Quit Making Yourself a Victim!

Where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships.

I am your host, Jade Warshaw. Your other host for the day is Dr. John Deloney to my right.

Give us a call. The number is 888-825-5225. We will talk about the things that are concerning

to you about your life and your money. I'm here as kind of the money expert and my guide John is

here as your mental health and wellness. I still don't know why I'm here. We're thinking about it.

We're figuring it out as we go, but give us a call. Like I said, the number is 888-825-5225.

We'll chop it up with you. Let's go directly to the phone lines. We got Laura in Phoenix, Arizona.

What's going on, Laura? Laura, are you there? Did I get her? Are you there? Okay, it was my nails.

I blame my nails. Are you there? Hello. Okay, what's going on, Laura? Jade's nails got in the way again.

and talk about our debts. Say, we sit down on the Monday, everything goes good, and then the

weekend starts. We have an issue where my husband likes to drink like Friday, sometimes Friday to

Sunday, and then during that time, he forgets about our budget. Well, I would think so.

Yeah, so then that goes out the window, and then Monday comes, and it's like...

He's ready to start again. Yeah, and he's like, what happened? I thought we had sat down and

talked about our budget. How long has that been going on? I would say like six months. We've

tried to get together and try to pay off our debt, but it's just not working. Yeah, you're

all. Yeah. This is that you love someone who's an alcoholic. Yeah, and it sucks because he doesn't

life. There's no healing in underneath your marriage and underneath your financial...

All that leads to this moment where you don't feel safe in your own house, do you?

No. No. None of that changes until he chooses to get clean,

and so no matter what the issue is, when somebody comes in and says, hey,

I'm struggling with X and Y and Z, and I'm drinking, and I can't quit doing X, Y substance,

nothing happens on the mental health side, the marriage side, the emotional, until somebody

says, I'm willing to go get clean, and what that means is you have to take care of you

because you're not safe, and I don't even doubt that this guy loves you, but this guy's got some

significant struggles that he at this time is unwilling to deal with,

and so you have to make your safety priority number one.

What does that mean? It probably means you need to find somewhere for him or for you to go for

30 days and say, hey, I'm not going to live with somebody who's unsafe anymore. I'm tired of being

on eggshells in my own house. I'm tired of not knowing where all our money goes. I'm tired of

not knowing where you go, and then you come home on Monday and kind of make it my fault, and I go,

I thought we had all this. He's got to decide to do something different, and that means going

to a meeting starting tomorrow morning, even though tomorrow's Thanksgiving. See what I'm

saying? This is a way bigger deal than budgets. Yeah. And can I just be honest with you?

Yeah. You know this, right?

what's going on? Like, we sit down, and then I'm like, well, this is what happens, and then he's

like, oh, you know what? Yeah, you're right. I'm going to work on it. So listen, behavior is a

you and I, I don't care about our marriage fidelity. I don't care about our agreements.

I don't care about our financial health. I care about going on Friday and Saturday nights and

doing whatever the crap I want to do, period. I don't care how you feel in my own house. I don't

care if you feel like I'm a liar. I don't care if you can't trust me. I get to go party on Friday,

Yeah. Behavior is a language, and he's talking to you loud and clear.

Yeah. So this is the point when you go get a friend, you go get a pastor, you go get a therapist,

and you sit down and come up with some really ironclad boundaries that are going to be

brutal for you to enact. It's going to break your heart. Yeah. And that might be, there is no alcohol

in my home anymore, period. If you lie to me and commit financial infidelity again, then I'm out.

I'm going to go move in with my sister. You have to go to AA. Your boundaries have to be pretty

tough at this point. Is that fair? Yeah.

I can hear it on you. You're worth more than the life you're living right now.

Yeah. Jade, am I crazy?

and they're talking about issues that aren't, they're not money issues. And here, we're always

telling people, like, combine your money, combine your money. But there are times where it's like,

there are situations where it's like, no, don't combine your money. Like you said,

you seek counsel. And I tell people all the time, there's this acronym I use about keeping your

money safe. And it's like, if you're in these situations, like our friend calling in here,

Laura, where you're concerned, the first thing is you need to seek counsel. That's the S.

You got to seek counsel. And the A is if there's abuse, and if there's addiction,

that's when you got to do it. Or the F, financial infidelity. That's what we're looking at. And

then they're going to give you the E, which is you can evaluate your options based on the

boundaries you have. Because I'd like to say that it's as easy as, all right, move out tomorrow.

But it's not, it's never that easy. Never. And there's always a wake. You know what I'm saying?

Always. And so I would just encourage anybody who's in that situation, like I said, abuse,

addiction, financial infidelity. Yeah, you're not, like you said, you're not safe in your own home.

And that person cannot have continued access to the things that make you safe in your family,

that keeps your kids safe. Because if you have somebody who's spending all the money on substance,

and your kid can't have groceries, and your kid can't eat, and you can't get to work because

there's no money for gas. Yeah, you got to put some boundaries in place. And you have to say,

like you said, that in my home, there will be none of this. And until this happens,

you will not have access. And that's probably the toughest line that you can lay down.

But that's loving yourself well. And honestly, that's loving them well.

it's happening. You know, during a time like this, the holidays where you're supposed to be able to

come together with the ones you love, sometimes you have to create that distance, that separation,

and create that boundary so that ultimately things can get better and you can find healing.

This is The Ramsey Show.

Hey, what's going on? You're listening to The Ramsey Show. By the way, thank you for listening

to The Ramsey Show. I'm your host today, Jade Warshaw. I am joined by my buddy, bestselling

author, host of The Dr. John Deloney Show. The guy's name is Dr. John Deloney. If you were not

sure about that, we are going to take your calls all afternoon. Give us a call. The number is

888-825-5225, and we will help out sort out your situation. Let's go straight to the phone lines.

We've got Anthony in Anchorage, Alaska. What's going on, Anthony?

never missed a payment since I've had started building my credit, but I can't afford to make

more than the minimum payments, and I'm never able to catch up. That's the problem I'm facing.

in student loans.

Combined? What you're taking home?

and everything. Currently, I'm a full-time student, so I get another $2,200 a month

for my veteran benefits.

to sustain her business, to pay her rent, pay for her supplies and stuff like that.

Okay. So she can't pay herself yet?

Correct.

Is this a really nice hobby or are we headed somewhere?

She just started the business in July. Ideally, she needs to be able to help contribute once I

am no longer a full-time student, is the plan right now.

bring in some part-time income as well?

work to at least be able to help me pay some of this stuff down because I don't have the time to

pick up any extra shifts between working full-time and going to school full-time.

college or post-school secondary training.

And when I say part-time, go make 20 bucks an hour. I don't care. I just want her bringing

in some form of income and I think that's going to help in many ways. A, it's going to help you

guys get more income in, but two, it's going to help take a little bit of the heat off of her

in this thing that she's trying to build right now. She can still feel like, all right, I'm

building this thing for myself, but I'm also contributing in another way that my family

really needs right now. And that's going to help everybody. So that's kind of something,

put it on the shelf, you and her think about it, pray about it, whatever.

But the reason you called in is you've got this debt here, $35,000 of debt. And you're feeling

the crunch of that because, I mean, it's a lot. It's a lot of payments that you're throwing away.

You mentioned it's $30,000 of various credit lines. So each month you're having to keep

track of that. And I can tell you firsthand, when you've got all those debtors that you've

got to pay, it's just frustrating. It's just a lot to keep track of. And I think you're feeling that.

The advice is the same that I would give anybody, regardless of the amount of debt,

regardless of how many debts, what I would tell you to do is list these debts from smallest to

largest. So those 30,000, I'd go through each one and be like, all right, what is the smallest

balance? And list them from smallest to largest via balance. All right. And then it's like, okay,

now we know what it is. We got to pay these off. And the method to pay that off is simple.

You got to get cash on it. Do you have any cash saved anywhere? That's not retirement money.

my wife going back to school and me kind of supplementing everything. I've been doing the

snowball method a little bit. I had about 40,000 in debt just earlier this summer, and I paid off

some small $1,500, $2,000 bills, whether it's to the vet or for furniture or whatnot. So I've kind

of taken care of all the small stuff that's now coming towards the bigger credit card.

you got a wife launching a business, and you're working full-time. Either one of two things

might just have to be true this season, that you're going to finish school and you're going to

pause. Your goal is going to be to get out of school debt-free, and then you're going to attack

this when you get your full-time gig. Or I just need to take six months off from school. I need

to take a leave. I've had students do that every single semester. I took a number of leaves across

all my degrees for various things that happened. I had a kid, wife got sick, had to go do this,

wanted to make some more money, whatever the thing was. And just saying, I'm going to go earn

10,000 extra bucks in this semester and get this stuff paid off, or 15,000 bucks or whatever,

I'm like, I've got to do.

as a hobby until... But y'all are all trying... They're all trying to do...

That's like you and your wife really making some hard calls for...

Right.

So tell me, what's your world look like if you quit school for a semester? You pause school?

Okay.

I get a GI Bill housing benefit.

I've only been in the house for a year and a half.

That's going to cost me so much.

So what'd you buy the house for? And what do you owe on it? And what would it sell for?

Let's actually ask those real questions and see if that's true.

I looked into purchasing our home. We found a home, purchased it in May of 2022.

Four and a half percent interest. It was roughly, all the fees ended up being close to $500,000.

I need somebody to come out and re-evaluate the home to get it up to date.

next few months because I want you to own it two years so that you don't, if you do

have a windfall on this, that you're not hit with capital gains. And I want you to seriously

consider, like, if I was your mama, I'd be like, you better do it. Sell this house.

It's half. It's so much. There's not a trajectory that you have shown us that gets you there in the

next even five years. Your wife's building a business, you're in school, the business is

not making money yet, and you're in debt. And I just think that when you get out from under

this house, you are going to take a giant deep breath. You don't have any kids yet, right?

anything that's less expensive than the over $3,000 that you're spending right now

is going to help you.

When you're faced with a whole bunch of variables and they don't all add up,

let's begin to pull variables off the table. Things that we thought were absolutes, they're

not. Your wife doesn't have to start a new business right now. You don't have to be in

school. You don't have to be in a big $500,000 house. All these things that come off the table,

let's seek freedom. Let's don't seek to try to duct tape this chaos together.

Let's seek freedom over all else right now.

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. This is Deloney, and I'm always railing against

social media, especially in the summer, because everyone uploads the highlight reels of their

perfect bodies and perfect vacations and perfect kids. And I know they're not real.

And I also know that I'm blessed beyond my wildest dreams, but I still find myself

wishing my life was like other people's. And based on the data, I know this is happening to you too.

Comparison is wired into us, but comparison can also become the thief of joy,

because we can feel like we're not enough and begin acting and thinking in ways we would

never think otherwise. When all gets to be too much, think about contacting BetterHelp.

BetterHelp is 100% online therapy staffed with licensed therapists. It's convenient,

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focusing with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash Deloney today to get 10% off your first

month. That's BetterHelp.com slash Deloney. This is the Ramsey Show. Thank you for listening.

The number is 888-825-5225. But quick shout out to you guys, to the folks listening to the show,

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Number one, we're just grateful to have you because the fact of the matter is without you

guys, there's no show. And nothing around here actually happens because we need people like you

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this thing is like number one in so many categories. Or if not number one, it's like

right up there. So thank you for doing that. As a matter of fact, we would like you to consider

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like, subscribe, share. We would be truly, truly thankful in this season of thankfulness.

So thank you so much. Let's go to the phone lines. We've got Jackson in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

listening to you guys over the last couple of weeks. And I've introduced this whole plan to

my wife and we've got ourselves in quite the hole. And my main question is she deals with a lot of

mental illness and she has a really hard time like seeing the big picture. And honestly,

it's all very overwhelming for me as well. But I'm kind of like the backbone to everything

and just trying to get her fully on board with everything and

not thinking that this isn't something that we're capable of doing.

ADD. So it's just kind of like a handful of things.

I've been diagnosed with all of these things, the first thing I'm going to tell them,

whether it's my friend or that somebody's in a coaching situation with me or a family member,

I would tell them, I need you to go find a new provider and get reevaluated.

Because that's a lot of variation there. It's all over the place.

Yeah.

As a part of... I mean, it's a very different conversation if somebody truly has borderline

personality disorder and their emotional life feels like it's on fire. That's a different

conversation trying to get somebody to learn about how their emotions interact with reality,

with the real world, as well as it's a different conversation when you're talking to somebody who's

struggling with depression or anxiety. So I would start there. The second thing I would start with

is this. Does your wife know that her feelings are very big on things, whether they're up or

whether they're down? Can y'all agree on that? Yeah.

Okay. Will she trust you?

asking somebody who's got anxiety disorders to see a bigger picture is truly unfair,

especially at the beginning. What I'll often ask is, will you hold my hand? Do you trust me?

And you watch somebody's shoulders drop and they go, I do, and say, okay,

we've got to make a budget because I don't feel safe. Okay. And my body feels like you're taking

something from me. You're stealing something from me. My body feels like it's on fire. I feel like

I hate you. I feel like you're the greatest person. Whatever they're feeling, great. Do you trust me?

Yes. To make the next right choice for us. Yes. And that only works if they are seeing a provider

that they can get some true clinically based support and help for. Right. Right. And if you

can't get that basic level of trust, then you have to start asking yourself, how can I make

sure that we are safe? Because we can't work in partnership together at this moment. We will

someday, but we can't right now. Does that make sense? Yeah. And really, I hope I'm not over

clarifying it, but I'm trying to over clarify it because you're allowing you're like, I'm the

backbone. I got to do all this stuff. I got to make her happy. With all four of those diagnostics,

you can never be quote unquote happy. Right. You just gave everyone, I've got a couple of those

diagnostics. Dude, sometimes I don't care what I feel like. I just got to do the next right thing.

Yeah. So I haven't spent my life trying to be happy. I've spent my life saying,

if I do these things, my body's going to feel good at the end of the day. Does that make sense?

Right. That took a lot of therapy, a lot of counseling. My wife's pretty amazing. I have

some great friends, right? I had to do a whole lot of stuff to get here. Yeah. So don't try to solve

it all at once, but I definitely would start with getting a new, having a new conversation. Do you

have over $130,000 in debt. We don't even own a house and we make okay money. She works part

time. I'm working two jobs right now. How much? We're just trying to, before taxes and everything,

I did the math. We made 80,000 this year. I have one of my jobs is 47 and the other one's about 15

and hers is 20. That's all before taxes and everything. But I just don't even know where to

start. We did this debt consolidation thing, which I just feel like was a Band-Aid.

Yeah. What else did you do? We have a lot going on and I just, honestly,

I'm lost. I don't know where to start. I'm trying to get her on page when I don't even know 100%

are on the map. Jade's going to walk you on the map, but I want you to hear this before she says

anything. Jade had way, way more debt than that. Me and my wife, we had way, way more debt than

that. That number you just gave me doesn't scare me at all. Not a bit. Okay. You just have to decide

I'm going to go make this thing a priority. Absolutely. And your wife has to make her

healing a priority. You get those two things lined up, man, dude, it's game on.

of debt. I mean, look, it's not good, but don't be scared. Just go, okay. It's like John said,

what's the next right thing that I need to do? And for you, the next right thing,

if you're not on a budget, you need to get on a budget. Are you on one?

bit together. Um, so we're kind of working through that a little bit, figuring that out.

up. And after this call, he's going to give you a copy of my book. Money's not a math problem.

And as part of that, you're going to sign up and you're going to get three months free of

every dollar premium, because I think you need premium. That's going to help you walk through

this and you'll get three months free of that to test it out. That's going to be everything

because this budget is going to tell you what's what. Um, I want you guys sitting down and I want

you to complete your budget. If you haven't already tonight, because you just getting a

handle on the numbers, even if it's not good, like, right. Even if you do that budget and you

realize, man, we're, we're negative $75 every month. No wonder there's a problem. Just seeing

it and knowing what it is, is still going to make you exhale and be like, all right,

I know what it is. Now I see we have an income problem, or you might do that budget and realize,

Hey, we have a decent amount. It just looks like we're spending too much. And if that's the case,

again, you're going to exhale and know, okay, we've got to cut back on our spending. And so,

or it's a combination of both. And so just knowing that is going to go, okay, I see what the game

plan is. Now we need to create a plan of attack. Does that make sense? Yes. Because at the end of

the day, the math is the same. You still have to make the payments. And this is for anybody

listening. Debt doesn't go away unless you make the payments. You can't move it over here. You

can't take out this loan and cover it up with your mortgage. You have to actually make the payments.

And for most of us, that's called going out and getting an old fashioned J O B. Okay. You can't

get aside the work. You have to put on work boots, do the work. You have to cut back your spending.

No more chilies, no more Applebee's. You got to do the work. You got to make the sacrifice and

trust and believe it will show. You can't do this and kind of do it sneakily or do it without

anybody noticing. You're going to see it and you're going to feel it and it's going to suck

for a minute, but then you're going to be out of debt. This is the Ramsey show.

off the grid, listening to the show on a battery powered radio, all of your data collected by every

company you've ever done business with lives online, your bank, your doctor's office, retailers,

the apps on your phone, the gas station where you have loyalty rewards. They all store your info

online, making them ripe for a cyber attack or data breach. That's why I've been telling people

for almost 25 years, they need an ID theft protection plan. And the only one I've ever

recommended is from Zander insurance. They monitor your personal and financial info,

even your home title and take over the work. If you become a victim, it's the most thorough and

affordable plan out there. I even have it for my family and our entire team visit zander.com or

call 800-356-4282. You are listening to the Ramsey show. I am Jade. This is John. We're with

us a call, I'm kind of hype. I'm not going to lie tomorrow's Thanksgiving. I'm excited about that,

but more than that, my favorite part of Thanksgiving is actually the day after Thanksgiving,

but more so I'm talking about Black Friday. I know. Black Friday, it's game on. Come on.

wife and I couldn't stop. And I literally took my fork and I just hit it under the floor. And

she goes, did you do that on purpose? And I go, yeah, but I'm not eating anymore.

Because you couldn't stop eating the dessert? I could have. I didn't want to stop. So I have

we go out into the madness. I love it. I will elbow somebody for an air fryer in two seconds.

I love the madness. I save up a budget and I put the line item and I just-

Just get wild. I love it. I don't know what it is,

Best Buy. I don't need anything at Best Buy, but I want to be there at 7am going crazy.

But here at Ramsey Solutions, we are also having a Black Friday sale. And the good thing is,

you don't have to put anybody in a headlock to get your deal because it's on the interwebs, John.

of the year. You can get meaningful gifts for your whole family, your friends,

everybody as low as $8. That is nothing. Hey, you're about to learn this because

And for those of you who don't know, we make a commission off the sales price and we always

love it when Dave's like, ah, how about five bucks? Thanks, Dave. Thanks, Dave.

The Total Money Makeover. That's his book. So if he's putting it on sale for $10, look, we're all

John. Own your past, chain your future for just $10.

Why not, man? Why not?

Put it for 70% off. There you go. Financial Peace University, I will say, this is my favorite one.

The fact that you can get Financial Peace University for under $60 is madness. Sheer craziness. I tell

folks all the time, the principles in Financial Peace University are what helped my husband and

I pay off almost half a million dollars of debt. So technically, this product is worth half a

million dollars and you're getting it for 60. That's crazy. Rachel Cruz Wallet is back. That's

that's a product that somehow is almost never on sale. So the fact that it's on sale is great.

And of course, Questions for Humans cards are on sale. Cards starting at $10. So that's pretty

good. So shop Black Friday. If you're not like me, you don't want to go out into the cold

or out there with crazy folks who will just cut you in line, just roll over in your bed,

turn on your internet and log on to ramsysolutions.com slash store and get yourself a deal

and get you some gifts for everybody in your family. But don't go over budget doing it.

All right. Is that cool? Cool with me. Let's go to the phone lines. We got

Andrew in Sacramento, California. Hey, what's going on, Andrew?

emergency funds already put aside. My question is about the 15% retirement. Is that gross? Is that

on top of your employer sponsored? Or is that including your employer sponsored? What should

Okay. So that's it.

if that already equals close to 15%, that's fine right there. Should I add more on top of that?

in 5%, we want you to put another 10% in. And we want their match to be gravy.

No matter what your company sponsored, you were always doing 15%. And the reason for that,

there's a reason for that. And that is basically, we just want you building the habit of investing.

And the fact is you might move on and go to another company that offers no match or offers a

lower match or offer something different in way of benefits. And we want your budget and your habit

used to, no matter what, I invest 15%. And so that's kind of the reasoning behind that. Fair

I want to buy a second home, but I'm not sure if I should focus on paying off this mortgage

first before I start saving up for another home. Because ultimately I want to make this house a

rental property and then move into my forever home. Should I focus on paying off this mortgage

first or is it okay to start saving up more money for my forever home and then just have renters

what we call baby step seven is once you've paid that house off and you're completely free. And

then think about how much money you would have saved up not having a mortgage that you could

quickly save up and pay cash for another residence that you decide to be a rental, or maybe you move

in that one and make your current one a rental. You've got so many options. The only thing that I

would say is whatever you end up buying after your primary residence, buy it in cash, dude.

Okay. Yeah. So this is kind of like...

Hey, bro, this is exactly what I'm doing. Okay.

We paid off the house that we live in and now we're saving up for... Dude, it's the worst, man,

because we could go pull a mortgage right now and I'm not putting myself right back in that

mess. And I hate it because everything in my life feels like it would be better if I just did that,

except for the one thing, which would mean I'm back to being owned by a bank.

And I don't like that. I don't like being owned. That's true.

we feel like I got to hurry up and get this and I got to hurry up and get my rental and I got to

hurry up. And I think sometimes... And I get it. We all want to get to this perceived place of

success and like, okay, I made it with my money. We're all trying to get there, but we really have

to be careful in all of our getting that we're also getting the right understanding and that

we're doing things correctly so that it doesn't end in folly, right? Because the worst thing ever

would be if you were like, I'm so excited to be rich and I'm so excited to be successful that I

don't pay off this mortgage and I go get this other mortgage. And now you're wrapped with debt

and you thought you were going to rent it out, but your renters are kind of wishy-washy and they're

not paying. And then the roof breaks and then there's earthquake, like all these things that

have the ability to happen. It will feel totally different had you not gone into debt as opposed

to being strapped with debt. And I'm like, you're in Sacramento. So whatever real estate you're

buying is not going to be a hundred thousand dollars is all I'm saying. So you don't want

that strapped to you. I would much rather approach this knowing, hey, like I get to control this and

time is not pushing me to do anything. I make the call. Does that make sense? And I think that way

you're walking along that path and you're doing it with the least amount of risk, but honestly,

the ultimate amount of reward, if you really think about it.

it was illegal to evict people, even if they weren't paying during COVID.

for fun. It's just, we just take call after call after thousands and thousands of calls of people

going, what do I do? What do I do? What do I do? And that's a good point, John.

Cause we just, we just went through it.

that everything will go well.

And for that reason alone, I just love operating with as less risk as I can.

So anyway, um, thanks for listening guys. Uh, that does it for this hour of the show.

Be sure to hang on with us. John and I will be back for the next hour. This is the Ramsey show.

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey solutions. It's the Ramsey show where we help people build

wealth, do work that they love and create amazing relationships. I'm your host, Jade Warshaw.

I am joined by Dr. John Deloney, who is making silly faces at the camera. If you're watching

on YouTube, we're going to take your calls all hour. Give us a call. The number is 888-825-5225.

And we're going to try to help you out. Hey, it's the day before Thanksgiving and I am excited.

Um, I've actually been really on 10 this whole month because John,

And three, we sold a bajillion redefining anxiety, quick reads, and your book is

way surpassing the way mine got out. So it's a pretty, pretty exciting man.

as they say, it's not until December. So until then pre-order, because you get some cool things,

uh, in the process, you get three months free of every dollar premium, which is the business,

if I do say so myself. So go ahead and pre-order it today. Here's the thing. It's $10. Like it's

$10. You can't even get, you can't get anything for $10 anymore, John.

drinks are.