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From the Ramsey Network and the Fair Wins Credit Union Studio, this is the Ramsey Show on Jade Horsh on next to me, Dr. John, the Lonie, taking your calls really for the next three hours.

“If you want to get involved in number 385525 gets you on the line.”

Ann is in Salt Lake City, Utah, and what's going on? >> Hi, I think you're taking my call. >> My question today is, my, our youngest son is going to be starting medical school in July, the summer. He's married and has a two year old and then has his life as pregnant.

They're going to have their second baby in the fall and our question is,

because of the changes in the federal student loan programs, they are not able to borrow enough money to even really take the tuition for the medical school. And so they're going to need to take out private loans. >> Oh, the question is--

>> Please don't do this, yeah. >> We will. >> Please don't do this. >> Hey, let me ask you before you go any further with this. I want to ask you one question.

Why do you think they put limits on it on how much they can borrow? They're trying to do-- they're trying to get the schools to change their policies. So they don't require students to borrow as much money. They're trying to get them to lower the tuition.

“But I think in this kind of in the gap, the tuition isn't going any lower, right?”

>> Right now.

>> But the crux of the question is, why do you think they're putting caps on how much students can borrow?

>> Well, I think for some professions that makes sense. He's going to be a doctor. >> So I think the question is-- >> Right. >> And I want you to think of this because this is going to inform my answer to you.

Why do you think they're putting caps on how much these students can borrow? Simply. >> Because they are able to pay them back? >> Yes, ma'am. >> Yes, ma'am.

>> What kind of medicine is your son going to go into? >> I'm still reciting, but he's working right now with a neurology clinic as either interested in that or maybe endocrineology. >> So I've got friends who are at medical school start-ups at universities.

I've worked with medical professionals in the whole career.

That's just where I've lived.

“And I'm just telling you, just parent, to parent, my son is 16.”

I would love for him to be a physician. I think it's a great noble calling. It's a good good position. I mean, it's a good profession. I would-- I mean, he can do what he wants at his age.

I would tell him, do not borrow money to go to this profession. And that's me having friends at her physicians, working with physicians, working with medical education, and having a kid that I would love to see me a doctor. Because I don't know what AI's impact is going to be in one year and two years and ten years on the need or the ability for that person who owes $5,600 to be able

to recoup that. >> Mm-hmm. >> So good. And a local pediatrician is not going to make $5,600,000, especially with insurance reimbursements. A surgeon, they will, they'll do great.

A urology surgeon, they might, and again, I don't-- I don't-- all that is so region-specific and all that-- you know, but all I'd like to say is, you and I, the world be grew up in, is the safest thing is go be a lawyer or go be a doctor. That's what we were taught, right? And just look at what's happened to all the kids for the last 20 years who have been told

go to coding, go get a degree in coding, go get a degree in IT. They're out of jobs. You know what I mean? Like they create the thing that's going to take all their jobs away. I cannot in good conscience is proud of your son as you are, as excited as he is.

If a bank is telling you you're too much of a risk for us to give you this money to go around the bank and try to figure that out. Like the bank's whole business is, I'm going to loan you this money and I'm going to make money on you, pay me back. And if when bank say, I'm not going to do that, this is too high of a risk, listen to what

they're trying to tell you. They're trying to say, I don't want to do business with you because I don't think you're going to be able to pay us back. And I know I'm blowing up everything and that's not even what you call. I just got to tell you parent, parent, a guy who I worked in higher ed for 20 years.

If they're saying we're putting the brakes on this, I would listen to why they're putting the brakes on it. And all I have to say is, even more strongly, I would say don't go get private loans because those get people into so, so much trouble. Yeah, that's really tough.

So we completely hijacked you. Yeah, totally hijacked.

Ask your question. Ask your question.

But we wanted to, we wanted to make you clear on what our stance might be.

Yeah. Go ahead and ask your question. So we can hear it with our own ears. Yes, I guess we're just trying to, you know, my home for the night are, we have, you know, I'm 58, 68, 61, we're both working full time, our combined incomes probably

about 225,000 a year. We have about $40,000 left to pay on our home. And when my, when our children were kind of going through their higher education process, we really weren't able to help them very much because of kind of the situation we are in that we've kind of changed that situation now.

Great. And so we're just trying to figure out how weak it, because we didn't really contribute at all to his undergraduate education at all, he funded that in himself. And so we're just trying to figure out if we can, if there's something we can do on our end.

And so what we work is that on the private loans, the interest rate is dramatically lower is we coastline on that loan for him, rather than him, just doing that himself. So we're trying to figure out how to mitigate that risk. We had a couple of ideas of how to do that. But I love that you're thinking in that way, because I think that's, as a parent, you

do, you want to look at ways to, to lessen the load, especially financially.

Even if I did agree with debt, I would never agree with co-signing.

So even if even if I was a person who was like, oh, student loans are fine, I would still say, co-signing, please don't do it, because here's what's going to happen. You co-sign a loan, you're on the hook for his name is on it. He's just starting his life with his baby, his family, his wife. He might think this is not an, this is not something I'm interested in paying off right

now. That's always going to be attached to you. So if you decide, oh, we want to move. We want to buy a house. We want to do something that might involve our credit, you're attached to it.

It's debt that's in your name, and that is always has the ability to ruin a relationship. Yes, you're not only putting his credit score on the block, you're putting y'all's relationship on the block. If you all have cash, right in the check today, I will high-five you to the moon and back

“if you want to support your kid through medical school.”

Even if you can't do all of it, fun some of it. But cash. And say, here's a gift. We weren't able to do this. We're going to give you this gift.

But what you're trying to do is take the guilt you have from not helping an undergrad, and you're going to put your relationship with your son. He's going to sit at Thanksgiving with y'all, and y'all are going to be his lender. Oh, and Anne, I can tell you, because that's what mean my husband did. My husband's mother, my mother, and law co-signed for his loans.

And she was the third wheel in our marriage for almost seven and a half years.

Why do you buy that car? Why do you buy new purse? Why don't buy that? And hear me say, she's the sweetest, most generous woman. Like, there is nothing like I can't say anything bad about the woman.

But I am saying because her name was on that loan, that she was part of the marriage, because when she was ready to buy a house, when she was ready to do things, it was like, when are you guys going to pay?

“In the nicest way, when are you guys going to pay the Sloan off?”

Are you guys making progress, right? Because it's her right to ask because her name was on it. She had every right to want to know about it. But as a result, it did become at many times a point of contention. And I just, I hated that it was like that.

Now everything's good. The loans paid off is all gravy. But I hated that that's how we got off. But that was the foot we got off on in our marriage. We just totally ruined your plans.

And I'm sorry, you're probably not going to listen to what we said. But man, if it plans to see the doubt in your mind, let it grow. Statistics show that half of Americans don't have enough life insurance. Or they don't have any at all. I don't understand this, John.

Why don't people want to take care of their family? They think they're going to die or something? Well, I used to be one of those guys. I didn't even think about it. And one of my buddies said, hey, the only reason to not have life insurance is if you hate

your wife and kids, and I immediately went and got term life insurance. That's a good punch. And oh, you're telling me, and for decades, Dave, I've sat across people who've lost a spouse.

“They've lost somebody important to them.”

Me too. They don't know what to do next. Me too. I mean, you're going to have a crisis here. And you know, you got two options while you're sitting and talking to a young widow.

She's concerned about how she's going to invest all this money properly and not miss this up. Or she's concerned how she's going to eat tomorrow. That's exactly the two options. And turn your dad gum family, term life insurance can replace income, pay off debts, cover

funeral expenses. So your family can actually have the opportunity to just be sad. Yeah. To just miss you. That's exactly what it's supposed to be.

Zander Insurance makes it easy and affordable.

I've used them personally for 25 years, that the only people I'd trust go to zander.com or call 800-356-42-82. All right. Haley's in Houston, Texas. Haley.

You are on the line. How can we help today? Hi. Thanks for having me. But so I had a question regarding my retirement investments, I guess.

I've been investing about 45 to 50k a year. These last several years, and I was wondering, when I can maybe pull back some on that, and

maybe focus on other things like saving for a house or just other life events.

I mean, I want to say today, but tell me more about your financial snapshot, because just for those listening, Haley's investing above and beyond what we would say generally in the baby steps, unless you're to the point of baby steps seven, where you've paid off your home and everything. So what you're doing, Haley, is pretty awesome in the way of building wealth, but let's

make sure that it's in the right parameters of your financial situation. So tell us more, tell us what you earn, tell us if you have any debt, give us the goods.

“So I think I take on about 220-ish a year, and about 145 of that is like my actual income”

and then I work overtime, for the remainder, and then I do have 90k and student debt, which is the only debt I have, but right now it's on the deferment, so like I'm going to say program in here or not letting me pay on it right now. Okay. So I don't know.

That's one thing I could do. One thing you can, you can pay on it. Yeah. I can. Yeah.

Don't say we're not on you. Well, it's on fold and I'm on the PSLF, or I'm trying to do the PSLF program, so I'm not wanting to get out of that, because then if I change into a different program, it will mess it up a bit. I understand that.

I understand that a lot more. Okay.

“So you're giving me some insight that I am grateful for because it is informing what I think”

is the best route for you, and what I'm going to say is what John and I did, is what Rachel and George did, I'm sure it's what Dave would have done, had he have had student loans, I don't know if he ever did, but so you make a really great income, and you've made some, what I would call smart choices, there's a, you could have done way worse by, you know, investing 40 to 50% of your income, however, I would pull it back because debt is really

serious, and around here, we believe, in our whole heart, that your biggest wealth building tools are income. You need the full force of your income at your disposal to truly be able to number one, mitigate risk in your life, number two, be able to build wealth, and then number three, be able to do it in a peaceful manner, like those, those are things that we really care

about here. So the number one thing that we're going to teach you is debt elimination, getting rid of the debt, and then pledging to yourself that you will live a life without debt, especially consumer debt, and so I would say the same thing for you, you know, hey, let's say let's pause investing for a moment, you've done so well, let's go back, and let's just knock out

“these 90,000 dollars in student loans, I mean, you're single, are you single?”

Yeah, okay, so are you telling me that if you lived on 190, you couldn't knock these out in a year, and round number wise? Would you recommend maybe, like, not stopping investing completely, and maybe doing, like, pulling back, like, 20, K, and then putting that towards student loans, what's your fear of investing?

What are you scared of? You're putting it away at Jillian Dollars. Yeah, what do you have already? About 270 right now? But that's including my tension, I'm 30.

Yeah, you're not going to believe me, because this is deeper than, like, intellectual knowledge, but you're good.

I am way more concerned, like, that quarter of a million dollars in 30 years is going

to be a whole bunch of money. I'm way more concerned. Can I just be a jerk for a second? Is that cool? Can I just be mean?

Like, yeah, that's fine. Me, I got two kids. You make 200, and would you say 125? Two, 20. OK, you make 220,000 bucks.

You have the ability to repay these student loans that you sign your name on, and you're

you. Now, if you were, if you were making 40,000 bucks a year as a assistant district attorney trying to help the least of these in my community, I'm all about that. Right? Right.

And so, like, you sign your name to a piece of paper.

You're making a, like, almost a quarter million dollars a year, pay the debts that you

said you're going to pay back, and then get on with your life. I'm way more concerned about your financial picture to long-term. You hold it on to these, and crossing your fingers for some government repayment program. It would, by the way, make them through, it might, it might, they've ticked up, they have ticked up, how many they're processing and all that, that's all good.

But man. How long have you already been waiting for this? Well, I'm on, well, I've been on deferment for about almost two years, but I'm technically almost five years and that's a long time. Yeah.

And here's the thing.

“Here's what's at stake, because I think this is, this is beyond mathematics, you're”

clearly good with numbers, you're thinking about the future, you're thinking about, well, no one's going to fall to you on that, at least for sure I'm not. But part of personal finance, a huge part of it is emotional. We know, we know about the behavior, we know about the numbers, but we forget the emotional part, which is human beings want freedom.

We want to feel freedom, and we want to feel peace. That is just who we are at the core. And so as long as this is taking up space and residency in your heart and in your brain and in your mind, what's the, like, why is that worth it for you? Especially, now don't give me wrong.

If you were making $40,000 a year and it was a struggle, I can understand it a little bit more. But girl, you've got the means to pay this off so quickly, this should have been gone. Like this should have been out of your life. And I would just hate for you to postpone the amount of freedom in autonomy that you can

have inside on the inside, because you can go out and buy what you want right now. But on the inside and just say, yeah, to John's point, I signed for this, let me let it go. And let me make you feel a little bit better about something here. How old did you say you are? 30.

I'm 30. Okay, so you're 30 years old. You've already got $270,000 in your investments. Let's just say, you know, until the age of 60, let's pretend you didn't invest a single more dollars.

Like you just, we're like, you know what I'm not going to put nothing else in here. And we just let it grow, because that's not going to be the case. It's already $7 million. Okay. Wow.

I feel like it's not. No, because you're so young, it's because you're so young. And then if we just say, hey, she's going to spend one year and pay this off.

“And then she's going to jump right in at 15 percent, right?”

Because 15 percent for you is about $2,700 a month.

And let's just say, okay, we're going to start that at age 31, since we're going to take a year and pound out this debt. And then if I calculate it, you're at $13 million. Do you think that's all right? Okay.

Can you scratch buy on that? I think you can claw by, you know, on the 13 million. And sure, we could do the math on, well, what if we added an extra year to it? Okay. Let's do that.

Let's, let's account for the year that she just didn't feel like paying off the debt. So let's add another year to it. Okay. It's $14 million.

You know, you got a million more. Wow. But do you see what I'm saying? Right. A million dollars is a lot of money.

There's time to make it up is what I'm saying. And then some, it's a year of time to get completely free. And if you feel like, you know what, I paid my debts in this world. I did what I said I was going to do. I love that.

“And then from there, the good news is to your point, because I think I heard you talk”

about this. Yes, you can pause after you've published that you can pause investing. You can pull back to 15% and save up for your down payment. Hey, you could even pause for due to three years completely if you wanted to in order to stack up a down payment fast.

Okay. Okay. So you'd recommend I completely pause, get the loan paid off, and then, you know, from there on to whatever. And, and, and, and, and, hey, this is just me.

This is just me.

I'm always thinking for John to live in here.

Yeah. If they come out next year and say, all student loans are forgiven forever. I wouldn't be mad because for me, it's an, it's an issue of integrity. I signed a piece of paper and said, if you all help me get through college, I'll pay you back.

And I did what I said I was going to do. And so, what I wish I had that money back, yeah, because I paid six figures back, but I did what I said I was going to do. And at the end of the day, nobody can take my integrity from me. So I'm going to be okay with that, but yeah, I'd get a paid off because it's the right

thing to do. And, more importantly, you've got the means to do it right out. So knock it out. And there's just something to be said about no one having to save you. And life with money, it is a good feeling to say, I took my income, I paid my debts.

I did what I needed to do. I got my own freedom, nobody had to get a for me.

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you buy or sell with confidence, go on over to ramsysolutions.com/market, or you can click the link in the show notes if you're listening on pod or YouTube. All right, let's go to shun in Des Moines, Iowa. What's up, shun? How you doing?

Hello. I'm good. How can we help? Well, I want to know if I should continue to support my wife with her continuous education. Tell us more.

Okay, so I'm 39, I'll be 40 here in a couple of months. She's a few years younger than me. She's worked a job for in-class years of let go about three years ago. I stepped up and got a better job, making more income, now I'm making $100,000 and was able to support our family.

She went to school, first was medical billing and coding, finished that, then joined purple

modding, finished that, and she went for medical assistance, and she's wrapping that up. They're doing mock interviews, found out that she's going to make about $20 an hour. We've got about $25,000 in student loan debt, and I just don't feel like that is acceptable.

“For the amount that you spent for the amount that you spent on these certifications?”

Correct. I do see that the amount that we're in debt equal to about a year's worth of her income, but now she wants to go for to be a nurse. They are in program, and that's going to add probably about another 20,000. My big concern here is less about the education in the money.

My big concern here is the way you're talking about her tells me y'all are not together on this at all. No. I want to support her, but I know it to what, because I know perpetual students, I was one who went to school a lot, so one to get credentials, but two, so I didn't have to deal with

the real world. Right. And it wasn't until me and my wife sat down and she was like, "Hey, what are we doing here? Where are we headed with this?"

Because these three jobs should be a nurse by now. Yeah. But if she learned along the way, I like the medical field. I like doing this part of the medical field. I can become a nurse.

That's not a bad trajectory. What's the thing beneath the thing here?

It's not acceptable.

She didn't set the market rate.

“Y'all may not have sat down together and looked at, "Hey, we're going to spin this much”

money. How much is this job going to pay and y'all didn't do that calculation together?" And that would be frustrating. But I would tell you, as a husband, you own that as much as she does. Like supporting your spouse isn't just blindly writing checks.

It's y'all are united on your decisions and here's why we're doing the things we're doing. And here's the sacrifices we're both going to make together to get where we want to go. Being married, but like you're blaming her, it sounds like. You know what I'm saying?

I'm not blaming her for it, but you're right. I like that where we're going with this. Yeah.

What happened after the RN?

Is there something else? Yeah. Sounds like you're worn out. Because every time you think it was the end of the line, something else is the problem and now we got to go for the next thing.

That's right. Or wrong? I am. I'm kind of burned out with work. I'm a truck driver, so being gone all the time and not being with my family all the time.

I mean, that's, you know, not having that to income, you know, that's strong going forward.

“But I'm also optimistic and I like to look towards the future and that's why I agreed”

to the schooling. Oh, yeah, like we, you know, we can both make it, you know, six years. That's great. What, what, what did you get that number? You just made that up in your head?

Yeah, I think they said that she would be around like 76,000 and I'm going to not 40,000 right now as of this week for this year. So I think I'd make about 110 to 115 realistically. What it help if you took, obviously in the past, it sounds like you took out student loans for education, would it help you get on board with what she's trying to accomplish?

If you said, hey, I'm for this, but we just need to cash flowed. I don't want to go backwards financially to make this happen. How would you feel about that? And how would you feel about that suggestion? So being at my age right now, I don't have any retirement.

And that's, and that's been my main focus, like the main thing on my mind is I need to get my 401(k) built up. I don't want, I don't want to work for the rest of my life, I actually do want to retire. Right. Okay.

Right now, as far as I cash flowed it, I just don't have the means paying for our entire household off of just wanting to come. How long have you guys been married? 16 years. Okay.

“And this is, is this first marriage for both of you guys?”

Yep. Okay.

Tell me, okay, so here's what I hear and John, jump in at any point.

It's almost like, for 16 years, I don't know what you guys were doing, but now all of a sudden it's like, we got a lock in and it's you're ready to lock in, but she's almost still like finding who she wants to be. And I mean, I'm playing the field on this because I agree with you, their does come a point where it's like, we need to make a decision, we need to lock in and go forward

with that. I feel you on that, I also feel you on not wanting to burn extra money because there are fish to fry like retirement and making sure we're paying off debt. So it sounds like a really kind of come to Jesus meeting needs to happen with you in your wife where it's, I need to understand the career hopping.

Do you know where it is that you're wanting to go or are you still feeling like you're an experiment mode, like tell me for real, like tell me what you're really thinking, so that I can understand where you're coming from and we can take some time and like cool out on that and then come back together and really talk about it. But understanding where she's at and her understanding where she's at is going to be paramount

on this. And she may not know and I want you to redefine the word support. I'll take Kelly Daniel who is the producer of my show. She supports me in that show. She supports me by saying, hey, you did this really well and she also supports me by helping

create a vision for where we want to go with it. But she also really supports me when she says, hey, you blew that. That was, you did not handle that call well. And so you supporting your wife by saying quote unquote, yes, yes, yes to everything and I'm going to get a job where I'm dying because I can't keep doing it.

And then I'm going to start keeping secrets about how scared I am about our future and I'm going to start keeping secrets about how my back hurts and I can't move and I'm not sleeping well. That's support. And so support is you, my buddy Will Gadera says every, he's one of the world's best

restaurateurs and he says every shift, the, the, the weight staff goes and fills up their pitcher so they can spin the rest of their shift, making sure everybody else has water.

But they can't first start by supporting all of their, all of their customers if they're pitchers empty.

“And so you have to look at, expand your definition of support is I'm not just going to”

blindly say yes, yes, yes, to everything support looks like, hey, let's take a half day. I'm going to take a half day off of work. I'm ahead of schedule, financially this year, where are we going? Who do we want to be? What do we want our house to feel like?

And right now this debt is scared me to death. I would love for you to be a nurse because you could be a nurse into your 70s. And a, I will take parts of nursing away, but it won't take the human contact away. Like that's a thing y'all, she could do for a long, long, long time. And maybe we can't afford that for the next two years.

Let's settle into this full bottomy job or whatever for two years. But support is, I'm going to be honest to put everything on the table and let's co, create a vision together. Hey, guys, healthcare is one of the biggest stress points in your budget. It's confusing and most of the time it feels completely out of your control.

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Hey Nick. How can we help today? Hey guys. I just wanted to call first off, big fan of the show thanks taking my call. Just listen to it all the time.

So the reason I'm calling is I'm the small business owner I've got about nine employees

“now and my main guy is a great guy, works hard, shows up every day but I think just made”

a lot of poor decisions when he was younger and getting started. He's only about probably 28, 29 years old. He's got four young kids, I remember he was buying some vehicles from some used dealerships and probably paying $10 and not getting good interest rates and probably spending more than what he should have out of the get over the last several years.

He's came to me and said hey I'm sure I'm not going to be able to make my house payment, I'm not going to be able to make my car payment, can I borrow some money?

I've always went in money just slowly took it out of this check as the weeks and months

went on after that. He's at a point now where him and his family are down to one vehicle. The other he has a loan on that vehicle. He has a loan on two other vehicles that he doesn't even own anymore. He had to turn them in the pit to give them back to the bank because they were broke down. How do you know this? Well, when he keeps going to me for money all the time, I feel bad and I'm like what's

going on? Oh, yeah, I'm like you work your butt, you work your butt off every week, man, like you work six hours a week. What do you think is going on? If you really, I mean not in a gossipy way,

“but if you just had to say like you know what I think, dad, dad, dad, dad, what do you”

think's going on over that?

Well, I think part of the problem is, and that may not be a problem, but I think he's a person

who's just not really motivated by money. It doesn't, you know, doing anything for maybe some people who are just like that. That's right. He's pretty laid back, so it doesn't really bother him. I don't, and that's the thing, and that's honestly why I'm calling because the last thing I want to do is that employers get between one of my guys and their significant other. Like, I don't want that at all.

months, and I'm just helping, and you know, I actually bought him a truck. I bought him a

“used truck to let him, and I just gifted it to him, you know, so he titled it and everything,”

and now that's having some problems, and you're not, you're not helping. You're not helping anymore Nick. I just got to cut the cord.

Well, my, my, my good buddy, Henry Cloud, he wrote a great book, but one of the first

stories in the book is a family that came and they had a young adult kid who kept asking for money and asking for money, and they, you know, the family came to him as a psychologist and said, "Hey, how do we help our kid?" And he said, "The greatest gift you can give your kid is some problems." And that sounds heartless, right? But for a guy that doesn't care about money, he's going to care about having a roof over his family's head, and until he

feels that, and you keep bailing him out. And by the way, you're, you're, you're making it worse for him to come to work every day, and this sounds kind of too to because you're not just his boss. Now you're his bank. And that Shane, he feels every day, he feels that

he even heavier. Yeah, that's, that's eventually going to lead to one or two things. He's

either going to leave, leave the company because he can't handle it, and you're going to cut him off. And so he's either going to be mature and go, "Yeah, that feels right." And that's good. And he's going to keep working there, or he's going to go, "I can't believe this guy cut me off, and he's going to leave." And he's going to blame you for his bad decisions. Let me ask you this, brother. It's rare in my world where somebody is great in every aspect of their life,

except for one sliver. I have to believe that a guy that handles his personal finances this way, that handles his wholeness way, his marriage, his kids this way, that has to impact your business. Yes, that's true. I'm sorry, say that one more time. So it's very rare in my world that somebody has everything in their life together professionally, and just when they get home, everything's a dumpster fire. This has to lead, bleed into his work, right? Maybe not. I mean, I run a small construction company,

so he's directed by me every day. I mean, he knows what to do and under my guidance and supervision

“and he has a good job. And I think it's a little bit of, you know, to be honest, I almost think he likes”

coming to work, because it's a little bit of a break, probably what's going on there. I feel two things, one, you know, I don't like seeing somebody work that hard and, you know, struggling at that point, especially, I rely on this guy. I mean, this is my main guy. And but at the same time, I, I just, I'm like, well, you can't get to work. Have you tried me now? Yeah. Have you tried gifting him the gift of knowledge versus money? Have you tried, you know, getting him on with

some of the Ramsey products or anything like that? Financial peace. I should, I should probably

try to do that and push that a little more. I've always been very cautious. I try not to ask too much.

I try to just kind of stick to the, you know, I just don't want to get, I don't want to get to personal. I don't want to seem like I'm pushing. Yeah, you've been, when somebody comes and asks you for money to pay their rent, it's personal now. I get that. I just, I understand what you're saying. Yeah. We've already ventured into that. I mean, at this point, if I, if I were in your shoes today,

“and I think this is where we're at with this call, yeah, I'd probably, I wouldn't wait for him to”

approach you again. I would approach him and I'd say, you know what, I've been thinking about your situation and I think I made a mistake. I, I really wanted to help, and I gifted you money, and I did all this. I think that was the wrong move on my part. I really should have shared with you some of the things that have really helped me. And that's a great on route for you to say, you know, here's the plan. I follow, here's a great podcast. I even, you know, here's every dollar.

I was able to get you this one to get you started. And, and, and use the line that we use with folks, say, if I give you, if I give you, if I give you this, will you do it? If I give you this financial piece and this every dollar, will you promise me, if I, if I give you the total money makeover, will you read this book and, and, and, and pose it to him like that and just say, man, I don't want to see you struggle. I, I'm, I'm grateful that you shared with me what's going on, but I don't think

me giving you money is the answer anymore. And I'm not, I can't keep doing that, but I can't give you this. And then that way, you're helping him, but you're also pushing him out, like, don't, don't come over here. Yeah, it would be for money. The great solutions even has a HR benefit called smart dollar, which is, which is, which is, giant companies use and small businesses use it, but it's a way to teach employees. A close friend of mine is the CFO of a, a landscaping business. And he realized

every month. And so they got smart dollar for the team. And it's like, hey, as a company, we're

“all going to do this. We're going to learn these, these principles, but you've got some great”

data, which is, I've given you a truck, I've given you money multiple times. That's not helping. And so I'm going to stop doing something that's not helping. And I can help you here. And hang on the line, we'll send you a copy of Total Money Makeover. I'll send you a year of every dollar. We'll send you the Digital Financial Peace University product. We'll send that to you. And you can just turn around and give it to him if you like to. But man, you've made it personal

by getting into his finances. And so when somebody comes and asks me for one time help,

done, easy. Somebody could come and back and say, can I borrow some more money? Can I borrow some

more money? Can I borrow some more money? We're going to have a deeper conversation, a bigger conversation. Well, yeah, because at that point, it's what we would tell anybody, it's a, it's symptoms of a bigger problem. It's a systemic issue. Yeah. And putting a bandaid on it, it's, it just,

“it does not work. And I think that enabling calls are probably some of the toughest calls we deal with,”

because you do. You want to help as a, as a human being, if you're, you know, any sort of conviction inside of you. Yeah, you have a post. You feel guilty and you want to help when you see somebody else hurting, you want to help them carry that burden. Like, that's just who we are as people. I think we just have to be careful of how we do that and make sure that we're not making it worse. Yeah. And rarely is throwing money at a problem. The solution. If somebody needs to eat today,

done throwing money at that problem will solve it. They'll get a meal today or a place to stay tonight. Like, 100% I'm all about that. But if somebody keeps coming back and coming back, the greatest way to help somebody is to peel, get this back up 30,000 feet. And if somebody's

struggling, they got two cars they're paying on that they don't even have anymore in a third car,

plus the car that you gave them is falling up. Man, you got bigger issues. It may be that, as his employer, hey, I'm going to pay for 10 counseling sessions for you in your spouse. I'll cover that. And I love that. Or all pay for 10 financial coaching sessions or something with ramsy, but man, yeah, I would not loan somebody I care about money. All these would give it to them or we're going to have a bigger conversation.

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because I'm trying to get my husband down board and we have three mortgages. Whoa, we're a little bit over there. On the same house for three different houses. Well, two houses in there in a mobile home, the best one. Okay, so tell us how much you owe on each house and what it's worth and do the same for the mobile home. Okay, Tennessee home is 147,000. And it's worth probably like 340 mobile home probably worth 60 worth of water in Iowa. Okay, we probably owe 63.

Iowa main home primary home now. We owe 2, 50, 7 is probably worth 2, 90. So you can sell your Tennessee home in a state you don't live in clear both your debts today. Technically, but his family member lives there. So he didn't want to sell. But that sounds like his family doesn't have a problem. I don't want to be, I don't want to be cruel. That's not, I know that sounds cruel. What why, why are

Well, they pay your rent so it's the rental to them now so they do cover that one. How long's the

lease for? It's yearly they want to do longer and it helps of purchasing it. So, well, that's not an option. But I'm just saying like what's the lease the, the immediate lease for? Tell September. September. So what's your big question, how can we help? So he's also had five different jobs within the past year because we had to move back Iowa because my mom has to mention and to help the her care. So if he does a like a job, he quits and get another one. It makes more than I do

from work because I work for job that doesn't pay as well. What do you make? So I made 41 or five from work. He makes about 62 four due to his pay decrease and then we have money that

“come in from our military service. So how much is that? How much do you get from that?”

Probably about 70. Okay, so what's your month look like on a monthly basis? How much are you bringing in?

On the low end, 125 on the high end, if we include like the rental income, back child support that I received and other miscellaneous, it could be about 18,000. Okay, so there's, there's a lot going on here. You know, when you call to your like, oh man, we're a mess. And it's actually doesn't, it's not as bad as I feel like it sounds. I think you guys have a lot of money coming in. It just sounds like there's disorganization. You've got the income there and you've

got assets that you can sell to really simplify this really quickly. I think you just feel disorganized and unorganized. So what I would do if I were in your shoes is come September, I would let that family

member know. And as few words possible, basically, we've got to simplify our life and part of that

means we've got to sell this property. And so in September, when the lease is up, you'll have to move out. And I know that you had dreams of maybe buying this place. And if you want to buy it in September, fine, but we're going to have to put it on the market because we've got to get our our life together. Right. And so I would say that. And then, you know, that's there's $193,000 an equity there

“that you need to get your hands on. I think I missed it when you said the mobile home was worth”

$60, did you say, you owe $63 on it? I owe $63. I am not exactly sure how much it's where if it's a 2025, like I just bought it last year. Okay. Who do you buy it for? He, uh, who do you buy it for? Um, it was for us. So we were renting and then across the rent and then I thought it'll be easier just to purchase that because with our cash flow when he was making more money, it just seemed like I could easily pay that off quickly and then just. And then he quit his job

and you all went and bought another house? He didn't quit his job. So he was living in Tennessee. I was living in Iowa, so we were living in two states because I had to get here quickly to help live on mother's care. Rent in our area is still high for which paying for homes and stuff like that. So to me, it makes sense to just be paying rent. I was like, I'll rather waste it on a mobile home. Okay. So, but you don't need anymore. I know I'm for that. So he, so then I just got the mobile home at my

name right now. Our son that's in college here and then our older son they live in the mobile home

“right now. Your son's trying to get their life together. Yeah. Okay. So at how old are the sons?”

One is 20 and one is, um, well, once 21, once 19. Okay. So what I would do with the sons are do they have jobs? One is on medical leave for work and then the other one he's a college student. So he doesn't have a job. So I would say to the sons I'd say again, same, same narrative. Your dad and I, we've got, we're trying to get organized, we're trying to get our financial life together. We've made a couple mistakes. Part of writing that, writing those mistakes is we've

got to sell this mobile home. Um, and so your options are you can hang out, you can move back in with us for a couple of months and then you've got to figure out an apartment or if you're going to live on campus. And that would be what I said, and you've got to get a job so that you can fund an apartment for especially for the 21 year old. For the 19 year old, yeah, you can extend. I think you can extend more grace there. But you can't, uh, you can't keep this, this mobile home that's going

down and value every single day that you have it. That really, I don't think if you sat down, uh, let's pretend that you were just living in the Iowa house. You didn't have the Tennessee house. You didn't have a mobile home. You're just living in your house as it is now. I don't think you'd go, you know what? The boys need some place to live. Let's buy them a mobile home. I don't think

we'll help with an apartment, right? I think your train of thought probably would have been down a different line. And so what I want to challenge you to do is be very intentional about what stays in your life by default versus what you actually want it to look like. And right now there's things in your life by default, the trailers there by default, the Tennessee house is there by default,

“right? So that's what we're trying to do to get organized and go, this is not actually what I want.”

Let's get that out of here. Let's get the next thing out here and then let's take that money and actually pay down some debt and create some security for ourselves. So it seems like your two hard conversations away from cleaning up your life. But it seems like you're all doing a lot of gymnastics to get around those two uncomfortable conversations. And in the process you're making your own marriage really uncomfortable, right? Yes, he doesn't agree with so in the Tennessee house,

like he's fine with keeping it. So like creating a plan paid off. Again, ask him the question I asked you. I want you to go, this, this is your homework. You have two pieces of homework for me. The first homework is look on Kelly blue book or look, however you sell campers or trailers, find out what the thing is worth and get it on the market. That's a piece of homework number one. Homework number two is I want you to pose the same question I pose to you to your husband and say, hey, let's just

pretend for a minute. Let's be intentional in an effort to be intentional. Let's pretend that

we were just here in Iowa. We never had a house in Tennessee. We never had that. And we thought to ourselves,

let's let's buy a rental. Would we on purpose look in another state, specifically Tennessee,

“and choose to buy a rental there with the intent of a family member moving there? Would we choose that?”

And just wait and see what he says because I guarantee the answer is no. And that's going to help him see that this happened by default, which means we don't have to stay there. We can make changes and do things on purpose. [Music] When you're drowning in credit card debt and collector start threatening lawsuits,

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Today's question comes from melody in Connecticut. She writes, "I've been married for over 40

years and I've always managed our household finances by myself. When we were young and broke,

it was my responsibility to worry about budgeting for groceries, bills, and need to be paid etc." My husband recently retired and opened up a separate savings account solely for his social security deposits. I do not have access to those funds, so my paycheck now has to cover the mortgage utilities, car payment, and all his incidental spending. He never asks if we have enough money to cover his purchases. Jade, I'm getting pissed off. I need to. He just expects my paycheck

to be enough. How do I get him to understand that without his income? I can't cover everything now. My gut tells me, "Tell him we don't have enough money to make the bills, but my gut also tells

people's speaking actions and the pictures. What is it? Yeah, we think in pictures, but we speak

and I mean, we speak in words that we think in pictures. Yeah, but his actions are speaking very

“easier. Yeah, behavioral language. That's what it was. He has said, "I don't care and I care so”

less that I am going to separate myself from the whole over here and do my own thing on the side." And by the way, that's what I'm getting from this. He did that 40 years ago. When he said, "I'm care, you figured out." And he's left you to manage the whole house, like a coward for 40 years. I don't want to deal with reality. That's your job. I'll go make the money. And then the day he retired, he's like, "Cool, this is mine now." Yeah. I mean, she's right to be concerned about that.

She's right to be frustrated by that. Now, frustrated concern that. She's right to be in rage by that. Yeah, thank you. You're right. I was being light by that. Yeah. Gosh, Jade, here's a thing. I speak to so many men who are awesome. And they are busted it on behalf of their families and their spouses and their kids and guys who are going to counseling for the first time in 30 years and guys who are patching stuff up with their dads and their aging parents. When I read these, I get overly mad.

Oh, yeah. Because it's such a coward, unmasculine, unbrave way to do life, to just cash out of your own life and put all of this on your wife as you've done for 40, freaking years. Melody, I hate to tell you

this, but you have a spouse that doesn't care. Doesn't care about the stress your under has never

cared for almost a decade. I mean, almost half a century doesn't care that you don't, your math doesn't line up. He wants to do everything he wants to do. Doesn't care for whatever. And this is going to sell petty. I don't know a way outside of an honest conversation. Hey, let's look at the bills together. And I'm assuming you've done that. I don't know another way to deal with this kind of thing. Then to deposit the money in your account and start ventmoing him or starting asking for

“him to pay bills. Because that's how he's living anyway. Yeah. Yeah. I want to ask something to”

you, John, about this because I think we get a lot of calls. And this at this point is going beyond the Y ReFi question. Because we get calls all the time where A spouse feels this type of situation where another spouse has really just separated themselves has kind of just walled off in a certain area, whether it's, they keep all the money to themselves or they're, you know, keeping money

to the side or whatever that is. And you can always tell that this has been a pattern that's been

going on for a long time. And when I hear that, I'm filtering it through. Oh my gosh, if Sam Warsaw ever tried it, like it'd be unsolved with you. It'd be texted me in the middle of the night saying, hey, we need to hide about it. Exactly. Exactly. And so what I want you to answer, John, in a, in a, in a tactful way is how much of this is, um, it's easy to point out that in this case, the husband and go, I can't believe he's doing that. Oh my gosh, this guy, this guy, this guy,

but how much of it is the other spouse who's been allowing a certain type of behavior to persist, like, where does that pendulum fall on what we allow versus what we get? At the end of the day, and this is the hardest thing about talking about marriage, the only person you can control is you. And so yes, it's easy to look back and to say, for 40 years, you have made me dot dot dot. The honest thing is, for 40 years, I have chosen to carry all of this weight for the house.

But you're participating. I've participated and that feels like victim-shaming and blah, what I want people to hear that as is an empowerment. Yeah. I chose this. I wish I hadn't chosen it, but I did. I won't choose this any longer. And so no matter what you're going through, there will come a moment, a loss of a spouse, a loss of a child, a horrific incident at work,

“whatever, a loss of a job. At some point, the question emerges, what are you going to do now?”

Yeah. And if you get to that question and you immediately start to loop over again, but they did, and then you're just going to spin your life on the on the on the rent cycle. At some point, Melita, say, okay, what am I going to do now? Am I going to keep doing this for the next 20 years of our marriage until I die? And resent the last 20 years? Or am I going to make a change now? And that change may cost you the image of the marriage you think you've been

propping up for half a century. Right. It may be that this guy has been out for years and you're just going to make it concrete. It may be that when he realizes, this is kind of, I'm kind of lame.

Yeah, I'm sorry. I didn't realize how bad it was or whatever. And Melita has to be honest about

has she blown things out of proportion for 40 years. And we sure, we have any money. We do, right? Yeah. And he's just like whatever. And so all that comes into effect. But your question is a good one. Everyone who comes to me and say, hey, I want to work on our communication and marriage. What they're asking me is, how do I get my spouse to do it? I want them to do. And so it's like, we need to learn how to fight. It is how do I get them to do? I want them to do it. Yep. The hardest

“question, the hardest answer I always give is you can't make them do anything. The only thing you can”

do is be the best version of yourself in your marriage. And that means I got to be honest about what I participated in and I got to be real honest about what I'm going to do next. Period. I wish it was

more complex than that. And I know that's, it's simple, but it's very complicated. I wish it was more,

it was harder than that. It's that simple for Melita. And, and I also think there's got to be, if you truly want to be happy and I'll add this on and you can tell me if I'm wrong. You also have to do what you're going to do without an expectation from them. Because you can't go, I'm going to put it in simple terms. If you're like, man, I wish my spouse would be more servant harder towards me. So all the time you're like, would you like a glass of water? Would you like me, right? You're doing

all these extra things hoping they'll do it back? I hope there's an ROI on it. Yeah. And then when they don't, now you're still getting like reasonable and angry on the inside. So it's almost like you have to do right just for you without the expectation. So you can feel like if the incomes, I know I did all I can do and I did. I tell couples all the time who are thinking about getting divorced, give yourself six months to be the best version of yourself. And that's the person who

is looking past the dirty laundry to say, hey, I saw how hard you're working at work. Thank you for being in this house. That is the person who looks past the extra 10 pounds or the past the the graph or the I roll. Give yourself a chance if you're sitting at a divorce in a divorce attorney hearing that you know I showed up as the best version of myself. And if you can do that and your spouse says, I'm not interested in being married to you. Wow. It's going to make it hard. Yeah.

But you'll have inner peace because I did the best I could. You'll know. Don't show up to the table being like, well, yeah, I did do whatever. So and almost every time when two people decide I'm going to be the best version of myself so I can be in total service to my spouse and they do it back. Ain't going anywhere near a divorce office, right? Because you know, building the life you want to have, building the marriage you want. And the hard part with all of this is when you

truly are the best version of yourself, you're doing the best you can. That is so vulnerable. It's scary. Because you're putting yourself out there every day. And your spouse may say, don't care. Don't care. Don't don't notice. Don't care. And, but I'll tell you this, when you're going as is, let me go back to like something as silly as high school sports. It's easy to be like, well, if I had just worked out, I would have been fast,

whatever. It's scary to put all the work in and still be seventh place, right? But you you stop running because you're like, that's as best as I can do, right? I did my best and so melody,

“ask yourself, not, what does he get? Ask yourself. What am I going to do now?”

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“Mark is in Fort Myers, Florida, on the line. What's up, Mark? How can we help today?”

Hey, John. How are you guys doing all right? Great. The reason I'm calling is my father and mother-in-law.

and that was speaking with my wife, they were going to be out of money in about 20 months. How do you know? It was in big spenders. I know this because my wife was actually a financial

planner. She finally just took over for them. They never wanted to use her in the past, and now they

have, and now she's got all the information. Anyway, they've always been big spenders. They've never paid off their mortgage in all their bigger than years, and now it's not looking so good. So I'm really just fearful that they're going to come to us in time and need financial help. So I'm just not sure how to really navigate that.

“So I think it's a great question. Let's just, you and your wife get together and run the”

exercise. They call us. What are we going to say? Because you can't control them. The only person and you can control this equation is you. So assume they're going to call and ask for money

and have a pre-agree upon message from you and your wife as to what we will and will not support.

Do you think your wife and you do agree on what that message should be? Mark? We do. And we have talked about it. Her and I on completed agreement. I think the most frustrating part is that he, so they move into a community and he's on the HIV board. And he's working almost 40 hours a week, not being paid. Yeah, but you can control that. Yeah, your compassion is real, dude. And I want to honor your compassion for your father-in-law.

But what you're doing is you're taking his choices and in potential future issues and you're dragging them into your present and you're the one dealing with them. Or as they say in a NAA, you're drinking poison hoping he gets sick. You know what I mean? And so what I'm not going to do with the precious time I have with my wife on this planet is spend time worrying about other people's decisions, especially if we've already aligned on our our response to the consequences of

their decisions or the potential consequences, right? That's the anxiety is grabbing a potential outcome in the future into the present and trying to solve it now. That's just it's just a recipe to ruin today. It doesn't solve any of their activities or actions, right? And so yeah, he's making idiotic choices. He's making bad choices with his money and he's using he's trying to build reputation in his local community. Hey, I get that. If he just moved to a new place, he wants to be on the

in crowd and get to know, I get that. And also he can't afford to do that, right? But if y'all are already aligned on what your response will be, you've gone further than most married couples do, so I applaud you for that man. Now your choice is to look at your wife and say, hey, what kind of fun can we have today? I don't know the other option other than just to choose misery on a problem that you can't solve. Well, I'm curious, your your wife is, you know, they've given over the information

to your wife. She's helping them. Surely she is said to them, here's what I'm finding. You got 20

“months left. And I'm sure she's made some suggestions. How have they reacted to that?”

Yeah, she has. And he just keeps saying, oh, I have a plan. And we're like, but what's the plan? Dude, like, you're not telling us. And so we just don't really know. How old are they? Um, he is 69 and she is the wife is like 60. Okay. Are they with it? Like, are they as everything's still full capacity? Is it possible that they have money or assets that you guys don't know about? If they say, if he says, I have a plan or I'm fine. Yeah, there's the other

side. What if you just trusted him? Cool. They got a plan. Yeah, I guess you're right. I'm here to think of anything. You get to do anything that you're thinking right now is a story you're making up. Right. Right. And so let's let's deal with a potential bad story and let's choose to make up the most positive version of this story. That's not being poly Anna. That's not being in denial. That's just saying I get to choose which one of these things I meditate on every day. One of the

stories that I make up is going to let me sleep a little bit better. And the other story is killing me. It's going to give me a stroke. And it's not going to change his financial habits at all. Dude, I totally get your frustration. I mean, I get it deeper than you can possibly imagine.

“I won't talk about it on the air here. And um, at some point, you have to decide I'm not going”

to strangle myself and lose oxygen here over a problem. I can't solve. I will have an answer for what comes. And so be it. Jay, we're just talking about the self air. If you and I and all of our

this message, you can only control you. That's it. I think I literally think the world changes.

“Absolutely. And I don't say that in a, in a, every man from self, but like take care of your house,”

take care of you and take care of the problems that are already in your lap. Don't create new ones and drag them into your lap. And if other people want to go do wild stuff, I don't like it. I hate it for them. I hate it for us, but I can't do anything about it. You don't have to attach yourself to it or it doesn't have to become the conversation that you guys circle around every one over and over and over. Yeah. And maybe once a week, all right, 30 minutes. Let's just get

all out. Oh, we just rag out of how could they do this? Yeah, yeah. Okay. And then we're done.

Let's go there. I love it. Thanks for the call mark. I wish it were different. Let's go to Scott and St. Louis, Missouri. What's going on Scott? I have you doing. What's up, right? Excellent.

“Let us have it. Okay. So, I'm in this predicament where my friend from Clim America, I just started”

by him, Roth, IRA, you know, with him. Yeah. And he's telling me that, okay, so I have an investment property in Las Vegas and I have a house here in St. Louis. I want to sell the investment property in Las Vegas and I'll come out with about 250,000. I want to pay off all right. The only two debts I have left are my Jeep and my house here in St. Louis. Okay. I can pay them off and the, you know, Scott free, step seven, you know, on top of the world. Yes. You know, but my year,

he's telling me I'm the stupis guy in the world because my mortgage rate is only 2.85. Get a new financial advisor, dude. All right. Get a new one. He's, he's forgotten that there are different, there, there's multiple components of money, right? We get caught up on the dollars and

“cents. We all know about numbers. Then there's the behaviors you need to budget, you need to avoid”

that. And then there's the emotional sense. And we talked about this earlier, so much of money is emotional. It's how we want to feel. We want to be free. We want peace. It's who we are. He doesn't have to deal with your peace. He wants the arbitrage. He doesn't make any money. If you're not investing the gap to him. He has served. Yeah. He wants to give me a, but he says, take that 250, put it towards in a, some kind of a new one. Dude, fire him today.

Today. Today. Today. Okay. Today. We're done. Because here's the thing.

Bro, I'm telling you, I've been on both sides of this equation. When you sleep in a house, that nobody can take from you, yes, I will pay 3% in what I call a sleep tax on what my mortgage it. My interest rate is versus when I could be theoretically getting in the, in the market, I will pay that sleep tax every day of the week because no one could take my house. And that's awesome. Thank you, sir. Yes. I love that. And there's really love that. And there's the other

part of it where if we do want to get into some facts and data we can, we've done the largest study of millionaires here at Ramsey. There, there's so much time was put into this study. And we found that when we look at millionaires, baby steps of millionaires, net worth millionaires, whatever you want to call them, it was clear that these people, they valued paying off their houses. They paid for their homes, their home residences. They were, they were

maybe purchased with a mortgage, but it was a priority to pay them off to where they had that ownership. They had that piece. And so that's something that we know. It's not just an emotional thing. It shows itself in the numbers as well when we look at everyday millionaires. And this is what I love about Smart Vester Pros. You tell them what your goals are and they lock arms with you to accomplish your goals. They don't call you stupid and try to sell you a product.

[Music] We talked about it on our last call with Scott, but if you need help with investing, you need a good Smart Vester Pro in your corner. Someone who's going to listen to you. Right? They're not going to sit back there and tell you that what you're doing to stupid and not explain it to you. You don't want that. Our Smart Vester Pros are registered investment

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which one you want to work with. Go to ramsysolutions.com/martvester to find an investing pro near you. Or if you're listening on YouTube or podcast, go ahead and click that link in the description. Hey real quick. So we were talking about this off air with Brother Scott there for that last

color. I like that dude. I did too. I always wanted to be compassionate here. So I want to put my

self in the seat of his financial advisor. And I have a client that comes and says, hey, I'm going to, I'm going to sell a rental property that's in another state. And I'm going to get $250,000 of equity. I want to pay off my house and pay off my G. And it's a logical question. What's your interest in your house? $2.9? Yeah. Okay. I can get you the market returns the last two years of in 23%. It can feel financially foolish to do that. Yes. And if you're looking at a calculator,

I want to honor that investment. Got on the other side of the table. You're right. Yes. You're right. And I think that's where if you are walking in to sit with a financial professional, whether it's somebody you found in the yellow, the yellow pages. Because

“I'm 180-year-old that you found online or a smart investor. I think it's important to come in and say,”

until I don't owe anybody anything, I'm solving for peace. And then we'll start solving for return.

And I get what you're saying. I appreciate it. By the way, I will never, ever, ever, ever put my money

in an annuity. I know that you make more money on that. I'm not going to do it. But I do, I do get. There is a math problem here where you think what I'm doing is foolish. And math, medically. I'll even agree with you. That's right. That's right. That's for me. My house for solving for peace. We're solving for not going anybody anything. And then we'll start playing the calculator games. Yeah, John, I'm glad that you said that because that is so true. When that guy called in,

and he said, "Yeah, my investor wants me to do this." My first brain goes to, "Well, yeah, like there's a lot worse you could do with that money." And I want to remind people listening, we have a method that works. And we have a way of thinking around here. And it's not just numbers.

We're always factoring in the person. We're factoring in who you are and how you want to feel.

Yeah. Right. And that's been a theme throughout the show, even just today, where we're trying to solve for people's freedom. We're trying to solve for their peace. And that goes beyond mathematical equations. Math is certainly a part of it. Numbers, of course. We're talking about money. Behavior is part of it. We talked about that before. And the emotional part is also very, very real. So when you sign up for the Ramsey Plan, yes, we're giving you a series of seven baby

steps. Yes, we're telling you to budget. Yes, we're telling you to live on less than you make. But it's also that. And it's so that you can have, it's not just building wealth, but it's having this life of peace. And it's being able to give like no one else so later you can give and live like no one else. Like that's the whole part of it. And so peace is at the core of that every single time. And so you're going to hear that theme throughout the show and we answer people's questions.

All right, I love that discussion. But now we're going to get to Jen who's in Scranton,

“Scranton, Pennsylvania. How can we help Jen? Hi, John and Jade. How are you guys doing?”

Excellent. Ridiculous. We're running a scam called a podcast. It's the best. That's funny. That's funny. Well, I'm hoping that you can help my husband and I settle a disagreement. Yes, my favorite. Yeah. I think you guys are disagreeing just I like this type of call. Awesome. Our question is should we be on the hook for part of the student loan debt that our son accrued due to that advice that he received from us when he started college when we are ourselves

did it know any better about taking student loan. Great question. So why didn't you take out the student loans back in the day? Yes, we did. And I don't even think he was really ready to go to college initially. So he changed his major a couple times. And there's some health issues thrown in there. As well. So he's racked up about $60,000. Luckily he's graduating in June with a bachelor of science and supply chain logistics and transportation management. He's job searching. I don't know if he's

necessarily the most motivated to job search right now. He is working full-time. But I don't know.

“I think morally because we gave him the battered by someone kind of pushed him to go to college before”

he was ready. I kind of feel like we're on the hook morally for that. My husband, he's been in the trade. He never had any student loan debt. I myself, what I am a teacher. So I have a master's

But so I thought that, you know, our son was just doing the normal thing. Yeah. So do you have

“graduates of the big question as money? You'll have, could you write him a check for 30 grand today?”

No. So here's a here's the deal. We're graduate to financial piece university. We're currently finishing baby step two. We're going to have $113,000 of consumer debt paid off by June. This is going to happen. Yeah. This is coming June. Yeah. We're just, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we're really close. Thank you. Um, so I don't know. What do you guys think? Can we at the point help them pay it back? All right. I want to say something mean. Okay. Is that cool? Okay. Yeah. That's totally cool.

And my husband's here. I hear that with me, too. Oh, no. What's your husband's name? His name is Mike. All right, Mike. We hear you on the line. Time in at any time. Okay. So here's, I had this conversation a lot with folks who call the show and they want to go into ministry. And they went and got a degree in something and not necessarily dumb thing. They got a degree in business and they took out 70 grand and they called they say quote unquote, I feel like I'm being

called to the ministry, right? Or I want to go do this other thing. And what I always tell folks is

“you dug yourself a hole that you have to with integrity refill before you start living into,”

that's why we told people to don't go into debt, right? Because then you're faced with these moral dilemmas and you regardless of if you think you morally have an obligation to your son, you don't have any money. And so you can't. And it might be something that you sit down with your son and you say, hey, we're this old and we're still wrestling with debt. We want to walk along side you. And so in five years or in ten years, if you've paid off this much, we'll be in a position

to help you. This is like something like that. The Jade Nye made us a great. I like the way you're thinking.

I wouldn't make it so caustic as you if you like it's not a moral failure. But I do love the

Maya Angelou quote, like, do the best you can and when you learn more, do better, right? Like change what you know. And so I like that you are going, oh gosh, we told you to do this. And by the way, growing up in Houston, Texas, where it's a thousand degrees, when I was a kid playing soccer, like six, seven year old, we were not allowed to drink water during athletic events because the prevailing science was, it would give you cramps, witty orange slices, right? It's madness. And

my ears didn't know any better. None of the parents did. And so we'd be like, I need some water. I'm dying and they're like, no water. It's bad for you, right? And so as a parent, you do the best you can. And then when you know better, then you sit down your kids and say, man, I mess this up. And so here's the next thing going forward. And so when it comes to money, man, yeah, your your kid took your advice. And now he's sixty grin in the hole. And yeah, I think it's right

for you to say, hey, we gave you bad advice. We don't have any money. We're working to dig this thing out. And we're going to like, man, the quicker you can get this paid off to be awesome. And if we get the position where you can help you, we're going to. And I would. I'd treat it like the baby steps. You know, you pay off your debt, save up the three to six months, start investing. And when you get

“to baby step five, if you want to say instead of putting money towards a five twenty nine,”

which is what we would and should have done, we're going to put that towards the debt payments. And help you run this thing back. I actually really love that idea because that's probably what you would have done if you had a little bit more time, right? You would have put a certain amount of side every single month to put towards his education. And it's not too late to do that. It's just going to have a little interest on the side. And probably he didn't just take out loans

just for tuition room and board. He probably took out the full loans and had his fund too, right? And so some of that, he needs to have some skin in the game too, I think. Also, I don't know that you need to swoop in with $60,000 and wipe the clean. But I like the idea of you saying, hey, we gave you bad advice. And so we're going to be a part of paying the paper on this, but he has to have some skin in the game too.

Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Wins Credit Union Studio. I'm Jade, this is John, and we're going back to the phone lines where we have Mark and Charleston, South Carolina. Hey, Mark, how are you? Good. How are you? Do you know how can John and I help? So I was really close to, I was $300 away from being financially or a debt free aside from

debt back. So I'm currently including House and Corps. I'm 169 in the holes with about $20,000 in personal debts. And the mother of my child cheated on me with the whip with a guy that she was employed with four and sent me back down to an unholy lifestyle. Should say, can we, can we, um, as we dig out of this and Jade's going to give you

“an ironclad path, okay? Okay. But here's where I want to start with it, okay?”

Yeah. A real bad thing happened. And what is my end going to be? And it's my responsibility. I want you to own, I went and chose to handle this bad thing in

these ways. I did, yes. Okay. So there's no doubt about that. Okay. That ownership is critical for

the next step. Yeah. Right. And so man, I hate that attitude. I wouldn't wish that on anybody. I hate that happen to you. And I hate that like your default setting was I'm going to go run back and make a bunch of bad decisions and unhealthy decisions and here I am. And so that sense of ownership will be what gets you out of this mess. Cool. Yeah. All right. Cool. Same team. Um, so let's spread it out because I do think that mentally it helps when, and this is for anybody. When you're

“listing out your debt smallest to largest, baby step two, which is the step that we pay off consumer”

debt, it is just that it's consumer debt. And so let's leave the mortgage out of it for a moment and that's going to help you mentally to get your head around what the task at hand is. So can you tell me what your debt is a side from the mortgage? Uh, 65,911. Okay. And I want you to list out what those are for now. They don't need to be smallest to largest. Just list out what they are. Oh, the other are. Um, so like tell me how much the car is, tell me how much is on credit cards. Maybe tell me how

much is personal loans that sort of deal. Okay. So, um, the car I have 37178, um, personal loans that are right now passed due. Okay. Um, are 18 to eight. Okay. And then the rest are all in collections, which is $10,444. Okay. So the good news is I see a couple of things right away that we can do to get you some quick wins because when you're in baby step two, paying off the consumer debt,

“it's all about quick wins. That's how you maintain, uh, just feeling good about it, right? Thank you.”

I was looking for the word. That's how you maintain momentum. And that's for anybody listening. So whenever you have debts and collections, that can feel terrible because you've overdue it in their blown up your line. 1,800 payments call on you. But the good news is now you have bargaining power. And so instead of paying 10,400, you're going to pay like 30% of this. And so you're going to

save up your first number one goal is okay. Let me just instead of paying them a bunch of small

payments or coming up with a payment plan, I'm going to meet my other minimum payments. And I'm going to stack up any other margin that I can for a little while. And I'm going to save up, I don't know, three or four thousand dollars. And then I'm going to call them up and I'm going to settle all of these individually for cash. And I'm looking for 20 to 30% of the actual, what to do. So if you have one that's four thousand dollars, you can offer them 200, 200, 300 and see if they'll take it. Do you

see what I'm saying? Okay. And when you do that, you want to make sure you get the deal in writing before you pay. Don't give them access to your checking account. And you want to make sure it's

in writing first. And they will do it. They have the means to do that. So if you talk to someone

on the line that says, well, I don't know if I can do it. Yes, you can hang up and call it an ex person. Okay. So you're going to have to, that's going to be, that's going to feel like a full-time job to do that. But trust me, it's going to be worth it. You're going to save $7,000 doing it that way. Okay. So that's homework number one. Homework number two that I see right off the bat is this car. So it's 37,000. Do you happen to know offhand what it's worth? Probably around 35.

Love that for you. You're sweet. Okay. So you have a couple of options. I don't know what your income is. Tell me what your income is. So reliably my, so I'm, I'm going to be a disability reliably. It is $4,000 and $80. Okay. And what is it unreliably? unreliably. It can vary from six to seven

Okay. What did you from getting a full-time job? Like even at Home Depot. Well, it, it

well, it kind of is my full-time job. So my, my, the mother of my son and I, we share custody and the days I have him. I don't work. And that's only due to lack of support right now. But hopefully, my parents, my parents and I have found an opportunity for them to move down here to where I'm at. And they can help out. So after that then I could turn this side hustle into a full-time business operation. Okay. What does this child care look like? Like when you held your son.

He's five. So is he in school? He goes to school right now. But he only goes to school for three hours a day because he's in early childhood development. Yeah. He had autism. Okay. Okay. So for now, and I know

“you're working on that. But just for today, we'll say that I think that the best thing for you to do right now”

is to save up the margin from your four to six thousand dollars and do this debt collection's deal. And in the meantime, yeah, I'm going to go over to the credit union. And I'm going to say, hey, I need a $7,000 loan. And 2000 of that is going to go to meet the difference on this car. And then the other five thousand is so that you can get a junker and cash to keep yourself going. Maybe you spend six thousand. But the point is I want you going down in debt from 37,000 to around five or

for five or eight thousand. Do you see what I'm saying there? Yeah. Now, my guess is that your credit is horrible. It's terrible. Yes. At this point, and I'm just telling you this, I think that anything is

going to be better for you. As far as interest rate, I'm not saying get a payday loan never never do that.

“But if you have, if you can do put it on a credit card, if you can put it on any sort of personal loan,”

that is going to be good for you because we're going from $37,000 to $8,000, right? So this is a good thing. And now that you've got the momentum back, you'll have that money back in your pocket. You can knock that debt out because that now becomes your smallest debt aside from the collections, okay? And so once the collections are settled, now we're tackling that personal loan that you took out in order to get out of this car. And in the meantime, you're selling that car,

Kelly Blue Book, personal sale is what you're looking to do. And that's going to free up so much money because I know that that car payment is going to go back into your pocket. And then from there, now we can start working on the personal loan that's passed to do. And because it is personal, you might be able to pop in there and make a deal on that too likely not. But at least now at this point, we're just looking at chopping down an $8,000 tree, what you can do.

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

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“All right, we've got Kelly who's calling in from L.A. What's going on? Kelly, how can we help today?”

Kelly, we spend $1,700 or more on gas every single month and I don't know if we should get a hybrid. That's a lot. Whoa. That's a lot. So to put it in context, I filled up today, my truck. And it was the most expensive it's ever been by like $25. And I actually, Jay and I were talking all fair, like the thought of me struggling to make it. And then all of a sudden, I've got to fill up once a week and I have an extra $100. That's a lot of money. Where do you get $1,700 a month, though?

So my husband is a private investigator. He worked in his car. They turned it off,

then he's like cooking. So the engine's always running. And that's to travel really far distances.

Okay, buddy, here I go. He bought a truck and then it went up because the gas mileage was really bad. So it's just added up. And now the more she works, the more cost of.

rates to cover the gas? I mean, they have like a gas reimbursement, but it's only I think like

“industry since a mile or whatever. And it hasn't gone up. It looks bad out before it. Yeah,”

it hasn't increased. I'd be, if I were him, I'd ask about that. I'd say, hey, obviously, you know, and I don't know how long he's been working for that company. Let's say he's been there

since 2020 in the rates and ever gone up. I'd say, hey, I've been here. This has always been the

reimbursement rate. Obviously, prices have gone up. Is it possible that we can adjust this with inflation because I'm spending this X amount of percentage more than I was in, you know, when things started and kind of just lay out the numbers in a diplomatic way. Yeah, I talked to one person who works in the oil and gas industry and he said they're doing something called a supercharge, which is we're telling y'all as customers right now. It's going to go up, but it's not a permanent price

increase. It's just because things have been in us right now. And so uncertain, what keeps y'all from just taking the truck down and trading in for a Prius? Yeah. From, I don't know, I actually haven't

never even thought of that. Yeah. We've got the trucks for about nine thousand. If you really want

to say a truck, because you've kind of told, so if you want something or you can spit. I'm a big guy too, and I drove a Prius for years and Dave used to laugh at me, but I'd say what that thing

“got a million miles to the gallon. It's pretty sweet. Could you sit in that for 12 hours a day?”

Oh, yeah, it was awesome. Well, let me be super like transparent. I don't drive one anymore. Now, I drive a truck, right? But it's less for, it's less because I'm a tall guy and more because I do a lot of outdoor stuff. And I got placed out in the woods that I've always having to use, I use the truck if that makes sense. But get someone's comfortable. But yeah, split the difference

and get what makes sense. But the point is you're going down and you're going to a vehicle that

has better gas mileage. That's the point. And obviously not going into debt for it. And that's the main thing for me is like pan out from the gas situation. Millions of people right now are having to deal with the fact that their job is different now. Whether it's because AI was because the gas prices, it's become energy sectors is a zoo right now. Like whatever you're having to do, step back and ask yourself what changes do we need to make in our house? We don't want to be

making these changes, not by our hand, but it's in our lap. We've got to make some changes and stay inside your value system, which is we're not going to borrow any money. We're not going to leverage this moment and get ourselves in a two or five or ten year dilemma because we were uncomfortable right now. And so either you'll need to adjust your spinning up or down to accommodate the increased gas prices or maybe the his boss will say you're right or maybe 83 cents gallon. I mean 83 cents a mile

of reimbursement. That's pretty good reimbursement. Maybe I'll were using the extra as to pay bills with. And now it just needs to go with what the reimbursement's designed for, which is to pay for the gas. And you know, I've got to cut spinning somewhere else. Or maybe you just go take the truck and get a used preist or used hybrid camera and you're off to the races. But it doesn't give you permission to go be reckless with your spending and borrowing. Yeah, I would agree with that. Yes,

everybody's feeling the gas prices go up. All right, John isn't Denver, Colorado, John. How can we help you today? Thanks for taking my call. So I moved a bit of a pickle and I'm just wondering if I could I should tell my house. Interesting. Give us the deets. I love pickles. So yeah, I have a little bit of delicious, but maybe not this one. So I bought, I bought my house around two years ago with a friend and a few family members. And the plan, yeah, strike one, strike two,

strike three. When you say that, can you clarify, when you say you bought it with them, is everybody's name on the mortgage? No, unfortunately it's just me. So you're the only one on the mortgage? That's actually good. That's quite the best case scenario, actually. Okay, so you bought the house with your brother and two friends? My sister, her fiance and a friend, yes. Sister fiance and friend. Okay. And these are in the situation right now where almost all of them have completely moved

out. And now my mortgage is looking like it's going to go up like around 200, 200 dollars by June.

“Okay. So why do you have an adjustable rate mortgage? It's not a trustworthy mortgage. I think it has”

to do with my property tax. Yeah. Okay, so what's going up by 200? Unfortunately, the value of my house is gone down. So I think if I said, I talked to my real estate agent and I got it down to the reasonable price. Why the value did you overpay? The value actually was evaluated when I bought

a lot of good cops in the area. So there's not like the value ends up being a little less than

it was. Tell us real numbers. Tell us what you bought it for and what you think it's worth. So I bought it for 460 evaluated for at at 475. Okay. And I just got an appraisal a few months ago so I was fine on doing a refinance and it's evaluated at 450. Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, quite a bit of difference. So in terms of tuition right now, we did the math and it's looking like after commissions for the sales and buyers agent, I'm going to be losing money on it. But is it worth

it to just do that? Take on like a little bit and just pay that off or hold that even though realistically, it's going to be really typing just me. How much is a little money? Because I, one time, I took $4,000 to closing with me to get out of a house and that was the beginning of me and my wife starting baby step two and it ended up changing our entire life. If you're talking

“about, you're going to be $50,000. Now that's a different story. I think with these, you're going”

to be going to be getting close to 30. Yeah, it's looking like at worst, it's going to be around 30. And at best, if it doesn't, you know, I don't sell it at a reasonable price, it's going to be around like 15. So not great, but at least like if I were to get like a personal loan and come up with a little bit of money myself, maybe cover a little bit of a difference, you know, I can't see myself taking more than like a year. If I were really hard to pay that off. Well, because I'm also thinking

you've got time, like when the house goes on the market, like you've got a couple of months there to save up some cash, like how realistically in three months, how much cash could you save up? I mean, I know it's hard because you don't have roommates anymore and you're trying to pay

“this big old mortgage, but is there anything you could do to start stacking some money towards this?”

I don't know to be honest with with with no help, it's going to be really tight. It's a

problem. The reason why I want to sell in the first place is because I feel like it's going to be

so tight, I'm not going to be able to put money away. Can you lay? Can you let me be a situation, you know, or something happens? I just end up losing cows anyway. Can you rent out the rooms? Can you do like temporary rent out the rooms to other folks while you get this money together to sell the house? I, you know, I've looked for, I've been looking for rentals when people first started leaving and I hadn't really had any look with that. I tried furnished funders, I tried

reaching out on like Facebook Marketplace, joining groups, and I've even lowered the price three times at this point and I maybe just because they don't want to have like a roommate or I'm not exactly sure, but I just haven't had any look finding someone interested. I mean, this is a cautionary till we tell folks all the time, you know, do not buy a house with the intent that somebody else is going to help you prop up the mortgage payment because

“this sort of thing happens all the time. The only way out of this is through it, you're either”

going to have to take a personal loan for the difference and eat that cost or you're going to have to find a way to buy yourself time with roommates or stacking up the cash yourself. Alright, let's cut to the chase. It's easy to get discouraged about crazy house prices and interest rates, but when you have the right real estate agent to help you buy and sell the right way, you'll have confidence to make smart decisions. Ramsey trusted agents aren't just experts who guide

you through buying or selling, they're people you can trust to have your back from the first call

to closing day. Find a Ramsey trusted agent near you at RamseySolutions.com/agent. That's RamseySolutions.com/agent. The right insurance acts as a shield around your loved ones and your wallet if disaster strikes. Our free insurance coverage check-up helps you figure out if you have the right coverage by giving you a personalized action plan with clear next steps. So go to RamseySolutions.com/check-up to take the coverage check-up and find out if you have the protection that you need. All right,

we got Sam, who's in Fresno, California. Sam, how can we help today? Hi, thanks so much for taking my call. I'm a single mom of a nine-year-old. Her dad hasn't been around for about five years. He actually gave up parenting time if I agreed not to pursue the

financial and mental impact on me. I started how much did you say you spent? $100,000.

Wow, why? Wow. He wasn't looking to return agreement. He was just looking to ruin my life. Which he did? Okay. So, I'm in a great relationship now. We're making future plans talking about what marriage might look like for us. We have discussed me potentially working less to be more present for my daughter. I'm aware that I am the one with the child. He doesn't have any kids, and I don't want to put more on him than his parents. I have had resentment and pastoralists

do not want to recreate that. So, how do I lead into building a life and finances together without feeling like I'm taking from him or like I don't deserve that? I think you're asking

“like three different questions at once. And that's why the outcome feels so heavy. And so,”

number one, your body's working perfectly. Your child's dad gave your child up for a number. Right? Like, what kind of scumbag does that? I get divorced. I get breakups, but I can't. My daughter's been gone for two days. She comes back today, and I haven't been able to catch my breath. And I'm not special. Right? So, like, your body has a lived experience with a terrible human being. And so, forget the money and forget the support and all that. Your body is saying, "Hey,

we've run this before," and it doesn't end well. And all that means is, it's just trying to keep you safe.

The second part of it is the story you're telling about this is, my body feels a certain way.

It must be because I don't deserve it. You're making up a story about yourself. Right? Yeah. And so, what we're going to stop doing is making up stories about ourselves.

“We're just going to tell the truth. And the truth is, I'm worth being loved.”

I'm worth being a relationship where I'm safe. I'm worth being not connected to a scumbag who would give his child up for a number. And that tells me all I need to know about a grown man. Right? Like so, all that kind of stuff. The third part of this is, you're obviously really smart and really talented. Fair?

Yeah. Okay. So, you know just looking at data that attaching yourself to a boyfriend

no matter how stable he is, how great of a guy is. He might be awesome. That still puts you in a very vulnerable position. Right? Because you're trying to build something, you're trying to build a house without a foundation. Without lead in protection, without emotional, like we looked at each other in front of our friends and family and priest and God and said till death to us part, you're trying to build a house

without that foundation. And your body's right to sound that alarm. And so, I would rather you all end this in, you may be past dating, right? That sounds like 16-year-old something 16-year-olds do, right? But you all are boyfriend and girlfriend. It's awesome. Nobody roots for love more than I do. I love it. Right? And so now's what we're going to talk about

“values, conversations. Who do we want to be? What kind of life do we want to build together?”

And then when you're ready to say I do and he's ready to say I do, put his money in his actions where his mouth is and you too, then we're going to start combining money. Because now I've got a foundation that's yes, it's got some legal protection, yes, it's got some emotional spiritual protection. But it's you and I, we put a stake in the ground on this day at this time and front of these people and said till death to us part. And now we're going to say let's share a check

in the count. And then you're going to have to practice, I say this with a smile on my face. If you were here in person, you'd see me smiling, right? Like some of it, it sounds so callous. You're just going to have to get over. Like I don't want to feel resentment because he loves me and wants to take care of me. And then you're going to have to go, I have that feeling and that feeling's dumb, right? And I'm going to like if we're married we're building a life together

and I'm going to be a part-time mom and he's going to be the full-time employee. Awesome. Because we are building something together, right? And he is, he is in a relationship. He's thinking about marrying a woman who got done real, real wrong. And so he has to know part of him loving you well is being extra transparent, extra honest, extra patient with big feelings because your big feelings are right. They've kept you safe up until now, right? Yeah, yeah. You're going to say

and so there's multiple problems here and you think it's all one big bucket and then you feel crazy. When you pull the problems apart, man, my body's working pretty dang good. I'm not going

the architecture and design plans. That's awesome. But we're not going to start building. And

“man, until that day, I'm taking care of me in mind because that's what I got. That's my responsibility”

as the adult and a parent of this kid. Yeah, I'm going to ever let go of that. Like it's been so long. It'll hang on to you until you practice being seen and known by somebody else. You're going to have to, it sounds nutty. You're going to have to teach your nervous system, not intellectually, but through practice that I am worth being loved and that's hard to do. It's just takes time. It takes practice. Yeah. But you're, you feel like you are on the right path.

Yeah. And I know that doesn't feel like you're on the right path. But from what you tell on me, it sounds like being you are this guy is one of the lottery with you. He thinks so. Okay. Do you, do you believe him? Well, I'm working on it. I am working on it. That's awesome. That's good. That's a win. That means you're moving in there. You're, you know what I'm just saying? No, I don't believe him. You're like,

I'm working on it. That's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like you're on the, on the right path here. But if you're my sister, if you're my daughter, your body would be working perfectly. If it was like, man, I don't know if I should go all in and let this boyfriend in mind take care of me and make myself economically vulnerable, emotionally vulnerable, relationally vulnerable, bring another man into my daughter's life after she's already

had just nonsense in her first image of a male role model. Like, your body's right to not anchor

into that. Wow. Can I build a house without a foundation? So your, your, your, your body's working

“pretty good. I love that. I think we have time to take Matthew and Virginia Beach. Matthew,”

we're up against the clock. But I think we can help you, what you got. Hi. I have about $140,000 from my engineering degree that I got. I'm in steam mode that I built up about the 70 grand between my savings and my brokerage account. It's kind of tough because the number is going to say long term, I'd make more money. If I would leave it invested, but I could pull it out and pay off my debt. Listen, I'm going to, I'm going to take that, I'm going to take that money every

single time and use it to pay off debt only because, and I said it earlier in the show, but I'm going to say it again. One thing we believe around here and we know it because we've seen it work with millions of people and not just folks out there, John's done it. I've done it, George, all of us, and we know that your income is the biggest wealth building tool you have. You need your income at your disposal and that's the way that you build wealth. So as long as you're paying money

in debt payments, you do not have your full income at your disposal. Nor do you have your full range of peace or freedom. And so by you taking this money out of savings, this is non-retirement funds I'm assuming. You can take that money out of a brokerage account, cash it in and pay off this debt. You are one step closer to freedom and you're one step in the right direction to having

the full power of your income work for you. And so I would do that every single day, a million times

to find that freedom. John. I mean, yeah. That's the easy button. That's a no-brainer for me. And I get it. We all like the feeling of seeing a pile of money sitting there. But if you just do basic math, you will realize very quickly. If I have $140,000, but I have $70,000 of debt, or if I have $70,000, I'm sure I'm cash, but I have $140,000 of debt. I don't actually have $70,000. I'm negative 70. You're just holding the bank 70 grand for him. That's right. So the

math will also tell you that we're right. When I talk to people on the rams, he showed 90% of the problems I hear come down to one thing, not having a plan. They're not living on a budget. They have no idea where their money is going. Money is just happening to them instead of them happening to their money. And guys, that is so normal, but it doesn't have to be normal for you.

“And that's why I want you to go download our every dollar budget app. Every dollar not only”

helps you tell your money where to go with a budget, it also builds a plan to free up extra money so you can pay debt off faster and start building wealth. And the best part, your plan is completely personalized to your life. It's the same advice that you would get if you call the show. And it's right in your pocket. So don't keep living normal. Go download the every dollar app, answer a few questions and get your plan today.

on your lips meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. J.K. Rowling said this. British accent? Do it. It is impossible to live without failing at something. Unless you live so cautiously, you might as well not have lived at all. Terrible. That was you nailed it. I mean, Harry. Moving on. Moving on. We've got Lucy who's in St. Lucy is in San Jose, California.

“Not San Josie. How can we help Lucy? Hi. How are you guys? Good. How can we help?”

Yeah, so I'm in kind of a difficult situation. I'll kind of explain my debt first in

on the situation. So I have $57,000 in student loan debt and the interest is around 6% my payments are 640 a month. I do have 13 months left before parent so if I needed to defer at any point I am able to do that but obviously the interest is still occurring if I do go on for parent. That's right. I have 13,000 in a car payment. My car broke about nine months ago and I just got a new car used car. The payments on that are 275 a month and it is a 9% interest rate.

I have no idea why I have good credit but that's I tried to get it lower and I couldn't. So that's

“at 9% and that's my debt and I have $14,500 saved and my dilemma right now is that I've been”

having a lot of health issues. I had to get a couple of surgery districts from actually injuries like accident and following that I started to have like a lot of health issues just like in Somia and other things that kind of started from that and my health is kind of like really deteriorated. I'm 30 years old. I just turned 30 in March. I'm sorry. Yeah. Thanks. Thank you. Yeah and then also I realize that I have moles in my apartment. It's hidden but it's definitely here and I've

spent a lot of money out of pocket trying to get the apartment complex to do something and they're

basically because of the air test they did. They're saying that it's not significant enough.

How do you know that it is significant enough? Well, it's really hard to say here guys this time. It's really hard to know what you're dealing with unless you can find it and it's hidden and I know that it's here because my apartment has a very dirty bad smell when everything's closed up and it even kind of lingers even when everything's open. And when they tested it it just didn't show that there was mold or that there was enough mold. It's right. It said there's a normal lot of

molds and apparently the air test is like super accurate because it's kind of like a point in time so it's like it could fluctuate right? Understood. And so to be honest with you I don't know that it's affecting my health yet and it's also very hard to know because it wins the lease up. I've had so I'm on a

months and monthly which is nice. You're out. We'll go move. Yeah. Yeah. So here's what I did.

And just see you guys know I do make good income. I make 135 a year and after I live in California which is in the state. I'm going to try to get out of here but I after taxes and everything, I call 7,100 a month. Good. Go ahead. Sorry. Oh no. I'm saying that's good. Get to your question. Tell me what you're trying to do. Okay. So here's where I messed up. So ideally I want to pay off my debt as soon as possible. If I stayed in a rent range that I'm not now, I paid 2500 with everything.

I could save like 2,000 a month which is great or not save but put that towards my debt. Sure. What I'm even the sake of doing is my emotions took over and I found an apartment that would be really good for my health and that I really like and rent here is just insane. I got locked into a good rate because I moved here. You already took the, we already took the lease. You already signed up for something. I did, I did sign it. So my question is like do I do I break it because it's 3,400 a month

“that's what's everything and given the debt that I'm in. What's that what's the fee to break to lease? So”

I probably need to pay the first month rent because it will definitely get rented click. It's a great place which is 3400 but on top of that I'm going to have to pay rent where I am until I find a new spot

So that's that part's neither here nor there because you you signed a lease anyway that you were going to have to pay 2 rents which is wild. But, oh no no I wouldn't pay 2 rents actually because the debt that I selected as my losing date there wouldn't be a double rent. So it would be

so the one but hold on yeah like you have $14,000 saved. I would take that first month's rent

go hand it to them and say I'm out of the lease. I haven't even moved in and I'm breaking the lease and you got cash think thank goodness. Yes. And then on your drive home have three other apartments you go look at. Okay. It's this all of this emotion and the story is compounding on itself and it's a really simple I I'm going to pay $3400 and we jokingly say it's your stupid tax I did something dumb. I got emotional and I did a thing cool we've all done it and it's going to cost me

that and I'm going to be down to what is that? 10,000 savings and then I'm going to on the way home I'm going to put a deposit on a new place and then call it. Yep. Okay. You're a mental stress. I can actually have 18,000 saved but I had to pay a $3,000 deposit and you won't get that back.

I should get it back. I don't think they can legally keep it because I didn't move in.

Okay. There's no cleaning or anything. Well then I might just be around 400 bucks. Yeah. Plus the rent that I'm paying here. So yeah it would be like I'd be losing like $5,000. That's fine. John and I are fine with all of that. You cannot stay at the new apartment so if it's costs whether it costs you $500 more to get out or $5,000. Yeah. You got to leave because you can't handle that rent and then from there. I did the math and I should still be able to save. You can't handle

it. Around 900 to 1000 but you think it's not worth it. You've got $57,000 of student loan debt. Yeah you're broke. And I say that because I love you. Like you don't have any money. Okay. And you're going to feel how you're going to feel house poor. And yeah it's going to take you double as long because to your point it's going to cut into your margin by over $1,000. So it's going to say you double as long to pay off the debt. That's it's not worth it.

“And what was your card note again? How much do you owe in that card? $640 a month?”

No $275 a month. No no no. So this is yeah $275. Yeah you know I think I was trying to justify it. Like this is a one-year commitment to get my house in order. I know but just to tell me how much you owe on your on your car. 13,000. Yeah. I just got the car in February. I put $2,000 down.

Okay. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to go settle up with the apartment complex ASAP today.

Okay. Because here's the thing. I know about autoimmune issues and overall general health issues. The more stress you have, the more all those things are exacerbated. Right. And so let's stop. Go like, let's don't say like I'm going to take a year for my health. Because your body is going to register 50 to 60 percent of my take home income is in this apartment. Right. It will know you're not safe. It will know that deaths only going up.

Because I can't even barely keep up with the you're you're going to pay minimums on your student loans and the balance is going to move $1. Right. And so your body will be keeping that score to quote vendor coke. So let's go get cleaned out of that and then this afternoon with whatever cash you have left minus a thousand bucks. I want you to pay the car off. Yep. Keep a thousand dollars saved. That's your starter emergency fund and I'll keep a thousand.

“Just take action on these things. Yeah. Okay. Now that's what I think you're going to tell”

me to do. I think I just needed that reminder. Yeah. It's hard just with the health. That's because I hope this is going to help your health. Yeah. This is going to help you to John's point. You're using stress. Yes. And and there's just something good about taking action. Like you feel like okay. I've done, I've actually done something. I didn't just get the research. I didn't just ask more and more questions. I actually went and did the thing. And I can see the results. And I

think that if you literally take to heart exactly what John said, which is I'm doing this. I don't know what time it is in San Jose. But if it's past business hours, I'm doing this tomorrow. I'm waking up bright and early. I'm going down to the apartment complex. I'm paying whatever I owe them. They're going to refund me back what they owe me for the deposit. Then from there, I'm literally going back home. I'm making the final payment online on my car. I'm keeping the thousand dollars aside. I'm going

down the bank. I'm putting it in a high yield savings account. You will have done three major things for your future in less than 24 hours. And all you'll have left is 57,000 bucks on student loan.

“I love that. I love that. All right. We're out of here. Remember there's ultimately only one”

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