Financial Chaos Doesn't Have to Define Your Future

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“>> Normal is broken common sense is weird,”

so we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network and the Fair Winscrudy in your studio, this is the Ramsey Show.

Rachael Cruz, number one best selling author, Ramsey First Melody Cova,

just smart money happy out. My daughter is my co-host today. The phone number here is AAA, 825, 5225. The call is free, and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. Chris is whether it's in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Chris, what's up? >> Hi there, thanks for taking my call. My question is, is there some ways I can on my own prepare things financially, so avoid as many complications should my husband pass away ahead of me, because he's pretty much kept me in the dark about a number of things,

including financial specifics our whole married life. [BLANK_AUDIO] >> Okay, so I'm sorry, how long have you been married? >> 46 years. >> Oh my goodness.

>> And he's kept you in the dark purposefully, because you've asked to see things and he won't let you see it, or he's just, you don't ask and he just takes care of it,

“and that's how it's always been in your marriage.”

>> It started out because we're family, it was a family business with farm, and so with this parents, you know, and so I'm not from the city, and I, you know, let them do their thing, right?

And so I was never put on anything like signing checks or anything from the beginning.

And throughout these years, I just trusted him, because I am not a financial, that's not, I have better than I do better than this. And so I just trusted him to do that. Well, we've lost a lot of friends lately, and our daughter is going through this right now,

and I'm just like, well, and then he said something to somebody, and it's like, it's just quick, and then when I asked him about it, crickets, he wouldn't tell me anything. And so it's like, I started looking into things, and it's like, oh boy. I, yeah, and he won't tell me he would just not say anything,

or so tell me things that we aren't significant, does that make sense? So it's like, okay, what can I do, because like, I don't want to go through like, oh, babe, I'm sorry if I'm going to lose it here. But I don't want to go through, you know,

“what can I do to make it simple, because I've had friends who had it all done?”

They went through nothing, you know, the end is just like nothing ever happened. And if I, okay, I'm finding out that this is not going to be fun. And I don't like not fun, and I like surprises. Okay, so if you're looking for a way around dealing with your husband, there's not one.

Okay. The only answer to your question is, is that he completely puts all the cards on the table, face up, and sits down and explains to you exactly where you are. And then you'll know where you are, and he's, and then you guys lay out a plan of something happens to me, honey, this is what I want you to do here. So what I want you to do here, and you'll be taking care of, and you'll be fine here.

And, and if you won't do that, you're going to have to hit him on top of the head of the tube before. Well, that's been in the works. I've been thinking about that. It's just, yeah, I, you know, I have tried, and he just won't, you know, and I'm finding out that even like a name on accounts, things that I didn't even know. Yeah.

For example, he changed accounts bank accounts to do a new bank, but had good interest rates. And a couple years, and it's like, if I don't, my name was not, it went to put my name on it. Well, he has to prove it today just getting kind of prepared for this, and he still hasn't done it. And that was over a year ago. Yeah, okay.

So I have nothing, I have nothing. Did you, you know? No, what should I do?

The bottom line is that you don't know what's going on, and you don't like what you do

know. And so, it's time that the two of you get this stuff straightened out because you're going to be in a world of hurt if he gets it by the belt truck tomorrow, you know, and, and it's, you know, and so you've been married 46 years, you do know how to get this man to do things. You just hadn't got him to do this thing?

Yeah, well, but yeah. No, you ain't going to do this thing. And I've been married 43 years, and my wife manages to make it her idea, my idea, before I knew it was my idea, and so apparently he's getting ready to come up with a brand new idea that he hadn't thought about yet.

And so, and it's going to be that he, he owes his wife of 46 years clarity. He doesn't have to relinquish control of this stuff because he's probably doing an okay job, but she needs to know what the flip's going on. And there's a tremendous, the air will change in your house when he does this, and it'll peace.

So, Chris is, versus, versus electricity. I'm curious, when you say you know nothing, do you know any information about any type

Do you have any concept of anything? Well, so, you used to go away for a couple of weeks, a number of years back, and you said if anything happens, go to this person, this person, this person, okay, that's fine. But I'm finding out now that my name isn't on anything, and I can't even like if I call the bank, you can't have any information because your name isn't on it.

We are debt free. We have no deaths, that's far as I'm aware of, and I don't think we do. And so, it's far as that goes, and you know, I found one thing that did have my name on it, so, you know, I'm like on this totally destitute, and one of the things, because I

always have to ask them for money, like every month.

“Okay, you need to stop it to decide what your ask is.”

You know, you just went off again on your name being not being on things. I don't know if your name needs to be on them or not, probably does, but your main ask is not that at all. It's, I need to know exactly in detail what the plan is. But also, having a say is having your name on your checking account, but I mean, that involves,

and then, okay, if you die, then it looks like, to me, the second thing is, once you know what's going on in every detail, then your second thing is, I need to add my name to these things. So, if you die, I'm not pinneless. Yeah.

And we're taking a second. And each bank, and we're both going to go down together with the correct documents, and we're going to do this. Yeah. We're going to change it today, we're getting in the truck or driving down there, and

you're not leaving until you do this.

And the third thing, Chris, is that you now don't have the excuse anymore, if I'm just

not good at this money thing. That changes today, that you're going to have to not only learn, and it's basic stuff.

“I think you are very capable of learning.”

But you have as much say into your money and your household as he does. He doesn't need to be giving you money every month. Like, right, I mean, you guys need a budget together, you need your own line item, and you have as much say in what goes on in the finances and your household as he does. Now, these are big changes to make.

Almost 50 years. That's the three. That's the three. Yeah. But, you know, and so, you know, the first thing is we're going to get clarity on exactly

what you want to have happen, honey, if you die Friday, because if we don't do the

second step, you may die Friday.

I want to take you out with the two of my four. So, we really need to get this clear. And, and Chris, you guys, it sounds like, because you dropped this in the middle of everything with something that we're losing friends and our daughters going through this, there sounds, there seems to be a lot of chaos happening around you.

Yeah. That's around you. Yeah. And so you just bring that.

“This is raising to the top, and part of that fear, and he needs to hear that for”

me. You know, people are dropping dead around us, and it's making me scared that I don't know what the fuck will go on. Oh, he's that one. She meant losing for, oh, I thought, I thought, okay, well, they're not losing their losing

friends, because they're dying. Sorry, Chris. I've been married 46 years. These are. I was thinking like friendships on the, oh, no.

That's how I was friends. That's how I was friends. Now, I don't lose friends, because they're mad at me, and they're losing because they go to heaven. That era.

No, they're not mad. Yeah, use that and just say, honey, that scares me, and I'm not okay with this. I'm not okay. I'm not okay with the situation, and we're going to change it. And you're not going to sleep until we change it, because I'm going to keep you up.

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Hey, Dave, a long time listener, how you doing?

“Better than I deserve, what's up in your world?”

Alright, so let's see here.

I'm going to try to wrap it up real quick, but first time in my life, I feel very scared

and nervous with what's going on in my situation. I have a total of about a little bit over $130,000 in debt, card loans, credit card personal loans. I am a homeowner right now. I pay about $5,000 a month to not including property insurance or taxes.

On behind on my property taxes, on behind in my 2025 taxes, I'm starting to get served for my credit card debt. I have three kids been married about 20 years separated renting right now, not living in my own home and I'm getting ready to file for divorce, so just need some guidance help. Has your income changed?

My income has been increasing, so why are there bills on paid if you were making them before and now you're not one?

Because I didn't follow the rules in Garland's for you, we did some remodeling in the

home, which was not a good move, my debt went way sky high, our kids are in private school, that was an added cost as well. What do you mean two hundred girls 240,000 years? Does your wife work outside the home? She just started working, she makes about $6,600 a month.

Wow. Okay, well the way you eat an elephant is a bite at a time, and so there's a whole lot of moving parts here, and it's real easy with that many mosquitoes flying around your head to point at the wrong one.

“So we need to sit down and say okay, what is the first priority with my money?”

I have two hundred and forty thousand dollars work with, I'm going to buy food for me and my kids. That's first priority. Okay, that's done.

We're going to keep the lights on and the water going at both locations.

Okay, we can do that. And we're just going to go down the list like that until we start running out of money. And if it's forced ranked, the things at the bottom of the list when we run out of money are the least important things like the credit card debt. They can jump in a creek right now.

If you can't pay something, they're a good one to not pay. They bark and foam with the mouth and roll around the floor, but they don't really do anything other than mess up your credit. Okay, you got cars you can't afford, I'm guessing. Yes, so I do have a pound for a car.

There's one that I'm going to sell. I owe 13,000 on it. I do believe I could sell it for about 10,000, which all have to put out. No, it's got rid of that.

“And so what is she driving and what are you driving?”

I'm driving now, a truck that's been paid off for. What about her? She is driving the vehicle that we owe 21,000 right now on that. Okay, why not the 13,000 and sell the 21,000? Yeah, that is an option.

She makes 1600, after the divorce, she's not going to be able to afford to keep it 21,000 on her car. Yeah, you're right. And she, you're not going to be able to afford to keep this house either. No, I've already had that discussion with her.

Yeah, so the house and he's being on the market, the 21,000 on her car and he's being on the market. Instead of horses really going through, if there's no chance of reconciliation, isn't it? I've gone through counseling and the financial aspect of it has a lot to do with it.

I've breaking down, showed her our debt, what we make, what I make and she's just unwilling to look at it to face reality and I'm just done with it, unfortunately after so many years. Gosh, Sam, yeah, well, if that is going to be happening, then also, all the, you said you were behind, because that's going to be part of the prioritization list that you make is getting current on what you can.

And so you're behind, you said, you named off a couple of things that you're behind property tax? Yeah, what you don't have to worry about if you're selling the house. I assume the house is like, what are you right?

About 360,000 in equity. Okay. And she's going to get a big chunk of that and go start her new life and you're going to get a small chunk of that and start your new life with your big income and she's going to get a big chunk of your income, called Alemonium Child Support.

And so, you know, this is how, you know, a divorce turns a marriage into a business transaction. What do we keep and who pays for what?

And that's the questions, and, you know, so the reality is in the mediation and the discussion

between the two attorneys, we've got to get the house on the market and we've got to get that car sold and, you know, out of the, or she's got to pay it off out of the proceeds of the, her portion of the proceeds of the house and keep the car. She could do that. If you're going to sell the house, she's going to get enough money to pay off the car.

If she wants to keep that car.

“I wouldn't recommend it, but if that's what she wants to do, that's fine.”

And then sell the 13,000 car, you know, which one do you want to keep, honey, because we're going to sell one of them and you're going to pay off the other one with your portion of the house proceeds when it sells. So which one do you want and get the other one sold, right? And, you know, the three, your portion of the equity will probably clean up almost all these

bills if you sell those cars.

If you pay off the cars and/or sell the cars.

So what, so 13 and 21, so 34, what's the other $100,000 in debt taxes? How much you owe the IRS? I owe $12,000 for the property taxes in about, I'm calculating 10,000 for my 20, 25 tax taxes that I haven't done yet. So an additional 10,000 in--

Why have you not done your 25 taxes yet? This is June. Yeah, no, it's a lot of stuff going in my mind and I just want to make it a priority. Yeah, not filing is a bigger penalty than not paying. So figure out what they are even if you don't pay them and get that filed.

And see, all these things start to relieve your brain. Your brain is overwhelmed by 93 things swimming around at one time. And if we just start setting them to the side, one at a time, one at a time, one at a time,

“that's what I'm at by an elephant about at a time, then you go, okay, I'm going to file the”

taxes, I'm going to pay them later, I may have to pay them out of the proceeds of the house.

I may have to pay them out of what income I have left after child support and Alehmony. And then you've got a pile of credit card debt, too, don't you? Yes, yes, they do. Okay. Oh, 50.

Yeah. What was that on, Sam? Was that her rocking it up? You know, yeah, there was some remodeling that I had to code on. Yeah, you put that on the credit cards, okay.

All right. Okay. Yeah, well, you're going to, again, proceeds from the sale of the house. What I'm doing, if I'm your attorneys is I'm looking at 300,000 coming out of the house, I've got to clear 130, give or take selling a 13,000 or 21,000 car.

“And then we're going to split up the rest of it.”

She's going to get most of it. You probably got a 401k. You're going to try to protect and give her the most of the house money. 130 needs to be paid off out of the sale of the house, house needs to get sold as soon as possible. That's how you get the same.

That's what's hard. Yeah. That's, you know what I mean? It's a lot of the stuff that can take. Yeah.

But it's put it on, you know, take again, the leaving things in limbo, waiting, dragging things out six months, having too many discussions about stuff. If it is over, it's over, if it's not over, it's not over. It's two different sets of decisions. And so you cannot drag this out.

That will kill you guys, both of you. It's going to take both of you out. And so you're going to end up losing the house or something silly like that. Right. That's what I was thinking.

Is it like-- I don't know. Would you get current on stuff and see if-- I would get current on that house and stay current on that house because it cleans up the rest of the debt when it sells.

And then you're going to need to get the divorce mediation to begin between the two attorneys. And get that house on the market as soon as possible. And then you've got to work through, you're going to end up paying your taxes. And if you've got what you're doing with these different things, but again, break it down one thing at a time.

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Go to joinDeleteMe.com/Ramsy and get 20% off your annual plan. That's joindeleteme.com/Ramsy. Every is in Los Angeles. Hi, Larry. How are you?

I'm good. Thank you. Good. What's up? I'm 63 years old.

I have no savings.

I have a home with about $225 equity in it.

I'm more than a bit might be an option to sell my home, purchase a mobile home with cash, taking the rest of the money, and investing it for retirement. You ever seen a 25 year old mobile home? A 25 year old one actually have, I've been looking at it lately. Eh, it's not where I want to believe when I'm 18.

25 year olds are not. Not where I want to live when I'm 18. But nice ones. No, but they go down in value and they rushed. I didn't think about the rest.

Yeah.

“So when you actually, honestly, they are going up, just be...”

No, they're not. They might be sitting on dirt that's going up. But the mobile home is not going up. Oh, that could be. Dirt goes up.

Mobile homes don't. They go down. Yeah. Nope. Nope.

No, no, no, no, are you working? I am working full time. What do you mean? I did it. My job over 30 years.

I think I got 48,000 years. I live or my son who has epilepsy, his wife and daughter, or his wife and my granddaughter would live with me. So I'm family four.

“So I look at the choices I made and I feel pretty silly and I realize I can't fit in”

films. I got to make some type of a plan here. So the wife does not work? Not yet, she may be, she can have surgery next month, so we're waiting for after that. She's not been well unfortunately, she's had her son's epilepsy.

I'm not married. I'm not married. You're son. I'm not married. You're son.

I'm not married. She has had this work 10 years and literally in February with his seventh neurologist by him got diagnosed. So this neurologist is working to be able to get him a permanent disability status, so that how much will that bring in for months?

For months. You know, I don't because he has worked very little. He's been unable to work for 10 years and he's coming up on 40, so I'm not sure exactly how much he might be entitled to. I have $20,000 in retirement and $10,000 in credit card debt.

What do you do for a living? I was office manager from Air Condition Contractor. I have severe arthritis, so I'm struggling to stay working full-time, but being there so long is the small family business, and I'm appreciate you to have they understand my time off.

And so I just got to keep me an asset to business, and so far so good, but again, I'm 63, you know, I really love to be able to retire by 65, but there's got to be a plan. I'm late to the party. I'm late to the party. Okay.

Well, you got a lot on your plate, kiddo. I'm sorry. But a mobile home doesn't fix the problem. Okay, it's the symptom is the strain.

The problem is income in the household, and, you know, as a ratio in $48,000, and you've

a year in Los Angeles. That's tough.

That's a tough number right there.

Yeah. There's not a lot of room. You guys aren't hang out a lot of wiggle room in this, so, yeah, you're, I'm sadly, you're going to be working, and so is she, and so is he, as soon as all of you can, because you don't really have a choice, you're going to have to bring some income into this house.

Now, what I might do at some point would be to leave Los Angeles and sell a house and buy a much less expensive home and a much less expensive area of the country to try to make your old income, go as far as it can go at that point. Yeah. I thought of that.

Okay. But I don't want you on a 25-year trajectory at 63 to 88 of declining values to add to your problems. Okay. Okay.

Okay.

“That's what I'm trying to help you avoid.”

Yeah.

But it doesn't fix the strain that you've got today to hold onto the house.

What's that? What's owed on the home? I owe 95, I think it is. I did have a real trigger when I look at all the specs, and she told me I should get about 225 out of it.

Oh, it's not 225 in equities, 225 in value. No, no, I'm sorry. She said in my pocket. Oh, okay. Okay.

So it is. It's a 325,000-dollar house, approximately. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

All right.

Are you guys month to month?

Okay. Like we're pretty much. Because you're living on your salary for all these people. You're able to stay current on everything. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. But on the left side that I've been able to absolutely, in fact, I just told them we have a couple of streaming services, I said, okay, I'm cutting those off, we don't need the streaming stuff. It granted it's only $11 a month, but I go, that's that I can put 11 bucks towards my

credit card. It's climbing the charts. So, you know, trying to, any little thing we can do, but they do get snap, which is like food stamps. Yeah.

So, I don't have to pay. My daughter-in-law's grand mother lives in town. She just about provides everything for my grand daughter in the way of school close, supply, you know, she helps, you know, with anything that the grand daughter might need.

So, that's a big help. Yeah. And she's older than I am.

“What's the nature of your daughter-in-law's health problems?”

Last year, she had gallbladder out the year before she had half of her strength, maybe before the other half of her strength, maybe it was supposed to be full. And she had a horrible thyroid issue, which caused her to hurt, on their anniversary, her gift is to sleep 48 hours straight, and the doctor's like, "You're immune to her."

What is the operation she's getting ready to go have? Corporal tunnel on both hand. She has to go. When can she be able to work? Yeah.

Do you know what the recovery time is? You know, I don't know what recovery time is, I'm thinking probably by the time school start to get in September? Yeah. Well, so what I would love for you all to do is to have a plan, and it might even involve

going ahead and moving now to a less expensive area, but to have a plan to create income for this household. Anything you can do to get your income up and certainly maintain the income that you have. Anything that you can do to add income, his getting permanent disabilities can be social. It's going to be SSI coming in, there may be SSI available for the child in that situation, too.

And, you know, just be learning about all of those things, and anything he can do within the framework of permanent disability to still earn an income, there's a limit, but he can do some things. I want him to do it. Because if this is not the trajectory of this is not good, it's not sustainable.

So we've got to get some income coming into this house somewhere and/or get our outgo down.

“And that's what led you towards the getting rid of the house payment by getting the”

mobile home. I would leave LA before I did that and take my 235 and go to wherever cheap area of the country and name it. And that kind of thing. But again, even then when you do that, you've got a new job and each of them has to land

an income. And so it doesn't fix everything because at 225 will go away real fast.

Do not buy something going down in value that doesn't solve your problem. So I see how you got there though, you're thinking, you're trying to find some options. Wow. And you call us any way we can help in the future.

“We'll try to be more help, but that's what I'm seeing right now.”

You know, when I became a dad, something flipped. Suddenly it wasn't just about me and my wife anymore. It was what happens to my family if I'm not here tomorrow. And things like that just hit different when you become a parent. But I'll be honest, making a will feels heavy and complicated.

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How are you? I'm great. Thanks for taking my call, Rachel. I'm Dave. It's an honor to be on the phone with you.

Come on, Anthony. Thanks for taking my call, Rachel. I'm Dave. It's an honor to be on the phone with you. Come on, Anthony.

Thank you. How come we help?

Yes, my first quick question is about tax loss harvesting or direct indexing.

I'm assuming because I've done so much with what you teach in classical, you're not a fan because you don't recommend to buy single stocks, but my financial advisor is recommending instead of my non-qualified account that I'm starting to build to look into that. Well, I'm not doing, you can do tax loss harvesting without doing single stocks. You can do that as a function of a mutual fund and there's nothing wrong with that.

Here's the first thing is concentrate on making money with your investments. That's the first thing. Then while you're making money, is there a thing over here on the side that we can do some moving around inside a mutual fund and do a tax loss harvesting strategy? Yes, but that doesn't need, you don't need to lead with tax loss harvesting.

You need to lead with make money. It's good funds, but within those.

“Then you can, you know, so the only way tax loss is occur in investing is if you'd lost”

money. You've got a bad investment. Or yeah, one of the stocks within the index or the mutual funds goes down and they can sell with a light kind stock and you get to write off the loss and they do that all, which is, I mean, it's a great function.

It's one that I was even just talking to you about my husband and I moved some money into an accounts, probably two years ago, with this like new investment strategy within an index fund. But they can happen within it, which is great because you write off the loss. There was a single stocks to do it.

But no, not single stocks. Not do that. And I don't want it to be the primary. The primary needs to be make money. Yeah, and most of all, you know, mutual funds index funds, as we've seen the past couple

years, have all gone up, I mean, you know, in fact, but there may be a couple within there that you can use for that advantage, which is great. But yeah, no. So the reason I'm being cautious in how a word this is, the concept is fine. What scares me is that financial goobers that are out there, the guys in the business,

they love a math riddle and they can go down the rabbit hole on their enjoyment of their nerding out on a math riddle and miss the point.

And the point is first, make money, right?

And all financial advisors, just about can fall for that trap, I know, because my brain

works the same way. I love looking at a new math thing and I'm going, wow, that's kind of cool. But if it's for your advantage, then you're right. Again, can't be just because they got all excited about their nerdingness, that then that becomes the primary and the primary is make money, okay, that's the primary.

And then we can do math nerdingness and have some fun on the side and get to the advantage and do the tax harvesting. The concept in and of itself is, but it's number F, not ABCD or E, it's on down the list of things I'm worried about. And of course, you're out of house and everything before we talk about having a non-qualified

account of that size, I assume your house is paid off will, no, then you don't need to be talking about any of this. None of this should be on the tip. You shouldn't have that kind of money in an unqualified account. It should be going on your stinkin' house.

“Remember, remember that part when you said you followed our stuff, baby steps six.”

How's the house? No. Yes, sir. Well, I hear you. You know what?

I think, listen. Yes, have your 401k, your Roths, do your 15% into your retirement and everything else goes on the house. And pay off the house, yes. And then the investments above retirement.

How much in your non-qualified accounts will? It's about half of that to about, I have $85,000 invested, half is in monomal wax growth already and other hats in non-qualified. We just purchased a house on 22 and I just spent putting money in that before and I have spent putting it all out.

But you need to follow the baby step at three as an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. Four is 15% of your income going into qualified accounts, Roth and Roth with match are

your first two things until you get to 15% of your income.

And everything else goes for home enjoyment, life, generosity, and pay and down the house. And we pay off the house, but where we start talking about that. So no, I don't like your financial advisor anymore. Because now he's got you pay. He's got you screwing it out with $45,000 and no money, $45,000 at tiny, but little account

“and you're doing tax harvesting with this thing and this nerd now on something you should”

be dealing with $450,000 for your screwing with that. And so no, you need to get your house paid off and-- Well, call it to learn. No, I'm not using the shiny world. The shiny little nerd guy's got him thinking, no, I don't like him.

No, not with all and talking about his financial advisor. He should not be advising this. This is exactly what I was talking about. OK. Guy gets the financial guy's get all, whooped up about something and he's got a 22 year old

screwing around $45,000 on this instead of paying off his house because he learned something in financial advisor class that he thought was cool. There you go. That's all. Yeah, that's what we don't want to do.

No. Let's fast forward.

“OK, well, your 28 year house is paid off.”

You've got half a million dollars now in your qualifies and now you're in baby step 7 and

you're starting to chunk some money away and you've got 100,000 bucks laying over here in a brokerage and you're doing some index funds with it and some other stuff. Then we can start talking about worrying 10% 20% worrying about a tax harvesting 80% worrying about making money. Yeah, yeah.

But now is not the time to do this. And this guy's got, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I had to get to the bottom of it for a minute. But I can, the, the, the, just mad. No, the people that I have been trained with my whole life, these financial people.

I love them, our smart restaurant pros, you know, they do a great job. But the way our brains work in that is we just love a good math thing. And it's just shiny for us. And we want to, and so it's the answer, you know, now we have a hammer. So everything's a nail, you know, and it's, it's not.

It's a one track mind at that point versus zooming out and looking at your entire financial picture and getting yourself in a place with priorities, like you're saying. So don't get enamored with the sophistication, live on less than you make and save money. There you go. But when these people start getting enamored with something that's a physical tax harvesting,

tax loss harvesting is just sounds very sophisticated. So you know, don't get sidetracked with this stuff. That's when people lose their butt. They're chasing some, some kind of hack that's going to make everything easy. What's easy is living on less than you make and investing the difference and you'll be a

millionaire. And that's not all directed at Will. It's mainly to, well, you're doing a really good job. Yeah. Incredible.

Actually, you did call in until your defense.

“You said, I don't think you're going to go for this, Dave.”

I didn't know why I wasn't going to go for it until the end of the call. He knew you better than you knew yourself. No. Well, because he knew his numbers, he buried, I didn't ask the numbers. I didn't get to $45,000 until I was six minutes into this rant.

Yeah. So guys, Will is going to be a multimillionaire. Here's the rule he used. Don't do something you don't understand. And that if it feels funny, it's because it's funny. And for his financial advisor, do we talk about single stocks and and tax harvesting with

him after he's been listed in the nation? Yeah. He's like that. That feels, yes. There you go.

“So this is a very wise 22 year old, very wise.”

He had a, he recognized a few points that were off. He's trying to be cognizant. He's trying to be intentional. And he's trying to learn. He's trying to stop.

Yeah. And then this guy comes in with a shiny penny that's a plug. Yeah. Yeah. That's.

Yeah. So he's got because he's intentional because he's trusting his feelings. He's checking the against what he knows to be true, all those kinds of things. He's gonna be a multimeter. He's gonna do great.

Yeah. He's gonna be amazing. But it won't do this at all. It won't be because he taxed loss harvested on 45 grand. I can promise you that.

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Michelle is in Provo, Utah. I'm Michelle, how are you? I'm great. Thanks, Dave. Thanks, Rachel.

How can we help? Thanks for all you do for everyone with all your advice. My husband got $38,000 of inheritance money last summer and he didn't tell me about it and

he spent $20,000 on pornography with a little cyber affair and he came clean finally

and told me about it but he's going to be getting another $250,000 of inheritance money in a couple more years when his parent's home is sold and he says that he is not going to be paying off my student loans when he gets that amount of money. So I guess my question is, do you think that he should help me with my student loans with

“his inheritance money and should I get divorced if he refuses to?”

Wow. How long have you been married? We've been married for 12 years and why are you more concerned about paying off your student loans and your husband having a porn problem? These are two different things that shouldn't even be in, like, porn problem, big deal and

inheritance, little problem. Yeah, but him pinning her in a corner and it's not feeling like a lot of money. How about he's a jerk on two or three fronts but I mean, I...

treating you this way than I would whether or not you get access to his inheritance. Yeah, I'm... I'm... Wait, are y'all... Are y'all in counseling or did it last?

Yeah, I talked to him in the counseling when he finally ran out of inheritance money to pay

“for porn, I think he might have used a few marital assets to pay for it and then there”

was just nothing left to pay for it. So he finally kind of came to the senses and finally agreed to go to counseling. But... I guess it's just been... He just stopped the share about two months ago.

Okay, and how long have you all been in counseling? Um, about three months. I knew about the affair during the first month of counseling, but I didn't really like it. When you said a fair, you met with pornography. Well, it was a specific person. It was a specific person. I was a psychiatrist with a lady on only fan. So I think he thought it was a real person, but I, he found out that it was, I mean, I've, sense and explain that, it might just be a real person.

It might just be a lady who sells her content and he was chatting with her thinking he was having a real relationship, but.

Yeah, you basically built a relationship with this person.

Yeah, and sending her new photos and things like that. If you call all of these fans a relationship, prostitution is not usually relationship, but yeah.

“That's what it feels like to her. I mean, yeah, he's been freaking communicating with a woman. I mean, yeah, that is all and all.”

Yes, Michelle. So Michelle, at this point, I don't feel like you have had time. And the work you guys have done to rebuild any level of trust. And I think the sting is he says, I'm going to still withhold money from you. When I get it, and I'm not taking care of you. I'm not taking care of you on an emotional front. I'm not taking care of you on a financial front. Like all of that to me is one problem. And it's coming out multiple different ways. And you're getting that feeling of, this doesn't feel right. None of this, none of this seems right.

And it's all connected because it's all coming out of the root same issue in my opinion. Yeah.

And you've not had time to rebuild the trust, Michelle. It's only been two months. Well, there's no reason to rebuild the trust. He's still being a twerp. Yes, true. Yeah. I mean, it was in the same conversation that he'd waste all the money. And, and, you know, mentioned that he was not going to share the future inheritance.

What did your counselor say about that? We've had a few different counselors. No, I mean, you had a counselor lately, what's your latest counselor? You had this exact same discussion with them. What'd they say? Well, the female counselor, she tends to side with the women. I'm guessing, but she said that it was. I had a female marriage counselor that was not siding with any women. I can tell you that.

She was she was siding with the truth and would get up in your real regardless of your sex. Yeah. Well, her opinion was that the relationship was faster pair. Okay. And is that your last counselor relationship? We did see one another counselor one time after that, but I guess. You saw one counselor after that one time.

Yeah. We did the counselor's in the past. Why did you leave the other lady? Because she said she couldn't help you. She was messed up. She just said that she would, she would get a divorce. If her husband did that to her. And so I guess I just, I think you're not at the end of your rope to that point. Is what you're saying, Miss Chaudhume?

I could have continued with therapy, but it's just, it's been difficult because there's a lot of blaming the pornography on me and things like that and saying, you know, because I, it was miserable to be married to me that I, that I'm responsible for how he spent the money. Yeah. I can fix that. If your miserable being married to me, I can fix that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he sounds like there's not a lot of money. Well, this guy has zero repentance. He wrote remorse, Rachel's wrote it.

“That's what it feels like. Why? I mean, why would, he should be, what gives you hope that he's just going to turn around? Why do you have hope?”

Well, he said he was sorry. He could hide a couple tears and gave me a play to cook you. When was that? That was, um, before, after he was online with only fans horror. Well, I actually filed for divorce because he refused to show me the credit card statement.

It just popped in my head one day. I haven't been very good about checking where my money's been going.

“So I asked him, he refused to give it to me. So I filed for divorce and then a week later, knowing that I was going to find out anyway.”

He said he was sorry. He was getting any clean. He told me everything. But it was, you know, kind of under pressure knowing that I was going to find out anyway. Very soon. So I'm not sure if he's genuinely, no, he's not. No, he came clean because he got caught, not because he's begging begging for your marriage to be healed, Michelle. Yeah, it's not, it's not looking good right now. We're not, we're not professional counselors. We're just regular people sitting and listening to a lady who's hard as broken because her husband,

his behavior is saying he's done. His mouth may see something else, but his behavior as John's loan. He says your behavior is a language. And every single bit of his behavior says he is not interested anymore. That's really sorry. I'm sorry. And I wish he would go to counseling with you and would be remorseful and repentant.

And would do his own work and turn from his wicked ways and become a good husband, but it doesn't sound like he's going to. Based on what you told us, but don't make a decision based on calling a podcast. You make a decision sitting down with your pastor and prayerful, sitting with a therapist who loves you and knows what's going on in your life. A couple goobers on a microphone don't need to make your decision for you. Let me tell you something I see happen way too often.

People fall behind on their bills and they wait. They hope it will work itself out.

“It won't. That's why I recommend Guardian Litigation Group.”

Here's the deal. If you've missed payments, collectors are calling or if you're getting letters threatening legal action, that's not something to ignore. That's the moment to deal with it. Because when you do nothing, it escalates. They can take you to court. And if you don't respond, they can win by default and that gets expensive fast. Guardian Litigation isn't a call center. They're an actual law firm.

From day one, you're assigned an attorney to represent you. So if things do escalate, you're not scrambling and you're not hit with surprise legal fees. Guardian Litigation only gets paid when the debt is negotiated and you accept the settlement offer. This isn't about shortcuts. It's about dealing with the problem before it gets worse.

So what about investing at the next level? I mean, we talk about the four mutual funds to put your 401(k) in. And then you get your 401(k) in and good five to 10 to 20 your track records when you're picking those inside your 401(k) or your Roth IRA.

“But I mean, what about another level? When you get the baby step seven, what do you do?”

It can be really confusing. There's a lot of stuff to consider.

So we've done a two-night virtual event, two times. This is the third time we're doing it.

So we don't do it very often, in other words. And it gives you a simple strategy that you can feel confident in. It's investing essentials. It will be September 1st and 2nd. It is me and George Campbell. And I'm going to unpack my personal playbook, what I do for investing in wealth planning. What I do with real estate, how I pick my real estate, what I do with my mutual funds, how I do that.

And I want to go through all the different categories and buckets of investing and some of them why I don't do them. And explain to you clearly. And then you get to pick out what you want to do. But I'm going to show you what I have done to get the net worth that I have today. And this year, we've added a bunch of new content, like getting out of taxes, reducing taxes, navigating the wheels and building a lasting legacy. We're going to get into the legacy piece a little deeper this year than we have before.

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So, a lot of fun stuff. I like working on new stuff like that.

“Alex is an Albuquerque New Mexico. Hey, Alex, how are you?”

I'll do a lot about you. Better than I deserve. What's up? Yes. So, my wife and I, we have some equity in our house. And our question would be, do we sell the house to take out the equity to pay off that? Do you like your home?

It's not my dream home. What I asked, I said, do you like your home? It's a good house. Would you be selling it if you didn't have the debt problem? No, I would not.

Okay. That's the bottom line.

Okay. How much debt do you have? Roughly 135,000. On what? On student loans credit cards. How much do you loans?

Student loans. My wife has about 28,000. And I got about 6,000. Okay. What else? Credit cards. Oh, credit cards. She owes 4,700.

That's it. Okay. How much on the cars? She owes 10,000 on her car. And we just bought a truck for 50,000.

Good God. Well, I just, hold on. I love the, she owes 10,000. But we owe 50,000 for the truck. Her debt, her debt, but it's our debt for the truck. She's got $4,732 on a credit card.

But we bought a $50,000. Somewhere around 50,000 on truck. That is pretty funny. We owe 47,000 on the truck. Yeah. That's fine. I love it.

You're a good sport. All right. Now, so a 65, I'm still 100 sure. I'm still a bunch short. Not 100 short.

But what else you missing? Yes, sir. We have a home loan for roughly 33,000. Home equity loan. Yes, sir.

Okay. Do you have a first mortgage as well?

I guess I don't know. Okay. I mean, is that your only mortgage? You only owe 33,000 on your house? No, sir.

Oh, so our total debt would be, we owe 135,000 in consumer debt. And at my mortgage, I owe 169,000. All right. So 33 on a second mortgage on the home equity loan. I got you.

All right. That's about it. Okay. And your household income is what? Between 160 and 170.

Okay. And how long you all been married? Roughly five years. Okay. Cool. Little less than five years. That's kind of what it looks like in the numbers.

It looks like you guys have been normal.

And normal is we spend a little bit more than we make. And we see something we want, we buy it and put it on payments. And then you look up after five years and you went, Oh, crap. This is a mess.

And that's normal.

“And that's what these numbers actually look like.”

They don't look like you've done anything extremely dumb with the possible exception of the truck. But the rest of it was up, your death by 1,000 cuts. The only big one was the truck. Yeah. And then the home loan. I got into a motorcycle accident.

So I was put down for about six months. So we had to take out that. Exactly. You didn't work for six months? Yes, man.

Okay. Yes, sir. Wow. Okay. Okay.

What do you do for my wife? My femur. Right now, I did a career. I did a transition. So I'm in project management for general contracting.

Good. Good for you. Yeah. All right. And we're not in the motorcycle business anymore.

That's gone, right? Yes, sir. I got rid of all that stuff. Yeah. Okay.

Um, Alex, do you guys know? Could you be bringing home what per month? Probably around 10. Yes. It depends.

So my wife's a hygienist. So she depends on if she's able to secure temperatures. Or not. And then we opened up a small business. We owned a little drink trailer selling dirty photos copies.

Mm-hmm. That's like that. So her tensions have stopped. And now she's focusing more on her side business. So it's roughly between 8 to 10,000.

Okay.

“And then how much does it take to keep you guys afloat on bare basics?”

You know, like to pay the mortgage, keep the lights on. Pay insurance. Like do what you need to do. Yeah. Yeah.

That number is a greatest.

Little less than 8,000. Okay. Okay. Okay.

“So you're not going to like the prescription that the doctor is going to give you to fill out.”

Okay.

That you're going to have to go to the restaurant pick up.

But I'm going to give it to you. Okay. Because I love you. And I want you to win. And are you guys in your early 20s?

Oh, late 20s. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Because I mean, you fit all the exact numbers.

So this is where most people are. And it's not a fun place. Your all's budgets tight. You don't have a lot of wiggle room. You're low in a bunch of money.

You're not going out every night. You're not going on lavish vacations. You don't have all that. And you're also not making 170,000 dollars a year. If you're only bringing home 8.

So something screwed up in your numbers. But you need to get into this in fact. Yeah. Because what's really going on is you guys have just been sloppy.

“And so if I woke up in your shoes knowing what I know, I think you could be a millionaire”

in about 12 years from today.

And here's what I would do.

I would sell your truck immediately. And I would get on a detailed written game plan budget on the every dollar app. And we're going to give you a premium version of that to get you started and not charging. I want to get you in there in the two of you sit down and figure out exactly how we're are not making 170 because that's not 8,000 dollars a month.

No. I mean, they're probably bringing home 10. 10 dollars a month, 100,000 dollars a year. They don't have $70,000 dollars worth of missing money. No, he said, he said, 160.

And then they hang around $8,000 a month. Which is 100,000 dollars a year. There's a $60,000 or $70,000 a get there. That is not taxes on that. Not even close.

Where's he from? New Mexico. It doesn't matter. There's no taxes of that level in any state. Well, there's no 50% taxes.

Okay. We're not 50%. Well, it's 40%. What is that? 70?

It's around 30. It's not going to be. No, we're near. No, we're near. You ought to be coming home with about 15 or 14, right in there.

And yes, you should. That's 140. That's 150,000 without taxes. 144,000. And 170 minus taxes is going to go about 144.

Okay. Okay. Run some numbers at the break. I just think there are more. I think there are more.

I think there are more. Okay. I can't put too much. But I would if I could. So anyway, I'm going to put you on a detail.

Every dollar budget where you have every dollar written down.

“And you need to find out where your income's going because what your numbers aren't adding up.”

Regardless of if Rachel thinks they are. And then you need to sell your truck. And if you do those three things, I think you're going to see your way through this. You do not need to sell your house. You need to sell your truck.

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[Music] Mariam is in Green Bay. Hey, Mariam, welcome to the Ramsesha. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, welcome to help.

Hi, thank you so much for taking the call. Um, I'm wondering about how to, um, how to look at. Get a job for specific financial goals without. It becoming my money, hence money, with my husband, and also to not hopefully not express.

So I'm confused. You want to get a job and do something with that money that's not part of what the family wants to do.

“What's the idea, Beth? What do you want to do?”

I'm sorry, Mariam. I'm just, um, everything from, I want counseling for myself. Um, which also would be required for me to maintain a job for every reason. Um, and I have some help. Things I want to get looked at that are expensive.

I want, there's a rate of furniture that are not necessary that I would like to get. If I'm going to do that, I need to get a job in my head. There's some things like I would like more money to be put towards, uh, saving for down payment for, uh, for vehicle replacing eventually. And like a little bit more buffer there. So things like that that I feel like, okay, these would be things I would really like to have.

And if I'm going to, if we're going to do that, I should go get a job. And I, but then I feel like I'm doing this and it's, I don't want it to be me versus him. And I don't want it to be my money. His money, but also I want to, he's a spender. And so he sees a bucket of money in the, to be assigned category and our budget.

And he's like, oh, we could put that number. No, um, I wrote, um, my paycheck comes in. I want to put it up like this is exactly how old we're going to need it.

It'll never, it's just going straight into the categories.

So there's not, you don't feel a lot of safety with your money when it comes to your differences with your husband. Correct. Yeah, and you're wanting some safety. Have you expressed that part to him? Um,

To an extent, they, not probably not enough. I, we have enough. But if things change, we don't want to see. What is, what does he do? Yeah.

He makes about $43,000 a year.

“And what would you make at this job we're talking about?”

Um, I'm looking for jobs that would pay at either $20 an hour or at least $30,000 a year.

Could you all have children? No, unfortunately. Okay. That's part of that's the whole thing anyway. Okay.

Um, yeah, and you guys are living on a, on a tight budget at $43 for sure. Um, so what, what do you do during the day? What, what's going on with you? Because you said something about having to keep a job or you're not able to, are you not able to work? Um, and emotionally, you know, hence counseling is the highest line item.

Okay. What's going, can I ask that? What, what, what's, what's keeping you there? Um, who had to be concise?

“Um, I have had a few jobs where I've been able to, where I, I lack currently lack the skill set to deal with backfighting and gossip.”

And, um, corporate just shenanigans. And that's, that's something that I want to work on in counseling. I have had very few jobs where that's not gonna miss you. And the fact of me working done, I thought, working for myself as a household cleaner. Um, or, uh, because you easily get wrapped up into that.

Is that what you're saying? Or when it happens, you're paralyzing. It bothered me. Okay. I let it bother me.

It can suit. I just completely descend into this function. Okay. Everything about life. Because of it.

Okay. So no, I would not do your plan to answer your question because it's not good for your marriage. It's not good for you. Instead, I would still accomplish exactly the same goals and do exactly the same thing, but do them in a different way. Okay.

So yes, I'd go get a job. And yes, I'm gonna add that income to the pool. And yes, I am one of two votes on this budget. And my vote is that some of our money that we make and put it in a pool is gonna pay for my counseling. And yes, some of our money is gonna go for this.

And no, you're not gonna blow money over here. While I'm not being cared for with the counseling that I need. You're not gonna blow money over here. While, uh, these health concerns have not been addressed. And no, and so we're both gonna talk about this.

They count the same.

And so I'm willing to add some money to the equation.

“But the equation is going to be that the two of us sit down and we plan out the money in the best way that is good for our lives.”

And our lives include me being healthy emotionally and being healthy medically. And it includes us buying a stick of furniture every now and then. And it includes us getting out of debt. And it includes you having some fun too, whatever his fun bucket is. And those kinds of things.

But we're gonna have a written detailed every dollar budget that both of us agreed or where every one of the dollars that both of us bring in are going. And we are going to become aligned as a couple on that. And then that accomplishes exactly the same thing. But the way you're going about it, bluntly, you're avoiding dealing with the weaknesses in your marriage. And I want you to go into those head-on.

And by the way, they're not, they're not deal breaker weaknesses.

They're just normal people that had never sat down and done the, done the conflict work.

Yeah, and if you're not getting engaged and doing this together and getting aligned. And my hope is that your husband is not so sensitive to be able to look at the math and say, hey, here are some needs. And once that I have to, in an order to accomplish all of this, we probably need some more income. So I am going to go and make some more income. And that's on a shot to his,

We're going to go from four or three to four or four or forty three to seventy five. Yeah. And we're going to sit down and spend that money. And it's going to include some of the care things that I need.

“And some of the things that you need to do.”

And then, and some things that is a couple, we need to work on like getting out of debt and building an emergency fund and some of those things. But going over here and building a separate life to accomplish your goals that don't include him supporting you in your goals. Mm-hmm. Great. You haven't done work on the marriage at that point.

Yeah, because I mean, the, the ideal picture would be even with just as you're talking about, you know, your struggles at work and counseling is that he's alongside you in that journey with you, right? Like, you're doing the work on yourself, but he's involved in conversations and encouragement and curiosity. And ask, like, right, but when you start to divide even from a financial standpoint, if I'm going to put this here, that's still one step of isolation of doing it on your own. Yeah. All of this works in like a cohesive way, right?

And so one follows the other with the money and your goals and everything.

“So working together is so so key, Mariam.”

So yeah, I would push into that. It's probably going to be a couple. It's a great question. And I appreciate the spirit the way you ask the question. Thank you for that.

So folks, when I started this stuff 30 something years ago, I thought this was a math problem that getting into debt was a math problem that it was an income problem that it was a spending problem. Those aren't the problems. Those are the symptoms.

The problem is the guy in my mirror. The problem is the relationships with my employer, the relationships with my spouse, the relationships with my extended family.

Those are where the problems are. The actual symptom is the money problem. The money issues are a symptom of other crap that we don't deal with. All of us. If you run a business, you already know this. Bad information leads to bad decisions.

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We wish we could get to every call and question here on the show, but we simply can't.

The line's stay full. The entire time we're on the air. It's kind of hard to get through. Sorry about that.

“But you can head over the website at Ramsey Solutions.com and use Ask Ramsey.”

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It's free. RamseySolutions.com or you can click the link in the description. The Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by Y ReFi. If you fall in behind on your private student loans and don't know where to turn, Y ReFi works with borrowers and other lenders.

And well, where other lenders want. And they help explore low fixed rate refinancing options. Go to yreFi.com/Ramsey. That's the letter Y ReFi.com/Ramsey might not be in all states. Today's question comes from Amber in Rhode Island.

She said I'm about to pay off my car and currently have full coverage. Once the car is paid off, should I lower the deductible, which would increase

“how much I pay every month or save the deductible into a separate savings account?”

It would wipe out most of our emergency fund if I had to use it for car repairs. Uh, no, I think I would be just getting full coverage. I would keep the coverage. And anytime you can raise the deductible, a larger deductible. And you have the money in your emergency fund to cover.

It's going to drop your car insurance rates. Okay. And so the difference in a 250 and a 500 is huge. The difference in a 500 or 1000 depend on the price of the car. The value of the car is huge. And a way you can analyze it is this.

Okay. If you go from $250 deductible to a $500 deductible, you're taking an additional $250 worth of risk. Divide that into the savings. And so if it saves you $25, then that's 10, I a year. That's 10 years.

No, I wouldn't do that. If it saves you $250, then you made your money back in one year on the risk.

“So how much does this, does the premium, the insurance premium drop?”

As you raise the risk you're taking and compare those two. And if it's, you know, if it's, if you can make your money, the risk money back, even though you don't actually spend the money out, unless you have a wreck. If you can make it back in about three years, you ought to break even on the increase risk in about three years. So like I've got expensive cars, and I carry, I think it's a $10,000 deductible now.

But these are expensive cars. And so I, but it drops my deductible. I mean, drops my premiums way down. Okay. So, but, you know, so you just kind of got to look at that. And most of the time, the best deal on a $30,000 car in under is somewhere around a $500,000 deductible. Somewhere in there is what you're looking for. And, and so just divide out the difference.

The savings take the savings on your premium divide that into the additional risk. And if that's about a three, about a three year risk pattern, you're probably, it's probably wise to take the higher deductible in that case. But almost every time you're going to find that to be, to work on two going from 250 to 500. So no, you don't lower the deductible.

We're always trying to raise deductibles, and raise the amount we have in savings to cover it.

So we're giving the insurance company less money. Insurance should cover catastrophes, not hang nails. That's what you're looking for. And so the more, in anything you're doing, like if you can do a high deductible health insurance plan, like an HSA plan, your premiums go way down on your health insurance when you do that.

Because you're accepting the first five or seven or $10,000 worth of risk on the health insurance. And five or $10,000 is not going to cause you a bankrupt on a medical bill. What causes your bankrupt is 350,000 with a nickel stay with a baby or 350,000 with a heart bypass or a million. Or whatever it ends up, that's the ones that break you.

The big stuff on a health insurance, and the deductible is the little stuff.

So as soon as you can keep your enough of your insurance, your emergency fund up there, you want to do that, like Rachel said. Larry is in Nashville. Hi, Larry, how are you? I'm good, Dave.

I'm retired. My pension income covers my monthly expenses. I have about $4,000 in the bank. I do not have anything to cover my burial expense.

“Should I get a low amount term life insurance policy to cover that burial?”

You're your home? I'm 80. And you have $4,000 to your name? Yes. Do you own a home?

No.

And you're living on pension and social security.

Correct. And what are you renting, Larry? Yes. Okay. What's your income?

About $3600 a month. Okay. And you sound a lot younger than 80 on the phone. I'm telling you. Okay.

Thank you. Congratulations. I just turned 80. And I just got divorced. Okay.

I'm sorry. Wow. What a thing to do with 80. You have children? Yes.

Adult children and some adult grandchildren. And neither of my two children are in financial need. I don't need to think about leaving them something when I die. Except to pay for my burial. Yeah.

Well, I mean, I would not spend a ton of money. But if you can find a little $10,000 policy through your checking account at the bank or something like that.

“Your life insurance probably will not be the best way just because you're not.”

That's not my favorite way of doing it. But that's one way you could do it.

The second thing that comes to mind is to add a little bit to the $4,000 as we go along.

You don't have tons of room in this budget, obviously. But if you can add a little bit to it and then arrange for, you know, go ahead and do some shopping on an inexpensive funeral process. A cremation or an inexpensive burial. I mean, we're looking for the Chevrolet casket, not the Cadillac casket. You know, that kind of stuff, right?

And so what can we do for $5,000? And just to sign that money to that issue. Don't prepay it. But, you know, kind of pre-detail it. Pre-planet to where you know that you've got it covered.

And, you know, if you can get really, really close. It's very, very close. With your cash, I would prefer to do that. And even if you added another 1,000 to it and you say, okay, 5,000 is the emergency fund and the ultimate emergency is my funeral expenses. So that I'm not a financial burden to the kid or the grandkids.

How, wow. But, you know, if for $5 or $10 a month, I don't think you can. But if you could find something like one of these gimmick type policies that are guaranteed issue, I don't know what they would cost at 80. But there obviously have to be guaranteed issue.

It's not standard term insurance. Standard term insurance won't write you. But this would be like something that came with your checking account or something that came through an association you used to belong to because you were a teacher or whatever, something like that. But their little gimmick policies is what they are in their guaranteed issue, no medical. And if, you know, $10 or something, you want to do that.

It's not my favorite thing though. I would rather just arrange pre-detail and plan out and have the cash to cover that. That's, that's A, B would be to get an inexpensive issue, non-medical pre-issue. Yeah, average funeral costs around 7 to 12,000. Yeah, that's average.

But when you can do, you can do like a cremation. Yeah, you can casket for two funeral home services too. And that's close to you. Yeah, and you got, yeah. Costco's got casket.

Yeah. So George Campbell actually mentioned that. Yep, he loves Costco. And he-- I walked by him out.

“I think it was 1800 bucks when I walked by at that time.”

Yeah. I think that's right.

Studio. Beth is in Tulsa. Hey, Beth, how are you? I'm good. How are you all?

Better than we deserve. What's up? Wonderful.

So my husband and I are expecting our first child next month.

Yay! Thank you. And we recently paid off all of our debt in April. Yay! Thank you guys.

So we're both contractors. And we are paying for the birth and cash because we don't have access to health insurance. So as soon as we paid off the debt, started tucking money back. But I recently found out that I'm having a few mild health concerns.

So I just went from full to part-time, which means all that extra parameter we had and our monthly snowballs now disappeared. So my question is, how do I deal with the guilt of choosing to take less money knowing it would slow us down so I can prepare for this baby? You don't.

I mean, from what you just described, I feel like you don't have much of a choice, right? I mean, you have your eight months pregnant. You're having some health stuff.

“So you have to slow down for the health of you and your baby, right?”

Yeah.

Welcome to mom guilt number one.

I mean, like, I mean, that, I feel like there's not really an option, Beth. I feel like that's what you have to do. And that's way more important than money you'll make in a month. How much would you make in a month extra above what you're going to make now? If you were able to go full of edit.

Probably about 25, 2700? Okay. It's real simple. One side of the scale, $2700. Other side of the scale, healthy baby.

No question. Okay. No guilt. Zero. Even if you guys get in debt for the health of your child for $2700, you do it in heartbeat.

Yeah. Absolutely. I'm sorry. Would you say, Rick? Yeah.

“No, I was just saying, even if you had debt and you guys had the policy that's no well for your last”

for the pregnancy, you're okay.

You know what I mean? Like, you are by all means. Good to do this. Yeah, you have to do it. What are you doing for work?

You said you're a contractor. What's have a contractor where you? Yeah. So I'm in sales and marketing. Uh-huh.

You're really good at what you do probably. I think so. So I do wonder just like as a working mom to working mom. That you're, I mean, not in a deep way and I said, I'm not putting this on you. But there's an identity shift that happens.

And when you're sudden value that you're bringing to the table comes to a screeching halt and you're no longer in that world providing that value, you're like whip last over to this new role as mom, as you are, right, carrying this baby. There probably is a level of, uh, yeah, of just time money value whiplash that you're probably going through to a degree.

If you're really good at what you do and you're passionate, you love your job and you're a hard driver and suddenly that stops. Uh, I think that can be sometimes a little hard just to kind of find that balance again. Yeah, I think the hard part from me as well is my husband and I have worked so hard over the last two years.

Being so gazell intense. And it feels like we haven't taken a step back if we paid off all that debt. But it does kind of feel like a step back watching all that extra parameter just disappear out of the budget. Yeah, that's normal.

That's normal. But again, you just say, what's the trade off? This is the trade off is a good trade. You're not trading and saying, I want to be lazy and sit in the backyard and drink so to water.

You know, that's not what we're doing. We're delivering a human being. The highest calling of either one of you.

“You and your husband is the best thing you can do.”

It's much better than getting out of that. Thank you. That's a very good perspective. Yeah, thank you. Very good.

Good for you, guys. Yeah, I'm best. And you're, you probably would be one of these couples that we talked to who are on like baby step seven in a few years and you're like, I still just, we can't spend money. We don't know.

We can't slow down. You know what I mean? It's a good exercise. Just to slow down. You're good.

You are good. You're good. This money stuff is here to create a life that you guys love. It's a tool in your life. It's not something to be worshipped or to place all this value in, right?

It's here to support you, not be the thing in your life. And so you guys have done an excellent job up into this point of getting out of debt, driving hard, having a goal, doing all of it. So that you can have peace right now because you guys are that free. You did it.

Also at RamseySolutions.com, hook up with our advertiser and get some health insurance.

Okay. You don't need to be walking around that health insurance. That's going to, that's going to blow things up. That could be a mess. And you know, it's not going to cover labor and delivery.

At this point. But it actually could cover other things that happened at the birth. There's something other than just normal labor and delivery happen.

“So you need to get in touch with health trust and let them search you out”

to some health insurance. And you can find how to connect with them on the website. Easy enough. And so yeah, for sure. Don't be walking around the health insurance.

But anyway, aside from that, that's not the issue here. The issue here is just margin and trade-offs. And I appreciate your question. It's got a good heart and congratulations. You're out of debt.

You're having a baby. Life is great. This is about as good as it gets. Kevin's in Milwaukee. Hey, Kevin, what's up?

>> Hey Dave, I'm Rachel, thanks for taking my call. >> Sure, how can we help? >> Yeah, so I actually just recently got, like, go for my job.

“Should I take an employee appointment or just work side hustles”

to supplement income until I find a new job? >> Out of work side hustles. >> Yeah, that's what I was thinking. >> You're more employable. >> Yeah, you walk, you walk, you walk different,

and you talk different when you walk into the interview. If you're not sitting at home collecting a government check. >> Okay, that's what I like to hear. >> What were you making? >> I was making about 76,000.

>> Why were you let go? >> Just wasn't aligned with my skills. I recently just found out how the passion for sales. And I'm 30 years old, and I'm just ready to get after it. >> Okay, good news is, if you've got a passion for sales,

there's always work to be done.

>> Absolutely. >> Henry Ford said nothing happens until somebody sells something. It's the highest paid profession on the planet. >> And it's good in your own commission, you can kill it. >> Yeah, you get in a high quality product that you're proud of,

and that's really serving the customer,

“and they're really, their life is better because you're selling it,”

and you pour on some passion and some enthusiasm. And you get in there and smile and love people and serve them well, by making sure they get a hold of that high quality high margin product, and you will get rich. And you should.

It's a great profession, highly recommended. Some glad you found that passion, and you get to prove it now by your side hustles too. Pick up some side hustles. It's got to have something to do with marketing or sales.

>> Sales aspect. >> Yeah, don't be driving over. >> Let's go, let's go be doing something and move that. Take that same passion and you know, do the other. Meanwhile, get to work.

I'm going to send you copy a Coleman's book, Proximity Principle, which will help you land that next job too. >> Wow. >> It's good, good luck, Kevin. >> Yeah, it's going to be great.

It's going to be amazing.

This is a guy who's leaving 76,000 is going to end up making a hundred. After being let go. Isn't that a great phrase? Like he was being held captive. We let him go.

There's a butterfly and he was in a jar and we let him go. [MUSIC] Hey guys, Rachel Cruz here. And I love summer. There is more fun on the calendar, more time with your people.

And way more chances to make memories. But you know what else there's more of? Spending. Between the extra groceries and gas and camp fees and family trips, it all starts to add up so fast.

Before you know it, money stress starts to steal the fun out of everything. And that is why I love the every dollar budget app. Because it helps you plan your money, track your spending, and find more margin in your budget so that you can put extra cash towards the goals that matter most. Enjoy your summer without the money stress.

Download the every dollar app in the App Store or Google Play and start for free today. [MUSIC]

Well, that's normal.

You don't have to live that way.

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Especially when you can live like no one else. Start every dollar for free in the App Store or Google Play. Kyle is with us in New York City. Hey Kyle, how are you? Hey Dave, hey Rachel, how are you?

Better than we deserve, what's up? So my question is I am 26 years old. I make 100,000 pre-tax each year and I'm currently working on baby steps six. So I've worked my butt off my entire life to be able to save up money. I feel like I'm doing pretty okay for myself, but a lot of people are my ear.

colleagues, friends, family telling me I'm working too hard. I'm missing out on some of the best years of my life.

Do you agree with that sentiment?

What are you missing out on? These are the same people that are taking vacations every year, several vacations. New iPhone, new Apple Watch every year. So not yet.

“That's how you define living life well as an Apple Watch.”

But if I'm lucky enough to be an old man one day, I don't want to look back and say, you know, I didn't have an Apple Watch. Apple Watch? No. No, is it time for me to start letting off the gas a little bit?

I don't know. I mean, ours a week, are you working? So currently, I already kind of cut back a little bit. I'm currently pushing between 55 and 65 hours a week dependent on, like an on-call schedule. But from the ages of 15 to 22,

I was working three jobs just trying to get ahead. But you're not now. Yeah, I was a week. You're not now. Oh, what?

I worked a lot of hours too, but I'm not now.

So what's the problem? I mean, now you're working 55 to 60 hours. Most people that are successful work 55 to 60 hours. There's no 30 hour a week successful people. Yeah, but you can work 40 hour work.

We can do well. But not me.

“If you want to have success, you're not going to do it on 30 or 40 hours.”

You're going to put the coals on a little bit. That's part of life. Oh, well. And so my biggest thing is before I really decide to let off the gas and circakking a little more easy, boil in myself.

I want to get the house paid off. Okay. How much are you on the house? I owe 249. Okay.

Well, here's the thing. You can't let other people decide what you want. What they want for you to be your deal. You need to decide what you want. And listen, when you're 72, you're not going to go, oh,

I wish I had an iPhone when I was 30. That doesn't come up. Okay. But now if there's people that you love that you're not spending time with, you need to do that and turn off Netflix.

If there's, you know, if you need to go on one vacation, there's nothing wrong with that. Go on vacation. You know, your single, you said, right? No.

I am in a relationship, not married though. Okay. Well, I mean, you know, if that relationship is starving for lack of water, then put some water on it. But that's not, you know, that's not what you say at.

“You said, people are saying you should take more vacations like they do,”

and they're broke. Yeah, most mostly families are saying you're missing out on an iPhone watch. Oh, my God. And, you know, what I keep justifying it as is, you know, I'm going to be on cruise control relaxing when they're all,

you know, still stuck in the rapper's one day. But I really don't want to grow old and think, you know, you were working three jobs when you were in 18 years old. These are people that confuse leisure with happiness. Leisure does not equal happiness.

Leisure is a good thing. It's a time to reboot, reset, replenish, replant. Leisure is good. Travel is good for that reason. You know, ghosts at somewhere and put your feet in the sand or whatever.

And read a book. There's nothing wrong with that. And reset. That's why we have a Sabbath once a week. We don't work on Sundays.

You know, that's, that's people of faith do that. That's leisure. And that's time for your spirit to reset. Your body to reset physically. And time to make sure your relationships are blossoming.

But, but people who just don't want to work are not models. You want to follow. Well, that and Kyle, on both ends of the spectrum in this coastal far, you've been talking about people in the front end. It was like, well, people are telling me I should relax.

but I just know if I work hard and I do all of this. They'll be trying to work hard and I'll be good over here. Well, yeah. It's a lot of people people people people. I would just put the blinders on Kyle.

Be happy for everyone else. That's fine. They can do what they want to do. They can buy their iPhone watch and do. Well, that stuff.

“But what you need to do is focus on what, what makes you happy, Kyle.”

What do you want to enjoy? Do you want to say, yeah, for the next two years, I'm going to pull back some work hours and work 50 hours, not 65 and have some more time. You know, with, with my girlfriend and, you know,

I'm going to do this and that and then I'll probably plug back in here and try this. I mean, make a life you want, Kyle, not for everybody else. Not for the motivator of what other people are going to do or not do or what they're saying or not saying. Rachel said in the river.

You have to figure it out. One of our number one bestselling books. Comparison is the thief of joy. Well, I didn't, I think, I think they don't Roosevelt said that. But I said, I said, I said, I know I quoted it.

But I will say, comparison. Well, I've got the quote, "changed." Well, not just feel your joy. I did say it will not just feel your joy. It'll still your paycheck, too.

Because you'll end up spending money, A.K.A. Kyle, on all this stuff that other people talk about and what other people want. And it steals your joy in your paycheck. So.

“And they're chasing happiness, up a tree that hadn't got it.”

There's no happiness fruit on that tree.

So I never met a soul in 30 years or 40 years

of doing financial coaching. I was just, you know, I'm so happy. I finally got it. I will have fun watching. You know, it's kind of an apple.

I have an apple watch, whatever it is. I mean, stupid thing. I mean, it's like, I'm so happy I got that car. That car changed my life. That house changed my life.

That's the dumb thing. When people say, it's not my dream home. None of them are. Well, as soon as you get in there, your dreams will change. So there's no such thing as a dream home.

That's just a dream. That's not real. And so it's just a stupid house. If you're happiness is defined by where you live, you will never be happy.

If you're happiness is defined by what you wear

or where you travel to, you're will never be happy.

Because happiness is a bully in the school yard. It says cross this line, and then we'll fight. And you step across the line. He says back and draws another line. Mm-hmm.

It says, come on over here. And then you come on over here. Yeah, it's funny. It's perpetually chasing something that's not there. Well, in Arthur Brooks.

Not where meaning comes from. Yeah. In Arthur Brooks who literally studies this. It comes to the brain. Yes, happiness with money. He says four things will give you happiness with money.

One will not. Giving money away brings happiness. Buying your time back and actually letting, you know, and using that time for good. Spending it on experiences with people you love.

That brings you levels of happiness. And actually saving creates happiness. Because there's a actual progress happening in your life and your brain sees that as joy.

The thing that will never bring levels of happiness

long-term that sustain is buying stuff. So, buying stuff is not bad. We're not against buying stuff by any means. But it's the belief. But it's the belief, yes, that I need to go and enjoy.

Now, do you need to enjoy? Yeah, sure. But to think that that's the end goal of all of this. You've missed the point. And you said it earlier and I think it is true.

When you actually find work that you do enjoy. Mm-hmm. And you have fun with. It doesn't feel like this trap that you have to go to Monday through Friday as well.

So, there's a balance in all of it.

“And I think you need to find your balance Kyle.”

And in this part of your life, you've worked hard. You don't have debt. You've got your emergency fund. You're in the baby steps. So you don't have to be gazellintents.

You can enjoy some of it. But also run your own race Kyle, not for everybody else. Yeah, the friends and family don't get a vote. Some of the happiest people I know are some of the hardest working people I know. They're really, really happy.

And they're not confused. And their friends and family don't get a vote. You should not feel uncertain about investing. And you don't have to. That's why we created investing essentials.

You should not feel uncertain about investing. And you don't have to. That's why we created investing essentials. A two night virtual event where George Camo and I walk you through my playbook for investing and wealth planning.

So you can invest with confidence.

Take it start at $199. Get yours today at Ramsey Solutions dot com slash events or click the link in the show notes. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt free stage Scott and Kim are with us. Hey guys, how are you? Hey, we are great.

And it's an honor to be here today. We're honored to have you. Where do you guys live? We live in Applegate, California. It's about 50 miles east of Sacramento.

Ah, that's a beautiful area. That's a pretty area. Very cool. Welcome to Nashville. And here to do a debt free screen.

How much have you paid off? We paid off $420,000. Wow. My gosh. How long did that take?

I took about 10 years. Once we got focused. Okay. That's good. And your range of income over that decade.

A range of income was about 160 to start. And if we were wrapped up at about two to 60. Okay. Very cool.

What do y'all do for a living?

I get people ready for the work day. Dave, I work for a company called Centos and a service manager in Gotcha. And I am officially retired after 36 years of teaching. Wow. What did you teach?

Um, mostly fifth grade, four fifth and six. Oh, yeah. We're angel wings on your back. God letting you as a mom with little ones and those grades. We love these two terms.

So thank you. Very cool. Congratulations. Good for you. So for 20 over 10 years in the valley outside.

That's a house and everything, isn't it? Yes, it is. Wait. Oh, yes. Yes.

What? Look at it. We're people. We're weird. No.

Hey. You know, payments at all.

“How does it feel to not have a stink and payment of any kind?”

Man, it's still surreal. It's, uh, we just did this in April and, uh, man, it feels great. But we're still getting used to it. I love it. I don't do much without a mortgage payment.

Yeah. That feels amazing. How long y'all been married? 36 years. Have you ever been without a payment?

No. Had a payment the whole time of something. Hold time until April. Yeah. Wow.

I thought that was the way of life. Just, yeah, everybody does. Yeah. I wanted something we bought it. Did you guys have a consumer debt journey as well besides just the house?

Absolutely. Yeah. How much was in there? How much was consumer debt? About half of it.

So, well half of it. Uh, we had it. We also had some unfortunate IRS debt and some student loans. But a lot of it was credit cards and and a car payment. Yeah.

All that stuff. So you got that cleared up and then went after the house. Yes. Right down the baby steps. Yes.

Yeah. Follow them to a T. And 10 years. So the house is worth what now. The house is worth about 650.

Yeah.

“And how much in your nest egg for retirement at this point?”

Uh, just over a million dollars.

So a million six net worth at least. May and seven. Way to go. Oh, yeah. You're a million.

Yeah. And we're weird. And we're weird. Look at, we're not consent. We work in centers.

And we were a teacher and we're millionaires. Get ready to be multi-millionaires. Yep. Wow. That's so impressive.

I'm proud of y'all. Well done. How old are you? I'm 62. Sixty.

And retired. I am. I know. All right. I like it.

I'm going to keep at it for a while, Dave. I like working. So I'm going to keep doing it. Good for you. I love it.

So what happened 10 years ago that you guys said, gosh, we got it. We got to be weird. We got to change the way we've been doing our money. You know, we were just, we were starting to feel it. So we had a lot of payments.

We were doing silly things like paying off credit cards with credit cards. And just feeling the weight of it. And my, I mentioned it to my brother. He mentioned the show. I didn't jump into it right away.

But I was driving home from work one day, flipping through the stations and stumbled on this guy. Talking about getting out of debt. And I was hooked. And so I came home and pulled Kim about it. And we jumped right in.

We set up our envelopes and beans and rice rice and beans. Yeah. I know. Although I really think that it should be. Gritz and colored greens.

Whoa. That's how that I'm here.

“That's how that's how that turned the sound.”

How that's your in the south. Yeah. Welcome to the promised season. Oh, I know. So was that all 10 year around 10 years ago?

Were you guys around that 50 year old 50 year mark? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Which I think is so encouraging for people because some people get on the stage.

You know, and they're in their early late or late 20s. And it's unbelievable. They're doing it right away. So good to see and hear from couples that you're like, no, we, yeah, you guys were in your 50s. And you're like, you know, we're still going to, we still have the ability to change.

And do something different, which I think is so encouraging for people that you can make that big of a job. And the student loan was for our younger son. We have two boys. And now we have three grand daughters. And he's actually right now.

He's that free. They're following the program as well. And he is getting his doctor at the University of Georgia. Wow. So it's really cool that we're here.

Awesome. To see her. Yeah. We'll be a little baby full circle. I love it.

We'll congratulate you guys. All right. Now that you did it 10 years. You busted it. Got rid of the consumer debt.

Baby steps one through three. Then you did four through seven. Getting out, you know, investing.

And now you got a million dollars in investment.

$650,000 paid for house. Baby steps a millionaires. You did all of that basically in a decade. That's, that's very cool. When you think about that.

And that's very helpful for other people.

“What do you tell people the secret was that caused you to be able to do that?”

Stop borrowing money. Don't buy it unless you have the money to pay for it. And invest when you can. And have fun free. It's just so many things that you can do that don't cost any money.

You know, go out spend time with your elderly's. I just spent some time with an elderly woman. That's next to our Airbnb. And she said, you know, first of all, once I was like totally enthralled with all of the fireflies. Oh, my gosh, you have fireflies.

You know. Never said one before. She said, go out and take your elderly people outside of their house. And that's solely free. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, go now. Yeah, so much that you can do where it doesn't cost money. And it just opens up your heart. And it makes you feel really good. I love that.

Beautiful. So good. I got good fifth grade teacher. I know. I know.

So lucky. You guys know what was, what was the hard part of the decade when you looked back in your like, oh, man, that was tough. That part. Yeah. We had to really tighten it up.

And it did suck. We had my nails done. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Cutting out some stuff.

We had to cut out a lot of stuff. Just live and tight.

“Passing on trips and dinners and things like that when friends wanted to do things.”

And you regret it? I do not. Not at all. I don't either. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. You live like no one else. So later you get to live and give like no one else. Absolutely. And here you are.

Yep. Way to go. Well, I'm so proud of you guys. You're inspiring people. Why you to go?

Way to go. All right. From working at Centus in a fifth grade teacher in 10 years. They pay off 420,000. House and everything.

Putting them in place mathematically to be multi-millionaires at 60 years old.

Pretty thinkin' incredible.

Makein' 160 to 260. With the retiree. And then retired. And then retired. Here we go.

Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. Well, debt-free. Yeah.

Wow. So great. You know what they didn't need? They didn't need a government handout. You know what they didn't need?

They didn't need a universal income. You know what they didn't need? All this stuff that are by talks about. This someone else is going to give you. They just went to work.

And went to work. Didn't go into that. Got to get out of debt. Ten years later. They go from $420,000 in debt.

House and everything. To no debt. To multi-millionaire. So there were 165 today. So there'll be two.

“And if they had already got some other assets.”

That's putting them up at two right now.

So a couple million dollar baby steps, millionaires.

This is where they come from. They followed the baby steps exactly. They didn't call me up and go, "Well, I don't know." And I mean, hey, hey, hey. We didn't hear any of that whining.

We didn't hear any of this. I'm tired. I'm going to go and fake hate. Nobody called. They just did it.

And did you hear that they regretted it? No. They don't. You know what they can do now? Anything they want.

They don't have any payments. They have a million dollars in retirement. Shut up. These people are heroes. This is how it's done right here.

And so don't please don't tell me. You're not willing to pay a price to win. They're standing in front of you saying it's worth it. Pay a price. And you'll win.

Hey, guys. Dave Ramsey here.

“Every day on this show, we help people work through real money problems.”

And figure out what to do next. Now, you can get that same kind of help any time with Ask Ramsey. Ask your money question and get answers built on Ramsey principles. We use on the show whether you're making a decision or just want something explained. Ask Ramsey is here to help.

It's fast, simple, and free to use. Go to RamseySolutions.com and try Ask Ramsey today. That's RamseySolutions.com. [ Music ]

Our scripture of the day first.

John 318, Dear Children. Let us not love with words or speech. But with actions and in truth. Thomas Sowel said, "People say you're a very tough person. I'm not tough.

Life is tough. I'm merely trying to acquaint you with the facts. [ Laughter ] Ivy is in Greensboro, North Carolina. Hi, Ivy, how are you?

Hey, good. Hey, what's up? Sorry, my brain went to most -- I'm calling because --

“So, I am inherited a house from my dad who didn't raise me.”

And I didn't know until I was like a pre-team. And he lived in a different state than me. And later in life, we reconnected when I was an adult. And -- [ Inaudible ]

Okay, so he passed four years ago. But his wife married him two years before he passed. So, she became the life tenet and I was three main demand. So, I didn't have any financial obligation to the South until this week. And so --

So, she passed away? I've -- she did, yes. Okay. Where is the house? It's in Florida.

And what's it worth? The local campsite 350. And what's owed on it? 92,000. What do you plan to do with it?

So, that's where I'm not sure. But like, I've been praying on it. And I found this out on Wednesday because it was a very emotional situation. Because the -- the girl that my dad raised, who's like 10, 12 years younger than me,

she came into his life when he had remarried the first time.

Like the first time. And then her mom went and did her own thing. And he raised the girl. And when he passed four years ago, she sent me all these really hateful text messages that -- because she couldn't believe that he left that house to me and not her.

And she demanded us find it over. And I just responded as nice as possible. And I kind of pulled a day Ramsay move where you kind of just say, "I'm sorry you're going through this. I know it's hard.

And I just defaulted to those sentences. And then I just stopped communication. And then she continued living in the house with the lady that passed away. So now she's in the house. But the house is my house.

And it's like totally mine. There's no pro-bader, nothing. It's a done deal. I understand. So you know how old is she?

I think she's roughly 29 and I'm 41 now.

So here's what you need to do.

Okay. Stop your second. Okay. This person, the longer they stay, the bigger the problem's going to be.

“So instantly, meaningously, you need to reach out to her.”

Like, as soon as you get off the phone and say, I'm getting ready to put the house on the market. And so you're going to have to make other plans to move. If you haven't moved by the end of the month, my attorney will be in touch with you. Yeah.

So that's why I forget five steps. Some family members are giving in and then some other family members. Why does that make you cry? You don't even know her. Look, the daughter people are saying, well, this can be an income investment due to the--

You don't need this house. And you don't need this trouble. Yes. And so even like, you can hurt out.

“Right spot because like, I've been praying on this and I tried to think like,”

I feel like my dad left this to me because I feel like he had a lot of regret. And we were getting-- It doesn't matter why he left it to you.

The bottom line is it's yours.

And it's yours to do with as you want. And there is no point in this conversation that this 29-year-old thinks to live there anymore. They've lived there for free for 10 years longer than they should have because their mother was there. This is a 19-year-old who was freeloading for a decade on her mother. It's even her mom.

I don't think it was like the next one for someone. Yeah. So, let's see, this is very-- It's even more of a dysfunctional issue, Ivy. Please.

Take a deep breath. Just be kind and be very quick. Yeah, I just-- I know it seems so simple because your day ran deep, but-- It's not.

It's emotionally-- It's not. I don't know why it's emotional. You don't even know her. You don't even know the house.

Because I know the Lord. That's what--

And Lord doesn't make it emotional.

I know the Lord too, but he doesn't make it emotional. Well, I had considered this. This is what I considered. I've been praying and praying. And I woke up yesterday.

And I just felt this thing that said, "Here's the solution." Okay. What's the solution? Is that the market value in the conference for her 350? And I thought maybe I offered to her for 275 and give her a deal.

And then I still have enough to pay my own house. Because I followed all the baby steps since 2018. I have a whole library of all of y'all's books. And I have written--

“I mean, that's fine if you want to do that.”

That's not what I would do. Okay. You can do that if you want to do that. If you feel like that's the Lord. I don't know if that's the Lord or you just being sweet and guilt-ridden.

Over something you didn't even do. I don't know why I should have guilt. I don't either. I don't know why you offer this girl a dime. It's not like she's ever going to be happy with you.

Yeah. If you give her the freaking house or free, she's still going to be a beehive.

I feel like she wants the dad that I never had and as much as it paid me to lose.

Am I trying to-- The house has a gutting thing to do with that. Yeah, you're right. And writing her a check doesn't do everything to do with that. Those are two separate issues.

Writing her a check does not make her have the dad or the didn't have the dad. Or you had the dad or didn't have the dad. Checks don't fix any of that. That was the dad. Okay.

Money doesn't change that. So I'm telling you, if you play with this girl, you're going to be dancing with her for the next five years. If you give her one quarter, you're going to be dancing with her. But you do what you want.

If you feel like that's God, I'm not positive if it is or isn't God. I don't, I don't ever-- Sometimes challenge people when they play the God card. But you said, I heard that and prayer. Okay, so what you said, that's God.

“And so if you think that's God, you should do.”

You should be real sure that it's God. And then you should do what God said. Not what Dave said. But I'm not positive if it is or isn't. I don't see any biblical principle that says that you ought to do that.

I think this is a dysfunctional man. I know you're a tough love. It's not tough love. It's not tough love. It's not tough love.

It's not tough love. It's just love. And it's just accepting the reality of who this woman is. She is not going to be okay because of this house transaction. Regardless of how the house transaction goes down.

I agree. I agree. I agree. I think your heart is in a really great place. Just in a sense of you are genuinely looking out.

But also scripture talks a lot about wisdom. Running away from foolish situations. I mean, there's-- you could back it up for the other way too. I think it's a good idea. I think that's a good idea.

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