Quit Paying for Yesterday's Mistakes

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

so we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network and the Fair Winscredit Union Studio, this is the Ramsey Show. >> I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Jade Wash, all number one. Best selling author, Ramsey Personality is my co-host today.

Open phone's here at cripple 825 at 525. Most of you know I am a lifelong Tennesseean that are studios, operate in Franklin, Tennessee, and just south of Nashville, and many people drop by, so people sitting out here today watching us. We do the show from one to four live, come visit us.

And lifelong Nashvilleian as well, which means that as our radio career has grown and whatever else I do around here, career has grown, I've gotten to know and become friends with a lot of the country music folks around Nashville, particularly of my generation. I don't know a lot of the younger ones as well because I'm not that cool,

but I know a few of them.

“But you know, one of the things I've learned over the years of working”

with the country music community is there's a few torps,

but most of them are incredible people.

The absolute queen of the state of Tennessee and of all the country music artists would have been Dolly Parton. And I just heard a moment ago that she just passed away and I'm heartbroken. And as all of the world is, I'm sure, but certainly, Tennesseeans and those of us who, she was an absolutely amazing woman

behind the scenes as well as on the stage, phenomenal business mind. Absolutely genius at business and very well accomplished in the boardroom as much as on the stage. The things that she has pulled off and Dolly would among them and many, many other things. And the other thing that she's most known for among those of us,

I didn't know her, but I knew half a degree of separation 46 times. And incredibly generous. Every child in the state of Tennessee gets a free book every year from the Dolly Parton Foundation. She wanted to encourage readings.

She grew up in severe Voltenacy and the mountains of East Tennessee. And reading was a privilege not an automatic entitlement. And so she wanted to make sure children regardless of their economic circumstances had that.

“And I think the third thing that comes to mind when I think of Dolly is,”

I mean, the fourth is the performances and the absolute incredible world class talent

in movie and on stage and everything else. But she, as much as anybody I've ever known in that business, stayed completely out of any kind of politics or social issues. She just said, I just love you. And you don't have to just accept that.

But we're not going to talk about who I voted for. We're not going to talk about your social agenda conservative or liberal, because I just love you. And nobody except the ones closest to her, knows what she actually believed on those things.

And because she, that was not who she was. And she didn't care. She said, that's not my job. And she was really, really good at her job and her job was being Dolly. The only one ever.

I mean, there's very few people. You can say a singular name like Dolly, a single first name. And you don't even have to say the last name. And as a performer, you had to be really-- you had to have seen her and watched her many times.

Oh, absolutely. I mean, I don't have a long list of things to say. But I will say the world that I know needed certain people in it. And when they leave, it doesn't feel quite right. And it's people like Prince.

It's people like Dolly Parton. It's people like Michael Jackson. And when somebody liked Dolly Parton leaves the world, you go, oh, it just doesn't feel right. Because they shaped the world that I saw.

It leaves a hole in an irreplaceable hole. Yeah, that's true. And in all cases, it's a dimension force of nature, absolutely

force of nature, and just incredible.

So Ramsey Show is grieving with our friends and our neighbors and her husband today.

But wow, she was scheduled to come on here, several different times to do books and things that she had coming out.

And it just never worked out.

Something would blow up. And at the last minute, it gets changed and everything else. And I, you know, people ask me all the time. You've met a lot of people. Who's the one person you've never met?

And I always say, Oh, man, and I never made it. I never made it. So I regret that. And I know so many people that are close friends. And I should have forced the issue, I guess.

But I didn't regret that at this moment and tell you that.

“So, but anyway, I can't, the only way I can drop the name is”

she lives about five miles, lived about five miles from me. And everybody knew where she lived. I mean, you know. And just see her, people would see her. The grocery store, she wasn't recognizable.

She said it takes about three hours to look like this. That was her line.

And so pretty, pretty incredible.

So gosh, makes me want to tear up. But okay, open phones here at Triple Eight. Eight, two, five, five, two, two, five. By the time some of you hear this, that will be old news. But such is the business that Jade and I ran.

And we're going to take the moment on the microphone. Anyway. Absolutely. Aaron is with us in Nashville. Hey, Aaron, what's up?

Hi. How are you guys doing? Better than we deserve, what's up?

“So I have been Davis for pretty much my entire adult life.”

So try to avoid bad bets. Only took out according to what good bets.

And just over the last year, I finally realized that just the way my mind works, I want

to be 100% in on the baby steps. And so part welcome to the drink, I made. Thank you. And so one of the mistakes I made in both of these are relatively recent. And so I bought a home would have been three years ago now, a 30% or a 30 year mortgage.

And I only put five percent down. And so I don't have a ton of equity. And two of the other mistakes I made were a year and a half ago, I bought a brand new mini van. And probably about six months ago, I bought a year old vehicle.

And they are both male paid off on one big step, four, five and six. What do they wear? And so combined, they are worth about $56,000. What's your household income? $180,000.

Okay. No, I would not.

“So I would just start working the baby steps and pay off your house.”

I can't, I would keep the car. You don't hate the cars. Do you? No. We love them.

We think you just want to be all in a, you just want to be all in a, you just want to be all in and do the, do it right now, not ish. And keeping them is not ish. It goes by our guidelines, you're a great judge. Yeah, I agree.

You make $180,000 a year. We say that things with wheels and motors should not be more than half of your annual income. And so you're under that line. And so yeah, all's fair and love and keep in the cars. [MUSIC]

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[Music] Dean is in Houston. Hey, Dean, how are you? Hey, Dave, how are you all doing today? Better than I deserve, what's up?

Alright, so I've accumulated about $100,000 in debt and I'm wondering if chapter 7 is going

“to be the best way to kind of take care of that.”

It's never the best way. It is a way and it's a very painful way.

When you first started thinking about it and looking at it, it feels like it's not painful.

I've been through it and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. What kind of debt do you have? What kind of is the $100,000? So about 32,000 is hospital and have 10,000 in student loans and the biggest chunk of it is from a car accident.

I got into without insurance. So 32 is 42, so that's like $65,000 or $68,000. And then there's another 12,000 in just another debt. My apartment got broken into and we just didn't deal with it. Exactly.

So you did not have insurance on your car? Correct. Why? It's just pretty expensive at the time and I know it's just an excuse, but like $60,000 expensive. Yeah.

Same with the renters insurance.

You didn't have renters insurance. Is that what caused the $12,000 on the apartment? Well, we did have renters insurance, but it was a $2,500 deductible and they were trying to charge just much more than that and at the time my fiance and I, we had a baby on the way.

We didn't have enough cash to fix the door and pay rent so we ended up just getting a new place. Got it. Okay. So $60,000 approximately on the car debt and what do you guys make for a living?

How much do you make? I bring in somewhere around 72 self-employed in your wife.

“If you want to say she makes around 30, what kind of self-employed work do you do?”

What is it?

I run a handyman business.

Good. Okay, good. That means you can do a lot of that. What about your fiance? What kind of work does she do?

She works in health and beauty. What's that mean? She's an anesthetician. She sees a waxor. Yeah.

Okay. When is the wedding? Not sure. I've been kind of stacking up cash right now. I don't have about $20,000 in cash.

Is all this in your name? Yes. Okay. It's none of it's in her name. Correct.

Okay. All right. Well, I view bankruptcy like in the same bucket as divorce. You do every possible thing you can to avoid it. And then sometimes you can't, anyway.

But you do every, you try every thing, you leave it all on the field. And then if you file, you don't have quite the sense of regret or guilt that you would have if you just file. Okay. Now, if you file chapter seven bankruptcy, your self-employed making a 72,000 a year,

your student loan is not bankruptable. So it's going to be their regardless. Okay. The rest of this can probably be wiped out. If you pass what's called the means test and the attorney can tell you that, they check

to see if based on your income, you could pay something towards your debt. If you can pay something towards your debt based on this mathematical formula that's in the legal system, then they will not allow you to file chapter seven. They will put you into a chapter 13 where you pay minimum, you pay a certain number of dollars a certain, and say you're 100,000, you're 90,000, because the student loans

aren't in it. Our repaid at a 40% rate, only 40,000 of its repaid or whatever, and it's over five years. Okay. And it takes forever, and it's a pain in the butt. And so I'm a little bit afraid you're going to bump into that with your income being

pretty decent. I might be wrong, but I don't know in Texas what the guidelines are going to be on the means test.

“And so you're going to have to find that out if you want to investigate this further.”

What I will tell you is that with $20,000, you can probably clean up most of this debt.

around $20 on the dollar.

You could be debt-free by negotiating each one of these to $20 on the dollar. Now, some of them are going to be a little more, some of them are going to be a little less, but when a debt buyer buys old credit card debt, for instance, bad debt, they typically buy it at a nickel on the dollar. And we see these deals settled all the time for pennies on the dollar, and you can take

the $20,000 and work your way through it. That's one way you could go at this.

“So, there was, I think if you called the car wreck, I assume that's an insurance company,”

right? Who do you owe the money to, State Farm or who? Yeah, it was progressive and then they ended up selling it to a company. I tried really, really hard negotiating with them, but they didn't come down any. How old is it?

It's 20, 22, yeah, we'll call them again, it's been a while.

You try it at the time really, really hard, but now they've been sitting on this and they haven't gotten a debt-gum dime and you call up and go, "Hey, I've got a little money, but I'm going to file chapter 7." And you're going to get nothing. So, instead of doing that, let's cut a deal.

And I'll offer you $6,000 for this position. And then let's start the negotiation and I'll bet you can settle it somewhere around $10,000, really, $10 or $15,000, somewhere in there. That's, you know, it's since 2022, all you got to do, Dean, is put yourself in that company's position.

They bought a bad debt from progressive from a 24-year-old guy who wrecked his car and didn't even have insurance. They don't expect to collect anything. Well, they paid almost nothing for it, and they don't really expect to collect anything.

So, that anything they get is going to be like, "Wow, we just scored." That's where they're coming from. Now, they're not going to act like that when you call them, but that's where they are. They probably paid $2,000, $3,000 for this debt. Yeah, that's it.

Okay. So, I'm going to try all of that. And that will definitely work with the medical. I was going to say same thing with the medical. The medical will definitely work.

“And I think you could clean up the vast majority of this for the round 20 grand, and what”

you can't clean up, you can put on payments and work out. That's what I would do.

That'd be my first choice.

Also, before you do anything, I'm going to put you on hold and Christians are going to hook you up with Guardian Litigation, which is one of our sponsors, and they negotiate with all kinds of debt. I don't know that they can help with your unusual mix, but you can ask them. And we can ask them for you, they're a sponsor of ours.

They typically take somebody's got $50 or $100,000 for the credit card debt, and it's just a little bit behind, and they're freaking out, and they think they're bankrupt, and they're not, and they can work through those deals real easy. It's what they do. But they might be able to help with this, and we'll give them a shot at it.

But if they say, hey, Dean, it's really not our thing, then if I'm you, I'm going to go settle most of this for this 20 grand. By the way, you can get married for free at the justice of the piece, this weekend. But I would not get married this weekend if you're thinking about filing bankruptcy. I would wait until bankruptcy is off the table because you're making some progress.

Yeah, absolutely. On some of these negotiations, and you need that 20,000 cash. Yeah. You need it too. And by the way, I don't know what the personal exemption is in Texas.

And Tennessee, it's $7,500.

“If you have more than $7,500, you have to throw it in the pot and lose it.”

And in Texas, it might be $15,000, it might be 20. Texas has homestead exemption unlimited. If you own to home in Texas, you get to keep it regardless of what it costs or how much it's worth, and Florida does. There are the only two states that have that in the chapter seven.

But look all of that up, look up, look up your personal exemption in the chapter seven. You may be losing the 20 grand anyway, or a large portion of it. So let's work on settling it, let's work on Guardian Litigation, and spend five months, three months fighting and arguing with these people, and let's get this out of your life. Oh, and by insurance.

of bankers are happy to hold your money.

Most people spend years focusing on their financial goals and never stop to ask whether

“their bank is helping them get there, or just holding on to their money.”

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memory. So, Texas allows up to $50,000 in personal assets, so he gets to keep his $20,000 if he files chapter seven. That's pretty.

And they allow an unlimited on your personal residence, so you can own a $2 million

home. This paid for file bankruptcy hypothetically on $20,000 for the credit card debt. And you'd have to prove that you can't pay it, you'd have to pass the means test, but you keep the $2 million home in up to $50,000 worth of cash. And our personal assets, okay.

“Now, when I filed an Tennessee in 1988, our personal exemption was $7,500, and that's what”

I quoted a while ago that's what I looked up. It's been raised to $10,000 now, and the personal, and you can keep up to $35,000 worth of home equity. You think it'd be more of a sliding skill based on the amount of debt that they're trying to bankrupt.

I don't know. I, you know, the idea is you get to come out of bankruptcy with something to start fresh. It's called a fresh start concept. Got you. Got you.

And so, that's where the home state exemption, the personal exemption, come from in a chapter seven, which chapter seven is the atom bomb. You drop on your life, and it's just nothing left, but ashes, and whatever your little personal exemption is. And so, you know, what do you get to keep?

50,000 in your home, though ain't bad, is all I'm saying? Yeah, it's 35,000 now in Tennessee. Uh-huh. Yeah. In Texas, it's unlimited.

50,000 in personal. So, 50,000 in cash, and unlimited on home. Yeah. The Florida's unlimited on your home, as well. As long as you've owned it, $1,250 days for three years, in other words.

So, that was weird.

I've never seen that before, but yeah, so if you've owned your home, as a couple of other

little guidelines on there in Florida, but all other states have something like Tennessee where you get to keep a certain amount of equity. So, when we filed, I think we had about 25,000 dollars worth of equity, maybe, in our home, and we got to keep, you know, our furniture that would have brought $2,000 at a garage sale, but because it's all, that's all there was left.

Everything else was already gone by the time we filed, we sold everything, trying to get not file bankruptcy, and we were so scared, we couldn't breathe. But yeah, we kept that home, but you have to re-sign for the payment. You don't get to wave the mortgage, so I got to re-affirm the debt on the house and kept the mortgage.

Wow. And, you know, started with nothing, basically, I mean, $10,000 or $75,000 is a person, basically, nothing. And so, start fresh again. That's the idea behind it.

So, interesting. Very interesting. It's very interesting.

“So, when you think about bankruptcy folks, you need to understand, there's about, I think”

you may have seen this stuff, sometimes it pops up on the internet, I used to see the list before there was an internet, 10 things that, if you have more than two or three of these things in a 24-month period of time, you're probably going to be in the hospital. Yeah. And the 10th tragedies of life, you know, so divorce, loss of a child, loss of a parent, bankruptcy,

is on that list. And so, you're entering into the list of one of the most serious things that can happen in your life. And so, it's not to be taken lightly. And we don't tell people to file bankruptcy on this show.

We give you five ways you can avoid it. And we say, I understand, we're going to love you whether you file or you don't file. Sometimes, if it's a ridiculous situation, we'll yell at you for your own sake. But, you know, if you feel $6,000 and you hadn't had a job in two months and you want to file bankruptcy, I'm like, dude, it costs two grand to file bankruptcy.

Go get a job.

“You know, I mean, we're just going to get all over you, right?”

For your own sake. So, you got it.

The trick is, the bankruptcy relieves the pressure today only.

It does not fix the problem in your mirror. And I would imagine it just sucks the confidence out of you. Oh, man. Oh, man. The spirit out of you.

Man. I just was. I was not only broke. I was broken. Yeah.

But it was a spiritual thing with me as well. You know, I can imagine it as well. So, took a while to rebuild after that. And, yeah, and, you know, what it does to your relationships, what it does to everything else. And, you know, you walked down the street, you see that person that didn't get paid.

You know, all that kind of stuff. And that stuff happens. All right, Katherine is in fourth-worth Texas. Hi, Katherine. How are you?

I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay, in a nutshell, my question is just, how do I go about compromising with my husband

in our budgeting when it comes to tithing? He doesn't really agree with it. And I have come being honest. I'm not really willing to go right now, but it's like, I'm tired if they monthly argument. And I'm just like, okay, I'm over this.

“Do you think tithing typically comes from someone that's an evangelical Christian or orthodox Jewish?”

Yeah, are you both those things, either of those things? No. Okay, so I'm guessing you are and he's not. Well, no, I'm not, like, I guess I wouldn't consider myself an evangelical Christian, but I mean, I do believe that God calls us to be cheerful givers and...

Okay. Do you attend a church? No. You hesitated. You don't either do you.

Oh, I do. You said do I attend the church? Yes. Yes. Okay.

But he doesn't. He has kind of chosen that he doesn't want to. Okay. Yes. This is the problem, not the ties.

I agree. So again, context, we are rebuilding after him like morning at divorce and I'll do the kind of things. And like for a long, like at the beginning of our marriages with a problem, I got tired of the fightings, I just stopped piting and then whenever the divorce situation came about, then

we kind of were doing our own separate things and that's when I started piting again.

Now that we're trying to come back together, it's like, like, basically I'm just like,

this is what I feel called to do and I don't really necessarily don't have to compromise about it. Like, how does it feel? It's like a minimum. What if you took, let me just ask this and I know you've been approaching it from

one way. This is just hypothetical. If you had said I'd like to give some money to this charity or to this foundation, how would he have felt about that just general charitable giving, not tied to something that has a religious-based, like, tithing?

How would he have felt about that? Just generosity. Um, I can't say for certain I don't really know. Okay. I'd want to know that because I'd want to know that there's some piece of generosity that lives

inside of this person and if there's not, I'd want to get to the bottom of that because that speaks depths about them, uh, so I'd be curious about that. I also want to know how long have you been married? Uh, now it's eight years. Okay.

Let me back up then. Let's pan back a second. So evangelical Christian means Bible believing. Okay. And so we would take our instruction on this question from scripture.

Okay. And we can go into what we call the Old Testament, what our Jewish friends call the Bible, tell me. Right. And, um, find it all over the place.

We can also find it in Jesus' own words and, uh, to tithe, to give a tenth. But in nowhere is it a salvation issue and nowhere is it a, I gain entrance to heaven because of my giving a tithe. God loves tithers. He loves non-tithers.

It's not a sin to not tithe.

“But your Heavenly Father, who's crazy about you, says the best way to live your life.”

My daughter is to be giving steadily and a baseline to start with your generosity is a tenth to your local house of worship, which follows, um, the Old Testament, guideline of the storehouse. The Levites were provided for the pastors, the priests were provided for the rabbis. And the widows and the orphans were provided for from the storehouse.

And so bring a tenth to the storehouse, the Old Testament says. And so that's where the model comes from. That's the teaching. Now, then pan back and say in your situation what matters, this doesn't matter at all. No, I wouldn't die on this hill.

And the more, honestly, the more you argue about it, the more he's probably going to dig his heels.

And it's, this is never going to happen based off of an argument.

He's never going to become generous.

It should be the result of your faith.

Your result of where you place your trust. And that's, that's what's missing here. And so the two of you working on your relationship and coming into agreement about what heaven looks like and what the truth of the scriptures are is a thousand times more important than whether or not you give a tithe for this four month period of time while we're discussing

this. I don't predict good things for your marriage until you get aligned on religion. The number one, one of the number one, one of the top four things that breaks family is up. Hey, what's up, guys?

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If you're not sure where to start, text quiz to 33, 789 will help you figure it out. Caleb is in Raleigh, North Carolina, hi Caleb, how are you? Hey Dave, I'm doing well. How have you been? Better than I deserve.

Good. My question for you, so I'm weighing the benefits of either working towards paying our mortgage off early or putting the additional amount towards investing and the reason I'm calling you is my financial advisor has told me it makes more sense to invest, but being a listener

of your show, I've never had contradicting statements from you.

So I want to talk through it.

“Well, your financial advisor is wrong, and that's what the data says.”

The theory that he's using or she's using is that if you have money invested at 12% or whatever the good mutual fund is bringing you, and you use that to pay off a 6% mortgage that you cost yourself money, that's the theory that they're operating under. If they're not taking into consideration is the socioeconomic impacts of paying off your home.

What we find is people are healthier, their marriages are stronger, they do better in their careers, and in addition, and all of that amounts to way more than the spread of a mortgage over a mutual fund, way more mathematically, and where we see that turn up is when we studied doing the largest study of actual millionaires, not broke financial planners with an opinion, where we talked to actual millionaires, people that were a millionaires, and we said, "Ask

them a whole series of questions." We talked to over 10,167 of them, and the number of them that didn't pay off their home, and instead borrowed on their home effectively was what you're doing to invest in a mutual

“fund and say, "That's what caused me to build wealth." The number of them that said that”

out of 10,000 was precisely zero. Okay.

Instead, what we found was that the typical millionaire in America, the first one to five million,

typically is about half, a third to a half of your net worth, is a paid off mortgage, and

idea of keeping a mortgage around to the typical millionaire, they laugh at that ridiculous

“advice, and so do I, and so does Jake. There it is. There's the laugh.”

Thank you. Okay, and I am 24 years old, so that's been the big question I'm laying is that my age is that compound interest over time, no pay off more than what paying my mortgage out might be. Nope, but cause the risk, dead equals risk, and you have it mathematically adjusted for risk, taxes you haven't adjusted for, and you know, no we're in this equation. Have you figured

out what it's costing a relationship or costing you physically or whatever else? See, we can trendline heart disease, anxiety, increases in our culture over the last 50 years, and the trendline follows exactly over the top of increasing debt. As card debt, credit card debt, student loan debt, and mortgage debt have increased steadily, so have those diseases interesting. Well, no, kid, of course you have more anxiety if you don't have them, if you have a mortgage,

then if you don't. Hello, right? And of course that affects your heart. You want to know what I think, and this is just something I think it's not, it's not a fact, it's not data. I think that people just like the way it feels to invest their money, and I think they just like to see that balance go up, up, up, up, up, it feels better. It feels like money that they can see and feel in touch more than the equity in their home. Yeah. I think, honestly, I think it just boils

down. And it might be even a subconscious thing that if you have, you know, a million dollars

in a mutual fund, but you've got to have me in dollars in a house mortgage, okay? You can access. You can get it. You can't get it. You can't get it out of the house. Exactly. And I want to go

“by fast, but you have to refinance. That's right. If it's in the house. I think that's, I mean,”

which is another reason to do it, because it keeps you from doing stupid things before you're money, right? So keep your hands at it. So what we call a forced savings plan. So Caleb, I would beg you to become debt free and stay debt free and use your most powerful wealth building tool, which is your income to build your wealth and get a different financial advisor, one who's right. He's tender. He's got a long time to build wealth. Yeah, you've got plenty of time. You're going

to be very, very wealthy, but now an age really doesn't enter into it, because the math is still the same as math. My age makes it more pronounced. So we had on the area yesterday, we had a debt free-screen Rachel and I did 23 and 22 from Northern Michigan. The houses worth about 300,000. Wow. They paid off 140,000 and 22 months. They have zero debt. They make 170,000 dollars a year. So let's juxtapose that Leon couple with this young man. Okay. And because he said,

cause I'm young, right, can you possibly imagine what a couple making above $150,000 a year in

their early 20s is going to be worth if they have zero debt payments? I'm going like 33, 34 million.

Yeah. We didn't even put it in the calculator. We just put the house payment only in the calculator and it was 20 million. I'm done. Well, just the house payment. Wow. From 22 to 67. You know, and it's just like holy. That is unbelievable. You know, but what we're not doing there is paying, you know, worrying about what commission my financial planer gets, which they don't get commission on paid off mortgages. It's a good point. Hmm. Things that make you go. Hmm. That's a very good point.

“Now, honestly, most of them don't give the advice because they're greedy jerks and want to get”

commission. That's really not what happens. Truthfully, I'll defend them. Most of them just give this advice because they're trained by an industry that's wrong. I mean, the financial planning business is a bunch of liemings. Do you know what that is? Little rats that run in herds and they will all run. They will all run off the cliff together. They follow each other like like a herd, like the hogs when Jesus, when Jesus removed the spirit from them and the whole herd ran over the cliff,

that's the financial planning business. Whatever one of them does, they all do. And then they declare it to be absolute by God truth. And it's most of the time not. Some of them are CFPs and some of them are certified financial Pharisees. And so, you know, so there's some really good people in that business. And there's some people who haven't had their own thought in years. They just were told what to think and they'd say all they think. And then they decided that was truth like it

came out of the Bible or something, which, by the way, none of this discussion comes out of the Bible, except the part where the borrower's slave to the lender. That part comes out of the Bible. But the rest of it doesn't. So, you know, I'm not defending paying off the home mortgage based on that other than you wouldn't be a slave anymore. That's nice. I didn't make that point to Caleb.

good in here and they do these dead free screams and it's their stinkin' house? And the house was

cute. I'm sure it was. Well, I mean, you thought, you know, but in northern Michigan, you can buy a lot of house. Yeah, you can buy it. They're on the middle of nothing. And so, um, but I mean, you get a good deal. I mean, but it was, it was, it was a little, it looked like a little Norman Rockwell painting in the little Norman Rockwell couple. I mean, they were just a power couple. I believe them. Good for them. Yeah, you're thinking, man, I think we're going to be okay if we don't possible. We got a few of

those around. We're going to be all right. So, this stuff works. And to Caleb's point, it works even

better when you start young. Absolutely. I mean, it sounds like they probably didn't have a ton of

consumer debt to pay off. They just went hog on there. Yeah, on their mortgage. He was raised in a financial piece of paper. I wondered, yeah. He was raised in that. And then he was dating a girl

“who was smarter in him. And so, um, that's what he said. But it's still a ton of debt. You know,”

if it's 140,000 towards the mortgage, that same, I mean, 140,000 is 140,000. If it's consumer debt, if it's why it doesn't matter, the fact that you can get intense and really pay something off in a short period of time is. Yeah, but knowing what I know, the amount of data that is in my soul on this stuff. I know. From sitting in this chair for 35 years, I hear that couple. And my mind, the math just explodes in my mind. What's going to happen to that couple? And their family treat.

And I can't, I don't have any data to back up, the hard data to back up, the health effects,

and the relational effects. What percentage of people never get divorced that don't have debt versus

the people that have debt? Wow, that's interesting. Because divorce is grand. I mean, marriage is grand, but divorce is 50 grand. So, I mean, if you split your assets ever so often and start over, it's hard to build wealth. 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. Now, and most people are surprised”

by how affordable term life really is. Even if you're not in perfect health, look, I understand the hesitation. Since most insurance companies make it more of a hassle than it needs to be. Not a zander insurance. They're not an insurance company. They're a broker that works for you. That means they'll shop and compare the top term life companies to find the most competitive options on the coverage for your family. For almost 30 years, I've recommended a zander for

straight answers, competitive rates, and coverage that actually protects your family. Call 800-356-4282 or go to zander.com for a quick and easy quote. That's zander.com. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Wins Credit Union Studio. Jade Washall is my co-host today. I'm Dave Ramsey. Sal is in New York City. Hi, Sal. How are you? Hi, Dave. Hi, Jade. How are you guys? Better than we deserve. What's up?

Good. Well, I'd like to start off by thanking you because I am the leg at the end of the tunnel finishing up baby step two. I'm almost completely out of debt. I plan on being there. Probably by the end of the year. Cool. Good for you. Yeah, but part of really the reason why I'm calling is because as much as I'm invested into the Ramsey clan and being in control of my finances, my ex-wife is not and her behaviors towards money concern you when it comes to our daughter.

Then, what way is your daughter going to be running? Well, no, but a lot of frivolous spending the idea of it costs, what it costs, things like that, you know, racking up debt, a lot of debt. Take borrowing is 401K's clearing out 401K's. How is your daughter?

“She's 13. Okay. Good. All right. Well, here's the thing. You cannot, I mean, you can ask the same”

question and say, how do I teach my child to do their homework and pat and get good grades if my ex-wife want? How do I teach my child to have good manners and a pleasant kind of person if my ex-wife

the territory. That's what is well. So what we're at the answer to the question is, is you can't

“control what happens over there. That's why we call them the ex. So we don't get to control that anymore.”

The only thing you can control is what you can control and it's as for me in my house, this is what we do. So here's what I do, honey. You're 13. And when I had 13 year olds, the thing I always heard is, I just want to be traded like an adult. You ever heard that? Yeah. Yeah. To which my answer always was, when you're acting like an adult, I will treat you like an adult. When you're acting like you're four, I will treat you like you're four. And within

every 13 year olds' body is a four year old and a 34 year old. And so I have to ask this multiple personality human, which one I'm speaking to at the time. Okay, I'm speaking to the adult version of you. I'm going to talk to you like I would my best friend and say, honey,

here's what I'm doing and why that makes sense. I'm going to always be generous. I'm going to always

live on a plan. I'm going to always be living on less than I make. I'm going to always be investing. I'm going to avoid debt. And I'm going to enjoy some of my money that I pay cash for things only. I do not take on debt. You will not find chaos and anxiety at our house over here because

“that's the way I live. And that's how I would love for you to live because I think it's going to”

cause you to be the best person ever. If you're four, I'm just going to tell you no. Right. And I don't have to explain it because you're freaking four. And just two, there's part of this that's going to. It's going to have a delayed effect because at 13, she's not going to necessarily see how things end up. But there's going to be a day where she's 23. And she's going to think back and go, oh gosh, my dad, you know, these are the things

he taught. And I can see the results of that and how he's living today and how what is demeanor is, how our relationship is. And then she's also going to see the results of what your ex is doing, which is she probably is going to end up with more debt. There's going to be more stress, more strain on the relationship. So let it take its course, let the learning and what she's learning, take its course, you're not going to see the result of it today or even next year or, you know,

so honestly, if I can, I'll ask them am I speaking to the adult version of you. If I am, then let's talk this through and I will use persuasion and my tone of voice and use logic and explanation and data and spiritual guidance and those kinds of things like I would within adult. But if I'm talking with a four-year-old is having a hissy fit on the cereal aisle,

then the answer is just no. And I'm not negotiating with a rational human being at this point.

I just have to pick them up and leave the store. Right. Yeah, I recognize with this, it's like you said, it's the long game. Yeah, it is the long game. And the persuasion, when you say it to a 13-year-old about anything, you know, what the premarital sex, studying, brushing your teeth, how to talk to pet boys, a word of position to put yourself in. All these kind, the 13-year-old is going to listen some and some they're not going to listen and then you're going to get some

“hard lessons that will come with that. And so, but the only thing you can control, I wouldn't,”

I wouldn't put an ounce of my brain calories on what happens over at the X's. And if she brings that up, you just go, you know, your mom's a great lady and she can do whatever she wants to do over there. And what we do over here is this. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. That's okay. Go ahead, you're fine. No, I was just going to say, you know, I, I try to, you know, keep, you know, emotionally or any kind of thought or feeling towards whatever is going on over there. You know, not my monkeys,

not my circus, kind of exactly. And that's typically what I do with that stuff. It's just where certain instances come up something like, you know, that happened today where it's like, it hits in my brain where it's, you know, what is my daughter really learning, you know, from that, it had things. And I don't want things. It's what she's learning. Bad. You know, things that are not going to be helpful to her. That's what she's learning.

And the only thing, the only chance you've got to offset that is by pouring good clean water into the glass so that if it displaces the other stuff out of the glass and that that vessel being one precious 13-year-old, and Rachel says what Jade said is more is caught than taught.

I'll send you a copy of the book Rachel and I did together. It was her first number one. It's

that. And it'll help you. It's, you'll love reading it and it'll help you. We want to teach them to work.

You want to teach them to save. You want to teach them to give. You want to teach them to spend wisely. And you want to teach them to give save spend and work. That's it. Yeah, give save spend work.

“Give save spend work. And that's what adults should learn by the way. Most people can't do all five”

of those things either. Give save spend work. Give save spend work. Work, give spend, work, give spend, work. I mean, that's it. That's it. It's over and over, right? Yeah, that's right. It's stuck in that. That's it. Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. It's a good question. And then, you know, I don't have kids 13, but I've been 13 and so I feel like that's my perspective on this. And at the end of the day, when you become an adult, you learn just as much

from what your parents taught so much of what to do and from the mistakes that they made. You learn from both of them. So it's not, um, oh my gosh, everything I taught my kid wasn't exactly right. They're going to learn either way. They're going to learn from them as they say. We were talking about that you and other day on on giving it church. Yes. In the old days, you would put a check into the giving in the offering flight. And the child would see the parent doing that week,

after week, after week, on their day of worship and every single. And you don't have to say a thing. Yeah, it's just filled in. And, um, you know, the more it's caught, then taught. Hey, guys, it's Rachel Cruz. If you're working the baby steps, every major expense deserves

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Go to CHM ministries.org/budget and use promo code Ramsey. That's CHM ministries.org/budget and promo code Ramsey. Our question of the day is brought to you by Y. Refi, missed private student loan payments can leave you feeling like your financial goals are stuck on hold. Because they are, Y. Refi helps borrowers explore low fixed rate refinancing options that fit your budget so you can move forward. And I'll be stuck. Visit Y. Refi.com/Ramsi might not be in all

states. All righty. Today's question comes from Sam and Wyoming. He says, "My girlfriend believes I'm making the worst decision of our life." A family friend asked us if we wanted to buy their home without putting it on the market. It's a great deal. And an attorney will handle the contract. But we're not married and I believe we have too much debt at this time. I have about 50,000 of debt and earn 85,000 a year. My girlfriend has around $100,000 in debt and makes 65,000 a year.

We are currently renting and living with my brother. Am I making the right decision not to purchase this house? Yes, now is not the time. You highlighted a reason not to buy this house, but there are several reasons not for the love of God to not buy this house. Your girlfriend is very emotional. She has something in her mind. She's created this picture, this playing house picture with you of you moving into this house that you can't afford and living this lifestyle with your friends

that you can't afford. And you have just woken her up from what she thought was a dream but you know

“is a nightmare. And so here's the thing. Number one, you're not married. Never buy a house with someone”

you're not married to under any circumstances. Period. This ends up in what's known as a car wreck.

no money saved because you didn't mention it and I feel like you would have mentioned it if you

“had it and you're living with a brother. So you don't even have a place of your own.”

There is no foundation, there is no financial security in this relationship at this point and for those reasons I'm out. So what I would do if I were in your shoes and this would be the order of importance that I would do this. Today, since you're the one who wrote in and you're familiar with our principals, if I were you, I would start tackling your debt. I would start working our plan the seven baby steps and I would start sharing that information with your girlfriend so that

she can do the same. And then when the time comes and you guys, if you do decide to get married, I don't know if that's in the cards, if you decide to get married and you still have a little bit

of debt now you can work together and combine your money as married people and actually pay off your

debt, save up some money and then save up a down payment and then when the time comes, you can purchase a home the right way. But that day is not today and it's quite far in the future. The problem with real estate is everyone says to buy real estate. It's great. Almost no one says don't buy real estate. Y'all to buy house by house by house by house and a young couple by house by house by house. Get out of my house and go buy house by house. Right. So what's the brother saying? Yeah. So,

and to family friend, I'm going to give you a deal by house. What's wrong with you? You crazy! You got a buy house. You got a buy house. You got a buy house. It's almost as if if you're a renter you're going to hell. You're not. Real estate has no middle ground. It is either purchased properly when you are in a proper situation to buy it and it becomes a blessing. Right. Or you're going to screw yourself over and it's going to take you a decade to get out from one of

this bad idea called real estate purchase. Well, you left a part out because the number one thing is everybody's saying buying a house. But the number two part is when you see a house, you think that's the only one. Yeah. You think it's the only deal you'll ever get. The only one with that floor plan, the only one with that. And as a person who's been the real estate business, often on most of my life, I laugh at that. There's a thinking house on every corner. Oh, but it's a great deal. There's a

deal on every other corner. Look at the yard. Yeah. Well, it's got grass. You're killing me here. I'm sorry. It's a stupid house. Don't run your life. Real estate is a horrible purchase when you're not ready and you're not ready because you're not married. And you don't have any money.

“And you're not married because you're broken and dead. Now, if you want to buy a house as a single”

person without your girlfriend, that's okay. But do not buy a house with your girlfriend or boyfriend. Stupid, all kinds of really bad things are going to happen when you do this. So, Sam, you are right. Please stand your ground. And if it means that this young lady runs away, well, that might not be a big loss. And may not be. And I just, I mean, I can't stress enough to, to have $100,000 of debt or whatever consumer debt and to rush into buying a house,

putting as minimal down as possible, having a payment that's way too much. Yes. You'll get hammered. Please don't do this. You're right. Sam, we are on your team. Timothy is in Los Angeles. Hi, Timothy. What's up? Hey, David. Hey, Jim. How are you guys doing today? Better than I deserve. How can we help? So, just to be listening, I'm calling because my parents probably wouldn't.

I am 19 years old and my parents make well over six years every year, but we kind of find ourselves living more or less paycheck to paycheck. And I'm going off to college in a month and that brings one big payment at the end of September with it. And so, I'm kind of calling just to ask like, "How do I get my parents on board with a total money makeover and get their hearts into it?" You know, the number of parents that listen to a 19-year-old is almost zero.

Now, are you concerned that when it's time to pay tuition in September,

“there's not going to be any money there or how are we paying for your tuition?”

Yeah, so basically my bad philosophy on it just because the income is pretty high has always been

that we didn't need to put anything in there any accounts because we would just pay for it when we got there. But as the date gets closer and more of just six get figured out, it's kind of become included. They're becoming stressed about it and I'm kind of becoming stressed about it. And so, I know that it will be fine, but it's also just kind of like a thing where I've been, you know, it's been for a long time and I think those are a lot of makeover both recently.

And it's like all of this truth and like good stuff is here in front of me.

Well, I'm glad that you picked up the book and that, I mean, that's going to serve you very well in your life. But I agree with Dave, you're not going to be able to change them because you told them that you listened to something on the radio or hey, look at this book. But I am concerned with you for the tuition, how much? What you said they were just thinking that they're going to cash flow it, how much is due in September? 14,000 dollars. So the conversation I'd be

“having and I think this is fair. This is not you overstepping. I think it's fair to say hey mom dad,”

tuition's due coming up here and you know less than a month. I just want to make sure the plan is still what we talked about that I'm still going to be able to sign up because if I'm not, I want you to tell me so I can start thinking about what my options are and so I can start thinking about if I have to push to next September, if I have to start thinking about maybe picking up a job to help pay for this. I just want to know, I want to open up the lines of communication. That's good. That's good.

Yeah. But Timothy, overall, your heart is good to want your mom and dad to learn something that you have learned and you're excited about, but truthfully sure it's what we call the powdered but syndrome. Once someone has powdered your butt, they don't want your advice on money or sex.

And so you're never going to be able to advise them on either one of those things. Even if you're a

40-year-old financial planner and your father is broke, maybe then, maybe then he will ask you a question. But he certainly not going to ask a college freshman who's just out of high school because he read one book and he's not going to listen to you. And I don't mean that disparagingly towards you, it's just the way things are. And so it's the most difficult thing you can do. Now, what you can

“do is you can just say, Mom and Dad, I read this book and I love that. I think you might like it”

and just leave it on the coffee table. And then see if they pick it up. Maybe I can get to them. Right. Now, I do want to say this to you. I know you're probably moved offline, but what I don't, what is an absolute no-no is if they start talking about student loans that you can

both sign for, the answer is no. Correct. No, we're not doing any student loans. You're not signing

your names. I'm not signing up for any debt. We're going to find another way to go to college if you can't do it, Mom and Dad. You're right. Good catch. Good catch there. , Mom. Hey, George Campbell here. Listen, if you're behind on debt payments and drowning in debt, I already know what you're thinking. I can't afford a lawyer to help. And honestly, that's exactly what creditors are counting on. But here's what most people don't know.

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“Michelle is in Sacramento, high Michelle, how are you?”

How are you? Thanks so much for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Um, so my husband and I are just getting started here and we're kind of at a crossroads. Um, and we just started a family so there's nothing like a baby that gets you thinking a little more critically about the future. Hey, man. And what a wonderful thing.

Yeah, it's amazing. It's the best. Um, so basically we have a hundred thousand dollars between

your owns and auto loans. Um, we have about a million in stock. Uh, he makes 145k. I make 175k.

Um, and I just don't know how that looks like and how what you get a million is stocks.

Um, lucky. I guess no mutual funds in the mix. No lucky. I mean, wow. It's just dropping your mailbox. What do you mean? Y'all invested or you bought stock or what? Um, it was awarded your work. It's all one stock. Yes. Oh. Okay. Yeah.

“Very, very scary. Very, very dangerous. Are you are these restricted shares? Are you able to sell them?”

I'm able to share them. Good. Good. Okay. Well, first order of business. If I woke up in your shoes, I would be terrified. Hey, man. Okay. I'm a little stressed out. I don't know what the best I'd be terrified that all my money was on one horse. And he might fall and break his leg. Yeah. Okay. So the first thing I'm going to do is learn a word called diversification, which means to spread around. So I'm going to catch out this stock. And I'm going to pay you set up

side of the money for taxes that are created. See a tax professional. See how much it is. And then I'm going to pay off all of my debt. And then I'm going to invest the stock in good growth stock mutual funds. Now, what did you did your husband? Is all was given to him as compensation? Yes. So he didn't pay anything for any of this. Um, there's some ISOs that were paid for and cop before. Yeah. But okay. Not much. It's just a word. Yeah. So you're going to have a lot

of taxes if you do what I'm talking about, but I'm going to do it anyway. Because I'm afraid you guys are going to get baked if this company slips just a little and stops its toe. It's going to cost you 200 grand that you don't have. So I'm going to get out of this business of owning one stock. Your husband's not going to like this conversation. I don't care. He's wrong. Okay. Because he thinks he knows what's just business is going to do. And he doesn't. He's not in control.

And let's these are the owner of the business. And even then, he's not in complete control. Because sometimes the marketplace will still kick you in the teeth. And so anyway, all that to say, I'm getting out of this. And let's pretend that we spend 250,000 on taxes and we pay off 100,000, 140,000 in debt. So we're 100% out of free. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We also have a home loan. That's 500,000. I don't think I'm going to win this discussion. But I'm going to tell you,

you called now. So I'm going to tell you what I would do. I would cash out the stock. I would pay my taxes and pay off all my debt. And I don't think you're going to have anything left.

“Yeah, exactly. So that's what I'm scared about. It's how to exit.”

And if you don't have a house payment and you don't have any debt and you never borrow money again

because you live on a budget, you probably can make it on his 145. Plus, I bet he's continuing to get stock. Is he not? Yeah. Does he have just a normal? I mean, does he have the ability to invest through a 401k into, you know, mutual funds or into funds? Yes. Okay. I was set my 401k up. But as he, how much stock does he get a year in value? How much money in stock does he get once a year? About $50,000. Okay. So he actually makes $195.

That's what I would do. Okay. I would cash that stock out. And I would invest in the 401k heavily every year. Okay. And live off of $195 in Sacramento with zero mortgage and zero debt of any kind. You can do that. Okay. And then okay. That sounds good. But it's not an easy save. It's like a lot. It's a very tough sell. It seems like a lot of money. And I just want to set up our teachers so that, you know, we can get more church gives to our parents as possible, set up our kids.

“Well, if you're making $200,000 a year and, you know, you're what, 28 years old, how old are you?”

Cool. Oh, look at that. Almost almost like I've done this. Okay. And so yeah. So yeah, you're 28 years old and you make $200,000 a year and you only have a mortgage. I think you can invest. And you can be generous and I think you can build a wonderful life and become multi-millionaires. And that's the way I'm looking at this. I think you own way too much of one company. It's very, very, very dangerous. Yeah. Does he at least share your fear in that? Nope.

Um, I actually were both probably overly confident in that company because that company's

always done well. But that's what we call the myth of continuity. There's one thing is for sure,

of the things are going to remain the same is mythology. Okay. And so I don't know. I do know the first time I ever ran into this was about 35 years ago. I was used to do one on one personal

counseling in those days and I sat down with a lady who had a million two with a name brand

company that if I named it every one of you would know the name of the company and she had a million two in company stock and she was 78 years old. Whoa, at least she had a million two before she came and saw me because in the six months before she came and saw me, she lost 30% of it because that company had a bump. And so she didn't. She really had about 780,000 by the time she got to me. And she sat in the office and cried. I bet she did. And I'm 78 years old. What am I going to do?

And I'm like, well, we're not going to stay in this position. We're going to get out. And you mean I got to pay all those taxes? That's painful too. What about my company that I've trusted all these years? And I'm like, you trusted not only for them for your income,

“you trusted them for your retirement. You can't trust them for both. That's bad. You should have”

retirement on your own and trust them only for your income. So no, I would not be keeping any of this company stock. I don't own any single stocks Michelle, by the way. Not one. No one. No one. Hope that helps. That's tough. Wow. Well, sir. Mike's in Houston, Texas. Hey, Mike. What's up?

Hey, Dave and Jade. A long time this was my first time calling. Love you guys.

You too. How can we help? Yeah. So my wife and I have been debt free since 2020. We're in baby step four, five, six. Crazy long. My question is, you said boundaries with my mother-in-law about child care and cost. So we've paid her since my daughter. She was born in like 2014 to take care of her and then during the summers. And we've been and then my son was born in 2020. And she's kind of done the same thing for all these years. So we end up paying her now about $800 a month, which I know

is a bargain. But I feel like that's taken away from a lot of our saving power now and what you're doing if she wasn't caring for. I know. We would do all of these things on our own. So now the kids

are in school. Okay. So you don't need child care now? You're doing it as a neighbor. No. Yeah. So

it's kind of this. She hasn't worked for so long and doesn't really have a plan to go back. And so now we just need help with like, well, you know, how does your whole relationship? She is 12. Okay. So um, well, this is one of those things that because you didn't deal with it

“when you should have, it's going to be harder to deal with it now. Yeah. You made a bigger problem”

by not dealing with it when it was a little problem. So now I don't know how this is going to go. But um, mom, I'm going to sit down with her and no kid around. You and your wife sit down with kitchen table and just say, Mom, we're thinking about changing the direction of the child care. We don't really need child care. How can we help you make a transition? What's a reasonable plan? Yeah. I think that's fair. I don't think that's you being the villain at all. The kids

we're going to grow up and outgrow the need of that. What are you going to do in six years anyway? Absolutely. Absolutely. So we need a plan and um, it's been wonderful. It's been a great season and it's been a blessing to you. The money has and you've been a blessing to us and to the kids. So we want to make sure we get to a gradual transition that doesn't harm you. But we need to work on a transition. What do you want to do and how can we help you? That's okay.

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Crystal is with us in St. Louis. Hi, Crystal. How are you? Hi, Dave and Jerry. Thank you guys for

taking my call. I appreciate it. Sure. What's up? So I have a little bit of a dilemma. I think I know what you're going to say, but I want to hear it, I guess. Okay. So we're building a house right now. And I'm afraid that we're going to be house poor. So a little bit of backstory is we're debt free.

“I'm 29. My husband is 33. The only thing we owe on now is our house that we're building.”

And it's just kind of snowballed. We didn't put enough money in things like we forgot about some stuff like the expensive things. So we have 40 acres that's paid for. And then we built a big

shop. We're living in the shop now while we finished a house. So all in when we're finished, we'll have

about 700,000 in this place. We have quite a bit of equity in it. Equity in it, we could probably sell for like 1.2 in our area and how the market is right now, which is exciting that we have that much equity. But my husband is the only one working right now. We have two kids and there's just no child care where we're at under two. So we have a 10 month old from staying home with him. I do a planer on going back to work and I'll make about 35,000 a year. He makes about 120 right now. So our house

payment is a big trunk of our income right now, which we're still making it fine. My husband does side jobs excavation work and flipping vehicles on marketplace. But I just hate having to rely on that to come up with the payment. What does he bring in every month? What is your monthly income including all of his side hustles? If he does the side jobs, it's probably about 8,000 a month.

“If he doesn't do the side jobs, probably 6. And how much is the amount right here? How many of what?”

Whenever it's done, it'll be about 4,000. So it's half of what he's going or 75 or 70% of is not doing side jobs. Correct. Yeah. And so I know that 25% is what we need to shoot for in a 15-year mortgage. My question is, should we finish building? We're probably about two months and we'll be done building. Should we finish building? Just turn around and sell, talk it like 600,000 in fine somewhere and take cash, which sounds great. Or stay in the school district. We want it and just

I go back to work in here and he just picked up even more side jobs and just really work on you know, pounding down this debt to be able to stay where we want in the area that we want. The hard part for me with that strategy, with option number two is even if you went back to work, you were bringing around 2,000 bucks a month then. So that gets you back to the 8,000, which now you're at 50%. But that means in perpetuity he would have to be doing all of these side hustles

forever and ever amen. Until your income comes come up. You're going to, I'm sorry, Christ. Oh, this is a horrible thing. This is how she would love this house. It's got your heart and soul in it. I can hear it in the way you're describing it. It's got a piece of ground. There's a piece of dirt there that goes with it. Oh my gosh, this is just wonderful. Everything is good except your, except your finances. You're going to be broke. And you'll end up disliking the house

and disliking the property because of what it's costing you not just in dollars and cents. You're not going to be able to do anything. And everything that happens when things happen are going to end up looking like new debt. You don't have the margin to save up. You don't have margin to save up for the next car. You don't have the margin to save up for the kids' college. You don't have the margin to save for your investing for your future. You're just broke people

I've got about 30,000 in my retirement and the older kid has about 7,000 in, um, yeah, that's before you took out a mortgage that was 70% of your take on. Right. And I mean, I love that you told us that, but what does that mean to you? That doesn't change the situation that this is 50 in some cases, 75% of your take on pay? Yeah, I guess it doesn't change at your right. It just makes me feel like a little more comfortable having that little bit. If I'm short a thousand dollars,

I can take it out of that. Right, but Dave, what are you going to do if you're going backward the whole time? What Dave highlighted is the thing I want you to be thinking about, which is it's going to cost money to do the things that are going to be required out of your life. Save for a kid's college.

Help your kids, you know, by their first car, uh, take a family vacation. Those things require

“margin to save up sinking funds for or to invest for you don't have any margin. And you need to keep”

the emergency fund. You don't want to, you know, drain that down and do what will that down and be found out? This is not an emergency. This is a you refusing to face reality. So if I'm in your shoes, what I'm going to do is sit down and have a serious discussion about our incomes and not in two years when I go back to work. I got to go back to working hell. And um, and we both got to get our income up. And if we can't do that, then what we're saying is we're not willing to trade

those hours of work and those changes in work for this house. Because this house is not a blessing right now. It's a curse. I know it feels like a blessing when you walk out in the yard and you're looking at it and you smile. But then when you turn back in and you go to the kitchen table and the checkbooks laying there, that's when you know it's a curse. Yeah. And so it's um, um, when you're

“strapped to something like this, it does not bring joy. And so I want peace for you guys. I want joy”

for you. I want prosperity for you. And the numbers are giving me make me ache for you instead. So

if I were in your shoes, I'm going to work on this for a little while. But after the first of the year

when the, you know, when the grass starts getting green early in the spring, I'm putting this thing on the market if we haven't changed our career track substantially by then. I wonder if there's any way, 40 acres is a decent amount. I wonder if there's any way if they sold off some of those in pieces. Yeah, my parcel it off and sell off a couple five acre tracks or 10 acre tracks and dump that onto the mortgage, get the balance down to take some of your 60,000. You've got too much

sitting there through throw 30 of that in there and see if you can't get this balance down to where you can swing it. That's not about I did at all, Jane. Kind of destroys part of the dream, but uh, but the dream's turned into a nightmare from where I'm sitting. Yeah. And that's uh, whoo, this is rough. So um, it was an old book out years ago that uh, Dr. Stephen Kovey put out and it was made famous because it was kind of like the total money makeover. It stayed on the best

seller list for like a decade. Our several books that have done that. Minner from Mars,

“women are from Venus. Do you remember that book? I've heard of it. It was on there for about eight”

years. Yeah. Same thing. Um, strange little book. But um, yeah, it was, there's books that hung out on the, on the best seller list for years and years and years, atomic habits. Yes. And most recent is a great book, a friend of ours wrote. And um, uh, but the book was the seven habits of highly effective people. And um, one of those habits was to begin with the end in mind. Um, crystalline her husband violated that rule. They just started building. And then they discovered

they need a subject tank. And then they discovered they needed like waterline. And then when you need shingles for the roof, didn't think of that. And horrible, horrible planning. It's kind of biblical, though, too. That scripture that says begin with the end in mind. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. About starting a tower and not counting the costs. And then they look at him and say, look at this guy. He started building a tower and he can't finish it. Right. Jesus said,

"Don't build a tower without first counting the cost list. You get halfway up and you're

unable to finish." And all who see you begin to mock you and say this man began to build and was unable to finish. Begin with the end in mind. And so this is a mistake that a lot of people might crystals not a bad person or husbands not a bad person. They just violated a basic concept of strategic thought. And it will burn your butt. And it'll put you in a place where you have pain

painful. Selling off some of that acreage is going to be painful. Keeping it is going to be very painful.

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and who will. Go to solacehealth.com/ramsy or click the link in the description to see if you qualify. It takes about two minutes. That's s o l a c e solace health.com/ramsy must be 18 or older. Advocates do not provide medical or legal advice. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show and the Fair Wins Credit Union Studio. Scott is with us in Phoenix. Hey Scott how are you? I'm doing good. How you doing Dave?

Better than I deserve. What's up? Me too. Love that thing. Well, we're kind of in a predicament. We've got a data center that's going to be built with it about 400 yards of our house and the neighborhood and we're just wondering what would Dave do. We've got our primary home is paid for, which is worth about probably around 600. We've got a house that we just inherited that is just closing, which is we're going to net property about 4, 16 out of that and then we've got a mountain house

up in the woods that's worth about, about 600 as well. So your primary residence was 400 yards from

“a commercial zoning. That's what they said is commercial and the now they're putting it in”

industrial million square foot data center. Yeah, but I mean, the point is they could have put a warehouse there,

anyway. Absolutely. You're 400 yards and you're 400 yards and and I have always been 400 yards

from an industrial slash commercial area. That's been zoned commercial commerce. Yeah. Okay. So go through tired. What I'm trying to do is what I'm trying to navigate is the actual facts of the impact of this versus the obvious emotions of it. Yeah, I want to know, Scott, what do you perceive the impact to be? Well, from some of the studies it sounds like, you know, the noise, the total footprint of the environment's going to be a negative. You're in some of that. The real estate

people are saying the negative impact is going to be about 25%. Okay. Well, reduced and, you know, housing around there, which is, you know, not who knows what it's going to be. Yeah, you don't know, because you got a salad first. And so I do not know what is going to happen with that because I've

never, we're experiencing this all over the country right now in different neighborhoods, so to speak,

are different areas of town. And so we don't know how much of this is. So when you're facing something like this, there's always, there's a percentage of it that's drama, and there's a percentage of it that's actual facts. And the truth is, the real estate agents are somewhat working on the

going to be noisy. There's a detrimental effect on the entire environment in the area and all that kind of

“thing. And then maybe it's worse, or maybe it's better when they actually build it. So the”

unknown is more scary than the actual known. So it might be a mistake. When's the thing coming out of the ground? But they're building it right now. They're putting the steel up now. Okay, good. That's good, nice. So in a year, we're going to know a lot more than we know right now. Right? Yeah, that's that's true. Yeah. I mean, it could be by it or negative. It could let's pretend that the drama is and all the anger and everything is, which is not saying it's not valid. It's just there.

But let's pretend that that's 50% and 50% reality. So it's not quite as noisy. As everybody says, it's not quite the negative impact. As everybody says, and then we settle in

and your house actually brings about what it's brought before all this was announced. The problem is,

“if you sell your house now, someone buying it is buying is going to discount it based on the drama,”

not based on the reality. And we don't know. The reality could be worse. The reality could be better than the discussion. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, it does. In my experience, these things are not usually as bad as whatever these things are. But I mean, a negative impact to a piece of property is not nearly as bad as everybody thought it was going to be. So I had an experience we owned a piece of property and the HOA was all up in arms. They were putting a Walmart down the street

about four or five pieces of property away. It was a commercial piece of property, it was zone for retail, Walmart didn't do anything wrong. They just put a Walmart where Walmart's go. And everybody's like, oh, God, the neighborhood's going to fail. It's going to lose 50%. A year and a half later, the neighborhood was up. In other words, it had no effect. Wow, except all the drama and the yelling and the screaming and the picketing and all the stuff around it. And if you was sold it to one, when the

picketers are out there, that's, you know, you're given your thinking house away for no reason because 18 months later, after all the everybody's pulse rate went down, there was net net net, no effect. Now, I'm not saying that's the truth about a data center. I don't know. I'd be curious to know, especially if he lives in an area where there's other residences near him, if anybody else is selling, if, like, if you can kind of survey and see what's going on, that also could, could, yeah,

I mean, I'm pretty sure you're going to sell your house to cheap, if you sell it right now. Yeah. If it's me, I don't a bunch of real estate, I'm going to ride this out a little bit and let the waves calm down and see what the actual flood is. See what the actual, you know, cause hurricanes coming,

“you know, and like, yeah, and I think you can do some, I would, I would think you could do some”

fair research on areas similar to yours, similar sized data centers. I feel like you could look out there and see what's gone on some of them. First, a data center that's been up 18 months, what, and within 400 yards somewhere in the metro area, what did it do to property value? Yeah. That's a good piece of research. I don't know that there's enough of them going

up that you might find that, but yeah, my life experience tells me that the drama is always

worse than the reality. Generally. And it's not always, but I mean, it's often enough that I'm going to probably sit there and ride this out. Unless I did research that told me otherwise. Uh-huh. Yep. And I got to believe it's still somewhat new, but I feel like there's something out there. There's got to be some numbers out there that I'll give you at least a sense. But I, I'm pretty sure you're going to sell your house to cheap if you sell it right now. Yeah.

I could be wrong. I mean, I, I'm, I really am just discussing this with you out loud. I don't, I don't really have any data or anything to back this up. Other than years of real estate and stuff like the Walmart example, those are real things. That really happened. But the number of times, I mean, but it's, it's kind of like, for me, it's, um, you know, the, um, you know, the hurricane is coming, and then it rains. And the wind blew for four hours. And, but we all acted like that the house

was going to be completely blown over and it was basically, um, our rainstorm. Yeah. I mean,

I don't think because it wasn't what everybody, but, you know, you kind of got to prepare for it

else you could figure out where there was an environmental impact to a property close to a residential.

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

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“Jane is in Charlotte. Hi, Jane. How are you? I'm going for Dave. How are you?”

Better than I deserve. What's up? My husband makes $210,000 a year. I make $75,000. He contributes 17% of his salary to our household account just because of what he thinks that

he wants to give. And I've always given 100% of mine, but just recently, I say, you know what,

I'm going to give 17% as well. But it ends up to where I have to give more to pay our bills, but my question is, should I be giving 17% or should I be giving 8 and a half because my salary is so much less than his. How are you guys? 58. How long have you been married? 40 years. Oh boy. Okay. I'll say this as gently as I can. This is tremendously dysfunctional. What kind of human being is married to a woman for 40 years and give 17% towards the household?

And what kind of human being accepts this arrangement?

“I understand that, but I, I'm at a loss because he took this foot down and that's what he says.”

He's going to go and I don't know another way to make it be different. Well, you're 40 years too late to raise as much hell as you should have raised,

but I guess I guess better late than never. Yeah. Well, it's only been this way for 23 years.

Okay. I've got changed. What's talking about? No more. We're not doing it this way anymore. My Bible says to leave and cleave. My Bible says that and the two are one. And we are now one flesh. And if you want to continue to live in this house with me, but it's now 100%. Yeah, I'm hearing. Otherwise I'm going to knock a noggin on your head. Not. You just nodding. You've got, you've really got two choices here. Jane, you can participate in the

distinction by saying, "Oh, I'm only going to do, you know, 17% action. I'm only going to do 8%. And you can participate in it." Or you can do it, Dave said, and draw a line and say, "Here's the way it needs to be in order for me to continue." Yeah. This is the 8% failure. No. Nothing in this discussion is fair. 100% of both of you is fair and correct. And the right way to operate a household.

Anything less and you're participating in the madness. But you're not going to do that, are you? You're not going to, you're not going to cause this big a stink. Because what I'm talking about is turning his little world upside down. Well, it needs to happen, darling. I understand, and I've said those things before, but it doesn't work.

“Yeah, I think you need to see a therapist and a marriage counselors, what I think.”

And have them help you decide what you're willing to do. If you want to live in the middle of

So, or at least 23 or whatever, was he decided this absurd, but idea that he's, I think,

“he's a roommate instead of a husband. But so, Jane, for 40 years, Sharon Ramsey has not earned”

an income since our oldest daughter was born. So, what if I told her I was going to put in 17%. Do you think that hillbilly woman would have put up with that? I haven't just telling you, she wouldn't have been frying pans involved. And she's from East Tennessee. That's an Olympic event there. Well, yeah. This is tough. Yeah, honey. I'm sorry. This is, I do not have a fix other than to try to

embole you and give you verbiage to sit down and talk to someone and get the help that you guys

needed 23 years ago and you still need today. Because what he is proposing and what he has put

you under is what we call financial abuse and you guys need help. Yeah. This is weird. It's not right. It's not normal. It's unethical. So, I don't know how many ways do I need to say it. And so, I would not want my friend Jane to tolerate it and I would not want my friend her husband to continue to be a bad husband. Oh, boy. Yeah, that's tough. You're going to have to, it's going to require a lot. Yeah, a lot. Yeah. And these, these patterns are deeply ingrained at this point. Oh, yeah.

Because she's asking us to give advice on how to, how to be more dysfunction. Yeah. I can't gauge the level of crazy that I want to participate in. I just don't do crazy. So, there we go. And this is crazy, Jane. It's crazy. Crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy. Wow. I'm sorry, kiddo. I hope you guys can get some help for your marriage. You desperately desperately

“need it. All right. Hunter is in Phoenix. Hey, Hunter. What's up in your world?”

Hey, guys, how are we doing today? Better than I deserve. How can I help? Hey, just want some information or some help on how to tackle some debt. I'm a recent college graduate. Cool. What's your degree in the back? Construction management. Good. You got a new job? Yes, sir. I started in June. Awesome. What are you making? I make $78,000 a year salary. Good for you. Plus bonuses and stuff, huh?

Yeah, we get a 401 table and it's set the end of the year. Awesome, Ness. All right. Good for you. That's a great job coming out of school. Congratulations. Very nice. And how much debt have you got, Hunter? So I got out of school with only about $11,000 worth of a student debt. Good. And then I got about this is what's going to hit is $33,000 in its truck loan. Okay. Okay. And so you celebrated your graduation and your new job by going and doing a stupid thing. Exactly. You were 100% correct.

You wouldn't be the first. No, this is like a standard. So number one mistake.

New college graduates make. They go by a new car. Number one mistake. So yeah, you did it. And you did it good. You went big. Yeah, you did. Okay. So you got $34,000. She got 44. Yeah, over the fence. $44,000 in debt. If you keep the truck and you live on beans and rice and you have no life, you could be debt free in a year. If you don't want to trade the truck for beans and rice, you could get rid of the truck now and be debt free really quick and have a decent life. But you're

not going out to eat. You're not going on a date other than to throw a frisbee. And you're not going on vacation. You're not doing nothing except pulling up this dad gun mess you made right after you graduated. You did a really good till then. Did I hear you say we may have cut you off. Did you say you moved back in with your parents? Yeah, it shows to move back in after college so I didn't have to pay rent and try to stack an up cash. Yeah, how much cash do you have? Right now, I got about

4,000 in a Roth IRA and about 3,000 high yield savings. Okay, no more Roth, no more investing. Clean up the stand alone and get the truck paid off and move out. Go get your life.

“How you make $78,000 a year? You need to get, you need to get a life. Go get your one better”

room apartment. I personally would sell the truck. But if you want to keep it and scratch and claw and be done with it in about a year, you can do it. And you need an extra job if you're going to do that. Let's just work all the time. Any chance you can get extra work or with the construction folks or is that it? Not with the company. I work for currently because we're a full-time salary. I probably do some weekend piece work with other companies. Good. Yeah, I mean that's the end of the game.

apartment and I would decide whether I'm keeping the truck and I'll work all the time until I'm

“100% dead free and that has to be an under a year and I get the one-bedroom apartment the next 30 days.”

Yeah, I would, yes, you do not get to say I want this truck there for I get to stay in my parents house to pay to pay for that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I live with my mommy because of my truck. No, that's just something oxy moronic about that. It doesn't feel right, it doesn't sit right with me, Dave. Hey, guys, George Campbell here. Our big investing essentials event is just one week away.

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or click the link in the show notes. [Music] Buying or selling a home is a huge decision and with so much conflicting market news out there about housing, it can be hard to know what's really going on. We're here to help you understand what the market's actually doing, not what all the drama is. So you can buy

or sell with confidence. We recommend a 15 year fixed rate mortgage. Those rates are covering just below 6% about five and a half right now and don't wait on a rate that you can't predict.

You date the rate, you marry the house. You always refinance later if the rates come down.

Remember, no matter what the market's doing, only buy when you're ready, you're out of that, you have your emergency fund. Media and home prices dip below 429,000 last month, which is a 2.4 percent decrease from the previous year, not exactly a bursting bubble but certainly a stabilized market. Good news if you're ready to buy. One in five listings had a price cut last month and there's 1.1 million homes on the market as we speak. So real estate is good, everything's fine, breathe, breathe.

You can check all of this out at RamseySolutions.com/market or click the link in the show notes.

“Josh is in Birmingham, hey Josh, what's up? How are you doing? Better than I deserve, how can I help?”

Yes, so 30 years old, I have an annuity, emitters in about two months and I'll spoken to a financial advisor and trying to figure out if I should use him or if I should just do what I have planned on my own. I'm just thinking about trying to transition it to another annuity and then systematically trying to withdraw some of that money out over the next five years or so to get it out. Why don't you just cash it out? Because I would owe, I thought you said it was up. You're not going away, you're not

a much taxes on it. How much is in it? $200,000, so it's about $150,000. I would owe tax on about $200,000. I'm sorry, how much is the balance of the annuity? What's it worth? $150,000. Okay, and what was it when you took it out? So when it, it would mature in a couple months and then I would take it out the balance of

“roughly be about $150,000. I know, what was it originally when it started?”

Originally, it was about $1.1 million so there's a lot of fees and a lot of details on that, but

okay, so you've lost money on the annuity? I've lost $200,000. I noticed I had to post half of it was about $750,000 and so yeah, over the time I've probably lost my money. How much money did you put in it when you started it? $1.1 so it was the work accident

Yeah, yeah. I see. Okay, so it's $1.1 when in from an accident and then you lived off of

“some of it. How much did you withdraw to live on? I wasn't withdrawing probably around $50,000 a year.”

For how many years? Probably about seven years now. Okay, $350,000 from one point one puts us at what $700,000, right? It's our $650,000. No, yeah, $700,000. Okay, all right, so $750,000 is and then it's worth $900 so you would have taxes on $150. Correct? Yeah, roughly. It depends on what the market does or the time that it matures on that day. Yeah, yeah, I understand. But roughly we're getting around numbers here. Okay. Yes, sir. Yeah, so I would get out of this and I would get into some

good mutual funds with a good smart vester pro. Go to rampsysolutions.com and click on smart vester pro to find somebody in your area there, Birmingham, that we recommend with a heart of a teacher. Let them sit down with you and crunch the numbers. I'm not going to do that here on the air. Are you back able to work or are you still have to draw a fit? Oh, no, I've been working into about five years now. Okay. All right, so so from this point forward, you could just let

it grow and leave it alone and just become wealthy, correct? Yeah. Yeah, that's that idea, yes, okay. So here's the problem with the annuity. Like you said, it's got a lot of fees. All right. That aren't necessary for your situation. You instead buy mutual funds that don't have as many fees, half the fees, probably or so. And then you can pick good growth stock mutual funds that are growing. If you, the market has average close to 12. If you only, and we're about

12 year to date this year, and it's only August. Okay. So, but if you only make 10, your 750 would grow in seven years, it'll be 1.5. In seven more years, 14 years from today, how old are you? 30. 30. So when you're 44, you would have $3 million. Okay. And when you withdraw the money out of it, you will only have capital gains tax, not ordinary income, which is double capital gains. And when you're in an annuity, the growth is at ordinary income.

Yes, sir. As you're about to find out on that $150,000 worth of gain you've had. Approximately.

“I'm trying to figure out what your basis is, but you need to get someone to actually crunch”

the numbers and go, this is actually what's going to occur. But the problem is, when you're 750

turns in to $3 million, you're going to pay either a 35 or a 40% tax on that or a 15% tax on that. That's a huge difference. Yeah. And that's if it's an exact same mutual funds inside the annuity is outside the annuity. Yes, sir. Oh, sorry. I'm going to pay some taxes today. But when it's up in a month or so, right? Yes, sir. And so, the fidelity doesn't have work at annuity option, that has. Well, honey, what did I just tell you for the last

five minutes? No more annuities. That was the takeaway. No, trust me. I get it. Yeah, I get it. Okay. Then why did you just ask me about annuity? No, you don't need to do an annuity. Don't do it. I wouldn't do that. You do whatever you want to do, honey, without wouldn't do it. So check out RamseySolutions.com, click on a smart vester pro, sit down with them. I personally use this smart vester pro to help me with issues like this to try to make sure my

brain's working Jade and Sam do the same thing as Dave and Sharon as Rachel and Winston as George and Whitney. Everybody here on the show, John and Sheila, we all use professional help like that. And we do this for a living. Why does he think he wants an annuity? What are they saying out in the market that is making people go, yep, I'm going to do that because I hear all, I can look at it and say, this is a terrible idea. But how was it being marketed that people

“aren't realizing that it's a terrible idea? What are they saying?”

Well, I don't know what he's hearing, but what's about housing, how's it being marketed? An annuity at a variable annuity has a couple of functions that if you're, if you're a first-time investor in your scared, they give you some comfort. Okay. If you put money in a variable annuity, it's mutual funds inside of an annuity. Right. And you can pick the mutual funds inside the

annuity. So you can pick good ones and he has done pretty good properly. All right. And the problem is

it grows at ordinary income tax rates, not at capital gains tax rate. But you can, they, they will

we'll guarantee you 750,000 principle. You will not lose it there. Okay. And we'll also guarantee

“you a 5% rate of return, which is poo poo. Exactly. Because then you can probably make almost”

three times that, two times that anyway. So I'd rather take the low interest rate and know that I'm not going to have a law. No, it's a guarantee of a low interest rate. You don't miss, if, if the bottom line is these guarantees are both worthless because the market, if you pick mutual, decent mutual funds, is going to far outperform me the one of those guarantees. So they're not going to activate. Right. That person doesn't know that. And so they just got this in the back of their mind

that I can do this and I can, I can, I'm got a guarantee. At least I got a guarantee. Yeah. And I'm not going to lose my principle because everybody knows you lose all your money and stock market. Right. And all this bull crap, right. But, you know, in 2023, it went up 26% and 2024, it went up 25%. It went up 18% and so far in 26, it's up almost 13%. So they're selling you a really

security, you never need it. It has to really suck going forward for you to be back down to your

original principle and only getting five. Yeah. Yep. Hey, what's up, guys? It's Jade Warsha. Listen, some are spending ads up so fast between vacations and road trips and camp fees and events and all the extra gas and grocery runs, money can get tight before you know it to really get your money under control and keep it that way.

“You're going to need a plan. And that's what you'll get with the every dollar budget app. It helps”

you track your spending, free up cash to put toward debt and savings. And it's the simplest way to make a plan for your money before the month begins. So, no more wondering where your money's going. You're telling it where to go. Download every dollar in the app store or Google Play and start for free today. Now, our scripture of the day, Isaiah 30 and 21, whether you turn to the right of the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying this is the way, walk in it.

Dolly Parton said, if you don't like the road you're walking, start paving another one. We today, depending on where you're hearing this, I don't know, but today we learned that we the dolly's in the arms of Jesus at 80 years old. She was an absolute treasure. And that we talked about her in the first segment as we came on the air today. But yeah, all of Nashville and Tennessee for sure is grieving. I'll tell you something else about her. I didn't

mention in that first segment. Almost regardless of who you talk about, in the music business, the acting business, the business you and I are in, podcasting or whatever else,

almost everyone that has gotten some notoriety has a lot of fans. But there's almost always

someone that's got something to say, well, I was at the restaurant one time, so it's negative. I'm the negative. You never heard a negative word on her, ever. No. And in this town of Nashville, Bunch of gossip. Yeah. That's weird. I mean, she was golden. Yeah. Never heard anybody saying negative. I mean, it didn't take about 30 seconds, find somebody say something negative about me. Right. They're everywhere. You know, but I've never heard anybody say negative about her. And if they

did, they discredited themselves in Centaneous, you know, but never in my presence. I've never, I've heard people say something. I've got a lot of good friends in that music business, all that. I'll say, man, so-and-so-and-so-and-so. Well, yeah, but he does this in this, yes. Yeah. Well,

okay, but you didn't. So, but not dolly, not Miss dolly. Wow. Absolutely incredible human being.

“All right. Alex is in Las Vegas, Nevada. Hi. Alex, how are you?”

Hi. I'm well. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? My question was, should I file bankruptcy? What's going on, kiddo? Sorry. I didn't want to get emotional. Okay. It's scary. So, I'm 31. I have five kids for the past three years. I've been

I've had to take out, um, loans, and recently I did, I, um, I had to take out a title on my card to give my attorney, like the final payment, and I also had to take out a payday loan as well. It's your win. And so, I don't know yet. So, the judge is going to do a written decision. But my attorney is pretty confident that the, you know, the other person had no case. And

basically said we have nothing to worry about, just wait for the judge to do the written decision.

Um, however, like getting up to this point has cost me like thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. Yeah, like that. What I was trying to figure out is that the bleeding was over, and it sounds like it's over. Okay. So, but the patient is wound today. So, okay. So, um, so I, so how much is the payday loan to rip off? So, the, the payday loan that I took out was for like $600. So, every time.

“Okay, I think $50,000. I don't know. I know. They're awful. And so, and the title loan on the”

card was how much? $3,500. Okay. And what other debt do you have? So, I have about, like, total,

I have $60,000 in debt. I have a reposition from, like, 2023. What's the balance on that?

So, that's $11,000. Okay. And what's the rest of the day? School loans, uh, $25,000, and I'm still in college. Mm-hmm. And then I owe my old attorney $14,000. Mm-hmm. Okay. And then I, I owe the IRS, also, like, $7,000. Okay. All right. And what do you mean? And then a credit card that I have about $900. And what do you make? 50,000. Doing what? I'm a medical billing and coding specialist. And how old are the five kids? So, um, $15,000, $16,000, and then $13, $10,000, $7,000. Okay. All right. Are

you plugged into a good church there in Las Vegas? Yes, I am. Okay. Have you talked to your pastor

“and the counseling team about your situation? No. No, you've not. You need to today. Okay.”

It's there. It's their obligation to help you. It's what they live for. They're going to want to help you. Uh, you have five kids and you're on a shoe string budget. Okay. And they can't. So, let's kind

of go back to your original question and then I'll walk you forward out of that. So, first thing

we're going to do is get some people around you. The second thing we're going to do is get them to help you a little bit with some of this. I don't expect them to pay it all off or anything and you don't either. Okay. Student loans and IRS are not bankruptible. Repo is not collecting today and the, um, uh, what was the $14,000 again? Uh, that's a good opportunity. Oh, that's an old attorney. He's not collecting today either. He's waiting because he knows your broke. Probably be

surprised when you pay credit cards. You're probably not been paying on them because you've been dumping everything into this child case. So, the really the two, the, the two that are the most pressing are the 600 and the $3,500 agreed. Yeah. Yeah. Because you're really not doing much with the rest of it. Yeah. So, what I would recommend is not paying anyone and clearing the title loan

“as soon as possible. And if the church can help you with that sum, I think that would be awesome.”

And, um, get your car back because you're going to need that. And, and then we'll argue about what we're going to do settling with the, um, uh, pay day lender that rescrewed you, but you walked in there and asked for it. Um, and I understand why, but you still did. And, um, so we got to clear that a little 600 up before it becomes 1,820 minutes. Right, right, right. And, um, then we'll begin to work through the rest of this. Here's the neat thing. Um, the student loans just sitting

on hardship deferral just called and put it on hardship for I'm not paying anything right now, but besides that, you're in school. You said, what are you doing in school? Um, I'm getting my bachelor's in associate's of science and human resources. Okay. When will it be done? In two years. Are you continuing to go into debt for this? Yes. Okay. Got to stop that. Yeah. We have to clean up this mess. All of those things in the in your rear view mirror are all those

monsters are chasing you down the road and they're destabilizing you emotionally. They're

school on hold until we can pay for it unless they want to extend you some kind of help as a

“single mom with five kids. And they might if you went into the counseling office there. If they'll”

give you a free semester or something, then you can stay in, but otherwise you've got to put it on hold. Otherwise, you're going to have $50,000. You got to stop $1,000 of student loan debt when you're done. You got to stop this and you can't just keep pulling this up and then get out. And bankruptcy doesn't fix this because most of it's not bankrupt. You got student loans. That's the major pieces of this. Yeah. I mean, you can settle this repo for like two or three granted. It'll go away

when you can scrape up some money later. So order of attack is this. Here's your order. Here's

what I want you to do. First call is when you get off of here. I want you to call your pastor.

I want you to go sit down and show them your budget. Show them your situation. Tell me,

“talk to us on the air and that I said, I think you that they will give you some help and they”

probably will. If it's a decent size church. Okay. And if they could clear up, help you, clear up that car. That'd be great or part of it that'd be great and even better would be the car and the payday lender. And then let's just start trying to get current. Let's get the IRS gone. Let's get the attorney gone. You know, let's just start developing order of attack down through these things and stop borrowing money on school until you get this mess cleaned up. And then you

pay cash for school as you go and don't go further and further and further into that.

And you know, this is not going to be a quick fix. But the problem is you've been getting killed

here death by a thousand cuts. And so we got a heal one cut at a time and it's going to take a minute. I'll take a little bit a little bit of work and a little bit of help. We'll help you on iron. We'll put you into a city with one of our coaches. I'm going to give you one of our coaches for free. Question will take care of that to coach you in person. And we won't charge you a dime. We're going to put you into on trade leadership and make sure you're okay and that you're

on trade leadership. Put you into every dollar and make sure you're okay. We'll be back with you

“before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial”

peace and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace Christ Jesus.