"My Dad Wants Me To Give Him My $300,000 Trust"

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Normal is broke and common sense is weird. So we're here to help you with your life.

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

I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Ken Coleman, number one best-selling author, Ramsey personality, and host of Front Row Seat, one of our more popular Ramsey Network shows. He's my co-host today.

Open phones here at 888-825-5225.

Jack is in Little Rock, Arkansas. Hi, Jack.
How are you?

Doing well. Thank you, Dave and Ken.
Thanks for taking the call. Sure.
What's up?

Yeah, so basically, my grandfather had passed away about five years ago, and he had left a trust to his three children.

And basically, the way it had been set up is that after my father passed away,

I would receive a lump sum.

Each of those,

each sibling got a lump sum payment from that trust.

However, for my dad, he has been historically been bad with money, and it was set up for him that he would receive payments annually from the trust.

And then once he passes away, I would receive the lump sum.

And

after...

After this, he is basically saying that he wants to have me sign a document that releases the trust to him,

and he plans to spend the money.

And he's threatening me by

bribing me with $5,000 up front.

$5,000?

How much is in the trust?

From what I understand, whenever my grandfather was still around,

I believe his portion is between $250,000 and $300,000.

So you're going to trade, he's asking you to trade $300,000 for $5,000.

From what it seems, he has said that he wants to take that lump sum and he wants to renovate his house because he is 63 years old.

He works as a lawyer, and he wants to renovate his house. He wants to buy a new car.

And he claims that I will have the rest of the money. However, with his historic run of dealing with finances, I

don't believe that there will be any money left. Hey, Jack.
Hey, Jack, quick question. You've used two words with us.
You said threatened and bribe.

What does that actually look like? I haven't heard any evidence of that.

I would say it's definitely more so bribing.

Him just throwing out one time, he said

the first time he said, I'll get you $10,000.

Then the second time we had talked about it, he said that he would give me $5,000 up front.

Okay, so what kind of?

I mean, I'm sorry.

it's just

the math is not mathing. I mean,

he's so illogical that he actually believes you would trade $5,000 for $250?

That's just bizarre to me.

I totally agree. What planet does he live on that he thinks you would do that?

I don't know. I don't either.

Okay, so you're using words like bullied and bribed with your own father, irresponsible about your own father. Your grandfather thought thought he was irresponsible.
So you're not going to do this.

You had already decided that before you called, right?

Yes. Okay.
Yes. So how can we help you? However,

yes.

I really just want to know how to navigate that conversation with my father because

you want to know something that's impossible. It's impossible for you to take a man that is this unreasonable and make him reasonable with one conversation.

That's not possible. Okay? So this unreasonable man is going to have an unreasonable reaction to your reasonable no.

There's no way you can frame a no that this guy's going to like it.

And he's going to go, oh, thank you, son. I just love you so much.
I'm so proud of you. That's what you wish would happen.
There's no conversation that does that.

Because of what you're dealing with on the other side of this,

you know, it's like petting petting a crocodile and going, nice crocodile, nice crocodile, and hoping you don't get your arm bit off.

Of course you're going to get your arm bit off. It's a crocodile.

So, you know, that's what we're dealing with. So I wish I could make this, make you have a good dad, but you don't.

And so what I can do is just give you the realistic expectation, which is you preserve your dignity, your courage, your kindness, your integrity. That's the only thing you have control over.

You don't have control over his reaction.

So you gently and kindly say, Dad, grandpa put this in place, and I'm just going to abide by grandpa's wishes.

Thanks for asking. I'm sorry it doesn't work for me.
And we're just going to leave the thing set up like it is. But thanks for asking.

I hope you can find another way to get your house renovated and get you a car since you're a lawyer and all.

And I'll be cheering for you because I love you. And he's still going to go bonkers, isn't he?

Yes. Yeah.
So 100% be expecting that. Anything less than bonkers, we'll call it gravy on the biscuit.
We'll call it a bonus. But I'm counting on bonkers.

Yeah, Jack, I don't know if you've ever had surgery before, but I would say that your mindset here has got to be the same as going into surgery that you have to have. It's not fun.
It's going to hurt.

It's going to be some recovery time, but it absolutely has to happen. And on the other side of the surgery, you're going to be better off.
And there can be healing. That's right.

And I think you have to go into this going, there's just no way. I think Dave framed it beautifully.

But as a response to what Dave said, you've got to understand this is one of those situations in life that was forced on you.

You cannot control your dad or the situation he's put you in, but you've got to do what's best for you. So that's the mindset.
There's no way this is not going to suck.

But on the other side, you're going to be better. Anytime you're setting a boundary with a boundary list person, less is more.
So this is a very short, concise conversation.

Okay. We're not going into a bunch of explanation or discussion of his character or the history of the family tree.
We're not going to try to explain this to him.

We're not going to go into a bunch of detail. It's a simple thing.

Dad, you know, I love you, and I've thought about this, and I think I'm just going to stick with grandpa's plan, and that's what we're going to do.

So I hope it works out for you, and I'll be cheering for you.

And just that, that's what, 10 seconds maybe of audio, and that's all you need. The longer you talk, the more you're going to mess this up.

So

I use that one over 35 years now of running a business.

And the rare occasion that we actually have to let someone leave this place, we don't have long discussions. We've had long discussions up to that point, trying to get them better.

But the day they leave, it's like the decision has been made. Today is your last day.

That's it.

We don't go into why, because why has been discussed in the 90 days previous.

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John is in San Jose. Hey, John, how are you?

I'm doing good. How are you doing, Dave? Better than I deserve.
What's up?

All right, so I just have a quick question. A little bit of a background.

I have a job as an analyst making around $120K.

I got a notice last month, and they pretty much

got laid off. So my last last day was yesterday.

Essentially, my question is: I live in San Jose, California. My house is worth around $750,000.

My dad actually gave it to me.

32 years old. And

so I have

$50,000 in student loans, $25,000 in a personal loan, $25,000

in

a car loan, and then around $5,000 in credit card debt.

And because of the job loss, I'm kind of concerned right now the market's kind of bad in like the tech sector. So I'm wondering if I were to default on these loans,

can they forsell my home or how does that look like? And will they be willing to settle on some of this debt. I do have around

$10,000 in savings and around $50,000 in 401k money that I can pull out if needed. Are you married?

Yes, I am married. That's another thing.
My wife used to work. She made around $60,000 to $70,000 a year, but she paused that because

she just got into law school and she's fulfilling her dreams of becoming a lawyer.

What were you making? $120,000. $120,000?

With no house payment, and yet you still ran up all this debt.

I do have a house payment. It is $1,300.
Oh, I thought you said the house was free and clear. How much is your mortgage payment? No, no, there's a mortgage around $50,000.
Oh, okay.

So I do have a house payment, and housing in the Bay Area is pretty expensive. So, you know,

apart from the debt debt that I have and utilities, like I'm spending around maybe you got a notice a month ago. Why have you not gotten a job?

I've been applying. I've been getting interviews, but I have noticed that it's been fairly slow.
So, yeah, actively applying,

actively going into interviews. So,

yes, working on it. I guess I'm just concerned about like if the

job market is as severe as like it is. Like, I think I have enough money to cover myself for like maybe about four to six months, but I am worried about that six months.

The money you gave me doesn't cover you four to six months. You can't make it four to six months on $10,000.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay. So, yeah, I got it.
All right. So

there's a bunch of answers to this question. All right.
And let me give you all of them.

First and foremost, you get re-employed and this is a non-issue.

And that's what you spend all of your calories on. That's what you work on.
And Ken can really help line you up on that. And then I'll move on.
If you don't get re-employed,

really, you just ought to have your butt kicked. If you don't go get some money coming in, go get a job.
Okay. And Ken's going to help you with all that.

But if you don't, let's just pretend you never work again for the next year and a half. Okay.

So you will have to pay the first mortgage payment or that $50,000 will foreclose on you. You know that

Yeah, in which case

If I really needed to I can call my dad and he'll pay the mortgage for that. I guess that's not really the issue, but he

just

I guess the background is my dad's kind of like you He hates debt.

He doesn't get any credit cards. Yeah, he's not real proud that you ran up $25,000 on a personal line, $25,000 on a car after he gave you a dad gum house.

Yeah, yeah, I know. It's pretty stupid.

Yeah, and that's what he's going to say, too. Sounds like.
Okay. But yeah, so you're not going to lose the house from the foreclosure that way.

Will the other people put a lien on the house and force the sale of the house? In California, it's almost impossible to do that. Okay.

They eventually would sue you, not the student loans, but the personal loan, the car repos first, then they sue you on the deficit, or they sue you on the credit cards or whatever else.

When they sue you, they win the lawsuit.

After they win the lawsuit, they execute on the lawsuit, and that's when in some states they can take a lien on your residence and a lien on your income called a garnishment.

But all of that is six or eight months from now at the earliest.

Your biggest concern is making the mortgage payment, and your biggest concern is just getting another job, and then clean up this dadgum mess when you get your new job.

So you're not vulnerable like this.

Yeah, no, I know.

Yeah, I know. I made some dumb decisions.

Okay, so about getting the job. Yeah, my question is, and there's no question the employment market is softening.
There's no question about that.

I don't know your area, but what was your tech specialty?

I'm an analyst. Okay, but do you have any other tech skills? In other words, what did you do on the ladder up to becoming an analyst?

So I guess a bit of a background is I used to work like manual warehousing jobs. Okay.
And then I recently got

through my education and I got promoted into an analyst position. So

other than like manual labor and analyst work, that's pretty much what we're doing. Okay, great.
So here's the thing. Dave's exactly right.
We want to focus on short-term, then long-term.

So while you're looking for long-term, meaning getting back in the tech industry, there's two strategies. If I were you, this is what I would do.

First, I would be absolutely beating the door down for all and any kind of contract type opportunities. So freelance work.

So what we see in this job economy right now, this is true of tech, is where you may see a slowdown in hiring of full-time positions.

What they start to do is they look for contract work, workers, freelance. So I would be looking for all those opportunities.
Even if it's a short-term, I got a four-month deal here.

I jump in and take it. All right.
That's why you're looking for the long-term role. But the second thing I would be doing is, and this is where people make a mistake.

They take activity of I'm applying. I've had some interviews.
And gosh, the market's a little tough. All that's true.
But you need to go back to the warehouse.

Get back in the manual labor game because we have a $1,300 mortgage payment. And then the rest of the four walls, right? And that's your utilities.

That's the car, the transportation, groceries, all that kind of stuff. You and your wife have also got to sit down and go, do we need to press pause on law school?

Because law school will still be there. But we have two

adults here that are in a financial problem. I wouldn't call it a crisis.
But if we both go to work right now, we can cover the market and every bit of this until we get back on our feet.

But I'm hearing a mentality here, which is, gosh, Dave, Kim, what do I do? The market's tough. And I'm going to, could they take my house? That is the wrong question.

The question is, how can I make the amount of money, how can my wife and I together make the amount of money we need to make it until I get a more stable job situation? Hey, John. Period.
Hey, John.

Yeah. Can I love you enough to be mean to you for a minute?

Yeah.

You give me permission. You give me permission?

Yes. Yes, sir.
You don't sound like a motivated person.

I guess it's just like the mixture of

getting laid off.

Yeah, it could be. But your dad's willing to jump in, pay a house payment.
Your dad gave you a house thing. Your wife's in law school.
You just don't sound like you're fired up about this.

And in the world I come from,

you get fired up about this. And yeah, you got knocked down, but they gave you a month notice and you still hadn't fixed it.
And

you got bills to pay and people to feed, man. So I want you to get wired up and fired up.
Get up off your butt and go be a man. Go knock some stuff down, dude.

Don't call your daddy up for payments. Let's get with it.
That's what I would tell my son, okay?

And so I'm going to love you enough to be that mean to you.

I know you're knocked down. I know you're a little bit down the dumps, but hey, it's FedEx and UPS.
Go load boxes. It's Christmas time.
They'll hire you today.

And then get up off your butt and go fix this and get you a job making $120. And then clean up this lazy butt financial mess you made and quit doing this.
You have too good a head start.

Way too good a head start. Go fix it, man.
You can do it.

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Josh Josh is in Greenville, South Carolina. Hi, Josh.
How are you? I'm doing well, sir. How are you? Better than I deserve.
What's up?

My question today is I'm in the process of starting to track down the debts I've got floating out there.

And looking on Credit Karma, I have figured out that in the grand scheme of things, I really don't have that much debt. It's only about $5,200.

But it's split between three different collection agencies. So today I decided to try to call and negotiate those down to try to get those dropped down to where I say, hey, I've got this much money.

Can we close this out to where I owe you guys no more money and send me a piece of paper before I send any payment? And what I figured out today is those guys are not very nice.

And my question to you is,

how do I need to word? the negotiation process to really better my chances to get it to where I can lower this down and get this debt closed out. Yeah.

So what caused you to be in collections?

Oh,

whole

lifetime of bad choices.

Went from I was in the military for four years, and in the process of that, I got married,

accrued some debt by some bad choices.

A lot of that has actually

gone away just with time. What's happened that's caused you to decide to step forward and clean this up?

I am wanting to wipe the slate clean, start over and get a fresh start. My parents have followed your plan and have themselves gotten debt-free.

How old are you?

I am 29, about to be 30. Thank you for your service to your country, sir.

I'm glad to do it, sir. So

do you know the so the 5,200 is three. Give me an example of one of the three.

The largest of which would be $2,700 and worth $2,748. So $2,700.
Is that the current balance or the original balance?

I believe that's the current balance. It's just what it shows on Credit Karma when I pull up the app and look at it.
All right.

So did you called and talked to them, and did you try to give them $2,748?

I called one of the smaller ones.

There was one that was $2,18. I called them

and I essentially said, I have $1,000 I can pay you today

if you send me a piece of paper or email, mail, some form of document that says

that this account is closed and I owe you no more money.

And

when I brought that up after finally getting through,

to somebody, he essentially told me that that's not how that works. It is how it works.

And what happens next is if you don't agree to this, I'm going to hang up on you and I'm going to call the next one and give him the $1,000 because you're too stupid to take it.

This is how you talk about it. That is exactly how I worded it, too.
And I said, well, I have somebody else on my list. If you don't want to take my money, I'll call my next person.
Yeah.

And then just do that three times a day until you get through to somebody that has two brain cells.

Because what happens with these people that are credit card collectors and old debt collectors in these situations, they're national companies. They're sitting in cubicles,

150 people in an office, or they're working from home, one of the two. And there's, you know, fluorescent lights overhead.
It's like a boiler room type thing.

Something you would see in a movie, right?

And it's a horrible job. And they have figured out that if they can elicit emotion from you, get you angry or afraid, that your thinking centers of the brain don't operate anymore.

You move to the frontal lobe into the lizard brain, which is fight or flight. And if they can get you where you're not thinking, you will not think and pay them.

Yeah, it's funny you bring that up because I actually just recently had a situation happen where I was scammed out of a large amount of money, and that is exactly the strategy they use. Yeah.

And so fear and anger are the two things they're trying to activate. And so if you'll just remember that the person you're talking to has an average time on the job of 21 days,

You now have more training than they do after you and I have this discussion. They're only taught to do one thing, piss the guy off, and you'll get money from him.

And so, anything they do, they make up all kinds of stuff. They'll call your wife names.
They'll call your dog names. They'll talk about your mama.
I mean, it's on and on and on.

It's just, it's a game. It's a psychological game.
And just go, so I'm going to return to short, quick sentences that are very calm.

It's like, hey, I understand that this is your job job and you're trying to do this technique, but here's the deal.

It doesn't change the fact I got $1,000 and it doesn't change the fact I'm getting ready to hang up and call the next guy.

So do you want to talk about this or not? Yes or no? And if you say anything other than yes, I'm going to push end on my phone and this conversation's over. You ready? Here's your opportunity.

Say yes.

And when they go, babe, just hit hang up.

Okay. And then just move on.
And you may have to call five or six times to each one of them to get it figured out. But you're exactly right.

Do not give them electronic access to your checking account. They lie.
They'll clean you out.

Only wire them money or send them a prepaid debit card with the exact amount on it. And that's all that's ever going to be on that card.
And it's done. Something like that.

And you must have it in writing because they lie. You can tell they're lying if their mouth is moving before you do it.

Now, if you have $5,200, life's going to be a lot easier if you just get it in writing that this is the actual amount, and then I will send you the money, okay?

But if you want to try to settle it for 50 cents on the dollar like you're doing,

because you don't have the money, because you got scammed, then that's how you're going to do it.

But you've just got to remember this is an industry that is based on very primitive juvenile techniques.

They have zero ethics at all. And so

people call making the mistake of thinking I'm talking to a normal human being. And this is not a normal conversation.

Like if you owed me money or I owed you money, Josh, I mean, we would talk and we would try to be somewhat reasonable. We might be angry or we might, but we're still going to try to keep a connection.

And, but that has nothing to do with what you're doing here. You're just jumping into a barrel of piranha and trying to get out with your skin on.
That's all you're doing.

I love that you lay that out for folks because I'd love for you to weigh in on this. They have to know that they're not going to get most of that money.
So they only have those techniques.

And if you, our audience, understand what Dave just taught you, Dave, they will settle.

They're just thrilled to get a thousand bucks, truth be known. Is that fair? Yeah, most of the time, yeah.
Because they know, they've done the numbers. It's a game.
Yeah, they get.

And if it is someone calling you, it could be a debt buyer, and you can buy old, bad debt.

People buy blocks of it and then try to collect it right you can buy that for about a nickel on the dollar wow so I mean you were here a few years ago I remember we did that we bought ten million dollars eight thousand accounts ten million dollars worth of debt for two hundred fifty nine thousand dollars and then that was our Christmas part of our Christmas around here 8,000 accounts we had a thousand people each person got to call eight people and say in Jesus name your debt is forgiven And that's Merry Christmas.

And we're going to send you an email telling you that. And so for $259,000, we got rid of $10 million worth of debt.
That was two and a half cents on the dollar. Crazy.

So, but we got a bargain on it because they knew what we were doing. They knew we were just forgiving it.

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Or if you're watching on YouTube or podcasts, click the link in the description. Daniel is with us in New York.
Hi, Daniel. How are you?

Hey, I'm doing all right, Dave. How about you? Better than I deserve.
What's up?

So I'm 29, and I'm planning on going back to school to become a radiological technician or a x-ray tech.

And I'm trying to figure out whether or not I should keep investing or if I should stop investing to pay for school. That's I go.

How much is school?

So they charge $800,000 a credit, and it's for an associate's degree. So it's going to be $48,000.
That's not including fees, textbooks, and travel, because I have to travel once a semester as well.

And I'll be be doing clinicals depending on the site.

So do you know the all-in number?

So what's the all-in-one? I do not know the all-in number. Rough guess is $60,000.
That's the $60,000, right? What do you make now?

Right now I make $58,000. So how long is it going to take you to save $60,000?

I'm actually pretty close to that because I was supposed to be getting married next year. Fortunately, things didn't work out.
So I have $54,000 in the bank right now. Oh.

Okay.

school? Is it full-time school?

Yes, it'd be full-time.

It'd be full-time.

How are you paying for food while you're in school?

So I'm still at home with my family because I was figuring stuff out for a while and my ex at the time we're going to move out. So I'm still with mom and dad at the time.
How old are you?

29.

Okay, you said that. I'm sorry.

Why X-Ray Tech?

How'd you pick this?

So I work as a security guard in a medical facility, and one of our departments is imaging. And this seems like it's

I've always been interested in capturing images and stuff and working with photography.

I never really got around to it, though. I was always interested, but never really applied myself because I was too lazy.

And then I decided to make a major change and trying to start pushing my life forward and make big changes. And I think this is the right one.
Yeah. How long does it take to get to the school?

The school is online.

How long does it take to get through the school?

What do you mean to get to the school? Same question.

How long is it going to take you to graduate? Oh, two years. I'm sorry.
I thought you said to get to the school. Oh, it'll take me two years to graduate.

So you can't do any kind of work while doing this program for two years?

No, I'll be working full-time. I'll be working full-time as my security guard.
I work from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m.
And then I finish my shift at 2, and then

I'll be going to class from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Fantastic. I don't see why you need to stop investing.
What is your, do you have any debt?

I have no debt. Well, what does your current investing program look like? What are you doing?

So I was investing 6%

into my company 401k. They match back and put 2%.
And then at the end of the year, they put 5.5%. So at the end of the year, they match 7.5%.
And then I was investing into a

if you if you keep investing, you don't have any overhead to live, and you're earning money, you would have the money to get through school with the $54,000 if you keep investing.

So it's not really an either-or, is it?

No, it's not. Okay.
So let's start school today, and let's keep investing and keep working. Ready, set, go.
Yeah.

I'm already enrolled. I should be starting January 5th.
I'm just waiting on a

only question we had then is, do you stop investing? No, I don't think you have to because you got $54,000 and a full-time job.

So you'll have the money.

The investing won't keep you from completing school mathematically.

No. Okay.
It will not. Then keep investing.
Yeah. Absolutely.
That's easy. That's easy.
Okay. It took a minute to get through your whole story.
But yeah, that's good. I like it.
Very good.

Proud of you, man.

Go get it. He's got a plan.
He's executing the plan. Yeah.

How cool is that? It is cool. I loved his answer.
Quick little lesson for people. Here's a guy that's trying to figure out what he's doing.
He's called himself lazy, a lot of self-awareness there.

And he's security guard in a facility that has a craft that he's intrigued by. He clearly does his homework.
And he goes, I've always been interested in capturing images.

He never probably thought of being an x-ray tech, but now this is what I would call a new trade.

And this is a very, very essential, if you remember that stupid word that was thrown around during COVID. This is a good trade to pick up.
He's got some opportunities, Dave, to branch off of that.

So this is a great move here. It's a good first step in his metro career.
That is correct. Yeah, it's not the end.
No.

Puts him on a good ladder. Yeah, but also he's your book, The Proximity Principle, he's in proximity.
That's right. Very close.
With something that he ends up doing. Exactly.

Although it had nothing to do with what he was actually hired to do. That's right.
There's a good chance, by the way, that when he finishes the program, he comes back into that same building.

He just changes out the work clothes.

And I love that.

You know, I wonder if they would pay for it. It's very possible.
It depends on the demand. Do they need people? And this is key.
Great question, Dave, because here's the thing.

If you are in a field or planning to go into a field, do an extra set of homework assignments to go, what's the need across the nation, not just in my locale?

Does this industry, are they having a hard time recruiting people and getting people in? In that case, Dave, you would see a lot of companies go, we like you. We'll invest in you.

The deal is you got to come work for us. Well, he's already working for them.
He's already in the building. So it's an employee benefit to pay for

continuing Ed to work for us in a different department. Like you said, change clothes.
And the correlation, by the way, Dave, is always: is there a higher demand from employers? They need people.

They usually do, especially in the medical field. Jeff's in Springfield.
Hey, Jeff, how are you?

Fine. I hope you're doing well.
Better than we deserve. What's up, brother?

Well, I'm a 68-year-old semi-retired guy

that my wife passed away four years ago, unexpectedly.

Life goes on. I call it Jeff 2.0.

And I'm retired. I've got a great pension.
I get about $80,000 a year in my pension.

And I have about $80,000 in investments, including 401ks. And my house is paid for.

And I make a lot of money. I just looked up at my clock, and I'm running short on time.
What's your question?

I recently

reconnected with

an old girlfriend, and the problem, we were talking about getting married. The problem is she's a health professional, got $100,000 in student loan debt

and some other bills. And I said, my house is paid for.
I'm pretty much debt-free. If we go any further in the relationship, should I get a freeing up and things like that?

No.

No, y'all just work on getting that debt paid off. You got 80 coming in.
She's got money coming in. Y'all reach over and get that debt paid off.

You know, you don't want to live. Listen, if you're 68 and you live to 88, that's the next 20 years.
You got a stewed loan hanging over your head. Nah.
If you're going to get married, clean it up.

It's not $800,000. It's just a handful of money.
You can do this. You can do this.
No, we don't need a pre-nup for something that small.

If you got, you know, if it's, if you've got $8 million or something, you may want to pre-nup, but you don't. So,

no, I think you guys talk about it a lot, about what you're going to do. Maybe even get some pre-marriage counseling, which sounds a little weird when you're 68, but do it anyway.

And, yeah, and get on the same page. Be aligned about what the plan is and what the expectations are.
But I'd be combining everything. If you're going to combine your life, combine your life.

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Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Winds Credit Union Studios. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today.
Barbara's with us in Wyoming.

Hey, Barbara, how are you?

I'm good. Thank you.
Good. How can I help?

So I'm retired. I'm 66 years old.
I have a federal pension and Social Security, a little bit more than $60,000.

I'm on baby step two. The last two debts I have are federal taxes and state of New York taxes.

I've been working with a national tax preparation organization to

settle these debts.

I've already paid for

paying the negotiating on your behalf for the federal debt is part of the whole package. But when it comes to state taxes, there's an extra charge.

So my total debt to the state state of New York is about $30,000.

And that's with all the penalties and interest and everything.

They want to charge me $6,500

to

represent me to the state of New York. And they don't want to give me any

information as to past success

ratios. I've been trying to get some information to help with this decision, and they've been stonewalling me.
So I don't really know what to do at this point. You're very wise.

Well, thank you. Yeah.
You smell a rat, don't you?

I do. They've done everything they were supposed to do.

The federal's not settled, is it?

No, no, that's not. Not settled.

So they haven't done everything they're supposed to do.

Well, they've actually figured all the taxes. They've done all the taxes.
Oh, that was hard. Any tax prep idiot can do that.
Well,

it was complicated. I've done okay, so they figured out all the taxes.
That's great.

But they have not negotiated your federal tax liability down at all.

No. Not yet.

Not yet. That's next up.
Yeah. So after you do that successfully, I'll think about the other.

Well, except that I just

so I left New York a couple years ago. So there's no more debt stacking up to New York.

And so I just gave them all the paperwork to do the federal taxes. So we're not to the point of negotiating with on federal taxes.

Well, I'm just going to wait until the federal taxes. Listen,

I would not do it. They're not going to successfully do this.
The vast majority of the tax settlement companies collect $5,000 to $15,000 and don't do anything.

They don't have the ability to do anything. On the federal level, there's only one way that your federal income taxes are reduced, and it's called an OIC, an offer and compromise.

And they have to prove that you are completely broke and impoverished in order to get that through. I've seen a handful of those go through in 30 years, and I've seen thousands attempted.

So that's on the federal level. I've never tried it with New York, but they're very, very difficult to do at the federal level.
And these companies are on cable TV.

Former IRS agents work for us and give us $10,000 and we'll settle your debt. Don't bother us unless you've got at least $50,000 in debt.
And, you know, it's a bunch of crap, okay?

Because it just can't do it most of the time. I am very suspicious that this is exactly the same thing.

Oh, okay. Well, they seem pretty confident that they can do it.
But you don't.

Because they're stonewalling you. You know why they're stonewalling you and won't give you any answers? It's because they don't have any.

If they told you the actual percentage success that they had, you would laugh at them.

Well, they said they saved people a billion dollars. Yeah.
They don't tell me how many people,

when

and all that. You keep making your own case.
We don't even have to answer this call if you just listen to that last sentence you said.

You keep making a fabulous case as to why you shouldn't do this. Let me share something with you.

These agencies have no more pull with the IRS or the New York federal, the New York state government than you do.

I'm just telling you, good luck. Try calling the IRS today.
I don't know what New York's rules are. I do know what the federal rules are on settling debt, okay?

But if you want to find out, just go on ramseysolutions.com for free and click on our tax prep folks in New York and contact them and ask them if they can negotiate a $30,000 income tax bill that is delinquent, including penalties in New York.

And ask them if they can do it or if they know someone that can and what they would charge. And put that piece of data beside the piece of data that you've got.

And you'll probably have a bit of a chuckle.

My guess is, Dave, and I'm not suggesting she do this, but Barbara, I would relax on the New York thing. The chances of them...
Oh, no, they'll hunt her down.

They may. She's New York.
They'll hunt her down. I don't know.
You have way more confidence. Well, I mean, she's in Wyoming.
She's hard to find, but they'll hunt her down. But yeah,

eventually. I wanted to deal with it, but I'm not panicked about it.

And 100% chance I'm not going to pay $6,500 to whoever this mystery company that has saved billions of lives and fed starving children in Africa and all the other bull crap. Yeah, just bullcrap.

All right. All right.
Up next is Bea in Phoenix. Hey, Bea, what's up?

Hi, my Dave Ramsey. How are you? Better than I deserve.
How can we help?

Yes. So I just recently bought a house in Phoenix, which I'm really proud of.
Good.

However, my family's not very happy for me, but that's a different scenario.

My dad is in debt.

He's thinking about declaring a second bankruptcy.

My family is asking me to possibly have him

move in with me because

he's pretty much borderline homeless.

And you don't want to. Why didn't he move in with your son?

Oh, he doesn't have a...

I'm the only girl.

No, I'm sorry. Who was suggesting that he move in with you?

Oh, my aunts. Oh, what time tell them to move in with them?

They're making it my responsibility. No, it's not your responsibility.
It's their responsibility. It was their idea.
You thought of it. You do it.

Don't sign other people up for your charity work.

Yeah, the thing is, Dale have a house of their own.

I saved, I pre-they have a rental, and it's got a floor in the living room. That's where dad sleeps.
It's their brother.

Yeah. Yeah, they should take care of their brother instead of trying to get somebody else to do it.
You don't want to do this. That's why you called.
I'm giving you permission to not do this.

Okay. Matter of fact, I'm telling you not to do this.

Why are people mad you bought a house?

Oh, one of my aunts, she guilt tricked me, so she wanted to combine finances with me.

And this is the one that wants you to let dad move in.

Yeah, as well. This woman has a lot of opinions about other people's stuff.

Yeah, she's a good person to love from a distance. Further distance than you've been loving her from.

I don't know why you give all these ants all this power. Yeah, I just go, you know, it's like an ant hill.
Oh my God.

I run around everywhere getting bit by ants. Oh, it's awful.
Ouch, ouch, ouch.

Yeah, you need a little more distance between you and crazy ants and tell the ants to let your dad go over there because you can't do it right now. It's not up.
It doesn't work for you right now.

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Today's question comes from Gabriella in California. We didn't hear about the Ramsey show until after we purchased our first home.

We went with a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage and a payment that's over 25% of our monthly pay.

Should we pause investing and put that extra money on our mortgage so we can refinance to a 15-year fixed mortgage and lower our payment to the recommended amount?

No.

No, I wouldn't go through all that. What I would do is just make sure you're managing your budget really, really carefully and begin to reduce your mortgage in your baby step six.

So if you're out of debt, you have your emergency fund in place. You're working four, five, and six together.
Four is 15% of your income going into retirement.

Five is kids' college and six is reduce your mortgage until it's paid off.

So when you get it reduced down a ways, if you want to restructure it, if it becomes worth it, if you can get a lower interest rate, it might be worth it to refinance and take out maybe a 10-year or a 15.

But that's years from now after you get it reduced. In the the meantime, know that your mortgage is too high.
And so resist this justification. My budget's tight, so I have to take out a car payment.

Don't go back in debt. Don't, don't, you know, don't say, don't blame your house because you made the decision.

If you cannot exist without taking out debt for other purchases because your house payment's too big, then you need to sell the house and move down. But I don't think that's the case here.

I think you can work through this. I wouldn't have signed you up for it, as you know, but I think you can work through this and get there.
I think it's possible.

Yeah, there's no mention in this of other debt, but if there is, obviously you're going to work our baby steps and you're going to reduce expenses in other areas of your life.

And look, if you got to get a better job or work an extra job for a while,

you have to get, you have to make the margin that you've already eaten up. Exactly.
You got to make sure you cover it. You can't let this bite you at the end of the day.
Jeremy's in Cincinnati.

Hey, Jeremy, how are you?

I'm doing well.

Well, I guess that's all truth or I wouldn't be calling you.

So anyway,

may God continue to bless you. I really appreciate what you're doing for people.
Thank you. It's very challenging to find a solid source of help.

I have been struggling and dancing with bankruptcy for essentially seven years. Wow.

Everything started. I'm not in it.
I started the process post-divorce, but at the advice of the attorney, he's like, well, wait till this happens. Now wait till this happens.

And essentially got in a position where I borrowed money from family and I wasn't able to run them through the ringer to go through a chapter 13 bankruptcy.

Try to make this as quick as I can as your call screener requested.

I'm essentially $120,000 in debt.

$20,000 out of a car loan at a very high interest rate because of my credit score. There's roughly $4,000 $4,000 in back taxes from 2021,

a $13,000 parent-plus loan that I owe money on, and the rest is unsecured debt that I've accumulated either from

back in the divorce or over the years of having three kids.

How much is this family out now? How much do you owe your family?

I don't owe my family anymore. I thought you were saying that.
So what's the unsecured debt for $90,000? What is credit cards?

Mostly credit cards and some loans.

Yeah. Okay.
What do you make? Trying to get through.

My current salary now is $141,000. That's good.

I am currently being garnished for $100,000 from one credit card company and my spousal support. My child support had expired just last year.

And then the garnishments came in, and spouse's ports were roughly twelve hundred dollars um aside from other bills that um i have uh

i am

before anything i'm bringing home roughly five thousand a month um and i started down back down the track on on bankruptcy again but again i'm i'm not a year year out from having my family being uh

pulled into that and i don't want to do that to referential treatment yeah i am okay so the uh let me ask you you said a hundred thousand dollars worth of garnishment. What are you talking about?

No, no, no, no. Not $100,000 worth of garnishment.
I'm saying $1,000 a month. Oh, $1,000 a month.

Okay, so you make $140,000,

and they're taking out $1,000 for that, and they're taking out how much for child support? $1,200.

Spousal support,

$1,280. Okay, so that's $2,200.

That's less than $30,000 out of the $140,000. That leaves you $90,000 not counting taxes.
How big is your tax refund?

Oh, I don't get, I don't usually get any. Good.
Okay. And then, so how much do you have coming out for 401k?

That is

maxing out at 6%.

Yeah.

Okay. All right.
So here's what I'm going to do, John.

You're making a lot of money. It's just going back out the door.
What do you think you're spending it on?

All these payments. Oh, this car payment's outrageous.
It's $1,500, isn't it?

My car payment is $438 a month, but it's a very long loan at a 13%

interest rate. Okay.

One of the other things that's in the mix here is I do have, I am one-third owner of my mother's home from when she passed, and there's currently no settlement with my brothers and I on

liquidating at least my share of it. But you're not paying anything on that

no i'm not paying anything on that you just you might get some money out of it someday okay all right so yes

here's what i'm doing i i'm still not finding 140 000 so i temporarily would stop your 401k i'm going to put you on a beans and rice budget you don't eat out anymore you don't go on vacation anymore and you're going to make every dollar behave because 140 minus 2200 minus 500 for a car payment you still got a lot of money that is an unexplained here And I want you to go find it.

I'm going to give you the every dollar premium budget, which is going to guide you through this whole process.

But more than anything, Jeremy, you've got to make every single dollar behave before the month begins and then execute on that with deathly efficiency.

And, you know, you've kind of been, it feels like you've kind of been wallowing around in this for so long that you've kind of lost your footing and lost, you can't get a handhold, you can't get a foothold.

And so I want you to just back up three steps, take a deep breath and dive into cold water and go, okay, fresh start,

clean eyes, clear eyes, fresh start. Now, look at the math only.

Where the flip is $140,000 going? Because you sure hadn't explained it to me in this. And I want you to go find that for your sake.
You don't have to explain it to me, but you need to go find it.

Cut up the stupid credit cards. Never touch one of those dadgum things again.
They're destroying your life.

And then let's let's list your debts, smallest to largest, and begin to attack them in that order after you start paying minimum payments.

But you can stop the 401k, you can put the parent plus loan on temporary hardship,

and then you can turn around and start attacking these other debts that you are paying monthly on, get them cleared up, and then come back to the parent plus loan and clean it up later.

All of these things are gettable, they're very doable. And whatever that one that's got the garnishment on, get that thing, get it done, get it knocked out.

And man, I would just pump, I'd pop it that way as hard as I could hit it.

But the math here says you've got great hope. Your voice does not say that.

Yeah, I would recommend that you even get a second job, target $30,000 to $50,000. What would it take? How could you make an additional $30,000 to $50,000?

Now, you got good income, but I think you need some intensity right now.

We've heard enough debt-free screams that when we hear these people say we worked every second that we could and we made so much money. I think right now you need a jump start of intensity.

And I would have looked to sell this car. This $20,000 car has got a $400 plus payment to it.

You need to go all in scorched earth, more income and beans and rice. That thing needs to be paid off in the next 12 months or you need to sell it.
Yep. You need to get

fired up here.

So you clean up those credit cards, you clean up that car loan, you start cleaning up a bunch of this and all you've got left unsecured. You can start plowing through this stuff like a snowplow, baby.

You can start knocking them down just like dominoes. It'll happen.
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Megan is with us in St. Louis.
Hey, Megan, how are you?

Hey, Dave, I'm a fair to midland today. How are you doing? About the same, other than I'm better than I deserve.
How can I help?

Well, I need help understanding or framing out

how do I tell my mom I am starting to resent her after some financial choices that she's made.

Okay.

How old is your mom?

She's 60. And how old are you? 32.
Okay.

So why does it affect you?

So she has been a successful

medical professional in the physical therapy practice world. She had three clinics and was a single mom and supported me and my sister for the majority of our lives.

And as an adult, we've... had mutual respect for our business decisions.

And five years ago she

sold her clinics or her interest in them and her home to move in with her long-term fiancé

and she took those proceedings and made his dream happen of opening up a diner and they did that at a somewhat opportune time where other diners were liquidating their equipment they were able to purchase that and it's been very successful over the last five years.

However, as the diner got stronger, their relationship got weaker and they broke off the engagement and she moved out earlier this year.

He then bought out her interest in the diner, but not directly, not in one month zone. He is paying in monthly installments.
And her investment there was

about

half of her profits from the sale of the business and the home. And at this point, it's going to take another 15 years to recoup that.
So it's coming. How does this affect you?

Well, we've been in a family dynamic where we go on vacations together. We plan holidays together.

And she's made promises to me and my sister about being included on a home purchase and planning a wedding. And I'm going to be engaged.
And she's promised that she'd like to be committed to that.

And now I'm having those feelings that she had the finances to make her fiancé's dreams come true. But now,

where is that money for our dreams um when when uh you know she's saying that the money just isn't there yeah so you're not gonna like me

that's okay

if i need a kick in the fans go for it

i'm gonna tell you right now i already second whatever his motion is about to be you're you're 32 years old

okay

yeah you're you sound like an 18-year-old whining that your mommy didn't give you something your mom's a single mom grew something from nothing, screwed up with a bad choice in men again

and lost her money, and you're whining about your wedding. You're 32.
Go pay for your wedding and love your mother. Sure.

Absolutely. Yeah.
Just, I mean,

she's a warrior princess. She raised you girls from nothing.
She had nothing, and she built this thing out of the dirt with her hands. And then she lost it.

You should be heartbroken for her mad at the twerp with the diner not worried about yourself

i have been i have been and i i um but you've been mad at him because he got your money is the way you're acting

um yeah we've we've been on the occasions where i've you know covered the bill i treated for her 60th birthday trip earlier this year and yeah um well if you don't want to do that that's fine or if you can't do that because you're saving for your own wedding that's okay because she made these choices.

You don't have to cover her travel bill.

But on the other hand, I don't think she, you know, she's not obligated to pay for a 32-year-old woman's wedding as a single mom who lost her money to a bad relationship.

Yeah, I think that's where I have to identify where those feelings came from. Yeah,

I think if I were you, I would parse out the two things. Number one is, what

are you required to do for her?

Nothing.

She'll make it. She's okay.
And, you know, let her go. Let her release her on what she was thinking she was going to be able to do for you, but now has messed up and is not able to.

And so,

yeah, any expectation that she gives you money should turn and not be there anymore and turn into gratitude for what she's already done for you.

Yeah, and on the question of the way you worded it, how do I tell my mom I resent her? That implies that you haven't said anything yet.

I think it's okay to communicate two emotions that I heard, that you're mad and that you're sad. And I think as an adult, you honor your mother, but you can have an honest conversation.

I think it's probably important for you to get that off your chest, but in a way that is respectful and honoring and then move on. But you got to acknowledge that you're mad and you're sad.

Mainly, though, sad for her. Yeah.
Not that mad because I didn't didn't get something. Well, it's okay for her to say, I'm mad that she made this promise and she can't keep it.
We've got to move on.

You know what I mean? Like, it's like

30 seconds. That's what I'm saying.
But go ahead and deal with it because she's misplacing the way the question is framed. I'm misplacing my emotions toward all towards my mom.

And I just think that that's unhealthy. This is a lady who did well for you.

So if you want her on vacation, you set the terms in your mind, you and your sis, and you go, this is what we're going to do for her mom. And we're not going to resent her.

We're not going to be gripey about it. And you just move on.
Or we don't do it. You don't do it at all.
Don't have her on vacation.

I don't, you know, I'm not able to do this right now because I'm saving for my own wedding. And that's a perfectly reasonable way.
It is.

She did make her own bed in that sense. Yeah.

But

no, I

mainly I'm going to be sad for her and deciding how much I'm willing to do to help her. My concern for myself needs to be close to zero in this.
You're too old for that. That's exactly right.

That's my point. Yeah, I agree with you.
Move on. That's wow.
Just move on with it. And

it's,

and here's the thing. I think Dr.
John were here. He would say, you're probably playing these tapes over and over like 42 times in your head every day.

It'll be really good to get the tapes out of your head. Yeah.
Just let them go somewhere else. Just let them go off into the sunset.
And just then just smile and go, mom messed up.

And, you know, she did good for a while and then she messed up. And that's just mom.
Yeah. You know.
That's right.

Well, to your point, you can't be full of gratitude and full of anger at the same time. So let's just be an adult and let's focus on what we're grateful for.
This woman did a lot for you. Yeah.
Yeah.

Against the odds, by the way. Single mom, three clinics.

I mean, she's not a doofus.

She just doesn't pick men well. Fair.
Yeah. That's good.
Yeah. But yeah.
All right. Cynthia is in Toronto.
Hi, Cynthia. How are you?

Hi, I'm doing good. I'm honored to talk to you both today.
You too. How can we help?

Okay, so this is probably a silly question based on a few callers back, but I'm a new listener and I thought I would still ask.

So, what does gazelle intensity look like in babysitter two when it comes to sinking funds?

For example, I want to put $150 a month each to my car fund for repairs, a pet fund for like an older dog, and vacation and gift funds.

Not to actually take a vacation, but say, you know, if we go on a camping trip or something like that with a big family, it would equal to $600 a month or $7,200 a year, and it would be about $1,800 per category.

So I just want to know what you guys think about that.

Okay. I only do the bare necessities when I'm in Baby Step 2 on,

you know, we're in Gazelle Intense Baby Step 2 working the debt snowball. So the sinking funds would reflect that.
We're not going on vacation. Period.
Not spending $7,000 a year on vacations.

Not while we're in baby step two. No.

Yes, we've got to keep our car repaired. So yes, you need to have a monthly account, monthly line item in your budget that can build up.

And yes, that can be called a sinking fund for car repairs because you do have to do car repairs while you're in there.

And if you have a dog that you're fairly sure is going to have some issues, then yeah, that's an ongoing budgeting item that's going to happen and you're going to deal with it no matter how intense you are.

You're going to deal with the dog situation. So you need something there.
But that's not $15,000

for a pet in the middle of this. This is, you know, it's a few hundred dollars here or there for some vet bills.

And so anything like that, if, you know, your your tires need to be replaced that's part of your car repair right but car replacement no we don't need to worry about car replacement right now we're getting out of debt we'll worry about that after we get out of baby step three

and so only the things that are necessary to operate the house bare minimum that fall into sinking those are the only sinking funds we fund at that point really good question by the way

Dave, we got a lot of calls on this show where life happens. One day someone's healthy, they're working, providing for their family, and then a curveball hits.
You know, we hear it all the time.

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Brian's in Wisconsin. Hey, Brian, how are you?

Better than I deserve. How are you two today? Just the same.
How can I help?

We're a second caller, longtime listener. My wife and I are on Baby Step Six.
We make about $425,000 a year with the bulk of that coming from my employment.

I work as a software engineer with consulting work on the side. We have a high savings rate, just over $200,000 a year.
Wow.

My work-life bounce, it sucks, not existing.

And it's taken a toll on my mental and physical health.

I'm doing this because my wife and I, we plan to have kids soon, no kids right now.

And I'm also worried that my skills might be obsolete in the next three to five years due to the advancements in artificial intelligence.

So my question is,

is it possible to sort of be too focused on savings and sort of delayed gratification?

And should I shift my focus to maintaining my health and a decent work-life balance, even with the uncertainty of the future job market?

Well, you already know that you should do that.

Okay. You know that.
And the way you phrased the question tells me that you know that.

You just wanted someone to agree with you. And yes, I think you're very wise to observe that.

So here's what's happening.

You are,

we always talk about in every marriage, there's typically a nerd and a free spirit. I'm the nerd at my house, the detail person.
My wife is the free spirit. My daughter, Rachel, is the free spirit.

Her husband, Winston, is the nerd. You're definitely the nerd at your house.
And it shows up not only in your career field, but in your approach to this entire phone call, even.

So you're very detailed, very focused. person.
You like systems. You work systems.
It's made you a good living, by the way, which is wonderful.

But you've gotten completely over the edge into that world and you've lost all the other beautiful parts of life focusing only on the ones and zeros. And so you're exactly right.

You're very self-aware. You're very wise to say, I need to back up.
I need some art. and some science in my life, not just science.

And art is the romance of my wife, the beauty of some children that need to be on the way this week. Come on, dude, get some kids.
And, you know, it's the best thing ever happened to you. And

no, by the way, you're not going to be unemployed because of AI. You're going to be the guy that tells AI what to do.

Now, if you're writing lines of code, yeah, you may be not writing lines of code anymore in four or five years. I don't doubt that.

I've got a feeling AI is going to be writing most of our code, and I'm fine with that. But somebody's got to tell the stupid thing how to do it because it's artificial intelligence, by the way.

Like artificial sweetener and so we're using you know i'm not in your world except that we have a lot of digital products and a lot of digital people here and a lot of our software engineers are convinced that they need to get above ai and boss it around as their new job description in the future rather than do what it's trying to do right now

And that's just my take on it as an entrepreneur.

But I don't think you're going to be unemployed because I think you're already considering how you're going to pivot to take advantage of the new technology instead of it taking you out.

Yeah, Brian, two quick questions here to focus on this balance issue. How much of the $425 is your income?

About $370. Okay, of the $370, you mentioned your job and then I heard consulting.
So break down the income, your income of the $370, how much is consulting outside of your 9 to 5?

You know, it's split right down the middle. My 9 to 5 is half of it, and consulting is the other half.
Okay. How many hours is the consulting taking up in a week?

About 20 hours a week on top of my nine to five, 40 hours a week. All right.
So I just wanted to tactically start to break that down because Dave's right. I agree with everything you said.

So now we need to look at, okay, we've been in the scarcity mindset, you know, all the savings. So we need to dial back the 60 hours.
So

if you're looking at, you know, I hate to tell anybody to take a step back in income, but the reality is you you need to take a step back in hours.

So we're looking at 60 hours a week, and that's what's causing the big part of your pain while you call today. So you've got to adjust that.
That's where we go in and we tactically make some changes.

But you've been in doing, I can just tell by the way you're handling this, you've been doing technology a long time. This is not your first ride.

Yeah, very true. Over 10 years experience.
Exactly. And so you've navigated changes, disruptions before.
This one's a little bit more of a tsunami than a minor disruption, but

you're you're going to navigate this and you're going to be fine.

There are people that are going to be taken out by it. If you think you're going to be a dev one coder five years from now, you're not.
No, people, those of you listening, okay?

I don't think that's happening. There's not going to be much of that happening.
But there's a lot of stuff we're not going to be doing. But that's okay.

There's other things we can do with this technology.

But you've got to have a brain that works the way your brain works to be able to make AI do what it's supposed to do.

And so a brain that works, I can't make it do what you can make it do, in other words.

And because my brain is not set up that way and I don't have the knowledge base that you have.

So I think you're going to be in a really good position. And that raises another question, Brian.
Is the consulting work the exact same type of work in the nine to five or is it slightly different?

Same work, different fields. One is law and the other one is healthcare.
I just wonder, as a part of this transition, as you begin to kind of scale back so that you can start a family,

get the stress out of your life. I wonder if the consulting is not eventually a business where you work for yourself and you kind of make yourself even more insulated from the threat of AI.

Just something to think about. I'm not putting you on the spot to answer that, but there's something to this.
There's a pivot there. There's a potential.
I'll say that. There's a potential pivot.

If I were sitting with you in your living room, we're walking through the next five years.

I'd want to look what is the future of the consulting business and how could you, you know, add to or or full pivot? So, are you literally writing code right now?

I am working right now, yes. No, I mean, no, I mean,

not this second. I mean, is this today your job description is you write lines of code?

Well, we're telling AIs what to do, which is kind of what made me call in. Like, who knows what this thing's going to do in five years? Yeah, but I mean, today you are, that's okay.
So, you're a

senior engineer. Okay, I got you.
All right, because you're killing it income-wise. I'm so proud of you.
Very well done. So, you're very smart.
You're a planner. You're a thinker.

You flowchart stuff in your brain. You can't keep from doing it, including your own life.
And so, yeah, so that's what we're doing. We're saying we're agreeing with you.

Yes, I would take a step back, not six steps back. And by the way, when you're at home with your family, then

be at home. Turn off all screens,

including television.

Yes, sir. Just relationship.

So don't substitute Netflix binge watching for work and call that family life balance. It's not.

And sometimes we can do that too. We just move from one to the other.
Well, I was at home and she was sitting beside me. No, that doesn't count.
Okay. Yeah, but you got caught up on Downton Abbey.

I don't think that's a plan, okay?

So anyway, yeah, I think you're a great guy, and I think you're going to be a great dad and a great husband. And you already knew you were going to do this before you called.

And then the question is:

you know, you've got a really good nest egg already built. You've got the ability to earn a great income.
And here's the thing I know about folks.

Regardless of the field, once you have made X number of dollars,

your brain tells you it's possible, and you will naturally gravitate back toward X number of dollars plus. That's right.

Once you've broken the threshold, once you balanced on the bicycle the first time and your eyes light up and go, I can actually do this, then you have a tendency to be able to do it again rather than a tendency to end up making $25,000 a year at Walmart.

That's right. It's not what you're doing.
So you're going to gravitate towards $15 million a year the rest of your life or more.

You're just going to have to change how you do it and how you add value to the organizations in the brave new world that we live in. But you're going to do it.
I can tell. You're that guy.

And I employ a whole bunch of tech folks. So kind of know what I'm talking about.
I can tell when somebody's got that thing, that swagger that allows them to do it. And I think you do.

I think you're going to be great at it. So yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.
Good question. Very good discussion.
Thanks for calling in.

Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. In the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio.
Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today. Nazareth is with us in Houston.

Hey, Nazareth, how are you?

Hey, Dave. Hey, Ken.
It's an honor to speak with you guys. You too, sir.
How can we help?

Well,

I wish I was calling to talk about my own more,

my own financial situation,

you know, because I'm doing the baby steps getting out of debt right now,

which is

a lot of what I've heard you call the stupid tax. Because I'm 28 and I've made a lot of mistakes, a lot of mistakes over the years.
But

I guess one of them

is led me to moving back in with my parents, with my daughter, who's now four years old. And anyways, I've been here.
And when I first moved back in, like, I was still like

being pretty irresponsible, like just kind of floating through life. And I've really gotten my act together these past few months.
And

crazy things have happened to where my mom left my dad about two months ago and I took over

all the bills and all that. But now I'm looking at

my father basically owing about $10,000 on property taxes. And if it's not paid within a month, the house is going to go to auction.
So I'm just juggling a lot right now.

And it occurred to me: okay, well, maybe I can call the Ramede show, and I got a hold of you guys.

Wow.

So, your parents' finances are a mess, and you have taken over them

with two whole months of experience controlling yours?

Yes, sir. Okay.
What do you make here?

Right now, before taxes, I'm bringing in about $3,600 a month, sometimes a little bit more, sometimes a little less, but right around.

Okay.

And what does your mom make?

Well,

my mom, she doesn't live here anymore. She actually moved to another state.
Oh, I'm sorry. Your dad lives there?

Yes, sir. Oh, and what does he make?

It varies, but I'd say on a on a good month, he's making about three to four thousand.

And why have they not paid their taxes?

It was

just

a lot of infidelity throughout their marriage, you know, on all levels, including financial, just

never being on the same page about things.

So they don't have any money, I guess. You wouldn't have called me, you would have just paid the taxes, yeah.

Okay. yeah, well,

my father, he has about $2,000 in his savings account,

give or take. And

yeah, but my mom, definitely no savings like that.

And you're in touch with her? You have the ability to get in touch with her?

Yes. Yes, I do.
Okay. All right.
And what's the house worth?

I'm looking at this number here. Let's see.

If I see this correctly,

oh well, it says adjudged value $215,000. Okay, what's that?

What are you reading there?

This is the notice of sale. Oh, that has anything to do with reality.
What do you think the house is actually worth, dude?

I'm not sure. Probably

at

probably like around $150.

Okay. All right.

And what is owed on it?

Nothing. The house is paid off.
Oh, okay. All right.

Wow.

That's really sad.

So

I would tell you to go to Ramseysolutions.com and click on a real estate.

trusted real estate agent. Get one of our trusted people and tell them what's going on and see if they have any knowledge of

property tax in Texas that I don't have. There's a possibility you could apply for some kind of a thing, take your dad's $2,000 and maybe

$2,000 a month for the next four months or whatever and clear the thing, right?

There's a possibility they have some kind of a program for that.

Or there's a possibility

they give you these notices and then it's a while before they actually do it. It's not really 30 days.
I don't, I want you to get more knowledge than just the threat and the mailbox. And I don't know.

I don't have the knowledge to give you.

Yes, sir. Well, I did, I spent like about two hours on the phone with these tax office people, and because they were on payment plans

in the past, it's pretty much said that the house will go to auction January 6th if it's not paid in full.

And like I said, I wish I was calling with the money.

And you don't have the money, and they don't have the money. So what's our option? There's two options.

Neither one are good. Your dad can file a Chapter 13 bankruptcy and that will stop the auction.

Okay.

And before I lost the house at auction, I would do that.

But

I really think that

it might be a good idea for your dad just to sell the house, your dad and mom sell the house now.

Get an investor, call one of our Ramsey trusted real estate agents, and let's sell the house and pay the taxes before the auction, okay?

Because they're going to lose this house and you guys don't have any money to stop them.

And so, you know, you can go into chapter 13 bankruptcy, but all we're doing there is kicking the can down the road because your parents are going to screw that up.

I'm curious, how many years of the property taxes? What's a year's worth of property taxes on this house? Do you know?

Well, it varies, but I think it goes all the way back to

2020, about five years' worth. Right.
So, here's the, this is kind of an outside-the-ball, uh, outside-the-box idea here.

But does your dad, between all the stuff they have, do they have $6,000 worth of stuff that you can sell quickly plus his two? That gets you, or wait, wait, wait. We got to get

eight more. Sorry.
My math was bad for a second. $8,000.
Does he have $8,000 worth of stuff?

Yeah, I think so. And I have.

That's the quickest turnaround on this thing. I mean, to be honest with you, if he really has $8,000 worth of stuff, and if it was just car one, I would do that.

No, not really through his cars, but he's got a lot of

because he's a welder. He's

builds fences. So has a lot of material, steel here.
And

yeah, get it sold. Yeah, just kind of...

Yes, sir. Yeah, get it sold and get the money and go pay the taxes.
That's it.

But your dad's going to have to get off his dad gum butt.

Or he's going to lose his house. And it's not fair that you have to do this for him.
This is supposed to be a grown man.

I mean, this guy's, what, 60 years old?

Yes, sir. 62.
Yeah.

So maybe he ought ought to act like it. Hello.

So, yeah, I don't really want you fixing this for him, but if he's got the assets, if he got a bunch of junk around there, he can take salvage or whatever and sell it and scratch up 10 grand to go with his two or eight grand to go with his two grand, get this thing paid.

That's the answer.

Other than that, yeah, you can file bankruptcy, but it's not going to work because it's going to crash. He's not, unless he gets

it up, that's his only shot at making this work. And your mom needs to sell her car and put some money in it, too.

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This time of year, I get a little confused about the terms.

It's Cyber Monday week.

How do you have a Monday week?

I'm so confused. How do Black Friday sales last for 10 days? This is still happening.
Yeah, Fridays are now 10 days and Mondays are now weeks. Okay, well, but we're going to join the parade.

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In the description. I need to make a confession, Dave.
Our audience knows this.

When you're not here and I read these things, I get a little upset. I wonder if you've approved these things.

These are really good deals. I'm not sure I'm making much on these books and assessments.
Did you approve of these deals?

I had nothing to do with these deals, actually, but

I always do, don't I? I'm like, man, Dave is killing me. These books of mine are so cheap.
Yeah, prices as low as $6.99. That's hardcover books, no less.
Must be an overstock on something.

That's all I'm saying. There it is, folks.
I confessed it. I confronted it.
We don't know how these deals got there. They're good deals, that's for sure.
Brian's in Dallas. Hey, Brian, what's up?

Hey, Dave, how's it going? Better than I deserve. How can I help?

Hey, Dave, I'm closing on a property here soon in the next couple of weeks, and I wanted to get your wisdom on a few things. So, first of all, thanks for taking my call.
And

just some context for

who I am. I'm 27, making about $100,000 a year.

And

the property that we're closing on, we have the means to put down for the down payment, which is great.

But as I was crunching the numbers and looking at our savings, we were thinking about possibly taking out a 401k loan or withdrawal to help with the down payment.

Now, I know I've watched some of your videos and you've explained not to do that and things like that.

So just call in to get your input and get wisdom on creative ways we can put for the down payment. You already have a down payment.
Leave your 401k alone.

Yeah.

Yeah. Keep your hands off of it.

Okay. If you can't afford the house, then tell them and see if you can get out of the house deal.
But don't mess with stinking 401k, like you said. That's

for obvious reasons.

Your wealth is going to come from paying your house off and from building your 401k, not from destroying it. And borrowing on your 401k is never a good idea.
Ever. There's no circumstance.

And withdrawing on a 401k, of course, you're going to get taxes and penalties and everything else.

And you're not even able to withdraw a 401k while you still work there. So,

no, I would not ever use my retirement money to buy a house, ever.

No, wouldn't do it. And I wouldn't do it to increase your down payment when you already have your down payment.
Ryan is in Indianapolis. Hey, Ryan, how are you?

Good. How are you doing? Better than I deserve.
What's up?

Yeah,

so my dad passed away a few months ago, and

he's set my mom up pretty well. He's a lifetime farmer, built a pretty good net worth, very conservative.

And

by the time he has a trust set up, and by the time that all the ground and equipment

there's still room for about one point five million dollars of cash that we could put towards the trust.

And

my mom is considering disclaiming that cash to go go ahead and give it to myself and my two brothers. And

I'm a little concerned about

taking on that much cash.

My brothers went through a divorce in his lifetime, and we want to do what we can to protect what my dad's built his whole life.

I want to pay off my house, and that's what my mom would like to see me do with the cash that she'd give me and my suggestion was to put it in the trust leave it there and I take a loan from the trust instead

and kind of pay back the loan instead or pay back the trust instead of the bank

to keep it from becoming a marital asset right off the bat so the million and a half would be yours

well it'd be split between uh myself and my two brothers and it also you would get a half a million dollars Yes.

So you don't trust your wife with a half a million dollars?

It's not that I don't

trust her, but

we've seen what money can do to families. Half a million dollars is not that much money.

It's not, but it can be spent very quickly. Oh, wait a second.
Wait, wait, wait, wait. You paid off your house.
How are you going to spend it?

Well, I'm saying that

if I pay off my house, I've got more income now coming in

from my house. So be on a budget with your wife.

What's wrong with your marriage, Ryan?

It's very hard to control financially.

If we're not on a very strict budget and an allowance, essentially,

it disappears.

But wouldn't paying off your house make it even more stable? No, more money to disappear at this point. Yeah, but...
Yeah, because he can't get along with his wife.

Right.

How long have you been married?

Six years.

Okay.

I would not accept the money until you get your marriage healed. Yeah.

Your marriage is a mess.

That's what, you know,

No, I don't want to create some kind of a

faux backflip double limited partnership trust crap so you won't deal with your wife. No, I don't want to do that.

You need to deal with your wife and then get your marriage and your life straightened out, and then we'll talk about properly handling wealth. But

there is no legal mechanism that makes people that aren't behaving behave.

You're dreaming, Ryan.

You can't have your cake and eat it, too. You're going to have to deal with your home.
Your home is a wreck.

When you deal with your home, then it's a safe place to bring a lousy half million dollars into.

But your home isn't safe for a half million dollars right now, so don't put a half million dollars in it in any shape or form until you get your marriage worked on.

And quit trying to dream up some side-angle crap to not have to deal with what's right in front of your dadgum nose.

You've got to deal with this. And if you don't, your marriage is going to end and there's no,

all this crap is going to get drug into a divorce court no matter how what you do. And, you know, you're, all your little schemes and crap aren't going to work.
So you can't control this.

You've got to heal it. There's a difference.

Now, you're going to do what you're going to do, but I would not accept the half million until you finished marriage counseling that was successful in creating a healed, grown-up relationship with my wife you don't trust your wife that's a bad place to live dude yeah yeah it's six years

and and and to not have any kind of financial stability and trust you could feel it all over him so wow wow wow yeah i i like that advice yeah you

and your mom and your brother are trying to connive something up here against your wife. This is a bad medicine, bad juju, dude.
Really bad.

Well, you know, he mentioned his brother's divorce, so he's feeling like snake bit too because of his marriage. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, no kidding. Self-fulfilled prophecy if you're not careful.

Yeah, but no, mama needs to just, you know, the one needs to trust is your mother, maybe,

but not you.

No, you don't, you don't need that money anywhere near your house right now because

you've got other issues that are much more important, much higher priority than a lousy half million dollars are paying off your house.

When you're tired of feeling stuck with money, there's just one solution. To get different results, you have to do something different.
No one accidentally wins with money.

You have to have a game plan, and that begins with our get-started assessment. Go to ramseysolutions.com/slash start,

answer some questions, and we'll show you what steps to take next.

Don't stay stuck. Take control of your money starting today.
Go with ramseysolutions.com/slash start.

If you're working the baby steps, the best and fastest way to work the Ramsey plan is by using Every Dollar. It's more than just our budgeting app, it's the plan built right in.

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It's like having one of us walking with you every day, showing you the next right step and holding you accountable. We'll tell you the truth because we love you.

Start every dollar for free by downloading it in the App Store or Google Play. On the Zoom call coming up now is going to be Becky and Brian.
Hey, guys, how are you?

Good day.

Wonderful to have you guys. Where do you live?

Madison, Wisconsin. Okay.
Well, Merry Christmas. I see the Christmas tree in the background.
You guys got it rocking. Good work.
Yeah.

How can we help you guys today? Thanks for taking our call. Yeah.
I'll let my wife take the question here.

Hi, Dave. So I own a small business, a medical aesthetics practice here in our hometown.
I'm a nurse practitioner and I've built my business debt-free.

I have no debt here at the business and I make pretty heavily purchases every month that I just pay off with my debit card, you know, $10,000, sometimes upwards of $20,000 for products.

And so my question is in in regards to getting a business credit card and

the downfall of what that would be. I think we kind of live in the Ramsey mindset.
We're debt-free. I only purchase things if I have the funds to purchase them.

So that

was my question,

what the harm would be in getting a business credit card for points. Well, if you

only purchase things if you have the money, then a debit card will work, right?

Correct. Okay.
And so your only motivation is points?

Well, I mean, yes. Well, I was thinking of if I have to purchase it anyway, should I be trying to get something in return because I have to to then have additional funds.
Yeah.

And so is your business working? Are you making money? Are you successful?

I am. Good.
Good for you. Congratulations.

Well, that's where you make your money in running your business well and in being who you are and providing the service that you provide. That's where all your profit comes from.

That's where your prosperity will come from is in being you.

I can tell you're probably really good at this.

You can see it kind of in the camera right now. And

so you are the secret sauce, not some side hustle gathering up points.

And so I've concentrated at Ramsey on helping people with their money or helping people with their leadership or the different things that we do here, not not in trying to gather up something on the side.

I just go do what we do with excellence, and that's where all of our prosperity has come. And because the points are a scam, 78% of them are never redeemed.

That's crazy. Eight out of 10.
And

by the way, if you spend $100,000 on this and you get 1%, that's $1,000.

So

there's no formula on planet Earth that says spending $100,000 to get $1,000 is a formula for wealth building.

That's a really, really, really silly trade.

Your time and your brain calories are worth a lot more than you'll be spending chasing a couple of points here or there that are $500 or $1,000 here or there that you make back.

You can make that in 20 seconds doing what you do if you concentrate on that instead of the other things.

But instead, they got you concentrating on their business model, which is to get you possibly into debt.

Because one month, things are a little tight, then you don't pay it off, and then there you are. That never happens with a debit card, though.

So we don't have any credit cards at Ramsey, and we teach entree leaders,

we coach about 10,000 small businesses all over America to use debit cards and just don't bother with the points.

Because

that momentary flex where you change your brain from doing what it does so well to going over here and trying to beat up Citibank for a 1%,

the trade-off is not worth it. Your brain is worth more working on things that matter.
Ken? Yeah, one of my vices, you two, I'm confessing this, is late night ice cream. It's a real problem.

And I'm at the stage in life where late night ice cream comes with a consequence. So you know what I do to avoid late night ice cream? You guys want to take a guess?

Don't eat it. I don't have ice cream in my house.

There's no ice cream in the house. Now, I know, I know.
What kind of a father are you? The kids can go get it. There's an ice cream shop in my neighborhood.

But, you know, it's a simple little idea, but you get the point. And Dave's right.
There is, it's not just the one month it gets a little tight and we got a little security blanket.

It's also a temptation. And if it's in the freezer, There's a good chance I'm going to walk by and grab it and get a bowl of it.
And so you just got to be very careful with this. It's psychology.

There is psychology and money, and Dave has figured it out.

What I don't think people realize sometimes is how much psychology are in the baby steps because he sat and he listened to people for years and years and years and developed something that is not just about momentum, but it's also about the psychology of money.

And I think that we can't forget that the points seem to be a real benefit, but

what it's going to do is potentially trap you, just like those late night calories for me. You got it.
So that's my take.

Awesome. You're an incredible couple.
Thank you. You guys said that so much more nicely than we thought you were going to do.
Well, thank you for coming on.

Hey, that was pretty risky. You guys took a big risk jumping on here.
So thank you for doing that.

And, you know, the joke we always use is we've never met a millionaire said I made all my money with my points. And so that's what it all comes down to.
So, hey, thanks for joining us.

That's Becky and Brian. Good job, you guys.
All right. Fun.

So we've integrated a few of these Zoom calls here or there because so many of you watch on YouTube and on video and Spotify and other, some of our other platforms are now carrying video as well.

So we want to make sure we're kind of including all that in there. So it's something new.
I've done a lot of stuff radio for 35 years and now I get to do Zoom calls.

Well, I will tell you selfishly, I don't know if you feel this way, but I really enjoy, I've been able to do two or three of these now and I enjoy it because we can see emotion.

We can see things that sometimes we can't always hear. We've learned how to hear things, but if you have to...
I'm not really careful, though. I think I'm nicer on the Zoom calls.
Oh, really? Yeah.

I think I need to not, I don't need to fall for that. So it's about looking at their pretty cute little faces, and I don't want to destroy it.
Well, boy, that is an interesting take right there.

Will you be tough, Dave,

looking right at somebody? I gave him the right answer, but I wasn't snarky. No, you were very mean.
I wasn't mean. You were very Christmassy.

I was very Christmassy, yeah.

Santa, Dave, is on the video post.

By the way, quick question. I'm going to get you some ice cream, Ken Coleman, at the break.
By the way, that was the truth. That is a crazy thing right there.
It's a truth.

Well, everybody's got their advice. Whatever your food advice is, don't let it go.
No, but

one of our senior leaders here eats a thing of graters every night. You know who I'm talking about.
I do.

He has this whole ice, he has one freezer full of graters, and he eats one little thing every night. If I could pull it off, I would.

I love it. It affects your pickleball game.

It affects the waistline, which then affects the pickleball game. No question.

I got a question for you. You've been watching and analyzing coaching people for a long time.
He's no longer on the call, but I thought Brian,

I thought

he was on our side of things. Oh, no kidding.
It was pretty obvious. She was totally set up.
But she knew she was sorry. She did, but he just sat right back and just

let us handle it. Yeah, he'd already told her what we were going to say.
And she handles it.

She did. That was not awful.
He's a smart guy, though. Yeah, he did.
That's a pro move.

I'll let Dave handle it. That was a flex.
Just

step back and let someone else. I saw the handle thing you did.
I was like, look at this guy. He's back there, no sweat.
I'm going to let my wife ask this question. Yeah, yeah.

Yes, she has the question. I think Brian got the answer he wanted.
Good for him.

But to speak to that, Dave, on the real, the temptation for small businesses, how realistic what you said could happen.

These days we're hearing as much as 60% of small businesses have credit card debt related to the business.

Starting and or operating the business.

That is mathematical suicide. You know,

we know that, and I don't know if the stats are true, but it's been around so long everybody believes it. 80% of small businesses fail in the first five years.
It's an SBA stat. That's right.
Okay.

And that's probably true, but it also includes businesses that never really started hardly. But of those we do know, and I do think this is true, the number one problem is cash flow.

Cash flow means they don't have any money. It means because they have debt payments and they don't pay their taxes.
And those are the things that destroy cash flow, and that runs you out of business.

So we do know that's true. So stay away from that crap and run your business.
That's the idea.

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Our scripture of the day, 1 Peter 4:10, each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms. H.

Jackson Brown said, talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. Plenty of movement, but you never know if it's going to be forward, backward, or sideways.

That's some real depth right there. Every hiring manager should read that quote.

That's the truth.

You know, H. Jackson Brown did a book

30 years ago called Life's Little Instruction Book. Yes.
And

that's what this comes from, I'm sure. And it was notes to his son, one-liners like this, to his son.
And it became a huge bestseller. And I met him back in those days.
I was just starting.

The first book had just come out. I didn't know that.
I'm very jealous. He's from Nashville.
Is that right? Yeah, he's from here.

Octopus on Roller Skates. That's pretty cool.
It's good movement.

Morgan is with us in Tampa, Florida. Hey, Morgan, how are you? I'm doing better than I deserve, Dave.
How are you? Just the same. How can we help?

I was hoping to get some insight on whether my husband and I can upgrade our hunk of junk of a car, even though we're temporarily down to one income. So I can fill in some details for you.

Do you have the cash to do it? Yes. So we're in baby step four, five, and six.

We've got about $60,000 in cash. That includes $20,000 for the emergency fund.
and $10,000 for a business that I'm hoping to get off the ground after I sit for and hopefully pass the bar in Florida.

Good, good for you.

So we're looking to spend somewhere between 10 and 20, hopefully a little closer to 20, but I just feel a little weird about kind of raiding the war chest while we're kind of a little bit in stork or like in a little bit of a crisis right now.

I mean, can you cover your bills with one income?

Yes, so we can.

You're not in a crisis. You're just not in a time of prosperity.

Yeah, I guess that's more accurate. It just feels a little weird to kind of read the war chest.
Well, it's not really a war chest. The war chest is labeled emergency fund.
It's 20.

The war chest is labeled 10 for starting a business, and you're not touching either one of those.

Okay. So I think you're using the wrong term.
Yeah, and you got 30, and that means you got 30 more, and you know what? Go for it. You've got excess savings.

Get a $10,000 car, and then when things get a little bit more stable, you can always sell that. What's the hunk of junk worth if you sold it? I don't think it's really worth much.

I think the blue book on it is like $2,500. Okay, so $2,500.

Yeah, $2,500, and you put $1,250 with it, and you get a $15,000 car.

Okay. It sounds more straightforward.
I guess just feels make a very emotional decision.

Well, it is because you draw security from the savings, and that's why you call it a war chest.

You get security from looking at those numbers. More than you do from looking at that hunk of junk upgraded.

That's probably true. It's just it's cost us like $2,500 this year, and now we need another $2,500 repair.
So

don't spend $2,500 on a $2,500 car. Don't do that.
No. Okay.
That makes it an easy decision. Yeah, just sell it as is and let's move up.

You don't have to move up all of it. We're not going to buy a $65,000 car hoping you pass the bar.
That's not what we're talking about. Okay.

I mean, this is very, very reasonable, what you've described, and you're paying cash. And you're probably not going to drive the car that you buy, but about a year.

Okay.

Because it sounds like you're going to start your own practice once you pass, right?

What I hope. Yeah, I'm practiced in, I'm licensed in Pennsylvania, but we recently moved.
So

sitting for the Florida bar, hopefully we'll pass. So it's not reciprocal?

No, not in Florida. Florida is very protective of their attorney, unfortunately.
Very interesting. Okay.

All right. And so you have an existing practice back in Pennsylvania?

So I left my job with the federal government. I work in a really niche area of law in veterans benefit.

So right now I just kind of want to focus on the bar and then hopefully.

What type of practice are you opening? I want to keep it the same. So veterans benefits, mostly disability, veterans law is what I'm hoping to do.
I did that for about three years

back in MPA. That's interesting.
Okay, cool. Good for you.
What's the

good news is you're probably going to ramp it up pretty quick. That's why I was asking all the questions.
That's exactly what I was about to ask. That's right.

Realistically, how long if you pass the bar before you're up and running and making money?

I mean, so the outlook on that can be anywhere. Cases can take anywhere between like seven months to a year, and that's kind of what the 10 grand is for.

That can kind of cover my base operating expenses for a year. So I won't have an office or anything like that.
So it'll cover like the legal research and all those kind of ancillary costs.

But again, you guys are already covered all your basics with your other income.

Yeah. I think it's really just wanted that stamp of approval.
I feel a little bit of peace about it.

I appreciate it. I appreciate that.
I love that.

Yeah, but it's not, but I guess our other point, the reason we're asking all the questions is that the practice getting up and running is yet further insurance in addition to the savings numbers that this is a wise decision.

Okay. That's why we're asking all the questions.
So you got a one-two punch, wise and wise.

You know, because if you told me, oh, it might be five years and this might fail and I've never done it before and I don't know what I'm doing and we may never get my income back.

And ask yourself this: what are the chances this $2,500 hoopty blows up in the next 30 days? I'd say pretty high.

At which point you got to get a car. Yeah, so let's, yeah, let's do it.
Remington is in Memphis. Hey, Remington.

Remington. Hey, Dave, Harry.
Great. How can we help?

Oh, it's a

kind of plan

future stuff.

We're looking at building a house next to my parents and sister, and then also my brother. So having a little family compound area.
Trying to figure out if you recommend doing like a

only doing cash flow for the money or 15-year mortgage. We don't have the, you know, the funds to cash flow right now.

But then we also have an offer from my dad to help cash flow up front and then, you know, to avoid red tape from the bank and then switch over to a mortgage and for that one I would stay away from I would just get a construction loan and build it and put it on a 15-year fixed to the degree that you can't cash flow it yourself and of course you've got to make sure this is on a separate plot if you build a home on someone else's land

you're screwed

yeah he yeah it's our land so he recently

us

well my wife and I oh you have a they've they've parceled it out it has a property line and everything inside that property line is only owned by you, not your dad.

Correct. He recently split it into three to me and

two of my siblings. So we own it all now.

And we're looking at the. And if something happened to you and your wife were widowed and she wanted to sell it,

she can do that.

Right. Okay.

She might not want to live there. Okay.
You might not want to live there 10 years from now. Everybody got that emotionally figured out?

Yeah, I mean, we live nearby right now, so we're able to set those boundaries and stuff now. So

you got a separate parcel, but that doesn't mean that somebody's not, well, dad said we could never sell it. He gave it to us, but with the stipulation, we could never sell it.

And no, then you're screwed. We don't want to, I don't want to get, I do not want to get trapped.
Some blessings are a trap, and those are called called curses.

So, no, don't, but just make sure that there's lots of movement here,

lots of places and things that can be done if our lives change and shift, and nobody's going to be permanently pissed off for the next 42 years over one little piece of dirt. And that's what happens.

So, be real careful with that part, and you pay your own way without your dad, and then you'll be in good shape. So, good question.
I just have to believe, though,

pushback on this one, that family compounds compounds come with the expectations that we're all there for

yeah that's the problem i that's what i would think that's the problem

it's it's it's very very difficult to have

you know reasonable lives and then who wants to buy a house you you're in the real estate world you've been who wants to buy one house a one-off in a family compound yeah

okay yeah that's right it's a problem it's a problem yeah

People don't think these things through.

That puts this Hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it.

In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.