Building Wealth Requires Trusted Principles, Not Popular Opinions

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Ramsey Show — "Building Wealth Requires Trusted Principles, Not Popular Opinions"

Date: July 3, 2026
Hosts: Jade Warshaw, Dr. John Deloney
Network: Ramsey Network

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Episode Overview

This episode focuses on building wealth through timeless, trusted principles—not chasing trends or falling for popular but risky financial advice. Hosts Jade Warshaw and Dr. John Deloney take live calls, each highlighting real-life money challenges. They emphasize practical decision-making, mental well-being, and debunk common “wealth-building hacks.” The tone throughout is supportive but direct, encouraging listeners to focus on fundamentals and long-term progress.

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Key Topics and Discussions

1. Financial Abuse and Leaving Unhealthy Marriages

Caller: Maria (San Diego, CA)
[00:41–08:58]

• Situation: Maria, a 48-year-old stay-at-home mom in a volatile, financially abusive marriage. No access to family finances, involved HELOCs, and unsure of marital assets. Fears instability for her 12-year-old son.
• Advice:
  • Dr. John: “That’s financial abuse...Don’t just walk away; get an attorney and do this the right way.” [01:56]
  • If leaving, ensure legal representation to claim a fair share of marital assets—potentially half of retirement and equity acquired since the marriage.
  • Acknowledge the emotional barrier of returning to work after years at home.
  • Jade: “A lot of people earn the most they've ever made in their 50s...raising kids is life experience” [06:08], reframing her experience as valuable.
  • Stability for the child is not “sticking it out”—it’s providing a safe, calm environment.
• Notable Quote: Dr. John: “For your kid, the boat is rocked. In wild ways. Staying together for the kids is not good for the kids when the home is abusive.” [07:45]

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2. Salary Confusion and Employer Shadiness

Caller: Leah (Akron, OH)
[10:09–19:34]

• Situation: Leah’s husband took a “salary” job, but hours are tracked and docked; unable to access pay stubs; worried about tax withholding and pay integrity.
• Advice:
  • Review all paperwork—confirm W2/1099 status, written salary agreements.
  • Dr. John: “If your boss isn’t a person of character, I’m going to get out of there.” [19:34]
  • Options: Lawyer up or search elsewhere—don’t stay with sketchy employers.
  • Jade notes the importance of getting everything in writing before taking a job.
• Notable Quote: Dr. John: “Don't work for someone without integrity. That’s just business 101.” [15:08]

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3. Social Media “Money Hacks” and HELOC Risks

Caller: Brooke (Baton Rouge, LA)
[21:58–31:08]

• Situation: Husband is following TikTok advice to get a first-lien HELOC to “rapidly pay off the mortgage.” Brooke is skeptical.
• Advice:
  • The hosts debunk the premise: No trick can make debt disappear; it’s about how much you can pay.
  • Dr. John: “You owe $200,000. Divide that by 72 months—do you have that much money laying around?” [25:22]
  • Warns about moving from a fixed 2.75% mortgage to a risky, high, variable HELOC (~8%).
  • Jade: “This is a complex, heady strategy for something simple—pay your mortgage, throw extra at the principal, and avoid risk.” [28:55]
  • The temptation to re-borrow on a HELOC often trips people up.
• Notable Exchange:
  • Dr. John: “You’d have to be superhuman to never spend this line of credit. There’s no possible win here.” [29:32]

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4. Can We Afford a Luxury Truck? (High-Income Couple)

Caller: Aaron (Lincoln, NE)
[35:03–42:06]

• Situation: Couple with a net worth near $2M (income $780K/year) wants to buy an $80K GMC truck but feels hesitant.
• Advice:
  • Jade: It’s OK to buy new when your net worth is above $1M and car purchases are less than half your take-home pay.
  • However, Jade: “The most wild thing is that making $780,000/year it’ll take you 10 years to pay off a $400,000 mortgage?” [39:01]
  • Encourages them to use their resources wisely; questions why their high income isn’t translating to faster debt-free milestones.
• Notable Quote: Dr. John: “Go buy the truck. Tell your husband to get over himself.” [42:06]

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5. Blending Family Finances in Remarriage

Caller: Tiffany (Houston, TX)
[43:24–52:10]

• Situation: Blended family; disagreement about whether to “equalize” children’s inherited savings upon merging finances.
• Advice:
  • Dr. John: Focus on a new equitable starting line—move forward equally but don’t erase what each parent started for their own children.
  • Jade: Open to different approaches; stresses blending as a family means thinking about “the peanut butter in the middle”—assets now shared.
• Notable Quote:
  • Dr. John: “A great marriage is both spouses secretly thinking they got the better end of the deal.” [60:12]

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6. Paying Off the Mortgage—Practicalities and Emotional Milestones

Caller: David (Wisconsin)
[53:31–60:29]

• Situation: 28-year-old couple about to pay off $333,000 mortgage in six years, started with $125K income, now at $600K.
• Advice:
  • Plan a celebration, update homeowner’s insurance, get lender removed from policy.
  • Advice for all: “If you can keep your lifestyle stable as your income increases and keep dumping debt, you win over time.” [62:10]
• Memorable Moment: The celebratory mood—audience in the lobby cheering for the caller.

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7. Investing: Ramsey Principles vs. “Popular Opinions”

Segment: “Ask Ramsey” AI Tool Discussion
[64:34–71:43]

• Core Message: Money is simple. Choose proven, diversified mutual funds and avoid chasing trends or complex “systems.”
• Actionable Summary:
  • 25% into each: growth & income, growth, aggressive growth, international funds.
  • Stick to 15% of income, invest monthly, don’t try to time the market, avoid target date funds.

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8. Primary Breadwinner/Stay-at-Home Parent Dilemmas

Caller: Madison (Indianapolis, IN)
[71:54–84:03]

• Situation: Couple $62,000 in debt, mortgage $249K, Madison wants to return to stay-at-home parenting.
• Advice:
  • Run the numbers—the reality is stark with debt and a single income.
  • “To be house poor with $50,000 in debt, that is curtains. That’s emergency.” [81:07]
  • Recommendation: Stick with current jobs until debt’s cleared; then reevaluate.
• Notable Moment: Discussion on creating other options—not just “either/or”—to align life with values.

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9. Business Debt Crisis and Bankruptcy Decision

Caller: Cassie (NYC)
[85:12–93:04]

• Situation: Owes $830K in EIDL loans, $7K/month in office rents, business/net income down sharply post-COVID.
• Advice:
  • Immediate need to close unprofitable office space and liquidate land ($200–300K asset) to eliminate debt.
  • Dr. John: “Two decisions. Let the office go and sell the land—this can be over in five years.” [92:22]
  • Debunking “mental space” arguments: “Y’all are drowning right now, mentally.”

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10. “Should We Invest or Pay Off Debt?”

Caller: Savannah (West Virginia, Y-Refi segment)
[95:09–99:58]

• Situation: Fiance wants to take $1,000 emergency savings to invest, despite debts.
• Advice:
  • No investing until all consumer debt (except mortgage) is paid off and you have proper emergency funds.
  • Don’t treat investments as a savings account; avoid “good-better-best” fallacies when basics aren’t in place.
  • Dr. John: “You need to get aligned—rowing in the same direction, in the same boat. Otherwise, you’re exposed.” [98:18]

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11. Late Starter Retirement Anxiety

Caller: Jessica (San Francisco, CA)
[100:06–104:14]

• Situation: 56, recently rebuilt career, anxious about retirement with $127K in 401k, owns home, $10k car debt.
• Advice:
  • Pay off car ($16K in savings), keep investing aggressively ($1,750/month).
  • “By 70, you’ll have $1.2 million, plus a paid-for house. You’re going to be just fine.” [104:14]
• Tone: Validation, celebration of progress, reassurance it’s never “too late.”

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12. Real Estate Losses: When to Cut a Rental and Sell?

Caller: Dan (Los Angeles, CA)
[105:07–114:11]

• Situation: Rental property losing $8K/month, can’t rent at break-even, considering selling at loss or holding for possibly increased future value.
• Advice:
  • If Airbnb can get to break-even, try that short-term.
  • Otherwise, sell and take the loss—“You’re getting punched, kicked, and bit. You’re hemorrhaging.”
  • Evaluate entire real estate portfolio and avoid over-leveraging in the future by using cash.
• Notable Line: “Take it on the chin...you’re hemorrhaging right now.” [113:13]

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13. Safe but Stagnant: Sitting on Cash, Scared to Invest

Caller: Charles (Savannah, GA)
[115:04–124:11]

• Situation: Frugal family, $100K+ income, $253K in CDs, gold, cash stashed, low-yield savings, modest retirement investments, afraid of stock market loss.
• Advice:
  • “If the stock market goes to zero, a rock is a rock, paper is paper—you can only plan for so many meteorites. Give yourself the best opportunity with what’s in front of us.” [120:53]
  • Begin investing systematically; use diversified funds; don’t let fear trap your money in unproductive locations.
  • Math: Simple, steady investing even mid-life yields $3.8M by retirement.

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On Financial Abuse: Dr. John: “That’s financial abuse... Don’t just walk away; get an attorney and do this the right way.” [01:56]
• On HELOC Risks: Dr. John: “You’d have to be superhuman to never spend this line of credit.” [29:32]
• On Simplicity: Jade: “Money is actually quite simple to understand.” [67:38]
• On Investing: Jade: “Stick to the basics: diversified funds, 15% of income every month. That’s how millionaires do it.” [28:55]
• On Hard Choices: Jade: “To be house poor with $50,000 in debt, that is curtains. That’s emergency.” [81:07]
• On Later-in-Life Success: Jade: “By 70, you’ll have $1.2 million, plus a paid-for house. You’re going to be just fine.” [104:14]
• On Working Together: Dr. John: “If both spouses secretly think they got the better end of the deal, you have a great marriage.” [60:12]

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Overarching Insights

• Wealth is Built on Trusted Principles: Consistent budgeting, avoiding debt, and systematic investing outperform trendy hacks or social media “hacks.”
• Know and Control Your Situation: Whether in employment, marriage, or business, transparency, understanding, and legal protection are critical.
• Address the Emotional Side: Money decisions are emotionally charged. Acknowledge fear, shame, and regret but don’t let them paralyze you.
• Adjust to Reality, Not Idealism: Face your numbers, make decisions from facts—not hopes.
• It’s Never Too Late: Even late starters or those facing giant obstacles (divorce, business debt, career loss) can chart a path with the right steps.

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For more information and resources:
www.ramseysolutions.com

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Summary prepared for listeners who want clear, actionable takeaways and a sense of the episode’s energy and advice.

Transcript

[Sponsor/Ad Reader]

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[Jade Warshaw]

Normal is broke and common sense is weird. So we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio. This is the Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshaw. Next to me, Dr. John Deloney. Taking calls from you for the next couple hours at least. 888-255-2225 is the number that you call if you want to ask your question. Sure hope that you do. All right, we've got Maria who's in San Diego, California. Beautiful. How can we help out today? Maria?

[Maria (Caller)]

Hi. I'm 48 years old. My husband's 53. We've been married 13 years. We have one son who's 12. I can stay at home mom.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

Since was born.

[Jade Warshaw]

Maria, Maria, you're breaking up a good bit. If you can go to another part of the house or just speak directly into your line to make sure we can really hear you.

[Maria (Caller)]

Okay. Should I repeat myself?

[Jade Warshaw]

No, I heard you up until then.

[Maria (Caller)]

Okay, so I've been a stay at home mom. I do not have any savings, nothing. Retirement. And my husband and I, our marriage is not in good terms. So I think I'm going to be walking away with nothing. So I want to know what I need to do to help myself.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, that's a good question.

[Dr. John Deloney]

What happened with your marriage? What's going on?

[Maria (Caller)]

It's been volatile since we've been married.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Volatile like abusive or volatile? Yelling and screaming. What does volatile mean?

[Maria (Caller)]

Yeah, a lot of yelling and screaming. And he doesn't share money with me. I do not know. I just recently found out how much he makes. He does the grocery because he doesn't give me any money. Oh, nothing.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, that's. That's.

[Caller Tiffany]

We.

[Dr. John Deloney]

We call that financial abuse. That's. That's you're in an unsafe situation. So first I would say if y' all have been together for 13 years, you're entitled to a big chunk of what he's got. And so don't just walk away. You're. You're in an unsafe relationship because you're. You're being held hostage by the person you're married to financially. So if you choose to leave, make sure you get an attorney and do that in a, In a. In a right way. The second thing is, is you'll be faced with the reality that, that, that life you wanted to have. I want to be married. I want to be a stay at home parent. I want to be focused on my 12 year old you're going to have to go get a job, maybe two.

[Caller Leah / Other Callers]

Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And you're going to have to create a financial world where you are financially safe. And that might mean being in a one bedroom apartment. You're in one of the most expensive markets in the United States. And so it might be moving. Like there's a whole bunch of things that's gonna, it's gonna stem from you choosing to live in this scary word called reality. This is my new reality. Not my new what I wanted it to be, but this is the facts I'm facing here with my living expenses, my eating expenses, my 12 year old's expense, all those things. And we're gonna just have to create a world around that reality.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

Yeah.

[Maria (Caller)]

Yes, I, I looked into, I looked into all that. Yes.

[Caller Dan]

So.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

Yeah.

[Jade Warshaw]

So, Maria, you just found out what your husband earns. How much is it, and do you believe him when he said what he earns? Or did you find out because it was written on a paper or how'd you find out and how much is it?

[Maria (Caller)]

He took out a HELOC to pay off some debt. 70,000. So it was on the loan application. He makes 90 a year.

[Jade Warshaw]

90,000 a year. And he took out a $70,000 HELOC to pay off all of your debt. Is there any other outstanding debt other than the mortgage that you know about?

[Maria (Caller)]

No, just the mortgage and the 60,000.

[Jade Warshaw]

How are you positive of that?

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

Well, when it comes to debt, he'll

[Maria (Caller)]

share it with me. When it comes to spending, he won't share anything.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, what does he have in retirement savings?

[Caller Brooke]

I have no idea.

[Maria (Caller)]

I've never seen it. He has his mail routed to his parents, so I don't see anything.

[Jade Warshaw]

Oh, wow. Okay. Do you, do you think that maybe he has been saving? Like, does your sense tell you that he has been, or do you think he probably doesn't have much? You may not be able to answer

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

that, but he's been in the company

[Maria (Caller)]

40 years or 30 years.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

Yeah.

[Maria (Caller)]

So I think he has some type of investment, but I have no idea how much it is.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You should get half of it.

[Maria (Caller)]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Or maybe not half, but half since y' all have been together.

[Jade Warshaw]

Huh? That's true.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So there, there might be. Your situation might not be as financially, emotionally and relationally. Yeah, it's a mess, but financially it should. It might not be as bad as you think it is.

[Jade Warshaw]

I hope it's not. What about the mortgage? What do you guys now owe? Or what did you owe and what's the property worth? I'll already account for the HELOC.

[Maria (Caller)]

So we bought, we bought the house in 2017 and we bought it for 3, 4, 340 and it's still 340 right now, plus now the HELOCs. And I think the value is about 550.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay. Okay, so there's the numbers there. John's right. You know, since the marriage, most of this should be split down the middle. That doesn't give you, I don't think, unless he's got this crazy nest egg somewhere, I don't think that's going to give you the ability to walk away, get your half, and never have to work again. So the question then becomes, what can you do for work? You've been out of the workforce for a while, for 12 years. Were you ever in the workforce before you had the baby?

[Maria (Caller)]

Yeah, yeah, I was. I work in the legal profession since I was 17 and I had a good job before I quit my job. My son was born premature, so I just didn't go back to work.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

Okay.

[Maria (Caller)]

And then eventually I'll do pick up some contract work. One month here and there.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, so you feel like you have exit strategy as far as career is concerned?

[Maria (Caller)]

Yeah, but I'm 48, so I mean, that's not old. I'm competing against a younger generation.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yes, but let me, let me, you know, inform you on this. A lot of people, they, they earn the most they've ever made in their 50s. Like that's their, their clutch year. So you're approaching that and obviously you've been out of the workforce. There's some variables there. But I, I do want to encourage you on that. And don't get it twisted. Raising kids has life experience all over it that can, those are transferable skills. So let's be honest about that. What's, what's precluding you from making that step? When do you plan on making that step? Do you still feel barriers to making that step? Let us help you with that. What else is there?

[Maria (Caller)]

Well, because my marriage is not stable, divorce was not an option because I don't want to share custody. I don't know what he's going to say to my son about me. So I'd rather stay home and take care of my son, pick him up from school, drop them off and help them with homework and activities and all that.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

That's kind of what's was preventing me

[Maria (Caller)]

from going back to work. Because if I actually went back to work for one year last year and my son didn't do well in School. So I felt like, you know, I, I should be with him for now.

[Dr. John Deloney]

The greatest gift you can give your kid right now is stability.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

Okay?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Because there's no way that this is, that your husband is being this insane with how he's treating his wife and, and also being a plugged in, attentive, good dad.

[Jade Warshaw]

So, John, be clear about what you think stability looks like because you could interpret stability as, I'm not going to rock the boat right now. I'm just going to stay where I'm at. I'm not going to.

[Caller Leah's Husband]

What do you think?

[Dr. John Deloney]

What I would tell you is for your kid, the boat is rocked. Yeah, the boat is rocked in wild ways. The greatest gift two parents can give their kid is a rock solid marriage and giving your kids something to anchor into. And the data is pretty clear. A. No, don't quote, unquote, stay together for the kids, fix your marriage for your kids, fix your marriage for you and your kids benefit. But if a marriage is unhealthy, it's bad, it's abusive like yours is, then quote, unquote, staying together for the kids is not good for the kids. Right? You have to ask yourself, is your personal safety and well being and your child's health and safety and well being worth your potential? I might have to share custody sometimes. And the reality is this is still his dad and so he's still going to need his father. But sit down with an attorney, a good licensed attorney, and ask these hard questions so you can get a picture and you're not just living on made up stories.

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[Dr. John Deloney]

to remain active on Boost Mobile Unlimited plan.

[Jade Warshaw]

Back to the phone lines where we have Leah, who's in Akron, Ohio. Leah, how can we help out today?

[Caller Leah's Husband]

Hi. So my husband had a job offer for $62,000 a year salary. And then as he had started the position and he's, you know, talking to people with like, HR and payroll, he's being told that, you know, of course he wouldn't get paid overtime, but he still has to clock in, clock out, and if he doesn't make 40, he's

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

being docked somehow, which sounds hourly and fraudulent.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, so you're. Are you going to get clarity or are you simply not going to take the offer?

[Caller Leah's Husband]

Oh, he already accepted the $62,000 salary offer, but we got our first paycheck and they're not allowing us access to his pay stub. And based off of the number we received, it would seem that he's being paid something entirely different than what was agreed to.

[Jade Warshaw]

What does it look like he's. What does it look like he's being

[Caller Leah's Husband]

paid hourly, which we don't even know what the price is hourly. What's being paid, what's the past salary,

[Jade Warshaw]

what's the pay stub amount, and how far off is it?

[Dr. John Deloney]

What do you mean? How do you not allow somebody to see that?

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

But, well, it's supposed to be on

[Caller Leah's Husband]

the app, which he has access to the app, but, like, when he goes to the tab, it essentially says that his employer has him blocked.

[Jade Warshaw]

So can he. Did he go down to HR and say, hey, I'm blocked on this. Can you fix it? And did they say no or has

[Dr. John Deloney]

paid in taxes and FICA and all that stuff.

[Caller Leah's Husband]

Exactly.

[Jade Warshaw]

And refused.

[Caller Leah's Husband]

The way that they're conducting business is they tend to just be like, oh, well, we'll get to it.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

We'll.

[Caller Leah's Husband]

We'll see. We'll talk to you later.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, so let's back all the way out here for a second because you're ready to go to war here. Okay.

[Caller Leah's Husband]

A little bit. Yeah. Because I just, I, I don't understand what's happening. Neither does he. And they're not answering any questions.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay. So sometimes people get offered positions. I'm trying to think of, like, if you went and got a job as a state trooper, right. It would say something like, can make up to $110,000, base salary, 60,000 or something like that. But that number is a clock in number. It does have an hourly wage to it. And at Some point in the HR process, they'll tell you that. Or I have other buddies who work in industries where part of the management practice is to track hours, but they're paid a salary. And so I've never heard of somebody being paid a salary. But if you work 39 and a half hours, we're going to take money away from you.

[Caller Leah's Husband]

That's what it is. That's where I am having an issue with, is that they're saying if you don't meet the 40 hours, your pay gets docked.

[Jade Warshaw]

But are they guaranteed. Sorry, are they guaranteeing him the 40 hours? And so is it, is it a situation to where we're guaranteeing you the 40 hours, but if you step in and say, yeah, I got to go to a dentist appointment or something, that you're not basically clocked in for those hours, then they're docked? Is that exactly what you're saying?

[Caller Leah's Husband]

Right. So like say he, because he is in construction, so it's very like based on the weather. And so say

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

if he's late or

[Caller Leah's Husband]

if he's done with the job early, It'll be that 40 hours.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

Like, if he's done with the job

[Caller Leah's Husband]

early, he's not getting however much.

[Jade Warshaw]

Understood. I see what you're saying. And he would have to use like paid time off to account for him leaving a job early because the job is done. And that doesn't make sense. I see what you're saying, but how much of this.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

I'm a little perturbed is that.

[Caller Leah's Husband]

I mean, if you're not making your 40 hours and you're docking my pay by how much, what's the hourly there? And also if you're telling me that in the opposite side of the coin, if I work 60 hours, you're not going to pay me 20 hours of overtime.

[Jade Warshaw]

Right, right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Let's, let's two things here. One, is there a chance that your husband didn't ask what the hourly rate is when he took this job?

[Caller Leah's Husband]

Well, I'm actually looking at the job offer paperwork now, and it says you will be paid an annual salary of $67,000 per year and paid in accordance with our every other week schedule. Okay, so that's verbatim what it says in all of the paperwork. It says nothing about hourly.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, so let's, let's do two things. Number one, just focus on what you can control. You can do one of two things right now. You can call a lawyer and you can write a demand letter. That's number one. Number two, you can suffer through this crappy deal. And he can immediately start applying for other jobs because. Not because of we, you know, it's an hourly or whatever, but because I'm not going to work for somebody who is, doesn't have integrity. And integrity is, I don't know if you're taking out taxes for me and I don't want to get hit with a tax bill at the end of the year. Also I don't know if you're pulling out Social Security for me. And I don't get hit with that bill at the end of the year. Like that's just, that's just business 101. Is he 1099 or is he a W2?

[Caller Leah's Husband]

He doesn't even know I know there every time he's asking any kind of question.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, but I'm going to put this on him.

[Jade Warshaw]

This should have been determined long before a contract was signed, ma'.

[Caller Leah / Other Callers]

Am.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I got to know what, what I'm signing up for. And I got an offer letter. I would have said get it in writing. You got that? So, so he's entitled to that amount of money legally because they signed a contract with him. But number two, I'm going to ask bigger questions because I would need to know, am I going to take 67,000? Do I need to pull 30% of that? Because I'm, I'm 1099. I got to pay my own taxes. Is that going to come out of this? Right. Those are questions that should have been asked during the interview and they weren't.

[Caller Leah's Husband]

Right.

[Jade Warshaw]

I do think, I mean, I will

[Caller Leah's Husband]

say like we were a little, we were very much in need of money. Yeah. You know, we, you know, obviously you can't live on like unemployment. It's unreliable. You don't get it every week.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I got you.

[Caller Leah's Husband]

I gotta.

[Dr. John Deloney]

But let's just control what we can control here, right?

[Caller Leah's Husband]

Yeah. And yeah, I definitely think we'll probably be looking for somewhere else. They don't seem to be managing much of anything very well.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Right on. And can I, can I tell you this? I just, I'm uncomfortable with the whole thing here. And here's why. Why are you calling? Why isn't he calling? Why are you reading his contracts and his, like, why isn't he taking control of his job, his finances, his employer?

[Caller David]

Right.

[Caller Leah's Husband]

Well, I do like I'm a stay at home mom, so I handle our finances. Like he goes, he brings in the money, he does the work, you know, and I do the child rearing the finances.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

Household.

[Caller Leah's Husband]

And so like I, I mean I'm not very Intelligent, per se, but, you know. Well, I just have like a basic understanding of like a salary versus an hourly. And it feels like they're really muddling it.

[Dr. John Deloney]

They are, they are.

[Caller Leah's Husband]

And it just doesn't. It's just, you know, the math isn't mapping correct.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah. I mean, if I were in your shoes.

[Caller Leah's Husband]

He has asked questions, he has tried to talk to the payroll people and he has tried to talk to again, they just keep saying like, oh, I don't know right now, come back to

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

it, we'll come back to it.

[Jade Warshaw]

And that's not right and brushed off. I'm on your side. And if you're asking is this right or wrong, I don't think it's right. The way it's being handled. I think the question to go in is like, hey, am I salary exempt? My. Tell me what's going on, answer my questions if you're not going to answer my questions. And there's, there's no solve here. And that's frustrating. You know, I like what John said, which is you've really got the two routes. You can either lawyer up and really try to fight this and get what you thought you were signing on the dotted line for. I don't even know if I go that far. I think I just start looking for new jobs because the benefit of him having this job right now is at least he's searching from a perspective of, I have something, I have a gig, so I'm not desperate, and that's going to help him have more opportunity to find what it is that he's really looking for. So there is like a silver lining to this cloud. But my biggest thing going forward is I think you, you both have learned the lesson of we have to ask our questions early and make sure we're getting clear answers, making sure things are documented in writing. And I have a feeling, I don't know, Leah, but you can, when you're in the interview process, you can start to sense what people's character is like, are they wishy washy, are they putting you off? Is, you know, that sort of thing. And I think that you're going to, you can chalk that up to experience at this point and going forward.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And I need a job right now. I'm gonna take what I can get. I support that.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, for sure.

[Dr. John Deloney]

But if your boss isn't a person of character, I'm going to get out of there.

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[Jade Warshaw]

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[Caller Brooke]

So my husband is currently following a tiktoker who is promoting this first lean heloc and I'm very hesitant about it. In fact, my family gives me the name Dream crusher because I'm just not a risk taker.

[Dr. John Deloney]

But dream Crusher, hey, here's my big problem. Number one, Brooke, your husband's quote, following a tiktoker. That should be your first problem right there.

[Caller Brooke]

Well, that's what I say, too, but he thinks that I don't really understand the process.

[Dr. John Deloney]

He's following a tiktoker.

[Caller Leah / Other Callers]

Right.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

But I look at.

[Caller Brooke]

But I'm looking at the numbers and

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

I just don't feel.

[Caller Brooke]

I just can't see how it could work.

[Jade Warshaw]

So tell us about it.

[Caller Leah / Other Callers]

Yeah, go ahead.

[Jade Warshaw]

Tell us about the first L.

[Sponsor/Ad Reader]

By

[Dr. John Deloney]

the way, this is my favorite call the whole day. There's no way a call is going to be better than this one. Are you are you are you 16 and he's 17. Did y' all get married real young?

[Caller Brooke]

Well, no, I'm actually my 50s, but we did, we have been married for a long time.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Please tell me your husband's a 50 year old TikToker.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

He is, he is, he is.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I, I, every once in a while I wake up and I just think as a society we're doomed. And this is another vote for that, right?

[Caller Brooke]

Well, I think it's once you, you know, once you click on something then you see all of the same things. And so this particular guy keeps coming across and the way that he advertises it sounds, I don't know, to him it sounds great. But this first lean HELOC serves as your bank account.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I know, I know, we know why. I know, I know why.

[Jade Warshaw]

And just to be clear, if you typically, if you take a HELOC like in the order, it's like you've got your mortgage and then you get, got the HELOC under it. So if you were to foreclose, the money would first pay off the mortgage and then the HELOC would go next with first lien, it reverses that order. So the home equity line of credit is first. That's the first thing that's paid. That sort of thing. My question is why, why do you need this? Why, why are you guys to the point of doing these types of things?

[Caller Brooke]

I don't think that we do need it that but see the advertisement is that oh, you can pay this off in three to six.

[Jade Warshaw]

But my view is what's he using the money? Like what's the purpose of the, what's the purpose of it? The grand purpose in his mind we need to get the first lean he lock because I need to get a boat or because we're funding college. Like what's, what is why the why

[Caller Brooke]

is, is the payoff in three to six years. I mean we're trying for retirement, we're trying to get things settled before we retire. And so that's the attraction is to pay off this early. But we don't have like this huge income like minus our debts that we have to even throw at this heloc. That's what it seems like to me that you need, you need this huge income.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Right. So the, the problem here is you still owe X amount of dollars.

[Maria (Caller)]

Yes.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And there's not a, there's not a, there's not a way to not owe that much money.

[Caller Brooke]

Well, we, our income is okay that we, we only owe $220,000 on our house, it's worth about five to 600,000.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay.

[Caller Brooke]

We have it at a two.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Like, I get that, I get that. But here's what's important. You owe $200,000. Divide that by six years, 72 months. And I can't do that math in my head like Dave can, but, like, do you have that much money to put towards this?

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

No.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay. There's not going to be a secret atomic way to make you owe less than $200,000 in your mortgage. There might be a way that you can reduce your interest rate maybe. And so technically you owe $200,000. After six years, you're going to be paying interest also. So there might be a way to make it a little bit smaller maybe. You get what I'm saying? Like, no matter what you're doing, you still owe $200,000 and you got 72 months that this thing is telling you you could pay it off. There's not a way to contract time or to contract money from what you owe.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So your, your gut feeling is right. You know why? Because it's just math.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

Yeah.

[Caller Brooke]

Well, in our mortgage is only 2.75.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

Right.

[Jade Warshaw]

If I go over to a HELOC.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

Yeah.

[Caller Brooke]

It's a daily rate of like 8%.

[Jade Warshaw]

And it's not. Is it variable? Does it vary?

[Caller Brooke]

The HELOC apparently would be.

[Maria (Caller)]

Yeah.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah. And that's scary too.

[Sponsor/Ad Reader]

Why would you.

[Jade Warshaw]

There's. I can see, and I'm trying to say this in a non incredulous way, but truly I can see no good in this.

[Dr. John Deloney]

None, zero.

[Jade Warshaw]

I can see no good in this. And if the goal, if you guys have sat around and said, what's our goal? Our goal is to pay off the mortgage. That's actually a very simple process. I'm not saying it's easy. I'm saying it is a very simple process. I pay my mortgage payment and then anything. And above my mortgage payment, I apply it to the principal. And I do that as often and as many times as I can and as high amounts as I possibly can. And every time I do that, I'm affecting the amortization schedule. Every time I do that, more of my actual mortgage payment is going towards the print. Like that is the way it works. That is how folks do it. That's how millionaires do it. And that is probably. If I were to really try to form an argument against this other than just kind of like sheer logic and in simplicity, I would go back to our millionaire study. John and I would just talk about how we've studied what the practices of millionaires are everyday millionaires, baby steps millionaires. I'm not talking about billionaires, talking about millionaires. And what they do is they pay for cars and they never do car payments again and they pay off their home mortgage and they avoid debt and they budget their money. These are the practices of what I'm going to refer to as the 401k millionaire, the average millionaire in America. This is what they do. And so for me, this sounds like a very complex, heady strategy to do something that's actually simple to do. Why am I going to add steps and add rigmarole to something that doesn't require it and honestly adds risk to the equation.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And let's, let's, like let's say your home mortgage was at 10% and you could get a first lien HELOC at 2.75. Somebody could sit down and make the case that I have just. And even though it's variable interest rate and so if interest rates go up, thank God there's nothing going on in the world or the economy that makes me any somewhat nervous at all about the future. Right. I'm being ridiculous right now. So if you could somehow magically flip a switch to where you're paying 2.75 mortgage versus a 10%, I, I couldn't say you were crazy. I might say that's not something I want to do.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, sure.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I don't want to put my house on the block again. But what you're doing is you're creating essentially a line of credit. You'd have to be superhuman to never spend this line of credit. There's no way you're going to get a better interest rate.

[Jade Warshaw]

Well, the HELOC is acting as the primary mortgage and I, I just.

[Dr. John Deloney]

But you can draw from it. So it's a credit card at a variable rate that's higher than your. More like there's no. It's possible win here.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

Yeah.

[Caller Brooke]

And I don't like the fact that like the temptation is there that you can withdraw anytime you want.

[Jade Warshaw]

That's right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Exactly.

[Jade Warshaw]

And has he. He has.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

He.

[Jade Warshaw]

And I don't know if he's gone so far as to say I ran the numbers like this and I ran the numbers like this and here's how much faster we could do it. Here's the exact amount of money that we've saved. I mean, obviously John or I, I mean you would have to play a perfect game. I feel like in order for this to.

[Dr. John Deloney]

It still wouldn't Matter, though. You got a 2.75%. That's also true. You've already won the. The mortgage lottery.

[Jade Warshaw]

But has he done that? Has he even done any due diligence as far as to say such things?

[Caller Brooke]

No, no. I have on my part.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Challenge him here. Challenge him here. Write me a plan to where we pay off this house in 72 months at $200,000. The remaining balance plus. Plus our 2.7 mortgage. Here's our plan. Here's how much we'd have to pay off every month. Show me with your first lien HELOC math how we would accelerate that by six months or a year or two years. Also with the variable interest rate that it could go up, it could go way up.

[Jade Warshaw]

And with the temptation that we could spend against it.

[Caller Cassie / Other Callers]

Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

It's just total madness.

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[Jade Warshaw]

John, I'm thinking about TRS Live. And I'm thinking about. We had some good times, man. We had a good time recording that show in front of a live audience. We went on the road back in April, and if you didn't hear, we traveled to four different cities. We did the Ramsey show live in front of like a 300.

[Dr. John Deloney]

It's a rad theater there in Denver. One of the top five wildest things that's ever happened to me at a live event. I've done thousands of live events for my. The wildest thing.

[Jade Warshaw]

I know what you're gonna say.

[Caller David]

I don't.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I don't know. Can I give it away, Kelly?

[Sponsor/Ad Reader]

Yeah, sure.

[Jade Warshaw]

The big thing that happened, that we're not going to tell anybody, it was so crazy.

[Caller Cassie / Other Callers]

We all.

[Dr. John Deloney]

We couldn't believe that it happened.

[Caller Leah's Husband]

I know.

[Dr. John Deloney]

We were hoping I was super hoping it would happen. Let's just say it happened. It happened. Yeah, it was a super fun time.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

It was.

[Jade Warshaw]

So we dropped the episode from Charlotte a couple a week or so ago. We just now dropped the Denver episode. And up next, we got Phoenix and Anaheim. Those are coming in the next few weeks, so stay tuned for those. It was super fun. I. I think you guys will enjoy it hopefully as much as we did. I don't know about you, John, but for me, I love being in direct contact with you guys. Like, over the phone lines is great, but it's still over the phone lines. But if we can be in the same venue and we can breathe. Breathe the same air like, that to me is electric. I love that. So be sure to go check them out on the normal Ramsey show channel. So where you watch the Ramsey show normally on YouTube, Spotify and the Ramsey network app. Any other memories?

[Dr. John Deloney]

I'll just say we may have had a spontaneous debt free scream that led to a spontaneous engagement that led to a spontaneous marriage. She got to listen to the show. It was a blast.

[Jade Warshaw]

That's good. Good, good, good. Again. Yeah. Go check them out. Wherever you watch the Ramsey show, they will be there. Watch them. They're fun. You get the same information just packaged in a more fun way.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Well, and there were some times that we would push back on folks, and then like later on in the show, they would come back up or their spouse, remember their spouse came back up was like, hold on. And it got more fun and more fun.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yes.

[Dr. John Deloney]

It was a blast.

[Jade Warshaw]

It is. It's just different. It's one thing, like when you guys call in, we can assume maybe the faces that you're making or we, like create a Persona in our mind. But to see you standing there, to see the faces that you're making in response to what we're saying, it is different and it kind of changes a

[Dr. John Deloney]

little bit of I give an answer and the whole audience booze my answer. It's just fun.

[Jade Warshaw]

It's fun. It's a different element. All right, Aaron is in Lincoln, Nebraska. Aaron, how can Dr. John and I help out today?

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

Well, I want to buy my husband a really nice truck.

[Caller Leah / Other Callers]

Well, we want.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

He needs a car and he's getting cold feet. And we decided you're the tiebreaker.

[Jade Warshaw]

I love this question. These are our favorite questions. Erin. So you want to get the new car? Tell us, Tell us all of it.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

So we're in baby step six, and we have spent 15 years. You know, he and I had $450,000 of student loan debt. It paid off. You know, we're in baby step six. We're paying off our house. But he needs like he needs a new car and he wants a truck, a really, really nice truck. Has always wanted it. I think he deserves it.

[Jade Warshaw]

And how much are we talking for this new truck and like what model? We want to know the, give us the gory details.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

He wants the, the loaded GMC Silverado, but, but he'll use it. And we're the type of people that keep, you know, cars for a really long.

[Jade Warshaw]

Sure. What does something like that cost?

[Dr. John Deloney]

100 grand.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

The one I mean, 79. $80,000.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, so I'll put 80,000. And you guys are baby step six. How much is left on the mortgage?

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

So we have $400,000 left on our mortgage. We are on track. You know, the number moves a little bit every year, but on track to pay it off in 10 years.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, back to that Silverado. Is this brand new or is this a year used? Like what, what year are you looking at?

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

Looking at brand new. There's just not a lot of good used trucks on the market right now.

[Jade Warshaw]

Is that true, John?

[Dr. John Deloney]

And I'll tell you man, I want to hear like, what's your total net worth? Like, like what your house is worth minus what you own it, plus what you got in retirement.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

So we're baby steps millionaires in the sense of our house is worth about 850.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

Okay.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

We make a really good income.

[Dr. John Deloney]

What does that mean?

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

780 a year.

[Jade Warshaw]

So you make 780 a year. You've got $400,000, give or take of equity in the home. And what do you have in retirement?

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

Combined between the two of us, about $1.5 million. But the market's been good.

[Jade Warshaw]

I mean, sure, sure. And that's in retirement funds.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

1.5441ks and a brokerage account.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, so you're almost worth 2 million then. Did I calculate that right?

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

Yeah.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, so the parameters that John was getting at and asking that, and this is not just for you, Aaron, you might not, you might already know this, but for those listening, when we're thinking about whether or not somebody can afford a brand new car, this is hot off the lot we're looking at is your net worth more than a million dollars. Generally. If it is you, you can take that, that, that big 20, 25% depreciation hit that's going to happen in the first year or so. And you're you, you're basically saying I can Take that cash, I could throw it out the window, let it roll out the window while I'm driving the car on the interstate home and I'll be fine. It's not going to affect my well being in, in any way, shape or form. Other thing that we look at, and this is not necessarily with brand, brand new cars, but we look at what percentage if we were to compare it to your take home pay, we say things with wheels and motors shouldn't be any more than half of your annual take home pay. Obviously at $780,000 a year, which you guys are smoking it like that's crazy. Y' all are killing it. This doesn't even come close at all.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So here's what I'll say. Aaron.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

Okay, so here's one more awkward. Well, not, you know, he lets me handle the money.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

You know, he, we sit down once a month. So I, we haven't had a car payment in a really long time. But in our every, every dot, like in our budgeting, I've paid ourselves a car payment.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

And so for the most part, you know, I don't want to finance it. Like maybe you don't need the most part.

[Jade Warshaw]

You make $780,000, Aaron. Eric, I'm a stop this conversation.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

But you have to put it toward the mortgage.

[Jade Warshaw]

Well, I'm going to tell you the most wild thing of everything that you're saying that I hear has nothing to do with the GMC Silverado. The most wild thing that I heard you say is that making 780000 a year, it's going to take you 10 years to pay off a $400,000 pay

[Dr. John Deloney]

off your house in two years.

[Jade Warshaw]

That's what I took away from this conversation and said that's bananas. Like whatever the truck is, whatever.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Why is it going to take you 10 years?

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

Well, we're just, we're. That is the word we plan for the worst case scenario.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Now hold on, do you, what is that y' all plan for the worst or do you.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

I do.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, exactly.

[Jade Warshaw]

And what do you mean by that? Like what does that look like? Does that look like I just squirrel away all the money into retirement instead of paying off them? Like what does that look like tactically for you?

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

You know, saving for, you know, I got a elementary school age son, you know, saving for his college, which I feel pretty good about now.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

You should help.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

You know we had a little bit helping, you know, a now deceased parent.

[Caller Dan]

Okay.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

Financially. So you know, there were some variables to where up until the Last, you know, two or three years. You know, there were some. I don't want to call them expenses, you know, just things that you do. Maybe I got a little ahead, you know, giving.

[Jade Warshaw]

True. But how much could they have? How much could it have knocked your salary down from 780 to 500?

[Caller Leah / Other Callers]

Well.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

And so the last couple of years is the first time we've made this. You know, my husband was a medical resident, so we had to pay off the debt.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay. He made nothing.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

And I was fortunate to where I run a business that, you know, finally, in the last couple years, got off the ground. So making that much is a relatively new.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

So this is new, you know, over

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

the last couple new and kind of adjusting to.

[Jade Warshaw]

Fair enough, fair enough.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So listen, the. I'm going to tell you, I drove an 06 truck up until a year ago. And at one point, just private conversation, me and Dave on the road, he was like, hey, what are you. What are you doing? And he was right. I was trying to make a point to myself. And so I'll tell you what I did. I went and got a fancy that same year truck, but I found one, and it's. It's beyond my wildest imagination. It's like a truck, but it's like driving an iPhone.

[Caller Tiffany]

Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

It's ridiculous. And I found one that somebody had driven for about 2,000 miles, and they brought it back because they wanted a. An even bigger one. They were more insecure even than me. Right. And. But that took 10 grand off of the same. It was. It was basically a brand new truck that I got for ten grand off.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yes, but you could have gotten. You could have just up and gotten the truck.

[Dr. John Deloney]

But listen. Yes, Aaron, go by. Tell your husband to get over himself, y'.

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[Dr. John Deloney]

You make three quarters of a million dollars a year. Y' all have millions of dollars. Go get the truck.

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[Dr. John Deloney]

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[Dr. John Deloney]

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[Jade Warshaw]

Welcome back to the Ramsey show here in the Fair Winds Credit Union studio. I'm Jade. This is John. We're going to Tiffany in Houston, Texas. Tiffany, how can we help out today?

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

Hi.

[Caller Tiffany]

So me and my husband got married in March. We're a blended family. And about a month ago, we were getting ready on our way to go to the bank to combine bank accounts, combine finances. And my husband mentioned that he would like to that he has been contributing $150 a month to each of his children for savings. And he would like to do that for all four kids now with our finances combined. And I asked, is this savings for just college or is it for whatever? He said, you know, should they choose to go a trade route, it could be for a down payment for a house later, whatever. And then my question was, you know, well, how long have you been doing this? And he's been doing it for 16 years. And I said, well, you know, that's quite a bit more money than I have saved for my children. Why don't we make it even so that they can have the same equal opportunities? And that created a big risk. And we have since not combined finances. So my question is, what is the right way to go about this? Because it just doesn't settle well with me. Because in my mind, I think we should see our children as our children. Neither of the other parents are involved. His children's parent mother left and ended up accidentally overdosing and has when they were 3 and 5. And my children's father has not been in their lives since they were very young.

[Jade Warshaw]

And so he's been the only one contributing to this. It's not like out, it's not like grandma said, I'm giving you this money and I'm contributing for these two children. It's. He's just been doing this. Right, okay.

[Caller Leah / Other Callers]

Right.

[Caller Tiffany]

And in fact, he didn't realize he could have been getting death benefits for them. And when we were dating, I said, hey, you know, you could actually get this. And I got him signed up for it. And so now he is getting that income for them. He Just didn't really realized he could get it. And so it's really just. It created a big fight. And we're not fighting right now, but we're also not combining finances right now. And so I'm not sure what the right way is to go about this because he seems very protective of this money that he saved.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah. Let me hop in here.

[Caller Tiffany]

Okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Jade, you. You tell me if I'm wrong. I always want to look at an equitable starting line.

[Sponsor/Ad Reader]

Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So when y' all joined families and y' all joined each other, these four kids and you and him started at a new starting line.

[Sponsor/Ad Reader]

Right?

[Caller Tiffany]

Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

But the finish line is going to be different because two of those kids had another starting line in a previous life.

[Caller Tiffany]

Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And so I. I can't help but hear that you've got. It's more about ego for you. I don't have this much for my kids. And so it's not fair for them instead of seeing the blessing that this is, which is they're going to have more than they would have had because we're going to be doing the same together moving forward.

[Jade Warshaw]

How. How old are the kids? How old are his kids? And how old are your kids?

[Caller Tiffany]

So minor. 20 and 17 and his are 16 and 14.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah. And that even changes it even further.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yours are older. His or your.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I mean, your kids are out of the house, right?

[Sponsor/Ad Reader]

Yep.

[Caller Tiffany]

No, they're in college already, but they are still living with us. Just going local.

[Jade Warshaw]

I might disagree with. I might disagree with John on this and not in the way that saying, fight, let's fight. Not saying that you're wrong. I just may have a different point of view on it.

[Sponsor/Ad Reader]

So.

[Jade Warshaw]

And I'll explain mine. John has explained his. If you want to add more, add to it. Because I. I don't know. Like I said, varying. Different, Different. Different point of views. I don't know that John is wrong. I'll tell you mine. When I think about combining money, when I think about marriage, I think about two worlds coming together like a sandwich. And everything we all had was. Is in the middle. So if it's like wheat bread, Wheat bread, peanut butter in the middle. The peanut butter in the middle is all of the assets. And now it's smeared on all of us. Right. Like we're just sharing it together. This is a horrible analogy. But. And so that's what you're thinking. You're like, hey, if we're pooling our income, we should be pooling our retirement, we should be pooling our assets, we should Be pooling everything together in the middle. Everything's the peanut butter. I thought that that's the way it worked. Wouldn't that also include things like 529s? Wouldn't that also include all of the assets? So I kind. I understand your, your thought process, which is, shouldn't we share everything? And shouldn't be. Shouldn't it be completely like, even ground? And to John's point, I, I think I see it.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I think it's even ground starting now.

[Jade Warshaw]

Well, I think I see it as. That is the new even ground. As. Okay, the new starting point is now we're, we are. We're either a family or we're trying to pretend like we're kind of over here. But I also am not over. Like, there's part of that that I'm like, I don't know. I think I like the idea of. If we're together, we're together. And maybe I'm a sibling in this. That before I had my own room, but now I have a stepsister and she shares the room with me. So even though I've had my own room for this whole time, now I have a stepsister and we share a room.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Like, but I think we're saying the same thing. I, like, maybe I did a bad job.

[Jade Warshaw]

So I'm, I'm saying for clarity, I'm saying that, yeah, I agree. Let's pretend there's $20,000 for his kids. I'm saying that now. Yeah, I think I would be okay with it being 5, 5, 5 and 5.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Oh, okay. And I look at it as if he's got 10 grand saved for one and 10 grand, say, for another. And he wants to start. Continue putting money in their individual accounts. And now he wants to start putting money in your kids accounts. Like 150 across the board for each kid. Now we're going to up it to. Instead of 300, we're gonna put 600 towards each kid. That's where I would look at it.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, I think I would say both. I would go, okay, whatever is in this pool of like, kids money, I would have it equally distributed. And then going forward, I would put equal amounts and all I, I believe that that's what I now.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And I would do it. I would do it differently.

[Jade Warshaw]

But yeah, I don't think it's a wrong or right thing. I think it's. Can you guys meet in the middle? I, I am going to say this. And I. Here's what. Here, here would be my pushback. I'm thinking about how I would feel as the kids on this.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And so if I've, if my mom got remarried and, and I was 20 and she married a guy who had a 12 year old that he'd been in saving money for that kid's college, I wouldn't feel as a 20 year old that suddenly you owed me that amount of money that you've saved for him.

[Jade Warshaw]

It's not even a thing. I think that's the attitude. Okay. I think we're getting to it. So I think part of it is attitude, which is I don't think you can have the, the thought of I'm entitled to this and kind of be like mean or haughty about it. I think that spirit is not right. But I do think of the spirit is we are now a family and we're going to go forward like a family and we're all on equal footing together. That's kind of more of the mindset that I'd have around it. And so, and I'm not saying that's easy. I do want to say that, yeah, it's messy.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So, Tiffany, is there a way to take the dollar amount off of this thing and look at the individuals and what they need in this season of their life?

[Jade Warshaw]

That's a good, that's good.

[Caller Tiffany]

Well, and that's what we talked about. And he said, you know, I've been doing this and I want to keep doing this for my kids. Yeah, he said, I want to do the same for your kids. And my argument was if we're looking at it as giving each kid an equal opportunity and because they have no idea that this is even there and

[Jade Warshaw]

it's hard because your kids are younger and so even the idea of trying to catch up is not really there.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Equal opportunity is going to look different when it comes to support.

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[Jade Warshaw]

All right, let's go back to the phone lines where we have David, who's in Wisconsin. Hi, David. How can John and I help today?

[Caller Cassie / Other Callers]

Hi, Jade and John. How are you doing?

[Jade Warshaw]

Good. What's up?

[Caller David]

My wife and I are set to pay off our house in three weeks. And we're curious on what that process actually looks like. Anything to look out for? Do we get an official deed? Is there anything related to our insurance that we need to adjust when that stuff happens?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Number one, congratulations, man.

[Jade Warshaw]

So awesome.

[Caller David]

Thank you.

[Dr. John Deloney]

It's gonna probably feel both amazing and quasi anti climatic. Okay, so are you given like a big lump sum? Are you just taking in the final payment?

[Caller David]

We've been chunking it for six years, so it'll be a chunk payment, but it's not massive by any means.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay. I'll tell you how I did it, because I'm a nerd, but I like to go in the bank and shake the person's hand. But like, Jade and I were just talking offline. She would probably just hit the button from her house.

[Jade Warshaw]

I'd sit in bed. Mind you, I'm in baby step six. I haven't paid off my mortgage, so I'd be sitting in bed with my coffee. I don't want to go out of the house. I just want to hit the button and refill my coffee cup.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So it's gonna be up to you to have some cool celebration that y' all plan, because you're gonna walk out of the bank or you're gonna hit the button. And confetti is not going to fall from the sky. And so. But I want confetti to fall from the sky. You just got to set up the confetti, whatever that looks like. Okay.

[Caller David]

So my wife, she knows we're close, but she does not know what's happening. In three weeks, I got a date that we're gonna go to the bank and do it.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Amazing. Any.

[Caller David]

Any, like, fun things or suggestions that you think would be fun?

[Dr. John Deloney]

I mean, you know her better than we could ever know her, but I would have a reservation at her favorite restaurant. If you have a weekend getaway, I mean, it's gonna be life Content, like it's going to be depending on your life right now. But dude, plan something for y' all to go celebrate.

[Caller Leah / Other Callers]

Absolutely.

[Dr. John Deloney]

If you have a couple of friends that have been walking alongside you in this journey, then invite them somewhere and you can meet for lunch or something. I think that would be really cool.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, I mean, some practical things like, I mean, you might want to update your, your homeowner's insurance.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah. I mean it, that kind of stuff won't change. You'll get the deed in the mail eventually.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

But they'll shake your hand and it'll just go through the process. You'll get a thing I, I wanted to print out that said zero balance. Right.

[Jade Warshaw]

Keep that forever. Yeah, Just keep all those documents just

[Dr. John Deloney]

to hold it close to my heart.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yes, absolutely. In a file. Fire safe.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Your house is still worth what your house is worth, right?

[Caller David]

Yep.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And so that kind of stuff is going to say the same. And the. You're still going to have, you know, your homeowners taxes, you're still going to have your homeowners insurance and stuff like that. Like that. You're still gonna have to pay every month towards a thing. Or you can make it annual now and just write one big ugly check once a year. You know, it depends on how you want to do that, but.

[Jade Warshaw]

And there's some nerdy things you can do. Like you can, you know, check the property records and make sure that everything is confirmed. Like all the liens are satisfied, everything is documented correctly. Like you can do all that stuff and I think that's good. You actually sound like the guy who would do that. So I think you should do. We talked about keeping all the documents, documents forever changing and just up. Not changing, but updating your homeowner's insurance and making sure that if the lender was listed on the policy, they've removed the lender, they've updated like contact information, all of that stuff. Those are kind of nerdy things you could do. Obviously you're going to be paying the property taxes and all that yourself, but I think that the bigger thing to discuss here is the celebration. The celebration. And really, I mean, we very rarely do we get this call while it's happening in process. So tell us like how much have you paid off? Tell us how long did it take? Tell us the goods of the journey.

[Caller David]

Yeah, six year journey. We paid off 333,000. This is our first home and just treated it like something we wanted to get rid of.

[Jade Warshaw]

How old are you guys?

[Caller David]

We're 28.

[Jade Warshaw]

What holy cow.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You won, dude. There's people in the lobby, and they're cheering you on right now. You won, dude.

[Jade Warshaw]

You started at age 22.

[Sponsor/Ad Reader]

You.

[Jade Warshaw]

You went out and got a mortgage

[Caller David]

listening to Dave when I was in college, and I'm glad I found him.

[Jade Warshaw]

Oh, my word.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Do you have kids?

[Caller David]

We have one and one coming in a couple months here.

[Jade Warshaw]

This is probably the.

[Sponsor/Ad Reader]

The.

[Jade Warshaw]

This is amazing.

[Caller Cassie / Other Callers]

Yeah.

[Jade Warshaw]

And you guys know that. I'm so glad we asked the question. So, 28 years old. Did you have any other consumer debt, or you just. Since you knew the Ramsey thing, you never had the consumer debt? Started right in on the mortgage.

[Caller David]

$5,000 I borrowed from my dad to help move.

[Jade Warshaw]

Oh, my gosh.

[Caller David]

I paid that off in about a month.

[Jade Warshaw]

And how much money were you making? Like, what did you start at? And what are you at now?

[Caller David]

Yeah, we've been married the entire time. Started at about 125 and closing in at 600 now.

[Caller Leah / Other Callers]

Holy.

[Jade Warshaw]

And what do you do for work? You guys are rock stars.

[Caller David]

Yeah. Sales function. So just lighting the fire and getting after it.

[Jade Warshaw]

Wow, wow, wow.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You're about to give your pregnant wife a big surprise. It's gonna be awesome. That's awesome. Yeah. You know her well. Set up something great. You. I mean, you make half million dollars a year, y'. All. You can have some fun with this celebration. And if y' all can get away. And you know what? You want to be a gangster, you take care of the child care, and I love that you pay for your. Your mom to come down and stay one, and you take your wife on a. A cool night away or a weekend away or whatever. But, yeah, celebrate this thing big time, man.

[Jade Warshaw]

So, yeah, what's the advice you would give to people listening? And I know $600,000 is a grand income. Most folks don't make that. 125 is a little bit more tenable. Tell us. Give us a piece of advice for people listening. Maybe they don't have that income, but what would you tell them that you feel like is true across the board?

[Caller David]

If I had to put it to one thing, having a really good marriage, it makes it really easy for us because we're both rowing in the same direction, and it motivates both of us when we're helping contribute to our shared dream. So I would say marrying up is my piece of advice.

[Jade Warshaw]

I love that.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I love the. The statement. I saw recently that a great marriage is both spouses secretly thinking they got the better end of the deal.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yes.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Right. I love that, man. That's, that's awesome. So, dude, you won. You could do all that stuff. Jade said I didn't do any of that stuff.

[Jade Warshaw]

Not necessary. That was getting ultra nerdy also because,

[Dr. John Deloney]

yeah, I, I tend to overlook details.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

In fact, I wrote down a few things. I'm gonna go check just to make sure.

[Jade Warshaw]

Just to make sure some things.

[Dr. John Deloney]

It's been a long time, man. I hope not.

[Jade Warshaw]

But I, you know, John, I love that call because, I mean, obviously he probably wasn't thinking that he was going to be interviewed. But when you embrace the Ramsey principles, this is what's possible. And what he did, he achieved the other end of the baby steps rainbow. And, and that's what we teach here. If you can be as blessed as David to never have any debt to begin with, it's such a head start. But if you do have debt, still walk those steps out, guys, because the time is going to pass anyway. This was a six year journey for them. So if you're starting today, start at baby step one, get that thousand dollars saved that's so important. And then if you have consumer debt, start knocking away at that consumer debt. That's baby step two. You're going to pay off all of your debt except your mortgage using the debt snowball method. After that, save up three to six months. That's your safety net in case life happens. So you're not going back into debt after that. Yes. Invest 15% of your gross income every single month. That's baby step four. And beyond that, at the same time, yes, you can put baby step five money away in a 529 for kids college. Yes. You can start making extra payments toward whatever mortgage you do have. And once it's paid off, now you are in baby step seven which is where David is going to be in three weeks where he can live and give like no one else. That's the point. And if you're listening and you're like, hey Jade, when were we supposed to even buy the house? That's back in Baby Step 3. We call it Baby Step 3B for the the tribe. Who knows? That's when you can. As you're saving up your three to six months, you can also start saving up for a down payment. So that's how this works.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Let me call this out. One thing he did that's really important and you said this, he makes 600 grand. Very few people make that much money. But here's what he also did. He was making 125 and he worked really hard. Got, probably got Lucky, whatever you want to say. And he's making 600 grand. What he didn't do, which most people do, which would I would have done at 22 years old, is my lifestyle would have risen to that of a guy who makes half a million dollars. When I got out of college, I had a small amount of undergraduate debt. My first job. I ended that first year after my first job in double the amount of debt because I just decided I wasn't going to say no anymore. And my lifestyle went way past what I was making. If you can make your first amount of money and as you get raises, you keep doubling down and keep your life, your lifestyle consistent, stable, that's how you really win over time.

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[Dr. John Deloney]

and no specific outcome is guaranteed foreign.

[Jade Warshaw]

So if you haven't heard, ask Ramsey is a free AI tool that's built and trained on our proven Ramsey principles. And today we're going to break down the most asked questions that we got from the week. So there were questions around things, John, like retirement, savings, budgeting. But interestingly enough, the most asked question is how do I choose the right investment options? So I know I want to invest. How do I know what to choose?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, can we say this real quick? I want to, like, have some deep compassion for folks thinking about investing right now with all of the insane amount of noise out there. We took a call earlier about a first lean HELOC and somebody feeling like they're losing their. They're far behind, they're missing out on a mortgage hack or whatever. And we hear about crypto and this and that and this. Like, if you're confused about investing, just know you're not crazy.

[Jade Warshaw]

Absolutely.

[Dr. John Deloney]

The world is trying to make you nuts and then sell you something that is going to, quote, unquote, give you the way. Right?

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, I think, I think you're. You're right, John. And I think that's an even better way to tee this up, because there's a. There is so much landscape out there. Yeah. You can turn on Tick Tock and there's somebody in their room in their slippers telling you how to invest. You can go on Instagram and you might find somebody like me and John telling you what to do. You can go on Facebook and you might find an old guy. You know, you can find. There's information everywhere, and it can be hard to decipher and to know what's good and what actually works. The good news here is we've got 30 years of just proven financial turnaround. What we teach has been going on for so long and millions of people have done it, and it works. It's what John and I do. I think what Dave Ramsey does to

[Dr. John Deloney]

me, the most important, like, I can say, like, hey, I sell this product. Kind of like execs and tech companies can say, look how many millions of our products we've sold. But then when you look at what they do with their kids, their kids don't touch those products. To me, the biggest. The biggest sales pitch for what we're about to say, and it's not even a sales pitch because we're not making any money off this, but, like, is, this is what we do in our homes with our money for our family and our kids futures, what Dave does with his money. This is what I do. This is what you do. It's like, this is how we do our money for our families.

[Jade Warshaw]

Well, and I. And. And I didn't plan on going down this road, but I think it's worth going down. What I. I can tell you personally what I find appealing about what we teach. What I found appealing, you know, 15 years ago when we first started our journey, and what I found appealing enough to come work for Ramsey is that it should be simple to understand.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Right.

[Jade Warshaw]

You do. You should not have to have a degree. You should not have to have somebody explain it to you 90 times. You should not have to rewind the video over and over and over. To get it. You should not feel like it's only for the scholars. And, and you're down here and they're up here. If you've ever been in a conversation where you felt that, right, you're talking to people and they're like, oh, let me dumb it down for you, trying to make you feel.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I hated that with all my heart.

[Jade Warshaw]

I hate that. Money is actually quite simple to understand, and it should be. And that's what I like about these principles, is that, okay, I can understand this, this makes sense, and it's easy to understand and it's easy to put into practice. It's not overly complex. And honestly, give me simple all day, John. So that main question, how do I choose the right investment options? Right? I opened up my 401k, I'm staring at the, the Roth IRA right here, and there's a gazillion things I can choose from to invest my money. How do I do it? And so what we teach here is very simple. Again, we want you to spread your investments. We want, we like diversification. We want you to put 25% into each, into four different categories. So if I have, I'm just going to use the simplest terms. If I have $100, I'm going to put 25 in this account, 25 in this one, 25 in this one, and 25 one. And there's four types that we teach. The first is growth and income funds. You might hear these referred to as like mega cap or large cap funds. They're very predictable. These are giant companies that have been around forever. They generally pay dividends. They're extremely stable. This is kind of just like the Buick. Like it's on the road, it ain't moving. It's your big body. That's what we like. All right, from there, the next fund is a growth fund. You would usually hear this referred to as maybe a mid cap or a large cap fund. And these companies are growing a little bit faster than average. They're still big, they're still dependable, but they're having, they're growing at a faster rate. Okay. After that, the third account is an aggressive growth fund. These might be called small cap funds. A lot of times these are tech funds or things like that. These have a little bit of a higher risk, but they have a high growth potential. We're looking at it and we're going, oh, this could really, really be something one day. And so you're investing there, again, a little bit more aggressive, not quite as laid back, right? This is Like a fast car. This is a little bit more like a Porsche is what I was saying.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You're have a lot more fun on the ride.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yep.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And you can die quicker if it wrecks.

[Jade Warshaw]

That's right. And then we go to the international fund. Global. These are foreign companies, global funds. And that way you're going outside of the US Market. Right. Because if things are shaky here, they might be pretty good in the global market as a whole. And so it's a way to balance out all these funds. So if we were going to make that a vehicle, maybe that's like a Emirates, we're flying to Dubai. All right, so it's an aircraft. We can go everywhere in that. So that's the way we look at it. For retirement investing, there's no set term. You need to stay invested for the long haul. So once you park your money in these places, assume that it's going to stay there until you're ready to draw it out in retirement. It's a long term play. Okay. Key principles that we teach. And this is the same thing you're going to get if you ask AI and ask Ramsey, they're going to say, don't try to time the market. Right. That's not how we teach here. We say, do it every month. Invest that 15. It's like clockwork. It doesn't stop if the market goes up and it doesn't stop if the market goes down.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And I'll just say I've tried it before. I've been wrong.

[Jade Warshaw]

Every time You've tried what? Timing the market.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, I'm gonna hold. I'm gonna, you know what? I think there's gonna be a recession. So I'm gonna not put in my investment. I'm gonna put in later in the year. I've, I've, I've been wrong.

[Caller David]

I.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Every time. And I live in this stuff. I live in it. And I was wrong.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, I, I truly think the best way to do it is just like that. Dollar cost averaging every single month.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Set it, Forget it.

[Jade Warshaw]

Just set it and forget it. Let it come out of your account automatically. Avoid target date funds. They shift really heavily into bonds as you age and those just aren't making the returns that we want you to make. Bonds are never the answer. That's something that we would tell you. You need to be beating inflation with your investments. And so that's one of the reasons. Okay, so Ask Ramsey can help you take the next step when it comes to investing. And that's based on your specific situation. Ask your question [e-mail] or you can just click the link in the description if you're listening on podcast or YouTube. John, did we cover it?

[Dr. John Deloney]

I think we got it.

[Jade Warshaw]

Alrighty then, let's go to Madison who's in Indianapolis, Indiana. Madison, how can John and I interest you today?

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

Hi, thank you guys so much for taking my call. So essentially I did not have dreams growing up of being a stay at home mom. Now I flash forward have been in a situation where I went, I had my son went back when he was four months old to get my master's degree. So I did research for two years. Didn't make good money as a grad student like all others. And that put my husband and I in a time of like great financial stress. Money was very tight. I graduated in August of 25 and I was not able to find a job despite my best efforts. I had our second child, a daughter in October. So I was home from the period of about August until January of this year.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

I went back to work.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

But I have realized how much I really do have a desire to stay home. But we didn't have enough margin in our budget. So since I started back in January, we also got a really nice tax return. So we were actually already able to pay off my vehicle. We had about $10,000 left on it and we paid it off actually last Friday.

[Jade Warshaw]

Great.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

So that was very exciting. But we are still $62,000 in debt. That's about 30,000 in student loans between

[Jade Warshaw]

the two of us.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

5,000 in credit cards, 2,000 on another credit card. Actually we just made a payment yesterday, so that's about 1500.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

Okay.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

On another credit card we had to use the. No, both the credit cards are. No interest currently.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, good, good.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

And then my husband has a car loan as well, which is about $24,000.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

Okay.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

The only other piece of the finances before I get to like the question is we currently own our house. It when we strip away our wants from our needs, it is good for our family. We hope to have, Lord willing, three or four children.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

It's a three bedroom house.

[Jade Warshaw]

Well, we're coming up to a break that we are. We need to take. I'm going to hold you over because I want to make sure John and I can help you get the answer that you need to your question. So if you'll hold on the line just a little bit longer, we'll get right back to you after these messages. All right, so we're back to Madison in Indianapolis, Indiana. She called earlier, she's been a stay at home mom for quite a while and she's. They've got a little bit of debt that they need to pay off. It sounds like it's around $62,000 of debt that they're working to pay off. She is on the line and wants to continue with the help. Madison, did I get it right?

[Caller Leah / Other Callers]

Very close.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

So I was only a stay at home mom for a period, about six months. I came back to work to help get us in a better financial position. And the question is, how long until I can be a stay home mom again?

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, perfect question. So we've got the 62,000 in debt and that was broken down between student loans, credit cards, there's a car, and you also have the house. Now the terminology that you used, you said you own a house. It's, it's paid for outright or do you still have a mortgage? Give me some clarity on the house.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

No, we definitely have a mortgage. We still have, we owe about 249 on it.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, you owe 249 on the mortgage. So how much do you guys, what's you guys income? And break it down, like, what do you make versus what does he make?

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

Yeah. So do you want like what our checks are, bank account as, or what are like technically our salaries are?

[Jade Warshaw]

No, tell me what you guys bring home in a month. Like, you can tell me. We make this every two weeks or you can say in the full month. We make this combined.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

Okay, so my husband is biweekly and he makes about 1972 per check. And then my checks are about 1758.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay. So the grand question is, how can we make this work in an environment where you're no longer working and that's closely tied to the debt?

[Caller Tiffany]

Right.

[Jade Warshaw]

If you have $62,000 of debt, obviously, and this is just numerically speaking, you want as much money as you can going towards that debt. Right. So if you were to stop working now, that would be an issue, I'm. I'm assuming, right?

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

Yes, most definitely.

[Jade Warshaw]

So have you guys decided, have you guys plugged the numbers into every dollar and actually said, okay, if we keep going at the rate that we're going now with both of our incomes, how long will it take and are we okay with that?

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

Yeah, so it looks like it would be around three years. So by the end of this year, we expect that we would have this now down just below 50,000, which is great progress, but still $50,000 in debt

[Caller Leah / Other Callers]

to be on a single income.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

So, yeah, I guess the Question would just be, is there. Is it okay to stop before the debt is gone? Because almost half my income, actually half of my income does go toward just childcare.

[Jade Warshaw]

Well, that's a, that, that is a values question for you guys. It's not a, it's not a wrong or right. It's completely values. If you guys say, you know what, in this season, we really value debt freedom because if we do this now, it's going to set up, you know, set us up to be able to get the kids college funds rolling. It's going to help us pay off the mortgage faster. And when we look up and we're 59 and a half years old, we are going to be able to retire. And we like the, the nest egg that we're going to have. Right? You plan it out and you've decided, okay, for that reason or. And this is not. No answer is more wrong or right than the other. You could look at it and go, you want to know what? We could elongate this journey a little bit by you staying home. And maybe you look at it and you go, if we do this, it elongates it by double. And we play out the numbers and we still feel like we'd be okay. And yeah, we might have a little less here or a little less here, but we're okay with that. That's the, that's the sacrifice that you guys have to make. But I would say this in order to make that, I would run the numbers because money does talk and it does inform. Is that really the life you want? Because if you stop working today, Madison, how long will that along. Along get your journey? How much more time will it take?

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

Yeah, definitely. Probably twice or three times the amount of time that it would take.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And Madison, can I tell you just an exercise me and my wife do?

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

Yes.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Whenever I feel like I'm backed into a corner, either in your case, I'm staying at home and we're gonna have to get by on $3,500 a month, which seems. I don't even know how the math would work on that with what your husband brings home. Or I have to stay working full time and I never get to see my kids and even half of my check goes to childcare. Right. So you've given yourself an either or option, an exercise. My wife and I do, and we feel backed into a corner is we just make up a whole bunch of other variables and dump them on the table just to remind ourselves that it's almost never either or. And here's What I mean in your situation, how important is this car to your husband? Can he sell it and get a $3,000 car because y' all decided we want you to stay home. Could you go one more year and he sell that car and you're debt free and because there's going to be some. Right. And I'm just making up variables to put on the table just to prove to y' all there's other paths we can take that's not caustic option number one or caustic option number two. And if you sit down and say we together really value me staying at home or let me ask you a deeper question. You never dreamed of being a stay at home mom. Could part of the reason you want to stay at home is because you hate your job and you're realizing I this isn't worth trading my time with my kids for. And so I'm going to continue to look for another job while I'm doing this miserable thing or I'm going to look for you, what I'm saying. Or a part time job or all the. All I want you to get from what I'm saying is there's almost always more than an either or path and

[Jade Warshaw]

then there's the part of it. Whereas does the math even allow for it?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, I don't see how it allows for it in your life.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah. Because I do want to ask, what is your mortgage payment?

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

It's about 1850.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay. So that right there is the, that is the major decider for me almost, you know, beyond the values question math. Because where you are right now, you're fine. It's 25% of your take home, you're good. But if you go down to just his income and you're making 3, 800 or $4,000 a month, suddenly you guys are 100% house poor. And to be house poor, Madison, with $50,000 of debt, that is curtains.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Like that's emergency.

[Jade Warshaw]

That's an emergency. And I don't think you would even enjoy your life the way it feels on a day to day basis to be in that sort of a bind. Does that make sense?

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

Yes. Yeah, that definitely makes sense. My husband is expecting to have a promotion this year and that will give us some more margin like come time when you know, debt is paid off

[Jade Warshaw]

and I mean is it double? Because it would truly need to be double. Because it, it would basically need to be what you are making.

[Maria (Caller)]

Yeah, that's true.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

It won't be double. Yeah, it's just hard when you've already made decisions that you wish you hadn't.

[Caller Cassie / Other Callers]

Yeah.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

And you're like, well, I'm not sure how to backtrack. What are we going to do? Sell our house and then move into a two bedroom apartment?

[Caller Tiffany]

That's right.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

Twelve or thirteen hundred dollars in our area.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That's not going to get you where you need it.

[Jade Warshaw]

Listen, what you're facing though, is everybody faces that reality in one way or another. All of us face that. So I, this is no like finger pointing at you or you made bad choices. We all do that. We all look up and go, dadgum it. I mean, for me, Madison, it was. I look up and I go, oh my gosh, if we had avoided that student loan debt, we would have been able to do this, this, that, and the other. I can't go back and change it. I can only go forward from that point of knowledge and go, okay, that was, that wasn't the right choice for my future. I can't go back and fix it. What can I do going forward to make sure I am making intentionally the right choices for my future? And I think that's the crossroads that you're at right now. You can kind of keep the blinders on and go, but I really, really want this. And I'm just gonna kind of go forward and just hope it all works out. And then you're gonna look up again and go, dang it. Like, we did not set ourself up for success. So if I had to advise you today and you did call, given the Circumstance, given the 62,000 in debt, given the mortgage payment and the fact that you said, yeah, we're probably not going to move and downgrade to an apartment, and given the fact that you're not a stay at home mom looking for work, you already have a good job and you're already locked in, I would say ride this thing out. Pay off the remainder of the 62,000. And that's going to give you mental clarity. Yes. But it's also going to give you peace financially. And then you guys can reevaluate and say, okay, what does our life have to look like in order for me to stay home from here? Because it still might look like you doing something because by then he will have had the raise. So maybe now you're just doing a little bit of part time work to close that gap and you can keep that same house. Do you see what I'm saying?

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

Yeah, I see what you're saying.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Or it may be good. And these are hard conversations. He may quote Unquote, love where he works. But when you all sit down and say, here's what we value, he says, I got to go get another job and or for this season, you stay at home and I'm going to work two jobs because that's what it's going to take. But it's just, yeah, dump all those variables on the table. But first ask yourselves, who do we want to be and what are our values and what's the quickest path to get to those things?

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

Yeah.

[Jade Warshaw]

And we're going to give you every dollar because we want you to be able to see these numbers, see it very clearly. We're going to hook you up with a year for free and make sure that you get there and you can see a clear path that you can get to together.

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[Jade Warshaw]

Welcome back to the Ramsey show here in the Fair Ones credit union studio where we have have Cassie calling in from New York City. New York. Cassie, how can John and I help today?

[Maria (Caller)]

Okay, first of all, thank you so

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

much for taking my call. And just to get right to it, the overarching question is at what point? I'm a business owner with my husband, at what point to file for bankruptcy. So my situation has a lot of emotion and fatigue tied to it.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Do me a favor, Cassie. Take as deep a breath as you can and hold it for three, two. All right. Exhale it all the way out. All right, we're with you. You're not by yourself anymore. Okay. No, you're good, you're good, you're good. No, you're good.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

Okay.

[Caller Cassie / Other Callers]

So.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

Okay, So I recognize there's emotion and

[Caller Cassie / Other Callers]

fatigue and talk right into your phone for me.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

Okay, sorry. So I recognize there's emotion and fatigue. Right. So what I'm able to do, and I know I'm not doing it properly, my husband is the same way. And I honestly, I value more than anything, God, perspective. And I kind of randomly came across the show to three days ago.

[Caller David]

Okay.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

But anyway, so my husband and I have been together for 17 years. We left our jobs and we went into business together and went from not having money to eat to Being able to gross 419,000 a year, it took us a long time, but in the 17 years, we saved 100,000 in cash. We bought land. We still have that land. And I'm giving you that perspective to kind of show you where we came from, and we were just not financially prudent at that time. I don't want to focus on, like, blame. Whatever. The most important thing is I'll obviously answer whatever questions you have.

[Dr. John Deloney]

But where are you guys right now with your money? How much do you owe?

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

Okay, here's the issue. So all of it is sba, Eidl, because we kept putting the money that the business made back into the business.

[Jade Warshaw]

We didn't, like, buy houses or cars.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

We just had that land. And we owe 783,820 9829. Eidl loan. The problem is the interest on it is accruing at $78 a day.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, yeah.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

And now. So I'm able. So I went from being able to pull in 36,000amonth. That's what I. And I can do better than that. It's just I can now do 10 to 15amonth, because that's what. Because Covid really affected our industry. And I don't want to give too much information, but what industry is it? Consulting and just hospitality and adjacent industry.

[Caller Cassie / Other Callers]

Okay.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

Okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

But I'm gonna say this. Covid was several years ago. I know it's still rippling through the economy in weird ways. But I want to bring you. And I'm doing this intentionally. I want you to come to right now in the present, because you're living in the past, in the future, and come right here with me right now. How much do y' all owe? Y' all owe 8, 830 grand?

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

Yes, sir.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

830 grand.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And you and your husband combined, not top line of your business, but what do y' all bring home each month right now?

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

Because we work together on the business, we always have more, like, the front face and selling.

[Caller Leah / Other Callers]

Okay.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

So it's combined right now I'm able to bring in 15,000, and. And now we've fixed a lot of kinks in the business together because we were kind of working apart for a little while there. And I can probably bring that up, but I recognize I need to stick to what can I actually bring, not what can we possibly bring, which was kind of the mentality before and why we were in such.

[Jade Warshaw]

What about. What's the. What about assets? Like, what's the business actually worth?

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

Oh, I Don't. Honestly, it's not, it's very. Another thing I've learned. It's very me based.

[Caller Brooke]

Right.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

I have the relationships and it's not scalable.

[Jade Warshaw]

There's not a business you can sell. There's not equipment.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

Yes, I can. I, I'm.

[Maria (Caller)]

Yes, there are. I don't know.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

There's probably like 100 grand in equipment that we could sell off.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Do you have a home?

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

No, no, we, we, we've always rented. We own land. That's where we.

[Dr. John Deloney]

How much, how much land do you have?

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

An acre and a half.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, what's it worth?

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

We paid, we paid cash for it. It's worth probably like 300,000, I think, or, or, or maybe 200. I'm not, I'm not sure because we paid for it in cash back in.

[Jade Warshaw]

That's okay. This is what I think we need. I think we need to do a little bit of research. And I think when we come out of the research, we might find some things that give us some light at the end of the tunnel, because that's what you need. You need some hope right now, Cassie. You need to feel like there's action that you can take that's going to make this situation feel better and feel different than it does today. And so that's what we're going to help you try to find.

[Dr. John Deloney]

If, if you, if, if you're making $180,000 a year on your business, that's a good business. Okay.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

Yeah. Can I. So here's what's going on and where there's like a little bit of. Or there was disagreement. And now my husband, praise God, we've gotten on the same page.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

But while we didn't, you know, we're burning Runway there.

[Maria (Caller)]

Right.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

So, so the issue is we have rents, business rents of about 7,211.

[Maria (Caller)]

Right.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

And again, I know there's a lot of emotion there because the simple thing in my mind is we let go of everything. We let go of all these business rents because I can work from one office, like one area.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Correct.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

But that, but then his argument, which I agree with and I want to like, honor it for its just value, is, okay, we do that. But we have two very small children, 1 and 3. Where are we realistically going to have the mental, well, wait, I'm going to jump.

[Jade Warshaw]

I'm going to jump in on that because I want to know straight, straight up, I hope that you guys let the office rental space go because you, you don't need it and you need all the profit that you can get right now.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

So we've started.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

Sorry.

[Jade Warshaw]

I hope that you did let it go. Did you let it go?

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

No, that's. I want to do that this month.

[Jade Warshaw]

I think that's imperative.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You have to. You can't afford it.

[Jade Warshaw]

It's imperative. It's $7,000 a month. That adds up to more money year over year. And you need that money, girlfriend. Like, this is not even a. You're. If you're talking. If we're in a conversation and we're talking about bankruptcy, then we got to figure it out. Maybe the kids go to auntie's house, and that way you have the, the, the space in your home to work. But if it truly is just you and your husband and that you guys are the people making this engine run, there's no employees. There's no reason to have an office space that people are coming into. Absolutely. You gotta let it go. Am I right about that or. Or is it.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

There used to be. There used to be employees. We had a bunch of employees in two different places. But yeah, that has been cut down. I. Let me.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Let me do this for you, hon. Just on two decisions. Okay, so if you file for bankruptcy, it's a seven year process, right?

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

That is a seven.

[Caller David]

Okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay. So if you let this rent go and you multiply that by five years,

[Jade Warshaw]

it's 90,000 a year.

[Dr. John Deloney]

It's. It's 420 grand. And if you sell this land at $300,000, that's 720 grand. On two decisions.

[Sponsor/Ad Reader]

Yes.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You see what I'm saying?

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

I. I do. My. My husband is telling me from one other perspective of, okay, we let go of all of that and then we don't have the mental space to do.

[Jade Warshaw]

You will make the middle space now.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, y' all are drowning right now, mentally. Two decisions. Two decisions right now. And in five years, this is over. It's over.

[Jade Warshaw]

And. And it's not. And you'll have the peace of knowing it will be over.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That's right.

[Jade Warshaw]

It might not. You might not cross the finish line for five years, but think of the rest you will feel walking away with a plan that, you know, if I just execute on this plan, I pull the two levers that John just said. I have a plan. And in five years, I just keep riding that horse to the old town road and I will be out of debt. You get to keep the business that is profitable. Yes. You get rid of the land. Yes. You get rid of the office space. But in five years, I'm free and clear and I'm making this thing go. Oh, my goodness. Totally worth it. Figure out something to do with the kids. You can figure that out. You figured out the rest. Hey, what's up, guys? It's Jade Warshaw. Listen, summer spending adds up so fast. Between vacations and road trips and camp fees and events and all the extra gas and grocery runs, money can get tight before you know it. To really get your money under control and keep it that way, you're gonna need a plan. And that's what you'll get with the EveryDollar budget app. It helps you track your spending, free up cash to put toward debt and savings, and it's the simplest way to make a plan for your money and before the month begins. So no more wondering where your money's going. You're telling it where to go. Download EveryDollar in the app store or Google Play and start for free today. All right, here we go. The Y refer question of the day is sponsored by Y Refi. When you fall behind on paying back your private student loans, it can feel like your life is being held hostage. But why? Refi helps borrowers explore a fresh start with low fixed rate refinancing and a payment plan designed around their ability to pay. Visit yrefi.com ramsey. That's the letter Y, R, E, F, Y.com/ramsey. Remember, it may not be available in all states.

[Dr. John Deloney]

All right, today's question comes from Savannah in West Virginia. Savannah writes, my fiance and I have four children. Okay. Our only debts are a truck loan and our mortgage. I'm a stay at home mom and he earns $90,000 a year. He recently became very interested in investing. Not new or your marriage, but. Okay. I'm not against it, but I don't agree that now is the right time. I have the thousand dollars in my savings account as our emergency fund, but he wants me to give it to him so he can invest it. Okay. I just don't know if he's doing the right thing with our money. What are your thoughts about investing while being in debt and having nothing saved for our children?

[Jade Warshaw]

Oh, boy. So, so many problems here. There are. There are many problems, but here. If you don't know our way of teaching, let's just answer.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, I won't pipe in with my drama.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah. If you don't know the way we teach, you go, what's the big deal? He wants to invest. What a wonderful thing. And I, I agree. Investing is good. It's a way to secure your future. It's a way to love your family. Well, but I do disagree with him that now is the time to invest. Because I think this is like, good, better, best. And the best time to begin investing is when you've cleared your consumer debt. And the reason for that is two to threefold. There's many reasons, but I'll go to two to three. First reason is if you begin investing and you do not have savings, your investment becomes your savings account. John and what happens when you need a new roof or when all four tires need to be replaced or the AC goes out is you go, oh, shoot, I don't have any savings. So now I go to two terrible options. I either go to debt, I put it on a credit card, I put it on a heloc, or I roll over and I look at, oh, that investing chunk of change looks pretty nice. And I mess around and I take a 401k loan or I take a 401k withdrawal. And now I'm on the hook for that. And so it's so important to make sure you have the right foundation before you begin investing so that that investment can stay locked in the way it's supposed to for the long term. So that's part one, and then part two is a little bit more. I'll be honest. You could take it if you leave, take it or leave it if you want to, but I believe it's the smartest way. When you pay off your debt first. If you pay off your debt before you begin investing, then you have the full power of your income. Working towards building wealth around here, we believe that your biggest wealth building tool is your income. And you do not have your full income at your disposal when you're still making payments, especially if you're making payments on things that are going down in value like trucks and cars. And then there's other types of consumer debt. Right. So that's kind of the crux of why I'm saying what I'm saying, which is I agree with Savannah in this case, yes, you need to pay off the truck first and then after that you need to save three to six months of expenses and then you can begin investing 15%. And by the way, yeah, Please do not take your baby step $1,000 emergency fund and invest that because then you're up the creek without a paddle.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And I guess I'll just say this and we can move on. What we're seeking here is ultimately safety. Like that we have enough money in the bank when we retire, as we age to take care of us, right? And safety will. Like, if you pull safety all the way up the river, safety starts right here and right now. The way you're describing your life is it's you verse, your fiance, your boyfriend. It's, I got this savings, and I want to keep it safe. He wants to take my money and make it his investment. Like, you can't. Y' all are not going to ever get where you want to both go, which is to a safe, peaceful place if y' all are competing with each other. And so y' all need to get aligned on. Are we rowing in the same direction in the same boat together, or do I have my boat? You got your boat. And he sees your boat as you and those four kids. And he sees his boat is wherever he wants to go. And by the way, you got some of my money, so give me your money so I can get my boat further along down the road. You're gonna find yourself very, very exposed. And so that's why we tell people to get married before you start sharing your money. So we tell people to get married before you start sharing your kids because that legal document forces y' all into the same boat, and it forces y' all to have the hard conversations about which direction are we gonna row together. And if two people are in the same boat, both rowing in the same direction, you will get wherever you want to go way faster than two people trying to row their own direction in their own boat.

[Sponsor/Ad Reader]

That's right.

[Jade Warshaw]

That's very good, John.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So there you go.

[Caller Cassie / Other Callers]

I won't.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I won't make any more judgments here.

[Jade Warshaw]

There you have it. Yep. Okay. Jessica is in San Francisco, California. Jessica, you're on the line, my friend.

[Caller Cassie / Other Callers]

Hi.

[Jade Warshaw]

Thanks so much, you guys, for taking my call. Absolutely.

[Caller Leah / Other Callers]

Full disclosure, I am really nervous, so please, if I'm. Oh, my God, If I'm a little clumsy.

[Jade Warshaw]

So no worries.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Have you listened to this show? I'm as clumsy as it gets. You're good. You're good.

[Caller Leah / Other Callers]

Oh, that felt like a hug. Thank you. I'm very. I'm really new to Ramsay. I just downloaded the audio book of Baby Steps, which I started yesterday on my commute home.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Welcome to our cult, Jessica.

[Caller Leah / Other Callers]

I. Yeah, so I have been listening to the podcast going back the beginning of this year. Anyway, to my. To my. The reason I'm calling.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

I just turned 56 this week and birthday, so thanks.

[Caller Leah / Other Callers]

And I'm really feeling a. I'm like a combo platter of really overwhelmed, massively scared, and really, really embarrassed because I'm so late to the game. And I want to empower myself the best as I possibly can. So I'm not working until I reach my expiration date on the shelf. Right.

[Jade Warshaw]

Tell us what you're concerned about. Tell us why you're the combination platter

[Caller Leah / Other Callers]

going to be able to. Yeah, my combo platter. I just really want to know am I ever going to be able to retire?

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

I. Yeah, well, you're not alone.

[Jade Warshaw]

There's a lot of Americans that feel that way, that feel anxiety around not just can I retire but when I do, well, I have enough money to carry me through my entire, my, all of my retirement years. So let's, let's play with the numbers in California. Yeah.

[Caller Leah / Other Callers]

It's just so. In the Bay Area, it's so expensive.

[Jade Warshaw]

Well, let's play with the numbers a little bit and we'll try to see if, if we think you're, you're getting close or if there's hope for you or. There's always hope. So tell us, you're 56 years old. What do you have in retirement savings?

[Caller Leah / Other Callers]

So far, like nothing. I spent my entire 30s disabled and then I rehabilitated and went back to work and lived check to check in my 40s and then put myself through grad school so be able to double my earning and had started to save in a 401k. And then I work in tech and we had a layoff and so I was laid off for a year and a half and just went back to work a couple months ago.

[Jade Warshaw]

So how much is in that 401k to date? Even if it's not much, tell me how much.

[Caller Leah / Other Callers]

Yeah, 127,000.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay. Which is not nothing, by the way.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

What's that?

[Jade Warshaw]

That's not nothing. You said almost nothing and give yourself credit. You have 127,000 and how much are you earning?

[Caller Leah / Other Callers]

140.

[Jade Warshaw]

140 a year. Okay.

[Caller Leah / Other Callers]

Yeah, with a. About a 10% bonus.

[Jade Warshaw]

Great.

[Caller Leah / Other Callers]

Annual. Annual bonus.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay. And do you have any consumer debt?

[Caller Leah / Other Callers]

I have about.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

I have, I do.

[Caller Leah / Other Callers]

I only have. This is my only debt.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

I have lived debt free with the

[Caller Leah / Other Callers]

exception of a car my entire life. I own my home. I have 10,000 on the car, it's worth 26. I have a 2000 emergency fund. Even though Dave recommends 1000, I'll let it slide. Can't even buy a box. You can't buy a box of Kleenex here.

[Jade Warshaw]

Listen, I'm not going to take you to task on that. So you've got the ten thousand dollar car. You've got a little bit of an inflated baby. Step one. Is there anything else that I'm talking fast because I want to make sure we can help you.

[Caller Leah / Other Callers]

Yeah, yeah. And I have 16,000 in savings.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay.

[Caller Leah / Other Callers]

And I own my home. And I own my home, which is around 350k.

[Caller Madison / Aaron]

Yeah.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay. I'm gonna paid for it. I'm gonna blow your mind on this. What I would do, I would take the 16,000 and I'd pay off the car today.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Today, right now.

[Jade Warshaw]

I would do it immediately. And then I would continue to invest your seventeen hundred and fifty dollars a month off of your salary. And if you do that from age 56 to age 70, girl, you're gonna have $1.2 million. So you need to stop playing and feel good about yourself.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You got a paid for house and

[Jade Warshaw]

you have a paid for house. You're going to be just fine.

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[Jade Warshaw]

Dan is in Los Angeles, California. I feel like we've had several California calling in today. How can we help out? Dan?

[Caller Dan]

Hey, thank you very much. I'm currently in a first time situation that my house is on the market for 90 days and I'm lowering the rate every basically the rent every few weeks and it seems like it's not going to be.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Hey Dan, do me a huge favor. Talk directly into your phone for me.

[Caller Dan]

I'm talking to the phone. You hear me better?

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, it's a little muffled. So whatever you can do to improve that, we would all.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I want to be able to get right to your question. Yeah, go for it.

[Caller Dan]

Yeah. So. So my concern is if should I sell the house right now in a loss or should I keep the property with a negative cash flow with $2,000 from my pocket every month and wait few years until I can refi or the value of the property would go up and I can sell it in a profit.

[Jade Warshaw]

So you're burning 2000 every month on it?

[Caller Dan]

I would

[Jade Warshaw]

you. You're not currently. Why are you saying you would?

[Caller Dan]

Because the house is still on the market, is under listing and the rent price is lower than my mortgage.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, right. And I'm saying you're current because of that, you're currently burning $2,000 a month on it. I just want to make sure I understood that.

[Caller Dan]

I'm burning more. I'm burning 8,000 right now.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Oh, but if you were to rent it, it's only going to bring in six because of the market value.

[Jade Warshaw]

I see. Okay, got it.

[Caller Brooke]

Wow.

[Dr. John Deloney]

What kind of property is this?

[Caller Dan]

It's a property in the Hollywood Hills. I bought it for 1.6. I actually put 30% down two years ago, and I moved to a new primary and I thought, okay, let's rent this out. And I understood that I'm in a negative cash flow right now.

[Jade Warshaw]

So why do you think that is? Because I'm looking and it's showing that for your, you know, for Los Angeles area, 45 to 70 days is like average days on market. You're sitting at 90 days.

[Dr. John Deloney]

No, he's trying to. He's been on the rental market. He can't rent it. He hadn't tried to sell it yet.

[Sponsor/Ad Reader]

Right?

[Caller Dan]

Yeah, I'm trying to rent it. Yes, correct.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So it's on the rent.

[Sponsor/Ad Reader]

So I'm trying to rent.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You can't. You've been for 90 days. You can't get a renter.

[Caller Dan]

Exactly.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So if you sold it, what would you lose?

[Caller Dan]

Excuse me?

[Dr. John Deloney]

If you sold it, if you put on the market today and it sold tomorrow, what would you. What would you believe?

[Caller Dan]

I bought it for 1.6, and I would sell it for 1.4.

[Caller David]

With this today's market.

[Jade Warshaw]

Tell us how. Tell us how this is occurring in this way. Tell us what do you think the barrier is for finding renters. And tell us why you think it's going down in value. Did you overpay for it? Tell us what you think the problem is.

[Caller Dan]

I paid more than $1,000 square feet in the Hollywood Hills. With today's market, from what I see, I think prices that sitting on the market for more than a month or two, they just. The owner just dropping the price. And the house is three bedrooms. It's 1400 square feet. So it's not for a big family. And maybe it's a little bit expensive for one or for a couple.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, so it just wasn't a good condo. Yeah.

[Caller Dan]

And right now the rent is for 7,000 for 90 days, but I'm going to lower it to 6,000 and then I'm going to be negative cash flow of $2,000 or I'm going to Put it on Airbnb and maybe going to be break even with the mortgage because My interest is 6.8% from two years ago.

[Jade Warshaw]

Do you think that you could realistically do the Airbnb thing and be at a break even to try to ride out market a little while before you sell it? Do you think you could realistically make that transformation?

[Caller Dan]

From my research. From my research, I could be break

[Jade Warshaw]

even, Yes, I might do that in the interim. Otherwise you're $200,000 in the hole on this. Do you have that money laying around anywhere that you'd want to take that loss?

[Dr. John Deloney]

You said you put down 30%, so you put down 480 on it, right?

[Caller Dan]

Yeah, 500. So it's a little more than 30%. Yeah, I don't want to take the loss. I believe in real estate that the price would go up. Even if I'm getting this negative cash flow, the appreciation would be better to hold this property for 10 years.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You can't afford that, dude, you're getting killed.

[Jade Warshaw]

I mean, if you can. If you're. Is this the only property you have? Do you have others?

[Caller Dan]

I have others, yeah.

[Jade Warshaw]

Are they doing. Yeah, yeah.

[Caller Dan]

I don't have the same interest. I have 2.7% interest on the others.

[Jade Warshaw]

Uh huh. How much total debt do you have tied up in it, in real estate?

[Caller Dan]

In real estate? More than a million? I mean.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

Well, yeah.

[Caller Dan]

Yeah.

[Jade Warshaw]

Like how much? Like give me a round number if you think you like. Is it 1.8? Is it 3 million? Is it.

[Caller Dan]

It's. It's about. I have one property that is 1.6 plus 1, so it's 2.6 plus. It's about 3 million.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay. And then how much is it all worth?

[Caller Dan]

I would say maybe five million. Okay, million, million million point six. So it's two and a half. And then.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, I think that if I were. If I were you, not me. If I were you, I think that you understand this and I think that you might be able to make that Airbnb transformation and get this, at least break even for a while and you might be able to ride this out to where you're not. At least you're not making any money, but at least you're not burning cash on it until maybe it's in a better position to sell. I might try that for a while and if you're not able to do the Airbnb, then yeah, I'd probably try to. I try to get out of it if I were you. Because this $8,000 a month loss is Terrible. And then even being able to rent it and still being at a two thousand dollar loss is even more terrible.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I'll tell you, based on your portfolio, you're, you're exposed in a pretty big way.

[Caller Leah / Other Callers]

Right?

[Caller Dan]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And so. Right, because. And here, the only reason I'm saying this is because of how. Well, that's not even the only reason I'm saying this. I'm looking at it. The flip side is you, you have assets worth $3 million and 5 million. I'm sorry, $5 million. You're, you're leveraged 3 million against him, right?

[Caller David]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, so if you, if you went and sold every house you had today, tomorrow you would have a positive bank balance of $2 million. Approximately.

[Sponsor/Ad Reader]

Right.

[Caller Dan]

Gross.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Minus taxes and yada yada. I'll tell you what, for me, and I don't have a bunch of houses, so take this with a grain of salt. I'd sell that house and I would pocket $300,000 and I would have a very expensive $200,000. Stupid tax. And this is one of the prime reasons why. And man, God almighty, we take a beating online because of how stupid we are. But this is why we say buy. Buy with cash. So if you find yourself in these moments, you're at least not losing your soul.

[Jade Warshaw]

Right, Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

But like that. So that, that's what I would do. I would take the, take it on the chin because you're getting hit on multiple levels. You're getting hit on the, the home price has devalued, the rent price keeps going down underneath you. And you got a, almost 7% interest rate on this thing, correct?

[Caller Cassie / Other Callers]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You're getting punched and kick and bit all at the same time. And you happen to be in a position where you did put a big chunk of money down. So you're going to walk away the three hundred thousand dollar check. You'll have lost money on this particular investment, but man, you're hemorrhaging right now.

[Jade Warshaw]

I may have missed a point on this because I thought you said that you were. I thought you told me you still owe 1.6 on it and it's worth 1.4.

[Dr. John Deloney]

He bought it for 1.6, but he put five 1.6.

[Caller Dan]

But with today's market, I believe if I'm gonna put it on the market for sale, I, it's gonna sit for a while. If I'm gonna post it for 1.6 again, I believe I'm gonna see a few months and I would have to lower to 1.5 and 1.4 from what I'm seeing today.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

Yeah.

[Caller Dan]

Property was on the market for 3 million and I bought it for 2.3. So

[Jade Warshaw]

it's very slim if you can, if you can get out of it to John's Point and you can get out of it without owing. Yeah, great. If you're already, if you feel like if you list it for a realistic price and you'd already be upside down, I might hold it a little bit.

[Caller Cassie / Other Callers]

Foreign.

[Jade Warshaw]

Show. Scripture and quote of the day. James, chapter one, verses two through three. One of my favorites. Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face, face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Love that. Harrison Ford said, I always see life this way. You just have to find a way to stick it out and to prevail. It's almost like Harrison Ford knew a little bit about James, chapter one, two and three. All right, let's go to Charles who is in Savannah, Georgia. Hey, Charles, how can we help today?

[Caller Cassie / Other Callers]

Hey, how are y'? All? Thank y' all for taking my call.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yes, sir. What's up?

[Caller Cassie / Other Callers]

I was just, I was wondering about investments. I live, you know, I have a wife and a 10 year old daughter. And you know, we live pretty humble. You know, we live close to Savannah and it's a, it's a rural area, so everything's a little cheaper down here than opposed to Atlanta or New York. Sure, somewhere in California, you know. And we don't make a whole lot of money, but I managed to save. Me and my wife had saved about $60,000 before my dad passed away five years ago and he left us. He had an insurance policy of $125,000. And you know, we save every month and I'm frugal, so to speak. And you know, I don't like losing money. You know, I work, my wife works. We save about 500 to $750 a month.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay.

[Caller Cassie / Other Callers]

We are about $40,000 in debt with two vehicles which one of them we had to purchase. Usually we don't do more than one vehicle payment at a time. But somebody hit my wife a few months ago and they totaled it out. So we did have to go get a newer vehicle.

[Jade Warshaw]

So, Charles, that, that going back to the money you said you had saved before you get too deeply into that, the 60,000 and 125. Is that the only money you have saved anywhere? No investing, no, nothing like that.

[Caller Cassie / Other Callers]

I do have a CD that's about $253,000. And I'm making about 10,000 DOL dollars a year off of that the last two years. I do have a 457 Roth with about $17,000 in it.

[Caller Tiffany]

Okay.

[Caller Cassie / Other Callers]

And I can. I contribute 5% each month.

[Caller Dan]

I work for.

[Caller Cassie / Other Callers]

I work for an agency and I've got a retirement plan, so they don't match me, but I do contribute 5% to that every month. And I've got. I've got a couple ounces of gold and silver, which is that I bought, you know, five, six years ago. So, you know, I've gained about probably $5,000 on that.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

Okay.

[Caller Cassie / Other Callers]

And then I've got a little bit of cat. I've got about $10,000 in cash.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay.

[Caller Cassie / Other Callers]

At the bank and my safety deposit block. And then. And I've got a. About $10,000 in my safe.

[Jade Warshaw]

Well, my goodness, Charles, you got money coming out your ears, my guy.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You called us and I thought you were like, down to your last broomhole. And you got money everywhere.

[Jade Warshaw]

You do. You have it everywhere. I just don't know if it's in the right places.

[Dr. John Deloney]

It's not working for you like it could, but my goodness, you're doing good.

[Caller Cassie / Other Callers]

That's what I'm thinking. But, you know, I, me personally, I don't need a whole lot, you know.

[Jade Warshaw]

Well, I think you might need more than you think.

[Maria's Husband / Other Callers]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And you keep saying that, but then you keep going to get more and hiding at places.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah. Because you feel good now, but there's gonna be a day when you're not working.

[Caller Cassie / Other Callers]

Yeah, exactly. And like I say, I do have a retirement plan, but $325,000 in today's economy, I mean, that can be gone in a blink of an eye.

[Jade Warshaw]

It could, but it could also be bad. Yeah. And I do, I do want to say this because that, what you're saying, I think Charles, is hitting on what a lot of people feel that are probably listening right now is they are afraid. It's like, hey, if I invest this money, what happens if the stock market tanks? Tanks. And the truth of the matter is we have to think about that. Like, let's think back. If we think back to 9, 11. If we think back to 2008. 2008, the Great Recession. You're right. The stock market did tank, but what did it do? Two years later it recovered. And they said it was bounced back better than ever.

[Caller Cassie / Other Callers]

Yeah. And I say if you do it over a, you know, a 20 to 30 year period, you're going to gain regardless. Of course, just like even on my 457 Roth that I have through my job that has got, like I say, I checked it about two weeks ago. It's got, like, $17,000 in it. And I wish I would have started the day I started work.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah. How old are you?

[Caller Cassie / Other Callers]

But I'm 43.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay. Here's the thing, Charles.

[Dr. John Deloney]

While you plug these numbers in, Charles, let me just say this.

[Caller Dan]

This.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You and I have kind of a, like, spirit, which is kind of an eye on what if this all goes down? Right.

[Caller Cassie / Other Callers]

Yes, I. I appreciate you saying that because I've been watching Yalls videos, okay. And I have been. I work half days on Friday, and I've been calling y' all every Friday for a long time. All right?

[Dr. John Deloney]

I'm going to tell you something that's hard to hear. And I had a buddy of mine that. That's a bank executive tell me this, okay? And he was right. If the stock market implodes and doesn't come back, let's say it goes to zero. The little rocks you have stored in your safe, that one shiny silver and one shiny gold are going to become rocks. The paper you got stored under your bed is going to be paper.

[Caller Cassie / Other Callers]

Yes, I know.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, so here's the thing. Like, here's the line he gave me when I was doing exactly what you're doing, and I didn't have gold and all that, but I was like, what about this? And what about this? And here's the line he gave me that for whatever reason, it set me free. And maybe it will for you, and maybe it won't. But he said, john, I don't have a meteorite plan. If the US Stock market goes to zero, that's control, alt, delete. And it's gonna be a. It's gonna get Western real fast. Okay? And so I got you planning for what happens if a meteorite hits us. You know what?

[Caller Cassie / Other Callers]

I'm.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I'm gonna solve that for when that happens. And you're not even buying backhoes and shovels and bullets. You're buying, like, gold and hiding this over here and stuff it under your mattress and. Right. Like. So here's what I want to say. Give yourself the best opportunity with the information we got in front of us.

[Jade Warshaw]

And. And what? I would tell you the best information based on the numbers you gave me. And you gave me a lot of numbers. So I just took the 253 in CDs and I pretended as though you invested it today. So that gives you. With the 17,000. And I wasn't sure. If the 60,000. I didn't even add the 60,000 or the 125 insurance because I didn't know if that was what was in the CD.

[Caller Cassie / Other Callers]

The 60,000 is what me and my wife had saved together before my dad passed away.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay.

[Caller Cassie / Other Callers]

And I received, you know, 125,000. And we, like I say we, we try to save at least 500, because at the end of the day, we, between the both of us, we make about $110,000 a year.

[Jade Warshaw]

Well, we'll call that 60,000. We'll call that your emergency fund. And I'll do you one better. We can add the cash and the money in the safe, we can add that to it, too. Because I think you like having cash around, so I'm not even touching that. We won't even invest that. But if we took the, the money from the CD, we went ahead and invested it along with the 17, 000. And let's pretend you told me. Yeah, you guys put away maybe 5 to 7.50 every single month. That's the margin that you can save. If you just did that and you did that, Charles, from today until age 65, that puts you at 3.8 million. And, and, and that's enough for you, I assume, to do whatever you want wherever you live. Yes, and that. And let me just say, Charles, we would say, hey, invest 15%. You know, pump that number up. That's not even with you doing that. That's just with you saying, hey, I got $500 in margin. I'm just gonna plug that in over there. And you wanna know what? I'm cool with that because I will just be happy with this call if you begin investing. I will be happy if you take the money from the CDs and you invested across the four funds that we teach here. And, and I do want you to get connected with a smartvestor pro, because these are people that we vet out, okay? So that means we trust them. We trust that they can take your money and that they'll treat you with respect and they'll treat you with the heart of a teacher and teach you so that you'll learn and feel great about how your money is being invested and that that money can grow for you, not just for your current family, but for your legacy. And I think that. That. That's about as good as it gets, John. So that's what you need to do. All right, guys, that does it for this hour. John did not reply to me.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Remember, I didn't know you're tossing me the ball here.

[Jade Warshaw]

There's ultimately one way to financial peace. That's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.