Don’t Let Other People’s Chaos Wreck Your Progress
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Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. From the Ramsey Network, it's The Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshaw. Next to me, Dr. John Deloney, taking calls about your life, your money, all afternoon. The number's 888-825-5225. That's what gets you on the line. All right, John, let's get into it. Let's go. Let's get involved. We got Jack in Daytona, Ohio. What's up, Jack? Hey, how's it going? Doing good.

Hey, so I have a question. So, um,

My current fiance and I, we both had jobs for quite some time. I actually quit my job beginning of January just because of the stress level that we had with it and the hours working. She has an odd hour job, and we just decided that for a relationship standpoint, it would be better off if I just be the stay-at-home person where she continues working, where she has a higher salary. Hold on, hold on. Do you all have kids together?

We do not have kids together. We're not really planning on having kids. We do have three dogs. So what does the stay-at-home guy do? So essentially, I just take care of all the household things that got to be done. But that's essentially about it. I do own a portion of a business now that I have bought into. So I do attend to that business.

I'm not on a daily basis. I'm almost like a solid investor. So I'm there every so often, but I don't essentially have a full time job as of right now. So what's your what's the thing that makes you be like, yes, like when I'm doing this thing, I am my happiest person.

Um, I think where I'm at right now is, is where I'm happy. Um, I'm going to say it's definitely not the salary that I used to bring home, um, at all. Um, it's more of a little passive investment type of deal. Um, but I do enjoy, enjoy being here and, you know, the business is growing. Um, but you know, it's kind of tough where it's, you know, you go from a pretty high salary to a smaller salary and you're not essentially working, but I mean, it is better on a relationship. Um,

But I'm trying to figure out, you know, based on financial sample where we're at, if this is a good thing or if I should go back to work as a full time, you know, employee of a different a different area. I feel like it's all about your I think it's all about the why and the plan to get to the why. Right. So if you're if you didn't say what kind of business is it, what is it?

The business that I'm in is actually a car-related business. So I used to work at a car dealership. It was a little bit too stressful for me when the position that I was in took on a lot of hours. So what is this business? Right now I'm in a business where we do vehicle wraps. Okay, okay. Yeah, we do all customization type of things. You don't. You just wrote a chat. You don't do anything. You just wrote a chat. You're just an investor.

Yes, that is correct. I do come here and do enjoy this stuff, so I do help out the guys here from time to time. That's the only part that I'm at because, don't get me wrong, I almost feel like your wife making this money... Girlfriend, it's still girlfriend. Girlfriend, yeah, that's right. It says wife on my screen. Your girlfriend making this money, I almost feel like it's crippling you in a way or it's impeding you because it's like, oh, this is great. This can keep our house going.

I don't really have to get serious about what it is that you want to do, because I do think there's something that makes everybody tick. And there's something that we want to pour all of our efforts into. And while I think it's really cool that you're an investor in this, you're like a young guy. I feel like you need something to sink your teeth into on a daily basis. And I'm just not I'm not judging you. I'm just not sure taking care of three dogs and checking up on the fellas every now and then is it. Yeah.

And I don't want you to feel like you don't have a purpose. Yeah, that's the word. And listen, Jack, I won't pick on you as much as I'll just tell you the data. The data says that especially men have to have a purpose, a thing they go towards. Or every part of your health, your physical health, your emotional health, your relational health goes down the toilet. And there's also some data that suggests that women –

want a equal or above financial partner and the more money women make the more the pressure gets put on that relationship and it's it's nobody wants that but it just is is and is and now that's not generalizable that's not every couple that's just what the data tells me how much does she make

She currently makes $470,000 a year. Okay, so you don't need the finances. How has she experienced you as a guy who went from having a purpose, and forget the salary, forget the hours worked. You got up and went and were grinding it out, doing a thing, to a guy that literally does nothing.

Yeah. Honestly, it was a huge decision on her part. I did not want to leave the job, but it was straining our relationship to the point where she said, it's either the job or it's me. So I didn't want to ruin the relationship that I was in. But you went from 60 to, you went from 100 miles an hour to zero. Yeah. Yeah. Straight stop. Yeah. Straight stop. Straight stop.

And so if you told me like my purpose is keeping this house running, I want to make sure I do chores every day. I make sure this house is clean and that's not a typical gender role. It's a general reversal, but it's all good. That's how we worked it out in our house. I'd high five you.

Yeah, that's essentially what I do on a daily basis is just literally just cleaning, cooking, whatever I can do in the house to make her life and our lives easier when she gets off of work. Because again, she works night shifts, she works day shifts, but it's not. You know what I mean? Like you do that and it's 1130 and you're like, all right, what am I going to do next? I just wonder, I wonder if...

How can I say this? I want to know more about what it was about that job that was tearing you guys apart. Was it the hours? Was it who you were when you got home? Was it just the job or was it... Do you know what I'm saying? And I'm just wondering if those were things that could have been...

mitigated without you stopping working, if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah. I think the big one was the job following me around. There was no disconnect from the place. It was always there. And was that by choice or was that the job must be that way or were those things you could change?

Unfortunately, there weren't things that I can change. As much as I did try to change them, it was just something that I was not able to change and kind of dig myself out of the hole that I was in. As much as I tried, as many hours as I grinded during the day, it still followed me. I've been there. I was on call 24-7, 365 for almost 20 years. I get that.

And I also get like sitting down with your spouse, with my wife and saying, Hey, this is unsustainable. Now we got little kids. Like I'm watching my husband die. Right. I get that. Yeah. But going from that to zero, it creates its own counter problem. Right. Yeah. And then be honest. Are you starting to get listless? You've been doing this since January. Are you starting to like, like you're halfway through a year. Are you starting to just feel unsettled or do you like just staying home, doing nothing?

No, I generally hate it. I haven't, I've not, not worked since the age of 16. This is the longest period I've ever had in my entire life where I have not actually worked. So what do you want to do? And again, work is important. I think, I think people are designed to work and I think that's why everybody went crazy during COVID. One of the reasons, but what do you want to do, man?

Man, I think I just, you know, I think I'm enjoying really what I've gotten myself into here and this opportunity that I got. So I really want to pour my heart and time into this place. Can you get hired there as an employee too? Yeah, it sounds like, because I feel, I hear you talking out of both sides of your mouth in the way that you're saying, I'm unhappy that I'm not doing much, but...

I am happy with the investment that I've made. It just seems like you need to spend a lot more time there and see if you can be one of the guys that's working on the wraps on these cars, not just investing your money in writing checks. The question is, do I need to work? Yes. Every single person needs to have a purpose. Doesn't have to have a paycheck to it. Doesn't have to be 24 hours, 365, but everyone has to have a purpose. Yes. Yes.

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Hi, I'm so excited to be on the show today. My name is Tajay. I'm 27. I'm a 28 and I live in Houston. I wanted to ask a quick question. My mom passed away in 2009 and I was recently contacted by a lawyer regarding her estate. They found a stock that no one knew about. And it was through United Healthcare and managed through Fidelity. The funds have been dispersed. They said we needed...

to create a fidelity account between my brother, her husband, and my shares about 4K. I wanted to know if I should keep it invested or if I should withdraw it to pay it towards my debt snowball. And I just really don't want to make like same financial mistakes that I've made in the past. So I'm, you know, trying to get the right advice. Yeah, it's non-retirement funds. It's just single stocks, right? Yeah.

Yes. Yeah, I would definitely do that. 100%. Now, I mean, you're gonna have to pay a little bit of taxes on it. I don't know how they're gonna treat the basis and like with the growth since it's inherited. But I would, you know, just talk with your tax professional on that. But yeah, I would 100% liquidate this to clear out your debt. What is your debt?

Okay, so I have $29,000 in debt, two credit cards, four student loans, one personal loan. I am on track to be debt-free by October. Wow. I do want to share a few of my money mistakes because I'm very motivated, but I'm also a little fearful that I'm going to make the mistake again. I've already committed to saying I'm not living in debt anymore. Good.

so two years ago, I actually sold my car when I first heard about them, Dave Ramsey. And I was like, you know what? I'm just going to trust God and just believe I'm going to get around. He's still without a car. So I didn't have a car for two years and nine months. Last October, my church actually bought me a car, no car payment. Um, yeah, I didn't, uh, I didn't have a job. Well, I left my job at the time and this was my really big money mistake is I pulled from my retirement. Um, and,

And, you know, I had to pay the taxes on that and everything. But now I'm back on track. You know, I'm actually at a new school. I'm making a higher salary. So with a stipend of $8,000 from that school, it's about $72,000 a year. Good.

And then, yeah, so that's really like I'm getting back on track. So I just really want to stay on track. You know, one of the things that I have found in this journey, this financial journey is, yeah, when you make mistakes early, which I did as well, when you do start getting on track and you do a couple of things right and then you do something wrong again and then you could do a couple more things right. Like, hey, you're going to make mistakes because this is a whole thing.

It's like a whole university. You could get a four-year degree just in learning how to really manage your money, right? Like you learn and you hear investing, you hear it once, it doesn't stick. You need to hear it again and again and again, right? And there's always these little pieces that seem to fall through the cracks and you're like, oh crap, if I had realized that I wouldn't have done that. And that's how you learn, right? As you make,

I always like to call mistakes, really they're just research, right? So that's what it is. But I do find that the more you walk this journey, the more you can start trusting yourself that you will learn

You will make the right choices. And it's kind of like you build that trust with yourself. Every time you make a good choice, it's like, hey, I do have the capacity to handle my money well. And every time that you set a goal and you stick to the goal or you set a boundary for what your lifestyle is going to be and you stick to it, that's you building that trust with yourself that's

That you can say, hey, if I say I'm not going to use my credit card, I trust myself that I'm not going to use it. If I say that I can stick to this budget, and that is what's happening. So just give it time. You're doing so, so well. And I think that you're just building that. You're building trust with yourself. Tasha, you said you had $28,000 in the hole? $29,000. $29,000.

And so let's say you take this $4,000 and I know you have to pay a little bit of tax on it, but let's say you get it down to $25,000, right? You make $72,000? Yes. And I have side hustle doing babysitting. So it's an extra $1,000 a month. So in total, like for the year, it's $84,000. $84,000. And you're done in October? Yeah.

I'll be done in October. I did all the math. Amazing. Will you call in the show and let us scream and cheer for you? Yes, I will. I'm actually planning to come out there August because I don't know if you guys heard a no big deal. Like their Holy Smoke Fest is around like early August. So I'm going to come and visit on Friday to the actual studio. OK. Yay. I hope I'm here and I hope we get to meet you. Hey, do you have every dollar? Yes.

I do. I have the premium version and everything. I'm very serious. You got it all. It's a big part of my life. Listen, I'm trying to think of some gifts we can give you. Where in Houston do you live? I do have one more question. Should I focus on rebuilding my retirement? I got a letter saying that I can buy back what I... Like, reinvest. I don't know the correct terms, but should I...

Should that be my next goal? No, stay on the path. It's a goal for the future. John is right. It's a goal for the future. You should want to invest, but now is not quite the time. So let that want and that wish that I could be investing right now drive you to get out of this super duper fast.

Because right now, I mean, you know the baby steps. You're on baby step two. So just ride that out and then build up. Because remember, what caused you to borrow from your 401k the first time? Right. It was the fact you had this debt laying around and it's the fact that you did not have three to six months of expenses. Right.

Right. Yeah. So let's build that foundation through baby step two and baby step three so that when you do get to baby step four, you can invest 15 percent, which is far more than you'd be able to now. And you'll never have to touch it again because you've created that insurance on that investment through your baby step three emergency fund. So that's the way that this works. OK, awesome. Hey, Tajay, when did your mom pass away? In 2009. Oh, so a long time ago, huh?

Yeah, yeah. It's been a while. But they just – and it was so crazy. I really felt like it was God because when I said I'm going to get serious about this debt and I, like, got the premium, I legit got a letter in the mail saying we found this estate. Like, it was crazy. I was like, okay. Like, okay. Let's get to it. So I wanted to call and make sure that, you know, I was just doing right with the funds. Good for you. That's awesome.

The number of times I hear that story that I was going to be done in October and then I found this or my boss called me in and said, we didn't pay you enough. It's happened so many times that it's not a coincidence. It happened for us. Yes. Like the university called my wife and was like, oh, we forgot. We did this thing. We owe you this much money for the summer. And it paid off. It was a while. It happens so often.

I used to hear back in the day before long before I worked at Ramsey, I used to just listen to Dave on the radio. And he used to say, you know, obviously, what we teach here is God's and grandma's ways of handling money. And a lot of what we teach is biblically based.

And Dave used to say, you know, when you start following this plan, he'd say you get on a moving sidewalk, like the thing at the airport where you don't have, you know, and it is like that. And I truly, truly believe that because it's based on biblical principles, I'll say this till the cows come home. Like it's not God's will that we're up here in debt and just,

slaves to a lender that's not what he wants for us he's a he's about freedom like freedom is all encompassing so that includes your money and I do believe that when you start seeking that out that's you getting in line with the way I think that it should be I'm just telling you my opinion and when you start seeking that out it's like hey you're trying to do this okay I can help that like I

I can bless that. Like I can help you with that. And I used to pray all the time. I'd be like, God, if you give the opportunity, like I'll work because I'm trying to get out of debt up in here. And it's just like stuff would just present itself. It just, and that's, I think that's really the power of this plan. When you really do commit to it, when you really are open to finding solutions, you're open to work. It's like that,

that saying, whatever you look for, you find, right? That's right. And so when you start looking, man, it presents us as there. There's jobs everywhere. There's work everywhere. And sometimes it's dollars, sometimes it's nickel and dimes, but it shows up in weird ways. And sometimes it's people like the people that were placed in our life during that time. We were trying to grow a business at the time. And it was just, I can look back now and say, man, they were here for a season to provide opportunities for,

so that we could get to this goal. And, you know, the rest is history. But yeah, don't...

Don't count yourself out. Like, just keep going. And then on the other side of that, John, there is the part that Murphy comes, right? Always. So it's the opposite. You do experience that where it's like, man, all I'm trying to do is get baby step one. Tire blows out. Brakes go out. Right. So you will experience that gamut. I'm not here to make it seem like it's going to be like rainbows and butterflies, kittens. Like, there's definitely some junkyard dogs that come in as well. Yes.

The point is the journey is the journey. Enjoy it. When you're riding high, ride high. And when the tough stuff comes, just lock in and anchor in and know that, you know, it's only for a little while and the good stuff will come on the other side.

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Okay, so having the right coverage or having whether it be a little too much or a little too little can really impact how long it's going to take to reach those goals. So skimping on insurance, it might seem like you're saving, but the truth is when life happens, it's really easy to fall back into debt without a safety net. The right insurance acts as a shield around your loved ones and your wallet if disaster strikes. Now, in some cases, it can even save you money if you happen to be paying too much for insurance or you're

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easy to understand and gives you clear next steps. So go to RamseySolutions.com slash checkup to take the coverage checkup or click the link in the description if you're listening to this on YouTube or podcast. All right, let's go to Amanda in Tampa, Florida. Hi, Amanda. Hi. What's up? How can we help?

So my car engine went out last October and it took a few months to get my vehicle back because it actually broke down when I was evacuating for the hurricane. And in the meantime, my parents floated a rental car and then I ended up losing my job. He

Yeah. So they said my parents ended up helping out. And what they ended up doing was taking out a HELOC on their house to cover that and a few other things. And I wasn't aware of this until afterwards. But yeah.

They're the kind of people where strings are attached. And I'm just trying to figure out if I should be debt snowballing this, which would make it the second to last debt to be paid off, or if I should be prioritizing it because it's on their house. That's a great question. How much is it? How much is this HELOC? So my portion of it is about $11,500. That right there, what you just said, tells me all I needed to know.

11,500 just for kicks and giggles. Tell me how much the other portion is and who got that? I don't know because they didn't tell me. Do you want to know what I think very briefly? I think they wanted to take out a HELOC and I think you gave them a good excuse to do it.

And I think I would treat this like the IRS and put it at the very top and pay this off as fast as humanly possible. Uh-huh. How much are you putting towards debt every month? So I actually just found you guys a little over a month ago, and I just finished baby step one. Welcome to the cult. So I just put together a big campaign. We'll send you some Kool-Aid in the mail.

Oh, cool. I'm just kidding. We won't, but it's cool. All right. So you just finished baby step one and then what? So I have this big spreadsheet I have with all of my debts and the payments and what's owed and interest. How much per month, how much per month are you able to put towards the debt?

So I've been, they wanted me to pay about $300 monthly. So I've been actually paying them weekly because I get paid weekly. Your parents? To pay back my portion of it, yes. Okay, you know what I would do? Jade, stop me if I'm wrong. I would go down to a local credit union and take out a loan for $11,500 and I would write them a check. I would rather you owe a credit union than that. You can't do that?

Yeah. That's why they ended up helping out in the first place. I'm coming out of a bad marriage where a lot of bad decisions were made. Then let me just say this. Yeah.

So you there's there's part of this that's on you and then there's part of it that isn't in the way of they saw you needed help and they said, we'll help. They chose to take out debt to do it. That wasn't your choice. You didn't say, mom, dad, go take out a HELOC because I need the money and you need to risk your house for me. You didn't say that, right? Correct. How did it happen that you got the money? Did you ask for it even or did they just see you needed it and gave it to you?

I never saw the money. My dad and his friend ended up going and collecting the car because the dealership was actually avoiding us because it was four hours away. So he ended up going and collecting the car and dropping it off at one of his friends who's a mechanic, and the money went straight from them to him. This sounds super shady. It really does. Is your dad trustworthy? When it comes to this kind of stuff, yes.

Okay. So he, how bad would, dude, my wife just wrecked our car. Like, and it was awesome. She wasn't even drinking. She just crashed it. It was like, just ran it down the side of a concrete pillar. And I said that she never drinks. So, but the whole repair was about 11,000 bucks. Every panel had like for, for that kind of repair from a buddy, from a friend, I'm calling no way.

Yeah, I was not happy with it. And I haven't been back to him for services. No, no, no. That's your dad's friend. But my thing is, like, did you even know they were doing that? And did you approve it or they just up and did it?

He said he was going to help me. He wasn't specific. Yeah, that's not helping you. Because I had no income. And this is my theory. I have a three-year-old. But that's my theory. That's the point that I was trying to make is if you said, hey, there's strings attached. If they put those strings on there, that's on them. You did not tell your dad to do any of this. You didn't tell him to take out a HELOC. You didn't tell him to spend $11,500. You had very little say in what

took place. Now, they took out a HELOC clearly for more. Who knows what they did with that, but that was their choice. And now they're like, man, this is kind of heavy on us. We want this money. Yeah, and now you're an ATM machine. Exactly. And now they're pressing you, hey, $300, you know, whatever it is that they want. I totally retract what I said. They go in the baby steps order. What's the minimum payment on that loan? So the monthly payment for it is $238.34. Okay.

How'd you get that number? Mm-hmm.

I put it through a loan amortization schedule based on my amount and the interest rate and what the payments I was planning on making. Great. Tell them you'll pay them $238,000 and that's a minimum payment and put in the debt snowball. I retract what I said earlier. By the way, what's the interest? Is this the interest you came up with or they're charging you interest? So it was originally 8%, but it just went down to 7.5%. That's the interest on the HELOC? Yes.

Yes. And that's again, I'm wondering about that because they took out a greater amount for this HELOC. And I don't feel like it's. Oh, girl. I'm telling you, we just take these calls for a living. And I only know that because I saw a receipt. You saw a receipt for what? I saw a receipt sitting on a table that I shouldn't have. What's the total HELOC? So what's the total? Like $30,000.

See, I just don't, I'm just, I'm going to keep it 100 with you because it's the only way I know how to keep it. In my mind, there's no way I'm paying interest on this. There's no way because I'm going, hey, dad, love you, but you did this. I never, I never approved this message. I never said go into debt. I certainly never said go 11,500 into debt. I certainly never said, and please do it at 8%. You did that and I'm,

On the one hand, I'm grateful that you went to fix my car. But on the other hand, I'm grateful that you kind of tied my hands behind my back. And now I'm on the hook for something that I don't know if I would have done that. And now I'm feeling the pressure. And that's unfortunate because we're family and we love each other. I'm going to pay you back this $11,500. I'm not going to pay it back at 8% interest because...

I would not have told you to go into debt to do this if you had asked me. That's what Jade Warshaw would do. You and your dad, you know the dynamic. But if you're asking my advice, that's mine, John, what would you do? The other thing I would do is I would call the mechanic and ask for an itemized receipt because I want to see.

And they did $11,500 worth of work for a friend? Labor?

I tell you what, I'm not questioning that part so much. Maybe I don't know enough about cars to question that part, but I am questioning the way it all went down. Yeah. I don't, you know. Help get your kid a $1,500 used Camry with 300,000 miles on it to get you from A to B. Yeah. You don't take an $11,000 loan and 8% interest and then haggle your single mother daughter over it. That's what you don't do.

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You're listening to The Ramsey Show. Jade Warshaw, Dr. John Deloney are your hosts. Ken Coleman is in the studio. I see you back there, Ken. All right, let's go to Joshua in New York. New York. What's up, Joshua? Hey, how are we doing today? Doing great. How can we help?

Hey, I have a little bit of a situation happening right now where I have started a company with a co-founder three and a half years ago. And from day one, we've had some disagreements, but throughout those disagreements, we've always been able to come to a compromise and we were both very hardworking. Mm-hmm.

Over the period of time, the company has grown to 12 employees with a shop in New York and everything that you could possibly need to do a beautiful paint job on your home. Nice. I have worked tirelessly for the past three and a half years to build the business to what it is today.

Uh-oh.

Simultaneously, I mean, anything from, you know, putting wrong things at the paint store on other accounts, X, Y, and Z, sketchy checks that were cashed in his other bank account. So fraud. Like six of six, like we're talking $6,000. That's stealing. So he's stealing from what, he's stealing from you.

Yes, that's what that's called. It's called theft and fraud. And I'm going to be hiring a very good lawyer during this process along with a forensic accountant. Perfect. And I've had a ton of advice from people that have run businesses and done this type of thing. Now, moving forward here, it came to a point three weeks ago, two weeks ago, where I

He had handed me an operating agreement because I had never fully signed into an operating agreement with him. Then,

been 50, 50 cents one day one. And I was going to get an operating agreement, draft it up and make sure that it's legit without, which I never did. Now he had gone to an attorney without including me in the conversation. And he had drafted out a good 20 page operating agreement, stating every last thing in the company. He was

He was pressuring me to sign it one day while I was at the office. He's like, you have to sign this. You have to get it done quick. And I go, no, no, I am reading this. I am reading this thing front to back. And what'd you find? Oh, so he basically 10 pages deep within the document.

He hid a clause in there where it basically assigned him as the executive manager and put me as just a member of the company. So we see that he's duplicitous. We see like he's a nefarious fellow, but you didn't sign it. Great. So what can we do for you today?

Now today, um, I am selling my shares. I'm getting everything together and making sure that it's right. I did get him to agree to pay out fair market value on my portion of the company. Are you selling it to him? Determined. I am selling it to him. Oh, wow. Okay. Interesting. Based, based on a fair market value of what my company is worth. So what will you get? Um,

I, so I don't know yet. I have, I have, um, hold on, hold on, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. You got to do this in the right order. If you're hiring an attorney and a forensic accountant, wait till they wait till all that smoke clears before you accept an offer.

Absolutely. Because you don't know how much money has been going out the back door and you don't know what money is your business money that's used to buy other equipment for his business. You don't know how much he's taken out loans in the business's name to buy. You have no idea how bad this is. And my accountant is working on this as we speak, gathering together all of the information. Listen, you've done the right things. Tell us what we can do for you today.

So once I get this money, uh,

which should be anywhere from, I want to say, $300,000 to $600,000. That's a big gap. It is a gap because he's going low, I'm going a little high. But again, to John's point, you don't even know what you're basing it off of, and that's the hard part. So we can spitball with you and say, well, if it's $300, maybe do this, and if it's $600, maybe do that. But we are literally...

You'll have to do a net present value on the company. You'll have to depreciate all the stuff you have inside. You'll have to take the building that you've bought. I mean, you'll have to... It's just going to be a nightmare untangling this. And by the way, the...

attorneys and the accountants, God bless them, have a vested interest in going through every receipt because they get paid every six minutes. And so if you and him can shake hands on something or get, it's kind of like a real estate person for businesses to come in and do a net present value assessment and give you a, if you want to do that. But man, he's going to offer you something ridiculous. You're going to make up something ridiculous, but y'all are going to have no numbers to actually base this off of.

But somebody needs to come in and do an evaluation of your company. And you'll need to agree probably in some sort of settlement, some sort of agreement. We're both agreeing that this is the person. And that person will do an assessment. We are.

We are hiring an assessor on Sunday. We're all going to meet together and determine the assessor to assess the business's value. Great. So let's pivot off of that because I think you're doing all the right things. Let's pivot to your question, which is what would you do with the money after selling your business? Right. That's the real question here.

What am I going to do with my life? Oh, your life. Okay. Let's get to that. You tell me. What do you want to do? Do you want to open another painting business? You know how to run it. Absolutely. Absolutely not. Then do that. No, no. It is a nightmare running a business. No, it's awesome. You just have a bad partner. For me. But okay, so you don't want to do that. What do you want to do?

I want to ski and I want to paint luxury houses by myself. Okay. In a mountain town somewhere. And I want to invest my money smart in a smart manner. That sounds a very Hallmark movie to me. I want a million dollars and I want a new Gibson Firebird and actually an old new Gibson Firebird. And I want to like go to space. But wait, no, no, no. Wait, wait, wait. I'm not going to be as facetious as John because I actually...

I actually don't think what you're saying is a pipe dream. I think that, yeah, you were doing something on a very grand scale and you're like, hey, I just need to back it down a little bit. I don't need a business with 12 employees. I just need me. I'll go out and paint. I can make enough of a living for me to sustain my lifestyle. And if I can do that in an area that I love, someplace where there's mountains, I can ski in the winter, that would be great, right? Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah.

That is what you're hearing. And before that as well, I'm so burnt out. I am so drained from this entire thing and the litigation that's about to happen. I'm going to take my ATV, put it in the back of my truck, and travel the entire United States, coast to coast, visiting all of my friends and locations that I wanted to. Well, now we're getting into John's world. Why?

Is that a smart idea? No. Is that like... No. That's your version of like, I'm taking my ball and I'm going home. Like, why? Well, do you have a bunch of money? Tell us what kind of money you have because that could inform some of this. Whatever you think you're going to go home with. Here's what's going to happen. You've already done the math on $600,000. Right. And if you get an offer for $450,000...

You haven't taken out taxes. You haven't taken out attorney's fees. You haven't taken out assessor fees. You haven't taken out tax fees. You haven't taken out any of that stuff. And if you get an offer for $450,000, which might be a super fair offer, you're going to feel like this partner just took $150,000 from you because you just made up a number.

And so, dude, don't go visit your friends. Take two weeks off. That's all fine and good. But bro, you can't cash out a life. And by the way, it's your right to be tired on the front end of this. It's fine. Just get through it and make good choices on the way through. Beware spending money before you get it. Beware.

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From the Ramsey Network, it's The Ramsey Show. Thanks for hanging out with us. We're continuing to take calls about your life and your money. I'm Jade Warshaw. Next to me, Dr. John Deloney. Getting into it. We've got Stacey who's in Atlanta, Georgia. Stacey, how can we help today?

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my call. So I have a complicated... Well, your calls are complicated, but this one is probably a little more than at least what I'm used to hearing on your show. Okay. I have two in-laws who I love dearly. They are both in their...

mid to early 80s. My father-in-law about a year and a half ago was diagnosed with cancer and a multitude of other things. He's in very ill health. My mother-in-law is in fantastic health. And the situation is this. They have been married for 60 years. They both had very well-paying jobs, built up a really nice nest egg, probably to the tune of

I want to say maybe $3.5, $4 billion. Okay. And my mother-in-law has never been responsible with money. My father-in-law has always been the one to handle the bills. They are debt-free, doing well financially. And when...

My father-in-law went to the hospital about a year ago. He decided to go ahead and give my mother-in-law access to her retirement account, thinking that he didn't have much longer. She drained it, giving it to an online scammer. Wait, $3 to $4 million? Yeah.

Well, no, no. There's several accounts. The one that he gave her access to was three quarters of a million. Okay. Three quarters of a million. She drained that within about a week, giving it to some online scammers. We learned a lot after that incident in that this has been going on for years. That she's been getting scammed? Yes.

Yes. Yes. And she also has been cheating on her husband. Well, that's what I was about to ask. Are you sure she's getting scammed or is she willingly giving away money to boyfriends and other men? Oh, no, she is. But we think there's some mental illness there because there's like she's involved in a one way romantic relationship with this person she's never met.

And we've done some research. She's got multiple Facebook profiles, same picture, different name, you know, doing the same thing all over the country. So she has been visited by the FBI and the police, and she still believes that what she's doing is on the up and up with this guy that she's never met. Would she go get evaluated so that somebody can become the financial power of attorney before she just destroys her life?

Absolutely not. She absolutely, she thinks that she's, she's fainter than all of us. Okay. Interesting. Um, so yeah, so the conundrum that we have is that, um, we're,

We, well, when I say we, my husband and his brother have spoken to their dad about their concerns. And we're not poor, but we're definitely not in a situation where we could provide for her for the next 20 years if she does live that long. I mean, she's in great health. Sure. And honestly, after finding out what I found out, I wouldn't want to take care of her. And that sounds terrible, but there's a lot of upset in the family over what she's done to him and everybody else. Sure.

She's even gone to her own son and asked for money to pay bills, which she has done. My father-in-law pays all the bills. She even reverse mortgaged her car that he paid off to give this guy money. And she'd run up credit card debt. So she's in her

And she's got nothing in her name solely. What is left is in their name jointly. And we've asked him to make my husband or his brother executors of the estate. He says he has, but we don't have evidence.

Why do you think he's dragging his feet on this? Because like what you're observing third and fourth party, obviously he's been side by side for however long they've been married. So he's known about this longer and closer up than you guys have. Why do you think that he is in denial about this or why, you know what I'm saying? What's stopping him?

We don't know. We've had conversations, you know, amongst ourselves about what that reason could possibly be. We're confused because he's a very intelligent man. And she is too, honestly, but not about this. And so we're confused because if he's known about this for this long, not to this extent, obviously, he's just finding out about the gravity of it.

But your biggest concern is he does nothing. He passes away and she blows through this money quickly. And now I'm going to be on the hook to take care of her. And I don't even like her like that. That's basically where you're at. Exactly. Bingo. And, you know, side note, my husband and I, I'm in my late 40s. He's in his mid 50s. We're going to be debt free in the next two years. We've worked aggressively to get to that point. And I don't want to go into debt to take care of somebody else who is so irresponsible. You don't have to.

And you don't have to. There's a part of this, and John, this is your territory, but there's part of this where they had their life with their choices.

And there are times where when you feel the need to swoop in or, you know, you can swoop in or some of us is like, yeah, I plan to take care of my parents when they go into their latter years. Like they already kind of have it in their mind, you know, for whatever reasons, whether it's because they misbehaved with money or even if they didn't, they just caught a lot of bad breaks and they feel like it's their need to step in and kind of help. But those are choices. It's not, it's not...

You must do this. And it's your responsibility to do this. I think those are hard lines to draw. But I do think that that's the truth of the matter. I mean, John, what do you think about that? Honestly, I would. Well, there's a couple of things here. You have to understand that there's not a lot you personally can do. Right. And that's heartbreaking. Your husband can. And if I was in his shoes, I would petition a court for conservatorship.

Okay. Well, that was why I was calling to see if there's anything that we could do to prevent this catastrophe. The only thing – what they'll do is potentially – and again, you were just throwing a Hail Mary pass, hoping somebody catches it, getting the right judge on the right day.

But what you would have to prove is, hey, this has continued over a series of years. My dying elderly father-in-law, or in your husband's case, my dying dad, moves money over that she gave to an online scammer. The FBI has been here. Here's all this. And she's taking out loans. Basically, she is a harm to herself. And you want to get a court. The court can order psychological testings, etc.,

And you're going to have to deal with the outcome of all that. That's going to be the hard part on you is they're going to fight against this. They're going to – He might not, but she might. But you can tell them. We're about to go to court to try to get – and he might say, oh, thank God. I don't have to do it. Who knows? So you're about to say something. What are you about to say?

Well, actually, to what you were just about to say yourself, that was going to be my question. What if he does not want to go that process? And I don't think that he will, because honestly, I think that there's a part of him that's very embarrassed about this. I mean, we're just finding out about this and it's been going on to certain degrees for 60 years. So it's as simple as telling him this is going to come. You can sign this over to us and it stays with us.

or this is going to become a public matter, but we have to take our, I have to take my mom's health into account starting now. Because here's the deal. Your husband and his brothers are faced with, do we watch our mom burn her life to the ground, or do we go down swinging? And I'm going to use, forget ego.

Dad, you have one choice. I mean, you have two choices. One, this becomes public because we're going to go to court and try to get mom's conservatorship over mom's money. Or two, you sign over all of your personal finances so we can stop her from burning the house down. That's really your two choices. And I would tell my 80-year-old dad that. He gets to choose, but we're going to court.

because we see how this thing ends at the very end. Yeah, unfortunately, I think this is one of those things where both solutions, just sitting to the side and saying, hey, this is your life. I can't make you do anything. That's tough. And the other option, which is really being very, very proactive, that's going to have its own set of challenges. And that's going to be very tough as well. So

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Megan in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. What's up, Megan? Hi, thank you so much for taking my call. Yeah, no problem.

How can we help? I have a question. My husband and I sat down just last night and set up our budget and went through like the paycheck planning tool. And my question is, I get paid every month on the 1st and the 16th of the month, and he gets paid every other week. So for this last month of May, I technically got paid on the 30th because the 1st was on a Sunday. Right.

So for those instances, do I budget those like last few day paychecks for June or should I have budgeted it in May? I'll tell you what I do because it's the most practical in my opinion. Yeah, those last day, like if you're getting paid, um,

And it's either like the, you know, the 30th, the 31st, the 1st. I always put that for the next month because the truth is, what would you have spent that money on? The month is over. So you'd be living in, everything would be late if you waited. Does that make sense? So what month are we in now? We're in May. So if you had waited-

All the way until May 31st or June 1st or May 30th to pay bills in May, they'd all be late, right? So it's almost like, yeah, you got to treat that money to go to the next month. And I will say, if you're going from a paycheck to paycheck type of vibe or you're going from a situation where you're just trying to like get current, it can take a while to make that happen because essentially you're...

you're having to get ahead in order to do that for the first time, if that makes sense.

Yeah, yeah. And we are, we're currently in baby step three. And I had it budgeted that it would go to June budget. But then I was like, well, technically, it's in May. So then I tried setting up my paycheck planning tool of that it would just go into that I would technically only get paid once in June, since it got deposited on May 30. But then it said I was over budget. And for that month, you would be that. And that's the point that I'm making. So the first time you do that,

So essentially for that month, yeah, you're like, hey, I'm used to saying that I get paid twice. But for this first month that I'm switching over the way that I do this, yeah, it's going to look like I'm only getting one paycheck in May. And then when you come to do June, and I'll tell you exactly the way I have it listed on my budget, it'll say paycheck number one, and it'll say, you know,

you know, the 30th in parentheses, and I'll say paycheck number two, 15th in parentheses, and the same thing from my husband. So I know where it's coming from, but they're all listed under the month that I'm actually spending the money. And that's the key. You got to you do your budget based on when you're actually going to be spending the money that you get. And then that's the last time that will ever happen. And then from that point on, you're always going to have two checks

Two checks, no matter what date they're paid out, you're always going to have two checks for the month from you and two checks from the month for him. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. So does that go the same as when you spend money at the end of the month as far as when it actually gets posted to your account? Does it matter what month you technically put those in?

Yeah. Put them in as your budget. Like I spent money on the 30th, but it didn't post until the third. Does that matter at all? So what I do for that is it really just depends. I could, I could say, well, if I got paid on the 30th, that's technically when my new month begins. And I could say anything that posts, anything that I spent, not posts, because if it posts there, that means you spent it on the 29th, right? Or a couple of days before anything that I spent on the 30th, 31st,

on into the first and into the month, yeah, I could count that towards my June budget. Now, if you had margin left over from the previous month, you could say, yeah, whatever. I can keep it on. I had margin anyway. I can slide it over there. That's fine. But technically, if you want to get technical, yeah. Though anything that you spend on that day that you got paid, if it was the 30th or 31st, yeah, that would go on to the next month because that's technically when you're saying that new month begins because you got that first paycheck. Yeah.

Perfect. Makes sense. Perfect. That's one of those calls. It's like in the weeds, but that is a question I get all the time. Yeah. And it's like, am I, it's almost like, am I allowed to do this? 100%. Yes, you are allowed. All right. Phyllis is in Denver, Colorado. What's up, Phyllis?

Hi, thanks for taking the call. I'm really looking for the language to use. My adult child and their spouse are considering going back to school for a doctorate degree to become a doctor, a medical doctor, and I'm trying to find the language to convince them to save the money before they go to avoid the debt. Okay.

So one or both of them wants to go to med school? One, yes. One of them? Yes. And which will be about between $300,000 and $500,000, right? Yes. So how old are they? 26 and 24. Okay. Okay.

Yeah, it's tough to talk to 26- and 24-year-olds. Do you know why? Because they know everything. Yes, they do. They know everything ever. And unfortunately, whatever language I've used, I just keep putting them on the defensive, and I don't want to do that. That's definitely not my goal. What are you saying? I'm just curious. Um...

what are you thinking about? How, what do you think, how are you thinking about paying that back? Like, what is your plan for paying that back? And, and I've asked that question and I've asked, um,

What do you think about the idea of maybe saving the salary you're making right now because you're going to not have that money to live on when you go back to school. So take that money and instead of spending it, save that money that you're making now, pretend you're in school and don't have that money to spend so that when you're finally accepted, because it will take a couple of years to be accepted, you'll have a good chunk of money to get you started. So when you think of...

People might argue with me on this, but late adolescent development. I know we can say like they're 25 years old. It's late adolescent now. One of their specialties is this phrase. No, no, no, no, no. That's a problem for future me. And it's almost – they have that ability, but it's almost like a faux inability to put themselves in.

at the chair, at the desk, looking at a bill that says, you owe me $21,000 this month because you took out $500,000 in loans, right? You get what I'm saying? Like, it's almost hard to even put themselves in that situation.

Have you ever had challenges with money? Have you done stupid things with money before? Not me, no. I grew up with parents that didn't have a clue as to how to rub two nickels together. So I started responsibly taking care of family finances at a very tender age. What about their dad?

Also no, never. And our child, also no, never. So grew up in a household where we save money and buy a secondhand car for cash. So is it the spouse that's influencing this behavior? Because obviously it sounds like you taught your children to avoid debt. Very, very much so. They now have car payments and food loans. I'm going to implore you not to.

Divide a husband. Try to divide a husband between his wife. Oh, yeah, I have no intention of doing that. Absolutely not. That's why I'm calling you. But when you say, hey, this is a stupid idea, and she's the one driving it? Yeah, I don't say that either. Okay. Yeah, I don't say that either. Okay. Okay. I don't say that either. And honestly, when a question is asked of me, I don't even answer it. I say, well, what did your spouse say? Okay, that's good. That's good. But I mean, I do think this. I think it's fair. If they ask you a question, I always say, do you want my real answer?

Yeah, I do that too. I definitely do that too. I think you're doing what you can do, Phyllis. You got to grieve it, I guess. Okay. And tell him I love you. I wouldn't do this how you're doing it.

The only other thing you could do, when I asked you earlier about what kinds of things are you saying, what I was checking for is to find out, are you kind of just poking holes in what they're doing or are you giving them ways? Do you know what I mean? Because nobody likes to be nitpicked. Yeah. So there is a way. You gave them that. I have a way in my head and that's what I'm trying to do is try to figure out how do I lay out. So one of them,

One of them has their one of them has their associate's degree and worked while the other got their bachelor's. Well, and they're just going to flip that around. But here's one more idea. This may not work. One more idea. If you have somewhere 50,000 bucks and you tell them you guys save up 200, I'll put 50 in.

And you may not have that kind of money. Who knows? But or you put in 200. Y'all save up 200. I'll put in 100. I'll put some skin in the game, too, if y'all will do this the right way. And that might be a way. But honestly, a 24 year old and 26 year old that are married starting their life. The best you can do is say when this thing goes sideways, I'll be here.

What's up guys, it's Jade. And let me tell you, when my husband and I had $280,000 of student loan debt, we were not sitting around waiting on the government to bail us out. We did the hard work to pay it off ourselves. So if you're still holding out hope that forgiveness is coming, that's like you waiting for your landlord to start paying your rent.

It ain't going to happen. If you really want those student loans gone, you need a plan. And for some of you, refinancing might be part of the plan. So I recommend Laurel Road. With Laurel Road, you can get an initial rate quote in less than five minutes. And if

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John, buying or selling a house is a big deal. And between clickbait headlines and the confusing data, it really is tough to know what's actually going on in the housing market. So we're here to make the latest trends very easy to understand. For instance, median home prices went up slightly last month. Now they're about $430,000.

And there's actually more homes on the market. There's about 1 million, which is the highest since 2019. But in many areas, it's still not enough to meet the buyer demand. Also, the average 15-year fixed rate rose to 5.9 last month, but it's still under 6, so that's pretty good. If you're financially ready, a small rate increase should not hold you back from buying the home that you love. That's what we think. And if you want to learn more about the housing market trends, you can go to

You can get a free tool to help you buy and sell with confidence by going to ramseysolutions.com slash market, or you can click the link in the show notes if you're listening on podcast or YouTube. We got Paul in Minneapolis, Minnesota. What's up, Paul?

Hi, how are you? We're doing good. How can we help? I'm just so glad to talk to you all. My wife and I started on the Ramsey Plan probably about four years ago. And it was just after one of our many moves across country, our final move. And we had a home and we had a truck loan and we had credit card debt, all of which we have now paid off. Wow. We are currently debt-free, home paid off, all nine yards. Way to go. Very exciting. Yeah.

Yeah, we appreciate it. The help from you guys, that is. That's awesome. Well, you did the work. Oh, thank you. My question for you is, we are both 43, and I am a software engineer with over 20 years of experience. And I'm watching the prospects for the future of my career disappear every single day with AI. Yeah.

And I don't believe that I'll get more than 10 years in this career. I think it's pretty much going to go away very shortly in that timeframe, plus or minus five or 10 years. But I'm lucky I can make it to retirement in my current job, but it's very unlikely. And we haven't saved a lot because we pilfered some of our 401ks along the way to finance some of our moves. And now we're sitting on

Approximately 120,000 in our 401ks collectively. And I also have a 14-year-old daughter and an 11-year-old daughter that are going to want to go to college. And I'm kind of looking at that and trying to figure out what should I be doing, how much should I be contributing, not only to the college but to our own retirement, given that I don't know that I'm going to have a huge amount of career prospects in the near future.

I mean, we can, there's two pieces I hear here. There is just practical talk about what's the best way to save for college? What's the best percentage to put towards my 401k so that we're ready in retirement because we don't have as much as I want, right? Like there's the logical side there. Then I hear a lot of fear on the other side. It may be well-founded fears, but I still hear a lot of fear. So maybe we tackle the fear side first. Yeah, here's, I mean-

Paul, I sat in this exact seat, gosh, 10 years ago now. I was actually back in 2013. I sat on a team. There was five of us. And the university president where I worked bought five of our time out of our departments and put us in a room for 18 months to study the future of higher education. And within six months, I think four of the five of us had sold our house. And everybody began their exit strategy. There's like we saw, oh, this is unsustainable.

And that was the time I started nickel and diming my way towards a degree in counseling. I just saw the writing on the wall. Now, I will say this. My caustic anxiety, I've got to get out right this second, was unfounded. Things integrated slower than I thought they would. I realized that a lot of the people making statements about how everything's going to be over and all the this's and that's are happening had a financial stake in that being true.

before there was reality, right? And so I'm with you, dude. I mean, there's AI versions of me that are better than me, right? And you've also in your career read the energy needs reports that would say for all of this stuff to come true, we're not even, we're so far away from being able to build, you know, you get what I'm saying? Yeah.

I do, and I understand that I'm presenting a conversation that sounds a bit fear-mongering. Oh, you're not. It's not. You're in it. You're right in the middle of it. You're not. I've been there, and here's what I'm going to tell you. I started training five years before I thought I was going to need to for a new opportunity, and I did have to do it on weekends, and I did have to do it with two young kids, and I did have to do it at nighttime.

But I just saw the writing on the wall. I hear that. And that's actually, I mean, my wife is going back to school right now to be a teacher because we know that her current job is going to be replaced. So she's taking action in that space. I find that far more difficult just because I've been doing this for over 25 years and I don't enjoy it already. And the prospect of picking a secondary type career for the second half of my life that I probably won't enjoy as well. No, no, no. Flip that around. That's the thing. That's the part. This is your show.

Yeah, it's halftime. Just think of it this way. It's halftime and the plays you were running in the first half are not going to win this game. Cool. Then we get to either run those same plays and get beat by 70 or we get to change up strategies. And it's a blessing. You said you didn't even like the engineering job. So look at it as, you know what? This might have been the only thing that would shake me loose to actually go pursue something that I could actually love.

Fair enough. I am of the mindset, though, too, that I like to build the boat before the rain. 100%. That's what I'm saying. That's what I told you I just did. I just did this. I just did that. I'm with you. I'm with you. But let's pretend a worst-case scenario, and I'm in a position where I have between five to ten more years of high-income earning. Should I, to give myself mental peace, what should I be contributing in

In my retirement and in my college and my 403 B's so that I can make sure that I'm building the boat to settle my own emotional concerns. Yeah. So that's the part where I was kind of dialing in on the fear because I want fear to make you do the right things.

and I don't want fear to cause you to not do the right things. Does that make sense? So to John's point, yeah, on the career side, you know, we'll send you find the work you're wired to do. We'll find all those things to help you dive into what it looks like to build the boat towards a new career and finding what you love to do. But on the financial side, just keep doing what you're doing.

Today you're making a paycheck. Your job's not going tomorrow. So today you're making a paycheck. You live in a paid off house. So you should at least be continuing to invest 15 percent. But you should have some margin there that you can do more. Now, how much to this to this day, how much are you putting aside for your 14 year old and your 11 year old?

None. We hadn't really planned on saving for college very well. That was a huge mistake on our part. And once we started on our debt snowball, we were already sort of kind of in the middle of being close to the end. So we just pushed hard on all that debt. And that's okay. And so, yeah, we do have a margin as far as we can probably save between $3,000 to $4,000 a month right now on top of our living expenses. Then I would do that. I didn't ask you, how much do you guys make?

Household income is 170. Okay, great. So you've got the margin. I want you for sure investing 15%. Don't back that down for college. Keep it at 15%. And then, yeah, if you can stack away some more for the kids' college, that's great. In the meantime, go ahead and use a...

education calculator to find out how much that will be when the time comes for them. So that way you can start having the conversations now with them and saying, Hey, when the time comes 14 year old that you go to school, you're probably going to have about $35,000 here. Here's what that means for you and start talking to them about what that expectation is or whatever it's going to be. I did that. Just, you sound like an anxious guy like me. I just did that recently. My daughter's nine and,

And I literally took the number of months she has left before she's 18. And I just divided that by the number I want to have in an account for her when she goes to college. And then I just decided I'm gonna start saving that much money and put it in a dedicated account. I called a buddy who's a banker and I'm running. I mean, it was just that simple, but it's just a math equation you can do in your head.

Fair enough. And and there's also part of this because you also mentioned retirement. I always like to highlight this. You are going to reach an age. Forget the the AI part for a moment. You are going to reach an age where you cannot work regardless. So retirement is very important. I do not want you to sacrifice that to pay cash for kids school because there are so many other ways that they can go without you being the only bank. Does that make sense?

Absolutely. Yeah. My parents and my wife's parents didn't provide for our educations and we did that ourselves. So we got that. But I can I can almost guarantee you in 10 years, education can look different, too. It is. But what I want you to do is the same way that you run out those educational numbers. Look at your current 401k and say at this rate that we're investing, how do we feel about

you know, when age 68 comes, whatever day you want to retire, do we feel good about this? And if not, what must we do today to make that the number we want? And if that means I'm putting less to kids college, so be it. As long as you're having those conversations and you're jumping into this with your eyes wide open.

Okay, you guys, remember the four walls of a budget. Food, utilities, shelter, and transportation. Right now, I want to focus on food because inflation is driving up the cost of groceries and we're all feeling it. But all these shoppers can save up to 36% on an average shopping trip, which adds up to be about $4,000 a year for a family of four. Four.

That's A-L-D-I dot U-S.

The Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by YRefi. Defaulted private student loans can feel like a wall that you're never going to be able to climb. But YRefi may be able to help you get over it. They'll work with you to explore a payment plan that's tailored to your situation. Go to YRefi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey. Remember, it may not be available in all states. Today's question comes from Ken in Indiana.

My wife and I are doing our wills, and our plan is to leave our assets to each other, with our kids being the beneficiaries when we pass. We have four children, and each will get 25% held in a trust until they are 30. We also want them to be debt-free before receiving their inheritance. If they are not, we would give a 10-year window, and if they still can't get there, then their portion would go to charity. Do you feel this is asking too much of them? Jeez. Yeah.

I have just a couple of thoughts on this one. I don't know enough information here cause I don't know your kids. Um, and if your kids are seven, 11 and six right now, and you're already trying to prejudge them for behaviors they're going to do when they're 30 about Mike, you're, you're building stress into your life that you don't need to have there right now. The second thing I'd want to know is how much money are we talking about? We're talking about a hundred thousand bucks or are we talking about $10 million? Um,

If it's $100,000, relax. Just relax. If it's $100 million or $10 million, then you can kill a kid if you hand them a check for $2 million and they're not well and whole. If they have problems, they can greatly exacerbate their challenges. I also want to know what kind of debt we're talking about. Is this a mortgage payment that they just...

are fine with and they're like everyone else in America besides Ramsey folk. You know what I mean? Or is it a car note? And if they have a car note, they forfeit $4 million. Like, what is that? I want to know more about their lifestyle choices. Are they healthy humans? Yeah. You know, there's a lot here. And I think...

This is me. I like to do as little... I'm not going to have Dave Ramsey money, right? And there's a lot of documented research that says if you hand X generations down this much money, you can hurt them, right? 100%. So having some safeguards built into that I think is wise. I'm not going to have that kind of money. And so what I really want to spend my energy doing is teaching my kids to be people of character and model that for them growing up. And...

outside of they have a drug problems or they're struggling with alcohol or struggling with things, they're going to kill them. I want to do as little legislating from the grave as possible. Yeah, let's float this out a little bit because I'm having some thoughts on this. I agree with you, John. I'm also thinking about...

The part you said about, you know, my kids are five and seven. I don't know who they're going to be. You know, I know who they are today and I can have some thoughts into, you know, maybe what the next couple of years might hold. I don't know, but for sure not into their thirties. But there's part of this that maybe you keep it,

a little less kung fu grip. And we start to kind of see who they're going to be. And I, you know, I'm starting to think more about these ideas of not leaving everything until you're gone. But like, what's it look like to give them a down payment on the house? What's it look like to help them pay cash for their first home? You know, like those sorts of things and see what they do with that, right? And see who they are with money. And then you might find early on, oh, yeah, like even if they...

I do think, I'm going to say this lightly, there are people who follow the Ramsey plan, they pay off their debt, but they're wilding out in other ways. You know what I'm saying? Exactly, that's right. It doesn't make you...

hole everywhere and then i know people who have a credit card but they're great moms and dads are very responsible in all these other aspects so i kind of it's it's hard to kind of like draw this line and say if you have this thing you're just completely irresponsible and if you don't you're completely responsible like does that make sense absolutely so it's this is a tough one so there's there's a lot can there's a lot of uh variables here that we don't have um

I want to spend my energy, the bulk of my energy, since I'm not going to have $100 million to pass on to my kids. I want to spend the bulk of my energy. My nine-year-old daughter the other day said something along the lines of, I think that person's paying with a credit card.

And I want her to already know that's just not how our house operates. Right. And here's the other important thing. If you are debt free and you beat your kids up about it and you don't have peace in your life, then this idea of financial peace will not be communicated because it won't make sense to them. They'll be like, why would I live debt free? You were miserable. You were always angry. You were trying to dictate our lives 25 years from now. Like,

Financial Peace says, I heard my son the other day arguing with my wife about he wanted to have a sleepover and we said no. And he said, well, you get to sleep over with your best friend every night. It's not fair.

And I remember saying, my wife came back and she was kind of choked up and she said, that might be the best statement on our marriage we've ever seen is my kids experience us laughing and dancing and hanging out. And so they have a picture of what marriage should look like. Now they've, they were too young when the big stuff happened. Right. But all that to say is if you want them to want to live a life that's debt free when they're young, then show them the peace part, show them the giving part, show them the laughter in your house part, right?

And then when they ask questions about money, you say, oh, no, no, no, we choose peace. We don't use that stuff in this house. And that's why we get to have that kind of peace. And then they're going to opt into that level of living. So that's where I'd spend my energy and time, Ken, assuming you're not a, I don't know, a business owner that has $100 million that you're about to split off and leave. Yeah, I agree. I think that we've...

we've covered this this is a hard one there's so many variables in it so many factors maybe write back in or call back in with some more details and we can really get it uh dialed into exactly what's going on with you susan is in new brunswick new brunswick new jersey what's up susan that's a tongue twister hi there how are you doing good so i'm back to the fear of finances i'm um

telling you a little story. My husband and I are both retired. We're 66. No debt. Live in our house. We did talk about moving to a 55 community for a while and then now the time is here and I'm starting to get cold feet because I know that moving into a new home, this is, even though it's 55, it's a lot more than we're going to get for the price of our house and then monthly expenses go up with HOAs and taxes and buying new furniture. People

He thinks we're fine. I'm getting cold feet. You're going to take a mortgage out? Is that what you're saying? You're going to go from no mortgage to having a mortgage? No, we would probably take the money from the house and then add to it, maybe take a loan for a little bit against our portfolio, I guess. Yeah, I mean, it's backwards, but it's still a mortgage. You're taking a payment out of the house. Why would you do a loan? Why wouldn't you just take the money?

No, we would. We would. The loan to bridge us from the time now that we have to put out for this new construction because you have to pay, you know, a lot like 5% at the beginning and then another 5% when you do all the decorating and things. Here's what's important, Susan. You are 50% of this decision and you don't have peace. And right now you have peace. Do I?

True. Right. But am I over... No. No, because you don't have the data. You don't have peace. You've got like, we're going to do this. We're going to do some somersaults and we're going to do some backflips and then we're going to slap it up, flip it and reverse it and try to get this thing to here so that we can get in there so we can build a new thing and get into... And right now you have a paid off house. Right. At the very, very least, what I would do, if you...

At the very, very least, I would sell the house you're in first. So you have the cold, hard cash and you have the peace of knowing, okay, our house sold. And even if you're renting for a while, while the new thing is being built, you're

at least you're not doing this bridge loan situation. Cause that's, I think that's out of everything you, I heard you say, that's the unpeaceful part because now you've taken out this bridge loan. Now you feel the weight of, gosh, I hope our house sells. What happens if it doesn't sell in time? And then this other new construction's done. And now you've got two payments. Do you see what I'm saying? That's the thing. Well, maybe I didn't make it clear because we, we would,

The loan would be just the difference between what we get for the house and for what the new house is calling for. That's what she's saying. If you have a million-dollar house you're trying to buy into and you sign a commitment to move into a million-dollar house and your house doesn't sell...

Then you've got your old house plus this million-dollar house that you've got to start paying on. I would want to ask the questions, what are you going to gain by moving into this community? And could you do things like go to karaoke and go play games and go hang out with friends without packing up and selling everything and taking out a mortgage at 66 years old? I agree. Sounds like this needs a little bit more thought before you jump into it.

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Thanks for hanging out with us on the Ramsey Network, the Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshaw. Next to me, Dr. John Deloney, continuing to take your calls, calls about your life and your money. John will handle the wellness side of things. I'll just keep it a broad blanket because you're into all of that. And I'll try to help you with the dollars and cents. All righty, let's go to Jennifer. She's in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Why are you laughing at me, John? Because I'm into all that. What's up, Jennifer?

Thank you so much for taking my call. So my husband passed away suddenly a year ago. Oh, man. What was his name? Joe. Joe. Is he a good guy? Oh, he was a wonderful man. We have seven kids. I still have five at home. Wow. Wow.

Yeah. So we are debt free except for our house. We do have some investments in a savings account, but he was our primary income earner and my income, I'm just work part time and that was just kind of our fun money. So we live off of my part time job now in the Social Security that the kids receive. So he did not have any life insurance?

He had a little bit, but it was from a job that he had long ago. And so it was just a little bit. And that's what's in our brokerage account that I've set aside in case anything ever happens to me. How much is that in the brokerage? We have about $100,000. Okay. And what is the money between the Social Security and the part-time job?

We have it's about five total between my part time job and Social Security is about fifty three hundred a month. OK. And then how much is the mortgage payment? That's sixteen hundred. OK. Our mortgage. Good, good. Yeah. But you can't you can't raise five kids on five thousand bucks a month.

It pays the bills and I'm really good at budgeting, but there's just nothing extra to start saving towards anything. So is it, before I put words in your mouth, how can we help? My question is, do I continue to just work this part-time job and, you know,

Keep the kid's life as close to what it's been? I don't think you can. Or do I try to find another job or another part-time job so that I can be a more provider for them? How old is your youngest? She's eight. Yeah. Okay. There's no way I can...

give you an answer that's going to not hurt but i think you're in a season now where yeah like there's a fiscal reality to this and it in a year the smoke is cleared and you miss your husband every day and he was a great dad and a great guy but what you have right now is a math problem right do you know um do you the house that you have now if you were to sell it what would it bring like what do you think you could take home if you did sell it

I looked it up on Zillow, and it's worth around $430,000. Okay. And we owe $162,000 on it. But to find a house that can house five kids in our area, I don't think we have. We're fortunate to have a house that has five bedrooms. It doesn't...

It's not huge, but it fits our family well. Is there any sharing of bedrooms that can take place?

Um, yeah, definitely. And in another few years, there'll be less kids, hopefully at home. Hopefully a few of them will go off to college. I'm just wondering what I'm getting at is there's the part time job. I mean, there's the 5300, which like you said, under other circumstances that could work, you've got a lot of children. And then while your home payment is not as high as

It could be. It's still a little bit higher than I'd want. It's like three or four hundred dollars higher than I'd want it to be all in. And you're going to feel that. So I'm just wondering, my thought was like, man, is there a world where you sell this house and take the cash and buy something a lot smaller, but gets the job done and puts you in a position where you're not on the hook for paying a mortgage every month? It just gives you a little bit more security. Yeah.

Right. Maybe if kids, if you don't want to go get a full-time job, you can keep a part-time job and your kids can share rooms. Sure. My goal is to hopefully keep the house until my two younger ones are the only two left so that we could really downsize. I get that. Which is another five years. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. And so I think...

Again, this is just us talking to you because we love you. I think you have multiple things that you would love to do in a perfect world. Right. And one is be able to stay at home because you are trying to fill that gap that you really can't fill with a pretty amazing dad. He's gone, right? And you're trying to be all things, which is amazing. And you're bringing in extra money, which is amazing. And you have a picture of not wanting to disrupt them from the home they've lived in forever. And that's amazing. Yeah.

Right.

is growing up in a house where she lost her dad. She's going to learn how to make, she's going to learn how to help make dinner and she's going to have a purpose and be able to take some of the grief she's feeling and channel that as well. Right. All that stuff is going to, it's just the reality that you find yourself in. Right.

And my kids are amazing in that way. The days that I don't work, they all gather together and just, they know their jobs. You make dinner, you're the cleanup crew, you're the homework, you're the get Angie ready for bed. Can I assure you that them having that purpose and responsibility is a gift to them long-term? It's a way that they are integrating their loss of their dad into a purpose and shared experience.

It's good. Yeah. And it's not what you drew up, but it's the best of a pretty rough situation. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Do you have a math problem that you want to solve? Like I'd like to have this much money every month. I think one other question I had, I do have a money market account that has 30,000 in it. And I didn't know if I should just...

cash that out and put it in our savings as our, so that we have six months of money that we can access as our, you know, instead of it being in the brokerage account where we can't get to it, should it be in the savings account? I mean, if you wanted to transfer it, if you wanted to transfer it over to a high yield savings account,

Because you can get to it easier if there is an emergency. I'm not mad at that. A lot of times money markets, you can write checks out of them, though, and you can access the money. But yeah, if you wanted to move it to some online high yield, I'm not mad at that. And that way, the way you're accessing it is through a transfer system.

rather than writing a check or transferring it. They're both basically the same thing. So you don't necessarily have to do that. The $100,000 in the brokerage, is that the only money you have or is there a retirement anywhere? Real quick. No, I don't have any retirement. That's the other reason I think it's going to be really important for you to get something full-time, even if there's some sort of benefits associated, just to get you started. The good news in all of this is...

your youngest is school-aged. So you've got this time, you've got this window in the middle of the day that you can work. And there's so many programs available to help with before school care and after school care. So I think you can do this. This is just a new way of life. And that's really tough to start a brand new way of life. It's heartbreaking, but there's a reality to it. So I just want to tell you, I think you're amazing. And it's pretty cool that you had a great husband. Thank you.

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in a live Q&A. That's right, I said a live Q&A. That's great. Spots are limited, so sign up for free at everydollar.com slash webinar today. I almost said mañana, but that means tomorrow, right? Okay, that was today. Nancy is in Tucson, Arizona. What's up, Nancy? Hi there. Here's my question. I'm 71. Should I wait till I die?

Or should I start giving my kids and grandkids money that I have that is just sitting there and I'm not even barely using it? How much is it? So altogether, I have about $240,000. I don't think that's as much as I think it is, though, Nancy. Nancy, you're going to live 20 more years. True. 25 more years. Do you live by yourself right now?

Well, a grandson lives with me. Okay. He moved in with me. The house is paid. I'm getting a big spousal annuity from my husband who worked for the government. He passed in 21. How much is that annuity? So I'm getting about, I'm making about $98,000 off that a year.

OK, can I have a hundred thousand in another annuity that has earned sixteen thousand in interest? And then I have my 401k. That's seventy eight thousand. Then I have a money market that's forty six thousand. But all of it equals to forty. Right. Is that what you told me?

Well, that's what I think. It's about 242. Here's my thought. Here's what I'm thinking about. Okay. I'm not against the idea of like, hey, I have to wait. Do I have to wait until I die to give him everything? I'm not against wanting to do things that you can afford to do now to bless them or to give them gifts. The only thing I'm thinking about is your grandson lives with you now. Tell me about his status. Is he divorced? Is he single? Oh, no. No.

He's single. He works 40 hours. Okay. So what I'm thinking is, what happens if your grandson meets a special lady and they get married and he moves out? And as you age, let's say you're now 85 and you're still healthy. I'm fine with him.

Well, let me play it out. Let's say you're still healthy, but really it's not good for you to live on your own. Right. And if they say, hey, we want or let's say your health does start to decline and you need like maybe some in-home care or assistance. That's what this 240 is going to be there to help cover, because that's that's a very, very expensive. So while I think there might be some that you could.

do. I do think that 240 could go very quickly should you require some care at any point. Okay. And just saying, I don't want to panic you, okay? Can you say, I promise I won't panic? Yes, I promise. I can hear you. Have you heard recently the kind of shape, the fiscal shape the government is in?

You know what? No, tell me. It's not great. It's bad. They're not doing great. All I can say is this. If you were my mom, my mom was a few years older than you, I would not say, you know what you should count on for the next 20 years? $100,000 a year annuity payout. You should just count on that. I would not tell her to do that.

For any other reason other than all day, every day, all I do is take calls from people who are promised this buyout, this payout by the government, this loan repayment plan, and it doesn't ever work out. And so it's amazing that you have that $98,000. I would rather wait until you were $77,000 and that $250,000 has become $500,000 before you started giving away a little bit of gifts and things like that. I just think you're going to live... By the way, if you...

If you live to be 77 and then you get another seven years and you're 84, that 250 grand is going to be a million bucks because it doubles every seven years. That's right. So you'd be missing out on a lot of growth. You list a ton of growth. And then at 85, when you're still alive and kicking and you're just wrecking shop in the bingo hall, then you can start writing checks to grandkids. Mm hmm.

Okay. Cause I'm still working even. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Keep doing it. You're doing your thing. Yeah. Is there a specific request somebody's asking for? No, I just keep seeing how it seems like everything's so expensive, you know, food and rent. I own my home. You know, I have no bills, nothing.

But I just want to maybe help them out a little by gifting some of this stuff. I mean, define what that would look like. Give us an example of something you've come across lately that you're like, man, should I do it? Tell us, give us an example. Okay. Okay. So look, my, I put 40,000 into a money market. It has earned 6,000 already. What if I gave some grandkids like,

5,000 each, let's say. So half of it would be gone. For what? Just to make their life a little easier. Mm. Because...

Or no? Well, that's where my question comes in. It's like just handing out money for the sake of handing out money feels a little frivolous. Now, if you said, hey, my granddaughter is about to go to college. And I know for a fact that she's working over the summer. I'd like to match some of what she's doing. If there's a true purpose to it, that makes a lot more sense than just, I have this money. I feel like I should just...

Give it away. And then my other question is, are you doing any other types of giving? Like, are you practicing generosity in other ways? It sounds like you feel guilty. Well, yes, I do donations to a church. Okay, great.

But I just feel like it's sitting there and times are tough for these young kids. And I just wanted to be nice, but maybe I shouldn't yet. Well, the nicest thing you can do is not make them have to move you into one of their back bedrooms when you're 86. That's right. You know what I mean? Yes. So if you had nine houses or you had $1.7 million right now,

and you had two great amazing grandkids that were busting their butt and they just found themselves in that gap where they can't afford a house they can't afford the rent then i would say yes you have an opportunity to sit down and say i'm gonna cover your rent for a year to help y'all get ahead like that would be amazing this is me being honest you don't have that kind of money not yet you have 250 grand in the bank yeah so keep keep working what are you making at your job nancy but

I want to see a trip. I was a bartender for 45 years. Nancy, you're a gangster. I like you so much. Are you still tending bar right now? Oh, God, I can't anymore. They want me to. But you can make a mean old-fashioned. You can make a mean old-fashioned, can't you? Yeah. Tom Collins. Those people will be dead soon. All the people that drink those will be dead. And they're all drinking other shit right now. But anyways, I hope...

host. And they call me a manager at one job. I'm not a manager, but yeah. But here's the thing. Here's the thing, Nancy, you're making a good income. You are out here working. You're 71. I feel like I'm talking to a 41 year old. You're doing good. You got 240,000 saved. Just remember what John said. This lump sum is going to double every seven years. And you've got for sure 14 more in you. So you're doing good with this. Keep putting aside as much

as you are. 85-year-old you as a millionaire, and then that's where we're going to start talking about giving chunks of money away. Yep. Oh, my gosh. John, what you said nails...

hits the nail on the head. Like the goal here, when you start aging, the goal is who's going to take care of me and how can I make it to where it's not a burden on my kids, right? So it's you putting aside the money that you need so that if your kids need to hire an in-home nurse, they can. If they need to move you to a nice facility where there's folks around the clock that take care of you, they can. Because...

It's not always feasible for people to become 100% full-time caretakers when they have their own kids that they have to take care of and they have their own jobs that they have to work and they have to put food on their own table. And this is unpopular to say.

But you only get stronger by lifting heavy weights. And if I see my 20-year-old grandkids grinding, I know they're going to be really strong 40-year-olds. So I don't want to take that grind from them unless it's really dire. So let's protect the 60-year-old them that might have to take care of me one day. That's good. On the debt-free stage, we got Tim from Dallas, Texas. What's up, Tim? What's up?

What's going on, Tim? Great to be back in the great state of Tennessee. It is great to see you, man. Tell us what brings you in. This, actually. You paid it all off? How much did you pay off? $333,000. Whoa! Okay, you know my Spidey sense is going off. Tell us more. What kind of debt was that?

Two 401k loans, two car loans, personal loan, several credit cards, medical debt, and the house. I knew it. Yeah. I knew it, Tim. Wow. How long did it take you? Five years and 11 months. Wow. Five years. Look at that beautiful place you got there in Dallas, Texas. That's awesome. Wow. It just hits different when it's paid off. Look at that.

And what were you earning during that time? Give us the range. I started around 127 and finished up just recently over 200. Wow. What do you do for a living, dude? I'm in the insurance game, commercial insurance, property. Okay. Man. Okay, so what in the world happened when you decided, I'm out of this? So it started in...

November of 2018, my wife died in the month before. And I realized, and she and I talked about it some before she passed and it was sudden. And there was no way I could retire at that point. And I had three, I have three sons and there, I didn't,

I'm not living with my three sons. They're not taking care of me until I die. And so I knew I had to do something different and get out of it. Called our local church and said, hey, do you have a financial advisor or something? I need some help. And they're like, oh, we got an FPU thing. I said, okay, who teaches it? And they said, oh, this guy who's an IT guy. I'm like, what's an IT guy know about finances? And he was great. His name's Stan Squires. Great guy. He's been a big encouragement to me.

through the journey. And, but he was the guy that taught you FPU or? Well, so he, I went to the FPU class that he taught. Uh-huh. Uh, I had actually been through it and failed the class like 15 years before. Uh, but, uh,

He taught the class, and then the next year I actually co-taught it with him, and I've co-taught three or four more at a different church since then. So when we say FPU, for those listening, it's Financial Peace University. It's basically our, you know—

course on how to manage your money. That's what we're talking about. So someone shared it with you and now you've turned around and shared this with other folks in your life by, you know, coordinating the classes. Wow. That's really, really cool. All right. So tell me about doing this. This is hard. Tell us about doing this by yourself.

So one of the things they talk about in FPU is you need an accountability partner. Or if you're married, then you and your spouse have to be on the same page. And my wife and I were never on the same page. I was the nerd. She was the free spirit. And so we were never really on the same page. When she passed, I still had two sons at home, and I just – I got the –

every dollar app on my phone. And I did the free one because I'm not paying for anything. I don't have to. And so I did the free one, which the free one's pretty good people. So get that one if you don't want to pay the extra. But, um, uh, I was doing that and it just helped me tune in on all the stuff. And like you guys say, every, it took me about two or three months to where I got it tuned in. But then when I got it dialed in, it was, it was, um,

It was hard, but it wasn't that hard until I decided, hey, I'll just go ahead and pay off the house. And the house, I refinanced my house about a year after my wife died. And I took it from about 24 years left on a 30-year down to a 10-year note.

And I asked the bank, I said, do you all not have a five-year mortgage? They said, no, we don't have a five-year mortgage. You're not. Yeah. So I got it paid off in about five years. Wow. So. That's really something. So you get the budget, you get it dialed in. What was the hardest sacrifice? You know, I think last year was...

it wasn't really a sacrifice, but it was the hardest time I had last year. I went through a lot of things. AC went out on the house, uh, engine in my car started leaking coolant. So I had to replace it. And there were a lot of things that just came up last year that were just sucking the money out. And I was down to nothing in my, uh, in my, uh, emergency fund. Oh, that's the worst. And I was, I was to a point where I'm like an

I need to get this car. And I was talking to a friend of mine and they said, you know, you're, you're too close. Don't, don't screw this up. And so I didn't. And I paid cash for the car and it's, it's a hail damage Toyota. And like Dave says, it doesn't look pretty, but it gets 40 miles to the gallon. It's going to last longer than you do. That's amazing. What was it like for your boys watching their dad grieve mom,

go through that and then watch dad slowly over the last five years almost have a phoenix moment rising up from the ash um i think i think it'll hit them later my youngest is 18 now and my other one is 22 my oldest one's 29 he was married uh before mom died

And it was... I mean, at times, it was hard for them just because, hey, Dad, can we go out to eat? No. Do you know why? Because it's not in the budget. That's right. Yeah. And now, you know, we can get... Dad, can we go somewhere for dinner? Yep. That's cool. And it's...

And my youngest one, he's going to college this fall. And I've got three out of four years already funded. And by his sophomore year, I'll have the fourth year done. Amazing. Oh, amazing. I love that photo. That was one of the things I cash flowed during it. I got a degree, a Bible degree. Oh, you got another degree? Yeah, I got a Bible degree during this journey because...

when I retire, I'm not just going to sit around like you guys say, I'm going to have an encore. I love that. So I'm thinking about doing, you know, some,

or something like that. Amazing. Just something that, to give me something to do, not, I won't need the money, but just to help out, help other people. Good for you, brother. That's awesome. There's just so much here. Like, you know, and I'm not discounting anybody else's journey by any means, but I mean, you did a lot in these past few years and you did them while going through a lot emotionally. And so kudos to you for that. It's a lot of money paid off. It was a lot emotionally. Talk to that person right now who's,

Got whatever amount of debt and it feels too hard for them. Talk to them for a minute. You know, you can get through a lot more than you think you can. We are taught, you know, OK, it's OK to drop out when it's hard. And you know what? Sure, it's OK, but you're never going to achieve what you could. Mm hmm.

If you keep going. And I love one of the quotes you kick out all the time, Jade. You can tell me you won't do something, but don't tell me you can't. That's right. And that's what a lot of people do. Oh, I can't do this. Yeah, you can. I mean, I do marathons. That's right. And people say, oh, I can never do that. Yeah, you can. You just won't because you won't put in the work. And that's what you've got to do with this. It's not easy, but...

But you know what? The other end is great. 100%. Man, you got it. You got it. Wow. What a story. Anything else you want? I see you have your notes. Was there anything else you wanted to say? I was looking. I was looking. I think that's about it. You know, at the end of the day, what got me through all this was the Lord and my faith community. And I had a shirt that I was going to wear today, but...

left it at home and it has the Hebrew symbols for loaves and fish on it. And we as Christians are called to bring what God gives us

And he does the miracle. We don't do the miracle. We just bring what he provides. And I had not been bringing what he provided for years. And finally, through this five or six years, I was able to do that. And he did the miracle. Wow. So he got us through this. It's amazing. I love it. This is an incredible story. I love it. Thank you so much for coming here. Thank you for coming into that free stage. All right.

All right, you know what comes next. We got Tim from Dallas, Texas. He paid off $333,000, lots of different debts, but including his mortgage, he did it in about six years, making $127,000 to $200,000. Tim, you know what to do next. Count it down, give us a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. I'm debt-free! Oh, yeah, you are! Oh, my God. Wow.

That's a story, man. That's one of those that people sitting at home saying, I can't. Yeah, you can. You can. You sure can. And what I love about this is it was all sharing. It was the guy, I think he said his name is Stan, at work, at church, that taught him F.

and then he turned around and taught a bunch of other people FPU. But this is what's possible, guys, when you work this Ramsey plan. So we say all the time, man, thank you for sharing, but you can share this kind of life change, and you can do it by sharing it on the Ramsey 101 playlist. ♪

You work your butt off for your money, but your money's never going to return the favor if all you do is hope for the best. If you're ready to learn how to make your money work for you, check out the SmartVestor program. SmartVestor can help you find advisors who specialize in retirement planning, charitable giving, advanced investing strategies, and more. Whatever your goals, your pro will take the time to explain your options so you never have to invest in anything you don't understand.

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The Ramsey shows scripture and quote of the day, Isaiah 40, 31. But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not be faint. And do you want to know what I do? I go straight to remember the Titans. Like eagles, y'all. Like eagles, y'all. Remember that? I love to remember the Titans. Do you remember it? No. Oh, gosh. Come on, John. Anybody in the room.

remember the titans strong side i remember that yes i don't remember that song somebody help me all right let's go to the quote lars ulrich says stretching your parameters is a necessity if you want to keep growing who's lars huh who is lars i don't know he's the drummer of metallica come on oh oh you're right okay okay i didn't know who it would be all right if i had known that we were in a musical context i think it would have rung a bell but because that's fair just listen you didn't know

of the Titans either, John. We both have holes in our abilities. We have flaws. Let's go to Jay in Savannah, Georgia. What's up, Jay?

Hi there. Yeah, a bit of a predicament here. So when I was 21, I went to medical school in the Caribbean. It wasn't a good school. Oh, no. It was actually destroyed by a hurricane. Oh, no. So I left. I came back. And long story short, I went to a different medical school, and then I decided to drop it. And then a few years ago, I kind of went back.

And I have almost $600,000 in student loans. How bad, yeah. And I make $52,000 a year right now as a contracting consultant, a technical writer. And I just, I'm totally lost because I'm on an IDR, an income driven repayment plan. But it's like, I can never buy a house or, you know, there's no purpose in even saving for retirement. I just, I don't know what to do. Okay. Yeah.

So you're talking to two people. We haven't been there, but we've, we've been there six figures in the hole. Don't even know what to do. Making 30, 40, $50,000 a year. Like Jade's been there. I've been there. Okay. Your situation's worse, but I know how scary that is and how futile it feels. It just feels like there's no way. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I hate that for you, man.

I mean, I just, you know, making my little payments for the IDR, bringing some cash. I'm living with my parents. I'm 30 years old. Yeah. And it's like, I'm just living day by day. But then I kind of think long-term and it's like, um, you know, I'm just kind of giving up. So I don't know. Just thought I'd give you guys a call. No, absolutely. Um,

Yeah, John is right. We've both been to our version of this, and you're right. It can feel really, really dark. What are you doing now that's earning you $50K a year? So, yeah, I'm a technical writer for government proposal writing. I help small businesses win government contracts, and it's enjoyable work. You know, I get to help tiny companies, you know, expand and win contracts. But, you know, I'm just a technical writer slash proposal developer. How'd you get into that?

Did you just fall into it? Yeah, it was through a friend. They were doing it, and then I actually started the company as like a telemarketer almost. But then I kind of showed them that I, you know, I'm able to do this in-depth research that's needed for writing these proposals. So I kind of followed that, and then, you know, now I'm actually the head of the department, but it's a startup where I work. How much longer is that job even going to be viable? That's one of the first jobs that's going to go, isn't it?

Well, hopefully not, although, I mean, the federal government is always going to be around and they're always going to be... No, but I'm talking about ChatGPT is going to take those jobs, aren't they? So, yes and no. We do use ChatGPT, but the contracting offices look for... You have to really follow the performance work statement and write quality work. Okay, that's fair. And...

Yeah, that's a whole different debate we could have. Let me tell you something, Jay, that helped my husband and I. And I'm precursoring this by telling you it's going to be one of those easier said than done things. But at least it can inform how your thought process is going forward with this. So when my husband and I looked up and realized we had almost $500,000 of debt and we were making, you know, $300,000.

And then it went up the next year to 40 and then the next year to, you know, 55. And we were steadily growing up. But we hit a point where it was like, hey, even if we're working like dogs as much as we can, there's a ceiling to what it is that we're doing. And if we hit that ceiling, it's still going to take us a decade to pay this debt off. Right. And you're feeling that right now. And so for me, what I started thinking is outside of the box.

And it was like, what can I do exponentially to get my income up? What am I good at? What does the world need that I can offer, that I can create something, that I can pay myself what I need to make in order to pay these things off? So what I'm saying is you might need to get entrepreneurial here. If there's not a career field that's in your purview that you're like, hey, I'm going to go for that. And I know it's going to make me the salary I need to get out of this in the next seven, eight years.

You need to be thinking about what can I create? What do my skill sets say that I can do? And can I build the muscle and build that on my own and learn and grow into that? Because whenever we talk about these on the lowest level, whenever we talk about

debt issues, right? There's two sides of it. There's, hey, you cut your expenses, right? But that's not going to work for you, right? Cutting your expenses down, that's, forget that, it could give you some change in your pocket. But, you know, that's pennies compared to the debt you're facing. So the other side of this is the income side. And again, I'm telling you, it sounds easier said than done. But that's where we go into the long term picture of

Getting out of debt has stages. And there's some things that you can do that'll make small cuts in this going forward. But how can you grow over leaps and bounds? And that is in that shift in income, whether it's like I said, shifting to a career where you can see, hey, yeah, I could make some substantial money that I could put some real dents into this. And if you don't see it, creating it and just knowing that there is a timeline involved there. It took a decade for

for my husband and I to not only pay off the debt, but move into like a baby step three situation. And that was years of growing a business and growing our careers to where it fit the $500,000 of debt.

And it's the same thing with you growing your career to where that whole the shovel ratio is doable. And what I want to encourage you is that that is a journey and it's okay that it's a journey and it's okay that you feel like you have wasted years of your life. It's okay that you feel that way. I just want to encourage you to know that on this side of it, I can tell you that it's not a waste. If you just keep walking this thing forward and just putting one foot in front of the other, like you said, taking it day by day, because it literally is that, it's

I promise you, I promise you're going to look up in 10, 11 years from now and you're going to go, man, I did the impossible. I was consistent and I just went day after day and I did this. And I'm so glad that I went on that journey because I figured out who the real Jay is and how strong the real Jay is and how much that I can take and how much I can deal it out. And I just...

I've already had some clients, you know, saying that they want to work with me directly. But at the same time, I don't want to betray my employer. Do you have any insight on how to kind of navigate, you know, starting my own thing, which I'm currently doing with some previous clients. I actually make more money doing that than I do at my job. Of course you do. But the job, it's steady and it's stable. There's an office. Steady and stable is not going to get you out of this, brother. Yeah, you got to take some leaps and bounds.

So I guess you guys would kind of recommend that I just go full force with my own thing. And I mean, I've not necessarily both and it's yeah, there you go. Okay. Okay. And be a person of integrity and the temptation is going to be to cut corners. Don't do that. You don't want to be that guy. You don't want to have, you don't want to owe $600,000 and go to jail. Right. Or be unemployed. But within your, like within the bounds of, of your integrity. Yeah.

Yeah, you can't take – as long as it's not work that you're taking from your employer, if that makes sense. And if you have a non-compete, that's what you sign, that's what you sign, so you can't do that. But if you don't have a non-compete and you're a person of integrity, take every single solitary side hustle you could possibly imagine. 100%. Yeah, I mean I have a client who was at a previous company. There's no non-compete there, and he was so happy with my work that he said that he'd introduce me to his people. Right.

So that could get more people for myself. And I do that while I'm still working at this job and do it all ethically. Yeah. Legally. Do that, man. For you. Yes. Networking, talking, telling people as many people as you can start to get to know that's in that field and you can start building that network out. Yeah, that's 100 percent how you grow this thing, because.

That's how people know who you are and what you do and what you can offer. You say yes to everything. You put every penny towards this thing. That's right. Yeah. Make it happen, brother. Make it happen. I'm going to try this one more time, John. Like eagles, y'all. Remember the Titans. Strong side. That's it. That's the one everybody knows. This has been The Ramsey Show.

Hey, you guys. I was shocked to learn that 88% of you out there are sharing the Ramsey Show. I mean, that is so incredible. Thank you so much. And I want to tell you that we're making it even easier to share. So this June, we have pulled together the brand new Ramsey 101 YouTube playlist, a

a quick start collection of how to get started walking the Ramsey Plan. Now, this playlist is perfect for that one person in your life who needs help winning with money and just doesn't know where to start. So here's what's inside. What the baby steps are and why they actually work, how the debt snowball helps you pay off debt fast, and how to build wealth and invest for the future, and so much more.

So here's what you need to do. Click the link at the top of the show notes. It'll take you straight to the YouTube playlist. Copy it. Text it. Send it in a group chat. Just say, hey, I thought this might help. Because one playlist shared at the right time could be the turning point. One share. One playlist.

One step could change everything for that one person in your life. So click the link, share The Ramsey Show, and let's help someone out there start winning with money.