You Need To “Happen” to Your Life Instead if It Happening to You
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Welcome to the Ramsey Show America, where we help you win with your money, win in your profession, and win with your relationships. Alongside Jade Warshaw, I'm Ken Coleman. Phone number to jump in is 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225. You ready to go, partner? Let's giddy up. She's ready to go. Jacob is up in Cincinnati, Ohio. Jacob, how can we help? Hey, how are you guys doing? Good. How are you, Jacob?

I'm doing okay, I guess. Yeah, so my situation is that I had a business fail a while ago. I was on the job search for quite a while. Couldn't find anything. I'm actually in a rural area outside of Cincinnati. So I applied to get into a trade union, the electricians union.

And I got in and I'm waiting on a job call. And as soon as I get into a job, I should, you know, theoretically be okay. But I have no idea when that job call is going to happen. And I'm up to my ears in debt. I'm about to not be able to make money.

My payments on my cards and my truck. Okay. What kind of income? Let's just assume that we could snap our fingers and give you the income that you used to have. What do you need to make at a minimum to be able to cover all your payments and have a little bit of margin? What's that number?

Well, I have a pretty unique situation. So honestly, if I made $1,200 in a month, I would be perfectly fine. How so? Why is it so unique? Tell us what is so unique about your situation. So I actually built my own home on family land. I

I have my own water system, so no water bill. I pay for electric, which never goes over $100 a month. Okay. No taxes? Insurance on the land? Yeah. Oh, the property taxes were $1,300 for the year. How long have you been going without income? Probably three months now. And what were you doing prior to that? This was your business? Yes.

Yeah. Okay. So what'd you do? What'd you do prior to your business failing? What'd you do for income? Uh, so I came over here and I built my house and then I was doing like, um, wellness coaching, um,

and kind of doing odd jobs while I finished kind of building out the land. Okay, when was the last time? So I'm hitting you here because we've got to get to your debt situation with Jade, but we've got to figure out your income. You have zero income. So Jade can't help you on the debt until we figure out income. So take me back as quick as you can to the last time you had a 40-hour-a-week job. What were you doing and how much were you making? Take me back.

I was working at a wellness retreat center. Doing what? And I was managing staff, teaching yoga. How many hours a week? How many hours a week did you do that?

Um, I guess it would be around 50. Okay. And so the trade thing that you, I'm getting somewhere, partner, I promise. At least I'm trying to. Uh, so, so the trade thing you signed up for, what kind of trade work is that? Electrician. Okay. And you're skilled and ready to go. You can do that. Yes. Okay. Here's what I'm getting at. Uh, I had to get some information to go, Jacob, uh,

You don't sit around and wait for this opportunity. I'm glad you got signed up and presumably something will come, but you're also in a rural area. So right now it sounds like you're a pretty mobile guy. That means you've got to do whatever it takes and go wherever. So whatever and wherever are two of your favorite words right now. Love that. And what I'm talking about is that if you just need $1,200 to get by,

then all you effectively need to do is find 40 hours a week at $10 an hour. Now, I think you can do way better than that. But if you can be an electrician tradesman, that means you can do a lot of other things. So we're talking every handyman job possible. Get to Cincinnati, Ohio. Get somewhere where you can deliver something, show up and pick something up and place it on a shelf. You don't need a lot to live, which is the good news. $1,200 is our baseline for living.

So based on that, Jade, if we can get you to where you're actually making a good bit more than that, then you can go through the debt snowball. And I'll bring in my partner here, but my friend, like you've got to happen to this problem. You are so relaxed. I think you'd be a great yoga teacher. I think the great news is, is like, I'm sure you're great at yoga, but right now, bro, like you don't need to be chill. You need to be running around like your pants are on fire because I think your pants are on fire.

100%. No, they are. I put in four applications in person today, did the same thing Saturday. Everything's closed on Sunday. Ken, you're not done yet. I'm not. I'm going to jump in. Listen, I don't want to knock you putting in applications, but we don't put in applications in...

in a moment when our pants are on fire. Do you know what we do? We find out who is hiring. We ask everybody that knows anybody, and in a small rural area, trust me, it's not hard to find out who's actually hiring. And this may be like taking a page out of my buddy Mike Rowe's famous show, Dirty Jobs. Yeah, anything. If somebody's shoveling you-know-what on a farm right now, and they don't have anybody that's showing up to do that, that's where you are. Because you're going to shovel you-know-what all day.

Day to day. To day. For sure. For sure. Okay. Yes. All right. Now, let's assume you've got some money coming in. Walk Jade through your debt situation. Yeah, tell us what the problem is because I'm like, $1,200 makes it tick. You know, I can't assume there's much debt in the situation, but tell me otherwise.

Oh, no. Twelve hundred dollars is just survival. OK, we knew that. So tell us your list out your debt if you have it or list out the things that are keeping you aside from your job, keeping you from hitting your next money goal.

So I owe $29 on a truck which has been attacked by a peacock. So a resale would be difficult. For real? What does that look like? For real. I'm not kidding. Favorite call of the month already. We still have a lot to go. A peacock attacked his truck, Jay. You should see the truck.

Yeah. Yeah. Peacocks can really, really take down the resale value of a truck. It's incredible. They got a strong beak, I guess. Is it like, are they like monkeys and they throw stuff, you know, they throw the stuff at it or are they like attacking it with their beak?

Well, here's what happens. If you're an idiot and you buy a brand new truck with an unstable income, it's shiny. And then when it's shiny, they see the reflection in the truck and they attack the reflection. You got a flock of peacocks near you, Jacob? Is that what's going on? Yeah, I live near my grandmother. Does she have a pet peacock? She sure did. She sure did. Oh, you didn't hurt the peacock, did you, Jacob?

Okay, she did. He said that in the past. I thought maybe he saw the peacock pecking his quarter panel and he took care of the peacock. This call just went down a road. Do you want to hold him over and give me some advice? No, I don't want to hold him over. We're good. Be careful. He's got to sell the truck. Another reason not to buy a shiny truck that's not paid for. The peacock. You got to get a job. This is the Ramsey Show. We'll be right back.

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Welcome back to the Ramsey Show alongside the incomparable, fabulous Jade Warshaw. I'm Ken Coleman. The phone number is 888-825-5225. If you want to jump in, 888-825-5225. Sam is up in Birmingham, Alabama. Sam, how can we help today? Hey, guys. So I wanted to know if you would honestly recommend that I start with a $1,000 a month emergency fund plan.

And, um, and why, uh, after kind of reading you off some stats here, so I have a three, I have a 30% interest rate on a $33,000 car loan. Uh, I have 9k in back taxes owed 5k in credit card debt, nothing. My ex-girlfriend has 50k in credit card debt that I kind of want to help her out with. Your ex-girlfriend? Yeah.

Unfortunately, yeah. And you want to help her with the debt? Yeah, wow. Sorry, that got me. Really nice guy. I'd like to know more. Why are we doing this? Well, you know, it was a six-year relationship. I lost her last Q4. I was pushing myself too hard, finally burnt out after about 10 years of extremely hard work.

And I just feel responsible for a lot of that. I'm sure some of it's mine. I'm sure a good bit of it might be mine. You used her card? You used her card sometimes? Well, we worked together, you know, like it was a, like she would help out with, like, I don't know. I think someone, I think my car insurance, for example, is on the credit card. Okay. Things like this, right? I think. So you don't even know.

Listen. How does that change your opinion, Jen? Does it change your opinion? I'm going to say something really controversial right now. Oh, I'm very excited. She probably rode in your car lots of times. Does she need to help you pay off your car? You know what I'm saying? I'm not making her do that. Sam, she makes a good point. She may have used your credit card debt. You may have paid for some things for her. I think...

I think what it sounded like, I don't know, but it sounded, you said she got away. It sounds like you're still recovering from this. He's dealing with guilt. You still care for her. You might feel some guilt. Obviously you still care for her, but I would, I would not feel any obligation to pay 50 K to an ex. Is she asking for money? Um, well, not really. No. Do you want to know what I think? Do you want to know what I might think as your older sister who cares for you?

Okay. This is like when you go on a date with somebody. I think this was from Seinfeld and he would leave something in her apartment on purpose so he would have a reason to come back and knock on the door. Brilliant move. Yeah. I feel like this is a reason for you to come back and knock on the door.

Yeah, well, I love her. I mean, and... Oh, you're not ready to let go. If you could dedicate a song to her right now, what would you dedicate? Oh, great question. Sam, take this seriously. What is it? Take this. Well, so listen, there's too many to count. I'm writing letters about every day. I'm sorry. To her? Hard situation.

Look, I know that's the biggest debt, but this 30% interest rate on this $33,000 car loan is really bugging me. I didn't know what that meant when I signed the contract. I thought it meant 30% of the...

uh car's value in total i didn't know that that was like appreciating yeah i didn't know that that was every year it goes 30 percent i thought you said three percent when you first said it it's 30 percent no it's 30 percent and it's a it's an italian car oh okay right down i'm sick to my stomach for you sam

You have to take, oh my goodness, what's the snowball? Where are we at on the snowball? Did we get there? No, because your initial question, I'm sorry, I got hung up on your love situation. The initial question was, do I really want him to go down to $1,000 of an emergency fund? Yeah, is that where I start or where do I start here, guys? Yeah, that is where to start. So let me just go through the baby steps with you right quick, Sam, just so you see how this all fits. And how long have you been listening to the show? Are you a new listener?

I'm a new listener. Yeah, you guys are on my YouTube shorts. Okay. So you only get bits and pieces on that. Thanks for watching. But you only get bits and pieces. So the first step, this is seven baby steps for you to achieve financial peace is what we're talking about. So you do them, all of that I'm saying, you do them consecutively in order. That's the first thing. You got to do them in order. If you jump around, it won't work and you'll be wasting your time. The first step is you get $1,000 saved. Okay.

So if you don't have any money saved, you got to go out, work, sell stuff and get it done. If you do have money saved, you drop it down to $1,000. And then the next whatever money you had left over is going to go to baby step two, which is you paying off all of your debt except your mortgage. This is all the consumer debt. Okay. And you do this using the debt snowball method. Debt snowball is we list all the debts, smallest to largest. You pay minimum payments on everything.

And then any extra money goes to the smallest debt. Does that make sense? Yep. Okay. After that, now we stack up that emergency fund. Three to six months of expenses is what we're looking for. You get to decide, is it three, four, five, or six? After that... So number three is three or four...

$1,000 a month in expenses. Three to six months of basic living expenses. So just for round numbers, let's say you had $5,000 worth of expenses every month. What we're saying is that three months is $15,000, six months is $30,000. You tracking? Yeah.

Yep. All right. So that's what we mean by an emergency fund. We give you the kind of the, we say three months is a minimum. So that'd be 15,000 on this example. That's what she's talking about.

Baby step three B, it's B because it's not the case for everybody, is if you're looking to buy a house, now is when we start saving up a down payment for the house. After that, you go to baby step four. You could do three B and four at the same time if you want to. You're putting 15% of your gross income into retirement funds. So that's your 401k, Roth IRA, that sort of thing. Then after that, if you have kids, you're planning for kids, you can put

an amount of your discretion towards kids college. We say a 529 or an ESA is where you would do that. And then finally, baby step six, if you have extra money in your budget, again, at your discretion, you're throwing extra money towards paying off your house early. Most people who do that pay off their house in like 10, 12 years.

So that's, and then finally baby step seven, you just live like no one else. You give your happy person and you got no cares. Right? So that's kind of the big, Italian cars with cash. Hey, okay. But like, can we talk about, I'm dying right now. You did such a good job. Can we talk about this man's car? Yeah. Tell us about it. What's the car worth? Paint us a picture. Oh man. The car is like 21 K. I bought it for a very, I think Dave will appreciate this. Um,

So, like, I'm 29. I have an online business, and I bought an Alfa Romeo because it was the coolest car you could get under $30,000. Love it. How much did you pay for it? Yeah. So, all in taxes, I had no down payment. It was about $33,000. So, that's the loan I'm paying off. Okay. So, it's worth $21,000? Yeah.

I think I can get a little more for it. I think I might be able to get like $24,000 or $26,000. Okay, good. I mean, I think you've got to sell this car right now at 30% interest rate, Jade. I know that's extreme. He said it's 3%. I thought he said 30%. No, it's 30%. You asked that twice and he said 30%.

Oh, can I not hear? Listen, I just turned 41 in my old age. I can't hear anything. He's paying 30% on this car. That's painful. Yeah, you got to get out today. Like, you got to sell it. Do you have any money saved? No, I can get some money this month, though. I mean, the income's good. Yeah, you got to find at least $10,000 so you can get out of this and get yourself a little beater car to drive around until you can save up for a better one.

So, yeah, but is that is that, you know, here's the reason I bought this car is the coolest car under 30 K. And what do you make? No, it doesn't matter how cool it is. What do you make?

Well, I'm $9,200 a month consistently for two years. The last Q4, I was paying myself about $14,000 a month. Really going overboard with the whiskey and the oyster. Here's what I want you to do. What a life. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to apply that $9,200 to get out of debt. I want you to quickly save up what you can to get out of this car. Buy something cheap in cash. It's only temporary. You're going to be out of debt in a year, and then you're going to save up and you're going to buy the same car in cash.

All right. Jade and I are going to look into some whiskey and oysters ourselves. I know that's right. For after the show. We'll see what the order looks like, but we'll be right back. This is the Ramsey Show. Hey, what's up guys? It's Jade Warshaw. And look, if there's anybody who knows student loan debt is a problem, it's me. My husband and I had $280,000 of it, but we were able to dig ourselves out and you can too. If your student loan payment in

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Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw is with me, and we're here for you. 888-825-5225. Hey, it's that time of year, Jade. Have you already got your taxes bundled and ready to go? Are you working on them? Everything is everything, Ken. It's all signed, sealed, delivered.

I'm not sure I know what you said, but I'm not sure what you said. I've gathered up all of my documents, 1099s, whatever they all are. Okay. And I give them to Sam. You're not unburdened by what has been. I am. You see what I just did there? That's what I felt. She,

She's in her chair, folks. She cannot get to the mic. I pulled that subtly. It felt like you were laying down for me, and that is not you. I'll keep moving. One of the best things you can do for your finances is to have a really good tax pro in your corner that you can trust to help advise you on the best moves to make for your situation or your small business. Go to RamseySolutions.com slash tax pro.

I got her. Now I got me. RansomSolutions.com slash tax pro to find a CPA and enrolled agent that had been vetted by the Ransom team. By the way, I have a local pro and I'm telling you. It's good stuff. Well, I just never stress at tax time. Yeah.

You just don't want to mess with the IRS, all right? So there you go. I didn't mean to rhyme there. That was good. Thank you. You need a gold chain. All I want to do is go on my bank sites or my investing sites and print off the little tax form and turn it in. I don't want to turn in a bunch of stuff. Right. I'm just saying, I just don't want to go to jail. Cool.

Well, I also don't want to go to jail. I wouldn't do well. I just wouldn't look good in those stripes. I don't know, Ken. You might do too well. Hey, hey, hey. I knew you were going to say that. Don't say that. It's going to give me nightmares. I'm sorry. I got the shivers. You're a fine-looking gentleman walking into the precinct. Oh, stop it right now. Let's go to Logan, who's joining us in Provo, Utah. Logan, how can we help?

Hey, just quick and get right to the question here is, do I take equity, like refinance and take equity out of my home in order to pay for HVAC upgrade that is needed for my home? Interesting. So tell us a little bit more about the situation, because what I tend to find is that if people are

considering debt to solve a problem. It's usually the symptom of other issues that are playing out over time. So give me a bigger profile on this. Are you guys currently in debt? Tell me about your income. Tell me more about your financial situation.

Okay. So, um, so kind of background just recently found you guys like the Ramsey show and everything. Um, so I've been, been diving in and trying to see what, you know, the baby steps and where my wife and I would be in that. So we don't have any other debt other than our mortgage. Good. Um, cars are all paid for. Um, everything's,

everything like that. It's just our mortgage. We have like $350,000 in equity in the house. But we just recently found out that our HVAC system is pretty much, we're lucky it's still working and we're not sure how much longer it's going to work. What will it cost to fix it?

So it's an older system that has a type of coolant in it that I guess is no longer legal or available to use and to update the system it's going to cost around $18,000. $18,000. Have you gotten a second opinion or is that one guy...

Told you that. So we're just out in a rural area. So it's kind of just the one guy that could come in and give us the quote on it. Are you sure about that or have you really done due diligence? Because unless you live, you know, in Mayberry, I feel like there's at least got to be more than one person, right?

Yeah, it's a pretty consistent price with everything that I've looked at. Okay. I'm not convinced. I think you need a second opinion. But for now, so you've got $18,000 that you're thinking it's going to cost. Do you have any money saved anywhere? No.

We have, I think, just about $1,000 in our savings, and that's just about it. Okay, $1,000 in savings. And then tell me about your income. What do you and your wife bring in combined every single month? So we bring in, it fluctuates a little bit just because of my wife's work hours, but we're usually north of $4,000 a month. Okay, north of $4,000 a month. Okay. Okay.

Here we are. Okay. So if I'm you, my first, like I said, first on my agenda is I'm getting somebody else just to come out and tell me. I just want to confirm what it is. Then the second part of this, and I will admit I'm not an HVAC professional, but if I understand right, it's, if you didn't know, now you know. I was wondering at times. It's divided into the heating side and the cooling side, right? Yes. Okay. Is there a way, are you replacing the whole like dat gum thing, like the whole thing?

Yeah, it would have to replace the entire unit. But it's working right now, and it just needs some rare coolant? Illegal coolant. Yeah, legal, essentially, yeah. So it's about 21 years old, so it's at its life expectancy. Yeah, but let me ask you this. But it hasn't broke down yet. If I were to find a truck full of that illegal, outdated coolant, would it function? No.

Potentially. It's just a matter of how much are we going to end up having to replace kind of cost. Are we going to cost more in the long run trying to piece things back together as they go out? Listen, we're not being silly here. If I were in your shoes, I would find that coolant.

I'll bet you can find that coolant. Because all this illegal stuff is all this garbage crap coming out of Washington, D.C. or your statehouse. I'm sorry. It's all environmental crap that 10 years from now we're going to find out there's nothing wrong with it. So in all honesty, if I was sitting in your shoes, Logan, I would be trying to find that coolant so that I could follow Jay's advice and save up the money to where we get a whole new unit. But what does the patch look like?

And I don't like the fact that we got one dude out there in the holler who's the only guy. I'm with you, Jay. I mean, I don't know if they have hollers in Utah, in the South. That's what we call a hollow. But the point is...

get another guy in there or find that coolant somehow yeah I think the coolant will buy you some time and because the truth is it hasn't broken down yet but I like that you're thinking towards it because the time will come and it's going to be here probably before you know it so my goal would be okay I'm going to get with my wife I'm going to figure out how quickly we can save up half and then find out how long and that way we know how long it would take to do the other half and then I'd find a

a guy and say, here's what I have. I can pay you this. And then at this point, and I can pay you this at this point to get this job done. Maybe you do the right side first and then you do the left side or you do the hot side first. Then you do the cold side and really get creative because if there really is only one guy, then he probably needs your business as much as you need him. So get creative on it. And I'm looking around my house for things to sell.

period i'm like okay do i need this do i not need that maybe i'm picking up just temporarily like a second job because the reason for all this because i do want to address this because plenty of people are probably like jay that's too much just take out the the the loan from your house i would never do that the purpose when we talk about home ownership here on ramsey the purpose of home ownership there's several reasons but the ones that stand out to me are a

it's stability, right? We're taking the biggest line item on our budget and we're stabilizing it by getting into a home, right? Where the payment's the same. We start to put that stability at risk when we borrow against our home. So that's number one. Number two is,

One of the biggest reasons to buy a home is to build equity and wealth, right? And so when we borrow against it, we're stealing from the wealth that we're accumulating. Because the truth is, when it's time to sell our house, we want that cash. We don't want to look up and be like, man, my cash is gone because I bought a new water heater and my cash is gone because I over-renovated a room that's not going to return its value on me, right? So...

Those are the two reasons. We want stability. We want wealth. So let's not rob ourselves of those two really, really important factors in homeownership. So that's why I'm pretty adamant about not doing that. Just a little background thoughts there. Is this R22 Freon? Is that what we're talking about? I can't remember if it's that one or if it was the one before it. Oh, boy. I'm on the trail, folks. Yeah.

You know, I would be the guy trying to get myself some of that black market free. You know a guy? I don't, but it would be fun to find him. I mean, when you're staring at an $18,000 repair, I think it might be an adventure. Go on Reddit.

Go on Reddit. I bet you there's a whole Reddit. There's got to be some corner of the interweb. Yeah, guaranteed. There's some dude in Arkansas, I feel like, who's got himself barrels and barrels of this stuff. You want you some of that 922 Freon? I got it. We're going to search for it on the break. We'll be right back. You know, one of the first things I discovered working in the financial world is how absolutely devastating it is when the breadwinner of a family dies.

and there's too little life insurance or none at all. Grieving families are suddenly left behind scrambling to pay bills and trying to make ends meet. I also discovered that there are a lot of ripoffs in the life insurance world, like that whole life crap posing as an investment opportunity. What you need is level term life insurance, usually 10 to 12 times your income, which is the smartest, most affordable way to protect yourself.

Thank you.

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Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. Alongside Jade Warshaw, I'm Ken Coleman. So excited that you're with us. 888-825-5225. It's been quite the hour. We've had fun. The calls have been fantastic. Very interesting. And we're having a little too much fun. So we'd love to hear from you today. Jade will help out on how to handle the money, and I'm going to help out on how to make more of it. How about that for a combo? So if that's you today, we'd love to have you jump in. We're having a good time.

while we coach you up. All right, let's go to Indianapolis, Indiana, where David is joining us. David, how can we help? Ken, Jade, you guys are awesome. Oh, thank you, sir. I'm excited and I'm nervous. Oh, well, you're going to do great. You sound fantastic. You've got a great voice, so you're already off to a great start.

Thanks. Um, my question is, I was wondering if I should save up money or, or go back into investing. The reason is I've, I was feeling fatigued. I went to the doctor, they gave me an EKG and I left the doctor with, uh,

Stage four cancer diagnosis. Oh, David. So I'm on chemotherapy right now. Yeah. But the Lord's going to help me through this. We're going to make it. Facts. Yes. David, you're amazing. Your mindset and your spirit is all ready to be commended. So sorry you're dealing with this. How long ago was the diagnosis? It was in December, and I've been doing chemotherapy for about a month. How are you doing? How are you feeling? Good.

Well, you know, the first round I had some side effects. The second round was a little bit better. The third round starts this Wednesday. So just dealing with it and, you know, getting some side effects and stuff like that. But I got a good job, good insurance and stuff like that. Is it just you or do you have a family?

My daughter lives here and I do have family and I've got friends and got lots of support from the church and just everybody around me. I'm really blessed. Okay, so you've got some support. I'm glad that you've got that. I hate that you're going through it, but I'm glad that you've got a good support system around you because you'll need that. So you asked about saving money or investing. Can you break that down for me? What's the money for? What are you thinking about here?

Well, I quit investing because I was paying things off. I believe I'm in stage four now. I only have my mortgage and my HELOC. Okay. How much is the HELOC? $22,000. Okay. And how much is the mortgage? $22,000.

60,000. 60,000. Okay, you're almost there. Not bad. Not bad. What are you earning right now? Every month or every year? Right now I'm making 80K, but I'm burning up sickly right now. I'm on FMLA with the intent of probably going into disability retirement, federal retirement, which would start out at 60% of what I was making before.

And then 40% of what I was making until I turned 62. What do you have in your emergency fund? SSDI. I've got $6,000 in my emergency fund, which is about three months. Okay. I did have eight in there, but I had a water heater go out. Yeah, but that's why it's there. It didn't freak me out. I just said, yeah, go ahead. That's what I'm for. Let's do it. Nice. So, you know, if I were in your shoes...

I probably my biggest goal right now would just be stacking up a bunch of cash. Yeah. And I just throw it in, you know, high yield savings account and have it there so that if something pops up, if there's a treatment I want to do and I have to pay out of pocket because it's on a network like you see what I'm saying? So my goal would be stacking up money so that I can use it for health opportunities and

or for, you know, other things that pop up. And then when you're done on the other side of this and you whooped cancer's butt, then you can take that money and say, all right, what's the next thing? Just pay stuff off, yeah. I've already maxed out my out-of-pocket for this year on the insurance. Good. So that should, everything should be covered. Okay. But you know, things do pop up. I do have a Roth IRA at work. Okay, good. Did you say you are investing or you paused that?

I was investing and then I paused it because, you know, I listened to you guys a lot and I was like, you know, I could be putting that extra $800 a month towards these bills and I was paying stuff off. And I was at the point where I was ready to start reinvesting and then,

Of course, I went to the doctor and they said, guess what? I mean, technically speaking, I mean, again, this is not for me to say that you need to be dealing with this right now because I don't necessarily think that you do. Technically speaking, with the amount of the HELOC, I'd count that as a baby step two item and say, hey, I'd pay that off first and I'd call it baby step two. And for that reason, you would pause investing so more money can go towards paying that $22,000 off fast.

And then once you were done with that, I'd, you know, start investing again. But that's for later. Again, I think your biggest focus right now is getting well and knowing that, you know, you've got some money stashed aside and you have a piece about that because like I said, you never know what trials might come up that maybe insurance doesn't cover, but you want to jump into one, that sort of thing.

That is true. Hang in there, David. I agree with my colleague on this one. Let's just stack cash right now because you can always move that cash back into the baby steps and keep on investing. Turn that back on once you get on the other side of this. That's true. I was thinking that, but I wanted to confirm it. Thank you for calling. How old's your daughter?

She's 26. Okay, okay, good. Okay, yeah. So she's keeping an eye on me and stuff too. Okay, good, very good. Very good. Yeah, love that. Thank you, David. Let's go to Moe in Winnipeg, Canada. Moe, how can we help today? Hey, how's it going, guys? Good, how are you?

I'm good, good. So I'm just about to graduate from my undergrad in criminology and I'm in zero debt. I haven't had debt actually at all in my life. But flight school, I'm thinking of going to flight school after and flight school costs about minimum $70,000 for 18 months and

And so I was just wondering, should I actually go into debt and take out a student loan for that? Because I can't pay it all in cash. That's just an insane amount of money. And that's just the minimum cost. I'm going to one of the cheapest schools in Canada. Is that $70,000 total for the program? Total for all the licenses, yes. Okay. How much do you have set aside right now since you have no debt? How much cash do you have?

I don't have any set aside because I just paid tuition. Good for you. So it's all going out of my pocket. How did you come up with the money to pay for tuition?

So that's just, but I still live with my parents. So I don't have to worry about rent for now. And yeah, I work for PepsiCo. So I make around $2,500 a month and yeah, just aggressively saving and then paying tuition every four months. Good for you. So I have a question about the criminology. Did I hear you say criminology degree?

Yeah, that's correct. My original plan was to go into law school. Yeah. Okay, but I'm just curious, because again, I don't know the Canadian situation, but is there or are there multiple jobs that you can, with that degree, move right into for a season and make a good bit more than you're making right now with PepsiCo? Yeah.

With PepsiCo, I could move up to a sales position where, because right now I just do the manual labor stuff, which is like merchandising. I could move into sales, but that would require a full-time availability since I'm in uni. I can only work part-time. Okay. When are you finishing up? I'm sorry. When are you finishing up uni? Yeah.

Uh, that would be, so my last semester, uh, would be, uh, I would graduate, uh, May of next year. May of next year? Yeah. Okay. Well, so here, I know Jay and I are on the same page on this one. I mean, here's the deal. You've already made enough money to be able to cash flow through college, but

I would come out of school and I would upgrade my job full-time. I'd take a full-time upgrade if I could get one with PepsiCo. They already got you in the building. Let's see what you could do. Okay. Or I would use that criminology degree to go get something that, if possible, would make me more money. And here's why. I would work for a couple of years if that's what it took to actually save the money for flight school because I've just talked to so many people on this issue. In the States, it's $100,000 sometimes. We hear that number. Yeah.

So, yeah, it's a lot of money. And you don't want to be trying to get out there, lowest level, flying in the friendly skies, stressed out over that. So I would take my time. The flight school will always be there. We would tell you to save up.

You can save up more if you've got a better job and you're not working in college. You can work like crazy. You're not going to class anymore. So that would be our advice, my friend. I don't want a stressed out pilot with student loans. And let me tell you something. The need is there. The opportunity is going to be there. Just be patient. And you'd be surprised how quickly you can earn $70,000. So there's our thoughts. All right. Good hour, Jade. Thanks so much for being with me. Thanks to James Childs and our fearless crew. This is The Ramsey Show.

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Welcome to the Ramsey Show America, where we coach you to win in your money, win in your profession, and win in your relationships. Alongside the incomparable Jay DeWarsaw, I'm Ken Coleman, and we're excited to be together for you all. 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225. Let's go to Dayton, Ohio. Jeremiah joins us there. Jeremiah, how can we help today?

Hey, how's it going? So in April 4th, my lease is up in my apartment with my girlfriend, but we've been having some relationship problems ever since we moved in together. That's always fun times. You know, that's what marriage is like in your first year. Nobody ever tells you that the first year of marriage is what you're experiencing. You just learn how to live together and there's all kinds of problems.

Yeah, I hear that a lot from my dad. I was curious about, I've been talking to my dad about moving back in with him. He would charge me $400 a month in rent. I do have medical bills coming up from a motorcycle accident that happened. Oh, no. You okay? I turned out okay. Yeah, I turned out just fine. So I got a question for you. Quick question. Before we get to the money, because I think this plays into the money issue.

you've been living with your girlfriend for how long? A year. A year. So last year, April 4th. A year. And you developed some real relationship. Okay. And you developed some real relationship issues now that you're living together. And so you think the solve is to stay living together but just go back to dad's house? We would go separate. She would go to her parents and I would go to my dad. Oh, I missed that. Okay. Okay. That's actually...

Okay, I'm feeling better with that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you guys got to figure out your relationship issue, and living together is probably not the best way to do it, in my opinion. I know I'm old school. Does the issue have to do with money, or is it separate? She gets very angry at me over little things. And don't get me wrong. I'm a human. I'm not perfect. I do some things wrong to myself.

And her money issues are, she's not great with her finances. I've tried to coach her a little bit based off of your guys' teachings. She just can't really pull it together since the year we've been. But is she getting angry at you over money things and your coaching, or is she getting angry at you about other things? Just house things. Say if I come home from work and I just kind of want to relax and do nothing, she'll...

start getting angry or if I forget to do dishes sometimes she'll get on me. Like I said, we take turns cleaning and whatnot. Okay, I got to ask. I'm so sorry. I can't help it. Is she angry or is she just perturbed? In other words, I want you to rank it for me, her reaction from a 1 to a 10. 1 being maybe a little sigh where she's rolling her eyes to angry, she's throwing something at you.

Give me a ranking. What's happening? I'll give it like a solid five to seven. It's no throwing. We don't ever lay hands on each other or anything like that. Well, thankfully. It's just verbal. Yeah, that's why I put it at 10, throwing at you. Okay. Wow, Jade, what do you think of this? I feel like you need to get involved here. Yeah, I wanted to know how long you were dating before you moved in together. Oh, good question. Three years. Three years. And was she angry at that time, too? No.

No, it just really started since we moved in together. So this is last year, April. This is playing into what we know, which is a lot of I'm stepping into the waters now, Ken. You know, a lot of people when they move in together, the thought, Ken, is I'm just going to test it out. Like, I think I want to marry this person. I think I want to be with this person for the long haul. Let's test it out and see. But really, it causes panic.

people to go in the opposite direction. And there's been studies now that say that living together is you're least likely to have a successful marriage or even see. Oh, really? Yeah. Because it's almost like a commitment thing. It's like you don't have to dial in full commitment. Which makes those things even more irritating. Yeah. It's almost like a symbol of lack of commitment. I think you're right. Stacey stuck with me.

You know? Yeah. Like we got paper. We got some ink. You got to pull all that apart. It's not easy. Yeah. I get what you're saying. Yeah, exactly. Whereas it's like, hey, I don't want to marry you. I'll live with you. It's like the ultimate signal of lack of commitment. I don't want to marry.

want to marry you. So I wonder if under like underlying she's feeling something. It's like I'm with this guy and she might have marriage expectations, but you're not actually married. And so you guys are feeling that tension of like,

The reality versus what you kind of think it is in your minds. Although I will say this, Jeremiah. You are probably 100% on spot. She is. Ever since, yeah, she's big on marriage. She's always kind of mentioned that to me, but I've always been a little skeptical just because, I don't know, it's tough out there. Well, Jeremiah, this is where the rubber meets the road as it relates to my advice. It's true. You need to understand, young man,

that if you put a ring on her finger and you marry her and you come home. And ain't no going back. And you just jump on the couch and you don't do what she's expecting you to do as it relates to your house stuff, she's going to still be angry. So we've got to figure out relationally, what is your part in this deal? And where do you need to step up? And then if, now listen to me, Jeremiah, if you step up, does she chill out?

And so I'm going to make a ruling here. Yeah, make a ruling. The starting question was, should we renew the lease? The answer is no. I think you need to go your separate ways for six months, and let's figure you two out. And you, young man, need to start with, do you want to marry this young lady? And the answer doesn't have to be yes. And if it's not, fine. But you owe that to her because she's made it clear she wants to get married. You're just kind of kicking the can down the road.

I think I'd start there. Let's separate. Let's live apart. I'm not saying break up. See if things get better. Yeah. I'm not saying break up, but let's not live together. And let's see where we want to go. We're on team Jeremiah because you called. But I'll be honest with you, if she called, I'd have been on her team. When you separate your living situation, like we said, you're still dating. Then take that time to start figuring out what it would look like if...

if you're there, I don't know if you are, but if you are there, if we were to be married, what would it look like? What do we see for each other? What are gender roles? What do you think a man's role is? What do you think a woman's role is? You guys talk about that stuff because you did get a little glimpse of, you thought you could come home and pop open a beer and watch the game. And she said, no, no, no, no, no. There's dishes in the kitchen. So you guys have to talk about that and arrive at,

what that means for both of you. And of course, if you do get married, go through marriage counseling and go through financial peace university. Yeah, I agree. Uh, in your house, who does the dishes? Whoever doesn't cook does the dishes. Oh really? So if you cook like me, I rarely do the dishes. It's usually Sam that does them. And that's a fair exchange. Yeah. Now every once in a while, if I really feel like the meal, how can I put it? Like if it really was a lot of dishes, um,

And the meal was just like, why were there so many dishes? I'll help him out a little bit. Yeah. I'm the dishwasher king. Yeah? Yeah. You put them in the dishwasher or you wash them by hand? Oh, no. What are we talking about? It's 2025. Who washes by hand anymore? Well, I have certain dishes that I don't put in the dishwasher. Well, of course. The fine china, yeah. Yeah. I'm the dishes guy. Yeah. Stacey will help when it's a lot of dishes, but I'm on the kids all the time. Do you complain about it or you don't mind doing it? Oh, no, no. I like it.

I am famous. When I go to bed at night, I like the kitchen to be clean because I'm the first one up in the morning making the coffee. And I don't like to walk into uncleanliness. You got to have the kitchen. The counter's got to be wiped off. Floor's got to be swept. I don't want to see dishes in the morning. Oh, negatory. It's not a good way to start my day. It messes my mind up. It's got to be clean. Agree. So that's one of my things. And I got other things I got to do too. And I do them, young man. I do them.

50-50. We'll exchange lists on the break, but we'll be right back. This is The Ramsey Show. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. You've probably heard people talk about different kinds of flags in friendships and romantic relationships. Red flags, green flags, beige flags. Listen, it can be helpful to look for patterns or unsafe behaviors in potential relationships, but all those labels can distract from what's really important. Your values. Your values.

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All right, folks, welcome back to The Ramsey Show. Alongside Jade Warshaw, I'm Ken Coleman. Excited to be with you here as we take your calls about your money, about your profession, about your relationships. And by the way, excited to debut a new show on The Ramsey Network. It's my new project called Front Row Seat, something I've been cooking up for a long time. Very, very excited. And this is a deep dive conversation show. That's how I broke into broadcasting many, many years ago.

But we've added an element to it, Jade, and it is the audience themselves are a part of the show. So they get to sit in the room. They're in the round with us. And it's not just me asking questions or making points. These are conversations, not just a back-and-forth interview. The audience themselves gets to be a part of the conversation by asking questions themselves.

And so we made this. It's a beautiful set. Looks fabulous on YouTube. You can also get it via podcast. So on YouTube or your favorite podcast app, it's called Front Row Seat. What are we doing? We're deep diving in three areas. Content that'll help you get better as a person. So think the physical, the spiritual, the mental, the emotional. Uh-huh.

things of that nature. And then we talk about your professional development, soft skills and hard skills. And then if you're in a leadership role, how to lead well. So we talk about it's get better, move up,

And lead well, and that's what we're doing. Do the math. Do the math for us. I like that. Oh. Well, see, it depends on the age, but if you're in your late 30s, mid 30s, late 30s, 40s, you know this math really well. It's inside the actor's studio, famous show on Bravo, meets Masterclass, which is a very popular app now, meets MTV Unplugged. Wow.

Love that. I feel like that's a great way to describe it because for someone like me, I know exactly what I'm about to get. So bottom line is it's a conversation show, a wide variety of guests, but you see yourself in the audience as they sit there and ask questions. So it's really fun format. It's called Front Row Seat. Get it on YouTube. Subscribe on YouTube. Like it. And you can also get it on your favorite podcast app. So fun stuff there.

Toronto is where we're going next, and Chris is sitting there waiting for us. Chris, how can we help? Hey, how are you doing today, guys? We're having a blast. What's going on? Not much. Hey, so I'm basically 40 years old, and I worked very hard for the last seven years, and I paid off my mortgage on my Forever House, too, so I don't need to do any kind of movements or anything like that. Forever House, wow. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. It was something I wanted to do. My wife, she just supported me through it, and we're on the other side now, which is great. Fantastic. So we're onto new things. Way to go. So now, you know, I've always...

Not really spent a lot of money. I, you know, I do very well in my career, but I don't live that way. I got two cars that are both owned. Okay. The one needs to be replaced in maybe a year or three, you know, but so some upcoming expense there. Now,

I've never been into the investment part or anything like that. But now that I got my house paid off, I need to start looking at how does my money work for me? Absolutely. Because I've always been working so hard on getting it. So I'm not paying somebody else money to borrow money. Um,

I don't know, do I start looking at, you know, maybe investing in a house and maybe making, renting it out and paying that mortgage myself to maybe make that only a 10 year mortgage. So then in 10 years, that's free money to me every month.

Or do I start dabbling in investments? Like I heard a lot. Well, I've been doing $10 every two weeks for the last two years because all my friends talk to me about it. And what did that, what are you at now? What's your nest egg?

I'm at $6,000 now. Okay. So what that tells us, that's a great, I'm glad you said that because a lot of people are into like acorns and saving the change and all that. And while I could understand that something's better than nothing, if

If you adopt that kind of as your way of thinking around investing, you won't get very far. So I like that you're thinking towards this. Listen, I love that your house is paid off, but I do at 40, I do want you to have more invested and I want you to start working towards that investment.

Typically, the way we would have taught it is that while you're paying off your home, you would still have been investing 15% of your income. But, you know, spilled milk, we move on. So what I would say at this point for you is, yeah, you are able to invest 15% and beyond because your house is paid off and you don't have any other debt, correct? Yeah.

No, the only thing I have is $30,000 on my HELOC, which is a pool, which I'll have that done in a couple months. Okay, so $30,000 as a HELOC. Yeah, I would focus in. I'd get that paid off lickety-split, like immediately. And then I would invest...

I would invest 15% and beyond. When you look at your monthly budget, how much do you think that you could put towards investing and still like percentage wise and still, you know, enjoy the life that you've set up for yourself? Well, for easy math right now, I'm paying the pool,

$1,300 every two weeks to the pool. On top of when I get commission checks, I just throw those towards it, right? But that's easy to switch over to investments in two months' time. Okay, yeah. So you'd be putting $2,600 every...

And is that kind of maximum for you or do you think there's even more? And what percentage is that? Oh, I can do more because that does not even include my commissions that I get every month on the first paycheck of every month. So what would 15% be for you? If you invested 15% of gross income, what number would that be? So the number after taxes times 20.15. Before taxes? Yeah.

gross well i make like 340k a year canadian though and then but like you know we get we get taxed and i get taxed pretty highly so i take home about half of that okay but we want the number before taxes so it's 45 000 if he did it per year yeah yeah okay so do you have that is that available to you in your budget

Yeah, I can make my budget however I need to make it. Okay, so what I'm getting at is that $3,400, $3,500, that's the baseline for you of investing. $3,400 a month, you're saying? And since your house is paid off, you could go beyond that and you should go beyond that. And I would, in this case, I would probably start there before I'd go to real estate and I'd build up a pretty decent nest egg. And then when you start feeling like, okay, like,

I'm doing well. Then if you wanted to also save up and buy a piece of real estate in cash, you could. But that's kind of what I'm doing now is just kind of the math to see where you would end up. So I put in the 6,000 that you already have saved. And I thought, okay, he's 40 years old. Maybe he, you know, retires by the time he's 62. If you put that 3,400 aside every month, that's 3.2 million.

Okay. Okay. So you can see that's just the starting point. So if you add beyond that, you know, you could be doing really, really well. But it's just to say, like, listen, it's not too late at all. But you've really got to be diligent about this. And that's not a problem at all, right? So with no mortgage, that makes that very...

It's easy to achieve, right? Yeah, exactly. So and when you talk about investments, like I said, when I was paying off my house, everybody was calling me crazy because I should be investing that money. And so I started doing $10 here and there and just kind of learning. You can't make money buying and selling day trading. I learned that. You're right. On the cheap.

which was my whole reason of only doing $10. Now that I'm doing larger figures, you know, the thought I have is that

I always hear about the S&P 500, which I have a little bit in that. Is that where I really should be kind of focusing my investment? I love this question. And I'm glad you asked it. Yeah. We're not talking about day trading at all. So if I were you, and this is what the advice I'd give to anybody. So the first place I'd start is with my 401k. Do you have a 401k through your job? We have RRSPs in Canada. Okay. Yeah. RESPs. Do you guys get matches for that? Is there a company match?

Not mine, no. Okay. So if there's no, and I understand there's differences in US and Canada. So what we would say here is if you have a 401k or an RESP that has a match, you'd start there because it's free money. But if there is no match, then here in the States, we have basically a Roth IRA, which is money that's already taxed

you're paying taxes on the money, then it's going, you're going and investing that money so that when you pull it out later, you've already paid taxes on it. So we like anything here that has a Roth treatment. So the Canadian version of that, I'm not sure what it is, but I'd go for that and max it out yearly. And then after I've maxed that out, if there's still money, I'd go back to that RESP and fill that out. I don't know what the max is for Canada, but I try to max it out. And if you can do those two things, you're really going to be well off. Good call. Got to run. This is The Ramsey Show.

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Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman, Jade Warshaw with me. 888-825-5225 is the phone number. Why ReFi refinances defaulted private student loans and builds a custom loan based on your ability to pay. Now you guys, private student loans, are different than federal student loans like Sally Mae. So to learn more about this custom refinancing option and a lump sum payoff option, go to

you could qualify for after 24 months, go to Yrefy.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey. It may not be available in all states. Okie doke. Today's question comes from Taylor in Alabama.

They say, I started an entry-level job at a bank six months ago. I'm 19 years old and it pays about $35,000 a year. I was recently offered a higher paying job at a different company, but I plan to go to college in the fall. I'm scared that future employers will not hire me if I only stay at the bank or another company for a few months before heading off to school.

Would you recommend that I go after a new job or should I stay at my current job to avoid future employers thinking I'm a job hopper? Neither of the job options are related to my chosen career path. Ken Coleman, you're up. Yeah, I don't think you're going to look like a job hopper when you're 19 and this is just you making money to go to college. So the narrative on this would be...

I got a chance to make more money. I was working at the bank. I got an opportunity to make more money. And all of that was going towards paying my tuition, so I took it. That's the narrative. You're not a job hopper. So good question, though. What constitutes a job hopper? I don't think there's any set rule, but if you were to look at one's resume and you were to see multiple jobs...

span of a year and a half to two years. Like three or four. And it doesn't have a narrative. In other words, it wasn't I got promoted. Okay, which is that's not job hopping. That is I got promoted. Going to the next level. It's not I got recruited and

And so I was at company A, company B came along with a great offer. And so I upgraded to the tune of a title and a pay bump. That doesn't make you look like a job hopper unless you keep doing that. So if you see multiple of those in it, it'll paint the picture is my point. I see. Somebody goes, oh, you don't hang around for very long at all. You're looking for the next best thing. So if I hire you,

I may not have you in six to 12 months. That's what you're worried about. But if it is a legitimate narrative and you aren't just taking the next best thing. Got it. You aren't playing the field, as they used to say when I was in high school. You were called a player if you had too many girls on your arm in a short amount of time. You would have been called a player. That's right. And then somebody might say, don't hate the player, hate the game.

And you're saying, but in this case, the game ain't helping you out. Right. So if you want to eventually settle down and all the girls in your high school have seen you play in the field, then maybe they don't trust you. They're like, we don't want you over here. Same deal with a potential employer. They want to feel like you're the marrying type. Okay. Right? Good job, Ken. So it's kind of straightforward. It's common sense. Let's go to Shannon in Phoenix, Arizona. Shannon, how can we help?

Hi, thank you for taking my call. Sure, what's up? I'm in a mess. Uh-oh. Well, I don't know. This is dramatic. Okay, so my mortgage payment is $4,500 a month.

And, uh, we just bought this house in June and, um, the income has changed. And so I own my own business. So it's, it's definitely, um, it fluctuates, but I make between, uh, four to 6,000 a month. And then, uh, my husband has an income of, of 4,000 a month currently. Okay. So,

That's what we're looking at. So on a really good month, your mortgage is still about 50%? Ooh, mama. If not more of your income. Yeah, if not more, yeah. Okay, and you said the income changed. What was it before? Was it ever a good idea? Well, probably no, no. Probably not. We own another house too. I don't know. How much do you want to know? Tell me the tea. Spill it.

So we moved and we had another home and we were trying to sell it. And apparently when we went into escrow and inspection and stuff, the foundation needs to be replaced. And that was like $140,000. So long story short, we still have that home. Did you fix the foundation? No, we are working on that because it's $140,000. This has just been...

Anyway. So tell me, before you move on, so that house, what do you owe on it and what's it worth, barring the fixed foundation? So we owe about $650,000 on it. And it was being listed for $1.1 million, but with the foundation issue,

All the buyers were scared to even take it. So with the rent, we make $1,400 profit a month. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yes and no. You and I's definition of profit is different because you've got a lot of money sunk into it. Okay. So 100%. Got it. So you've got this one house. If you fix the foundation, it's worth 1.1. Yes. You haven't fixed it yet. Are you in the process of it or tell me more about that?

So we applied for permits and we're waiting on that. It can take up to five months. So we've just been working through that the last couple of months. How would you pay for it? Exactly. I would have to pull out a HELOC and the whole thing is just a nightmare. Okay. Have you done the research on if you were to sell it as is? I mean, I know you said certain realtors wouldn't touch it, but I'm sure certain realtors would. What would that look like as far as the value? Well, we...

Well, we tried just to give it away for even $950,000. That doesn't feel like a giveaway. That's not a giveaway. That's you just less the value of getting it fixed. Well, we do owe about $150,000 in solar. Okay, but that's not on...

the next buyer you you chose that right well yeah i just mean in order not to take for you to not take the hit yeah yeah so i think you're gonna you might you might end up like eating eating a big loss on this house you might i mean if you can carry it and get this foundation fixed in cash um

But I would not take out more debt to fix this house. So there's that. Can I ask really quick, how far away are these two houses? The one you're living in now versus the one? How far? A state away. Oh, boy. Six hours. Oh, boy. And you said there's also $150,000 in solar. That's a separate loan. Yeah. Okay. And they're a state away. And you moved to where you are now because of your husband's job or your business? Yes.

Um, well, originally it was, it was my husband's job. He's, he's been in the military forever. So we moved here and anyway, we're staying here. Um, yeah. Okay. So Shannon, shouldn't have bought this house, but yeah. Tell me, tell me about your current house because this may be your way out of all of this, your current house. What, what, what's, what do you owe on it and what's it worth?

So we bought it for $460,000. And when I just called a realtor, I got a Dave Ramsey realtor. And she told me, because we bought it just in June, that we'd probably, with closing costs and everything, probably take about a $30,000 loss. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. You're probably right.

I mean, she's like, I don't know, based on it. Yeah. So, so that's not an option. Like selling that for profits, not an option for you right now, which I wondered if it would be, uh, yeah, if I were you. Well, what is rent? What if you guys were renting in, in your area right now? What would that set you back? Yeah. So rent here is amazing. Well, relative. So we could, we could get a rent, um, the same equivalent home for maybe 2000 or $2,200 a month at the most.

Yeah. The only thing is I don't want you adding more loss to this in the form of $30,000 in fees. So I'd hang out for a little while in this home if you can to get right side up on it. That's what I was thinking. If you can make it. If you can come up with that money, then get out, then rent, take care of this other place, a state away, and get out of that. It feels like that's the progression. That's the only way. The good news is you are...

getting some money from rent on this just to pay the mortgage. But it's a hot potato. I'm going to try to get out of this as quickly as I can before it burns your hand. Oh, this is a tough one. I feel for you. You had to go with hot potato for people living in Phoenix. You had to go with the burn. Yeah, it's hot. It is. This is The Ramsey Show.

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Again, ramseysolutions.com slash smartvestor. Ramsey Solutions is a paid, non-client promoter of participating pros. Learn more at ramseysolutions.com slash smartvestor. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw is alongside. And our last caller, what a story. Yeah. They move from one state to another. Very expensive house in the one state they leave behind.

uh can't sell it because it's got about 150 000 worth of foundation repair it's cracked nobody wants it they couldn't give it away or at least that was their statement and then they moved to the phoenix area oh by the way they also got 150 000 worth of solar on that house they moved to the phoenix area buy a house that's costing them about 4 500 a month it's over half of their take home yes uh no half of their gross yeah it is and uh

So we were sitting there going, okay, wow. And they can't sell the current house without taking about a $30,000 loss. Yeah, because they've hardly been in it. They've hardly been in it. And so we ran up into the break there. And so you were thinking through this a little bit. You wanted me to bring this back up because they don't have a ton of options. Yeah, we kind of ran up against time. But then during the break, can you and I...

My colleague, Ken Coleman. Yes, that's right. He's like, you know what? Really, what you guys need to do, if you can attack the 30,000, that would be your loss for selling this house. That might be the way to go. Yeah.

Because then at least you can go rent. We established that they can rent for half the amount. So that gets them back into the 25% range, which is good. So if I were them, Ken, I would be looking for maybe cars to sell. They sound like they're off the line now, but they seem like the kind that might have a couple of cars and you're driving just beaters for now, but just something to gain some sort of...

pecuniary advantage here. I would be working like crazy. I mean, can we make an additional $2,500 a month? Yes. That would be my target. I would always look at that and go, $2,500 a month is $30,000 in 12 months.

Yes. Okay. So I'm going to start there. At least go, okay, what would have to be true for me to bring that in to be able to make that difference? Because now they can reset. That's right. Because next, the big hurdle they have is they got to come up with 150 grand to fix the foundation in another state to be able to unload that house. So I can tell you, there's a lot of hard work and long hours ahead of them to be able to get out of this mess. But at least-

They create some margin by selling the current home and getting into a rent situation. That's right. At least they're going to free up way more. They're going to free up money. Yeah. And they're not going to feel the weight of all that debt. Two mortgages, solar panels. Yeah.

Can you imagine being that kind of up to your eyeballs and then you got a house that you can't even fix? You want to talk about the old millstone around the neck analogy. That's what that was. 100%. So tough stuff there. But it's doable. But I mean, we're talking about enormous intensity for a pretty good season to dig out of that. It's a mountain. Let's go to Richard in Chicago, Illinois. Richard, how can we help?

Hey, yeah, my name is Richard. I'm 28 years old. So I got into a pretty bad hole of debt, all credit cards. I got a house about two years ago with my ex now. And, you know, I was buying stuff for the house. And then we broke up and I went down the rabbit hole of spending, you know, not being...

pretty financial intelligent with my money so then i got i'm looking at it now and i'm about 50k and that and i was using zero percent interest and now all of them are hitting that mark where the interest is starting to come okay so the 50 000 is that 50 000 is all credit cards correct and you mentioned you had a house with your ex is this ex-girlfriend ex-wife

Ex-girlfriend because we never got married, but the house is just mine. It's only in your name. Okay. And what do you owe on that house? I bought it at 230. It's my mortgage now is at 209. Okay. And what's it worth? Just curious. I think about 265, 270 on a good day. Okay. And can you tell me what percentage of your take home? Is it in the right spot or is it too much? What are you paying every month?

I'd pay everything raised up from when I got it, but now it's at 2365. I take home about 43 a month, 45. Okay. So we're, again, we're in a similar situation as our last call. Very similar. This is way, way more house than you can afford. Is that why you're calling? Because this thing is eating your lunch? Yeah. Everything, you know, with all the inches going up, it's going to look scary.

Lay out the totals for us, the credit card. Go smallest credit card debt up to the largest. Smallest would be for my business I try to go into. It's about $2,800 right now. And then it goes to $4,300. And then it's $6,100, $6,700, $8,000, $9,000, and then $12,000. Yeah. I...

It sounds like you bought a house that you couldn't afford because...

at the time you're thinking, hey, she'll pay half, I'll pay half. We have two incomes, we can afford this. Which, I mean, you're not alone. Many people enter into things like that. The danger is, like you saw, if the relationship folds, there's nobody else on the debt that can be on the hook for that. Unless you find yourself a roommate to bide you some time. And even that, I would only suggest that if you know your income is going up here in the near future. Is your income going up in the near future? Yeah.

No, but I got a girlfriend and she's staying with me. My guy. You just, you just, oh boy. What are you doing to me? Wait a minute. We got to call this out. Are you meaning to tell me that you're going to put yourself back in the same situation that you just were in that you're calling here about?

Well, I think it was more on my responsibility. I think I, you know, after the breakup, I started spending money like it was nothing going on trips. But do you want to know what it makes me feel like? And I'm just I'm like Andre 3000. I'm just being honest. I feel like this is very convenient for you to just let somebody else up and move in.

Right, but I'm not expecting anybody to help me. She helps with, like, groceries, and, you know, that's nothing else I could ask, but, you know, I'm not trying to do that. Okay, listen, I... So she's not paying any rent to you? I haven't asked, no. But now this is... Then it's still weird because you just have somebody living off you, and you don't want that type of lady.

But I get, you know, she buys me certain stuff. She'll give me some money for a bill here and there. She'll pay all the groceries all month. Bro, you're too broke to be dating somebody who's living with you and not paying her share of the rent.

That's just a fact. So that's step one, get her to pay half? No. Step one is you've got to learn how to operate your living facility on your own. That's step one. And that's just you. Like Richard, learning to take care of Richard. How about a budget, Richard? That's what I'm saying. So you can answer the question, how much money could you pay off debt? How much could you pay towards debt every month after you're paying off the basics?

Your utilities and food and gas and all that. What could you put towards debt? Probably the minimums at that because the minimums are looking dangerous now. Yeah. He doesn't have the money because he's at 50%. That's what I was trying to figure out. Okay. Richard, here's step one if I'm you. Step one is you got to get out of this house. You can't afford it.

You had a plan before. It didn't work. And it didn't work because honestly, it just wasn't a good plan. You didn't know it then, but you know it now. Lesson learned. This house is too expensive. If I were you, it'd be on the market as soon as I've got it cleaned up and can take good photos of it. Sell it and get into something that's no more than 25% of your take home. Nobody else's.

added income because it's just you right now and if you're gonna shack up with the lady she's got to pay her portion yeah come on you at least want somebody who's gonna do their part you don't is that unacceptable in today's i have no clue i've been married so long i don't even have the floggiest idea if two people are living together and in a romantic relationship are they are they both paying equal share of rent i think so i think studio audience do we have yes that's the deal okay i think that's the deal like if i'm if

I don't think the standard changes. If I'm a lady, which I am, I'm looking for a guy who can take care of himself. He can pay his own rent, pay for his own car, pay his bills, da-da-da. And if I'm a guy, I think you'd be looking for the same thing in a lady. Someone who can take care of herself, not just live off of folks. But I mean, if we're going to be dating and we're jumping into a house, I'm going to go, hey, this is my part of the rent. This is yours. Right? Nothing wrong with that. 50-50. Yeah.

Sell the house, Richard. Gotta sell the house. Sell the house. And stop moving in with these ladies. She buys me stuff. Who cares? You're broke. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm going to get some peps at AC after that call. This is The Ramsey Show.