My Husband Won't Stop Lending His Mom Money

>> Brought to you by the every dollar app, start budgeting for free today. [MUSIC] >> 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.

Alongside the fabulous, incomparable Jade Worshaw, I'm just kidding. That's a lyric, you know? >> I'm sorry. >> From the Barbie movie, that's all I'm just trying to do a little shout out to you. The audience is awake and paid attention.

Fabulous studio audience. >> Yeah. >> He had some looking group of people that will meet here in a little bit out there watching in the lobby. So let's get right to it, triple eight, eight, two, five, five, two, two, five. That's the number to jump in the day.

Sarah joins us in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Sarah, how can we help? >> So my husband and I keep on loaning his mom money. She always pays it back to be fair, but then she asks again, and I'm starting to really resent it, and we disagree on whether to keep helping, and I just don't know how to go forward with my husband.

>> Oh boy, obviously you don't want to, he feels he has to. Is that a fair classification, okay?

“>> Yeah, tell me about the last conversation that you guys had about this, how did it go?”

>> Well, it started because she asked for $7,000. >> Ooh, that's a car already. >> Oh, I thought this was in the $70 range to be completely honest. >> No, no, no, no. >> This is not your change, wow.

>> No, it's always $1,000, and I basically told him, like, listen, we're her piggy bank,

and I'm tired of being her piggy bank, and she-- >> What did he say? >> Well, he says that she never asks for frivolous things. It's always quote unquote, an emergency or important. >> Okay, tell me what the $7,000 asked was for.

>> Just, I think it was the transmission on her car. >> And how often does this occur? Is this once a year, is it every couple months? And is it always, like, to the tune of, like, thousands of dollars, or is it sometimes just, like, spot me a couple of hundies?

>> No, it's always, it's always $1,000, it's at least once a year, and it's sometimes twice a year. >> And she always pays it back? >> She does, yeah, and I will give her that to her.

“>> I don't know because I, this is all just my husband's word, but I think six months.”

>> Yeah, this is tough. The reason I asked, because I really wanted Jade to lean in on this one, because you are the wife. And this is tough for me. I don't have any clear response, because the reason I asked about the relationship conversation was what had happened the last time we talked about it, and you didn't give me a lot of detail,

but from what I'm inferring, he basically was like, well, it's not frivolous, she needed a new transmission.

And so in his mind, he's justifying mom's crazy, because he's on mom's side, and that's a problem. >> And so she's, so I'm going to actually defer to you here, because this, not to say that a man can't inform this question, but I do think it's unique. I want you to lead off here, could it be also with you?

I'm not sure what she does here. >> I think that this is a classic, this is kind of a classic, leave-in-cleave type deal, where the son has to go, I love my mom, my mom made me, she raised me, I have nothing but love for her, but if I'm forced to choose, and my wife is wrong, it's just a, well, I think I think the husband's wrong, but I'm just saying, in his mind, if he's, if he's seeing

it as a question of preference, my mom prefers this, my wife prefers this, you got to go with the wife every time. >> Yeah, and that's the question I have, quick, I don't want to totally interrupt your moment up, but I do want it, Sarah, I mean, is he completely clear, if he were sitting right here with Jade Knight, would he be completely clear that you had it with this or does he think

you're just mildly frustrated? What does he think? >> I think he knows that I've kind of had it with this. >> Okay. >> Now, I think you're pretty bored with her.

>> You said something earlier that begs a couple questions from me. When I asked, does she pay the money back?

“By the way, that's neither here nor there to the question of whether you should lend it.”

I was trying to understand his point of view a little bit more so I can argue it, but what

you responded was interesting, you said that basically, as far as you know, based on your husband's

word, which made me think like, do you not have access into seeing each other's finances? Are you sharing finances, basically? >> I mean, technically we do, but we do not have a joint think account.

So that right there, and I'm going to tell you right now, Sarah, we've been getting more

and more of these calls, where what happens is you guys have not fully aligned on finances,

“the philosophy of it, nor how we share our money, right?”

They're still this kind of side business going on where we have, we have one account that we put checks in, but we also have our side accounts. What happens when you set up life like that is you, you actively pull yourself out of being the decision maker with your spouse on every major financial issue, because you've already said we're not fully together.

And so that I think is why your husband is operating over here saying, "Ah, it's not that big of a deal. She always pays me back.

I'm not saying it's right.

I'm just understanding it." >> That's good. >> It's actually great insight, it's a really good point, Sarah, I hope you're here once you say, because here's where this goes, you guys are going to have to have a mediator, and I think it's a marriage therapist, because today's point, things have been so separate.

>> It's a total restart point, that, and again, he just, he needs a completely new perspective, and you don't want to put yourself in a place where you're threatening him, right? And then making him make a false choice.

Now, if he was sitting here with me, I'd look at him straight in the eye and go, "Hey, bro, listen to me."

>> You got it, you got to choose your wife here, you got to grow up, take the diaper off, the emotional diaper, this is embarrassing, I mean, I would just go straight at it. He's not here today, so we want to equip you, but I think Jade's insight is absolutely phenomenally on target, so because of that, I think you're going to have to have a marriage therapist to bring you together, hopefully a skilled one who is a middle ground, and can go, "We do have to reset,"

because I think he's operating like, "What's the big deal?" >> Yeah, because you're the one who, and I'm not saying this in a wrong way, I think you're absolutely right, Sarah, but if you look at what the agreement was, right, if you and I say, "Here's the stakes, we'll do this together," and then you're the one who changes, he has the right to be confused, or wonder, "Well, what's the big deal?" >> And again, I can't stress this enough, I believe you're right in wanting to not continue to

lend her money, but in that, that's not the bigger problem, the bigger problem is, we actually need to have full transparency on our money, we need to be fully combined on our money, and I agree with Ken counseling is the way to start that new process.

“>> And here's the ask, here's what you got to tell him, "You have to say, we have to do this, we have to go to counseling,"”

saw a threat, we have to go, "This is causing me to resent you and your mom, I don't like it, and I don't have the tools to convince you, so will you please do this for me?" I think that's your posture, and the context has to be reset, because you guys are not on the same page, therefore he's like, "What's the issue?" So, going to be tough, there's not going to be easy, right? >> Right, right, right. >> But Jaden, this situation, there is no easy, this has to be confrontation, and to your point, a full-blown operational reset.

>> Absolutely, and then on the money front, what I see, honestly, just on the money front, it's only a matter of time, because she's not been a good, the mother-in-law has not been a good manager of finances. It's only a matter of time before she stops paying you guys back, is what I see, because she's just not a responsible person with her money. >> Oh, Anne, be prepared, and I don't want to judge her, but be prepared for a pretty nice blowback from mom. >> Ooh, because I believe she's either knowingly or unknowingly manipulating your husband herself.

>> Wow. >> And that's going to be sticky and stinky. >> And we're in charge of Scar, be prepared. [ Music ] >> Day, we got a lot of calls on this show where life happens. One day, someone's healthy, they're working, providing for their family, and then a curveball hits.

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>> Hi, so my husband and I, we're both 25, we have two kids, and we are kind of living paycheck to paycheck when I feel like we shouldn't be.

“We're trying to figure out what's the best way to kind of pay down our debt, as well as still put money into the savings account.”

We don't have an extra layer of cushion. >> Okay. >> Tell me a little bit more about how much debt you have in what type of debt it is.

>> So without our mortgage payment, it's about $60,000, mainly credit cards, vehicle loans, and some medical bills.

>> Okay, how much of it is the car? >> Our vehicle, so our his truck payment is about $40,000 in mind about $4,600. >> Okay, so $40,000 is the total amount that you owe on his car. What's the total amount that you owe on your car? >> About $4,600.

>> Oh, $4,600 total, okay, here you go. >> All right, when I look at this and you tell me, hey, we're living paycheck to paycheck. The number one glaring obvious reason I see are the cars.

“What's his monthly payment and what's your monthly payment?”

>> So the car payment is $378 a month, and the truck payment is about $600 a month. >> There you go. >> Yeah, what difference would it make if you cleared that out and had an extra almost thousand bucks a month in your life? >> Yeah, and it's also I think it's also daycare because we spend a little over a thousand a month on daycare. Yeah, daycare will get you.

But that's not something that we can really change right now. The thing that we can really change in effect is this car payment. Tell me about you guys's income. What are you bringing every month and what is he bringing? >> So together, roughly $7,600, I just got our promotion a couple months ago.

So our income went up and we had to buy a vehicle. I didn't necessarily have to be the truck.

“But you know, right now we're trying to figure out what's the best way to pay this down because I will probably need a car here in a couple years.”

Maybe a year or two because my car keeps breaking down. >> Yeah, so let's offer that then. I mean, what I would do, I mean, yes, you're right. You have to have vehicles to to operate life. So I agree with that.

whenever when you're, you know, $60,000 in debt, clearing out 40,000 of it, which is a vehicle makes a humongous difference. So if he sold that vehicle today, what could he get for it? >> It's probably 35, 40. >> So is that we just, we just bought it not to a brick? >> Even, even better. Even better. You won't be as far upside down on it. >> You have any money saved? >> We have about 6,000 in our savings.

And about $4,300 coming within the next month or so from our college scholarships we get. >> So we're going to have access to $10,000, $300 that is above and beyond your income. And that's coming quickly. We already got six. Well, are you familiar with our baby steps and how they work? >> Yeah, so I purchased the book last year. So we saved up the money and we've been trying to pay down the lowest amount of debt we've had. But if you're familiar with the baby steps,

baby step one is how much in the bank? >> That's awesome. >> You got 6,000. >> 6,000. >> So, Jade, what did you do with the five? We got good news for you. >> Let's roll through this. Yeah, let's pretend. Yeah, that you only get 35 for it. Okay, you've got the five to put with it so that that's a clean break right there. And then to your point if you've saved up 600, you know,

if you've cleared 600 extra dollars a month, theoretically, how quickly could you save for a cash

car, right? If you said for a split second, I'm going to pause the debt snowball and I'm going to stack

$7,600 a month, I think you could do it pretty quickly. So, that's really the play here. Anytime you have debt, I'm going to find out ways to clear it very, very quickly because of the faster we do this, the more motivated you're going to be to continue. So, in a world where you sell that car, now suddenly instead of $40,000, instead of $60,000 that we've got $20,000, and you've got more money per month to knock that out. I think this is kind of like a win-win. And then you have this $4,300 coming,

that goes towards your car fund. Does that make sense? Okay. How on a scale of one to 10, be honest with me, how excited are you about that solution? I'm kind of in the middle. I'm a little nervous because right now my biggest, well, knock the biggest concern, obviously, but my car is one because I don't want to have to buy two new vehicles and go into two car payments again. That's, well,

“that's what I'm solving for. So, let me, let's roll it down. Hold on a second. Where did you roll through”

this? Where did you hear that we want you to have two car payments when Jay just spent a couple minutes telling you how to get rid of the only one you have? No, I heard that I was just, it goes through my mind because we have really bad local vehicles. And so, you know, okay, I'm glad you're saying this.

There you go. Here's what I want to talk about. So, we gave you the advice. It's normal to very,

very quickly get very emotional about it, right? Because we've had bad luck with advice. Or I'm sorry, we've had bad luck with cars. Oh, you know, I have to think about how to tell my husband this. Oh, my gosh, you know, what about security, right? Your brain starts going through all those emotional plays. So, I want you right now to tell me the top three things that can and I are going to dismantle that in a completely logical, unemotional way. How about that?

“Okay. Okay. So, first thing you said is we've had bad luck with cars in the past. Can, what you got?”

So, if I, that's just life, right? So, this idea that you're stuck in this bad luck thing. No, you're not, you're just a part of the human race. It's a little bit of the human lottery, right? I mean, you know, you go look at a mechanic, any mechanic place in your local area and you're going to see a steady stream of cars. Probably not a bad idea to go, oh, I don't have bad luck. I'm driving an imperfect machine and there's thousands of other people in my zip code. So, I think it's mindset

is how I would dismantle that and go, all right. Now, how do I prepare for, or have better odds? Have better odds? How do I make the odds better? Well, I'm going to put enough money away that I can take care of a basic mechanical issue and keep moving forward. Is it a little bit of a step back every time? Absolutely. Or you can do a lot of great research on the front end to make sure you're making better choices than you've made in the past. Right. Take longer to buy the next

car, right? Get it checked out by a mechanic by a car that has better odds, right? We can name the brands and you can look them up that can do much better. I mean, I'm, I'm a guy right now that's got three teams. Okay. I got more cars than I had ever thought that I would have owned, all of them very used. And I'm driving a used car. And I do the research and I get these things checked out by a mechanic that I trust because I got two teams right now driving every day.

Yeah. And I'll tell you what I do. I have a Christian brothers in my neighborhood. It's a local mechanic. I'll bring, when we're looking at used vehicles, you can bring them over there and they'll give it a once over for you and check it out so you can feel good about the purchase. Okay. That was

the first thing. Next idea that could be a potential issue could be what? Just the idea of

downgrading the vehicle because other people see it. And you're driving a car that stinks. Yeah. Everybody saw you get a new vehicle and now suddenly you got to sign up for that. You know, you drive around the corner. If you're ashamed of the car and I've been there. Okay. When I first got married, I had a Ford Tourist. Okay. And it had no AC and one day on the way to work the felt on the top of the ceiling of the car just fell down on top of my head and stopped like

I was very embarrassed. The dignity, loss of dignity. It was very embarrassing. I got home that night and I couldn't afford to fix it. So you know what I did? I got to staple going out.

“Come on, carry shots. Took care of that business. And then, but I was embarrassed. So guess what?”

I always had a good excuse or creative way of getting out of driving anybody to lunch. That was

pretty creative. Number two, if I had to go to a meeting, I pulled around the corner and walked and just acted like there was no place to park. Perfect. There are some creative psychological things you can do to not be ashamed of the hoopty. Yes. For a season. So I think that's kind of, I'm addressing that because I think that's part of it is our pride. The point, the point is what we're suggesting you are going to feel an emotional backlash immediately. But I want to challenge

don't know what's it's fear. It's fear is what it is. You've never done something like this before.

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done this before. So do that and you'll be better for it. Eric is up next in Phoenix, Arizona. Eric, how can we help? Hey, how are you? Yeah, you're better. Pretty good. So I'm in a bit of a pickle. My mom co-signed at least with my buddy about four years ago. And he's in a lot of jobs. He doesn't need light working, corporate, even though he had the opportunity to do so. And now he can't afford it. And he wanted to get it re-boed, which he said no. So we, she's been asking for help to pay bills.

And so, you know, the car just kind of settings being used. But we had after it is set it, by we, I mean, my other siblings in there. But she doesn't want to set it, why? She's kind of on the water. So even if she does set it, she won't get much for it.

“Okay, how much do you guys, well, let me say how much does the mom and the brother owe on it?”

Well, 20 grand left on it. Okay. What's it worth if they saw the shape? You kind of ruined it. Sorry. You said somebody ruined it. She ruined it or he ruined it. He ruined it. How. He's using it. Just wrecking it. He just didn't take care of it. It's made. And it's, yeah, it's, it's been wrecked a couple times as well. Oh, why are you calling? Area is terrible because mom has asked him to help out. And brother, yeah, because brother,

she wasn't an accident last year as well. She was taking care of her while she's been going to we have an interview and stuff like that. Understood. What could she sell the car for today? You may be for a grand, honestly. Oh, gosh. If she'd like it. Okay. Well, this is first of all. Your brother is in a season of life where he is impersonating a deadbeat.

And yeah, so deadbeats only wake up when they're forced to wake up. But the problem is mom's

“name is on this and she refuses to help herself. Correct?”

Kind of. What would? The reason she doesn't want to necessarily take it back to the bank or you just get a report which, or a report was not an option, but a report was not an option. And we can talk to you about that. Why that is, but continue. Continue on. Yeah. So eventually she says you want to get a house soon enough, which I personally think she can't afford. So the biggest thing for me, really, is just continue to help feels like enabling.

Yeah. I don't know how to approach her in a sense. Like, okay. And as much as we've been helping this entire time, there's a couple things she could do. What else have you been doing to help?

renting stuff like that. I feel like I'm, but I just got married to a moving out. Is that because

the accident or that's just always been ongoing? It's been ongoing that more so after the accident.

And who's we? I thought I heard you say we've been helping. I'm, I said things in my, I'll have a young brother and then I'll go. Are your siblings that have been helping with the bills? Are they all in the same opinion of you that you just said, which is, I feel like I'm helping and it's enabling. Do they have the same feeling? Someone, my little sister, yes, my younger brother, I'm not sure. Okay.

He doesn't say much. Listen, I, you, you asked a question and I'm going to answer the question that I heard. And that is, how do I approach her on this? How do I handle this? And this is

“you going, Mom, I can't do this anymore. Here's what you should do. If I were you, this is what”

I would do. And you lay it out and say, I'd sell the car because every day that she doesn't sell the car,

there's like another calamity that's probably going to happen to this. And I feel like this entire car represents a lot of the calamity that your brother creates and no one is willing to do anything about it. And so I, if I'm you, I go to Mom and I go, Mom, sell the car today because we got at least get five grand for it. And at least lessons, the debt by 5,000. And then we have a $15,000 problem. You got all these other financial problems that are more important than this stupid car.

So, Mom, here's how I'm going to help going forward. I can't help you financially anymore. I've got to move on. I suspect that you don't have the finances and the margin to be able to keep helping her anyway without hurting you, true or false. True. So, that's the conversation, Mom, I can't. Even if I wanted to, I can't. So, here's how I can help. I'll be willing to list the car, sell the car. I'll be willing to have a conversation with younger brother and grab him by the

nap of the neck and just absolutely as only a brother can land to his butt with both hands with both hands. And with both hands. The very well done, Jade. And like use both hands, clapping on both hands. Okay. Now, here's the deal. And that's a lay it out and move on. And so, you got to help Mom. Yeah. And I think all the siblings should unite on an intervention.

“Outside of that, Jade, that's what I'm thinking of. What else did I leave off the table? What would”

you do here? Ah, there's a part that that can help relationally. I think early on if it's possible. You said mom co-signed for brother, which makes me think mom has better credit. I wonder if she can refinance this and get him off of it so that at least you're separating that relational tie. And then from there on, she can make whatever choices she's going to make with the car, separate from the brother. That might un-money the water is just a hair as she decides what she's

going to do next. But other than that, I think can is exactly spot on. I have nothing to add. Yeah. This is tough. We're selling the car would be private sale. Yeah, you're going to get a more amount of money. Yeah. Okay. And what she can do and you can advise her of this. If her credits all right, in the process of getting him off the loan, when you're in there, you can say here's

what we want to do. We need a loan for the difference because ultimately we're going to sell this thing.

So we need to get him off of the loan in the process. That's right. And then we're transferring it to a personal loan. And when she does that, if she wants to add a little something to it

“to get something in cash, that's fine. But I think because of the nature of how much she owes on it,”

she's probably, you know, she would end up basically back in $20,000 of debt. So I think the bigger part here is to get the brother off of it. And then maybe maybe, and I don't know what your lifestyle is, but maybe that's a way you could help her out, which is, hey, while you're saving up for your next vehicle, I can help if you need a ride, you know, in between the ubers that in the bus rides that you'll be taking. I can help with that. Maybe that's something you can offer.

Yeah. And then we need a caution mom. You're nowhere near buying a house. Not even close. Are you renting? Is she renting now? Where you've been living with her? Yeah. Yeah. No, she is not thinking about buying anything. We got to get her healthy. Do you feel like her long-term physical prognosis is good or she can get back to work? It's been there. She's going to extend a little bit because she's still in something. So maybe by denying maybe she'll be, what is she living off of? Is there some type of

a disability or insurance that she's getting? What's what's going on there? Yes, she has taught me disability for a little bit. And then she was pulling it, pulling some out of her insurance. I think life insurance. From, oh my gosh, mom. Wow. Okay. Yeah, this is tough.

Because I want to know really honestly what she's going to be able to get back to doing workwise.

It was pretty bad. She got rear-ended while she was stopped at a light, and then she's on mid-50s. So pretty slow progress for recovery. What was she doing beforehand? What was her job and what was she earning? She was doing a bunch of different things, but she at the time she was doing

“Uber as a psychic and then... Okay, I think the ways that you can help her are as following”

help her, get, brother off the loan. That's thing one. Thing two is I want you to help her with the career side of things. We're going to give you kids, find the work you're wired to do assessment. It's a book that will help you and there's an assessment inside. Help her go through that, because it sounds like she needs to create stability in her career or create a career so that she can create stability and her finances going forward. I hope she's well, and I hope she recovers

very very quickly. I would just add, you simply need to get together and essentially fire this brother from her life for a while.

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budget so you can stop spinning your wheels. Visit WhyReefi.com/ramsie. That's the Letter Y-R-E-F-Y.com/Ramsie may not be available in all states. All righty. Then today's question comes from Nicholas and Illinois. He says, "Since I discovered your show last year, I've sold my truck and almost all my furniture. I've worked three jobs escaped $35,000 of debt and now have 15,000 sitting in the bank well done, my man. My mom wants me to open a credit card so I can go to Italy with her to

visit my sister without losing any of my recent progress." Wow. I have the money to pay my way, but she's insistent on me getting a credit card. How do I explain to her that although that seems like a smart move, it's really not. Nicholas, my guy, you haven't told us how old you are, so I don't know if you're 18, I don't know if you're 35, I don't know how old you are,

“but the answer remains the same. I don't think you have to explain anything to your mom,”

nor listen to her advice. I think you can very politely say, "Thank you for your insight and move on." Yeah. This is a very perspiscatious young man. I don't know if I said that right. It doesn't work. What are you trying to say? He's very, he's got good insight. He picked up on this temptation issue. Perspiscatious? Yeah. Have you ever heard that before? I like a good word. It's like one with keen insight. Yes, it is. So this guy gets it, right?

So mom is playing the emotional game. Okay. She's going. Okay, I'm so proud of you, son. You did a good job, but I don't want you to have to use any of that cash. So let's just go to Italy, and she thinks he's getting ahead, and she doesn't understand that it's a millstone around his neck,

Here's what you say. Mom, I'm sorry. This is my money, my life. I don't agree with you.

“Like, I disagree. This is hard for young people. By the way, you know,”

certainly late teens, early 20s, mom and dad have so much influence. By the way, this is a kid who respects his mom. Facts. Yeah. So a question to about it. And so it's very, very hard where when you're beginning to strike out on your own, he clearly has on some level. Certainly has with his money. And then a parent comes in and says, do something, and again, whether it's money or something else, and a parent makes a strong suggestion. It's really hard to go against your incident.

Your whole life, you've tried to say, yes, so you don't get in trouble. And now you're in a place where you go, that doesn't make any sense, and I'm not really going to get in trouble. Except for if I do what mom says, I'm actually in financial trouble. It's really confusing. And so I'm kind of expanding this to our very large audience on this to say, hey, young people, look, when you finally figure this stuff out, and you agree with what we teach. At some point,

you're going to have to go, thanks. I really appreciate your insight. I disagree. I'm not going to do it. Here's why. Well, do you even have to explain why? That's my thing, because my, you don't have to, that's a credit. Very good point. So my answer to that is, he doesn't have to, but I think it's expedient to do so. In other words, you can honor your parents and still say, no, that's right. And I think in this case,

I'm always going to say honor them once. If they keep coming back, go, I'm not actually going

to have this conversation. Okay, let me crack the door open on another piece of this puzzle,

“and you've got two older boys. So I think that you're the, what was the word to use?”

Perspicacious? Yes, very good. You have a perspicacious. You're really leaning in on my words. I appreciate it. I'm just trying to reuse it for you. Okay. So you've got two older boys. How much, and we don't know how old Nicholas is. How much of this is due to oversharing? Because I know, I got to the point pretty early on where it's, for my parents to know how much money I have, that I sold my truck, that I got 15,000 over here, that I don't have credit. Like, that's a lot

for a parent to know for a parent to know. That's a really good question. I don't know the answer. It could be, and I think it's a very good point to say, you know, if let's say he's in his early 20s, yeah, he doesn't need to be sharing all the information. If Mobs is, hey, we want you to go to Italy. He goes, all right, let me, let me check. Let me see if I can do that. And he says, yes, that's a very good point. In other words, at some point, you've got to create your own financial

independence by not sharing all that. It's just your business. It's a very good place. I, you know, it's been a long time, but I don't think when I went to college and I started working, did you share that I was sharing with my parents how much I had in the bank account? I definitely did not. I might say something like, hey, I'm thinking of getting a new car. I have 10,000 to spend. What do you think I should get? Like, I might say something like that,

but to just, for them to just know all my business out in the streets, like this guy here, definitely not. It's a very good point. Create a boundary there. Let's go to Grace and Atlanta, Georgia. Grace, how can we help? Hi, I'm 29 years old. My husband and sturdy, and we've been going back and forth on whether we are ready to buy a house or not.

Can you believe we should save more money before we can put down 20 percent and have plenty of

emergency funds after that? But I think we're ready. And what is your financial position? If you're

“ready, what do you have to put down? I think we have the 20 percent down. I think his”

biggest concern is that I bought a house during COVID, but that house is currently being rented and though the mortgage is being covered, plus a little bit more. I'm just worried about taking it on two mortgages. Absolutely. And I agree with you. Why wouldn't you get rid of your existing mortgage and put that money towards the down payment and security on your family home with him? Well, because at the moment it's being rented and it has been for two or three years when

Lisa, I believe the end of this year. Okay, that's what I would do. I would move into that house. You've already bought a home and you've got renters and you have basically dodged a major bullet thus far. Sounds like. In other words, you're barely making enough to cover the mortgage, yes? Well, the, oh, yes. I think I make like $300. Okay, that's a whopping $3,600 a year. Grace, you're getting rich on that one. And that doesn't include your actual expenses on said house.

negative in one year, maybe two consecutive years in a row. I am not negative. I am positive. That will happen. And so if it's me, I'm, I'm going to move into this house at the end of the year and now we're building equity. You're already building equity, which is great, but now you live in it. I would not buy another house. Well, I want to know about that current house. What is the mortgage on it? What do you owe every month

on it? You are the renter? We currently, we do not buy a second home. We are wanting to buy a second home.

“How are we now? I'm talking about the current rental. What's the mortgage on it?”

Oh, I have 200,000 left. Great. What do you pay every month? Every month, 1200. Okay, and what's you guys's income? You and your, your husband. I get 100,000 every year at just a four taxes and my husband makes 130 before taxing it. Okay. So even if you, to Ken's point, if you, you know, after the lease is up, renters are out, you guys moved in or if you wanted to sell it and get something that suits you

guys's needs, I would 100% do that deal. How much is that house worth?

About 300, maybe 310. So you walk away with one 10. How much do you guys have saved right now for a down payment? I have 147,000, but that includes, no, no, don't give me that. How much do you have that set aside just for a down payment? Just for a down payment, I would say 47,000 and my husband about 15,000. Okay. So we're separate finances. We don't have time to cover that one.

“We'll talk about that later. I think you guys either move into that house or you sell it.”

And now you guys have about 200 grain if I'm doing quick math or just under 200 grain,

to put towards another home. That's the play. Not keep both houses, not create another mortgage.

And then, you know, play this roulette game of landlording. And just to set the record straight, the what you're aiming for more so than the 20% down, what you're looking for is for that payment to be no more than 25% of your take home fee all included. Tax season is coming up fast, which means a lot of you are paying more attention to your money and maybe realizing the holiday damage. So if you're trying to clean up the budget and start

to your strong, cutting your phone bill is an easy win. With boost mobile, keep the phone you love and pay just 25 bucks a month for unlimited data, talk, and text forever. No contracts, no traps, just predictable savings that help you stay in control. Switch now at boostmobile.com/ramsy. Restrictions apply, see website for details. [Music]

Welcome back to the Ramsey Show and the Fair Wins Credit Union Studio.

“I'm Ken Coleman Jade Warsaw is alongside. And Peter is on the line. In Ottawa, Peter, how can we help today?”

Hi. Good. How are you? I'm doing fine. I'm doing fine. I'm 20 years old and I'm trying my best to manage a business and I'm seven, you know, trouble with it. Actually, I'm having trouble doing with the decision that I want to keep doing this. Is it your business or are you managing it for someone else? It's my dad's business that I've been managing him for like two years now because he's all well. Okay, so what is your dilemma? I'm just ducking a lot of debt that I don't

know how to get out of and I don't know if I want to keep doing this. The job. On the other hand, I don't know what else I would do. Okay. So I'm glad you shared that way. So I'm going to do a quick analysis. Tell me if I'm right. It feels like our biggest problem is the 200,000 in debt. The secondary problem is I don't want to run my dad's company the rest of my life. That's the secondary problem. Is that a good way of laying it out? I do want to run it. It's not that I don't

want to run it. It is. I don't know how to. You don't know how to run it. Yeah, because it's clearly I'm not doing doing that with a bad job. That's a good self-awareness. Okay, and the company's not doing

three months and the company didn't run without me. Okay, and now we're we at. I just have my warehouse

closed out for three months for non-payment of the rent and I just got it open with some negotiation.

“And how's that? It is in better. That's why I got back to it. I mean, that's part of my, you know,”

understand. But I'm leaning in here to say, it sounds like you were doing okay running it until you were the only caretaker or felt you were the only caretaker for your dad and at which point you weren't doing hardly anything at all. Doesn't sound like you were clueless is that you were not present. Is that true? That is. Okay, so let me ask another question. If you're back involved,

and dad is not as sick and he might be well enough to guide you, do you feel confident you

can get this thing back on the tracks? I I am confident is this is just I don't know how to put it on paper. I don't know how to plan this. You don't know how to plan what and the reason I'm leaning into this is because this is your sole source of income right now and you have a lot of debt.

“So we got to figure out where you need to be spending your time, so you can make money because it's”

money and cutting and Jay's going to come in and walk you through where you're cutting, but I'm trying to get an idea of what is before you to where you can make money. So one more follow-up, when you say

you don't know how to put it on paper, can you be specific? What do you mean? It's just how to manage

the debt dynamic. So I'm 200,000 total in debt, but 100,000 of it is like a vendor debt, which I'm not worried about. Okay, is there any of this personal debt? The other 100,000 is it's a personal, but it's like taken from family and friends. Okay, it's your debt though, it's not the company's debt. It's not the company's debt, it's my debt. Okay, and then the other 100,000 is the company debt. Okay, these are two different situations, that's a good for us to know. What are

you paying yourself or what are you getting paid? Up until three months ago, I was paying myself enough to, you know, around 4,000 a month enough for my rent and expenses. Okay. All right, I want to bring Jade in here because we got two lines of debt here. One is the company's debt, and one is your personal debt, and that's where I don't know if it's, I'm sorry, I don't know if it's going to be a different, but 100,000 that's personal. I took it to help the company,

I don't know if it's any debt. So you borrowed money from family, you personally borrowed the money from family's and friends to use that money for the business. Okay, so then it's all business debt. I mean, okay, no, we got, we get it. It was all for the business, let me put it like that. Okay, so the only way to clear this is to bring in more revenue that can be converted to using to pay off the debt, correct? Correct. So what do you see? Do you see possibilities to do that? Are you, I don't know

what the nature of the business is, what do you guys do? All right, so you used clothing business. I sort them, it's care of these, and there's shit, and not, oh shit, I want to have with them. Oh my gosh. Okay, very interesting. I know nothing about that world, I'm going to tell you that

“straight up, but I can tell you right here what I'm, the way to pay off debt, right, is you have to have”

more money coming in that can be used for that purpose. So I go back to Ken's question, which is how suited do you feel to do that? And more, the bigger question is, your 23 is this what you want to be doing with your life? If not, we need to talk about that and how to offload this to the right person. Okay, what's causing you the stress, the debt or the work? The debt, the work, I'm, I'm going to, I was working with the debt in high school, so I'm fine with the work, I'm involved,

I was involved with it, I'm not entitled now. Okay, but let's go back to stuff, let's go back, I appreciate that, but let's go back to stuff. You at some point needed to borrow, or you thought you did, rather let me, let me stipulate, you thought you needed to borrow a hundred thousand dollars from family just to keep this thing afloat. We're not even talking about the initial 100,000. This company is not healthy, true or false. Regardless of you being there and debt being there,

didn't have enough revenue in my right. Yes, you are. Okay, I'll need you to my bad decisions,

but it is true. Well, there's part of this, I have a, just a logical, technical question, really. If you exit this business, if you say, you know what, I'm not suited for this, I'm going on. Will, will, will your dad and family view the $200,000 as money you personally need to pay back, or will they view it as that lives in the business, and it's up to whoever or whatever goes on

“with the business to cover that, how will they view it, and how do you view it?”

Is that, that's, that will, what's, what I was thinking is, 100,000, that's personal, that's going to stay with me regardless. Even though it went to the business, just because you raised it. Yeah, yeah, the 100,000, if I were to do, you know, so the business or the other options, 100,000, the vendor debt's going to stay with the company. See, I disagree with that. If you show the, if, if you are able to show the receipts,

literally, of how that money was raised for the business, I don't think that that's the case. I don't think that that debt does follow you. You're running this business, and that's how you raise money. Either way, either way, my friend, the only way out of this stress is a lot of hustle, and I, you're going to have to get somebody else that helps dad. You have got to take this company on your back, learn from him mistakes, go get some advice from people in your world,

and you're going to have to take a real shot at this to get this better. But if in about three to six months, something doesn't turn around with your overactivity, then we're going to have to shut it down. You've got to know when to hold them, and know when to fold them, great song.

“You should check it out. I think it's a great lyric, because I think this is your situation.”

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at CHMministries.org/budgets and use promo code RAMC. That CHMministries.org/budget and promo code RAMC. All right, let's go to Diana in Las Vegas. Diana, how can we help today? Hi, yes. I was wondering if my husband and I can afford to buy a new model wine Tesla. Okay, I'd like these questions.

“Walk us through the potential doubt. What would be causing a lack of certainty?”

My husband thinks I'm being careless and not thinking about our retirement, but I think we have more done enough for retirement. And I think we're over saving. It's it's time for us to actually loosen up the belt a little bit and enjoy life. I like the sound of that. Tell us

how much is your nest egg? Okay, so right now we have over one million. It's spread out between

our 401, our raw, our brokerage account. We also have 11,000 emergency fund, 20,000 right now that we already saved up because we're planning to go to Europe to experience Christmas market this November. We don't have any debt except for our mortgage. That's we still owe 380,000. Okay. Value of the home is 1.5. Okay. We have a lot of equity and then right now we still owe car, car for we still owe about 15,000. We have another model wine, but my son, he's driving soon

and I want to give him the old model wine and buy us a new model wine. Got you and when you said

pre-tax 401k, we have 129 on our raws. We have 200,000 on our brokerage and then 11,000 rainy day

“fund on the 20,000. That's right. Okay. So here's where I'm at. I think you've done extremely”

well and I want you to hear that first and foremost. You guys have really set yourselves up how will you? We're 47. 47. Excellent. Good job. Excellent. Thank you. I think that you could be in a better position before purchasing this vehicle. How much does a model wine cost? Right now it's only for it's 41,000. 41,000. And what you guys is income? 2080. Okay. So my biggest, I mean the glaring thing here is why haven't you paid off the first model, why it's 15,000 for crying out loud? A big, because

you mean he says because of the interest is low. Oh, come on. Oh, come on. It's the money. It just put it in your, you know, just just backing out our retirement and our raws because right now the

market is we get about 14 to like 18 percent return. So you know, do you consider yourself Ramsey

folk like are you? Yes. No. I've been paying extra on my mortgage. No. Okay. Take us back to the take us back to the show or the part in a Ramsey book where where we would be okay with you not paying off the car. I'm just curious. Do you have a page number or an episode number? I should really be the book again. Yeah, I know that except for mortgage. But then spoiler alert. It's not in there. We're playing, we're playing, we're, we're, we're, we're being hard on you diet. No, I'm not

able to blast. Well, my husband tells me once he wants to do is the 20,000 that we saved up for traveling is pay off the Tesla and we're not going to go traveling this year. Okay, great. I've been saving, I've been saving for so long working overtime to really go on that trip. Well,

“here's the thing. I think you can do, I think you can do both. Let me tell you how. I think you can”

do both. I think you have more money here than you think. It's just how are we going to allocate it. So let's go back to, okay, 20,000 saved cash over and above your emergency funds. So yeah, let's say we take 15 of that. We pay off the first model. Why now we have 5,000 left and we keep that in our vacation fund, 5,000. By the way, how much is the vacation going to cost total? 15. Okay, so we got 10 more to save. Now, tell me, what do you guys bring in every single month again?

Uh, take home 15,000. 15,000 a month. And when is the vacation? Yes. I'm planning November Thanksgiving. Okay, got plenty of time to do that. Just out of your take home. How much is your mortgage payment? Uh, including taxes and insurance. It's 2,000, 900,

but we're in the problem. 35,000. There's no problem. Here's what it is. Here's, I'm going to tell you

what it is. You guys have a very loose budget. And so the 15,000 it's going here. It's going there. It's, you know, you go out to eat. You do a little of this, a little of that. If you just got very intentional and said, okay, and before November, we need to save up $10,000, making 15,000 a month and the only debt is your mortgage, which is 2,000, should not be a problem at all. The model right, oh, if we paid off the model, I guess. Yes. And now when we start talking about the second model,

why, uh, I don't know. Is that, is that used? Or is that brand new, the 41,000 that you quoted? Uh, we're, we're looking at brand new. Okay. What if you just said, hey, instead of us taking the hit on an EV, by the way, why not let somebody else take the hit and buy one that's slightly used? Sure, but I'm looking at the tax, uh, or the what I call that, the tax deduction. If you, if you bought, like, no taxes on tax, if you bought new cars, made of the USA? I don't even know

what that is. I'm going to be honest. I don't know what you just said, but all I'm thinking about is how you're going to be able to have your vacation and your model, why and not take a major

“hit on your used vehicle. That's what I'm thinking now. You can go back and do the math on whatever”

rebate it is that you're talking about, but in this position, I, I would not advise you to buy this car outright brand new in this position. No, and I think a vacation is more important to you, isn't it? Yes, I would like to build good memories with my children, well, healthy. Okay, now that's the mindset, because I don't think you're going to listen to a word we said about financial advice to be completely honest with you. But if I can get through to you on this, then I feel like I

got a win for you. So I think you got to go away to say, what's more important to me, because I can't do all three because I think you and your husband are on different pages. Is that true or false?

right. I think your husband's right about everything except for the fact that he doesn't think

you guys can save up enough cash between now and November to cash flow of the vacation. That's

“where he's wrong, but he's right on everything else. So if I'm you and life is short, that vacation”

is going to be something that you will look back on the rest of your life. You will not look back on this new model. Now you won't. You just won't. Because listen, I mean this. This is not a disrespect. Folks like you who love fancy technical cars that drive themselves, you get over cars like that because the newest models out. Okay? Guys like me, all I want are classic cars that no one can track and they smell a little bit more than every other car and you feel every second

of the road. I don't give two crabs about an electric car. Never going to. It doesn't feel like a car.

So here's the deal. You buy that car and don't go on vacation. You will regret that. But if you cash flow your vacation, pay off the model. Why you won't have any regrets at all. You mean

“I believe me, but I'm right. And that's the mindset. Then what about what about for a car that”

my son should be driving? I think you can cash flow after you paid off. I think you can cash flow. Another vehicle, whether it's a model or whatever, another used vehicle. But only secondary to funding that vacation because the vacation is where your heart is at. I think in the next 12 months you can do both. Let me put it like that. I think so too. But vacation is the highest priority true or false. Yes. I really would like to go on Thanksgiving. So then you got to give up. So

you got to get on hubs as page then. And this is where we compromise. And to J's point, you'll get your fancy electric car down the road. And let me also clarify. Because how old is the boy? The son? He's turning 16. Okay. Can I just tell you? You are the priority here, my friend. So if you pay off the model, why and not time for you to buy another one yet, guess who's driving. That's a clue. You are driving. It's your car. He will be strong. I drove a Fred Flintstone

car when I was 16. Like I had to stop the car with my own feet. I had to accelerate by digging in my heels in. This kid doesn't need a model. What? The other thing, my week, I do have my old 2,000, 5 jitter to create. The needy, but that my husband would like to get to myself. It has over 1,6,000. I drove a car that had 275,000 miles on it. It was such a piece of crap. Same car I'm talking about. I can drive down the interstate and play tricks on my friends by pulling

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It's a life changed. That's pre-born.com/ramsy. Alright folks, if you're dead free, the live like no one else cruises your chance to celebrate hang out with us in day for new sessions on building wealth, live episodes of our shows, and the world's largest debt-free scream. I remember when they did it last year was pretty wild.

there it is on the screen. Dave is up there with the captain. Got the microphone, you know,

“you look like he was in charge of the ship. Yeah, and everybody's screaming at once. Really,”

really fun. And you could secure your cabin with a $600 deposit and join us in the western Caribbean March 2027. Click the link in the show notes or go to ramsysolutions.com/events to book your cabin today. Alright, Jeff and Leonora are up in Pensacola, Florida, and I screen tells

me that you amazing people are baby steps millionaires. Is this true? And that's really true.

Wow. Well, first of all, congratulations and welcome to the show. Thanks for being with us. Well, thank you. We were actually on the show 10 years ago. No way. What were for a debt-free scream? No, I'm not. We called it for the millionaire. Okay. You know, and I called Dave, I was recurring that year, and he said, "Well, close back in 10 years." And that's not how you've been doing. So, here we are. Oh, wow. Well, that's fantastic. Alright, well,

let's get some details here. What is your net worth? Well, we'd like to say it's an

excess of $2 million. You like to say, what does that mean? Well, there may be a little bit more

in there that's promised to our dominance of things like that that we don't really consider how a money anymore. Okay, I'm just going to explain to you the way. Okay. We sent us a $2 million and our minds is how a money. God, and what is the mix that creates the two million? We have about a million, six in the missile farms and 401(k)s, and then the real estate. Jeff, I don't know what's going on with a phone here. We're having a hard time understanding you. Your phone's kind of coming in and out.

“Oh. Alright, well, you need to speak close to that one. Yeah, it's Leonora's on top of it. That's great.”

So 1.6 in mutual funds and what is the other 400,000 in the mortgage? No, no, no. We don't carry mortgages. We don't carry any debt whatsoever. Right, I mean the equity. Oh, God. I'm going to say

it's half a million dollars. Okay. Exactly. Perfect. Fantastic. And what is your income or what

was your income? Give us kind of your lowest income ever and then what you guys may have finished out at your highest income? Our lowest income ever was probably 30, 40,000 to 50 and it grew to an average between the both of us of I say 150 towards the end of our saving years. Okay, great. And what did you guys do? We're both medical professionals on the common earth and the paramedic and my wife radar. She said you're registered nursing. Yeah, wow. No, I direct your failures as well.

Oh, fantastic. Okay. And your age is right now. I'm 68. I'm 71. Okay, great. And any of this money inherited at all? The knowing chuckle that we asked just so people realize you can actually do this without inheriting money. Wow, really fun. What would you say to young people who, you know, are just getting started? Maybe they're young couple. Maybe they're in the medical profession, you know? And they wonder, is this possible? What would you tell them they need to do to actually

get where you guys are? Well, I would say no amount is too small to start saving and to clear all your debt. My husband, that was his clarion call, no debt. And a lot of that heat, he learned from Dave Ramsey and listening to him and reading his books and we lived by that rule. And because we were, we had lots of debt when we were young and we were first married and very little, very little. We panicked the mouth as they say. But we just struggles, you make sacrifices,

“but you have to have your eyes on the prize. And it wasn't always easy, but it's without fail,”

hard work, determination, and commitment. You can do anything. Oh, wow. And we just saw an awesome picture of you too on a cruise ship. So what is described what life is like now on the other side of all that hardship and discipline that you talked about? Well, basically right now, we still survive just

spoke to the turn of about five cruises this year. That's awesome. I'm sorry. I said, that's incredible.

“Yeah. Yeah. We've been to the South Pacific and Fiji and all those islands and places up there and”

well, Alaskar and a number of different destinations. And you know, so we'll just, we understand our mortality to be in our age. So we've got to spend a little bit of it. Well, we're so proud. You guys are heroes. We're so proud of what you've accomplished. That's awesome. Jeff Elyonore. Thank you so much. Our baby steps a millionaires today. Thanks for sharing your story. I love it. And there's so many young couples that could aspire to that. And here's a little bit about that, Jade.

You know, Eleanor laid it out. There wasn't any fancy strategy, right? No. It was just gods and grandmothers ways of handling money, the same theme that we've had on this show for decades. So thank you all again for sharing your story really, really fun. Let's go to Nick and Sanford, let's just go. Nick, how can we help? I'm doing great. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's going on? I live in California and as you can imagine, housing is extremely expensive here.

And I was wondering if it makes sense to buy a rental property before buying a primary property.

What would be the purpose of doing that first? Is it a size issue? Like is it a rental is way

“smaller than what you need, but at least it gets you in the door? What's the play here?”

I mean, my thought process is, I mean, in my area, I'm looking at maybe 700,000, even more, this is by a starter home. When I was looking in other states, the buy a rental home for, you know, much cheaper, much much cheaper. And I was able to buy it out, right? And I'm looking to make money off that. What are you doing for a living right now? Just renting somewhere? I live in a rental apartment that's owned by my family, and I pay about 600 a month, that's plus utilities. Do you

have to live in your area or are you able to work from anywhere? I have to live in my area.

Okay. Why would you think about buying a house out of state and dealing with all that headache? Is it, yeah, what do you think is going to happen? You're going to turn a quick profit. I'm still trying to understand. Now, I'm just looking, I mean, I'm just looking for it like in the

“long term to see if it's, if it makes sense. I mean, I have money to buy a property. How much?”

And I have 300 to 350,000. What do you make per year? I make 130,000. So, help me understand, you've got 350,000 to spend something in your area would cost 700. So, you could essentially put half down. I'm still trying to make sense of what the out-of-state rental property would do for you. I'm just sort of looking at the fact that, I mean, I'm looking at the fact that property taxes and insurance are much cheaper there. And I'm just looking at it. But what is it for an investment?

No, you're not going to move if you've earned investments because I would invest that money. I want to buy a house. I wouldn't buy real estate in another state. If you're looking to earn quick compounding interest, I would not invest in another property in another state. I would simply drop it in an S&P 500 index fund and let it sit for the next five years. And keep adding to it, you know, and just kind of have a five-year horizon on this. And before you know, you'll have a $700,000

property. [Music] Hey, folks, have you heard about Ask Ramsay? If you have, and it's our free AI tool that's built and trained on proven Ramsay principles. And today we're going to break down some of the most asked questions from this week. There are some questions around life insurance. But the most asked

question was around retirement accounts, rules and options for contributing to multiple types of

what are the best options for me and in what order? Okay, so again, this is two asked Ramsay people are diving in there and right down. And so here we go, match beats Roth, beats traditional.

So the workplace match is first, right? So whether the traditional and Roth option, 15% up to the

match that includes four or three B's and TSP's, then you go next to Roth, whether that's an IRA or a 401k max that out and then back to the workplace option to finish out the 15% taxable investment

“accounts should happen after the 15% if you want to invest more. So ask Ramsay can actually”

help walk you through what options work best for you in your specific situation. And go today, ask your question at RamsaySolutions.com or click the link in the description if you're listening on podcast or YouTube. So there it is. Ask Ramsay, just type it in and there it goes. Tony is up next in Houston, Texas. Tony, how can we help? Hey, hi here. I can hear you loud and clear. What's going on? Hey, happy Friday. So I'm in a situation where recently I recently got a

good well-paying job right out of the college, but my family has some debts and they are asking me to pay the debts for. What? No, good. No. Hard pay. When you say you've got a good job with good money, tell us what that exactly what that means. What are you doing and what do you earn? Okay, so I'll machine learning consultant or telecommunication company. I'm earning 25k per year. How do they know that? And they know that. You told them that information.

Oh, boy. That was a two-jates point. Jake, make a great point here. You made this point earlier.

“So I got to follow up. How soon did the ask or did the ask for you to help them with their debts?”

Come after you told them about this new gig or were they already pressuring you? No, they were not. They were very supportive and I thought they would just be, you know, be like, yeah. So once they found out about the new rays, they said help us. Yeah. And that has three cores and he's asking me to pay all of them. Yeah, and I can find your sister's college too. I see that on the screen. Well, yeah. Yeah. Let me tell you what I would tell them.

You're making 285 million. I know. What's 285 after taxes is to take care of those problems.

Is this, uh, can I ask straight up? Is this, uh, anything culturally related that we need to know about? Or is this just people who are off their rocker? Well, uh, I am Asian, so.

“Is there an expectation for the sons to pay for the parents?”

Um, there's no expectation usually. I mean, I thought, you know, we would be just dealing with our debts and things. I'll be like, I'm hoping to help them. But there's nothing, there's no tradition there that you feel like they are relying on that you no longer believe it. What producer, I'm saying? Well, there's no tradition, no culture. Okay. So let me ask you a question, Tony. Why do you call us? Because when I immediately said no, you went,

so we want to help. Uh-huh. But why do you call? How can we help you? The thing is, I love my family, and I currently live with them. The thing is, this situation is, and it really is taking a toll on my mental health. Yeah. Yeah. How can we help you? I think you got to move out, Tony. What's your question? I kind of want to know your opinion. Do you, would you, if you were in my shoes, would you just, I would move? Tony, you know, Tony,

I would move out, you are grown first off. Money aside, what you make career aside, you're grown.

So it's time to move out. That's the one. And not pay them a nickel. And not pay them a nickel. And think, too, buy you moving out and separating yourself from their expectations. You get to go home and eat a sandwich and not everything about this again. Work versus being in their house. Like you said, every night at dinner, they're going to bring it up. In the morning, you know, when your mom sees you before you go to work, she's going to meet, right. Do you see what I'm saying? So you're

keeping yourself in that, that guilt-ridden environment. Take yourself out. Remove yourself from the conversation. Yeah. There is nothing else for us to say. You will resent your family. The very family you love, you will resent if you capitulate to their manipulation. Don't do it. It's, it's

handed very, very quickly. You are not burning the bridge, Tony. There is absolutely nothing wrong with saying, I went to school. I earned this income. This is my life. There is nothing stopping

sister from doing the same. And mom and dad, it's never been my responsibility to pay off your

mortgage. Re-cars. And that's where I stand. That is the barrier and the boundary that I'm putting in place. I really hope you guys can understand that because that is perfectly logical and it makes perfect sense. Period. You're done. And if it burns the bridge, that's on them. You can't do anything about this. I feel for you, but only to a degree. Because I'm telling you, we see, Jane and I are sitting in the inviable position of not having any emotion attached to this.

That's right. And our audience, we got people in the lobby. They're shaking their head. No, Tony, no, because we aren't attached to this. And so none of us have the fear. And I honestly think

“that the best thing you can do in a situation like this is call family members, Bluffs. Yes,”

call their Bluff. And so move out today. Don't pay them in nickel. Tell them why. Tell them you're happy to guide them on what they should be doing, if they're willing to listen, but absolutely not. And I'm sorry. We got to cut it there. I love that you say go home and say, what kind of sandwich? For you to up on me, I don't even know what you're so fancy. It's like a nice American. It's like a nice nice bun and there's like pork and like greens, bun me, anybody? You guys know what that is?

Bon Me. Belly does. Bon Me. And there's like like nice mayonnaise in there. I don't know. It's Vietnamese. It's delicious. Or, boy, I got to tell you, this is exciting. I'm glad I asked. Because now I have a new sandwich I need. Or you could do maybe he's eating the BLT, like just a bacon lettuce tomato. Well, you know why I ask? Because this is tough emotionally. I'm having a little fun. But I love how you kind of say go, and I actually think,

“when you, when you take a decision like this and take a stand, you need to emotionally eat.”

And I'm always hundred percent. You know what my emotional go to saying what tell me right now.

PB and J. Oh, really? And I'm going to chase it with a glass of milk. Oh, like I'm 10 years old. I know you hate milk, but I'm just saying PB and J. Listen, Stacey ain't coming anywhere near that mouth after peanut butter and milk. Get out of here. What are you talking about? It's so judgmental. I'm just looking out for Stacey in all of this. That's all. All right, America, you guys can comment. What's your favorite emotional sandwich?

I'm going to go with the BLT. BLT. Yeah. Kelly the producer. Let's get Kelly the producer in here. What's your go to emotional sandwich? You've had a rough day and you're going to eat a sandwich to feel better. What is it? Turkey with bacon for sure, extra crispy. Oh, I like that. Any condiments?

Homemade ranch. Oh, always with the homemade ranch. Honorable mention. Meatball sub.

Okay. Okay, I feel like that's pizza. I'm not sure if that's a sandwich. I think that's pizza.

“I think it's pizza. Do you know what I mean? You don't take so you think that meatball is a sandwich?”

I'm flabbergasted that you would not call a meatball sub a sandwich. Flabbergasted. Hey, it's got the sauce. It's got the cheese. You're putting cheese on it? Absolutely. It's a mozzarella. It's a meat pizza. It's it's all that is. Wow. You know what I mean? It's the same. It's got all the same ingredients. It's on a button. Versus like a sandwich. I'll tell you what I'm going to. A filly filly chain. Okay, now listen.

Yeah, you're about some business. Yeah, you're going to be a J. I need the filly. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. That's what I mean. That's good. Need that. Need that protein, the extra cheese, some pepper. Mm-hmm. I deal with all my emotions. I like that. All right. There you go, folks. Emotional eating is what we're suggesting. This is what people come for. Great life advice. And then a good conversation about a sandwich. With the side of homemade ranch.

Way to go, Kelly. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Wins Credit Union Studio. Alongside Jade Worsha and Ken Coleman. Thank you for being with us. The phone number to jump in is triple eight, eight, two, five, two, two, five, triple eight, eight, two, five, two, two, five. Huntsville, Alabama is where Denise is waiting. Denise, how can we help?

Hey, thank you, guys, for taking my call. I appreciate it. You bet.

And I'm an income does not, does not. It doesn't cover my expenses. I had credit card debt and

“I got, I ended up having a call national debt recovery to turn those over to them. And it wasn't”

even a lot of debt. It was just $10,000 that me and my past husband had incurred paying his medical bills. So after he died, it left me with that debt and I had one income instead of two. So I went ahead and turned those over and I just recently paid one of the smaller credit cards that I just refused to turn over, I paid it off. I don't have a lot of debt, but it doesn't. I'm just not able to pay my bills. And I've sold everything that I can sell that I can live without. My downsides,

I got rid of the truck and downsides to an economical little Mazda 3 that I dropped to work work 45 minutes away. Okay, what do you make? I'm at $16 an hour, so I ended up wearing a home depending on the way you get it anywhere from $1500 to $1000. Okay. Every two weeks. And the little Mazda 3 is that paid for? It is. So we're not paid for yet. I still owe like $2,500 on it. I only bought it for $4,000. It gets $200,000 on it, but it's a decent good car. What do you do for a

living? I am a front desk, I take co-pays, collect, work for doctors office. Okay. Gotcha.

“Okay, can you walk us through your debt, the remaining debt you have, go smallest to largest?”

Smallest to largest. Smallest would be, it can I just go down the list away. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry. The house is at $100 a month and I still owe $124,000 on it. Okay. I don't think I could rent cheaper, the payments are $100. No, no, no. I don't even think I could rent cheaper. No, you can't. You're doing good there. The health insurance I go to have to go through the market and it's for me and my child, it's $50 a month. Well, I don't need your monthly bills. I just want to know

your debt. Oh, my debt. I'm sorry. Okay, it's all fine. What I have left in debt is the car, which is about $2,500, and I already got rid of the credit card, the other credit card. But then I have that $10,000 that I've turned over to National debt recovery. Okay, that's actively being they're actively covering that. Yeah, they take $100, they just started after Thanksgiving last year. They start, they take $150 out of every budget for $29 a month. Oh, boy, can you, can you get out of

that? What's the penalty for counseling? I want to not sure. I want you to check into that. Okay. You might be on the hook for some fees, but all they're going to do is stack those $150 payments off to the side and they're going to let this default and then they're going to try to make

“a deal. That's what they're going to do. And that's honestly something that you could do yourself”

if you chose to do, but I don't know that you need to do that just yet. That's going to tank your credit. It's going to. Yeah. It's it's not good. And like I said, there's usually a good amount of fees attached to that. So I would, if you can get out of that and it's it's reasonable. I don't know how much you've already paid in, but I would get out of that pretty much immediately. So after the car, the $2500 and after this $10,000 is there anything left? Is there any other debt? No. No student

loans, no nothing like that. Okay. So the good news is the good news is your mortgage is awesome. The $800 a month, you're right. You can't rent cheaper than that. And the good news is you've got $12,500 of debt, which under the circumstances, I don't know why I was expecting, but I thought

it was going to be a lot more. Now the problem is if you have a month to month income issue,

and there's no margin, that $12,500 of debt feels like a mountain just because you're struggling to eat, right? Yeah. I want you to, so let's dive in with Jay. Jay's the budget queen. Give us what, what do you think? You're spending too much money. Let's look at it. You make $3,000 a month give or take, right? Yes, right, unless and that actually it's more like, I'm not, and I work too jobs, so it's more like, I mean, so this is like a job, it's about $2500 a month. Then it's an income

crisis is what you have, because no matter what you do, that $2500 is not going to feel like enough. It's, it's very hard to live on working two jobs. I only heard the one job that's 16 hours. I do the 16 an hour, and then the same company that you asked me if I would clean your

office for $120 every Friday. Okay, so that's that's after hours. That's the second job. Yes.

over all of the time to try to help me. Oh, that's good news. I mean, I feel like all I do is work.

“I go in the eight, and I don't get home till soon. I know, but I think we need to get you a higher”

hour. That's the power. I do. I think that's the transition, but I also, I believe if you'll let Jade walk you through this here for a couple of minutes, a lot of detail. I got to believe there's there's, there's some budgeting issues going on. Let's try to find it. So after, let's say you were making 2,500 after the 800 that leaves you with 1,700, then you said for each you and your daughter, did you say it's $50 a month for health insurance? Yep. So 100 total. It's, yeah, $50 a month.

Okay. Both of us, both of us are in there for fees. Okay. Okay. So that takes us down to

1,600 or 1,1650. What next? What else? Water is 35. Uh-huh. What else?

It's 1,80. Okay. Progressive car insurance is 100. Okay. I have a, one of them, Gerber, laughing insurance is that my mother got on me, that if I passed away, it gives much out $10,000 to very me. It's $7 a month. Okay. We're going to cancel that immediately, but it's 7 bucks. Okay. What else? And then, of course, now I have the new National Network Relief of 101 and give everything to all. Okay. Fine. What else? So cell phones are 90. Okay. Do you do like a consumer

cellular or who are you with? We're with cricket. Okay. Good. Next. That's just for two phones. Internet's 90. Mm-hmm. And then I have a lot of insurance that, that's, that's,

both husband passed away and left me with nothing. I couldn't even hardly bury them.

I didn't want to leave my child like that. So I took out a lot of insurance plan of 250,000

“fruit. And I'll pay six for me. Is it, is it term life? Did you do it through Zander?”

Yes. I did it through shield. Okay. I want you to call it Zander and check it through with them and make sure it's the best possible option. If not, you might be able to pay a little less, because you said you're paying 248 a month or a quarter. I pay $69 every three months. Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you for a year. Okay. We got about 40 seconds. Right now, I'm, I'm seeing you with $900 extra dollars. So what do you spend on food? We don't. I'm honest. We spend something. If I have a little

bit left over, we, we spend about a hundred and ten if we have anything left over. Okay. So that leaves me. That leaves me on my checklist here. That means you got $830 some odd dollars to spare. We're going to give you every dollar and you're going to plug this in and you're going to do just what I walked through with you every single item. That money is draining somewhere and you don't have

“the margin for any drains right now. And I believe that you do need to find something that's”

going to pay you on a higher hourly rate than $16 an hour. That is where your primary struggle is. You're not going to be able to side hustle your way out of that low core income. Hey guys, George Campbell here. Do you ever feel like insurance companies only care about your money and not what you actually need? Well, there's a better way. When you go to Ramsey's insurance resource hub, you'll start feeling confident that you're getting the right coverage

that's truly best for you. You'll find helpful info on everything from life insurance, health insurance, identity theft protection and more. And when you're ready to get the coverage you need, you can connect with a Ramsey trusted insurance pro who will only get you what you need at the best price. Go to RamseySolutions.com/insurance. RamseySolutions.com/insurance. Hey, if you're working the baby steps the best and fastest way to do it is by using every dollar,

it's more than just a budgeting app. Now the plan is built right in. You can track your progress, get personalized recommendations and coaching right there in the app to help you out. It's almost like having one of us right on your phone. It's really fantastic. Start every dollar for free today by downloading it in the app store or Google play. Riley is up in Chicago. Riley, how can we help? Hi. Thank you for having me on the show.

I'm 28. My wife is 32. I've been married for five months now. We're moving. We currently have about $100,000 equity in our current home and kind of wondering what we should do with that equity, whether we should just roll into the next house, pay off a debt and then use the remainder as a down payment or pay off debt and then do some remodeling on our new home. Oh, I love this idea. So, $100,000 in equity, how much debt do you guys have? So, I currently have no debt. I'm 100%

got to remodel the house that we're currently in and that's for $10,000 and then about $50,000 in

student loans. Okay. Okay. So, yeah. I like the idea of since you guys happen to be moving, you have this equity and you are newly wedged so it's really a fresh start. I like the idea of taking that $100,000, taking 70 of it to pay off the existing debt between the two of you and then what I would do with the $30,000 is I'd say how much of this $30 constitutes a three to six months of expenses for us. What would you say? Well, it's a new house and everything would probably be close

to 10 to 12,000 probably. Okay. So, we'll say maybe half to be fair and so that leaves you with 15,000.

“Now, the question is does that leave you with enough of a down payment for a new house?”

Or what would you do? Yeah. So, I have 80,000 cash in the bank that we're going to use for a down payment already. Okay. So, you could add the other 15 with that cash and have 95? Yep. Okay. It does now if you put the 95 down, does that get you where you want to be more age payment wise? Yeah. So, we're going to do a 15 year mortgage on that gets us. It's like I think when to the math like 27% of our monthly income would be our mortgage and that would be everything

in us grow property taxes on that. I love that. 20. I'm okay. I'm not going to split here's on that. I love that for you guys. And then how quickly could you then? I mean, it sounds like there might be work to do on this house because you mentioned renovations. Yeah. We kind of just want to do a kitchenary model on the house and then everything else is we can kind of just do as we go

“for the house's move and ready right now. How quickly could you save up to do that”

window in cash? Probably a year. I've over time opportunities at work so it's easy for me to come up with extra cash if I need it. Listen, you are a very analytical, very logical. This is easy. This is the easiest call I've had all day. There's no argument. I do have a question on the way you worded things. Do you two have separate finances? It doesn't sound like it, but the way you said it earlier did sound like. Yes, and we're slowly combining our finances. I guess what we

have it set up now is out of our paycheck. We put certain amount into a shared account and then all of our household income, vacations, food, all of our living expenses comes out of that. And then we have our separate money for, you know, if I want to buy a toy or whatever, I guess four real stone bills, something like that or if she wants to do her hair or whatever it is, then she's out of it. Can I suggest a tweak to that? Where you guys still have that personal

autonomy? What if you put all the money in one account, all of it, and then on the budget, you designated amounts of money, like equal amounts of money for you to spend how you want

and equal amounts of money for her to spend how she wants. Okay, I mean, yeah, basically the same

just a little bit. Yeah, it's just creating, it's creating, I don't know if you've, how long you've listened to the show, but I can tell you just today, we've had two calls where, because the, the spouses, they had separate accounts, it kind of created this feeling, it created this feeling that I can kind of do what I want over here, and I don't have to tell my spouse. And over time, things were done that felt like it was crossing the line for the other spouse. So what happened?

So, do you know what I mean? So putting it in one account says, hey, this really is our money, and I know, and I'm just making up numbers here, and I know that I have $500 out of that, that I spend on what I want, and she has $500 out of that, that she spends on what she wants. And then from there on, now you've created transparency, and so for, for instance, for my husband and I, I've read, I'll be honest, I rarely am like, what do you spend your money on? I don't care.

Every once in a while, it just comes up, and he's like, oh, I bought this new thing, and I'm like,

“oh, great, and I, the assumption is, and I know, oh, that's what he spent his money on.”

But do you see what I'm saying there? Yeah, it makes it more of, yeah, instead of, it makes it more of our money, the whole pot. There you go. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, this is the easiest call. Your wife, wonderful. She, no arguments. Yeah, and yeah, and Riley, you guys got it together, but just to really

put a, put a pin in all this, the hour, there's a real powerful emotion of unity when we talk about

hour, and, and, and that by the way, the data bears it out. Yeah, absolutely. So I don't, I don't need to go on a pulpit on that one today. Evan is up in Roanoke, Virginia. I know where that is. Evan, how could we help? Hey, thanks for taking my call. You guys are my favorites. When you guys are together, it's one of my favorite combinations. That's very nice. We just high five, Evan,

All right, did you cut out Evan? Uh oh, I think our high five slapped him so okay, we'll, we'll see if we can get Evan back. Uh, in the meantime, let's go to Robert in Daytona, Florida, Robert, how can we help? Hey, um, how you doing? Good. You know what, we're, you know, what we're having a blast. What's going on with you today? So I have a, a little bit of a strange little question here, and I, I could wear your change. I'm kind of curious as to how to transfer

careers. I'm kind of on a top of my career right now, so I'm making the most amount of money that

I can't write now. But if I'd be switching to the second career, I'll be staying all the way down

on the bottom. I'm making about 125 right now. Uh-huh. My wife is making about 35.

“If I switch careers, I'm, I'm going to be dropped to about 25,000 dollars a year. Do and what?”

I'm, I'm a mechanic right now, and I'm looking at flight instruction. I'm going into aviation. Okay. Well, could you even do that? Is it even possible? Have you set your life up to where you can take that big of a hit? I spent $65,000 worth of training so far. I didn't ask you that. I asked you, because I understand I've taken this call many, many times, um, because pilot, the schooling is outrageous,

and they can just charge through the absolute teeth on this. So is there not a way to be more patient

and safe, safe, safe? So that we're, we're not taking a big hit here because dropping from 135 to 25, the question I have, we have limited time. Is your life set up to where you can take that big of a hit? $100,000 hit and not be starving? Yes or no? Um, let us go. I'm calling. Um, I have about, we have about 20,000 in savings.

“That's not enough. And we have about $15,000 in like investments. That's not enough. What matters is”

your month to month. If you can eat every month on what you bring home, between me and my wife is going to be really, really close. I mean, you're going to be down to $55,000. So what you need to do tonight is a mock budget. So what is that going to look like? Um, 3700 a month? How long is the program? Uh, it's the, I'm, I'm already all taught and everything. Um, I, I have enough hours to start my career. Okay. Well, how long then will you be making 25,000?

It's a very good question a year, too. You better get the answer to that and then you do what Jade's talking about. Yeah. This is all about numbers meeting up with calendars. So if I'm going to make that for one to two years, I need to know, is that the gospel truth? What is the range? One year, two year. It could be anyone there. Okay, great. Now, that's 25,000. So how much money do we have to save up before I take that role? You may have to press pause or hour to sucks.

If to press pause of going into that until we have the money saved up to make up the difference,

“that will determine whether or not you can do it. Do I have the cash to make her for the shortfall?”

Really simple. It starts with a budget first.

[Music] If you've been working the plan paying off that saving and changing your family tree, I'm proud of you. And if you're in baby step four or beyond, it's time to celebrate. The live like no one else crews is back March 14 through 21, 2027, joined the Ramsey personalities and me as we sailed to Hathmoon Key,

CosML, Jamaica, and Grand Cayman on the ultimate debt-free vacation. Cabins will sell out just like last time. Lock in yours with a $600 deposit at RamseySolutions.com/events. [Music] All right, we've got on the debt-free stage and the lobby here at Ramsey Solutions. Alvaro did I say that right? Absolutely. Fantastic. Welcome and you're here to do your debt-free

screen, I guess. I am. All right, let's go. Let's get the details. All right, how much debt? It was $90,493. Okay, and how long? Took 20 months. 20 months, okay, and what was the range of income? I started at $73,000 and currently I'm at $92,000. What do you go? What to lead to that?

repaired glass for phones, dogwarked, you name it, I did it. Love that? What kind of debt was it?

“All student loan. Okay, very fun. Okay, so what happened 20 months ago? I graduated from”

grad school and I saw the bill and I started seeing how much interest was going to accrue and I did the calculations and an interest if I did the 20 year plan, it was going to be $75,000 extra on top of the student loan. So essentially they would have doubled. Right. So I was like, I can't do that. And during this time it was I was having no interest accrued so I was like, I got to go at it. I got to go cam. So I made a deal with my parents and I asked them, hey, kind of a little bit home for a year.

You guys don't charge me rent, but after that you can charge me double rent of whatever you wanted. So I can aggressively go at this. So they helped me through this journey. And then after that,

they saw how aggressively I was going at it that I wasn't going out. I was doing what I needed to.

And they're like, we're going to let you finish off your student loans and they dropped the double rent. They did. Nice. Just for 20 months. That's great. We are. So give us an average or if you know the exact amount of what you were paying monthly to get there, 90k and 20 months, I could do an average. But I wonder was it was it that clean were there certain months over the 20 months where you were able to put more? What did it end up looking like each month? Paying off that. It was about $5,000 a month.

$5,000 a month. What was your take home? It wasn't much. It was like 55, 50, 600. Wow. And those were basic things of like, I'm going to help with the groceries. I'm going to get some the biggest goal was my sidehouses to pay like the principal. But then after that, my main job was really just get after it. Because I knew that was the biggest way. I love this. This right here is a gleaming example of when it makes sense and how to do the I'm a live at home for a little while to get this

debt paid off. Excellent. Well done. Wow. So what was the hardest part? I mean, obviously you're

“seeing your money go out the door and you're living at Mom's house. What else was hard?”

Being able or finding the courage to delay gratification and saying no. Saying no to a lot of things I wanted to do that in the moment. I was like, I'm looking at the future. I'm looking to see what I can accomplish later because right now it does stink. But in the future, I know it's going to be so worth it. And it has been. So the keeping understanding the logical part. Yeah, you know what I have to do. I got to say, but keeping the promise to yourself is the hardest part. Absolutely. Wow. So here's my thing.

I have, you know, I'm on social media. I hear people talking all the time. And when you mentioned paying off student loans, the automatic mindset is that's impossible. I want you to talk because how old are you? 30. 30. I want you to talk to the 27 year old, the 30 year old who just finished grad school, just finished undergrad and is like, yeah, I'm just going to kick the can down the road forever. I haven't even calculated the interest. They just need to do it. It's, it's a mindset, it's an

mentality and it really does spread into every aspect of life. Your work. The way you decide to go about having friends, like those intentional relationships and those intentional things that you choose

“to do in life, they carry on. So that's why this was so important to me because I knew that”

if I can be dedicated as I have been in the gym or my nutrition or whatever else that might be, it carries out into being just a better person and you being able to portray that in your personality and whatever encounters you have. Oh, you, you have figured out, you have unlocked something so important. You have figured out that discipline gets discipline. Absolutely. Yes. Have you

always been that way or did you develop it as a result of the urgency with this process?

Difficices of life definitely led me that way. As I was growing up being an athlete and then I got to school, stop doing that for a little bit, but then I found that purpose. And once you find that purpose and you know what you're looking for and what you want to be, there's no stopping. That's right. At what point after you're paying 5,000 a month, does this go from being? I can't believe I'm doing this too. Look at what I'm doing. Did was there an emotional shift

if you understand what I'm asking? Oh, yeah. It's really like a countdown because I started with 90,000 so it was like I started at nine and then we get to eight, seven, six, all the way down and once we get to that final zero and you're just on the bare minimum thousands, it's like it's common, it's going. I love everything about this. Yeah, I do. So 30 years of age. Okay. And now you're on the other side of this. Yeah. How has it changed your perspective looking for

because you're a young man? Yeah. It's a great feeling because I bought my Beyoncé's ring, paid for in cash. Oh, we see it over there. Okay, hold it up there so we can get, there we go. I love it. I need some sunglasses. And then on top of that it's just like I have no fear. Like can, thank you so much for just what you do because because of you, I was able to leave a toxic

it. Oh, and then there was a quote that Jade Blanc said with Dave,

"Receive." She's coming with received. I love it. She said with Dave, "Weir is being independent in a culture that teaches you to be dependent." And that hit me. Because it really does. And when you're that free independent, knowing that hey, I need a day off tomorrow. And I can take that. There's no greater feeling. And no greater power, knowing that you did that to yourself and you can't do that. Yeah. Autonomy. I am overwhelmed.

You've done such a fantastic job. And you dropped a major key. I don't know if people were listening. Because you know, people are going to listen to this and be inspired by what you're saying. There is a great motivation tactic that you shared, which is when you have an even like a nice, countable number, like 5,000 or 10,000, right? It makes it easier to see that number go down

“in a pattern that is motivating to us. So a little major key there. I'm proud of you. What happens next?”

Life. I started my own business for occupational therapy. I'm a mobile practice. So just going now, being able to give people the treatments that they desperately need and not having to rely on insurance or anything along those lines. Because I want to give people the opportunity to live their life and be able to regain all functions. Oh, hold on. Let's not that. If I heard fabulous. So are you doing a like old school, like cash for your business? No insurance filing at all.

That's the goal. But you know, there's stipulations and everything, but that's my goal. Yeah. And is that basically, okay, this gets you this and you kind of lay it out like a menu. So people know. I got to say, I just, I don't want to go on a rabbit trail. But this to me is the future of personal medicine. 100%. I agree. I agree. But I digress. But I'm proud of you, certainly a business. Okay. So obviously, your lovely fiance is here. Who else logs out her walk

“through this with you and your biggest fans? Honestly, it was a lot of self. It was a journey by”

myself or the most part. There's not a lot of people that really helped me. But there's a lot of wisdom

that was passed on from, because when I first got out, it was, I always asked, like, what did you

guys follow? How do I do this? And it was always the older generation that helped me and said, hey, listen to this, listen to this guy, and it just helped. It helped to men. We're always storing hang around older people. I was just thinking the same thing. It's good to be old. It's awesome. All right. This is fun. Are you ready? Yeah. Okay. Here we go. We got Alvaro from Dallas, Texas. He paid off 90,000 plus in 20 months, making from 73,000, all the way up to 92,000 and all those other

jobs. Alvaro, it's your moment. Let's hear your death free screen. Thank you, Lord. I'm death free. Just a thank you, Lord. Is that the term? Yeah. I don't like that. It is on stamp on it. I'm going to go, I'm going to let you know. I'm going to go out on a lemon. Say, that's one of the goats of death free screams. That's a goat around there. That's a fun game for a hardcore ramsy fans. Like, do they have their top five debt free screams? That's a girl saying it's in the top five.

Yes, because why he's young. Okay. Two, he figured out the whole live at home thing, and get it flawlessly. Okay. Number two, he started a business of his own. No. Number three, he understood a major principle, which is it's not just about paying off the debt. It's about when you have discipline, and when you have freedom in one area of your life, and you've mastered it,

“you have to let it go into the other areas. You don't just get thin and get your body right.”

Now you do that in your spiritual life, and now you do it in your marriage, and now you do it with your money. He understands that. You can't stop, Alvaro. I'm telling you that right now. I got to tell you, pal, you got my co-host fired up. She could run through all right now. I better go work with the door. We're going to go out and see him and celebrate with him. [Music]

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get much done unless you go ahead and do it before you're ready. All righty, there's a word.

“That is. All right, Evan, we got him back, hopefully. In Roanoke, Evan, do we have you?”

Here, I'm here. Fan guy to pass me my call again. Hey, it's okay. We were worried about you, man. We didn't know what happened. So we're glad to have you back. My wife, my wife told him the driveway and the Bluetooth picked up in her car. Oh, no, close that happens to me last time. Yeah, it's real irritating. All right, what's going on? So we are in FPU week number five, so we're just starting, you know, going through the, you know, but we are on baby step two,

and I have a question about possibly, do we need to go back to baby step one and reevaluate it? Because as a back story, we have two small businesses that we run. I do a cabinet business and she does horseback riding lessons. We have 15 acres and 11 horses and our income last year after after all expenses was 130. And we have a thousand dollar set aside, but my question is given that something could come up with a horse that would be, you know, possibly $10,000, it's a

forever. What should we hold and reserve for that for emergencies like that in this situation?

“Well, there's, first you need to separate it from your personal monies. So if these are two separate”

businesses, there's got to be a line item in her business budget that when she brings her revenues in, some of her expenses, some of some of her money goes toward creating retained earnings or like a

stockpile of cash, basically an emergency fund for her business. So that's going to be something she

needs to build in. That's reasonable to the work that she does and that's something that you need to build into yours as well. And that happens before you guys take your payrolls. Does that make sense? So it's not going to be part of your normal every dollar budget. That's going to be part of her business building over here to the side. Okay. So personally, we should just keep it at a thousand personally. Yeah. And then on the business side, like realistically, you know, how much should

following these principles? Because obviously, you know, where my business is about 18 months old at hers is like three or four years old. So she's in the she, my, my portion of it was 85 last year and she was at 49. And so as far as like operating under the underrams, the principle of how much should we hold in reserve for our businesses? And because, you know, we're paying ourselves the profits. And so I would probably say somewhere around three to six months of operating expenses

for you both is what I'd be looking to do. Now for her, she's going to have to figure out what that is. I'm not sure that she has an accurate picture. Based on the fact that there's no like there's nothing held aside, I don't think you guys have an accurate picture of what salary you can actually pull because that's a, that's a significant amount of money that needs to be budgeted for every single month out of her budget. Does that make sense? Hey, that's it. And we do have separate, like the every,

every, you know, we have a personal and then two business accounts. And her, her gross last year, you know, just because the overhead on horses is a lot, so this was 2.6 and her net was 49.

“My gross was, yeah, my gross was was 2.10 and my net was 84. Yeah, I mean, I think just the nature”

of the business that she does because it's live animals and it's horses specifically. I mean,

I think that's always going to be the case that her spend is going to be higher. But my point is,

I think this can continue to go, but the biggest takeaway for you to go, okay, the, the money for her business overhead is not coming out of our personal budget. It's coming out of her, the P&L for her business. Does that make sense? It does. And so I guess, do we put step, you know, because we have a plan that right now, I plan to pay off the debt is going to take 27 months. Okay. And so $70,000

keep these businesses in a stable position, it means your personal that's going to take longer,

which means you're probably going to have to do some things on the side to bring an extra money to account for that. Right. Okay. I mean, Ken and my, you know, I miss anything here. Your advice has been great. I, I only had this mental thing. You were touching on it. Just here, Jay, give you great advice. It's super important that you don't let the intensity and I love it during week five of FPU, right? So you're in it. It's like training camp, you know, and you're just walking through it

and you're fired up. Don't let that intensity put you in a situation where you don't show up your businesses. You're right. That is your income. And, and, and Jay really was all over that. And I would just say, make sure you go, I got to make sure that I've got those retained earnings set up in my business. This is plural. And if that makes my debt pay off a little longer. It's okay. It's okay. But then I'm going to make up for it as Jay to say. So the mindset is,

let's not hurry at the expense of like gazell intensity doesn't mean gazell foolishness. Good.

“Right? And I think that thank you. I'm getting, this is very exciting. It's rare that I get this.”

So I, that would be my word for you is I love the intensity, but let's shore up everything else and, and, and, and, and then we, we deal with it as it comes as if as far as the payoff date. Okay. So the fact that you guys got these businesses, you want to just keep those things stable. Because if you don't and something happens. Now you're up a creek. Now you're in big trouble. Yeah. And we're also blowing up our timeline. So it's not about the timeline. It's about how we

finish across the line. So appreciate the call. You're sharp young man. You guys seem like you're doing great. We'll get Kelsey in real quick. Kelsey, how can we help? Hello. I like that gazell quote. I wish I could write it down, but I'm going to remember it. I'll tell you it again. Oh, you already got it. Okay. Got you. Very good. All right. Go ahead.

“We got about two and a half minutes. We'd love to help you. What's the question?”

Okay. Um, in regards to pre-neutral agreements, I've been listening to you all for a lesson a year. And I know that you all don't recommend one unless you have big financial disparity, which can protect

me or us from cousin eddies. My boyfriend and I plan to get married. He'll be our second marriage.

But I wanted to see what your thoughts are on pre-neuts. If there is no big financial disparity between us, but we have cousin eddies. What do you mean be more specific? What are these cousins or who are we? What are we talking about? Like, so I'm, I guess I imagine cousin eddies of me the, the, the ones who are looking for money. Okay. From property. And yes. And this is not a metaphor. You're telling me you've identified some family members on his side that you think will come asking

for money. Yes. And they have before me. Will he agree with them? Will your spouse agree with the cousin eddy? No. Okay. You don't need to bring up for that. Yeah. You need boundaries. That's just you and your husband having the, yes, can. You and your husband saying we're not going to loan money to these people. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, I mean, no, he would be on top. He'd be all for that. So he, okay. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah. Boy, that is interesting. And good on you, by the way,

I've identified that and bringing it up to him. And so yeah, complete same page. If we're on the same page, no matter who it is, because we took a call earlier today, a young man gets a massive job. Yes. 285,000 dollar salary. Tony tells his mom and dad as one would do. And they immediately asked him to help pay off debt pay for a sister's college. So, you know, Jade and Jade before we took the call Jade touched on this. He was like, I wouldn't be telling family about all these

income things. So, it's very interesting. And we've seen this today. I love that you guys have figured this out. But yeah, make sure the husband is absolutely in lockstep and we don't share any financial information with any of these folks. So I feel like there's a Southern phrase for that

that opportunistic. You always have a Southern phrase like that. Like Bob O'Ranah on a Jack

rabbit. I don't know. I love that you gave that a shot. No one in the history of radio or podcasting

“or YouTube has ever said that. Point that phrase. So, I think you've done something great. Kelsey,”

thank you so much. I think you've got a lot of wisdom. No pre-nup here. Just great communication. And a fabulous word to learn. No. And that will work. Hey, remember everybody. There's ultimately only one way to financial peace. And that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace Christ Jesus.