More Payments = More Problems

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 actual, amazing relationships. I am Ramsey Personality, Rachel Cruz, hosting it this hour with my good friend and bestselling author, Ramsey Personality, Dr. John Deloney. And we're here to answer your questions. It's a free call anywhere in the country at 888-825-5225..

So call in and we'll chat about what's going on in your life. So, first up, we have Tiffany in Vancouver. Hey, Tiffany, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you. Absolutely.

How can we help?

So I have a question for Dr. John. I've been listening to his podcast lately and just really finding his advice and questions helpful. And so my husband struggles with some mental illness, and that obviously impacts our marriage. We've been married for about 20 years, and he suffers with bipolar, depression, and anxiety.

The first 10 years were pretty rough because he was just kind of being diagnosed and trying to find the right medication and treatment and all of those things. But there's been an improvement and continues to be improvement. But I'm kind of just getting to the point of really feeling the impact of it on our marriage, even more so because I'm in a not, I don't want to say a better place, but like in a place where I'm realizing kind of what's important to me. So some of the ways that it impacts is like I'm very outgoing, I'm social, I like traveling and doing different things. He does not, like, he doesn't really leave our house a lot.

He doesn't really enjoy socializing. He does go to like the important events that we have, which I really appreciate, that he pushes himself to do that, because I know he doesn't enjoy it, and he kind of struggles to be there. But I guess I'm struggling with feeling disappointed and resentment, even though I know it's not him that's doing that, it's the mental illness. But just kind of trying to figure out what's next. almost.

Like I can still do the things that I want to, but I want to be able to do them with him. And so it sounds like, well, how to work through that. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like you had a picture of what your life is going to look like. And for 10 years of it, you were treading water and you're bailing water out of a boat with holes in it.

And then you got a new boat, right? You figured out, you got the meds regulated and sounds like he's worked his butt off and you have too. And now you're kind of realizing, oh, this is it. Yeah. This is as good as it's going to get.

Well, I don't like to say that kind of language, because you look at him and you keep saying he's got to grow, but you do too. But this is what it is right now, right? And you see the trajectory of where you come and you see that you can imagine a trajectory of where you're going.

My hard question for you is, I'll say almost always, but in a significant number of conversations like this, you've met someone.

Somebody, and maybe you haven't cheated on anybody or anything like that, but you've met somebody that laughs at your jokes, tells you that you're beautiful, is hilarious, shows up, seems a little more stable. Is that the case here? No. Okay. So you're just looking at this thing.

I love this man, but I really don't love my life.

Yes. Okay. So what's your question? I don't know if there's a... Is there a way, or do you have any suggestions of how...

Is this something that you can move past, like feeling frustrated and disappointed that I don't get to enjoy these things with him? Because I want to travel with him and I can still travel,

but there's no way to get him to travel because he's too anxious.

Well, there's some truth to that. And also I've had people that I love dearly, that I've been in relationship with for years, that have worked really hard. And I've said on the show, so I don't mind saying that, my mom wouldn't fly. My mom would not get on an airplane. I mean, it was an act of Congress to get on an airplane.

And in her forties, thirties, twenties, thirties, forties, she just wouldn't do it. And she just finished her... She's in her mid seventies and she just finished her last summer at Oxford. And so she kept working at it and kept working at it, and then started doing it more and more. And it was a work obligation.

And then it was a, Hey, I'll do it for dad. And then a, Hey, I want to do this for me. And then it became an idea. Like, dude, she's been in Wales. She's been all over the world now.

And so that's why I don't like to just cash it out. The bigger deal is this. So I love, love, love punk rock shows. And I had this picture that my wife would always be this tattooed up person with me that would go to these punk rock shows. If you've ever met my wife, she is not, she is not that.

Rachel's laughing. So, Sheila could rock some tattoos if she needed to. She definitely can do tattoos, but here's the deal. I had to make peace with, that's not going to happen. That's not who I'm married.

And she'd go sit on the front row of George Strait with me, but I want to go. So I've a group of buddies that I do that with in my heart of hearts, but I love that. Yes. If there's a show that I really want her to come to, will she do it? Yeah, she will.

But I've made peace with it. And here's the deal. I have a blast. I have a blast. It's when I'm not sitting there, having the time of my life with three or four of my close buddies, with Pete and Blake and some of these guys, that I'm not going, I wish my wife was here.

Cause then I'm choosing to bring misery into a joyful moment. Right? So yeah, man, I wish you would travel. Wish you would do this stuff. Let's keep working on it.

And especially if you're, if you're not saying, Hey, I've got somebody else. I don't want this thing to be over. And also Tiffany, I, and I don't want to interrupt you, but I'm like, I even think what you're saying, Tiffany, is that there's kind of disappointment, even, even in the day to day, like maybe not the big, fun, exciting parts of life that he doesn't want to do, but even the day to day kind of sounds miserable for you. So I'm like, even starting off at that level of saying, gosh, what, what are things we can bring into our lives that we both find joy in? to get joy back?

It just feels like it's completely kind of stripped from you, for, in your marriage in general. Is that fair? Yeah. Yeah. I would say that's accurate.

And the only, the only way to heal from anxiety is to walk right through it. And so sometimes there is a survival. It sounds like y'all were surviving for a decade, right? Which is very common with someone who's struggling with bipolar and people don't, people around them don't know. Right.

And no one knows, but now we know what it is. And instead of saying you need to get up and do this, or we need to go out, it would really, um, I would really feel loved if, in two weeks, you could put on your calendar that you go out on a day with me and give him some time to practice, give him some time to think through it, give him some time to be anxious about it. And then y'all practice leaning into it. Cause, does he want to continue to push to get better too, Tiffany? Are you wanting this more for him?

Like, is he wanting it? He does. Yeah, he does want it. I think I, yeah. I think sometimes, like the angst, the anxiety and the depression squash the desire.

Yeah. It just gets heavy. It's exhausting. It's exhausting. And there's some nights he's going to get up and go out, even though his body says, Hey, dude, let's get under the covers and just watch another Netflix series.

And some nights you're going to want to go out and you're going to sit down and hold his hand and let him borrow some of your nervous system. And y'all are going to watch a show together. And this is marriage, but this is also y'all continuing to practice and practice and practice. And then, dude, it would not surprise me at all. If he is, um, begins to find joy and y'all get further and further connected.

I'm going to ask you don't continue to drag the, well, I wish, and could be into a world where that's not possible. I'm gonna ask you to bring, like positivity, but not just positivity, optimism about here's where I am. I really want to go this concert. I'm going to go do this. I'm going to go on this trip.

I'm going to invite some girlfriends. It doesn't mean my marriage is broken. It means I wanted it to be like this, but I'm going to do it like this and keep walking alongside him. I think y'all can get there. I think you can get there.

Thank you, Tiffany, for calling. This is the Ramsey show.

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Welcome back to the Ramsey show. I'm Rachel Cruz hosting this hour, with Dr. John Deloney, answering your questions. Up. next, we have John in New York City.

Hey, or Jason. Sorry. Hey, Jason, welcome to the show. Hey, thank you. Thank you.

Big fan of the show, guys. Thank you for having me. Oh, thanks for calling in. We appreciate it. How can we help?

Yeah, so I retired from the Army 20 years active duty, and I've been retired for like five years now. And just to get where I'm at, I make about $150,000 a year now with my retirement. The only debt I have is my car payment. I have a rather expensive car that I should not have bought during COVID. It's a 2022 Acura RDX that I owe $49,000 on.

I know it's probably only get about $37,000 out of it if I tried to trade it in or sell it somewhere around there. from what I've already found out. I don't have any credit card debt. I don't own a house. I'm renting right now.

I just married last year. I'm just trying to get on track, and I have the $1,000 put away. But my problem is I have $15,000 in cryptocurrency.

I bought in whenever it was all the hype, and I had $19,000, but it's down to $15,000.. I'm in the negative for $4,000 if I were to sell it right now. My question to you guys is what would you recommend? I've actually listened to a lot of your episodes, and I'm just in one of those weird situations. where do I pay off my car, take all my extra money and pay off my car?

Do I sell the car and get something cheaper? Do I sell my Bitcoin? I'm up for some advice from you guys. Yes. Oh, my gosh.

Okay. Do you have any other money saved? just the non-retirement? Yeah. I have about six or seven.

I'm close to $7,000.. This is probably $7,000 in a liquid account. Okay. Good for you.

I'll tell you what I would do, but you're probably not going to like it, Jason. No, it's fine. I want to hear it. Because what we do on the show, I think the best is to help people get from point A to point B when it comes to building wealth. You have a lot of pieces to this puzzle, and I think if you choose to put them in correctly, it's going to be a beautiful picture.

It's probably going to look a little different than your life right now, in a sense, but it's what I would do. I would take the hit on the car, I'd sell it, and then I would take your $15,000 because you're still going to owe some because you're underwater on it, and I would cash out Bitcoin, use that $15,000 for that difference, and you'll have about three left out of the Bitcoin. I would go and buy a car with maybe $6,000, take three there, take three out of the $7,000 that you have, be completely debt-free, start building up my emergency fund with $4,000 that I have left over, and continue on my way. I would personally just go ahead and take the loss on the Bitcoin because, even though it hurts, honestly, there's no great track record that shows you're not going to continue to lose money. We may look up in a year, and if history serves me right, it's probably going to be even worse.

I would take it out now and let you pay the quote-unquote, stupid tax of losing the $4,000 in Bitcoin. That's what we always call is just stupid tax. When you do something, you lose money. You're just like, dadgummit, I'm never going to do that again. Take the loss and then see that $15,000, as, I mean, this is key.

I'm like, this is a gift at that point to go ahead and take the loss of the car, get rid of the car payment completely, the car loan, and continue on my way is what I would do. Again, that puzzle that we just put together, that picture, that final picture looks different than you sitting with a nice, what was it, an Audi, an Acura, sitting with a nice car and some cash over here and this and some Bitcoin over here. It's taken all that down to a life with no debt, with a crappier car, but some savings, and then continuing to move forward from there. Yeah, and that's what I was wondering. I knew I would take a large hit on the car and I knew I'd take a large hit on the Bitcoin.

It would put me somewhere in the net, or at least in the positive, but then I'd be starting fresh with another car. I had been looking at cars really cheap. It's just, I didn't know what you guys recommended on that, because I've been looking at cars around 7,000 to 10,000, and it's like they have 100,000 miles. Right. Well, I know, and with them- That's my worry now.

Yeah. And when we look at cars in general, if it's more than half of your annual take-home pay, that's always a red flag, or if you can't pay it off in 12 to 18 months. So maybe you say, yeah, if we buckle down and finish paying this off, but gosh, you still have $49,000 left on it. Yeah. Yeah.

So I mean, if you guys want to, but New York City, it's going to be hard to, I mean, just the standard of living that you guys are in. naturally, you'll feel that. You'll feel that pinch. if you're going to try to sacrifice and just pay it off. I almost would just get rid of it, Jason, honestly.

Yeah. So let me ask you this, Jason. What would the number be? So you're a combat veteran. You've been active duty.

What is the number? If I said, hey, for $10,000, not one person on planet earth will own you, Jason. You can do whatever you want. You can go to work, if you want to or not to. You can sleep.

You and your wife can just go, your new wife, y'all can go on vacation. Nobody can tell you what to do. What would that number be, man?

Gosh, that's a really great question. I don't know if there is a number I could put on it. So here's the other side. So you're looking at the loss, and, psychologically speaking, our brains are designed to look for loss. That's why 500 people in an audience can say, Jason, that was the greatest speech of all time.

And one guy will go, eh, that sucked. And you won't sleep at night because that one guy, right? That's all of us. That's how our brains are wired. You're only seeing, I lost $4,000 here.

I lost the Acura here. I'm smart, and I did something stupid. I'm dumb. That's all you're seeing. I want you to flip it around.

on the other side. Acura financial, I don't know where you finance that car from. They, whoever it is, they demand that you go to work tomorrow because you owe them. They are your boss.

If your boss says, hey, you're going to start selling this product, you're like, I don't believe in that product. Your boss can go, yeah, I don't really care. You're going to do this, or you're fired. And then your brain sets off the little alarms because it knows, oh, dude, we can't live here. We're going to take the car.

We're going to lose this.

We're going to lose this. $8,000 of loss, plus 10,000 on the car, 15 grand for my soul. Dude, I'll pay that all day long. I'll pay that all day long. And so you're already married.

You already are one of the toughest, bravest men on planet earth. You've dedicated your life to public service and courage. You have nothing left to prove to anybody. Get an $8,000 car with a hundred thousand miles. Who cares?

You already found somebody that says I do forever, right? You've won. You've won. You're there. You have nothing to prove to nobody, man.

Go, go, choose freedom. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, I know. And honestly, for me, Jason, the car conversation, it is hard, because if it's like a student loan, you got to pay it, right? I mean, like.

there's no getting around it. There's no selling something. The car, it's such like an, and I'm not saying this is you, Jason, just our culture. It's such an ego play of like, this is a nice car. And I, you know, and it's, there's like a, there's a part of all of us that our identity is so attached to our stuff.

And that's what it is. I'm like, not to mention, Hey, I, I slept in like on two by fours, right? On, on plywood, active duty. I've, I deserve an Acura. And as somebody who's family benefits from your service, I agree.

Yes. I hope that you, you solve for freedom and you get whatever car you want. You save it up and buy it with cash and buy it from some knucklehead in your same position who's underwater and who's going to have to get rid of, right? So I just want you to be able to afford it. Cause I, not only do.

I want you to have a nice car, cause I do think you've, you deserve it more than more than most. I want you to sleep all night. And I want you to have deep, connected, intimate moments with your wife. and have not that little part of your brain going. We're not safe.

We're not safe. Acura owns us. Like, I don't want that. I want you to be able to just plug in and do whatever you want to see what I'm saying. Yeah.

That's why I called this needed to hear. I've been trying to get hold of you guys for a while, so I'm glad I actually got through. Yeah, totally. Go, be free, bro. And not to go and like jump in the numbers.

But again, I just want to, I want to reiterate, Jason, like that 7,000, cause you already have your thousand saved up. It could take the car loan down to 42.. And according to our standard math here at Ramsey, you could choose to sacrifice the lifestyle of a year or something and pay it off and do what you can, but is all of that worth it for the car? Right. And the car would continue to go down in value.

Yes. Oh yeah. And that's true. Yes. It can just go down.

So for me, I'm like, it's not, it's not worth the sacrifice for the car. Like just get rid of the car and we're going to move on and have freedom. Like what John's explaining. So I'm so glad, Jason, that you got through and we were able to talk to you. We hope that that helps.

I'm grateful for your brother. Yep. And thanks for your service. for sure. This is the Ramsey show.

Welcome back to the Ramsey show. We're taking your calls. It's a free call anywhere in the country at 888-825-5225.. The Ramsey show question of the day is brought to you by neighborly, your hub for home services. Neighborly is one place that brings together a nationwide family of locally operated or operators, operated providers to help.

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All right. Today's question comes from Annie in Florida. My husband, our two kids, and I live with my husband's widowed mom who doesn't work. We pay all the bills, buy grocery and pay her house taxes. She and I don't get along 90% of the time, especially when it comes to my kids.

My husband and I are not on the same page with money and I don't have control over the money unless he gives it to me. We have one debt left and we could pay it off in one to two months if we work together, but there's just no urgency from him. My sanity is on the brink and I'm tired of arguing with my husband and being run over by my in-laws. I've talked to my husband and tried to lay boundaries, but then I'm just a control freak, quote, unquote, according to my mother-in-law. Sometimes I just want to leave and get my own apartment with my kids, but I don't feel like that would be right and would make things worse.

I know I shouldn't let other people control my emotions, but this is like a wound that keeps getting cut open and salt poured in. it. Is getting away from my mother-in-law going to fix things or am I the issue?

Good night. Well, I don't like that. she can't get money unless he gives it to me. No, thank you. I'm a control freak, according to my mother-in-law.

No, thank you. Yeah, it sounds like you are just breathing the air of planet gaslight. Yeah. All we can go on, Annie, is what you've written here, and so here's what I would tell you. Based on exactly what you wrote, and I always want to hold in both hands, there's two sides to a story.

You are not the issue. Yes, getting away from your mother-in-law would fix some things, but the bigger thing here is you have a husband who is over, over, overbearing, does not have a partner. He is much more interested in making sure his mommy's okay and his mommy's brought into all of your life than he is being married and building a life with you, co-creating a world with his wife. So, yes, getting away from your mother-in-law would for sure help, and you've got to deal with your marriage. You've got to deal with your marriage, and it sounds like your husband has very little interest in dealing with your marriage, and, in fact, when you try, he turns it over to his mom and she lobs grenades at you.

So, Rachel, there's this idea that we're going to take a, for lack of better terms, we're going to take a practice separation for a few days, and it might be up to 30 days. It might be for two weeks, but it is a, I'm choosing to step out because I'm becoming somebody that I don't want to be with my kids. I'm becoming somebody I don't want to be with you. And anytime you do that, it's important to have, we're going to circle back at this time, at this date, at this restaurant, to talk. We're going to bring this person with us.

You've got to set some guide rules, but this is one of those moments that, continuing just to stay in this sewer, somebody's going to end up doing something that you can't take back. And so, Annie, you're not crazy. You are not messed up here. It sounds like you have tried to do what's right and you are just getting dragged underwater. And I think that's one of the hardest parts of marriage when you hear a situation like that, because for so many people, I think, learning to balance, how do I take care of myself, but also take care of this relationship, this lifelong relationship that I'm in, right?

But taking care of yourself is the key to then having a healthier marriage. And I think sometimes we mix those up and think, I got to just fix my marriage, fix my marriage. But it's actually you making sure you're okay, taking care of yourself in these moments, right? Especially, well, especially if- This almost sounds like this is not good. I was going to say abusive, but anytime somebody gives their wife an allowance, that to me, I classify it as abusive.

That is controlling nonsense. behavior. For two adults. For two adults, right? But often in this situation, and it's usually wife playing, trying to please husband, right?

Not always, but often. It is the way I'm going to try to fix my marriage is by cutting off parts of me so that I can make this thing that we're quote, unquote, doing together all right. And what often people find, after they've cut all their toes off and all their fingers off, is that, oh, he's just going to keep moving. He doesn't change it. Yeah.

He's going to keep moving the finish line. It was never about us healing our marriage. Right, right. It was never about me healing and him healing and us making this new thing. It was about, he's just going to keep doing whatever he wants to do, right?

And you find yourself with nothing, right? Yes, at that point. So that's why I like someone to step out. And the language I use is somebody's got to turn on the lights, turn off the music, the party's over. I'm going to step out.

I'm going to move into this place with my girlfriend. I'm going to move into this place with my mother-in-law. I mean, with my mother, not my mother-in-law. And the kids, what do you- I'd bring them if you can. Yeah.

And often you learn a lot. If he doesn't fight you on it, then that tells you what you need to know, right? But me and the kids, we're going to move over here for a couple of weeks and I got to breathe because I can't have your mother-in-law doing this. I can't have you blaming me for all of this. And if he goes, I'm about to lose my marriage and he gets a quick dose of reality, then that's beautiful.

If he goes, fine, get out of here. Me and my mom are, that's, he's really telling you what you need to know. Oh, so hard. Annie, thanks for-. I hate this for you.

I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I don't have a psychology and this is a bias and I know it happens all over the place. I don't have a world and where.

if I sat down with my wife and I said, hey, I need this. Her first response would be, sucks to be you, but I just don't live in that world. And so these things break my heart. That's right. Yes.

I need you to help with, I'm not doing that. Man, that's tough. That's tough, tough, tough, tough. That's so hard. So, so hard.

All right, let's go back to the phones. We have Brayden in Memphis, Tennessee. Hey, Brayden, welcome to the show. Hey, Rachel. Hey, John.

How's it going? We're doing great. How can we help? So I'm getting ready to lock in my rate. I'm building a house and my banker got in touch with me, and I know that y'all have always said to go with a 15 year fixed, but on the 30 year, I got quoted at a 6.6 and on a 15 year, I got quoted at a 7.25, and I didn't know if that had anything to do with y'all's decision.

Yeah. The decision's less about interest rate and more about just urgency of getting it paid off, and that when you have a 15 year, you're obviously naturally going to pay it off half of the time that you would in a 30 year, but also with the plan that we encourage people to pay off their house even sooner than that in the 15 year. So that's why that principled rule is in place when it comes to mortgages. It's really less about the interest rate, which is so interesting, because usually it's flipped. It's almost never.

Is it an adjustable rate? She said this is the first time she's seen it do that. They're both fixed rate, a 30 year and a 15 year fixed. I wasn't really worried about it and was leaning towards going with the 30 year, just because my last house I paid off in seven months and 20 days. And so I'm pretty intentional about it, but I'm definitely not focused on doing that with this one, just because that last one killed me.

Yeah. Where are you guys, Brayden, financially? I'm just curious. You guys out of debt and have savings and you're building and all of that? Zero debt.

I've got $35,000 set aside for an emergency fund and the house appraised to be worth like 890, 900.. Yeah. That's amazing. Congrats. Have you run the math on it?

just to see at this interest rate, if I paid it off in 15, versus that interest rate, if I paid it off in 15.

or paid it off in 30, which one will come out ahead? I haven't ran the math because basically, on either one I was going to do, I was planning on paying it off in no more than probably two years, because I only borrowed 80,000 on it. So it's not very much of a mortgage. What do you do for a living?

I just run my own business. I really don't make a lot. I've just always done y'all's plan, since I was probably eight. But you're going to pay off a $900,000 house in two years? Well, you pay.

most of it with cash. is what you're saying. He only borrowed 80.. That's impressive, Brayden. Yeah.

That's awesome. Well, you know, we stick with the principle of that 15 year. Because it doesn't matter for you. Yeah. At that point, the interest rate isn't even that big of a swing, because you're going to be paying it off so soon.

So the principle again is to pay it off as soon as possible. Brayden, fantastic job. Incredible, man. Well done. Either way, you're not making bad decisions in life.

You're doing really good. So keep up the good work.

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So one thing we say around here a lot is that money is not a math problem. Usually, and most always, it's a you problem. It's a me problem. It's us that are handling money, that is creating the stress and the buying and everything else. And so Jade Warshall, one of our Ramsey personalities, just came out with a money's not a math problem.

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And you can also access a live online Q&A with Jade that she's going to do, but she's going to talk about the five lies that we believe, about budgeting and really unpacking this idea of how much our behavior is so crucial to us winning with money. So go to RamseySolutions.com slash store for that. And then our other great friend, George Camel, breaking free from broke, the ultimate guide to more money and less stress is also at DaveRamsey.com or also RamseySolutions.com slash store. And you can pre-order that book. It is coming out in January and George does a fantastic job being George and funny and great stories and all the things really walking through this approach of building wealth and getting out of the system, because there's such a system financially that people get stuck in and it's like a Ferris wheel over and over and over and over.

And so, getting out of that and actually winning with your money, breaking free from broke by George Camel, make sure to pre-order that at RamseySolutions.com. We have all of your holiday shopping. for your crazy aunt. You can give them my book, 20 bucks. for your grandkids or your kids.

You can give them your brand new book. Yeah. $12 for some of these. Change your past, own your past, change your future. You're an incredible salesman.

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Let's go to David in Colorado Springs. Hey, David, welcome to the show. Good to talk to you guys. How are you doing? Absolutely.

We're great. We're glad that you called us, David. How can we help?

Okay. Make a long story short. My stepdaughter has really been into figure skating since she was about six years old. And about a year and a half ago, she decided she wanted to start competing. So we're like, well, we'll give it a year, see if she sticks with it.

And she really has. And she started competing last year and is doing great. The issue is that we are kind of on the low end of spending for this sport. And it's costing us almost $1,000 a month. Oh, goodness.

And it just goes up from there. Having more coaching, working with a physical trainer, starting to travel, having to pay for the coach to travel to competitions. And we're, we really are probably over our budget with what we're spending now. But at the same time, she really loves this. And we're kind of trying to figure out how do you balance her loving the sport and us not going broke.

Man. How old is she now? She is 14.. Okay.

I've got some unpopular opinions on this that I always get in trouble for. Can I just put them out there? Is that cool? Yeah. John stirs the pot.

I mean, very few things do I get in more trouble from the internet people than this, but here we go. I would suggest that we've grown up in a culture. We've created a culture where the kid is the star of the family show. And ultimately, where do you want to eat? What do you want to do?

Who do you want to become? What do you want to be when you grow up? What college do you want to go to? What's your dream school? We dump all of these things in our kid's backpack.

Think of them as rocks. We just drop them in our kids. And what happens without meaning to, and this happens like us trying to love and honor and give our kids opportunities that we didn't have. They end up carrying the weight of the whole house.

And I dude, I'm a product of sports. I played sports all the way through. I was a two sport Letterman. I ran in college. I did MMA with professionals.

I'm all about sports and teams, and workouts and discipline. All that stuff's great. And the greatest gift I can give my kid is not mortgaging my soul and our future. And literally a second mortgage that some people do to pay for this stuff. Yeah.

To let them quote, unquote, do whatever they want or do whatever they're passionate about, do what feels right. The greatest gift I can give them is a stable.

at peace, mom and dad. That's the greatest gift. And so, before I get down a road where I'm paying for private coaching, I got to fly the coach in or drive the coach in. Now we've got to do this. It just starts building.

And, like you said, a little bit of success breeds this. And if you try to back out, it's like, it's like a timeshare salesman, right? They're like, Hey, but we see really a bright future with your daughter. And if you do this, then it can lead to this. And it can lead to this.

And you, your daughter's just sitting there looking at you and you feel like, you feel like the antichrist pulling some of this stuff away. And so I always think it's best to not follow the rabbit down the rabbit hole on this, but it's to start all the way at the beginning with your wife and say, Hey, what kind of home do we want to have? And we're going to reverse, engineer it that way. And what can we actually afford? So it takes ice skating away and input Lexus.

If she was really passionate about a Lexus and really a good driver, and you couldn't afford a Lexus, you wouldn't buy her a Lexus. But for some reason, sports have become the altar that we sacrifice our families on and that we allow our families and our kids to worship. And I think it's beyond madness. It's gone to pathology now. And at the same time, dude, I get it.

I can't imagine having a daughter who's starting to excel. You're a stepdad, you're building relationships and connections. And then you're going to sit down and, like, you're going to take this away. Right. I get that.

I can't think of something that would be harder to do as a parent. I just am seeing family after family mortgage their souls for sports and travel sports. And the sake of whatever my kid wants to do, I'm going to do it. And the kids can't carry that weight. We end up burying our children.

What do you think, David?

Yeah, that's kind of my thinking. It's, you know, more. we draw a line in the sand and it's like, yeah, this is what we can afford. And I'm sorry. Yep.

And I, and David, honestly, too, if you don't do that, nobody else is. this ice skating community isn't going to the, the trainers not going to the, the championship tournament places aren't going, like no one else is going to do that. You literally could spend and spend and spend and spend. And there's nobody in the world. That's going to be like, Hey, David, you got to stop.

So that's when date, that's when you and your wife together have to say, we have to, we have to put a boundary up, because there's nobody else on planet earth that puts up boundaries for us. We have to create those ourselves. And if you don't, especially these little microcosms of life and kids, sports is one of them. You can just go down a train, just like John, saying, and it's, and you look up and you guys have spent your retirement. I mean, you've done all of this and I, I know I just, it, I just am so, so cautious, especially.

And I would say this to David, even if you guys had the money, it would be an interesting conversation to the urgency may not be there. Like, like with the money, there's a little bit of a finite, we just, we don't have the money. Like. we can't do that. And we're not going to stress ourselves out and miss a mortgage payment for ice game.

Like that's, that's like, that's, that's insane. We can't do that. We are adults. She's 14, and we have to make adult, mature decisions in our household and run our household. And then what comes after that is what we have to decide, but we're not going to put ourselves in a financial bind for this.

where we can't, we won't. And so you draw that line. But even if you had the money, I think what John's saying is interesting. I know it's so controversial. Here's the deal.

I've got friends that are athletic trainers at universities and they continue to tell me that they're bringing in 18 and 19 year olds with joint overuse, injuries that they see in geriatric populations, shoulders and knees and hips that were not designed to do the same sport, day after day, week after week, year after year, since someone was a child and all the way up through, their bodies can't handle that. Right. So if there's like a, and I don't know, David, what your options are, but my encouragement would be hopefully to be able to find a group to play in, whether it's a rec and not competition. I mean, I don't know what it is for ice skating, but like where she can still do what she loves, right. And enjoy it.

But it's just not at this high specific level that is so narrow and intense for 14,, you know, inexpensive. I would sit my son down, who's 13,, almost here. And I'd walk him through our budget. And then I would say, here's what it costs for rent. Here's what it costs for electric, water, all that food, what we spend.

Yeah. And then here's what we got for this. And this is our cap. And then I'm not just going to sit in the vacuum, but I'm going to show him. Here's what we can afford.

That's right. David, thanks so much for calling and thank you, America, for listening. John for always been a great co-host and all the guys in the booth for making the show happen. 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 actual, amazing relationships.

I am Ramsey personality, Rachel Cruz, hosting this hour with Ramsey personality and bestselling author, Dr. John Deloney. It's a free call anywhere in the country at 888-825-5225.. All right. Let's start off with Amanda in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Hey, Amanda, are you guys getting like crazy rain down there? Yeah. Yeah. That's so crazy. Hi guys.

Good afternoon. Thanks so much for taking my call. Yeah. Thanks for calling. I literally just saw that on the news.

I think it was last night and it was like, you guys are like getting flooded, since stuff. It's crazy. It's been wild. I live in Fort Lauderdale and it happens quite often up here. Actually, all the schools got canceled, but I work in Miami-Dade.

So I actually had to travel to work today. Oh my gosh. Be careful. Be safe. I'm so sorry.

Well, I'm okay, though. I got through it all. The flooding wasn't too bad getting here. Okay. Good.

Good, good, good. How can we help?

So I am ready to attack my student loans. I have $76,000 in student loans, unfortunately, but I'm ready to attack them. I'm a new listener for you guys. And so I'm ready for that gazelle intensity, but I have a car lease sitting in my way and I wanted your advice today as to kind of how to get out of it. So here's my numbers for you guys.

I have the 76,000 in student loans. I have $19,000 in savings. I have 30K in my 401k. I make about $3,700 a month and I leased a Camry three years ago. It's a $28,000 car.

And my lease is up in, I think, about five days, actually. Oh, wow. It's almost done. Okay. Yeah.

So I have a couple options here. I can pay the car off with the money that I have in my savings account, but that would pretty much put me almost down to zero and keep the car pretty much for the rest of its life, right? Which is going to be the rest of your life because Camrys go on for eternity. Right. That's what I've heard.

So I was excited about that. But then my secondary option is to get out of that car and just buy what you guys call a little banger, just something under 10,000.. And then the rest of my savings, I go ahead and put that towards my student loans and then keep paying those off.

What's the payoff amount? Yeah. What's the payoff? It's 18K. Okay.

How much could you sell it for? Do you know? Did you, Kelly Blue Book it, see its value? Yeah. Yeah.

It looks to be worth from like 24 to 25.. Okay.

And I have 11K into it. Yeah. You have 11K into it. You could buy it at 18.. And you like it?

Yeah. I do. It's a great car. Yeah. I think I would buy it.

I know. There's a part of me that would just go ahead and just do it because it still has great value. I mean, for what you could sell it for, you could buy... Yeah. I almost would buy it.

And then could you turn around and sell it? I could. Yeah. I could. I guess I'd make a little bit of money off of it and then I can use that to help buy a cheaper car.

Yeah. You tell me, you drive from Fort Lauderdale to Miami-Dade. How far does that drive every day? Yeah. It's about 35 miles.

actually. I'm an athletic trainer in high school. You shouted out an AP earlier. That was awesome, but... I'm right.

Hey, hold on. I'm right, aren't I? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So I drive kind of far. It's a 45-minute drive to work and home. Yeah. It's about 60 to 70 miles a day. Okay.

Yeah. I mean, there's a part... Yeah. I mean, I'm thinking, turn around and sell it, buy it out, sell it. You'll bank 6K, put some of your 19,000 with that and go get a used Toyota Camry, or whatever it may be, because you could actually make some of that money back, which is great.

But I'm also not mad at you. If you go just pay cashless, you've driven it, you love it, it works for you. You'll have this car for the next decade if you take care of it. And I wouldn't be mad at that either. Okay.

And then just go after my student loans with... I'm looking into getting another job to really supplement my income, to try to attack that 76, because I know it's a big amount for one person. Yeah. One weird thing that I've heard people do when they have a commute, like you have, is to potentially do Lyft or Uber on the way to work and on the way home.

And so you're already driving this 30 miles and you might get somebody to the airport and back, or you might be able to leave 30 minutes early and end up not adding a lot to your life time-wise, but you can knock out some drives that way. Yeah. Because you're making probably, is it what, $36,000, $37,000 a year? Is that what you said? $3,500 a month?

I make $3,700 a month. My pay is kind of weird, because I do get stipends twice a year, but I don't really count that into my salary, because I don't get it every two weeks. Right. Okay. So that's your take-home pay.

So yeah, you're probably about $45 annually. So yeah, I would up your income though, Amanda, because you're going to have to attack this 76.

pretty aggressively. So if there's things that you can do at night, whether it's something even creative, like what John was saying with Uber, cutting lifestyle. Saturday and Sunday coaching. I mean, for these kids who love private lessons, for these kids who are going to be NFL stars someday or ice skating stars someday. I actually am looking into an online professor job because I have my master's degree.

Perfect. Perfect. That'd be incredible. That's awesome. Yeah, that's great.

So great. Oh, well, we're excited for you, Amanda. I think you have the right gumption in your voice. I feel like we can hear people's tone, even in their call, and you can tell the people they're like, okay, I'm ready. I'm ready.

I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm ready. So yeah, that's awesome. Thanks.

Thanks for the call, Amanda. Up. next, we have Lloyd and Boise. Hey Lloyd, welcome to the show. All right.

So I'm calling in because I'm trying to figure out the best decision to make.

Basically, my wife and I were about to pay off our house. We had like $38,000 left on it and we have enough in the bank. We're just saving. so our emergency fund doesn't just tank out. So we'll have it paid off in like two or three months, something like that.

That's awesome. Once I get the house paid off, I'm trying to look at some options. So my employer, they will do, they have a 401k and they have Roth and they both, I can do 15% into. That's a lot. 30% is a lot to take out of my take home pay.

What we're wanting to do is save for our next house, because I don't want to have any more loans, basically. And so I'm thinking it'll take two or three years to come up with 150, basically. So I'm wanting to know, should we invest? I know I want to invest in the retirement account. I don't know if I should invest now, but I'm wondering if I should invest into just a mutual fund that we can then take out two or three years from now.

For the house specifically? Yeah. For the house specifically. or if we should just put it into savings. Yeah.

If it's going to be that short term, if you're really going to use the money in two years, I think a good high yield savings is a great option. just to put it for short term. I don't know if I would put it in the market for just two years. I just feel like it's kind of volatile. With the market, you really want to write it out.

I mean, you could do like a Vanguard account, that'd be in the S&P, like an index fund. But I don't even know if I would do that, for two years, I probably would just let it sit in a high yield. I'm doing the exact thing and I'm putting high yield. Yeah. I mean, that's what I would do, just to give you some options.

You're not trying to time the market or something weird. If you need the money and it is a dip and you're having to kind of figure it out, it's just nice just to have the cash. If it was five years or something, four or five years, we could talk about something different. But for you guys, yeah, if it's one to two years, I would just do a high yield savings to save for the next house, which is exciting. Thanks for the call.

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Welcome back to the Ramsey show. John, this article on, well, it wasn't an article, it was a dad on Reddit. And I'm going to assume it was real. I'm assuming it's real. Of course.

It's up people.com. Dad on Reddit. Oh, they did. Okay. So they actually like, probably confirmed that.

On my show, we have a segment called, am I the problem?

So this is kind of a great, am I the problem? Is this me? Am I the issue here? Am I what's wrong here? Go for it.

So a dad and his daughter are no longer speaking after he refused to give her thousands of dollars for her wedding. According to the post on Reddit, the dad, who remains anonymous, shared that his daughter asked him for $200,000 to plan her dream destination wedding in New Zealand. So that's not thousands of dollars, that's hundreds of thousands of dollars. Not tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands. My daughter is getting married and wishes to have a destination wedding.

And I told her, no, my wife feels like I should do it, because we can afford it. But I find it to be pointless showing off wealth. Now, my daughter's not speaking to me, nor is my wife. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh.

Which got me thinking, should I bite the bullet and essentially burn the money and alienate my family members to make my daughter's dream wedding a reality? It has over 4,000 comments there on the situation on Reddit. Oh man. What do you think? Man.

Okay. The only like 2% of me. that would be like, all right, come on, dad. As if he was a billionaire and it was 0.001% of it. And he's just like, I don't want to, I would not not speak to him, but I would be like, come on down.

But that is, that is 0.00001% of the population, that that would even be him. So I'm assuming that's probably not him. I don't think, I don't know if a billionaire would be on Reddit talking about this. Well, but even like, so I think about like my kids. And I'm saying, even if you're a billionaire, your daughter should not speak to you because of this either.

But I could see it being frustrating. I'm like, dad, you have billions of dollars. But I could even see it the other way, where he's saying, I don't want to, if I have a billion dollars, I don't want to flaunt my wealth in the face of my other family members that can't afford to come on this trip. Yes. Right.

Can't afford to fly to New Zealand and spend a week. No, it's insane. It's insane. And so I, dude, I am team dad, 1,000%. Because that means $200,000..

$200,000..

And you know, the real villain here in this is? The mom. Mom. Come on, mom. I think.

And the bratty daughter. Could you imagine not speaking to your dad because he didn't give you $200,000?? That's where I'm like, they have to be somewhat level of something, right? They have to have some level of money. He said, I can afford it, but it's a pointless showing of wealth.

Yeah. This is just me waving a flag around the world. that look how rich I am. Okay, here, I'm going to continue to play devil's advocate, because we all know the common sense. Yes.

Response to this is what everyone is thinking. That's insane. That's insane. Correct. Would it be at all understandable?

Again, the whole not speaking thing I don't like, but would it be weird? if he like, well, it's his money, so I guess he can do it. I'm just thinking like, if he flaunts and he does whatever he wants and he's like, nope, not going to help, not going to, like, could there be frustration? if he's like, I'm not going to flaunt my wealth? And she's like, dad, what are you kidding me?

Look at you. You have a, you have a $200,000 watch on your wrist and you have a whatever, whatever, whatever. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I get that. But it says down here further.

I told her I would pay for the wedding. I'm not saying this is our situation, but he said, I told her I would pay for it. I never agreed to pay for destination. So it sounds like she came to him and said, daddy, are you going to pay for my wedding? And he goes, I love you, baby.

You got it. And mom was like, yay. And they got together and they're like, Hey, let's, I know we can do, let's go to New Zealand. And okay. So do you think it's a different story?

If he says, I'm going to give you a $200,000 budget. And she's like, perfect. I think at that point she can go wherever she wants. And then he says, no, you're not. You can't.

That's right. Yes. I, that's a different story. if you ask me. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And I'm trying to figure out all the scenarios, because it's on Reddit. And so they're like, how many angles can we find out of this story? You're, you're, I think you're being very, very generous.

No, I know I'm just playing devil's advocate, but man. Yeah. And he says, tomorrow I'm going to make phone calls and price a wedding in New York. It'd be for about a hundred to 200 people, oh yeah. Which is still going to be 50 to 75 or a hundred grand.

Oh, easy. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah.

No, that's oh yeah. For sure. For sure. I just am like, I guess there are people out there that would not speak to their dad or their parent and their wife and his wife, because they didn't get what they wanted out of it. Right.

Like. for me, it just all works together. It's like, if you're going to ask for a $200,000 destination, New Zealand wedding, that's going to alienate your friends and family and just be a way to show the world. Look at my Instagram photos. Yes.

That's probably also a family where, if you don't get your way, you don't talk to dad and your mom goes, yeah. And she doesn't talk to her husband either. Yep. And a guy who's trying to do the right thing and be a good steward of his resources and also not alienate family and friends. Because everyone's going to have to buy plane tickets to go to New Zealand.

That's what he says here. Yes. It's not like you're paying for everyone to go. You're making them pay an insane amount of money to come. Yeah.

Lots of principles here, y'all. Lots of principles. Here's principle number one. Don't be an idiot. Don't be.

Principle number two. To the daughter and the wife. Don't be like, I'm taking my ball and going home. Come on, dude.

Well, I should try that. out. on Dave. You should. Like, hey, dad.

I'm not going to speak to you. No, I think it'd be cool if you got him to say like, hey, he's in on something. Hey, Dave, me and Winston are like struggling. Would you help us out? Sure, Rachel, anything.

Okay, cool. Here's what we're struggling on. We're going to do Christmas on the moon and it's $400,000 and you can for sure afford it. And if you can't, and if you're not going to do that, I'm done. I'm done.

I'm done. I'm done here. Just the way you say it. I'm done. Oh, my gosh.

My father's ridiculous. I wanted to come in on a zebra in New Zealand. So sad. All right, Austin, maybe you can save us and put us back into reality. Austin, from Kansas city.

You're up next. Thanks for calling. Hi, thanks for taking my call. Absolutely. Would you not speak to your parents, Austin, if they refuse to give you a $200,000 wedding?

I think I probably would speak to them. I think that's good. We're on the right track. How can we help Austin? Yeah.

So, my partner is struggling with some finances and we're trying our best to get her out of it. She's about $45,000 in student loan debt and has about 6,000 in credit card debt. And while we've been chipping away at it, I guess, kind of, and we're one, I guess, wondering the best way to do that. And two, she's in a career that it's kind of, uh, you kind of need to go to a master's degree for, and we're wondering if, if she should just go into more debt to get the master's degree or if she should work a little bit first and get it paid down. Yeah.

What is she, what is she doing? What's her career? It's psychology. Okay. What does she want to do?

Um, some sort of probably social work, um, something that you would most likely. Okay. How old are you guys? I don't think she totally knows yet either. We're, I'm 24..

She's 23.. Okay, cool. I would recommend that she get a job as a residence hall director at a university and move in to a residence hall, and they will pay her housing and they'll also pay her room and board or some degree. They'll give her a salary and they'll get a significant discount on graduate school. And she wants to be a social worker or a mental health professional.

She'll get to live with a room with a building full of people of all different places, from all different walks of life, with all different types of challenges. And she will learn what caseloads are. She'll learn what going to the hospital is. She'll learn what suicidal ideation, she'll learn it all and they'll pay for it. That's what I would recommend if she was my friend.

That's what I'd tell her to do.

Okay. Do not, do not, do not borrow money to go. She's going to end up in six figures of debt, Austin, not knowing what she wants to do, possibly working at a job, making 45 a year. I mean, the ROI doesn't make sense. And the fact that she doesn't know what she wants to do.

I wouldn't go get a master's while I'm just buying time and waiting. I would go get real life experience. If she's really serious about it, I would go. I would do exactly what John is saying, which may make her very uncomfortable, because it's not an ideal in that scenario. Right.

You're not just living the life you want and do whatever you're working. You're living hard. Yeah. And you're working. Um, but Austin too, I would be, I would be, um, not cautious, maybe a strong, don't pay her debt off.

if you're not married to her. Don't put, yeah, no, don't do that. And also making sure that she's aware of why she's $6,000 in credit card debt and why debt is still an option for her to go in to as well. So there's some of these things, and you may want it more for her, Austin, and she wants for herself. So these are conversations you guys just need to have and be thinking about, but no, do not go deeper into debt for a master's degree on something.

We don't know what we want to do and don't go into that period. So there's some sacrifices there on a situation you can do with John laid out, and that's what we would recommend. Thanks for the call.

Welcome back to the Ramsey show. Christmas is gosh, it feels like it's almost here. I know we still have Thanksgiving, but it just always feels like Christmas is just sneaking up. All our decorations are up.

The Delonies like to focus on gratitude for a minute. Oh, that's nice. Unlike you guys. You don't want joy. Oh, here we go.

And peace. Wow. No, we like to just say thank you to the world before we just like, give me, give me, give me. Jingle bells. Do you like Little Drummer Boy, the worst song ever written in the history of humanity?

Love it. Yep. Really? Oh yeah. I can just see you sitting in front of the fire.

No, no, no, no. It's not Little Drummer Boy. I like it. Who let the dogs out? Nope.

It's the same with the little boy. There's a, oh shoot. A little boy. Oh, can you hear what I hear? Oh, that's a good song.

Do you hear what I hear? That's what I was thinking. Yeah. Okay. Speaking of Christmas.

But a song where the main instrument's a snare drum, it's never going to work. Never good. It's never going to work. Except at James Church. That's how y'all roll.

All right. So go ahead. Ramsey. The Ramsey Cash Giveaway is here, which means you can buy as many songs on iTunes as you want. If you win one of our $500 weekly prizes, or the grand prize of $5,000, so you can enter every single day at ramseysolutions.com slash giveaway.

So again, you guys are giving away $500 a month. I mean, $500 a week and a grand prize of $5,000. Also, make sure to do your Christmas shopping at ramseysolutions.com slash store, because we have a huge $12 sale going on. This is the books, The Total Money, Makeover, Baby Steps, Millionaires, Own Your Past and Change Your Future, Love Your Life, Not Theirs, Own Yourself, Own Your Money. There's so much there.

And even the questions for humans cards, the Christmas edition is back. It sold out last year, but you can get all these cards as low as $10 right now. So again, any meaningful gift to give this Christmas, some gifts, Christmas gift ideas, go to ramseysolutions.com slash store and check out our sale. Up. next, we have Lucy.

Oh, over the pond in London, England. She's in the sky with diamonds. What's up, Lucy? Hey, Lucy. Oh, hi there.

Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me. I am so glad. What time is it over there right now? It's about 20 to nine. Oh, okay.

So it's an evening. listen right now for you, Lucy. So glad that you called in. How can we help?

So I initially thought I needed guidance on money advice and going through a long and tricky divorce.

But I think, and it has been a long time trying to get divorced and arguing and just,

yeah, it's kind of unraveled me. But I think what, I'm sorry, my throat is like, my heart isn't like my throat. No, you're good. You're good. But I think what I actually need guidance with is how to make, have more confidence with decisions, to know that, however the divorce works out, I'll be okay.

Sure.

Oh, man. I'm so sorry that you're going through this. What are the arguments about? Oh, gosh, the divorce settlement. Well, everything, everything really.

But it's, he told me he wanted a divorce two years ago. And we have been back and forward for two years. We did go through, and I don't know if you have the same thing, mediation.

It's non-legally binding. And we went through a process. We came to a decision at the start of the year, we came to a compromise position. And he's like,

overturned that. now. He wants everything different.

And he's become quite, well, I've seen a different side to him, you know, very controlling.

He's a bully, it turns out. So do you have an attorney or a barrister? Do you have somebody representing you right now? I had a solicitor. I was struggling with the legal costs.

It was more than my take-home pay. And we hadn't, we weren't making any progress. So I, basically, the advice I had from my solicitor was just like my lawyer, just, you know, go to court.

Because what I think we're arguing about, the law is on my side more, but I don't know. It's mostly his pensions we're having. He's really frustrated about it. He's been in the military for a long time. And he has a very good pension.

I followed him around like an idiot. Yeah, you gave up your life and you made sure his bills were paid and his clothes were cleaned and his house was done. And so you were a co-contributor to that house. 14 times in 15 years. And my career is in the draft.

Of course. And so whenever you ask the question, like, I just need to think about the emotional part of, am I going to be okay? There's a math problem there. Like, am I going to be okay financially? Will I be able to pay my bills?

Right. And so it's easy for me to say here, all the way on the other side of the world, in a home right now that has a stable marriage. But I tell the women that I talk to all the time, please, if you can, don't let a loud mouth goofball on the other side, let the court work for you as best as it can. Okay. You're entitled to that.

That's the law of the land. And you, like you said, you gave up everything to co-create this house with him. And so a lot of people will file for divorce thinking, oh, I can just pretend that didn't happen. And they imagine their life financially, socially, they imagine their life is the exact same, just you're not in it. And that's just not how that works.

So I would implore you to not walk away from it, but to go to court. I don't exactly know the divorce proceedings in your court system in England, but I would really hope you would do that and take care of yourself. Not just the exhausted you right now, but the you five years and 10 years and 20 years from now. Okay. That's number one.

Number two, it is surreal to be sitting in a room with somebody or in a building, especially if you're in mediation, and they're going back and forth, back and forth. You created a home together. Y'all created kids together. Y'all held each other as you held your newborn. And suddenly this person's going to war against you.

Because exactly. And so I want you to, here's how I get through those moments. I know my limitations, and my limitations are this. I don't make rational choices when I do that by myself. When I get really emotional, I don't.

So I always have people that walk alongside me.

I even use this language. I outsource that in those moments. And I've got a couple of men that I trust that walk with me. And I say, Hey, is this a good deal? Because my wife really wants to buy this house.

I don't feel good about it. And they'll say, John, buy the house. And so I trust them. or they'll say, dude, I love your wife too, but don't buy that house. And I trust them.

And so I would tell you, you have people that you pay. You've got professionals that do this. You've got the court system. I would get one or two girlfriends that you can trust, that you can say everything to all the scary things you're feeling, all that stuff. So your body knows you're not doing this alone.

And it's not going to make the math problem any easier. It's not going to make the divorce any less surreal, but your body will have a little bit more peace because it knows you're going through this thing, not by yourself.

That makes sense. Is that fair? Do you have that, Lucy? Do you have some good friends in your life? I do have some friends.

They're not local. I do have friendly people, local, but... Do you have a couple of friendly locals that you could say, hey, I want to take you to coffee or to tea. if you're over the pond and let's go get some tea. And I need someone to walk through with me through a really heavy season.

Would you be willing to do that for me?

I feel, I just feel such a burden. And so, because it's been going on for so long,

to be just this emotional wreck all the time. I do have a couple of really good friends. Give them, hey, listen, listen, I'm going to say this as directly as I can, honey. You are not a burden.

Let them love you.

Let them love you. And if they don't want to, let them have the opportunity to say, I really don't want to love you like that right now.

One of the greatest gifts, one of the greatest honors. I feel, and I know Rachel's the same way, is when somebody that we care about and love reaches out and says, can you help me? Golly, dude, there are few honors more powerful than that. But reach out and talk to somebody. And yes, I think you got to go to court.

You've been messing around on the edges with this for two years. You've been trying to do the right thing. And he has proven that he is not interested in doing the right thing. He's interested in beating you, defeating you. We're done with that.

We're going to get the courts involved so we can get this thing settled and moved on. You're not a burden, my friend.

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That's ramsysolutions.com slash SmartVestor. Ramsey Solutions is a paid non-client promoter of participating pros. Learn more at ramsysolutions.com slash SmartVestor.

Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. I'm Rachel Cruz, hosting this hour with Dr. John Deloney. It's a free call anywhere in the country at 888-825-5225.. Up next, we have Albert in San Antonio, Texas.

Hey, Albert, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. How can we help?

My wife retired about this last year and I'm probably going to return about another year. We have about 1.3, 1.4 million in investments. Nice. Hey, Albert, can you speak right into your phone for me? Yes.

Is that better? Much better. Yeah. Thank you. Okay.

Yes. My name is Albert. My wife retired last year and I'm going to retire in about a year. We have about 1.3 in investments. We're debt-free, including the house.

Amazing. Yeah. But we've kind of been normal. We had a car payment up until about two years ago, two car payments, but we finally, we did that good and paid off. But that's the only thing we owe, is the cars and the house.

So we got rid of that in the last two years. But we're talking to a financial advisor right now to see what's best. We have most of it in 401k and some of it in the movies and some of it in stock. But he's thinking about just taking all of it and just putting it in a Roth IRA and just giving him the full amount. I was wondering if that's like a safe idea, or is that a good idea, or should I be more diversified?

Do you guys, do you guys have a Roth already or just the 401k? Just mostly 401k. We're thinking about putting it all to a Roth. Switching it all to the Roth.

What would the tax implications be? Did they tell you?

Because we're going to put it all, we don't have to pay any taxes, because we'll pull it out of the 401k and just put it all back into a Roth. And roll it to the Roth. Right. But when you withdraw, though, and you move it to the Roth, usually, if it's not a traditional IRA, there's going to be taxes that's paid.

Well, they usually charge a fee. I don't know if they charge a fee for it, but since we're getting them over a million, they're waiving the fee. They didn't say that we have to pay any taxes.

Okay. This is a lot of money, Albert. And so this is why I'm just cautious of just giving you a two minute radio answer, because this is y'all's retirement that you're talking about here. How did you find your financial advisor? I'm just curious.

Just, it's the same person that a few other people at work use. They've been, as HR, they've been using this one person. It's a bank. It's a large bank. Here's what I don't like about it.

And I'll tell you, when you're talking about diversification, I can't tell. if there's one question, that is, should I move all of this and begin to do it back to a Roth and roll it that way? That's one question. The other question was, you've got an annuity over here and some stocks over here. I would do my best to get out of it.

So that isn't the diversification I'm looking for. The diversification would come inside of your retirement funds, right? So those are two different questions. Here's my underlying problem with the person you've picked. They're treating you like you're dumb and they're saying, just give me all of your money.

I'll take care of it. And the reason I don't like that is, A, I'm not dumb. I just don't know about this particular thing. And B, I want someone with the heart of a teacher who, if they're going to move something or do something, they're going to explain why. So my financial advisor will call me and say, hey, I want to recommend that we move this particular fund over to this fund.

And here's why. And here's the impact on you. It's your money. It's your call. I'll support whatever you want to do.

That's different than, ah, just give it to me. I'll handle it.

Yeah, but did they tell you why? Different mutual funds? Was it mutual funds?

I don't think mutual funds is one of them. Okay. So what we recommend, when it comes to retirement specifically, are four types of mutual funds. So there's growth,

aggressive growth, growth in income, and international. So what John's saying is right, that inside of that Roth, inside the 401k that you have, the way that your money's divided up is diversifying within different types of mutual funds. And so that's what we teach at Ramsey. So that's why I almost would just recommend, Albert, that you, if you hang on the line, Austin, will pick up and help get you in contact with one of our smart investor pros, because I would just want a second opinion on all of this, because I... Something doesn't smell right.

Well, and yeah, and you guys then at that point, would have to do, yeah, it would have to be a backdoor Roth because of the amount, because you guys don't qualify for a traditional Roth IRA. I don't know if they want to do traditional. and then, I mean, like I, yeah, I, honestly, Albert, I just feel comfortable you sitting down with somebody getting a second opinion, because if they're asking for all of this money, I just want to make sure that I have two to three to four options. that then you and your wife can sit down and look versus just going to this one guy, because two other friends, you know, went to him. So these are big decisions.

And again, the tax implications in all of this is really big too. What you pull out, what you roll things over to. Now, if you roll it over to a traditional IRA, at that point, we do tell people to do that when they leave their jobs, to move their 401k over. I mean, there's different things like that. The tax, yeah, but again, I would just double, double check on all of that, because I don't want you hit with a huge tax bill and not expecting it.

And by the way, just so people listening know, Rachel uses a SmartVista Pro. I use SmartVista Pro. This is just what we do with our family's money. And so it's not like it's a, we all drive Hondas and we're telling you to drive a Toyota. This is what we do with our money too.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Thanks for the call, Albert. Up. next, we have Antoinette in Sacramento, California.

Welcome to the show. Hello. Thank you so much for calling. How can we help? I, me and my husband are at the end of paying off the remaining of our debt, and I just kind of want some advice on how to move forward, because we have four homes and we're kind of, we eat friendly banter about which home should we pay off first, which way should we move?

And so I just kind of wanted some advice on what you guys think. Are these like homes that you guys just live in? Are they rentals? What are they? So we have one primary home and three rentals.

And three rentals. Okay. Okay. How much is owed on the three rentals? Okay.

So, on the first rent, well, I mean, so on, my husband came to the marriage, we got married three, two years ago. So we just combined it. We just got together a year ago and we combined it all up our stuff. This is why we're going back and forth about the home. So, on my home, on my home that I came into the marriage with, I have 296,000 left on it.

And that's here in California. Okay. How much would that be worth now? Yes. So my home currently is worth 631,000..

Whoa, nice. Okay. Yeah. On his home in North Carolina, he has one that's worth a hundred, or sorry, that he owes a hundred, or we owe 198,000 on. And that home currently is worth 298,000..

Okay. And then on the second, on the third home in North Carolina, also, we owe 135,000 on that one. And that home is currently worth 282,000.. 282.. Okay.

Where are y'all living? Are y'all in Sacramento? We're living in Cal, yes. Yes. And is that where your house is?

The first one that you're talking about? That is where, yes. And then the home that we bought last year, that we're living in right now, is also here. Okay. Perfect.

Okay.

Um, I could probably tell you what I would do. I would sell both in North Carolina. Uh, I don't want to be alone. Can I tell you the ties first? Do what?

We have three children. I have one child. He has two children and both of us, like I, bought my home to, for my son, for, for him later. And he bought his two homes, one for each of his daughters. So that's kind of where our emotional ties are.

Like. we really don't want to sell our home. I know, but you can't afford them. We can't afford them. No, you took, you didn't buy them.

You took out mortgages on them. You wrote a note to the bank. Do what? The renters are paying for it in its entirety.

None of our money goes into the home. I'm sorry. Go ahead. You have a chance to be. start this new marriage completely free.

No house payment, no payments to anybody in the world. No stress. Let me ask you this. Would y'all just decide to buy a rental property in Maryland and manage it that way?

No. And are your kids going to be moving to North Carolina? His two daughters are in North, they do live in North Carolina. And my son lives in California with us. Are they staying in those homes?

When they get older, probably.

Okay. Yeah.

Oh shoot. We're out of time. Okay. Here's, here's the thing. Your heart in it is, but the way that it's being progressed, you're putting these expectations on your kids that they're going to want this home, versus saying, Hey, we're, we have $200,000 to help you with your down payment, or whatever, whatever.

Instead of a house, we actually have cash to help you. Maybe you look into something like that versus forcing these homes on them that you guys, to John's point, are continuing to be long distance landlords in. And it's not, I don't like it. So I would sell the two in North Carolina. I'd pay off the one in California.

You guys right off, right off into the sunset with some great money and houses and figure out how to help your kids. After that, 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 am bestselling author and Ramsey personality, Rachel Cruz, hosting this hour with bestselling author Ramsey. Dr. John Deloney.

That's actually how you introduce yourself to people in restaurants. I do feel weird that I said bestselling. I've introduced myself that way. Sorry, America. Sorry, America.

I could have just said Ramsey personality, Rachel Cruz. I'm bestselling author. Rachel. Can I see your drink menu? Well, next, the next intro.

We're glad that you are here. It's a free call anywhere in the country at 888-825-5225.. All right, let's go to the phones. We got Howard in Indianapolis. Hey Howard, welcome to the show.

Hey, Rachel. Hey, John. Happy early Thanksgiving there. Absolutely. Rachel doesn't celebrate it.

She goes straight to Christmas, but I accept it. because... Howard, do you have Christmas decorations up? No, but my wife is kind of wanting us to do that soon. Pushing the way.

I feel you. I feel her. Double down on gratitude, man. So great. How can we help?

Yeah, I won't hold you long. So I did the crazy thing. I did. Bethel Tech last year, graduated in May of this year. I will be starting at Salesforce next week.

Good for you. So I doubled my income and I will be replacing some of my wife's income. Yeah, dude. That's awesome. Thank you.

Thank you. So I'm happy. I will have a 100K household income, but the caveat, we are expecting January due date. Oh, congratulations. You got a lot of change coming in that house.

I know. A lot of change, yes. That's a lot. The question is, I'm familiar with the Baby Steps, but do we pause that on stack cash for the baby? Because one paycheck, realistically, could take care of all our expenses.

That you know of. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Do you guys have any money saved?

Just a $1,000 Baby Step. Okay. And how much debt do you guys have? We have right under 65K. Okay.

Yeah. So you would be on Baby Step 2 and we do say to pause that specific Baby Step. If you were in Baby Steps 4, 5, and 6, you could kind of keep going and, you know, keep some money on the side. But as you're paying off debt, that is a place that we would say to pause while you're expecting, which is just another three months. I mean, you guys will be having the baby soon, but I would, yes, save some money aside till baby comes and mom's home and baby's home and all is good.

And then from there, then you can throw the rest of that money that you guys have saved in these three months at the debt and continue on. So pay minimums. Yes. That's right. And then stack cash all the extra money.

Exactly. Yes. Stay current on everything. Don't get behind. So pay those minimum payments and then save up that cash, and hopefully you're able to throw some great cash at the 65 and continue down and paying off debt.

I think we should be able to pay it off within a year and a half. Good for you. Howard, I'm so proud of you of making a change. I feel like, even as an adult, it's hard for people to think through, Oh my gosh, how can I do something to up my income, even change careers, doing something completely new. And I mean, it's a real success story of how you did it with Bethel Tech, which is awesome.

And having a degree and going to Salesforce and doubling your income. And I mean, all of it, it's just incredible. And whatever spreadsheet you've cranked out for how much your life is going to change financially. Now that you have a kid, I can just tell you you're off, probably by a factor of a hundred.

I thought a kid would like a baby, a newborn would just go to the bathroom once or twice or three times a day, like a normal person. And they don't, they go a thousand times a day, 1000 times. So you probably have, like, I, got 60 bucks a month for diapers. That'll get you from 8am to noon on day one, right? So there's going to be expenses like that, that man, and heaven forbid, anything happens during the delivery that they got to do an extra, this or doing another, that or something.

So yeah, just having cash is good, man. Yeah, that's great. Congratulations, Howard. So proud of you, man. Stack that cash away and then, yep, press play on the debt snowball once baby and mom are home.

All right, up. next we have Katherine in St. Paul. Hey, Katherine, welcome to the show.

Hi, thank you so much for taking my call. Absolutely. How can we help?

So my husband and I recently became debt free and we, thank you, and we have a fully funded emergency fund and we're saving up for a house. Um, my question is we're planning a two week vacation to Italy, hopefully this summer. And my husband just wants to kind of let go of the financial thought for a little bit of it and just let's spend what we spend and have fun. And I'm wondering what is too much to spend? Oh, you called the two right people.

Cause I'm kind of a KOA guy. I love the KOA and Rachel vacations differently than me. This is going to be fantastic. My gosh. Uh, okay.

Katherine, how much do you guys make a year? We make just a little over 80.. Okay. Okay. And after expenses and stuff, I mean, how much have you guys saved for it so far?

Well, you're starting that process now. Okay. So we just started that process. Now we have about 30, 38 set aside, cause we're trying to save up for a house within the next two years. And I'm done a fully funded emergency fund and 15% to retirement.

And all of that. Yeah. Um, do you guys have a house right now or are you looking to upgrade or buy, buy your first home? Buy first home. Okay.

So yeah. So, saving up that down payment, how much are you guys wanting for the down payment?

Oh, 20% minimum. Okay. Which would be what for you guys, as you're looking at different houses and stuff? Um, I imagine about 50 to 60.. Okay.

Okay. Um, yeah. So you guys probably won't have that for another few years. Is that right?

Um, I would, since we're at about 30, uh, my husband's income should shoot up. He's graduating school soon. Oh, good. Okay. Yeah.

I imagine, hopefully, hopefully sooner than that. Okay. Because the 38, is that just for your emergency fund, or is that some of that for the down payment? No, that's house. That's house.

Oh, Oh, I'm sorry. That's just house. So you guys have a separate emergency fund. Oh, I gotcha. Okay.

Perfect. Yeah. Um, I mean, I always hesitate to give specific, like dollar, amounts or percentages when it comes to something like vacation or a car, because it really is, you don't want to go extreme either way. Right. Cause you guys have done the hard work, you paid off, you.

you're saving up a great down payment. Um, so, yeah, I mean, I gosh, I mean,

two weeks in Italy. can, I mean, that's a long time. The length of time is long. You guys picked a pretty, you know, just an expensive destination. How much do you think that's going to cost?

Um, I, my husband, was like, Oh, let's just cap it. Make sure we don't spend more than 10 K. I was about to say 10 K in my head. I was like, it's probably going to cost that. I think it'll cost you to get over there for two weeks in Italy.

Oh, and I should say, um, my husband's, uh, military. So housing is like our, sorry, hotels are going to be like next to nothing. Okay. Um, so that makes a big dent. Yeah.

I mean, I don't lose sleep over 10,000 bucks. If you have that in cash, I don't see how any way you could get that done in Italy for two weeks or 10,000, but maybe that's just me. Yeah. I mean, I think that, that cap sounds right to me. with what you guys have, what you're making, what you have saved and all of that, that feels good, but I hope you can do it.

I think you can. You think. so? Yeah. I think you can do that.

I just don't want to go to Italy and eat Arby's. Like. I want to go to Italy and like, like, do it right. Eat a lot of gelato. I'd have a cap, though.

Catherine, I think it's smart of what he said. This is the Ramsey show.

Hey guys, Rachel Cruz, here. You know, some people think budgeting means they can't have any fun with money. And I know this because that was me. But the truth is, budgeting doesn't limit your freedom. It actually gives you freedom.

A budget is simply telling your money where to go. And the best way to do this is with EveryDollar, my favorite budgeting app. It'll help you create a plan for your money that fits your lifestyle. So, whether it's a spontaneous date night or an epic Disney cruise, budget for some fun, download EveryDollar for free today.

Welcome back to the Ramsey show. We are taking your calls. It's a free call anywhere in the country at 888-825-5225.. And if you enjoy the Ramsey show, if you wouldn't mind subscribing, leaving a review, sharing it with your friends, getting the word out to anyone and everyone is always helpful when it comes to spreading this message. And you guys do that a lot for us.

So we very much are grateful and appreciate that, but we love your support. And we love you guys. Feedback with the reviews. Again, we love you spreading the love and sharing some of these episodes with your friends and your family. All right, up.

next, we have Donald in New York City. Hey, Donald, welcome to the show. Hey guys, thanks for taking my call. My first time in a long time. Oh, I'm so glad you called in.

How can we help?

All right. So I'm going to give you my sort of, well, I'll give you my financial situation, but I recently had someone come about to a phone with our work today. So I got one of those straight emails inviting me to, you know, come on call and stuff like that. And, you know, I'm assuming it's the worst going for the T-Leaves in my company, but they are doing layoffs right now. So nothing's set in stone right now, but I am preparing for the worst on my end.

Okay. So you got an email. Let me make sure I understood you right. You got an email from your company that you have to come in for a meeting.

Pretty much. I'm sorry, what? Yeah, pretty much that. It was with two people that I technically work above. Okay.

Kind of company structures work with that, but that way, where I have multiple different managers and stuff like that. Okay. So you're thinking that you're thinking the worst. Yeah, I know you're good. You're thinking the worst that you're probably going to be laid off.

Right. Exactly. Okay. You don't know. Sure.

Sure. It may not be, but that's what you're thinking. My mind goes there. If, Dave... If they give me a promotion, they might make me a new partner at 23 years old.

Hey, if Dave texts me at four o'clock and is like, Hey, run by my office. I'm always like, Oh, great. This, is it. Right. So I'm with you.

That happens to me too. All right. So... How can we help? What's your question?

Yeah. Oh, let's see here. In terms of my financial preparation, assuming worst case scenario. I mean, in terms of my performance at this job right now, I'm not sure if I necessarily like it that much. I work at a public accounting company.

So that side of things is dreadful in terms of workload and stuff like that. So there could be a potential shift within like the next one or two years. But in terms of like, but that process could be accelerated as soon as tomorrow. So I was wondering in terms of my financial right now, I'm currently on baby step three and four in terms of my savings. I was wondering, how should I go about this process?

Because I do want to move, because I am open to relocating. Of course, you know, New York is a very high cost of living area. You can get taxed. For sure. Yep.

Okay. So how much money do you have saved?

Right now, in my retirement account, I got $40,000 saved. Good for you. Okay. Yeah. Thank you.

And you don't have a big runway, do you? They're going to like, they're going to tell you tomorrow, right? Yeah. When's the meeting? Uh, tomorrow.

Oh, sorry. You have no runway. It's not like in three months, I've got this. Yeah. So, I mean, I think right now you just wait for the meeting, Donald.

And if they lay you off, which, like you said, you don't even know. So let's say they do let you off. I don't know if it's immediate termination or severance or whatever you get. So then I would just have to, I would use my emergency fund to float through my expenses while I look for a new job. That's why it's there, which is perfect.

We use job loss all the time as an example, sadly, for that's why you have an emergency fund. So you have 40 grand saved, which is amazing. And then you may look, yeah, for another job, hopefully get one in the next 30, 60 days, 90 days, and then start back and replenish the emergency fund and then start retirement investing from there. But if they don't lay you off, you're saying that you may not even enjoy the job completely. Is that right?

That's right. Okay. So yeah. So if that's the case, then maybe you're looking for a career shift in a little bit, but you're 23.. Is this your first full-time job?

This is my first job out of school, yes. Yeah. So I mean, there's maybe a level two with accounting that you pay your dues and you got to do the grunt work first, right before you're going to be promoted and do the thing you really want to do. I mean, there's a reality to that to work. But also you don't want to hate your job and all of that either.

So I think that there's a balance there and understanding. you're going to have to do things in your job that you don't enjoy. But also you want to make sure you're in an industry and around people, that you enjoy the company and you enjoy what you do, because you work a lot of hours of your life there. And so Ken Coleman, one of our Rams to Personize, he does a great job when it comes to talking about your purpose. And he has an assessment.

Why am I blinking on the name of the assessment? It's career assessment. The career assessment. Is that what it's called? The career assessment?

Okay. I was going to say it's about your career. So if you hold on the line, Donald, Austin's, oh yeah, the Get Clear Assessment. That's what it is. Austin's going to pick up, and I want to give you an access code to that to take for free, because I think that could give you maybe even some other direction and to kind of see what your skills are, what you enjoy, your passions.

Because I think the earlier you find that, and things will shift in your life, but the earlier you can find some direction and encouragement, and maybe it's just confirmation that it is accounting and that you're in the right spot and you may just be looking for a different firm to work for or whatnot. But as far as the job loss goes, I wouldn't panic because it hasn't happened. But if it happens, it's going to happen. Hopefully you'll get some severance and you look for a new job. And that's how the world goes around.

That's what happens. Let's think through this, though, practically for people listening who are going to find themselves in this situation. And unfortunately we're in Q4 and companies want to make their interview numbers. So they just lay off a bunch of people so they can wave their magic papers in front of Wall Street and say, look how great we're doing. So you have to get an email and, or a text message or something, or, hey, we need to meet with you tomorrow.

And you know, the company's doing layoffs. Immediately your body goes to fight, or flight, as it should. If it doesn't, you probably need to go see somebody ASAP. So feel it, put your hand in your chest and feel your body trying to take care of you. And then the next thing, get a yellow pad, a Word document, a spreadsheet, whatever you want to do.

And literally type up, make a column. What can I control right now? And what can I not control? You're going to find real quick that you can control what you have for dinner. You can control if you go on a drinking binge or not.

You can control if, Hey, I know this is coming. I'm going to go ahead and send out three. I'm just going to send out three applications right now just to get them out. I can control that. I can go hang out with my friends.

What you can't control is whether they fire you tomorrow. You can't control it. You can control what time you go to bed, even if you lay there all night and toss and turn. And so there's something powerful about, all right, this is what I can do. That's it.

And I'm not going to spiral and spiral and spiral. And, by the way, if you don't have $40,000, it's going to be a long, long, long night. It just is because your body's going to know that it's fate is decided tomorrow. And what you'll find tomorrow is the sun will come up and you'll get some difficult, challenging news. if they lay you off and you're going to be heartbroken and devastated and all that.

Then the sun's going to come up the next day and you'll have a choice to make. Am I going to make my full-time job, getting a new job, or am I going to just sit here and be upset and be upset? So what can I control? What can I not? Let's call some friends and let's see what happens tomorrow.

Hey, I do, I am interested about this. So, Donald, do send us a note and let us know if you made the cut or if you're going to be looking for a new job. Yeah, for sure. Because there is a reality to that, right? I don't want to downplay what happened.

But also, I've learned, because this can be me, I can take a scenario and I go to the nth degree and I play the story in my head, I get anxious, I do all the things, and it wasn't even a reality. It wasn't even what I thought. That literally happened a few weeks ago. Dave was like, hey, I need to talk to you at 4.. You didn't think you were getting fired, John.

I know you worry about that a lot. We worry about John. sometimes. My body went to, this has to be bad. Right, right.

And my default is I start cranking up imaginary stories. Yes, yes. If he says this, I'm going to, and I just start going down the road. And it was literally, I was driving and I started laughing out loud. And, by the way, this is 10 years of me working on this.

So it's not just an overnight fix. I started laughing and I said out loud, nothing you're doing is going to help that meeting, right? And then I texted three people, two of which responded, oh, this has nothing to do with you. It has something to do with something else. And it was, ah, what kind of control.

I could ask. Hey, does anybody know what this meeting's about? Yeah, for sure. It's not you. Help me out.

Yeah. It was all good. Totally. Yes. Yes.

And then I went about on about my day. I know. So yes. So sometimes hard things do happen in these meetings and you got to face the reality, just like what John was explaining earlier, which I think is great. And then sometimes you guys, we're all crazy people in our heads and you create stories of reality.

That is not even reality. And we sit there and twist and turn. We ruin our nights. And freak out. And it's not even a thing.

So also have that dose.

call. This is the Ramsey show.

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So one part about winning with money. that is super crucial to having a plan and having some tactical things in place as a budget, and our every dollar app is the best on the planet when it comes to budgeting. It's the one I use and my husband, Winston, we share an account there and we track, I track transactions this afternoon before the show. And we keep up really with every single thing. We just were on a trip in New York and we were getting our transactions for New York and I have a New York line item in our budget this month and we just drop it into that category.

And it's just helpful to know what is going on. So if you've not checked out every dollar, make sure to go to every dollar.com. Check out that app too. There's a free version you can download in the app store. But also we have an every dollar webinar.

And if you go to every dollar, dot com, slash budgeting, Jade Warshaw, myself and George Campbell have been doing separate webinars, walking you guys through how to budget, the importance of it, this topic in general, and then walking you through some of the every dollar features, every dollar premium, because it has paycheck, planning, bank connectivity, a bunch of different stuff to really help you get this in a process and in a habit in your life when it comes to budgeting. So again, go to every dollar dot com slash budgeting to check that out. I think I have a webinar coming up, I think on the 20th, I think next week, I'll be doing one. So make sure to sign up and join us there. All right, up.

next, we have Faith in Louisville, Louisville, Louisville, because you gotta have faith, the faith, we're gonna say Louisville. Faith, welcome to the show. Louisville. Louisville. We got it.

We got it. Love it. So my husband and I just started the debt snowball. And I'm a teacher and he works for Kentucky Fish and Wildlife. And in the debt snowball, you know, student loans are supposed to be included.

But ours will be forgiven in seven years through public service loan forgiveness. So I was curious if we can, if we use that as part of the debt snowball, or if we just continue to pay the minimum payment until we reach seven years, who's going to be the president in seven years?

Oh, my God, no.

Yeah, I wouldn't trust the government on anything. when it comes to the subject faith. I think it's you guys that will pay your student loans off. I had, I was, I was a dean of students at a law school and I had some of the most brilliant young minds who for did not go into private law practice to where they can make a jillion dollars because they want to serve their communities and because the government said they would pay their loans off after 10 years of public service. And for many, many, many of them, that did not happen.

So I have a follow up question. Okay. So we have a. we have a pretty good savings right now. And we have about 5000 savings.

And that could pay a lot of one of our credit cards off. And so me and my husband are just so scared to let go of that 4000 as part of the debt snowball. But I think I know the answer to your question is, I think I know what you all are going to say is put 4000 towards that. Keep 1000.. You got to have faith, the faith, the faith.

What all are your? what's all your debt? You have how much in credit card debt? So we have 92,000 total in debt. Okay.

68 of that is student loans between me and my husband. That's ours. Okay. And then 18 of that is our vehicle payment. We only have one vehicle payment.

And then 1400 is medical debt. Okay. And then 5000 is credit card debt. Okay.

What, what caused the credit card debt? Just lifestyle college? Okay. Yeah. How much you guys make a year I worked at?

we make about 6200 a month. Okay. Okay.

Um, okay. So you guys have kids? Yes, we have a three year old, three year old girl. Okay, sweet. Yeah, faith.

You got a lot. You got a lot to tackle here. And I know, you know that because you're, you're aware. And it will scare you, yes, of going down. but I would, I would pay that medical debt off today.

Go ahead and knock that out. I mean, it's, it was great $1400, right? That's what you said. Correct. Yep, I would.

I would just get that out of the way, because what that's gonna do is gonna be like, Oh, okay, we got there's one, there's one gone. There's one gone. It's it's this kind of mind game that you're going to play with yourself with this, that snowball that actually works. This is what creates the behavior change, because I need you guys to have some quick wins. You guys are kind of new to this process.

I'm so thankful that you're actually facing this head on and tackling this stuff. But I want you to feel that quick win. So I do, I want you to pay that off. Yeah. And then, faith, you're exactly right.

I am knocking out this credit card debt, this $5,000 will be the next one that you're tackling. And that sense of urgency, because $1,000 it's really not meant to be there to be enough for everything. Okay. And we have this safety net that we want to feel, which we understand. That's why we put a large emergency fund after paying off debt.

So it's going to feel uncomfortable. You're not supposed to say, Oh, my gosh, $1,000 is fine. Now some people they don't have even that and they're having to save that for their first steps. You guys at least have that. And that's for all the ankle biter stuff.

But then, if something big happens, then you're going to pause it at snowball, save up money. for if the heating and air goes out. I mean, something insane, but usually stuff is not due right away. if it's a big emergency. So you're going to pause it at snowball, if something comes up that you need more cash for, you're going to save for that.

And then you're going to press play back on the snowball and continue this process. But yes, I would recommend going down to $1,000.. And then faith for a season, because of what you guys make, considering your debt, it's going to be hard to make a dent in this 92,000.. Again, considering you guys probably bring, you know, it's probably a 70 $72,000 combined income. So you guys need to get your incomes up, you really need to.

So I don't know if that's through side hustles. I don't know if that's looking at a job change. But I know it's a big ask in your season with a three year old, but you guys got to figure out something for a season to get that income up because it's going to, it's going to be a longer process if you don't just because of your numbers. So yeah, I hope that helps. I know it's, it can feel deflating sometimes when you're looking at numbers like that.

But you guys, you got to and you're a teacher, which I thank you so much. I mean, so, so thankful for for you and your work. But I don't know if there's tutoring on the side you can do. I don't know if your husband looks at a job change for a season, a period of time, we're just bringing on that extra income, but something, something needs to be up there, because even your expenses, I don't think there's probably a ton of expenses to cut. I mean, Louisville, thankfully, is not New York City, or Miami or something like that, where the standard of living is that much higher.

But still, it's expensive. life is, you know, life is expensive, I get that. So where you can cut expenses, I would do that. But if you hold on the line, Austin's gonna pick up, and I want to give you guys Financial Peace University. This is our nine lesson course.

And I would love for you and your husband to sit down and watch these lessons and really buckle down. I think what it'll do, it'll affirm what you're already feeling about this change and what you want to do. Maybe you'll learn some new stuff. That's also a hope that's in there. But that again, to solidify you guys in this process, because it's not going to be easy.

It's going to be a marathon. And if he's allowed to give your husband's info to Austin on the line, and if he can do a guided hunt and fishing for me and my son, I'd love to hire him, because I'll just drive up to Kentucky. That would be a blast. So I'll hook him up. That'd be a side hustle.

I don't know if Game Warden's allowed to do that, but that'd be fantastic. Be so perfect. So perfect. Oh, well, thanks, Faith. Thanks for calling.

Yeah, I think that this is where the tough reality meets the road when it comes to your money, you guys, is that when you, you know, especially when you look at numbers like there's like, they're a great example. This is what a lot of people are facing, where you basically have more debt than you have income. And it can feel very overwhelming. And that's where a plan and a timeline. for me, John always says it, but it's true.

Facts are your friends. And so as much facts as you can get around this, because your emotions possibly may be all over the map, but if you can do a timeline and say, okay, we got to back out. What do we have to do to be out of debt in four years? What are the things we have to do? How many hours extra do we have to work a week?

Like you, start putting actual, an actual plan around this. So it's not this idea floating around in your head. Because sometimes for me, that's where the fear can start to magnify. If it's just this idea, and it sounds so scary, and I'm looking at numbers, I'm like, oh my gosh, how's this going to happen? But as detailed as a plan, faith that you can do, I think, I think, is key.

And it's also important that we, we kind of blow over this sometimes, you and your husband, I want y'all to spend a weekend, like, just being sad, because y'all have a three year old, and he's doing public service, you're doing public service. The.

you do what you're told, you're public servants, y'all are helping out your community, you should be able to have a house and a car, two cars, and you found yourself in a hole. And so be sad for a weekend. We wanted this to look like this, and it's not going to right now. We're gonna have to do a ton of hard, hard work. But those days will come.

if you put your foot on the gas. You got this.

Our scripture today comes from James 1.4.. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking in anything. And Maya Angelou says, nothing will work unless you do. That's a great quote. Nothing will work unless you do.

You got to do it. Which is amazing. I mean, it's not. I feel like sometimes we want, like a magic fairy, to come in and just fix it all. Be healthy emotionally, get a raise at work, do all the things for us.

Doesn't always happen. We sometimes have to put in that work. Yeah, I was at Hormozy the other day, said, Alex said, your success is found in the work you are avoiding. Like, just start doing it. Yep.

Yep. That's right. That's right. So, so good. All right.

Up. next, we have Kylie in Minneapolis. Hey, Kylie, welcome to the show. Hi. Hello, how can we help?

So I recently just started a new job. I'm not making too much money. Just out there. I think I'm making 1350.. Okay.

I started two weeks ago and I was, you know, kind of searching for other jobs, too. And I got another job offer that offered me $18.. Okay. The thing is, is that my boyfriend is completely unsupportive about me moving to this other job.

So I'm kind of torn between staying at this job, making him happy, versus going to this other job, and causing some conflict in our relationship. Okay, what are you doing now for a job? I'm currently at Fleet Farm. I just do stocking. Okay.

And what's the new job? It would be in a factory. I'm doing paint prep. Okay. And why is he unsupportive of that?

Um, he is. I think he has a lot of history of other people cheating on him. This new job would be working mainly with, not men. Um, so I think he's kind of an insecurity thing. Okay.

How old are you guys? I'm 20.. He's 19.. Okay. How long have you guys been dating?

About eight months. Okay. Do you think anything heading to the official conversation? Like, do you think that? is he it?

Or are you guys just dating? What was that? Do you think that he's? is he your husband? Do you think like, okay, yeah, he's probably who I'm going to end up with?

Or do you think now we're just dating and we're gonna see what happens? No, we've done a lot of talking. That's. the end goal is to obviously get married, you know, when we're in a good place. Okay.

Okay. So the fact that it's that serious in a relationship, Kylie does raise a lot of red flags for me in his insecurity. I mean, if he's been cheated, John's that relationship expert. I'm gonna let him jump in on most of this. But I'm like dying, man.

If he's you go, you go. Why am I trying to go, John? No, go ahead. Go ahead. Well, what I was gonna say is, yeah, I mean, I mean, I understand that he's like, Oh, man, I don't want this to happen again, because what I went through sucks, and it hurts.

But all that fact that he's putting all of that on you, and it's completely out of jealousy and insecurity, Kylie. That's a red, that's a, that's a problem. There are more red flags here than at the red flag factory. Like where they make red flags. Yeah, dude, I, I mean, think about what he's telling you.

Hey, I don't want you to improve your life financially.

Because I will be uncomfortable. Hmm. Right. So I'm going to attach my lack of trust and my lack of belief in myself and my lack of own personal security. I'm going to make you carry that around to the tune of $5 an hour.

That's how little I think of you and your trustworthiness.

Okay, if you were my sister, I would tell you to listen to what the great Jay Z says, and that is to brush your shoulders off and roll. And here's the problem. So sweeping it under the rug isn't going to fix it. So what does that mean when you actually present him that? no, this is a better job for me.

And I'm going to move forward. how he responds to that? Kylie says a lot about who he is. Okay. Okay.

And as Yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna be your big siblings. We're gonna be your big sister, John, I'll be your big brother. And I think that that's and why I asked how serious the relationship is, because I'm like, I just want you to be very aware and go in to, I don't want you to make a decision, a lifelong decision of something like marriage. When there's conversations like this happening. Does that make sense?

Yeah, absolutely. And by the way, he's 18.. How many people have cheated on him? Between 14 and 18?. Good grief.

No, I mean, I guess he's had two girlfriends before me, and they both cheated on him with the same guy. So

dude, yeah, now you could make this super interesting. If that guy works at the factory. Oh, does he? Does he? Right?

Does he? No, no, not at all. We live about an hour and a half away from me. I was gonna start chanting Jerry, Jerry, that would have been awesome. That'd been awesome.

But listen, if he had the courage, let me let me try to see both sides of this. If he had the courage to tell you, hey, I've been cheated on twice. And the fact that you're going to be working, you're gonna be the only woman on the floor at this factory, and guys are going to be like treating you like crap. It can be catcall. And they're going to be there.

They're just going to be all like, I know how those dudes are. Makes me super uncomfortable. I want to say good for him for speaking out out loud. That needs to be followed with, but I trust you. And if you tell me you can't do this $18 an hour job, even though it would be amazing for you.

And eventually, when we get married, me too. And you say I can't be around these people. I'll be right there to help you get your stuff out of there. And if you tell me, no, this is this is incredible. I'm learning some great stuff.