You Don't Get Ahead By Coincidence

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start budgeting for free today. [MUSIC] Normal is broken, common sense is weird so we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network and the Fairwins credit union studio, this is the Ramsey Show. Alongside the fabulously incomparable Jade Warsaw, I'm Ken Coleman.

We're here for you, triple 8, 2, 5, 5, 2, 2, 5 is the phone number to jump in. Triple 8, 8, 2, 5, 2, 2, 5. Partner, you ready to go? Let's go.

“She's ready, Denise is joining us in Toronto, Denise, how can we help today?”

Hello, thank you so much for taking my call.

Sure. My question, I am needing help to create financial stability when I'm starting over in life at the age of 51, and I'm in a difficult situation going through a divorce, and I feel like I don't have time to waste with taking steps forward financially, and so I need a plan. I'm guessing you need more information than that.

So let's start with, are you employed? I am employed. How much do you make? I make 45,000 years, which after taxes where I live, comes out to be about 2,500 a month. Okay, can you live on 2,500 a month?

I am, yes, I'm making it work.

Okay. So that's a good starting point. The reason I stopped in this moment of here, Jade Jade is going to jump in and walk you through some really specific stuff, but let's just pause for a moment. And let's take a deep breath and realize what you just told us.

“It's not ideal, it kind of sucks, but we can live, and I think that's really important”

to hold on to Jade, as she's about to, you know, so it's going to a new life. So you're going to be okay and make it. Now let's bring Jade and let's talk about how we thrive, okay? So give us more of your financial picture, what do we need to know that we don't know? I am renting, I pay $1,500 a month in rent for a $400 square foot apartment, and just

to backtrack a little bit, coming out of the divorce, it's possibly going into court soon for zero transparency and dishonest disclosure of his income. So there's a lot of difficulty there, and I'm not sure I'll recover or get anything. Sure. How are you paying for lawyers?

How are you paying for that? Right now, I have $4,000 in legal fees, and my lawyer is either going to be paid after a settlement for what is owed to me is possibly recovered, but there's no guarantee on that. So, there was a 10 year separation where he was being dishonest about his income, and so there's $237,000.

Wow. It should have been paid to me, but he's been very strategic, and so I mean it's a lot of backstroy there, but I want to lawyer to get help, he walked away from his job, lowered his income. So there's $237,000 at stake.

“I don't want us to focus too much on that because the truth is, you don't know if you're”

going to get it or not. I do want to have some thoughts about these legal fees coming up, because you might be on the hook for that. Is there any other debt to speak of? Right now, I go about $2,000 in credit card debt, which should be paid off by the end

of this year, no problem. How, okay, I want to camp out on that, because I'm seeing somebody who has $1,000 to spend on grocery's gas, and everything else in life, how are you paying off the 2K no problem? I've just putting aside money every month, and I feel like at the end, like I'm living very small.

Yeah, how much margin do you have? So after everything is set and done, my cost of living can be around $2,300 a month. Okay, so you got $200 in extra margin, but you called because there's a sense of urgency around, really, your future. You might, my future, and my question, you know, I look at, and I watch the shows, I, you know,

I have a thousand in savings now, I'm kind of looking at the steps forward, but should I be investing, you know, is retirement possible for me? Yeah, let's talk about that. So I want to kind of dial back and put this in order of importance.

that should help you sleep at night knowing, hey, I'm not in the red, however we both know it can't continue like this.

“And honestly, the ways forward, there's nothing else to cut out of the budget, there's”

nothing else on that, and this is an income issue, therefore this is a career issue. And so my question for you is the type of work that you're doing now, is that the type of work you see yourself doing in the next two to three years? Yes.

So I'm currently a church office administrator, and I've always been in ministry my whole

life, but I'm looking at that, and I'm looking at being self sustainable financially. And so I'm even thinking, look right now, it's keeping me afloat. But is there a way for that, is there a trajectory for that income to increase over time? No. And that's right now.

Yeah. Because if I'm if I'm just being conservative with you, if I say okay, best case scenario, she takes that $200 and she starts investing it immediately from age 51 to age 71, that's $151,000, like that's not going to sustain you. And so we have to have a very real conversation in reality about what it actually takes monetarily

for you to be able to retire, and the answer to that is income. Yeah.

So don't you take the ministry language out of it, you'll understand why I'm asking

this in a moment? Sure. Oh, and you just ascribe what you do. Right now, I work in administration, and so I'm running an entire church right now because we're without a pastor.

So I do music, I do graphic design, this social media part of it, and everything. Do you do operations? Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Here's why I ask you the question.

“I think this is an important exercise for you to describe what you do.”

Now, your situation is it's kind of a, you're doing everything right now. So we need to extrapolate, kind of pull back from that a little bit and go, okay, if there was a pastor there and the adequate staff, what would you be doing? And here's why I think this is important. I know you love ministry, I know you've been a ministry, but right now ministry is not

the best financial option for you. And if you could go get a job as an office manager or maybe a project manager where we're making 55, 60, I mean, I'm just, again, I don't know the Canadian workplace, I don't know the marketplace, but I know that I'm saying things that are adjacent. You have the skill set and the experience to do those things, true false.

Sure. Okay. Right now, the number one thing you need to do is you need to replace your job. And this is not, I love my church, there's no pastor, if I leave the church is in trouble, that's not your problem.

Right. There are two ships in this conversation that are taking on a lot of water. The church, and you, and I'm not worried about the church, it's totally fine, I am worried about you. So I think J is absolutely right.

We need to juice that income by 15, 20, 25,000 dollars. And now that gives me breathing room, I can pay off the lawyer debt, I can self-sustaining and begin to move on, and then I can invest and work in the baby steps. So hang on line, we're going to give you total money, makeover, that's your plan. That is your plan going forward, and we're very sorry, by the way, that you're going

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“Next we go to Minneapolis where Jennifer awaits, Jennifer, how can we help?”

Hi, I am coming into a bunch of money through a settlement and I don't have any financial background. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm going to go through the baby steps very quickly once I get that money, but then I have no clue what I'm doing here.

Wow, so I can tell this money right now feels a little bit like a stressor and I can understand that how much money is it?

So the floor is a quarter million dollars and the ceiling is five million dollars.

Wow, that's a big stretch. Can you give us some variables as to what you know which would determine where it lands and that massive range? Basically it's whatever, there's a history of settlements with this particular company, the highest one settled for $180 million dollars, it's not 100% my situation.

“When will you know my attorney told me it'll settle this year?”

Okay, okay, but you know for a fact you're getting 250 at least minimum and you know that for a fact, okay, so tell us to your financial situation, give us a picture because you said, hey, I'm not financially literate, what is that equated to? How much debt tell us what's going on? Okay, so my the most I've ever made in a single year is $42,000 and so we just said our

taxes last year and we did 31,000 dollars. Between the two of you, yeah, you and your husband, yeah, what kind of work is that? Well, initially he was working at a foundry and then we he moved across the country for a better job, which was also a foundry but just more money, but what about you?

I don't work and you've never worked?

I've worked, like I think in my life I've worked at total of maybe three years. Why is that? It's hard to tell like one thing because it doesn't make sense on it's own like everything kind of a snowball effect. So, so there's not a strong working history and income that is brought in is low compared

to, you know, median standards out there in the US. Yeah, tell us about the debt, tell us about what your lifestyle was looked like. Okay, so our debt combined is around $55,000 total. That's the car payment, that's credit cards, other financial obligations that we have. Like one.

Another one of those snowball things, I owe federal restitution for $39,000 dollars. Taxes, what's the plan, that's okay, everything stops. There's a screeching tire sound here, what is the plan on the $39,000? I'm assuming you're in some type of agreement or payment plan, yes? Yes, I have to submit like our financial situation once a year to the DOJ and they review

it and then tell me what I have to pay monthly. They put a hold on my payments for a year because we were not doing well. Okay, so you got to, you got to, unless we have something work in there.

“Okay, going back to your initial fears, yeah, the best thing for you is going to be to learn”

as much information as you can and you call the right place to get that. Yeah, my fear for you going forward if you don't choose to change and learn more about is debt, okay, because what can, it doesn't matter how much money you make, you can't out-earn financial illiteracy and you can't out-earn stupid choices with money, right? And you can't, you know, settlement out of it, none of that'll work, you'll blow through

it. So, right, the biggest thing that I want to get you connected with is before we get off the phone, I'm going to send you some resources and I want you to just full force go into

We're going to get you hooked up with every dollar and inside of every dollar, there's

a lot of teaching materials but I want you to go old school and I'm also going to give you financial peace university because that's really, that's like the intensive version and I want you to do that.

“Yeah, I watched financial peace university when I was 20, so I'm, that's why I was familiar”

with the baby. So, okay, everything. Good, then I want you to go back and refresh it because even the best of the best of us need to go back and get a refresher on that. So what's going to happen when this money comes in, absolutely, you're going to take it and

you're going to pay off the restitution, you're going to pay off the credit cards, you're going to pay off the card. But the precursor to the baby steps working is too fold. And these are the things that you've got to lock in and if you don't lock them in, nothing I tell you is going to work, okay.

So, okay. Here we go. Number one, you have got to decide today, I don't borrow money. You have to stop borrowing money for any reason, I just don't borrow money because what will happen is there'll be something that you want and you'll go, well, I can put a lot

down and you'll just kind of creep over that line. So you've got to decide, I don't borrow money anymore, that is going to keep your income yours and it's going to keep the risk off your back and it's going to keep you from sliding back into those behaviors that you're afraid you're going to slide back into. So you've just got to put a hard boundary there, boundaries are good, okay.

That's the thing one thing too is you've got to become a budgeter today.

Okay, so just first in context, like we budget everything, we budget everything, we don't

buy extravagantly, like the debt that we have on our credit cards is for necessities that we could not cover. Okay, can I jump in? Can I jump in? Can I jump in?

Jennifer, I know you're hurting and Jade's right what she said, but can I tell you something? The reason you guys are hurting is because you don't have enough income. And I absolutely believe that you believe that everything you put on that credit card was a necessity, but I have a hard time agreeing with your classification of it. What is a necessity is you and your husband both in the United States of America, in

the Minneapolis area, should be making combined minimum 60,000. You know it and I know it. I don't say that in any way with a hint of judgment, so please don't feel judgment. But you called us to help you and I'm telling you, Jade's 100% right, but when she told you the truth, your response was, well, we do budget, we just had all these things

“happen and we had to go to a credit card, no, what you need to do is be making more income.”

So that when things happen, we can cover it. So the baby steps get us to that place and baby step three. So I'm going to tell you, I'm going to give it back to Jade, but I wanted to jump in and say, I wouldn't wait until this settlement comes in. Thank you.

I was just about to get there. I think you need to go get a job today. I don't care if it's the late shift at the local gas station. I don't care if it's stocking shelves at Walmart. I don't care if it has anything remotely close to dignity attached to it in your mind because

the good hard work is dignified. I think you guys got to change your life and take some ownership of the situation and go, we're no longer going to get in a situation like that because we do know how to budget, but your problem is not budgeting, your problem is you don't have anything to budget. Yeah, and I want to take that a step forward and tell you, I'll tell you my why behind it,

I'm sure Ken has one.

“I don't want you to think the only way you win is by coincidence.”

Yeah, I don't want you to think that the only way you get ahead is, something happens, you know, happen, stands, takes place and thank goodness, right? I want you to have the confidence to know that you can get out there to quote Dave Ramsey, you can kill something and drag it home, you can go out there and make it happen. And the way things are, life is kind of happening to you.

Oh, he went here to do this foundry and he went here to do this foundry. And then the accident happened and then the this is that, no, no, no, no. You've got to start taking life by the horns and you've got to start saying, okay, I'm the master of my destiny here and I've got control. And I would love, love, love for that to take place before a dime of this money rolls in.

Okay, you know what I'm saying? But here's the deal on the settlement. We're going to tell you to walk the baby steps out. Are you familiar with the baby steps? I am.

Okay, so it doesn't matter if it's 250 or five million, the baby steps.

That's what you do. But you have got to take some ownership now. We're not just going to sit around and wait for the settlement. As let me tell you about settlements, they have a sneaky way of taking way longer to get paid out than maybe that you were told.

And sometimes, Jay, shockingly, they don't end up being the amount that we were told. Hey, those lawyers, those fees, those taxes. If you run a business, you already know this.

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you can always go to ramsysolutions.com/market that's ramsysolutions.com/market. The link is in the show notes if you're on podcasts or YouTube. Josh is up next in Phoenix. Josh, how can we help? Hey, guys, can you hear me okay? Yes, loud and clear. Hey, thanks so much. You guys helped my wife and I get out of $100,000 worth of debt.

We called last year. We were in Baby Step 2, and now we're on 5 and 6. Why the hell am? Thanks for calling me.

Yeah. Yeah, Dave, you told me it's pay off my car, and I didn't want to do it at first,

but I just did the next day, and there we are. So, wait a go. Good things happen when you listen to Jay. Okay. Just get in time. Everybody, listen to the show. Need to listen to Jay. Okay. All right. Go ahead, Josh. Jay, we'll do it. I'm telling you. We have two young boys, and I'd like to set up the financial

future for them. I set aside right now $250 a month for each of them. It could be more. But right now, it's going into a UTMA account, but I realized that one day they're going to wake up at 18 at that rate with $60,000. And I just hand them the keys. And so I will do my best to make them as financial and literate as possible. Do I put it in a 529? They might not go to school. Do I put it in a mutual fund in my name? And then we can have a conversation, but I want it to be

used for school, but I can't tell and how to spend it in a UTMA. So, yeah, there's something that you recommend. That way, I probably will put more than 250 in months for each of them. And I just still want to, I don't want to give 18-year-olds, you know. Sure. So, well, just calling us to be guys checking that. I agree with you. I shy back from the idea of giving a large sum of money to an 18-year-old, especially when at that point, yeah, they're on their own. The money is now in their

name and you can't really govern it the way you'd like to. I would be partial to throwing it in a 529 account instead, especially at the rate that you're investing. I don't think that you're going to overfund certainly not overfund college, but I don't even think you're going to overfund higher ed in general with that type of money. If they want some form of certificate, if they want to do some, you know, something in the trades, I think that that's a good sum of money. And you've got to

“remember that it is transferable. So, you know, you can transfer this on to, like, even if you were”

your wife needed to use this money for furthering education in your fields, it can go on if that, you know, child wanted to then keep that money for their kids, but just know that over time that money can be pulled out and it can transfer to an IRA at a certain point in time. So, it's not like forever lost. It's just allowing that transition to take place, but I don't think you're going to

wanted to split the difference, I think you can get creative and say, okay, I'm going to put half of

this in a 529 and I'm going to put half of it in a mutual fund and me and my wife's name and then you have a little bit more control over it, but then you're getting some of the tax advantages of the 529. Okay, and you don't get what happens, I mean, in the scenario where both of them actually don't go to school and you said, you can put it in an IRA, can you pull it out? Does it get penalized or anything? If you did, did to pull that some of money. So at any point, you can pull the

money out. If you pull it out for non-education purposes, you are going to be penalized. It's a 10% penalty. So just know that, but it does roll over over time. I can check that for you can keep him busy. I'm going to check when it all rolls over. Yeah, well, what I would say Josh is she's

“going to pull that over for, but you you're in a situation where don't overthink this, you know what I mean?”

And your kids are held. Therefore, in sex. Yeah, you do, but here's the other thing I was going to

tell you, just to be thinking about, as you're trying to figure out what's the right amount, education is changing so rapidly right now in the United States. I can't even imagine what higher education looks like in 12 to 14 years. I'm not kidding you. So I think it's going to be radically different. I don't see the traditional higher-red format. That's just me. This is not a hot take for me, but it's a hot take for some people. But I'm telling you, I'm paying attention to these trends.

So, you know, looking at the current cost of tuition and trying to figure out, my point is pick a solid number that's going to get them where they need to be based on maybe where things are today. Don't overthink about what it's going to, how much it's going to cost, because I think of anything. The cost is going to go down. I think it's going to be decentralized. So I at some point we're going

“to hit a breaking point and I think we're really darn close. So that's the part I wanted to give you”

that I hope is some good context in choosing the amount to invest. Jade, you got what you were looking for. Yeah, there's a lot of different parts to this. So number one, the 529 and needs to have been in existence for the current beneficiary for at least 15 years. So in the case of your children, that would be the case, right? They've had this money. They've decided not to go to college. They've held on to it for a while. And then that's going to have to be rolled over from a 529

in a minimum of five years. So there's some nuance there. I think you can dig deeper in that to decide. But I honestly, like I said, I think if you split this out, and I think that if you, like I said, do part of it, 529, part of it in a mutual fund, it gives you more control. And I don't know about you, Ken, but you kind of get to know your kids, and you kind of get to see what trajectory they're on. That's my point. Maybe trade school. You know, you know, if the

“kid wants to get in a technology, I think that's going to look wildly different. So don't stress”

over this. Be wise. And know that you've got a lot of options. Anything remotely related to some type of training or education is going to be able to be used. Yeah, that's so. Talk to you, talk to a smart investor pro about this and make the best plan. Don't I, but I would, I guess what I'm getting in is I wouldn't oversafe. No, I wouldn't oversafe. And like I said, you can check out the secure 2.0 Act. That's the one that talks about you can move those money to a Roth IRA. There's a $35,000

or lifetime limit, $7,000 annual limit. So just kind of think through that, like what would that look like to move this amount over this amount of time? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Josh. You're good dad. You're doing great. You know, broader issue here. I touched on this a minute ago. I'm going to revisit this for our audience. As you start to look at the baby steps. Okay. And so free people that are going, okay. I'm late 30s, maybe I'm early 40s and we're just getting in the

baby steps. Baby step one, $1,000 for that rainy day, kind of garden variety, emergency boom, that's important. Baby step two, smallest debt, all the way up to the largest debt, momentum. We're going to knock it out. Game change, you're super important, right? Baby step three, three to six months of your expenses in the bank. Now we're feeling really good at night when we go to bed. Baby step four, now we're planning for the future 15 percent towards retirement. And then some of

you're going, I'm so far behind with my kids. Baby step five feels like a really rough emotional

conference. Yes. All right. I'm just calling it out. Absolutely. Here's what I want to say.

Don't fall into the trap that your kid has to go to a super expensive school to a name brand school, or that they have to have a student loan for any amount of professional success because that is the cultural pressure. And if you take the cultural messaging and pressure and you put it on top of somebody who's going, we're so far behind. We're just trying to get through baby step three and my kids going to go to college in two years. I know what that can feel like. You

last word on that. I want people to think about there are more ways or your kids to get the training that they need more ways than ever and more cheap. That's all I want to say. I want to throw it out there. I'm going to tell you right now, setting expectations early and often. My parents told me from a young age, you don't have a college fund. You better be good at sports, you better be good at grades. When you set expectations like that early and often,

“that is more important than a college fund. Because then you go, okay, I got to get scholarships.”

I got to have a good a better GPA. I got to be willing to work. I got to choose a school that is within the right price range to actually make this work because we're not doing student loans. Expectations, Trump's a college fund any day the week. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Financial stress does not just damage our bank accounts. It can also take a toll on our relationships and on our mental and emotional health.

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“I am looking for the best way to consolidate my debt and to just my credit score. So in the future,”

I can buy a new vehicle in the new house. Okay. Now, how familiar with our show are you? Are you new to us? Only in the last year and looking at baby steps, I've completed a couple but out of order. Okay, tell us, give us the update. So, I already have over $1,000 in savings. I'm actually

edging towards $10,000. That's just because my dad raised me to always save money and make sure

he always have at least six months worth of your bills to be covered. Okay. And man, I also have the 15% that I'll put back monthly into retirement. Okay, is that through a 401k? 401k and an IRA. Okay. Anything else? That's pretty much it. What about the debt? Because you mentioned consolidating your debt? Yes. So, whenever I turned 18 and I went to college, I found out that my first mom had used my information on a house loan, of a equal loan,

and two credit cards. Oh, Lord. So, I have the two credit cards that are on my collections, which is really the main thing that has affected my credit the most. Not the mortgage. No. Because thankfully, I found out after having the conversation with my dad that my dad ended up paying

for the house and somehow my name was just a patch to it for the first three in years with my life.

Like, I still get unclanged property tax from the state of Louisiana for that house. But it's nowhere on your report anymore. No, not at all. In the car? Not at all. Okay. So, it's just these credit cards. How much is it? It's right at 1500 and then my total debt is only $3,000 because the other 1500 is medical debt. But I've paid off the other 80% of my medical debt just because it's not healthy. How much was it to begin with? Well, it was fast paying off my debt. So, it was $8,000 to begin with

the medical debt. I don't understand. How is it that you're being held liable if it's been proven that your birth mother used your name to fraudulently take out credit card debt?

have you proven this? Is there some type of legal judgment and ruling that it's been acknowledged by somebody in authority that your birth mother did this? No, I just got her to admit to it. Did you get it recorded? No. I really don't have much to do with her anymore. Sure. I mean, my gosh. I totally understand. All I'm trying to do is to see if there's a way out for you not to have to pay a nickel of the $1,500 given that you didn't even...

“And that's how I actually got the house and stuff like that also. I credit, which”

it still affected my credit from there. But I'm edging up to like $5,80 compared to the 330 that I started off with. Okay, so let's take a timeout and talk about that for a minute because

I know that you're familiar with Ramsey. But I think there's a key point of this that you're

missing and I want to talk about that. So over here, we don't really care about credit scores. And the reason that we don't care about credit scores is because credit scores are just a measurement of how you handle and deal with debt. And since we are anti-debt, there's no use for credit score because if you think about it, Caitlin, credit scores, they measure how much debt you have, how frequently you use your debt, what percentage of your debt you use,

how long your debt's been around, what is the mix of debts that you have, right? It's just a measurement of debt. And so over here, the whole point is, hey, let's get rid of debt because the borrowers slave to the lender, let's use our income and budget our income to live within our means and pay cash for the things that we want out of life. And so when that happens and you begin to pay off your debts, when you pay off this $1,500 medical debt, when you pay off this $1,500 credit card

or get it expunged, then what's going to happen if you decide, hey, I'm just not going to borrow money, your credit score is going to disappear. It takes about six to 12 months for credit score to completely

“disappear. If you look it up, it'll either be zero or it'll be indeterminable. That's what takes place.”

And when that happens, it's not a bad thing. It's actually a very positive thing. But most people

will come back and say, well, wait a second, what does that mean, if I want to get an apartment,

what does that mean, can if I want to buy a mortgage? And so we're here all the time to explain to people, it's actually a wonderful thing when you don't have a credit score because an indeterminable credit score is just as good as a high credit score. It means the same thing. So if you go out to buy a house, the only thing that's different is the method in which they approve you for the mortgage. Instead of doing normal underwriting, they would do what's called manual underwriting.

That's the only difference. And so that's the number one thing that I want you to take away from this conversation is you don't have to spend your time effort and energy chasing a credit score because all that's going to do is land you in more debt. And I can tell you've got a good head on your shoulders. Your dad taught you how to be a saver. I can tell you're not a person who goes out and takes out a lot of debt. Your mom screwed you over royally. That's messed up. But I think you have

a good head on your shoulders. And I think you understand this. In that's, yeah, I agree. This is the

only thing that's from where I'm from. Obviously it's like everybody's always pretty. Like you

can't do anything without a credit score. You're right. You can't do anything without a credit score. Yeah, but what if like you were hanging out in a crowd that said it's like everybody around, you said it's totally okay to eat tide pods. Would you do it? No. You see my point. I knew it's a stream example. But you can't say, well, everybody around me,

“now here's the deal. We understand that. And that's why J. Just walked you through”

very meticulously why we don't think a credit score matters. So now you have to go, okay. And I understand you're actually like, okay, that's all well and good. But everyone in my life's going to go, you need to do that. So let's talk about the next step, J, which is how she saves up for a car. I do want to do that. But I want to take that a step further because I want you to go home and chew on this. The reason that you're like, ah, all my friends are eating the tide

pods. The reason is because that's what's being advertised because there's money on the other side of that. Think about that. It makes sense. Companies want you to take out debt. Therefore, it is in their best interest to create a score around that something that consumers want, something that feels gamified, right? There's no money on the other side of a zero credit score. There is no financial institution that benefits from you having a zero credit score. Think about that. Therefore,

there's not going to be in a commercials about it. Boo is not going to be out there. But it doesn't mean it's not real. Can and I have nothing to gain from this. No. So we're sitting here telling you, ah, let me tell you until I bought my house, I went years without a credit score. And then one was time to buy the house. We did manual underwriting now. I have a mortgage, so I have a credit score. But think through that and anybody listening, I want you to think about that.

Banks want to be able to, do you see what I'm saying? So think through that because wherever there is a paper trail, that's where you figure out the origins of something.

“Caitlin, would you like to pay cash for a car? If you had the money saved up, how would that feel?”

Amazing. That's actually the way that I was always raised because my dad never even had a

credit score up until I was over the age of 20 and I'm now 27. Right. So this is possible. So now the question becomes, not how do I get my credit score in a place where I can buy a car? Well, if you're not going to find it's the car, the credit score doesn't matter. Last car, the car I'm driving right now, I bought it from a local dealer. Cashman. And I walked in literally with cash. And guess what they never asked me for.

Think that my dad did with my car. They never said to me, well, Mr. Coleman, what is your credit score? Because the minute I said, I'm paying cash and I have it in a little briefcase here and I got it envelope and I'm literally what I'm offering you with this car is this amount of

money. The guy first of all was stunned and it took me a second to make sure you heard me correctly

and then he went, all right sir. Yes. There was no credit score conversation. It's fast. So Caitlin, we're trying to reset your true North. Yeah, you know what I'm thinking? It's like we're pulling you out of the matrix. The matrix says I got a plug-in to debt to be able to live. We're saying you don't. And so what do you want? A $12,000 car, $14,000 car, what an $8,000 car do what it needs to do for you right now. Boom, we set a target,

“we save up the money and we go do it. Same thing with a house. What's the right down payment?”

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Get started at CHMministries.org/budgets and use promo code Ramsey. That CHMministries.org/budget and promo code Ramsey. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show and the Fairwins Credit Union Studio. I'm Ken Coleman, Jade Worsha, is alongside. We're really happy to have you with us here. We're here to help you, help you win with your money in your work and in your relationships. The phone number of jump is triple eight, eight, two, five, five, two, two, five. Triple eight, eight, two, five, two, two, five. We

“start out with Joelle, who joined us in which it talks, Kansas. Joelle, how can we help?”

Hi. How are you guys today? We're doing well. How are you? Oh. How have been today? Let's go on today. Okay. So I am in baby step three. I thought I was finished, but I think I'm going to do the starting. Um, my house flooded. Well, so I have a crawl space and my main waterline burst under my house. No. And it's costs so far, I'm at over $40,000 worth of damage. Man.

Yeah. And I have 12,000 in my emergency fund, but not enough to cover all of these damages. And this is, um, I don't have insurance. Well, I do, but they're trying. They're arguing on what they're not. They're going to pay. That my house is old so the pipes are old. So, um, I'm just trying to figure out if insurance doesn't cover what is your guys' advice on where to go next for all of these bills. Has the work already been done?

Um, some of it, you had to be done immediately. Um, the plumbing had to be done. The restoration

you know, to prevent it from getting floating the subfloor and the beans and all of that good stuff.

“What is the specific communication been with your homeowner's insurance on this? I mean,”

I'm sure someone's giving you the run around on the phone, but have they, have they been able to cite to you? Um, some type of specific line in the homeowner's policy that says they don't have to pay. I'm wondering if they're just trying to bully you and manipulate you versus have they proven to you that they don't have to pay? Well, so the most recent communication has been that they want to talk, they don't want to talk with me anymore. They want to talk to the plumber.

And so I let him know and he was going to do his best, but the pipes are old. So and I haven't, I mean, my house was almost 100 years old. So yeah, they're going to want to know if this was

some a problem that has been escalating over time that has never been dealt with or if it really

was a sudden kind of like catastrophic event, whether or whether this was a slow move over time. Yeah, and according, I went to like my local where the might have been my water bill, our local city place, and it definitely was a catastrophic event. So I am going to fire it. Yeah, but while I'm fighting it, if I have like when these bills come up, because I already had the HVEC issues there, the bill, the estimate for the issues is 30,000 because the return air vent is

under my house and it was full of water. The HVEC system outside was full of water and stuff is now short circling and so it's still wet in there. I don't know, it's just sent in there. Read it back to my head another day. So the actual water damage from in the interior, like once they dry it out, obviously there's cosmetic things that you're going to want to fix, like flooring and walls and all that stuff dry well. But then there's the actual technical damage to the HVEC.

“That's 30,000. How much is the to fix the inside of the house minus the HVEC?”

Nothing. There's no damage in the house. Oh, it's all under. It's nothing touched your living space. No, that's good. I caught it. That's enough. Good for you. Okay. You know, I don't know what Jade's going to say about this, but I come at this. So I'm going to go what I think is probably extreme and that I want your take. Joelle, if I'm in your shoes, I'm getting an affidavit, a statement from the local water company where they say this was a catastrophic event. I'm getting that like instantly.

I am calling the plumber and all these other people saying, I need you guys to go on the record here as to how you see this thing going down and what was going on. And I appreciate the fact that

the insurance company wants to talk to your plumber and I think that's great. But you never lose

side of it. In fact, when the plumber calls, the plumber has you on a line. Yeah. Okay. Because I want that insurance company know that Joelle is not going into the night quietly. Because Joelle's been paying her premiums on time. Because you said she had to to be insured. And now when she has an actual catastrophic event, you jerks are trying to manipulate her. So they need to know that Joelle's not going quietly.

And they need to know that you would be happy to go to council and get council.

“And you need to say enough things and ask for enough things. Really realize Joelle is taking care”

of business. What provision? Show me the line in my policy that you are citing when you're questioning whether or not you guys are supposed to pay for this after I pay my deductible. And I just would be hyper vigilant. Because once they realize that Joelle is willing to go all the way on principle, because she's not going to be messed with, I think it changes things. But I, I'm going to stop there because I do value jades wisdom on this. That's what I would do.

I, yes, I'm with can. I would 100% fight this, but I'm here to help you deal with worst case scenarios. So I want to talk about what is your income right now? And what's what's your monthly margin look like? And so like my newly income is actually. Tell me what you make a month. Probably $5,000. Okay. And of that $5,000 you told me you have $12,000 saved. How much margin do you have every single month? Okay. So what my goal would be, let's pretend you're on the hook for

some if not all of this money. And so you're looking, oh man, I got to show out $30,000. You've got

I'd be finding, I'd be looking for ways that I can cut back to where I can start to save up as much

money as possible. I'm looking around, is there anything I can offload to pick up a, you know, however much money is possible, maybe it's $2,000, maybe it's $800, right? So that's kind of just a practical way of looking. But what I'm also going to do is I'm going to get an HVAT guy out there. And I'm going to tell him the situation. And I'm going to say, tell me, put yourself in my shoes, I don't have $30,000. How can we phase this thing so that we're doing this in small chunks?

So I can pay you. Is it first? We're going to dry everything out. Is there a way that we can do when we're setting up the return air? Can we do priorities on first? Like, you know, the master bedroom that one's first and maybe the kitchen. And is there a way that we can phase this

thing out so I can pay? And so that we can do things that are most important first, you know,

“and that's what I'd be asking because everything is happens in phases. That's right. That's right.”

Listen, these these contractors that you're working with, they know your situation. And they've seen it a million times. And so adding to Jade's worst case scenario, worst case scenario, you look at them and you go, look, I don't do that. Yeah. So I'm not going to put this on a quick, but if you can work out a cash payment plan, I will do installments and you treat this like you've had to go back into the baby steps. And that's what you do. But but you're not actually

borrowing. You're just going to go guys. I'm going to pay this. But I'm going to pay you as I can.

And I'm going to take that 2,000 margin or where I can end up. I'm going to just come and pay you

guys off. And that way you sleep at night. And that's what I want you to hear is that you don't need to go into debt to pay this stuff off. You just don't. Okay. All right. That was what I was worried about. No, you're okay. And that's your choice. But fight fight fight deductible only is our goal here. When you've worked hard to buy a car the right way you paid cash with no payments hanging over your

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“All right, let's go to Beth and Rochester, New York. Beth, how can we help today?”

Good morning, our good afternoon. We have been following the Dave Ramsey plan that has been an eye for about a year now. We have baby steps number one in partial of numbers three laid out. We were about $40,000 in debt, not including our remainder of our $200,000 mortgage. And so we're probably sitting at around $21,000 in a credit card debt that's mostly been occurred for myself covering weddings, baby showers and other things like that. I have about $400,000

sitting in my 401k and I wanted some advice on whether it makes sense to pull out a loan out of there to pay back myself versus paying these high interest. I think the credit card has like a 28% interest fee on it. Just to get just to get that out of the way to plug away at the remaining building, you know, getting out of debt. Okay, now here you say that you had partial of baby step three completed and I'll put that in quotes. Yes. So how much money is there?

We're down to one vehicle now and we have about $6,000 in there. The tricky part of this conversation is my husband doesn't agree with credit cards at all and we have two children where I've kind of supported again helping support weddings and baby showers with across the past two years and I've successfully paid up 20,000 of it alone and I probably could be out of debt with the other 20,000 by October of the year. We roughly make about two, three a year combined but he's not

Why isn't why is he against them? So the situation we're in now of, you know,

it's an easy, it's an easy fix to pay for something that you don't think you did pay something up front and then we're not worried about how to pay for it later. Sure. Okay, um, I want to, there's there's many ways that this can be attacked and there's many things that I'm here and going on.

“I think that I'm going to start with the 401k and I'm going to work my way backwards. So I”

would not borrow this money from the 401k. The reason for that is you're just putting yourself at risk. Obviously, if you borrow this money from your 401k, now it's attached to your work. So if you choose to leave your job at any point, that money is going to become do immediately and you'll have a calendar year in most cases to pay that money back and if for some reason you're not able to pay that money back, then it becomes viewed as an early distribution. And so your tax on it at your income tax level,

but then you're also paying a 10% penalty and it's just not worth it to unplug your retirement for this purpose. So that, that is the reason why that's off the table. So let's check that off the list. Kim, I want you to lean in on this because what I'm hearing, Beth is if my, if my spouse says something that they disagree with and they, they're saying, hey, I really don't want to do this.

“I really don't feel good about this. My first initial point is not okay, then I'll just go over”

here and do it on the side anyway. Correct. Yeah, I, I felt the same thing, Beth, this is not a win. This is not a win financially, right? It's not a good move for all the reasons Jade's laid out, but it's really a bad move relationally. And your husband has got a real clear principle on this. And the truth of the matter is we agree with him, right? And so yes, but what we want here is not about boo bath, yay hubs, right? That's not what this is. This is a relationship issue that you

need to solve now. It hasn't been solved up to this point and now you're tempted because you don't have the same principle that he has. He's not tempted. In fact, my guess is your husband's got

an alternate plan. Is that true or false? Yes. What's his plan? Well, ultimately here,

we're going to scale back even further than where we are and that I, you know, whether I find additional job or whatever, whatever I do, and I turn all credit cards over to him, which I have. I have until the end of the year because we make a decent salary. You make it out of this point. No, not decent. You make $230,000. The median is like 80. So you're doing extremely well. Yeah, so

“I, J, is right. This, you need to trust your husband on this. He's actually got your best interest.”

Your, you collectively, you, the two of you, he's got your best interest at mine. He's right. Don't fall prey to this kind of thinking. This is a mindset and you just got to go, all right, you know what? I'm not where I need to be. I'm going to trust J and Ken. I called him today and I'm really going to trust my husband. Yes. And you need to get on the same page with him on these money principles. And it's going to be a much better journey going forward. And you're

not going to get into messes. So as simple as I say it, just run his plan out. You guys can solve this. You got the income to be able to solve this. You don't need to take out a 401k loan. You don't need credit cards. You just don't. And I think that's exactly what he said. Well, he's right. He's right. I hate to keep telling you that he's right, but he's right. Well, and, and let's put this into real numbers because if you tell me, oh my gosh, we have, you know, $15,000 a month, $14,000 a month at our disposal.

Now, my next question comes, okay, what's happening to that money? Because that is most people, I can guarantee you this and I'll try to shut it down, but the folks in the comments right now are like, what's going on? If I made that much money, yeah, and now I'm not saying listen to the haters, because that's all they're doing to sip and hate rate. But what I am saying is that is a reasonable amount of money to work with that don't give me wrong. Nobody should be using credit cards, but especially

you shouldn't be using credit cards because you've got this wonderful income. So what I'd be wanting to do is sit down and if you guys don't have a budget, my, my bet is the husband has a spreadsheet somewhere. Yeah, I do. Actually, I have it. You have it, which is the oddest part. Yeah. So you might just want to look through it, Beth, and there's probably some things that can be tightened up. There might be some, some slush fund that needs to be given a clearer definition of what really

are we using this money for? Because you know, $21,000 of credit card debt, it's a lot, but I just think in the grand scheme of your income, those weddings, those baby showers, those one-off things that you were talking about, there's absolutely no reason that that should not be a line item in

the budget. You know, you know, your first born's baby shower, put it on the budget. What are you

onto something, Beth, if I could pry a little bit longer here, what with the income that you have

and your husband's a version to credit card debt, what is the thing that you're afraid of that is making you use the credit card for these purchases as opposed to cash flowing? I think transparency, right? Letting him know how much I'm actually providing to our grown children is probably one of the biggest things. Because he's open up a tight one. Yes, it's like he, like, you know, he doesn't believe in vacations. He's contentist, you know, we don't

eat out again. We, we make this income we're sharing one vehicle under some of these are things where he's comfortable with because he wants to, you know, you want to. And you're saying,

“why do you have to be so tight? Yes, got it. With our income and in the career I have been”

sales, yeah, all my co-workers are traveling the world. Yes. And I'm like, well, and I think you're right.

And on that, on that front, I think you're right. I think both of you, there's a given take here, Ken. So if I'm understanding you, Beth, thank you for being so honest. Because you're an awesome person. Is this a bit of like a rebel, rebel kind of, I'm going to be a rebel and show you. I'm going to put on a credit card so that you could get a dose of reality sparky. Well, since we're being transparent, I'm on the primary grid with her. So I said, 40 of that is my income. Yeah.

And he feels like I work really hard. I should have a save of what I'm doing with this money. But then I, and again, I invest, he, his job is a little bit different. So he's like the game of 401k and I've been investing in mine. So this is a classic nerd spender behavior. Yeah, but this is actually a little more in this. You're so tired of him squeaking around the house because he's so tight. You're just like, this is a little bit of a middle finger, isn't it? It kind of is.

I know it is. I just want to you to say it. You can't stop me. I'm going to do what I want to do. And Beth, and Beth, you are such an awesome sport. And I hope you feel that there's no judgment coming for me. But I'm glad you. And I don't want to say that to him, right? No, but you say it to me, which is correct. Oh, here we are, but this is like a therapy session. You said it to me, no judgment coming from me or J. But I wanted you to admit it is the middle

finger because I think you're going to have to resolve that. You got to go, okay, that shouldn't be my response. We agree. He needs to loosen. Yes, yes, yes, yes. But you can solve this. You don't need the debt. You don't need the middle finger part of it either. You guys though need to get no 401k loan. No 401k

“loan. You're going to hate yourself for that trust me. What you need to do is have a candle light”

dinner with squeaky and let's get on the same page finally in our marriage and let's tell each other how

really feel. All right, you're awesome. Thank you so much. I appreciate your advice. Yeah, Beth, you're great. Biggest financial decisions you'll ever make. But too many people base the decision on opinions or what the market is doing that week. Churchill mortgage has been our trusted partner for over 30 years because they do things the Ramsey way. A lot of people think buying a home starts with going to a bunch of open houses. But if you're buying a home the right way, you start with a budget

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This has got the coaching involved and it's got the entire baby step program baked into it. And we love real feedback from people that are using it. Here's a fancode. Every dollar is excellent. It really helped me to get my personal finances in order. Now that I'm married, my wife and I use it together out of our joint checking account. It really helps us maintain a common vision and a set of

using it. And we'd love for you to kick the tires. And you can do that for free today in the app store or Google Play. And again, it is the entire reamsy plan, the baby steps. Even for those of you just barely heard that phrase, you may be less of her or watching for just a small amount of time, it is the plan. And it's baked in there and you've got the coaching access to, not just the budget functionality. Jade, I know you're the queen of every dollar and you want to add to that.

“When you say, kick the tires, that was the best thing you could have said. Give it a try.”

Give it a try. Nothing to be lost. Let's go to Hope now in Washington, DC, Hope, how can we help? Hi. Thanks guys so much for having me. Sure. What's going on today? So, I just want to get you guys the opinion I want to do. I'm a say home mom. I'm just like at a little bit of a loss for past home ownership. So, Mike, do I need to come back to work? I mean, do I, you know, I don't know, compromise on the 15 years, you're alone, do a 30.

I mean, what I mean, what the world do I do? Our rent right now is 43% of our income. We have no debt. I mean, what things are for? We're doing pretty solid. We've gotten got the good emergency fund. Everything solid there. We're not like necessarily, like paycheck to paycheck. And we do have $250 a month we put towards our savings. Every time I like who I'm the

“calculator, I'm like this can take 15 years. What's the income? Sorry, Ken, that's what I was asking.”

Go ahead. Yeah. So, I have the next 90. He's hoping to make 120 and 130 in the next few months or so. But right now, he's at 90. What would have to happen for him to jump up to 1, 21, 30? Good, it's for John. Is he looking? We're working on, yes. Okay. Have you started running the numbers on what the new take home would be if you were to get to that range? Yeah. And this is like, this is a scary part. This is like,

I'm like, oh my gosh, you got to talk to you guys. So, I ran this through chat to BT. I know that's like not the right way to do this. But, you know, the median, the median house in our area for like starter home is $550,000. That's insane. Yeah. And just chat to BT. I like was like,

you was using grams of, like, good reverse math. I kind of what we need. And like basically,

it was like, came back with like, we need to make $250,000 to be in that under 25% of our income ratio at a 15 year mortgage, you know, and I just 20% down and I'm like, oh my gosh, it's good to cover. I get it. So, what we need to do is reframe, right? Okay. So, the question becomes, what is realistic as it relates to drive time? You know, and I, and I, I don't know if you're actually in DC or your northern Virginia or Maryland, but I'm a Virginia, and I can tell you, yeah, northern Virginia is like

“in order to go to hell, you have to go through northern Virginia, you know, on the other”

state, you know. So, but I think you start there. What is realistic? Can we change the area that where, where we live or would that just make life even worse? I mean, it's a good question. I mean, we've, we've really talked about it.

The problem is is, we have a, you know, we're not the problem. It's the blessing here,

is that we have a really, really, really, really great church community. I mean, this is like, I've never had such a great community, and so it would be so cool. Okay. I get it. So, I'm going to wrap it response to you, because I've, J is going to get involved here, but I'm going to do some wrap it response to see where we are. Okay, because then that frame is a plan. All right, I bet you there's something that's a little bit smaller than you at ideally like to have,

that is less than 500,000, but would still be a house or some type of thing we own true falls. Yeah, absolutely. What's that number? What are those? What's the range? Are we now 350? Well, yeah, I mean, so 350 is what I was trying to do, but I'm not kidding. I literally told that to my a realtor, I said we wanted to follow the favor in the plan. I was like, we want to find a 350 house. Did you say how the realtor will we be willing to do a town house or

put in a larger apartment like a larger condo? Yeah, I said a larger condo would be good, but you know what the HOA is and everything are realtor literally lasted us and then fired us. Okay,

but hold on a second. I appreciate the response, but I mean, you can go on these real estate sites

yourself and look for absolutely. So, my point is we've got to see what is possible. And right now, a 500,000 dollar house is going to take a while for you. That's the real real. Yeah. Okay, but so now we need to adjust. Okay, so now it's not like I'd love to climb this mountain over here. Let's say I came home and I told my wife Stacy, I have got bitten by the mountain climbing bug.

for a moment. Okay, and she goes, okay, what are we talking about? And I said Mount Everest.

That's the one I'm going for first and she goes, okay, I need to know more. And I went down the

rabbit hole of what it would take to climb Mount Everest. And I would find out that it would be the emotional equivalent of what you felt when you looked at a 500,000 dollar house. I'm keeping it real people out there. Yep, yep, all right. At which point wouldn't you tell me hope maybe I should start with maybe you go to Hawaii and hike diamond back? You quietly burst their bubble. But don't, wouldn't you say to me, hope Ken, you should probably change your expectations

because because Mount Everest is probably a waste down the road, but you could still get the same feeling and the same accomplishment and all the other things. But maybe we should work up to that.

“Would you say that to me, hope if you were talking to me? Probably. All right, so I think that's what I'm”

trying to get out here. What we got to do is we got to crawl before we walk. And so we hate rent,

but you know, husband's gonna increase income. And I heard you say this to the start of the call, yes, you should go to work. Agreed. Because if you can bring in 50, 60 and I'm making that up out of thin air, but that changes the game. Now all of a sudden... Well, here's the trade off, right? Is it that? We don't have family in the area. So there's no one that can walk our sun. So we have to go get... Not true. Not true. Not true. Not true. Not true. Thank you. Not true. Can I give you a solution?

Yeah. You have an awesome church community. What you said? Yeah. I'll bet you. In a short amount of time, with that awesome church community, we could find a grandmother who's bored out of her skull. And she wants to get away from her husband for six, seven hours a day. And she would love to watch your sun and do a little bit of laundry. Maybe even some meal prep. And just before you think I'm crazy, hope this is what we did when Stacy was working

full time. And we had three kids. We found the sweetest, nicest lady who was still healthy and active. And she loved helping us out. Until Stacy and I got home. She helped with the homework. She did some light laundry. And she was thrilled. And yes, and she was a fraction of the cost of daycare. How old are your kids? And how many are you? Just the one. I just have... I just have a one and a eight months. And then I want to have, you know, lots of kids. I love kids. I love

“kids idea. Because here's the thing. Even if you weren't looking to buy today, if you just”

called and said, hey, my rents 43% of my income, I'd go, oh, you got to go back to work. Because it's going to make it impossible to your point with the $250 margin per month. It's going to make it hard to really do anything long term that you want to save up for. That's going to cost any amount of money, right? Now, let's look at it. Like, just pragmatically here, you said you're in baby set four. You guys are investing right now? Yeah. Okay. If you're investing 15% that's got to

be close to $1100 a month that you're putting aside am I right or wrong? We are working towards it. So I think we're at about seven percent of his income right now is investing in retirement. Okay. You guys are young. We've got 25 set of sides for a house right now. Okay. So what I would do, I would also for the short term, I would either mix that and say, you know, we're only going to put, you know, 4% and so that we can put more towards this down payment or I would completely cut it off.

I'd cut that off for up to 2 to 3 years while you save for this down payment. But I'm completely

“with Ken. You need to be working. I'd temporarily pause retirement so that you can start saving”

up for this house and I would change my expectations. It took Ken. It took Sam and I 10 years

to be able to save up for a house and let me tell you something to this day. I never go, oh,

the one regret in life is that I had bought my house eight years earlier. I've never said it and you'll never hear me say it because it's simply not true. And now they've got a great house. . Our Ramsey show question of the day is brought to you by why refi defaulted private student loans can leave you feeling stuck in overwhelm, but why refi helps you explore refinancing options with a

low fixed rate and a payment based on what you can actually afford. Visit why refi.com/RAMsey. That's why our EFI.com/RAMsey. It may not be available in all states. Okay. Today's question comes from Vanessa in North Carolina. She says, hey, am I wrong for not helping my sister and her family financially? She's a stay at home mom with four kids and a husband that works whenever he feels like it, which is an often. They blow what little money they get as soon as it hits their

shelved out over $5,000 to help them. Their most recent need is $1,000 to pay their electric bill because they are behind on paying it. Is it okay to say no? Now Ken, we just came from Denver,

Colorado where we had an amazing Ramsey show live event and in the event you have a wonderful

“bit that you do where you bust out the powdered wig. I do. And you, Kelly, you should see that wig.”

We've done it. It's the giant wig. Think of the colonial judge or the British judge. Just want to paint a picture for people. He's got the gavel and the base for the gavel. Then I rule and then I hand it to you and whoever else is with me that day. So if you're driving, if you're on a walk, if you're in the kitchen and this is on YouTube, if you got it in your AirPods, I want you to imagine King Coleman and his beautiful shoulder length powdered. It is beautiful. And Ken,

what would I say? I'm going to ask you, is it okay for her to say no to her sister? Yes, it is okay. Not only is it okay, it is what you should do. Absolutely. This problem is not yours number one.

Number two, this is not a problem that you or anyone else can solve.

So number three, then you need to just move on. And it's the popular refrain from maybe the most popular Disney movie of all time. Let it go. Let it go. There it is, folks. Absolutely. And the pierce thing, you've already shelved out 5,000. So they think that this is a dispensary that they can keep going back to for more. And that was your bad. And it's okay for you to write that wrong and go over to them and say, you know what? I understand why you're coming to me for this

money. I've given you money in the past. That was actually my mistake. And I've decided that I'm not able to contribute any more. And that's not. Best of luck to you. Yeah, that's tough. And we say that. And I think a lot of people listening watching to the other day, I feel that we're just kind of well, it's easy for you guys to say. Yeah. It's very easy for us to say because we have taken so many calls on the other side of this where this is going on and on and on and on and on. Yeah. And this

creates, by the way. So you think if you don't help out cis, that it's going to ruin the relationship. And what I'm telling you is, if you keep helping out cis, it will ruin the relationship. So the relationship is going to be ruined one way or the other. So let's go ahead and save ourselves a little bit of money. Now if you really want to be cold hard, that's about as cold hard as it gets. But since you got me in the stuffy, you know, judges robe and the wig, the gable. I have no motion

emotions on this because we have just in my right. We have been the other side of this one. This

“thing doesn't work. Absolutely. And here's the thing. Like I said, this is all at the hand of their”

choices. If you had called me up and said, the kid, somebody ended up in the hospital or that, that, that's something that was completely out of their control. Yes, my heart softens immediately, especially if you have the money to spare, especially if they have proven to be people who are responsible, right? There are parameters that I think it's okay to step in and give a helping hand. But this is not that scenario. It is not even close by the way. No. And I, I just jade have zero

sympathy. I mean, zero. And I don't mind being called out on this. But I'm just being real. I have zero sympathy for somebody who works whenever they want. There's just kind of when he wants to. No, that's messed up. As a man, that's not a man. Yes, you crushed it. Financialy. And you work when you want to. I go, I have a boy. Everybody wants to be on that team. That's different. But this is very different. We can't even pay the electric bill

because homeboy won't get out of the lazy boy and go work. I have zero sympathy. I'm never going

to help somebody who won't help themselves. I agree with that. So I'm going to take you back to the founding of our country. I'm feeling very, very frisky on this. Come on, get us a four years to deal. John Smith. This is a fact. This isn't just in your fourth grade history book. Okay? The founding of James Town. If you didn't work in James Town, they didn't give you rations. No work? No weed. John Smith had it right on a bar from John. And so, you know,

you don't work. What do the kids say? You don't need you. You just eight left no crumbs or something.

“Is that a thing? That's what you just did. You eight left no crumbs. That's why I found it.”

Yeah, because you said it right. You put him in his place. Yeah. But it's never a good idea to pat yourself on the back with a comment. But I was just really, well, you made a pun out of it, which is even better. Good job, can't. Don't work. You don't eat. It worked in James Towns. It changed out. It worked in your house. Chris in Austin, Texas is where we're going next. Chris, how can we help? Hey, so I've got a truck right now. It's pretty sweet truck. Love it. Had it for a few years,

but I took out a loan for it. And now I'm on baby step two right now. And I'm still upside down on it. So my question is, do I sell my truck and pay the stupid tax or do I continue to pay it down and

from credit cards and personal loans that I took throughout the years trying to pay this debt down.

It initially started at about 22. And then I took a consolidation loan and got it all the way up to 35 almost $40,000 because I was done by the rest of those credit cards again. But now I paid it down to 2000 left on the credit card. Okay. 3000 left on the personal loan and that was over the last year when I started listening to you guys. Got it. Okay. Okay. Got it. Okay. So and tell me about the truck. What do you owe on it and what's it worth? So I owe 46 and it's worth about 30.

Oh, you're telling me. Oh, man. Okay. What's your income? So I make about 96 total. Okay. So the good news is, you know, you paid 46 for the the truck. You make 96. You're kind of like

right there at the halfway point. We always say you shouldn't have more than half your income

invested in things with motors, things that are going down in value. You're right on the line. If you wanted to, if you said, Jade, I can have this thing paid off in two years. I love the truck. My income is only going up. I might say, yeah, I like that. But this represents something to me

“that I think it represents to you, which is a time in your life where you made”

not smart decisions. Oh, yeah. There was a good period after I got out of the Navy where I was just broke. So I agree with that. And I think that you might be in need of a fresh start financially. And I think this could represent that. I think when you pay off the the last of this credit cards in the last of this personal loans. And when you clear out this truck, I think it gives you a fresh start. And that sounds really good, right? Yeah. I think it does. If I were in your shoes today,

not for a mathematical reason so much as a principled reason, I would sell this truck. And I would probably go down to a credit union, honestly, though. I don't care how you get the loan for this difference. I'd get a loan for the difference. And maybe another 5,000 on top of it so that I can have a $20,000 debt instead of a $46,000 debt. And I clear out this truck and I drive like a $5,000 beater until you can clear out the remainder of that debt with your $96,000 income. And a few side

hustles to boot. What do you think about that? Well, I definitely have the capability of doing side hustles. So I don't disagree with that at all. My kind of guy, Justin. I agree. I can't add anything to it. But you've already touched on it. And I want to just acknowledge you and cheer for you. You've

“already acknowledged that you need to experience this pain. When you use the phrase the stupid”

tax, right, you get it. You're like, I'm going to have to experience some pain to egg it out of this

and be remind myself never again. I've got scars and certain parts of my body. One, I've got

on my hand. I always refer to, I'm looking at it right now. I'm touching it. One of the dumbest things I ever did doing your artwork. Cut my hands so badly. I had to go the ER. Stitch is everything. It was just a bone-headed. I was moving too fast. And I promised you, Jade, from that day forward. When I'm doing your artwork, I am a lot slower chilling out. Yeah. Because that was a very painful day. And I think Chris, this is beautiful. I think he's going to change her life. If you do exactly what Jade

does, told you to do. Then what's going to happen is you're going to get out of it faster. But more importantly, you fully experience the pain because let's be honest. Nobody wants to drive a $5,000 truck. Welcome back to The Ransy Show in the Fairwins Credit Union studio alongside Jade Worsha. I'm Ken Coleman. Excited to have you with us today. As we take your money calls, triple 8-8-25.

“5-2-2-5 is the phone number. Let's go to Chris and Portland, Ohio. Chris, how can we help today?”

Hi. I was wondering, when is it appropriate to bring up finances or debt when dating? I am divorced and getting back out there and kind of just curious. Yeah, that's a good question. And I got to tell you, my favorite question is the day. And the reason my favorite question today is I don't think there's a firm answer to this. But I love that Jade's alongside of you too because this will be fun. Yeah.

I think, as a male, if I'm dating someone, when do I bring up money, philosophy, and money issues?

“I think I bring it up a couple of dates. So we'll say two dates after I feel like”

that I want to pursue this lady. Like, this feels like I'm going to invest for the long haul because I think this is going to cash out. So once I've determined that I think there's long-term potential, I'm talking marriage, then I think a couple of dates later. So there's no rhyme reason other than I'm a feel guy. I'm all feel. So I'm going, okay, I'm not going to do it right away. But maybe a couple of dates later, maybe we're doing a longer date. Maybe it's a, we spend the day

somewhere, and it comes out in just natural conversation, not a, you know, we've just finished the spaghetti and the tiramisu's on the way. And I go, all right, I'd like to talk about money. Like, I don't want it to feel like we shifted gears. And I wanted to feel real natural because this is a values conversation. Now that's what I mean by, I'm trying to give the male version with my

“philosophy swirled in. That's what I think. So that sounds, I hope that sounds specific because”

it is to me. But I don't know how long that is into the relationship. But I wouldn't bring up any kind of money thing until we know that we're interested in a long haul. Yeah, I mean, I think part of it has, I love Ken's response. I, and let me start there. So I like what Ken said, I actually might start immediately, but not in the way that you think, not in a conversational way. I might, you know, because money is touching everything, you know, it affects your daily habits. I might

be very intentional with some of my habits showing on the date. So for instance, if I, you know,

okay, this is great. Take me to first day. First day is, what are you going to show? That's not,

you know, like, let's say we go to the movies, right? And, and while he's doing the tickets, I, I say, you know, I'm going to head over here and get some, some concessions, right? And, and I start, as I'm coming back with the concessions, I'm folding the cash and putting it back in my. Nice. So it's like, oh, what is by the, what's the concession item you're getting? I'm getting the large popcorn, uh, because there's free refills, and you can have the shareable

buckets. So you're going to do the, um, whether it's the right hand or left hand, you've got the bucket kind of cradled and you got the cash and your fingers that you can see. Uh huh. And I'll be like, I'll say, hey, hey, hold this for a second. So I can get myself and then it's back. I don't mind that. That is subtle hint. I don't know most dudes pick up on those kind of, because we're it. Yeah. Yeah. We don't, we guys can't find the mustard. I, I've been married 28 years. I can't find

the mustard. Yeah. I don't know if that works, but I like it. In a conversation, we're talking, what are you going to say? So what do you like to do? And I throw an, uh, you know, I love taking a vacation. I wasn't able to go with my girlfriend's this year, because it wasn't on the budget, but next year, it did it, right? I just throw in a little sprinkle it, a little seasoning can. And tell me, okay, let's continue to play this out. What are you looking for when you drop that?

At first, all I want him to do is if he's seeking to learn about me, he's picking that up.

He's noticing that, right? Because on the first day, all you're doing is observing the other person's behavior. So simultaneously, while you're dropping your hands, you're also observing, did he pay with the credit card? Did he, uh, what are the little things he's mentioning? His truck is it brand new? Because if he's driving a brand new truck, you can assume one of the two things. He's either loaded or he's broke. That's good. That's so cool. You're picking up on these things.

And I agree with Ken, I don't think ever, uh, early on, what I sit down, you know, with my glasses over my nose and it's like, okay, now we have the money talk. So I'm talking about kids on the first or second day. My gosh, you're going to scare the crap out of somebody that might be the one. Now let's talk about that. You have something to hide. Do you have something that is kind of like a long show or like, ooh. Oh, no, no, I'm, I feel like I'm in a really good place. And so I

don't want to get into a serious relationship with someone who, like you said, you know, just took out a loan for a $40,000 new car, right? Because that's not, that doesn't match my values. And I don't want to, yeah. So you're in great shape. You're just saying, hey, I want to start getting out there and dating or I am dating and I kind of want to figure out. Yeah, well, I, I, I'm going to tell you, I really, really, this will come as a big shock to the audience. I love my

own advice here. I, I just, I think, I think you get to pick, you know, the time frame. I just wouldn't

“scare 'em off, but I, but I don't think you have to wait, you know, months to talk about it,”

but I, I like your combo. I like how you came in on, I, I like Jade's like, I, she feels like

star here, little throwy star. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know Chris, that's our, that's, uh, now there is a bad track record with guys. Is that what this is about? No, so I, this is me just getting

back into it after, um, you know, being married for over 10 years. And, uh, this is my first

relationship since, or, you know, since college. So this, this is, this is the whole dating scene is very, what was it like? I have two young children. Yeah, what was the young children? And so, I want to, yeah, you're wise. I'm curious, what was the money, what was the money situation like in your first marriage? Uh, I mean, it was joined in everything. Um, he, he struggled to keep a job,

“honestly. Um, and I, I'm nearly debt free. Now, I have, you know, basically $1,500. I,”

oh, my parents on a car that I bought from them. And that's all I have. Good. Um, so that's a couple

months. And so, uh, yeah, I, I, I'm hopeful for my future. And I want to, who values the same thing.

So, yeah, we are too. And I think you're going to find that. I, I think that you've got to, like we said, you do your detective work, but you also, um, hold open the chance for people to change. Yes, I do. You know, because, and it's not to say that you get into a relationship to change someone, I don't want you to hear that, but what I do want you to hear is, as you do start discussing these different philosophies on money, I love, and kids are first to say this. I love the idea of

asking questions and just listening. Instead of you being the first to say, well, here's my views on debt. Let, let, let, let, let, let, let, right, just ask questions. And when, when, when the time pops up, you know, maybe he does go to pay with his American Express. And you say, you know, we've been on a couple dinner dates. I noticed, like, you got that American Express, huh? And just like, bring it on,

and ask him, so what's your philosophy on that? I've never had a credit card and just say it in such a

lightweight, no judgment. Just, yeah, literally conversation. Yeah, I love that. You know, when I just got one, Chris, this is kind of a fun one. You can use us. Do the old, kind of podcast you listen to. That's very normal. Yes. Let him go first. Right. And by the way, this is a do for on this one. You get two tests on this one. Hey, what kind of podcast you listen to? And if he tells you, and then he doesn't ask you, what you listen to, what's going on? Narcissists are all. But if he does ask you, you tell them,

and you see how that goes. Hey, guys, Dave Ramsey here. Every day on this show, we help people work through real money problems and figure out what to do next. Now, you can get that same kind of help anytime with Ask Ramsey. Ask your money question and get answers built on Ramsey principles. We use on the show whether you're making a decision or just want something explained. Ask Ramsey is here to help. It's fast, simple, and free to use. Go to RamseySolutions.com and try

ask Ramsey today. That's RamseySolutions.com.

“All right, let's go to Jessica who joins us now from Washington, D.C. Jessica, how can we help?”

Hi. I want to, I have a question about being down my desk. I hope that's not on board. And you want to make me my gaming center. I want to be paid off with my sleep. We don't mind. Okay, I'm much money saved. Jessica, if you don't mind, because you speak a little louder, I know this may be nerve-wracking and all that, but I want to make sure we and the audience can hear you. So go ahead and answer J's question for her.

Uh, but I have about 45k. You have $45,000 saved and you want to pay our debt and the husband's like no, let's keep that in a chunk and just pay minimum payments to am I understanding that? Yeah, and she didn't have access to that money because I wanted to keep it. Do you have separate accounts? We don't that I contribute some of my income and go to the calming account and then I have

“some of the money that I'm just putting out great. Where is the $45,000? Is it in a savings account?”

Yes. How much is your total debt?

So you got to speak up, Jessica. I am struggling. I know the audience is as well.

I'm sorry. It's okay. And I know you're probably nervous. It's just that we want to help you. We just don't understand you. So your total debt. Is this you and your husband, the stuff is in both of your names? Is it so, or is it a mix? It's between our needs and it's the total $68,000. Is that what I heard? Yes, and also 25 key student loans on the site. So $25k plus the $68. Yes. Okay. Okay. And so that's $83. I want to make sure we're completely on the

“safe. You've got $83,000 total would take care of all of your debt. Yours, his, everybody. Correct?”

Yes. And you have $45,000 in a savings account that he knows about or doesn't know about. Do you know how the savings account is that you didn't know the number? Are you concerned about what'll happen? What are you more concerned about? Him finding out that you have the $45, or are you going to bat on this idea of paying off the debt? So I don't mind having access to it, but I just don't understand when it comes to spending.

So I feel like if you got access to everything, we will make bad financial decisions and you don't have anything to say. Okay. That's the biggest, that is the biggest issue in the room right now. The debt is a big deal, but the biggest issue in the room is if, if you tell me, I don't trust my spouse to know about money because they're just going to spend it. That's the thing I want to

tackle first because if you can't tackle that, no plan in the world is going to help you pay off

debt or save money or build wealth, right? Would you agree with that? Because you won't be able to work together. So, um, put Ken and I in the room and tell us what would happen if tonight you sit down and you say, um, there's something I want to share with you, but I'm just being 100% honest with you, when I consider sharing it with you, I'm afraid because I don't know if you'll be able to handle it and it's brought up bigger issues and the trust that I have for you and the lack of trust that I

have for you and you start to kind of run this thing out. What's his response going to be? Is he going to be able to have a conversation like an emotionally mature adult or is this going to turn into

something crazy? We will have nice conversations. I've tried it multiple times, but the problem is

when it comes to implementing the plans, we don't do anything before. I'm not talking about implementing the plan. I'm talking about what you said when you said, I don't trust him to know about this money. Yeah. Would he go in and take it? He wouldn't take it. He wouldn't do it unfortunately too. So he's actually a nice guy. This isn't like him. He's a good guy. So this is actually good news. This would have been far more complex if you were worried about anything other than just a normal

conversation. Do you handle the finances for your entire household? Do you handle it? We, so I don't even think we're handling it the way it should be handled. We're just spending money and we don't know what goes in. I understand, but I'm saying, who pays the bills? We paid off our joint accounts. But who actually hits send on the payment? Who goes into the app hits send on the payment? Do you know me? I have older people most of the deals.

“And that's what I'm getting at. Here's where I'm going with this Jessica and I want Jade to weigh in.”

Where I'm going with this Jade is if he is not a jerk and it sounds like he's not and he's not dishonest. That's good. And they've had pleasant conversations. It's just nothing's changing. That's right. But he's letting her lead on the administrative part of the finances. That's what I heard. I still think they have a conversation. But I think if this dude is kind of like hands off. And when she says, hey, I'd like to do this because she's an awesome wife. And she's being transparent.

And he's kind of like, that's not how I want to roll. But but he's not like fighting her on it. I think it's a meaning to go, this is what I'm going to do. And I want you to trust me. And here's why. And then see what he says. Is that too strong? No, I don't. I'll be honest with you. I'll be straight up. What I'm hearing. What I'm hearing is just some immaturity on his point. I don't think that like

“to Ken's point. I don't think he's a bad guy. I think he's a little immature when it comes to money.”

I think even the way you guys have the money set up. Where it's like, there's a joint account.

don't know anything about, right? And so I think the conversation needs to be in line with this.

“I think we need more transparency because I think it's breeding mistrust. And I don't like that.”

I'm starting to feel it. I don't know if you're feeling it too. But I don't think that we can get on the same page with our numbers until we decide that we trust each other fully with our finances. I think that's that's topic number one. And then I think topic number two is you expressing how holding on to debt makes you feel. Because if we go straight to the numbers, I don't think it's going to get through because he's clearly not a numbers guy. But if you can get to the heart or the

emotion of the matter, that might help it sink in. And then if you can seek to learn a little bit about why where he stands on this, like why does the debt not bother you? Why have you distance yourself from the money? Because the more you know, that's power in the, right? That's

“yeah. And you might just power. And I think that's why Jessica, that's great advice because”

here's what I think I think you can influence him. I think so too. Come to your page because it

doesn't sound in any way like this is something that can't be solved. We've taken calls before where the husband is just like almost abusive on something verbally or certainly financially. And I think in this case, I love Jade's advice. I think you, I think he just has one mindset on it. You got to start talking about it. And I think you got to kind of own it. Tell me what the mindset is and she just doesn't want to give out money together or have

it saved and then. Well, but here's the call. It's a comfort thing for him to have that money. Well, yes, but Jessica, here's what you have to help me understand. We're 68,000. No, it's more than 68. 83. 83,000 dollars of our so-called money has got to go out. We are completely underneath of it. And I don't like the way it makes me feel. And here's how this goes if we don't pay it off. Here's how this goes if we just pay minimum payments for him.

Oh, I did forever. I think he has to be confronted with that. And then all of a sudden he goes, oh.

“But I mean, you got to lead him on this. Unfortunately, he's not leading. So you have to lead him.”

Mm-hmm. And it is a math problem at the end of the day. Like I said, I don't think he's a numbers guy. But once you do tell him about this money, you have saved because I think no matter what, you do have to tell him that you have this money saved. Then it is a math problem. You say, hey, you might, you may think we have some, you know, some amount of money that we don't or some amount

of debt. But the truth is we have $83,000 of debt. And I've got 45,000 saved that you didn't know about.

And even if we paid every dime toward that debt, we'd still owe 38,000. We're underwater and we're sinking and I'm concerned. And it's time for you to be the man that I think you are because I need help with this and I need your support. And I don't want to feel like I'm doing this alone. [Music] When people hear my story of paying off debt, they say things like, "Dang, that must have been so

hard. I can never do that." And I tell them, sure you can. It's a short-term sacrifice for a long-term gain. But do you know what's really hard? Working your whole life and never having anything to show

for it. Never having the long-term gain. Just feeling broke, stressed, and maxed all the time.

And sadly, that's the hard that most people choose. Listen, you're capable of transforming your situation and living a life of freedom. But you need the right tools to do it. Like our every dollar budget app. In minutes, it'll build you a step-by-step plan that's tailored to your money situation. And every day, it finds ways you can free up extra money in your budget, so you can get rid of your debt and actually build wealth. So make the choice today.

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carnage about insurance. That's just something that's recently been on my radar. That's right.

In other words, maybe we can find a couple hundred bucks that goes towards the baby steps. Some of you are undercovered, and it could derail you for a season on the train to the baby steps, right, or through them. And so we have the Ramsey Solutions coverage check up. This is free. And it just allows you to plug in some numbers quickly. Give you a nice report that tells you you're either overcovered or undercovered and gives you an action plan. You can get that.

At Ramsey Solutions dot com slash check up. That's Ramsey Solutions dot com slash check up.

“Let's go to Megan who joins us in Edmonton, Alberta. Megan, how can we help today?”

Hi. I have a very odd question. Basically, am I wrong for wanting to kick out a family member

out of a house for my own benefit? I don't know how that sounds. We need to know more. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What can you tell us? Okay. Well, I'm going to try and make this release streamlined. It's a very complicated situation. So my dad died like 15 years ago, and my mother recently passed away, and she has a rental property. Okay. My cousins live in the rental property. It's just, it just her and her husband.

And they were basically talking about how they were not going to stay there. They wanted to leave. And that was all fine with us. Because the property is own now after inheriting it.

It's own now by me and my two sisters. My two sisters don't want anything to do with

house. So they want they want me to buy them out, which is fine. Because our house currently me and my husband, our house currently is too small for our family. So we were actually going to move into the rental property because it's bigger and can accommodate us. Okay. So we were like, no problem. We'll buy you out. How much with that? About $350,000. Okay. Keep going. So we were going to rent out our current house because we only owe $50,000 on our current house.

And we could rent it up and down. It's a two like it's sweeted. So we could rent it for two units. Okay. And then we would have no mortgage payment. Like the rentals would pay the 350 technically $400. I guess if we paid off this house, it's that makes sense. Okay. I'm with you. So where's the hang up? Where's the the bottleneck? The hang up is my cousin don't want to leave yet. Are they living rent free or are they paying rent? They are not paying rent. They are paying the

cost of ownership of the property for like the property taxes and utility whatever. No wonder they don't

“want to move out. I know. I know. But it's a here's the thing. It was a really long story. But short,”

long story short. They had an agreement with my mother. Like I don't know if there was some like my mother owed them something or whatever. But they have basically like a five year lease. Where they don't have to pay anything except the upkeep of the house. There's a whole lot of hands at the house and of the five years. Two years. So technically they could stay for three more years.

Now the problem is in writing. That's in writing. Like me and my sister. Yes. So me and my sister.

We like agreed that they as long as it's not a cost to any of us. But the cousin's can stay. That's fine. Okay. But the problem for me is our house is too small. It's too small. And so my husband and I want want to buy another house. We want to move. But the problem is if we go and we buy a house. Then let's say tomorrow the cousin we buy a house because and say, okay, just kidding, we're going to leave now. I see the problem. I won't qualify to pay out my sisters.

Do you know what I mean? So I'm like, do I go buy a house? What's on fire? What's on fire that you

“need to like that? I know your house is not big enough. But why is that? Did you just have babies?”

What happened that suddenly? I have to move now. I have one baby and I have another one on the way and we have a two bedroom house. Okay. So I'm going to say something radical here. And okay. The radical thing is the kids share room. And you do that for three years. It's like the rooms I like. I'm in a very small house. How many square foot? Like 750. Okay. Yes, you are correct. That is a small here. Let me lay out your options because if I understand and if I'm wrong,

stop me. Okay. Because you did give me a lot of details. The cousin, the cousins have a lease. And if the shoe were on the other foot, you would want your lease to be honored. And it's in writing.

is the fact that this so like I'm going to move tomorrow. Oh, no, I'm not. Well, I don't know if I'm

going to stay or if I'm going to go. Well, they can do that for the next three years. They get to do that for the next three years because they have a lease. But then that puts us in that, that puts us in a really hard spot for the next three years. Well, that's the part where I want to decouple. I think that you

“need to decouple your plans from that. Yes. Or you have to just decide, I'm not letting them take”

me on an emotional roller coaster. I'm just saying, I don't have access to this house for three years. And I'm just telling myself that if for some reason it comes open earlier, fine, whatever, but I'm not going to let them take me on an emotional roller coaster, I do think. Now, this is,

like I said, it's groundbreaking. But I do actually think that you would be okay in this small house

with maximum three year, you know, maximum age for your newborn is going to be three years old and that they share a room for a while because of other option, which I don't think that you would like is to buy something else because you do know that this other house is on a horizon and what this reminds me of Ken is just the old kind of like sacrificing to win mentality if you really, really want to be in that house Megan, that rental property that was your mother's. There's

probably going to be an element of sacrifice involved to get there because it's going to be a sweet deal once you're in there, right? Yeah, we talk about this a lot. What would it be wrong to like offer them my house? Like, you guys are just two people like moving to my small house and let us have the full bedroom house, you know? Like, you could offer that, but that's kind of a presumptuous is that worth? Yeah, I get what do you think the relational reaction is to that if you were to do that?

What do you mean? Well, I'm with Jade, it feels presumptuous, so how would that go over? If you set it that way to to them? How would they respond? I don't know. If you say, hey, I want to get your house, I don't want you to be able to do the the least because I'm on a timeline here, so you guys leave your house, come move into my house, pay me rent. I mean, that's no, they don't even have to pay me rent. All of the same deal. I just we just need a bigger place and like we don't want

it, we don't we just don't want to go. We're looking at houses and we just don't want to go buy a house

“and then have it be like, oh, just kidding, now you have to buy your sister's out and now you can't”

qualify because you don't have to do anything. You don't have to do anything because let's go back, you don't have to buy your sister's out. You don't this is a deal that you've constructed in your mind that is like the perfect solution, right? In your mind, the perfect solution is I buy my sister's out, I kick the cousins out, we get into the house, we do this sooner than later, right? Like,

that's your fairytale ending. But the truth is you don't have to move into this house. There's other

houses out there, possibly. The truth is the timeline is a timeline that you've constructed because you're uncomfortable in the current house. That's just the truth. This is like barebone's truth. I'm not saying it's uncomfortable, by the way, I'm sure it sucks. But I'm just saying that's the truth. And then the truth is you're you're starting to now because you're getting a little desperate, you're starting to construct a reality where the cousins would be totally fine moving on of their

house, moving into your house and you're so desperate to the point that now you're like, hey, I won't even charge him rent. I just think we're getting in dangerous territory here. I understand what you're saying, but I probably left out a small, probably logic detail. They own another house. That they could be living in. They own a different house. That would have been nice to know about eight months ago. We're going into it, right? Either way, either way, you're putting

your future in your destiny in the hands of other people. And whenever you do that, it is frustrating because they're not going to do, you can't control them. And they've got to five year lease. Sorry.

“If you want to grow, get better at communication. Until you figure that out,”

you're not going to move forward. I've been there. In my new book, stop talking, start communicating. I unpack the one thing that unlocked communication for me, the disc assessment. It blew my mind. And it changed how I connect with everyone. And I'll show you how to do the same. This is a game changer. For 34.99, you'll get the book and the disc assessment. Go to RamseySolutions.com/store.

of life in your presence. His fullness of joy at your right hand, our pleasures forever. And are quoted today from Jordan Peterson. It's a luxury to pursue what makes you happy. It's a moral obligation to pursue what you find meaningful. That's a good word. I like that. I do like that.

“All right, let's go to Christine who joins us in Orlando, Florida. Christine, how can we help?”

Hi, everyone. Thanks for having me on today. I have retired parents in their late 70s. My brother, who's 45, moved in with them at the beginning of the pandemic and hasn't left since. My parents are supporting him. And, you know, they're getting older. They're starting to have health issues. And I do not want to be responsible for him after they're gone. But I'm having a hard time reconciling the, I guess, moral obligation versus practical

obligation. Why would you be responsible for the brother? What type of, what is there something

wrong that he's requiring support? No, other than he just has never worked. And, uh, oh, it's

one. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, it's one of those things where I'm afraid of no one takes care of him or supports him. He'll end up homeless and, you know, that things happen when you see on drugs. Homeless. You're not. It would be an easier conversation if you want. So, I guess my, my question

“is, why are you drawing the conclusion that he's totally helpless and will end up on the streets?”

If he's for the able-bodied healthy, that would then just be his personal choice and wouldn't it? It, it's, you're absolutely right. And it is absolutely his choice. It's, it's the, you know, tug of his, my only, he's really my only family once my parents are gone. Um, and do you really think that rather than, let's, let's just play this out for a second? Let's, I mean, unfortunately, let's pretend your, your, your parents, they're, they're, they're beamed up. They move on. Let's pretend

you've put your foot down and said, you know what, you know, you can't move in with me, Bobby. And do you really think Bobby will end up? Do you truly in your heart of hearts think that he will say, okay, tonight I'm sleeping in a box? Just about, um, the reason we moved in with my parents is because he was sleeping in his car and my dad didn't want that for him. And you're sure there's nothing else going on with him. I am sure. Um, there may be some mental health issues. Okay.

I've never been diagnosed. Okay. That's helpful to know. Yeah.

Uh, this is tough because of what you just said there. Yeah. Uh, it feels like you've got to get a little bit more plugged in on this, right? Like I think we have to get hands on and find out to the best of your ability. What is going on with him. In other words, if he's just a slacker, that's a lack of a better word, my response is different. If there's some legitimate, uh, I got to be careful how I say this. Like if there's some legitimate,

and medical, medical diagnosis that, um, put him in a position where he'd literally cannot take care of himself. That's a wholly different conversation. And it doesn't sound like you know.

You know, when I, I would suspect, um, and again, he's never been tested, but my suspicion is that

he's somewhere on the autism spectrum. Okay. I understand as well. But, but I know that there are very intelligent, the successful people on the spectrum who, you know, still take care of themselves. And I don't know why it is that he has taken this route. He, he made comments years ago to my husband when we were dating. This was years ago that, you know, he didn't think he had to work that much because someday my parents would die and he would inherit. But my parents aren't that type of

inheritance, you know, if that makes sense. So it is concept and relationship with money is completely unrealistic. Well, I, I'm going to go back to what I said a minute ago. I don't know that I can give great advice because I don't know much at all about what's going on because you don't know. So I think you've been detached. So I do think that this is the right time for you to dig in. I agree with you. I become completely aware of what's going on. So, you know,

“you have to assess the situation at which point that allows you to make a good decision. I think”

you're a good person and I think you have common sense. But I mean, you know, are you the only sibling you are? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's a big heavy weight there. So I, I would want to know

I'd sit down with a parents and have your parents tell you what's going on and ask them what

“their expectations are. Not because you feel you have to do it, they say. But I would just want to”

read the room and I'd want to know what mom and dad said. I'd want to be looking for are they making excuses for him? I think you'll pick up on that pretty quickly. Have they enabled him? Okay. I'd want to know that. Then I'd want to sit with brother and get his take and go, what's your plan? If mom and dad are gone. Like, let's have these conversations so that, and let's do it in a way that tries to get everything out on the table, Jake. Like, let's get all

the pieces of the game board out. I pushed for evaluation, too. I would, that's a great, that's a third thing. So there's a checklist of three things at which point you now have a lot more information than you do today. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And I think the challenge is, I mean, you're right. These

are conversations that have to happen. My family has always been pretty close to the best. My mom's

favorite thing was, you know, don't we don't air our dirty laundry in public. So it's hard to kind of get them to come out of their shell. But it is reaching the point where something's going to

“give. And it's going to give disastrously or we can be prepared for it. You're right. Yeah. I think”

Ken is spot on with that checklist of three items. And then from there on, you can really evaluate your options. I don't know that there's a world, because if he's getting evaluated, let's pretend it comes back and there is something there. Yeah. I mean, I'm not going to try to get into it. But I, there's a lot of nuance in what you're able to, you know, do and not do and accomplish and not accomplish and what sort of care you might need or what type of therapies you might need.

And so that opens a whole other world of possibilities once you get this information. And I think today, you're a detective. Right. I agree. So that you can decide what's my role as a steward. You know, so the question becomes what happens? Let's fast forward to, because you called, what do you, what do you think? Let's assume, and Jay kind of hit you on this. But how would you react if they were again gone? What would you do today knowing what little you know?

Yeah. If it were to happen today, I'm afraid I would just shut down to be honest with regards to that situation, because it has been so polarizing and emotional within our family, my parents. I know are frustrated with him living there. But every time they try, they have tried to talk to him about it, he shuts it down and they don't really get any answers. So it's really hard to navigate, but it's something's gotta go. Okay. So what does shutdown mean? Meaning that you act like it doesn't

exist, and he's dead to you kind of a deal shut down or what? I guess shut down in terms of maybe just yeah walking away from the situation, just being overwhelmed, not knowing what to do, how to handle him when he's been supported and enabled his whole life. Yeah, this is why again, we gotta go back to, I think what you would have to do is not shut down, but hopefully you do this now, so if this happens you're ready, see in a situation where he would be

a word of the state or some type of, you know, and that's a little-- It's gonna pry past through Medicaid. Like if they play their cards right, yeah, there should be something there for him,

which is so important to do those first steps. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's what I wanted to know.

I wanted it, and so that tells me that, so the reason I asked that question is because I wanted to know where your head is and your heart. And it sounds to me like your head and heart are aligned that you don't think you should help him. And quite frankly, you don't want to. That still may

“not be an option, right? You may have to, on some level. And so I think that's why you're going”

to have to do this digging that we talked about, and then that'll help you in, you know, kind of inform your plan, but gee, was I want you to have a plan if it's anywhere close to half two. Yeah. That's the goal. So I hope that helps. I'm so sorry you're dealing with this. Thank you. But listen, you don't get very helpful. Good. And here's a deal. Don't do anything out of guilt. Do everything out of values. Big difference. Big difference.

Well, folks, remember this. There's ultimately only one way to financial peace. And that's the

lot daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.