How Can I Rebuild Trust After a Gambling Addiction?

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

So we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network and the Fair Wins Credit Union Studio, this is the Ramsey Show. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Jade Watchoff. Number one best selling author and Ramsey Personality is my

co-host today. Open phones here at Triple 8, 825, 5, 225.

The call is free and some say the advice is worth.

Exactly what you pay for it. Chris is going to start us off in Chicago. Hey Chris, how are you? >> I'm doing well. >> Good, what's up?

“>> So about 12 years ago, I used gambling as a coping mechanism.”

And what was a social thing became an addiction. After about 10 years, I realized that or after two years, I realized the trouble I was in, and I tried to fix it on my own. I didn't go particularly well. My wife discovered my gambling about eight years ago.

So two years after that. And I did do the work, it was a traumatic. And absolutely brutal situation for her to be in. Because all the, as you know, my confession took the load off of me, but it just put it squarely on her shoulders.

Now, I did the work. I was already in the process of wanting to do undo what I had done. I just wasn't at the place where I trusted the Lord to help me save my family, and so I didn't confess it to her.

When it finally came out, I did the work.

I spent a year and a half paid off all the debt I put, a significant sum in a savings account that she only had control over therapy every week, GA, and it got to a point where

“even my therapist said, you know, I think you're in a good place with a gambling.”

I don't think you need my therapy for that, but I'm willing to help you with my marriage. And so what has happened is, I've again, the trust and the financial aspect of things. And now, you know, I've kind of controlled my money, we have two separate accounts. But what has happened is the damage that was done to the relationship has just put up such a significant wall that the things I now want to do with a giving and just being

a steward with grace that God has given me in my finances are everything on that aspect is completely separate. If I try to bring her into some of that of what I am doing or how I'm investing or saving or giving her response will be, do what you want with your money. And so to the sake of peace in our household, that that is not something I'm going to demand

of her. So it's been about seven years. You've been driving and you're doing clean. You've been filming seven years. Wow.

Yes. Are you all seeing our marriage counselor? She, we tried it, we've tried it a couple times and she absolutely doesn't want to have anything to do with it. So I understand that until the Lord softens her heart towards me, that that's not something

I can, I can't change her. So what I'm trying to figure out is without imposing on her and the resistance to any type of reconciliation in our marriage right now, how can I, I'm not sure how to proceed with some of the things that, you know, the only that we have is our house. So it's hard to proceed with a life when you don't have a marriage in where you have

roommate. Oh, absolutely. And that's, it's hard to visualize a future, a unified future when there's not a unified current. And so, you know, and, and so I mean, you're, you're, the language that you're using

around this is all correct. If, if what you're really acting out follows the conversation that we've been having with you for the last four minutes, it's all very clear.

Two. How old are they?

Two young boys, uh, I'll say pre-teen, it's not missing.

“And you can answer as honestly as you can, is she only staying with you because of them?”

No. The reason I think she's staying with me is then, right now, I am the bad guy, but if she chose to divorce me, there would be some accountability from her family and things like that that she would have to deal with. So my point is she's not staying with you out of love for you.

She's staying with you for some ulterior, um, yes, okay. That's the point. Yeah. You obviously, you're correct. You can't make someone change.

What? And obviously, you're correct. She has a reason to be pissed, but at some point, it becomes more about her being pissed than it does the actual thing that happened. Um, right.

So like we went bankrupt, I was 28 years old, we had little babies, and we lost everything because 100% of the real estate decisions were being made by me. I wasn't hiding anything, it wasn't an addiction, but my wife lost confidence in my judgment. With good reason.

“Oh, I was stupid, okay, so, um, she lost her, you know, and so how do you regain that trust?”

Well, steadyness, consistency, and working at, okay, you know, anytime I walk near anything that makes her feel like the phrase she feels like you're scheming and scamming again. And I wasn't scheming or scamming, but, um, it makes her feel like my risk meter is gone again, and she has a large risk meter. So we have to really work together to make decisions in order for her, in order for our

decisions to stay in her comfort zone, especially in the early days. Today, completely different, the 30 years ago, but seven years, there should be some progress on coming back at the table, unless you've given a reason for their not to be. And what you're saying is it hasn't been absolutely and consistently moved away from all the problems.

And so to invite her into all decisions, and then, and she refuses, and I want you look at this with me, so you have a comfort, so you know, you know, you don't everything I'm going back to where I was before, I understand the deception, I understand the actual loss of the money, um, and, you know, but at some point, we've got to grow back together on this, otherwise we've got real issues here.

So I don't know, that's something for a therapist to guide you in how much pressure you put on her to do that.

But the bottom line is, uh, Gris, this is not good for her.

Right. She's got a bucket of acid in her guts, and she's just boiling all the time.

“And that's what lack of forgiveness does.”

Now, she should not trust you, except to the extent you are trust worthy, but if you're sharing everything, and she's got inside into all of it, and we make sure not make the decisions together ever since that event. They've doesn't make any decisions to come home, so I look what I did. We make the decisions together, and if you're doing all of that, and she's unwilling

to join that, then that's the healing on her part that hasn't taken place, and I don't know how to force someone to do that, or force a discussion about it, I would turn that over to your therapist, sir. I'm so sorry you guys have been through this. This gambling thing focuses out of control out there, Draft King's is not cute.

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“Brandon is in Mississippi, high-branding, how are you?”

Doing well. Good. What's up? Oh, I have a question about helping parents out, so a WLK 99 came in late due to the job that she was working, and she has the money, but not able to pay all of it right now.

If they were going to get a loan, it would be for the 25 taxes instead of the 24 taxes, which she was trying to take care of right now. And the question was, I know my parents, they won't try to pay me back a little, they will try to pay me back, but I won't request them to pay me back, but I was thinking about giving them a loan to try to assist them for the 24 taxes.

How much is due for the 24 taxes? 27,000. 27,000. 27,000. 14,000.

Okay. And how much for 25? Yeah, I'm not sure about the 25, but she was trying to make sure to take care of the 27 now.

'Cause that is the most important thing, which is for 24.

What else about their financial history?

“How much are they earning every month or every year, do you know?”

Yeah, so I would say mother plug rings around 130. Huh? My father probably read it 90. So there's no reason they shouldn't be paying their taxes. Why is she not setting aside money for $10.99 income?

So yes, she was paying them quarterly. But not enough. What happened? Yes, not enough. So that happened.

A good late 1999 came in. Mm-hmm. And I don't know. No, that's not what happened. That would have to be some big--

The 2009 came in and she knew the money had already come in. So the fact that she had this income is not a surprise. That's bull crap. You follow me? You don't get $10.99 for $100,000.

You didn't know what was coming. Because you have $100,000. Okay. So this is what's scaring me is that this is going to go on and on and on and on. We don't know if they've gone to the root of this and fixed it or not.

Because $10.99 just don't fly in the window without the money having already come a year before.

“Is this a brand new business or has she been doing this for a while?”

Um, everything she retired. Okay. Which was when? Uh, come up three, four. Okay.

So she's never made her connections right.

So what we're saying? Yeah, I think this is compiling. Yeah, she had. So 23 is five. 23 is from there.

It's all fine. It's just that you need to 24. That's where she started to go. But 25, you don't know what it is. Tell me about your financial situation.

I don't know. I'm a bit myself. Okay. That's all I needed to know. Okay.

So and you said you're going to borrow the money. So the answer to your question is no, you don't borrow the money. But let's help them anyway. Let's figure out how we can help them. And you can go back to them with some advice.

But you borrowing money for these people that make $210,000 in our out of control is a really bad idea. So no, I would not do that. Not in a million years. Now should they borrow the money? Use mentioned that she had the money, but she can't get to it.

What's that mean? So other scenarios and situations came up. That money that was set aside for those taxes had to be used for something else. Well, that's pretty vague. What?

Well, I would say things that came up due to housing. Things that didn't exist around the house. That's pretty much all the information I got. But she doesn't have the money like in some account. She just doesn't want to touch.

She spent the money to fix her kitchen or whatever, right? Right. No, it's not there. Okay. So.

There's no money. There's no money. They have no money. Is that what you're telling me? Yeah.

Do they have anything they could sell? Do they have vehicles with payments or no payments? Is there anything they could sell to get this money?

Nothing in my mind. I just come off the top of the head. I could say it. Okay.

“If I were to sit down with them and I was their coach Brandon.”

Here's what I would tell them.

Okay. I would say you make $210,000 and you're completely out of control. We've got to get your taxes set up and those tax accounts are. Once you set those money aside out of your $10,99 income for your quarterly estimates, which you mentioned in the past.

I like somebody knows what to do. Then that money is sacred. You do not touch it. And I don't care what comes up. It's already spent.

You don't have it anymore. You just have it in your name. You have to forget you own that money. And so nothing can come up. Your little brother needs a car.

Tuffies. Nothing can come up. Some friend calls and what's a medical bill paid. Nothing. You don't own this money anymore.

It's already tax money.

“You have to quit even leaving it available emotionally.”

This is me talking to your parents. Okay.

So that this never, ever, ever comes back again.

And then we need to work you out of debt. With a budget, put you on every dollar. And you guys are going to start living on way less than you make. Because you got a couple of stupid car payments. And you owe the KGB.

I mean the IRS. 27,000 freaking dollars. And so we're going to put you on a payment plan with the IRS. And they are the first debt you're going to pay off. And you're going to pay them off in less than 12 months.

You make $210,000. You ought to be able to pay 30,000 off very, very quickly. And just pay the IRS. That's what I would do. What I go borrow money to pay the IRS, no, I would not.

Not in this situation. Because I want to make sure that they're at the core of this at the root that calls to this problem that it goes away. And you borrowing money to go get them out of this when they make this kind of money. And this disorganized and chaotic is really suicidal for you, sir.

Please do not do this. Yeah. How long have you been listening to our show? Well, I actually run some of them that told me about you guys. Okay, so that means you both have some sons beyond this, right?

And I want you to get serious about this. If you've been listening to the show, you know the things that we're teaching around here. So I want to make sure that today, if we give you every dollar, will you go on there? And will you start getting into the classes and every dollar and let it teach you what to do next? Oh, yeah, I already have every dollar.

Okay. We're going to give it to you for your mom and dad. Let's see if we can get them moving along. But no, you don't, you knew for you called in here. I wasn't going to tell you, we weren't going to tell you to borrow money.

This is like, certainly we're going to borrow money for this. This is like that scripture where the man looks in the mirror and he walks away and immediately forgets what he looks like. If you listen to this stuff every day, it's up to you to put it into practice. It's not, it doesn't happen by osmosis.

It doesn't happen automatically.

“You have to then go away and do the things that we teach.”

Otherwise, your life is not going to change. Yeah, including when I went broke, Larry Brickett used to say that personal financial problems are not the problem. They're the symptom of something else going on. So in this case, you don't have tax problem.

You have an accounting problem because you didn't set the money side to pay your taxes. And then when you did, you went and did something stupid with it instead of paying your taxes. And so now you got yourself between you and the government, which is a really horrible place to be for anybody. None of us want to be there. Certainly not.

These are not people with a sense of humor. These are not people with that are powerless. They have lots of power to screw you over. And they will.

So you need to get on payment plan with them and get them paid off and never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever.

Touch your tax money for anything ever again. Yeah. Yeah. It's gone. It's already gone.

You just moved it in on the count. And given it to him yet, but it's already gone. It's just like withholding. It's gone. Yeah.

I used to go in there and every month I'd put move the taxes over. I did not play games with that. No, you got to do it every time you ride a check. Yeah. [ Music ]

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 curve ball hits. You know, we hear it all the time. A car accident, a cancer diagnosis, a heart attack.

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.

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Martinas and Phoenix. Hi, Martina. What's up? Hi, I, two of the half years ago, I bought a car and it's a good car to 2018, Karola. But I have a 16.5% interest on it.

And over half of my payments go to interest. I'm actually the coolest. I know I'm a car. And my mother is the main signer on the car. And I have had common stability

having the stability over the years. And I'm just not putting my life together. But currently, I haven't even been able to make my February car payment. I also rely on this car as a source of income.

So what is your advice on the 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. I had a dead end job. I quit that, but I got a new job that is a real good job. But it doesn't start for a couple more weeks. What is it, how much are you going to be making at the new good job?

About three to four thousand a year. You mean a month? About a month, I mean, sorry. Month I am a soul and instructor. And I'm contracting with a pool that pays very well for their lesson.

Okay. And then 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 Bluebook, have you looked to see what it's worth private sale? Yes, it's worth $0.7500. Oh boy, what happened to it? She doesn't have a Uber. Yeah, that's true.

Oh gosh. Okay, well then you're only choice here. I mean, you're going to have to pay it off because it's such a low value. And you're going to have to work quickly to do it. Is it your 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 $20,000 in personal loans and credit cards. And then 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 an hour.

Yeah, by the way, I'm going to work you 40 hours. That's a plan.

But yeah, that's the problem is it does depend on how many clients they get.

You get a lot of clients. 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.

Yeah, I feel bad for my mom and my mom does try 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 dropped 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 rent? I do. And I live in a small cheapest apartment I could find here in David and I. Perfect.

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 quite, get food on the table. Okay. Before you do anything, you got to bail the basic foundation in your life. That's food, shelter clothing, transportation and utilities. Okay.

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 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, we could really get after some of those other debts.

Anyway, yeah, it feels like that car loan is a big wall between me and basically the rest of my life.

Agreed. Agreed. 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 it's like all you do is work girl. You just work all of it in it and it's not over. Freaking over is making the car worse. Okay. You're puts me miles out.

You've destroyed the value of the car. So. But 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 crazy 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 stink 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-fishing 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 some anxiety and depression. Yeah.

I have over the last few months gone on the rate and that's gotten into the stable housing. And finally 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 work with them.

In 35 years of doing this, I worked 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 that 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 your favor in those situations because you have the ability to do extreme amounts of focus. Don't you? Yeah. Yeah, I am really good at teaching people the slim and actually a good gym I'm working at is a cold ability 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 I'm going to say you need to go through this, all the situation to your advantage to the thing that has been a blocker for you.”

But because as you start melting away these deaths, first and foremost you get this car off your back of your mother's back.

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 dumb. So, you're not dumb, but that was dumb. So, you know, what you do is you get in attack 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.

So, 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. [Music] Murphy's Law means if something can go wrong, it will. And it usually happens when you're not prepared.

“That's why a big part of what I teach is staying prepared for whatever curve balls life throws.”

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“For shale is whether it's in Reno, Nevada, Hey, Nick, for shale, how are you?”

I'm well, thank you, how are you? Better than I deserve, what's up? Hey, so, okay, my husband and I are in baby step two. And I feel like we've kind of tripped ourselves up because we don't know. You get paid weekly and we're trying to find if we should do snowball weekly or wait till the end of the month to pay off like our lump sum.

So when you go through and you do the paycheck planner on every dollar, do you know for sure at the end of the week that you can pay the money off and it won't come back to bite you in the butt later? Um, we have done it, we have about $400, so we have about $400 extra at the end of the week to have an order to have all of our bills paid at the end of the month. Yeah, I mean, I don't have a problem with that. That's the way Sam and I used to do it, but we got paid weekly. And so it just made it easier and I made a schedule of making sure everything was covered, everything was good to go.

And then yeah, that that freed up, freed us up to be able to do it that way. So I don't have a problem with that. I think that's great.

“Okay, it just feels like we're not getting anywhere right now because and I think we're we're motivated by that like yeah, we paid this or we paid this.”

Yes, and it feels that we're not getting anywhere. I have one more. We are getting anywhere. It's just a whole bunch of it at the end of the month, right? Yes, yes, yes. You're just trying to create a way that you just buy groceries. Yeah, yeah, and rent and whatever. Yeah, you're just trying to build in some momentum so that you feel like something's happening every week to keep you going. Am I right?

Correct.

If there's any of the stuff you're paying in that first segment, look at your paycheck, are you using paycheck planner on every dollar?

Yeah, okay, if you look at that paycheck planner and say, I could roll this item from the first segment to the second segment and use some of that first segment money to get out of that and that would keep me that momentum.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, because right now she's doing you're doing 400 extra week, right? No, just in the first segment. Oh, man, I'm sorry. Are you doing this weekly or buying weekly? We were trying to do it weekly. If you get paid weekly.

If you get paid weekly, yeah. Okay, so each week figure out anything that doesn't have to be in that week that could be in the next week to allow you to pay me. To allow you to pay more debt in that week. That will give you that emotional being that each time we're paying some necessities and we're paying some debt. We're paying some necessities. We're paying some debt. We're paying that.

That'll give you that sense of momentum, but the math is basically the same. If you said, okay, the first two weeks we're paying only necessities, no debt and the last two weeks we're paying all debt.

It's the same math basically, but the problem is just the emotion of it, right?

Yes. Yes. And you are working at smallest to largest, right? We are. And what is your smallest debt currently? Smallest debt currently is 735.

“Oh, good. That's what you're helping with your household income.”

We bring home 7600 a month. And how much are you putting on debt a month? The goal is to put 1,400 a month. Okay, so that one's gone in one month, right? And another one. Yes. Now you told me I just want to check that because you told me you had $400 margin at the end of every month.

I'm sorry at the end every week. So where's the other 200? I want to see it's about 430. Okay.

Oh, yes. So that should be even more going towards the debt.

Yeah. So just double check that. I like the idea of doing it weekly. The other thing is you just started, didn't you? Yeah, that's okay. Nothing more with that. But the way you're describing all of this is what gave me a hint to that fact.

What will happen in Jade Contestified of this too is the longer you do this. The more intense you're going to get because you're going to start to see this stuff melt away. And you're going to crunch some other stuff out there. You're probably going to end up with more margin than just 14 or 15 hundred. Okay. Yes. Yes.

Yeah, as you get further into this and you get used to the rhythm of it and you start to see it work. You're going to say, I'm cutting that and I'm cutting that and I'm cutting that and you don't work extra and I'm cutting that.

“Yeah. And if you don't have side hustles, you need to lock those in today because all of that.”

All of that is going to go towards this and all of that is going to give you that momentum that you want to feel. Bobby's in Nashville. Hey, Bobby. What's up? Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. How come we help? Absolutely. So I am, you know, started to make some decent money.

My wife and I are about $80,000 in debt. And it feels like we're not quite month to month, but we're pretty drained. What's what's the decent money? I make about $150,000 in my wife makes about 25,000. Just weigh 170,000 or income. How much a day out of you got?

That's right. $80,000. Not counting the house? Not counting the house. Break the 80 foot down for me. How much of that's cars?

I got $22,000 in the car. Okay. Only one car debt. Okay. What's the other $58,000?

“So $20,000 in personal loan and the rest in consumer debt credit cards?”

Okay. She got 40 in credit cards. About. Yeah. Okay. What caused that $40,000 in credit card debt? What caused the $40,000 in credit card debt?

We moved actually to the National Area about five years ago. So there was some of that in moving costs. And there was some medical bills, stuff like that. Okay. Yeah.

And some overspending and stuff like that. 100% of the risk. Correct. Okay. All right. Cool. So it's not like you recently got a raise.

Yes. Recently did get a raise. Good. I started a new job. That gives you a wake up call. Okay. We got a cleanest crap up now. Right? Absolutely. Okay. Good. That's a good place to be. It's a good place to be emotionally.

All right. So what we teach is a process called the baby steps. You may have heard of it. Where we list your debts.

We say first get a thousand dollars set aside.

Second one is listed at smallest to largest. Live on beans and rice, rice and beans, scorched lifestyle. No going out to eat, no vacations, no whining. Work all the time and pay off the stink and debt as fast as you can. Oh, by the way, y'all need to have a plastic surgery party tonight

and cut up those credit cards. Light a candle. Have a ceremony and shop those things up there.

They're half of your debt.

Yeah. And the next time we get rid of buy something, we're going to pay for it. Or we're not buying it. We also have, you know, I have three kids. They're all in their activity.

So there's, you know, travel baseball and competitive dance. And we're paying a healthy portion. Well, maybe there is or maybe there is. You make a hundred and seventy five thousand dollars a year. Can you afford to continue to do that?

You ask you and your wife ask yourselves and get this debt paid off. Because, you know, I'm telling you, I'm not putting the family and debt for travel baseball. Yeah, something's going to, you're going to feel the sacrifice of this somewhere. Yeah. I don't know if you can do it or not.

You guys got to look at it. But, but you do too.

“You need to, don't, don't start this conversation with a reason you can't do this.”

Because you can do it. It's just a matter of who's crying. Right. Yeah. We definitely need to get better about our budget.

We, we have it really tightened that up as well. No, you don't even have one. You don't have to get better about it. You don't have to do one. And then you're going to have to be sacrificial about it.

And the more, so here's the deal. You make one seventy five. If you lived on ninety five freaking thousand dollars, not counting taxes, you'd be debt free in a year. Right. But that's going to require a way different lifestyle than you guys have been living.

Because you all been buying everything in sight like you're in Congress. And nobody in your house has heard the word no in a long time. Kids, you, your wife, anybody. So y'all are going to start looking at each other and go, no. Because it's stealing your future.

“You make too much money now for this to continue to be the way to do things.”

Too many people get a raise and the way they celebrate it is a new car payment. Well, you got to stop that. This has to be broken. This is the cycle that breaks. So you sit down with your wife tonight and go, okay.

Time for us to be grown ups. And we're going to have to reintroduce the ancient word to our house. Or the word is new. Period. It's a complete sentence.

Yeah, it is. Everybody practice it with me. You press your tongue towards the roof of your mouth. Make a kissing motion with your lips. It sounds like this.

No. Till you go to say that to any group or person in America today. No. But it's a healthy word. It sets you free.

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Results may vary and no specific outcome is guaranteed. Welcome back to the Ramsy Show and the Fair Wins Credit Union Studio. Jade Washaw Ramsy personality. Number one bestselling author is my co-host today. Nicole is into Troy.

I Nicole, how are you? Hi Dave. I'm good. How are you? Better than I was all.

Better than we deserve. How can we help? Yeah. So I was calling.

So basically my husband has refused to...

Right, gave me financial visibility into his life. He has put his foot down like literally like no. You cannot see anything that I have won 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 provision to buy a home. And the housing counselor in 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.

And then after our call was done, I told my husband, I said, you know,

“I shouldn't have to say, "Hold on to anyone.”

Let me ask my husband." Right. I should know what's going on in that part of your life. It's like we're roommates. You're over here.

How did that go? Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. I'm a grown man. I do not have to show you anything financially in my life. Wow.

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 a vegan? Me show you how many have nothing to do with a vegan. Yes, 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 his house. So I moved in with him. We've been there for eight years.

“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 is basically like he runs the house. And if I try to say anything to him about his son. Well, he said that if I try to kill him stuff that goes on,

and he got it all out, he never believed me.

So it is his bubble and over. Yeah. How can we help you? 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 talked 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 your, their person is not going to tell me that I have to allow you to see how much.

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, it, 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. 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.

And the weird thing is that all of his finances are now going to get exposed. I need a force to cry. 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 you don't lot of the court. Not even divorce court. 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 it yours. That's going to be very weird for him. Yeah. 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 years. They've been together. They've been together.

They've been married two. Okay. What are you concerned about?

“Are you concerned that there's debt that your name might be on?”

But you don't know about actually. So before we separated, I had to find out the hallway that he had a garnish on my child. And so I had to ask him several times to get it taken care of. And 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 tell me, no, you're not allowed me to see you financially. But you've got a garnish, you know, my account. How is that fair? 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 now granted. I don't know what parts you've contributed to whatever mess is here. I'm sure there's is to, you know, two sides to everything. But I'm over here.

But my guess is there's some things going on that might be causing him some shame.

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

aligned on that money is the man's thing and it's not who knows.

Yeah, it's going to come out in the divorce.

You're going to find out everything about his money in the divorce. And which is the irony of him filing for divorce, because you want to find out what was going on with the money. So it's kind of ironic. And he just, he's just, he just dumb enough he doesn't know that.

So this is going to be a real surprise to him. It's going to be this awesome wake-up call for him. Because the 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 know what's going to happen with the judge. So this is, this is where he's going. You do the question you asked.

I have a sad horrible answer for him.

“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 I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you chose poorly in a husband. This guy, this guy's bad news.

You wouldn't, no 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 is going on in the house.

All that kind of thing. This is a guy that is not in a good place and he's not helpful and he's not a good husband. And that's sad. 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. It's something we could just do.

But unless he just decides that he wants to be together, unified or 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, Keto. I'm sorry.

I wish you were. [Music] Hey, let's play a quick game of wood you rather.

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See website for full details. [Music] Maria is in Arkansas. Hi, Maria, how are you? Hi, thank you guys for taking my call.

I'm a little nervous. That's okay. That's okay. But I can turn game advice for my husband and I. We're trying to start building our forever home.

“And sometimes we're like, yeah, let's go ahead and get in the, you know, take a loan out.”

And then there's time where you can be like, well, what if you just cash flow everything you call it a day? We are debt free. That's good. That's good.

That's good. That's good. And we have been saving for the past couple of years. We'll talk about that already. Pretty great.

So how much have you saved? Right now, it's a little bit over 180. Okay. And what? 180,000 dollars.

Wow. And what is the house going to cost? The quote that we got is around between 380 and 380. Okay. Did you save 180 and 2 years?

Yes. Wow. Excellent. Yes. So, you know, like I said, we try to figure out if it's okay for us to stop in this thing.

Right now, just for a couple of years. Yeah. Or, you know, to put all that money into cash flow in the house. Or, it's okay for us to take out a few. Did you save 180 while investing?

Yeah.

But we're not investing 50%.

We're only investing 25 and 8%. Okay. Good. I would stop investing completely, I'm with you. And I would cash flow this thing.

“And here's the thing you need to remember.”

It takes you a year to build it. Correct. So you can start in one year. Because you need two years where the savings you'll have the whole amount. Right?

Yes. That's what we're talking for. You know, everything works out the way you know we can. Yeah. I would start the house in one year.

I'd get all my plans done. Have you got the lot already? Yes. And it's already paid for. Is it paid for?

I'm sorry. Yes, it paid for. Okay. Good.

So all we got to do is just cover the bricks in order.

Do you have your plans done? Yes. You have your builders selected? Yes. Awesomeness.

Okay. Well, what we do, what I've done in a couple of times, including the building we're sitting in, as a matter of fact, I did not have 100% of the money in the bank when we broke ground, but I knew it would be here by the time I needed it.

Meaning that if it takes you a year to build, and it takes you two years to save the money, then you'd be safe to start building in one year. Does that make sense to you? Yes.

Yes. Yes. And if you can do this in two years and stop everything, and you'll have a paid for $380,000 plus a lot, a $450,000 house.

Sweet. How old are you guys?

Um, 32 inches, 37 inches.

That's amazing. What's your incomes? Uh, it's $100 and around $150. How'd you save this money so fast? You guys live on nothing, don't you?

“Well, we, we, I think we're pretty good savings.”

I think you're above average. Yeah. Very impressive. So here's the thing. If you move, if you moved in two years from today,

would you be okay with that? Uh, I think that's one go ahead and you started. I don't mind getting the loan just because I gave them more of the emotional side. You don't really want loan, you just want a house.

Yes. Yeah. I guess you can see that. Okay. Well, I mean, we teach what we teach is best is paying cash.

Next best is a house you can pay off of 15 years. In your case, you could pay it off in one year. If you started today and it was finished in one year, you would need to borrow one year's worth of savings rate or about $100,000.

When you pay that off in one year. Yes. Yeah. My fear is, is that you'll let your foot off the gas and not pay it off in one year.

That's my fear. So I would love to talk you into waiting just one extra year, which you'll go pretty fast. I mean, to me, it feels like COVID was like last month and it was five almost six years ago.

Yeah. And so my point is this thing goes fast. If you start, um, you know, I don't know. You guys keep talking about it. But anywhere in there is final meeting.

“If you want to start now, you're not doing anything stupid.”

It's not, it's a good, better best. Okay. And what you got to talk about cash flow in a hundred percent is the best. I love that.

There's no hiccups in that. You know, better than, but, but, you know, and still in the good range is paying it off in one year. Which is if you took a loan out today and you don't need to take out a loan today, you need to take out a loan somewhere in the building process

because you won't quite have enough of the finish it. Correct. But I mean, you could get started today, put 180 into it. If you slow walk the project. I was going to say in delay.

And it takes 18 months. You'll be there. You can make it. You know, you'll make it out. So just, you know, but just be looking at that and thinking about this.

I like the plan of taking debt off the table and we have to push this through. Because it makes you do a whole bunch of stuff. Keeps you from having scale creep in the kitchen. You know, you select the different dishwasher. You select the different, whatever.

And I'll add one other thing to this on the emotions. Okay. You can justify a lot of things emotionally when you say it's my forever house. And I've been doing this for a long time. And I grew up with parents in the real estate business.

There is no such thing as a forever house. You will not be there forever. Statistically, the chances of you dying in this house are very close to zero.

So this idea of a forever house is only one. It's heaven. Let's see it. You don't have a forever house here.

“You're going to move stuff's going to happen.”

Things are going to change that you can't see. Good and bad that are going to give you an opportunity to move up. Move out, move somewhere. And this is a great house. And it's a great plan.

And all of that. But take the pressure off of a forever house. Because it's like because then everything has to be perfect. And I've built a bunch of houses that I live in.

And they're never perfect.

It's never a perfect process. It's a very messy, a combative, combustive process. And if you put the pressure on it, it has to be perfect because we're going to be your forever. It's just too much. You can't breathe in that.

Yeah, plus you're going to look at it in five years. And want things to look a little different anyway. Oh, I don't even want to talk about it. I'm saying. Sounds like you have a little experience with that.

Man, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

“I mean, and I saw, I was actually when I was 22.”

I was selling houses in a subdivision where we built custom homes. And the people in there that were the hardest to deal with were the ones that had had. They thought this was the going to be their last home. Right. Or their only home ever.

And that puts the pressure on the process to be perfect.

Can't be. They're every day driving the subs crazy. You know, let them do their work. It's a piece of draw wall. Let them do their job.

Okay. Good for God's sake. You know, and it's just, it, and it changes their pressure on how fast we get this done. And how much money we take and how much money we spend and all that. So anyway, all that to say, Marie, I think you guys are done an extraordinary job.

Way to go. We're proud of you. And if you start this month and you take on a little that and you pay it all fast. That's not the dumbest thing in the world. But one step smarter would be to cash flow it.

So anywhere in between there, like we started in six months. And we go 18 months to build it. Oh, now we made it.

You know, that kind of thing.

“Yeah, I think that's what's going to end up happening anyway.”

Yeah, take some in. It takes a hot minute to get all this stuff done. But yeah, it's a great, great way to go. And when you're paying cash like this, you're going to watch every dollar in the budget with a builder. Make sure everything's dialed in.

And you push all those buttons. It makes a big deal. I don't get that call very often. No, I love a call like that. She has options and she has time, which is.

And she got money. Oh, and money. Saved it all. They live on nothing. Yeah.

Pretty impressive. You've worked too hard to get control of your money. Just to let strangers control your data. Think about it. Just about every time you sign up for a newsletter.

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John is with us. John's in Atlanta. Hi, John. How are you? I'm good.

How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, on 22 years old, I'm graduating college in May. And I want to buy a car, but I'm not sure if I can afford it.

Okay. All right.

“Well, how much money do you have and how much do you want to spend on the car?”

So, car is $13,000.

And I have about $11,000 in cash.

But I do have some savings, some investments. About 40,000. As well as 9,000 in a Roth IRA. What are you about? Um, so I'm going to be graduating in three months.

And when I graduate, I'll make about $65,000 a year. What if I'm doing what? Um, going into the wholesale insurance industry. Okay. And you've already secured that job?

Yes. Okay, cool, cool, cool. I mean, if you're going to be making 65, you're under our rule. Um, and you're paying cash for it. Um, I don't necessarily have an issue with that.

What's going to be your living situation? Um, I'm just going to keep living with my parents and maybe help them pay off the mortgage. Now, that's the part that I have an issue with. Um, tell me about why you would continue to live there. I'm assuming you don't have any other debt.

Am I wrong? Um, is because they only live about 30 minutes from where I'll be working.

“Um, and I'd rather start saving up money before getting a place to my own.”

Uh, you may have cut out when I asked you about the debt. Do you have any other debt? I have no debt. You have no debt. So you have 40,000 dollars in saving?

Uh-huh. 65,000 dollars income. And a brand new car. Why do you gotta live at home? This is your time to strike out.

Really, right after I graduated? Oh, absolutely. Yes. It's the best time. The most exciting time.

Okay. You don't hope you're dating life, too. Yeah. Oh, wow. It's true.

It's okay to pull money out of my investments, even though about half of it. 20,000 is capital gains. What do you need to pull? What do you need to pull? What do you need to pull?

Go back to that. $2,000. Right. What do you want to do? What is the car you're on the by?

So it is a 1999 Mercedes SL 500. No, I would not buy that car. Oh, come on. No. And here's why.

The car is absolutely stone-cold fabulous. I love the car. The maintenance on that car for a guy in your situation is absurd. Maintaining that old Mercedes is going to cost you a freaking arm and one of your legs. It's going to destroy you, man.

You're going to wish you'd never seen that car.

Let me tell you, it's serious. I can't do that. I'm with you. It is an absolutely beautiful automobile. And it's a classic.

I love what you're looking at. But dude, it's going to cost you 5,000 bucks a year to keep this thing in thing rolling. Can you tell? I've owned a Mercedes or two. Or 20.

I mean, I've had a bunch of them. And there's a lot of costs to keep the thing rolling. If you're something that doesn't cost anything to maintain, that is going to be just as much fine. And that would be a newer model, similar price range of something that doesn't require constant stinking maintenance. Okay.

That's old man, joke, man. But it's the truth. So we've just told you to do the two things, not to do the two things that you called on here wanting to do. By the Mercedes and live at your parents house. Well, what are the odds you do either one of them, John?

I will. I will, don't worry. Okay. All right. So yeah, I think if you had a fun car that was very highly reliable and requires almost no maintenance,

that is 13 to or 10 to 15,000 dollars in you pay cash for it. And you make a 90 day plan to move out from mom and dad after you get started in your job.

“Actually, making this a 65 gay, I think that's a great plan and that's what I would tell my own son to do.”

Okay. About something that doesn't require maintenance. Man, I tell you, that's a great car there. I don't know anything about the car. I just googled it to see what it looked like.

Yeah, you're logic. It was classic. Yeah, I think it's so beauty. Yeah, classic. It's a good old looking Mercedes and it's great, but they just, it doesn't matter.

Every time a take thing is shop, it's just a dead guy man.

And so they are not easy to maintain.

Well, they're not cheap to maintain. And the fact that you buy a cheap car, but then you're having a high maintenance bill. Right. If you don't buy a cheap car, then get something done. Have to have you work on all the time.

Yeah, let's talk about real quick this living at home business because he was the stark opposite of Alvaro, who did his debt free scream on Friday. Okay. So Alvaro graduated from college somewhere age and lived at home made his parents a deal

“and said, can I live at home debt free for me to pay off?”

I think it was $70 or $90,000 just due to loans. Because he'd done the math and said, if I pay interest, if I do this, it's going to take too long. And he said, and after a year, if I'm not working hard enough, you can charge me double rent.

And so a year past, they saw he was working very hard. He ended up paying off all the student loans. Did his debt free scream. Perfect example of saying, I'm going to graduate. I'm going to live at home for a short period of time in order to win up the math.

Very clean. What my guy John wanted to do is pile up cash. It's pile up cash. And I personally wouldn't do that unless you have debt to pay off.

But just to sit at home and just stack up money at such a key point in life when it's time

for you to go out and be your own person, I just wouldn't do it. I think it's more detriment than good at that point. You're trying to look at this only through the lens of money. And there's social development. There's career development.

There's confidence. There's everything else involved. So each one of our kids, we love them dearly. And they were more than welcome to stay in our home forever. Except it wasn't good for them.

Yeah. And so we helped them make arrangements within a month or two of graduation to be on their own. And when you pay your own light bill, you make your own bed, you buy your own milk. Now you're an adult.

Your mommy's not cleaning your underwear.

I mean, it's time. You know?

“And honestly, you're more attractive to employers because you walk different.”

You're more attractive to the opposite sex because you walk different. You have the shoulders thrown back a little confidence. A little swagger. I got this and I'm, you know, and I'm actually doing it. And there's a confidence that comes from having the dignity of being on your own.

And we've got a large percentage of you parents out there who are encouraging your children to not develop into adults. Because you got a whole bunch of 26 year olds living in Mommy's basement. And they've all got an opinion about capitalism with your $111 apple phone, which is more than just humorously stupid as well. So the, you know, it changes everything. It changes everything.

When you start, it's all me. There's no bread in the cabinet because I didn't buy bread. It's all me. And it changes everything. I think so.

And we're, we're hurting this generation by not allowing them to do some hard things. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, no shade on John, like he's done a great job.

“He, you know, came out of college with no debt.”

He's got money saved, all of those good things. But that's also understanding you're in a great position to be on your own. Yeah, it's okay. This is why you do this. This is good.

I left with a dollar 12 in my chicken account. So that's how he'll build these do it. I'm just saying. When I moved out. When I moved out.

When I moved out of my parents house. I moved into a friend's apartment that already had to roommate. So I had a futon in the living room. Oh. And that's all I had.

But I wanted to get out. I was ready. I was not worth it. Yeah. When your net worth is a futon.

So I had. It was not comfortable. Ten edits and wouldn't recommend. [Music] [Music]

Today is the question of the day. Is brought to you by Y Refi if defaulted private student loans are wrecking your budget. It's time to deal with them. Y Refi helps you refinance defaulted private student loans with a low fixed rate payment based on your ability to pay. So you can stick to the budget.

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That's the letter Y REFY.com/ramsy might not be in all stage.

“Alright, today's question comes from Mason and New Hampshire.”

He says I bought a house about five years ago. My name is on the deed and my dad co-signed so I could get a lower interest rate. Now my dad is pressuring me to refinance to get his name off the loan. I'm not behind on payments and I legally obligated to do this. I don't think I should have to refinance because he made the choice to sign for me.

I like this question. Are you legally obligated? No, you're not legally obligated. My guess is your dad is trying to do something else financially. Maybe he's trying to buy a house. But he's got a lot of this debt tied to his name or maybe he realized co-signing is really a stupid stupid act. And he's trying to make that right.

I don't know what you guys' conversations have been like. But if I were in your shoes, Mason, my guess is one of two things to say in place. Number one, if you've looked at refinancing to get his name off and you've realized you cannot afford the loan on your own. That might be something that's keeping you from doing this. And if that's the case, if you paid the bill for five years and you paid it on time, refinancing should not be a problem.

It shouldn't be. They call it the cost to refinance. Maybe your dad wants to chip in some of that to get his name off. And so... My guess is an interest rate thing. No, my guess is he just didn't work with it.

And he thought this was a forever deal.

So here's the bottom line, Mason.

What you all did was stupid. He should not have done this. Because at the moment, he was trying to help his kid get a house. But there was no end to the deal. In your mind, in his mind, he wants to get off of it now.

And you're just like, well, he gets down there forever and screw up his life forever. Because he kept by nothing else as long as his name is on this. A liability in his name. So he's going to trouble getting a mortgage himself is the problem. Or refinancing his mortgage is the problem.

Anything like that. You can't do anything, he's stuck. So it's a stupid idea. And now you guys are tied at the hip. And it's not bothering you at all.

“So, yeah, yes, you should refinance this on a moral basis.”

Not on a legal basis. If it all possible, I'd figure out a way to refinance it. And if I was your dad and I wanted off this loan, I'd pay the closing cost. So to get to get rid of the thing. Yeah.

And I hope you guys get it done and get the deal done.

So here's the thing, folks.

If someone can't afford to buy the property or buy the item without a co-signer, it's going to be a pinch later. The banks, they loved loan money more than they loved to breathe. And if they won't loan you money without a co-signer, it's because you're not eligible.

Hello. They would love to give you money and rip you off in any way possible way they can. And then parents come along and go, "Oh, well, help you get screwed." You know, that's just dumb. And dads and moms, you're not a blessing to your child when you do this.

You're helping them step into a bear trap going step right here, son. This is how it's done. Well, that's dumb, okay? Don't do this. Because you get in these situations.

It's what happens.

“Worst in this situation is where the guy's not paying the bill.”

We get that one all the time. Exactly. Oh, my God. My grandmother, my grandmother's co-sign for my car. And it's 42% interest. And now, my granny's about to get screwed because I'm going to get re-powed.

100% of these deals go bad. Of course it goes bad. So please, please, please, do not co-sign. It's in the Bible, proper of 1718. One lacking in sense, co-signs for another.

That's what the Bible says. So you're lacking in sense when you do this. I have co-sign back in my earlier days. And I got to pay the bill almost every time. One fool co-sign for me and then I went broke.

And he ended up paying the bill. Oh, they had to go back and pay him back later. His wife's still not happy with me 30 years later. Because we were fools signing up for a bunch of crap that we thought was going to work out that everybody else knew

wasn't going to work out. Carson is in Cincinnati. Hey, Carson, how are you? Good. Hey, Dave, thanks for taking my call.

Sure, what's up? Okay. So my wife and my steps on may live separate from me. Their German citizens and their waiting to get their visas approved so they can live here with me.

But that is expected to take anywhere between one to two years from now. Did I end Germany? They are, yes, sir. Okay.

And what steps should I be focusing on to make sure that my family

“is set up for success when they get here?”

How long have you been married? September. Cool. Then how do you mate? I was stationed over there in the army.

Thank you for your service. Thank you. So if you get married, I don't know how this stuff works. I'm ignorant about it. It takes two years to get a foreign citizen wife on site.

Well, if we had gotten married while I was still in the army, it would have been a lot quicker. But we decided to get married after I got out

and the current administration has been very fluid with immigration.

So that was the update I received was 12 to 24 months. That's it. Okay.

“I'm going to keep getting updates and I'm going to keep learning if I'm you.”

Because that's an unacceptable answer as far as I'm concerned. But the current administration has not got a war going with people coming here legally. It's the ones coming here illegally. And so they're not trying to put a block on immigration in general. That's not the spirit of what's happening out there right now.

I was with some customs guys yesterday. So anyway, I don't know anything about the law on that or the regulations today. But I'm going to keep pushing if I'm you answer to your question is. We'll get out of that as fast as you can as much as you can. And stock as much cash as you can, right?

Right. Okay.

So I got the numbers and I'll share them with you.

Okay. Tell us. Okay. So my net income, I received $5,200 a month for my job. And I received compensation from the VA for injuries.

That is $2,300 a month on top of the 52. Yes, for total $7,500 a month. Good. Okay. The debts that I have.

I have a mortgage for a house that I bought for 153,000. I have a hundred and forty remaining on the mortgage. I have 26,000 in home renovations on a loan that I've got. And $13,000 in student loans. And $4,300 in credit card debt.

Okay. Cut up the credit cards. Let's get on a tight budget. Pay them off as fast as you can. Then pay off the student loan.

You ought to be able to do that pretty quick. If it's just you. Are you sending money to Germany? I am a portion of that check is going over there to hurt to support her while we wait. So how is she being supported before you got married?

So she still works a job right now that she is just moved out of her apartment to her mother's house to get ready for when we do get the green light for the visa to move over here. Does she have any debt or anything that we need to take note of? She has a $6,000 loan on the car remaining. I've offered to pay that off for her but she has elected not to. Is there?

She has a sense of duty to pay it off. She feels it was her loan. She wants to pay it off her. Well, here's the thing. I know that you guys are living separately but you are married.

So there's really no reason to not attack this together and work on this.

“So I mean if the $6,000 car loan is the only thing even if it wasn't.”

I would still stack this into a debt snowball and I would still combine you guys's margin together and all of your money together and whatever the margin you both have together goes at the smallest debt which in this case still is the question. She's still working and she went from an apartment to mother. She shouldn't be needing money.

That's true. She should be more marginal. She should be more marginal. She should be more marginal. Now she should be easily making it and so you shouldn't be having sin money

and use it to clean up debt. What I would do. But hey, it sounds like you got to get it on the run though. List your debt smallest largest attack on that order, dude. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show and the fair wins credit union studios.

I'm Dave Ramsey, host. Jade Washaw Ramsey personality is my co-host. Number one bestselling author. Carrie is in Detroit. Hey, Carrie, what's up?

Hi, longtime listener. Big fan.

Hey, wait a go. I am 51 years old. Oh, going to be 51 years old this year. I have not invested anything. I was widowed very young.

“I just spent the last 17 years trying to survive and raise my two kids.”

I said, I just got to baby step forward. I have about 20,000 putaway and savings. Good. I have nothing left but my house, which I have about 90,000 on. And I am about six years into a 15 year mortgage on that phenomenal.

What do you make? I make roughly around 64,000 a year. It is a little bit variable because I'm not as much for myself. So I'm a housekeeper. So there are times that people cancel on.

But for the most part, my income is right around 5500 a month. Dead for you. Well done.

My question is, is never investing.

Never having any type of retirement or anything. Where to question to invest, especially with the market, the envelope. And having no financial education on how to invest money at this point. Okay. That's a really, really good question.

I love your question. Also, do I invest more than 15% at this point? Because I have a little bit of cash fluidity. Nope. You put it on the house.

Let's get the house paid off, about 15%. Maybe step 4, 5 and 6 work together. Sit down with a smart Vester Pro. Click smart Vester Pro at RamseySolutions.com. Their job is not to do it for you.

Their job is to teach you and say, here's how a mutual fund works. Here's what it is. Here's how stable this type of fund is. Here's how volatile this other type of fund is.

And here's what we can do with a Roth IRA for you.

And probably a, you got employees? No. I am a sole proprietor. Perfect. Okay.

Then you can look at a simple IRA as well. Or a simplified pinching plan, either one. We can do Roth and all of them. You can easily get to 15% of your income going in. You'll be just easy to do that in your situation.

Start with just a Roth.

“And then if you have to do a little bit more in an SEPP, a simplified employee pension plan.”

It's easy to do. They're very easy to set up. They're very inexpensive to set up. Not a lot of fees. And then just start putting a systematically 15% of your income away.

If you never get a raise and you do that for the next 15 years, you're going to retire with dignity. Thank you.

Because that is a huge worry of mine.

No. Not anymore. Not when you're in the math. Okay. So one of the things you do when you sit down with them, you say, okay.

What's 15% of 65,000? All right. So quickly, we're going to figure out that that is $10,000. Okay. It's about 850 bucks a month.

And you start doing that. And you do that for 15 years. You're going to have a bazillion freaking dollars. Hundreds of thousands of dollars. I can't do it in my head right now.

You're going to have plenty. Okay. And you can actually look at the calculator on the Ramsey website. And it'll help you figure that out too. But you just steadily invest.

And we're not going to bring our hands and worry about the market being volatile. Because the market is out the market is down. But you don't lose all your money. It just makes a little more. It makes a little less.

It's all it is. It's like some years houses go up a more in value than some years they don't. Right? But they're still a good investment. They're volatile.

But there's a good investment. Not very volatile. But they're volatile. They do go up and down. There's not a guarantee.

But you're counting on the track record of real estate. It's always going up. Some years more than others. Some years may be down a little. But most of the time it goes up.

A good mutual fund or series of mutual funds in your Roth IRA will do the same thing. And you'll have plenty. You're going to be okay.

“But you need to learn about all of that.”

And to where because what happens is your anxiety about the markets, your anxiety about investing and not knowing. Goes away the more you do know. Absolutely. Because right now I am completely bound by fear because I don't know anything. Yeah.

And it's taking me so far just to get to this point. And what that fear should do is drive you to learn. Not drive you to not do it. Right. And that's where I then.

Yeah. So that's normal. There's two kinds of. There's two kinds of fear. There's two kinds of fear.

There's two kinds of fear. Fear that helps us avoid touching a hot stove. Good fear. Fear that keeps us that's false evidence appearing real. It's just something we don't know about it.

They're afraid.

But you and I know they're going to be okay.

They may fall over scratch. They're a little need. But they're going to be okay. And they're going to have hours and hours and hours and years. Enjoyment of writing a bicycle.

So we put them to push them through the false evidence appearing real. They're not going to die. They're going to fall over. Oops. Okay.

“And so you learn that this is, that's what this is.”

You're learning to write a bike. You're not going to have any scratch knees, by the way. But you are going to have the fear of the unknown, which is different than the fear of the hot stove. And you can do this if I were in your shoes, I would start with reading.

And Ramsey Solutions has wonderful articles that are very easy to read and comprehend and understand.

And I would start there. And if a word pops up that you're like, what do they mean by that? I would look up the definition. And I would just go down that rabbit trail and learn more and more and more. And do that regularly.

And after a while, the words that used to sound scary and big. And you don't know what that means. That goes away. And you start to understand it more. And that way when you do go to meet with your smart Vester, you're going to understand what they're talking about.

And it's not going to feel like they're up here and you're down here. But their job is to put the cookies on a shelf where you can reach them. That's their job is to make this easier. Make it easy to understand. And if it's not easy to understand, get you a different person.

Don't use that person. Correct.

Either any books that you like also recommend.

Baby steps millionaires. Okay. Matter of fact, we'll give it to you. Hang on. We'll sign up for that.

Yeah, just check smart Vester Pro at ramsysolutions.com and sit down. You're looking for financial people with the heart of a teacher. Too many people around numbers think they need to sound like Charlie Brown's teacher. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. I have no idea what the freak they say at, right?

So no, you want somebody that talks in a language that you can understand. And they teach you this is how this works. And here's a mutual fund that's been opened 100 years. Here's a mutual fund that's been opened 90 years. It's had four down years in the last 27 years.

Yeah. And you can look at the chart and go, oh, look at that. The stinking thing made money 24 out of 27 years. Okay. That gives me a comfort level.

That's an actual fund, by the way. Okay. So you can look at these things and get a handle on that. And then you go, oh, okay. Well, then maybe it's not a scary.

“Who the markets and everybody lost all their money?”

No, they didn't. And lose some because they buy high and sell low because they freak out and don't watch what's going on. So that's the difference. So you're going to do really, really good. You're going to end up wealthy.

And you deserve to be. You've worked hard. You've been a warrior, single mom. A warrior, princess. Cleaning houses to raise those kids.

And now you're going to retire with dignity. I'm so proud of you. [ Music ] Hey, guys. Dave Ramsey here.

Every day on this show, we help people work through real money problems and figure out what to do next. Now, you can get that same kind of help anytime with Ask Ramsey. Ask your money question and get answers built on Ramsey principles we use on the show. Whether you're making a decision or just want something explained. Ask Ramsey is here to help.

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

Hey, Greg, how are you? Good, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So, I have some whole life policies that mean my life got like one through like 20.

I'm 55 this year. I'm sorry. And I know, I've been listening to you for the last year or so. But my question is, 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 necessarily need, I mean, I could always use extra money.

But I don't know if it's worth doing the cash surrender. And I know those policies are just leaving. They're small. I think they're $150,000 policies or something like that. Only got them originally.

Okay. She have a hundred fifty thousand dollar policy with a hundred thousand dollar cash value. Is that right? Yes. And you have two, and you have two of them.

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.

We'll just surrender them 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. Do you follow me? Yeah. I kind of heard that the other day on one of your shows.

And I bet 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 two million dollar term policy that we got a few years ago.

Okay. 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 at 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?

Well, what 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?

Yeah. 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.”

How 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. If we do the cash surrender, 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 would not be by much.

So if you have taxes, it'll 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 a 100k, you're going to get your money back out. And yes, I would cash it in. And if, what did you, what do you think your net worth is? Mm-hmm.

I mean, I think it's close to six, maybe six million. Six million? Yeah, if I would still everything. So do you think the current asset base would generate enough income for your wife to be okay if you died today? I mean, I think so.

I hope so too. 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 anymore that I have. That I still owe about. I mean, if I were to sell it, I could cash that out for about two million bucks, maybe. Yeah. After taxes, but I do make income on that.

So 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 will 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 rip off in the financial planning world. I mean, it's like the payday lender to the middle class. You know, payday lender scares poor people, right?

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. The same place those banks came from.

They didn't come from Santa Claus who came from them screwing you with credit cards all these years. And you're just smiling and then 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 and you go never again.

It changes everything. James is in Columbus, Ohio. Hi, James, how are you? He went well, how are you? Better than I deserve, what's up? Okay, I was my younger sister.

She and her ex-boyfriend inherited the code of known buyers about three to four years ago. He has since passed from cancer and at the time I was going through a messy divorce. And he gave me $6,000 to pay for my lawyers so I can take care of my divorce. I won't do a rough time as a gift. And since then, you know, he's passed out like I said, and she has blown through all that money in the meantime,

and it's back to 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." 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 a good parent. It was a good person from his parents. Oh, 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. You know, she's moving to have a lot of money because, you know, the occasional electric bill,

and things like that where she's called enough and said, "Hey, can you know?" I've done something like that for you. Y'all are a hot mess, sure. Yeah. All right.

All right. I'm afraid that she's going to do it. You're just afraid.

“Why do I give her another $6,000 to be irresponsible with, is what you're saying?”

That, you know, she has three kids with them. I'm 17 and 18 in that way. Well, I mean, there's two options. Okay.

The third option is not keep whining about it.

Okay. I would either call her and say, "You're boyfriend gave me this money. It's a gift. I'm not going to pay back." Or, I'd rather check.

But third option, I'm going to keep whining about this. And Y'all keep this family drama going on, on, on, on. And who said, "What? Who told George this?" And good Lord for $5,000.

Just write it up, man. All right. Let's cut to the chase. It's easy to get discouraged about crazy house prices and interest rates. But when you have the right real estate agent to help you buy and sell the right way,

you'll have confidence to make smart decisions. Ramsey trusted agents aren't just experts who guide you through buying or selling.

There are people you can trust to have your back from the first call to closing day.

Find a Ramsey trusted agent near you at RamseySolutions.com/agent. That's RamseySolutions.com/agent. On the debt-free stage in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, Chevy and Caitlin are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Great. How are you?

Better than I deserve. Welcome. Where do y'all live? Corning. Okay. Cool.

And what's that near?

Works for me. Perfect. How much data do y'all pay it off? We've paid off 95,000 and 34 months. Good for you. Way to go.

“And your range of income during that three years.”

Started at 113,000 and ended about 156. Good for you. What do y'all do for a living? I'm a assistant nurse manager in a NICU in Louisville, Kentucky. Fine. Good for you. I'm an executive director of a maintenance facility at a trucking company.

There you go. Good. Good. Good. What kind of debt was the 95,000? Our mortgage. You paid off your house. Good. Looking at people.

I love it. Way to go. You guys. What's the house worth? Just under 500,000. Very cool. Very cool.

And you all been investing in retirement as soon? Yes. How much are your next eggs? Uh, we're up to 130. Uh, between the three, like 130 per account for three accounts.

That's awesome. Okay. You're getting close to a million dollar net worth.

Yeah. That worth. And you figured it up on the drive down just to hear over 900,000. Now most of I've link and you're going to be a millionaires. How old are you, too?

34. And 36. Wow. So pretty go. I'm so proud of y'all.

Boom boom boom. Baby steps, millionaires. Almost in a paid for house and not even 35 years old. Way to go. Excellent.

Excellent. Excellent. Okay. So what started this whole journey

“doing this crazy Ramsey stuff that made you a millionaires?”

Uh, so Chevy did actually write around the time that we got engaged. She came home and said, I think I want to do this program. And I kind of looked at him while he had six heads. I was like, I don't know what you're talking about right now. Uh, so we used it as a pre-marital counseling kind of thing.

Um, started our individual snowballs back in 2017. And then when we got married, we combined our debt.

Um, so we actually entered Baby Step 7 for the first time in 2020,

right around the time that Kobe was shutting everything down. Uh-huh. After that, we started the family and decided to upgrade our house. So we was able to take 100% of that house we had paid off and kind of move forward to the current house we have now.

So we only had $95,000 in the mortgage when we bought our house in December of 2022. Okay. So a huge down payment from the other one. Yes. And then had to knock that out quickly. Right. Yeah.

That's exciting. Good for you. Why do go y'all? Thank you. Thank you.

How does it feel to be this free at this age? Pretty great. It's awesome. You know, the grass definitely feels different underneath your feet when you step outside after the last house payment.

Absolutely. We ever do it again. Go back and down. No, it's not more than actual shave up to move up. Yeah.

We're pretty happy with our house right now. I love it. I got to believe that it played a big part in what house you selected to kind of knowing the feeling of debt and not wanting the experience too much of that. Yeah.

Definitely done. It didn't really work out. I mean, when we hit Baby Step 7, in 2020, when we paid off our house, it was shortly after that. We lost our child or first born in 18 months.

Oh. 18 weeks. We lost a little girl. Ellison at 18 weeks. And because we were in Baby Step 7,

I was able to really step back from work and take some time off to get myself right before we moved forward in our lives. And that's kind of when we decided like, we're going to do things a little bit different from here on out. And we're so incredibly thankful we started FP when we did.

I really don't know what we would have ended up in that situation. I wouldn't have been able to take that time off work. And really heal ourselves before moving forward.

You just never really know what life's going to throw at you.

“And I think FP really sets you up to be able to handle anything like that.”

Wow. Such a heartbreak. And I have built a life that allows you the luxury to step back and have a moment to heal from the most devastating possible thing that can happen. Wow.

Wow. Very cool and you got kiddos too. We do. We have three two boys in a little girl. They're four two and eight months.

Oh, handful. That's definitely. We were hoping to get through this. The 95,000 little quicker, but you know, having three kids born in that timeline.

It was slow to stand a little bit. Just a little bit. Just a little bit. But it was awesome. You know, being able to cash flow,

saving up for each child. Yeah. On top of paying the mortgage down too. So you guys have been through this in a sense a couple of times. Yeah.

And so what do you tell people the secret to getting out of that and be almost millionaires at the time of your 35? Definitely communication. We still have budget meetings at the first of every month. We kind of walk through what we want to do that month.

If there's any big adjustments coming up. But there's definitely months that I've struggled staying on task a little more. And months he struggled staying on task a little more. So communication and definitely just lifting each other up when the other person's struggling. What are you going to do to celebrate?

We got a few little projects around the house. We want to do and then definitely travel somewhere. We definitely like getting the kids out and showing them all the different things. The world has the offer. Yeah.

We just got back from New York City.

We got caught in the blizzard. Oh, gosh. That was a blast. Yeah. Yeah.

It was crazy. And caught up there with babies. That'd be great. It was just a mommy daddy trip. That's awesome.

Yeah.

First trip out of the house without all three of them and got stuck in a blizzard.

Still takes the edge off of it. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Wow. Well, good for you guys.

Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. You have people encouraging you along the wire. Thought you were crazy.

A little bit of both. Yeah. Our families are definitely encouraged just along the way. Kind of side eye and us the whole time. Like, you guys are still a little crazy.

But we're going to support you in what you're going to do. So we definitely couldn't have done it without our family support. They were definitely after us because I was selling everything I could find in the house. Left and right on eBay and Facebook.

“Well, I was going to say, did you tell him you were doing it?”

Or did they start noticing, you know, crazy behaviors? Oh, I got to that above. Yeah. I got to the point. They're afraid to gift us something and we didn't actually want it or need it because

it would probably be up on eBay or Facebook. Wow. I want to give you something for Christmas, but you're dissolving. Yeah. We actually heard that several times.

That's funny. Well, way to go. Yeah. Did you bring the candles with you? Yeah.

All right. Let's bring them up and introduce them for the free scream. Oh, man. I got them in the background. Oh, man.

This is a reason to change your family tree right here. This is Finn and this is Townsend. All right. Well, you guys have got mom and dad's that are heroes. They've taken care of you.

You've set you up for an incredible life.

Yeah. You guys are in great, great shape. Well, so proud of you guys. Congratulations. Thank you.

“The Caitlin from Indiana, 95,000 paid off in 34 months, making 1/13 to 1/56.”

House and everything. We're looking at weird people. Count it down. Let's hear a debt free scream. Right, boys?

Three, two, one. We're debt free. I like it. That's great. I love it.

I love it. I love it. And then I read the articles of the Millennials and the Gen Zs that can't get ahead and can't afford a house. But these guys figured out on $156,000 income, and not only have a paid for home, have three children. Yeah.

And have a net worth approaching a million dollars very quickly. Wow. Not even 35 years old. So, I don't know. It just confuses me that it can't be done.

And yet it's done every day here. It's like a combination of will and location. Will location and income. Yeah. And those are all tied together.

They're all tied together. They're all tied together. Choose your location and you can choose your will.

“And you can choose to affect your income in a lot of ways.”

That's right. But we talked to people that make twice that and think they can't afford a house. That's absolutely true. That housing prices are just out of reach for American couples today. You can't buy also affordability issues.

We have affordability issues. I wish the president would waive a wand and make it all go away. I wish mommy and daddy wouldn't make me not make me be an adult. But yeah, the math still is there. And these people just did it.

Earlier, we talked to the folks that made $150,000 a year. And they were saving up. They were almost. They were to buy it in cash. $400,000 a house.

Yeah, they were an Arkansas. Yeah, I remember. Yeah. They were. Now, they were.

I don't know what they were. How they were doing that. That was even beyond. Wow. He was living on this.

Crazy. But it absolutely worked. So Chevy and Caitlin have become heroes for thin, nice and towns and they. Those little babies. They're beautiful.

Their lives have been changed and they don't even know it. Yeah. Pretty crazy. And they go through a tragedy. Yeah.

To boot in the middle of the thing. So just absolutely amazing.

Yeah, it's never a straight line.

But there's a line. There's a line. Way to go, you guys. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING]

When people hear my story of ping off dead, they say things like, "Dang, that must have been so hard. I can never do that." And I tell them, sure you can. It's a short term sacrifice for a long term gain.

But do you know what's really hard? Working your whole life and never having anything to show for it. Never having the long term gain. Just feeling broke, stressed, and maxed all the time.

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Download the every dollar app and start for free today. Our scripture that I name, one seven, the Lord is good refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him.

Simon Sinek said, "It is a luxury to put our interests first.

It is an honor to put the interests of others before our own." Buying or selling your home is a big deal. And with all the clickbait headlines and conflicting data out there, it's hard to know what to do next. We're here to make the latest trends easy to understand.

Media and home prices dipped a little above 400,000 last month, just typical for this time of year, mortgage rates are sitting at about 5.44 in January, down from 6.27 last January, giving buyers some breathing room. We're starting to see some movement in the market. To learn more about the housing market trends and get free tools to help you buy or sell with confidence,

go to RamseySolutions.com/market or click the link in the show notes if you're listening on the podcast or YouTube. Joshua is in Los Angeles. Hey Joshua, how are you? Hey Dave, I'm doing good, I'm doing good.

It has been, let me say, about two or three years since I've been trying to get on the radio, and I am truly glad that it is you and Jay.

Obviously, everybody else on the show is amazing,

but I need some tough love from Dave today. So, I read some mistakes financially. I have, let's see, at the beginning of 2025, I purchased a two or a couple of, I purchased it out. I went to a Korean, and the total amount was about 30,000.

And then at the end of this previous year, I got a truck. I know not smart, so I'm in a hole that I am regretting digging, and so I've been trying to give myself out, but I keep on running into real blocks.

“No, you keep jumping from hole to hole, as part of it, right?”

Yeah. Okay. So, what are you all on the truck? So, I on the truck 46, no, boy. And then I, let's see, I have a personal loan for $8,000,

and then I have part of about a couple of thousand worth of credit cards, and then I want to pursue higher education, and that's going to cost about $4,000. I'm growing Chinese University for pursuing, was it called, my LPC license. Yeah, that's off the table, you get this mesh cleaned up.

You've got a $40,000 problem, I don't even need to create another one. Are you guys, yeah, I know. Okay, so what do you mean? I call it, so I make, personally, about $56 per year. Okay.

I've been working very diligently to find what income. And so, I have an opportunity to work for a previous employer, and make a bow, and extra, like, 12 to 15 extra year. Good. And so, I'm thinking, like, I'm thinking that that would solve the issue of--

Well, that would get rid of the truck. What's the truck worth? The truck is worth $42. Well, that's not true.

“You need $4,000, and you can sell the truck, right?”

Right. Well, let's get rid of that thing. Yeah. How quickly could you save the difference? 4,000 bucks.

I would probably say, like, read a mistake, read. If I just make the minimum payment to my credit cards, it could be like, maybe like, three months? No. I want you going card in the paint, working every hour you get to do this.

Where do you live?

What's your living situation?

I credit it with my parents.

“Okay, so you don't even have rent to pay.”

No, I don't. And this should go into what? If you, if all this, all you have is a minimum payments, you have no rent. Yeah. If you make your $4,000 from your current job, and you go out and side hustle and kill it,

that'd be my goal. What do you spend on money on? Yeah. Car gas, insurance, credit card minimums. Yeah.

Okay, so. Yeah, so yesterday, let's get rid of this truck. The thing is, you got to decide, you got to decide if this truck is really stupid as we have. And once you decide that, because I'm really, if I'm in your shoes, I'm really pissed about this truck, because it's standing between you and a good future.

And so that means you got to bust it and get rid of the stupid thing.

It's fast as possible. It's a curse. It's not a blessing. Okay. And do you have any recommendations on how to, like, probably see, like, private show.

Yes. And then on top of that, I've tried, no, no, mine, that's a credit union. Well, I tried purchasing it outright, but that didn't work. What do you mean? I was, I went from, I was going to go from a lease to a purchase.

Okay. Oh, it's a lease. What's the payoff amount? 42. 46.

46. 46. 46. 46. So you're saying that you can't buy it out and then turn around and sell the car?

Yeah, you can. Okay.

“And so, you know, what you have to do is, you find someone a dealer or a person that will”

write you a check for 42. You have to add 42 that check and buy out the lease. They hand you the title, you hand the buyer the title. And that's how the process goes down. You may need some help with that with a friend that's around car dealers.

But, you know, with how to actually mechanically do the transaction in Los Angeles, California. But that's how the method works. You have to have all the money to pay off the lease to get the title. And then they hand you the title in your hand the title. Meantime the car.

The new buyer is driving it off a bill of sale. And that's how all transactions work. But there's a few little nuances to how they will go down in different states and how the process works. And I'm not positive about California, but that's the concept that you're working off of Joshua. The big deal is you've got to decide this thing has to go.

Yes. Suzanne is an Albany Georgia. Hey Suzanne, what's up? Hi. I'm so glad I got through to go.

I'm glad you did too. Are you all doing today? Yeah, we deserve. Well, we have a question.

“My husband and I are both retired school teachers.”

We bring in about not net about $9500 a month between our pension and security. And we both have four times a job. Great. A house that's paid for. It's worth about $425,000.

Great. We have about $300,000 in 401(a) and a $15,000 in our law. Now, this is the question. We have a car that we still owe $10,000 on. And we also have a lot that we've all about three years to go for us to build our retirement home owns,

which we want to pay cash for because we want to sell the current house real. And we build the house. And we also, it's about $60,000 on that lot we have. And so we have that. That's our only debt is $50,000 on the lot.

We'll pay $7.25 per cent interest and then the car, which is about three and a quarter per cent interest. When are you going to build the retirement home? We want to start maybe this fall. Okay.

The lot debt will roll up into the construction loan because the construction loan won't take a second.

The mortgage position. They're going to want to first mortgage position. So your construction loan is going to be plus the lot debt. Yes. So that's going away and going to roll up into your new mortgage.

Okay. Well, our question was. I see what you're saying. But this is what we were wondering. Should we take out.

We can take out. I want to leave at least five in that role because we take out 10,000 in the role. We was paying penalties. Pay also on court with that. And then my husband was thinking about taking the $60,000 out of his 401.

No, no. You've got that. You can pay it off so fast with just your income. You make $9,000. We're going to pay off the stink and car.

That's the question. Yeah, that's the answer. Yeah, pay off the car. And then roll the other thing up into the mortgage, up into the thing.

Right? Yes. Okay.

So you'll be dead free with that.

We're having touch.

“You were never having touch with your retirement.”

And that's exactly what I would do.

Yeah, just be careful not to overspend on the retirement house.

“Yeah, keep that down under the value of yours.”

That puts us out of the Ramsay show in the books.

We'll be back with you before you know it.

“And 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.