When Life Hits Hard, Stay Focused on What You Can Control

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From the Ramsy Network and the Fair Wins Credit Union Studio, this is the Ramsy Show. Jade Washall Ramsy, personality number one bestselling author, is my co-host today. Phone number triple eight, eight, two, five, two, two, five, the call is free. And some say the advice is worth exactly what your pay for it. Brad is starting us off in Denver, Colorado.

Hey, Brad, how can we help? Hey, hey, thanks for having me. I love your show. Well, thank you, sir. How can we help?

So yeah, so I've been listening, I'm actually a new listener, I've been listening for about a month now. I've got hooked on YouTube, you just have such good financial advice and personal advice to my guitar not to listen to you.

“But I started listening and I realized I thought I was being successful, but everything”

I'm doing is almost opposite of what you're saying. So I had to do a little self-reflection and I have some questions on how I go forward in the future on this. But essentially what's going on is I make a decent amount of money, you know, W2, in software. And my entire financial mantra is to be to build rental real estate.

And the reason for that has been I'm not residual income. So I want to, you know, to have an amount of money that worked, inflation doesn't matter. Everyone right now is worried about inflation, I can care less. I want it to last forever because I don't know how long I'm going to live. No one does.

And so those two things to me are my safety net. But to do that, I've drained four, one case, I live paycheck to paycheck. I have credit card debts, card debts, you know, the whole nine yards. It's worked out now that I'm 47 and little bit older now. But my whole thing is can I just keep those properties and enjoy life.

And if I can, that's the finance success for me. But now as I move forward, I'm listening to you and co-workers, you know, they're all telling me some different things. So I'm just wondering if you have some advice on how I might shift this to work with your program and my program.

That's interesting. Nice call. Thank you. I love that. You're a software income, what's your income?

Well, 500K a year about I'm, I'm commissioned as well, but it's pretty consistent around 500K. Oh, good for you. Man, you're killing it. That's amazing.

“And do you still have the drained 401K and all the credit card debt in the card debt?”

No, so I got rid of the credit card debt like a couple years ago. We lease a car that's expensive, but I paid off my other car. So my actual, and then we bought an RV, but, but actual, like, debt as far as that, those, I would say, the overall pretty low. And so your debt consists of right now an RV in a least car, other than your home.

That's, and your rental properties. And they're all not paid off, but they're all low balances, but you'd that's right.

I have 1.7 million total liabilities.

How many are there between the, over the 1.7? How many problems? 3.7, including my Gregory. Oh, okay, it's not bad. And you said that the 1.7 million is the debt on them or the value of them?

The debt. Oh, I see. And the value of the 7 properties would be what? Um, it is 5 million. Okay.

Very good. Excellent. Excellent. Okay. So the negative things that you mentioned, you've almost done away with.

And that's the drained 401K and the, you know, the use of consumer debt, while you were running up these rental properties. Because those things are obviously destabilizing your original plan. Right. And you realized that without ever having heard of Ramsey, it sounds like, and sounds

like you're already moving away from that. And that's, so that's wisdom. So I don't know why you couldn't work our baby steps from this point forward, clear up the RV and the car lease quickly and make sure you have a good emergency fund. And then make sure you're starting to fund your 401K aggressively.

And meanwhile, I'm going to start using $500,000 a year to pay down these rental properties. I'd probably work my little rental property, baby's, aren't that snowball up in, uh, up in baby steps. Yes. I love that idea.

How would you sell some to get rid of that just to be debt free or you okay with having some of that debt?

I would, but I would prescribe it for you as your first step.

Unless there's one that you know is not flowing well. Yeah, it's just one that you don't like. It's got some equity in it. And I'm not fond of this property.

And I've been moving everything over into commercial into commercial properties. And I've definitely out of those 15. I got a couple of them that I don't care if I ever sell them.

“And I got a couple of them if I could sell it some day, it wouldn't make me mad, right?”

And I'll roll those with a 1031 over into the other, they're paid for, of course. But if you kind of picked out that way and you said, okay, out of the seven, there's two, I don't even like. And it kind of accelerates this, get out of that plan to dump them and roll the equities into these, paying down debt on the others.

Yeah, I probably do that. But if you love all seven, I'm their solid. And you want just systematically work them, you could be debt free in about five or six years. Yeah.

So to be, and I, I'm going to ask this question on your behalf, because I think a lot of people wonder about this, because I think the response from most people is, oh, this is Dave Ramsey. I'm going to say, sell the properties to pay off the debts on the other properties and get debt free tomorrow, what Dave explained your mentality on why this is, why this feels okay

for you. Okay, that's a good question, I like that. It feels okay for Brad, because Brad came from the other side of the pendulum and he's swinging down towards the bottom now and I'm not trying, I don't want to take him and kick him up to the other side, if I woke up in his shoes, having lived debt free and the

wealth I've been able to build debt by being debt free and had incredible cash flow, because

none of my properties have a single debt on them, I would sell enough of him to be debt free in about 30 minutes. Right. Right. But that's such a shock to Brad's system.

Yeah, he's been ready. I'm okay if you do this a little bit slower.

“But mathematically and incongruence with what we teach, I do honestly believe and I've proven”

it with my life and many others that if you sold off enough of it to become debt free, in other words, if you had three debt free properties and you didn't have the total of five million, you had a total of three in our two and a half or whatever versus five leveraged, I think 10 years from now you're going to be glad you did that financially, mathematically. But I'm not going to try to get you there today.

You're three YouTube videos in. Right. Right. But why so we wonder what I'm watching? I said, come over here and listen to me.

It's good stuff. But she has a finance degree. So she agrees with you on a lot of the stuff. I kind of drive her nuts on a lot of things. And I also think that you've latched on to a really important part of what we teach, which is

day to day, dealing with debt and consumer debt, because my guess is after this, when you're at least, is up, you're probably not going to lease a car again. You're probably going to go, ah, I could take some of my $500,000 income and I could buy

something in cash and that's something that's mine and I never have to do the payment

thing again. Yeah. Or, you know, this is another question, but do I get aggressive and keep trying

“to buy like another property and keep leasing and doing that stuff?”

I wouldn't again in our life. Because it's a real simple thing, debt equals risk. More debt equals more risk, less debt equals less risk. It's a simple formula and that's 100% true. There's no exception to that proven property.

Now, and so, if you got it down to where you had $500,000 worth of debt and you had $4 million worth of properties, you know, you've got virtually no risk. But you do have more risk than me because I got no debt, you know. And the difference is that there's still a tiny little knot in your stomach. There's still there.

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Okay, so I just need some advice on how to approach my employer about something I've been with my job almost seven years, six and a half to be precise and I've realized over the years, two to three hours at times of volunteer work that turned into over 1,000 hours of unpaid work and I'm an hourly employee so I just don't know the right way to approach my employer because it's real taking a toll on me that I've worked all these years or all

big dollars on pay, even though I technically chose to do it.

What do you mean by that when you said a few hours of volunteer work turned into unpaid work explained that? Okay, so I work in retail and I would clock out but then I would see my coworkers get busy like the clips I would leave at 23 o'clock and they'd get busy and I would maybe stay till 435, even six o'clock and they ask you to do that.

I've got a couple of times but at times I just chose to. Then they don't know you a thing. Oh yeah. You chose to do that. It was your choice.

You clocked out. If you clocked back, if you wanted to be paid, you would have clocked back in. Or you would have checked with management and said do you need me to stay and then go out back in?

Yeah, you just stayed and didn't ask anybody, didn't get permission.

They're not obligated to you morally or legally. One time I tried to push back and then I got scolded. Well, that's okay. So that's just go home when your hours are over. Get a different job but if I get scolded for not getting paid for working, then we've got

a different issue. But you get scolding for all that. At that moment, I would have dealt with it and said, okay, I'm not going to be here unless I'm clocked in. Hello, that's not mean, you can be gentle about how you say that to your, not be

belligerent to your manager but, you know, if your managers are expecting you to work

“off the clock for free, that's something you should have dealt with in the moment.”

I agree with that. Now, it sounds like, and I want to say this to you, Steven, it sounds like you're a self starter. You're looking at the situation going, well, gosh, they need to be scheduling more people. This is my friend.

I'm trying to be a team player. It sounds like that's probably your heart in the matter, but then you kind of look up and win. Man, this is a lot. I wonder if I can get them to pay me for this.

But then the other part is you don't have a record of it, even. Like, because there's no clock in clock out, the only record you would have is a note pad, right? So, I don't think they owe you, man, not morally or legally. Now, what I would do is change what I do going forward from today.

And that is, if I expect to be paid for the work, then I need to work that out with leadership and clock back in. Otherwise, I'm doing this out of the time, but I don't think I'm going to do that. But I don't think I'm going to do that, but I don't think I'm going to do that. I don't think I'm going to do that.

But I don't think I'm going to do that. I don't think I'm going to do that, but I don't think I'm going to do that. And then clock back in, otherwise, I'm doing this out of the goodness of my heart. And I'm going to harbor no bitterness towards the employer. Right.

Right. And that's what you were doing. But then it kind of, when it piled up, you went, oh crap, I kind of let myself get taken advantage of here. And you did.

Yeah. But I would stop that.

“I wouldn't, I'm not suggesting you have to do this going forward.”

Right. Either that, or, and I would have said this to him if you were still here, something financial popped up, and he realized, man, I could really use some extra money, where can I get it from? You know, that'll cause you to look back and go, ah, yeah, but that's like you can't go.

You can't do that. You can't do that. You can't do that. You can't do that. You can't do that.

You can't do that. You can't do that. I mean, that's not how this works.

So I got to look around and see who, no, where I've been taking advantage of.

That's what I'm saying. It might point to you. But I appreciate your good heart and your team player, I'm with Jade on that.

“I think she observed you correctly on that.”

I jump straight to, you get no money, but you get no money, but I do appreciate your heart. And I would say it is more than fair. And by the way, what you're describing is not that unusual, particularly in a retail say. Absolutely.

It can be, I'll tell you the place, there's another place, there's a restaurant. Not on huge restaurant. Yeah, they'll work you till midnight, not that much about it. Hey, stick around, help me clean up. Off the clock.

No, thanks though. Don't think so. Happy to stick around. Or I'll do it once because you got, you know, we had, okay, four people were sick didn't come in on shift.

Yes. I'll help you. Yeah. Okay, but I'm not going to do this for six and a half years. That's right.

And then look back and go, I don't think I like this anymore.

No, I would not like it after the third time.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

“And then decide, or decide, it's part of my life and it's my gift to my friends and to my”

teamwork and to my organization. Could do that. And you can do that if you want to. I don't recommend that. I don't know.

Because I don't think that's going to end up in a little bit of bitterness. It wouldn't me. Yeah. Oh, my time. I would be like him.

Over time, I'd be going. I don't think this works. Yeah, I agree with that. Quite interesting question. I think it's an interesting question.

Leslie's in Phoenix. Hi, Leslie. How are you? Good. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up in your work? Hi. I have an interesting question that I really am not educated, so I thought I'd come to the process.

So it has to do with whether to just do a 1031 or to pay taxes. So we bought some farm ground that we had planned to build our house back in 2000 and we bought it for $90,000 and we are planning on selling it. We're just wouldn't ask go to sell it for 240 and so on my question. You bought it for what?

Again. Sorry. We bought it for $90,000 and we're selling it for 240. Okay. And it's paid for it and so we know that we'd be making about 150 capital gains.

And we are planning on purchasing some more vacant property. That property would cost us $175,000. And so my question to you is, is it best to put it in a 1031 and put all of it towards the land or do we just pay the taxes so that we have the cash on hand to potentially build a house with that cash later on?

No, if I was going to build a house with the cash, I'd just sell the land. If you need the cash, it does know it--you're going to end up selling the other property.

The second property, if you need the cash, we're building our home on the property that

we're purchasing. You can't do a 1031 on it then. Because it's not like time. You can't do a 1031 on personal residents. You can only do it on like kind properties.

So if you went vacant lot to vacant lot or rental property to rental property and introducing to income producing, you can do that, but you can't do it on personal residents. You can't roll your rent property into a personal residence on a 1031. So they're both vacant lands, they're both in cotton and so they're both like you know. Yeah, but when you build a house on this piece of vacant land, you screw up the deal.

The 1031 is going to be invalidated. Okay, so you're going to do it anyways then. Right. Okay. The second piece of property, the 375, is what you want to build on, is that what you're

telling me? Correct, yes. That's what I thought. No, you can't do it. Double check with your tax advisor, I'm not a tax professional, but I'm right.

Great advice. Okay. Thanks. Thanks for calling. I did this one time because I had a, I was buying a, about my next door neighbor's house

on the lake. Wow. My lake house. Yeah. And I was, I wanted him because I was giving him a great deal on it and he was going

to go buy another piece of property on the lake because prices were down and back in no way, okay, you know, prices were way down, it was a good deal for him because I paid

“him like full retail because I wanted the land to build a house on, right?”

Okay. And, uh, wasn't for me on the 1031, but I suggested to him, he 1031 his lake house into another lake house, but he had no income, he produced on it. It was a vacation property only and you couldn't do it. Oh, that's right.

So that's, that's when I got into the nuances of the, it really has to be the same. Of the law, you can't do, but, well, he'd had to have run his, his lake house 181 days. And if he did that, then he had it, it would be rental property, resort rental property, right? And he could buy another piece of resort rental property that he rented, but you can't do it on vacation property, the vacation property, can't, that is, if it's not rented.

ground, ground, can't be personal residents involved and can't be non-rented vacation property either.

“There's only reason I knew that, because I almost screwed it up for this guy and we actually”

got the tax advice because Dave was wrong.

And that's how we're never, forever.

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Daniels in Houston. Hey, Daniel. What's up? Hello, sir. How are you doing?

Better than I deserve. How can we help? Oh man. I don't even know what has started. I just feel I don't have control of any of my finances and to make it worse.

My wife and I were financially divided. You know, it's her money, her money, my money is my money kind of thing. And my car rebuild, my employer, their employees, every non-dand and just another thing. They do. What do the employees earn on them?

My employer, what they do is they make sure they were financially good.

“They look at their, if you want to keep the employment, our credit score, our credit,”

if you need to be, you know, at least good, you know, I need to make payman's arrangements. What do you do? How about for the government? Oh, okay. Yeah.

So you're concerned about that? That's one. I'm concerned about my marriage. You know. So what do you make?

I'm sorry. How much do you make? Right now I'm making about 75. I'm what does she make? About the same, maybe 150,000 dollars coming in.

And the crisis is where?

“How does your car get repo when you have 150,000 dollars coming in?”

So it equals back to years ago. Everything just started snowballing, you know, on debt, you know, one thing that's another and then there was a series of events, a family member passed away, two family members passed away. And then the government shut down paid, and that was the most recent one. That also, you know, just back decisions that I made, you know, I got a loan to color

the loan, and it's just- So how much other debt do you have, honey? I have seven collections. I have personal loans. Tell us the amount.

How much personal loans?

Okay, and what about the collections, how much in collections?

“In collections, so we're talking about maybe, I don't know, I think about 15 to 20.”

So I'll tell you this. I'll tell you something briefly in the one move on, that's really going to help. Tonight, pull it all out and look at it and calculate it up and list them smallest to largest. And that way, it's not just this thing floating in your head, you really know what the numbers

are. You can see it. You can name it. Do that tonight. So 15 to 20.

And have your thoughts set at the kitchen table with you doing that in the kids or in bed? Yeah. Well, that's a, you know, that's the thing, I mean, I try to, you know, I've tried to get my spa.

I didn't ask you to try, I should do it. Yeah. What would you like?

I know I won't sit at the table with you because that's very deep.

If she says no, I refuse to sit at the table with you. No, no, no, she'll sit with me. Okay. Then do it.

“Whenever we talk about finances, everything just spirals.”

That I don't want her to talk about it. I don't want her to talk about it. I don't want her to sit there and watch you add up what you owe. That's all I wanted to do. Don't talk to her about it.

Look. Yeah, one thing I want to mention, I just recently joined the Guardian Legation group. Yeah. Yeah. And so, there's the ones now, Emily and my account, that my employer are questioning.

Okay. So, the ones in collections, yeah, I wasn't collecting it because I've been getting calls from different law firms and, and thank you all. 'Cause they're trying to sue you. Yeah.

Okay. So, for the sake of time, you've got the 20,000 in collections, you've got the personal loans. Tell us, list out all of it. Tell us what else is there.

Do you have cars? Do you have an RV? Tell us what else there is. No, I have another repo that I had last year, which about 12,000 dollars. I also have, I mean, the solar panels, which was actually, as you know, it's actually

more than 20,000 because it's just the solar panels itself with about 45,000. But we have an attorney for that, which are handling that case because apparently that company, the solar kind of company, they went back website, and so we have an attorney. Okay. Because we have a lease on the roof, whatever.

So, solar panels on paper today, you owe 45,000? Yes. Okay. Anything else? I'm learning bad, it's just credit cards, personal loans.

Yeah, how much? How much credit cards? Oh. Okay, cards may be like 600 bucks. Oh, my gosh.

Daniel? Yeah. Daniel. You have $150,000 coming in. You're not paying any of these bills in any way.

“So mathematically, the question starts to pose, where is this money all going?”

You're not paying any of these bills, you're not paying the solar panels. That sends a lawsuit. The rest of these things are in collection. You're not paying anything. The cars are being repowed, have been repowed, and so you're not paying those.

So where is all of your money going? What's your house payment? So the house payment, it's about 1,600. Yeah. That's where.

That's where. Something's the data's where? It's something's not right. You're the $150,000 coming into the household, you have 75,000 of it. You are in control, you're in division, you're at odds with your spouse, which is normal

when you've got this much stress. But the way you eat an elephant is a bite at the time. And so Jade is right. If you list these things out, and you say, okay, there's the solar panels, the attorney's got that.

There's the collections, guardian litigations, got that. The car repo, I'm going to turn that over to guardian litigation, let them handle it. And if they can't, then I'm going to start. But I'm not paying anything on it, so it's sitting over there.

So the first thing we're going to buy with the money coming in is food.

Yes. The second thing we're going to buy is lights and water. And the third thing we're going to do is pay the house payment. And the fourth thing we're going to do is pay the car payment, put gas in the car and go to work.

Now we can breathe. Rest this is a monopoly game, rest of it's game in your behind. You hadn't passed go. Oh, wait a minute. You did pass go.

You got more than $200. You got $150,000. That's right. Keep passing go every month. What's happened is, as you've got, you walked into a nest of bees and they're flying around

your head and you can't think. That's right. And so what I'm going to do is get those bees to line up and fly information. So I can knock them off one at a time.

Yeah, I have a sense that what he's listing is his side of the equation and there's

probably a whole other quote, her side of the equation. It's possible. I actually think that's the biggest part of this right now. It's very, very hard to move forward together when you're not on the same page.

“But if you make 75 to 150,000, you should not have a car repode and you should not have”

a house. You should not be behind on your house. You could be behind on a whole bunch of other things because you, but you don't pay stupid whatever and not pay your car payment. You don't pay stupid whatever and not pay your house payment.

And so we take care of food, shelter clothing, transportation and utilities. Then we live to fight another day. Right. And part of what is causing your lack of energy, your lack of hope in your voice is, is that

you have no semblance of any kind of an intact plan.

And we're giving you an attack plan. And the brain can handle bad news. It can't handle not knowing. So give it the bad news. Load it up tonight.

Give her brain the bad news. Let her sit there and look at the mess tonight with you.

“And then you guys begin to attack this one thing at a time.”

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Chad is in Oklahoma City. Hey, Chad. What's up? Hey, Dave. It's pleasant to be on this show.

Certainly. How can we help? All right, so I have a very dangerous career that I'm rapidly approaching the end of which is freestyle motorcross and it's, you know, I've broken over 80 pounds and then into all of it, right?

On my 25th year, I love doing it, you know, performing it from across, all of that is absolutely amazing. But in the middle of the baby set two with the wife, everything's going smoothly. I've kind of got a side gig in the trades, trying to, you know, look at career options as far as the next pass because I'm only 44, but you know, with our debts and everything, I'm trying

to figure out how long I should hang on to this dangerous career while, you know, trying to still set the family up as far as, you know, freedom for later. Okay, I don't know that I've ever coached a professional motorcross guy. What kind of money do you make? Okay.

So in the freestyle motorcross world, it's all about how many shows are events you can do per year, right? It's not contingent on winnings and stuff like racism. It's more actual. It's more actual.

It's more actual. It's stuff. Okay. Yes. Yes, sir.

We're doing all kinds of stuff, like all over the world. Really. Yeah, I do try to do a lot of ministry stuff. Cool. How much do you make?

I added on a, on a healthy year, I'm about 125, 130, on a good healthy year, you know, you don't break any bones, obviously. On the side trades deal, I'm pulling in about an extra 50. Okay. Okay.

And the side trade is what? Electric work. Okay. Good. Your plan long-term, it sounds like, is to become an electrician.

Yes. The area that we live in is more rural.

Okay.

What do you want to be on your 55?

That's what I'm asking. Right. Yeah. That's what I'm trying to ask myself. Why?

You can't do this. You can't do this. You can't do this. I'm trying to ask myself. What is your plan to transition to?

That's the ultimate question right there. I mean, right now, I'm leaning towards the electrician. Okay. That's cool. The other thing that popped into my head immediately would be that you obviously are

the top 1% of the people in your world.

It would seem to me that without ever getting on a bike again, you could lend tremendous value to the motorcross world based on your experience and your name for that matter. And if you've been making this kind of money and breaking these kind of bones for this number of years, I would thank you, no, everybody. And you know the inner workings of the whole stink and deal and how it runs, no pun intended.

And you know, and I would think you could get into that. Like I've got in a friend, I've got a friend that was an Olympic athlete in the skating world and he doesn't skate for a living anymore. But he knows everyone in the business, everyone in his, everyone knows his name in the business.

And he's able to add value to the skating world, tremendous value and makes probably more money than he's ever made in his life doing that. So that's a possible angle on your life that just popped into my head.

“But if you don't want to do that, if you want to just turn your back on motorcross, I don't”

blame you if you got broke 44 broken bones.

I can imagine not wanting to see it ever again, wouldn't be bad.

And if you want to be in electrician, that's fine too. Then begin to, what I would suggest you do is get the boat closer to the dock. Don't jump towards the boat and hope you hit it. You know, I know, that's definitely a plan. Yeah, get your electrician income up and gradually take fewer and fewer motorcross gigs.

Because it sounds like you could probably trim this back a little and rather than just all or nothing, because there's electricians that make 120 here. There's electricians that make 120 areas. There is, there is just not my area. I'm pretty much almost capped out on that.

Okay, then you can't be in the area. You either have to be in a different area or you need to maybe think about another path or combining paths. Is there something where you do electrician work and you do something in motorcross world?

That's not riding. Yeah. Right. Yeah, that's, that's kind of what I'm hopeful for.

“The question is, what's your time line in an ideal state?”

Are you trying to make a transition in two years? Are you trying to make it in three? What's your timeline? Well, with our baby sets, I really think we can be debt free by the end of 27. Okay.

No problem. And then that's house and everything. And then I was just honestly leaning on putting two years after that, kind of, really putting what we are already currently doing, but you know, hyper doing the investments. Yeah.

But I think you could do that without being in motorcross if your electrician come came up. Yes. We're, I mean, we have our, we live in the country, very close to very, very small town. We have our dream home, dream life, life, life, life.

So again, I go back to my next door, I go back to what I said before, which is, if you're saying the market simply is not large enough in your area, then you do have two choices. You can either combine, combine trades and say I'm going to be an electrician at Trishon and then I'm going to do something else to generate the income I need or you would

have to relocate, which it sounds like relocations off the table for you. So that now it's okay. What other things can I do? And I'm also wondering, does your wife work or is it really just, is it just your income? No, no, no, she does, she actually, we both work two jobs.

“So here's the thing, you do what Henry Cleod talks about, he just got a new book out this”

week. He was on here yesterday. What is your desired future? Okay. And you put a timeline on it and you say, okay, my desired future is I don't want

to ride a motorbike more than two more years or whatever, you decide. And then you ask yourself, what must be true for me to be able to do that? This is not true today. And what we've been sitting here banging on is your income has to be up in the other stuff.

Yeah. And I don't know how you do that or what you have to give up to do that. But you're either going to be riding motorcross or you're not going to be living there. You're either going to be riding motorcross or you're going to get your dad gum, a Christian income up.

I mean, if you want to stop one and start another, you've got to, you know, you've got to figure out what it is you're going to do. And then you got to say, what must be true?

Well, I can't do it with electrician.

Okay. How can I do it? Well, I can't do it with electrician live here. Then I got to move. Or I, you know, something's got to shake.

Whatever it is. But you can't just go, I'm suddenly going to live on half of what I've been making. I'm glad you didn't call me and say I'm making 600,000 a year doing this and I've got to take a pay cut. That's right.

That's tough.

“And I thought, I thought for a minute, the way you're talking, like my life is in jeopardy.”

I'm breaking bones. Yeah.

I thought you were making some unbelievable money, but 130 is replaceable.

It is. And honestly, I'd be working to do that really quick because I don't think it's worth tearing your body up for a hundred and a thousand dollars. Your brain is already checked out, which makes you dangerous. Uh-huh.

Uh-huh. So I want you to get off that bike within 24 months. We can definitely send you, uh, find the work you're wired to do and inside of that. There's a career assessment inside. You can take the assessment because I'll tell you what.

And the wiring has nothing to do with electricity. That's right. That's just an intended pun, but I will say, when you go from a career that feels very driven by excitement and spotlight. Yes.

When he said, "I'm just going to go in and look, Trisha, and I thought, are you going to be okay like that?"

“I really think if he can find something connected to that world, like you said, that's”

going to give him the spark he wants to keep going. I think you-- What do I know? You can make 200-year promoting those events. Promoting?

And hiring the other talent to run the events and analyzing the talent. Yeah, sure. From the perspective of someone who's actually done it, I think you can make more than you used to make Rod and a bike, but I don't know anything about it. I'm making that up.

Yeah.

That was just a-- I just made that up, but I'm so freaking entrepreneurial that I always

figure there's a business in there somewhere. There's a business in there somewhere. Because he's already an expert in that area. So you and Sam did it, you were performers on cruise ships, and now you're in Sam on one of the largest agencies in the world, putting talent on stages on cruise ships.

And you're not been talent on a stage on a cruise ship in a long time, except when you went on the ramps, it's great. That's correct. But other than that, I mean, you see, you took the talent gig and all that's from it, and you turned it into a business, and that's exactly what I'm talking about.

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Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. In the Fair Wins, Credit Union Studio, I'm Dave Ramsey. Jay Bosch, I'll Ramsey Personality. Number one best-selling author is my co-host today. Carla is in Pensacola. Hi, Carla. How are you?

Hi, Dave. I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So my husband and I, we had a catastrophic life-changing event, another number of last year. I was diagnosed with stage four bladder cancer. Whoa. And yet, I've been a humbling experience to say the least.

“We own our business, I think, the Lord that we had savings, personally, and business-wise.”

But we have since lost everything, everything has lost everything.

How are you doing? I'm doing better, also with the blessing from God's.

I just got my latest test. Can you and the cancer is diminishing, so we are on the right track.

“Hey, man. That's what's important. Money, money comes and goes.”

But you got to, you got to break that. Wow. So you didn't have, you didn't have health insurance? No. Unfortunately, I did not either one of us had health insurance because we were in our minds, and I just pretty healthy. You neither one of us ever get sick. How old are you? And then I'm 53. So what did these bills amount to? Oh, they are two were well for $100,000, but- And how much did you have in the savings? We had about $100,000 combined,

personal and business. And the bills were about a lot, so they cleaned out your cash, but you haven't lost the business. No, that is correct. How are you continuing to pay for your medical care at this point? All right. Now I have, because I cannot work, I have been approved for disability.

Okay. I will get my first paycheck from disability June 3rd.

And how much is that? $1900 is what I've been approved for a month. And in the meantime, I mean, I go back to my first question, which is how are you paying for your care? I'm on Medicaid now as well. Okay. Okay. Good. Good. We did have, we purchased in January a health care policy, but that was costing us over almost $1,000 a month. Then in the midst of that, in February,

I got approved. But then of course, the system, I didn't kick it into March. And so, yeah, here we are. Okay. So, with you fighting, you fighting cancer, and you have a $1900 month in gun,

“you've cleaned out your savings, in your husbands running the business, I assume, what is he making?”

He just, he is just now returning back to work. What is the business?

To paint the business is truck driving? Okay. And so, here's income is going to come back now. Part partially because he still has to come back to me every week for my team of treatment. And what will he make in part time? He will be making approximately $1,000 a week. It's what we're hoping for him to be able to bring home. Okay. So, now we got $6,000 a month to work with. And so, this is devastating. I'm so sorry you've been through this.

So, what I want to give you permission to do is to live on $6,000 a month, making sure that your health treatments continue. Until you get this beat, yeah, when you get this beat, then you go back to work, he goes back to work, and we get our income back up. And then we were able to build with that. And I throw another mention. Yeah, the trial. My father just passed away. Oh, so I just inherited this $60,000 worth of debt.

Yeah, honey, you don't have an arrow there. Well, it's a house. Well, shall it? Okay, shall it? Yeah, what's it worth if you sold it? I have no idea more than $60,000. I didn't that being a blessing for you. Okay, right now I'm dealing with squatters in the house, trying to get them out. Well, a victim and get a good real estate agent. Get the squatters of it to get the house. So,

you're fighting chemo. You don't need to fight squatters in chemo. Let's just pick one. I'll pick the cancer. Let's beat that one. And get a good real estate agent. Go to RamseySolutions.com and find one of our Ramsey trusted real estate pros and tell them you're struggling with cancer.

“Your husband's on the road trying to make a living. And you got this house you need to get”

flipped. And you got to get these people flipped out of it and have them run it down for you. And they can pay the attorney out of the proceeds of the house to do the eviction on the squatters. Okay. How did this, if he just passed away, how come there's already squatters in it? That's weird. I, well, he passed away in March, 2015. Yeah, but I mean, the one that had where they signed up in the street ready to jump in the house.

I, was he just not in the house? Was he in the hospital for a lifetime? He was in the hospital and he was stayed with my aunt. Okay. So it was empty a lot and it

Is it a good condition? It's not going to be any more. No, I, I know. You can't have it. You have enough on your plate. You don't need to evict squatters.

“We're going to evade a four decade old property and be screwing around with all that. You need to”

fight cancer and win. Concentrate on which important. This is a distraction. Okay. Cut it loose, make your life simple. I'm going to laser focus, chemo and beat cancer, chemo, beat cancer. When that's done, we'll rebuild our savings and part of what will help

us do that as a sale of this house. And that's what you got to do. Yeah, the problem is when all

the stuff start coming at you folks for 14 different directions, you got to choose your battles. And, you know, you got to pick out which thing you're going to take on first and take on the most important thing. And that's called living. That's right. That's right. She's been, when it rains, it pours. And she's been through it. But for anybody listening right now, the take away from this is, oh my goodness, you need insurance. You got to have it. You

got to have health insurance. You got to have life insurance. Term life insurance. You got to have a will. All of these things are there because it's, it's a, you're, you're moving the risk off you want to somebody else because they're all there. Everybody wants to be healthy forever. Everybody wants to live forever. But that's not the case. It's just not the case. There we go.

“That's it. Oh boy. So, yeah, you have to play defense. And here's the thing. The number one”

cause of bankruptcy is not credit card debt. It's medical bills. And it's not medical bills from people that had health insurance. Because if you got health insurance, you got to deduct a bull you made and then you got 80 20 or whatever. Right. And you can work your way through that. If you got an income. Yeah. But if you're sitting there with no health insurance and you take 100,000 dollar pop in your truck driver. Oh, yeah, you got that's getting your face knocked in.

And if you're looking, check out health trust financial. They can help you find the right policy

for you. If you're looking for a term life, we're always going to recommend Zander Insurance.

If you're looking to make a will, we're always going to recommend Mamba Beer Legal Forms. They're there. We've got all these other causes. We put in place to do the stuff we did for today. Okay, guys, let me ask you something. What would it take for you to switch your bank?

“Because if you're still earning next to nothing on your savings, you need to check out fair winds”

credit in. And I know what you're thinking it might sound like a hassle. Moving your direct deposit obtaining bills, getting a new debit card, feels like a lot. But here's what most people don't realize. Staying where you are could be costing you hundreds of dollars every year. Y'all, the average savings account pays less than half a percent. So let's say, for example, you've got $20,000 saved. You might earn around $70 a year. But with a fair wind,

high yield savings account earning 3% APY or more, that same money could earn you over $600. And that's real money that you can use towards the baby steps. So don't let temporary comfort keep you stuck. Check out the smart bundle from Fairwind's credit union. You get a high yield savings account, a no fee checking account, and the Ramsey B weird debit card. Go to fairwinds.org/Ramsie to learn more and make the switch today. That's fairwinds.org/Ramsie. Ensured by the NCUA.

Annabelle is with us in Anchorage. Chey Annabelle, how are you? I'm doing great. How about you? That would enough to serve. What's up?

Well, first, it's an honor to talk to you both, Jade. I'm in the middle of your book right now.

And, Dave, I'm in the middle of a total money makeover as well. Wow. Very good. Well, caught in the middle. Yeah, with that said, you guys have been working on me for about the last six months. I've been diving into the podcast. And, about the last week, I admitted to the program. I increased my income. I got a second full-time job. And this morning, I set up my every dollar budget. Wow. Look at you. So what do you think? I'm what how do you go? So I was like relieved to the point of crying.

Good. Because you have a plan and you're back at control. So Jade, and that was because of you. So in your book, I think you said that it's scary when you don't have eyes and you actually

That's right. That's right. You can actually get a handle on it. Yeah. Sorry. That's okay. What you're experiencing is, it's exactly right. It's called relief. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So, all right. Let's collect ourselves. So I'm a local dog trainer. I've been self-employed here in Alaska for the last seven years. And I've been afraid to do this because my income is so volatile. It's hit or miss with the economy. So I didn't want to make any more

dumb but decisions. So I went out like Dave said to do and I increased my income. I became a correctional officer. So now my base income is not zero. Great. Which is fantastic. But I had a question about the sinking funds. I am going to need winter tires in October. And while I am budgeting for that, is that considered a sinking fund or a budget item? And what's the difference? For where you are, I would consider that a sinking fund because generally a sinking fund is something

that you cannot pay for in one month's cash flow, right? It's something that's like, yeah, I kind of

“have to save up a little bit for this. And my guess is that that's what this is for you. How much”

are the four tires going to cost you? 12, 100. 1200 exactly. And my guess is you can't cash flow that in a single month in October when you need them or can you, maybe you can. So I would have to take from my margin, which is currently all being poured into my debt. And so I could cash flow it. How much margin do you have? About 2600 a month. I mean, honestly, that's totally up to you. If you wanted to do it that way, if you feel like, you know what, I can run the margin either way.

Yeah. You're thinking to take from it a little bit for three months or four months or you're going to take from it a lot in one month. And the thing that was the same net effect. But what we're talking about is your motivation, right? Because you're in the middle of paying off debt. So if you say, you know what, I'm really, I feel like I'm making progress. I love seeing the number go down every single month. If that's where you are right now, then I would say hold it off until October.

And then just do it in one shot and that keeps you feeling motivated. And October's not a good debt reduction month. And it's the snow tires fault. And that's okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I can do that. Yeah. I like that free. And in October, there is a little buffer here in Alaska because we get the Alaska PFT. So that's an extra $1,000 or more that we get from the state every every state resolution. Well, now we got 3600 that went in margin minus 1200. So then you really want to feel it.

You won't hardly notice it. Okay. Yeah. That's perfect. I didn't even think about that. Yeah.

Alaska's going to buy your tires. Yes. Finally the taxes. Yeah. I love that for me.

All right. Well, that was my question. Can I ask one more? Yeah. How would I,

“I would I do that another thing that I went ahead and did was I signed up with Zander for life insurance?”

Good. And that's a budget. Okay. That's a budget item. Okay. All right. That's a cost of being alive is having to feel that having life insurance. All right. Hey, we're out of you. You're in the way doing so good. Yeah. You are. You're actually coachable. You're amazing. Yeah. Well, I waited six months to call. So I made sure I was. Yeah. Oh, well, you, I wanted to, I wanted to, you're a prize student to the day. You get an

app. Yes. Oh, well, thank you so much. You guys have a wonderful day. Yeah, you too. That was fun.

It's a great call. Yeah. Well, the thing is here here's what's interesting. And what I want people

that are out there on the edge and they haven't decided whether they're going to do this or not, the tears and the emotion comes from not being out of debt because her life mathematically is not changed a dime. That's right. Yeah. But it's actually seeing a light at the end of the tunnel that

“is for the first time in your life is not an oncoming dream. You know, we actually are going,”

this is freaking, when you put the numbers down, the numbers look at you and say, this is going to work. And you go, oh, my gosh, the numbers just told me, this is going to work. Oh, my, and this is called hope. Yes. And hope in personal finance is the sauce, baby. Hope is the secret sauce. It'll make you work hard. Hope will make you sacrifice. It'll make you sell off your prize possession because you want to get to somewhere. You're not there. Yes.

Hope will make you do all kinds of mature grown up stuff. Yes. That's why we tell you. That's why

we're always giving people every dollar because a moment that you start plugging those numbers into

every dollar and it happens just the way Dave said, you start to see, oh, my gosh, number one, you see your income in one place for the first time and you realize, oh, I do make money and I'm really have been wasting a lot of it. Yes. And then you see the margin or some of us a lack of margin.

over. And then when you see the first step in solving a problem, Dave is identifying that there

“is actually a problem. So when you actually see it, okay, I'm, I'm over budget. I'm in the red.”

Even though that doesn't feel nice, at least you can recognize the problem. And now you get to get about the business of actually solving the problem. And if you have felt like a rat in a wheel for so long and you suddenly have hope, it will make you cry. Yeah, it will. It makes me cry thinking about it because I've been there where you're under a rock and somebody stand on a stinking rock. Hello. And when you realize, I don't have to get off my rock. Yes. You know, I'm not going to

live like this. And and you go, there's a way to do this and it changes everything. It's so powerful.

See, the brain science tells us that bad news is not as bad as no news. And bivalence is way more dangerous to your brain, not knowing is way more dangerous to your brain than knowing exactly what I

“got to do and what I got to fight. Right. Because when you don't know your brain fills and gaps with”

all sorts of stories and ideas and fears and all sorts of things. Yeah, we have a friend who's in the process right now beating cancer, just knocked one up out. He had two. He's collecting them. And he's got one, I'm knocked down. He's working on the other one. And he will tell you that when the doc says you got cancer, but it's going to be a week before we can tell you how bad it is, that

week is more hell than actually fighting. Yeah. The stinking thing once you know what it is. It's

stage two. This is what we're going to do. Here's the treatment plan. Here's the prognosis. You've got a year of hell, hell of you, hell, hair, hell I had of you and no hair ahead of you and you're going to live. That's right. But it's going to be awful. That Duke, your brain can handle that news better than I've got cancer, but I don't know if I'm without a mora from it or I don't know if it's stage four one. I don't know if I drove by it. I don't know what it is. Yeah. The not knowing crap that ambivalence

is way harder from a brain science perspective for human beings to deal with than the actually knowing this is what we're dealing with. Yeah. And if you look down and you go, God, that's a lot of that. That's not nearly as bad as I've got a lot of that and I have no idea what I'm stuck and I did it's really, really, really, really. But when you write it down like you said, you get that, you you'll have an abel's reaction and you may not call us crying, but you will stand in the mirror and cry.

Yeah. You go, oh my gosh, I'm going to be okay. It's going to be tough. I might have still some stuff. I'm going to take a job as a correction officer while I train dogs. But I can do this and what must be true this not true today. And all of a sudden your brain starts adjusting for what must be true that's not true. Yep. Today to get this freaking mess cleaned up, you automatically do it. It's a human function. You can't keep yourself from doing it. You're

probably solved. Once you realize what the stinkin' problem is. . George Campbell here, let me give you three signs. It's time to stop hoping your debt problem goes away and actually take action to fix it. If you've defaulted on a debt, if collectors are calling nonstop or if you're facing a lawsuit or think once coming,

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Go to guardianlit.com/ramsie right away. That's guardianlyt.com/ramsie. It's hurting advertising. Results may vary and no specific outcome is guaranteed. Are you worried about being able to afford a home? A lot of people are. A lot of people have believed everything they read on the internet, which is a really bad idea. Because it can steal your hope and falsely steal your hope. So why don't you sit down with a good real estate agent

and talk about putting it on the market if you're going to sell. When you actually deal with

facts instead of internet mythology, your life will change. I promise you. The Ramsie trusted

“program is the only way to find a top agent you can trust that we trust. And they'll make your”

home a blessing or buying of a home, not a burden, and be a blessing. Because you'll be dealing with reality, not internet mythology. See, if there is a reason for you to be worried about something I will tell you. I believe in it. I'll tell you bad news. I don't mind. But I'm also not going to allow the hope stealers out there to steal your hope falsely. I mean, if you make $40,000 a year and you live in Los Angeles, you're not going to buy a home. That's the truth. You can't afford it.

That's right. That's the truth. You have an affordability problem. But most people aren't in that

situation. Most people actually have just believed all the stuff that their bull crap friends are telling

them. So find a local Ramsie trusted real estate pro for free at ramsiesolutions.com/agent or click the link in the description. Our question of the day is brought to you by why reify when you fall behind on paying your private student loans. It can feel like your life is being held hostage. But why reify helps borrowers explore a fresh start with a low fixed rate refinancing and a payment plan designed for your ability to pay. Wow, don't you wish you had that for the other kind of

student loans. Visit yreify.com/ramsie. That's the letter y r e f y dot com slash ramsie. Might not be in all states. All righty. Today's question comes from Paul in Ohio. He says I'm dead free and almost have my emergency fund in place. Once that's done, I want to upgrade my vehicle and I'll pay cash. How do I handle a dealer that I know will be pushing financing even just for short time so they can get a better profit margin? I'm determined to walk in with cash and take

it home the same day. I love this question and I think it's great. You're going in there. You're

paying with cash and I think the first thing is you've already decided that you're paying with

cash so there's no way you're getting into financing. So you've already drawn that line in the sand.

“And I'll tell you for me, I think the best way to handle it is I don't and I've done it the wrong”

way before. But I don't tell them that I'm paying in cash until we've negotiated the price. Because once if you walk in and say, oh, I've got cash and this is all I've got. 30,000 and nothing more. They kind of lose interest in the deal in many ways, especially if you've made it very clear that you're not financing because they don't you're right. They're not making as much because financing there's a kickback. There's add-ons that they get they earn more off

people who buy who finance the car. So I wait and I say, let's just talk price and let's get the price to where we both agree and where I agree. And then I can let loose hand by the way. I'm paying cash and they usually don't like that very much. And they're going to try to push for you. You know, even if you just finance this much, you could pay it off next month. They're going to do all those things and you're going to say, no, thank you. And then they're going to act like they need 10

people to approve your check and they don't. And it's just a lot of Vrga Moral that you just have to say, this is this is the way they're going to act. This is the way I'm going to act. And like I said, before you even tell them that you're paying cash, that's the time where I'm trying to negotiate Kate, can you take the document? Fiaf, hey, can you? I don't want the extended warranty. I'm telling them everything up front. We're locked down on the fee. And then I slide the cash over and it's

a done and done. Dave, what do you think? That will work. There's nothing wrong with that plan at all. The more expensive the used car, the closer I would stick to that strategy. If you're buying a five or a $10,000 used car, they're not making a lot on the finance. And I would just say, you know, I have $9,000 and you have it to, you know, you get your asking 12. And here's nine.

“And if you want to take that, I'm leaving it with a car. If you don't, I'm leaving it with my cash.”

Do you want the car or do you want these Benjamin's? I mean, it's that simple, right? But it's close enough for them to smell up smell it, right? It's right there. It opened the briefcase and go, do you want this? You know, I'm kidding. But not much. You know, and so that's a cheaper car, right? Now, if you're buying a brand new car that's not a specialty vehicle, it's a standard model. If you work it carefully, you can buy those for usually 500 over invoice.

And just go in and say, I'm looking at that car. Will you sell it to me if I own it over invoice? Just leave it at that. And then it will show you the end of this. Now, after that, the reason they will do that is, or sometimes I'll sell it to you at invoice, because they get manufacturer rebates that they put in their pocket in that process. And then I just go, I'm going to worry the money. And that's out on that. Yeah. Now, if you're buying something that there's a shortage

MSRP on that, like the Raptor that I drive that Raptor are, you know, that thing, they only get

“a handful of those and they often sell for more than sticker. Right, because there's more to make it.”

Because they can easily, they get two per dealership or something, they can easily get that. But that's an expensive specialty rare vehicle, very unusual deal. So there's a lot of different ways to approach this. But yeah, if you just say, if you nail it down on invoice, you get the exact same treatment you're doing and you go, and no, I don't need them. I don't need the ceramic coating or crap. I don't need the, all the bulk crap, man. They can make a shovel at a car. They can

ship can shovel more bull than anybody ever seen in my life. And a lot of, a lot of good friends

that are car dealers. And then they laugh at me and we joke when we're hanging out together, the rams are you're the bane of my existence. But, you know, because I can't, nobody will lease a car because you like that. That's because I'm doing my job better than you're doing

“yours. So there you go. So that's fire. Jay is with me with us in Los Angeles. How are you?”

Good. How's it going? Better than we deserve. How can we help? So the reason for my call is I'm self-employed. I'm a contractor. And I make decent money.

I've only been doing this for going on two years now. But I've been in this line of work

for a long time. So we've picked up work pretty quickly. But I'm having trouble getting my wife on the same page. I would like to eventually buy a house and pay off debt. But we've been arguing a lot lately. What are you arguing about? Well, as money comes in, she has all these ideas of what she wants to spend on. And sometimes for the sake of not fighting, I'll kind of let it go. I guess like what? You mean, you mean she wants to buy a food? It will shield my food.

Well, she's out for every meal. And then like, we have our house looks like an Amazon warehouse. It's like just overspending on things stuff. Yeah. And then I mean, it's like friends, birthday parties, friends, kids birthday parties. Let's get them this. Let's get them that. It's my mom's friends graduation. How long have you been like anything? Two years out of the last week. About the time you went in business to start making money. Yeah. What does she do?

She's a state home mom. We have two kids together. Yeah, okay. And what are you bringing in from the contractor deal? What's your net profit that you pay taxes on in a year? So last year net profit was about $187 this year. Gross. I'm on track to make about $450. But we don't have anything. I made $30,000 gross in the last two weeks. I took home about $16 and we're down to about $2,000. Okay. Well, I mean, obviously you have a marriage problem. You don't

“have a financial problem. And so the two of you need to sit down together and say, Honey, I can't live like this.”

You're killing me. We're going to have to get on the same page. We're not in Congress. We can't spend like we are. And we're going to have to say we're going to get on the same page. And yes, you need to buy some things. But I am unwilling to make $400,000 a year and be broke. I'm not going to live like this. And so if we can't sit down here at the kitchen table and work out like two adults, then we're going to sit down with a good marriage counselor.

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So as we survey our audience, one of the things you guys always bring back to us is hey,

“you remember that called the weird thing that happened on the air? What ever happened to that guy?”

We always answer, we don't know, because we have no idea what happened to him. But lately we've decided we're going to fix that and a timer two in the last few months. We've taken one of those calls that when we posted it like on Instagram and had like 10 million people view and it, whoa, that's wild. And we go back to the person and go, okay, what happened? What did you do? So Jayden, I took a call in November from a guy and, well,

I'll just let the clip explain it. We're going to play the Poet thing we ended up posting on Instagram. My fiance doesn't quite know what my net worth is. How do I spell her story and then the lawyers are very much happy to have a cleanup? Well, your lawyer is not in charge of your life. Number one, lawyers give advice. They don't tell me what to do. And then I decide if A that want them to be my lawyer anymore. And B, if I'm going to take their advice, they don't get the

tell me I have to do something. You're not the boss of me. Now, so how in the world do you get

“engaged and have never told her? You should have told her before you got engaged. I agree,”

some words, I'm worth a decent amount. She just doesn't know the full amount. What is the full amount? Calls the 20 million. Wow. And you're telling me there's no signs that you're a 20 million air. There's signs when you're a 20 million air Dave. Come on. Well, there can be. I don't know.

There's some of these people. They look like they, you know, no, there's not always a sign,

but, you know, and then other times they're a sign. So, there we go. So we said, okay, the lawyer's right, even though he was a bit bossy about it, you probably do need to pre-nup. And we said, you probably need to sit down with your, like, as soon as you hang up the phone with your fiance and have the conversations. And we wondered how that conversation go. Yeah. I mean, if you're the fiance and you get here suddenly, you go, wow, do you go, you liar? Yeah. I mean, do you go,

I mean, wow, that's crazy. So we got Brian on the phone and Brian's in Minneapolis. And this is the guy we talked to and just a little while ago. And the clip we just played Brian, how are you? I'm better than I deserve as a saying goes. I've heard the rumor. So that's the first thing I do want to know. I'm very, very curious. So when, how quickly after that call did you sit down with

her and tell her exactly you had 20 million bucks and then what was her reaction? Probably a couple

weeks when I saw her in person since we're not at least together. And her reaction was what I honestly fully expected it to be. Oh, so, okay. Oh, there was nothing more honestly to the conversation. And when you say not back together because she's out of, out of the country, right? Yeah, we're sure we are in two different countries but I go back and forth. Yeah, you're in the United States, she's in Canada. Don't mean, she just looked at you and went, oh, okay.

Literally that's what she said 20 million bucks. 20 million bucks. Okay. She mentioned coffee. Like I told you guys when I got to meet you after this. It was a cheap. I was the guy down there met you too. Well, did she suspect that? I mean, because you're making such a huge thousand a year that she suspected that. She knew, I said, did you have any idea and she said, oh, I thought maybe a million or two was her honest response. Okay. And I said, okay, cool. So I think she did. She just said,

no, nothing changed, not a single thing. So definitely did not accidentally stumble into a gold digger. No, not opposite. She's poor with your 20 million. She, it's not going to change the big yard now in any way. There's a big old yard like, oh, okay. And if you remember, you were worried about it because you said that in a previous relationship, somebody kind of took advantage of

“you for your money. And I remember that me pain point for you. Yes, it was for sure. And with her,”

it's not. Not that at all. She, she's one of the hardest workers I've ever met. So, and so did did you talk about a pre-nup them? Yep, we did. On it. And she, again, said, yeah, no problem whatsoever.

We're hoping for August September sometime in there. We're not going to throw a big old chin dig. It's going to be this family. And stuff like that. So hopefully sooner than later. Okay. So you kind of thought that this was going to be a big yon for her. And she was just going to go, yeah, whatever. You kind of thought that didn't you. Yeah, my God. But some percentage of you when you sat down was a wee bit worried. What percentage? I wouldn't say more than five. Okay. Honestly,

so you know, you know, are pretty good then. I do. I was a little worried because I don't want

to say I see it, but I never was forthcoming about it. Yeah, that was the part. Mm-hmm. Yeah,

but she, she reacted. I would have put a lot of money on. She would have reacted to this. So you did not want to go like that. Yeah. And you didn't tell us, but what was her financials? She takes good care of her money, right? Yeah, she, she either things I've just said didn't say, she has a son on it. I didn't think people really needed to know that, but I'll say it now. And he has autism. So she, he's going to be with us this way. But she, that she is the best mother

of the most caring person. And she makes sure that he is always provided for her. I love that. On it. And so she had some things that maybe weren't the smartest financial decisions ever, but she, you know, in a single mom's not the easiest thing in the world. No, it's not at all. Especially especially like a little autism into the equation. Yeah. Wow. So I'm going to tell you, this is the most normal reaction to a really bizarre set of numbers.

“Yeah. And she, David, I would honestly, how I feel, I would sign a key to have it.”

And I wouldn't be worried to take an RV. Well, my guess is life is not going to change. Like you're not. No, it's, it's not. And a little, a little strange. It will come off our herd. Yes, sure. Yes. You know, people, I, I might have worked over the Instagram and seeing people say, and keep this and that. I, I, I value my money to be spent on experiences. Yeah. Yes. That's, it's not going to change how we live. One bit. Oh, dude, we should have told you

not to read the Instagram account. Well, you know, reading Instagram comments, you understand why some species eat their young. Well, you did see. Oh, saying, this is a good problem to have. And they are absolutely right. This is a good problem. There was a lot of funny comments like that. Like, I wish I had this problem with my fiance. But yeah, those were funny comments. But yeah,

I don't read the Instagram comments. Yeah, it's never going to bother me. They've not been good.

You got thick skin. And honestly, yeah. Well, well, you, you guys are, you're devastatingly normal for some really weird numbers and some fabulously weird numbers in a good way. And congratulations. I'm glad it all worked out. Thanks for giving us the update. I appreciate you coming back on.

“Yeah. And we will actually see if you want to come next time I come to Tennessee. So we're going to stop”

them. Oh, I love that. I love that. All right. Come on in. We'll buy you a chocolate chip cookie and a cup of coffee. Yes. Oh, I love the, I love the follow up. That's so cool. And by the way, if you are watching and you've called in and shared something and you want to follow up, give us a call. Tell us. We don't know. If you're interesting, we'll put you back. But I mean, if you're, if it was just

boring, we'll follow up with your boring. It's true. It needs to have 10 million views. 20 million

10 million for on your Instagram. Yeah. I don't even know what month. Oh, gosh. Wow. Crazy. So it just goes to show. We give, you know, we give advice. And sometimes it can make you feel a little out of your comfort zone. It can make you feel a little bit like, oh, I don't know if I want to do that. But there's a rainbow on the other side of this. Like if you follow the advice, it might feel a little uncomfortable for a moment. But it usually it's a happy ending here. Well, when it comes to finances

with a person, you're going to spend your whole life with your spouse, your future spouse, one thousand percent transparency is an only possible equation. There's no other possible answer. Well, I don't comment about that. That's lying. Okay. The target by bags under the bed are not cute,

“Oprah. Okay. It's not cute. And so you're not, if you have to hide your target purchases,”

gentlemen, if you have to hide your latest firearm purchase in your business P&L, because you didn't want your wife to know what you spent on that gun, that's lying. That is lying. Okay. Yeah. Can you tell I have discovered that? It's not a little too cute. I don't do that. I didn't do that. I don't do that. But I have, I have witnessed guys, it's particularly guys that own their own businesses. They managed to,

yeah, that's a little too cute. A lot of the slide under the bed. Slide the burger bags under the bed, and there you go. So yeah, just, it's the cleanliness of honesty. The cleanliness of integrity is,

and Brian sitting down with her and she, her going, okay. I kind of figured, but I didn't think that much, but cool. Whatever. Then just, you got to love the lady, man. What a wonderful lady. Wow. . Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. In the Fair Wins Credit Union Studios, I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Jade Wush, I'll Ramsey Personality. Number one best selling author is my co-host today.

“Joe is with us in Orlando. Hi, Joe. How are you? Hey, Dave. I'm doing good. How are you?”

Better than I deserve. What's up? Thank you. We're taking my call. I appreciate you and Jade. Sure. Thank you. How come we all? Thank you. So I have a financial dilemma and I hope you can provide some dedication to them. So, my wife and I both 28 years old, they're blessed. We make 10 last four

years every year. We made around $1.1 million with our W2 and investment income. Now, since last four

to five years, we are paying approximately 300,000 dollars to IRS interactions. So this year, I decided to consult with one of those tax advisory firms. And they recommended,

“hey, we can add you in some kind of business program where you can take a debt of $550,000,”

and call it 85,000 dollars in initial investment and then rest of that. You can put that in tax right off. And then you can claim you can deduct that from your overall tax payment from it. So I was in sure it's a good idea to take a debt to save taxes. So thought I should ask you. Okay, the only road offers the interest on the debt, correct? Well, yeah, that's pretty much they were saying, well, they were saying that if I'm taking a $250,000 worth of debt to invest in a

business, I can use the $450,000 worth of money as a deduction has an investment in the company

“as for a new Trump bill. Okay, do you own a business? No, I don't. But they're saying they can”

add me as an investor. I know I do. What that business is as well. So that's all like, you know, I don't want you about the business going to be, is it going to be profitable or not? But they're claiming that I'm just a thousand more tired by paying taxpayers do that. So like, I don't know. I'm not sure about it. Okay, I'm sure run away from these people's fast as you possibly can. But let me, I'm going to guess at what they're trying to do because I can't, I can't tell.

Normally, if you own a business, you have a right off. If you have a debt, you can write off the interest as tax deductible as an expense of doing business. Okay, but the interest would not be 450,000 or 500,000 alone. So all I can figure is they're doing some kind of section 179 right off

which you can do in business and I take that in our business here. But the problem is, is if the

business fails, you still have the loan. Yeah. And you got the right off, but you've got the loan. And which means that, and so, you know, another way of looking at this is if you had 550,000, would you invest 550,000,000 cash in this in order to get a 450,000 right off? Well, obviously, then you have a net of a hundred thousand dollars invested in the business that you don't know anything about, or we wouldn't even do that. Right. Much less have that debt around it. And so,

their explanation and their process. So here's a, here's a, let me backtrack just a minute,

you're making incredible money. What are you doing for a living? It's making us kind of money.

Yeah, so I'm a, yeah, I can do it. Okay. Good for you. Well, awesome. I'm so happy. All right. So what, what I learned and I learned this as a young guy that was making the kind of money that you're making. And I ran into these people in the real estate world who were doing the similar things,

reason that these people are going to cause you to have problems. But here's, here's the principle

that I learned at the time. This was around real estate. It wasn't Section 179, which I think is what these guys are doing. I'm not positive. Where they're getting this kind of a ride off. I'm only a 550,000 dollar investment. It shouldn't be that big. But all I'm guessing is they've syndicated out the 179s. And so that's a complicated way of saying, there's a ride off you can take in business and they're giving you a portion of it. So they're probably putting, you know, you and two other

people are something in this. It's a limited placement thing. So now, in the real estate business,

“what they did was the Reagan, Ronald Reagan, that's how long ago it was, changed the tax laws”

to where we could take a, what used to be depreciated a piece of property over 30 years. And instead, we could depreciate it over 15. And then we could use what's called double declining balance on, and to appreciate, you take the first years depreciation and double it. And so you could put, you could put $5,000 down on a 35,000 dollar condominium. Okay, that was, and you could end up riding off 15,000 dollars that year. This is the way the numbers worked. And so people were doing

this in mass, but guess what? The stupid condominiums wouldn't rent for enough then to support the debt, they ended up getting foreclosed on and all of the tax savings got recalled back on the people. And so the lesson that I learned from that, which it's a little different deal than your deal,

but the lesson I learned from that is never do a deal that doesn't make economic sense and only

makes tax savings sense. Because it's always going to bite you in the butt. It has to make economic sense, meaning if you're going to invest in the business, it's a good business investment, and I get a tax right off. Not, it's a stupid crazy business idea. I'm going to lose all my money

“in it, but I get a tax right off. And I'm doing this just for the tax right off. And that's what”

these guys are proposing to you like some old real estate buddies did, and they got their heads taken off. All of them. And it was a massive blood bath in real estate in the 80s over this. All the limited partnerships and syndications fell apart. And the one guy at 110 million dollar net worth, he's bankrupt gone, took him out. And it's this very principle they violated is they were doing deals just for the tax right off that were bad deals. And what I smell here,

and I'm a 99% sure, this is a really bad deal and a really good tax right off run and run because these morons are morons, and they're going to give you other stuff like this to do. And you might not be able to smell it. So you smelled this when you could tell something was wrong couldn't you? Yeah, absolutely. So you know, for hey, what if the business is going well, I can pay that off. No, no, no, no, you don't want to pay off the debt. Yeah, you want to stay in debt.

Yeah, you can't even pay. Yeah, here's the basic thing on that. If you have a $100,000 in debt in interest payments, you can write $100,000 off. But writing it off means that you deduct it from your income. It doesn't mean you save $100,000 on taxes. It means you save 37% of $100,000 on taxes. So you put out $100,000 to the bank in interest and it saves you 37,000 on taxes. Well, that's trading a dollar for a quarter. That's stupid on a six grade level.

Okay, and so you never do that. If you're going to do that, just give a charity $100,000.

And you get a 37,000 dollar right off. 37,000 our tax savings, 100,000 dollar right off. And you don't have to be in debt to do it. Run from these guys. They're dangerous. [Music] Hey, guys, George Kamel here. You ever feel like you make good money and still have nothing to show for it. You run into Target for one thing and somehow walk out $87 later with toothpaste and

emotional support candles. Just me. Okay. Well, that's the problem. Most people don't pay attention

“to how they spend their money. So it does whatever it wants. And that's why we created every dollar.”

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Carl is a New York City. Hey, Carl, how are you?

Hey, all, how's it going? I hope you're doing well. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. I'm telling that, okay. I'm 29. I'm living in New York City. I'm just trying to be making double what I was making on my previous job. And congratulations. What are you making? Thank you. It's so often 85. Sorry, and hopefully 95 after six months. Good for you. Appreciate that. Yeah. So, the car question, it's kind of a good-to-car question. I've had a bit of car shareholder

and I've been driving a car solely to get through the winter over here. Doesn't have the

feeling that all the different things need to happen to changes, needs over to fix it.

It's not worth it because it's about to 12,000,000 miles on it. And I'm running into the grab-based phase of the spring. Now, I'm feeling that I have a lot of father as well. I wanted to know best sixes. Now, you're going into your car and look for the past six months. And ensure I'm feeling one thing. Sorry about that. Yeah. My father gave me about $10,000 to go to work this car out of the year this month. And so, while originally I was

“looking for something that keep on the road that's reliable, etc, the added cash was added to what?”

Yeah, what's added to it? Where do you got money saved for a car? Yeah, I was saving for a car.

How much do you have in savings? I've got now, I've been continually saving all that about 8,000, 8 to 10. Okay, so with your dad's gift, you have $20,000 to buy a car. What's your question? Well, the car that I suppose answers all the questions is about, because I'm with a man called Wana. You're going to show me what you're talking about. Just say, what are you trying to spend on this car? I have a feeling.

About $20,000. Okay, don't. You can't buy that car. You don't have $25,000.

“Buy $20,000 on a car. You have $20,000. Yeah, or can you wait until you save up the $5,000 more?”

Because when you tell me that the other car was a free, it was a free hand-me-down. You have no money in it. So if you wanted to continue to repair it for a while, you could, it's because you didn't buy the car. So you didn't buy the car. The junker probably bring a couple of grand won't it? Yeah, I don't know either, but go find out. I mean, whatever you can sell it for plus 20 grand, your budget. Carl, do you have any other debt? Do you have any debt?

Just a balance transfer in June that's about $2,000. Which, yeah, that's the rest. Okay. Otherwise, again, I'm looking at, well, new draw, new position. Hey, listen, don't celebrate your new job with a car payment. That's kind of done. No, and that's not the intention. Well, it's what you're doing. You said, "Oh, I hit the lottery. I doubled my income. I signed up for $85 grand." So I'm going to run down the car dealer and

give them my freaking money. No, thank you. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Time to be a grown-up. You did not hit the lottery. You have 20 grand and $85,000 on a job and you live in New York City. You did not hit the lottery. Okay. You can go buy a $20,000 car, not a time freaking more, because you don't have a time more. You do what you want to do, dude. But you called here.

“I got to tell you, there's zero chance you should have a car payment. You have a millennium on.”

You are upgrading so far from the hoop to you, Bindra. Yeah. You ought to be dancing in the streets of that 20 grand act like you got a dead gum new Porsche. Or save up the 5,000, so in pay 25,000. Just do it in cash. Absolutely, dude. Please don't do that. Okay. Please don't do it. So, Dave, let's talk about this because I'm done. People, people are like, what are you saying? This man is buying a $25,000 car in cash that's so countercultural. It's so abnormal. The majority

It's a majority of Americans are broke. Exactly. So, the correlation there is very, very clear. You look at

the percentage of Americans out of car payments and then you look at the percentage of Americans who are living paycheck to paycheck and suddenly the whole equation makes sense. So, you interviewed, we interviewed 10,167 millionaires and we did the Ramsey Research Peace on Millionaires. You know what the data tells us? Yeah, actual science, science, right? You know what's it tell you? Okay. Well, the science, the data says that we interviewed millionaires. They say, "What's the

dumbest thing you ever did with a car with money?" About a car with payments. What's the dumbest thing you ever did? About a new car with payments? And when did you stop doing that? About the time I got on track to be a millionaire, which was 16 years ago, was the last time I did that stupid but idea and then I became a millionaire. Yeah. Then they look back on their lives and say, the turning point of me becoming wealthy, the vast majority of it's like 84% of them answer

the question this way. It's crazy. You know, they look back and they say, "The dumbest thing I ever did and the turning point that when I changed my life and started habit patterns that caused

“me to become wealthy was getting away from car payments." Yes. If you want to be middle class,”

stay in car debt. You will stay in the middle class. You will never build wealth because it will

suck the bone marrow out of your money. Well, when you're paying $800,900,000 a month for cars and for some people that's just for one car, many households have two car payments. Yeah, how the heck are you supposed to have money to invest for the future? How can you pay for your kids' college? How can you afford a building supply? I can't buy a house. It's because you have $1,400 in car payments because Ford Motor Company screwed you. Lexus Motor Company,

Toriota Motor Company screwed you and they got you so far in debt because you had to have something shiny with toxic plastic smell. So then the big question then comes says, "Okay, how do we do it?" And that's the number one question that I get when I start talking like this. You quit carrying what other people think. Yeah, that's the first thing. Mine's that has a symbol as a car. And then let's talk about it practically because most people

you can go about this in two ways. For most people what this looks like getting away from car payments looks like whatever your current vehicle is, you're either going to pay it off and from

that point off say, "Never again." And now that I paid my car off, I'm putting a portion of money

aside all the time so that when the time comes, I can trade this one in, add a little money to it and upgrade little by little. It's a stair step motion that we're doing. So that's one way it can look. The other way it can look is you're looking at you're facing down a $950 car

“payment right now. You still owe 40,000 you need to go, this is for the birds. I'm just going to sell”

the car and from the beginning you're making a giant step downward because you're going from driving a $40,000 car down to maybe $8 or $9,000 beater Dave. Yeah, decide who you want to impress. People to stop light you're never going to mate or your grandchildren. Because you could change your family tree if you don't impress the people to stop light. Absolutely. And let me take it back even further, the people at the stop light, but a lot of you are worried about the people in your

life, how it's going to feel when you pull up to the cookout and you were driving a suburban, brand new and now you're driving, you know, a Honda fit, right? And it's like what happened to him, right? And you're thinking about that. He's not going well for old Dave. He's driving a car. He can afford, oh poor Dave. Bless Dave's heart. Yeah, you're right. And you know what, it's worse. I think men are the worst. Guys are the worst on cars. Because we get too much self-esteem out of what we

drive. Now, ladies, some of them are that way, but most ladies just think a car is a really large purse. And guys, but we're real concerned about the motor and the zero to 60. And you know, how fast is my little battery George Campbell? Yeah. The size of the rim? I don't know. Yeah,

“there you go. That's how much I think. Whatever that was. Yeah. I don't know. No, I'm telling you,”

guys and pickups are the worst on car payments. They're the worst. So sorry, sorry, Carl, but you just set us off on a tangent. All of that wasn't aimed at you personally, but if we could please talk you into loving yourself enough to not go into the car, Dave. Love yourself that much, Carl, in New York City, don't go into car debt. . Listen, your home is your most expensive asset. And now you're ready

cost you tens of thousands of dollars. Here's the deal. This ain't amateur hour. You need a

pro in your corner. Someone who knows how to price your home right, market it well and negotiate the best deal. That's where a Ramsey trusted real estate agent comes in. To find one near you go to RamseySolutions.com/agent. That's RamseySolutions.com/agent. In the lobby of RamseySolutions on the debt free stage,

“they're here. Arnie and Randy are here. What's up guys? How are you?”

Good. Welcome, welcome. What's that near? We're about five and a half hours north of Minneapolis. Okay. No, that's not near it. It's a close-of-candidat. Okay. Good deal. Welcome to Nashville. Thank you. It's warm and sunny.

It's much warmer. It's good. And here to do a debt free scream. How much have you paid off?

$193,000. Yeah. Nice. How long did that take? Four years and nine months. Wow. Good for you. And your range of income during that time? We went from 98,000 to 161,000. Very good. What are you all doing for a living? I'm a public works employee in the city. And I am a credit and collections manager. Wow. Well, great incomes. Way to go. Guys, congratulations. So, goodness approaching five years here. You've been pushing on this.

“I'm pushing the rock up the hill way to go. And 133,000 was that your house and everything?”

Yep. We didn't do it. Yeah. That way. You're a weird house. Oh, wow. Payed for house. Look at you. How old are you paid for house people? I am 39. Hey. I'm 47. Wow. Way to go, you guys. So, what's this paid off house worth? About 325? Excellent. Excellent. How much you got saved in your nest eggs so far? Your retirement? Four. Four. Four something. Okay.

We're creeping up on it. Not far from being baby steps millionaires. We're really close. Way to go, guys. So proud of you. Congratulations. Okay. So how much of there's 123 was the house? That was all the house. Wow. Yeah. We had about 40,000 of baby step two dead.

“Okay. And then you tore into it. Okay. So five years ago you must have run into ramsy stuff.”

How did that happen? Yeah. So I actually saw a Facebook post. A high school friend was giving away five copies of total money makeover. Just wow. Hey, this book changed my life. No strings attached. The books were gone by the time I saw the post, but I downloaded it, read it in 48 hours. Uh-oh. And then I text him and was like, "Do you know Dave Ramsey?" And yeah, I was actually ice fishing. It was bit old winter and I had heard of Dave Ramsey.

So I said, yeah, I was. And I never had never heard your name. Oh, yeah. And you said,

yeah, I've heard of this and whatever you want to do, honey, I'm ice fishing. Yeah, pretty much. Yep. Mind you, in our financed fish house. Yeah. God. Wow. Okay. Oh, I love it. So what does a fish house cost? Uh-huh. So that one, we've, I bought it for 14 grand. Okay. And then full circle at the end, we were, we had about 17,000 left on our house. And I jokingly had set up also the fish house. And if I can get what I want for it, we'll pay off the house

in another fish house. So I actually listed on Marketplace and she didn't believe me at first, but she saw the post and we sold it. It did sell. Oh, yeah, I saw you. And then you really did do it. A month later, we drove to the, the mortgage office and paid off our, that was that the fish house paid off the house. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So you did it in person. You did the payoff in person. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So now you're going to save up and buy another fish house in cash. Yes. Yeah. Of course. Sure.

Yeah. So how's this work? You slide it out on the ice? Uh-huh. It's like a, it's like a camper. Okay. It's just a, it's a winter camper. Okay. You drive on the lake and yeah, we park and you drill holes in the ice. And we, you sit in the warmth of the house so that you're not free. Yeah, I mean, you're talking to a Southern guy who is no idea what you're talking about. I'm on a day. Tom, so it sounds cold to me, but yeah. Well, no, he's in the fish house. He's so huge and warm. Yeah.

Congratulations, you guys. So you're, so bottom line is, uh, Arnie figures this out called a Randy, which one's Randy. Yeah. I'm Randy. So Randy figures this out and calls Arnie and he's easy to get along with and he says, go for it all the way to the point

but it's a long five years. Yeah. It was the end of 2020 and we're at that $98,000. And it's like, man, we, we make a lot of money for Northern Minnesota and like, where is it all, right? And then I read the book and I dug in and I'm the nerd and spreadsheets and where did all of our money go and just figuring out, man, we spent $700 during COVID on eating out in March of 2020. I'm like, we couldn't even go inside a restaurant. How are we spending that much money? Had you avoided

debt up to that point? Or were you just kind of dabble in it? It was a regular consumer debt. Yeah. We had our vehicles and the fish house and, you know, it was a wheeler and that was it. Okay. Yeah. He cleaned up the 40 grand right quick and then just keep, let's just get the house knocked out and everything. Yeah. So he really has like, I took on a new role at work and then Arnie has switched employers as well in that five-year span. We just lived on what that minimum was

in baby set too and just everything else to the house. Wow. Way to go. Wow. I mean, we did take our kids on vacation. Yeah. How much of a feel to be completely free? It feels really good.

“Weird. It does. You mentioned weird people all the time and I think it does feel weird. Yeah.”

Yeah. It's so abnormal, right? That is everywhere. Do you know anybody else that's gotten out of that company? I have one coworker. Yep. That's a single mom and she's a rock star. Wow. So yep. We actually revisited here before together, Dave. So that was cool. It's weird to look at the trekking account and the money just keeps going up. Yeah. It's yours. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's just start.

You start stacking cash automatically now. Oh yeah. You do. Hey, you can go. So what's the first

big thing you're going to do to celebrate not having a single bit at that? Well, our trip here was was a good one. But so what we put off in those five years was new vehicles. So both of us will. You need up. We're going to get an upgrade. Yeah. Get out. Get out of the hoop. He's in time to get some good. Yeah. Yeah. There's one. And then there's the first house too. And then the first house. Yeah. That'll come eventually. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Wow. So great. Congratulations. All right. What

“do you tell people the secret to paying off $193,000 in four years and not much? I would say the”

budget. We had never done a zero based budget. Right. We were the can we afford this payment

people, right? The normal people. And discipline. To me is discipline. You got to keep your eye on the prize. It's a long time. It's a grind. It is a long time for years. You know, we got kids. They want everything. And yeah. It's a grind. It doesn't seem possible at first. But yeah. It just keeps going. And eventually it's clear there. Yeah. If we had told you Arnie at the start of the process that you were going to end up selling the fish house to get to pay off the last bit,

you would have told us you're crazy when you're. Absolutely. Yeah. But I wanted to tell her she was crazy. Yeah. The idea, the idea of being free grew on you. It did. But they didn't still seem like they wanted to be so far away. Yeah. And you know, it's here now. So yeah. And now it's

believable. Yeah. It is. Yeah. Way to go. Way to go. Proud of you guys. You're amazing. You've changed

your whole family tree. Way to go. I mean, you make a close to 200,000 dollars a year. You know, payment in the world. You know, stack cash and bill wealth. And you'll be able to do anything

“you need to do and be generous. You'll be able to do all kinds of stuff. Congratulations. Very,”

very well done. Very nice. Yeah. Good stuff. All right. Arnie and Randy from Minnesota. One hundred and ninety three thousand dollars paid off house and everything. Plus your minus of his house. Four years and nine months. Ninety eight thousand to one sixty one was the income spread. Count it down. Let's hear a debt free scream. Three, two, one. Where did that free? Yeah, baby. I love that. That is so fun. So cool. It is interesting that there was some

swatching his reaction when she calls his ice fishing. Yeah. They already had a strong relationship. Yep. And he's like, okay, babe. Fine. Let's do it. And I don't know if I, I think you're a little crazy, but let's do it. Yeah. That's, that's where a whole thing started though. Was that, they had this strong basis to start with. Wow. Cool people. I love it. Cool.

through real money problems and figure out what to do next. Now, you can get that same kind of help

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We use on the show whether you're making a decision or just want something explained. Ask Ramsey is here to help. It's fast, simple, and free to use. Go to RamseySolutions.com and try Ask Ramsey today. That's RamseySolutions.com. Our scripture of the day, Proverbs 12 and 3, no one can be established to through wickedness,

but the righteous cannot be uprooted. Warren Buffett said the best investment you can make is in

yourself. Jeff is in Detroit. Hey, Jeff, how are you? I'm going to go through all the stuff. That was an undeserved. What's up? Well, um, so I'm 56 years old, um, make about 56,000 a year. Back in December, I had filed for a chapter through King Bankruptcy. I was one of the 390,000 in Michigan that the state came after for a back unemployment that they stated that I owed. I fought it. I won the case. That was one of the reasons why I was looking into bankruptcy.

Just in case they came back and said, yes, you owe this. I was already ridiculously upside down

in a vehicle purchase that I'd made about four years ago or ridiculous them on on that still. I ended up dismissing the bankruptcy because when it was filed, the information was not filed appropriately or properly. And they came back and changed my payment from initially with supposed to be 439 a month for 3 years. And then they said, hey, wait, your numbers don't add up. Now it's going to be 700 a month for five years. I only have three years left on the car loan.

I ended up dismissing the bankruptcy before was officially filed. No, it was filed. It was filed, but you dismissed it voluntarily. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, dismissed it before it actually was finalized at the end of the court. Exactly. But just just to be clear for your future, you have filed a bankruptcy. I've learned that yesterday. Anyway, but it go ahead. That doesn't bring that in the help of anything. That brings us to where we are. So now you've got a big

buck car payment still, right? I do have 625 a month on on 2014 Jeep. And I'm in the process right now, I'm trying to get it negotiated with Capital One, the by finding its company, with whether I'm going to be able to get the vehicle caught up and continue paying on it, or should I turn the vehicle over? I mean, my credit scores are in the low-fives as it is right now. What do you owe on that Jeep and how many payments behind are you? I'm about three payments

“behind now. I believe because of the bankruptcy. And I believe the last thing that I see in”

on there because I can't access the account online because of the bankruptcy right now. I believe it was right around the 16 to 17,000 dollar mark still. And I've already paid like 23,000 on it. What do you think it's worth? Oh, four, five. Oh, yeah. Okay. This is all of my on-doing. I understand that seriously. Okay. I want you to go check that number. That number sounds like an emotional number, not a proper number. So go to Kelly Bluebook, kbb.com and put in the information on the 2014 Jeep.

What kind of Jeep is this? It's a 2014 Jeep Cherokee. It's this kind of a baseline model. It does have a bunch of miles. The last one that I looked at was $4,200. Yeah, I'll buy that.

“For Kelly Bluebook. What else is outstanding? So you're 18, 75 in the hole on that?”

Yeah, I've got about $7,000 in the credit card debt that I'm working with a debt consolidation company right now because after I canceled or dismissed the bankruptcy, I needed to

garnish and everything else. So I've got those tied up with a debt counselor company right now.

“Yeah. Is it just you or are you married with kids? Is there is there anybody else in the”

situation? No, I mean, I live in the same home as my brother in sister-in-law. He was a home that we acquired after my mother and stuff. Other than that. Uh-huh. We have a mortgage on that that I am a on the mortgage I am a survivor in the interest. And on the D need, if we did a enhanced life estate defense lease, prior to her passing and all three of myself and the two brothers are on the D as partners in interest. But is there debt on the house or it was paid for?

That's got a mortgage. There is no. Oh, that's right. No, no. It's got a mortgage. We still owe 91,000 on it.

I had an opportunity about two years ago to get a mortgage to have it put in my name because technically

the mortgage is still in the mother's name. My mother's name. Okay. But it was at 7.75% interest and the current mortgage on the home is a 3.25%. I wasn't about to refine it just to get it put into my name and increase her pain at that three or four hundred. Okay. So to recap, you've got the credit cards under control because you threw them with a debt consolidation and I assume you've paid that company, you know, ready or signed with that company already. Yes, I have signed with them.

“Yes, and they're negotiating for them all. Okay. So that's under control. The only thing”

is out of control is we're $1,800 behind on a $16,000 debt on a $4,000 G. Have I got that right? Right. Okay. So how's your income looking? Are you, I mean, it sounds like you're $27 an hour. I mean, $56,000 a year roughly probably more than that because of over time. Okay. So what I want going forward on this, I want you to know your exact numbers because knowing the exact numbers is the only way that we can create an exact plan and decide how long

is it going to take? How quickly can I get the 1875 to get this car loan current? How quickly can I pay off the 17,000 or am I going to try it? So interest rate on G. That's a big question. And I know that's a very stupid answer and it was stupid of me to sign that without even looking at it. It's my cousin. So I thought, you think it's a high rate, don't you? How do you two? Well, it's ridiculous. It's got to be ridiculously high after paying 23,000 over three to four years

but I've already paid on it and I still owe 16. Yeah. Okay. So here's your options. Okay. There's three options and none of them are pretty. One is you scraped together the 1800 and you catch up and you've just finished paying the Jeep off. You just work it off. Put it in the debt snowball and get rid of it. Okay. Two is you get city bank. I think you said had this right? Capital one capital one capital one capital one. Okay. You get them to recast the

long reset the long and they roll the 1800 in and you start fresh it with no payments behind and while you're at it, get them to give you a decent interest rate. Okay. Three possibilities. You toss them the keys. Tell them to come get it. Right. And then they sell it for $2,000 on the repo lot and then you have a $14,000 debt with them that you'll have to settle later. And you can settle a repo debt for pennies on the dollar. Of course that that puts a monster in

“the closet that's going to come out someday and so you need to be saving like crazy about a year”

after they repo it they're going to start bothering you and once some money and they can sue you for up to the deficit but they will settle that for about a quarter on the dollar. So you can probably settle this $45,000 in cash and so you build that workshop over a year and you offer them $5,000 and they'll go away $4,000 and they'll go away and you'll have a repo but you have a bankruptcy and you already have a 500 credit score. I don't know that a repo does

much to your credit. It's not like you got any. Yeah, that's what my age, that's what I was curious about. Yeah, if they don't cut you some kind of a deal that makes you want to keep it then that tells me that I'm going to toss them the keys and you know, go get you a $23,000 card to drive and start stacking cash, clear those credit cards with it and get out of the mess and then stack cash and be ready for the phone call that's going to come on the deficit because it's

going to come, this is going to come back to you later. But again, they'll settle that deficit for

usually $25 on the dollar is pretty standard and always when you're doing a settlement you get

it in writing or you don't give them money because you can tell that the bank is a bank like that,

that they're in. That's why they set you up in this deal the way they did. They screwed you going in.

“So the car company in the bank screwed you going in, you allowed it, you said that you signed up for it,”

you said that, but that's that's the reality. So you can fight through it any one of those three ways,

but get yourself a plan so that you don't, you know, so you didn't get all of this stuff in the

“rear view mirror and you start to rebuild. Yeah, that's what we're trying to do. I put this out”

of the rams you show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it and the mean time

remember there's ultimately only one way to financial peace and that's to walk daily with the

prince of peace Christ Jesus.