Our Son Makes $100,000 And Still Lives With Us

Summary

---

Episode Overview

Podcast: The Ramsey Show Highlights
Episode: Our Son Makes $100,000 And Still Lives With Us
Date: November 23, 2025
Theme:
This episode spotlights a financially independent couple grappling with their 29-year-old son moving back home to accelerate paying off his student loans. Despite his high government income and military benefits, he resists contributing to household expenses. The Ramsey advisors offer direct, pragmatic advice on handling this delicate mix of family dynamics, financial boundaries, and "failure to launch" syndrome.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Dilemma: High Earner, Still at Home

• Caller Situation:
  • Mother, nearing retirement; husband already retired
  • No debt, but rising household costs (utilities, food, taxes)
  • 29-year-old son moves back home to aggressively pay down private student loans
  • Son's income: Well over $100,000/year, GS13 government job, currently tax-free (military deployment)
  • Only debt is ~$35,000 in student loans (down from $100,000+)
  • Son refuses to pay a single household bill, suggesting parents cut costs instead

Advisors’ Immediate Reactions

• Shock at son's proposal:
  • Financial Advisor 2 (01:45):
    "Wow, that is maniacal. How about this? You say, you know what, forget that plan. You're going to pay us $300 a month if you want to live here."
  • Financial Advisor 1: Suggests he either contributes or finds somewhere else to live.

Family Dynamics & Son’s Pattern

• Mother reveals: Son broke off engagement due to his extreme frugality
  • (03:00) "She got so frustrated with him being so cheap that she broke off the engagement and threw him out."
  • Advisor 1 (03:20):
    "This is a character trait... Possibly one of the reasons they were living together was so he could lower his expenses."
  • Pattern: Moved from fiancée’s home, then rentals, now back to parents

Setting Boundaries

• Advisors advocate for firm deadlines and clear terms

  • Advisor 1 (03:38):
    "I would say, he can't live here. I love you, but you can't live here. You don't need to live with me to pay off $35,000 of debt. You've got plenty of income... I see this as a pattern."
  • Advisor 2 (04:39):
    "I would just create a timeline... here's the rules. And if you can pay this off in six months, that's it."
  • Advisors calculate he could easily pay off the loan at $5,800/month (04:55)

• Offer monthly check-ins for accountability (05:45)

Navigating Parental Differences

• Husband is much older, enjoys having son at home

  • Mother (04:30):
    "My husband is elderly. He's 25 years my senior. And at his age, he's just glad to have him back in the house."

• Advisors note temptation for "goalpost-moving"

  • Financial Advisor 2 (05:42):
    "Just wait till I have enough for a down payment... the goalpost is going to keep moving."

Assertive Advice for the Son

• Direct message for the son (06:05):
  • Financial Advisor 1:
    "Sir, if you're listening, I think that you need to move out. I think that you need to learn how to handle your expenses... At the very least, if you are going to live in your mama's house, you need to pay for the electricity that you use and the food that you eat at 29 years old." (06:05-06:33)

Humor and Tough Love

• Playful suggestion:

  • Advisor 2 (06:33):
    "Mom's going to apply for him to be on Extreme Cheapskates... watching him mooch off of you guys and his elderly dad to save a buck while he makes six figures..."

• Acknowledgments and empathy:

  • Both advisors thank the son for his service (06:48), reiterate that he's a "great young man," but "too cheap for his own good" (06:49-06:55)
  • Regret about lost relationship:
    Advisor 2:
    "He already lost a great woman over this..." (06:55)
    Advisor 1:
    "Well, if he moves out, maybe he can get her back." (07:03)

Creative Solutions

• Suggestion: Charge “rent,” but set it aside as savings and return it when son moves out—as a surprise, if the parents can afford it. (07:43)
• Otherwise, parents are justified in requiring a fair monthly contribution.

Broader Reflections

• Underlying theme: “Failure to launch”—despite high income and discipline
  • Advisor 1 (08:09):
    "It's a failure to launch. For me, it's a failure to launch."
  • Advisor 2 (08:11):
    "He has the money and he has the discipline...[but] she's just too sweet for her own good. And he's too cheap for his own good." (08:15-08:26)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Financial Advisor 2 (01:45):
  "Wow, that is maniacal. How about this? You say, you know what, forget that plan. You're going to pay us $300 a month if you want to live here."

• Caller (Mother) (03:00):
  "She got so frustrated with him being so cheap that she broke off the engagement and threw him out."

• Financial Advisor 1 (03:38):
  "I would say he can't live here. I love you, but you can't live here. You don't need to live with me to pay off $35,000 of debt."

• Financial Advisor 1 (06:05):
  "Sir, if you're listening, I think that you need to move out. I think that you need to learn how to handle your expenses. It's okay. It costs money to live as an adult."

• Financial Advisor 2 (07:43):
  "The other thing that I've seen that can work decently is if you say, hey, you're gonna pay 500 bucks a month to live here. Mom and dad set that money aside in a savings account and give it back to him when he moves out as a surprise."

• Financial Advisor 1 (08:09):
  "It's a failure to launch. For me, it's a failure to launch."

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:12-01:14 – Mother explains son's return home and financial context
• 01:14-01:45 – Discussion on increased household costs; advisors react to son's refusal to pay
• 02:09-02:39 – Son's income & military status revealed
• 03:00-03:20 – History of son’s extreme frugality affecting relationships
• 03:38-04:39 – Advisors give clear boundary-setting advice, recommend timeline
• 04:55-05:02 – Advisors calculate monthly payoff plan for loans
• 06:05-06:33 – Direct message from advisors to the son about adult responsibilities
• 07:43-08:00 – Alternative: charging rent and returning it as a savings boost

---

Tone and Takeaways

The tone throughout is firm but compassionate, mixing frank advice with empathy and a dose of humor. The advisors repeatedly affirm the parents’ right to financial boundaries and encourage them to recognize both the son’s resourcefulness and the risk of enabling unhealthy dependency.

Main takeaway:
Holding adult children to financial responsibility is a form of love. Good intentions (like helping a child pay off debt) should not override common sense or the reality that adulthood comes with bills, rent, and boundaries.

---

Transcript

[Host]

Brought to you by CHM, a budget friendly faith based alternative to health insurance. Chministries.org budget I'm calling for some advice.

[Caller (Mother)]

On how to handle my 29 year old son who's moved back home to follow the baby steps millionaire program. He wants to pay off all of his private student loan debt. So he's moved back home. We're glad to have him. I'm nearing retirement age. My husband's been retired a long time. We're in decent shape financially. No debt at all. But expenses are hard. You know, the cost of maintaining a home has increased. The cost of utilities, the cost of food, property taxes. So our budget gets stressed a little bit from time to time. Especially you know, times of the year like this when the heat's on. And so does it cost more to.

[Financial Advisor 1]

Heat the house with him in it?

[Caller (Mother)]

Well, not necessarily, but the cost of food goes up and you know, him keeping the lights on where that part of the house might have normally been. Dark.

[Financial Advisor 2]

Sure. The water, the utilities will bump up a bit. He'll be eating your foods. Your food bill is going to go up.

[Financial Advisor 1]

Why don't you tell him he needs to contribute a little something.

[Caller (Mother)]

Something I did. So his response was, well, I, I asked him if he would take on one bill. I said, just one bill. You can pick out whatever one you want. I showed him my we have your budget app. So I showed him my every dollar budget and I said pick one. And his response was, well, let me look at all of your bills so that I can see how you can cut costs so I don't have to do this.

[Financial Advisor 1]

Let me tell you something.

[Financial Advisor 2]

Wow, that is maniacal. How about this? You say, you know what, forget that plan. You're going to pay us $300 a month if you want to live here.

[Financial Advisor 1]

Or you can just go live somewhere else.

[Caller (Mother)]

That sounds good to me, man.

[Financial Advisor 2]

Is he working full time?

[Caller (Mother)]

Oh, he has a very good job. With. He's a government employee with a GS13 level job.

[Financial Advisor 1]

Oh my gosh.

[Financial Advisor 2]

What does he make?

[Caller (Mother)]

Well over $100,000 a year. And right now he's in the military. He's a high ranking officer and, and he's making all of his money tax free. Cause it's an active duty deployment and.

[Financial Advisor 1]

He won't pay one bill.

[Financial Advisor 2]

How much debt does he have?

[Caller (Mother)]

I'm sorry?

[Financial Advisor 2]

How much debt does he have?

[Caller (Mother)]

He has no debt other than his student loan.

[Financial Advisor 2]

Okay, well that's.

[Financial Advisor 1]

He just wanted to invest.

[Financial Advisor 2]

No, no, he has debt. You said he has no debt except for all These student loans? Yeah, that is, that's debt.

[Caller (Mother)]

Student loans.

[Financial Advisor 2]

If it ends with loan, it's debt. So how much debt?

[Caller (Mother)]

So I think he's got? He had well over 100,000. He's down to about 35,000.

[Financial Advisor 1]

Okay.

[Financial Advisor 2]

He moved back in to pay off 35 grand, making over 100. This feels crazy.

[Caller (Mother)]

This is my son.

[Financial Advisor 1]

He said yes to this.

[Financial Advisor 2]

Was he renting before on his own or what?

[Caller (Mother)]

He was renting before on his own. Prior to that, he was. He was engaged to a wonderful woman and he was living with her. They were supposed to get married in a couple of months and she just got so. She got so frustrated with him being so cheap that she broke off the engagement and threw him out.

[Financial Advisor 1]

Okay, there you have it.

[Financial Advisor 2]

Oh my God.

[Financial Advisor 1]

Goodness. And there you have it. So this is a. This is a character trait of. He was cheap with the girlfriend. Possibly one of the reasons they were living together was so he could lower his expenses. Cuz then right after that, he turns around and moves in with you. Do you know what I would do if I were in your shoes?

[Caller (Mother)]

I'd love to know.

[Financial Advisor 1]

I would say, he can't live here. I'd say, I love you, but you can't live here. You don't need to live with me to pay off $35,000 of debt. You've got plenty of income in order to do that. And I, I see this as a pattern.

[Caller (Mother)]

Sir.

[Financial Advisor 1]

Son, you need to move out and you need to learn to open up the purse strings.

[Financial Advisor 2]

He is not struggling financially. Now, if this guy had just gone through a really tough time, like, obvious like a divorce was on his, you know, had nowhere to go and he was really struggling financially, I'd say, hey, let's. Let's give him a launch, like a little, a bit of a hammock for six months to get him on his feet. This man doesn't need that.

[Caller (Mother)]

I agree.

[Financial Advisor 2]

And so have you had that conversation?

[Caller (Mother)]

Your health? No, we haven't had any kind of a hard conversation like that because he has just recently moved in. We're talking just a couple of weeks.

[Financial Advisor 1]

Okay. What's your husband say?

[Caller (Mother)]

My husband is elderly. He's 25 years my senior. And at his age, he's just glad to have him back in the house.

[Financial Advisor 1]

I see, I see.

[Financial Advisor 2]

Yeah, I would give a time. He's already in the house. So I would just create a timeline and say, listen, I know how much you make. I know you can put this much toward the debt. So if you do it this way, here's the rules. And if you can pay this off and I don't know, six months, let's say. Is that possible?

[Caller (Mother)]

Probably, yes.

[Financial Advisor 2]

That's 5,800amonth. Could he do that living at home with no expenses?

[Caller (Mother)]

Absolutely he can.

[Financial Advisor 1]

See, George is.

[Financial Advisor 2]

I'm just throwing napkin math out there. And she said absolutely he can because she knows how much he makes.

[Financial Advisor 1]

Yes. But I'm like, the boy must go.

[Financial Advisor 2]

Yeah, I know, I agree. But you've, he's literally made his bed and they're laying, they're laying in it.

[Caller (Mother)]

And so I would do that if my husband wasn't so thrilled to have him home.

[Financial Advisor 2]

Here's what I think is going to happen.

[Financial Advisor 1]

He can come over every night for dinner. You know what I'm saying?

[Caller (Mother)]

This is true.

[Financial Advisor 1]

You know, this is. We don't. Because what I, what I see happening because he, he loves saving money. He wants to save a buck. And what I see happening is he pays off the debt, then the next goal comes, well, I want to save up X amount of time.

[Financial Advisor 2]

Just wait till I have enough for a down payment.

[Financial Advisor 1]

Yep. And it's going to. The goalpost is going to keep moving.

[Financial Advisor 2]

And truly that's why I say as soon as you have this debt paid off, you're gone. And that's going to be six months from now. And we're going to have a meeting every month and you're going to show us the debt balance if you're going to be living here.

[Financial Advisor 1]

Do you think he'd do that?

[Caller (Mother)]

He would. And, and I so appreciate this advice because I know he's listening.

[Financial Advisor 2]

Oh, good.

[Caller (Mother)]

From you.

[Financial Advisor 1]

Let me, let me send him a message. Let me send him a mess. Sir, if you're listening, I think that you need to move out. I think that you need to learn how to handle your expenses. It's okay. It costs money to live as an adult. It costs money to adult. That's rent. That's a mortgage. That's paying for your own life. And at the very least, if you are going to live in your mama's house, you need to pay for the electricity that you use and the food that you eat at 29 years old. All right, Mom, I set it for you.

[Financial Advisor 2]

Mom's going to apply for him to be on extreme cheapskates. There's going to follow him around the house with the camera, watching him mooch off of you guys and his elderly dad to save a buck while he makes six figures as a high ranking official in the military and also thank him for his service.

[Financial Advisor 1]

Yes, thank you for your service.

[Financial Advisor 2]

All jokes aside, he sounds like a great young man, but he's just too cheap for his own good.

[Financial Advisor 1]

He can't help it. He can't help it.

[Financial Advisor 2]

He already lost a great woman over this.

[Financial Advisor 1]

You know, that's true.

[Financial Advisor 2]

You could have had a really sweet relationship with this woman if it all panned out.

[Financial Advisor 1]

Well, if he moves out, maybe he can get her back.

[Financial Advisor 2]

Now that would be a love story for the ages.

[Financial Advisor 1]

Story.

[Caller (Mother)]

One never knows he's gonna go to.

[Financial Advisor 2]

Those 25 cent rings to try to propose. That's probably. She saw that writing on the wall and said, no, thank you.

[Financial Advisor 1]

That's not good.

[Financial Advisor 2]

Goodness gracious, what an interesting conundrum. I'm trying to really put myself in her shoes.

[Financial Advisor 1]

I couldn't.

[Financial Advisor 2]

Now here's the thing. This is where I'm a softie. If it was my daughter, I think I'd treat it differently at 29.

[Financial Advisor 1]

But here's what got me when she said, pick a bill to pay. And he's like, instead of me paying the bill, let me lower your expenses and crunch your budget and make you like that. Got me.

[Financial Advisor 2]

Yeah. The other thing that I've seen that can work decently is if you say, hey, you're gonna pay 500 bucks a month to live here. Mom and dad set that money aside in a savings account and give it back to him when he moves out as a surprise. That's a nice gesture if you don't need the money. But truthfully, they were saying it's already a little bit tight.

[Financial Advisor 1]

Yeah.

[Financial Advisor 2]

And so, yeah, they could use the extra money if he's, you know, mooching off the house and paying rank, racking up the utility bills. I think that's fair.

[Financial Advisor 1]

It's a failure to launch. For me, it's a failure to launch.

[Financial Advisor 2]

He has the money and he has the discipline.

[Financial Advisor 1]

He does.

[Financial Advisor 2]

I mean, if you're a high ranking official, you don't get there by being lackadaisical. So, man, that's a tough one. But what a sweet woman. I get it. She's. She's just too sweet for her own good. And he's too cheap for his own good.

[Host]

Christian Healthcare Ministries can save your family hundreds of dollars on health care every month. Learn [e-mail] budget.