Getting Out of Debt Takes More Effort Than It Took to Get You In

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From the Ramsey Network and the Fairwins Credit Union Studio, this is the Ramsey Show. I'm Dave Ramsey, Jade Walshaw is my co-host today. Ramsey Personality, number one best selling author. Our phone number here is triple eight, eight, two, five, two, five.

The call is free, and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. Sean isn't far-go, or the code I hate Sean, what's up in your world. >> Well, not much Dave, Justin, join my life. >> Good, how can we help? >> So I am trying to stress over now in the little,

it's kind of in the pickle fields like with my family.

They are give or take five to six million dollars in their family business debt,

and I am struggling to struggle with my dad's health, and he owns the family business, and he is not worried about the major debt that his business has. >> Okay, do you work there? >> Uh, part time. >> Okay.

“>> But I can't handle, I can't handle, I can't handle it.”

>> Can't handle it, I mean, you can't handle him. >> No, just the idea ideology he has and the business beyond. >> Okay, so why is it bringing you stress? You have a part time job with a business that's in trouble, and with a guy whose ideology you don't agree with,

why would that be caused you to be stressful? >> I will be more likely to be inheriting it with my three brothers, with business, which is probably worth about $10 million. And so I'm kind of in talks right now to tick over the books, and I will like the business side of it to pretty much be full time.

>> Winner, are you supposed to do that? >> I'm probably, within the next 10 to 15 years. >> I'm so confused, okay. >> Yeah, I mean, so you're going to be part time with a guy you disagree with, while he runs a business in the ground, that's 10 years,

and you're going to stand there and watch it happen, and then they're going to hand it to you and call that a blessing. >> Why don't you just say I don't want it? >> Yeah. >> I don't want it, so I mean, it's a good, I shouldn't say it's a good business,

but is it really worth because he tries to get me to go full time, like almost weekly on a weekly basis? >> Well, you tell us the upside, because you called in and said, all the negative things, so it makes sense. >> It's something you would say.

>> It sounds like something I want to do. >> Well, how would you want to do this? >> Yeah, so I get first one asked, should I try to almost intervene and be like, you shouldn't start taking off the debt? Well, because they're thinking about adding another--

>> Who's the $25 million debt in my family?

>> Your brothers. >> Yeah, my brothers. >> Who are your future partners? >> $25 million in the debt. >> Who are your future partners?

>> Oh, my brothers. >> Yeah, but you said-- >> You're saying your brothers are dumb as your dad. >> You said it before yourself, Sean, you said their ideologies

“completely different than yours, and I think you need to accept that,”

that that's the case, and you haven't said anything that shows any sign of them changing that ideology, and so if they continue down this path for the next however many years, they're just entrenching themselves further in that, in your part time. >> What do you do for a living?

>> I operate heavy equipment. >> Are you the baby of the family? >> No, I'm not checking all the-- >> No, they're all this middle, okay.

>> Yeah, well, here's the thing.

I don't think that these people are going to change, do you? >> No, I don't mind. >> Okay, so you either got a walk away from them. Are you got to enjoy their bulk rep? >> Yeah, so I'm going to put it.

>> I mean, you're really good. You're going to have to decide which one you're going to be. If it's me, I'm going to let them have it. I'm going to walk away. This sounds like a bear trap.

It sounds like it's going to tear you freaking leg off. It's going to-- the next 10 years of your life are going to be pure, freaking misery until the old man dies, and then when he dies, now you got partners that were trained by him called your brothers. No, thank you.

I don't want to miss.

>> Yeah, there's nothing here that aligns with who you are or who you want to be.

This all sounds like misery, and there's not enough money there to fool with. Let them have it. They're going to screw it up. It's going to be worth nothing. >> Yeah.

>> And you don't believe that. >> Wow. >> You're still-- you think your wife thinks you're walking away from me and all of a sudden you're not.

“You're walking away from me and all of a sudden that's what you're walking away from.”

So 15 years? >> I would sit down if you want to have one final conversation with the boys and with the dad and say, guys, I'm uncomfortable with this much dad, and I'm not going to join the business as long as you guys continue to run it further up into that and have no desire to get out of that.

Because it makes me uncomfortable. I don't agree with this, and I can love you, and if you want to go over there and do something that I don't agree with, we can still be dad and son, we can still be brothers. I can still love you, but I do not want to personally be involved in this. It brings me great stress just thinking about it.

And so if you guys want to commit to a path that gets us out of that and keeps us out of that as a permanent way of doing business, I would love to join and be part of this thing.

“I think it's got a future, but I am not going to get on this horse when you have this”

many bricks in the saddlebags.

>> Listen, I agree with that 100 percent.

Clearly easier said than done, because you're going to have basically your whole family on this side and you're the lone ranger over here, that's not easy, but I agree 100 percent. >> Well, the thing is you put her by on notice and 100 percent chance they're not going to do it. >> No.

>> And so you're basically saying, here's why I'm going to go on and have my great life over here and I'm going to love you. I've got family members, most of my family members don't know the stuff I teach. But I'm not in a deal with them either. >> That's right.

>> And I still love them, some of them even vote wrong and I still love them. But that doesn't mean I have to go around and be in business with them and it doesn't mean I have to sit around and be stressed and I'm like somehow guilt it into joining something. I completely disagree with, no, walk away from a son and I'm worth it. You make a lot of money running your own heavy equipment operation without any debt.

>> That's probably the other part of it is there's the allure that maybe there's like that bit maybe just possibly one day it could be good then you look back and you're like man I should have stayed part of it right he's probably thinking about that little one or two percent. >> Yeah, it's like I'm going to pet an alligator and hope it done by what do they do?

They bite you know that's dumb you're just asking for it don't think they're going to change they don't they only do how to do one thing and it's bite so don't be shocked when they bite. I mean it's just your dad this is what he does it's is a predictable environment and he didn't hide it he's not he just said that's who I am yeah that's right and he kind

“of said like it or lump it so I love it that's what I do I mean you know it's just”

it's hard to walk away from something like that especially when all the family ties it feels like you're being drawn in by a tractor beam yes a gravitational pull yes a drama has a gravitational pull I've noticed that drama drama family drama was suck you in and each

or life yeah and then we connect a little five million dollar debt to it just for the fun of it.

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martinas and phenix hi martina what's up hi um I uh two and a half years ago I thought

over half of my payments go on to interest um I'm actually the coolest I know I'm

a car on the car and my mother is the main signer on the car and I have had stop and stability having stability over the years and I'm just not putting my life together but currently I haven't even been able to make my factory car payment so I also rely on

“this car to the source of income so I don't worry what is your by some a car?”

I would look for a different I would start looking for a different source of income that's not tied to this car my guess is you're doing some of one of the delivery apps? yeah I'm actually a lift driver um I had a dead end job uh I quit that but I got a new job

that is a real good job but um it just it doesn't start for a couple more weeks yeah

and they're going to one. Wait what is it how much are you going to be making at the new good job? um about three to four thousand a year it you mean a month? five months I mean sorry months I I am a soul and instructor and I'm contracting with a pool that pays very well for their lessons okay and then what what do you owe what's the total amount owed on this car? I owe 16,200 and I originally paid $18,500. Have you looked to see what it's worth?

“If you looked on Kelly blue book have you looked to see what it's worth private sale?”

I guess it's worth $7,500. Oh boy what happened to it? She's going to drop a Uber. Oh yeah that's true yeah it's on and off. Oh gosh okay well then you're only choice here you're I mean you're going to have to pay it off because it's such a low value um and you're going to have to work quickly to do it is that you're only debt? Definitely not. I've got about $50,000 in student debt and I ended up dropping at a school due to mental health issues and I have about

$25,000 or $25,000 in personal loans and credit cards and then I haven't on I don't even know how many thousands of dollars in medical debt I don't even like you know. So you're going to be doing you'll be doing swim lessons at this place how long is it going to take you to build up your lesson pool to make 4,000 a month or is there a base pay? Because I make I'm going to be making about 30 to 40 dollars a hour. Yeah well they're going to work you 40 hours. That's the plan but yeah

that's the problem is it doesn't depend on how many clients they get that you get a lot of

client. Yeah I'd be looking really deeply into that first off and my homework for you leaving this call is I would have something else lined up that gives me the ability to work because you don't know how many clients they're going to send your way and you don't know how quickly your calendar's going to fill up and you've got to get started on this debt ASAP because here's a thing if you

“default on another payment it's really going to mess with your mom. I'm sure it already has right?”

Yeah I feel bad for my mom and my mom does sure to help when she can but she's already she's a single mom raising my teenage brother with special needs so she's already strapped a lot. What what we've got to start with was go back to basics. All right. Okay before you do anything else with money you take care of food, shelter, basic clothing, transportation and utilities. Okay do you pay what do you pay rent?

I do and I live in the smallest cheapest apartment I could find here in David and I prefer. So you pay the rent. So you pay the rent and you go to the grocery store. Stop you pay the rent. You go to the grocery store. You get the car current. Before you do anything, all the other debts can wait till you pay rent, get the car current, get food on the table. Okay before you do anything you've got to bail the basic

foundation in your life and that's food shelter clothing, transportation and utilities. Now once you're current on the car, then you can decide let's reach out to the student loan people. Let them know you need a hardship deferral and send them some of the paperwork on some of the mental illness issues you've had and just to let the bureaucrats have something to chew on for a little while while they wait around you do nothing you quit paying them for right now.

And then you get this book of business at the swim lessons full as fast as you can and Jade's right in the meantime and even after I want you to work all the time because what you need to fix your whole life right now is $16,000. Yeah. If you had $16,000 in this car payment was gone,

that car loan is a big wall between me and basically the rest of my life. I agree. I agree.

“So we need to go find an extra $2,000 a month for eight months and smack this thing in the head.”

Okay. But that's mean like all you do is work girl. You just work all the in it and it's not over freaking over is making the car worse. Okay. You're putting me miles out. You've destroyed the value of the car. So but if you could if you can work 80 hours a week with swim lessons just put your fins on and go. Right? Yeah. I mean if you can't get if you can't get a bunch of hours down there then let's find something else that you can do that's the thing where you make the

most possible money that's moral and legal. Okay. And I want you to go pretty great for a while because the way you bust this is you throw dynamite in the middle of it and the dynamite is dollar bills. Okay. I like that. And you just say food, shelter, lights and water and pay off the sink and car. And that's all I am breathing to do right now. I breathe in and out every morning. I'm tired

because I work all the time but by God I'm making progress for the first time in five years.

Yes. You can do this. You can do it. What was the nature of your mental illness stuff? I have a level one high fushing autism and that has made it hard for me to hold a regular full-time job. Yeah. And then I also have because of that stem so like that some anxiety and depression. I have over the last few months gone on the right meds got into the stable housing and silently I'm starting to get my finances stable. I'm trying to do baby one right now.

“Well, here's the thing. Here's what I'm working with. In 35 years of doing this I work with a whole bunch of”

people that both had high level functioning autism and I've worked with a whole bunch of people that had depression. And the thing I know is the depression is made worse when you feel trapped and when you're not in action mode. When you get in action mode and get in warrior mode and get in attack mode it helps because it releases the dopamine and other things and it helps to melt away the depression. And the autism, the high functioning autism can actually work on in your favor

in those situations because you have the ability to do extreme amounts of focus. Don't you? Yeah. I am really good at teaching people to swim and actually a good gym. I'm working at is a tolerability 360 and it's actually an adaptive gym and most of their employees have some kind of disability. Okay. And anything you can do to help people work out if you can do it a personal trainer

“thing going like that. How is going to say you need to go. What we're going to do is just all the”

situation to your advantage, the thing that has been a blocker for you because as you start melting

away these deaths, first and foremost you get this car off your back, off your mother's back,

your brain is going to clear up the fog that you've been walking in the stress-related anxiety of feeling trapped in 16% and feeling honestly shame about signing up for 16% too. That was done. So, you're not done but that was done. So, you know, what you do is you get in a tack mode warrior girl. You put on your warrior stuff and you get after it. Complete focus. I don't want you to pay anybody else. Just let them all go bad. I don't really give a crap about your credit.

You already don't have credit. We know that because you have a 16.8% car payment. We know your credit's trash already. So, I'm not worried about that at all. I'm worried about you. I want you to be free. So, you hang on and we'll get your signed up for every dollar and that'll help you walk through this stuff as well. If you're at the point where you think bankruptcy is your only option, stop for a minute.

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“Greg is in Nashville. Hey, Greg, how are you? Good. How are you?”

That other than I deserve. What's up? So, I have some whole life policies that mean my life's got like once they were like 20. I'm 55. I'll be 55 this year. I'm sorry. And I know, I know, I've been listening to you for the last year or so. But my question is, on it, should we cash surrender? There's each about a hundred thousand cash surrender. I don't think we have to pay on anymore. I think they if we've had them since we were so young,

that I think they pay for themselves each year now. And I don't know if it's worth. I don't know.

I mean, I can always use extra money. But I don't know if it's worth doing the cash surrender.

I'm those policies or this leave them. They're small. I think they're $150,000 policies or something. I've only got them originally. Okay, she have a hundred fifty thousand dollar policy with a hundred thousand

“or cash value. Is that right? Yes. And you have to. And you have to. And you have to.”

Totally grows. Like they sold you on that stuff and you're young. No, I'm going to make sure I understand what you've got. Stop a second. Do you have two one hundred and fifty thousand dollar policies and each of them have a hundred thousand dollar cash value in them? Yes, it'll work just surrender then now. That's what I'm asking. Okay, good. Okay. And so if you die, you know they keep the hundred thousand, right? So you have fifty thousand dollars worth of insurance in essence. You follow me?

Yeah, that I kind of heard that the other day I'm one of your shows and I that I didn't understand. I don't understand it either because it's the biggest screw drop of the middle class in my life, I've ever seen. But it happens all the time. So that's how a whole life policy works. I do have a $2 million term policy that we got a few years ago. Okay. So you're covered if you die, right? You don't need them. Yeah. No. And my question is even about the term, too, is

like do I need to keep that up if my value or like my personal value or me, my wife's value is over that amount, should I like do I need that life insurance or is it this? What is life insurance is for is to take care of her if something happens to you. If you have five million dollars in mutual funds, you don't need life insurance. She's taken care of. Okay. Does that make sense? Yes. What how life insurance for is to take care of you if something happens to her. And if you have

a big pile of money and you're okay without her income, then she doesn't need your self-insured

“on all of it. Okay. Then back to the whole life, the whole life is paying an average of about”

2% in growth on that 100,000. Had that 100,000 been in mutual funds last year, it would have made 24% on average. It would have made more like 12%. So you're losing somewhere around 10 to 20,000 dollars a year in growth. Because that's so poorly invested. Oh, and by the way, when you die, they're going to pay $150,000 out. Okay. Not a 100,000. Not plus 100,000. You have to pay if we do the cash surrender, do we have to pay tax on that? Your tax basis in a whole life policy

is what you have paid into it over all these years. I suspect you've paid $100,000 into this

over all these years. Yeah. So your basis is probably higher. It almost always is. If it's not,

it will be by much. So if you have taxes, it will be very, very, very small. But if you just say, here's what my premiums were over this number of years. And number of months or whatever it is, you know, the 25 or 30 years you've been getting ripped off, then easily you probably paid in 100. Okay, you're going to get your money back out. And yes, I would cash it in. And what did you, what do you think your net worth is? I mean, I think it's close to six, maybe six million.

generate enough income for your wife to be okay if you died today? I think so. I hope so. I hope so too. Yeah. I think I think pretty easily. I mean, that was kind of one of my other questions is I got this. I got some industrial property that I don't necessarily need any more that I have that I still owe about. I mean, if I were to sell it, I could cash that out for about

2 million bucks, maybe. Yeah. After taxes, but I do make income on that. So here, what do you want

your money invested in? That's an investment. And then you look at it and say, is this an investment that's given me enough yield on my money? I mean, long-term investment, you ought to be making 10 plus percent on whatever it is, real estate, mutual funds, whatever. There's not really

“anything else that you should, that's barely low risk portfolio that'll do that. Mine make a lot more”

than that and I don't take a lot of risk. So, but you got to look at that piece of industrial property, is it making you a good return, and then dump that. But folks, the whole life cash value policy is the biggest ripoff in the financial planning world. I mean, it's like it's like the payday lender to the middle class. You know, payday lender scares poor people, right? And these people screw you. And it's a horrible rate of return when you die, they keep your money because you've been

paying extra for this savings account that you don't get. They only pay the face value when you die. It's that simple. And so get some inexpensive term insurance, while you need insurance, this guy didn't even need that anymore, probably. And put your money, your investment, money, and good investments that go up and they don't keep it when you die. And then you're not building a building in the skyline for somebody else, or you think those life insurance buildings came from.

They didn't come from Santa Claus. I know that. It's the same place those banks came from. They didn't come from Santa Claus. It came from them screwing you with credit cards all these years. And you're just smiling and going, I got airline miles and you're just getting screwed over and

“over and over again. And it's just, you know, that's how this stuff happens. It's called a transfer”

of wealth from you to them because they're screwing you. And so you just learn about these things

to go never again. Changes everything. James is in Columbus, Ohio. Hi, James, how are you?

We will. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay. I was my younger sister. She and her ex-boyfriend inherited a quarter-moon virus about three to four years ago. He has since passed from cancer and he at the time, I was going through a messy divorce. And he gave me $6,000 to pay for my lawyer, so I can take care of our divorce. I went through a rough time as a gift. And since then,

you know, he's passed, I like I said, and she has blown through all that money in the meantime and is back to the square one again. Wow. And yeah, and she has not come out and said directly to me, but I've heard it through my other sister that she keeps asking, you know, saying, hey, he needs to pay back that $6,000 and that was my money. So she's saying that the boyfriend got the money from her and lent it to you? No, no, no, it was his parents.

It was his parents. Okay. Yeah, and I can afford to pay it back. Now I've been having a good spot in my life and I can afford to pay it back. I just don't feel like I have to. I've helped her out with building stuff. Now she needs to have a lot of money because you know, the occasional electric thing like that where she's called nothing so hey, can you know, I've done something like that. Y'all are a hot mess, sure. Yeah, all right. All right. All right. I'm afraid that she's going to do it.

“You're just a, you're like, why do I give her another $6,000 to be irresponsible with is what you're saying?”

That she has three kids with a little older than 17, 18, in that way, and she's like,

oh, I mean, there are James there's two options. Okay. The third option is not keep whining about it.

Okay. I would either call her and say, your boyfriend gave me this money. It's a gift. I'm not going to pay back or I'd rather a check. But third option, I'm going to keep whining about this and y'all keep his family drama going on on on and who said what and who told George this and good Lord for $5,000, right?

At Ramsey, we don't partner with companies chasing trends or pushing gimmicks. Trust is earned.

“And that's why we send people to Fairwins, Credit Union. See, a lot of banks rely on”

teaser rates, marketing hype and fine print. But that's not how Fairwins operates. They've been serving members for 75 years and you don't last that long by cutting corners. You last by serving people well. There's a reason their name is on the studio wall. They built products that help you manage money intentionally, not pull you into debt. If you're looking for a practical way to organize your money, the Ramsey way,

check out the Fairwins Smart Bundle. It pairs a high-yield savings account for your emergency fund with a checking account that doesn't drain your balance with fee after fee after fee after fee. Open your Fairwins Smart Bundle today at Fairwins.org/Ramsy and get the Ramsey Be Weird Debate Card. That's Fairwins.org/Ramsy. Ensured by the NCUA. Leeland is in Oklahoma City, I Leeland, how are you?

All right, how are you? That other than I deserve, what's up? I've got a question, I'm 20 years old, I started a business last year and it's kind of just went backwards on me where I'm to the point now where I've got a piece of equipment that I'm sitting here staring down the barrel again, where they're basically probably having to kind of

reap this exit the first breakthrough.

So you started what kind of business on? Custom drive fertilizer spreading business. And so you bought what is the equipment? It's applicator that applies to our fertilizer on fields. And how much do you owe on it?

107,8,000, my annual payment on it's $40,000 here, and everything's just going backwards. I'm confused why they would loan a 22-year-old, $178,000 on a piece of farm equipment. Well, because I had a way to get into the business and then since then, it's just went backwards, since then. I had the money for a down payment, put the money down.

How much did you get down?

12,000.

“But still, I mean, you were not even, were you in the business already?”

I've been in the agricultural business all my life. You're 22. Yes, sir. Yeah, okay. All my life is not long.

Well, I've been didn't ever since I could. I know, honey, but I'm talking about more on loans you $178,000 with a $12,000 down payment when you're 22 years old. There's nothing, there's nothing that says this deal should have happened. Leland, you can't turn around and sell it.

I've been trying to, I've tried selling it with an auction company, but they want to meet a $100,000 up front before they'd even sell it.

“And so you had grand plans of spreading a lot of fertilizer, what happened?”

I put my name out within a hundred mile radius and the farm economy the way it is. fertilizer prices have signed, there's not a lot of people doing dry. They're all going different routes. I'm sorry, honey, this is scary, isn't it? Yeah, it definitely is.

Definitely scared to be sitting here in this position as it's been haunting me ever since. I guess. All right, well, I went broke when I was 28 and I had more zeros on the end of my stupidity than you do, so I got your beat. Right.

Because this was straight up stupid. And the guy that loans you the money deserves to lose $100,000. Whatever company did this, what's the name of the company? I can't remember off the top of my head and I-- You owe them $178,000 and you don't know the name

of the company? So I do, it's on a piece of paper at my house and I still have that information in front of me. You bought it at a dealership, and you know what brand is it? John Deer. Yeah, I guess so.

So you don't know John Deer incorporated the money. No, no, absolutely not. And my plan was, you know, do 10,000 acres a year, that can be done extremely easy.

what everybody said it was supposed to be. So the moral of the story is we don't borrow money to start businesses

because things never turn out exactly the way they're supposed to in business.

That's the right business. And so that's the lesson that sadly you have learned. The only good news is you learned it at 22. I learned it at 28. So I had the rest of my life to not do that stupid mistake again.

And you have the rest of your life to not do the stupid mistake again. So the next time you have a bright idea, and someone wants to loan you money to do your bright idea, you tell them no, right? Yes, sir. Okay, good.

So we've learned our lesson now.

Let's walk through it. I'm so sorry, Han. So I do not know a way around this because I don't know your world. I'm still just sitting here a gas that someone loaned you that money. It loaned you a hundred and seventy eight thousand dollars spread fertilizer.

There's just so many fertilizer jokes that I could weave into this. But it's just kind of constant, they just roll off the mind right now. But anyway, the spreading of fertilizer is pretty thick here.

“But the, so let me tell you what I think is going to happen and how you can handle it.”

Okay, I think you're going to get repowed at the first of the month.

I don't know how to tell you to stop that with anything that's reasonable. One thing you could stop it with is a chapter 13 bankruptcy, but that's a, or a chapter 11 bankruptcy, even in this case. But that's a pipe dream because the business idea is dead and there's no way to revive the cash flow. If you could revive the cash flow starting two months from now, you know, we could delay the

repo and put it by putting it into a bankruptcy, but I wouldn't do that here. Because I think this business idea is just a swing in a miss. Right. So I think they're taking it at the first of the month. Okay, then what's going to happen is they're going to sell the piece of equipment for X number of dollars at that same auction.

And then they're going to come knocking on your door for the difference. It's called the deficit. Okay, so let's play pretend. Let's play pretend and it's a hundred and seventy eight thousand owed and they sell the piece of equipment for a hundred thousand and they come see you for seventy eight thousand. You're twenty two years old. You don't have any money.

“Right. That's what we're going to be. It's probably going to be a year before they knock on your door”

wanting the difference. It's not going to be soon. Okay. And when they do normally what happens is they push you and push you and the person files bankruptcy and they get nothing on their seventy eight thousand in our example story here. Okay. However, you have a year to prepare for this battle and we're you to save up during this coming year by working your little tail end off. Twenty five thousand dollars and you offer them twenty five thousand dollars as settlement and full on the deficit.

They'll probably take it because they're used to getting nothing. All right. We settled deficits on the car repose at twenty twenty five cents on the dollar every day. I've not done it much on farm equipment, so I don't know that world, but it's probably pretty close. And the reason we're able to settle those deficits that that is because they've very sold them collect anything. Usually the person files chapter seven bankruptcy, they get a big goosek zero.

Especially when you look at look at it through the creditors eyes not to put you down Leeland, but looking at it from the bankers perspective, I'm trying to get money out of a twenty-three-year-old who's broke. The likelihood of that's close to zero. All right. So if he stands up and offers me twenty five k, I do a little happy dance and take it.

“If I'm the banker, you follow me. So what are you going to do for a living now that your life is starting”

over sir? I mean, I'm pretty much self-employed and don't know. I mean, I don't have a college degree. What are you going to do for a living sir? I'm going to farm. You're going to farm? Who's farm are you farming? Some friends. You're going to work on a farm. Yes. For someone else. Yes. And what does that pay? Did just depend. Sometimes 25 dollars an hour depending on who you're working for. Okay. And then ask yourself, what do I want to be doing when I'm 32 that I'm a millionaire and it's not 25

dollar an hour work. I'll help you with that. Yes sir. And it's not going into that 178,000 spread manure. Oh no, this was dry. I'm sorry. Okay. But anyway, you see the point. So you got to figure out, what am I going to do next? Because one of the things that I discovered when I went bankrupt because I couldn't turn it around the way. I think you actually can turn it around. If you'll work like a crazy person and stack cash and keep your living expenses very,

one or two years from now. Don't call them. Wait for them to call you and in the meantime,

“build a war chest and then settle it, info and writing settlement. And I think you can get through this.”

I really do. And then you could just look at this in the review mirror as that dumb thing I did when I was 22. I can look at my life in the review mirror that whole series of dumb things. I did when I was 28. You can, you guys paid off hundreds of thousands of dollars because of dumb things you did in your early 20. I'm not a stupid thing. Yeah. And so you're talking to the choir here. Okay. Sing another choir. But I do want you to develop a future and a plan

that doesn't involve a Hail Mary. You threw a Hail Mary into the end zone and got intercepted.

Don't do that again. Learn, learn from the mistake. And we'll walk with you. Anything you needly, Lynn, you call me. And if you want to save up that money and when they mess with you, you call me, I'll tell you, I'll walk you through it. I'll show you how to negotiate with them. Dave, we got a lot of calls on this show where life happens. One day someone's healthy, they're working, providing for their family and then a curveball hits. You know, we hear it all the time.

A car accident, a cancer diagnosis, a heart attack, and suddenly everything changes. Yeah.

“And that's why you've always said that having term life insurance from Zander is essential because”

it protects your family if the worst happens. Yeah, that's right. You need 10 to 12 times your income

in coverage. No gimmicks. No whole-life junk. Just straightforward term life protection. But there's another piece that people often overlook and that's long term disability insurance. Yeah, it's important to understand the difference between them. Life insurance steps in when you die. Disability insurance steps in while you're alive, but can't work. So it replaces a large part of your income. So the bill still get paid while you get back on your feet. If your employer

gives you free disability insurance, great. Take it. If it's discounted there at a better price, take it. But if not, Zander can help you find the right plan. Whether you're single or married, it's not optional. If you're going to be out of work for a while, they need to make sure the money

“still showing up. And that's why Zander is our go-to. They make it super simple to get the right”

coverage at the best price. No pressure. No upselling. I've pressed the Jeff Zander and Zander insurance for over 25 years. And so is my family. The don't wait. It's fast. It's easy. And they could make all the difference. Go to zander.com or call 800-356-4282. Protect yourself, protect your income, protect your family. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Wins Credit Union studio.

I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Jay Bosch, all Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author, is my co-host, Diane is in Chicago. Hey, Diane, how are you? Hi, I'm doing well. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Oh, yeah, I think you're. Well, I thank you for taking my call. I currently have quite a bit of money to bank my feel. And I am thinking about my retirement and I'd like to know

how best I should invest it in order to make it last through retirement. How much is it? I do. I have 600,000 in the bank. Wow. And that's free. I have 250,000 in retirement. What I don't know what to do with because it's then with a cable for this. We don't know our own business. It's just been sitting there. I don't know what to do with it. I know nothing about it. I wasn't actively involved in our business. I stayed home and took care of our kids, raised them,

and had decided to go into my own franchise. And so I know that I will be using some of that money for the franchise. But I don't know that just sitting in a bank is the best place for it. Yeah, how old are you? Uh, 57. Okay. And you said you were not involved in the business and now you're opening a franchise with the business money. Yeah, so yeah. Um, so you're a husband was running the business? Yes, where is he? Um, he's, he's a home. He is supporting me on my business.

He's hoping at some point he'll be able to branch out and do something on his own. But everything's been in my

that were the 600 grand came from. Yeah, we sold it for 1.2 million. But we were given a large

lump and we paid off some unexpected unknown deaths. Like, um, I know. You're being cryptic. I didn't, I didn't know about it. I don't have to tell you. I've told you what's going on because you're not, there's not making it. My, my husband has a gambling debt. Oh, I don't know what he, he gets, he gets a set amount every month that comes in that he collects and he uses that for extra curricular activities. I have no money. You don't know how much he's. Oh, no, I know how much he

gets. He gets $3600 a month and that's his play money. I get so he, he's basically got a gambling

“problem that ran you guys deeply in debt. That's why everything's in your name. Yeah. Okay. All right,”

that makes sense. So who's supplying the $3600 a month for him to continue gambling? We have $2500 coming in from a rental that person bought the business and he has the option to buy by the end of the year for $250,000 if he exercises that right. And then he also gets Social Security 1100 a month. Okay. So at this point, you're okay with losing $40,000 a year with your husband? No, I'm not, but I have no to go with that. What's the, what's the plan moving forward? Does he

know that? Does he know that he has a lot of control? You got everything in your name. Bye, everything's in my name. He knows that I'm opening up this franchise, which will be approximately $125,000 to open the franchise in my own. He, he's just kind of like leaving letting me leave the money in the bank. But I feel like it's not getting the best reach. So I'm looking for ways that I can invest. Yeah. I mean, we can't tell you to get with a smart vester pro and invest

on money. But I really don't feel like that's the issue of the conversation. Yeah, there's a lot, there's so much going, here's the problem. It's hard to fill up a hole while somebody's digging out the bottom. Right. And that's kind of what we're hearing here. But you feel like you've got him, his gambling addiction under control. And I question that because I've seen so many, well, I mean, but, and so as long as you keep this stuff in your name, I guess you have

the option of divorce at some point. If he runs up, you know, let's say he runs up a million dollar

gambling debt and you don't want to pay it with the money that's in your name, then you've only

“got one option at that point. So anyway, that's what you're facing. So yeah, I would take the 600,000”

and I'd take the 250,000 and I would sit down with a smart vester pro and begin to invest it in good mutual funds. If it averages 10% or more, it will double every seven years. So you basically got a million dollars and seven years at 64 years old, you'd have two million dollars. At seven more years at 71 years old, you'd have four million dollars. So you're going to be fine if you do that and you don't piss it away with this franchise. If this franchise doesn't go belly up on you.

And it sounds like you've never run a business before. He ran the business before and now you're

buying a franchise. So that's a little concerning. Is the franchise in the same field of expertise or is it something totally different? No, it's something that I'm passionate about, something that is for me not for him. I don't expect his involvement in it, but I'm very confident and very passionate about this and I'm expecting for it to be very successful and I have a family that is willing to stand behind me and support me. So that's not even a question whether or not

that's going to be successful. I'm confident that it will be. Yeah, I'm going to tell you that that's not true in the small business world. So there's risk that you're not perceiving apparently. So yeah, you're going to buy it and you're going to do it. But I want to insulate you from you and this bad decision if it's a bad decision. And I want to insulate you from him and his continuous bad decisions with 600 or more $1,000 going over in a regular low risk investment

in comparison to gambling and in comparison to franchise purchasing. And so let's put some money over there. So if these are the two things go sideways and this plan doesn't work,

“then you know you've at least got that money working for you. So yeah, you need to sit down and do that”

and you need to put a real limit on the amount of dollars you're going to pour into the franchise before it starts giving you money back instead of you putting money into it. Absolutely. And because if you don't with the level of unrealistic optimism that you're coming out this with and you're positive

And if you want to put 125 in it and you believe in it, go do it, go live your dream. I didn't

got a problem with that. What I've got a problem with is these absolute statements and I've been in business my whole life and there is no absolute 100% people are behind me. I feel positive. It's an area I'm passionate about. None of that may matter. You may still lose all that money.

“So don't don't go into this 300 grand with all your positivity. If you want to put 125 in it,”

do it and then I'd put the rest of it over and with the Smart Vista Pro and some good mutual funds and to where it's protected from this business risk and the gambling risk and separate these things. Yeah, I'm just, I'm going to call it like I heard it. And almost sounded like this business for you of some sort of retaliatory thing against him to kind of prove that you're doing your thing over here. And I would just say draw a line in the sand and set some boundaries about how long

you're going to endure this into what point before you go and do the things that you need to do and make that separation so that he can get the help that he needs because allowing this to persist doesn't feel like the answer. It feels like it's breeding resentment from you. Oh, for sure. I kind of sure. Absolutely. Getting married changes something in you. It sure did in me. When you say I do, all of the sudden

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Nicole is in Atlanta. Hi Nicole. How are you? Hi I'm good. How are you? Good. What's up? So mamabearlegoforms has been lived in an apartment and we're trying to decide if we should move to a bigger space because we do have two three kids, so two or five euro twins and then a two euro baby girl. Last year we were able to pay off our vehicle but we had $62,000 worth of student-owned debt left and we were going to use, we've been using mostly like our overage

which is about $1100 and that we have a month to put so as our debt and then we also pretty much use like our tax break or whenever that comes in to sell a lot at it just in and out. So we're trying to see we want them to have a space to have a yard and just more space for a little bit cranked up with all five of us here. So we were just wondering if we should stay or if we should kind of go. Like our budget will be tighter but we're trying to see what we should prioritize. What are you

guys earning between the two of you right now? I'm a growth would be $103,000. Okay. The hard part with this is what you said. If you were to move from this apartment to a house it's going to close

“the gap on how much margin you have to throughout this debt which means there's going to be”

a longer period of time that you're going to be in debt which long-term that's going to affect your ability to build wealth. For that reason I like the idea of home ownership but I think

the first step in that process needs to be eliminating the debt so that you can actually go whole

hardedly into the home buying process and actually do it the right way so that it's a blessing for you. You're not even talking about home ownership. You're talking about renting a nicer place, aren't you? Yeah. Yeah. We were actually looking to our rent is $2200 and so we were wanting to rent like thinking about 25 as our max per 100 but that doesn't include like gas and utility, I'm sorry,

That's with 400. How much, how much debt have you paid off so far?

36,000 will be equal. And how long did that take? That took us two years. Making $130,000. 103,000. Yeah. Yeah. So you guys suck at this? So far, Nicko. We said. Yeah. $18,000 making a 100 grand per year is not enough debt reduction. You guys are still out. You're still going out to eat. You're still going on vacation. You're still spending money. You're still not on a tight budget and so you made a little progress

“but you should have made a lot more progress. If you don't even paid off 36,000 and six months,”

see, then I can take that number and go, oh wait a minute, you can clear up the rest of this in a year if you suck it up and get it done. But at the rate, you're going, it's going to take you 10 years. Yeah. That ain't cool. That ain't great. That's how we feel. Yeah, we got to get stuck in there.

And if you feel like you're never going to get out, then you just, well, to heck with it,

I'll just take a big old rent and go ahead and enjoy my life now and get to kids of yard. And, you know, you're giving up is what you're doing because you're not making fast enough progress. And so I'm going to put you on the beans and rice plan. If I'm you, I'm going to sit down my husband and go, look, we did a little bit here and we didn't do a bad thing but we really weren't, it wasn't like we were spectacular. We kind of got the flu here and we need to really

like this thing up instead of putting $1,500 a month on it. We need to take extra jobs. We need to sell stuff. We need to not go out to eat. We need to tight tight tight tight, tighten down this budget, not go the other way. And let's get this thing to $3,000 or $4,000 a month going at the $6,000,

$60,000 left. And then we can get out in about 14 or 15 months. Then we talk about building a emergency

fund. And then we talk about buying a house, not renting one. But what you're talking about is a five or a six year plan and you won't even make it. I agree. If you can have these kids, they're young right now, right? There are five years old, three years old. Now's the time that they can be squished and they don't know the difference. You know the difference, but they don't know the difference. And I for one would try to stay in that position as long as possible and save as much

“money as possible so that you can pay. If they're squished and their life is miserable for one year,”

they'll be fine. That's better than them being not squished and having a mediocre to average life for the rest of their life. You want to know what though? I think back a lot of times on the house that I grew up in. And I think back on the house that my parents grew up in with six kids. Yeah, nobody told me. No, nobody told us we were squished. No. We were. But nobody told us we were. There's a thousand square foot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No side. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No side.

Yeah. You tell your kids to go play in the traffic. You don't tell your kids. I don't tell them to play in traffic. I just tell them to. My mother would say that all the time. I don't play in the traffic. You know, I'm going to run her my feet. Yes. That's what calls me to be the way I am. Dustin is in corddling Idaho, right? Dustin. What's up? Hi. So I'll get ready to do it. I'm a dad. I've incurred about $30,000 in debt. He has no retirement. He's only income to social security.

He now has dementia and my brother and I are left trying to manage this for him. He's currently being sued on one credit card for $8,000 and he was $13,000 on another credit card. And I guess the question is, should we try and settle this with them? Does he own anything? No. No, that's not. Well, how would he settle it? I essentially my brother and he would have to help him out. Why? Why would you do that?

Hey, just tell them to other credit card company to bite me. He has no money. He has nothing to give. They can't get anything. He doesn't have anything, right? Yeah, he has nothing. It's only social security. I don't believe they can touch that. They can't touch that. Does he own a home? No. No. He doesn't. No, no, no. He's bank account except the social security.

Yeah, it would just be for me and my brother. I have one last thing to do. I wouldn't deal with it at all. I got one last thing. I'm just going to show him the smallest finger on my left hand and say, that's all you get. Nothing. Are they calling you? No. No. I just told him to jump in a creek. You shouldn't allow to loan money to a guy who had dementia and no money. Okay, and should I offer to have them sign a stipulated judgment to wait

if it's an alternative or who wouldn't have? Who cares? They're not going to get any of it.

“What I would do is call him up and say, if you want to talk to him, call him up and just say this.”

I want you to make a note in the file. He has advanced dementia and zero assets. We're not going to have any conversations with you. You might as well write this off because you're not

Okay. I just sent him a copy of the death certificate as a courtesy to let him know and let him know

“that there's not a, there's no a state. And then after that, I'm not having any more discussions with”

these people. They're more ons. None of this can pass to you if you're worried about that. No. I'm not worried about them. You're too dead. I'm not responsible for that. It's just sad. And it's one of this part. It's a sad sub chapter, sub paragraph in this overall sad story that you're dealing with. But what I would do is just say, I'm not going to worry about it at all. And if you want to have one conversation, just as a courtesy, you could. But I'm not going to have lengthy conversations.

I'm not going to have multiple conversations. And I'm not going to give him a dime. There's no point in it. They shouldn't have loaned him the money. Yeah. I agree. And it's just sad. I'm sorry for you having to face that. And um, you know, I've run into situations like that in my life, Dustin, how old are you? I'm 44. Yeah. I've run into situations like that. And what I do is I say, okay,

I got to help my dad out in your case. This is what you're saying. I got to help my dad out.

And this is a sad situation. And so what I'm going to get from this is a lesson to never end up

like this. Right. I'm going to do whatever it takes in my life to not end up this way. It's like, you know, I was working for a guy one time. He goes, I might be working in McDonald's at my retirement. But it'll be the one I own in the same time. Come on now. So I'm going to learn a lesson from those old people standing there working in McDonald's because they don't have any money. I don't want B-1 of them. And so you look at this. You go, he's got no assets. He's got dementia

“and the only positive thing in his life is he's got two sons that love him and are going to”

care for him. Other than that, this guy's a palper, we would use old language. But it's very sad.

And so take it as a lesson to go, I'm never, you know, and then you teach your kids. You're

grandpa winded up that way. Your grandpa was not a bad person, but this is how he ended up. And this is how we're not from this point forward, the family tree changes. We're shifting it. So take a lesson from it at least. At least get that out of it. But now I wouldn't give those guys any money. Not a done. This show is sponsored by Better Health. Financial stress is not just damage or bank accounts. It can also take a toll on our relationships and on our mental and emotional health.

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platform and if the first therapist isn't the right fit, you can switch it anytime for no extra

cost. When life feels overwhelming, therapy can help. Visit betterhelp.com/Ramsie to get 10% off your first month. That's Better Help. H-E-L-P dot com slash ramsie. Well, we love debt-free screams. We love them in the lobby of ramsie solutions on our debt-free stage. We super love them. When it's one of our ramsie team members, TJ is with us here with his wife Alice, and he's a project manager on the every dollar team, then with us about a year.

And they get to come in here and do their debt-free scream. Welcome, guys. Thank you. Good to have you. How nerve-racking is this?

“It's for here. And it's finally real. I love it. How much have you paid off?”

165,000 dollars. I love it. How long did that take? 15 months. Wow. Okay. And you've been here about a year. So you started on it before. How long y'all been married? 1 year and 8 months. Oh wow. So moving here, getting married, starting the debt-free journey all in the last two years. Yes. Wow. Where'd you move from? Central Illinois, but we're originally from Chicago land. Okay. All right. So you got married and did you come to Nashville to take the

ramsie job? Yep. Okay. The project manager at every dollar. Well, that's awesome. So you people

that are awesome about it. It's all TJ's fault. He's one of the many talented folks we got on that

“team really, really working on this. So what kind of debt was the 155,000? Yeah, it was 107 in”

student loans. And then 58 in New Cars. This was before learning about ramsie. All right, I got you. Okay. Very cool. How's it feel to be free? We're ready. Liberating, peaceful. There's the best sleep we've ever got. Oh, I've gotten the past few years, but Dr.tober 30th, when we put later final payment, filled in the rest of that. I saw the thermometer that we had up there, filling that in, calling those that supported us all along the way and just being able to cheer it.

So how did the order of events go about learning about doing the ramsie stuff coming to work here, getting married? How's that all that line up? So we got the total money makeover as a wedding gift.

Okay. It was not on our registry. It's seldom is. So TJ read the book about three times,

and then he started on this journey to try to correspond me into reading it. He was saying that

“it's Bible based, which really resonated with me. And then he was like, Dave's really funny,”

which I was like, hmm, let me see for myself. And I loved it. We had a conversation where we had combined our finances after getting married and realized that we had $200 of minimum payments. And we didn't feel like we were able to really live, even though we had two pretty good incomes. Very cool. What do you do? I'm a nurse. Awesome. Very cool. Good. Yeah, that is too good incomes. Excellent. Well done, y'all. Yeah. Okay. So you get married, you get the book, and you get on

the same page, and then how does he end up with this job? That's weird. Well, it all came down to we were Dave Ish of around Thanksgiving. I got to talk to my Uncle Matt and Jinga who were the ones that gifted us, total money makeover. And we're like, we're doing it. We're doing it. And they're like, are you really doing it? And we were like, well, we have 20,000 savings while we're trying to pay down the debts. We, you know, we paid for our wedding, and anything that was a gift. We just threw

it dead. And I'm like, that felt good. Let's keep going. And they were like, hey, check out their website for additional resources. And I was like, okay, cool. So I started looking around. I saw there's a careers page. I'm like, all right. Let's see what this is all about. Saw some jobs. I was like, I could probably do that. I applied previous role. I applied for hundreds of jobs. And then eventually I got my one. I was like, all right, Lord, if you open up the doors for me, I'm going to continue to walk

through them. And however, there was a 12 steps to get here, hiring process. Yeah. But, you know, it really felt like God called me here, able to serve, be able to be here and help spread hope to other people. That's really awesome. So what are you going to do to celebrate? We did. We did. We bought a king size bed. Yeah. And it just said they says best sleep of my life. Yeah. Oh, I love that. That's exactly right. I thought you were sleeping better because you got out of there. I don't know, but they thought

a new mattress is what I want. That's great. That's excellent. Very cool. All right. So what it voiced you have? What do you tell people when they say, how did you do that? I did pay up 165,000 newly married in 15 months. That's over 10,000 a month. Yeah. God's blessings for sure. Everything kind of

had to come right together. We wrote down October of 2025. And when I first, when we were right

now, I'm like, well, everything is going to have to come up right in order for this to happen. And God's blessings allowed us to be there. New opportunity to choose travel nursing. Good money. Which is where a lot of all of that came from. Yeah. That's good money. And it took a lot of sacrifice. I mean, I had to move down here. And I was here for about a month and a half before she got to come down. That is a good sacrifice. So she was doing some roles that were about an hour and a half

away. So a lot of long commute. And I appreciate all of sacrifices that we were able to make. Both of us taken up multiple jobs to be able to get there. And just want to be an inspiration to others. So working here can be a mixed blessing because everybody's like, everybody's doing this. You know, it's like the positive peer pressure. But it's also pressure. I mean, was it helpful to have your team, you know, all up in your business or, you know, your buddy's cheering you on or,

was that a bad, I mean, they're all standing out there. You're very nice. But I mean, was it helpful

“to be in this kind of environment when you're doing or not? I think it could work against you.”

Yeah. At least I can tell my side. It's been extremely, it's a sports system. If we didn't believe in it, then yes, I think it could be a whole lot of different pressure. They were like, oh, I don't really want to do it. But we believed in it. We know that was going to be good for us, changing our family tree, going through financial piece of university, really seeing the whole scope of where your life can change and being able to use every dollar to keep us on track and on

bag, as far as, you know, their thoughts on our journey. So we committed to it. It was amazing

for a TJ to be working an environment where we got that support. So it ultimately was such a blessing. Yeah. Cool. Very cool. Any setbacks on the way? Right after we get out of it. I had to, we had some, I had some health stuff that came up. So we got debt free and then we were with the cash flow 10k in medical expenses and now we're tackled on taxes. But we're able to cash flow it all. Yeah. Car repair is in all that. We're able to cash flow it as we went.

“So it's about time to celebrate with some of it. Oh my God. Yes, that's what it's about.”

Enough already. So you're working on an every dollar, your project manager on every dollar,

the journey and now the freedom has to affect how you look at all those projects. Yeah. Just, I mean, you're not agnostic again anymore. You're in it. You're able to just focus. It's been able to say, okay, I'm, I'm product of this. Yeah. I believe in it. Yeah. It makes it that much more motivating to be able to come in every single day, come in to work, knowing that I made a difference, not all for myself. But for everyone outside of these walls, which I know we

preach very dearly here. It's truly inspiring. It's just so nice to be a part of it,

something that you believe in and you're able to say, I'm, I'm affecting this. I'm changing this.

I'm trying to make this better. I'm trying to make it easier to work the Ransy plan. Yeah. And that's all the motivation you need. Amen. Amen. I'm proud of y'all. Yeah, excellent job done. And the teams out here gathered and none of them are working. They're all here to cheer you on. And this is great. I'm glad they're here to cheer you on. It's very, very cool. Congratulations, you too. Thank you. Thank you. Very well done. All right. We don't ask, I'm going to team

members on. We don't ask their household income because all their friends are staying around. And that's not fair. But they did pay off $165,000 in 15 months, count it down. Let's hear a debt free scream. Three, two, one. We're going to get free. Yeah. This is how you do it, ladies and gentlemen. You love that man. You know, I can't imagine coming to work in a place like this right after I got married. The place I went to work

right after I got married was bad. No. I mean, lucky for them. It's great. Because now you're

“submerged by everything you need to get off on the right foot financially. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's like”

you don't have a choice around here. Yeah. I mean, what your own stage this morning, staff meeting doing walk the talk. Oh, yeah. We have a whole system here where we're not being hypocrites. Yeah. We work here need to be doing the stuff we teach. You know, what 100%. 100%. 100%. 100%. The non-hypocrite system, walk the talk, right? On your honor. That's right. I'm fine. These guys, they, they did it. I'm so proud. I'm 165,000.

They were all smoking it. Fifteen months. Man, let's get it done. Get her done. Well, I'm trying to get some advice on my wife and I going into debt to start a

“kettle operation. Okay. How long have you been listening to the show, Logan?”

About six months or so. Okay. And so you know that about 95% of what we talk about is telling people to not go in debt and and they how to get out of that, right? Yeah, it is. I feel like I've heard a little bit of information with businesses that sometimes like buying a business or something that can depend on the profit that it brings and how quickly it can be paid off. So I wanted to be if that would work in this case. No, that would be like buying it from an owner

and the owner gets the proper, the former owner gets the profit until not borrowing $150,000 to buy cows from the bank. That's different. Okay. So I don't borrow money, Logan. And I've done that for 40 years and I run a business and I've grown the business with the profits and the

When you borrow money to start a business or run a business, you increase the risk 100fold.

“A lot more chance that you're going to go bankrupt. And so what's your household income, sir?”

About 120 to 130,000. Great. Depending on over time. Good for you. So if you took out 150,000 on loan, how fast could you pay it back? Run the numbers that we ran, given the market now. You know, obviously, as long as it doesn't just completely tank out within about two years

to three at the most by your third, your third, third round of calves. Everything should be

completely paid off and it would be profit after that minus operational cost. Yeah. So what would be wrong with starting a little bit smaller and taking four years and making the thing cash flow which is way to the exact same position? By a third of what you're talking about buying with cash. And make that third by the next third and by the next third. You don't need any money out of this cattle operation. You could pour every single dollar of profit into growing it,

agreed? Correct. Yeah. That would be the plan. Because you have a good income at home already. And so I think it's what we call in business organically growing the business with your cash, your own cash. And that's what we've done here, although we weren't able to do as fast as you're going to be able to do it. And that's assuming cattle prices don't do what they have done in the past, which is they're all over the freaking place, as you know. I'm sure you've let the trend

lines on that it's scary. So there's times the market has tanked. And it's an agricultural product. And so it's a lot more unpredictable than some other types of businesses. So you've got to be very very careful. But if I were in your shoes, I would scratch the edge. But I would save up $50, 75,000 in cash by living on nothing. And I dump every bit of that in there. And then I take every dime of profit

“and you should to grow the business. And I think you'll be there one year later than you would have”

been there. If you borrowed the money and everything went perfect, which by the way, nothing ever goes perfect. That is true. Yeah. I mean, you get the cows get sick. There's all kinds of problems. There's, you know, the Brazilians decide they're going to come in and, you know,

upset the beef market. I don't know. I mean, I don't know how those works. But there's always

something, right? Correct. So yeah, I would rather you do that and be tired and stretched on your cash. And then no one's going to take it away from you. You're not going to lose everything because you rolled the dice on this particular horse race. I just crossed metaphors. Yeah, that's all right. That, you know, that makes sense of a follow-up to that would be that you were to cash flow this. What's your opinion on, you know, like leasing pasture and stuff,

do you look at that as debt or does that look that a little bit different? No, let's just overdo it. That's like land. That's just like, at least that's like leasing a building to run your business sand instead instead of buying the building. That's there's no problem. I would rent the pasture for sure. Okay. Because now we've got two businesses. If you buy the pasture, you've got two businesses. You've got the real estate business and the farm in business. Yeah. I mean, it's like, it's like,

me, I've got this building here that's 650,000 square feet, like, you know, 600, 600 million

dollar property, right? So I've got this piece of real estate. I'm in a real estate business. And I've got a business that's inside the real estate. But I've got two things going on here. Very substantial things. Ramsey and the big old piece of real estate, big campus here. I mean, I'm in the office building business period. No, no matter how you cut it. And you can set, you can mix those two together and act like, well, they're all one thing. No, they're really not. It's, I've got a big office building.

I could at least, there's six up and right down the road down here. I could at least another one and not put, you know, not put, not put half a billion dollars into this thing, right? So that's, that's the thing. So just, you know, need to get in the real estate business. I just lease it. If you're going to start a restaurant for God's sake, don't buy the building. Oh, gosh, please, now. Just rent the building. You get started. You know, you start a daycare, rent the building.

And just don't, don't get in the real estate business until you've been in business a long time, and you've got a predictable environment. But you don't have that there until then. So, wow.

“Cool. I think we won that one. Yeah, I think I think he's going to take your advice. I think he's going”

to do. I believe in him. I like it. I like Logan. All right. That's kind of nice. I'm, I like getting one. Leonas in Cincinnati. Hi, Leona. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

“Um, so I have a quick question. So my husband and I, we have a one-year-old and we recently moved,”

well, recently, last year, we had switched from our apartment because of the noisy neighbors and went to a town home. Um, the town home, when we moved in there, it was not great. And we sent several emails to the leasing office about the issues that we were having and, you know, mold and spiders everywhere and synopedes and all these things happening in there. Um, we told them that we are not happy with the town home and they said, they'll fix things. Once went by,

they won't fix anything. So we decided to just break our lease because I have legal shield

through my job and I reached out to an attorney through there and they said, well, they failed to

provide. We'll live in conditions. I have pictures of everything and you don't owe anything. So you can break your lease and you'll be fine. Oh, boy. That was not good advice.

“Oh, wow. Yeah, you got what you paid for with that lawyer. Did you send them? Did you sent?”

I mean, did you get any, did you send them anything and writing? Did you do any, did you do your due diligence other than just making a phone call? No. So we definitely sent pictures. You mean to the leasing office? Uh, both. Did you send them? Did you let them know that you were seeking legal counsel on behalf? Like, did you go through the due diligence of making sure that they understand what's going on? I, yeah. So I called the leasing office. My husband went

up there because they weren't responding to my email. My husband went up there. He talked to them. They said, okay, we'll take care of things. A couple of months went by. Nothing was happening. The most they did was change the tray in the dishwasher. Okay, so stop it. It's just, you just moved out when you got mad because you called legal shield and they said, you could. Yeah. Well, we weren't, we weren't planning to break our lease because we did that before

to move to where we are now and that was not fun. So we said, we're not going to break the lease almost. We get some kind of advice that we can. So after we said, call the headoff is the property management company or whoever. We talked to the district manager. They said, okay, definitely send us emails and everything. All the pictures that you've been reaching out to them about and everything. Did that no response? Call again, list of voice message, not getting any response.

So the legal shield attorney said, they sent them a letter to the leasing office and the property management company and saying that they failed to provide whatever suitable living conditions for us and our child. So we don't owe them anything. So because of that, we decided to just break our lease because they want you to see anything. We asked them multiple times. Are you going to think about that? Well, then this is on legal shield. Legal shield needs to defend you for free.

Yeah, they told me, you're going to get, you're going to get sued. I can promise you. I promise you, 100% this line of words coming after you. You don't have the option of just walking away because I got some bugs. Even if you send them pictures, and even if they don't answer you, even if they're jerks, even if they have horrible service. It's not how it works. I mean, so now legal shields bit this off. They need to pick it up and close the deal and they're

not going to be able to. This is going to be horrible for you. [Music] Welcome back to the Ramsey Show and the Fair Wins Credit Union Studio, Jade Washaw, Ramsey Personality. Number one bestselling author is my co-host today. Nicole is into Troy.

“I had Nicole, how are you? Hi, Dave. I'm good. How are you?”

Better than I am. Better than we deserve. How can we help?

Yeah. So I was calling, so basically my husband has refused to

put, right, gave me financial visibility into his life. He has put his foot down, like, you know, literally like no, you cannot see anything that I have going on financially. I can tell you about it. But you can't know anything that's going on. And the reason why it happened is we were in a position to buy a home and the housing counselor and the lender that we were working with asked about our finances. And I found myself saying, well, I don't know, let me hold on.

Let me ask my husband. And then after our call was done, I told my husband, I said, you know, I shouldn't have to say, cold on to anyone. Let me ask my husband. I should know what's going on,

How did that go? And he keeps saying, I'm a grown man. I do not have to show you anything financially

in my life. I was like, you're a vegan. You're a vegan. And you're my husband. I said, we're supposed to be one that you think that makes us not be one. And what is it, me show you

“my money has nothing to do with a thing. Yeah, but this is where are we now?”

So I moved out. We were in a rental when we came together a year ago. It was, it was his house. So I moved in with him. We've been there for a year. We were trying to work on getting our own house. And because all this, I mean, it's so bad. It's so bad. But what else is going on? Because this was explosive. So what else is going on? I have a feeling that it wasn't, this has not been the only issue is what I'm gathering.

Yeah, nope. So he has a 21 year old son. And his son is very disrespectful. He basically, it's basically like he runs the house. And if I try to say anything to him about his son, what his son does, if I try to tell him stuff they go going, he's not at all well.

He never believed me. So it's just, it's just bubbling over. Yeah. How can we help you

die on? So I just want to know. So we've separated. He has filed the worst papers, but I haven't signed it yet. I'm trying to talk to him, but he is not talk to a boat. Gotcha. Even a work. I've never worked. Have you suggested some sort of counsel? Have you suggested, hey, this is really bad. We need to get in counseling. What did he say? Yes. I said that and he said no, because you're their person is not going to tell me that I

“have to allow you to see on what. See, here's the thing. And I'm just going to go ahead and say this,”

this is based off of just what you've told me. So take it with a grain of salt. This, based on what you're saying, there's something going on. He doesn't want you to see. And maybe it does have to do with his, uh, stature or how people view him. He doesn't want you to have any parts of what he's doing with his money. Maybe that's a blessing. He's the one that's filed for divorce. Maybe this is you dodging a bullet. I don't know. I don't know. But this sounds like somebody who doesn't,

it sounds like somebody who's got extremely high pride that they cannot be told nor learn anything about a better way to exist in a relationship. That's what you've told me. Yeah. The, um, and the the weird thing is is that all of his finances are now going to get exposed in the divorce right. Because the judge is not going to go along with his plan. It's very ironic 100% of his finances have to be exposed or he's going to have to lie to the court, which will get him put in jail. So,

uh, you don't lie to the court, not even divorce court. So, you know, he has to come, he has to show all the stuff to the lawyers and it has to all come before the judge and he's going to find out that half of a jurors. That's going to be very weird for him. Well, we only been married two years. Yeah, that doesn't matter. Oh, I thought it was eight. So, you've been in the house for six

“weeks. They've been together eight years married two. Okay. Yeah. Uh, what are you concerned about?”

Are you concerned that there's debt that your name might be on? But you don't know about it. Actually, so before we separated, um, I had to find out the hallway, that he had a garmishment on my account. And so, I had to ask him several times to get it taken care of, um, he got them to remove it and put it on his bank account, but he was not happy about it. And, you know, so I was just right for you to be so angry with me and telling me,

no, you know, I'll be just seeing you financially, but you've got a garmishment on my account. How is that there? There's probably some shame going on that you don't know about. There's probably a lot here going on that you don't know about. And it's, uh, now granted, I don't know what parts you've contributed to whatever messes here. I'm sure there's, is to, you know, two sides to everything. But, um, but my guess is there's some things going on that might be causing him some shame,

or, you know, it might might be just the way he views, uh, those gender roles that you guys never

aligned on that money is the man's thing and it's not who knows, but there, it's never going to come out because he won't go to counseling with you. Yeah, it's going to come out in the divorce. You're going to find out everything about his money and the divorce, um, which is the irony of him filing for divorce, because you want to divine out what was going on with the money. So it's kind of ironic and he just, he just, he just, he just dumb enough he doesn't know that. So this is going

judge doesn't really care about, that judge doesn't really care about his theories. He's just

“going to tell him what to do and if you don't do it, you're in contempt of court and it's really”

nasty, you don't want to, you don't want to screw him around with the judge. So, um, this is, this is where he's going. The question you asked, I have a sad horrible answer for. What can I say to him

to do, to make him want to do this and the answer is nothing. There's nothing you can say to

him. I wish there was one phrase, one way of doing it, but this is a very entrenched position that he has taken to the point. He's willing to give up his marriage over this and so there's not a single phrase. If he was coming to the table and saying, "Hey, I want to work on this. Let's go to counseling." I could give you some things to say to do all that, but in this situation, you know, you're just going to be, you know, just throwing water against the wall. There's nothing

“happened in here. So, um, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you chose poorly in a husband. This guy, this guy's”

bad news. You wouldn't, not one listening that has a daughter would want their daughter to marry

this guy, not a person out there. Regardless of how much Nicole contributed or whatever else was going on in the house, all that kind of thing. But this is a guy that is not in a good place and he's not helpful and he's not a good husband and you're, you know, there's not a single phrase that's going to make him not be a jerk. I don't have that not be a jerk phrase. I don't have one of those. And I'm sorry. I wish it was. I wish it was. I wish it was something we could just do. But unless he

just decides that he wants to be together, unified, work together in full visibility and in order to save his marriage and start with a marriage counselor, then you're, you're not going to make it,

“I'm sorry. I wish you were. Hey good folks, Dr. John Deloni here. Don't you think life is too short”

to hate Mondays? Listen, you're worth loving the work you do and where you do it. So guess what?

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money every month and build you a personalized plan to get out of debt and build wealth. In just 15 minutes, you're going to find thousands in hidden margin and you feel like you've got to raise. Don't be normal, normal sucks when you can live like no one else. Start every dollar for free in the App Store or Google Play. The Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by Wi-ReFi. When your private student loans are in default, your progress stalls out. Wi-ReFi helps

you restart, refund by refinancing, defaulted private student loans into low fixed rate payment that fits your budget and you can stop spending your wheels. Go to Wi-ReFi.com/Ramsie. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y.com/Ramsie might not be in all states. All right. Today's question comes from Steve and West Virginia. He says, "I'm 66 years old and have been retired for five years. I have 500,000 in retirement funds, but I have two debts, 40,000 in credit card debt,

and 150,000 on my mortgage. I have social security and pension income of 6,000 per month. Should I pay off my debt to reduce my withdrawal each month from my 401k?" I wish I had a little bit more information, but off the top, I would say yes because to have your mortgage paid for, that's money that you're not going to have to take a draw on. And my guess, I don't know what your expenses are every month, but my guess is you probably are a living okay

on the $6,000 per month if you don't have a single debt in the world. No, it might just do. Yeah, make sure you cut up a stupid credit card. You get on a budget,

I don't know if that's old debt. It's not the problem. It's the symptom of you overspending.

If it's old debt, I'm not on that lifestyle anymore. I just still have it laying around absolutely paid off, but if it's current, then Dave is absolutely right about that.

“Mike's in Virginia Beach. Hey, Mike, how are you? Good. How you guys doing?”

Better than we deserve. What's up? My wife or siblings inherited some money from their dad when he passed away several years back. And one of the siblings is the executor. And they said they're not going to tell one of the other siblings about it because they don't feel that they're financially responsible and they're just going to hold the money back from them. I say that's not that ain't their call. You're exactly right. Okay. Well, I'm smarter than I look sometimes. The executor,

the literal, the reason I called an executor is they're to execute. They're execute the what the will said. It didn't say you're a trust officer and you get to decide what's best. It said you execute what the will says. It's your only option. Even if you don't like it, even if you don't agree with it, you have wrong option when you're the executor. And that's to execute what the will says. Otherwise, the people on the other side of it are going to sue your butt and they're going to win

because you violated your fiduciary responsibility. What's your wife think? She agrees with me. Okay. You guys got your part, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, I would tell the executor that they're being stupid and they're going to get sued. Well, I did that. Yeah. Well, then that's you've done your job. I believe it alone. It's not your problem anymore. How much is it? Yeah. You don't think you're like eight or ten thousand dollars each. Oh, it's not enough to mess with. But

here's the thing. The person finds out that they were not given the money they're supposed to be given.

The person that is the executor is in deep kimchi legally. Well, that's that's what I've kind of figured. Yeah, for sure. For sure. But there's nothing you can do about it. I mean, it's just these are people doing whatever they want to do. And that's what people do all the time. That's the problem. When you pick the executor of your will, folks, you need to pick someone who's going to have the integrity to execute your will. Yeah. What is it you will to happen?

“That's right. That's what that means. They need to be Switzerland. Yeah. Did you say deep kimchi?”

I just did. Okay. Just check in. Just make sure things come up in the role of Dix. Nora is in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Hi Nora. What's up? Hi Dave and Jade, excited to talk to you today. I have an exciting question for you. I want to know, should we buy a new car with cash? Or half our house. Oh, my favorite type of question. Tell us more. Okay. So we are in baby steps four, five and six. We've been on the R&B plan for a solid like seven years. We have $60,000

safe for the vehicle and a high yield savings account. But they won't do. We are doing our annual budget meeting. We are also looking at our brokerage account, which is sitting at $35,000. Our mortgage is approximately $83,000 left. Okay. So if we liquidate that brokerage account, we could pay off the home and be done. And still have an emergency fund? Yeah. We do have $10,000 to decide for an emergency fund. It's a little small. Yeah. It's a bit small. Is that what it would be if the

house were gone? Yeah. Well, we use like the brokerage account as like a backup of a movie. Yeah, you don't have that anymore in this scenario. We had $10,000 in our bank account. I know. But if you use the brokerage account and you use the $60,000 from the car and you pay off the house, you're down to $10,000, which shouldn't much. Well, we want to spend approximately $50,000 on a car. No, we don't. Are you listening? You think if you pay the house off, you got nothing but 10 grand

left. Right? We also have a $10,000 savings account that is just the side emergency fund. I'll see you have $20,000. So we would have, yeah, we would have $20. If the house is paid off. Okay,

“that's what I did understand. Are you, are you sure net worth over a million dollars? It is, sir.”

And this is a brand new car. Oh, it's not a brand new car. It might be a year old. Okay, it's not a brand new car. It either is or it. Okay. All right. Now, um, so, wow. I mean, how long would it take you? You could do either. I don't think there's a wrong answer here. How long would it take you if you were to pay off the house? How quickly could you save back up $60,000 by the car you want? We think by probably August. Oh, crap. Man, I got to be honest, there's not a wrong answer.

I probably paid the house off. Yeah, there's a wrong answer. Don't buy the car. Pay the house off

and then go buy the car. You would. I would never buy that car. I mean, I would buy, I wouldn't buy the

because in eight months, you can go get to car anyway. That's what I said. So get the house paid off.

To what? What are your priorities here? Your priorities are get the house paid off. Not buy a stupid car. Stupid cars. You can get, I got a stupid car today. I don't mind getting a stupid car. Listen, but they go down and value the same thing. Yeah. But do you think that lightning would strike or down? No, she'd done the other way. I think does strike you down on anything on this show, hardly. But that no, I'm definitely paying the house off a hundred percent today. I paid off today.

And then I'd save like crazy and go buy the car that you want. And you might even get a nicer car.

Parking it in the driveway of a paid for house. Hello, no question that that's the order

“things I'd go down. Definitely definitely definitely definitely. So here's the thing.”

And I'm a car guy. I, you know, I've got I don't want a bunch of different vehicles here and there. And they all go down and value. Yeah. And so you know, you can't put appreciating assets in the same sentence with the largest depreciating asset that we buy, even if you've got to high in that worth. But what sent you over the edge was the fact that they owed so little on the mortgage. Yeah, it's simple. Yeah. I mean, if she owe 500,000 on the mortgage,

we're going to have a different discussion. Yeah. Or even a hundred. Well, see, my tipping point probably would have been like 250. Yeah. I mean, I just, the point is it's that this is very doable very quickly. And so it doesn't matter. So do it the right way. Yes. And let your actions reflect that you've got an understanding of how these assets work. Right. Because five years from that from today, that $50,000 cars worth $15. Yes. And that's going to be painful. Hopefully,

you keep it for a very long time. Five years from today, that house will have doubled twice. Yes. You know, so I mean, there's no question where I'm going with this. And it doesn't mean you

never buy a car. I'll buy one the day. Literally. You bought a car today? Yeah. What'd you get?

I got the new Bronco Raptor. Look, it's you. So I just wanted one. But I'm not, I'm not mad about cars. That's not the point. It's not the point. The point is they go down in value and they need to be a minor part of your overall life. [Music] Dave Ramsey here. Most people stay stuck with their money because they're not paying

attention to it. Most people are living paycheck to paycheck. Stressed out and broke. Don't be most people. You work way too hard to be broke and feel broke. And you deserve to have something to show

“for it. That's why we built the every dollar budget out. It gives you a personalized plan for your”

money that shows you how to free up extra money every month and use it to beat debt and build lasting wealth. Plus you get real coaches guiding you through your plan step by step. Look, most people hearing this will just keep hoping something changes. But not you. You're ready to make change happen. Starting now. Go download every dollar in the App Store or Google Play and start for free today.

In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt free stage. Nathan and Megan are with us. Hey guys, how are you? Hi, Dave. Doing well. Great to be here. Good to have you. Where do you all live? We live in Woodstock, Georgia. Oh yeah, just down the road. Welcome to Nashville. Thank you. Good to have you guys. And how much debt have you paid off? We paid off $155,000 in just under five years. Good for you. And your range of income during that time? Starting income was $100,000

and ending income was $145,000. Very good. What do you all do for a living? So I work in technology. I manage a whole tech team in the convenience industry. Oh yeah. Yeah. And I worked part time

“in a credit department at a staffing company during that time. Okay. Good. What kind of debt was it?”

It was our mortgage. Wow. Look at a weird people. I know. That's right. Very cool. How much is this house worth? About $4.50 now. Good for you guys. And you've been putting money in your retirement all along so much as in that. About $300. Very good. Almost millionaires now. That's right. Look at

Yes. Our goal was to get it paid off before Nathan turned 30 in March. And you did.

What? Payed it off on Christmas Day. Yeah. Wow. That's awesome. Yeah. All right. That was the story. How do you guys be smart enough to do this in 22 years old? Well, honestly, he listened to you since he was 12 years old. So I grew old. And we didn't have TV. So as a teenager, I couldn't go to bed early. So I turned on my clock radio today, Ramsey. And I didn't quite get everything at the time, which you were saying, but I started picking out, picking it up, and then I made it really

just comes from my parents and stilling, hey, if you're going to accomplish anything, you got to work for it. So then following your steps along the way, we did financial piece university right after we were married. And just, I mean, worked as a team together. Wow. Very cool. Yep. So your mom and dad were doing this stuff. And then you're here in the stuff. I'm talking radio back in the day. Yes. Yeah. And they were, it was really just instilling

“if you want anything in life. You have to work for it. So that was what my parents gave me.”

Then you gave me the tools to, you know, us the tools to work together. And I accomplished this. Yeah. We also bought a fixer upper that needed a lot of equity or a lot of sweat equity. Oh, my gosh. It's a good picture. Yeah. So that's what you still look like. And we worked really hard on it. And it's in Woodstock, which is where we want to grow up. One of the kids to grow up. And look like the same. Yeah. So that's really good. Yeah. That was a dream. Just put and put our

hard work into it. Wow. Wow. Expecting things to come to us and working for what we want to look like a start over the chain shop. Yeah. That's right. Wow. Lots of poison. Lots. Yeah. So the moment you bought it, you knew you were going to pay it off fast. Like you already. Yes. That was a whole idea. Yes. Definitely. We wanted to attack it. You know. So Megan, I mean, when you're dating a guy that at 12 years old is listening to a financial shadow on talk or on talk radio

where it goes to bed, you might be dating a nerd. I know. I learned this a lot from him and then he got me onto you too. And I truly, he has a little bit of a nerd. So it sounds like he was an attractive nerd. He was. Tall dark and handsome. I was very, you know, the take much financial. Yes. So and I truly, I mean, once I learned it to once we did financial peace, I was all in as well.

“We were just trying to do it together. And I think that's one of the keys to doing it together.”

Well, you got to throw those pictures up again on YouTube. In case someone is 23 years old and thinks it's impossible to buy a house. You could buy that house. Looks like a jungle. Put it back up there. You just like a dead gum jungle. Yeah. I mean, that's the, yeah. We say it's worth 400 now. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Neighborhood. Woodstock sweet. Oh, it's a great area.

Dave always says it's important to dream together. So I was actually took us two years to convince

this lady was vacant to sell us the home. And we would drive by and she would get an end of me. And I go, that's our home. See our home. And we didn't even have an other contract yet. But we dream and we shared it. And you know, fall on the principles of going, hey, we wanted it. We wanted a 15-year mortgage, not more than 20% of our to the company. How did you get it up to Charlotte? Well, honestly, I was always her friend for two years. She didn't know anyone else. And I,

“I honestly didn't think we were going to get it most of the time. But I said, I just told her,”

if whenever she wants to sell, she'll think of us first. And one day after two years, she said, all right, I might as well. Yeah. We wrote her letters, drove to her house at a different residence. She was vacant. Yeah. It was vacant. It lived in a different place. And we drove there. And got her phone number. And they talked on the phone every month until she decided to say,

till she relented. We're ready. Yeah. Wow. I love this guy. This is incredible. And of course,

you cash flowed all the, all the upgrades we did inside in the house. We went down to the studs. And it was, you know, I had some family help. But it was all us just working through it. We did gas electrical plumbing. We did the septic system. I waited everything. So I just need a America to hear this. You, uh, you, uh, cash flowed all of that and paid off. Yeah. It's a 55. Right. Right. Yeah. So you 26 year olds that are whining. I can't buy a house. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. I'll, I'll kiss my butt.

These guys right here. Hold their beer. Look at this. It's unbelievable. Yeah. Tell them what they need to know. Because there's a lot of naysayers out there. Tell them what they need to know. Absolutely. They've your pre-chit. I actually saw the bumper sticker over there. And I love it. And it was pretty like everything depends on God and work. Like everything depends on you. And that was us going into this. I tell everyone that'll list. I'm annoying. I'll get passionate about it. But I, but you're the problem. You're the

solution. Work hard. There is, I can't stand anyone that says anything different. But there's more opportunity in America than there has ever been in country for all of history. So work for it. It's easy to look at all the obstacles and say, hey, I can't do this. But roll up your sleeves and get to work. Work is underestimated and working together as a team. This is just helped us in our marriage.

You got a job. You can pull that headset off. It's like not the floor. No, don't. Don't do that.

“It looks expensive. Yes. I say to like just, you know, eat at home and practical things like”

being content with what you have, not comparing yourself to the people around you. And also just work inside hustles. We both worked during this whole process. I would stay at home mom, but also trying to help provide some income during that time. And Nathan worked really hard at his job just to work as way up, but also worked side hustles. So do the things that are required to get to that point, but also just enjoy your life and be content with what you have already. Well, I mean, you're not even

30 years old. You have a paid four half million dollar house. You've got your well on your way to be in millionaires within the next probably 36 months or so, what the markets are moving in here. That's happening. You guys are in really, really good shape. Congratulations. I'm very proud of you. I know your parents are proud of you. Your children, your heroes, you have changed your family tree. So your secret is work at it and stick together. Yeah. And just don't take no for an answer. Yeah. If someone tells you

no, just figure another way to do it. Yeah. There's always another way. Another way to get it done.

Wow. That's amazing. I have one more question. When you went to buy this house, how did you set your expectations? Because a lot of people would have seen that before you renovated it and said,

“that's not, that's a shack. I'm not going to spend my money on that. How did you know to do that?”

Well, great question. I mean, my whole life, it's been what have people, we're so wealthy as a country. People throw away great things that we can work hard and make beautiful. So going into it, it was horrible looking on the inside, but we were just looking and we had talked about it. What are the bones? What can't we change? Let's make sure that's good. We can work hard on everything else and change that. Change some paint colors, change the form, just kind of see past that stuff on

the outside and just look at the beauty on the inside. And there were no mold issues, no like flooring, foundation issues. Like we were very blessed. God bless us with this home, too. Like we were put in all the right situations where we were like, this is not just coincidental, but that's awesome. So good guys. Well, well done. All right, bring the kiddos up. Let's get their names and ages. Oh boy, are they cute? Oh, there's more of them than I thought. Yes. They just keep coming. Yes.

“We paid it off when he was 10 days old. Oh, wow. What a guy. Yes. They be James. So what's his name?”

This is James. James. Two months now. And the girls. This is Emmie. She's five. And then Lily is two. All right. Yes. You guys are your parents or heroes. You don't even know it yet. You're two young. Some day you'll know they're the ones that change the family tree. Way to go. All right, Nathan and Megan counted down. Let's hear a debt-free scream 155,000 paid off in five years, making 140 all most baby steps, millionaires already at 30 years old. Let's hear it. Three, two, one,

way to free. Wow. Look at I love it. Wow kids are cute. They are. I love it. That's amazing, Dave. Wow. Amazing.

Oh, it can't be done. We're all gonna die. Not, no, not if you're Nathan and Megan. They got it figured out, baby. Hey, guys, Dave Ramsey here. There is a lot of noise out there when it comes to money advice. And most of it just leaves people confused. That is why we built Ask Ramsey. It's a free tool on our website where you can ask your money question and get a clear answer based on the same proven Ramsey principles we teach on the show every day. No mixed messages,

no bad advice, just clarity, you can trust. Go to RamseySolutions.com and try Ask Ramsey today. That's RamseySolutions.com. Our scripture of the day is 1 Corinthians 15 58. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm.

Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord because you know

that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. Thomas Sowell said there are people who go through the motions and people who get the job done. It's amazing how much work you can accomplish just by hiring the latter and firing the former. Amen. Charlie is whether it's in Cleveland,

Yeah, so my wife and I, we have two young kids and this mom, we just got that free. So we

“pay off the package. Good for you. Thank you. Thank you. So the question is, so I have a pretty good”

job. My wife, she's based home. My dad, he is in his 70s, he's still working. Probably because maybe a series of poor financial decisions. So he cannot retire because he has to continue to financially support other family members, adult family members in the family five overseas. And so I'm a bit torn because I, I, I don't have any that I can help, but I also don't want to continue to encourage bad behaviors. So I'm kind of torn apart in and seeking some of the time. So

what do you make? 600,000. Wow, good for you. And what is it you're being torn about? What

is it they're at you're being asked to do or that you're doing? I want my dad to be going to enjoy, we time the life. Yeah, but he chose to give all his money to somebody overseas. Well, he lives overseas. So he's going to live here in the state. Yeah, we are immigrants. Okay, from which country? Korea. Okay. And so he lives overseas and he's 70 years old and he doesn't, he has the money to support himself, but he doesn't because he gives it to other family

members. Correct. Okay. All right. What's the situation with the other family members? Are they

“ill? Are they unable to work? Can he stop doing that today or is the damage completely done?”

Well, I see it's a multi-fold, right? So, you know, some of the family members he support them just to help them with their lifestyle choices and some of the family members they chose not to work because, you know, some of the the towards choices they made in a past. So that makes it very difficult for them to find jobs. So basically, my dad has been paying for everything, you know, for as long as what happened if he couldn't. That's the big question. So we don't know.

So do you give you a lot of money? Huh? Are you being asked to give your father money so that he can work? Oh, yeah, they're money. He makes good money, but I'm worried he probably doesn't have enough safe for him. What's the equivalent? Give us an equivalent in US dollars of what he makes over there. Oh, he makes $250,000. And he's 70 years old. Okay. So let me start. What's the problem?

The problem is he gives all of his money away and he's going to retire with nothing and ask you

to help him. Is that the problem? The problem is, you know, I don't know if that's going to make the problem worse because I'm worried that if I give him the money, the money just go to other family members. No, I'm not giving him anything. I'm just asking you today, you're not giving him anything. So there's not a problem, other than you're observing that in the future, there's getting

“ready to be something happening, right? Correct. I'm anticipating. Yeah, that's what I'm trying”

to figure out. Okay. All right. So what you're anticipating is that he's going to run out of the ability to work and not have any money because he's given all of his away. Yes. Yeah. At that point, you can decide how much you want to help him. I mean, and you'll have the money, too. You make 600,000. But we're not going to help him to the tune that he has enough to help everybody else, only to the tune that he has enough to help himself. I'm guessing, because I'm a redneck

hillbilly, and I don't know these things, but I'm guessing that part of this might be cultural. It is very cultural. Yeah. Because I mean, in the Latino world, for instance, it's very normal to have a more of a family obligation to support parents than we would have in a typical green go culture, right? My hillbilly culture, you know, you're not required to do that. Puritan, ethics, so to speak, you're not required to do that, right? But in an Asian culture where you're talking

about or the Latino culture, it's more normalized to be asked to expect it to, and you've grown up with it your whole life. It's integrated into your DNA that this is how things are done. Is that correct?

giving all of his money away, as well, even though someone in my seat would look at that and go,

why are you doing that? But, and the answer is it's a cultural difference. To do that, doesn't make

it smart, doesn't make it dumb. It's just an explanation, right? So mathematically, we can all agree, it's dumb, but there's a reason that he's doing it. It's not just straight up your responsibility, although it is intertwined into this cultural icon. So yeah, I think I talked to him about it,

“if he'll listen, but I bet he doesn't, and just say, Dad, you know, you need to be aware that”

when you are broke, I will be helping you only with food and shelter, not with enough to for you to further on your giving of these other people. So these other people, when you run out of gas,

and aren't able to work, are going to be on their own, and they should know that now,

because I'm not going to be held to this standard. I think it's okay to go ahead and communicate that, but I don't think it's going to change what's going to occur. What's going to occur is what you expect. I think that's exactly what's going to happen to you, Jade. I do. I think he's seven years old, and he's been making this decision for a long time, and it would be a miracle if he stopped today. And he's old school within that culture, and he's, he's duty bound, and going to follow through

on his duty to take care of them. No matter how irresponsible or bad decisions they've been making,

“he's going to do it anyway. I think aren't you Charlie, you agree with that?”

I agree. I agree 100%. I tried to have a conversation 10 years ago, and really go anywhere. I feel like you're right. I decided to focus on my own, and then try to get that free and protect this family. The hard part for you. Charlie is going to be to hold that boundary when the time comes, because you're likely going to feel guilty and all these other things, but it wasn't your, you didn't make the choice, right? He did, and that's the thing that you'll

have to remind yourself of many, many times. And you'll be able to help him to a reasonable degree. Absolutely. But not an unreasonable degree, and it's not going to be, it's not going to make everybody happy. No one in the end of the story is going to be thrilled with the outcome, but you great news is you make a huge income, and you're going to be in a wonderful position,

“financially. And if you want to reach over and help somebody a little bit every month,”

you can do that, and you won't even notice mathematically. And so that's the thing. So not accounting for cultural differences, and you have to account for that. So it's not fair to say that. But it just folks you need to plan to not be a burden on your children. Yeah, you do. And you set it exactly right. You know, it might be a reason for a behavior, but it doesn't make it right or good. That's true. And the same way that Charlie was able to

look at that and go, that doesn't make sense. Yeah. Yeah, and he comes, he comes from, he's right. He goes right straight out of that. So yeah, you just got to go, um, no. Yeah, you can't don't park your money. We're not, we're not going to participate in that. It doesn't make sense. And, um, I've learned a better way. Yes. And that kind of happened. You could learn that. I could learn that from his culture. You learned that from my culture. It doesn't matter. You could learn

a better way. That's right. But the hard part is he's going to have to do that at the expense of, um, hurt feeling hurt feelings and family meals and all that stuff is going to be very different. When you, when you draw boundaries like that, people don't like it and they push up against them and all that stuff. So count on it. Good luck to you. I put this out of the ramsy show in the book.

So we'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately

only one way to financial peace. And that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace. Christ Jesus.