Take The First Step Toward the Life You Want

Summary

The Ramsey Show – "Take The First Step Toward the Life You Want"

Date: July 24, 2026
Hosts: Rachel Cruze & Dr. John Deloney
Theme Overview
This episode of The Ramsey Show zeroes in on taking practical first steps toward building the life you want, regardless of past financial missteps. Through listener calls, Rachel and John offer compassionate but direct guidance on tackling money challenges, relationship dynamics, career changes, and financial planning, all anchored in Ramsey Solutions' well-known "Baby Steps" and values-driven strategies.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Navigating Money and Family Dynamics in Relationships

James (Toronto, Canada) – Newly Engaged, Navigating Ties to Parents' Money

• Caller is 26, getting engaged, both he and fiancée come from well-off families but want independence.
• Concern: His fiancée lives off parental support ($20k/year, lifestyle funded by parents), uncertain if this will continue after marriage.
• Rachel and John: Urged honest, deep communication about values—not just dollars ("the thing beneath the thing" – 04:23), and setting boundaries as a new nuclear family.
• Validation that early in marriage, it’s crucial to build your foundation together, with clear boundaries around external support and expectations.

Memorable Quotes:

• "It's important to identify the thing beneath the thing, beneath the thing… be honest with yourself about what you want as you co-create this new world with her." – Dr. John Deloney (03:01)
• “There's something wise and necessary about creating your own life together.” – Rachel Cruze (04:29)

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2. Crisis Planning: Surviving the Loss of Income

Danielle (Milwaukee) – Lost Child Support, Facing Debt

• Single mom, teacher. Lost substantial child support after ex regained custody. Deep in legal debt ($5k), student loans ($80k), credit card debt ($12k). Deficit monthly.
• Guidance: Rachel and John urge Danielle to ruthlessly prioritize essentials (food, shelter, utilities, transportation) and consider drastic changes to increase income or cut expenses—possibly including career shifts or multiple jobs.
• Emotional support was highlighted, with validation of grief and stress. Rachel offers practical hope by focusing on concrete steps and using Freed-up funds after debts are paid to rebuild.

Quotes:

• “What you've had for a long time is a math problem.” – Dr. John Deloney (12:08)
• "You have to control what you can control … as you see the light at the end of the tunnel, creating that pathway is so important." – Rachel Cruze (19:25)

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3. Financial Planning in Good Times: How Much is "Enough"?

Ruth (Sacramento) – Living Well, Not Saving Much

• Ruth & husband: No debt but mortgage, high income ($200k+), lifestyle-focused, minimal saving beyond maxing Roth IRAs.
• Hosts push back: Commend current position but warn that lack of intentionality equals “mediocre” retirement and too much risk in relying on one asset (the house).
• Advice: Double retirement contributions to $30k/year, build in generosity, create medium- and long-term goals, and prepare for the unexpected (e.g., health, automation risks).

Quotes:

• “What is mediocre right now is any level of intentional planning…which means you’re going to get a mediocre retirement.” – Rachel Cruze (26:06)

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4. Financial Separation in Marriage: When Couples Run Parallel Lives

Ryan (Phoenix) – Married 14 Years, Separate Accounts

• Husband’s income known, wife independently deposits a set amount to joint account. Ryan feels emotionally disconnected, afraid to ask wife for more money.
• John identifies this as a marriage, not just a money issue, urging a heart-to-heart about building a united life/vision—not just shared budgeting.
• Suggested taking conversation away from money (own your tendencies, acknowledge spouse's feelings) and possibly seeking counseling.

Quotes:

• “We are running parallel tracks inside the same house… The only way to fix this is to talk about what's below the surface.” – Dr. John Deloney (34:07)
• "Money problems are the symptom of a marriage that is not really intact." – Rachel Cruze (38:38)

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5. Job Loss, Grief, and Meaningful Next Steps

William (Houston) – Laid Off After 30 Years

• 48, financially secure ($2.4M in retirement/brokerage), but lost job of 30 years.
• John relates job loss to loss of identity and grief, suggests not to remain idle but to use the period for rest, volunteering, reframing purpose, and reflective letter-writing as emotional closure.
• Encouraged William to take some time, then pick a direction with purpose—volunteering, possibly new work, but not to withdraw from life.

Quotes:

• "There's a person needs a purpose… That itchiness you're feeling is important." – Dr. John Deloney (48:06)
• "You finally get to make the shots... What do you want the back half of your life to be?" – Rachel Cruze (50:41)

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6. Financial Triage in Overwhelm: When Your Life is "on Fire"

Mary (San Francisco) – Overleveraged Single Mom, Law Enforcement

• Relocated for her son, retained prior home as rental but is cash-flow negative; massive debts, unable to keep up.
• Rachel & John unequivocally recommend selling the distant rental (“You have a humongous hole, you can’t dig another hole to fill it" – 56:22).
• Walk through steps: Sell house, pay debts, fully fund emergency savings, then use remaining to rebuild, invest, and plan for eventual home purchase.

Quotes:

• “You’re drowning underwater, and you’re holding on to the thing called the interest rate. But you’re underwater.” – Dr. John Deloney (58:41)
• "You really could go from sleepless nights and stress to having no payments… with one decision." – Rachel Cruze (62:57)

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7. Career Transitions: Navigating Indefinite Waiting

Ann (Grand Rapids) – Waiting for Verbal Job Offer

• Ann has only a verbal promise from company and has been waiting 6 weeks.
• Hosts: Keep options open, see the lack of communication as a possible red flag about company culture. Push for something in writing and continue job search.

Quotes:

• “If someone really wants you, you know it… The fact they're not calling you is an insight into how they might do business.” – Dr. John Deloney (66:53)
• “It might be a dream job in a nightmare situation.” – Ann, with agreement from hosts (68:57)

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8. Home Ownership Regrets and Anxiety

Michael (Minneapolis) – First-Time Buyer Panic

• Young homeowner, overwhelmed by post-purchase repairs (mold discovery), financially marginal, bought with minimal downpayment, skipped inspection.
• Hosts: Empathy for indecisiveness and anxiety (anchor it in both financial and psychological roots). Urged him to get data (hire mold inspectors), avoid future debt, learn from mistakes, and focus on stabilizing before deciding to sell.
• John highlights the link between financial precarity and anxiety.

Quotes:

• “If you're financially precarious, your body's right to sound all your alarms.” – Dr. John Deloney (85:35)
• "This is a stupid tax moment. We've all been there." – Rachel Cruze (85:08)

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9. Mortgage Stress in High Cost-of-Living Areas

Shelly (Santa Barbara) – Over Half Income to Mortgage

• Husband's niche career brought them to high-cost area; paying $4,300/mo on $8,000 take-home ($700k house).
• Hosts counsel patience if income is poised to rise soon, but warn that math and margin matter more than geography or emotions. If not, consider tough choices (move, rent, other jobs).
• Emphasis on grieving the reality and letting go of the "six-figure salary means wealth" story.

Quotes:

• “The hard part of all this money stuff is it doesn't really care about your feelings. Math is math.” – Rachel Cruze (123:37)

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10. Debt, Prioritization, and Starting Over

Kayla (Atlanta) – $58k in debt, wants to be financially whole for faith/family/future

• Hosts walk her step-by-step through snowballing her debt, advise extreme focus ("gazelle intensity"), and highlight that with her six-figure income, she could eliminate debt in about 14 months if aggressive.
• Encouragement to remove credit cards (the temptation), and reassurance that pursuing graduate education can be smart—but not via debt.

Quotes:

• “Every time debt is mentioned in scripture, it's in a negative fashion… You’re a slave to the lender.” – Rachel Cruze (104:33)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “You don’t have a marriage; you’re running two different lives under the same roof.” – Dr. John Deloney (34:07)
• "Being idle for too long is not good for you. If you don’t want to go back 40 hours a week, that’s fine… but you have to have a purpose." – Rachel Cruze (46:34)
• "You're always going to play offense; one thing at a time… focus intensity." – Rachel Cruze (57:28)

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Segment Timestamps (MM:SS)

• 00:15 – Show open, first caller: James in Toronto – Marriage, family money
• 10:33 – Danielle in Milwaukee – Crisis after losing child support
• 22:50 – Ruth in Sacramento – “Financial cruising” vs. saving
• 32:37 – Ryan in Phoenix – Separate finances after 14 years of marriage
• 43:37 – William in Houston – 30-year layoff, what's next
• 54:09 – Mary in San Francisco – Overleveraged rental, debt spiral
• 65:17 – Ann in Grand Rapids – Waiting for job offer
• 77:01 – Michael in Minneapolis – Overwhelmed 1st time homebuyer
• 86:14 – Chris in Tampa – Co-signed student loan for nephew exposure
• 100:17 – Kayla in Atlanta – Debt snowball, prepping for “future spouse”
• 118:53 – Shelly in Santa Barbara – Overstretched on mortgage

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Tone & Style

• Conversational, compassionate, sometimes blunt—never shaming, but always focused on practical steps and emotional honesty.
• Repeated encouragement for callers to “get beneath the thing,” face financial realities, and prioritize communication as much as tactics.
• Blends humor (“This is a stupid tax moment”), personal anecdotes, and direct challenge (“Math doesn't care about your feelings”).

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Takeaways for Listeners

• First steps—even if small, honest conversations, cutting nonessentials, or finally facing messy numbers—are crucial to transformation.
• Emotional realities around money (fear, grief, guilt, denial) are just as important to acknowledge and process as dollars and cents.
• Long-term intentionality—planning, saving, having a vision—pays off, but embracing new beginnings and letting go of sunk costs is sometimes the boldest step.

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If you’re feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or at a crossroads, take the first (honest, intentional) step—no matter how big your “hole,” the Ramsey Show community and Baby Steps can help you build the life you want.

Transcript

[Announcer]

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today.

[Rachel Cruze]

Normal is broke and common sense is weird. So we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network in the Fair Winds Credit Union studio, this is the Ramsey show and I'm Rachel Cruze hosting this hour with Dr. John Deloney. And we're answering your questions. So give us a call at 888-255-2225 and we're here to help you about your life and your money. All right, starting us off this hour, we have James in Toronto, Canada. Hi, James. Welcome to the show.

[Caller]

Hi, Rachel, how are you?

[Rachel Cruze]

Hi. We're doing great. How can we help?

[Caller]

Just so I had a question for you guys. I'm 26 and I'm proposing on Tuesday, this coming week.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, dude.

[Rachel Cruze]

Congratulations, James. Way to do.

[Caller]

You know what?

[Rachel Cruze]

Good for you. I feel like we get so many calls from people and we're like, listen, are you going to get engaged? You're going to get married? You're doing it, James. We're proud of you.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Does she know it's coming?

[Caller]

No, but yes. It's not a complete surprise, but yeah. So my question is she comes from a quite well to do background and honestly, so do I. But we're going through a transition in the short future of being consumerist kids and moving into a more productive adult phase of life. And I've in the last two years started a business and been doing pretty well. And she once again comes from a good financial background but makes about 20,000 a year and is living paycheck to paycheck from that end of things. So I'm more wondering how to be productive as I know money can be a stressful issue for all people, let alone brand new couples and how to be productive and move towards a financial path together and successfully.

[Rachel Cruze]

Are her parents giving her money, James? I'm just curious how she's living off $20,000.

[Caller]

Absolutely.

[Announcer]

Yeah.

[Caller]

No, that's like a lifestyle budget.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay, okay.

[Caller]

There's nothing productive of that.

[Rachel Cruze]

What's the terms you guys have talked about once you get married, are the parents still going to be giving you guys money as a married couple or are they cutting her off once she gets married?

[Caller]

Great question. Actually, we haven't had that conversation. Her parents are very loving people. I'm sure there will always be a little bit of a tap from there. But both of us are on the same page about wanting our own financial future, not living off the backs of people before us.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I think you should break up. I'M totally kidding. I'm kidding. I'm just kidding.

[Announcer]

I was gonna say.

[Caller]

Wow.

[Rachel Cruze]

That was not my advice.

[Dr. John Deloney]

No, I'm totally pulling, man. I think it's. Dude, I think you have to. It's important for you to identify the thing beneath the thing, beneath the thing for yourself. And it's important for you to communicate that in as compassionately and clearly as possible. And here's an example. It's easy to talk about how much money she does or doesn't make. It's easy to talk about how much money her parents just send her every month. And it's easy to.

[Caller]

You're.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You're a very kind person. I can tell by how you talk about people when they're not in the room. And so the way you talk about her parents and your parents and her, that's all great. But beneath the thing, beneath the thing, beneath the thing is if you're feeling. I want you and me to be responsible for our future. And when you take money from your parents, sometimes it comes with strings or it comes with. And you're going to come to our house for this holiday and I want us to decide what we want to do for holidays moving forward. So it's you getting beneath the money, beneath the differences, and be honest with yourself about what you want as you co create this new world with her and then have that conversation because otherwise it just becomes a fight about how much money they spent and how many hours are you working. And we don't need to do this. But the real issue is I don't feel like we're. I feel like we have a partnership of three, me and you and your parents, or I feel like I, I'm one of the decision makers along with your dad still.

[Announcer]

Right?

[Dr. John Deloney]

And so it's getting to that honest sense inside your chest and, and being honest and telling her about it.

[Rachel Cruze]

And I do think there's something really wise and pretty necessary, especially at the beginning of marriage, that you guys create your life, right? And from. That's from a financial aspect, spiritual, emotional, like there is something true about. I'm leaving this family, I'm creating my own over here. And I would think, James, for you, you know, the, the sense of dignity to say, yes, this is, this is our family, our nuclear family right here, me and her, and then maybe in the future kids, and here's how we choose to live life and how we make decisions with money and creating a baseline for you all I think is really important just to give you guys the, the structure and the self Control to say, yeah, we, we can create a life together and we can have boundaries with money and limits with money versus it being endless. And there's something in that sacrifice and having to make those decisions of, okay, we have to either do this or this. We don't get to do both. Like, I don't know in all of that in a relationship like that, to me, that's the foundation of building something. And then later on, like we talk about on the show, changing your family tree. Right? And that can look a million different ways for different people. Um, but I don't think there's, you know, if they want to step in at certain points and you guys agree, you know, that that is okay. You know, I'm not completely like you. You can never tap that system ever, ever, ever. But there's something, especially at the beginning of you guys creating a baseline for yourselves. And I think it's going to be important.

[Dr. John Deloney]

James, let me, let me play the devil's advocate here on the other side of this, okay? You being honest and having this conversation. It's probably very small, right? Tiny. But let's say she looks at you and says, oh, no, no, no. My dad's. I'm always gonna ask my dad, what's the best house we should buy. I'm always gonna ask him. We're always going to my parents house for Christmas. That's not a discussion. You need to know that before you propose. You need to know that before you get into a. Legally or.

[Rachel Cruze]

I'm never going to cut off my parents.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I'm not ever cutting them. I'm not going to tell my parents no. Yeah, they're gonna pay part of our bills like you. You need to know that wide eyed too. And, and you get to choose. Okay. I'm gonna have a marriage where? At my kitchen table. At our kitchen table. There's gonna be always be two more seats there with her mom and dad lobbing in their opinions and voices and choices and whatever. So it's. There is an importance to having that conversation. It's not one sided. You're gonna say what you feel and what you want and she's gonna say what she wants.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And so. And then y' all are gonna reverse engineer. Okay. What does that mean in. In practicality. If mom and dad bomb us out of the blue with a big financial.

[Caller]

Here you go.

[Dr. John Deloney]

We just thinking about y'. All. It's going to go in this account for future kids college. It's going to go in this account for a future home purchase or something. But it's y' all coming up with a game plan before the game starts, right?

[Caller]

Okay.

[Rachel Cruze]

You just said a lot of monologuing. James.

[Announcer]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Talk back to us. What are you saying?

[Caller]

No, no, no, no, though that's, that's wonderful. I'm all just soaking it in

for

our side of things. I know all these things going into our future marriage, which is they're an Italian family. We're always going to have them over for Christmas or be over at their place. We're completely on the same page for really a lot of things. And I think we're quite effective communicators. It's just, I know there's going to be a lifestyle shrink like no other. Like, yeah, yeah, I can't compete and I don't try to compete. There's no point in it. But it's going to be a shock for her more than me. And I just want to not, not brace for it. I don't think it's going to be a negative experience, but it will come with its fair share of challenges.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Look at it, look at it as a new set of skills she has to learn and that you all have to learn together. Not as a moral failure or she's a loser or a brat or like she's never had to do this before. And so it's going to be bumpy and there's going to be some practice involved. It's going to take three to six months for you all to dial in a budget and actually stick to it because it's brand new for both of you. Being honest about that is part of building a great marriage together.

[Rachel Cruze]

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[Caller]

Hi, I'm. How are you today?

[Rachel Cruze]

Hi, we're doing great. How are you?

[Caller]

I'm okay. I'm calling because I have just lost a very substantial amount of child support, and I'm not really sure how to move forward with paying my bills because it puts me into a huge deficit.

[Dr. John Deloney]

What happened?

[Caller]

Well, their dad was having some addiction issues, and so when I took the kids away for their safety, it resulted in very large legal fees over the last year and a half. Those have obviously amplified during this court battle. And they've given him. Suddenly given him his. His custody back when it was very unexpected to me because two months ago he wasn't allowed to drive with them in the car, and now they've suddenly given him all of his custody back, which took away all of the child support for me. And so I still have all these legal fees and all this debt from before because I was not able to really financially take care of them before, so I was constantly taking on debt. And so not. I'm just, like, lost, so. And I'm scared.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, totally. I mean, my heart breaks for you. I'm going to speak kind of abruptly because we have a shorter time to talk. Is that cool? If you and I were sitting down for an hour together, I would be much more eloquent in my speech. Okay. Um, it sounds like this sudden withdraw of child support is layered.

[Caller]

Right?

[Dr. John Deloney]

There's emotional issues. You're scared for your kid's safety, you're blindsided. So let's. We're just going to talk about the dollars and cents. Okay. It appears that what this really did was expose an already existing problem. And this, this sounds crass, but at the end of the day, what you've had for a long time is a math problem.

[Caller]

Yeah. And I have been using the Every Dollar app for quite a. I don't know, quite a few months now. Maybe half a year, maybe a little more. And I know, and I listen to the books and I'm doing everything I

[Dr. John Deloney]

can, but the EveryDollar app is amazing. But what it really is good at is helping you get a plan for your money. And it's also really great at exposing where we can cut expenses and where we need to add income. And I, I honestly, as heartbreaking as it Sounds. I don't see another path forward for you other than you've got to go get some jobs that make more money. Especially in this, in the times when, when your kids are with their father now.

[Caller]

I've been trying for the last three years to get extra jobs. Yeah, I've turned. Been trying to get a better job.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Sure.

[Caller]

I'm a teacher. I'm a full time teacher. I teach art.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay, Danielle, and let me ask you this. The legal fees, are those on credit cards? Did you take out a personal loan? How, how are those being funded?

[Caller]

Well, I've been paying them monthly. I've been paying $1,000 a month to a lawyer.

[Rachel Cruze]

The payment plans directly with. With them.

[Caller]

Yep.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay. How much do you have left on that?

[Caller]

I'm not sure because we just went to court again and I'm not sure how much all that's going to be. I'm guessing at least 5,000.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay. And then what other debt is there?

[Caller]

I had the debt that I consolidated, but there's a lien on my car. And then I have $80,000 in student loan debt and I have like $12,000 in credit card debt.

[Rachel Cruze]

12,000 in credit card. Okay, what, the car lien or how far behind are you on the car?

[Caller]

I owe $9,250 and it is worth like exactly that. Okay. And I.

[Rachel Cruze]

Are you behind on any payments?

[Caller]

No, I've never not paid a bill.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay, so you're current on. So what, what is, what is the $1300? What is. What would you be doing with that if you had it? Because you have to be behind on something, I'm assuming. And I just want to make sure that their priorities are right. Paying the lawyer.

[Caller]

Paying the lawyer.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Well, I mean, the child support should go to the care of the children, right?

[Caller]

Yeah, in theory, but I have to pay the lawyer, you know.

[Announcer]

Sure.

[Caller]

So now my child. My child support was 2050 and now is going to be like 700.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay. So in your situation, Danielle, I would remind you that your priorities and where your money's going is gonna be very, very important. So always making sure that you have food, your mortgage is being paid, or your rent, utilities stay on, and your transportation. I just don't want you to. And sometimes the overwhelmingness and what can feel like a hopelessness, you know, whatever feels urgent in the moment is where you end up paying and you end up possibly making mistakes and putting yourself in a financial position. That's dangerous. Right. I don't want you getting behind on your rent or your mortgage or Your car payment. So, like, those are very important to stay current. The credit cards, we can worry about those later. And. And with the. So you're giving $1,000 to the lawyers. So in. If I'm correct, that will be done in about five months.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Or if the $700. The $700 coming in, I don't know.

[Caller]

How much longer does. Will go on? I don't know.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay. Well, when it comes, this can be a. And, John, you're probably way more in this world than I am, but that the whole court system, and especially with divorce and custody battles, I mean, it just. That it can be for. And not that I would never tell you not to fight and fight and fight, but I do want you to maybe at a point in time, stop, reevaluate, maybe even look at your legal counsel. I mean, if it's not getting done.

[Dr. John Deloney]

If it's not getting done and you can't afford it.

[Rachel Cruze]

And you can't afford it, there may have to be a pause at some capacity for you to at least keep your head above water. And so what I would encourage you to do is I'm so glad you're doing the EveryDollar app, but I really do want you to make sure your priorities are in order. And then what John was saying at the beginning is true. There has to be a change in the math from the income side. I'm assuming your expenses are already pretty limited to make sure that all of this.

[Caller]

Yeah. Down to, like, that's the budget. Without even buying toilet paper.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yep. Yep.

[Caller]

And.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And again, all of this is the worst. Okay. So there's no joy or glee from me or Rachel. Like, we're sitting in this with you. Okay. When I was a high school teacher, I knew folks who got up really early and drove a bus for extra money before they were a teacher all day. And then who would go work in a grocery store stocking shelves in the evening? And they were paying off student loans. Right. And so it looks like that maybe. I mean, you got the school year coming up. I don't know what you've done this summer, but it may not be a career change at this point. If you've really been trying to get new careers and get new jobs and get promoted. If that's not happening, then we're going to deal with the reality that we have in front of us right this second, which is you got 700 bucks coming in for child support. You have $1,000 payment every month to an attorney. You at least have to make 300 bucks over. So I'm going to earn that. And if I have to sell my house and move to a one bedroom apartment for a season and the kids all have to share a room, like, we have to make some drastic changes that nobody wants to make. But you're just staring at a really ugly math problem and you've tried to solve it in one way for three years. Let's just stop trying to solve it that way for, for the moment. Because you've got an emerging emergency on your hand and it's. You're gonna be, you're gonna be exhausted, you're gonna, you're gonna weep for your kids, for yourself, for, for nobody plans to be in the situation you're in. And we're gonna scratch and claw our way through it. And what you'll find is as you get in back in the driver's seat of your own life, you're gonna find yourself walking a little taller and you're gonna find yourself being more confident in yourself. You're not gonna feel like life is happening to you. Like you're, you're starting to tap. And that comes through in job interviews, that comes in through performance reviews. It begins to impact all of your. The rest of your life very positively. Okay.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

But there's not a magic bullet here other than you've got a really ugly math problem ahead of you and you've got to scratch and claw and be exhausted and add more money on the front end of this thing. And it's just going to be that way for a season, especially to get this attorney paid off.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I hate this for you, hon.

[Rachel Cruze]

I know. Danielle, call us back if you need us. But there is something about making that plan. And John always says it. Control what you can control. And even mapping out some of these debts and looking, say once these attorney fees are paid off, that's $1,000 freed up. I can get my car paid off in eight months. You start actually seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. And so creating that pathway for you is going to be so important. And that the sacrifice of the extra job, it may be for two to three years and then it's done, right? And then you get a clean slate and you get to start over. But again, give us a call back, Danielle, if you need anything else.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

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[Dr. John Deloney]

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[Rachel Cruze]

Buying or selling your home has pretty high stakes because when you buy a home, it's usually the largest purchase that you ever make. And so if you're buying, you want to make sure you're doing it right. And if you're selling again, it's such a large, large asset that you have that you want to make sure you are doing it right. Because one, one mistake in a deal could cost you tens of thousands of dollars. And again, you don't want to overpay either if you are buying a new home. And so that's why Ramsey Trusted connects you with vetted real estate agents who have the experience to guide you step by step to make smart decisions and avoid those expensive mistakes. So connecting with them is really easy. And it's great too, because they each have a profile. So you can compare the profiles and pick the candidate that feels right for you. The agent that you see that you're like, okay, that's right. And you can interview them, spend some time and understand, okay, is this person going to be the one to walk me through the home buying or home selling process? So to find a local Ramsey trusted agent who will have your best interest at heart for free, check them [e-mail] agent or click the link in the description if you are watching on YouTube or listening on podcast. All right, let's head to Sacramento and we have Ruth on the line. Hi, Ruth. Welcome to the show.

[Caller]

Hey there. I've been enjoying listening to the show and today's question is on the lighter side, I think I just wanted to call and see what was the Ramsey opinion be for financially cruising like, we have no Debt other than our 15 year mortgage and we live by our means. I just feel like we're enjoying the good life and, you know, we have no financial stress. But at the same time, it's not like we're really focusing on saving and saving and, you know, kind of squirreling away money like that. I feel like we pretty much do use our money up outside of investing in a Roth each year just on like lifestyle and obviously doing things with our kids and vacationing and property improvements and things like that. And I just was curious, like, what your take would be. Like, is this okay? We're 38, 39 years old, and like I said, we're having a lot of fun. And I just wonder if we're like, maybe we should need, you know, be focusing more on, on saving that money.

[Dr. John Deloney]

What do you do for a living?

[Caller]

Well, I'm, I'm stay at home mom. It's pretty fabulous. I do have a couple little side hustles. We live on a farm here in Northern California. My husband is the one who makes the money. He brings home the bacon. He makes about 200,000 a year and he does commercial H Vac. He's a foreman and out of Sacramento.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So fast forward, just like pause life for a second, get into the DeLorean, and let's go into the future together. And he is 58 and the arthritis is so bad in his fingers, he can't turn the knob and his back hurts and so he can't be a foreman anymore. He's tried an office job and it's killing him. And you're 57 and y' all are on this farm and suddenly he gets word from his boss, dude, you, you're, you're, you gotta retire. What would the phone call sound like from 58 year old you calling this exact same show?

[Caller]

We will be fine because the house is gonna be paid off in a few years and it's worth over a million dollars. And so we're good there. I could always go back into real estate. Another thing line of work. Because he's a foreman, he's already doing a lot of computer stuff and so he's really not doing quite as much service stuff. And he would be fine going into the office as well. He's kind of had opportunities there. So, I mean, I think where there's a will, there's a way, but we shouldn't have a lot of debt by then. I'm just saying we're not doing like a ton. Like some people are like uber focused on saving for that Retirement. And I'm like, I'm more of like the mindset, it's going to work out. We're having such a fun life.

[Rachel Cruze]

You are the, you are the glass half full woman I've talked to in a long time. You're like, your husband loses your job. Bruce, like, listen, he'll be great. We will be fine. It is going to be fine. Okay, Here, here's what I want to

[Caller]

be on the show, Ruth.

[Rachel Cruze]

Nothing is, nothing is on fire, okay?

[Dr. John Deloney]

You guys, you are, you're crazy, Ruth. Everything you're saying is on fire.

[Rachel Cruze]

Stop it. No, let me finish. Let me finish, let me finish. What I'm saying is.

[Caller]

Wondering if I'd be yelled at.

[Rachel Cruze]

No, listen to me. I'm being honest. I don't think anything is necessarily on fire right now. You guys are, you are spending a lot, but you're, you're not going deeply in debt. You guys have a plan to pay off the home, all of. But what I'm telling you is what is mediocre right now is any level of intentional planning with your money, which means you're going to get a mediocre retirement. Everything's going to be just mediocre. That's it. That's it. So what I would do is I would look to say, okay, we're funding. You're putting probably 14, $15,000 into retirement. So you're funding both of your Roths. So I would double that. I think you guys, with your income, you need to be putting $30,000 away in retirement specifically. Okay? That's your goal. And if you guys do that, then here's something else, Ruth, to be thinking about is the generosity piece, right? With money, you can give it, you can save it, you can spend it. You guys are great spenders. You're mediocre savers at best. So you need to be saving for future. Ruth, you need. Because when John asked you that question, the best answer would be, I mean, if he's 59 and a half and loses his job, we're fine, because we're gonna have $3.2 million or whatever, right? Like, you're gonna be able to know because you've planned, you are intentional. You know what's happening. You don't right now, Ruth, you're just like, I don't know, not many goals, just enjoying life, right? And not all of that is bad. It just has to be balanced with, in my opinion, more long term planning and goals. You and your husband need to sit down and say, what are we shooting for? What do we want, we want to pay off the house in seven years, not 15. Like to get on a plan and actually execute some of this and then the generosity piece too. But no, I don't. Okay, so John, tell her why she's on fire. And her whole. She's actually. She's going to be broke and it's going to be terrible.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Here's what I'll tell you real quick.

[Caller]

Just real quick. The house is actually going to be paid off in three years. It's worth over a million dollars.

[Rachel Cruze]

Chris, are you. I think you're doing great. I think you're doing great.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You two spenders just go on a cruise together and just. This is what it's like hanging out with Rachel.

[Rachel Cruze]

Vacation Ruth. I bet it's super fun.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I bet Vacation Ruth is mad house. I bet it's awesome. Here's what I'll tell you. I'll tell you the same thing. Back when I was seeing clients, what I would tell somebody who sat down and said, hey, I've been married for a long time, but I met the secret and we have this great connection.

[Caller]

And we.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And I think it's going to be awesome. And what I would always say is, I will be here right now while you're thinking about it and I'll be here when you have the affair and I'll be here when your marriage explodes and I'll be with you through the divorce. Like so I'm telling you right now, Ruth, go.

[Rachel Cruze]

So dark. I know.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Oh, she said we can't make this dark. And I was like, hold my beer. I'll make it dark.

[Rachel Cruze]

I can make it.

[Dr. John Deloney]

But here's the thing. I will be. I hope to. Unless I get fired for some weird reason. I hope to be here when you're 59 and I will be here to take your call because think about this. You have a million dollar house. That's amazing. It's amazing. Okay. That's so good. You've paid it off. It's appreciated Great. On this beautiful farm in North North California. It's awesome. Everything is great. And if you think about that you've put. It's like buying one single stock that's worth a million dollars today.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Everything in your life is counting on this working. Everything in your life is counting on your husband not having, being in the trades, not having an accident. Everything is hoping that in 20 years AI hasn't taken 99% of the IT jobs away. Everything is hoping that our kids lives are as magical as our lives. And so you are like on the scale of risk. You've put everything on one side and there's so many variables out there.

[Rachel Cruze]

Can I. Ruth, do you know what y' all have in retirement?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Zero.

[Rachel Cruze]

No, she said they fund their Roth IRAs.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I thought you said you didn't have anything.

[Caller]

Yeah, we do have our Roths. We've been investing just the past few years. We've been maxing them. But, you know, my husband also has a retirement account.

[Rachel Cruze]

How much y' all have in retirement? Right, all together, how much? What's the number?

[Caller]

I don't know. I don't know.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Is it half a million dollars or is it 50,000?

[Caller]

We know it's like 50 in our Roth, maybe 60 in our Roth. And I don't know what his retirement is. They don't match or anything. So I. He said it's not real, but I, like monthly about. I don't remember what it is.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I feel like that's how y' all roll. It's either really great or not too great.

[Rachel Cruze]

Ruth, y' all have. Y'.

[Caller]

All.

[Rachel Cruze]

Do y'. All. I'm gonna assume this because I need. I need this on my side of the argument. You do have just cash sitting in an account for savings, like for an emergency fund. Stop, stop. Do you, Ruth?

[Caller]

Yes. Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

How much? How much?

[Caller]

Good. We have 40,000.

[Rachel Cruze]

Great. Ruth, I'm telling you, y' all need to drain in the spending. You need to be investing more, Ruth. You gotta be giving more. You gotta be intentional. You gotta follow the baby steps, what you're doing. But you're almost on baby step seven. Their house is almost paid off in three years. You need to be funding more in retirement. You guys need to be more generous, find something to give to and have some goals, some a five year goal for your money and where it's going. And then enjoy your vacations.

[Dr. John Deloney]

It's fine.

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[Rachel Cruze]

Up next, we have Ryan in Phoenix, Arizona. Hi, Ryan. Welcome to the show.

[Announcer]

Hello.

[Caller]

Thank you for taking my call. I appreciate it.

[Rachel Cruze]

Absolutely. Thanks for calling in. How can we help?

[Caller]

So I have a question. I read the Baby the Baby Steps Millionaires, but I've been having a hard time getting my wife to buying into reading the book and helping me, you know, go through those baby steps together. She does have a. We have an account together, right? We have the same account, but I know that she has her own account where all of her earnings go to the account and then she just transfers that a certain amount every month to the joint account.

[Dr. John Deloney]

How long have you all been married, man?

[Caller]

14 years.

[Dr. John Deloney]

14 years.

[Rachel Cruze]

How much does she make and how much do you make?

[Caller]

I make net income a month is like 6200 me. And I don't know how much she makes. I just know that I receive which she deposits $1,000 every, every two weeks into our account.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So sometimes people read and they hear about the baby steps or they read Total Money Makeover or Baby Steps Millionaires and they're inspired financially. Sometimes they read this and it's revealing. Oh, me and my wife have been sharing a home and a bed for 14 years. But. But we are on different planets when it comes to our life. I don't know how much money she makes. I don't know how much money she has.

[Caller]

We are.

[Dr. John Deloney]

We are running parallel tracks inside the same house, right? And the challenge is often people try to solve that conversation with, you need to budget better or we need to share one account and you need to stop doing this. And the only way I've seen people be successful is in that situation. Like, what's happened to you is you reading this and you're like, oh, I want this outcome. I want to baby step my way to financial freedom, right? Security for me and my family. But it's revealed a really big fissure in your marriage. A crack like a canyon in your marriage. The only way I've seen that conversation be successful is not talking dollars and cents. It's you sitting down with your wife and Maybe for the first time, being honest about what's inside your chest. You saying, I, I, I feel like we're running parallel lives. I don't know how much you make. I want us to be united in our dreams together and our money together, and we're not connected here. And that's where, that's the meat of the conversation. That's a vulnerable conversation. Because she could look at you and say, I'm not doing that. I don't want that. And then you're gonna have to deal with that. I mean, you're talking at a value point. Right? It's the anchor. This is the foundational question. And the only way I've seen it be successful is if you go first and you say, hey, here's what I'm feeling here we are not together in our life. We're running two different lives under the same roof. And I want us to be, I want us to start uniting ourselves, our marriage, or started uniting our, our vision for our life. Does that make sense?

[Caller]

Yeah, it makes sense. It makes sense. I mean, so the other day I had to use my credit card to buy groceries. So it was a bad situation. I mean, it's in me very, it made me feel very sad. And I know that she like it. I, I feel guilty asking her for money because I know she probably has money. And it just made me feel sad, you know, I'm like, I, I, it

[Dr. John Deloney]

breaks my heart for you that you, yeah. You have a marriage that you've built over 14 years. You've co. Built for 14 years where you feel shame for asking your wife for grocery money.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

If you called me and told me she's your ex wife and she lives down the street or in another town, then that what you just said would make sense to me. The fact that y', all, you have kids too.

[Caller]

Yes. Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Y' all have created humans together. And the dynamic in your relationship is, it's, it's worrying to me.

[Rachel Cruze]

Have you felt this disconnect to her, Ryan, for a while or how kind of lopsided this is, that it's not really a marriage? It's more just like a partnership in a business feel.

[Caller]

That's, that's how it feels. Yeah, sometimes.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Is she open to this, like, unity conversation, or does she just not give a crap with what's going on inside your heart and mind?

[Caller]

Yeah, I've been trying to, I've been trying to talk to her about that. I started with, I started with, hey, listen down. Let's talk about doing things together. We need to start planning for the future. We don't have a college fund for our kids. We need to be ready for a financial emergency where, you know, maybe I lose my job, you lose your job. We need to be ready for those things. I didn't give a specific dollar amount. I just said, you know, we didn't sit down. And her response was like, no, I don't want to talk about that.

[Rachel Cruze]

Did you ask her why?

[Caller]

Yeah, she's. She just told me it's because it's all about money with you.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And so if it. I would. I would attempt the conversation again, and I would change two things. Number one, I would tell her I got a babysitter for the kids, and I got us reservations at a restaurant or I want to take us to this place. And I also want you to know I have. I've. I've beat you down about money. I've just talked about money, money, money, money for 15 years, and I'm going to own that. I'm sorry. I want to have a different conversation underneath money, about you and me building a new marriage together. And that way you're acknowledging up front her chief complaint, and you're. And if you've got other things, if you tell her, if you're a worrier, if you are an overspender, if you always have had a scheme for the last 14 years and this is just another scheme she thinks you're having, whatever it is, go ahead and lay that out on the table first when you invite her out to breakfast or you invite her out to dinner. And put that on the table.

[Caller]

Yeah, because that's a good idea.

Yeah.

[Rachel Cruze]

The money problems, they are the symptom of this marriage that is not really intact. Right. A wife and a husband that are not connected. And then once that starts happening, then you realize, okay, working on the same team is much easier. And some people find it the opposite way, Ryan. They end up working on money together, and it helps their marriage. Right. So it can be either door, but something has to start moving, and it's for the sake of you guys, right? You know, you've committed yourselves to each other forever, and you're thinking, okay, I want more in this. And so there is that vulnerable place to be, Ryan. And I think that. Yep. Having that conversation, framing it the way John just outlined, I think is great.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And sometimes people in a marriage, they. They try to exert power by saying, this is my money, and you can't see it, you can't talk to it, you can't tell me what to do with it.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

It.

[Dr. John Deloney]

But sometimes people. That becomes the way, like, marriage dynamics, like he's talking about, happen over time because somebody feels like, I have to. You're always beating me down about money you spend wildly, and I'm gonna make sure me and the kids are gonna be okay. Yeah. And so who knows how this dynamic got here. The. That's helpful in a therapy session to go all the way back in time. But, man, right now, we have to solve today's problem. The today's problem is we are not connected, and we got to reimagine how we do life together. And I'm gonna go, what crap I've brought to this thing.

[Rachel Cruze]

That's right. Well, and I would say, too, just to have, like, a moment of, like, okay, I'm not saying we have to do this, but can we just, for a second, put numbers out and just see what happens? Like, how much do you bring in? How much do I bring in? Let's put it. Let's look at our bills. Let's look at our debt. Like, where could we be financially if we just went all in together and used both sources of income to get us where we want to go financially? Right. And not to, like, threaten her about it, but it's like, okay, I'm not saying we have to do this today, but let's just look and see what this picture. He can't even. You can't even paint a picture, Ryan, from a financial perspective going forward because you don't even know how much you guys have to work with. And there's obviously something that's a little bit off because you couldn't even pay for food for yourself. And so whatever that $6,000 is being allotted, you need to be looking at that, looking at your expenses. And again, you guys together look and say, here's how we're going to run our household. Here's the money we have coming in for our household. Here are the bills. Here are the expenses. Here are the goals. Here's what I'm scared about. Here's where you're scared about. Right. You get. You get it all together. And when. When you can do that and her not feel cornered or shut off because she's feeling that way for some reason. We don't know why, but that's there.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And this conversation, let's be honest, does not always end well.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Like, she may say, this is my job and this is my money. You're responsible for the house and for the bills and for the kids and for the food. This is Mine. And then you got a choice to make. I'm 15 years in. This is the arrangement. I'm going to be sad and heartbroken, but I'm going to do the best I can with the marriage I got in front of me or I'm going to leave. But trying to always be banging your head against a pretty solid brick wall is just a recipe for it's going to implode at some point. So I'm going to choose reality that I got in front of me.

[Rachel Cruze]

Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I don't like this situation. It is what it is. Or I'm gonna get out of the situation. And I hate to distill it down, but that's often where people find themselves 100%.

[Rachel Cruze]

And sometimes, Ryan, if you do get in a situation with both of you and you keep hitting that wall or you keep feeling like we can't move forward, bringing in a third party, seeing if there is a great counselor in your area, a therapist just to sit down for a couple of sessions and kind of rehash some of this with a third party is also really.

[Caller]

Foreign.

[Rachel Cruze]

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[Dr. John Deloney]

you ever go back to your old carrier?

[Rachel Cruze]

And with Boost Mobile, there's no contracts, no hidden fees, and no surprises, which makes this a no brainer when it comes to saving money. Best part, you can keep your phone and your number when you switch. So it's not like you're making some huge lifestyle change. Listen, you need a phone, but you don't need to be overpaying every month. So whether you're paying off debt or building wealth or you just want to keep more of your money in your pocket, this is a win. Go to boostmobile.com Ramsey and make the switch today. That's boostmobile.com Ramsey.

[Dr. John Deloney]

$25 forever requires customers to remain active on Boost Mobile unlimited plan.

[Rachel Cruze]

Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fair Ones Credit Union Studio. I'm Rachel Cruz here with Dr. John DeLoney and we are taking your calls at 888-255-225. First up, we Have William in Houston. Hi, William. Welcome to the show.

[Announcer]

Hello.

[Caller]

Thanks for taking my call.

[Rachel Cruze]

Absolutely. How can we help?

[Caller]

I was calling because I was recently laid off after 30 years with the company.

So they did construction.

[Dr. John Deloney]

How many years?

[Caller]

30 years.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Oh, my gosh.

[Rachel Cruze]

Dude.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Hey, can I just say I'm sorry? That's hard, man.

[Rachel Cruze]

That's a lot.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cruze]

Oh, it's like a marriage. Oh, my gosh.

[Dr. John Deloney]

There's some psychology research about this. It's a lot. A job loss like that, that impacts your body, like the loss of a loved one.

[Caller]

Yes. Okay. I can.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, that's a heavy betrayal, right? That sense of, yeah, I got betrayed.

[Announcer]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Dude, I'm sorry, man.

[Caller]

Yeah. So my question is, my wife, she wants me to. She said I should take off, like six months and just relax and just get my head together before I go looking for something. And I was just wondering, do you think that's a good idea or not a good idea?

[Dr. John Deloney]

I think it's. Yeah. Rachel, you. You hop in. I. I think it's. I think broadly speaking, no, it's not a great idea. And here's why. You're gonna sit inside this grief and inside this betrayal, and those stories will take hold inside of you. Now, what I would say that where she's right is maybe for six months, you don't jump back into a full time. I'm going to give my entire mind, body, soul and spirit to a thing. And is the next 30 years. Maybe you go get a. A job at a grocery store. Maybe you go, like, get a job at a coffee shop there in Houston or something.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

But like, I'm going to. I'm going to work. I'm going to have to get up and go do a thing. I'm going to have to shower every day. I'm going. Have to shave every day. I'm going to get back into a routine where I'm providing value to a thing, to. To a group, to a customer. But I'm going to also not just throw my heart and soul back into a thing again.

[Caller]

Right.

I got you.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So if you call me, let's take it away from work. If you call me and said, my wife of 30 years just walked out on me, should I just take six months off and stay inside my house, draw the windows down and just sit here for six months, I would say absolutely not. I would also tell you, don't just jump back into another relationship.

[Announcer]

Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So there's. It's a. Both.

[Rachel Cruze]

And William, would you financially be okay not working for six months?

[Caller]

Yeah. Financially we'll be fine. Because my wife said that I'm overly obsessed with the numbers because we had a high savings rate before I was laid off. So we have about, between brokerage and retirement we have about 2.4 million.

[Dr. John Deloney]

William, lead with that next time.

[Announcer]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Take six months off.

[Rachel Cruze]

So good, William. Yeah. I mean, not playing.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Don't take six months, but you know what I mean.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah. I'm with John. I'm like, I, I think being idle for too long is not good just for you. But if you don't want to go back 40 hours a week, but you got something that you go to, you know, two or three hours a week and then maybe you're like, you know

[Dr. John Deloney]

what, I'm gonna, I'm volunteer.

[Rachel Cruze]

Volunteer. Or I'm gonna, I'm gonna hike every day or work out or start going to therapy once a week. Like. Right. Like using your time wisely I think is important now you're not having to rush to go make a paycheck, which is a gift. But again, I think sitting idle completely, not doing anything long term, I don't think is great. Now if you want to take two or three weeks and just, oh, absolutely chill, that's fine. But I would have a goal at some point in the fall to say, okay, I'm going to get into something. And again, I don't feel like you have to rush into anything major. And like what John's saying too, like finding the next thing. I wouldn't feel pressured to have to do that right now, but I wouldn't just sit and do nothing.

[Dr. John Deloney]

How old are you, brother?

[Caller]

I'm 48. And that's what I, that's what I was, that's what I was thinking because like now I feel like my whole day is like I'm kind of idle.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yes.

[Caller]

Get up in the morning, I get up at six o' clock and I go on like a two and a half mile. I mean like a two hour hike every morning.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yep.

[Caller]

I go hike for two hours, I come back home, then I try to find some honeybees or something to do it right now. But like I said, my wife, I said I don't like being idle. I don't just like, I feel like I'm not useful right now.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah. And, and there's a person needs a purpose.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And a person needs a purpose. They need somebody to go add value to their life. That's how we're wired, that's how we're built. And so it could be that you get up and Go down to Impact and volunteer there in Houston with the least of these in our communities. And you spend eight hours a day doing that for a month.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Just to clear your cobwebs.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

But. But yeah, having a thing to go to where you are actively helping somebody else's life. Better get better, man. That's, that's, that's who you are. That's who all of. That's who we are. And that itchiness you're feeling is important. Can I give you two things I would love. I would love for you to do. You don't have to do them, but I'd love for you to. I would love for you. When you have some space in your mind and spirit, go for your two and a half hour walk, get a piece of paper and a pen or three or four sheets of paper and a pen, and I want you to write a letter that you will, God help you never send. Write a letter to the leadership team, put it to the name of the company. But I want you to write a letter that has three parts to it. One, here's how y' all broke my heart. I gave 30 years of my life. I was never late. I was always on time. I was a good leader. I was a good manager. I took care of customers. Like, I want you to be honest about your anger.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I also want you to be honest about the good times. Thank you. Thank you for what happened. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. Thank you for paying me really well when I was struggling, when my first kid was born. Like, be honest about the good stuff, too.

[Caller]

Right? Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

The third thing is, I want you to write in that letter, here's who I'm gonna go be now. Here's who I'm gonna go serve. Here's the kind of. I'm gonna. Another company is going to get my services for another 25 years. And this is the kind of man I'm going to be when I walk in that door. And that, that sort of. It helps metabolize grief.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

If you want to be really, if you want to take it to another level, read that letter to a couple of friends, to a couple of your. Of your buddies. Read it to your wife. Share that with somebody. Because as Kessler says, grief demands a witness. I'm going to read this letter. This heartbreak. This. Here's what I'm going to be now. And there's something very empowering about taking a hold of that grief and acknowledging it and then being honest about what I'm going to do next.

[Rachel Cruze]

Next.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And here's the second thing. Please, please do something to help my Astros, man. William, what are we doing?

[Caller]

Ghost throws, man.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I know, but they're not going very fast.

[Rachel Cruze]

Volunteer work. Go pep them up. Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Listen, go be that guy that helps people like me find my seat.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And then while you're there, cheer roll out.

[Rachel Cruze]

And William think, too. You know, you're 48. Whatever that second half is for you. The beautiful thing is that you've set your life up where you're not in an urgent rush to go find the next thing.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cruze]

Where you go make 60 grand to keep the lights on. Like, you have the gift of having margin with the time, and that's great. But, yeah, that second half. What do you want life to be? What is this next chapter gonna look like? And so you and your wife sitting down and talking through ideas and dreaming, you know?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah. Take her to. Take her to Papacitos or take her to Christie's, that OG Seafood restaurant out there off Westheimer. Take her out there, there, and y' all have a dreaming conversation. What do we want the back half of our life to feel like, to look like. And y' all dream together and then go find a job that'll fit that. Because Rachel said you have done such an amazing job, probably a pathological job over saving the last 20, you know, 20, 30 years. But you set yourself up for just this moment when you can do whatever y' all want to do together.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah. And there's something so empowering when you finally get to make the shots. Right? Call the shots and say, okay, this is what I want. And so maybe it's starting something from the ground up. Maybe it's plugging into something else. I don't know what that looks like for you, but, yeah, just kind of take some time and dream about that. But also, don't stay idle. William. But I don't think you can. He doesn't sound like he's still. I love this dude.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I love William.

[Rachel Cruze]

I'm all about practical ways to save time and mental energy, especially during the summer when life gets busy. Between vacations, camps, deliveries, travel plans, online shopping, and trying to keep everyone organized, my mental load can get pretty full. That's one of the reasons why I love Delete me. Most people don't realize how many data broker sites have their information online, like old addresses, phone numbers, and even family connections. And that can put you at risk of being a target for spammers and scammers. But removing all of it yourself can turn into a giant project that's why Delete Me is amazing, because Delete Me handles it for you. Their privacy team of experts removes your personal information from hundreds of data broker sites and they keep monitoring it throughout the year. So far, Delete Me has saved me about 90 hours I would have spent myself removing my information. And honestly, it feels so good knowing that someone is in the background helping me and I don't even have to think about it. So this summer, give yourself a vacation with one less thing to manage. Get 20% off annual plans at joins elite me.com Ramsey that's joinseliteme.com Ramsey. Up next, we have Mary in San Francisco. Hi Mary, welcome. Welcome to the show.

[Caller]

Hi. Thank you for taking my call.

[Rachel Cruze]

Absolutely. How can we help?

[Caller]

So I have a couple questions for you all. I am 38 years old. I am a single mom and I work in law enforcement. About seven months ago I transferred to the Bay Area to give my son better opportunities and a better future compared to where we were where I was stationed last. And in the process of doing that, I spent tens of thousands of dollars in attorney fees over several years to make move happen. I do not receive child support. I kept my first house as a rental. Now because of the terms, it's a 2.99% mortgage on a 15 year loan. I think there's about 11 and a half years left. But between the legal fees, relocating and rebuilding my life, I've accumulated a large amount of credit card debt and I have a second mortgage already. So my monthly take home is about 5,900 after everything, but my required debt payments alone are at least 6,900amonth. And so before I even buy groceries or gas. So that's why I keep ending up back on credit cards every single month. So my question to you is because I plan on keeping the 2.99% first mortgage, but I need to at some point replace my current second mortgage with a larger home equity loan to pay off that mortgage and then all of my high interest credit card debt. And I'm in the process of that research right now. But my, the second part to that question is because I'm trying to build a retirement plan for myself as well. I feel like I've been doing everything for everybody else but not really focusing on me, my mental health, my long term plans and everything. So I don't want to spend the next 20 to 30 years just trying to survive. And, and I'm trying to build enough real estate income that I can retire early possibly to enjoy my life. So After I restructure.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Let me jump in here. Let me jump in here. How do I have your permission? I'm asking you this as an officer of the law. Do I have your permission to be super blunt with you? Is that cool?

[Caller]

Yeah. Yeah, of course.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, here's what you're describing to me and Rachel. You have a giant. And when I say giant, I mean a humongous hole in the middle of your front yard. And your plan for getting rid of this hole in your front yard is going about 30 yards past that hole and digging another hole that's even deeper and using that dirt to fill in this hole. And then on the side, what you want to do is dig six or seven other little holes to fill up that one big hole. You see what I'm saying?

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Like, you have to acknowledge the plan you have in front of you is wholly unsustainable. And the plan. And you've got to deal with a giant hole first with new dirt. You can't just dig another hole in your front yard and try to refill it. And the plan you have down the road is I want to have this income or whatever. That's all well and good, but you, like your life financially is on fire right in front of you. So let's deal with the fire first. First, you know what I'm saying?

[Caller]

It has been for a long time. Sleepless nights.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah, it's. Yeah, it's caused a lot of stress. And, you know, you're trying to do 18 things at once as well. Pay off the debt, try to get the second mortgage paid off, then fund retirement. You know, there's. There's so many directions that you're looking, which is understandable because of the situation you're in. And so I think one goal for you, Mary, and hopefully in this call we can help direct, that is to focus on one thing. And we call that focus intensity here at Ramsey. Like, I'm going to be focused on one step at a time. And what that looks like is first getting $1,000. It's our baby steps. Do you have any cash available in savings?

[Caller]

I have my short term rental savings at this point, and that's about it.

[Rachel Cruze]

How much is in there there?

[Caller]

It's about 12,000.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Is that just retained earnings for fixing air conditioner and ceiling fans and stuff?

[Caller]

It is, yeah. So that's just basically the income I've made the last six months on the rental so far.

[Rachel Cruze]

And the rental is not near you, right, because you moved?

[Caller]

No, no.

[Rachel Cruze]

I need to sell that house.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, sell the house.

[Rachel Cruze]

You need to sell the house.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I know you got a good interest rate.

[Rachel Cruze]

It doesn't matter.

[Caller]

You're. You're.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You're drowning underwater, and you're holding on to this thing called the interest rate, and you're like, look how good I'm doing. But you're underw.

[Rachel Cruze]

The interest rate is still, you know, because you're holding on to that. It's keep. It's. You're losing sleep in all these other areas of your money. And so we never recommend being a landlord long distance. So whenever you move, you or anybody else that calls, we would always recommend selling your home when you move cities. So for the. For the sake of time, if you sold that home today, Mary, what kind of equity is in that home?

[Caller]

I have probably about 275,000 in equity.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So if you sell that house, it completely clears you.

[Rachel Cruze]

Is there a second mortgage on that home or your. Or your per. Or your primary home?

[Caller]

That. That. There's a second mortgage on that home?

[Rachel Cruze]

On that home. So after all is cleared out, everything. You would be left with 275 around there?

[Caller]

Yeah. I mean, hopefully. But how much my.

[Rachel Cruze]

How much credit card debt is there?

[Caller]

About 40,000.

[Rachel Cruze]

40,000. Okay. Is most of that attorney fees and then trying to keep your life afloat with bills?

[Caller]

Yeah. Okay, 30. About 30 was attorney fees the last few years.

[Rachel Cruze]

Perfect.

[Caller]

Moving and relocation.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay. Gorgeous, gorgeous. I like this plan, Mary. We're making traction here. I don't know if you're going to follow it, but this is what I would do. What other debt do you have?

[Announcer]

Have?

[Caller]

That's. That's just it. That's it. It's just the second. The first, and then the credit card debt.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay. Okay, great.

[Caller]

The problem is, is my. My mindset has always been trying to provide for my son and leaving something for him, which.

[Rachel Cruze]

Mary.

[Caller]

Which was the house.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, I know, but here's the thing. What I want you to provide him right now is stability and a mom who feels safe in her own skin. He does not have that.

[Rachel Cruze]

Your spread's so thin right now. Right now, Mary, and you have something right in front of you that can solve all of that, that can solve it and move you forward. I mean, like, you could invest $100,000 of this as well and leave him

[Dr. John Deloney]

half a million dollars in cash down the road.

[Rachel Cruze]

Oh, my gosh. Easily. Like, what you can do for this money. Working for you versus working for everyone else and getting a HELOC and then getting this and getting. I mean, like, you are Working hard for everybody else and not you. And so really focusing in again and knowing that, yeah, this is a little bit of your get out of free jail card to start over, which is a beautiful thing. What's your. What. Where are you guys living now? Are you renting or do you own a home now?

[Caller]

It's, we're renting, but it's through my job, so it's really low rent.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I was gonna say you're, you're, you're an officer, which has a. Somewhat of a capped kept salary, but you're in a really expensive place to live.

[Caller]

Yeah, we are. Yeah.

[Rachel Cruze]

So part of that too, Mary, is you have to be thinking long term that if you're not in that job long term and you look up and you don't have any money to put down as a down payment on a home eventually, like that's, that's a goal. So that would be a goal for me is to clear out this debt, set aside six months of an emergency fund. I would normally say three, probably in your situation, but I think all the stress you've been in, I think six gives you ultimate peace piece. Open up a high yield savings account with Fair Winds Credit Union and park some cash there. Six months emergency fund. And then I would look ahead and say, okay, I need to put some of this in retirement. I'm going to put some of this away in maybe a separate savings, High yield savings account for possibly a down payment maybe in the next 10 years. But I'm going to be thinking about my housing because eventually that the rubber is going to meet the road with that. But there's all these. Do you see what I'm saying? Like, you take your money and you let it work for you and it's growing and you're making interest when you invest. Your money's making money for you, not for all these other people living in the cycle of debt. And so you really could go from sleepless nights, stressed, feeling like, I can't even. I have to have credit cards to finish out the bills every single month, to having no payments, having an emergency fund, having a plan for your house, for your retirement and your son's college, like, like all of that can be completed. And a big jump start on that is selling this home.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah. The cost here for you is grieving the pic, the loss of this picture you had where I'm going to hand my son this old house. I'm going to be sad about that. I'm going to be heartbroken about it, and then I'm going to be about changing my life.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yes.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And for you, like most of the calls on the show, man, it's a three, five year, seven year slog for you. It's literally 30 days and everything can be be different for you.

[Rachel Cruze]

Hey guys, it's Rachel Cruze. If you're working the baby steps, every major expense deserves a second look. And healthcare is one of the biggest expenses in most families budgets. And that is why I recommend that you check out Christian Healthcare Ministries. CHM isn't insurance. It's a health cost sharing ministry that means members help pay one another's medical bills. And they've been serving Christians since 1981. CHM programs start at just $115 a month. And here's why that matters. If you are paying more than you need to for health care, that money could be going toward paying off debt, building your emergency fund, or reaching your next financial goal. And your monthly cost isn't based on your medical history or where you live, y'. All. A lot of families find CHM gives them more room in the budget. That's why so many members say they're better with CHM. And right now, new members can receive a 50% credit to their first month of membership. Go to chministries.org budget and use promo code RAMSEY. That's chministries.org budget and promo code Ramsey. A Next we have Ann in Grand Rapids. Hi, Ann. Welcome to the show.

[Caller]

Hello. I'm a little nervous, so bear with me. Sorry.

[Rachel Cruze]

Oh, you're great. Don't you worry. Don't be nervous.

[Caller]

So I have a question. So I have a verbal promise for a position. They are ready to hire me and they have, they're just in waiting to place me in an office. I've been waiting a month and a half, half. And I'm just curious, how long should I wait? I'm doing like side gigs. I'm exhausted.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Have you, do you have a contact there?

[Caller]

I do, I do. I have someone in my network. They actually, she had actually asked me over the past couple years to try to recruit me and it just wasn't the right time.

[Dr. John Deloney]

No, but like, do you have somebody you've been like on that you're going to be onboarding with that you've been back and forth. When's the last time you talked to him?

[Caller]

I haven't. Yeah. You talked to last week.

Wednesday.

I emailed the recruiter and then I texted in my contact. So I haven't heard anything back yet. But they're like, yes, we're still interested. We still want to have you. So it's all verbal, but I don't have anything in writing.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And I'm like, dude, I'm gonna tell you, I. This is me. Rachel could have a different thing. I would, I would keep pressing, putting my feelers out for other, other things for two reasons. One, okay. It's been my experience when somebody really wants you, you know it, they know it, everybody knows it. And the second thing is, is it's, it's kind of like after a first date, and they're like, yeah, I'll call you tomorrow, and they call you nine days later. They're kind of giving you an insight into who they are.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And, and even if it takes a long time to find an office, it's confusing. We have to get a budget line filled. All that, that's business. That happens, that's life. The fact that they're not calling you and letting you know, in keeping you apprised of, here's what's going on, here's this, and here's the start date. And we don't have an office for you, so you're going to work from home until we get an office. Like the fact they're not communicating with you. Well, that would be an insight for me as to how they might do business once you get to be working there.

[Caller]

Yeah, well, I was warned too. They're like, well, you know, the company moves slow. They really, really move slow. So, you know, hang on. And I've, I've looked, you know, on the Internet or whatever they say it can take two to six months to be placed and to be into an. I'm like, good night.

[Rachel Cruze]

But that's so, so bizarre that they would interview, post a job interview.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Is this a university position?

[Rachel Cruze]

Accept it.

[Caller]

No, no, it's not. I mean, I spent six. The process is very, very long. It's been probably about six steps so far, so.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Gotcha. So my interview process here was 18 months. It was long, long. But then when it came to Dave Ramsey said, you have 48 hours to make a call and here's the date. You know what I mean? Like, so then it took a long time and it should. Right. Dave's gonna. Deciding whether to put my name on the, on, on the, my face on the side of the building. Right. But once it was on, I mean, it was overwhelming. It was super on. Right. And so I, I don't know. I, I, Yeah.

[Rachel Cruze]

And I would ask for something in writing that employment for your own sake starts by August 1 or August 15, like there's something in writing saying, yes, I am going to be employed here. And if they can't give you that, it's almost like an employment, you know, employee agreement. Like, I mean that's, that stuff is pretty standard when you're hiring.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That's job 101.

[Rachel Cruze]

And so if they can't even provide that, and I hate to say it, what a bummer, but yeah, I mean, and I might communicate that to them.

[Caller]

Job. Yeah. Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

But it might be a dream job on. In a nightmare situation.

[Caller]

Right job, wrong company. Maybe.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, maybe.

[Caller]

Yes.

[Rachel Cruze]

That's a great point. That's a great way of looking at it. Oh man.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, I hate this for you.

[Rachel Cruze]

I would say you don't have to like fully close the door, but I would be looking at other places and if you get another job, you know, except you know, someone hires you somewhere

[Dr. John Deloney]

else, you withdraw from the process.

[Rachel Cruze]

You withdraw.

[Announcer]

Yeah.

[Caller]

Okay. That's kind of what I was leaning more towards. But I just thought I'd get you guys insight.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

If I was in your exact shoes, I would leave that door wide open. But I would start the process of having conversations with, with other alternatives.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yep. Oh, I'm so sorry.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Hate it for you.

[Rachel Cruze]

So frustrating.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So frustrating.

[Rachel Cruze]

Crazy. Okay, let's go to St. Louis and we have Ethan on the line. Hi Ethan, welcome to the show.

[Caller]

Hi.

[Rachel Cruze]

Hello.

[Caller]

I'm super excited to talk to you guys.

[Rachel Cruze]

Oh well, thanks for calling in. How can we help?

[Caller]

So my wife and I are both 24. We have a soon to be one year old girl and we're working on baby step two. Trying to pay off our remaining debt by July of 2027.

[Rachel Cruze]

Oh good.

[Caller]

And have our emergency fund done by September 2027.

[Rachel Cruze]

Nice.

[Caller]

I'm a youth pastor and my wife is self employed, specifically a 1099 NEC. And since I'm an ordained pastor, I'm also treated as a self employed individual for tax purposes. So my question is for future. When we get into baby step four and start investing again, should we open a traditional IRA for tax benefits now or should we open a Roth IRA for the future?

[Rachel Cruze]

Tax benefits almost always like 99.9%. I always go for the Roth. There are small exceptions with high income earners and what they'll be earning in retirement that you can kind of finagle the math. But I do a Roth ira. My husband does a Roth ira. We do not have a traditional because from especially at your age, Ethan, the amount of money that's going to be growth versus what you put in is gonna be insane. Like it's most, it's gonna be. I mean I don't have my calculator in front of me. I'm gonna say 80% growth by the time you're 59 and a half. What you and your wife have put in is gonna be so small compared to the growth. And I would much rather pay taxes now and have that growth be tax free. So when I retire there's no taxes on millions, possibly millions of dollars right there. So that's. Yeah. For sure. The Roth IRA is the way to go. Does your church offer any like 403bs anything or you are.

[Caller]

Yeah, yeah. So I have a, I have a 403B through the church as well.

[Rachel Cruze]

That's great.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So, so tell me about this. You're ordained but you're self employed. You're self employed. I don't understand that. Are you a 1099 or they have you on a W2?

[Caller]

No.

So it's weird with being an ordained pastor. So like I get a W2, but I have like a housing allowance that is federal income tax free.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Sure.

[Caller]

I'm taxed at a self employment rate for the rest of my income. So I. Why that is, I mean, I don't know, but that is how my tax professional has explained it to me.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Does that mean that, is that is that. I know about the, the housing allowance for clergy. I know about that. But is this because the church is not putting in their portion of your tax benefits and so you're having to pay the full 32 or 33%?

[Caller]

Yeah.

So the church doesn't. Yeah, they don't pay for the taxes. So it's the. I have to pay the self employment tax.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Why don't they pay the taxes for their employees?

[Caller]

It's a small town church, so it's. I mean, I don't know if it's really feasible for them to do so while also, you know, being able to keep me full time. So it, you know, it would cost them extra to do that.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay.

[Caller]

I think.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah. It's usually the role of the employer.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Unless you're a 1099 contract employee.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

But you've got a good tax professional, so I'll let y' all work that out. It sounds like it.

[Caller]

Yeah. I've never asked, I've never asked the church. I just kind of, you know, when I got hired I just understood that that was, that was what the deal was and you know, just been okay with that.

[Rachel Cruze]

How many people are in town?

[Caller]

I guess I could ask Them.

[Rachel Cruze]

I'm just curious.

[Caller]

There's, there are three of us right

[Rachel Cruze]

now, so it's, it's a tiny church. Yeah. Probably not a lot of money. I don't know.

[Announcer]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cruze]

I don't know how they're setting up all of.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah. I mean you've got a tax employees

[Rachel Cruze]

and what it is. Yeah. But to answer your question originally, Ethan. Yes. Is I would, would do two Roth IRAs. And if they have the 403B and there's a good, you know, matching situation

[Dr. John Deloney]

there, there's probably zero match. Not even paying your taxes.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah, that's probably true.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I mean they're not paying their portion of employment tax or FICA tax or any of that stuff.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah. Yep.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Dang.

[Rachel Cruze]

So Roth ira, Ethan, is what I would do. And also remember too in these situations with people in ministry, if you ever want to go into the private sector or public sector, I guess, you know, and you leave your housing, you have to think through, okay, if I'm 34 and I'm going to go and start my own business and do my own thing, you have to be thinking about the housing.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And so you may have a place to live.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yes. You want to put some money aside for possibly future Ethan and his family if you guys ever choose to leave that specific church and the other one doesn't have housing allowance and all the things. So have that in the back of your mind too, Ethan. Maybe some extra savings there.

[Announcer]

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[Rachel Cruze]

One of our favorite things is when people share their stories about how they're winning. And we just got an awesome review from our every dollar Budgeting app. Someone said every dollar is excellent. It really helped me get my personal finances in order to. Now that I'm married, my wife and I use it together out of our joint checking account. And it helps us maintain a common vision and a set of goals. So we love to see it. And everydollar really is an amazing budgeting app. Not only just that, but it's a plan for your money. And if you are married, you and your spouse getting together and working together, being on the same page to take control of your money is what we are all about. So start EveryDollar for free in the app store or Google Play. All right, let's go to Michael in Minneapolis. Hi Michael. Welcome to the show.

[Caller]

Hi, how are you?

[Rachel Cruze]

Hi. We're doing great. How can we help?

[Caller]

Good. I am 28 years old. I recently just bought my first house and it's overwhelmingly stressful for me. There's been some problems that popped up and I just didn't expect to have this much stress. Like to what, the point where I can't. The point where I had to go get medication from the doctor. And I'm just really considering selling the house and going back to apartment living where I was stress free. And to not have this weight of a house, you know, on me right now. Bro, I just don't know what to do.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You just walked through the first chapter of my anxiety book. I've been there, exact same spot. So help me. If you think about your fear and your anxiousness, globally distill it down for me. Be very specific. What are. Give me two or three or four things that are keeping you up at night.

[Caller]

So there. When I first moved into the house, I noticed, or I got a. I noticed there was mold in the basement and other parts of the house.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Did you have the house inspected?

[Caller]

It was not inspected. No.

[Rachel Cruze]

No.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Oh no.

[Rachel Cruze]

Well, geez. Okay.

[Announcer]

Yeah.

[Caller]

But there's some good news actually. When I. So I noticed mold in the basement, it was pretty, pretty bad in the basement. But I contacted the seller who agreed to pay for the remediation of the basement actually so that the basement is now cleaned and remediated. And he paid for it fully. He didn't have to, but he did. So I was really lucky with that.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, you don't hear that very often. That's still pretty great.

[Caller]

I just feel like there's still like. I just have this like thing in the back of my head where I think there's like mold everywhere and it's behind the walls and I'm not Noticing it, and I feel like I have a scratchy throat all the time, but maybe it's just because I'm so paranoid and stressed.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah. Where else besides your house? Where else are you a generally anxious guy?

[Caller]

What.

[Dr. John Deloney]

What other things keep you up at

[Caller]

night

in terms of the house?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Nope. Not how. Take house off the table.

[Caller]

Okay.

Very indecisive person. So I stress about a lot of, like, any major decision, I wait till the last minute to make it, and then I feel like I regret it.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, give me another one.

[Caller]

I'm not really stressed about my job at all, but. So that's good.

[Dr. John Deloney]

But what's the state of your relationships?

[Caller]

I have good family, parents are alive, healthy. I just recently am in a relationship with someone that, you know the past month. So that's going well.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So who. When you hear the story in your head that you make bad choices, that you're going to make a wrong choice, that you're going to screw this up again, whose voice is that? Because it didn't start in your head. Whose voice are you beginning to repeat in your own words?

[Caller]

I don't. I guess, I don't know. I don't. I don't know what your. What your question is, actually.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So when you're indecisive.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Should I do this or should I buy this car, the red car or the green car? Well, if I buy the green car, it's going to have this many miles. And if it's got. If I buy this car, it's. The wheels may fall off. And if I. And then you buy the red car and you're like, man, I should have bought the green car. Underneath that narrative is a story running through your veins that you don't make good choices or that there's always going to be another shoe that drops or you didn't plan right.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Whose voice is that?

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Who told you that story?

[Caller]

I don't. I don't know. I guess to me, it feels like it comes from me, myself that I'm just not okay. You know, I don't make. I just. Even if I make a decision, I regret that it's because in the morning and just super indecisive. But.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So I've been knowing that about my.

[Caller]

I've known that about myself for a while.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay. That's where I want you to sit down with a licensed mental health professional and walk through it and not sit down and say, I am anxious and indecisive and I want to talk about it. I want you to sit down with a Therapist and say I've struggled with indecisiveness and with a. A meta narrative in my life that I'm probably going to screw up the next thing and I want to be free from that on the other side of it. And any licensed professional should be able to walk you through that because there's some pretty simple action steps in a therapeutic setting to walk somebody through that. I've been there. I've been on the other side of it. Okay. And also when I found myself in your exact situation, we don't have mold as much in Texas. We had different stuff. Part of my panic that I had all the time 24, 7 was I had put my, my family in a really financially precarious situation because we had six figures of student loans, we had two car payments, we had credit cards, and we had this house on top of all of it.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah. Michael, what's your financial situation?

[Caller]

So currently I make like 75 grand a year in an IT job I actually just got because I was. Hasn't been so stressed out the past month. So I actually just applied and I got a job making like 100 grand. So I. So I start that in like three weeks. So this, that kind of helps me a lot to.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay. What kind of debt do you have

[Caller]

about the financial situation? I don't have any credit card debt. I have. Both my cars are paid off. I just have student loans. About 35 grand maybe.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay. Do you have cash in the bank saved?

[Caller]

Yeah, about eight grand. In the bank.

[Rachel Cruze]

In the bank. Okay. And how much did this house cost?

[Caller]

270.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay. How much did you put down

[Caller]

as a first time homebuyer? So I put down the minimum which was like 2.5%, I think. I did get a grant for 15k that covered pretty much all the closing costs and my.

[Rachel Cruze]

So I think just a couple of learnings, Michael, going forward, that part of your stress is caused by you don't have a ton of cash in the bank. That can. Can help maybe mitigate if there was a massive mold problem. Right. Or whatever it looks like you have. You still have student loan debt you put down. Not a ton. Right. We would say at least 5% if you're a first time home buyer on our end. So you did even less than that. Everything is a little bit out of order. And then you didn't do an inspection, which now you've learned your lesson on that. Yeah, yeah. So there's just some, there's some lessons to be learned and it's been done and you're Doing this a little out of order. So a couple of things to do just to create for today's sake some peace is I would, I would, I would hire a company to come in, test areas of your house, just so you know of. Okay, is there mold everywhere? Is it just in my head? Right. You can figure that out. And so go get some tests done, let them run the stuff in the vents. Like you can figure out kind of where is the state of my house. My fear is, is this right here, I'm overthinking. I think I'm. I have a scratchy throat. I'm paranoid. Get it taken care of, get the answer, and then from there planning out. Okay, if there is mold, I go down path A. If there's not, then there's plan B. But from a financial perspective, your number one goal is to get the student loan cleaned up. And I would do that within the next nine months. Especially with your new job, living on nothing. If the house does need repairs and things like put it in order and cash flow, all of them. Because you will be more stressed, Michael, if you go deeper in debt or you go get a second mortgage or you take out a heloc, right, and you keep adding on to your debt to fix this house, that's going to cause more and more stress. So I would get all the facts I could down on paper, prioritize them, and just start knocking them out. And again, I, I probably would not jump the boat right now and sell the house. Sell the house. I probably wouldn't. Unless it's just absolutely fallen.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

I don't know.

[Rachel Cruze]

I don't know why you would, but I, I would stick in it a couple of years if you could. But now I think it's one of these things like, that was stupid. That was so stupid that I did X, Y and Z. Right. And we call it stupid tax around here. And say it out loud and you learn from it. We've all done stupid stuff, made bad decisions, but I think clarifying those and seeing those is going to help you move forward. And I think some of this fear, too. I mean, I'm not, I'm not a therapist, but is in your head and I think you can get some of those answers.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You get some of those answers. Yeah. If you're financially precarious, your body's right to sound all your alarms. So don't try to silence those alarms. Like Rachel said, information will be your friend at this stage. So go get those facts. Go sit down with a counselor. And yeah, if you can stick it out, Stick it out, stick it out.

[Caller]

Foreign.

[Rachel Cruze]

Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio. I'm Rachel Cruz hosting this hour with Dr. John Deloney. And we are answering your questions at 888-255-5225. All right, let's go to Chris in Tampa, Florida. Hi, Chris, welcome to the show.

[Caller]

Hey, Rachel. And John, I'm a longtime listener, first time caller and Dr. John, I'm an OG17.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, dude, glad to have you over on this boat.

[Caller]

Yes. Hey, my question today is about co signing for student loans. So my father, he's elderly and I've been helping him plan his estate and his will and in the process I found out he co signed for a student loan for my nephew. And as far as I know, my nephew, I guess he deferred the payments and then he's on an income repayment plan and I believe the balance on his student loan is about 200,000. So my question is yes. Yeah, he got a computer science degree and he's working at Best Buy. So not exactly the best investment of the money.

[Rachel Cruze]

Oh no.

[Caller]

But my question is when my father passes, will his estate be liable for the balance alone? In other words, will the student loan lender comes to my father's estate and asks for the balance? How does that work?

[Dr. John Deloney]

That's a great question. I don't know.

[Rachel Cruze]

I want to say it's to the primary on the loan. It would be your nephew.

[Dr. John Deloney]

It would probably depend on if it's a federal student loan or if it's a private student loan too. If he got it through a bank or he got it through some, some off book, not off book, but some lender that's not a federal guarantee, that's not federally guaranteed, it may be different. That's a great question. I know if you, if you pass away with your student loans, they're, they're, they're gone.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

But I don't know about a cosign.

[Rachel Cruze]

Was it a parent plus loan?

[Caller]

I, I'm not sure. I just found this out when I was helping him go through all of his expenses and accounts and so forth and I saw that he was getting emails about the payments. So I don't know all the details. I don't think it's a parent plus loan. If I had to guess, it's probably a private student loan.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, it's been a minute since, I mean it's been what, six years now since I was sitting in the middle of all that at a university. But for somebody to Get a bachelor's degree and they're going to hold $200,000 of debt. I, I don't, off top of my head, I don't remember a federal program shelling out that much money that you'd have to go somewhere else to get the money. But I may be wrong on that.

[Rachel Cruze]

If it's private, they're probably going to go after. They're going to get their money. Yeah, it's not going to be because

[Dr. John Deloney]

they're going to say we would never have given this kid that money if this guy hadn't backed it up with his wealth.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yep.

[Caller]

Okay. Yeah, I better do some digging and find out exactly where who has this loan.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah, I would see for sure. If it's yes, if it's government issued versus a private through a company, then that's. Those are going to be two totally different things because even with a private student loan, if you die, that, that loan still, I want to say with a private company could still be put against your estate.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Really?

[Rachel Cruze]

It's only federal student loans that are not bankruptible private student loans. That whole world is a totally different machine. I mean you are, you're dealing with banks and lenders at that point.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And Chris, I'm surprised that there can be a income based repayment plan with a cosigner too. That surprises me.

[Caller]

Yeah, I'm not sure. Like I said, I really don't know all the details. And I can only imagine with my nephew's situation, I can't imagine him making the full payments on that loan. So I'm assuming he's on an income based payment repayment plan or he's just not paying anything.

[Dr. John Deloney]

If your dad's starting to get emails as a cosigner, that means the loan's not being paid paid.

[Caller]

That's true.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I think an income based repayment plan. If there's somebody else who can foot the bill, who signed up to foot the bill, they're not going to give you an that. That would be my guess. I could be totally wrong here. Has your dad made any payments?

[Caller]

As far as I know, no.

[Dr. John Deloney]

What's the status of his estate? Meaning can he absorb this $200,000?

[Caller]

Yes, he can. And the reason we're thinking about this is because his will is pretty straightforward. I mean he's just going to split the estate between my sister and I. 50 50. So the question is. Okay, well when that time comes, are we just going to split that? If they come and say they want the balance paid off, does it come

[Dr. John Deloney]

out of your Sister's half.

[Caller]

Exactly.

[Rachel Cruze]

Is it her son?

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Does she know about this outstanding balance?

[Caller]

I'm sure she does. Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I wouldn't be so sure unless you've had a direct conversation with. With her.

[Caller]

Yeah, we haven't had a direct conversation, but I'm planning to, you know, since I found out this information.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah, yeah.

[Caller]

Need to know. So I just want to make sure when my father passes, there's no questions, there's no surprises. We all know what's happening. In fact, I'm probably gonna have a conversation my father and just ask him, what do you want? If do you want to pay off this loan out of your estate? Or how do you want to handle this?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, dude. Sorry. This whole. This is such a mess. That's why we don't like co signing, man. Cause it just complicates family relationships in such a powerful way.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah. So it. Yeah, I think that's for sure the right path to take of everyone being on the same page completely before he passes. Because you don't want this to rip apart your relationship with not only your nephew, but his mom, your sister, you know, your sister and all of that. And what's fair? What's not fair there. That would be so hard. Why do I feel this, like, knee jerk that I'm like, she should pay it. I. I on her side.

[Announcer]

Right?

[Dr. John Deloney]

I think so.

[Rachel Cruze]

But if she didn't know about it and she's like, oh, my gosh, my dad did. Oh, man.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I mean, the. Yeah. Without talking to anybody else, My thought is, if Hank set up an arrangement with my parents and they co. Signed for 200 grand and I'm getting half and my sister's getting and half that should. I mean, it feels like it's my kid. It should come out of my half.

[Rachel Cruze]

Right. Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, that's. That's. That's my impulse.

[Rachel Cruze]

Oh, man. Yeah. You guys, this is the. The one on one on why not to. Why not to cosign? I mean, genuinely, it is it. You entangle yourself in a situation, and the reason that you need a co signer is because the person that is lending you the money, lending them the money, doesn't trust that they can pay it back because of whether it's their debt levels, whether it's income to debt ratios, whatever. It looks like the bank is looking and being like, eh, and this could be a $30,000 car loan.

[Announcer]

Right.

[Rachel Cruze]

I mean, this is that to a.

[Dr. John Deloney]

A cosign makes a financial matter, a relational matter every time, and it's just not worth it's not worth my, my friendships. It's not worth my relationships with my parents or my kids.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah, I was, we were doing a podcast this morning, recording one and, and the conversation got brought up about financial boundaries. Which financial boundaries do you wish you had set earlier? What financial boundaries do you have in the future? And it's sometimes, you know, it's I think a wise things. I mean, I even was like, oh gosh, what would mine be? To have a forward thought towards your future. And then even looking back and being like, hey, that's where I messed up with money. I probably should have had a boundary there. Right? You just have this awareness to go back through your money story and then planning for the future and thinking through relationships and money. What was healthy, what's not healthy? What does this look like? When is a good time? When is not a good time, you know, to help family or friends or whatever it may be. But just being aware of that, you guys, because I think sometimes you get caught in the moment and you probably don't always make the right decision.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Absolutely.

[Rachel Cruze]

Because it's so like emotional or it'd

[Dr. John Deloney]

be hard for a grandparent to talk to their nephew and say I love you enough to not give you this loan or to not co sign this 200,000.

[Rachel Cruze]

And then working at Best Buy. Yeah, man.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

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[Rachel Cruze]

Our question of the day is brought to you by why refer Refi when past due private student loans keep pulling you backward, it's hard to focus on what's ahead. So why Refi helps borrowers with low fixed rate financing options that fit your budget and can focus on the future. Again, that's why refi.com Ramsey may not be available in all states.

[Dr. John Deloney]

All right, today's question comes from Sydney in Texas. Sydney writes, my boyfriend and I Have had an on and off relationship for five years.

[Caller]

Years.

[Dr. John Deloney]

He's always been the one to initiate a breakup because he doesn't think we share the same mindset on finances. Sydney, that's not why he's breaking up with you. Neither of us have any debt but I would like to go to graduate school which would be a ten thousand dollar loan. We don't live together. We each have our own place and we pay our own bills. He thinks I have financial spending issues because I ask him to pay for my nails, hair, clothes, etc if we go into dates. That's not a financial issue. He thinks you're too much. My job only covers my bills and groceries with nothing left for fun spending. Am I wrong for wanting to go to graduate school to increase my income or is this a blowup waiting to happen?

[Rachel Cruze]

It's not sounding great Sydney. Not in the positive right direction. Yeah. If your boyfriend is funding your lifestyle and you can't sustain, you have too much lifestyle, Sydney. So he probably wants some level of self control from you.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah. You're not disagreeing on finances, you're disagreeing on you don't live in retirement reality.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah. I mean and then going into debt, if that is a value system of his, it's like no, I don't want debt and you're going to go take out $10,000 in student loans. Yeah, he probably is like well, well I don't know if we have a few. I don't know if this is the

[Dr. John Deloney]

rest of our life.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Where you don't have, you don't live in financial reality for yourself. So what's it going to look like when you all combine a household and.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yep. So, so for your, for your sake Sydney, regardless of boyfriend or I think it would be good for you to go through a process of budgeting, a process of saying hey, what are my values around money? I can't spend more than I make. No one else is funding my life. What I make is what I live on. What debt do I have? What's my next goals? Maybe it is graduate school. So no, it's not wrong to want to go and advance your degree to get a better high paying job. If that's all connected, that's not a bad thing. But you just want to do it in a wise way which you, you wrote into us so it would be a debt free path to go and do that. And so what does that look like? Does that look like saving up? Does that look like having maybe one year saved and then you're working and saving the rest for the next year. You cash flowing as you go. Is it working at a company that helps pay for the school? Like getting creative and actually putting some effort into to it. It's good for you, Sydney. But also it's probably a very attractive quality to your boyfriend who's like, holy crap, you spend a lot and you're dependent upon me, like.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Well, and you say, like, I don't have any financial problems, but my job only covers my bills and groceries, so I can't. I can't do anything with my hair, with my nails. I don't have any clothes. Like, he's looking at you saying, you. You don't live in the real world. Like, if you want that to be your life, you want to get your hair done, you want to get your nails done, you want to have clothes to wear to work, work, all that stuff makes sense and it's great. But then maybe you need to make more money and that just is about living in reality.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yep. And it may not take a graduate degree to go get that, depending on what field you're in. You could just apply for another job or go get a side hustle. My gosh. Go get it.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I just imagining this poor guy just being like, we don't agree on. On finances. Listen, Sydney's boyfriend, you need to be honest with her about why you keep breaking up with her. It's not cuz you don't agree on finances. It's because. Because she lives in an alt universe and you like to live in reality. So just be honest about that.

[Rachel Cruze]

Poor Sydney. We love you. Cheering for you. Hope you can do it, though. Hope you can do it.

[Announcer]

I love you.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I. I want y' all to be well and good.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yes. We'll see.

[Dr. John Deloney]

This is not a. This is not a not looking good finance. Same mindset on finances. That's not really the root here.

[Rachel Cruze]

Oh, man. All right, let's go to Kayla in Atlanta, Georgia. Hi, Kayla. Welcome to the show Show.

[Caller]

Hi, Rachel and John. Thanks for taking my call.

[Rachel Cruze]

Absolutely. How can we help?

[Caller]

Hi. I am 33 and $58,000 in debt. I came to Christ about three years ago, and I've just been learning so much about stewardship, and I want to do better in honoring the Lord with how I manage my finances. So I'm calling to get a specific strategy on how to tackle my debt and be done with this for good. I'm always. I want to build a future college fund for my daughter, who's currently five, save for a home and continue to contribute to my retirement. I also just want to prepare myself to be a future spouse and not have any debt.

[Rachel Cruze]

Good for you, Kayla. So impressive. So many amazing goals that you have ahead, which I think are all great and all very doable. It's going to take some time, but knocking each one of them out kind of one at a time, I think think is the best way. And so starting with the debt, what kind of debt do you have?

[Caller]

I have 36,000 in student loans and 17,000 in consumer debt across four credit cards.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay, so four credit cards, that equals 17,000. Okay. And how much money do you make?

[Caller]

I make just a little over 125,000. Oh, good.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Dang, Gina, you're doing great.

[Rachel Cruze]

What kind of. What kind of work do you do?

[Caller]

I'm in commercial real estate. Well, property marketing for commercial real estate.

[Rachel Cruze]

Good for you. That's great. Well, what we teach when you pay off debt is the debt snowball. Okay, so this is where you're going to list all of your debts, smallest to largest. So even those four credit cards, break those out and one may be 4,000, one, maybe 6,000, 3,000, four. I don't know what they are. All are balance wise, but you break out all four of those. And then your student loan, is it one large loan at 36,000 or they're multiple?

[Caller]

I think it's broken into 20,000, 10, something.

[Rachel Cruze]

Perfect. So put that in there as well. Right. So all the credit cards and student loans, you're going to take all of that again, write them out, smallest to largest, regardless of the interest rate, pay minimum payments on everything, and pay off the smallest debt first. Okay. And what's wild about that is you could probably pay one credit card off in a month. Like, I bet if you had a $3,000 credit card, I think with your income and you do nothing, you cut back on out to eat. You cut back on everything. And any margin at you have, you throw it at this debt. And what's beautiful is once that $3,000 credit card is paid off, there's no payment on that. So you take that payment, throw it at the second smallest debt with all that margin you have from your budget. And so you just keep that moving. And. And again, looking at the numbers, I'm like, there, there is a really good chance, Kayla, in the Next, I mean, 14 months, you could have all of this cleared if you really, really buckled down and looked at it. Yes. And it may mean, I mean, I don't know with your situation, as with childcare and all that, you know, you pick up a second job, even a few nights a week, you know, you do. You just throw as much income at this debt and you get it knocked out as quickly as possible possible.

[Dr. John Deloney]

How old's your daughter?

[Caller]

She'll be five in November.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Perfect. You know what's going to be super fun for y' all to cook meals together in the evening as part of a mother daughter activity. And it's going to be the. It's gonna be the biggest pain in the butt of all time because it's going to take eight times longer than if you just did it yourself. But it will be a cool experience. You'll have. It will save a ton of money on just eating out and y' all get to spend some really like, like connecting, bonding time together, and that'll be, That'll be. That'll be great stuff.

[Caller]

So may I ask a question? Because I, I think for me, again, the mental and spiritual click really locked in for me. But I recognize my own triggers, right? Like overspending, maybe instant gratification. And for me, I'm not like, you know, spending my bills on a Louis Vuitton purse or anything like that. But I, I definitely, if I want to travel, I'm usually not. I think that's kind of where my. I use my credit card. And so I'm trying to just like, everything be done.

[Rachel Cruze]

Be done.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah. If you have it in your wallet, you're going to use it, so get rid of it.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah. So there's definitely a moral conviction that you're going to have spiritual conviction of, I'm not using debt anymore. Because when you want to talk about scripture, Kayla, every time debt is mentioned in scripture, it is in a negative fashion. Passion. You're a slave to the lender. It's a burden on your family. It's not good for you. I mean, we don't go as far as, say it's a sin that you, like, can't get to happen if you have student loans. But it's not good. It's not good for you. And we see that from us, from a psychological perspective, we see that from a financial perspective, like, it all lines up. It's not wise when you don't have autonomy over your money, you know, and the stress is there. And so for you, getting out of debt is going to be your biggest step. And then building that emergency fund and then you get to hit retirement, kids, college, you know, the house, everything. So if you hold on the line, Christian's going to pick up and we're going to send you total money makeover the book. To walk you through the baby steps,

[Announcer]

Dave Ramsey here. For more than 30 years, I've been talking to folks on the air and I can tell you that most people are broke not because they don't make enough money, but because they don't have a plan. You need to give every dollar you earn a job because when you do that, something changes. You stop guessing, you stop worrying, you stop stressing. Our every dollar budgeting app will show you how to find extra cash, pay off debt, and finally start winning with money. But most people, people won't do it. They'll keep living paycheck to paycheck, keep hoping things will change without making a change. It's time to say enough is enough. It's time to take control of your money. It's time to start your every dollar budget for free today. Go download it in the app store or Google Play.

[Rachel Cruze]

One of the most fun events that we do here at Ramsey Solutions, my favorite happens to involve me and John.

[Dr. John Deloney]

These two. It's the best. It's the best.

[Rachel Cruze]

It is. So we have our money and marriage weekend getaway. It's coming up October 22nd through the 24th. Tickets start at $749. A couple and you guys, this is one of the most incredible multi day events that we have. And not only is it what I think, great content, good Q&As, like, I mean, we really get in there and do it.

[Dr. John Deloney]

The best marriage retreat you could ever go to.

[Rachel Cruze]

It's so good. But also we hear from couples that it's just nice to get away, like not have kids and logistics and all the things and you just come and you're stretched, you know, in the sense that we will challenge and talk about hard things. We're gonna laugh a lot. It's fun. Like it's, it's all together an incredible weekend. So make sure to get your [e-mail], come hang out with me and John for the weekend.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And I don't want to throw shade. I don't want throw shade.

[Rachel Cruze]

At the other events, I'll just say

[Dr. John Deloney]

I don't want to throw shade. But we don't pull any punches at this. At this retreat. The most common thing we get back, besides it was amazing. It was awesome. All the accolades is we didn't expect you all to go there.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yes.

[Dr. John Deloney]

We didn't realize you were going to talk about that. Right. And so we cover everything at this retreat. Money, sex, intimacy, friendship. And we give you a roadmap like a. A step by step plan for when you get home, how to implement this stuff. And so I'm proud of it. I love that our names are on it because it's good.

[Rachel Cruze]

And we've done multiple of these and we always, we're still, we're in content meetings, you know, as we speak, almost year round of creating new content. So even if you've been at past ones, you know, every time you come, we refresh it and yeah, it's. It's so fun. So we want to hang out with you guys. All right, let's go to Idaho Falls and Michael is on the line. Hi, Michael. Welcome to the show. Show.

[Caller]

Hey, guys. How are you?

[Rachel Cruze]

Hi. We're doing great. How can we help?

[Caller]

Good question for you. I've been a Dave Ramsey guy since I can remember. I remember sitting in the car seat in the truck. My grandpa's trucking. Listen to you guys on. It's awesome. But it's only been the past year that I've taken your guys advice really seriously. I'm debt free. I'm currently on baby step number five. I'm investing close to around 26 to 27% of my income right now. But I also just got married. I got married one month ago.

[Rachel Cruze]

Oh, congratulations.

[Caller]

Thank you so much. I also married her student loans.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yes, you did.

[Caller]

Her student loans are around $10,000 right now.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay.

[Caller]

My emergency fund. I'm a pretty frugal guy. Is 10,000. I have 11,000 because I have another short emergency fund, that thousand dollars. So my question is whether I should pay off all of her student loans right now and reset it or since I'm in a sales position, I'm fully commissioned. Should I start paying just little by little?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Y' all are now in baby step two. So what does that mean?

[Caller]

I'm back to getting that debt free. So probably just get into that debt. Right, right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

The check today and be done with it. Is she working?

[Caller]

She. We weren't living together before we got married, so she has to move towns now. So she's getting a new job now.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, great. So. So yeah. So hopefully if she's not a 100% commission employee, then there'll be some stability there. Right?

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

What will she be making a floor there?

[Caller]

Yeah, she'll be a waitress. So it'll still be kind of fluctuating.

[Rachel Cruze]

What's her degree in?

[Caller]

She's a cosmetologist. She's also working as a cosmetologist. She just got the job like a day ago.

[Rachel Cruze]

Oh, perfect. Okay, great. How much will she be making doing that?

[Caller]

It's commission.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Oh, it is. Okay.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay, so we'll throw out. Like, what. Like, if. Does she know how many people she wants to see a week? Like, what would be around? I don't. I don't even know.

[Caller]

Know.

Yeah, that's the kind of. The tricky part about the situation is she's not quite sure either. This is her first job after cosmetology school, so.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So she's gonna have to just slowly build up her clientele.

[Caller]

Correct.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay.

[Rachel Cruze]

All right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So she renting a chair just at a place.

[Caller]

Correct. Yeah. For that first little training, it's commission. And then she's gonna be. Yeah, renting a chair.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay. Is it. Is it hair? What. What specifically is she going to be doing?

[Caller]

Yeah, it's hair extensions, that sort of thing.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay, cool. You know what I would do if I were her? I would talk to a couple of people, because that stuff is as expensive.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I mean, I was gonna say, if it's.

[Rachel Cruze]

You pay, you pay. You pay good money to get what done, what she's offering. So I would find people that she wouldn't compete with directly in your city, but if she can somehow get connected to someone that's like, killing it, and they're. They live, you know, three hours away or something, like, you're not going to be direct competition with them. And she just ask some, like, questions of, hey, okay, how did you start? What did you have? Was the salon better to work here? Was it better to go on your own? What helped them? Social media presence? Like, I don't know what it is, but if she can find some of those people and she gets a rotation with women that want that done every six to eight weeks, I think she could kill it. I mean, honestly. And I know it's her first job, and it's probably a little intimidating, and she'll need some hours under her belt to do it all. But I'm just saying, I think you guys have, like, an exciting kind of Runway for something that she possibly is gonna love and hopefully will do really well at. So. So, yeah, Michael, you guys are in baby step two, like John said y' all are. So I'd pay it off, and then you guys rebuild that emergency fund. And then whether. Whether you. You need to take your retirement down to 15%, though, Michael. Cause you're. You're investing too much. We don't say that often on the show. Show. But you're above that 15%. So some of that margin could go towards paying, saving up for Us down

[Dr. John Deloney]

payment on your first home or rebuilding your emergency fund.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yes, that's probably. Yes. That first. First.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And let some. Like the moment you hit send on that 10 grand, there's going to be a. Like, let's be honest, there's going to be some frustration, some annoyance, and there's going to be some nervousness because now you got a thousand bucks and that's it. Let that energy not go towards your wife. Let that energy go towards words. I'm gonna make an extra sale this month.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I'm gonna do. I'm gonna. I'm gonna lean in that much harder. I'm gonna use that angst, and I'm gonna go that much more into a job that's essentially limitless.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Your. Your full commission, so you can kind of go get it. Another thing I would tell you is I've had several buddies who got jobs at like, chain barber shops, and they did that for two or three years, and then they. Then they branched out and started the own. And it wasn't a matter of like, stealing clients or anything, but they developed some relationships over time and enough relationship development over time. Then they were able to have some. A base of clients when they went and opened their own shop. And so maybe she just gets a job not at a fancy salon, but just cutting hair and is able to slow, like, stay in the industry, learn more about it. You hear conversations about product and discounts and suppliers and all that. And so she's in the industry, but also building her own practice there on the stage side.

[Caller]

Okay. Yeah. I love that. Hopefully next step we can save for that marriage retreat you guys were just talking about.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That Be awesome, man. We'd love to have you.

[Rachel Cruze]

I know. So fun. Well, congratulations, Michael. And yeah, I think it. That's part of the combining finances that, like what you said. There's probably gonna be some emotion around it because he was like, I'm a frugal guy. I saved 10 grand. You know, now it's.

[Dr. John Deloney]

It's gone once again.

[Rachel Cruze]

It's gone in a. In a blink of an eye. But I do think that those are the building blocks. Those are the small. I say small design decisions, but decisions that you make early on in marriage that set you up so well. Like, you're like going all in. Like all the chips are in the center.

[Dr. John Deloney]

There's something powerful about keeping your promises to yourself.

[Rachel Cruze]

We're doing it.

[Dr. John Deloney]

This is who I am. This is who I am when things are good, and this is who I am when things are tough. This is who I am. And I keep my promises to myself. I'm a guy that follows these baby steps. I'm a guy who isn't going to owe anybody any money ever, especially when it's tight. This is, this is going to be to be. And there's something really rooting about. I'm.

[Rachel Cruze]

I can trust myself knowing who you are. Yes. And this is the plan that I follow and this is what I do.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And by the way, based on what my wife spends, what I know Rachel spends, your wife's going to be rich. Rich, homie. Like, dude, listen, dude, you get in

[Rachel Cruze]

some of these niches in life and I'm telling you, I'm like, man, people can do real well for themselves.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I'm telling you, with they, if they

[Rachel Cruze]

know what they're doing. I'm sure Michael's wife does.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Me and Winston have never had a conversation conversation about it, but a couple of times we've. What's better than a conversation is we've just stared off into space and just, just two guys standing next to each other just looking at the horizon like, hey, does your, does your wife get her hair done at such and such. Yeah. That's all we got to say. And you know, it's like, I'm with you, brother.

[Rachel Cruze]

I know.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Listen, but I'm sure, I'm sure my wife could stand next to you and be like, so is your husband buying more hunting outfits this year? Yeah.

[Rachel Cruze]

What are the bows? Like? What are all the. Yeah, the wood that you're replanking a room, you know, that could be even one.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And y' all could just in the space too. So I've got my own, my own thing.

[Rachel Cruze]

I'll be good.

[Announcer]

I'm not against vacations. I'm against being broke. If you've paid off everything but the house house, you've earned the right to celebrate. Come do that on the live like no one else Cruise. Hang out with me and the Ramsey personalities for seven days in the Western Caribbean. Join the world's largest debt free scream. Hear exclusive Ramsay teachings and more. The best cabins are filling up. Lock in yours with a $600 deposit@ramsey solutions.com events or click the link in the show notes.

[Caller]

Foreign.

[Rachel Cruze]

Comes from Psalm 127:1. Unless the Lord builds a house, the work of the builders is wasted. Unless the Lord protects a city, guarding it with centuries will do no good. Tom. So, well, how do you say, how would you say that name?

[Dr. John Deloney]

I'm just gonna let you do it.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay? People with their time on their hands will Inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Thomas. Soul.

[Rachel Cruze]

Soul. So well. I see. Well, so well.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Sowell, so well. Thomas. It's actually Thomas. It's Thomas. So well.

[Rachel Cruze]

So. Okay, people, I'm gonna read it again.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Rachel has a new reading curriculum coming out in the fall, too.

[Rachel Cruze]

I can. I can't pronounce people's names very well. I'm just saying it out loud. It's fine. People with time on their hands will inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do. Oh, it's kind of sad. You think that's true? I don't know. All right, we're going to head to the phones now. And in Santa Barbara, I think we

[Dr. John Deloney]

are the king and queen of compelling radio.

[Rachel Cruze]

I think we are, too. All right, we're gonna go to Shelly.

[Dr. John Deloney]

For those of y' all born in the 2000s, radio is. Is when they used to take podcasts and just put them on. On the air, and that's all you had, the airwaves.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Radio waves.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Then they captured them.

[Rachel Cruze]

All right, Shelly, we're here with you. How are you doing?

[Caller]

Hi.

Good. How are you?

[Rachel Cruze]

We're doing good. How can we help today?

[Caller]

Okay, so my husband, he graduated from college about a year ago, and we ended up moving hometown because he got a really amazing job here. And his job is very niche, so it's something that can't be done in most places, but it's also a very, very expensive area. And the job pays well, but also the area is so expensive. And so when we moved, we ended up. We lived with my parents for a couple of months, and then we were going to rent a place, but rent was so expensive, and we had money for a down payment, so we. We ended up buying a home because the mortgage was going to be basically the same thing. Rent was for, like, a tiny little condo versus buying, like, a house. And we have kids and dogs and all the things, but we are spending over half of our income on our mortgage every month. So I guess my question is, like, what are you supposed to do in a situation like that?

[Rachel Cruze]

Well, how much is he making?

[Caller]

He brings home around 8,000amonth.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And how big of a house did you buy? Like, cost wise, It's.

[Caller]

It was 700, 3,000. And so after a down payment and everything we're paying. I mean, with, like, after property taxes and insurance and all that, it's like 4300amonth.

[Rachel Cruze]

Does he see a raise anytime soon? Is the trajectory of income Already gotten one.

[Caller]

Which actually he's gotten two. So he's actually making a bit more than he was when he got hired. They really like him there, which is good.

[Rachel Cruze]

And will that continue? Like does he see his income continuing to grow?

[Caller]

We're hoping so, yeah. It seems like he's okay. He has a job interview today like for the same company for like in level up position.

[Rachel Cruze]

Perfect. So I probably would.

[Caller]

A lot of potential.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah, yeah. So I would. Because of that potential. And it sounds like for real, there is a pattern of him moving up. Right. And so if you guys can get to a place that you look up and it's, you know, 40, 40%, 38%. Right. And you start ticking towards that. What we would say is around that 25% range, that's going to be ideal. The hard thing is, is it doesn't leave you much wiggle room financially to do other things. It's basically like your house is taken, right. Most of your income and you're feeling that. So if you guys can't get, get to him.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I mean, are you working?

[Caller]

I'm not anymore. I was doing hair while he was in school. So I was the one like supporting our family like at the time financially. But when we moved here, we moved out of state and I don't have a clientele here. And we have, we have one and a half year old twins and a three year old boy. So it's very hectic and I also started getting a lot of like allergic reactions to the chemicals and stuff. It was a whole thing. But as of now, I'm staying home full time.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay. Yeah. So I would say, Shelly, if you guys can't, if he can't see himself bringing in, I'm gonna say 12, 13. Yeah, I was gonna, yeah. Something around there in the next probably two to three years.

[Caller]

Then you guys probably being recorded. Sorry, this call is no longer being recorded.

[Dr. John Deloney]

We're recording the call too.

[Rachel Cruze]

So we have the, we have, have it recorded. You can re. Watch this too now.

[Caller]

You're fine to know my cheek hit it.

[Rachel Cruze]

No, you're fine, you're fine. So yeah, I would say if you don't see a path towards that in the next couple of years, you probably.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cruze]

Bought so much house and I understand California real estate is so expensive and so is southern Florida and so is Manhattan, all this. But, but math is math, right. So if you bring in $8,000, it doesn't matter where you live live, if half of your income is going to your mortgage over a long period of time, it's not going to Be great. You're not going to have a ton of margin to invest in retirement and save for kids, college and X, Y and Z. Right. So. So what are you supposed to do? Well, I probably would have said I would hold off and I probably would rent and find something maybe in an area that's not super close to family because that's a very expensive area.

[Caller]

Right.

[Rachel Cruze]

You would have to finagle the situation to make the math work. Work. And that's the hard part of, I think all of this money stuff is that it doesn't really care about your feelings. You know, it's just. Yeah, it's what it is. And so you're either going to choose to be stressed and strapped financially to have the house or you're going to be maybe sad and disappointed about where you live. But it's less house and not in a great. As great of an area. Right. I don't. You have to kind of pick, pick that side of it.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Let's call this out.

[Caller]

You.

[Dr. John Deloney]

What is his, his annual salary? About a 125 probably.

[Caller]

It's like 140ish.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay. But you live in a, if not the one of the highest tax rate states too. Right? So, yeah, a big chunk of it goes away and then Santa Barbara taxes are high. So like.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

All that to say is like 140 grand in a $700,000 house.

[Announcer]

House.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Like it, it feels crazy to you that we make 140 grand and we can't buy a house in the town where our job is.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Right. So understand that frustration is real. And because if you don't metabolize that frustration, it bleeds onto all. It makes everything feel emotional. Like just pull that aside and say, say the story we got growing up is if you make six figures, you're a, you're a bajillionaire.

[Caller]

You're good.

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And so the reality is in some towns, $140,000 is like a million bucks. If y' all lived in the Midwest, y' all be living, y' all be living high, right?

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And. But where, where you live now, it's just, it's just purely a math problem.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And I, I'm, I'm nervous for you, but that's just me.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah. Shelly, do you feel stressed? Do you guys feel it month to month?

[Caller]

Yeah. I mean, okay, it's hard because before we were living in Texas and I was the one working, so I felt a lot more stressed because he was in school and we were trying to like stay out of debt. And all the things. And so here I feel like we have more breathing room, weirdly, just because we still have, like, a little bit to spend at the end. But.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

How much did you make in Texas? Like, how much did you make?

[Caller]

Not very much. Well, because he got laid off, so he went back to school basically with the GI bill, but I was making like 40,000.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay.

[Caller]

So bought a house there and.

[Dr. John Deloney]

But let's play this out. Let's play this out. If you were making 40 and he found a job making a hundred, you're right back in Texas. And. Except your housing costs are half.

[Caller]

Yeah, right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And so sometimes it is having to sit down and say, we had this dream of being around family. We had this dream of you working in this really niche industry, and it's only available in a few cities in America. We had that dream. We had that dream of, like, living in one of the most beautiful places on planet Earth, Santa Barbara, which it is. Like, we had all these dreams and we. It's not going to come true, and we're going to grieve that.

[Caller]

Yeah, right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And that stinks, man. I hate that.

[Caller]

With that, though. His job is really niche. Like, it's not. He. When we were in Texas, our plan was to stay in Texas because it made more sense and he was applying to jobs that made way less, and he wasn't getting anything. And then he got this job, and this job just doesn't really transition transfer. He works on Rockets, which is like Sonich, but, like, it just doesn't really, like, transfer to, like, well, he couldn't get this amount of money anywhere else. Does that make sense? Like, it doesn't.

[Rachel Cruze]

That is true. But also this. The cost of living that you guys are living is also higher than anywhere else, too. So you got to factor both sides of the equation in. But yeah, I think as he's getting promotions, he's doing great. And I think it'll. It'll start to. It'll start to even out for you guys. All right, well, thanks to everyone in the booth. Thanks you, everyone, for listening. And remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of peace, Christ Jesus.