The Best Calls of the Year So Far (Part 4) 02:03:51

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Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, co-host of the Smart Money Happy Hour on the Ramsey Networks, and my daughter is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Cheryl is in Medford, Oregon. Hi, Cheryl. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Thank you, Dave and Rachel, for taking my call. This is a first-time caller, and I'm happy to be here. Well, we're honored to have you. Glad you're here, Cheryl. Big breath. So I have a question. I'm in my late 60s, and I married happily to my husband. We have five adult children. I've been listening for about a year.

And what's changed in my situation is my mom passed away about five months ago. Sorry.

And thank you. It's been, she was sick for a while, so, you know, it still was hard, but the situation is she left. We grew up on a piece of property there and she's been there since about 1958. And we all grew up there and now this property is in a trust and we're all trying to figure out how to divide it amongst us. And it's just been really volatile. Not that I,

I haven't contributed to it because I'm a woman, but I just want to do and honor the Lord and just honor my sister and my brother. But it's difficult because they've all put a lot of money into the ranch, and my mother has it in the estate that she wants it divided amongst us. And we've kind of been an outsider because we've ranched in other places.

And now we're here now, and we're just trying to figure out our role in that. So what is the trust asking people to do, and what is it they don't want to do? The trust has asked that we divide it equally amongst ourselves. How is that fair if they put money into it and you didn't? Let's see, how do I go about that? They invested it in areas that benefited them and kind of an area that they wanted to. How did it benefit them? They didn't own it.

Did they make money off of that? Yes, one was in hemp, trying to grow hemp for a couple years and building a building that utilized that resource. And then another was... Yeah, but that building now has a value, regardless of whether hemp's in it or not. Correct, $50,000. Yeah, and that building, if they built that building with their money, your mom didn't, that should be their money, right? Correct. If I was them, that's how I would see it. Okay.

Which is, let me tell you, the whole idea that they would build a building on someone else's property without having everything lined out in the trust in detail was pretty stupid. Because it sets up a big argument. Your mother and your brothers and sisters should have their butts kicked for not doing this properly because it leaves you in a lurch. So what is it they're wanting to do, the brothers and sisters?

My sister has moved a lot of property. Let's see, has moved buildings onto the property and put buildings on the property, some of them legitimate and some of them not. And then she wanted $150,000 for providing care for my mother. But the trust doesn't allocate that? No, and then she lived on the property and her children did. 50% of her children did at the same time for the last five years. With no rent? Correct. Okay. All right. And so...

Well, so I guess the negotiating is that I assume you guys have an estate. Who's the trustee? My brother. Oh, Jesus. Okay. The youngest. And so he's really caught in this. Bless his heart. Yeah, he is. Yeah. Okay, so his job, unless you guys come to a mutual conclusion otherwise, he doesn't have a choice. He legally has to follow the terms of the trust.

whether he wants to or not. His only out is that everyone agree to something different and go along with it. But otherwise, he's going to divvy this up straight up. He has to.

Because otherwise he's liable for suit. He has a fiduciary trust responsibility as the trustee to execute the terms of the trust. If he doesn't, any one of you that are the beneficiaries would have cause against him. So Cheryl, the fact that you know that there's other, you know, they've put money into it. How are you feeling? Are you on one side saying, yeah, you got to divide it up a third, a third, a third. It's what it says. Or are you like, I want to be fair in this and do the right thing. I just don't know what it is. Where are you at in all of it?

Well, it's kind of complicated because all the assets are on one part of the property. It's worth 2.2, but it's hard. Some of it's exclusive farming, and so you can't really do anything with it, and that necessarily can build on it. And that's the part that we've been interested in. But then when we research it, it's going to be pretty expensive to try to, you know, put things in we have to do to live there, and we live about an hour away. Why don't you just sell it?

And that's a possibility, too. Your part. I mean, just sell your part. Oh, we just wanted to farm. You know, it's kind of our way to try to... Well, we have cattle. We don't have a place for them. We have a couple at the ranch right now, but we have... So you're thinking about moving on the property? Well, we've been thinking about it, but it's been a little... Next door to all these people that you disagree with. Well, that sounds joyful. That's what I'm concerned about. Yeah, I guess so. That doesn't sound fun at all.

like next door to my brother who's still mad about something that happened 15 years ago. Oh, my God. I would have to have real good, solid, loving, harmonious relationships before I'd want to live next door to him. And I don't know if this story you're telling me ends there. So you need to consider that part of it. But here's your bottom line on the whole thing. Let's pretend that you wanted to allow your hemp brother and your sister tenant,

to get a little more than you got because they put buildings on it. In my mind, the care that she provided for your mom is offset by the fact she got free rent. So that's absolute bull. I'm dropping that one if I'm you. But she gets nothing. She already got it. It's called free rent. And so then whoever brought buildings on will take the value of those buildings out of the equation.

and then split what's left three ways, then they get their buildings back. And so that, because you should not benefit, I don't think, ethically from them putting a building on the property because you didn't put money in it. It's their money. Again, the whole thing was dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb that you all let the family did this. Doing this stuff is how people end up not speaking to each other generationally. You end up with the Hatfields and the McCoys. And so...

Yeah, it's just dumb. But anyway, that's water under the bridge. But let's say that you said, all right, we're going to take the buildings off. Now we run an appraisal. Then you get your buildings back.

So, you know, you got your buildings back, and then I get my third of what's left. I would agree to doing that. And no $150,000 that is exchanged for the free rent. If you all agree to that, then little brother, the trustee, can go along with that. Otherwise, he has to execute the trust. He does not have a choice. This is the Ramsey Show.

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NMLS ID 1591. NMLS ConsumerAccess.org. Equal Housing Lender. 1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 100. Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Debbie is in San Francisco on Line 5. Hi, Debbie. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Maybe not. I think I messed it up. Try again. How about now? Debbie, you there? I am here. There we go. What's up? How can we help?

Well, I just want to know if there's ever a time when it would make sense to pay off home debt with traditional IRA. My situation is that I recently retired and before I retired, we were cruising along. We

We owe on our house about $65,000. We had everything paid off. My husband's self-employed and had a business credit card that he would pay off every month through that. And all of a sudden we had a situation after I retired where we had a series of unfortunate things happen. So now I'm sitting here and it's like we owe $64,000 on the house. We now have a brand new car loan that I didn't plan on buying for another year or two.

And we're basically retired. My husband's still doing a little bit of side work. How old are you? I'm 65. And how much is in your retirement? We have $1.1 million. Why did you not just take out money and buy a car? Because it's all in traditional. I don't care. Yeah, well, okay, so that's my question. You have no money except your IRAs?

Well, we had about $40,000, but now it's down to about $5,000. You have no money, basically, except your IRAs. Correct, yeah. And a million dollars in traditionals. Yes. Way to go. You're millionaires. You're amazing. It's great, but I'm so stressed out by having to do that. The fact that it feels all trapped kept it from feeling amazing, but let's just take a minute here and go, hey, Debbie's a millionaire. Woo! Let's just stop and say that, right?

Well, thank you. And her old man is, too, because he took the ride with her. So there we go. But, yeah. All right. So what do you owe on a stupid car? Okay. So we owe $32,000. Okay. So you need $100,000. You're going to have to take out $150,000. Ta-da! Yeah. Okay. So it's my stupid tax, right? No. You have to pay taxes on it.

Yeah. Yeah. You might as well pay some taxes. Okay, so I'm so relieved that you're saying this. Yes. Yeah, the only time we tell people not to cash out retirement at your age to pay off debt is if they don't have enough.

Like if you told me I have a $500,000 mortgage and I have $600,000 in my retirement, I'd be going, that's a hard one, right? But you're not looking at that. You got $900,000 left over when we finish talking, right? And then the other time we tell people not to use retirement is if they're not over 59 and a half, so they get penalized.

So you don't cash out your 401k when you're 45 because the government takes 10% plus your tax rate and they kick your butt. So all you're going to get hit with is the taxes that you have never yet paid on these earnings.

Oh, I'm going to sleep so much better tonight. Okay. So, yeah, you're debt-free by the end of the week. You've got a couple keystrokes on the computer to do to get the money out and get over there, and then you're fine. And you've got mandatory required minimum distributions at 72. You know that, right? Yeah.

Yes, yes. Okay. Very aware of that, but I just felt like I had screwed everything up. No, you haven't screwed everything up. I mean, the only thing you did, you probably bought a, I might go back and revisit that car decision. Oh, absolutely. It sounds like you guys panicked, but yeah, but either way, you know, you got the money. You're millionaires. I mean, you can make a $40,000 mistake when you have a million. You can't make a $40,000 mistake when you have 40,000.

It's kind of a problem. But you set yourself up. And it's not even a mistake because you actually own the car, and now we're just paying it off. The only big mistake was that. So that's the process. All right, let's go to Joel in Houston. Hi, Joel. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Ramsey. How are you doing? Better than we deserve. How can Dr. John and I help?

Well, thank you so much for taking me on. But, see, I'm calling you today just because I'm very nervous about the new student loan payments resuming and everything. So I'm 24 years old. You know, I make $60,000 a year. And I am soon to be married, so I'm currently engaged. Congratulations. Thank you, sir. Thank you. I appreciate it. What do you do? Yeah, so...

Um, I am a, so I work in logistics, uh, transportation logistics. You got a supply chain degree and you make 60 grand? Yes, sir. Well, that sucks. You need to make more than that. You're probably worth 80. I'm working towards it yet. It took a while to get a 60. No, I'm telling you, dude, the marketplace right now is about 80 for a newly graduated. I mean, you got a four-year degree in supply chain?

Yes, sir. Okay. Yeah, you're underpaid. I'll just tell you. You need to go look at it. Anyway, how much student loan debt have you got? So I have about $30,000 on a car. $30,000? Joel, and you make $60,000? Okay, how much is your student loan debt? $18,000. Okay, and your fiancée, what does she do? She works for...

government facility. It's a children's assessment center. You know, they take care of children. What does she make? Whatever. She makes $19 an hour. And she has a four-year degree? Yes. Criminal justice. Okay. The two of you are vastly underpaid, so we're going to work on your careers for sure. You bought a car you can't afford, sir. The car is in cray-cray land.

nutty nutty 30 a $60,000 car you make I mean you make 60 and you have a $30,000 car that doesn't work you don't have a student loan problem you got a car problem yeah I nervous laugh means you're gonna keep it what's that mean and listen dude I I drove the streets of Houston that's where I grew up in a 1988 Tercel easy hatchback a thousand bucks you don't need a $40,000 car when you're broke

That is true. It was just an emergency. I had no... No, it was not a $30,000 emergency. No, it wasn't. The beer just fell in my mouth, officer. No, you bought it.

Okay, man. Nervous laughs aside, the number one mistake newly minted college graduates make is they go buy a car they can't afford. So you're not dumb. You just did what most college graduates do. You went and bought a car you can't afford. And if you don't hear this loud and clear, it's going to hold you back. Because if you didn't have a, what, $650 car payment making $60,000, you wouldn't be calling me about the student loan debt.

So if I woke up in your shoes, if you were my son and you call me my nephew and you call me and you said, I'm getting ready to get married, Papa Dave, what should I do to get ready to have a great life with this woman I'm in love with? I would say work on your career. You're underpaid. You're worth more than you think you're worth in the marketplace today. You're a stud. Supply chain is an excellent degree field. Way to go. Good choice. And you bought a car that indicates you were doing drugs. So stop. Stop.

Doing this. Stop. Stop. Stop. Get rid of this. This would be Papa Dave talking to my nephew. I'd be going, you're out of control, dude. You've got to sell it. So the best thing you can do for the future Joel and the future Joel's wife is to get rid of this car and get you a beater and get rid of student loans as fast as you can by living on beans and rice, rice and beans, and work on your career choice, and she needs to work on hers. You go get a four-year degree to make $19. You can make $19 at Target if you didn't even get out of high school.

So that's just ridiculous. Again, you both have accepted positions and you've somehow justified or rationalized it that you're both worth more than you have been so far. But it's time to work on those two areas. If I were you, that's what I would do. Yeah, my dad's a criminal justice professor. I know that's underpaid. I know that's too low. And there's a number of things you can do across that.

Well, there's a whole bunch of stuff you can do with criminal justice, but that's not $19. Right. And by the way, that's when we say that. That's when she says, well, I really love working with these kids. I said, I get that. Yeah. I get that.

But right now, you can't afford to follow your heart or do your passion thing or whatever Instagram's telling you to do because y'all got bills to pay. You quit your job and work with a youth group of the church, but that doesn't make sense. You got bills to pay. You do work with a youth group of church and work a job. That's how you do that. You do both. You can't mix the two up and be underpaid. It doesn't work. Yeah.

Hey, man, we're going to put you guys through Financial Peace University as our wedding gift. Hold on. Austin's going to pick up. And we were messing with you pretty hard. But if you listen to what we said, it's going to help you. This is The Ramsey Show.

I've been doing this show for over 30 years, and some of the saddest calls I've 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...

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 Warshaw, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. The Ramsey Show Question of the Day is sponsored by Neighborly, your hub for home services. From repairs and maintenance to remodeling and upgrades, Neighborly's trusted home service providers have trained local experts to handle almost any job. Download the Neighborly app and you can connect to all the help you need. These are great people.

They are. Today's question of the day comes from Paula in Georgia. My son's school is running a food bank, so I sent him with some highly requested items, such as peanut butter, canned soup, and tuna fish. When my husband saw them, he insisted we don't donate quality items like these and instead only donate rice and beans.

I'm aware that you've told people to eat beans and rice if they're on a tight budget and cannot afford to indulge in nicer foods. However, I also know that you value generosity and giving, and I didn't see anything wrong with donating something other than beans and rice. Do you believe that the same principle applied to those on a tight budget should also be applied to recipients of food banks?

Oh, brother. I don't mean to laugh, but it's just so silly. That's silly. It's silly. Yeah. Number one, when we say beans and rice, honey, it's a metaphor. Yeah. A metaphor is a representation philosophically of an actual item. Right.

I am not suggesting that people only live on beans and rice. I am suggesting that you quit spending so dadgum much money on food, especially eating out all the time. So probably prime rib is not on your list or lobster tail, but possibly even some hamburger helper might make the list. You don't have to just literally do beans and rice. It's a metaphor. I think this guy was just looking for an excuse to be a tightwad, be a cheapskate. He didn't have to look for an excuse. He already was.

I mean, goodness gracious. And it's not like tuna fish is that big of an upgrade from rice and beans. I mean, come on now. And here's the deal. I mean, what we're talking about is you limiting your consumption so you can create margin to move ahead. We're not talking about, those poor people don't need any good food. What in the world, dude? Terrible. Seriously, dude.

Seriously. Yeah, that's horrible. Yes, they need some good food. Send them some good food. You cheapskate. Your wife is right. Your son is even better. Learn from them, sir. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. If you're going to give something away, be generous with what you're giving. That's right. I'm going to give you a car, but it doesn't really run.

Because you can just figure that out for yourself. What in the world? You know what, Dave, though? Okay, so I've been here about 13 months, 14 months. I am shocked at how many people I've encountered that think their beans and rice, rice and beans thing is literal. Let me tell you what's worse, okay? 30 years of doing this, I have had precisely 4,732 offers to co-author a beans and rice cookbook with other listeners. I knew it!

I made that up, but it's close to 4,000. I mean, it's unbelievable. And apparently it would be a bestseller if we could just get the people that wanted to co-author it with me to buy it. People keep asking me about it. A beans and rice cookbook. No, it's a metaphor. It's a metaphor. It's a metaphor. You can eat different foods. Look it up. Look up metaphor. It's good for you. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, but we don't need to be going...

out to eat every night. It's some fancy spancy thing or for that matter for fast food. Yeah. Because it's fast but it's not necessarily food and the and you know

You're working so that you can learn to put yourself as a guy used to work for would say we're working so I can get enough money that I can read the menu from left to right. I know that's right. I don't start with the price. I get to start with the thing and pick what I want. Prices are irrelevant. But when you're broke, you self-manage your consumption, not other people imposing on you their beans and rice. Yeah.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah, then you're entering into like a judgment kind of zone, I think. It's like, well, just be generous if you can. Yeah, I mean, you kind of missed the point, sir. Yeah. Not kind of, you did. You did. All right, Ayla is with us. Ayla's in Washington, D.C. Hi, Ayla, what's up? Hi, Mr. Ramsey. Hey. I was wondering if we should pay off our current mortgage and relocate for a cheaper mortgage.

What's making you ask that question? Pay off your current mortgage or relocate and get a cheaper mortgage. What would be cheaper than a paid off mortgage? So we bought a house that needed to be fixed up. So we fixed it up and now it's,

We just had a realtor come out and tell us what we could list it as. My husband was in the military and just got out and his job fell through, so it kind of shook us. And we just wanted to move somewhere with the proceeds to have a cheap enough mortgage to be covered by my disability.

Okay, so you don't have the opportunity to pay off your mortgage. You're talking about moving to a less expensive property because you're scared about his income. Right. Why do you think he's not going to get an income? It's not so much that he wouldn't get one. We're just kind of thinking about reprioritizing our time.

The house that we bought is a historic house, so it takes a lot of maintenance. We do a lot of the work ourselves. That's a different discussion. What do you owe on that house? $490,000. I already don't like the house. I hate that we have spent so much time on it. We can get some good money for it and get something I like is a good, reasonable move. I'm using his lack of a job and a cheaper mortgage as my excuse is not okay. Okay.

um you see the difference we're just kind of we're both yeah we're both on the same boat so we're just you know the boat where he doesn't work just that he has more flexibility and we're not doesn't work much how old is he not right now how old is he we're 25 and 26 okay he needs to get a career darling it's not good for him to not work much

I'm not saying he won't work. I am saying he needs to get a career where he works. Okay. I'm hearing the code words in your language. 100%. He's not wanting to work much at all. And that's worrying you to the point. Part of it is he got knocked out of the saddle and didn't get the other job, and he's lost some of his confidence. And you're clearly worried because you're talking about selling your house and relocating so that you could only live on your disability. Like you said it with your own words.

I don't think that that came out right. He wants to work. That's not the issue. The issue is that we want to be more flexible with not having to deal with the house and not having a mortgage that's so high. Is the mortgage more than 25% of your take-home pay? It is now that he's not working. But before that, was it? No, it wasn't.

No, it wasn't. Okay. So your mortgage amount is not your problem. If you want to get rid of a house that's a money pit where you work on it all the time, I don't blame you. I would do that. But let's not couch that in he wants more flexibility. And when I'm talking about his job, your answer is he wants more flexibility. It wasn't when I was talking about the house repairs you said that.

So I didn't, I didn't misunderstand you. You said it real clearly. So what, what we need to do, let's, let's, let's parse this out and break it up. Number one, the two of you need to get really good, cool, strong careers that you're passionate about. I will send you a copy of Ken Coleman's book from paycheck to purpose. Number two, it doesn't sound like your mortgage is off.

Me neither. And I'm actually wondering. Number three, I would sell a house that's a money pit and I had to screw with it all the time. It drove me nuts. That's true. But I don't know that if it's a money pit, that's one thing. But I don't know. I'd be interested to know more. She's in Washington, D.C. Where does she plan on relocating where she's going to. They may be moving to a whole different city. Yeah, it's possible. But which would be less expensive for sure. Yeah, I'm getting rid of the money pit.

But I'm also getting a career. Yeah, they need it. And probably getting a house about the same price range that isn't a money pit. Mm-hmm. I want to make the move. That would be my advice to you guys. Don't mix these things together and create some kind of false narrative that's not really going on, okay? That's what I heard you saying. I think you were saying it, whether you wanted to or not. Mm-hmm. This is The Ramsey Show.

Fake it till you make it. It's popular career advice, but it doesn't work for very long. If you don't love what you do, you can't fake the enthusiasm and energy you need to win at work. You also can't fake your physical health and energy. Everybody knows we should eat more fruits and veggies, but fruit chews and veggie chips don't count. If you aren't winning physically, I promise you're limiting your opportunities to win professionally.

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George Campbell, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in, we'll talk about your life and your money. Johnny is with us in Irvine, California. Hi, Johnny. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi there. Thank you for taking my call. How are you guys? Better than we deserve. What's up?

Great. Well, I'm calling to see what you guys would do if you were in my shoes. I'm 22 years old. I fully support myself. I take home about $5,000 per month. I have zero debt. I have $60,000 in savings, a $3,000 emergency fund. And I've been listening for the past year or so, and some of my friends and mentors are into long-term real estate investing. So I've been saving towards that for the past couple of years.

Ideally, I'd like to start building some long-term wealth, and so I just wanted to see what you guys would do if you were in my shoes. Wow. You are beyond ahead of the game. Well done. Very well done. Thank you. Well, I probably have a different view on real estate investing than your mentors. Sure. And I probably own more than they do, given that I own about $600 million worth, okay? But anyway, the...

I do not believe in borrowing money, Johnny, and you've heard that listening to the show, and I don't for my real estate investing. I pay cash for it. And so the first real estate investing I did, and I've always loved real estate, that I did after going broke and starting completely over and with this new I don't borrow money thing as a part of the guidelines was I didn't do real estate investing at first. I just started piling money in mutual funds.

And when I got enough in an index fund is what I use, an S&P 500 index fund. It took me about five years to buy my first income producing property. I paid cash for it. And then I took all of those rents.

net of expenses and any other money I could and I threw it in an index fund until I had enough to buy another property and then I took all the rents from the two properties and any money I could scrape together from anywhere else book royalties or whatever else and I bought another property for cash and every time I bought another property for cash I had more cash flow to buy another property faster than I did the one before does that make any sense

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. That is a very long-term play versus what you have been considering until this phone call. Sure. Because you're thinking about getting up a down payment and going buying a nice little duplex in California. Exactly. Yeah. And I'm telling you to wait and pay cash for it, which your friends aren't going to like. And I don't really care. They're wrong. That's true. But you called knowing you were going to get a different take, which tells me you're actually interested in this take.

I am, yeah. I've just been curious what to do because I feel like I've been saving decently and I'd like to continue that. But, you know, once you get a certain amount of money, I feel like it burns a little bit of a hole in your pocket. You're ready to jump into it. Yeah, and you've done really well, Johnny. I mean, let's face it. You're 22 years old. You have $60,000 in the bank and no debt at all. And you're making $5,000 a month. You're killing it.

ding ding very impressive and it doesn't sound like you lead a super luxurious lifestyle you're a saver i i try to be for sure there's a balance so the key is to keep living on less than you make what would be interesting if you want to be really nerdy i don't know how nerdy you are i'm real nerdy is and i've done this a couple of times it's and it always it always works that's why i'm putting you up to it is if you say all right when i'm 42

Would I rather own $10 million worth of real estate with $8 million worth of debt, or would I rather own $3 million worth of paid-for real estate? Yeah, I think the clear answer is the $3 million. Yeah. And then here's the exercise. Run out the purchase snowball, which is not a debt snowball, but the way I talked about a while ago, rents buy more, buy more, buy more, buy more. Everything's folded back into the next deal.

And the slower start ends up with a faster end. The faster start ends up with a slower end. My way is slower start, but has a big time payoff at the end because it hockey sticks from an exponential mathematical equation perspective. Does any of that make sense? Yeah, definitely it does.

Because when you get all this property that's sitting there paid for, you are buying more property faster than you would have if you had a whole bunch of property that's not even close to paid for, and it's not cash flowing nearly as generously. So the math says I can buy more property faster now. It's ridiculous what my real estate fund now looks like from my real estate income now because I'm at the back of the story, right?

But I can't get people to think long term. And I might have just got one 22-year-old to do it, though. I'm impressed. He sounded interested. Yeah, we might have. If we could just get off TikTok, we'll get there. For real. Jake is in Des Moines, Iowa. Hi, Jake. How are you? Hey, guys. It's an honor to speak with you. Thanks for having me. Our pleasure. How can we help, sir?

Yeah, so I'm 35 years old, have no debt, and am about to step into Baby Step 6. And my question is, you talk about Baby Step 7, living and giving like no one else. I have no problem with the giving aspect of things. The part that is a little tricky for me to wrap my mind around is the living like no one else because I am a pastor. And so to...

be stepping into baby step seven, hopefully here in the next five or six years. I'm trying to imagine life in my forties living like no one else while being a pastor and living in the community of people who, uh, who pay for, who have paid for my, uh, financial success. You could say, I don't know how else you would put it, but how, how should I think through that as I look forward to the next five or 10 years? Yeah. Well, um, don't muzzle the ox.

As he treads out the grain. You probably read that scripture, right? Yeah. And a worker is worthy of his hire. You probably read that scripture, right? Mm-hmm. So are you a good pastor and you're worth what they pay you? I sure hope so. Then if you use that money wisely, in Christianity we would call that good stewardship, wouldn't we?

I think you're modeling for those people what the results of good stewardship are, that it ends up with wealth. But we're taught by Karl Marx, not by Jesus, that wealth is evil. Wealth is not evil. People are evil, particularly some of them in your church. I'm kidding. No.

But not much. But yeah, anyway. But yeah, so you're always going to have a hater whether you win or you lose if you do it at scale. Yeah. If you lose, you aren't a good steward, and you're horrible, and you worked your whole life, and you have nothing to show for it, and we call that being a good steward. That's not a good steward. That means you did a bad job handling your money. Yeah.

So you're supposed to model for your congregation how to be a good husband, how to be a good dad, right? Right. How to be a great leader. We're supposed to model in Christianity. It's called a witness. And yet, my friend Craig Groeschel says, why is it that wealth is the only blessing from God we're supposed to apologize for? Mm-hmm.

And I've got several friends that are pastors that are a decade and a half ahead of you, and they're facing the exact same thing because they have systematically, carefully invested in their 401ks and in their Roth IRAs and in their retirement programs. And some of them have bought real estate carefully, and they don't have jet airplanes. They're not on TV. Yeah.

You know, it's none of that junk. They're just good guys as a pastor, and they've been careful with their income. And most of them are millionaires because they did the stuff I teach. But now there's always some duper that says, well, a pastor should never be a millionaire. Yeah, that's what I want. I want my pastor to be broke and stupid. No, I don't either.

I want my I don't want I want, you know, pastor should never listen. I want my pastor. I want his marriage to be something I can look up to. I want his kids to be something I can look up to. I want the way he handles money to be something I can look up to, because obviously the book he is reading has having an effect on his life. And I want to know more about what that book called the Bible says then. But not if you're out, you know, so but you're always going to be criticized, Jake.

Whether it's about your message or the car you drive. Exactly. There's going to be someone out there. And, you know, you have to get, if you're a Christian, you have to drive a used Accord, because that's what Jesus said. They were all in one Accord. Oh, that one still gets me. This is The Ramsey Show. 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. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, and author of the brand-new book coming out in two weeks, Building a Non-Anxious Life, is my co-host today. Thanks for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Peter is with us in Miami, Florida. Hi, Peter. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thank you. Thank you. How can we help?

So I'm wondering what role you think I should play in helping my financially irresponsible mother. You know, one of the things that it's weird about that question for a lot of us is when we face that is it seems like money is in a different category than other misbehavior. If you changed out her misbehavior for something else, a different kind of misbehavior or irresponsibility,

what would the, how would the answer change? It shouldn't really, should it? It ought to be the same answer. So in other words, if we wanted to go extreme and say, how do I help my mom who's addicted to cocaine? Right? Well, it wouldn't be give her more. It would be help her break the habit and transform her life. That's help. Help is not doing more of the bad thing.

Help is correcting the behaviors. So and of course, the person that involves the person on the other end wanting the help. Yeah, that's I usually run into parents don't want your help. They want your solution, right?

Yeah, she just has no issues, you know, coming to me again and again and again and again. And a nibble here and a bite here. And, you know, I know that the big bite is coming. But hold on, hold on, hold on. Why wouldn't she come to you? Because you give it to her every time. Right. I know. And so at this point, I don't even blame her anymore. You're a dependable enabler. Yeah, I don't even blame her anymore.

I am. I am. And, you know, it's the nibbles I don't mind. And I know that this is not the bad thing to say, but that's what got her to the bite.

And, you know, next thing I know, she's telling me that she rents her house because she's been bankrupt, etc. So she can't get a mortgage and she can't frankly afford a mortgage down here anymore. So she came to me because she needed money for movers. She needed money for her security deposit her first month last month, which I did all of that. And then I sort of dug into her finances and realized that you can't even afford this rent.

So I tried to get ahead of that, and fortunately, I'm doing very well for myself and my family, but I'm doing well for myself and my family. And I've got two young children and a wife and a mortgage and a business to run. So I just tried to get ahead of it. So, Peter, how long has this been going on?

Oh, I mean her financially responsible. No, you giving her money. You giving her money. How long has that been going on? Probably five, six, seven years. How old is she? About 73. Oh, wow. And she's stone broke. Yeah, and recently widowed, which only made me softer. My stepfather passed two years ago, three years ago. So obviously that I was trying to help her. And what do you make?

Family household income is probably three-quarters of a million. Okay. And so it's not a matter of you can't or can, you can mathematically. Yes. It's a matter of what's good for her. She's 73. She's probably not very employable. I guess she has Social Security coming up. She does have a job. I'm sorry? She does have a full-time job. Okay. I retract that statement. What does she do? Yes.

She's a customer service, and she has been for about 20 years at the same job. But, you know, she's one fall away from not being able to work anymore. Yeah, okay. So I'll tell you the financial answer, and I'll let John tell you the psychological answer, okay? The financial answer, if I'm in your shoes, is I'm going to sit down with you and say, Mom, you have this coming in from your Social Security. You have this coming in from your job.

And these are your bills. Let's do a budget together. And you can make your bills or you're within $400 of making your bills or whatever it is. Okay. And so I am not going to write checks just from today on without us having a sense of control over what's going on here. So I'll help you and coach you with your money. But it looks to me like you have enough to live on.

And I'll help you and coach you live on that. Or if you don't have enough to live on, I'm going to give you $2,000 a month so that you have enough to live on. It's $24,000 out of $750,000. You can afford it. But you say, this is what we're doing. But then she needs to just, it's, you're becoming bitter, and I would too, because you feel like an ATM machine.

Exactly. And then there's an entitlement that goes with this on her end. And so I would shut all of that down and just say, okay, this is a system, and we're going to live by this system and draw some boundaries. And, Mom, if you don't want to do that, if you don't want to live on the budget that you and I put together and that I check on you to make sure you're living on that budget, then I'm not going to help you anymore. And you're going to have to just figure it out because it's not good for you what I've been doing, and I'm sorry I've let you down.

John, what would you do? Yeah, I wonder if you're more frustrated with yourself than with her right now. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's just every time I try to get ahead of it, you know, for example, when she was looking at this rent, I said, you know what, I'm just going to buy her an apartment. And then she can just pay me, you know, what she can afford. I was going to buy her an apartment outright, right?

And I was scrambling because she was looking for a rental that she couldn't afford. None of these places could she afford because we kind of, not a deep dive, but we looked at her finances. And then I realized, okay, this is just easier for me to buy an apartment, at least then I can consider it a quote unquote investment of some sort. And I presented her with it and she said, no, I don't want to live there. I'm just going to rent this other place. And hold on. And that's where you, who are clearly,

a special businessman to be able to make the money you make. You're clearly very smart. And I would be willing to bet nobody in your sphere blows past you like that, but she does. And I don't want you to consider sitting down at the table and saying, I'm looking at the fact that you may be around until you're 93, 20 more years. We have to put some things in concrete right now.

I want you to tattoo this phrase on the middle of your forehead. Choose guilt over resentment every time. Because right now, you're backing yourself into a corner because you won't set boundaries and you're beginning, every time your mom calls, you get angry. Yes. And your mom, quite frankly, deserves better than that. And that means you have to set the boundaries up. And then she, as a 73-year-old adult, can say, I hate you, you don't even love me, and you walk away. She's a grown-up and she gets to do that. I would hate that, but she gets to do that.

Your job is to create boundaries that are sustainable for 20 years from this point forward. And by the way, sit with your wife and y'all decide what y'all are going to do to help her before you sit down with your mom. Yeah, how much you're willing to do. But the unlimited thread being pulled on the sweater is killing both of you. Yeah. You got to cut it.

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Hey good folks, the back-to-school madness is upon us. It's hitting us right now. We got travel and work and all these forms to fill out now and sports to travel to and on and on. My family's schedule is so packed and we haven't even begun talking about things like exercise and date nights and counseling and church and home projects. And those are the things that make our life even worth living.

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Call my friends at BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash Delaunay today for 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Delaunay. Jade Walshaw, Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Jane is in Knoxville. Hi, Jane. How are you? I'm pretty good. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up?

Oh, needs so much help. I need one of them swords to slay a huge dragon. I might be your toughest case you've ever had. Anyway, my husband is around, he's fixing to be 65. I'm around 59. And we have 10 kids. I'm homeschooling my last one. She's 15. Anyway, long story short, I had to go to work. He got really sick and so he can't work like he used to. So I'm now working. I started working this past year.

And we definitely need help. We have quite a bit of debt, and I don't know where to start.

I have a car that we made a huge mistake and got a new vehicle, and we owe about $54,000, maybe $53,000 on it, which is, I know, crazy. But we didn't really have a good vehicle for me to go to work in, so we did something stupid. So long story short, that was my first question. Do we sell that to try to get out of this debt? But I finally realized that we're old enough. We wish we had these things in plan, but I've been a homeschool mom all my life,

so this is all new to me. What's the car worth? Probably $42,000, $43,000. What's your household income? Together now we make almost about $85,000, maybe $80,000 to $85,000. Yes, you need to sell it. Okay. Yes, you shouldn't have bought it. Yes, you shouldn't have. Who's got the loan? Hyundai. Okay. How bad's your credit?

I have good credit. Run over to the credit union or your local bank and get an unsecured loan for $15,000, buy a $3,000 car, and cover the $12,000 hole you're in and sell it. Okay, could you say that again? You've got to borrow the amount that you're in the hole in order to sell it, plus $3,000 to get a car.

Okay. Because you've got no car, right? No, he has his truck for the farm, but we don't have a car. Get you a little $3,000 car to get around, and you don't need a $43,000 car to go to work.

Okay. So is that the first thing to do? We have a tractor payment of $40,000 on a tractor? Yes. We have a 500-acre farm that he's trying to still take care of. Like I said, he got COVID really bad. He got really sick, almost died. So it changed our lives two years ago. You live on the farm?

We do live on the farm. That's a long story, but we can't sell it because we found out it's in a trust that his parents had put in. So we take care of it. We have no money to take care of it, but what we make, and so we can't sell it. Sell the tractor and lease the land. Okay. Let somebody else farm it. Your husband's sick and you can't afford the tractor, and you're not making any money anyway.

So the tractor leased the land. That sounds great. Let somebody get another farmer to lease it. What's your husband been growing on it? We have corn. I'm trying to think what all he does. Corn, soybeans. They've done a lot of different stuff too. I'm not even sure. I mean, if it's a pretty standard deal is another farmer in the area farms it and you get a percentage of the crop as your lease payment.

Okay. That's a pretty standard arrangement. I assume that can go to you. I don't know. You don't own it. I know. It's a terrible situation. I don't know if it goes to the trust or not. No, it doesn't. If you make money on the farm, you don't have to give it to the trust, right? No, we don't because we have to pay the taxes and all the stuff for it. It's just in a trust. I mean, all the land's tied up in a trust. Who is the parent?

I'm sorry. What did you say? That's okay. I'm aghast. Yes, so am I. This is not a blessing. So this is his family farm.

Mm-hmm. His grandpa had it? Yes. His grandpa's grandpa had it? Yes. Mm-hmm. Okay. And so they put it into a trust so that it doesn't get sold? That's exactly. And then we didn't realize that we actually paid money for the house when we moved here. But we did not know until after they passed away that they actually put the house in with the trust. So we don't even own the house. Okay.

Okay. Wow. And so I assume upon your death that the trust goes to your kids. Yes. They're cursed with this as well. That's exactly right. Yeah. Wow. I guess there's no way to do anything about it. I don't know. I don't either, but I'm going to see an attorney and try to figure out because my obligation to a toxic situation is pretty low. I mean, what happens to this beautiful plan if you all just move off?

I don't really know. You quit paying the taxes. That's my question. Yeah, the trust will lose it if you don't pay the taxes because you're getting no benefit from this thing at all. No, we're not. And there's no penalty on them if they leave. That's why we are where we are. Who is the trustee? My husband is. The trustee. You need to go see an attorney.

Okay, do you recommend one that might be? No, I go to an estate planning attorney there in Knoxville, ask around, find out who does good estate planning work, because this probably needs to be busted up. I hate to sell family land like this, but it has become a curse rather than a blessing. That's right. And I love land, and I love family tradition and legacy, and I'm about as, the older I get, the more emotional I get about that kind of stuff. But this has not been a blessing to you, and it's not going to be a blessing to your kids. That's right. Because it's poorly structured.

And so y'all need to figure out what the flip. So go, yeah, spend a little money on an attorney. Let's get out of the car and get out of the car deal and get out of the tractor deal. What other debt is there? We have a personal loan for about 30 that we just had to live on since he got sick. And that's really it. Because you have so many payments, you can't breathe. Yeah, that's right. And nothing really, nothing coming in. Well, once you get out of that car and tractor, you'll be able to throw something at that personal loan and knock that out. Yeah. And then that'll be it.

Right. Yeah, just tear that down and tear down whatever hole you're in on the car. And you may be in a hole on the tractor as well. But maybe you can get a farmer to take that tractor and buy it as a part of leasing the deal if you want to. Investigate that, but also investigate busting up the trust, which, by the way, will solve the whole problem because now you're in control of the asset. You can sell off 50 acres of this, and all of a sudden you've got some money and you're debt-free.

So, and keep a 450 of it. I mean, you'd be just fine. So Dave, you get in a, you, somebody passes away and you're part of a trust or you're part of their will. You can't, you can't just simply decline and say, I don't want it. Well, you can fail to perform the things they're asking to perform. The weird thing here is that he's the trustee, the trustees who has the control. And so depending on, I'm not an attorney, but depending on how the trust is written,

The trustee is supposed to execute the terms of the trust, but also if somebody's going to break it up, it's going to be the trustee and her husband's the trustee. So if it was some third party attorney or his uncle or somebody was the trustee, then he, you know, you might not be able to get anywhere with it. But when you're the trustee of your own trust, I mean, that's,

yeah it's weird but it can yeah so um somebody was trying to do something good and honorable and nice and keep them keep it in the family but uh instead they handcuffed the family yeah and um have left them in a toxic situation so that's what you've got to be careful of of these things that go in perpetuation you know a small example of that that's not

nearly as emotional as, you know, we just went through the if Dave dies this year meeting with my family and with the leaders, I have to do this Monty Python meeting every year. I'm feeling much better. It's just a flesh wound. And we just talk about what happens this year if Dave dies. So one of the things that one of the tenants is,

It's written down, and we go over in that meeting every year, is that nothing that we do at Ramsey Solutions is to be kept alive because it was Dave's dream. Okay, that's good. You're set free from sacred cows. That's good. You should put a bullet in all sacred cows and eat them.

Turn them into hamburger. Although you would not eat them. I was going to say, do we have to eat them, Dave? Can we just... I want to eat them, but I'll be dead and you're a vegan. So we're screwed, right? I'll turn it into a leather jacket. How about that? There we go. Now we're talking. Get some use out of that burger, out of that beefalo. But anyway, yeah, the sacred cows. And that's what these things become, especially generationally like this. Yeah. Where you're like four generations down and...

You can't have the foresight to know what's going to happen four generations from now. I turned the kids loose and the Ramsey team loose from doing something that I thought was good 30 years ago or 20 years ago. Kill it. Move on. I want them to turn loose emotionally and legally. Go to the next thing. Go to what God has given you to do. That's good. This is The Ramsey Show.

George Campbell, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Royalty is in the house. One of the top YouTubers in America today, or in the world for that matter. Graham Stephan has become good friends with me and through George. I was good friends with George long before that. I've been blessed to be on his show a couple times, and he's dropped by here once before and

They were in town, so he and Jack and I just did a version of his iced coffee house. Did I say that right? Iced coffee hour. Hour. It's like smart money happy hour. Be in the house, but there we go. So if you don't know who Graham is, you need to check him out. $130 million.

worth of real estate he has sold in his life. He does a YouTube channel on finance and on real estate, and it's a lot of fun to check out Graham Stephan. Be sure and do that. And last month they had about 100 million viewers online.

on all of their various forms of TikTok and everything else, and four and a half million subscribers on YouTube. So if you don't know who he is, it's because you're not in that format, and that's the only way it's possible. You're not that hip. All of us who hang out anything around that know who Graham Stephan is. Welcome back. Thank you so much for having me back on. So good to have you. So first question, because you and I both share this huge love of real estate, and these interest rates ticking up high.

highly unusual across the landscape of the last 20 years. Um, um,

Are you seeing, what are you seeing out there? Slowdown, prices, what are you seeing? It's definitely slowed down a lot. So what I've noticed, a lot of the smart money, it seems to be either buying real estate in cash or they're waiting on the sidelines. And I think a lot of people look at real estate from an investment standpoint and think, why would I buy real estate today making a 6% to maybe 7% return when I could use the same money to buy treasuries without any work, any risk at 5.5%.

And there seems to be a tipping point right now where deals are very difficult to come by. There's a lot of competition and sellers are locked in to these very low mortgages. They have very little incentive to sell. If they have a mortgage that's 4%, why would they sell and replace that with a 7% or 8% mortgage?

It doesn't make a lot of sense. Yeah. Investors aside, consumer to consumer seems to be having that discussion. Oh, absolutely. They're saying, yeah, I could sell my house. The price is still really good, but then I got to go buy a house at 3x or 4x the interest rate. And yeah, I could refinance it later, but they're really not thinking that way. They're thinking, I'm just going to wait on this a minute.

Yeah. Well, I think 60% of mortgages right now are locked in, 4% or less. Yes. Substantial. Yes. That's almost all of them. Yeah. I mean, that's...

The number below 2% is bizarre that's out there. So cool stuff. So stock market's doing well. Yeah. Like you said, the Treasury's there. But that's the little secret. Everybody in the media, the mass media in particular, is talking real estate and failed to mention that the S&P in the last 12 months has done about, what, 16%, 18%? About that. At the peak, it was up almost 20%.

Yeah. And that's just the S&P. I mean, if you just bought an index fund, which people do with their eyes closed, right? That's a no brain, no thought thing. If you actually invested and thought about it and studied a little bit, you could do better than that. Yeah. And Graham, I'm curious, a lot of your videos, of course, for YouTube, we have to be a little salacious, right? There has to be a little doom and gloom to get the people to click. But what are your real thoughts when it comes to the economy? What's going to happen in 2024? Where do you think things are heading? Are you been dooming and glooming on your YouTube?

You have to. Because otherwise people don't click. Though my videos, I like to be pretty unbiased. I like to present the entire picture, let people come to their own conclusions. But if you don't make a somewhat negative title...

oh no one negative sell the videos itself usually are pretty positive overall but you have to lean into that because otherwise people just don't pay attention but you seem like an optimistic guy you know just talking to you you are very optimistic about the future about finances where the economy is going and you're invested in the stock market and real estate yeah well i think you could do well regardless of how the economy does i think that's a component of it and it might be a bit short term in terms of the next few years i have no idea what

what could happen. Everything that I would think is going to happen turned out opposite. I would have no prediction in terms of what might happen, but I think long-term,

I believe in myself, my ability to make money. I think for most people, they have a lot more direct control than they think. And you're betting on the American economy long term. I think so. And of course, I diversify. I have international exposure as well. But it's a small component. But I do think that's important. The interesting thing is that people get confused between investing and speculating. Speculating is a purchase that you're going to turn fairly quickly.

It's not an evil word. It's just not investing. Investing always involves a long-term time horizon. And when you're investing with a long-term time horizon, let's call it five years or more, 100% of the time I'm comfortable with the stock market. Oh, it's down. Then get in. It's on sale. You know, 100% of the time I'm comfortable with the real estate market. Well, I don't know. Five years from now, you're going to not be doing that. You're going to be glad you bought a property. You know, so a long-term time horizon, like you said...

to me, it just smooths everything out and change, you know, then you've got historical track records and things start to kick in. Do I know what it's going to do between now and this time next year so I could do a flip? No, that would scare the crud out of me. That's why a lot of home builders aren't building specs right now. They can't, you can't predict it. I mean, economists and weather forecasters, the only people can be wrong half the time and keep their job, right? Absolutely. And then you could be right once and

And then you're a genius. And then claim that forever. You're a genius after that. That was my one thing. You could write three books, yeah. Well, I'm curious, Graham. You're getting married next year. Yes, I am. It's very exciting. The show didn't know. He didn't know this. I got a note from you. Congratulations. I thought you knew about this. This is public knowledge, right? I just break this news. No, you did not break the news. Well, I'm curious. You were asking Dave in an interview earlier, which little teaser there, about his relationship with his wife Sharon and marriage. Is there anything you're...

Curious about, kind of maybe nervous about when it comes to finances and combining those? Not really. Macy and I are pretty attuned when it comes to money. And she's naturally very frugal. Like you. Yeah. And to some degrees, I would say it's a good balance because I'll certainly go out. I don't fret anymore of like going to dinner and

and spending a hundred dollars on the bill whereas like five years ago that would be like well if i spend a hundred dollars here i could cut back a hundred dollars over here and then it balances out and if i if i skip this over here then i could i don't do that anymore so i've really come in to enjoy your money a little bit yes yeah too sure i'm still frugal but not to the same degree notice that's when he got married

Ah, now it's lightened up a little bit. I lightened up a bit. Just a little bit. A little bit, yeah. So you and Macy are both tightwads, and so later you'll make little tightwads. This is great. Yeah. It's going to be fun. This is great. A bunch of cheapskates. What are you willing to splurge on these days as you've started to let go of some of that and enjoy it a little more? I would say experiences are something that in the past I would usually forego that to work more. So I would say experiences. I would say...

dinners are something that I've really been enjoying and going out to eat a few times a week. And I would say saving time, which is something that I've never really done before. Oh, spending money for time-saving conveniences. If I could. Like, for instance, if I get a nicer seat on the airplane, but that means that maybe I could work a little bit better. If I have a slightly larger seat, I could put my computer in front of me. And if I could get something else done, I see that as a justifiable expense.

So there's certain things that I could do to save time. Well, if you need any tips on spending, ask Dave. He's really good at enjoying his money. He loves experiences. He's traveling all over the world. So that's part of it is, you know, give, save, spend. You got to have balance. Yeah. So what's the biggest advice with you having one of the largest YouTube channels on real estate and money in the world today? What's the biggest piece of advice in this current environment you've got for folks listening?

I think it really just depends on what their objective is. I mean, my big thing is always save as much as you can spend less than what you make. I think those are just important qualities to have in terms of career, though, because that's where I've really gotten the biggest benefit is just the channel and the outreach. The savings certainly helped, but the income that I made from that was certainly a big catalyst.

But I truly loved what I do and I still do. It's like to me, work never felt like work. It was always something fun. And that's where things came really easy for me. And I feel like if people could find what they truly love to do, where it doesn't feel like work to them and they could spend all day doing it, that's how you typically will succeed in areas where others just can't keep up. That's your unfair advantage, I think. You're more creative, you're more energetic, and you have to watch because you work all time. It's just fun. It's fun. Yeah.

Congratulations. Thank you so much. And congrats on the marriage. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you. Give Macy our love. Good stuff. Graham Stephan, be sure and check out his shows on YouTube, The Graham Stephan Show. And one more time, the name of the show. Iced Coffee Hour. Check out Dave Ramsey on there. I messed it up. I didn't want to mess it up again. Be sure and check it out. Thanks for stopping by, my friend. Thank you so much. Good to see you. This is The Ramsey Show.

Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Debra is with us in Los Angeles. Hi, Debra. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi. Thanks so much. I've been listening to you guys for years and appreciate all you do. Well, thank you. You're very welcome. I have a question for you. I've been listening for a long time, and yesterday I went in to a

to adjust my own investments because we've been focused on other things. I wanted to get everything set up in the four different types of mutual funds you mentioned. And the guy who is not a Ramsey certified financial pro, but he mentioned a term that I'd never heard before. When I brought up mutual funds, he asked me if I'd considered ETFs.

And I have no idea or I hadn't heard what that was. He explained it to me and it sounds very similar to a mutual fund. So I was just wondering if you could clarify what the difference is and why a mutual fund is better than an ETF. I don't know that a mutual fund is better than an ETF. ETF just means exchange traded fund. And for purposes you would use it for, they're very, very similar. They're almost identical. It's a group of...

you know a group of stocks and if you're buying an exchange you know typically what people will do for an etf is something like an index fund like an s p 500 and so it'd just be a group of stocks in there now sometimes uh brokers will try to get you to buy and sell in your portfolio a lot and they like an exchange traded fund for that better um and

And so if you're setting it up to do like you'd set up a brokerage account to buy and sell stocks in, I would not use it for that. But if you're using it like a mutual fund just to buy and hold, you're going to find it's almost identical that you didn't really you're not going to notice any difference in the practical use of it.

So, sometimes I hear things like, well, Dave Ramsey's against ETFs. I'm not against ETFs. I don't mind. What I want you to have is a diversified portfolio, mutual funds, ETFs, either one of those will give it to you. What I don't want you to do with an ETF is start buying and selling all the time. And I don't want you to use any vehicle of investing that prompts you to constantly be jumping in and out, jumping in and out, jumping in and out, because every time the ETFs

you know, the news is good. By the time the news is good on the stock market, you're late. You should have already been in. By the time the news is bad, it's already too late.

for you to get out. And so people that try to jump in and out based on the news, and you're not saying that, Debra, I'm just saying, but in general, if you're trying to use an ETF to time the market, we call it, then that use is not something that, you know, that we would tell people to do ever. Because I don't time the market. I just buy and hold. I never sell it. I just buy and keep it. And well, the stock market went down. Yeah, I know. Stock market went up. Yeah, I know. And if I just sit there,

then I'm fine. And so, but for your purposes, Debra, I think he's fine as long as you're going to stick with it. And as long as he's not, your planner is not recommending the ETF for purposes of timing the market or buying and selling or constantly trading on your funds. I don't be trading on my funds all the time. I buy them and hold them. The only time I sell a fund is

is if it's just completely underperformance category over a long period of time. And I don't remember the last time I sold one. It's been a long, long time.

Because I just, I play long ball all the time, play long ball. I'm always thinking, what's this going to be 10 years from now? What's it going to be 20 years from now? Not 10 days from now, not 10 months from now. The emotions don't drive it. And again, Debra, you're not being accused of any of that, but I'm trying to couch my ETF answer here so I don't get misunderstood again. Because I'm not anti-ETF, I'm anti-timing.

And I'm anti-constantly trading. Because it's effectively gambling. If you try to play the market, you can really get burned quickly. You're no longer investing, you're speculating. That's correct. And you are, from a statistical standpoint, not a spiritual standpoint, you are gambling. Right. And sometimes I hear people say, in the Christian world that I'm in, they'll say stuff like, well, all stock market is gambling and you shouldn't be doing that. Well, you don't understand what gambling is. Right.

gambling is based on it's a game of chance. Right.

Yeah. Meaning you don't have any control or any insight. That's right. Over the, over the output. That's right. Investing is you buy a piece of real estate. Why? Because real estate's always gone up and real estate in that neighborhood is a great neighborhood. It's got nice trees and it's going to be good and whatever, you know, and, or if you're in Arizona, nice cactuses or what, I mean, whatever it is. Right. And so, you know, we're going to, but we have actual outputs that we're measuring and we can,

Look at the probabilities, and it's not just a deck of cards. It's not a slot machine. There's a complete difference, and there's a difference in the spirit by which you go at those things. So none of that has to do with Deborah, but Deborah, thanks for the question. Jessica's with us in Madison, Wisconsin. Hi, Jessica. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi. Thanks for having me on. Great. How can we help?

So my question is, I had received some money when my dad passed away. We used that money to pay off vehicles and use it as a down payment on our house. And all we had for debt then was a mortgage.

Since then, we've bought a tractor and built a barn. We were told to just let the money ride in the market. We were never going to touch it. That was retirement money. As I've been listening to your show the last couple weeks, I'm wondering if that was the best advice we were given and if we should pull the money from the stocks and pay off our debt. Yeah, and then you need to quit buying crap you can't afford, like barns and tractors. It's stuff needed for our business. Oh, bull.

You're buying stuff you can't afford. Okay? You know how I know you did that? You borrowed on it instead of paying for it. If it was such a dadgum good investment, you would have already used daddy's stock money on that. Hello? Yep, I'm here. Yeah. My question is, do we pull the money from the stocks? No, you don't, unless you're going to quit borrowing money on the next thing that you rationalize and justify. Okay.

But if you're stopped rationalizing and justifying your purchases on debt, because you're going to eventually run out of this if you keep this behavior pattern going.

But if you stop the behavior pattern and say, I'm never borrowing again, we're going to pay cash for everything we do from this point forward. Then yes, we did this. But the last time you paid off all your debts, what'd you do? The next time thing that came up, you went back in debt. And so if I tell you to pay off this debt, next thing that comes up, you're going to go back in debt. I don't want that for you. That's not a, that's not a method to prosperity. That's a method to bankruptcy. And so you've got to put your, you know, you got to spit shake and, uh,

pinky swear with your husband, we're not borrowing money anymore. If you're going to do that, then yeah, I'll take the money out and pay off the debt. But otherwise you're destined to live a life of put and take. We're going to pay it off. Then we're going to go back in debt. We're going to pay it off. Then we're going to go back in debt. And eventually we don't have any money to pay it off. Eventually you run out of the nest egg doing that. So you've got to break this pattern. And you were very clear. We use some of the money cleared off all the debt. Wait, how did we celebrate? We bought a tractor in a barn and went back in debt.

You've got to break that cycle. You can't do that again and again and again. There's an end to it, and the end ain't pretty. So that's what I want for you. And there's no rationalization, no justification. You've got to be done. You'll be done. You've got to decide. We're done. It's an investment. It's always an investment.

Everybody says everything's an investment that they want to buy, but most things aren't. Yeah, and this is a key point about behavior. Tractors aren't investments. Or the barn. So what happens is when you feel the need to have something, you have to go, okay, what's the least amount of thing that I need to do what I want to do? Could we have done a shed that we could have paid cash for?

What's behind these purchases? Not prospective opportunities. I'm going to need this barn one day. If we don't need the barn now, then we don't need to buy the barn now. And I think that's where people have got to start looking at this and going, what do I really need? Do I need a big tractor or do I need an old used tractor that'll do the job? That's what people have to do or else you justify debt. Almost every one of us.

buy a different thing when we buy it with debt than if we had bought it with cash. I agree with that 100%. Almost every one of us. Yeah. And you buy a bigger, badder, cooler. That's correct. Crazier. Yeah. Nuttier. Yeah. Dumber. Right. Thing. You got to find a way. Because it doesn't feel like it's real money when it's the bank's money. That's absolutely right. And that's the trap of this. It's a siren song. Yeah. And you'll crash this puppy on the rocks. And that's what the sirens do to you.

Look it up. This is The Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods of Moving and Storage Studios, 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. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, host of the book, own host of the book, author of the book, the number one bestselling book.

Own Your Past, Change Your Future, and the brand-new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, which is on presale now. All of those things and host of the Dr. John Deloney Show on the Ramsey Network. He's my co-host today. Thanks for hanging out. James is with us. James is in Orlando. Hi, James. How are you? Hey, how you doing? Thank you so much for having me on. Sure, man. What's up?

So, I'm having trouble getting to pay off my debt. I've tried many different things, budget apps, different things like that, and I've just come to the realization over the past few days, actually, that I'm just not, I lack the discipline really needed to stop living paycheck to paycheck. And the saddest part is I have a really good salary. What's your really good salary?

I make $170,000. Oh, that's impressive. Okay. How much debt do you have, sir? $170,000.

Uh, collectively I have 27, 27, $28,000. What kind of woke me up on this is I ignored my debt for years. Um, and then what am I, both of my credit cards were canceled and I settled one of them and that was fine. And then the other one, I honestly completely forgot about until a few days ago when I received a, I was served because they're suing me for the debt and

And that kind of woke me up where I said, I need to stop pushing things. I think I kept pushing things forever because I said, well, you know, I have a good amount of money coming in, you know, my next paycheck and I'll deal with it then. But how long you've been making 170 James? Just for about six months. What were you making before that?

I was out of work for about a year during COVID, which really hit me hard. And so during that, I was doing Uber and making about $20,000 a year. Before that, I was making $90,000. What do you do? I work in politics. Okay. Consulting. Okay. So is that cyclical? Does that go away in another nine months?

No, this will be my salary at least for the next few years. I don't anticipate a changing or changing jobs. Some things to keep in mind too, I have to have two places to live because my job commutes a lot between June Orlando and New York City. Some of my colleagues that I work with do hotels, but most people just end up having two places of residence. Do you currently have two places of residence?

Yes. And how much is the New York apartment? The New York apartment is $2,000. And how much is the Orlando apartment? $1,200, but my girlfriend and I split it. Okay, so this is... Sorry, the $1,200 is what I paid in my split. Okay, so this is $40,000. So basically you've been spending...

somewhere, all of your money for the last six months, which is $85,000 that's other than some rent is unaccounted for. Where are you spending your money, James? So it's a combination of me living beyond my means and also it's a combination of that, but also there are some

Key different things that I just don't have that I think. So, for instance, I don't have a car. I do need to get a car. And instead of because, you know, I've been my credit. I've been worried about where is eighty thousand dollars gone in six months? You're starting to sound like Congress.

It's me. I've been renting cars a lot instead of buying. My girlfriend's out of work, so I've been covering a lot of her expenses, and then I'm living beyond my means. So that whole thing on splitting the rent was bull crap.

She does that, but beyond that, I've been covering a lot of things. So I definitely need to get my stuff together. The other thing to keep... Okay, here's what I do in these situations. I have to set a new set of things. Instead of going, I'm...

I'm just not good at this. I've not got any discipline. And you keep naming off all these things that you are that you actually aren't. It's just what you do. That's not your actual identity. So what I decided a year or a few years ago, I had the blessing of going completely bankrupt and losing everything, so I didn't have a choice. I was in an extreme situation. The only way I could eat was to behave. Okay.

The only way my children had a warm home was to behave. I didn't have a choice. And so what I've done with folks like you over the years is I want you to put yourself mentally in a space as if you don't have a choice. Let's just pretend this, okay? Let's pretend that you go to the doctor this afternoon and he says, you need $27,000 by Christmas or you're going to die.

All of a sudden, James, you would be a person of discipline. All of a sudden, your budget would be perfect. All of a sudden, your stupid decisions would go away because you would have one goal. I want to live. I want $27,000 by December. And suddenly, all of this bull crap that's running around in your head would become laser-focused, and you'd be going, $27,000. James got one goal. Stay alive.

alive get twenty seven thousand dollars no other goal matters no other crap matters my colleagues have two apartments who gives a crap what your colleagues do you are a broke guy making 170 you gotta change some crap really this has got you gotta you gotta get up in your face man get up in your own grill and go that's enough i've had it i am this is crazy i'm ashamed i'm disgusted with how this looks and how this feels because that's what you've been telling me

And I'm so disgusted that I'm going to change it. And if you get sick and tired of being sick and tired, James, that's when you change your life. Yeah. Because, you know, stupid people don't make $170,000 a year. They don't. They don't even get hired. Okay? You couldn't even have gotten the job if you were stupid. So you're not stupid. But, buddy, you've been doing some stupid stuff, haven't you? Yeah. So stop it. For real. Just pretend you need $27,000 by Christmas or you're going to die.

And all of a sudden, I'm not renting any cars. I'm going to go get me a $4,000 car and put it down here in the driveway. Or I'm going to Uber somewhere. And I'm going to Uber. I'm not renting any more cars. I'm going to quit. We are not going out to eat. And hey, chick, you need to get a job or you need to move out because I'm getting rid of this $2,400 apartment for two broke people if you don't. And oh, by the way, I'm getting out of this New York lease for sure. And we're going to rent it.

cheap stinking hotel over across the river and haul your little butt over the Staten Island ferry over there and get to work. And, you know, you don't have to spend that kind of money to work in New York. You got to change some stuff, man. If I'm you, that's what I'm doing. But you got to turn this disgust into behavior change, this shame into behavior change. This is the Ramsey Show.

I'm Dave Ramsey. Your host, Rachel Cruz, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. If you like what you hear...

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Ah, Jacob is in Fort Worth, Texas. Hi, Jacob. How are you? Doing well, sir. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up?

Hey, I was just calling because obviously I enjoy listening to you and respect your opinion. Thank you. My fiance and I, we're looking to move from Fort Worth back to our home state of Minnesota. Cool. And so I was looking to get your opinion about kind of what to look for when buying our first home and looking at like a fixer-upper versus a house that's already in like prestige shape.

maybe in a growing market, our idea is that we're not going to be here forever or in that home. So we're looking to grow equity in the smartest way possible. Fiance. Did you say fiance? Yes, sir. Yeah, my fiance and I. When are you getting married? Well, we keep pushing it off. We've been engaged for about two years, but we were originally from Minnesota. We moved down to Kansas City for two years, and then we moved to Fort Worth kind of on a whim. So we're hoping to get married

at the end of next year, but our goal is to buy a home first. Don't. Do not buy a home with someone you're not married to. You're going to get yourself into legal, relational, spiritual, and financial trouble. Don't do it. Don't do it. I talked to a gal yesterday that called me. She had been living with a guy for eight years. They had two cars in their names, four credit cards in their names, and a house in their names, and he left.

You know what she is? Screwed. She can't sell any of it because he won't sign the titles to any of it. He won't pay the payments on any of it. So she's being forced into bankruptcy because of this right here. Don't do this. Go to see the preacher and get your butt married before you buy a house.

Okay? Because you're going to get in a mess, dude. You're going to get in a serious mess. Don't do that. I've been doing this 30 years. All I've heard is pain around this subject. No one ever gets blessed by what you're trying to do here. Don't do it. Please don't do it. Now, once you get up there and you're married...

Because you're going to go get married this weekend. And you know it's her. Y'all have been together two years. So I'm like, just get the license. You guys are married. You're acting like you're married. You're basically married. Painter, get off the ladder. You got this, Jacob. I believe in you. I debated about that. Part of it was going to get our license, like you just said. And then the other part of me was thinking about it was her special day, so I kind of wanted everything to happen at once. But our goal is to, this is our biggest investment, and we're not looking to

A lot of people take out loans, and they have these fancy weddings that cost so much money, but that's not really what we're looking for for the long game. But it is still her special day. Yeah, it is her special day, so don't screw it up with buying a house before the special day, and then you all have no special days.

Definitely. So you recommend just going to get a simple license? I don't care. I mean, y'all figure it out. Figure out what our special day looks like. But I would not put your name on a deed with someone that you are not married to. You're creating what your attorney would tell you is called a general partnership with no general partnership documents.

And so I've seen all kinds of horrible things happen to people in these situations. Some of them are just mean. Some of them are sad. But it just it's a mess. I have one guy. His fiance got killed now and there was no will. She got killed in a car wreck. And now he owns a house with her mother.

Talk about awkwardness. Yeah. Talk about awkward. That's a mess. So don't do that now. Okay. Now, so y'all figure out how, whether you know how you're going to get married, but before you're married, before you buy a house together, get married. Now let's pretend you're married and then we'll answer your question. If you're brand new married, I would not buy a fixer upper fixer uppers are hard work. It's tough. It's distracting. I would want you to focus on each other and be in love.

instead of hanging curtains and tiling and peeling old old wallpaper because let me say this it's set it's romanticized on hgtv it it feels like oh my gosh we're going to fix this house up and get what we want all of it and it does end up being usually more expensive the time frame is longer you're dealing with contractors you're trying to i mean you it's a second job is basically what that is and so for your first year marriage you live in dust perpetual dust

It's dust all the time. Some people do it well, but it sounds a whole lot better than the actual reality of it. There's nothing good about it. I've renovated one house while I lived in it. It's a disaster. I'm sitting in a lawn chair on plywood floors because everything's ripped up watching the Super Bowl one time. I told Sharon, I said, you might be a redneck if you're sitting in your own house inside in a lawn chair on a plywood floor watching the Super Bowl.

That's what renovating a house is. It ain't Chip and Joanna. I'm just telling you. Nobody's hair is done. The makeup's not right. It's all bad. Okay, there's no reality in reality TV. HGTV has ruined your perception of this thing. So, no, I would not do a fixer-upper. Not my first house. If you're going to do a fixer-upper, don't live in it while you're doing it.

live somewhere else, fix it up over there, then move in it. If you want to do a, if you want to get some equity from some work being done, it can be a little, little bit of light work. Like we've got to do, we got to tear all the landscaping out and we got to run a coat of paint through the thing. That's okay. But this idea, we're going to knock down walls and, and, and, you know, the decorator is going to prance through and tell you, no, no. And the kitchens, no, you

you're killing me. Now, don't, please don't do that. Now, your expectation, though, may have to lower that, depending on what you guys can afford, that it won't be this top of the line either, though, right? So, like, there's a medium there of, like, yeah. But that's a good point. I forget that these reality shows that aren't reality, that have nothing to do with, they're scripted as they can be,

And the hilarious thing is people in the industry call them unscripted TV, but they're more scripted than a dadgum sitcom. And they've romanticized it. Because, you know, between commercial breaks, the whole thing gets done. No, it's eight months later, and you're still sucking drywall dust while you're trying to sleep.

You know, it's just, it's nasty. I grew up in the construction business. I've done probably 1,500 rehabs in my life. I used to do it for a living. You don't want to do that. It's not what TV portrays it to be. You're right about that. I had not thought about that part of the problem. Sounds dreamy and romantic. Yeah. It's not. It's not fun. Yeah. I know it's shocking to you people, but those people on The Bachelor could have got a date without the TV show.

It's shocking, I know. But yeah, if they were really looking to not be a bachelor, he probably could have worked it out.

But, um, so without any, anyway, so yeah, that's funny. Rachel's favorite show. Is that your favorite show still? It's moved on to the Real Housewives. The Real Housewives? We can talk reality TV another day, Dave. You will not like my reality TV. No, I don't like any reality TV. And the Kardashians new season's out. You know, I love it. I think it's all fantastic. You are so culturally relevant. I think I...

That I am. That I am. You kept mentioning Tiger King even like six months ago. I was like, oh, Dave, no one watches that anymore. No, I mean, that was a COVID thing. That was a thing during the Fauci pandemic. But hey, Love is Blind talks a lot. That's what we did during the Fauci pandemic. We watched Tiger King. Yeah, but Love is Blind talks a lot about money. There's a lot of...

Conversations around it. None of it makes sense. All right, there we go. You never know. Good luck, Jacob. I hope it works out for you, my brother. Sorry you called in and got a speech, but I don't want bad things for you. I love you. Jacob, you see how I feel growing up? Yeah, that's what I got. That's what Rachel got at that dinner table. In a living room. Still in counseling for it. This is The Ramsey Show.

Jade Warshall, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Sam's in Austin, Texas. Hi, Sam. How are you? I'm doing pretty good. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. How can we help?

Well, you know, Colin, because, you know, I've over the years, we, the last couple of years we bought a house, things seemed to be going okay. And then we ended up getting kind of taxed on the actual build of the house. And that just kind of started a slippery slope where we started having to pay more than what our mortgage originally was.

And we ended up relying on a lot of credit cards, and they got really bad. And right now, I'm especially in collections for a lot of cards. My wife has a few. She was sued. I've got a case coming as well. And I just don't really know where to turn or how to turn this around. It almost seems kind of hopeless. Sorry, Sam. How much credit card debt is there total?

Probably around $15,000 to $16,000. And how much income do you guys bring in every month? Every month, about $6,000. How much is your house by now? $2,100. How much are your car payments? $2,100.

We only have one car payment and it's $250. And as far as like the mortgage, when we were being taxed on the improvement after about a year of having a lower payment, it was about $2,700. And now we're down to, I finally paid off the overage on the escrow. And now, you know, the $2,100 is about normal. Okay. All right. And what do you guys do for a living?

I'm in technical support, and she works in a dental office. Okay. Your mortgage is high. Your car payment, all car payments are bad. This one's not super bad. The credit cards are, the way you were talking, I thought you were going to tell me you had $100,000 in credit card debt. Me too. The weight that you're emotionally carrying listening to your voice.

I'm pleasantly surprised it's only $15,000. Me too. Yeah. I think the mortgage being a third of your take-home is really what's... And it was higher than that for a while. But even that, where else... Are you guys just disorganized and you were living in panic and money's just flying out of there and you had no idea where it was going? That's a pretty good way to put it, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Because, I mean, your numbers aren't as bad as the – they don't indicate you should even be behind. Yeah, and I agree with you there because when I sit there and kind of add up numbers and look at it that way, I look at it and I'm like, okay, this is – How many kids have you got? We have five total. And how old are they? They range from teenagers down to seven. Okay. How many are in daycare? None. They're all in school. Okay. Okay.

Well, you and I will are old as she works. And, um, but you know, she, she just graduated high school. Yeah. But, um, and, and the main thing is, is that, you know, I think what, okay. How many credit cards are you behind on? Uh, probably I would say it's pretty good number. I'm probably about eight to 10. So there's a whole bunch of little ones. Yeah. Yeah. And you're behind on almost all of them.

I've got four myself that I started a payment plan with them. Okay, so you said two have gone to collections? No, they're pretty much all in collections, but I have four that I've made a payment arrangement with, but two of them have filed lawsuits. Yeah, you said your wife got sued on one of them, right? Filed lawsuits. Oh, that's cute. On how much? Hers is a little bit over $3,000, and the same for mine. Oh, man. Okay, let me just tell you, you live in Texas. Am I got that right? Is that the truth?

That's correct. Okay. Well, their lawsuit's useless. They can't garner she wages or take a lien on a house in Texas. Right. So it's just hanging, their lawsuit's hanging out there in the ether. It's just dangling out there in the nothingness. It has, there's nothing they can do about it.

Because with hers, we hired a lawyer. Why? And they were working on the case. Why? It was the fear thing at the time. I know. That's the thing, Sam. Like, looking at the numbers that you've given us, maybe there's more debt out there that you haven't mentioned. But I think that you're way more, what you're feeling is way more emotional than it is financial. It's like, oh my gosh, I've got 12 credit cards.

They're suing us. You know, the kids are it's like all these things going on. And if you just stop for a moment, if we really look at the numbers and look at the math, there's no reason that we can't list these from smallest to largest, because like Dave said, most of them are probably lower balances because there's tons of them and they're only equaling up to 15 to 16000.

So my guess is that if you can just kind of pull all of this out of space, get it down on paper, like I said, list them smallest to largest, figure out what it looks like for you guys to get an extra one to $2,000 in every month. And you're knocking them out like dominoes. You're going to feel so much better. How many cars do you own? We have two that we use for getting the kids around. Our oldest son has his own that he uses for school. And you bought it for him?

It was, he's a stepson and his dad gave it to him as a gift. Okay. All right. Yeah, it's just a little truck. Okay. I'm just trying to find out what's going on here. All right. So what did this lawyer tell you he could do that the law has not already done? Yeah, they basically said that, no, no, they just basically said that they could either get the case dismissed or work out some type of lower settlement. Yeah. Essentially, that's all they offered. Okay. Okay.

Well, the case is not going to get dismissed. You owe the money you lost. Right. You owe the money you didn't pay it. You lose. Ding. Okay. Now, then can we settle it for less? Well, sure. It's $3,000. They can't collect it in Texas. So, of course, you can settle it for less. And you can do that with all of these, by the way, and next time don't use a lawyer. What did you pay the lawyer? $750. Okay. I sure hope he gets $750 off the balance, at least earns his keep.

I don't know how he took your money in good conscience, but all right. Now, the main thing I worry about is, like, because I've heard that, you know, I understand they can't charge my wages, but they could, like, take it from my bank account. Not unless you give them access to your bank account. Well, I mean, as far as, like, the law. They can take a lien on it. Oh, the court can't, yeah. They can take a lien on it in Texas. That's true. Well, don't keep them. If you've got a bunch of money in your bank account, I guess we'd pay the bills, huh?

Yeah, I mean, I really don't at the time, but at the current moment, but, you know, working on this here and building up, you know. No, I'm just saying, I'm just saying that if there's $10,000 in your bank account, you wouldn't have called me. Yeah. So you don't have any money in your bank account, so it's not a big fear.

Yeah. Okay. So anyway, what we've got to do is a get organized and get a very detailed plan and B let's prioritize. First thing is houses paid our food, then house, then lights and water, then car. Are you behind on the car? No, no, no. Okay, good. Stay current on the car, go to work and we're going to get you on an every dollar budget with Jade.

and put you in one of her webinars. When's your next webinar? Oh, gosh. It's not until November. I don't know that we have an exact date for mine. We'll get you plugged into an EveryDollar webinar so you can learn how to do a budget with your wife. And we'll put you into Financial Peace University because basically what we're going to do is we're going to take care of food, shelter, clothing, transportation, and utilities first. You've got the money to do that. And then we're going to force rank these things and work them through and lump sum settlement all of them, each smallest to largest. I'm not paying payments on them anymore.

I'm going to lump some settlement. You're behind. The lawsuit has got no teeth where you live. Okay. Okay? So just argue with them and say, I'm broke.

I owe you $3,000. You say it's $5,000 after you added a bunch of fees. I have $2,000. If you'll take that and give me that in writing, that that's a settlement in full. Remember that phrase. And no electronic access to your checking account. As Jade said, they will never know where your checking account is. But settlement in full, in writing. In writing.

And then I'll send you $2,000. Oh, you won't do that? Did you know there's nine other credit cards that will? One of them is going to take the money. I got you on the phone. Last chance. Going once.

Going twice. I'm going to the next card. Okay, second card. Here's what we're going to do. I just hung up on the other guy because he's an idiot. Let's see if you are. All right, and we're going to settle this. Going once and going twice. And you're going to work your way through this. And then you cycle back through after you finally get one to take the money. Then you pile up a little more money, and you start the whole process again. Remember last time I called you when you didn't take the deal? You sure you don't want to take it because I'm here with another deal, and I'm getting ready to go on to the second one. Going once. Going twice.

Going twice! And this is how you deal with these people, because credit card collectors are scum. You can tell they're lying if their mouth is moving. So beat the snot out of them and get this cleaned up. That's what you do. This is the Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, James 1, 2, and 3. Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.

Franklin Roosevelt said, when you're at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on. Amen. Kristen is with us in Madison, Wisconsin. Hi, Kristen. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Hi, George. Thank you so much for taking my call. Sure. What's up?

So my husband and I, we're newly married. We just finished Baby Step 1 this month. We have $45,000 in consumer debt in Baby Step 2. And as we're laying them out smallest to largest, we also have some other pretty big expenses that aren't necessarily debt. And we're just having a hard time figuring out where they should fall in our snowball. What are they?

We have, so we have two vehicles. One of them we own outright. One of them we have a loan for $6,200. And the one that we have a loan on is broken down. The rear differential is completely seized up. It's not drivable. It's going to be about a $2,000 fix. We're hoping to eventually fix it and then sell it to get rid of it. Also, we bought a house at the beginning of this year and two weeks after we closed on our house,

The pipes in the bathroom burst, and so that is currently completely gutted. We don't have a shower sink. At all? Or just in that bathroom? At all. That's the only bathroom we have in our house. So we've been showering at our mother-in-law's house. We've been going over there to do that. For how long? For about six months, seven months. Yeah. She's two blocks away, which is great. She's super close. It's not great. There's nothing great about this.

This sucks. Oh, my gosh. What a mess. What do you guys make? Insurance wouldn't cover it. Well, that's the other part. I lost my job recently, so currently my husband is working. Y'all need to write a country song. We showered my mother-in-law's and I lost my job. It was a lot. Wow. So what's he making? He's making $18 an hour right now. Doing what? He's a machine operator. What were you making?

I was making $60,000. I was a restaurant manager. Why did you lose your job? I was working in a restaurant. I loved my job.

The hours were not great. I was working 60 to 70 hours a week salary. So I took a different position in the same. It was another restaurant manager position. And I moved over to that. It was going to be 45 hours a week. And that would salary also. So that would allow me a little more time. But a couple of weeks into that, they decided that I was not a good fit and they let me go. When was that? That was that was in June.

Why haven't you worked since June? Well, that's the other thing. My husband, he had his driver's license suspended, and the car broke down. Why did he have his driver's license suspended? I can't believe this.

It's been suspended for quite a while. He had to wait a couple years. There was a period of time. DUI? For the points, yeah, and then for the points to fall off. And so he's eligible to get it reinstated now, but it's about $800 to pay all the fees and for everything, and then our insurance would go up. Okay, so your excuse is you're a full-time driver for an $18-an-hour guy. I'm calling bullcrap. That was a dumb idea.

You make more than he makes. Yeah, and so we were able to share. We were working in the same town. We were driving. Yeah, back when... But now with him being... Yeah. Yeah, but now with you not having a job, you used driving him as an excuse to not get a job. So get another job, girl. Couldn't you drop him and then go work and then pick him up? Or he gets a ride? That's what they did before. That's what you did before. Yeah, so we were... I can... I'm looking at getting... I've been doing...

applying for jobs. There were a couple I got to the second interview, restaurant manager positions, and they ended up really not going anywhere. But now what I'm looking at is... What would be wrong with Mike working 60 hours a week now? What was wrong with it then? You were broke. Yeah, it was mostly the schedule and driving back and forth and not being available to pick him up because I had to stay late.

to solve a problem at work and so you lost sixty thousand dollars because he didn't buy an uber yeah yeah you need you guys need to you guys need to both be committed to 60 to 80 hours a week making 20 an hour and you will solve a lot of these problems you have in a heartbeat instead you're living in a house that's not even habitable because you don't even have a toilet or a shower

And you haven't worked since June. You guys have got to go create some money, girl. You went from $100K down to $36K, and you got $45K in debt. So if we get you back to work again, we can solve this. The debt is not your problem. Your income. The fact you guys don't make any money is your problem. And you don't work much. Yeah.

He needs a new job making $25 an hour and two extra jobs making $20 an hour. And you need the 60, 70, 80 hour a week, 60 to 80,000 to be the restaurant manager job. And buy him an Uber if you're stuck at work. I mean, can you wait tables in the meantime? Yes.

So that's what our next plan was. I can pay $125 to reinstate my CNA. I have to go take the test, but then I would be able to get my CNA license back. I'm sorry, what is a CNA license? Certified nurse assistant. And what would that pay? $25 an hour. Why would you want to do that when you can make $60? As broke as you are, why don't you go get you some money?

I've been applying for restaurant manager positions. I had two where I went to the second interview process. I've applied for more than those, but those are the ones where I was interviewed. You guys need to sit down and figure out the way on the short term, not what your dream is, but the thing you can do that is moral and legal that allows you all to work the most hours and make the most money for about two years.

So you can get your shower fixed and get your debt paid off. But you're not going to do it with all these theories and all these limitations. And you're finding all kinds of reasons to not do this stuff. Really, honestly, 50 grand solves your whole life. 50,000 bucks. You could have made that since June. If he was working overtime and you were still working. And so you really have an income gap.

Your perception of work and your perception of income on a temporary basis needs to change. That is your issue because you guys need to build, you know, $18. And I mean, you know, in a world where most people are making 25 to 30. Okay. Uh, and no, you don't go get a CNA to make $25 an hour when you have the income potential of 60 to 80,000 at a restaurant. And in the meantime, until you land that you go get six jobs, uh,

And you guys work your tail ends off. I'm fixing my freaking toilet in my shower. This is crazy, y'all. Go make some money, girl. We want you to win. But you guys spend a lot of your mental that in talking to you. There's a lot of mental gymnastics on how why we can't create an income. There was a lot of them. I mean, you're like a world class gymnast.

Well, I know life has happened to you. I know it has, but it's got stuck in your head and you got this loop going and I'm trying to force you, even if you get mad at me, I'm doing it because I love you. I'm trying to force you to rethink your view on work. Hmm.

Well, every question that was, well, there's a story behind it. I know. But at some point, we just have to put it down and do it anyways and go to work anyways and do the job we don't want to do anyways. Yeah, exactly. $50,000 changes your whole life. You could go make $50,000 to $100,000 more than you made in the last 12 months in the next 12 months between the two of you changing your view on work. That's how fast your life can turn around.

and the desperation that you feel every day when you go to your mother-in-law's to take a shower will go away. That puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Do you love a good day, Brandt? Want to see the latest Ramsey Show videos going viral? Check out your favorite moments from The Ramsey Show on YouTube. Go watch and subscribe to The Ramsey Show channel on YouTube.

Hey guys, I'm Rachel. And I'm George. And you've probably heard our voices before on The Ramsey Show. And do we have a surprise for you? Yep, we have our very own show, Smart Money Happy Hour, where we talk about pop culture, current events, and of course, money. George, it's a great show. And what else do we talk about? So much, Rachel. Not enough, and yet too much. We talk about guilt tipping, because tipping is out of control, and I won't stand for it anymore, which is why I'm sitting. I'm glad you're taking such a stand.

And we also talk about something else I'm passionate about, Disney adults. Oh, George. Why is it a thing? Listen, some adults still find the magic. Sure.

We also talk about toxic money traits and girl math. And if you don't know what those are, you have to listen to the podcast. Yeah, there's a lot there, you guys. It's pretty fun. We keep you relevant is what I'm trying to say. We help you out. So pull up a chair to the happy hour you wish your friends were having. We promise you won't regret it. And if you don't have friends, we'll be your friends. We will. We're great friends. So make sure to check it out on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or the Ramsey Network app.