Nobody Else Gets A Vote On Your Finances

Normal is broken, common sense is weird, so we're here to help you transform your life

from the Ramsey network. In the FairWins Predator Union studio, this is the Ramsey show. The Ramsey personality number one best selling author and host of the smart money happy hour. He's my co-host today, open phones at Triple 8-825-5225.

“Gracie is with us in Indianapolis, High Gracie, how are you?”

Good. Good. How can we help? Well, I am a pre-meditoring student. I just graduated undergrad with no debt.

I'm taking a gap here and we'll be starting veterinary school theoretically next fall. That's coming on where I end up going, we'll be around $200,000 in student debt. Could be a little more. Could be a little less. So I just wanted to know, best way to prepare myself for that kind of thing.

Well, first, I'll tell you that your field of study, I think, is excellent as a career

choice. And I honestly would coach someone to be a veterinarian before I would be a medical doctor. I think you can make more money and you have less regulations and less morons telling you what to do every day. So the medical profession has just gotten out of its weird.

And so we work with a lot of that nationwide in our Entry Leadership Program and coach them on the business side of things. We don't know anything about the medicine side of things. So I'm a fan, I'll start with that. But Gracie, you've probably been listening for more than 10 minutes and you know we're

“not ever going to tell anybody to go $200,000 in debt for anything, right?”

Yes, sir. I mean, you knew Dave Ramsey, George Cameron, we're going to tell you that, right? Well, I can't expect you, but I'm not sure how to get around it with the cost of tuition. Yeah, how did you get through undergrad with no debt? I've been very blessed, my parents are missionaries, so they started me working at a very

young age because I was home school and flexibility through them. So I actually started college at 16.

I went to a private university for my first two years, realized that the cost was not worth

for more of their, moved back home. I got paid to go to school for two years and I did not take any of the issues the way my class was felt. So I paid. I mean, I'm sorry, backup, you're breaking up a little bit.

How did you get paid to go to school? Here, your phone's breaking up, try again. Okay, I'm going to put you on hold and the Christians are going to try to get your phone straightened up. We'll come back to you.

“All right, Christine is in Boston, Massachusetts, high Christine, how are you?”

Hi, good, how are you? I'm better than a dessert or what's up. So I'm 74 years old, I'm on social security and I want to retire. I had a home investment property that I sold a couple of months ago and after the tax is, I cleared about 900,000.

Wow, good for you, way to go. Oh, thank you, thank you. I have a home on living in now that has a mortgage. There's about 300,000, but it's got significant equity, probably at least five to 600,000 equity.

So I do have that, that's my only debt is the home that I'm in now. So I just need to know what I don't want to do, I keep looking, you know, reading and I just don't know what to do. Well, you have another debt, I mean, other investments other than this 900,000. The only other investment I have is a step by array and it's only about 90,000.

Okay, so what have you been living on? I've been working, I work. Okay. What do you do at 70,000? Yeah.

I'm a lawyer. Oh, good for you. Okay, how much longer do you intend to, how much longer do you intend to practice long? Well, probably within the next year, I'd like to retire.

Okay. And what does it take you a month to operate when you retire? I'm asking probably about $7,000. Okay. All right.

Well, you'll have social security coming in, obviously, at that point, if you don't have an already signed up for it. And I have to, I have to read those, I have to read those and coming in on that. Okay. So that's three of your seven.

So I, Christine, I try to build a base that is just very stable and very sustainable when I'm in these kinds of situations.

And what we do want people to be is debt-free with an S-deg, 100% debt-free with an S-deg

when they hit retirement, because that gives them stability. And so George and I will tell you to take 300 of your 900 and pay off your house. Which reduces your expenses per month, right? Yeah. That means you don't have to have as much as 7,000 now, because now you don't have a house

payment. Okay. All right. And then I'm going to sit down with a smart investor, pro, and invest the other 600. If it were to make, let's say it made an average market returns of 11 or 12%, and just

for round numbers, if you pulled off 10%, which you probably wouldn't pull off that much. But if you did, that'd be $60,000 to your $5,000 a month. So you're okay? That covers the gap.

“Remember, you got three grand Social Security, you need four over that, so that would”

actually cover it. If you just invested that 600,000. I'd invest that 600,000 carefully and well in good, gross stock-type mutual funds and let it generate you about the other $3,000 a month that you need and leave the rest of it in there for growth.

Don't take all the growth. Yeah. Doc, Doc, type mutual funds of that. Yeah. Growth, stock, type mutual funds, and what I want you to do is to learn about that so that you

get very comfortable with it. Don't do it because I said, do it or George said, do it. Sit down with a smart investor, pro. You can find them at RamseySolutions.com, and George, they're going to have the heart of a teacher.

Yeah. Once you're actually understanding what's going on, you see that money sitting there. You're not going to be fearful and jump out, which is what happens to a lot of people who are DIYing at the stage, they either, their money is not growing fast enough to keep up with inflation or even worse, they pull it out of the market completely out of fear.

You freak out by some news headline. And so what you do is you understand the investment and so there are mutual funds that are more stable and have a steadier growth track record over the last 50 years than that how should you sold, neither one had a guarantee, but both things you would feel comfortable with a house because homes in that neighborhood are going to go up in value and you're probably

owned at a lot of years, you're made a million dollars on it.

So you probably owned it a bunch of years, and you're probably never really nervous about,

ooh, ooh, I'm going to lose all my money in real estate. No, you've got a single family home that's going up in value, it's kind of boring almost.

“And that's what you want with mutual funds is something that's got that.”

When you look at the chart, it charts out in volatility and up and down, up and down, up and down, about like a house does. And you say, "Gah, I never thought about the risk I was taking when I bought a house, but when you say mutual funds or you say growth stocks, people who haven't done it before freak out and go, "Oh God, the stock market, I always hurt you lose all your money, the

stock market." It's weird, you don't hear that about real estate, but it's the exact same risk. And you're betting on the exact same thing, which is the track record. When houses are tangible, you can see 'em, and make you feel better. The mutual funds are this invisible, boogie monster.

Yeah, it's the mist in the wind. Yeah. But this math is hopeful for pay off that mortgage, reduce your expenses down to five, now you need to pull off of that investment account. This is going to be a fun retirement, congrats.

Yeah, you've done a really, really good job, Christine. Well done. [ Music ] You're getting ready to hit the road this summer. You want to feel confident.

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“David is in Los Angeles, I David, how are you?”

I feel better than I deserve here, how are you so?

Just the same. How can we help? I have concerns about a potential money gift for a down payment from my father-in-law, and I feel that there are straightens attached. Okay.

How long have you all been married? We've been married about three years. And how much is the gift? $200,000. And what are the strings?

Well, it's for a house, and we are initially, I heard, there's secondary conversation that my father-in-law wanted to have, only his name on the title, and my wife and I would be paying the mortgage, and he would put the home in a trust. That was the initial plan. Now the plan is to after the purchase, work out, adding his name to the title, so

he can, again, put this in a trust. Thank you for your offer. We love you. No. Absolutely not.

I don't have concerns. I have warning flags and pyro-technics going off.

“Is he using you guys as tenants to pay his mortgage on a new problem?”

No, this guy's a control freak, and he's going to be in the investment real estate business. That's not a gift. He's going to partner with you. Yeah. Here's some more details to it.

So my wife and I, we have one child from my previous relationship. We have a two-year-old son together, and we have another one coming by the end of this year. My wife is very eager to get into a place with more space for the family, because we are in a condo that she owns. Don't be eager enough to be stupid.

This is stupid, don't do it. I'm dead serious. You're going to regret this. You know, I hear you, and I try to have talks with this family, and a lot of the conversations happen without my presence.

Well, I'm not signing. Okay. You guys don't get to do a deal without me. I'm the daddy. This is my kid, my wife.

Y'all got confused about boundaries here. You enter and sit at my kitchen table. You talk to me. This guy's dangerous, man. He doesn't mean to be probably, he's probably actually fairly calm person, but he's

manipulative as hell. Does your wife find this strange, too? No, it's her daddy. She's huge. She's like, this is great.

She grew up with his crap. She just is the shiny house. So she's gone, hey, get to know a house who cares. Daddy's going to get me a house. That's all she heard.

Right? Basically. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry, honey.

You got the first thing I'm going to do if I'm in your shoes is that you're going to need

a guy's need to get the wheels back on your marriage to where the two of you are planning your life, not her daddy's planning your life. I agree.

“I think that may be the, I'm going to start the conversation with my wife and say, all right,”

the first thing is we have to be in agreement about who we're going to be as a couple and how we're going to handle discussions about things that matter in our lives and that isn't you go over and have these discussions with your dad and then you come back and tell me what I'm going to do. That's not going to work.

I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to operate my marriage that way and I'm not signing up for this deal. So we're just going to have to tell your dad, no, and you and I probably need to sit down after three years in a new baby on the way and have a reset with a good marriage counselor and it doesn't mean our marriage is in trouble.

But when you go to a marriage counselor, it's like going to a coach teaching you how to do marriage. It's a teacher. You're hiring an outside personal trainer for your, for your marriage and you guys got a little work to do on that because your boundaries are screwed up.

Okay, so let me back up and tell you how I got there because this is, I'm being pretty in your face, but I'm scared for you. That's why I'm doing that. It's bothering. I appreciate it.

The first thing that bothers me more than anything else is these side discussions that

don't involve you and then these things are decided and they have she, she wants something, she wants a new home and she's seeing a way to get it. So what's going to end up happening is if we don't get back on the same page, you're going to be the evil person that kept her from getting a home while her daddy tried to help

And this is a wedge that I do not want driven into your marriage.

“That's what's coming as soon as you say no.”

And then the second thing that's bad is everything this guy's describing, they called

it a gift and this is no more gift than flat of the moon. He wants to own some real estate that his kid lives in and his grand kid lives in so he can control the situation. That's not a gift. Like if he had a rental house and y'all moved into it, that's what he's proposing.

You've got no control in this scenario and no, your name is not going to be on the title of my home period. Even if he's the sweetest guy in the world and he's not. And even if he promises, well one day it'll be yours. I'm sorry, I go ahead David.

Yeah, I was just asking about the legalities because he's already written a letter that says a gift.

Well, but it's not because of the way structureing it.

“I want my name on the title and I want it into a trust and I want it transferred to my”

name after so time and I know what the name is not going to be on anything. A gift is you give us $200,000 and we buy a house. That's a gift. This is not what he's proposing, so he is confused about the definition of the word. And I'm telling you, the fact that he went to your daughter and left you out of the discussion

is bad chemistry. That tells me that if you get in this deal, it's going to be bad, so we really bad. That's what this tells me. It's not just a little bad. The fact that he's doing this end-run thing and man, so the best advice we ever got when

as parents of grown children was that, especially with two daughters, the first two going out the door, Daniel was fairly low drama. Still is. Yeah. And right, but Rachel and Denise, I mean, when they left home, Daniel was still home, we thought

we were empty investors. We didn't even know he was there because the drama dropped like 98% when the two girls left. So the best advice I ever got as a dad of a daughter, which is where this guy is, this father trying to give this money, is that when you all care down the aisle, you're done. You got to step back because you have been the man in her life, her whole life.

And you've got to step back or her husband can never take the position of being the primary

man in her life, as long as she can run to daddy. So like when Rachel got married, I told Winston, I said, this one's your problem. Oh man, I literally said that to him and his dad was sitting there, his dad busted out laughing. That's incredible.

This one, this problem is now yours, my man, I'll be cheering for ya, I'll be, I'll throw food over the fence, I'll be cheering for you, but this one's your problem. That's quite the opposite of, I'm going to stay involved and I'm going to coach my daughter with my son-in-laws involvement on how I want to end up owning the house that they live in.

Oh, bad man, this is you. It's a lack of respect, it's undermining the husband, this triangulation of making him the bad guy. Hey, babe, I wanted to get you that home you want, but you know your husband David, he just wouldn't do it.

So I don't like any, it's like if you bought me a car, but it's in your name and I have to make the payment. And I go, thanks, Dave. That's crazy. That's not, you don't feel gifted.

I do not feel gifted out, I'm just driving Dave's car while I'm paying his payment. I don't even love the good news is it'd be a real car. Yeah, no battery's involved. I got to go to a gas station, that's a whole thing, you know, thank you. You don't have to plug this one in, George.

I want to like an easy bake oven situation, I don't want to bat here trying to make my own.

“See, that's what happens when you violate boundaries, you don't get to make choices anymore.”

That's how it works, see? Well, forget it was going to get your nice Christmas gift. It's your power. It's a nice plug-in. No pun intended.

Barbie Jeep for Christmas for you, you charge it up. David, please, honey, sit down with a good marriage coach and you guys work on how to deal with things in your marriage. And that coach can teach you how to gently set your father in law to the side. And he's not going to like it because he's not used to not, he's not used to being told

he's not important. .

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People call every day trying to get us to change it for them, but we don't change it. And so our answers are devastatingly predictable.

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And do that right now because it's really smart. And the app is going to walk you right through the process. Every dollar downloaded on the app store or Google Play, Janet is in Detroit. Hi, Janet. How are you?

Oh, I'm real. How are you doing? Better than we deserve. What's up? Hi.

So my husband started up a side hustle and it just into a regular job. He did very well and he bought himself an $80,000 commercial building for cash on a canal and he loves it. And he's been working really hard, fixing it up. But he ended up with $90,000 in business debt in the process.

And he also would like to retire within five years. And I'm concerned, we're not on the track for retirement in the expenses of the building and the data associated could prevent us from being able to retire when we would like to. When you say that to him, what did he say? He said he'd be willing to try and rent the building out to help with the expenses.

However, there's many vacant commercial buildings in the area. I don't know if this would be nice enough to rent out. I don't know if he'd run into problems with people not paying rent. But I have concerns. I've concerns even with debt, solution.

I mean, obviously, that would help. And he had some inventory from the business that he started. He was wishing we would have sold by now, but it has not yet. And so I'm concerned, like, when will it sell? We're still paying all these expenses.

Meanwhile, and even when the inventory sold, we'd have a little debt last. And we would have property tax, utilities, and many things associated with keeping up the building. So how have you all been married? We've been married, like, close to 35 years.

“So how often does he go off and buy a building and doesn't talk to you about it before he does it?”

Well, not usually whole buildings. And this one he did mention. But I was like, well, let's keep it all to cash. But things kind of, there's a lot of expenses associated. And he felt his inventory with foul and so he didn't have it.

Well, let's keep it all to cash. He didn't buy, but he did by the building. Yes. And so I was okay that he was buying the buildings for cash. But I'm more concerned with the fact me ended up with some debt associated.

So the debt was used to cover expenses for the building? Because he's working on it. It wasn't really bad shape. And he's working on it like every night he's building. What's that?

I mean, let me try this again, okay. Honey, I'm okay with you buying the building for cash. And then he didn't. He bought a building and renovated it and went into debt. So how often does that happen in 35 years?

It's a great, it's a great pick up. So there are a little bit of things like that. Yeah.

Sounds like he's always got a scheme and a plan.

“So what, um, what do you want to do with the building?”

Well, personally, I just want to get a retirement savings under control. But I realize how much of himself he's invested into the building and how much do you want to do with the building? Well, I, I, I, it was just me and the memory, I, I would solve the building. Okay.

Then why would you suggest that the two of you keep it? And he is hoping to use it. It's on a canal. He loves it. He's hoping to use it full for a recreation for our family and retirement.

He's like the train runs. I'll business out of it in retirement. But you don't believe that's going to happen. I believe they can be trying run a business out of it in retirement. My only concern is that there's a lot of expenses with a commercial building, property

taxes, high, everything's high. And I feel like it would be hard in retirement to constantly working to keep up with those expenses. But some people do it.

“So I'm trying to make sure, making this call that.”

Okay. So you're dealing with a bunch of unknowns and your emotions are saying sell the building. He's dealing with absolutely zero business acumen. He sucks at this because all he's doing is dreaming. I hope some day that we'll use it for the family.

Oh, bull crap. Okay. This guy's not written anything down. He doesn't have good business pro form if he worked for me. And he did this out firing for incompetence.

And you're worrying about something you don't even understand because he's never written

anything down. This is all jumbled up between some business and some dream and some family use of a building on canal that none of this is it's all mixed together. It's not it's jumbled up. It's not a good plan.

There's no plan. It's just vague. I like the building. I wanted to buy the building. Now I'm going to renovate the building.

Oh crap. I don't have the $90,000. So now I'm in debt. Oh, now I've got inventory. I can't sell.

And I don't know about the expenses and you don't either. You've got this vague sense that there's going to be a bunch of insurance and taxes, which is probably true, but we need to actually look at real numbers. This is what the building costs to operate.

Here's what we can rent it for.

Here's the business that we can run out of it. And if there's any space left over, the family can enjoy it. Or the family can-- you have the money to eat this so it becomes a family recreational stop. It becomes a layhouse for the summer, the building on the canal. But we've got it all jumbled up with.

We can't decide if we're a landlord or we're running a business or we've got a layhouse. And it's all pushed together so that he can live this dream that's very fuzzy and in the fog. He needs to write all of this down in a business plan and submit it to you.

“And the two of you need to look at this with wisdom.”

And then based on that, if you can see how you actually make money and want to keep it, then, but just his little heart's desire is not enough to make it work. I've had a lot of heart's desire. It's stuff I sucked at and it cost me money. And it's called dreaming and it turns into a nightmare.

So you have to do a business plan, a performing, okay, if we rent out this, here's what the rental rates are, oh wait, everything on this whole canal's empty, it's going to be very tough to rent. That isn't about what? Eating this, oh, we've got this inventory we bought that we finance, but we can't sell it.

So we obviously chose the wrong inventory to purchase because we didn't have our business head together on that either. I've got some of that myself in the warehouse today over purchase of stuff that I wish we hadn't bought at Ramsey, but it's inventory and, you know, it was a dumb but thing. So you do, you do some of that in business, but you've got to see your way to this, this

is how we're going to turn this situation into money. And if we're not going to turn it into money, here's the amount of money we have to pay for it anyway and be okay. She's worried that this is taking the rug out from under their whole lives. Well, there's a sunk cost fallacy.

She's going well, he's invested a lot into it and he really loves it and it's going to cause you guys to not be able to retire. So you've got to, you can't have the cake and eat it too here. I'm guessing they don't have millions of dollars or he wouldn't be 90,000 dollars in debt. I'm guessing.

I just hope the building is worth 170. His 80 put in plus the 90 renovations. I don't know that they give in seller for that much, so I'm worried he overbuilt. Yeah, over, over renovated. Yeah.

He got to the party too soon. How much is there yet? We're trying to buy $200,000 office buildings in that area. He bought it for 80. Yeah.

Excellent.

and angry.

“So you need to get more involved and be involved in the decisions your life has”

involved cause it affects you and be he needs to approach this with more of a business

mind than the mind of a dreamer. Dreaming is good as long as you put work clothes on it and turn it into goals and numbers. The way I was dreaming is not what you want to marry your daughter. Oh, daddy, he's a dreamer. Oh, God, they're going to live in my basement.

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Jacob is in Nashville, hi, Jacob, how are you? I'm doing well, I'm honored to speak with you both. You too, what's up? Yeah, my guess specific question for you is about the rule that vehicles shouldn't make up more than 50% of your annual salary.

Life and I were 24 and 25, we were recently gifted of the vehicle. That's worth about three quarters of our annual income and it's about half our net worth right now. So just wondering, you know, it's hard to not think about selling the car and investing that or saving very down payment or, you know, something else.

What do you guys make? We currently take home about seven years, my wife's in grad school right now though, and we're anticipating when she graduates that'll go up quite a bit. What's she studying? Physical therapy.

Cool. When she graduate? I'll get some next year.

“So a year or plus, and at passels or boards, and then she'll make what?”

70? Uh, 70 or 80, right around here. Yeah, okay. And you make 70 or 80 now, but you're income? Uh, 70.

Yeah. Okay. And so this is a $50,000 car. And it's about $55 when we're looking at comps online. Where'd it come from?

My dad and stepmom gifted it to us. She got a new vehicle and they just kind of passed it on us. So it was a used car that they had and they just gave it to you. For the price that we could sell our other car for, so for 8500 bucks, we sold ours. And we were going to check and they gave us this.

Okay. Uh, well, there's a good argument both ways. I mean, you did not put money in it. You put 8500 dollars in it. Okay.

So if you put 55,000 in it, I'll tell you a show at today and get you 55,000 back out and start your life smarter, okay. But you put 8500 in it and your income is getting ready to double in the next 12 months, which actually makes this thing almost fair. What does fit?

Depending on what the other car is, so, um, you know, given the trajectory of your income and that you didn't put money in it, if you'd like the car, it's fine. It's also some wisdom what you said. I mean, you're tempted to go, course you, what happens with your parents if you sell

Did they get pissed?

“Well, part of, uh, I wouldn't say pissed, I think part of the reason, you know, the motivation”

for them giving us this is we had, you know, a 15 year old car with 200,000 miles on it.

And my dad never keeps a car passed an oil change.

Um, he likes me vehicles. So, um, you know, I think part of the motivation was, hey, let's get my son in a good, reliable car, um, something they can keep a little while. So, you know, they were, they were, they were, they were blessing you and his first the blessing is a nice car.

Yeah. But good reliable. That could have been a $20,000 car and you could have used 35 as a down payment. Yes, that's correct. And that's kind of what we're thinking about, you know, we're, we're able to catch

flow my wife's grad school. So, student loans aren't a concern there, um, but what is the car? Mine, um, it's a, it's a 2023 Toyota 400. Okay. If, um, yeah, if you, would you buy a 20,000, a $20,000 for a runner if you sold it?

You know, it's sunny or the one we sold was a 2015, four runner with 200,000 miles on it. And same trim level and everything. So, wow. Definitely fine one. No, yeah.

You definitely like the for toyota product, okay. It's a good car. We're happy with it. It's a good car. And you guys are our debt free otherwise and you got savings in the baby run.

Yeah, we're on, um, babysept for, except we're not doing a 15% because we're tax phone grad school right now. Okay. What I, as long as the you and your wife and for that matter, your parents are aware that from this point forward, that you will not be owning vehicles, it using the same pattern

as your dad, changing every time the oil's changed, um, because that will keep you broke. It will steal your wealth. As long as you say, I'm not going to intentionally go buy a car with cash or otherwise ever in my life, it's not my plan.

This just is something that happened to me. Um, it wasn't something I sat and dreamed about and did something stupid, okay.

It was more like, in other words, this is a one time good time thing you're never doing

“this kind of thing again because the next time it'll probably up to you to do it, right?”

And you would never do it again. If you, if the two of you and even for that matter, you explain this to your dad someday, I'm never doing this again. I took this only because it was a gift. So because it was a gift and didn't cost you anything hardly, 8,500 and because your

income is going to double in the next 14 or 15 months, I probably keep it. What do you think? Yeah. I mean, if your income was like 50 grand a year household and never doing this is way, yeah, this is just too much car for your life.

You could be doing way better with it, but with your income, this is not a ridiculous car that you could, you would never own, it's not a Lamborghini that you're paying crazy insurance on. Yeah, it's a good point if you have a vehicle. They hand you a 250,000 dollar limbo, I'd be telling you to sell it.

Sure. Just the maintenance repairs on it, but at Toyoda, you're like, all right, that's going to last of your time. $55,000 keep the limbo running. Yeah.

So I would take this as a, as a nice one time blessing and it might take you longer than you wanted to to get that house now. Yeah, don't use this as a way to adjust the way you look at money and vehicles.

“That's though, this is an aberration, it's a one time event, okay?”

As long as it doesn't shift the way you're thinking, you know, as you called me because it doesn't line up with what you believe, right, and you don't line up with what we believe and you wanted to ask about that because you somewhat believed it. If you weren't worried about it, you wouldn't have called. So as long as you stay on that side of the fence, I'm good.

I just don't want this to go, well, you know, I did it at that one time and it works. So I'm going to keep doing this thing for the, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You don't use this as the rationalization to go into the next to you. Well, the good news is if they sold it, next oil changed, dad's got, they're getting a different car.

Hey, just keep doing this. You'll be wealthy in no time. We never buy tires. We just trade the car. I mean, you got to be wealthy and have to absorb that kind of, if you're just flying

through cars like that.

And it's just, and the problem is I just love cars.

I know. I knew you were going to be, they hit your softs and here's the interesting thing. You know, when we talked about you steps a millionaires and say, okay, you know, what's your net worth? 1.7 million.

What do you drive Toyota? What's your wife drive? A 15 year old piece of crap. Would you get your wife a good car? You know, that kind of thing, right?

But we hear that every time. The wife drives an old piece of crap and the guy's got a Toyota. I punish yourself. Or vice versa. Yeah.

The Toyota always comes up though. I think it is the most driven car by Baby Steps Millionaires, you know, and, you know, a nice Toyota, a good one, but not, I mean, not some worn out piece of crap. And then Honda was up there, Lexus is up there, too, with millionaires. Yeah.

Yeah, we hear 'em. We don't hear lambos.

Hi, Kelly. What's up? Hi. Hi.

Thank you for taking my call.

Sure. Okay. So, I just inherited some savings funds. Scary guy. They were both issued in 2003 and 2006.

So, I can pull them out if I want to and disperse them. Oh, yeah. Um, originally. Yeah. Just cash them out.

Yep. How much is it? Um, $33,000 now. And how much is your debt? Um, $25,000.

And what do you owe the debt on? Credit cards. Okay. So, let's pretend that you didn't have any debt.

“Would you go borrow money on a credit card to bond?”

I bond? No? No. Okay. I didn't know because I've been listening to you since February.

So, thank you. You have turned my brain around. Yeah. But I've been listening, trying to see how you feel about those savings funds. I'm not mad at it.

I'm my granny used to give them to us. And we would cash them in and put them in mutual funds for our kids' college. And she would say, "How those bonds do?" And I said, "Great." That's true.

Technically true. Okay. Because, like, I would love to pay off the debt. Like, since I've started doing the baby steps, like, I'm just so excited.

I'm so excited. And you're going to cut up the cards, right? That's the big half of the cards up. What do you mean? Oh, yeah.

You have to cut them up. They're long gone. Oh, good for you. Oh, you're not going to kill me, I love you. Yeah.

Yeah. They're so done. That's so cool. So, where are the iPons come from? My parents, I inherited them.

They passed away? Yeah. I had to go through probate and everything. Yeah. It was miserable.

I'm sorry. Yeah. Sorry. Do you want to know that's what's mean? Like, do you a living trust or at least a will?

Definitely have a will. You can go through probate like a hot, nicely butter if you just got a will. It's not a big deal.

“But if you have to go in there and the judge has to think about everything.”

It's not good. Don't let judges think. I bet they're smiling. They're small when they die. They're free too.

That's pretty cool. It's a nice legacy. Very good. Good for you, Kelly.

That free never used a credit card again the rest of your whole life.

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Jessica's in Phoenix, hi Jessica, how are you? I'm doing well, how are you guys? Thanks for taking my call. Sure, what's up? Yeah, so my husband and I have been in our home about 14 years.

We have a manufactured home on an acre and a quarter of land.

And we've just came into the situation thinking that we would always build a home there one day.

I ended up staying home with kids and we haven't done that. It's been a blessing to us. However, we are trying to just plan ahead for what our next steps are. As the home is definitely in need of maybe a second overhaul of repairs. But we're not sure we want to dump that kind of money into it with knowing that we're not going to see that return.

One more detail about the home is that it is on its second location, which at 24/0. 24/0 we didn't realize how much of an issue that was for financing. So to list the home would be difficult to find a buyer. Of course, it just takes one, but it would be a private financing situation. So just a little unsure what to do there.

We can find a bit of equity.

There are so many things that can be when you describe it as a manufactured home. So does it sitting on a foundation? Yes. It is above ground, but yes, it is secured and all of that. Yes.

“Or when I drive up to it, I think double-wide.”

Yes, you would. All right. And so though in the buyer drives up to it, they think double-wide. And so it's gone down and value while the acre has gone up and value. That's correct.

Yes. And we also would need probably a cash buyer, which would also bring our- What do you own all of this? We owe about 70,000. And what is the one acre worth?

So in our surrounding area, the same acre in a quarter is anywhere between 250 and 350.

Okay. All right. And have you had any suggestions on what you would list the property for? Yeah, we've heard from some pretty low, like just lists it for 350. But then we've also heard start at 500.

I've heard a lot of stuff, but I'm asking what the actual value is. What I'm trying to figure out is it sounds to me like the trailers probably not worth much. Right. And we have- If you pick the trailer up and sold it, what would it go for?

So we, this was maybe five years ago before I resigned. We had, we were going to go like trade it in or sell it to a private trailer park. And they were offering us about 40,000 then. Okay. So if you could get 20,000 for it and get 350 for the land and separate the two,

you're probably going to end up more that way than trying to get someone to finance a trailer on a $300,000 piece of dirt. Right. And we have had homes on our streets. Similar in size also manufactured homes. Sell between five and six.

Okay. Within that range. A similar age and condition? Similar age. How do they sell air?

1400s. So they, so the manufacturer can be finance conventionally an FHA. However ours has been, we did not know at the time.

But it's on its second location, which takes away the option of conventional FHA financing.

Okay. So you've lost that ability. So you can't really compare your situation to the $600,000 situation. You've got more of a $400,000 situation. True.

Yeah. Okay. So you're experiencing what people that buy mobile homes experience that they go down in value dramatically. And it has. And you basically have consumed the living quarters while the land went up.

Right. And we did close at 105 when we bought it. So, you know, we're not. No. No.

I don't want you to believe that narrative because you still got screwed. You saw you closed at 105.

“But the land is the only thing that's saving this and making it feel okay.”

If you closed at 105 and the trailer was worth 10, then you would really be experiencing what has happened. Right. So, no. The manufacturing housing was not a good investment. If you were, if you had bought a home for 105 or 150, you'd be sitting at 700 right now.

So no. Still is not a good idea. I mean, we're not going to, we don't want to repeat this. Nor do we want to endorse this. But we're still here.

So, I think, you know, I would get in touch with one of our smart vester. I'm sorry, one of our Ramsay trusted real estate agents to see if they know some financing in the Phoenix area for this. That can get the value up. Otherwise, I'm going to separate the two. Don't the trailer and sell the land.

Yeah. I think it's going to be tough to find that buyer and that sweet spot who wants. I was not aware of what she was saying that FHA would not. Second location. The moving the trailer wants makes it not work anymore.

Is it just too much risk for the, I don't know, I don't understand. I did not know that. I knew FHA would find financing in some cases.

“If you put them on a permanent foundation, that's why I was asking about that.”

Yeah. And the piece of ground goes with it. Obviously, they don't finance them in a trailer park. But yeah. The good news is the land will sell.

Yeah. The good news is your, the land is going to be your financial salvation in this. But the dirt would have went up in value, whether without a trailer on it. Yeah. If you just bought the dirt, it would have gone from, you know, probably whatever you paid. But you probably didn't pay anything for it.

Sounds like you got a great deal on the dirt. But yeah, that's the thing. And, but you need to keep those things very separate in your mind as you do the analysis

And it sounds like you need to separate them in order to sell it.

“But get it, get in touch with one of the Ramsay trusted real estate agents.”

Ask call a couple of them and ask them if they know anything about mobile homes or manufacturer housing in your area. And so on. So guys, there's a real spectrum of things when you say manufactured housing. To, if someone's saying that to you, let me walk you through that.

There's a trailer single wide double wide with a couple of axles. And they roll it down with a wide load sticker across the back down the highway. And they set it on the piece of dirt. You put in a septic tank or you hook it to sewer. And you build a concrete foundation under it and you're living in a trailer.

Okay, that's going to go down in value faster than a car that you sleep in. Because that's what it is. A car you sleep in. Okay.

It's a horrible investment.

Well, it's all we can afford. It's a horrible investment. You know, better off renting and saving your money to buy something that goes up in value. Don't buy those. Okay.

And my buddy that owns a manufacturing company and one of those gets mad at me. He's like, don't tell people that. I'm like, hey, when they go quick going down, I'll quit telling them. Okay. They go down.

Then there's manufactured housing that is looks like a trailer, but it's not quite. It's like big sections and they bring it in, bolt it all together. And it's it's modular. And that kind of thing. It's a stand.

And it's still is going to go down in value. If when you walk, reason I ask her the question is from a real estate agent's perspective. And I've been a real estate agent for since 1978. When you walk up in the front yard and you look at it, if you think trailer. Or if you think a builder built this, that's the two different things.

If you think a builder built it when you look at it, you're probably going up in value. The last end of the spectrum on manufactured housing is there's actual factories that build wall sections. They put them on on 18 wheeler. They deliver the wall sections, the floor sections, the pre-engineered trusses, the trains are in here. Floor systems with a heat and they're built into it, the whole thing.

And they put it all together.

And when you're done, it's basically a stick built house.

And it has nothing to do with the trailer world. Those are perfectly fine. Let me tell you what I get asked all the time. When should I get term life insurance? How much do I need?

Is it affordable? Those are the right questions to be asking. So let's take a quick review. The fact is term life isn't a baby step.

“So if anyone is dependent on your income, you need to have 10 to 12 times your income in life insurance.”

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That's zander.com. Stacey's in Chicago. Hi, Stacey. How are you? Hey, I'm good. How are you doing? Better than we deserve. What's up in your world? Hey, we have a situation where we've got our oldest daughter heading to college.

She's been the college freshman this year. And we have done a pretty good job saving for retirement. But we have done a horrible job saving for our kids' college education. And we just kind of thought we had more time than we did and now we're being smacked in the face of it. So we really don't have anything saved for her for college.

So with her coming up right now and we have two more coming up after her.

“I'm just wondering what the best way to approach this is.”

I just was listening to some of your previous calls on people who are tens of hundreds of thousands of dollars and student loan debt. And I'm really just trying to approach this in the smartest way that we can. Good for you. Good for her. What's your household income?

Um, or just a little over 200,000. Good. Okay. I'm going to ask you a real practical question and it is a leading question. I'll warn you ahead of time. Okay. Why is she going to college? What's she want from college?

Excellent. Excellent.

“We did the study of the largest study of millionaires ever done. We studied 10,167 of them.”

The number one career of people that become millionaires is engineer.

Wow. Well, my husband, my husband is an engineer too. Okay. And you've guys have experienced that because you're a wonderful household income. Yeah. All right. So it's okay. I don't. So I applaud the career choice.

Okay. Now the next thing is this. No one except her sorority sisters care where she graduated from college. Absolutely. No mechanical engineer has, well, no.

Let less than less than one half of 1% of engineering jobs are awarded based on where the engineer went to school. Absolutely. I agree with that. Okay. So what we want to do is we want to get the engineering degree by spending the least money possible. Yes. Okay.

So that there's a series of leading questions because we're taking you somewhere George and I do this all the time.

So what that means is we're may go to community college for the first two years and just get the basics out of the way because there's no engineering in the first two years anyway.

Well, so the really great thing is she actually our high school actually offers a lot of dual enrollment credits. Great.

“Going into college with a lot of credit arts.”

So she can blow off a lot of refreshment here. Yes. Good. Well, yeah. She just leapfrog some of that.

Good. So what does she already had an into college? She already chosen. She is. Yes. She's going to Iowa State University. So there's a state school. It's not our state.

But but she's paying out of state tuition. Yes. Why? That's where she chose to go. She doesn't get to choose. She doesn't have any money.

Well, that's true. Well, if I'm paying for dinner, I'm going to choose where we go to eat. And I'm not going. I'm not going to endorse paying something because we drove across the state line. There's no value in having driven across the state line added to the quality of her education.

Did she tell you why she wanted to go to that school? Well, there's a lot of reasons. It's a it's a very good engineering school. Her a lot of friends are going there. She felt comfortable there. She didn't get into our state school.

They have a very competitive engineering program. And she did not get in there. So you're kind of forced to look out. Okay. So as we have studied the student loan debacle over the years. We did a major award winning documentary on it called Barron Future. We find the number one calls of student loan debt is college choice.

“That's why we're coming down hard on this.”

Okay. In other words, I don't think she's. I don't think we're in an excessive amount. Okay. So what is the tuition out of state for Iowa State? Per year we're looking about 30,000.

Okay. Because average tuition in America right now is 12,000 for in state. Oh my gosh. Okay. So we need to do some research. And we need to do some thinking. Because otherwise, this kid's going to end up 150,000 students loan debt.

Because her friends went there. Because her friends went there. And nobody gives a crap where her friends went. They won't even be her friends in a decade. They may not be friends in a year.

Yeah. Yeah. So college choice college choice college choice college choice. And then do as much free stuff as you can do. Like she done a good job as a high school or taking some dual stuff.

Where she got a lot of credits. That's great. She can jump through a lot of refreshment here. That'll save you a lot on cost. But if I'm paying for it, we're going to go the least possible expensive place to get you this degree.

And really, your little feelings don't enter into it with me. I'm sorry. And I'd have a work and part time. You can tell your therapist about your feelings. I'm paying for this.

I love this tattoo. Studies show students who work 15 to 20 hours a week, while taking classes of a higher GPA than those who don't. That's what the research shows. So if you're scared your kids going to flunk at a class because they have a part time job.

The opposite is working and they just don't have time to play beer palm. They're more focused. They actually learn discipline and schedules. So I'd have a work in applying for scholarships. I know several people who got a degree in fraternity and one that got a degree in sorority.

I mean, I mean, they never graduated.

They were laying under a kega beer. And so, you know, this is, we all know these people. I mean, people that were had a part of the college experience. And I don't think that's when I happen to stay see daughter.

This kid's actually smart kid.

But we need to add to our smart wisdom.

“And wisdom is we go where mom and dad can pay for it.”

They make 200,000. You're going to be working. You're going to get scholarships and college choice. And that's the formula when you're broke for your kid to go to school. And so, and then if you can and you want cash flow, it's left. I don't think you're going to do it because the way the sentences were formed in this conversation.

But if I could talk you guys into doing something, I would disappoint her. And with draw from Iowa State at $30,000 a year. And I would find a school you can afford because you can't afford $30,000. Plus, room and board. So, we're at 60, 50 or 60 now out of your 200.

Oh, and you got two more coming on. Oh, what are we going to do with that? Yeah. So, we got to have a plan here.

“And the plan is college choice, college choice, college choice,”

which includes two years of community college and get the basics out of the way for free or close to free. And also add to it, scholarships, scholarships, scholarships, scholarships. By Christina Ellis' book, how I got $500,000 to go to college and free scholarships. Yeah, she did it. And she's out there talking about it right now.

And of course, also work while you're in school. You put those things together, people can go to school with no student loan debt. And if you come out with a degree in mechanical engineering with no student loan debt, you're going to own the world in about four years. It's pretty crazy.

The advantage that this disappointment could give this kid.

Otherwise, she's just been in the first four years after she gets out of school,

paying because she went to school where a friend's went. And that's going to stunt her adult growth where she wants to buy house and have a family and do all these things. And she's going to feel trapped because she's got 150 grand a pay off. That's a good reminder, though. I parents are not all about disappointing people for their own good.

It's like what I do for a living. So we love you. And I want the 10 year old tenure from now version of you to think that we were mean to you because we love you. We disappointed you because we love you. And because we want good things for you.

And I really don't care about your childish little emotions. You know, it's just done up to it. I'm just oblivious to it. I'm old and growl cheek. And so I just want you to win.

I just want you to win. I want this kid. Man, the number one career of millionaires. And she's a good girl, and she's smart and she's the oldest child and she's going to set the pattern for the next two. And you got the decision you all make right now in the middle of all this and all the emotions that you all are all going to go through.

We're going to be worth every bit of the arguments and the fights and the tears.

And the problem is it's just a odd fair.

Well, fair is where the tilt of world and the cotton candy is. There's not a fair. Sorry. [Music] If you're waiting for the perfect interest rate before you buy a home or refinance, that moment may never come.

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Well, we wish we could get to every call and every question here on the show,

If you got a question, head over to our website.

“Use AskRamsie. AskRamsie is our free AI tool that's built and trained only on Ramsey content.”

So there's no tick-tocker Reddit bulk rep in there. You're not going to get any advice except what you would get here. It's three years of this show dumped in there. All the books we've written are dumped in there and the thousands of articles that we have written that align with what we teach are dumped in there. And consequently the thing answers the questions, it's almost as smart as I am.

And so that's the way AI works if you didn't know. It can only regurgitate the data set that it has. That's the only ability AI has. And so if you limit the data set, you limit the answers it gives.

And these are only Ramsey answers. So you're safe.

You don't have to worry about all the other stuff. Ask your question today at RamseySolutions.com or click the link in the description if you're listening on podcast or YouTube. Ask Ramsey. Grand Rapids Michigan, Christopher is calling. Hi, Christopher. What's up in your world?

Not much I just appreciate taking my call. So my question today is I'm starting a brand new career kind of rebuild my life. From the bottom, I'm down up. I just discovered your show and your information and started going through some of your books. But I'm in a significant amount of data and a very low income at this point starting a brand new career. I want to dig myself out of that with a very limited income.

Okay, why if you have a new career, did you choose one that has a limited income? So I went into truck driving and I got my CDL and when I was looking into the careers in my area, I was looking at, you know, brain home 65,000 year, but with my weekly pay and child support coming out, I'm bringing home significantly less than what I expected. You think of my dad's been, I am single, yes.

Won't you drive over the road like three times that?

“That's what I do right now. It's all over the road truck driver.”

Well, you're not making 65 then. No, no, I'm like, I'm not like 39 right now. No, you make more driving over the road, not less.

Yeah, so I'm over the road truck driver just like first month into truck driving.

Yeah, and I get raises every three months. How much are they paying you a month? So right now, like a bring home after child support is taking out. I make about three to 500 a week. How much child support is coming out? A hundred and eighty three dollars a month. I just got that lowered from 1200 a month.

You need to go shopping on your career because you're not being paid enough to drive over the road. Over the road should be making a lot more than you make. Yeah, and like, it's kind of like what I'm seeing right now. Yeah, like that's the lowest over the road price I've heard and I don't know when. Yeah, and like I went with a make a carrier because I didn't have the experience.

Um, necessary to get the like local jobs that are paying like 65 to 85 to 100 cases. I'm trying to have a trouble communicating with you. Over the road makes more than local. Most over the road truck drivers we talk to make north of a hundred. Yeah, and you're making like 30.

Yeah, why entry level.

“You should be making. Not entry level. I mean, this is just doesn't mean, don't even add up. How old are you?”

I'm 36. Okay. All right, and how much debt do you have, honey? 75. Okay. On what? Um, so, um, I owe my mom $20,000. I had $25,000 in student loans.

I have a card that's way too expensive. There was a horrible decision at 34,000. And then $8,000 in credit card debt. Great. So when will the car be sold? Um, I'm looking into how to sell it right now because I can't afford the car. Obviously the car is a horrible decision.

Yes. How far under what are you? What's it worth? It's worth 22,000 to 25,000. Who said? Just, um, we'll get it up on Kelly Bluebook for private sale or trade in. Um, private sales like 22, and then, um,

car trading is 22, and then private sale was 25. That's not worth it. Yeah, so you're 9,000 in the hall. Who do you owe this 34,000?

Oh, god.

So you're paying 15, 16%.

“Yeah. It was a really bad situation. I really regret it.”

I wish I would have started listening to you much sooner in life. What's the car? It's a 2023 GMC terrain Denali. Yeah, dealer. They completely set you up, knocked you down, man.

Oh, god. All right. So, what are you owe your mom 20 grand for? Um, because when I, um, I was working at a nursing home and then, um,

I got to be honest, I have some mental health issues like bipolar, um, PTSD, and some like that. And I was starting the new career at a new nursing home. And I got behind on my child's board. And, um, I was an enforcement.

So, um, she helped me out with that. And then I got caught up with, um, my child's board. I'm current with, you don't pay for it. Like two years.

No, it was more like six months. I thought it was eight dollars a month. It was twelve hundred dollars a month. Okay. Well, six months times, well, there's only two hundred dollars.

Yeah, I think I had, like, Did you get your serve in the military? A law enforcement? Law enforcement. And that's what your PTSD is from?

Yes. Are you on any kind of a disability from that? No, um, I've been really just working on trying to, like, really just get on my seat by working and like.

Okay. All right. Here's what I'm going to do.

You got a lot going on, honey. And I'm going to hook you up with one of our Ramsey coaches that we have trained as a gift. We're not going to charge you a dime for it. All right.

And what I need you to do is I need you get this car sold. As soon as you possibly can, you're going to find the $9,000 to cover the whole year in, because Alad has completely screwed you, honey. And you got to get rid of this.

The faster you get rid of this, the lower your pain is going to be. So let's get rid of it really, really fast. And then the second thing I want you to do is I really want you to study over the road truck driving out there that's goat go online and start seeing what people are paying for it.

“Because I think you're being dramatically underpaid there.”

Unless there's something I'm missing in this equation. So I need you to get your income up and get rid of that car and then develop a game plan on each one of these elements that we're talking about. And you'll be able to walk that through.

But I need somebody to hold your hand and do that more than we can do on a phone call. Okay. And cut up those credit cards if you still got them. Yeah, for sure.

Because that's just going to allow you to go further into debt, which is going to make the same. You're on the road and, you know, you get, you know, matching up just right and you go and you get by a, buy whatever you want to buy out a feel better that day on a credit

car. It's not a good idea either. So you've got to clean those up. George is exactly right. So you hang on and Christian will pick up.

“We'll hook you up with one of our coaches as a gift.”

Because it sounds like somebody needs to hold your hand a little bit and help you get up, get straight and around on a couple of these things. But the two big things you've got to do. You've got to get rid of this car. Three things.

You've got to cut up the credit cards. You've got to get rid of the car. And we've got to get your income up.

And the first place I'm going to look is I don't understand why you're so

dramatically underpaid for what the typical over the road drivers make it right now. So I want you to understand what's going on there. There's something that I'm missing in this puzzle piece here. In this phone call.

But it's out there somewhere. A new man. If you can get rid of that car and get your income up, you're going to be able to breathe. Now we can knock out the rest of this debt in a reasonable amount of time.

Get a life back. And in the process as you're with your therapist working on PTSD and bipolar work on decision making frameworks with them. How they help. Put your new pathways in your brain in place to help you make quality decisions

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Go to CHMministries.org/budget and use promo code Ramsey. That CHMministries.org/budget and use promo code Ramsey. Ramsey show a question of the day is brought to you by WIRIFI. Mr. Private Student Lone payments put you into fault. And they can keep your budget stuck in neutral.

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Today's question comes from Stella in Kentucky. I entered a sweepstakes for a cruise to Paris and the French countryside. And to my surprise, I was the winner. The only cost to us is airfare and hotel stays before or after the cruise. My husband and I didn't have a honeymoon and this feels like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

The hold-up is we are in Baby Step 2 and don't have any extra savings for travel. Friends have suggested getting a credit card just for this trip, but we both feel uncomfortable with that. Part of me knows that I should just take the win as a cool thing that happened, but not financially smart to partake in. But the free spirit inside of me is devastated thinking about losing this opportunity. What should we do?

I don't love being a dream killer, but I'm about to kill the dream, Stella. I would not go on this cruise because it ain't free if it costs you $10,000 in airfare and hotel stays while you guys are in debt. That's one man's take. So the great news is France will still be there. I hope so.

And you can go later. They're not going to move it, it's still going to be there. There will still be cruises. And better ones than this one. This one sounds like a setup.

Ben is in Nashville. Hi Ben, how are you? Hey Dave, I'm doing well and I'm really excited to talk to you. You're the man. How can we help?

Well, I'm 28 years old. I just got engaged. When you get married. Well, that's kind of the big question, right? We really want to get married and I'd love to do it as soon as possible.

But I don't know if I should get debt free first or not. No.

We never tell people to get out of debt before they get married.

Or have babies? Right. Even if the wedding could cost, you know, even on our budget wedding. We're kind of looking at like maybe like 10 or $15,000. Yeah.

So what? That's reasonable. Are you going to pay in for it? You got to pay for it? I got to pay for it.

“And that's what makes me a little nervous.”

Okay. What do you make? Uh, so this year, I'm in sales and I'm going to be making. I'm on track to make about $100,000. What's she make?

Uh, she makes just about like 30,000 right now. She's serving. She's a waitress. Mm-hmm. And how old are you?

Um, I'm 28. She's 25. Okay. And how much debt do you have? Well, it's consumer debt.

Um, so I've got about 18,000. Um, on the, uh, the automobile loan. Um, and then I've got about 7,500 in credit card debt. Which I am fixing to pay off actually next week. I've got a, you know, my bonus check coming in.

Um, 7,500 bucks in debt. And the bonus check will be around $9,000. Awesome. Very cool. And then you've got a card payment left.

And what debt does she have? Uh, her debt's a lot's more of the mind. I mean, she just owes a little bit more on her car.

“Uh, so hers is about, I think, like, 1,500 bucks.”

That she owes on her car.

And, uh, we wanted to tackle this credit card debt first.

And then take care of her car loan and then, you know, start shooting away at the principal in mind. Okay. Um. Well, what I would do if I woke up in your shoes is I would pay off the credit card debt

and her, uh, uh, and her car debt. Um, with your bonus check. I don't usually have you pay somebody's debt that you're not married to.

It's not the end of the world.

So we're done. Okay. Right. And I love, I love her, man. I'm on the car.

I don't care. I still wouldn't pay her debt. No, if it was 15,000 answers, there'll be no. Okay. So, but, and then I would just pay your car payment.

And both of you get on as tight a budget as you can get on. And stock cash for the wedding. And set your wedding budget at 10 grand. And when you got 10 grand, make it work.

“And you should do that by, like, September.”

Do you think you think that, uh, just like setting aside, like bonus checks and stuff? No, I think you should. I think you make 100,000 dollars a year. Shut up. What's going on?

Right. Yeah. What are your expenses as a single 28 year old guy? Uh, well rent right now. Yeah.

How much is rent right now is about 1,600 bucks.

Okay. Oh, she's making 30. She live with her mom and dad. Oh, she knows she does live with me. Which I know is against the Ramsey rules.

Yeah. But stock cash. Each of you stock cash is high as you can stack it as fast as you can. With 130 coming into the two of you. You should come up with 10 grand very quickly and have a budget wedding.

And it's going to be awesome. Yeah. What do you, I mean, what do you recommend because, you know, I think with the. Wait a minute. I'm going to change my mind.

I'm going to change my mind. I'm sorry. I got new information. I didn't process it fast enough. That they're already living together.

Yeah. Get married this weekend. That's the one.

I've loved the little courthouse wedding on a weekend.

And then, and then I want you to have a celebration that costs 10 grand in September. Okay. You know, that's fine. Your life's already had. Wait, wait, wait, wait.

What are you saying, Ben? Well, that's something that we've talked about. And I've got a state she looked really upset when I kind of said maybe we could alone. But I think she just has that that dream of what she moved in with you.

Yeah. This is not exactly a white dress. We're walking down the island. Okay. We gave up the little Barbie and kin wedding a while back when we decided to

shack up. Y'all do what you want to do. But there's no way. I'm getting married this weekend. If you're going to get married, you're going to do this.

And I think you are.

“That's what I would do if I woke up in your shoes.”

Because you're playing house and the longer you play house, the more trouble you going to get in. And you're going to call. You're going to get yourself in all kinds of messes. So, and anecdotally, I found that people that are living together before they're married,

it takes them so long to actually end up getting married. They can't seem to get off the ladder. They just keep painting. Just an eight year engagement. Just get off the ladder.

God. Yeah, it's just, yeah. How when we get married? I don't know someday. We're not going to have the perfect wedding.

Meanwhile, we're just acting like we're married. Yeah. No, I'm sorry, Ben. I have very little patience for that. I'm sorry, her little girl dreams disappeared.

But she gave them up a while back. She signed up for a different trip than the one she had when she was eight years old. Interhead. So, yeah. You know, now we're down to making adult decisions with adult money and adult situations.

So, that's what I would do. You do guys do what you want to do. But I think you can have your celebration with $10,000. And not have your car paid off.

“And no, we don't make people get out of debt before they get married.”

We want them to be in agreement that we're not going into debt going forward. And in agreement on how we're going to handle our money after we're married before you get married. But, you know, we've had people call up. And the girl says, well, he says he won't marry me. I'll pay off the debt.

And I'm like, yeah. He gets you a different boyfriend. I would not marry him. Yeah. And I said, you know, let me get to give me a task.

It's not how this works, buddy. So, you know, that's me. That's not Ben's situation. But we get those all the time. So we don't do that.

And the other one is babies. You know, babies don't cost as much as they're by talks about. They do cost money. And you do need to be responsible. And if you're broken on welfare, you don't need to have 16 of them.

Okay. But deciding to have a baby. And you got to $27,000 student loan. Have the baby. For goodness sake.

You can get out of the student loan debt. Don't wait around on babies. They have babies. Babies are the best things you can do. And do that after you're married, by the way.

Hello, there's a success sequence that we talk about here on the show all the time. It causes you to win financially, as well as in a whole bunch of other areas of your life, relationally, and everything else. So Ben, the bad news is we're not going to be real popular with your fiance. The good news is we did tell you to get married now.

So maybe show like us a little bit anyway. And we didn't tell you to wait to get out of debt to get married. And we didn't even tell you to show your car. That was very nice of you Dave. I was waiting for it.

I thought George was going to jump in. Actually was kind of like, if you really love her, sell the car. If you really want to be debt free so badly before you get married, go ahead and pay and sell this car.

But we're also saying you don't have to be debt free.

You just have to be in agreement on it.

“And then as soon as September's done in the celebration is done of the wedding that actually happened back in July.”

Then we lean in on the car and we pay for it very, very quickly. And that's the plan. That's a plan. So you get married this weekend. Come by next week.

I'll give you a wedding gift. How about that? Show the guy the studio. Are you going to give him a copy of your book? Yeah, I'll give him all your stuff.

Whatever he wants that. All my stuff. Yeah. That's on your table.

Give him some of yours too.

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

“I'm Dave Ramsey, your host George Camel Ramsey.”

Personality is my co-host today. Jessica is in Raleigh, North Carolina. Jessica, how are you? I'm doing well in you. Better than I deserve.

What's up? So I am a single mom of three ages 13, 11 and 8. I have my children 100% of the time. And their dad passed away last year. So I started receiving like so security funds for them.

Death funds for them from their dad's so security. And so I changed jobs and careers last year as well. So I doubled my income making around $40,000 a year to bringing home close to $90,000 a year. How old are you? I'm 38.

What happened to him? I was divorced and single for the last six years.

“I've recently started dating in the last two years.”

But I've always been fond of how to give house away.

Unexpected, I did not know he was using drugs and ended up giving him a heart attack and he died in a sleep. So how were the kiddos doing? Did they have much connection with him? They did, but they didn't.

They saw him every other weekend. But towards the last few months of their visits over there. We lived like a team that's apart. They were kind of getting a little bit separated from there. They just thought to be there.

They just knew wasn't right. Wow, you guys have been through it. Yeah, I just, I've been the bigger part of the most responsible out of our relationship. We were married for almost 10 years. Sure.

He walked out from the fair. He's not paying child support roughly in 21. So much security benefits. There, that's where I'd like to get to. So I received post of $4,000 a month into this case benefits for them.

And I don't know exactly what I should do with this money if it's to help him. It should be in your budget. That's where I was thinking between my home. Because of my income that I make myself. And then there's I almost look at his child support in a way.

It's exactly what I didn't receive through the time they were there. Because it's replacing his income and his income was being used for child support. And Social Security replaced his income. That's what it's supposed to do. It's not, it's supposed to go into trust for the children in their future.

Meanwhile, they start today. So it costs more than four grand a month to raise three kids. Including food, electricity, shelter, gasoline to take them to school, clothing, and so on. And so it's going to take that and more to raise them agreed. Agreed, yes sir.

Yeah. So it's your money to use for your children and your good mom and you're going to use it for your kids. That's really helpful. I sat down with my FPU leader last summer to help. I did this out when I started receiving this stuff.

And I just kind of been letting that money pile up and use it here and there. And I've got about almost $30,000 sitting there. So as I do I use this to pay off my debt because I have, I'm now as of today paid 50,000, $56,000 in debt since last summer in the 125 last and I'm already. I only have $30,000 in state at loans last.

I actually tried to start a food truck business about a year and a half two years ago. And I ran for about a year running three other jobs trying to just make ends meet for me and my kids. And I couldn't keep running myself ragged until I got this position last year with a friend. About 30,000 in state and loans.

So what is the other 95?

I got a heloc loan for the business that I tried to do.

That's at 40 right now. And then I purchased an SUV last fall because of having three older children. A small car was just kind of getting a little bit too tight fit for me and having three years. And how much do you owe on the SUV? 53.

You can't afford that SUV honey. Okay. You don't make enough to pay that. Okay. You make $44,000 a year.

You don't need a 55,000. No, no, no, no, no. I switched from making $44,000 a year that I bring home close to 90 now. Oh, okay. I'm making, I'm bringing home at least $8,000 a month now.

Okay, plus the social security. Plus the social security. Well, let's recap.

“I mean, if you want to keep that car in fight your way through it, you can.”

I personally would sell it and move down.

I think it's too much power. It's not way too much anymore. It's too much and I don't want you to ever emotionally justify going into that again. Right. Yeah.

I don't want you. My goal is to get out of there. No, you took a P.U and then you went about a $53,000 SUV. You're not getting out of that one alive. Okay.

I'm coming after you. Understood. No more. No more. You've got to stop it, okay?

Because you don't kill yourself. This is not good. You've got to stop it. Right.

Think about it this way, Jessica.

If you did sell that car or let's see you downgraded to a $20,000 SUV. It gives you $33,000 profit. If the car is actually worth $53,000, right? No, she owes. You owe $53, so you sell it and get it.

I owe $53,000. How much is it worth?

“I think on the market right now, they all run right around $60,000.”

Okay. So you get $7,000 in profit, plus you have $30 in savings. So now you can get you a nice SUV still and have money left over. You freed up the car payment, which is how much? It's right up.

It's $933,000. It's got a raise right there. And now you can actually knock out this student loan debt. I would do that. I'd be in a $20,000 SUV.

It was paid for within two weeks. I really would do that. But overall, the back to your original answer is it takes that the social security is there for the good of the children. And it's not a good of the children's future. It's a good of the children.

And so as long as you are spending your equivalent of your child's support or the equivalent of your social security payments from your ex husband's death on your children, then you are morally and ethically just fine. And I would just put the $4,000 in your budget. And I would get out of debt as fast as I can and don't make any more of these emotional purchases that you emotionally justify with that.

And walking through the baby steps, there's a time in place to invest for those kids, especially for their education. And that's in baby step five. So baby step one thousand dollars. You have that.

Baby step two. Let's knock out all this consumer debt. Baby step three. Let's stack up that emergency fund. A three to six months of expenses.

Baby step four. We begin investing 15%. So if you're investing now, let's pause that until you clean this mess up. Then we can start using this money to put away for college in a five 29 plan.

And that will really set them up.

“That's some of the best way you can use this money.”

Because you're now really prepping for their future. If you can clean this debt up. I am very proud of you. The way you went and got more income to make sure your kids are taking care of. You're a warrior princess.

You tell people they just go double your income. And people go, you can't do that. She did it. As a single mom of three. She said, I've got to have more money to do this.

And she went and got it. So good for you. Good for you. And you stack the cash. You haven't blown it.

So you got 30 k lay in there that gives you some options. If you don't do what George said to do on the issue, at least though the 30 k of the debt. And let's get it cleaned up. Let's get this debt paid off.

But I would do what George said to do. I think he's exactly right. Thank you, Jessica. [MUSIC PLAYING] Hey, guys, George Kamel here.

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You need to get a pro. Somebody that sells a bunch of houses like 30, 50, or 150, 200 houses a year. If you want one that has that kind of chops, high octane, high protein, you want a Ramsey Trusted agent that we have vetted.

“And if you want to know who we've vetted, you can find out for free at”

RamseySolutions.com/agent or click the link in the description or YouTube. All right, here we go. Chris is in Minneapolis. Hi, Chris, how are you? Better than that is there.

How are you guys? Just the same sir. How can we help?

Well, first off I want to thank you guys.

Ramsey has changed the future of my self and my family. Awesome. Thank you. And we are. Yes.

Yeah. My wife and I are three kids. We're on baby steps for five months bit right now. And my sister referred some financial advisors to us. I've been, we've been using every dollar for a few years.

We've been following the little amount on the every dollar app. And I was just kind of curious to see how I measured up to what the financial advisors were. What would come up with? And surprisingly, they were done about $100 of each other. Wow.

Yeah. For retirement.

Anyway, so they're talking about something that they would recommend moving around.

And one of the things they brought up was whole life. For insurance policies. We already have term life.

“And I know all life is a bad word in the Ramsey world.”

When I asked them what their reason was, they they glued themselves to the savings account with it. The, um, scenario that they painted for us is we, we share a terminate. And we're in an economic, um, depression at that time. And to have an extra savings account that we did draw our monthly expenses from instead of touching our entire account.

So there are premises that the life insurance company will be open and prospered. But the stock market will have disappeared. That's dumb, but. Yeah. Yeah.

Um, you understand the life insurance company holds the savings, right? And if the life insurance company goes, could put, you get a zippy. So there, there are set of assumptions as absolutely as as an iron as their product. Okay. You knew you were going to call her or get this, right?

You didn't give them a dime of your money, right? Tell me you didn't do that. No, no, no, no. Okay. No, no, no, no.

But my actual question is, is there something similar? So we'd be planning some kind of a savings account on the side. Um, if, for like, if that were to happen, you know, something that's, that's, uh, taxi to them, something that's just dinner to, to drop from or it's just not. I mean, a whole life is not tax exempt.

“Whole life is only tax exempt if you, if it works, if the product works properly, you”

lose money. And that makes it tax exempt, because it doesn't grow as much as it should. Your basis in a whole life policy for tax purposes is what you put into it. A lot of people don't even get out of it. What they put into it.

And there's no taxes. But if you get out of it, more than you put into it, you pay taxes on whole life. So they lied to you. Okay. Well, please get away from these people.

[laughs] Now, back to your original question. How do we prepare for the Great Depression that could be coming? We don't. I don't have an atomic bomb financial plan.

What happens if they don't address and drop an atomic bomb on us? I don't have a financial plan for that. There's not a financial instrument that will survive that. Uh, because everything in the event of a great, the Great Depression is many life insurance companies closed as other companies closed during the Great Depression.

The FDIC was formed as a governmental body to ensure the savings that's in a bank.

The federal deposit insurance corporation. It's a quasi-government agency. And it's there to protect up to, I think, it's 200,000, 250,000 per depositor now per bank. Okay? But even that could collapse. It's an insurance group run by the government.

Hypothetically, it could collapse. Social security could collapse. All of these things are math things that somebody's got to put the money up. Contrary to what the socialist believes, the money has to come from somewhere. It doesn't just magically freaking appear.

So, I do not have a plan for my wealth in the event that the American economy collapses. Because I don't have a plan if it collapses. I buy bullets and water if it collapses. And by the way, I have bullets and I'll just need to get your water, I guess. But, um, you know, that's the thing.

So, you know, you fall into that situation, but you can't plan for that.

And when someone starts selling you a product based on the collapse of the economy,

“you should look at what happens to their business in the event of the economy collapsing.”

That's how dumb, but this whole thing is. You should buy whole life, because life insurance companies will be just fine if the economy... Oh, crap! Every business will go down, accept them somehow. They'll be the only one standing.

Pacific life, the whale will make it. You're killing me here. You're killing me. It's so dumb. It's fear-mongering to make their commission as what's happening. So, the chances of that... I mean, I'm looking at the stock market.

Do not take any more advice from your sister. What's the worst we've had, that, you know, negative 38% or in the 2008 crisis? That's in the last 50 years, that's been the worst. And the market was almost 100. It was up 23% the next year.

Yeah. So, the chances of this being a real issue for a young guy like this who's investing for the long term is zero. Get out of debt? It's not zero, but it's not a emergency fund.

If you can't bet on the American economy, there's not a lot of other bets. There's not a lot of other things. I mean, you know, if you don't think real estate's going to go up

“in the next 50 years, where were you in the last 50 years?”

You know, what'd you miss out on? How'd you miss that? You know, of course it's going to go up. If you don't think the stock market's going to go up, just look at what it's done. Look at what it's done. And the stock market actually is companies that you buy from every day.

It's home depot and McDonald's and Coca-Cola and Dale and Apple. And you buy their stuff every day. You give them your money and that makes their company more valuable. And their stock goes up. It's called the American economy.

It's how it works. And so that's what we're doing. Oh, God. So, I'm just saying. I'm not angry.

I don't get angry. I'm not angry with Chris, but those people just lie. I don't know how it's still legal that they position themselves as financial advisors when they're really just insurance salespeople. It's a great whole life agents.

But that's not financial advisors.

“For anyone listening, if they're going, hey, whole life is a great product.”

If your financial advisor says that, you need to run. Please, how quickly can I get out of the building? That's wild. It's just like you go into the card slot. And they go, hey, we got these payments for you.

It's only 24% interest. How quick do you run off the lot? You're getting screwed. How fast do you run out of there? Like your hair's on fire.

You get out of the building. You mean, when a company and organization is trying to screw you, the last thing you do is you take, okay, so that that portion of what they said might not be right. But we can trust the other portion of what they said.

Well, that's theological. That can now entrust. I have established that you are as a crook. You as a crook. And so you as a crook is a crook.

We are done with you. That's it. We don't do crook. And the reason they push it is very simple. They make the most money by pushing whole life on you.

They're going to make close to nothing, giving you a term life policy. Some paired.

Or when that's your term life insurance policy for a million dollars,

they make about five percent of what these whole life guys do. So on your 400,000 dollar policy. I mean, the premiums, the commissions on these things are. Just asked for $100 and hundreds of dollars a month. Then they're just over here.

Look in their chops and your poor sister Chris, she got screwed. And then she sent you over there. Sounds like she needs to cancel a whole life policy. Basically you like a goat.

Oh my god.

You spend hours researching before making a major purchase like a home or car,

“but it's also a good idea to put in the work searching for the right insurance coverage.”

To protect your biggest assets, I recommend using Ramsey Trusted Pros. Whether you're looking for car home or any other type of insurance, Ramsey Trusted Providers have been coached and vetted to serve you like we would. Find what you need at RamseySolutions.com/insurance. [Music]

Brett is in Santa Fe, in Mexico. Hi, Brett, how are you? Uh, what an honor is to speak with you Mr. Ramsey and Mr. Campbell. This is unreal. More honor to speak with you.

How can we help?

Well, I have to thank you first.

I've been to stay at home once going mom to treat kiddos. And when I left the workforce to be home with my babies, oh, it was beautiful. But part of me really missed adding to our family financially. So listening to your show and reading your books really gave me financial purpose, even though I wasn't making that money anymore.

And I did purposefully, purposefully, stewarded and managed it well. And I'm just so grateful for the gift that you've given us. Thank you. After eight years of doing that, we're officially weird. The paid off our house and we're almost babies that know in here. So we're just a way to go.

And you did all the homeschooling the kids by you. Look at you. Well, yeah, the hard work of my husband, absolutely. Oh, you did some hard work too, sounds like good, good for y'all. Well, my question today has to do with receding a monetary gift.

My parents are absolutely amazing people, and they've worked ridiculously hard their whole life.

And they've built an incredible life for themselves. And it's retired a couple of years ago and they're traveling the world and they're spending their time with family, living their best lives because it earned it. But they want to give my husband and I a sizable amount of money. And I sure would like to advice about what mindset we should have about this.

Kind of overwhelming, but they're certainly undeserving. I such a gift and while I appreciate their generosity, I'm not sure how to receive such a gift or even if we should.

“So what do you think or what advice could you give?”

What does your husband make? He makes about 170. Boy, you guys are how old? Almost 40, we're 39. Okay. And how much is the gift?

It's about many sort of much here, $200,000. Okay. All right. And I assume they're getting tax advice and we'll use the Unified Estate Tax Credit so that this is not subject to gift tax. Make sure of that.

Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned it for very long. Yeah, because otherwise you'll get that they will get hammered on gift tax. But I'm guessing they've got a large estate and they're wanting to move some of it out while they're alive. And they use up some of their exemption. And that's probably not a bad thing at all.

I'm on that at all. So your millionaire's already, you make 170. You're in your 40's, you're mature. You're not some trust fund baby. That's going to be irresponsible. This just adds progress to what you were already doing,

which was good stewardship and mature. So what would you do with the 200k? Well, we would possibly move up in house. We'd been saving to do that anyway. And of course, don't want to do that with that.

So we'd probably maybe put your house worth a minute. We just paid it off at worth about 400,000. Cool. So you moved to a 600. Make it 170. I like that. That does a good move.

Okay. So it's something that would be a wise thing to accept. Of course, there's no string attached.

I know that's always a question that you asked.

Yeah, that was the next question. But as long as there's no strings attached, yeah.

“They're not forcing to do something specific, whether right?”

This is Mom and Dad have millions. And they want to drop a couple hundred on you while they're alive and watch you enjoy a better house. I like it. Okay.

I think there's nothing toxic in anything you described. Nothing weird, nothing strange. If you call me up and you were immature and you were overspending, then this gift is probably not going to change you to the positive. You already have proven yourself to be good.

Stewards and handlers of money. So this just adds to your progress. And so this is what parents hope for is children like you all.

Yeah, yeah, go get them. I'm proud of that. That's a rare call.

Healthy people on all sides. No dysfunction.

Doing well financial. If you guys all start doing that, we'll probably be out of business. Man, that was the easiest call I've taken today. It's not very entertaining. Oh, man.

The ratings of go down on our jury spring or podcast. It was negative amounts of drama with that call. Too peaceful way to go. Good job, Brett. Good job, Brett's parents. Good job, Brett's husband. Everyone involved. They plan.

Madison is in Huntsville. How are you? I'm doing great. How are y'all? Better than we deserve. What's up? The question is, my husband and I have a business. We started in 2017.

And our personal life, we're ready for baby step number four. There's still a very large debt on a piece of equipment in our business. And so my question is, where should I be really putting my money? Because that's a 6% interest on a very hot holler piece of equipment. How much do you owe on this piece of equipment?

It started at 750,000. Now it's at 330. Okay. What is it? It's a crime. It's a grapple-fault crime truck. So we have a free service.

“And that's what he does for a living now.”

And what is he making out the business? Um, usually, we, I mean, as self-employed, um, paying ourselves. But we usually pay the profit that you pay taxes on. What's your taxable profit on the business? Oh, profit on the business.

Um, about half of our growth.

Our growth is a million. So we profit about half of that.

About 100,000. And where does that 500,000 go? You pay taxes and then where's the rest of it go? Um, pay taxes and the rest of it goes in the account. Um, and then like when we need to upgrade equipment, well, the business checking. Okay.

Um, yeah. So where is it not going to, what, where is, uh, if that's been happening for a couple of years, why have you not just paid off the grain? Well, we've only grossed that much the past two years. Oh, okay. And yes. Yes. And we've...

So yeah, you shut up. And you, and you shoveled a bunch of it home and took care of home, Dad. We took care of home, Dad. Yeah. So what I want you to do now, shovel the minimal amount home to live on and get this grain paid off.

Okay. All right. Right now, I'm doing the monthly payment, which is 6400, and I'm doing... I want you to put 300,000 on it and pay it off. Okay. I don't want to hear about monthly payments. I want to pay it off now.

And we're making a half a million dollars a year. A profit taxable income minus taxes minus living expenses.

“You should pay that grain off this year.”

Okay. In a year. Okay.

And then you're going to make money like you've never seen before.

You're going to make money like you've never seen before. Okay. And then start, maybe set four in investing for us. Because we are not. And I just feel so behind.

You're okay. You're making a half million dollars a year. You're going to be okay. Okay. I'm just worried about it. And the kid is in the retirement.

And I think you're going to be okay. You're making a half million dollars a year. But the lesson, the crane is a destabilizer to the business. And so it's a destabilizer to the family as well. Okay.

So the sooner we get that stinking thing paid off. And then in your business, P&L. Once it's paid off, I want you to be setting aside a percentage of your net profits every month for retained earnings.

And that's business savings. Retained earnings are used in your all's case for two or three things. One, it's used for next equipment purchases in cash only. Never finance again. Ever.

Hear me? Never do this again. Okay. You pay cash. You make enough money to pay cash for your upgrades

and replacement equipment from the rest of your life. Okay. And just allocate 20% of your profits or whatever you want to set aside. Some percentage automatically goes aside for emergencies. And for equipment replacement.

“And that's what your retained earnings are going to be used for.”

Because that's the lifeblood of your business. And it's going to keep it moving. And then take everything else home and get your home paid off. And get your 15% going into retirement. And you're going to be multimillionaires in a matter of a decade.

If you follow all that. But you're going to stay right on top of it. You've done a good job managing the cash I can tell. Based on the numbers you gave me. Yeah, you're on a great track.

And I want to send them your book Dave build a business you love. You don't mind. I don't mind. Can I do that? All right.

That's my gift to you on behalf of Dave. I want to see this business flourish. I want to see it scale and grow completely debt-free.

And it's inspiring to see the business owners do it.

“People go, you can't ride a business with cash.”

And Dave goes, oh my beer. He did it. He still does it. It's pretty impressive. Good way to run a business.

Hey guys, Dave Ramsey here. Every day on this show, we help people work through real money problems. And figure out what to do next. Now, you can get that same kind of help any time with Ask Ramsey. Ask your money question and get answers built on Ramsey principles we use on the show.

Whether you're making a decision or just want something explained, ask Ramsey is here to help. It's fast, simple, and free to use. Go to RamseySolutions.com and try Ask Ramsey today. That's RamseySolutions.com. Our scripture that I looked 12, 15, and he went on to say to them, "Watch out and guard yourself from every kind of greed."

“Because your true life is not made up of the things you own.”

No matter how rich you may be.

Ronald Reagan said, "The government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives."

Oh, sorry for asking. Wouldn't you encourage me for the deco? Go back for it. Come back, Ronald. Mark is in Atlanta.

Hey, Mark, what's up? Dave, what's good? All thanks, man. How can we help? Hey, so, little situation.

I'm 26 years old, married, and my parents live in Arizona. They're in their 60s. Recently, my parents got scammed out of a lot of money. A couple hundred thousand dollars of their savings lost. Wow.

No way to get it back. What was the scam? I've been putting a lot. Go ahead. What was the scam?

My dad is a business owner. The scam he was looking on indeed for side hustles. And it was some sort of side hustle where you put X amount of money in. And they quote unquote. You saw a return on investment of you put a thousand dollars in.

And as a count, or so, it looked. There was $2,000 there after you put a thousand dollars in. So, he ended up putting a lot a lot in. And the only reason he found it out was because he called me and said, "Hey, this is my goal. I need it a little bit more. Would you be willing to help out?"

And it just went down this rabbit hole of us finding out what was going on. And how deep they really were.

So he'd never made it withdrawal.

Correct. He only made deposits. He was saw on the number. He saw a number on a report, but he never made it withdrawal. Yep.

Exactly. That's a Ponzi scheme. That's like Made-Off, yeah. Wow. And so FBAs involved, I assume.

FBAs involved local, yeah. Yeah. But the money's gone. Yeah, money's gone. Money's gone.

“And what does your dad and mom make for a living? How much do they make a year?”

They've made about 120 grand a year. That has slowed down. They are not in the best health. And so I would expect closer to $100,000 or less this year. Wow. How can we help?

So here's a question. There might be a couple of questions along with it. But my wife and I, we've been extremely blessed. We make about $50,000 a month. We have a home in Arizona that we owe $180,000 on.

We've been paying it off quickly. We don't have any other debt. And we have offered to let my parents stay at that home in Arizona.

And they can stay there, rent free, and we're not worried about it.

“There's a home that we bought and then company moved us out to Atlanta.”

And so what's your question? The question is, my parents are currently living in a home that they own. They owe about $421,000 on it. It's worth about $731. Should they sell their home and pay off about $131,000 of debt they have?

And stay at our place, rent free. Rent out the home that they own and ship away at debt. That's just sell their home. And move into yours. And you're going to keep the home in your name.

But you're going to allow them to live there and the rest of their lives debt free. And no payments, no rent free for the rest of their lives for 60 years old. So for 25 years, you're going to be okay with this. Yep. And your wife's going to be okay with this.

Yeah, we've talked about it and of all the solutions that we could come up with. This sounded like the best option. I didn't watch it. It's conditional. It's conditional for me.

My gift is conditional.

I want you guys to continue to work and I want you to pay $2,000 a month into a good mutual fund to build your nest egg instead of paying rent.

And if you're not going to do that, you can't move in. Okay. I don't need the money. I want you to do it for you.

“But you need to pay money for where you're living.”

And I just want you to pay it into an account for your nest egg. And you sit down with a smart vester pro and have them help pick out some good mutual funds and set up an account. And I'm going to help you. But with my gift, I'm going to require something that you do something that's good for you, not for me. For sure.

And are you going to cover all of their bills? Utilities, taxes, insurance, maintenance, lifestyle, groceries? No. They can see at the house. They will cover the bills.

They'll cover the electric, the water. Everything that comes at the house. They will be covering. They'll cover the insurance and the taxes. Insurance and taxes.

Good question. I'm saying this to make sure that you're very clear with them. Yeah. Who's got what is important? If they're going to be paying the taxes and insurance and you're the owner, you need to get verification once a year that that bills paid.

Got it. Because otherwise, you're going to get foreclosed on for back property taxes when day five years from now, not see it coming. It could happen. Yeah.

I mean, lots of things in this story happened that we never thought would happen.

But what do you do for a living? I'm a door to door salesman. I sell window replacements. And you're making 600k? Yes.

Very well done, sir. Proud of you. Wow. So amazing. I don't know.

You're really taking care of your parents. Fabulously. Congratulations. I'm happy for you. I'm happy for them.

Yeah. But I would put that condition on there and that they do something for themselves. They can make 100k and they're in their 60's just keep working. You got scammed. Keep working.

But the money back. $2,000 a month. How fast were they with the 300k back? I mean, 24 grand a year for three years or 75. They're probably pretty close.

They're probably three or four years or other money back. And it'll double every seven years. Yeah. So that's not bad. It'll create a little bit of a nest egg.

Yeah. Because there's going to be a day where they can't work. They're in poor health. And you got to be ready for that. What happens then?

A free house doesn't cause you to be able to eat. Yeah. You need me ready to. Yeah. They're on poor health.

Now he said. But on wild mark. That's a scary. It's a scary lesson for everybody out there to learn on the scamming that goes on. Adam is in Knoxville.

Hi. Adam. What's up? How are you doing, brother? Better than I deserve.

How can we help? I'm going to question for you. So as I'm rolling in my life, I've got three small children. And I'm wondering whether to invest in human race today with the money I have. And that's it today.

Or do I invest in me in my last future? Yeah.

“When you were a kid, what's the fanciest vacation you went on?”

Yeah. Do you see a therapist for the child abuse that you received? No. So your parents spent a lot of money on experiences. Mirdle Beach ain't way up there.

No. And you turned out okay. And you're not mad at your dad. I never knew my dad. Well, you're not mad at whoever took you to Mirdle Beach.

You turned out okay.

“So I do want you to spend some experiences.”

But let's not live in the land of this is what makes children into wonderful adults.

Because daddy took them to Disney World and spent $500 million every summer.

That's incredible. That's incredible. That's incredible.

And now he's broken retirement.

And we have to pay his bills. What turns children into wonderful adults is a good dad that loves them and is there for them. A good mom that loves them and is there for them.

And yes, we do do some things with experiences with them.

But we also say for our future so you don't have to take care of me when I'm old.

“You should be taking care of your own kids instead of me.”

And so you got to do both. That's called being a grown up. But don't get over on that camp where experiences are more important. Where we're going to be irresponsible about our future. And my experiences were a tent at a lake.

That's what I remember. That's why I remember him. And that's what I remember. And now I don't do that anymore. That puts us out of the Ramsay show in the books.

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

“And the meantime remember there's ultimately only one way to financial peace.”

And that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.