as much as what i ended up giving her and so i went and i talked to her and i was just kind of like hey i feel like you're asking for a lot more than what we originally originally agreed on.

Speaker 21 And so I kind of tried to switch to just like, can you just like let me know when you need groceries or something?

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 she doesn't, I just have this control over you, man.

Speaker 3 I want to jump in here because there is part of this I want to know more because the truth is if you were taking care of because the child support, obviously it needs to start while she's pregnant because she's carrying the baby.

Speaker 3 So usually it's based off of a percentage of what you're earning.

Speaker 3 So likening it to the other guys, ah, I get get why you're doing it, but it might not necessarily be fair if you were making more than them and if you are, were in a situation where you were previously providing more.

Speaker 3 So there's part of that that I want to be fair to the baby and fair to what it actually takes to carry.

Speaker 2 We need to get a judge involved in this.

Speaker 3 And you need to do that sooner than later.

Speaker 6 But not give her any more money.

Speaker 2 Don't give her any more until we get a judge involved. You give her what you said you're going to get her.

Speaker 21 I'm going to take a hard line on that one because she's asking for more and she's manipulating you and she's holding that baby over you i don't like it one of the one of the concerns is like obviously just kind of like there's you know um and that's kind of one of why i wanted to talk to you guys because obviously there's a lot of emotional parts involved for me but her her two fathers her only income source is child support she she lives for free on her grandmother's um another problem but her her only income is child support and so her two fathers basically stopped paying child support so it's kind of like if i'm not supporting her like nobody not your problem thing of it's not but i mean she she's the mother mother of my child.

Speaker 21 Like I obviously don't want her to go hungry while she's growing our baby.

Speaker 2 I understand that.

Speaker 2 Your only commitment is whatever the fair and equitable child support number is. If you want to give more than that, you can, but she's manipulating you right now.

Speaker 2 The very nature of that question is a guy who's been manipulated emotionally. And I get it.
You got a good heart. But she will take advantage of this.

Speaker 2 Her two deadbeat dudes that she got pregnant with the first time, that's her problem and their problem. It's not your problem.

Speaker 2 This is a country music song, is what this is. This entire call is a number one hit.
And I know, because we're in Music City, I mean, if you got any musical talent, you might want to write this one.

Speaker 6 It could really take off.

Speaker 3 In the meantime, Elijah, go online and look at just kind of some standards to get an idea. I'm looking here.
Standard is usually 17% for one child, 25% for two, 29% for three.

Speaker 3 I will disagree with my colleague and say her home situation does affect how she's carrying your baby today. So

Speaker 3 you need to weigh that in i'm not saying be taken advantage of but i'm just saying

Speaker 2 she's a mess no matter how much money this guy gets but it all but it's all together it's all together is all i'm saying i get it i'm thinking of the baby it's a country music song somebody write that

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Speaker 2 All right, let's go to Taylor. He's joining us now in Cleveland, Ohio.
Taylor, how can we help today?

Speaker 6 Hi there.

Speaker 9 So my question is: My husband started a side hustle last year doing home inspection. So this is not his full-time career gig.

Speaker 9 This is just something that he thought would be lucrative. And I think he just really wants to be a business owner.
And I appreciate that about him.

Speaker 9 My question is:

Speaker 9 so we

Speaker 9 have no debt on the business, praise Jesus.

Speaker 9 But up front, we spent about $13,000 for him to go to school, to get his permits, all the equipment

Speaker 9 he needed.

Speaker 9 And then every month we're paying like $300-ish dollars for the program that like the software he uses,

Speaker 9 our insurance and all of that, like business insurance.

Speaker 9 And obviously, home inspections are not super

Speaker 9 consistent. Like they can, you know, vary every month.
So I guess my question is: at what point do we say this business is costing us money every month? It's not making us anything.

Speaker 18 It's not profitable at all.

Speaker 9 Well, okay, so like I said, it varies. So like this month, he's had no home inspections at all.
So we have been paying the $300 on all these things that we need to sustain the business,

Speaker 7 but haven't made any money.

Speaker 6 What about over the life of the business?

Speaker 3 You got to look at it over the life of the business. When did he start it?

Speaker 9 He started, so he was off the ground in March.

Speaker 3 Okay. And since March, how much has you got to look at it as it is? Since March, how much he's brought in, it's just, you know, a balance sheet.

Speaker 3 How much he's brought in minus how many expenses and what's the number?

Speaker 9 So with a debt of about, well, not debt, but what we paid out, about $13,000.

Speaker 3 Plus the $300 a month. He's done.

Speaker 9 yes, he's done about eight home inspections at roughly like $400 a piece. Okay.

Speaker 6 So $32?

Speaker 9 Right. And that's, that is all at this point.

Speaker 3 Okay. And do you guys, have you decided at what point the break-even should be and at what point he should be profitable? Because here's the thing.

Speaker 3 If you guys didn't set out what the plan is, then we don't know at what point to pull the trigger because

Speaker 3 it's fair to say it's going to take some time to earn a profit. But once he starts turning it, everything after that is profit.

Speaker 3 So once he makes $13,000 or $14,000 with the $300 a month, then you're profitable. So you guys have to decide that.

Speaker 9 Yeah, that's true. I could absolutely see where you're coming from.

Speaker 2 Are you calling or are you calling on behalf of him?

Speaker 6 In other words,

Speaker 6 he's wondering.

Speaker 2 I thought so. So

Speaker 2 if I...

Speaker 6 If you're not the risk taker, right?

Speaker 2 So if I run into him today and and we don't know about this call and I say to him, what do you do?

Speaker 2 And he says, I'm in Cleveland and I've got this job, but then I've got a little home inspection business that I've got going. And I say, well, how do you feel about that?

Speaker 2 What's he going to say to me in response to that?

Speaker 9 Oh, he's going to say it's great.

Speaker 9 Okay. And he's going to say,

Speaker 9 like I said, he's more of the dreamer. So he is like, you know, we just have to wait another month.

Speaker 9 I just need to be doing this or that, or I need to get, you know, in with a realtor, which in theory, absolutely he does, and I support that.

Speaker 9 Yeah, the problem is, like I mentioned, this is his side gig, so he can't put as much effort into this as he does his full-time career because we also have two small children and I work part-time.

Speaker 9 You know, so we have all these other things.

Speaker 2 All right, let me ask another question, right?

Speaker 9 Do you

Speaker 2 manage the budget? Are you the nerd that's more in the numbers?

Speaker 2 Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 And by the way, and so then the 300 a month, how, yes, how tight

Speaker 2 is that from a number standpoint, not from an emotional standpoint? We know the answer. The idea that we're spending $300 a month and it's not ROIing is driving you nuts.

Speaker 2 You're breaking out in hives. I get it.

Speaker 6 But I'm talking real numbers.

Speaker 2 How much does the $300 a month affect you guys?

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 9 it's not like we are trying to rub nickels here. What I will say, the other factor that's kind of, it plays in for me is that his full-time job,

Speaker 9 he recently left the position that he was in and went somewhere else and we did take a pay cut there.

Speaker 9 So and that was his choice and I was hesitant to get a lot of money.

Speaker 6 How much you know how much?

Speaker 9 So he is making about $10,000 less a year than he was.

Speaker 3 And what baby step were you guys on?

Speaker 9 So we we are completely paid off aside from our house.

Speaker 3 Okay, that's great. Can I ask you a question?

Speaker 9 We're 32 and 34.

Speaker 3 Okay, so you have time. My question for you, if I were your husband, what's your husband's name? You don't have to say.

Speaker 9 It's Eric. Okay.

Speaker 6 It's okay.

Speaker 6 If I was Eric.

Speaker 3 If I was Eric, my question would be, okay, honey, how do you think that we, because the truth is we've... We've sunk $15,000 into this.

Speaker 3 My plan was that over time, we'd recoup that from the business and then we'd be profitable.

Speaker 3 If we stop the business now, honey, how do you think that we are going to recoup recoup the 15 000

Speaker 9 okay so i can tell you the answer to that hit me so he he's like well i can start a mowing company or like a lawn care business so it's business after business after business because he'd have to create a new no no let me tell you what i tell eric okay well wait wait wait wait she didn't answer the question that was how eric

Speaker 3 that's how eric would answer i want to know how would you answer i want to know in your mind how do you recoup the 15 000 if it's not through the business that was supposed to recoup it?

Speaker 9 So I honestly,

Speaker 9 if it were up to me, I would just say, call it a loss, time to be done. And I would take the money that we were putting towards the business every month and I would be putting it on our house payment.

Speaker 9 That's just the way we actually just got our PMI taken off, which saves us about $200 a month for that, which I then in turn have been putting on our principal.

Speaker 9 So I would like to put even more on that if we could, because it's not, you know, like I mentioned, it's not like we're rubbing the nickels together to get this $300 a month.

Speaker 9 But I feel like we would be better suited putting it somewhere else.

Speaker 3 On a scale of one to 10, what's your risk tolerance? On a scale of one to 10.

Speaker 2 I'm raising my hand when it's my turn.

Speaker 9 Probably like a two-ish. Here we go.
I am not, I'm not.

Speaker 9 And I know I need to work on that.

Speaker 6 Can I go now?

Speaker 2 Okay, here's the deal. Here's the deal.
I'm trying to set you free. Okay.

Speaker 2 He wants to do something entrepreneurial.

Speaker 2 You guys have already invested the $13,000. Yes, he's slow going, but he's got a lot going on.
This is a good man. There's no marital tension here.

Speaker 2 I'm talking to two responsible people that are on Baby Step Six. Here's what I think

Speaker 2 your encouragement would be to him. Hey, babe, how many realtors do we know?

Speaker 2 And if we don't know any realtors, who do we know that know any realtors? And this does not take a lot of time.

Speaker 2 He can carry a full-time job, help you at home with all of his husband and dad duties, and still connect to realtors and go, hey, I've launched a business.

Speaker 2 If you're looking for somebody reputable, if you get in a pinch, even though you may have a guy, I can be your guy. And he does this.

Speaker 2 And this is phone calls on the way to work, phone calls on the way home, phone calls during lunch. This is a simple solution.
There's no need for him to stop this business and go to something else.

Speaker 2 He hasn't given enough time, nor can I say, and this is not a critique. It's not a a critique, he's just not given enough energy.

Speaker 2 And so you could say to him, hey, babe,

Speaker 2 I have a little bit of, ooh, right here because we're putting 300 a month in and I'd like this to start to ROI, but I believe in you. And so I think this is what we need to do.

Speaker 2 And you can say, I called the Ramsey show, blame it on me. I don't care.
It's easy because I'm not going to be in the dining room.

Speaker 3 Blame it on me too because I don't know.

Speaker 2 Blame it on Jade. Okay, that's why I was chomping at the bit to go, I think you're focused on the wrong thing.
And I love your,

Speaker 2 I love that you want it to ROI and it should, but instead of shutting it down, you got to give it time. You got to give it time and don't forget what this is for him.

Speaker 2 This is a bigger deal to him than what it is to you. And I think I'd let this thing play, but it's okay for you as one half of this marriage to have a voice.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And to say, I think it should ROI. And babe, here's what I think we do.
And by the way, you could go reach out to some realtors.

Speaker 3 And it's okay for you who's a two on the risk meter to say, I do want to put some sort of timeline on this.

Speaker 3 That if we get to a certain point and we're still nowhere close to ROIing on this, that we need to consider what comes next. That's fair.

Speaker 2 That is 100% fair. And I think that becomes obvious.
It's not for us to decide. But I hope that helps.
You're a sweet, sweet, sweet lady and a great wife. Let this thing play out.

Speaker 2 Let's start recruiting. Let's go find more realtors.

Speaker 2 The more realtors he's in front of, that he gets some type of a deal with, the more inspections he's going to get, the more inspections he gets, the more money he makes, the happier you are when you see that budget every month.

Speaker 2 And that is what it's all about. Happy wife, happy life.

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Speaker 2 Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio. Dayton is joining us now from Vancouver.
Dayton, how can we help today?

Speaker 11 Hey there, guys.

Speaker 11 Yeah, calling in, just I'll make it as brief as I can.

Speaker 11 It's a bit of a mindset kind of thing.

Speaker 11 My wife and I, quite a few years ago, we had quite a bit of debt, about twenty two thousand, and we had worked hard to pay that off.

Speaker 23 And then since then, we've had three kids, bought a house, and then a lot of things have happened and backed up quite a bit more debt.

Speaker 11 My mind my mindset question to you is, what are some ways that we can kind of protect ourselves from doing this again?

Speaker 9 We're just starting the baby steps, and we don't want to get out of debt and then get back into it.

Speaker 18 There's a lot of shame around like sticking to our budget, like looking at our finances and stuff.

Speaker 8 so i'm just wondering if you guys can kind of help us with the mindset of getting out and staying out

Speaker 3 so my first question would be when you back in the day when you paid off the 22 000 what did it what did it look like to pay that off did it was it painful or was it kind of like we're going to do this and once it was done it was done

Speaker 11 um initially it was kind of painful like i can't believe i did this credit card company saw me coming from a mile away at 18 and then um i just worked i i was at a job where I could work tons of overtime.

Speaker 14 So I pretty much worked seven days a week, 60, 70 hours a week kind of thing.

Speaker 11 And we just worked through it and it felt really good when we got out of debt.

Speaker 13 It was a grind getting through it.

Speaker 2 How long did that take?

Speaker 11 I was able to pay that off in about 11 months, I think it was.

Speaker 2 So without giving us too long of a story, what happened? Because you said, and then things happened and we accumulated debt again.

Speaker 2 What type of things?

Speaker 11 Well, in that window,

Speaker 21 pretty much right after that, we got married.

Speaker 15 And then we had our first child, and then we had our second child.

Speaker 11 And then I did a career change that cost me quite a bit of money to go to school down in Texas.

Speaker 14 And then

Speaker 8 we bought a house.

Speaker 15 And then we had a third child.

Speaker 11 And, you know, when you buy a house, to make it what you want it, you end up spending money thinking that it's going to be okay.

Speaker 2 So what kind of career change was this? What are you doing now?

Speaker 14 Uh, I'm a firefighter now.

Speaker 2 And what did that cost you?

Speaker 11 Uh, it cost me about $20,000 to get into that.

Speaker 2 Do you still have a loan on that?

Speaker 8 No, so well, yeah, I guess it's part of one of my line of credits I used to get into that.

Speaker 2 And so, I'm hearing one of your line of credits, and that's what we did to make the house great for three kids?

Speaker 24 Yes,

Speaker 3 interesting. Yeah,

Speaker 3 I'm just thinking about what you're saying. And

Speaker 3 first off, you haven't paid off the 103 yet, right? So you haven't allowed yourself to go through that process.

Speaker 3 I'm a person that I think everything is in the process. The first time it took you about 11 months.
The truth is the debt wasn't that drastic.

Speaker 3 It probably was uncomfortable to pay it off, but you were able to do it.

Speaker 3 I think now because more is on the line and you're going to feel this one a lot more because it's you, it's your wife, it's your kids, and you're going to have to change your lifestyle, which you're going to feel that.

Speaker 3 I have a feeling that this one is going to stick a little bit more. However, you asked, what's the mindset that you need? And I think I hear the mindset that got you into it.

Speaker 3 And I'll try to give you an idea of the mindset that got you out, that's going to keep you out, which is, I think,

Speaker 3 Dayton, a lot of times when we're...

Speaker 3 In our life and we've got our money, we start to develop kind of an I deserve mentality. And it's not, it doesn't have to be ugly.
It's just kind of like, I work hard. I deserve to spend, right?

Speaker 3 I deserve to spend money on the things that I want. I deserve to have the lifestyle I want.
I deserve to have the car and the house I want. After all, I've worked hard.

Speaker 3 And if we're not careful, that can really, really, really do us in because that's what's happened to you. You listed it.

Speaker 3 You're like, well, we had kids and then I wanted this career and then I wanted this house.

Speaker 3 And it's kind of like, what other thing would cause you to go into debt other than the fact that you think you simply deserve to have those things, right? I mean, is that fair enough? Yeah.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I would agree with that.

Speaker 3 And then the other side of that I deserve is you're also seeing what other people have. And it's like, well, how do they deserve that?

Speaker 3 I deserve what they have because the people around me have the house, the people around me have the car. And so you're making that comparison and you're trying to keep up with the things you see.

Speaker 3 Is that fair enough?

Speaker 23 Yeah, yeah, to a degree.

Speaker 15 I mean, like, I never, we don't buy any nice cars.

Speaker 8 We don't have any car payments or anything like that.

Speaker 13 It's been, but yeah, totally lifestyle, like wanting to do things with the kids, wanting to make sure they got a nice space, pretty place, you know, that kind of stuff.

Speaker 3 And so I think the mentality going out of it, and don't get me wrong, I think coming out of $103,000 of debt is going to change you in a different way than coming out of $22,000 of debt is.

Speaker 3 But I want you to adapt. the mentality of what you truly deserve, which is you truly deserve to have a good night's sleep without debt over your shoulder, right?

Speaker 6 Ding, ding, ding.

Speaker 3 You deserve to feel good about the money that you earn and that it's enough for your family and not feel like it's not, you know, because the opposite is what makes you go out to get debt.

Speaker 3 The opposite is what I'm contributing is not enough.

Speaker 3 What I'm bringing and earning is not enough. Therefore, I must.
And then you go to all these debt sources, but you deserve to feel good about the life you're providing for your family.

Speaker 2 Dayton, I want to flip that. She's right, but let's just for a second, let's be real gut level honest with each other, the three of us.

Speaker 2 What are the emotions you're feeling, the negative emotions attached to this debt and those debt payments and that interest and all the things that you now obviously regret, which is why you called today and you said, how do I keep from doing this again?

Speaker 2 What is the most negative emotion? Describe it.

Speaker 11 Well, I would say it's like mass amounts of shame because I was in a good position and I've made good money for a lot of years and I'm back to making good money now.

Speaker 11 And it was a lot of shame to like look at the finances.

Speaker 11 I knew they were getting out of hand, but I literally like every time I think to open up the banking app or do my budget, my immediate thing is like, oh, don't do that, man.

Speaker 18 Like

Speaker 13 you're just looking, looking your failure in the face, right?

Speaker 16 So that would have been

Speaker 18 how it got out of hand for sure.

Speaker 2 How much stress? How much pressure do you feel?

Speaker 2 Oh, lots.

Speaker 11 Like, especially now looking at my new two-month-old baby and like thinking like, because I'm the sole income earner in our family.

Speaker 11 Thankfully, my job allows for that. But

Speaker 2 I would get hurt. What if I told you I could snap my fingers fingers and take away the shame and take away the stress? Well, how would you react to that?

Speaker 2 I know it's a fantastic old question, but how would you feel? How would you feel?

Speaker 11 I know it would make me feel a lot better, that's for sure, if I'm not carrying that baggage around, right?

Speaker 2 Okay. So my two cents on this is the way that you keep from ever doing this again is to, in these moments, on

Speaker 2 a daily basis, remind yourself how awful this feels.

Speaker 2 And I don't ever want to feel that again.

Speaker 2 Like that to me, if you talk to somebody who's lost a ton of weight, somebody who beat some type of an addiction, and I've been able to interview people like this.

Speaker 2 I know people my personal life, if you trace their story of when they recovery, you know, we've heard Dave say this for years on this show and on stage is it's the I had it moment.

Speaker 2 You know, you've talked about that. You talked about it earlier in the show today.
I think you have to bottle this emotion not to stay with it.

Speaker 2 And I really want you to focus on getting out of that shame because we all carry shame and it's powerful.

Speaker 2 But I do think you need to sit with it long enough to go, I don't ever want to feel this again. And it's actually really simple.

Speaker 2 To never get back in this again, you can get out of it. You've done it before, you're going to do it this time.
But to never get back in again, it goes, I don't ever want to feel that again.

Speaker 2 And I have total control as to whether or not I ever feel this way again. And I think that will be really helpful.
So get your chin up. Walk the baby steps.
You can do this.

Speaker 2 Throw off that coat of shame. You're not a deadbeat.
You're not a jerk. You're not a loser.
You're not a bad man. You made a bad financial decision.

Speaker 6 Welcome to the club, pal.

Speaker 19 You're going to be okay.

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Speaker 3 All right, all right. Ken, you know, when I, when we hear calls like that one, where people are dealing with guilt and shame, it kind of is important to know the difference, right?

Speaker 3 When we feel guilt with our money, it's generally kind of like that second stage of buyer's remorse or remorse where we're like, man, I wish I hadn't have done that, you know, and it feels guilty, especially if it's affecting our loved ones.

Speaker 3 It's not just us. Now our kids are affected.
Now our spouse is affected. That's really where we feel a large amount of guilt.

Speaker 3 But when it crosses that barrier, Ken, of it's not just this thing I did, but now I am the mistake. And I'm wearing that mistake as an identity.
That's when we get into shame. And that's why that call

Speaker 3 is tough. Because if you're wearing that identity, I am the mistake.
I'm the reason we're not getting ahead. I'm the reason that our finances are bad.

Speaker 3 Then yeah, going forward, how could you trust yourself? Because in your mind, you've personified yourself as a failure.

Speaker 3 It would be very hard to trust your decisions going forward. And so these are the types of things I talk about in my new book that's out now.
That's right.

Speaker 2 You know, it's story, story, story, by the way.

Speaker 3 Story, story, story. What no one tells you about money is just the sort of thing.
No one tells you that there's such an emotional struggle going through.

Speaker 3 Because with that last caller, he understands the baby steps. He's done it before.
He knows that, yeah, you got to list the debts, smallest to largest. But what's blocking him is his emotion.

Speaker 3 What's blocking him is the shame and the guilt that he's feeling over past mistakes.

Speaker 3 And he's just the sort of person who needs what no one tells you about money because I actually walk people through how to get past that.

Speaker 3 That was something that Sam and I dealt with during our money battle.

Speaker 3 I know for Sam, there was a lot of shame because most of the student loans came from his end of the equation.

Speaker 3 And so for him, it was, I'm the reason we can't get ahead.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 you know, that aggression can't stand. You have to learn how to forgive yourself and walk through that because until you forgive yourself, you really cannot go forward.

Speaker 2 And I'm glad you mentioned it. We're so excited.
Jade's new book, What No One Tells You About Money, is now available for pre-sale. And I love this.
We were talking about this earlier.

Speaker 2 This is not, you know, just some another money book. This is real stories from her journey.
She and her husband Sam paid off over $500,000 worth of debt.

Speaker 2 And she focuses on the emotional side of money. That's the idea.
What no one tells you about money is what?

Speaker 3 That it's really

Speaker 2 tough tough emotionally.

Speaker 2 Even though we give you a tried and true process of the baby steps, that does not mean that you aren't going to have those rough days where you want to quit, where you feel frustrated, like you can't ever get there.

Speaker 2 It works for everybody else, Dave, but it ain't working for me, Jay.

Speaker 3 The plan's only 50% of the equation.

Speaker 3 I mean, the logic, we can all look at the baby steps and go, yeah, that's logical. That makes sense.
Feels practical. But when you start doing it, Ken, is a whole different story.

Speaker 3 You get waylaid by a whole slew of things that you might be feeling, whether it's frustration, whether you're angry at the system or your mom and dad, or whether you're like the last caller, you're feeling a lot of guilt and shame, or maybe you're just caught up in like self-pity.

Speaker 3 Woe is me.

Speaker 2 I got to tell you, if that was me and I wanted to be coached up by somebody who'd actually walk the walk and doesn't just talk the talk, it'd be Jay. Could you imagine Jay training you?

Speaker 6 Could you imagine?

Speaker 2 She runs marathons. I mean, look at the guns on the book cover.
If you're not watching the show today, you got to go to ramseysolutions.com slash store. You can see.
She's got the guns out, folks.

Speaker 2 Did you do push-ups before that photo shoot?

Speaker 3 I ran a marathon before that photo shoot.

Speaker 3 I was in tip-top shape, Ken.

Speaker 6 I got to tell you.

Speaker 2 I still am. My next book cover, I might go sleeveless.
We'll see how that goes. I don't know.

Speaker 3 I'll let you borrow the tank top, Ken.

Speaker 2 That probably will look good.

Speaker 6 Probably.

Speaker 3 Your belly button's going to be showing.

Speaker 19 That's not a good look for middle-aged guys.

Speaker 2 Not a good look. Nobody wants to see that.

Speaker 2 But hey, if you want to get the book, ramseysolutions.com store. Pre-order now.
Yes. Pre-order.
And you get $100 plus in free bonus items. And you want to get it now.
It's the best deal in the book.

Speaker 2 $24.

Speaker 6 I'm doing a book.

Speaker 2 $99. You're doing a book.

Speaker 3 If you pre-order, you get a free slot in my book club.

Speaker 3 It's three weeks, and we're going through it chapter by chapter.

Speaker 2 Can I get a friend connection on this?

Speaker 2 Or do I have to, do I have to buy your book? Or can I get a friend

Speaker 2 spot in the book?

Speaker 3 No, Ken, you got to buy the book. Come on, that's just you being a good friend.

Speaker 2 That's a good point. You know? I just exposed myself as people.

Speaker 6 I'm just open up the person. You know what's going on?

Speaker 2 I'm starting to act like George. That's a question George would ask because he doesn't want to spend any money.

Speaker 6 What am I doing?

Speaker 3 I'm better than that. Let me tell you what I'm doing.

Speaker 6 All right, I'll get it.

Speaker 1 I'll get it.

Speaker 3 I'm pre-ordering. I'm buying a copy of my own book today.

Speaker 3 Yes,

Speaker 3 that's part of it. If I don't buy a copy of my own book, why can't I expect anybody else to buy one, Ken?

Speaker 6 All right.

Speaker 2 Well, I'm very excited for you.

Speaker 2 You're going to get some free bonus items. I wanted to tell you that.

Speaker 6 That's right. Yeah.
The bookseller.

Speaker 2 That's a good one. Ramseysolutions.com/slash store.
Great book, by the way. There's no money book like this on the planet.
It doesn't exist.

Speaker 3 I looked.

Speaker 2 Go get it. Yes, you did.
Brett is up in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Speaker 6 Brett, how can we help?

Speaker 6 Hey, I got a

Speaker 14 pretty difficult decision to make here in the next 24 hours or so. So I was hoping to get some advice on what I should do.

Speaker 6 All right.

Speaker 14 So Wednesday,

Speaker 14 our team, everybody on our team was told that our team was being eliminated and everybody was being laid off.

Speaker 6 Oh, wow.

Speaker 14 Effective today.

Speaker 14 But they've come back with a two-sevenths options, and I'm having a tough time picking between the two.

Speaker 2 Okay, give us number one.

Speaker 14 Number one is I remain on the company payroll for 60 days. I get my normal check.
I have health insurance. You know, all the deductions are normal.
Everything stays the same.

Speaker 14 I just don't have any work responsibilities.

Speaker 14 The catch to that is that if I become employed anytime during that 60 days,

Speaker 8 it stops.

Speaker 12 So I have to let them know and any further benefits

Speaker 7 or pay will cease.

Speaker 14 So the other option is they'll give me 45 days

Speaker 14 of salary and the separation is effective immediately. Like when the money is deposited, but they want some at the end of the relationship.
And so there's no health insurance or no further

Speaker 6 benefits whatsoever.

Speaker 3 So one is all at once and the other one is over the course of the 60 days. Correct.
How does the for the 45 days, how does that work with insurance? Because that has to play out over time.

Speaker 6 Like with the benefits. 45 days.

Speaker 14 Yeah, I asked about that. The insurance stops

Speaker 14 pretty much the day the lump sum is deposited.

Speaker 2 So no insurance.

Speaker 3 I think that's a no-brainer for me.

Speaker 3 Okay. Which way are you leaning? I'm leaning towards the 60 days because my thought is for if you wanted to, if you let's pretend you got a, you know, you start looking for a job immediately.

Speaker 3 And let's pretend in the next two to three weeks you land something.

Speaker 3 You could easily say, here's my start date that I'd like to start.

Speaker 3 If you felt like your previous job was paying more or there was something beneficial that you were getting from having that additional 60 days play out.

Speaker 3 Or let's say you land a job in the next three weeks, you get paid more, the benefits are better. Who cares if this has to turn off? You're in a new job now.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 that's the question I have. And this may be an unfair question.
And if it is, just say, Ken, I don't know. And I get it.
Do you have any sense of your ability to land somewhere else fairly quickly?

Speaker 14 Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 6 What do you do?

Speaker 14 I'm an IT project manager.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 Given that, you got to make a decision pretty quick. I'm with Jade.
I'm leaning towards option one because that gives you 60 days as normal. It gives you two months where life is normal.

Speaker 2 It's already awful enough what you've experienced. And I want to point this out so that you

Speaker 2 sit with this. We know from psychology studies that losing a job, even being laid off where you didn't anything wrong, you're part of a massive deal,

Speaker 2 it is the same emotional equivalent as losing a loved one.

Speaker 2 So you need to grieve this and know that this is hard. And for that reason, I think I'm going to take the 60 days.

Speaker 2 I know I got two months more of normalcy in the midst of a lot of grief and confusion and fear and all the stress, right?

Speaker 2 And if I get another job and it stops, that's fine because we're talking about a Band-Aid situation at most.

Speaker 2 So I'm with Jade on that. I think I'd take stability, but I would act as though you got nothing coming in.
That's right. Starting tomorrow.

Speaker 6 Actually, starting today.

Speaker 2 You know what I mean? Like, I tell the whole world, I just got laid off. There's no shame in that game, by the way.
That happens all the time. Of course.

Speaker 3 And what's to say, you don't get something better.

Speaker 2 You know? Yeah, so I'd act as though nothing's coming in starting now.

Speaker 2 And I think that's what I would do. But so sorry, but you're going to be okay.
But I'm going to tell you something. Here's what.

Speaker 2 And I'm not saying this is you, but I've coached thousands of people

Speaker 2 in my time here at Ramsey on this particular issue. And

Speaker 2 there is this temptation to feel so bad for yourself that you just get stuck in this rut of, well, nothing's really working.

Speaker 2 No, I mean, you act as if you are starving and you're thrown out on the street. That's the response.

Speaker 1 I've been doing this show for over 30 years and some of the saddest calls I have taken are from situations that are completely preventable.

Speaker 22 Yeah, and what's so hard is I feel like one of those, especially the ones that I'm like, oh, it's terrible, are people that call in and their spouse has passed away suddenly and they don't have life insurance.

Speaker 22 We actually took a question of a lady and she had three kids pregnant and husband didn't have life insurance. And I'm like, I can't even imagine.
Or even if it was opposite, right?

Speaker 22 If a mom passed away, there's a dad with kids and trying to figure out how am I going to afford child care? How do I, how do I outsource some stuff that maybe she was doing?

Speaker 22 Like, and it just takes the grief and the sadness of something like a sudden death to a whole new level. Like, when you have to think through how am I going to pay my bills

Speaker 6 in the middle of next week.

Speaker 22 Yeah. In the middle of all that grief.
Like, it's just, it is, it's terrible.

Speaker 22 And so, life insurance is the one thing, especially as a mom with three little kids that I'm like so big on for people to get because it's inexpensive.

Speaker 22 Xander is the place that Winston and I actually get all of our life insurance. And we keep re-upping it because I'm like, I just want it there.

Speaker 22 Like, there's something about that safety of knowing that you have money if something suddenly happens.

Speaker 1 And it doesn't cost much because Xander shops among a gazillion different companies. It doesn't cost much.
You just have to admit that someday you're not going to be here. You got to say it out loud.

Speaker 1 And you got to say, I'm going to say, I love you to my family by taking care of them and taking the time to put this stuff in place. The cost of stinking pizza.

Speaker 22 There really is. So that is one thing to do to say I love you to your family.

Speaker 1 So we've used Xander for all of our family's needs for insurance for many years, including, of course, term life insurance to get a free quote go to 800-356-4282 that's 800-356-4282 or go to zander.com

Speaker 2 Our question of the day is sponsored by YReFi.

Speaker 2 You didn't take out private student loans hoping to default, but life does happen, and YReFi isn't going to shame you over this.

Speaker 2 They're actually going to help you explore a real plane to get back on track. All you got to do is go to yrefi.com/slash Ramsey to find out more.
That's the letter YREFY.com/slash Ramsey.

Speaker 2 It's not available in all states.

Speaker 3 That's right. Today's question comes from Kelly in Colorado.
She says, My debt, my only debt is $16,000 on a car loan, and then I have about $16,000 in savings. So I have my emergency fund built up.

Speaker 3 The only thing is I'm scared to death to pay off this car loan because my husband and I would like to potentially look into buying a home.

Speaker 3 I'm truly scared that if we were to do something like that, something else would pop up. I don't know if I should build up a little bit more money and then tackle it or do it now.

Speaker 3 Okay, so first, Kelly, let's just... I'll give you both sides of it.
Let's talk about the baby step side of it and then we'll talk about the emotional side. So,

Speaker 3 Kelly, the baby steps would tell you that if you have debt, you're in baby step two. All right.
You've got, you know, baby step one, obviously, you put a thousand dollars aside. You got that.

Speaker 3 You got $16,000. But the baby steps say you're supposed to take everything else aside from the thousand and put it on the car and pay it off.

Speaker 3 So essentially, you'd be paying $15,000 on the car if you were really following the steps to a T.

Speaker 3 And then after that, yeah, you would save up three to six months. And then, and only then, Kelly, would you then start to save up for your down payment for this house? Now, that's a timeline.

Speaker 3 That's this is not going to happen overnight, right? This is going to be something that's going to take an extended period of time. So that's when we start getting into the emotional side of this.

Speaker 3 Whereas Ken and I, we could just tell you, Kelly, here's the steps. Do it.
But the truth is you're going to feel some emotion around that.

Speaker 3 Number one, you're going to feel the fear of getting rid of your savings because that is a security blanket to you. You feel that at night.

Speaker 3 You probably check your bank account balance just to make sure it's still there, right? It feels good to have $16,000 off to the side.

Speaker 3 Then there's the part of, oh my gosh, Jade, you're telling me that I have to do all of those other things before I buy this house. I want to do it much sooner than that.

Speaker 3 And so there's a little bit of an emotional pill to swallow there when you realize, wait a second, the thing I thought I was going to maybe be able to do in the next 12 months is actually maybe going to take me closer to 48 months or possibly even longer.

Speaker 3 So I just want to take a moment and validate that that that is absolutely real.

Speaker 3 And there's part of this where we're asking you, Kelly, to do something that you've never done before and possibly never even seen done before. And there's a lot of fear in that unknown kin.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Speaking of things that have never been seen before, earlier in the show, I was talking about how in a future book,

Speaker 2 I might like to, let me see your book. And by the way, if you're lobbying.

Speaker 2 And by the way, if you're in the lobby and you want to see something special, move back to that screen back there. You're about ready to see something really special.
This is Jade's new book.

Speaker 2 Of course, we've been talking about it, what no one tells you about money. And I was talking to her earlier about, look at her guns.

Speaker 2 And, you know, she's been working out, training for a marathon, all the things.

Speaker 2 And then I said, maybe my next book, when does it become socially acceptable for a guy to wear a sleeveless shirt on something, you know, formal?

Speaker 2 And so James Childs, being the genius that he is and the crack team back there behind the glass, went to ChatGPT GPT and put me in your tank top on your new book cover.

Speaker 3 Let's show the audience if oh Ken.

Speaker 2 There it is.

Speaker 6 You have a folks.

Speaker 2 I mean, look at those guns.

Speaker 6 Listen,

Speaker 6 the guns are out. That's face.

Speaker 2 Face is a little warped, but the left arm looks a little stronger.

Speaker 3 You have a strange way of showing your excitement for my book, Ken.

Speaker 2 The teeth look fantastic.

Speaker 19 Your teeth looked great.

Speaker 2 So it's just fascinating how socially acceptable it is for women to be sleeveless. And you all look lovely.
We see it all the time on TV,

Speaker 2 out in the town.

Speaker 6 But

Speaker 2 a guy goes sleeveless and you either look like a wannabe or a try-to-hard. Yeah.
Or

Speaker 2 white trash.

Speaker 3 Listen. So there you go.

Speaker 3 It's, you know.

Speaker 2 I don't know why that is. Well.
So anyway, I'm sending that to Dave to see what he thinks about a future book cover, see what he thinks about that.

Speaker 6 I'm pretty sure the answer is no.

Speaker 3 Hard pass. Hard pass.

Speaker 2 You sent that picture to Sam, your husband, and his reply was hilarious.

Speaker 3 What did he say? He was like, this is deeply disturbing.

Speaker 2 So good stuff.

Speaker 3 You need to keep those weapons concealed.

Speaker 2 They're going to stay concealed, folks.

Speaker 2 These babies are dangerous in all 50 states.

Speaker 3 Listen, I don't want to say, I think that picture might have done you a few favors, Ken Coleman.

Speaker 2 I'm happily married. Happily married.

Speaker 2 Elliot is up in Idaho.

Speaker 6 Elliot, how can we help? help?

Speaker 24 So me and my wife just found out we were pregnant like three weeks ago.

Speaker 6 Congratulations.

Speaker 24 Thanks. And I'm trying to figure out how much we need to save up in the nine months to be able to pay for it all outright.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah. So

Speaker 3 tell me where you are in the baby steps. Is there debt? Is there not debt? Tell me where you're at.

Speaker 24 Yeah, we have a car payment of $5,100, and that is about it.

Speaker 3 Wow, $5,100 for the car payment? Yeah.

Speaker 2 No, no, you mean that.

Speaker 6 Is that the total amount?

Speaker 20 Yeah, total.

Speaker 11 That was the total amount of what we have left.

Speaker 3 Got you, got you.

Speaker 2 Yeah, the way you said that,

Speaker 2 America just all did a collective gas.

Speaker 3 I know, that's right. And that's it? Just the car?

Speaker 21 Yeah, just the car. Okay.

Speaker 3 What do you guys earn?

Speaker 24 Combined, a little less than $60,000.

Speaker 3 Okay, good. So, yeah, during this time, we kind of call this

Speaker 3 stork mode, which is basically you're pausing any real financial uh traction that you're making to save up every dime that you have you're saving that up so that when this baby comes Just in case, if you need the money, it's there.

Speaker 3 Now,

Speaker 3 obviously, I hope that everything goes off without a hitch, but it is nice to have that money there because many times you do hit the deductible and it's nice to at least, at the very least, have that insurance deductible there so that you're not having to come out of pocket last minute for that.

Speaker 3 Do you know what yours is?

Speaker 24 I believe deductible is $2,500.

Speaker 3 Okay. And is that the same as your out-of-pocket max for the year?

Speaker 21 Out-of-pocket is $6,500.

Speaker 3 $6,500. So if I were you, that'd probably be somewhere in between those two numbers would be my goal over the next nine months to save up.

Speaker 3 And then the good news is, let's say you save up the whole $6,500. The good news is once the baby's born, everything's good.
Mom's home, baby's home.

Speaker 3 You can take that whole amount, throw it towards the car, pay it off just like that, and you got a little something, something to start your three to six months on it, off on the right track.

Speaker 6 Okay.

Speaker 3 Make sense?

Speaker 9 Yeah.

Speaker 6 Good, good.

Speaker 3 Let that sink in.

Speaker 2 All right. There you go.
All right. Let's talk about the emotions.

Speaker 6 Okay.

Speaker 3 Nice segue, Ken.

Speaker 6 Just slap it right in there.

Speaker 2 Let's go. Let's talk about the emotions of

Speaker 2 bringing a child into the world.

Speaker 6 Oh, Lord.

Speaker 2 You're in the baby steps. Right.
And this was a very specific question, but just in general, it's been a while, right? But I'm thinking back, I know you've done it.

Speaker 2 You know, there's something happens. And how do we manage that natural fear of, oh my gosh, I now have to take care of somebody more than just me and my wife?

Speaker 2 Because I remember Stacey and I, it's like, I never felt like, okay, I've got to take care of Cacey because she was working and I was working.

Speaker 2 Now I know, you know, obviously we're married, but it's like we were both working, double income, no kids.

Speaker 2 And the moment when a child comes in, I know as a dude, dude, I feel like the provider muscle starts to flare a little bit more.

Speaker 2 So, A, what you think the common emotion is? And B, how do we make sure we don't overreact and stay calm?

Speaker 3 I think, obviously, depending on the person, it's going to be different. I know for me, I can speak from my personal opinion and just personal experience.
For me, it was kind of twofold.

Speaker 3 The idea of bringing a child into the world, and then we had this half a million dollars of debt. For me, it was a wake-up call

Speaker 6 of

Speaker 3 a I am in a current state of struggle and financial trauma. I was like, I can't bring a child into this.
I have to get my act together, Sam. We have to get our act together.

Speaker 3 We've got to create stability. So for us, it was like a lighting a fire under our butt.
And then there's also kind of the historical framework.

Speaker 3 So you think about what was money like when you were a child? How did you feel? Did you feel like it was a scarcity mentality? Did you feel like it was abundant? Did you feel?

Speaker 3 And all of that plays into the moment when you find out we're pregnant.

Speaker 3 And if you're not careful, it can freeze you dead in your tracks, or you can take that and it can be just the catalyst that you need to get you moving in the right direction, possibly for the first time ever.

Speaker 3 And so that's exactly the type of thing I'm talking about and what no one tells you about money, how to convert those emotions into fuel to actually help you win.

Speaker 2 Jake, you know this. I got to tell everybody else, the all-new every dollar is here.
Hey.

Speaker 2 And it's more than just a world-class budgeting app. Okay, so when we say that,

Speaker 2 I mean, there's a bunch of advanced features, all the things, but I think what's really cool is the real-time help.

Speaker 3 That's right.

Speaker 3 Talk about that.

Speaker 2 You're in the weeds.

Speaker 3 Ooh, real-time. I think the best thing is, yeah, the coaching, the coaching aspect, not only does it create a plan that's customized for you, but we also have coaching.

Speaker 3 There's free one-on-one coaching that you can get involved in.

Speaker 3 There's group group coaching that you can get involved in we do webinars once a month so you can get help from real people yes there's the digital component but there's also the human component and I think that's the best of both worlds baby get every dollar for free today in the App Store or Google Play and it really is fantastic I mean the way I like to describe it is if you've ever been familiar or been a part of or led financial peace university imagine that digital on steroids to the nines it's like having a person one of the personalities in your pocket like having Ken or I, Ken in your right side pocket, Jade in your left side pocket.

Speaker 3 I don't know that.

Speaker 6 That's scary.

Speaker 2 I was getting ready to say, I thought everything was good until that. I think now everybody ran for the hills when you told them I might be in their pocket.
And we'll let that one go.

Speaker 2 Trevor's up in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I've been there before.
Have you ever been to Sioux Falls? I have not. It's gorgeous.
Falls run right through the town. Trevor is there.

Speaker 2 Trevor, how can we help?

Speaker 12 Hey, guys.

Speaker 12 My father-in-law wants to gift me his portion of a family business, and I don't know that I want to be partners with the rest of his family without him involved.

Speaker 12 I don't want to be unappreciative.

Speaker 2 Sure.

Speaker 2 So don't do it.

Speaker 3 Do you already work in the family business?

Speaker 12 So I manage it.

Speaker 3 Okay. And how long have you been part of it?

Speaker 20 This is my fourth year.

Speaker 6 Oh, boy.

Speaker 3 And what's his stake?

Speaker 3 What percentage is he offering you?

Speaker 20 He has 25% of it.

Speaker 2 Who are the other family members once he's out?

Speaker 2 His parents and his brother. And you work with these folks for four years.

Speaker 2 Yeah. You've been behind the curtain and you don't want it.

Speaker 12 I mean, ideally at some point I'd own the whole thing, but I don't know that I want to be involved.

Speaker 6 Right.

Speaker 2 And you know your reasons.

Speaker 19 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And because it's family, I'm not going to ask you to list them because you're calling in at a show.

Speaker 2 But I guess my point is that's everything I need to know. Because it'd be one thing if

Speaker 2 you called and you didn't work in the business and maybe you were just adjacent and you just knew very little. I think I'd be the one that would go, you know what I would do?

Speaker 2 I would at least go kick the tires, ask a lot of questions.

Speaker 2 But the fact that you've been running the business for four years tells me you have enough evidence and I don't even need to know your reasons why. And I think in this case, you got to honor your gut.

Speaker 2 Does that

Speaker 2 you got any head checks on that?

Speaker 3 It does. I do have more questions just based on two things you said.
Number one is you said I wouldn't want to be in there in it without him.

Speaker 3 So I wondered what is it about your father-in-law that you feel like that brings kind of like stability to the chaos?

Speaker 12 Well, I know he's got my best interests in mind.

Speaker 12 And

Speaker 12 he's able to kind of push things. Like, if we need to make a change or something, he's kind of able to kind of get it pushed past his family, I guess.

Speaker 6 So, he's kind of an ally.

Speaker 3 He's an ally, and he kind of knows how to navigate the BS.

Speaker 2 What position is he in right now?

Speaker 6 Or has he been in?

Speaker 12 He's recently retired, so he's gotten more involved.

Speaker 12 But he just kind of helps with

Speaker 8 the day-to-day stuff as far as just.

Speaker 2 I I guess my point is so your position is what? What's your title?

Speaker 12 So I'm the manager.

Speaker 12 So I'm kind of in charge of everything.

Speaker 2 Okay, who's above you? Who do you report to?

Speaker 12 Basically, I report to my father-in-law.

Speaker 6 My father-in-law is out. Once he's gone, who do you report to?

Speaker 2 Who does he report to? If he helps get things pushed through, it implies that there's somebody above him. Who is that?

Speaker 12 Well, his parents own 50% of it, so I guess they would be the.

Speaker 2 Okay, that's 50. He's offering you 25.
Where's the other 25? The brother.

Speaker 6 His brother.

Speaker 2 Is he involved in the business?

Speaker 20 Yeah, he used to be the manager before I got involved.

Speaker 3 So two other questions then.

Speaker 3 First question is, the parents, they've got to be aging, right?

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 3 So what happens to their cut when they leave and when are they leaving?

Speaker 3 It's supposed to be split between my father-in-law and his his brother so you would get another 25 so essentially at the end of the day it'd be you owning 50 and your brother and the brother owning 50 is that right yeah okay then my next question is what's the business worth

Speaker 3 um

Speaker 3 it's probably over a million dollars huh i was hoping for more

Speaker 2 Okay. Are you, do you have a, um, well, okay, I have two quick questions.
One, is it part of your your plan to, if I say no now and I just keep doing a good job running the business, that once

Speaker 2 grandparents are gone and uncle and father-in-law are in charge, and once they age out, that you just inherit it all at that point, you go, sure, I want it then, but only then.

Speaker 2 Is that where your head is at? Or do you have another play outside of this?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, that's

Speaker 2 yeah, what?

Speaker 12 If his parents weren't involved and

Speaker 6 the uncle

Speaker 12 and the uncle, yeah, I guess that would be right.

Speaker 2 But that's a long time from now at best?

Speaker 6 I mean, his parents are in their 80s. No, I know, but we got to go for another lawyer.

Speaker 2 Did you mention this to your father-in-law? That you would do it if he were involved, but have you told him this is my question?

Speaker 12 I've kind of it's been, I mean, we've been talking about this a little bit, so I've kind of brought it up that I don't really want to be involved without having to do it.

Speaker 2 And is there pressure from him for you to stay involved, or does he go, totally get it, young man? I appreciate that.

Speaker 12 Yeah, a little bit.

Speaker 6 I gave you two. I need you to tell me.

Speaker 12 I'm going to business continue, but he doesn't, he's, he doesn't want to have to.

Speaker 12 I think he's getting kind of sick of dealing with his family.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but I mean, is he pressuring you to stay in it, or is he saying if you don't want it, that's totally fine? That's what I'm asking. A or B?

Speaker 12 He's not really pressuring me, but I mean, he knows that I

Speaker 23 want to be in this long term, I guess.

Speaker 2 So you do want to stay in the business long term?

Speaker 6 I do, yeah. I just.
Is there a world where

Speaker 3 is there? Okay, so parents, they're getting older. You got to, I got to believe they're going to age out of this in the next five to ten years.
Is there a world, you said they're 80 in their 80s now?

Speaker 3 Yeah. Maybe even sooner.
I mean, only you know that.

Speaker 3 But is there a world where once the parents come out and you're 50-50 with the brother-in-law, is there a world where you could then buy the brother-in-law out financially?

Speaker 3 Are you in the position to be able to do that so you can get to a position of ownership faster?

Speaker 12 I'm not really in a financial position to do that.

Speaker 6 Got it.

Speaker 2 And are you okay working with the uncle?

Speaker 3 No.

Speaker 16 I prefer not to. No.

Speaker 2 Okay, so I got to tell you something. I don't think this is worth the wait for you because it feels like the uncle's going to be in charge for a good while.

Speaker 6 Yes?

Speaker 12 Yeah.

Speaker 6 Okay, then. How old are you?

Speaker 6 30. Okay.

Speaker 2 You know what I think? Now, I'm not telling you to do this, but this is under the, this is what Ken would do.

Speaker 2 I'm not saying this is what you should do. Okay.
What I would do is I would tell everybody. You've already told father-in-law.
I'd tell uncle-in-law.

Speaker 2 I'd tell grandma, granddaddy, whatever you call them. I love you guys.

Speaker 2 Um, I'm gonna go out on, I'm gonna go a different path.

Speaker 6 What about I'm out, and here's why:

Speaker 2 once you go do your own thing, and the reason I'm telling you to go do your own thing, whatever that is, you go work for somebody else, you go, whatever, you just leave the business because you don't want to work with these people.

Speaker 2 You've already determined that, and you certainly don't want to wait as long as it's going to take for you to get the chance to run it.

Speaker 2 So, go do your own thing, and here's what's going to happen: at some point, when Uncle's ready, he's got to figure out what he's going to do, and you're probably the best candidate anyway.

Speaker 2 And so, you're a young man, you're 30, I believe you said. I would go another direction and let it come back to me.
I know Jade's got something here.

Speaker 3 I'm with that. I agree with Ken.
I would not stick in it. Um, I have nothing more to add to this.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, go west, young man. I think it'll come back to you.
But there,

Speaker 2 waiting for this is not a good option, and stepping into something you know you don't want to do isn't a good option. So, that means there's a far better one somewhere else, and I take it.

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Speaker 2 Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studios. I'm Ken Coleman.
Jade Warshaw is alongside Colleen is up in Calgary, Alberta. And let's go to Colleen.

Speaker 2 Colleen, how are you doing today?

Speaker 9 Hi, thanks for taking my call. You bet.

Speaker 2 What's up?

Speaker 9 So, my question is: I've been listening for a couple months, and there's just it must be a basic question, but I can't wrap my head around it.

Speaker 9 So, my husband and I, we use our credit cards basically for everything,

Speaker 9 but we do pay it off every month. We've never carried a balance.
I'm really interested in switching to cash only.

Speaker 9 And my question is, how do you do that so that you'd actually have money left over that you could last the rest of the month to then switch to cash?

Speaker 3 Yeah, so you're kind of

Speaker 3 a month behind, essentially, because

Speaker 9 just the sole way that they work, you're always like kind of a month paying a month late.

Speaker 3 Yeah, so the best way to do this is to to do the budget first like let's do a budget first and let's get in our mind what we honestly need for a month not going over not depending on a you know a line of credit just what does it take for our household to run realistically have you done that yet

Speaker 9 No, we haven't. I've been on my husband to get started with that, though.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 So, okay, before we get off the call, we'll make sure that Christian gives you the all-new every dollar so that you guys tonight can make that first budget because then you're going to have a starting place of knowing, okay, we need $5,000 a month or we need $6,000, whatever that is.

Speaker 3 And then from there, I want to ask, do you happen to have any money saved?

Speaker 9 Yeah, we do. Like we could pay it off with our savings.
Like we have a savings, we could pay it off.

Speaker 6 Okay. So what's on the credit card now?

Speaker 9 I'm just wondering in general. Yeah, we could do that for sure.

Speaker 3 So what's tell me real numbers? What's on the credit card now and how much do you have saved?

Speaker 3 Oh,

Speaker 8 we have probably

Speaker 9 at least like $30,000 in a savings account that we could just pay it off.

Speaker 3 And how much is on the card?

Speaker 9 Oh, probably our cards right now are only maybe like five grand. Okay, great.

Speaker 9 We could pay it. I was just not maybe wanting to take it from there and pay it off and instead just make that switch.

Speaker 3 Well, I'm going to repeat back what you wanted to do, which is you told me that you wanted to stop using the credit cards for monthly payments and just use your money.

Speaker 3 And then you agreed with me that you're essentially a month behind because that's the way credit cards work. So the only way to get in front of it is to pay off the existing debt.

Speaker 3 Well, the first step I told you is to make a budget so you know how much money you even need for the next month-to-month budget. Then the second step is now we have to get even.

Speaker 3 We have to get to zero because we have to pay off the debt. So that's the next thing.
You're going to reach over from that 30,000, pay off the debt, and then you're going to be at ground zero.

Speaker 3 And then now you have the budget going into the month of November and you say, okay, here's our budget. Now we just use our money that we're going to get paid.
That's how this works.

Speaker 3 Now we can get into the gears of how to set a budget if you want to do that. But that's the first three steps to accomplish what you said you wanted to do.

Speaker 9 Yeah, no, I have no doubt that we could live off of like our income and what we make. So I guess it is just a matter of getting it paid off so that we're at kind of

Speaker 9 starting point with no, like, no debt with credit card, and then just go from there with the budget.

Speaker 3 Now, if you have, I don't know what your income is, what's your income? Because if you can cash flow both, I'm fine with that.

Speaker 3 If you're like, hey, Jade, I actually make enough this month that I could pay off the credit card and have enough to float November's budget, that'd be pretty awesome too. What do you make?

Speaker 9 So, yearly combined with my husband, we're probably around $190.

Speaker 3 Okay, what does that break down every month? what do you actually bring home?

Speaker 6 This is why we need the budget.

Speaker 9 Yeah I'm trying to think probably

Speaker 9 like 10 to 12,000.

Speaker 3 Okay. So there could

Speaker 3 there could be a world where you can cash flow most of this and and dip into savings very little. I'm just not sure because I haven't seen your budget.

Speaker 3 There could be things that are stopping you from it.

Speaker 9 Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 9 That makes sense.

Speaker 2 The answer is super easy, right? I mean,

Speaker 2 listen, Jade gave you the tactical stuff. But again, I'm going to tell you something.
You're going to have to realize that you're making a major change from being responsible.

Speaker 2 I think you're responsible. You're obviously responsible.

Speaker 2 But there's a difference, Jade, between being responsible and being strategic. That's right.
And strategy is what we teach.

Speaker 2 And so the idea here is that when you know what's in your budget and you know where the money's going and you're telling the money what to do and it's doing something for you, now you're so much further ahead.

Speaker 2 So it's just a simple do exactly what she said, but then to get to the next level of we're not just using credit cards as some loosey-goosey backup and we get these benefits.

Speaker 2 We're actually being strategic to win with our money. That's a big difference.

Speaker 3 I agree. So are you going to do it?

Speaker 9 Yeah.

Speaker 9 Oh, yeah. I'm 100% on board.
And I do think it'll make us a lot more conscious of what we're spending our money on instead of just like write the card and pay for whatever. That's right.

Speaker 6 And let me

Speaker 6 go.

Speaker 3 I was going to say, let me give you just a little nuts and bolts thing on the budget.

Speaker 3 I don't know when you get paid, but most people get paid twice a month.

Speaker 3 Usually like on the 15th and the 30th, right? It's kind of

Speaker 9 normal and I'm bi-weekly.

Speaker 6 Okay.

Speaker 3 So just a little nuts and bolts thing. Generally, when you're getting on a budget for the first time, the check from the 30th is going to go towards the next month.

Speaker 3 So for instance, if you got paid yesterday,

Speaker 3 that check technically should go towards November. So your paychecks that you're budgeting for for the current month are from the 30th of the previous month.

Speaker 3 So the 30th of October will go for your October budget or for your November budget. And your November 15th paycheck will be on your November budget.
Does that make sense?

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 9 Yeah, it does. So instead we're just kind of paying for things before instead of after.

Speaker 3 Yes. That way you always have the money to pay for what you need all 30 days of the month.
Because if you let that October 30th check go for October, well, the month's already over.

Speaker 3 Everything's going to be late. So that's just a little tip.
A lot of people get hung up on that.

Speaker 9 Okay. Awesome.
No, that sounds really good.

Speaker 2 All right. Thank you for the call, Colleen.
Yeah, there's a lot of people. We get this question a lot.

Speaker 2 And it's always fun from for people if I'll meet somebody and then they find out I work at Ramsey Solutions and they'll be like, okay, hey, so, okay. And by the way, you got to ask the question.

Speaker 2 It always drops down.

Speaker 6 Yeah. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Speaker 3 Yeah. It's like it's not a secret.

Speaker 6 Yeah, yeah, I got to ask you.

Speaker 2 Okay, so let me, let me just, let me, let me just ask, like, what's the problem with just, you know, we pay everything and we pay it all, you know,

Speaker 2 and it's, it's really fun how that happens. But again, our, it's, it's, it's less about, I think sometimes we get painted with this brush here at Ramsey Solutions that we're just anti-everything

Speaker 6 and we're not. Right.

Speaker 2 You know what I mean? It's, it's, we're for your money winning. Yes.

Speaker 3 And we want you to feel good about it. We want you to feel like you're the one in control.
We don't want you to do the things that we teach because Jaden Kin said so.

Speaker 6 Yeah, right.

Speaker 3 We want you to do it because it makes sense to you. You like the idea of peace.
You like the idea of freedom and being in control of your money and with your emotions as well.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it is always funny to me when somebody goes, okay, I think I get it. And by the way, this call is a great example, by the way, of realizing, oh, this isn't just anti-credit card.

Speaker 2 There's a bigger strategy at play. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 And she's beginning to see it and the light bulb goes off there as she says yes i can see how this is going to help us when we know where our money is and we're going to be even more strategic more responsible yes cash does that and i liked her call because i actually talk about that in the book what no one tells you about money i go through each baby step and i say what it is and then i say what it actually feels like and what it actually means

Speaker 3 and it's juicy it's juicy let me tell you i'm telling you the raw and the real I don't hold back.

Speaker 6 All right.

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Speaker 2 Let's go to Matt in Charleston, South Carolina. Matt, how can we help today?

Speaker 11 Hey, how are y'all doing today? We're doing great.

Speaker 2 What's going on?

Speaker 16 So, I recently came into some lottery money.

Speaker 6 Whoa, whoa.

Speaker 6 Let's not roll right by that.

Speaker 2 How much did we win, sir?

Speaker 15 So, we won right at 200 after taxes.

Speaker 6 It was 350 and they took it.

Speaker 2 200 is what you take home.

Speaker 6 Yeah. Okay.
Wow.

Speaker 2 Was that state lottery?

Speaker 16 Yeah, it was a state, kind of a second chance thing they do.

Speaker 6 Wow. Wow.

Speaker 3 That's something. Okay.

Speaker 6 You know what?

Speaker 2 I've never had anybody on the show. Can I ask one quick follow-up? I've never taken a lottery call on this show.

Speaker 2 Was this a random, I'm in the grocery store or I'm at the gas station and I see the ticker and I go, I'm going to shoot my shot? Or is this, are you like a guy who played it all the time?

Speaker 16 Well, I was a guy that played it all the time when this kind of happened.

Speaker 6 I since stopped playing, but like i said it was a second chance so you can scan a ticket and they put your name in a hat for a second chance and they luckily drew my name wow dude that's so funny okay all right so to the reason you called what what's your question

Speaker 16 all right so um

Speaker 16 prior to this i was very uh not financially savvy like i was

Speaker 16 credit card debt student debt um personal loans essentially i was working week to week and going down to zero or sometimes negative in my account.

Speaker 16 So with this, my plan is to go ahead and pay off all of my debt, which is about $30,000

Speaker 16 and potentially put a down payment on a house.

Speaker 16 My wife's car just broke down, so potentially get her a new car. But what I don't want to do is mess it up and get back to where I was a month ago, week to week, getting down to zero in my account.

Speaker 6 Well, let's talk about that first.

Speaker 2 Let's talk about that because you got Jade here to walk you through this. Describe for her what you think was the cause of you being

Speaker 2 week to week, never having enough there, because that wasn't that long ago. So presumably we haven't solved what was going on.
So describe what you think is the source of that.

Speaker 16 I think I got credit cards in the mail and I was like, okay, I can use those. And I just started overspending and not paying attention to my spending.

Speaker 6 Okay.

Speaker 16 And then, you know, I had other debts that I just kind of

Speaker 16 just kept piling on. I just was not being responsible.

Speaker 3 Understood. What's your income?

Speaker 16 Uh, I make about $105 a year.

Speaker 2 Okay, so it's not like you're scrapping.

Speaker 3 And is it just you, or is there a wife, kids, anything?

Speaker 16 Um, I just married my wife two weeks ago, and we have three kids.

Speaker 3 Three kids, okay. And does she work outside the house?

Speaker 11 Yeah, she does work.

Speaker 3 What's she make?

Speaker 16 Um, roughly 40.

Speaker 6 Okay, that's the numbers that have been separate.

Speaker 3 Okay, but they're coming together.

Speaker 3 I think the key here is you've got to look at what you're bringing home every single month.

Speaker 3 You've got to look at what you have to spend, what's your margin, and you've got to just give every dollar an assignment. And then that's the practical part.

Speaker 3 But then the emotional part of actually sticking to it, Ken, is what is going to be your struggle.

Speaker 3 Because if you set out and say, hey, we're only spending $150 on restaurants and you write that on paper, now it's your chance to say, am I going to be the person that keeps the promises to myself?

Speaker 3 Or am I going to be a person that flakes out every single time?

Speaker 3 Am I going to be a person that I can depend on? That I can depend on me to say what I do, what I say I'm going to do, I'm actually going to do.

Speaker 3 Or are you going to let your emotions lead you and go, well, I work hard. I deserve to go to Applebee's one more time, right?

Speaker 3 That's where the real battle starts.

Speaker 2 So I love that he asked the question because you know as much as Ken and I do know know that the $200,000 that is a wonderful thing you had some good luck but that is not the solve of the problem the solve of the problem is Matt deciding that he's gonna be a guy who can look in the mirror and trust himself to do what he says he's gonna do and have a process for doing it yeah in other words if you say hey I want to get in shape put on muscle, cut up, or I want to put on 15 pounds of muscle or I want to lose 50 pounds pounds of weight you've got to have a process you can't just say i want it to happen expect it happen right you got to have a process that is attached to a willingness to change

Speaker 2 and so i'm going to start with the budget for you you didn't know what was going on with any of your money so let's take care of the man let's get him uh let's get him in every dollar get him in every dollar and uh

Speaker 2 i think you need to give him give him a what does he do tonight with every dollar to change this around yep tonight you sit down with your wife and you put all all the numbers in.

Speaker 3 You're going to put in what you guys earn. You're going to pull up the HR website.
You're going to look at your check stubs after taxes. That's the number that you're going to put into the budget.

Speaker 3 Then you're going to go back and you're going to look at all your bank statements and you're going to put accurate numbers for, okay, we already know, yes, this is our cell phone payment, utilities, we know our mortgage or our rent payment, but what do we really spend on groceries?

Speaker 3 What do we really spend going out to eat? What do we really spend on gas? And you're going to plug those numbers in so you have an accurate picture of, okay, this is what it takes to run my lifestyle.

Speaker 3 And then you're going to say, okay,

Speaker 3 honey, we've got this money that's enough to break us free.

Speaker 3 It's going to, it's going to give us a get out of jail free card on this debt, on the car, and it's even going to help us get a down payment.

Speaker 3 But today, we look ourselves in the eye and say, but this is our real income, $150,000, and this is what we get to live on. And we have to be okay with that.

Speaker 3 We don't have to keep up with anybody else. It's just us.
And you guys, you have to kind of,

Speaker 3 you know, decide that you're both going to do that and that you're both going to hold each other accountable because trust and believe, there's going to be temptations, obviously.

Speaker 3 There's always another trip to take. There's always a better car to buy, right? There's always a nicer restaurant to eat at.
But you have to be okay with what your lifestyle is.

Speaker 3 So don't squander this. And I don't think you will if you internalize what we're saying.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Hang on the line. We're going to get you started in every dollar.
Stay tuned into the show. Create some accountability to where you go, okay, I'm now living this.

Speaker 2 I'm putting in new financial data into my head as opposed to living like everybody else.

Speaker 3 And let's talk about that for a minute, Ken.

Speaker 3 You talked about getting cut, working out.

Speaker 3 Trying to get muscles, whatever the goal is.

Speaker 2 I'm trying to keep up with your book cover. Let's be honest.

Speaker 3 You are likening it to getting on a plan with your money. Yeah.
And a lot of people forget that they've got to set themselves up for success. Right.

Speaker 3 Because if you're trying to get ripped, do you want to know what you don't keep on the counter?

Speaker 2 Chips. Oreos.

Speaker 6 Oreos. Halloween candy.

Speaker 2 oh boy all right listen i said that and there is a bowl of halloween candy on my counter right now at home ah wait till i get the tax when i get home let me tell you something i take a tax on whatever mrs coleman has bought for the little ones that are coming by tonight mr coleman takes a tax chef snack that's a chef snack i go through it all i go i'll have one of these thank you very much but you know uh if i cheat tonight on some candy, as I will,

Speaker 3 guess what? You got to pay for it later.

Speaker 6 You got to pay for it tomorrow. Ooh.
Don't you pay for it.

Speaker 2 So you, A, you got to have a process. You know what you do? So the first thing you do is, I'm playing along with you.
Uh-huh. I'm going to go, all right, I'm going to eat better.

Speaker 2 So I got to remove the junk, but I also got to put good stuff in my body. You got to put it there.
And you got to have protein. You want to add muscle, you got to have X amount of grams of protein.

Speaker 2 So it's not just what I eliminate frivolous spending. Yes.
It is, watch this. Instead of listening to everybody else who's broke, maybe

Speaker 2 I buy Jade Warshaw's book. Maybe I listen to the Ramsey show two or three times a week.

Speaker 2 I'm going to put good money practices, good money philosophy in as well.

Speaker 6 That's right.

Speaker 2 It's like making protein in my body in order that the workout, I get the maximum out of it. I'm with you, Ken.

Speaker 3 I'm with you, Ken.

Speaker 3 And make it easy. If I put healthy food in the refrigerator, I put it at eye level so I can just grab it.
It's the first thing I see. And it's the same thing with this.

Speaker 3 You need to be setting reminders in your phone to check your every dollar budget. You need to be doing the things that are right there at eye level.

Speaker 3 Put the podcast, let that be the first podcast that pops up. Stop

Speaker 3 unfollow all of the ads and the things that are unsubscribed, all the things that are trying to sell you in your email and on social media, and start following people like Ken Coleman and myself.

Speaker 3 Set yourself up to succeed with money so that when the time comes, it's an easy choice. It's right there in front of you.

Speaker 2 You keep preaching like that. I might do an altar call, have a baptismal service right in the studio.

Speaker 6 By the way,

Speaker 2 I have gone out to eat with this one and her husband, and she orders the cleanest stuff. Ain't no fun, folks.

Speaker 6 I try.

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Speaker 2 All right, let's go to Megan in Spokane, Washington. Megan, how can we help today?

Speaker 9 Hi, thanks for taking my call. You bet.
What's up?

Speaker 9 I was, I'm calling because I'm a single mom and I'm in baby step 3B.

Speaker 9 And so I'm currently only saving up to my match in my retirement, but I live in a really expensive area

Speaker 9 and,

Speaker 9 you know, like don't want to move really because the like it helps to have a lot of community when you're trying to raise a kid on your own so like I'm trying to figure out

Speaker 9 if I were like

Speaker 9 if I were to really realistically try to buy a house under like the Ramsey guidelines I would probably need like a $200,000 down payment

Speaker 9 with my current income and that would take me like I'm saving very aggressively I have a really good living situation right now but it would take me still probably over five years to do that.

Speaker 9 So I'm kind of wondering, like, it seems too long to pause my retirement.

Speaker 9 But then I'm going to be even saving longer if I wait, if I don't pause retirement. So yeah, just kind of wondering what your guys' thoughts are about that.

Speaker 9 Like if it would be smarter to pause my retirement and maybe just save what I can and give up having a house, or like, it feels like it would provide a lot of security to have a house.

Speaker 6 You are correct.

Speaker 3 It does provide security to have a house. You do, I mean, that's the largest line item on your budget.

Speaker 3 And to have that stabilized is very, very, it's a very, very important part of security and wealth building. So you're exactly right.

Speaker 3 You're also right on how

Speaker 3 tough it is to save up a down payment because gone are the days where you can just say, oh, put 20% down. And, you know, now you're right at 25% of your take home.
That math is different now.

Speaker 3 So in order to make the payment, 25% of your take-home, in many cases, you're you're putting down well above 20 in some cases you're putting like 50 and 60 down in order to make that happen that's just the reality

Speaker 3 so for for you probably what i would do is i would go when you're in baby step 3b you do have the opportunity you have the the choice to say i'm either going to kind of split and i'm going to do some investing and some saving for the down payment or you can say i'm just going to go ham on the down payment um and get that done if i were in your shoes i'd start there i'd I'd start on not investing.

Speaker 3 I'd start on everything going to the down payment. And then probably at the three-year mark is when I would say, okay, I have to start putting something into retirement.

Speaker 3 And I realize that's going to make me go slower. But hopefully by then, there's some change that's happened.
Your income has gone up. Maybe your

Speaker 3 life has changed in a way to where there's more income coming in.

Speaker 3 But I want to,

Speaker 3 if you were here right now, I'd be looking you dead in your eye and validating the fact that it is tough. It's it's a longer timeline than what people are used to

Speaker 3 and it is a lot more money that must be put down on the front end than what people are used to but i would also tell you um if it makes you feel any better for my husband and i we had a 10 year we had to wait 10 years to do our house mostly for a while yeah for us because we started out broke and we had to clean up debt uh but time is time right and

Speaker 3 the the biggest thing i can leave you with is when the day comes and and you have the money and you put it down and you move in that house, it's all going to have been worth it.

Speaker 6 I'd like to ask.

Speaker 9 Yeah, I love having a timeline on that. Like that feels good.
Yeah.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 6 And I love it.

Speaker 2 I love that Jade acknowledged how tough this is in the current situation.

Speaker 2 But I'm going to push a little bit because I think sometimes

Speaker 2 there's more than one way. And certainly waiting longer is fine.
It stinks to tell people that. But just because it takes longer doesn't doesn't mean that it's still not the best decision.

Speaker 2 And you've already got a good, good living situation.

Speaker 2 How much of a house are we talking about?

Speaker 2 How much are we looking at? How big is this house and what price per house?

Speaker 9 I mean, I live in a tiny house right now, so I am definitely not looking for a big house. I'm living in a tiny house that I built.

Speaker 6 And so I'm an actual tiny house?

Speaker 9 Yeah, like a I built a tiny house when I was

Speaker 9 like a long, like five years ago. So I'm living in that house now.

Speaker 9 And I would be very happy with just even putting my tiny house on a piece of property but i'm just having a hard time right finding a property that i could even put it there well tell us though but you've got not a huge house right but i just want to have some fun with the numbers for a minute all right so what based on what you've told us you've got a number in mind correct a price point yeah well the i'm thinking like the average houses in our area are between like like around four hundred thousand dollars okay that's for like a pretty chip like a small you know house yeah like how many okay so so there's nothing in the 300,000 or 250,000 range

Speaker 9 not that I have seen recently but that you know it could fluctuate a little bit like I'm I think it could be possible like 350 could come up eventually

Speaker 2 but that that's not like a very common how close do you have to be to where you work what's that situation

Speaker 9 Well, my daughter is in a school. So it's more, I work remotely, which is wonderful.
So I, but my daughter goes to school every day. So I'm driving her, I'm driving to town twice a day to get her.

Speaker 6 Where is your tiny house?

Speaker 2 Are you renting the land or the space?

Speaker 9 I am renting the land, basically. Yeah.

Speaker 9 So it's in Kokoala.

Speaker 6 I don't know if you know, I don't know where it is.

Speaker 2 I guess what I'm saying is, is that if...

Speaker 6 All I'm doing is encouraging you.

Speaker 2 I'm not in any way, you know, tis, tisk. You should be doing something different than you're doing.

Speaker 2 But I certainly would be looking at every opportunity to go, okay, if I could find something that's a little bit cheaper, that shortens my timeline, right?

Speaker 2 Because it's less I have to save, and I'm now going to incrementally work my way up. And you're actually a prime candidate for that, given the fact that you're in a tiny home.

Speaker 2 And I also think if I were you and you love the tiny home and you go, hey, if I could find land, I'd get really aggressive in looking for something like that because it might be a lot cheaper than a house.

Speaker 9 Yeah, and I could always build a house on it later.

Speaker 2 Down the line. That's right.
And so let's say you get a house go ahead

Speaker 9 oh so just there's also an opportunity to build to buy a house um that's cheaper because it's with a like group that has a deed restriction um and i'm a little bit hesitant to do a deed restriction it's like you basically don't own the land you own the house and then you have to sell it like at a you can't sell it at market value you have to sell it at land no don't then don't do that

Speaker 2 uh no don't do that no no that you never want to buy something that comes with all these restrictions.

Speaker 6 Like, I didn't buy anything.

Speaker 2 I signed up for some deal that has all these problems.

Speaker 3 And you're not desperate.

Speaker 6 That's right.

Speaker 3 That's the thing you got to remember. You're not desperate, but you are a person who had a timeline and you have a timeline that you want to make.

Speaker 3 And the hardest part of all of this is readjusting expectations. You know, that's the emotional aspect of this.
You know the numbers. I don't think we have to go over that.

Speaker 3 You understand the benefit of the numbers, but the hardest part is the part of you that's got to go, Man, this is, I'm disappointed. This is not going to happen as quickly as I wanted it to.

Speaker 9 Yeah, and I am, you're right, I am disappointed, and I'm a little scared.

Speaker 3 If I'm being honest, well, yeah, the fear says, What if I wait too long? What if I'm priced out of the market? What if I, you know, a lot can happen in the next five to six years?

Speaker 3 So there's a fear of the unknown that's there. Um, and you built your tiny home,

Speaker 2 yeah, yourself,

Speaker 9 Yes, like with help, obviously, but that's with a, yeah.

Speaker 2 That's amazing.

Speaker 2 So I'm not trying to turn you into Joanna Gaines, but I would also, if you can find something that's not a death trap that doesn't end up costing you more money, but like with a little bit of love and tenderness, you know, and it's structurally sound, in other words, it's got good bones.

Speaker 2 you know, that might be a steal for you too, especially being a single mom with one kid. You're used to living, you know, in some little thing.
I'm sure it looks amazing, by the way.

Speaker 2 But I just, I guess my thing is, is that when I'm in a situation like you're in, and I know that there's a good long-term play and it's going to require patience, then I know, okay, that will win.

Speaker 2 The tortoise beats the hare every time.

Speaker 6 All right.

Speaker 2 However, it never hurts to go, have I looked at everything? Have I turned over every stone? You know what I mean? And I guess that's my only encouragement. Doesn't hurt.

Speaker 2 You're not going to do anything stupid. You've been very smart to this point.
So I'm not saying turn over every crazy stone.

Speaker 2 Like, I'm glad you brought up the one situation because that could be tempting.

Speaker 2 No, don't do that where they're going to force you to sell and you don't own the dirt underneath your house. Like, that's not a stone we want to turn over.

Speaker 2 Or if we turn it over, we see a bug, we go, ooh, and we turn the stone back over, we run. So, that's one that you do there.

Speaker 2 But I would look at everything that you possibly can to see: can I progressively step into

Speaker 2 something because I'm making good financial decisions along the way? Yes.

Speaker 2 Our scripture of the day is Psalm 37, verses 3 through 4. Trust in the Lord and do good.
Dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.

Speaker 2 Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Our quote from Maya Angelou today: I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands.

Speaker 2 You need to be able to throw something back.

Speaker 3 I love that. I love that.

Speaker 2 So fun. You know, we've had, it's interesting.

Speaker 2 We were just talking with James, our fearless producer. I've been a lot of calls today where we've seen the emotional side of money.
Yes. Talked about.
And you and I were talking about this

Speaker 2 earlier today. There's so much fear.

Speaker 2 Yes. That is involved in money decisions.
And you write about the emotional side of money in your new book. Yeah.

Speaker 2 What no one tells you about money, and that is the emotional side, how very difficult it is to win with money and also process all of the range of emotions that come with money and its rhythm and life.

Speaker 3 That's right. We saw it in a couple of calls today.

Speaker 3 We saw the young lady who had, she wanted to stop using credit cards and she had the money in savings to pay off the credit cards and start fresh, but there was fear there.

Speaker 3 We saw it with the previous caller who was like, I'm afraid I'm never going to be able to buy a house if I keep saving at this rate with the market the way it is.

Speaker 3 And we've seen it throughout, we've woven throughout other calls as well.

Speaker 3 And I want to take a moment, can I want to read this section out of the book specifically about fear it says fear is a negative expectation of the future based on a rational or irrational belief

Speaker 3 so if you think about that some of our fears are totally they're like totally valid it's like this is rational i could see where that's coming from some of them are irrational but i go on to say i added the element about the future because if you think about it fear is rarely about what's happening in the moment it's rare it's it's really about our perception uh uh It's really about our perceived outcome or what we think is going to happen in the future.

Speaker 3 If I do this, then some negative thing will happen later. That's what we think.

Speaker 3 And it's never about what's happening in the moment. We're projecting ahead and going, oh gosh, if I do this, that thing is going to happen out there and that thing's.
And we really don't know.

Speaker 3 And so in the book I walk through, understanding that and taking a moment and just writing out, what is it that you're afraid of? What is it? Write it down.

Speaker 3 Because when you can look at it staring back at you at the page, it has a whole different life. Frank.
Scrape hole. And then you can ask yourself, is this actually true?

Speaker 3 Is it rational or is it irrational?

Speaker 3 And I have found that the irrational ones can, they tend to be kind of vague. It's kind of like, oh, I'm afraid I'm going to mess everything up if I do that.
Well, that's kind of vague.

Speaker 3 What do you mean by that? What are you going to mess up?

Speaker 3 How are you going to pay? But the more rational ones tend to be a little bit dialed down.

Speaker 3 Well, Jade, I'm afraid if I take a side hustle, it's going to be when I come home from work in the evenings, which means I won't won't be able to pick up my kids, which means I'll miss their softball practice, which means, right?

Speaker 3 And you've really dialed it down, that's probably a little bit more rational, and we can talk about that.

Speaker 3 But once you've written the fear down, once you've asked yourself, is it true or is it not true? Is it rational or is it irrational? Then we can get about the business of landing on, well,

Speaker 3 what is a more truthful statement that I want to replace that fear with?

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's absolutely right. I love it.
Just one of the many times that you talk about emotions. By the way, we've told you about it because it goes on pre-sale today.
So exciting.

Speaker 2 What no one tells you about money. You can pre-order it right now.
You get it for the best price, $24.99, Ramseysolutions.com/slash store. You get to see Jade's phenomenal arms on the cover as well.

Speaker 2 That's bonus.

Speaker 3 Forget about the arms. Forget about the content inside.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that comes with the book.

Speaker 2 That's just bonus content

Speaker 6 for those of you, men and women alike, that would like to have better arms.

Speaker 2 That's right. It will motivate you.

Speaker 3 Better arms, better money starts today.

Speaker 2 There it is.

Speaker 2 That's the subtitle of the book.

Speaker 2 But no, you can get it right now. It's a fabulous book.

Speaker 2 By the way, we don't have a book like this.

Speaker 3 No, we don't.

Speaker 2 And there's not a book about the emotional side of money. So this is a great book that I'll tell you just personally is hand in glove with anything else we've ever written on money.

Speaker 2 Because if you don't understand the emotional side of it, you can and will many times get tripped up because you are a human.

Speaker 6 You're right. It is human.

Speaker 2 And, you know, we think about human doing, but we forget sometimes that we're actual human beings.

Speaker 2 And the human being part makes the human doing part harder and Jade's come alongside of us and given us a real life

Speaker 2 a real life story full of stories oh it's all storytelling how to win with it so you're really gonna enjoy it go get it now Ryan is up in Virginia Ryan how can we help today

Speaker 17 Good afternoon, Canon Jay. How are you doing today?

Speaker 6 We're doing well. What's happening with you?

Speaker 6 Well,

Speaker 17 I seem to be having some decision paralysis, paralysis, and I was wondering if you could just give me some help.

Speaker 17 I'm a natural saver, and at the moment I have about $180,000 in cash savings, and I'm just trying to figure out how to best deploy it for retirement, eventually purchasing a home, and just the future.

Speaker 6 Okay, so do you have any debts?

Speaker 7 No, definitely.

Speaker 2 All right, so you're familiar with the baby steps?

Speaker 6 Yes. What baby step are you? My understanding?

Speaker 17 I believe 4, 5, and 6.

Speaker 2 Okay. So you are actively investing, and this $180 is above and beyond your normal 15% that you're putting into retirement.

Speaker 6 Yes.

Speaker 15 Yeah. Currently, I have,

Speaker 17 if I did my math right, about 20% going into retirement through a mandatory retirement with my state and then a supplementary 403b.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 And what is your emergency fund? Is it three months, four months, five months, six months? How much is it?

Speaker 7 It's just the 1800s.

Speaker 6 Oh, so the 120.

Speaker 2 Okay, so what would be three months of your expenses?

Speaker 17 Three months of my expenses would be

Speaker 23 $4,500.

Speaker 3 Okay. And is it just you?

Speaker 17 It's just me. I'm single.

Speaker 6 Okay.

Speaker 2 Hold on a second. Three months' expenses is $4,500?

Speaker 17 Yeah, I live pretty frugally.

Speaker 3 What's your, I mean, what's your You live under a rental.

Speaker 6 What's your rent? What do you pay for rent? Yeah, that's about right.

Speaker 17 At the moment, I pay

Speaker 15 I rent a room from family members, so in addition to monetary blood and sweat.

Speaker 7 So

Speaker 17 current rent's about $400.

Speaker 2 Okay. How much blood and sweat are we giving? Sounds pretty gross.

Speaker 17 Just enough to keep things, the household moving.

Speaker 6 Oh, really?

Speaker 6 Who are you living with?

Speaker 25 My parents.

Speaker 6 Okay. How old are you?

Speaker 15 34.

Speaker 2 How much do you make again? What's your take-home?

Speaker 17 Take-home

Speaker 17 monthly is a little over $4,000.

Speaker 2 Hey, bro, you're 34. It's time to flee the nest.

Speaker 3 Yeah, what's up with that?

Speaker 7 I know.

Speaker 15 I know. We've talked about it.

Speaker 6 Whoa, whoa, whoa, who's wearing? Who's weak? I have.

Speaker 17 Me and my brother. So

Speaker 17 you're open financially.

Speaker 6 How old is your brother?

Speaker 17 Um, and now he's uh

Speaker 7 32.

Speaker 3 So, your brother is like, hey, man, it's time, right?

Speaker 7 Oh, no, he's uh, he's also on the property.

Speaker 6 Oh, no, no, that's what I'm getting at.

Speaker 2 You got two brothers who are still living home. I assume there's no women on the radar for either one of you, right?

Speaker 6 Women on the radar, huh?

Speaker 17 Not at the moment, didn't think so.

Speaker 2 Do you think there might be a correlation between the fact that you're mid to low 30s living with your brother at your mom and dad's house.

Speaker 9 That's probably some of it.

Speaker 17 The other is, I don't, I'm a homebody.

Speaker 6 Yes, but be a homebody in your own home. Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 Well, it's not a dating show. So, regardless of no women being on the screen,

Speaker 2 you need to be out on your own. So, you got $180,000.
I'll give it to Jade. We got about a minute and a half left.

Speaker 2 He's got $180,000 in cash, no debt. He's investing about 20%, Jade.

Speaker 3 I know. So here's what I want you to do.

Speaker 2 And he's washing the dishes every night.

Speaker 6 I forgot to mention that.

Speaker 3 Thing number one is I want tonight, your homework tonight is go look and see where you can rent an apartment.

Speaker 3 Start doing research on places that areas of town you want to live in and find out how much an apartment is. Okay.

Speaker 3 And then what I want you to do with that information of the apartment.

Speaker 6 Tell your brother. Well, yeah.
Listen.

Speaker 6 Here's your roommate at least.

Speaker 3 Let's get them both out at the same time.

Speaker 6 For the first time ever,

Speaker 3 I want you to live on your own. Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 6 I agree. You can afford it.

Speaker 17 I have lived on my own before.

Speaker 3 Good, and you're going to do it again. And what I want you to do once you figured out how much rent is, now I want you to save up a real three to six months of expenses based off of that number.

Speaker 3 Because the $400, the $4,500, that's not going to serve you once you move out. So do it based off the rent numbers of a real place.
And then after that, when's move-in date?

Speaker 3 Because that's really all you need. You've got the money.
And then I would turn around.

Speaker 3 And with the money that you have, I would keep it in a high-yield savings account because you're going to keep adding to it.

Speaker 3 Because eventually you're going to go from renting a place to buying your own place. So don't invest it, keep it liquid, because you're going to do that in less than five years.

Speaker 2 And remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Yep.