Financial Peace Starts With Clear Boundaries
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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people.

build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Thank you for joining us, America. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Jade Walsh, best-selling author. Ramsey Personality is my co-host today, so we're going to take your calls. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Leona starts off this hour in Fairbanks, Alaska. Hi, Leona, how are you?

Hey, Dave. I'm great. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay, so I'm calling because I am pretty newly married. Not my first rodeo. But one of the things I did, I made a mistake of, is not doing my financials.

Background check on my new spouse. And so October, we got married in May. In October, we realized that we are close to a million dollars in debt. Wait a minute. Slow down. Wait a minute. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. I got lost in this already. I want to make sure I'm with you. So you're how old? I am 45. Okay. And you've been married before.

You said not first rodeo. Okay. So you met a guy and you married him and you said it was a mistake to not do a background check. No, a financial check. You didn't have conversations about money is what you're saying? I didn't check to see what kind of debt ratio. Did you ask him?

No. Oh, okay. So you just kind of walked in blindly. He thought you didn't care. Turns out you cared. Okay. Yeah. All right. I got it. And so you've been married for how long?

for about nine months. Okay. And then you woke up one morning and decided to ask, or he decided to tell you what happened. Um, I wanted to quit my job. And so in that I wanted, I asked him if, if that was possible, we went back and forth. I said, I really need to see the budget, assuming he kept one. And I found out there that he didn't keep a budget. But when I started pulling things together, finding about 17 credit cards, um,

I realized there's no way, and he was heavily reliant on my income as well. How was he making it before you were married?

As a bachelor, he was just a heavy spender. If he couldn't make it without your salary now, how was he making it without your salary before you were married? He bought a $500,000 house. Since you were married? My name is not on the title. Since you got married, when did he buy the $500,000 house?

Just, uh, August it closed. So we were married. So you're married. You bought a house. Okay. You were aware you were buying a house. I was. So $500,000 is owed on the house. And you said there's a million dollars. What's the other $500,000? There's about, there's a, another house that he had. It's a $300,000 home. Um, just that we were, we have it as a rental right now. What's owed on it? $330,000. Okay. Did you not know about the rental?

No, I did. You just didn't think about it. All right. So 830. Yeah, it was just moved. $830,000. And now what's the other $200,000 in debt? He has a HELOC loan and some medical debt and then about almost $200,000 in credit card. Okay. And so what's your question?

I mean, how do I not murder him, eh? It's not his fault. It's yours. You didn't ask. I know. I know. Well, he doesn't get murdered. You might, but he doesn't. Right.

I mean, you walked around acting like nothing's happening and he just assumed it was all okay. He's living his life like a, you know, just happy as he can be happy as a little old clam. And then you came along, wanted to quit your job and he couldn't do it. So you're the one that didn't do anything. I mean, he's got a mess. There's no question about that. We don't need to murder him. Does he want to clean this up?

So far, he's been doing everything. We have a financial peace university coach right now who's helping us untangle a lot of things. Great. So both houses are for sale? No. Well, they need to be. Okay. Y'all are broke people. Yeah. Because I'm guessing there's a little bit of equity in these houses you can use to clean up this stupid butt credit card mess. This guy spends like he's in Congress. Hey, by the way, what do you guys earn? What's the income between the two of you?

About $200,000. Okay. You can dig through it pretty quick then. You might even get to keep the house you're living in, but the rental needs to go immediately. Yeah. And that's where the HELOC's laying too, right? I think the HELOC is on a new house, but our coach and I are both confused about that. It's just messy. Okay. And so, number one, the two of you, next time you meet with a coach, you have to raise your right hand and swear before the judge that

I promise to never do anything with money ever again without my spouse knowing it. Both of you. Yeah. Both of you. You do not have the right to act surprised after this point, up to this point, because you walked into it begging for a surprise. Mm-hmm. But now, from today on, he doesn't make any moves anymore because he's really not good with money. Mm-hmm.

We really can't trust his judgment. He really sucks at this. And honestly, you're lucky that he agreed to go through financial peace and has the wherewithal to want to change it. Yeah. You got lucky there. Yeah, I think you guys get on a beans and rice budget. You sell the rental. Follow what the coach is telling you. You may have to sell the big house. You may not. How much do you owe on your stupid cars?

um so that's messy his his wife passed and there are two vehicle there's one vehicle in her name and a motor home in her name and so was the dead in her name yes okay but yes but he kept the rest of the estate too right yeah so it's not messy both of those need to get sold yesterday did he did he not probate a will or probate the estate

No, he didn't. He just actually told the bank like two weeks ago that she passed away two years ago. He just what? He just now told the bank that she passed away. Yeah. So the bank is pretty upset right now. So he's had the stuff in possession.

For two years. Okay. So this level of denial and deception that he has lived his whole life in has to change or your marriage is not going to work.

And this level of not bothering to ask and walking around with your head stuck in the clouds the way you do it, that has to change or your marriage is not going to work. So the two of you have to commit to a clean, clear way of living where we're not deceiving each other or anyone else. All right. And you can get these two cars sold. And do you have any debt on the two cars you guys are driving? No.

Well, the HELOC somehow has his truck wrapped into it. No, it doesn't. I do not have it. They just use the HELOC to buy the truck. That's all. Okay. So how expensive is his truck? I think it was like $18,000 that he paid. He told me he paid off. That's not too bad. I'm not sure I believe it, though. All right. So, yeah, you guys just got to dig in, clean all the, you know, get all the tangles out of the hair, get everything straight, and then decide what you're going to cut. Okay.

How much hair are you going to have left after you finish this haircut? And then you've got to be clean with each other and everybody else. Quit hiding stuff, both of you. Wow, what a mess, girl. This is the Ramsey Show. What does the future hold for business?

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Jade Warshall, Ramsey Personalities, my co-host today. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Joni's with us in Jackson, New Hampshire. Hi, Joni. How are you? Well, as you say, it's better than I deserve. Much better. Good. How can we help today? Well, and my dad used to say, advice is worth what you pay for it. So that was fun to start the show off with that. Okay, so my daughter's 240-ish years old daughters and I

co-own a cabin that's across the road from my house where I've lived at this house for 40 years. And we bought the cabin five years ago. We're all three on the deed. And as you said, a few weeks ago, never go into business with anyone. One reason being that they will have different interests from you. And that's what we're facing. I'd like to

move from my home to the cabin, which needs some serious work to make it livable. And my daughters, one of them wants to just do as little as possible and make it into a seasonal rental. And the other one wants that also, but she doesn't want me to have a home there because she can deny it because we all have to agree since we're co-owners.

We all have to agree on work done there. And about 20 years ago, she was doing a bunch of bad stuff, and I had told her, if you keep this up, you're going to have to leave. So I had to kick her out of the house, and she wants to punish me for that. So the way you handled that, you have a daughter that wants to punish you, and you decide to buy a cabin with her. It wasn't. You bought the cabin five years ago. Twenty years ago, you kicked her out.

Well, five years ago when the cabin came up for sale, the owner wanted to sell it to my daughters. And so they, on paper, bought it. I paid $200,000 for it. So I paid for the taxes and the purchase price and all of the repairs that we have done. So they put no money in it? Do they have any money in? Excuse me? They put no money in?

Right. Oh, gosh. And I bought my house 40 years ago for $29,000. And do you guys have any kind of written agreement on this at all? We have one agreement that they came up with that says we all have to agree on any work that's done. Did you sign that? Yes. Why?

I don't know why you did any of this. If you had $200,000, buy the cabin, don't buy the cabin, why did you put them on here knowing that this one daughter is going to be a problem from day one? I didn't know that, and the seller would not sell it.

To me alone, she wanted to sell it to my daughters. Why? So I had no, we either wouldn't get the cabin or the girls would both be on the deed. What was initially the use of the cabin? When you first bought it, did you buy it because you said, you know what, I'm going to move in here and everybody knew that? Or was the initial purpose of the cabin to rent it out to someone else? It was me moving up. There was an option. We didn't talk about any options.

I started doing little bits here and there, having a cabin chinked, making sure the roof was good. Okay. Joni, let me ask you this. How old are you? I bought it to protect the value of my house so that we're surrounded by national forest. Joni. And I bought my house for $29,000. Joni. Now it's worth a million. Joni, how old are you? Seventy. Seventy. Okay.

You have made a mess. That's right. This is a mess. Okay? And you're really left with only a couple of options. One is to convince your daughter's

to deed the property over to you given that they put no money in it to start with, and they have no rights to this morally or ethically. Okay? This is an absurd deal. You should not have done this deal. It was a dumb deal. It was a bad deal. You set yourself up to get punched in the nose. Now you're getting punched in the nose. So now the only thing you can do with this is you can convince them to deed it over to you

Or you can hire an attorney and sue them and force the sale of the cabin and show the judge that they put zero dollars into this and that at least you get your $200,000 back before there's anything split at the sale. Now, you get to decide, are you going to be able to convince them that you guys are all stupid? What you've done here is all stupid. You're not stupid, but what you've done is ridiculous. It's a horrible plan.

And your daughters are horrible that they took a third of this knowing that they didn't get along with their 70-year-old mother and she paid 100% of it. That's kind of like being a thief, okay? That's kind of what that's like. So I don't really like your daughters much. And this is not going to be easy. And so I don't know that you're going to be able to convince these two dweebs to turn the thing over to you.

And I'm afraid you're going to be faced with a judge to do it or you've just gotten screwed out of 200,000 because you've lost control of this because you've got a two-to-one vote and the deed doesn't have any restrictions on it whatsoever. You've got three people and they have two of the votes. But a judge can untangle this. And a judge can force the sale of the cabin and give you $200,000 at the sale.

One other option on the persuasion side you could do is you can offer the dweeb some money to go away. I'll give you $25,000 a piece if you've got it or whatever to sign the deed over to me, which is immoral, thievery, blackmail, whatever you want to call it, but it's going to be cheaper than court. She's not going to like them much after that, though. Well, I don't like them, so it's easy to not like them. I mean, they're not likable. That's right. Right.

Who does this to their parent? Oh, I don't know. It's weird. You threw me out of the house 20 years ago. So then I'm going to get back at you. I'm going to get you to pay full price for a cabin that I own one third of. And then I'm not going to let you do anything. Good God. This is terrible. Four year old is this.

Needs counseling. Unbelievable. So, yeah, some people's children. But the, yeah, guys, you cannot enter into these things wide-eyed open and expect, you know, a crocodile to do anything but bite your leg off.

Crocodiles, it's what they do. I just can't understand. Even if they liked each other, right? It's a dumb. What would be ever the purpose of going into something like it? It makes no sense. If she was going to move into it anyway, just buy the house for herself. Well, the guy wouldn't sell it to her, which is weird. Yeah, that's weird, too. There's a lot of weird here. But yeah.

Johnny, I'm sorry. I wish I had a magic wand to make your pain go away, but your pain is not a cabin. Your pain is your daughter's, and that's what you're going to have to deal with one way or another. Probably the cheapest way to do this is just buy the dweebs out and get them to sign it over.

Just, you know, it's a dweeb fee. It's a stupid tax fee. And I do something stupid and it costs me money. Joni, I call it stupid tax. You're probably going to pay some stupid tax here. You are going to pay some stupid tax. They better not ask for a third. You're going to pay a lawyer. Well, they'll ask for it. You know these dweebs will. So you're going to either pay a lawyer, you're going to pay the dweebs, or you're going to lose your $200,000. These are your three ways. But you're going to lose money.

You're going to lose money. Something's going on here. I'm paying a lawyer. If it's me, I'm paying a lawyer. I don't want to fool with these girls anymore. Wow. It's your kids. They're dweebs. To quote a well-known philosopher. Oh, man. Oh, that's terrible. I feel bad, but... You know, I was...

Doing a thing with some wealthy people the other day, and they were all worried. They were saying, you know, how do I raise my children when we have wealth and the wealth doesn't ruin them? And I told him, I said, the wealth won't ruin them. It's just going to expose to if you did. If you run them, the wealth is just going to give you the exposure to that. It's going to magnify because whatever goes on that's in a family is magnified when it gets wealth.

In other words, the crazy gets super crazy. Right? But I mean, this is all tied to $200,000 worth of thievery here. Joni, I am so sorry. Your heart must be broken. Mine's broken for you. I'm angry for you. I just can't do anything about it. Except rail about it. This is The Ramsey Show.

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Jade Warshaw, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Darlie is with us in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Hey, Darlie, how are you? Is it Dar- Dar- Leah? Dar- Leah! I said it. I can't- I'll get it right eventually. It is Dar- Leah, correct? Yes, yes, correct. Okay, how can we help?

Hi, thank you for taking my call. So my in-laws loaned us $40,000 last year at 4.5% interest rate for five years. So we could buy a house on...

assumption and loan assumption and that loan assumption came at a rate of three point one two five percent so we couldn't let that pass by so instead of going to the bank to get forty thousand we loaned it from that while they offered to give it to loan it to us and we took them up on that offer um so I have

I had a baby in December. Um, and so now I'm staying at home, but before I, I, I had the baby and I'm staying home now. We got that loan down to $22,401. Um, because we're kind of following the baby steps while we're trying to. Um, so we're just, so now I'm, I'm not working. Um, my husband, um,

is a little iffy about going under $10,000 because currently we have $25,000 in savings and I'm kind of suggesting oh should we just wipe out the loan with them. What does he make? He makes $76,000 a year. Are you living on a written budget with the EveryDollar app?

spreadsheet and all. Okay. Cool. So very much in control of every dollar. Very much. We know where every single penny goes. Okay. So you said you're trying to follow the baby steps, right? Yeah. Well, wait a minute. I keep telling my husband, I mean, he's just nervous about going under $10,000. Yeah, but the baby... If any emergency comes... Yeah, it's his parents. He's nervous about it.

He probably feels comfortable because it's his parents. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You're feeling it and you're feeling it for good reason. For two reasons. A, it's debt and your body's going to feel debt. And then two, it's debt that you owe to in-laws. Like, let's not make this. Thanksgiving dinner tastes different when you eat with your master and the borrower is slave to the lender. That's right. Yeah.

Let's not make a complex situation more complex by adding debt to it, right? So yeah, if you guys have agreed, this is the financial plan that we're following, then I'd hold them to that. And I'd say, listen, if we say we're following in the baby steps, we need to pay off this debt and then rebuild our savings. That's what the steps say. That's what the plan is. We said we are following that. And I don't feel comfortable with this debt as your wife. I don't feel comfortable owing your parents. And if for no other reason, this should matter because of that.

Yeah, I've told him that, and he definitely understands. They're amazing people. We're not questioning their character. You don't need to tell me three times they're amazing people. This was a stupid butt idea, and y'all need to clean it up. It was dumb. You shouldn't have done it, but you did it, and now you have the opportunity to clean it up.

Don't do it again. I have heard you call so many people dumb that now I'm appreciating that I've gotten to that level. You're part of the club. I did not say you are dumb. I said the idea and what you did was dumb. There's a difference.

I am not dumb and I have done some dumb butt things in my life. Quote, dumb butt decision. That's what it is. I love it. I have done it. I have done it. So you guys clean this up. Get it out of your life. You can feel it and you can. This is not an indictment of saying your parents are bad. Our parent laws are bad people. They're wonderful people. They were trying to be helpful. They were helpful in a bad way, but they were helpful.

They're trying to be sweet. They're trying to get you what you want in life. And they're not being mean. They're not calling you every week and looking at your budget and judging you. They're not control freaks. You didn't bring up any relationship issues. These are not bad people. That is not what the point is. The point is you have $22,000 in debt and you have $28,000 or $26,000 or whatever it is in your account. Write a check today and pay it off. That's the point.

Yeah. Yeah. If it was on a credit card, it'd be the exact same thing that we'd say, that was a stupid butt decision. You shouldn't have done that. Now, clean it up. You got the money there? Write a check. It's just complicated. It makes the more drama to the conversation because it's the in-laws.

And think about it like this. You know, your life has changed since you took that loan. Now you're staying home with a child. That's an income that's gone. You have to ask yourself, OK, if we keep this debt around, what happens if there's another major life change? What if your husband loses his job? What if he's laid off? So there's a lot of variables here that a lot of times we don't let our brain think about because it's not pleasant.

But when you carry debt, you are holding risk. I don't care who it's to because Dave talked about Thanksgiving dinner tasting different. It would taste a lot worse if both of you weren't working. And by the way, we're not going to be at the $2,000 or $3,000 level in this

but for about 10 minutes for this account because you're going to immediately start adding money to it, correct? Oh, yeah, right, yeah. So how much would you add to it a month? How much would you add to it a month without having these payments? About $700, yeah, about $700 a month. Okay. And he's expecting a bonus soon and hopefully a promotion soon. Yeah, and a lot of that will go to it. So you're going to be, like by September, you're going to be right back up where you need to be, right? Yeah.

Well, we're going to be down to like $3,000 after we pay it. And you got a bonus and you got $700 a month. And $700 a month if you don't have this payment or currently $700 a month.

If we don't have the payment, $700 a month. All right. Yeah. And it does freak them out because we were following the baby steps when I was working, and when I found out I was pregnant, we were essentially just dumping money to this loan to them, and it freaked them out. They were like, what are you doing? I'm not concerned about them freaking out. That's their problem. If they didn't want you to repay it, they should have made it a gift. Yeah.

They shouldn't freak out. They ask you to pay them back. You're paying them back. Stop with the drama. Just write them a check. Pay them back. Be done with it. And please don't do this again. Terrible. It's just, I'm telling you guys, there's, I've,

In the 30-something years I've been doing this, some of the saddest stories are the ruined relationships because somebody did something like loan their kid $25,000 or $30,000 or $50,000 to buy a house, and then something goes sideways, something gets out of hand, and all of a sudden everybody's torqued up and twisted up and broken.

Nice, sweet people aren't for some reason. And I just, it's bad. Y'all you're asking. It's like if borrowing money on a credit card to do this is stupid, just make it stupid times two to do it with your in-laws. Okay.

All right. And again, I'm not calling you stupid. I'm saying what you did was stupid. Because I don't call people stupid except people in the financial world that tell you to do stupid things. But you people that were trying to help, our job to help you heal is to tell you the truth. You don't want the doctor to go, you know, I think this little bit of cancer is going to be okay. Why don't we just leave it there? You want them to say, no. Get it out. Get it stupid. Right.

Try sunscreen, boy. You know, I mean, seriously, right? And golly. So you want people to tell you the truth if they're going to be healers. And we're not going to hold back. We're going to tell you exactly what it is because we got a lot of people to help and we love you and we want you to win. And that includes us.

Darleah in Fredericksburg, Virginia. But Dave, there's so many people who they are sitting on savings while they've got debt sitting over there in the corner. And the thought is, I don't like the risk of not having savings, but they don't entertain the other side of the equation, which is you must not care that much about risk because you've got debt sitting over here. Because you've already offset it. You know, your balance sheet still represents a broke person. That's right. The math has to math. You know, I don't want to be down less than $10,000. Well,

Trying to go into debt and using up all your money then. Right. You know, that's a good way to solve that. Mm-hmm. So, and by the way, you can pass up any housing deal. It's too good to pass up. No, it's not. Not if you can't afford it. No, it's not. You can pass up a deal on that Bentley too because you can't afford it. Help you with that. That Louis Vuitton, that $83,000 purse. You can pass that one up. You can pass it up if you can't afford it. It's too good a deal. No, you can pass it up. It's possible. I see people do it all the time.

This is The Ramsey Show. I've been doing this show for over 30 years, and some of the saddest calls I have taken are from situations that are completely preventable. Yeah, and what's so hard is I feel like one of those, especially the ones that I'm like, oh, it's terrible, are people that call in and their spouse has passed away suddenly, and they don't have life insurance. When you have to think through how am I going to pay my bills, how

I'm going to eat next week. Yeah, in the middle of all that grief. Like it's just, it is, it's terrible. So life insurance is the one thing, especially as a mom with three little kids that I'm like so big on for people to get because it's inexpensive. Zander is the place that Winston and I actually get all of our life insurance. And it doesn't cost much because Zander shops among a gazillion different companies. It doesn't cost much. You just have to admit that someday you're not going to be here.

You got to say it out loud and you got to say, I'm going to say I love you to my family by taking care of them and taking the time to put this stuff in place. The cost of stinking pizza. To get a free quote, call 800-356-4282. That's 800-356-4282 or go to zander.com. Jade Warshall, Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Jeannie's with us in New Jersey. Hi, Jeannie. How are you?

Hi, Dave and Jade. How are you? Better than we deserve. What's up?

I just need a little bit of encouragement and some clarification on something I heard you say a couple of days ago or weeks ago. I can't remember. I am, baby said three, I am struggling with getting rid of that last credit card because I want to buy a house next year and I do want to do the manual underwriting. But you mentioned something about your, like having a credit card is,

Even if you're not using it, it's more damaging than not having it. I want my score to be indeterminable, but can that happen if I have a credit card still open on it? No, it cannot. Just tell me to cut it up. Cut it up. You cannot be indeterminable while you have open credit accounts. Anything? Even if there's zero balances, anything. Everything has to be completely closed and zero balance. Mm-hmm.

Okay. As long as it's open, it's still reporting, even if it's reporting a zero balance. Okay. I'm already in touch with Churchill, so we're going through stuff, but I couldn't understand how you explained it before the other day, and I just wanted some... I'm so nervous. The damage is that what you end up with when you have one credit card open and a zero balance and no other credit accounts of any kind, you're going to end up with a low credit score because you have almost no credit.

That's what it amounts to. Even though it's not bad, it's just you don't have any. You'd be like a 20-year-old or something that just got their first card. And the only thing they have in their whole life, they're not going to have a high credit score with one credit card. And that's back where you are, and that's what you're setting up. Because the algorithm is based on how you interact. The algorithm that creates the credit score is based on how you interact with credit. It's not based on anything else.

And so if you have zero interaction with credit, then that's when you have an indeterminable zero credit score. Jeannie, you said you're nervous. Are you nervous because you're unsure of your credit score dropping to zero when you cut this up? Are you nervous because now you won't have this credit card in your life? Where's your nerves coming from specifically? I think the nerves are coming from just having that cushion or thinking I have a cushion. And I don't want to think that, but I just, I'm struggling with myself. It's just a battle.

It is a battle. Look, I'm going to validate that because the credit card companies, that's what they tell us. They tell us, you can't exist without us. You need us to prop up your life. You can't spend without us. They've been telling us this for decades. Don't leave home without it. Don't leave home without it. And I'm 53, so I just started this in January. I'm just like, you know, that stuff has been drilled in me a long time. And you're single. I'm just trying.

Yes. And so you feel vulnerable. You feel a little bit vulnerable for that reason. And yeah, that's very normal. But what that tells us is, and I went through this spiritually myself some 30 years ago, it tells me what I'm counting on.

What is, in a sense, not a true spiritual sense, but in a sense, what is my God? What is my provision? Oh, my gosh. Okay, I'm going to do it, y'all. It's so good. But, I mean, that's what I had to cope with. Who's providing for me? Yeah, I don't like the way you put that. I know, but that's what I had to have here in my head, and it wasn't like a golden calf worshiper. I'm not saying that. That's not what you're doing. But the thing is this. I figured out.

I really can't count on them to make my life good. I can count on me and my hard work and my diligence and discipline and wisdom, and I can count on God providing for me, my Heavenly Father who's crazy about me. I can count on those two things, but I 100% can't count on Wells Fargo. Look. Exactly. That's a word. That's it. And that's, you know, who is my provider? And that's...

That's what they've done. Yeah. They've gotten their tentacles around, their claws around that portion of our heart. Yeah. That says, don't leave home without it. Don't leave home. I mean, it turns out Daniel Boone did. And he did. He was all right. He did okay. You know. Yeah. We got to stop. He actually died bankrupt. But anyway. But yeah. Yeah.

Instead of relying on credit and credit scores, I just say, like, give yourself credit. Give yourself credit that you can handle your own money. Give yourself credit that you can budget and you're a big girl and a big boy. Isn't it interesting how that word is interchangeable? It is. Credit as in I'm going to go in debt or I'm going to give myself credit. Credit.

Street cred. Street cred. I'm going to give myself the belief in myself. I'm putting that in the quick read. And that's what I'm thinking. Yeah. But that's why the credit cards are...

And the FICO score, really, when we talk about this, don't worship at the altar of the great FICO. Oh, great FICO, provider of all good things. We bring you offerings of interest so that you give us a bigger score that has nothing to do with nothing except how much we play kissy face with the bank.

And, you know, we really, this is our provider. Yeah. Old FICO. Good old FICO. And I think of these bad B movies with like a, you know, like a pyramid with flames coming out of the top and, you know, the face made out of stone and the smoke coming out the ears. Yeah. Great FICO. Yeah.

Oh, great FICO. We worship you. Yeah. Like we're Mayans or something. Oh, my God. Give me a break. No, none of that. Yeah. But I mean, not picking on her, but I mean, that's where I was too. I get it. Yeah. We were convinced the best way to become wealthy is to go in debt, stay in debt. Yeah.

Buy the people who want you to go into debt and stay in debt. They've convinced us of that. The borrower is truly slave to the lender. Good. Hey, another one down. She's going to cut it up, Jade. She is. She's going to do it. She's going to do it. Kyle's in Spokane. Hey, Kyle, what's up? Yes, sir. I'm happy to speak with you, Mr. Ramsey, and Mrs. Walshaw today. I have a quick question. My wife and I are on baby steps four, five, and six.

We recently sat down with a few of your smart investor pros, all of whom were excellent. Good. We've narrowed it down to two. Good. But there's one big difference between them. They'd both be great to work with, but I hope to get some guidance. One is strictly fee-based. They assess 1% of the account value annually, and that would decrease by a few tenths.

as the account increases in value. The second is commission-based, where it's 3.5% of all new money invested. In the long term, it seems like the fee-based approach would be way more expensive, but he argues that commission-based guys may use mutual funds with higher maintenance fees to kind of compensate themselves. Well, that would not be true of a smart investor. Someone that has integrity would not do that. So a smart investor that's wanting to charge you

I buy commission-based, but most people do managed funds like you're talking about. The vast majority of our smart investor pros are managed funds or the 1% plan. Okay. Okay. The vast majority of them are. But there's nothing inherently automatically bad about one or the other. And you're right. Technically, you will come out cheaper with the commission-based than the managed base, technically. Okay.

Okay. Over the scope of your life. Okay. Mathematically, but neither one is a rip off. Both are worth the money. And so like, uh, like, uh, I'm pretty sure for instance, Rachel and Winston have theirs on the 1% plan. And I do the old fashioned, the old, the old fashioned commission plan. That's more of an old fashioned style. Okay. Okay.

But it is cheaper. They're called A shares. You're buying A shares. And the most you'd get charged is five and three quarter on the front end. And then nothing after that. Nothing ever after that.

And so what's it take? It takes five and three quarter years to break even on that, right? And so after that, you're making money. So 10 years in, you make, but either one or neither one are going to keep you from getting rich. Having a good financial advisor is going to make you rich because they're going to keep you in the game. They're going to have the heart of a teacher. And I wouldn't turn around, spit for the difference. If I were you, I wouldn't pick it based on that. I would instead pick it based on which one of these two your wife likes best.

Okay. That's good advice right there. Which one did she like best? Very good, sir. Which one did she like best? It's the feed-based. Then go with that. Okay. She just likes that guy the best.

Well, he is handsome. I'll give him that much. Oh, I didn't mean that. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. No, that's not a reason to pick him either. Otherwise, no one would ever listen to my advice. I was about to say. Hey, you were about to say that. No, I was about to say. I know Dave is not talking about. Oh, my. Oh, my, oh, my, oh, my, my. Who can find a virtuous wife for her worth is far above rubies? The heart of her husband safely trusts her.

And he will have no lack of gain. This is the Ramsey Show.

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Fieldofgreens.com slash Ramsey. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Jade Walsh, all Ramsey personality.

Best-selling author is my co-host today as we take your calls about your life and your money. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Jack starts this hour in Cincinnati. Hey, Jack, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave, how are you this afternoon? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I've dug myself a hole, and I don't know what the right answer is. I probably do know what the right answer is, but I don't know how to get out of it.

Okay. What happened? Well, to make a long story short, my wife and I got married two years ago after dating for about six years. We waited until all the kids were out of high school and we could combine households a little more easily. After a big wedding, we started trying to pay stuff off, but the minute we got home from the honeymoon and when it became the business of a relationship, the relationship changed, and that's where the problem lies. So

In the process of paying stuff off, last July we decided, because we weren't making any progress on the credit cards, we made a really wise decision to take a 401k loan for $50,000 payable in two years to pay it off. But now the credit cards are coming back. So I've got a list if you want a list.

but just not sure what to do with it. So your core question is what? How do I fix this and keep my marriage? Okay, okay, wow. All right, so you've got a total of how much debt? $120,000. Okay, and $50,000 is a 401k now.

So 35 left, that's correct. Oh, 35 of the 120, okay. 35 of that 401k is left. Okay, what else? Yeah, so 35 of your 120 is a 401k loan. What is the other 85,000? Okay, so we've got a credit card with 11-8, credit card with 7,200, credit card with 19-2, credit card with 2,900, two cars at 31-8 and 22-4.

My daughter's car at $2,900, which will be paid off very shortly, and a trailer for my losing business at $4,300. Okay. And what's your household income? About $200. Okay. What's the losing business? What's that mean? So to fund an early retirement, I have a woodworking business that I do on the side. It's taking up six to eight hours a night and every weekend. Okay.

And in the last two years, we've lost about $10,000 a year. Okay. So that sounds like an expensive hobby that's taking up a bunch of money and a bunch of time, both. That's kind of an easy decision, isn't it? I need the eight hours to spend on my marriage. I need the $10,000 to spend on something else rather than a losing business. Close it and sell off the stuff. Why wouldn't you do that? I could. Yeah, you could.

You'd have eight hours to spend on your marriage. You said you're spending eight hours a night on this? Yeah, I'm normally in my shop until between 9 and 10 o'clock every night. Yeah, that's good for marriage. Okay. And especially since you're not making any money. I mean, if you were making $10,000 a night or something, she'd probably be tolerant. But, okay, so...

You have a $200,000 income. You have cars coming out your ears, credit cards coming out your ears. Now the credit cards are growing back. So that tells us that you guys continue to spend more than you make.

If the credit cards are growing back, right? Yeah, you took the HELOC out for the credit cards. Tell me what you're spending this money on. Is this just putting food on the table? Is this funding your business? What's going on these credit cards? So three of those cards are funding the business. One of them goes away in a week because I made a big sale. Did you cut them up yet?

They're put away. They're not cut up. Okay, there's the problem. Okay. No, there's a different problem. I disagree. The two of you have not sat down and said with a written budget that we're going to live on less than $200,000 a year. Why? To be honest, we have, but then something always comes in. So you just didn't stick to it? Pretty much. So an example of something that comes in is what?

a $4,000 collection item from Verizon from four years ago that we didn't know was coming, or a foreclosure for her and her ex-husband on a timeshare of all things that paid immediately because his credit doesn't need to be affected. I'm sorry. I know timeshare is your favorite word. No, I don't understand why his credit matters to you.

Well, to his ex-wife. She was obligated to pay it in a divorce. Oh, okay. So she knew she had that, and the Verizon bill was hers too? Yes. So she knew she had that. She just didn't know when they were going to drop. But she knew these were unpaid bills if she's an adult.

I'm missing something here, Jack. Okay, I don't understand why this is ending your marriage. Because the two of you can't get on the same page? Or what's the problem? So the stress of the bills is way heavy.

And we go out and we go to like a craft show on the weekend and we make a little bit of money. And all of a sudden, we're all in and we're ready to go take this business into early retirement. But by Tuesday, when it rolls around and we're back out in the shop, it's, oh, holy cow, we got to work again. So you just have a short term. That's your side hustle. Right. You have a $200,000 income and the two of you can't decide to live on that. That's what's confusing to me.

I think that your mindset is there's some place in your brain where you think you can kind of windfall yourself out of this, whether it's, hey, we'll just take out the HELOC and that'll be our windfall to get out of this, even though it's not. Or, hey, we can go to these craft shows and maybe we can make enough money to get a windfall and get out of this. And I think what Dave is getting at is you guys haven't truly looked at your behavior together as a team. If you set...

a course and say, we're going to do this. No one else can make you follow that course of action other than the people in the mirror. And that's what we're getting at is-

So, Jack, if you wanted to have some dramatic moves forward, okay, I can give you four things right now that if you go do them, by the end of the time you do those, which should be within two weeks, you're going to have a completely different scenario in your life. Sell both cars. Sell the trailer. Get out of the woodworking business. Sit down with your spouse and

and do a written detailed budget where the two of you live on less than your day income and you guys can clean this mess up in no time but you're you know you're screwing around with craft shows losing ten thousand dollars a year and eight hours a night and losing your butt and you can't sit down and manage to make it through a four thousand dollar bill making 200k

So you can do this, but you got two stinking expensive cars. You got a stinking expensive hobby that you wish was a business. And the two of you aren't working together. That's the answer, right? Those four things. Hang on. We're going to put you through Financial Peace University, see if we can help you too. This is The Ramsey Show.

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Shop the New Year's sale now at ramseysolutions.com store. That's ramseysolutions.com store. Jade Walshaw, Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us. Hey folks, we know a lot of people who tune into every single episode that we do. Thank you for that. And you know all the answers. You can answer the questions faster than we can.

But you're still stressed. You're still stuck. Why is that? Because it turns out knowing what to do isn't the deal. Doing it is the deal. You can know what to do and not do it and have no success whatsoever. Thus, the problem with only knowing. Application is part of wisdom. And the proven way to change your behavior with money is by taking Financial Peace University.

It's our nine-week class or nine-lesson class. A lot of people do it in nine weeks. You get with a superhero called a coordinator that will encourage you and hold you accountable, act as your personal trainer as you go through, and you're in a class either virtually or in a group class over at your church. That's why this class has worked for over 10 million people, and after nine weeks, you will never handle money the same way again. The typical person has an $8,000 turnaround in 90 days.

That's right. They typically pay off $5,300 in debt in the first 90 days and save $2,700 in the first 90 days. $8,000 is a pretty good turnaround. That's called a ROI, return on investment. Financial Peace University. Check it out, RamseySolutions.com slash FPU. RamseySolutions.com slash FPU. Calandra is with us in Shreveport. Hey, Calandra, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Thank you for having me. Certainly. How can we help?

I have a question about baby step number one, and I kind of want you to give me a bit of a critique on if you think I'm real serious about this or not. All right. What's going on? Okay, so I am halfway through baby step number one, working on saving that $1,000.

And unfortunately, in my city, well, really in all of Shreveport, Bossier, and some of the architects, our power was out. And so I had to throw away my whole fridge, basically, and refill it. And it set me back a bit. But that's neither really here nor there. The electricity's back on. Great. But...

It's like every time I start to save my money, it's something like this happens to me. And I'm not really complaining about it. I'm a little frustrated, but I am starting to wonder if maybe I just am not making enough money. What do you make? To even get to that step. Right now, I'm making $2,000 a month. I live really, really cheap, um,

I don't have a lot of expenses, but I do have a ton of debt. I am making, like I said, $2,000 a month. I pay $650 a month for my rent. A couple hundred dollars a month, like $237 a month for my car, plus another $100 for my insurance, $100 for my phone, you know, things like that. How old are you? I'm about $326. Yeah.

For the critique, I do want you to make more money. But specifically for baby step one, the thing that's going to keep life from happening to you on this, and you take one step forward, two steps back, it's speed. You've got to come in like a wrecking ball and just...

bull through this i mean you're selling stuff you're going so hard in the paint most people save this within 30 days like that i wanted to ask you how long have you been on baby step one yeah but two thousand dollars you can't do it yeah that's what i'm saying she's gotta go she's gotta pick up all the work do all the things the babysitting the house cleaning what do you do for a living uh i'm a banker i work at a bank full-time doing what

I'm just a teller at the bank. Oh, okay. All right. Yeah, I'm not like one of those loan specialists or anything like that. I just got this job like two months ago. Okay. Well, not two months ago, like in February. High school education? The day that I started, yep. I'm back in college. I'm going for my...

my associates in business and then I will get a better paying job and then I will continue on with my bachelor's in business. How are you paying for the associates? Actually, my job is paying for it. Great, great, great, great. Yeah. So there's a path. You have a path in front of you to earning more, which is good. But for the here and now, we've got to find ways to earn more.

And I'm not saying that I like that you're on a path to earning more, but you got to pick up more hours somehow. Maybe not, obviously, maybe not at the bank. I'm not sure what they offer there. Let me ask you something. When you took the banker job or the teller job at the bank, obviously you were looking for work at that point. What were you doing before that?

Before that, I was a full-time artist, painter, and muralist. I was teaching a part-time job, teaching art to children. Okay, so you took the... Let me see if I can get in your head for a second. Did you take this job... Let me see if I can get in your head a second. Did you take this job to...

uh, because it felt like it was like you were like being an artist, you might've felt a little bit irresponsible part-time and all that. This is like a responsible big girl job. I'm going to get on a track here to build a career. No, you actually took that job because, uh,

I took that job because back in the day I was in school for graphic design and I was paying for everything out of pocket. I'm the first person in my family to go to college. And when I reached out to get support for not only my family, but for my counselors as well, um, I didn't really get a lot of good support. I didn't get very much feedback and I was doing everything on my own. And then I think you're, I think you're amazing. The thing I'm thinking about is, um,

I would like for you to do something that maybe is not as, I don't know. I'd like for you to make twice as much money at something that doesn't sound as fun as banking or sound as professional as banking. If you were to clean houses and make $48,000, or you can be a teller and do

be 24,000. I'll take the clean houses right now. Okay. Look, you're creative. You have a skill set and you have an offering that the average person can't do. There is a way that you can monetize that in some way and make more money per hour than you're doing right now. I agree wholeheartedly. I applaud your move in the direction you're going and I applaud all the decisions you're making. I think you're an incredible young lady. It's fun talking to you.

I would like for you to find a way to have a job that might not make everybody around you think you're cool or proud or whatever, but don't give a crap that makes more money right now. You need some more money. That's what I'm thinking. Yeah, if you could go make $48,000 on your day job and make another $20,000 on your side job teaching art to kids and create some kind of –

mentoring program or some kind of uh uh tutoring program or something along those lines summer workshops yeah you get you get paid seriously and you know if i could get your income like and then that increases your speed because part of the problem is is that you're not making money that's right i mean it's what you're and it's not a put down because i think you're moving in the right direction and um and you don't have good

people around you to tell you to go do this or go do that. And so we're going to be those people. Okay, we're going to help you. I want to do a couple things. One is I'm going to put you through Financial Peace University, our nine-week program. I also want you to take Ken Coleman with the Ramsey Networks. He has a show on career and on jobs. And he has an assessment, a career assessment. It's $30, but I'm going to give it to you. Okay, and I'm also going to give you his book, From Paycheck to Purpose. I'm going to load you up, kiddo.

because I think you've got huge potential. And we're going to come around you, put our arms around you and love you, hug you, and say, get them, Tiger, get them. And you call back here any time and remind us of this conversation, and we'll talk to you and help you. We'll be the ones in your corner. But right now, I would rather you be in a job that is not as –

I don't know what the right word is. It's not respectable. That's not the right word. But it's not as professional sounding. Yeah. She's a free spirit. She needs a free spirit reflective job. Bankers, let me tell you about banking in general. Banking, big title, little money. Just in general. Clearly. Just in general. Tell her bottom of that barrel. Big title, little money.

Lots of walking around like I'm doing something. No money. So when someone says they're a banker, I always snicker. This is The Ramsey Show. People tell me about their experiences with big banks all the time. Bad service, fees that nickel and dime them to death, and predatory lending that tries to catch them in never-ending cycles of debt. So if you're ready for a bank that puts people over profits...

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Might not be available in all states. All right. Today's question comes from Paige in Delaware. My parents live in a different state than my husband and I. Everything is fine when they visit, but when they return home, they send us a bill for things that we ask them to purchase during their visit, such as food prep ingredients for meals, toiletries, etc.,

The items are usually incidentals, not the full cost of a meal. Are we wrong to ask them to help with expenses while they are staying with us? Okay. Y'all are weird. Paige, y'all are weird. That's shocking to me. That's just both of you are weird. The fact that you ask somebody else to pay for stuff when they're staying in your home, regardless of who it is, is weird. Have a little hospitality. They shouldn't have to buy their own freaking toilet paper.

And if you're going to have a meal for a friend or a relative that's staying with you, you pay for the meal. And your parents are weird. They go home and send you a bill? Yeah. That's weird. Yeah. I'm shocked. I truly am. It doesn't make sense. The only thing that I could think of where this made sense is if they came and lived with you for three years or something. But there's no indication. And even still, I... I have never stayed at someone's home.

And they asked me to pick up something at the store and sent them a bill. I can't imagine. They let me stay at their home. And I've never stayed at someone's home who expected me to pay for something. But I always try to leave them with more than when I came. It's like, how do you keep a tally of that? How about both sides of this grow a little generosity? Yeah, that's what's at stake here. Wow. Wow.

When someone stays in your homepage, you should furnish everything and take care of it. You should not ask someone to pay for it, period. I don't care who it is. Oh, by the way, parents, when you stay in someone's home and they ask you to pick something up, pick up twice as much and leave it as a gift to say thank you for letting us stay there and don't send a bill. Y'all are weird. Yeah, because where I

Listen, if my family comes in, I'm the type, I want to give you a little care box. Like I want the stuff to be in the room and I don't want you to think of anything. When you come to dinner, you bring a bouquet of flowers and a bottle of wine. Yes. Hello. Wow. God, man. Wow. Y'all are weird.

To itemize. You ate an apple yesterday. Put that on the bill. Half a roll of toilet paper has been invoiced here. Toiletries. I'm just saying. Y'all are weird. I'd love to see that receipt. I'd love to see what it looks like. Half a bag of Tostitos. Nine grapes. First time I got the bill.

The next time they came to visit, I'd be going Motel 6 over, buddy. Yeah, you may as well stay in a hotel. Might as well go over there and you settle up with those people. There's free breakfast. You get those powdered eggs, man. Six o'clock in the morning. That coffee that's been watered down. That orange juice that never saw an orange. Man. You just stay yourself right over there, baby. Wow. Y'all are weird. Tracy's in Boise, Idaho. Hey, Tracy, what's up?

Hi, thank you for taking my call. I have a question. My dad passed away in March of 2023. My sister and I were originally co-executors. A month after my dad passed, things got really...

volatile. And I removed myself. I had my attorney draw up a letter to remove me from my dad's estate, let my sister be. And I've had no contact with them since just via a few texts, a few emails, very generic. I received an email on September 3rd from my sister's attorney, the probate attorney, asking me to sign a document regarding my dad's home had been on the market for over a year and had not sold.

My siblings want to close out the estate and put a renter in there, which is not what my dad's will says. But because I'm an heir, I have to sign this document. My question to you is, if I sign this document, am I removing all legal representation that my remaining three siblings are just going to honor my dad's will and divide things up?

up according to the will basically my dad's will is very generic was sell all my assets pay all my debts divide everything by four nothing has been done correctly in my dad's will nothing has and I've just let it happen I mean I stepped away so I'm fine with that but my fear and I and my husband and I are in baby step seven we're building a home for cash okay what do you want to do with your share of the home are you going to just turn it over to them abandon it abandon it and walk away

I think that's an option. Okay, if you're going to do that, then you can sign the letter. If you want your share of the home, you can't sign the letter. You don't need the money. Thank you. What is it? We don't really need the money. Nope, nope, we don't. And that's kind of where we're at right now. If we sign the letter, we're walking away from it. How much is the house worth?

Maybe once it sells and the debt, there was still a mortgage on it, we might be talking 200,000 profit. It's divided by four. We're talking 50,000 each or less or less each. Yeah. Mm hmm.

There are some other assets that's not accounted for, and I don't even care. Is it worth it? Listen, you're at your wit's end. We can hear it in your voice. You've gone around and around on this. You've got to decide if you want to re-enter the battle or you want to walk away.

So my position is, and which is what I told the probate attorney, I want the house left on the market and it's sold. Yeah, that's it. That's it. That's what the will called for. That's what the will called for. The executor of the will is supposed to execute, that's the name executor, the will. They don't get to make this up. Oh, they are. And your sister's been making it up. And so if I'm in your shoes, I'm going to either go,

screw it it's not worth it y'all just take the money I don't want it and I'm gonna walk completely away and never think about it again or I'm gonna just tell this guy when you guys sell the house I'll take my fourth and no I'm not signing anything until the house is sold well I feel like in many ways you made that decision when you walked away from being an executive though no

No, she didn't lose her rights. She just got out of the fight. I'm not saying that she lost her rights, but you clearly were worn slap out and were like, whatever. No, she didn't want to stay in the day-to-day rough and tumble. I didn't. That's different than... I didn't. Yeah, yeah. I understand what you're doing. So, you know, the thing is, here's what you're really struggling with, is you know how pissed off everybody's going to be when you do this.

Well, they already are because they dropped the house below, right now the house is listed below appraisal or value because there's no more money to pay the mortgage. So, which is fine. I don't care, but I don't want it taken off the market. My other conflict, Dave, this is, my sister is also the executor and the realtor, and this is one of our first house sales, which is another reason why. She has the house listed?

Yes. Oh, how many times can we spell conflict of interest? Exactly. Okay, I just wanted to make sure, like, that's my thinking. I don't know how this attorney has kept his law license if he's allowing this. Wow. This probate attorney, he should be going, no, ma'am, you cannot do that.

The attorney needs to be, oh my gosh. Is the attorney one of your siblings? No. You guys are confirming everything that my husband and I have discussed. We've been following you since 2008. We became 100% debt free in 2020. Here's the thing. I would just say, listen, I'm not angry. I'm not angry about this. This is not about revenge. I'm just asking simply, very kindly and calmly that you guys do what the will says.

And we really ought to have an eye. Do I need to hire an attorney? No, you just don't need to sign it. Okay. If you want an attorney, you could go get one to get advice. I'm not an attorney. But if you just refuse to sign it and say, my instructions as one of the heirs is for you to execute the will properly, and that means the house needs to be sold, not rented. I do not want to be partners with these people 10 years from now in this house. I don't want the liability. No, thank you. Period.

If they want to buy me out, they can do that too, by the way. That's a great idea. But they can't even pay the payments, so they're not going to buy anybody out. This is The Ramsey Show.

jade washall ramsey personality is my co-host today thank you for joining us open phones at 825-5225 hey we were talking about the real estate market a while ago and how people are sidelined because they can't find a property because of supply they can't they don't want to walk away from their two percent loan uh or they're waiting on the presidential election or whatever um

Really, if you're ready to move, I wouldn't let any of those things hold me back personally. And if you need some help, get with one of the Ramsey Trusted Agents.

All you got to do is go to ramseysolutions.com slash real estate, and our guys can actually help you get a house sold or bought in this weird market and help you pull this thing off. The other thing you need to know as this particular segment comes to a close, the show will continue on the Ramsey app, the Ramsey Network app.

And if you want to get the entire show every day, YouTube or podcast or whatever, you can get video or podcast. You can get the whole thing on the Ramsey Network app free. Doesn't cost a thing. Or, you know, if you're on talk radio, you're going to get what you've always gotten, wherever it is. Nothing has changed there. But a couple months ago, we made the shift to the last portion of the show is now on the Ramsey Network app.

There was all kinds of data and stuff that went into that decision. And now that we are 60 days or so into that, it has proven to be true. So our YouTube listenership or viewership is up. Nice. Our podcast completion rate and everything is up.

and we've still got the same amount of content and you go to Ramsey Network app, you need to get the whole thing there or at least the last segment there. If you haven't downloaded the Ramsey Network app for free, we're not charging a thing for this, okay? You can go get it anytime you want to go get it.

So just go over to the Apple Store or the Google Play or whatever you're going to do and download the app and get the Ramsey Network app to get started. And so as this segment wraps up, we'll jump over to there with you. Or, again, if you're talk radio or whatever, you're going to get what you've always gotten exactly. Okay. Amanda's in Washington, D.C. Hi, Amanda. How are you? I'm great. How are you all doing today? Better than we deserve. What's up?

Hey, so I have a question. I just discovered you all a couple months ago, thank God. My husband and I are in about a total of $90,000 debt, and I'm full on board, like I don't plan on using credit anymore ever. I do own a business, by the way, and so we're going through trying to get

trying to figure out how to get through the baby steps the best way. But he asked me, he said, hey, if you don't plan on using debt ever again, why don't you just file for bankruptcy? What's a you, Park? Where's he? What wouldn't it be, we? Yeah. Is it business debt? Is that why he's looking at it that way? Correct. Okay. Well, no, it's the $90,000 is inclusive of everything, personal and business. Okay. Okay.

So why would you file bankruptcy and he wouldn't? Well, I guess he's looking at it as my debt rather than our debt. And that's part of us getting on board with everything, Ramsey, because before then we didn't have our finances combined. So we're kind of still trying to change the language and everything like that. Okay. How long have you been married?

Every year this November. Okay. And break the $90,000 in debt down for me a little bit. What are the major categories?

Yep. So I have the student loan, about $40,000 in student loan. And then pretty much the rest is just like credit cards and personal debt. There's no car. Well, no, just a little bit of car. It's like $1,900. But it's pretty much just credit card debt. And is the credit cards you're using to keep the business going? And what kind of business is it?

Yes, so two of them were used specifically for the business, and then the other were just personal between the both of us. Is the business profitable? It is. It's getting there now. It's been open less than a year, and every month is... No, I mean getting there is not what I asked. Are you making a profit this month? Yes, yes, yes. How much do you make this month, profit? Profit-wise? Yeah. A little under $1,000.

Okay, so you currently have a $12,000 a year job, which puts you at the poverty level if you don't get this business moving. You don't have a debt problem. You have an income problem. No, so that's not the only job that I have. Okay, good, good, good. I was going to ask about that. I was going to say this sounds a little bit more like a hustle until it's off the ground. Are you doing anything in the meantime? Correct. Okay, great. So what do you do? What's your main job? Yeah, what's your income? My income is...

We bring about $8,500 to $9,000 a month together. I'm a nurse practitioner. Okay. And so we have our income together, but we don't have our debt together. So here's the thing. Student loans are not bankruptable. Right. Okay. So you have a $40,000 bankruptcy or $50,000 bankruptcy you're talking about, not a $90,000.

And you make, you're not going to get relief from everything by filing bankruptcy. You're just going to get relief from about half of it. And do you own a home? Yes. Okay. It's going to be in jeopardy depending on how much equity you have. Do you have any equity in it? Yes. About $130,000 is the last time I checked. Okay. All right. Do you actually live in D.C. or do you live in Virginia? Virginia.

No, outside in Maryland, actually. In Maryland. Okay. Just for fun of it, I'll explain this to you, but it's not going to change our answer. But knowledge will help you, okay? So when you file bankruptcy, you surrender all of your assets to the court, and the court starts doling them back out to you. So the court would take ownership of your home, not formally, but technically, and then...

Depending on what Maryland has, type that into Google right quick. What's the homestead exemption in Maryland, Jade, while I'm yakking? And depending on what the homestead exemption is, in Tennessee, it's $7,500. Okay. And so the court would let you keep $7,500 of your house equity after they sold your house to pay your debt.

Oh, no. Yeah. If you were in Tennessee. Now, I don't know what it is in Maryland. Right, right, right. But in Texas, it's 100%, and you get to keep all of it. It's exempt, and so is it in Florida. Okay? So each state's different. But let's say that it's $50,000, just for the fun of it. Jay will have it in a minute, okay? But basically, your home equity is going to go to pay your debt, is what I'm telling you. So your husband's suggestion is...

based in not knowing what's going to happen to you if you file bankruptcy. So you find homestead exemption and bankruptcy for Maryland. It's there, but it's not clear. It doesn't say what it is. Let's see. It should be just a little chart pop up. Okay. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Unless they have 100%, which I don't think they do, exemption. Okay.

$25,150. Kelly just found it in the booth. So $75,000 of your home equity would go to pay your $50,000 worth of debt. So you can't file bankruptcy. You'll lose your house and it'll pay your debt. You'd just be selling your house to pay your debts, what you'd be doing.

You follow me? No, we definitely don't want to do that. No, we don't want to do that. No. No. And still end up with a stinking student loan debt. I know it. Yeah. Correct. Yeah, no. So bankruptcy is off the table. Okay. Even if that wasn't the case, you still wouldn't file bankruptcy when you have $120,000, $130,000 income on $50,000 worth of debt because the $40,000 student loan is not bankruptable anyway.

So even if you didn't lose your house, you wouldn't do that. I mean, what if you guys just lived on $80,000 and paid it off in two years? Yeah.

So I've done all the math and everything. He was very hesitant, but is going along now with the plan because we did this back in June. So that's what I calculated was 24 to 26 months. That's what I had calculated. And that's how you are now. That's assuming you're not adding any extra income. If your side hustle takes off in doubles, you'd do it in 18 months. That's right.

Exactly. So you guys need to get on beans and rice, rice and beans on a plan. You need to combine your debts, combine your household, combine your incomes, and combine your efforts and focus and kill this. You're not bankrupt. And if you're not using every dollar, you need to get on every dollar because that is going to be the foundation of all of this. If you don't have that, you're not going to move at the speed you think you're going to move. Yeah. Hang on. We'll let them pick up and give you that for free. Okay? We want you to not file bankruptcy. You're not bankrupt. You don't need to file bankruptcy.

What up, what up? It's Dr. John Deloney from the Dr. John Deloney Show with some amazing news. The latest episode of United States of Anxiety is available right now exclusively on the Ramsey Network app.

This docuseries follows real people from my show as they embark on a 90-day journey to transform their lives, and I personally walk alongside them every step of the way. Okay, now, here's a sneak peek of what the new episode is all about. And don't forget to click the link in the show notes to download the app.

What's up, Kelsey? So I've lived with crippling anxiety for as long as I can remember. How do I stop it from constantly coming up in different areas of my life? What does crippling anxiety mean? Paint me a picture of that. All right, so you're ready to jump in? I'm ready to jump in. We're going to check in with Kelsey 30 days, 60 days, 90 days. I cannot even function because I'm just crying.

My mom left us when I was four. I truly felt like for a while I had no family. She's experiencing things that really hurt a long time ago. Tell me about this boy. He triggers me a lot.

Scared of losing Paul, scared of doing the wrong thing, scared of not being enough. It just feels like it would be exhausting to be Kelsey. It is. Whenever somebody's playing whack-a-mole with their anxiety, when it just keeps moving, that tells me the underlying system's not okay. How do I get my inner child out of this relationship? Because I feel like she's running the show. One of two people that's supposed to never leave took off. How is this burden? A new burden, that's right. To the one person.

Who should carry it? All of it. Did you ever tell that little girl that it wasn't her fault? I don't know what to do. You either have to choose to let this guy love you or you got to choose to let this guy go.