Following a Proven Plan Is the Fastest Way To Build Wealth

Summary

The Ramsey Show – “Following a Proven Plan Is the Fastest Way To Build Wealth”

Date: June 15, 2026
Hosts: Dave Ramsey & Dr. John DeLoney
Podcast Network: Ramsey Network

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Ramsey Show focuses on the foundational principles and practical steps for building wealth and taking control of your finances, regardless of past mistakes. Dave Ramsey and Dr. John DeLoney answer live caller questions covering budgeting, debt reduction, career changes, family dynamics, and making intentional choices to achieve financial freedom. The recurring message: a proven plan and focused intensity can change your life, and being “normal” with money is broke—so be “weird.”

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Addressing Large Debt and Family Well-being

• Caller Joshua (Dallas): Facing nearly $300,000 in debt, mostly student loans, with increasing family expenses.

• Advice:

  • Take immediate practical action: Find work closer to home, consider selling expensive vehicles, pick up additional jobs or side hustles ([07:02], [07:54]).
  • Prioritize gaining experience in intended career (e.g., preaching as a pastor) over academic credentials.
  • Quote:
    “Granny paying for my car is not sustainable adult behavior.” — Dave Ramsey ([07:23])

• Key Point:
  Breaking down big problems into actionable daily steps, and using your network (not just job apps) to improve income are crucial.
  Resource: Ken Coleman’s "The Proximity Principle" ([08:35]).

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2. Transitioning from “Intense” to “Intentional” Effort (Baby Steps 4, 5, 6)

• Caller David (Minneapolis): Questioned if side hustles/overtime should continue as he moves from debt payoff to wealth building.

• Advice:

  • After Baby Step 3 (debt payoff & emergency fund), shift from the “intensity” of paying off debt to intentional, purposeful financial planning.
  • Side hustles become optional, not mandatory. Prioritize what fits your life vision, not just wealth accumulation ([13:51]).
  • Quote:
    “You just can’t sprint forever.” — Dr. John DeLoney ([11:55])

• Celebrate Progress:
  Don’t just keep racing; take time to envision what you want your new debt-free life to feel like ([13:31]).

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3. Walking Through the Baby Steps

• Dave recaps the standard Ramsey Baby Steps ([14:40]-[17:27]):

  • 1: Save $1,000 starter emergency fund.

  • 2: Pay off all debt (except mortgage) via debt snowball method.

  • 3: Build 3–6 months of expenses as a fully funded emergency fund.

  • 4: Invest 15% of household income in retirement.

  • 5: Save for children’s college.

  • 6: Pay off home early.

  • 7: Build wealth and give outrageously.

  • Quote:
    “Your most powerful wealth-building tool is your income.” — Dave Ramsey ([15:55])

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4. Preparing Young Adults for Independence

• Caller Justin: Daughter wants to move out while in college; parents unsure if it’s financially wise.
• Advice:
  • Let young adults exercise their independence, but help them build a real-world budget.
  • Set clear boundaries (e.g., tuition support only) while offering emotional support ([26:32]-[29:32]).
  • Quote:
    “The greatest way she can figure out how the world works is to go figure out how the world works.” — Dr. John DeLoney ([24:08])

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5. Buy vs. Build: First Home Dilemmas

• Caller Rachel: Whether to buy an existing house or build (e.g., barndominium) as first home.
• Advice:
  • Buying a simple starter home is recommended—focus on growing the business and building cash.
  • Building is more complex; requires detailed blueprint, budget, and schedule. It is emotionally and financially draining, so reserve it for a later stage once more financially secure.
  • Quote:
    “If you take your eyes off your business to build, you’re risking the goose that lays the golden eggs.” — Dave Ramsey ([35:39])
  • Building Tip: Budget, blueprint, and schedule are non-negotiable. Stick to them or risk financial disaster ([37:36]).

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6. Becoming Disciplined: Starting Wealth-Building from Scratch

• Caller Edgar (Fort Worth): Wants financial freedom but unsure how to discipline himself to start.
• Advice:

  • Begin with a detailed budget; identify all debts and assets (“You are here” moment).

  • Use saved money to clear debts—don’t get attached to seeing a large savings number while in debt.

  • Quote:
    “Discipline is pretty simple. You have to want something other than what you have now, more than what you have now.” — Dave Ramsey ([49:55])

  • Emotional Insight:
    Breaking free from a comfort zone can be harder than escaping hardship ([52:00]).

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7. Parental Boundaries & Family Financial Strain

• Caller Claire (Charleston, SC): Supporting financially irresponsible elderly parents.
• Advice:
  • Set a firm, clear dollar amount or direct support (e.g., grocery cards, paying utilities), then say “no” to all other requests ([92:21]).
  • Giving money to parents is not the biblical meaning of “honor your parents.”
  • Quote:
    “No, you’re not honoring them. Honor does not mean giving money to people who are misbehaving.” — Dave Ramsey ([93:10])

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8. Financial Infidelity and Marriage

• Caller Mary: Discovered spouse hid substantial six-figure debt; considering a HELOC.
• Advice:
  • No new loans—sell assets (cars, extra houses) to cover debt.
  • Marriage must become genuinely united financially; secrecy breeds disaster. Seek marital counseling if needed.
  • Quote:
    “If behavior is a language, he’s telling you ‘I don’t want to be married to you.’” — Dr. John DeLoney ([101:00])

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9. Young Graduate Housing and Lifestyle Choices

• Caller Mark (Omaha): How much to spend on rent after college?
• Advice:
  • Limit rent to 25% of take-home pay, less if possible. Delay lifestyle inflation to save aggressively.
  • Engineers ranked as top occupation among millionaires—avoid new car purchases.
  • Quote:
    “Dogs don’t bark at parked cars.” — Dave Ramsey ([112:07])

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10. Other Memorable Interactions

• Rick (Atlanta): Lacks credit score after paying off all debt and mortgage; difficulty obtaining a new loan.

  • Advice: Avoid borrowing; sell home and use proceeds to buy new property ([62:13]).

• Becky (Oklahoma City): Considering lawsuit against a contractor who took $75,000.

  • Advice: Only pursue legal action if a high chance of recouping funds; otherwise, it’s likely a waste of time, money, and stress ([80:52]).

• Brian (Arkansas): Considering selling everything to buy a boat and sail the “Great Loop.”

  • Advice: Only pay cash, and understand it’s a massive lifestyle shift—don’t finance fun at the cost of your future ([124:22]-[127:17]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Segments

• “[Discipline is] wanting something more than what you have now.” — Dave Ramsey ([49:55])
• “Many churches will pay you well, more than $50,000 for that… But you’re not qualified yet because they can’t see you doing it at this stage because you’ve never done it.” — Dr. John DeLoney ([04:08])
• “The difference between intentional and intense: You can’t sprint forever.” — Dr. John DeLoney ([11:55])
• “Your most powerful wealth-building tool is your income.” — Dave Ramsey ([15:58])
• “Don’t buy a car!” — Dave Ramsey & Dr. John DeLoney, to college grads ([56:02])
• “Honor your parents does not mean give money to people who are misbehaving.” — Dave Ramsey ([93:10])
• “Discipline is pretty simple. I have to want to be a different place more than I want to be where I am.” — Dave Ramsey ([49:55])
• “Dogs don’t bark at parked cars.” — Dave Ramsey ([112:07])

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Highlighted Timestamps for Key Questions

• [02:37] – Joshua’s $297K debt and family expense discussion
• [14:40]-[17:27] – Dave recaps Baby Steps and transitioning from intense to intentional
• [26:32]-[29:32] – Young adult moving out: boundaries and budgeting
• [35:34]-[37:37] – Buy vs. build advice for first home
• [49:55] – Discipline and leaving the comfort zone
• [92:21] – Supporting irresponsible parents: healthy boundaries
• [101:00] – Marital financial infidelity and united finances
• [109:05] – Young graduate: how much rent to pay
• [124:22]-[127:17] – Selling everything for a dream (the “Great Loop” question)

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Tone & Style

The listener experience is interactive, encouraging, and laced with the tough-love, practical humor Ramsey is known for. Callers’ emotions are addressed with respect and empathy, but always with a commitment to clear, no-nonsense financial advice rooted in personal accountability, honesty, and a proven plan.

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Closing Summary

This episode is a classic Ramsey deep-dive into American financial realities: big debt, family pressures, career pivots, and emotional landmines. Regardless of starting point, the fastest way to wealth is a focused, proven plan — and a willingness to be different from the crowd. Start where you are, make a plan, stick to the steps, and don’t let feelings or past mistakes dictate your future.

Transcript

[Dave Ramsey]

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Normal is broke and common sense is weird. So we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network and the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio, this is the Ramsey Show. Dr. John DeLoney, number one best selling author, host of the Dr. John DeLoney Show, Ramsey personality, he's my co host today. Open phones here at 888, 825-5225. The call is free and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. Joshua is in Dallas. Hi, Joshua, how are you?

[Caller]

Oh, I'm more blessed than stressed. How are y'? All?

[Dave Ramsey]

Just the same, sir. How can we help?

[Caller]

Well, first of all, I just want to say that my wife and I actually back in 2022, stopped by the Ramsey show, watched y' all live and John and man, y' all were just the kindest people and you left a huge impact on me and my family.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, thank you.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

I don't think anyone's ever called us kind. That was awesome. Thanks, man.

[Caller]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Dave Ramsey]

Maybe John, but not me.

[Caller]

Well, my, my wife and I have about $297,800 in debt and our expenses are about to increase more than we bring home. And so we have a five month old daughter who's about to be going to a nursery and that's going to cost us about $1300 a month, which is going to put us upside down about $700 a month. Right now I am on the road every day for about 2 hours and 15 minutes to 2 hours and 30 minutes driving to and from work to make 55,000 before taxes. Bringing home, I bring home about 40,000 or so. Truthfully, I'm wanting to know the best way that I can clean up this mess. I'd love to find a way to not have to drive as much so I can be home with my wife and baby. I know there are jobs out in my area where I can make just as much, if not more and not be on the road. I've put in applications, places, but I'm not really seeing a lot of traction with any of that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. All right. So what kind of debt do you guys have?

[Caller]

Well, a large majority of it are student loans. We've got about 242,000 in student loans.

[Dave Ramsey]

Who's the doctor?

[Caller]

Neither of us, but we both have our masters. And what? And so my wife has her master's in school counseling. She would like to be an LPC someday. But this debt is actually Getting in the way of that. And I have my Master of Divinity where I'd like to go and I'd like to be a lead pastor. My hesitation with doing that right now, unfortunately, is, you know, we can't really take a pay cut. So I know whatever job I end up in is not going to be my forever job right now. But we have a mess to clean up and I'm ready to work.

[Dave Ramsey]

Are you working a pulpit on the weekends just to serve?

[Caller]

I do serve. Yes, sir.

[Dave Ramsey]

I mean, are you speaking? Are you preaching?

[Caller]

No, sir.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. You need to be if you want to be a pastor someday.

[Caller]

Yes, sir. I'm in communication with, with some pastors at my church now for some opportunities and even some my scholarly research opportunities as well.

[Dave Ramsey]

Which scholarly research opportunities won't get you into a senior pastor role?

[Caller]

Yes, sir.

[Dave Ramsey]

No one out, no pastor search committee has ever gone, oh, he's a scholarly research guy. It's never happened. They want to see you preach and can you serve their local congregations, what

[Dr. John DeLoney]

they want to see, Many churches will pay you, well, more than $50,000 for that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Way more.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Way more.

[Dave Ramsey]

But you're not qualified yet because they can't see you doing it at this stage because you've never done it. So the Masters in Divinity does not put you into a pulpit as a senior pastor, period. It does not a lot of preaching,

[Dr. John DeLoney]

A lot of serving.

[Dave Ramsey]

A lot of serving and people hospital serving. He's an associate pastor over at this other church that's larger than our church, and our church is looking for a senior pastor. We'll take the associate pastor off their hands, move them over here. That's how that is done.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

And is your wife going to go be a school counselor? Is she going back?

[Caller]

Yeah, she is going back for this upcoming school year. She.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

And what does that pay? That pay 50 or 60 grand?

[Caller]

Yep. She's. She's making about 62 to 65 before.

[Dave Ramsey]

And what is your. What other debt other than the student loans?

[Caller]

We have medical debt. We had a high risk pregnancy where we found out that we were pregnant, as I also found out I was losing my job. So that's 14,500.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

We also have a stupid tax in cars. We've got about $35,400 in cars and 6,000 on the credit card.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And so. Well, when she goes back, you're negative because of the student loans and the cars. So, you know, there's a couple things going on. I don't want to drive two and a half hours for anything. Okay. Period, if I'm you. So I'm looking for a new position today. I'm gonna work diligently and get to be near my home or I'm gonna move next to the work. But I think instead you need to find a new job. And she's got a job that's close by at her school counselor, right?

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so you need to find a new job. That's thing one. No kidding. You are already working on that. But that's a big deal because that two and a half hours gives you opportunity to do other things like a side hustle, which can add money to this to sell $35,000 car. It's gone. It's got to go, obviously. And by the way, that's going to help you get right side up, because that payment happens to be over $500, doesn't it?

[Caller]

Well, it's, it's two cars. It's. Her car payment is about 400. And I'm, I'm blessed that my grandmother is actually paying for my car. If something happened to her, you know, I, I would sell the, the vehicle. My car engine failed and I, you know, fell into the, the shiny trap.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so what do you owe on your wife's car?

[Caller]

On my wife's car, we owe 17,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Okay, well, you got, you're going to have to pick up extra jobs. You're going to have to get closer to home so you can do that to get this thing right side up. And you're going to have to start talking about shedding some things and I don't. And granny paying for my car is not sustainable adult behavior.

[Caller]

I would agree.

[Dave Ramsey]

So short term, we can do that. But I want a plan to be out of that plan. And the plan is not. She dies and I have to sell it. That's not the plan. The plan is I want to fix this by getting out of it, get my own car. But that's a little further down the road. Right now we're trying to get this $700 thing covered immediately. And that comes from selling some stuff and picking up an extra job. And quickly as possible finding a new job in the area that pays as much or more. Meanwhile, if you want to long term work on your career as a senior pastor, you're going to have to start filling a pulpit on Sunday and that

[Dr. John DeLoney]

might be the side hustle. Like I'm going to go find a church that's in between pastors and I'll preach, I'll preach on the weekends. We'll come up with a, a dollar amount and I'll be there 50 weeks out of the year.

[Dave Ramsey]

And that's a lot of churches will do that.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

A lot of churches do that. And I don't know anybody, not a person do I know right now who has gotten a job by a cold application. They are knocking on doors and they're shaking hands. I regularly get emails from former higher ed colleagues who are looking to move to a new school to look at, to get out of working at University Systems and saying, hey, can you put in a word for me here? Can you call this person from here? It's all jobs right now are network, all of them.

[Dave Ramsey]

We're going to send you a copy of Ken Coleman's book the Proximity Principle, which explains that that is how you get a job. It's not by filling out applications. Applic. Filling out applications is complete waste of time.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

For the sake of your family, you got to start shaking hands, making phone calls and sending text messages. Hey, I want to talk to you for a second about love and not love like in Titanic or something. I mean responsible love. The kind of love that moves you to take care of the people closest to you. And one of the most important ways to show that kind of love is by having term life insurance. If you have anyone depending on you, a spouse, kids, anyone, you need term life insurance. Term life insurance gives your family real protection if the unthinkable happens, so they can spend their time grieving. Grieving and not worrying about how the bills are going to get paid. Zander is a broker who works for you, shopping the top companies to find the right coverage options for your needs and your budget. In many cases, there are options available with no medical exam and instant approval. My wife and I had term life insurance through Zander for years, long before I worked at Ramsey, because we trust them. Getting term life insurance is a way of saying I love you when you can no longer say it yourself. Go to zander.com or call 1-800-356-4282 to find the coverage that fits your family.

[Dave Ramsey]

David is in Minneapolis. Hi, David, how are you?

[Caller]

I'm doing fantastic. John. David, Dave, how are you today?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than we deserve. What's up, man?

[Caller]

Yeah, so my wife and I, we've been listening to you guys for a while, following along and we're into step four now and we've in doing so, we started actually repping youth sports was our side hustle. And we're curious, do you, when you get to step four and you're looking at saving the 15%, do you keep up with the side hustle and the overtime? And do you include all of that intensity when you get into that 15%? Because it kind of drastically changes the number that we're looking to save. Yeah, through that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, I mean, you can just. You can decide what your career path looks like. I would not sign up for an extra job as my life goal.

[Caller]

Sure.

[Dave Ramsey]

In other words, extending it in perpetuate. So, no, when we go to baby steps 4, 5, and 6, you move from intense to intentional. Now, if intentional is. I'm going to do some sports reffing, but not as much as I used to, because I want to put more into my 401k while I'm adjusting my main career so that I don't have to work extra ever, you know, But. But you can choose a side hustle just because. But I would not require it, and I would want you to dial back on it. It sounds like you've been putting in a lot of hours.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Or if you. If you have this 15% to put down on your house and y' all have this fixed number, you want to run through that finish line. You just can't sprint forever is the thing.

[Caller]

Right. So we're kind of in a weird spot. So I'm a. I'm a union sheet metal worker, and with our. With our. Through our package. Right. I put like 40 something, 46,000 a year into the three pensions. Right. So if we're doing the math off of with how you guys say you cut that in half, right? Yeah, that's like 12 right there. Even cut in half.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

My. My yearly is 140ish. My wife is 55. And then we bring in anywhere between 20 and 30 through the reffing multiple sports.

[Dave Ramsey]

So, I mean, do you want to stop reffing? Do you want to stop.

[Caller]

I don't know about stopping the rapping. It's kind of. It's kind of fun. You get exercise and you get paid to do it.

[Dave Ramsey]

I kind of. I kind of thought. I kind of thought I heard that a little bit.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Does she want you to stop?

[Caller]

Yeah, a little bit. She wants me home a little bit more.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, I think you. I think you dial it back. I think you dial it back from intense to intentional, and you say, I'm gonna throw some over here. So I've got a bigger nest egg that is non union. And the more. The larger that is, the more comfortable I get, the less I'm counting on the union pension, the more comfortable I am, less I'm counting on anybody's pension and more on my own nest egg, the more comfortable I am. Not just union.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

David, you know what I would love for you and your wife to do? Y' all have just been through a big thing. Y' all worked your butts off to pay off your debts, to get an emergency fund. What if you guys imagined we have a brand new marriage, Y' all go out for a half day and just say, hey, what do we want our life to feel like?

[Caller]

We.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

We are the drivers in our. In the driver's seat of our own life. What do we want our marriage to feel like? And what do we want to feel like when I get home from an exhausting day of sheet metal working? What do you want to Are like. You get what I'm saying? Y' all get to create this thing and then reverse engineer it with. We got to go to work. You got your jobs. We a couple days a week. I love refing. I love it. And she's like, a couple days. I actually like you. That's why I married you. I want you around, and y' all can have that conversation. It's not like this life is happening to you now. Now y' all get to decide what this thing looks like and feels like. And there'll be seasons of sprints and seasons of walking, but I want you all to stop for a second and pause and celebrate the crap out of yourselves and plan it moving forward.

[Dave Ramsey]

Absolutely.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

And, Dave, real quick, can you walk through, just for someone who's new, the baby steps from the. Like he called said, I'm baby step four now. Can you walk us through that?

[Dave Ramsey]

Sure. Baby step, $1,000, save $1,000. A little starter beginner emergency fund. Just get a little distance between you and everything can go wrong. Murphy. Right? And then once you've got that, you need to do that. Like, in the first month. Yes. You're on a budget. You're gonna squeeze $1,000, sell some stuff, put some stuff on Craigslist, whatever, all that. Facebook, Marketplace, whatever it is. Right? Then we're gonna. The important one that everyone knows us for is you're gonna get out of debt. Everything but the house. And that's baby step two. List your debts. Smallest a vengeance. Working all the time, selling everything. Not going to a restaurant, not going on vacation. We're getting out of debt, and you clear your debts. And that's what they've done. They're debt free. That's a cool place to be.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

It's so cool.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. And zero debt. And when you got zero debt now you have control other than your home, you have control of your most powerful wealth building tool, which is your income. You're not giving it all to freaking Ford Motor Credit and to Citibank. What's in your wallet? My money. Yeah, that's it. So there we go. Right? So we're going to. We're going to be out of debt. Then we're going to build an emergency fund, Grandma's rainy day fund of three to six months of expenses, a proper one. And that's taking the thousand dollar account, adding to it. That's where they are. They've just completed that.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

They're. They're their own bank now to an extent.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. They have no payments and they have an emergency fund, a good one.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

So.

[Dave Ramsey]

So I mean think. What if you're out there and you're brand new and you got a bunch of payments? Think what it would feel like, like no one standing on your chest if you had no payments and $20,000 in the bank. Yeah.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's a big deal. That's where he is. And now he's trying to. Trying to exhale off the ref thing and can't figure it out because he's been so freaking intense to get there. And that's exactly the way it should be. He's been driving 160 miles an hour and he's trying to slow down to 50.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

But if you. That's a great analogy. When you're driving one like 110, right? You drive 160. I'll drive 110 and you go, you slow down to 70 because your app says there's a policeman down the road.

[Dave Ramsey]

Feels like you're walking.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Feels like you're crawling down the highway.

[Dave Ramsey]

I went to Turtle mode.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

You're still going 70. A wreck still going to kill you. You're going fast, but not that fast.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, it's different. So then you do. Baby, you're intense. Like crazy intense in those first three. Then you move from intense to intentional. Meaning we're going to do things on purpose, but we don't have to be so freaked out. Now we can save up and go on vacation. Now we can save up and move up in car a little bit in cash. Now we can buy that couch in cash.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Or like his wife was talking about, now you can just not have to

[Dave Ramsey]

work all the time.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

We can watch office reruns together at night, just us sitting on the couch.

[Dave Ramsey]

And where did that come from?

[Dr. John DeLoney]

I don't. But it's not even about purchasing. You get to decide what you want to do with your life now.

[Dave Ramsey]

Exactly.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

You decide.

[Dave Ramsey]

You decide. So, and baby steps four, five, and six, you do simultaneously. Four is 15% of your income going into retirement. Five is save for kids college. Six is pay off the house the average person work. And seven is when your house is paid off. Just become wealthy and outrageously generous and be generous along the way, but now be outrageously generous. And so the average person working this stuff. The book Total money Makeover came out in 2003, 20 million copies now that outlines those baby steps. Tens of millions of people have done this. Now, the average person doing it is paying off their home at baby step six in about seven years from the time they start. This going from intense to intentional. Now, that's the average. Some take a little longer, some take a little less. And then that sets you up to be able to invest even heavier than your 15%. And the average person is becoming a millionaire. A net worth of $1 million or greater in about 14 years. That's what we're seeing. So this is not an easy plan. It's just one that works every time. Every time, every single time. That's how you do it, folks. And so these are principles, gods and grandma's ways of handling money.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

My wife told a couple friends of ours this at one point, and I loved what she said. They were. They were in their 30s, and they were like, man, we should have been doctors. We should have gone back to med school. And I am always the eternal optimist. Like, why don't you just go? And one of them said, because we'd be both be 42 when we graduate. And my wife said, that's not the right. You're not looking at this right. Y' all are gonna be 42 anyway. The question you need to ask yourself is, do you want to be Doctors when you're 42 or not? The reason I bring that up here is you're gonna be seven years from now. In seven years, do you want to not have a house payment? Because that. That journey starts today, if that's what you want to do.

[Dave Ramsey]

Exactly.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

You're gonna be you in 15 years. Your spouse and you are going to be married in 15 years. Do you all want to be millionaires or not? And that.

[Dave Ramsey]

That.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

That journey starts with step one today.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, Right. And do we want to be on the same page?

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Do you want to be on the same page, same team?

[Dave Ramsey]

The most difficult subject in marriage, which is money. Yeah. Are we going to talk about it. Are we going to get on, get aligned on our values and enjoy each other in the process? That these are all the byproducts of what occur on this journey?

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Caller]

Here's what nobody warns you about.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

You're behind on payments.

[Dave Ramsey]

You signed up with some debt settlement company.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

You're making your monthly payments to them.

[Dave Ramsey]

And then one morning a process server

[Caller]

knocks on your door.

[Dave Ramsey]

Surprise.

[Caller]

You just got sued by a creditor.

[Dave Ramsey]

And that company you trusted, not a law firm. They're not built to represent you if things escalate. And now you're scrambling to figure out

[Caller]

what to do next. And that's why I tell people about Guardian Litigation group. Guardian Litigation is not a call center.

[Dave Ramsey]

They're actual attorneys at a law firm.

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[Dave Ramsey]

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[Dave Ramsey]

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[Dr. John DeLoney]

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[Dave Ramsey]

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[Dave Ramsey]

Justin is in Pittsburgh. Hey Justin, how are you?

[Dr. John DeLoney]

I'm great, Dave, how are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. How can I help?

[Caller]

Well, first of all, thank you guys so much for taking my call. I really respect your opinions on all these financial matters. And just real quick, we're having a. I have a parenting question. My very intelligent, my very hard working, soon to be 21 year old daughter is going to be a junior in college. And she has informed us that she is, she would like to switch to her third college for this coming year, switching to an online program and that she is ready to move out of the house. And my wife and I are really struggling with the moving out piece of that puzzle because we don't feel like it's a good financial decision. And I just was hoping to get some input from the two of you. Are we kind of overreacting to the situation? Should we be open to it or should we be advising her in some way that I just don't know the answer right now.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

How old is again? Did you say she was?

[Dave Ramsey]

21?

[Dr. John DeLoney]

21.

[Caller]

She's going to be 21.

[Dave Ramsey]

She's a junior in college studying what

[Caller]

she's going to be an occupational therapist.

[Dave Ramsey]

And how she's supporting herself when she moves out?

[Caller]

Well, that is the question. She's currently working in a, at a nursing home as like a personal care aid sort of position where she told us she's making about $3,000 a month, which she thinks when, that that's going to be enough to sustain a life. At this point, my wife and I have been cash flowing college for her without a problem. I think we would still intend to do that. But when she talks about moving out, that kind of tells me that she's, you know, she said that she's ready to be an adult and you know, that means that she's going to take on more of a financial responsibility. And I don't think that that $3,000 a month is going to be enough to sustain that life.

[Dave Ramsey]

This your oldest child?

[Caller]

She is.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Here's the conundrum you find yourself in is are you going to use money as an anchor? Are you going to use tuition to punish or are you going to look at, at a legal adult and say, this isn't the decision we would make, but we're going to be your biggest cheerleaders? Because I'll tell you, the greatest way she can figure out how the world works is to go figure out how the world works.

[Caller]

Okay?

[Dr. John DeLoney]

And I, I've heard a ton of kids who are like, I'm moving out and I just start rattling off numbers and their eyes get real big. She's making three grand. She's not gonna have a great life. Right. She's gonna have one bedroom apartment and it's gonna be really tough. I, I would give her some pretty strict boundaries, like we'll keep covering tuition, but you're gonna be on your own for this stuff. And I will walk with you every step of the way for how cell phone works and how insurance works and all that kind of stuff. The risk you run right now is you say no and she walks anyway. And you've lost your relationship too. And it's not like she's doing drug. I mean, she's working in nursing home. Sounds like she wants to work full time and take classes online.

[Caller]

Hard worker.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Yeah. So it sounds like she's a kid.

[Dave Ramsey]

She's bright and she's mature.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Great character.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. 100% she should move out and 100% you should support her. I'm with John on that. The only thing I would do is, you know, let's go shopping for apartments together and let's, I'll help you build your budget on three grand. I want you to know what you're moving into because you don't want to be. You know, if you're going to make this decision, we would rather you stay until you finish college. You know that. And if you want to stay until you finish college, you're welcome. That's what you're. That's what, that's your message. Right? And. But if you're gonna go do this, let me walk with you, and I'm not gonna tell you what to do. I just want to see that you've considered all the variables that have to be in this budget. Here's what the electric bill is gonna be at that apartment. Here's what the apartment costs. Here's what the contents insurance costs, which is about 500 bucks a year. Okay. Here's what your cell phone's going to cost. Here's what this is going to cost. And let's build a. Let's see what your life looks like on $3,000 a month or more. If she's working more, that's fine. But let's figure out what you've got to do to exist. And let's do this. Let's begin with the end in mind, as Stephen Covey would say in the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Right. Let's plan it all out and I'll walk with you and coach you. You may. When we do the budget, it's possible you may want to delay this because you may look at the budget and realize it's harder to do this than it is in your mind right now. So if she's going to do this, I want her to deal with. I want her to do it based on reality, not based on fuzzy dreams and feelings.

[Caller]

That's what I feel like it's been up to this point.

[Dave Ramsey]

I think it has, too.

[Caller]

Will every dollar allow me to kind of put out a projected budget like that?

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, she needs to build.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

She's 21. She needs to have one.

[Dave Ramsey]

She needs to build an every dollar

[Caller]

budget for me to help her.

[Dave Ramsey]

Will every dollar she can build it. And then you look over her shoulder and say, okay, have you checked. Have you thought about that? Have you thought about that? And I'll go with you. And let's look at the apartment. Do you feel safe here for this price? Okay, Because I don't want my, you know, I don't want my daughter in an unsafe situation. And so we're going to, you know, and we not going to supplement your living. You're going to have to do it on your own. If you move out and that, that,

[Dr. John DeLoney]

those two lines, we're going to be your biggest cheerleaders. And so we'll walk with you through this thing. We'll help you every step of the way. And financially, here's where, here's what we're going to provide for you.

[Dave Ramsey]

Tuition. Yeah, that's it.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

That's it. Right. And. And you, you being an adult enough to. You, you modeling. What adult is, is we're going to, we're going to live in reality. And just so we're all clear, and

[Dave Ramsey]

if the budget works and she can live on the budget, celebrate her. And then that's going to actually give me, if I'm you, more peace. Because right now you're worried about. And I'm a little worried about that this is a dream that's going to turn into a freaking nightmare.

[Caller]

That's my fear. Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. And your wife has gone even further. She's like, she's going to be in a ditch in a cardboard box, you know, that's what happens. Yeah. And that this is the way this stuff goes. And, and this is all with a good kid.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Hey, can I give you one more thing to tell her?

[Caller]

Sure thing.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

This would be really like, this would be handing the maturity baton to her. Look at her with your wife and say, hey, we're really sad you're going. We love having you here.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Because there is financial stuff. But I promise you, part of this is, that's our oldest, that's our kid. If, if she leaves, who are we? What's her house gonna feel like? She probably helps. She sounds like a great human being, Right?

[Caller]

She really is.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

So you're gonna be sad because you raise them to be independent and dad Gump, it doesn't work.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

I know. And so like, I, I never occurred to me in a million years that if I found out about a new hunt in her fishing spot, the first person I would think to call would be my 16 year old son. And it is now. It never would have occurred. If you lay out 10 people I can go hang out in the woods with, he's gonna be my number one pick. Cause I like being out there with him. He's funny, he makes fun of me back. Good. We have a good time. I trust him. All that. It never would have occurred to me. And so if you and your wife are also wrestling with grief, like, oh, our oldest is about to fly the nest and she had to be. We didn't kick her out. She had to be the one to say hey, I'm ready to fly. Look her in the eye and say, we're gonna miss you. We're gonna be sad. That'll be a gift to her. It'll humanize you and your wife, and it will start the grieving process for

[Caller]

you and your wife.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

You're a cool human being that's been a part of your life for almost a quarter century.

[Dave Ramsey]

You're not losing them. They're just moving to an apartment.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

That's true. Yeah, you got it. You still got tuition payments.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, they're still on a dead gum leash, but you're right. I mean, when we dropped our oldest off at college, two and a half hours away, we cried. Halfway home, we dropped Rachel. The next one off from college, we cried. One exit.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

When the third one got ready to go to college, we pointed towards it

[Dr. John DeLoney]

and said, it's that way he drove himself. That's right. Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's like it gets easier.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

It does. But man. Yeah, Dave, I even think there's. What a great dad, a great dad, great mom. They've raised a great kid. I mean, if my 21 year old who's working full time in a nursing home says, hey, I want to take classes at night in a different situation so that I can keep doing, man, I, I want to celebrate and cheer that. But that's going to be a bummer when, when your kids move out. I, I love, I, I, Dave, I love the idea of a 21 year old.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yes.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Crashing and burning too, a little bit like realizing this is a struggle and I gotta get another job on top of this one.

[Dave Ramsey]

Don't do it based on a feeling. Do it based on math.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

And then you, you're staring the reality in the face and still choosing that reality. Now we've got a good decision.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

That's right.

[Dave Ramsey]

But if that, that made lead her back home, maybe she may say, I don't think I want to do this right.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Or you may watch her just soar.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, could happen. If you're waiting for the perfect interest rate before you buy a home or

[Caller]

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[Dave Ramsey]

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[Dr. John DeLoney]

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[Dave Ramsey]

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[Caller]

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[Dave Ramsey]

They move with a strategy.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

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[Dave Ramsey]

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[Dave Ramsey]

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[Caller]

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[Dave Ramsey]

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[Dr. John DeLoney]

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[Dave Ramsey]

If you're working the baby steps and you're following the Ramsey plan to get out of debt and build wealth, the fastest way to do it is by using EveryDollar. EveryDollar will coach you every step of the way. Plus it gives you a detailed plan for your dollars every month before the month begins and you're on the same page as your spouse. You can track your progress, you can get personalized recommendations, coaching for your situation. We're going to give you the whole Ramsey thing spoon fed in everydollar and you can start everydollar for free by downloading it in the App Store or Google Play. Really important that you plug this in if you're going to do this stuff. Maybe you just enjoy listening to the show. Thank you for doing that. We appreciate it. But if you're going to actually do the stuff we're talking about here, you need to be doing it together. If you're married and you need to be doing it with a detailed plan and this is the tool and it's free, every dollar for free. Download it in the App Store or Google Play. Rachel is in Nashville. Hi Rachel, how are you?

[Caller]

I'm good. Dave, how are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

So my husband and I, I'm 26 and he's 23. We are curious as to like we just kind of want your opinion or your thoughts on whether it's better to like buy or build our first, our first home.

[Dave Ramsey]

How long you been married?

[Caller]

Three years.

[Dave Ramsey]

What price range are you looking in?

[Caller]

See that's, that's up in the air right now too. We were, there's three options we were kind of thinking of and it was either to just buy a home and start building equity, a small home, like a three bed, two bath kind of thing because he works from home so he'd need an office. Or we could build like a small slab house while we cash flow our like barndominium. Build that we would prefer to do. Or we could get a construction loan. Those are the kind of the three options we were looking into. Last year we made $86,000. He's been doubling his income every year in his business since he started two years ago. He made 26 the first year and then 48 the second year. Good.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good for you. Gosh. Okay.

[Caller]

We're on track for about 60.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's really. You're in a good place and I can just give you the pluses and minuses and you can decide, all right, which way you want to go. The positives of just buying a three bedroom, two bath and getting started, and then just start piling up some cash and doing the barndominium as stage two. Sell that house when you get ready to do the other one. But just get started. In home ownership, it's simple, it's clean, and it's not going to extract a lot of bandwidth from your life.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Did you say he started a business?

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, then I'm probably going to go that way if it's me, because I don't want him taking his eyes off this business that's prospering because he's over screwing around building a barndominium all the time.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

And if you take. You can't do two things at once and be any good at them. Okay. So I want him to continue to grow this business. It's the goose, man. It's laying the golden eggs. Let's just kick that thing into high gear for the next three or four years and then you can write a check for a good contractor and bring in the barndominium thing. Now, if you're going to build, the downside is it is a great strain on most marriages. When you build a home, you're going to fight. Okay. Just count on it. Because you're gonna have disagreements about this. And for some reason we decide that we're going to kill each other over the color of the kitchen. I don't know why, but we do. It's like we die on the most unusual of hills. Right. And so you need to back up from that and commit to a, we're going to be nice to each other through this process. We're both going to have a vote. You don't get to scream, I deserve this. Either one of you. All that crap. Okay? So then when you do that, then the next thing you need to do is there's three things that drive a build. Otherwise you're going to drive yourself crazy and you're going to have Scope creep and then it's going to end up being a financial nightmare. One is you lay out a detailed blueprint of exactly what we're going to build and you go over it and over it and over it and over it and you tear it up and you do it again and you, you. If it is very cheap to build a house or a barndominium on paper and it's very cheap to change it on paper but if you make it up as you go, it's super expensive. 73,000 change orders, right? No.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

So that's a piece of paper number one. Then that will lead you to piece of paper number two which is a detailed budget of exactly what's going to be the dishwasher. Exactly what are we going to spend on lighting? Exactly what is the bid for the concrete? Who's putting up the structure and what's that going to cost? What's the roof and what's the bid on that? Get hard bids and you build a budget that you need to hit that budget. You know there's going to be a couple things change. But the last house I built I hit within 2% because we made the budget in great detail before we broke ground. Okay. In detail. And we're in agreement on that, Sharon and me. This is what we're going to spend. The decorator comes in with a neat idea. Toughies. Okay, Tuffies, this is what the budget is. We decided ahead of time. Decorator, you're going to operate within the budget. You don't get to set the budget. Contractor, you're going to operate within the budget. You don't get to set the budget. So these are the pieces of paper we manage to. Then the third piece is the schedule and how long is it going to take to build this? And before we broke ground in June we knew that February 14th was the day, Valentine's Day we were going to start installing trim. We knew when the plumbing rough in was going to be done. We knew when the roof was going on to the day. It was all scheduled out throughout the next 14 months. And we built, we ran a 14 month schedule and finished it in 12. We came in within 2% of budget and we finished with early and the builder loved us because we actually did what we said we were going to do. We didn't drive him crazy. There was very little drama. All the drama happened on the paper before we broke ground. So budget, blueprint, schedule and then freaking stick to them. Otherwise this thing will cost you twice as much as it should and you're gonna go broke doing it. But I recommend that be your second project, not your first. Your first one should be you guys go buy a house and grow a business.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Dave, I think you just broke her brain a little bit. I mean, barn dominions looks so.

[Caller]

Not at all. It all makes sense.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

So cool when you're scrolling on Instagram and then when somebody pulls apart all the little pieces, it's like, oh, okay, okay.

[Caller]

Yeah. And a lot of glamour.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

This is me. I can be sometimes. My wife says I'm way too risky on some things and too risk averse on others. I would want to see that that business have a couple more years of oomph to it before I leveraged on a brand new build. Because I would hate for y' all to have planned because the temptation is going to be. It doubles every year. And if you're on track to hit 160 this year because you hit 80 last year, it's going to be re. It would take a, an act of God's worth of discipline to say we're not going to go ahead and pretend you're going to make, you know, 320 next year.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, right.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

I would love to.

[Dave Ramsey]

You'll build a much better place if you wait two years.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Yeah. You can have the, the place of your dreams in a few years. Especially if you got cash.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. And you put yourself in a cash position. Meanwhile you're sitting in a home that anyone else will be happy with.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Three twos are always pretty easy to move.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's. Yeah, it's a great property.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's like the ultimate American property. You know, so. And barndominiums, by the way, are not correct. Yeah. So they're like what's called a white elephant. No one wants them but the guy that built them. That's it. And because selling a used boat that you know that you, that you carved out in your basement. Now that's the one. Yeah.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Where did of those three things you identified, where do most people get sideways when it comes to building their own thing?

[Dave Ramsey]

All three.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

All three.

[Dave Ramsey]

They don't spend enough time on the blueprint. And so they build by change order, which doubles your cost and doubles the length of time that you're building, which also doubles your cost. Right. Yeah. So you get scope creep on the money is the problem with all three. And so you don't stick to the budget because your budget's not realistic because you didn't lay it all out and you didn't do it. But I can hand the electrician the blueprint a year in advance and he can give me a bid. Yeah, I can hand the roofer a blueprint a year in advance, he can give me a bid now. He may price adjust it a little bit later, but I'm gonna be real close.

[Caller]

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[Dave Ramsey]

Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fair Winds Credit Union studio. John DeLoney. Dr. John DeLoney. Number one best selling author is my co host today. Edgar is in Fort Worth, Texas. Hi Edgar. How are you?

[Caller]

Good. How are you man?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

So my question was obviously we follow you. We've been watching you for a little while. But how do we get started on this? You know, I like your steps. I like the thought of being financially free, not having a mortgage. But how do we get started? How do we get that discipline into getting to where you guys are? We're like a bunch of your people that call, you know, how do we get there?

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Did. You're the man. Edgar, what brought you to this point?

[Caller]

I don't know. The thought of being financially free, like I said, obviously I feel like the biggest, the biggest debt that we have is our house. I wish I didn't have that. Even some of my neighbors that are older, you know, one day he was telling me that he paid his house cash and I was like, dude, how, how do you do all this how. And he. Obviously, he's older than me, but I want to be there, you know, dude, you're.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

You came to the right place, brother.

[Dave Ramsey]

So, I mean, there's two questions in the question. Question number one is philosophically, psychologically, how do you create discipline? And that's a great discussion. And then the second question is just what's the first thing I do? Well, the first thing you do is you do a budget on every dollar with your wife. And you will find, as soon as you do that tonight, it's free to download. You're gonna find several thousand dollars in margin in your life. And then what do we do with that margin? Well, we're going to apply it to baby steps. And first baby steps, $1,000. Second one, let's get everything paid off except the house. And then when that's done, we're building emergency funds. How much do you have in savings?

[Caller]

I have about maybe $30,000. Yes, sir.

[Dave Ramsey]

How much do you have in debt, not counting your house?

[Caller]

So that's the thing. I feel like, honestly, I'm. I can't tell you the correct number, but I think our biggest debt is her car, maybe 14. And then. Well, the biggest one is the house, obviously.

[Dave Ramsey]

But, yeah, not counting the house, you got 14 on a car. What else you got?

[Caller]

Maybe a couple credit cards over 2,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, well, the first thing you do if you're lost is you have to find that sign in the mall that has a red arrow on it that says you are here. And that means you need to get a detailed list out and figure out where you are. Exactly. And you and your wife go over that and you say, okay, here's our debts. We've got these five debts, and to the penny, figure them out. What is it? What does it take to get debt free? Okay. And it sounds like $30,000 will get you out of debt.

[Caller]

It does, but it's also like. I think it's more of the mindset of like.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, I know that, but I'm talking about the money. You got the math here. I'm not talking about your brain. I'm talking about your math. The math is, once you decide to do this and the two of you are sitting down looking at your every dollar budget, I would write checks and be debt free tonight.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

And then knowing that I'm going to live on this budget without any payments, and I'm gonna rebuild my emergency fund as baby step three of three to six months of expenses. So as soon as you write checks and you're Debt free. You're gonna be working on baby step three. And when you finish that, which will just be a few months, then you will start your investing in baby step four, and you just start following the stuff you hear us talk about here on the air in detail. But if you don't think you're going to follow through, you won't start.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

What's your hang up with the discipline part?

[Caller]

I don't know. Honestly, I feel like coming from nothing, you know, I mean, I'm not rich. We're not rich. We don't come from rich parents. None of that. So saving up, even to now, 30, you know, 30 grand. The fact of knowing that, okay, I can be debt free, but it took me so long to get there.

[Dave Ramsey]

So what's your income?

[Caller]

I think together we're like 120 was what we made last.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so if you didn't have any payments but a house payment, couldn't you save some stinking money, Edgar? I mean, mathematically,

[Caller]

hello.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sure you could.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Here's the. Here's the thing I think you're struggling with. My dad was a policeman. My wife's parents were teachers. We didn't even know what it was going to feel like. And I grew up. You probably grew up in a home where those people had that kind of stuff. Not people like us.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

And you probably got boys that you ran with, and you've got survivor's guilt and you got that we got out guilt. All that stuff is going to hold you back. And so here's what I want to tell you. You got to be led with math and with a plan, and you can't let your feelings dictate what you do next. The thing about discipline is I can't be swayed by motivation. I can't, because there's. Dude, take exercising. I'm pretty disciplined when it comes to my exercise. If I waited to be motivated, I would never work out. Because you know what I'm motivated to do? Sleep in and eat ice cream for breakfast.

[Dave Ramsey]

And gummy bears.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

And gummy bears. Because all three of those things are awesome. But I have an. An end goal, which is I want to be able to roll around on the floor when I'm 85 with my grandkids. And so I don't wait for motivation. I don't wait for feelings. I do the next right thing. And that next right thing is the plan in front of me.

[Dave Ramsey]

And I know you could do it.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

I know you can.

[Dave Ramsey]

So the math says you can do it, and I. And you're a Guy that was able to save 30,000. So I don't know why you couldn't save 30,000 really fast if you had no payments.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

You've attached identity to look how much money I got in this account and you've allowed that to say, this is what I'm worth. And actually, if you take away your car payments and you take away your credit card payments and you put that in an emergency fund, you're not as free as you feel like you are because you've just never seen a number that big in a checking account. Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

So here's the thing. Discipline is pretty simple. It's. You have to want something other than what you have now more than what you have now. Okay. I have to want to be a different place more than I want to be where I am. And that moves my butt off a center. It's that simple. Where do I want to be and do I want to be there bad enough to leave the comfort zone? Because the comfort zone is an illusion. It's a place where things die. People lives turn mediocre. You don't want live in the comfort zone.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Bodies atrophy.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, yeah. Anything that's inactive is dying.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

By definition. And that's what we do in a comfort zone. It's the problem we have in America in general.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Exactly.

[Dave Ramsey]

The problem in America is you can be half butt at everything and live a life that is better than 98% of the rest of the world.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

You can have an incredible life in America and be a complete half butt. I mean, just mail it in at work. Overeat, slob, binge watching everything that you shouldn't be watching on Netflix and nobody likes you. You're a spiritual moron. And you can still have an incredible

[Dr. John DeLoney]

lifestyle, a comfortable life.

[Dave Ramsey]

Comfortable lifestyle in America.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

And it will catch you.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's the problem.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

It will catch you.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's the problem. If instead you were freaking starving to death and you came off a dirt floor in your home, the floor was literally dirt. There was no floor. Then you'd be going, I ain't going back. And there'd be a desperation in your soul and you'd be scratching and clawing and spitting and flipping and getting stuff done. Man.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

That's right.

[Dave Ramsey]

And that's the change is leaving mediocre is harder than leaving pain.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

And it feels different than you think it's going to feel. Keep going. Anyway,

[Dave Ramsey]

When I started, I had great ideas and I knew how to serve people, but I didn't have systems in place yet at that time. I sold books out of the trunk of my car. It was a lot harder to start a business back then. Shopify Makes It Easier Shopify is the business platform powering millions of businesses and about 10% of all E commerce in the United States. If you've got a product or even just an idea, Shopify makes it simple to get moving. You can build a storefront, write product descriptions, and even improve your product photos all in one place. You don't need 10 different systems duct taped together. Shopify handles everything you need to make sales, from payments to marketing and analytics. Plus, that purple Shop pay button is one of the best converting checkouts on the planet for fewer abandoned carts. And if you get stuck, Shopify offers 24. 7 support. So if you've been sitting on the sidelines, it's time to turn those ideas into Sign up for your $1 per month trial at shopify.com Ramsey that's shopify.com Ramsey shopify.com Ramsey.

[Caller]

Foreign.

[Dave Ramsey]

Today's Ramsey Show Question of the Day is brought to you by why Refi Defaulted Private student loans can derail your money plans, but why Refi helps borrowers explore refinancing options designed to get them on track again. Learn more@y refi.com Ramsey that's the letter y r e f y.com Ramsey might not be in all states.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Today's question comes from Antonio in Pennsylvania. He writes, I'm 21 and I graduated from college this month. I'm about $50,000 in debt and have not started investing yet, but will when I start my new job. What advice would you give recent college graduates on what we can do to be smart early and set ourselves up for success maniacally? As crazy as you can. Your friends are going to think you're nuts. Your parents are going to think you're nuts. Your old professors will think you're nuts. Do whatever you can to get this student debt paid off as quickly as humanly possible. Make an obnoxious plan. Get your first job and then get a second job. Because here's the thing.

[Dave Ramsey]

And then get a third job.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

For recent college grads, students used to always say, hey, I'm going to take a year off and then I'm going to go get my graduate degree or whatever. I would always tell them, just go do it. Because when you graduate and get your first job, your body will adjust to busy. And so if you go get your first job and you go ahead and get a side hustle and get a job on the weekends too, you're 20 freaking one. You got this thing called energy. And you got a metabolism. You can eat Arby's and Taco Bell and still be fine. Here's the thing. Go Page is gross. It would cost me a week of my life to do that now. But you're 21. You can get away with it. It should just work maniacally because you're going to adjust to. You're going to be tired. No matter what you do, you're going to adjust to tired. Just go work like crazy and look up at 25, have a whole bunch of money in your emergency fund, have no money that you owe anybody, and then start investing and you'll be a jillionaire. That's what I would tell you to do. What do you think, Dave?

[Dave Ramsey]

Exactly. Exactly what I would do. And don't buy a car.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

God help you, Dave. I left college.

[Dave Ramsey]

Number one thing we do, we go. I'm out of college. I've got an adult job. I'm going to get an adult car payment. That's a dumb butt idea right there.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

I was driving like a Tercel 88 Tercel hatchback. And when I graduated college. Sexy Dave. I doubled the amount of debt I had after my first year out of college.

[Dave Ramsey]

And it was for cars.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

With a car, I'd never said no to myself. I was. I was rich. I was making whatever, 40 grand a year. I thought I was a millionaire. Don't, please, God, don't buy a car.

[Dave Ramsey]

Don't buy a car. Number one mistake people make in the first two years out of college is they go buy a new car, put

[Dr. John DeLoney]

every spare penny, pay the student loans off.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yep.

[Caller]

Yep.

[Dave Ramsey]

Drive the hooptie. Shut up.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Ride the bike. Keep doing it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Drive the hooptie. If you'll drive like no one else and work like no one else later, you can drive like no one else and work like no one else.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

And people will tell you, you got to take. You got a rest. You take. You're 21. Work like a maniac.

[Dave Ramsey]

Work like a maniac. Be a. Don't be a wussy. You need to rest. Oh, give me a break.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

No, get it done. Yes, get it done, man. And I'll add something else. I just finished this big project, Dave. Go on dates. That's another good thing. It's a good investment for your life. Find somebody to marry cheap dates. That way, if you're driving the same car and you're going on cheap dates, you'll know. You'll know she really likes you.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

So, yes, do it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Let's do It Sheila went out with you and you're driving a hatchback.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

That's how. That's how I knew.

[Dave Ramsey]

This girl's with me, stud. Because that car wasn't.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

She is ride or die. Because that's the car we went on dates with. Or, you know, you're in a bad way when she's like, hey, what if we just took my car and her car was a used Camry? It wasn't like we were. We were cooking. But, no, I knew that girl liked me because of my car.

[Dave Ramsey]

You know, Sharon and I. I had a 1974 Monte Carlo. It was 1982, by the way. But, yeah, we're on our second or third date. And that thing had 480. I mean, it had 200 mile, thousand miles plus on it. It had been hit on every side and fixed. I was on the third transmission in the second engine since I had bought it. I mean, I ran that car.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

That's the most East Tennessee thing I've heard today.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so we're on the third day, and I'm explaining to her I got $1.12 in my checking account, right? And I'm explaining to her how someday I'm going to be a millionaire. And we went across a railroad track, and Merfler fell off my car. I rolled up under the car with the toolbox, put it back on because I'd done it before, and we'll do it again after that, too. And she's like, oh, he's the one. How did that happen?

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Mary and pot.

[Dave Ramsey]

How did that happen? Well, it worked out for. Rick is in Atlanta. Hey, Rick. What's up?

[Caller]

I need your help, Dave. Like Princess Leia says, Obi Wan, you're my only hope. We are in a position where we thought we would not be. We've paid off everything. We have no debt, no mortgage, no nothing Good. But we're in the process where, thanks to age and other things, we're needing to downsize and get a different house.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

We tried to get a HELOC to go ahead and pay for the house that we were thinking about, but because we have no credit, we have no credit score, and so no one will loan us money because we have no credit score. So we're hoping to sell our house and use the proceeds from the house to pay the house that we're going to buy. I'm 65, 66 at the end of the year.

[Dave Ramsey]

How much in your nest egg?

[Caller]

69.

[Dave Ramsey]

Hello.

[Caller]

I took a chunk out of a 403B to pay off the Mortgage. And we've just been.

[Dave Ramsey]

How much in your nest egg?

[Caller]

Not enough. Honestly, I don't know what's not.

[Dave Ramsey]

I mean, Some people think 2 million is not enough. What is in your nest egg?

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Is it 50,000? Is it 800,000? Is it a million?

[Caller]

Actually, we don't really have one. We've got. We've got some cash on hand, but we don't have that much money. I just have. I have a pension that comes in. We have. I have. My wife and I, we do Social Security.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so you cleaned out all of your retirement savings and you have none in order to pay off your mortgage?

[Caller]

No, we've paid off the mortgage.

[Dave Ramsey]

I know you said you took the money out of the 403B to do it.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

And now there's nothing in the 403B.

[Caller]

There's very little. Very little.

[Dave Ramsey]

Like 50 grand

[Caller]

less than that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, okay. All right, That's. I got the idea. That's close enough. Okay, so that's not a source of money. What's your home worth?

[Caller]

Last year, the praise is a little over four, but it's not in the best of shape, so we're probably going to be less than that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, and so how are you going to sell it?

[Caller]

We're going to do what we can. We're clearing stuff out. We're going to try and get everything out and get it as best shape that we can to get it fixed and just sell it as is and hope for the best.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Have you already signed a contract on a new place?

[Caller]

No.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

No.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. So listen, you're broke. You have no money except this house and a pension that's coming in. And I don't want you to have a home equity loan because if the other deal, if it doesn't sell, you're going to have a home equity loan for five years if this doesn't sell. And so I don't. I don't. I wouldn't go with this plan at all. No, I wouldn't do this. What I would do is put your house on the market and sell it and go rent something with the cash in your pocket for six months

[Caller]

or

[Dave Ramsey]

put your house up for sale and then when it does sell, run, buy something and set up a simultaneous closing. But I would not put a home equity loan on your home and then go buy something and then we'll. Well, we'll put it on the market in the spring and then, oh, we gotta work on it and it's gonna be next fall, and then the market slows. Down and it takes you two years to sell it and you're paying a payment the whole time and you don't have a payment now and you have no money now.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Would you recommend someone in his situation buy a house for 250 grand and put 150 back in the.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

In retirement.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Yeah. Put it back into investments. I don't know. They can put it into retirement or not, but investments for a nest egg. Yeah. So that you're not broke. He's talking about moving down.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

So I would put this. I'd fix this house up as much as you can, get it ready, get it market ready, get a Ramsey trusted real estate agent come over and talk to you about it. What you got to do to get it ready, what you put it on the market for, Put it up for sale. And when it sells, delay the closing as long as you can and then go out with money in hand. Buy another house contingent upon your house closing the same day and you close it with the money from the sale of your house. I would not borrow money, period, in this situation. I wouldn't borrow money, period it, but I certainly wouldn't in this situation.

[Caller]

Foreign.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

This show is sponsored by Better Help. Summer is here and listen, everything changes this time of year. The kids are out of school. The routines go out the window. You're traveling more, you're for sure sleeping less. And if you're not careful, you and your family can end up running on fumes. Here's the truth. If you don't slow down this summer and take care of yourself, all that stress is not just going to disappear. It's going to show up in your body, in your work, in your relationships, your patients. It's going to show up everywhere. This is why I'm a big fan of BetterHelp. BetterHelp is an online therapy platform that matches you with a licensed therapist based on your goals and preferences. All of their therapists follow a strict code of conduct and you can message your therapist or schedule sessions right in the BetterHelp app. If it's not the right fit, you can switch therapists at any time for no extra cost. Listen, you don't have to carry everything all by yourself this summer. Go to betterhelp.com Ramsey to get 10% off. That's BetterHelp. H-E-L-P.com Ramsey.

[Dave Ramsey]

When you have the right insurance, it's good defense while your offense is investing. If you only play offense, you lose the game. And if you only play defense, you lose the game. So you need to do both. The right insurance acts as a shield around your loved ones and your wallet. Our free insurance coverage checkup helps you figure out if you have the right coverage or if you're getting ripped off. We give you a personalized action plan with clear next steps. We do not sell insurance. We just tell you what you should do. Go to ramseysolutions.com checkup, take the coverage checkup and find out if you have the right kind of insurance. Andrew's in Portland, Oregon. Hey Andrew, what's up?

[Caller]

Hey fellas, thanks for taking my call. I appreciate it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sure.

[Caller]

So I recently got into a major accident and it is putting a financial strain on me in the way of I don't know if I can afford my daughter' tuition anymore. So I was just kind of curious what you guys thoughts on that were the caveat is there's an emotional aspect of it to where like I rarely see her anymore when she comes home. She spends all of her time at her mom's, she bails on me for Christmas and stuff like that. So I'm just kind of curious what you guys thoughts are on that.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

I would, this is tough to do when everything feels like it's happening all at once. But I would do my best to separate things. And so right now what you're faced with is a mathematical reality. You have a relationship challenge, you've got issues over there on the side, but right now you have a math problem. And conflating the two makes it messier and it makes, it's just going to cause more drama. You're going to have a hard conversation either way. But sitting down with your daughter and saying this has happened and this is my now my financial reality, I can't continue to do this and having this conversation as soon as possible because school starts up in a few months.

[Dave Ramsey]

How much is the tuition?

[Caller]

My part, her mom and I are divorced, so my part of it is 12,000 a year.

[Dave Ramsey]

She's going to be what do you make?

[Caller]

So I was making 75 but the issue is I've been out of work since November because of this accident so I'm on disability.

[Dave Ramsey]

So are you going to be able, are you, are you permanently disabled?

[Caller]

I don't know yet. Still working on getting everything healed. There's lawyers involved so it's a thing. So lots of MRIs, lots of doctors appointments.

[Dave Ramsey]

What happened to you? What's broken?

[Caller]

I got hit by a boat when I was snorkeling and I can't say too much because it's still a legal Thing, but I'll just say that I got hit by a boat while I was snorkeling, so.

[Dave Ramsey]

I mean, lawyers don't heal you. I'm more trying to figure out, aside from the fact there's obviously a lawsuit and obviously that you're going to get a collection from that at some point. I'm more worried about you. Are you going to be able to get back to work? Are you going to. Is your body healing enough that you're going to be able to do something?

[Caller]

I mean, it's been seven months and I've had a couple shots and it hasn't even touched it. So it's kind of looking towards maybe finding a different career path because it's a very physical job that I have. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's fair. Okay.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

All right. So you're living on short term disability insurance, right?

[Caller]

Yeah, And I just got kicked to cobra, my health insurance. So I'm paying for COBRA now. So.

[Dave Ramsey]

So what is your. What is your temporary income?

[Caller]

3,000amonth.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And obviously everyone knows you had this accident last. Your ex and your daughter know that you had this accident, right?

[Caller]

Correct.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Okay.

[Caller]

Yeah. And I messaged the mom and said, hey, is there any way that, like, I can help? You know, and she was. Wasn't very receptive.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

So is this part of a settlement or did you. Is this just a handshake agreement?

[Caller]

This is just a handshake agreement.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. Yeah. Okay. Well, I, Yeah, I think as soon as possible you call your daughter, like today and say, hon, I don't have any money. I'm have a job because I've got this, this and this wrong from the wreck or from the accident. And for right now, I'm not going to be able to pay your tuition. My part of it, even if I wanted to, I couldn't. And it really has nothing to do with the relationship. It's just you simply, like John said, you simply mathematically do not have the money. Okay, that's correct. Am I missing something? I mean, do you have. Do you have a million dollars in a bank account I'm missing?

[Caller]

No. I had this money set. I sold a place and I moved in with a girlfriend and so I had this money set aside.

[Dave Ramsey]

But how much money do you have set aside from that situation?

[Caller]

I have 10 left.

[Dave Ramsey]

$10,000 left from selling the house?

[Caller]

Yes, because she goes to a really expensive school. I've already paid 37. 5.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, no, no, that's not what I'm asking. I'm asking, okay. You sold a house and you Got a lump sum and all you have left of that, all that money is $10,000?

[Caller]

Correct.

[Dave Ramsey]

Where did all that money go?

[Caller]

Tuition. Her tuition.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

You only made 50 grand on the sale of the house?

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. Okay. Yeah. I'm not going to be able to pay tuition this next semester.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

But until I, and until I get an income going and get, you know, enough healed and I have my new career in place and start making some money, I'm not going to be able to help you, hun. I'd like to. And you know, and I know that that's what we talked about, but we also didn't talk about me getting run over with a boat.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so that happened. And I don't have any income and I, you know, I don't have the margin to give you a $12,000 gift right now.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

And my hope would be that if you all had the tightest relationship ever and she came and saw you all the time, y' all were always having lunch together once a week, you'd still be having the same conversation.

[Dave Ramsey]

Exact same conversation.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, we're not doing this to punish her for not coming around and ditching you at Christmas. This is just. You simply don't have the money.

[Caller]

Okay? Yeah, I appreciate that.

[Dave Ramsey]

I mean, if she came around all the time, you still wouldn't have the money.

[Caller]

Correct? Yeah, yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

And just so just make sure you keep that bucketed separate and you know, don't. Well, you know, and by the way, you never come see me. This is not the same conversation.

[Caller]

Right, Right. Okay.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Steal yourself, brother. She's, you know that she's getting an earful from her mom about all the money you got from the sale of the house that's in some secret account somewhere. And you know that she's, she's a senior. She's going to be upset. She should be upset. All that's right and good and fair. You just have to continue to tell the truth and be a person of integrity and you're going to weather the storm of an upset 21 year old. That's just, I mean, that's part of being a parent.

[Caller]

Yeah. Okay.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

I hate this happening, man.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. I'm sorry. I hope you heal, man. Dude, I have been, I've been a diver forever for decades, several hundred dives, and there's nothing scarier than a boat going over the top of your head.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

I, I, I've never had that happen. I can't imagine it.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's like now I'm 40ft deep or 80ft deep, and I'M still scared of it. It's not coming down there. It's not a submarine, but, golly, that.

[Caller]

That.

[Dave Ramsey]

That just gives me chills. He was snorkeling, and so he's just below the surface, probably, or right at the surface. And this boat.

[Caller]

Whoo. Wow.

[Dave Ramsey]

Scary stuff right there. Oh, John's in San Diego. John, what's up?

[Caller]

Hey, guys. I really appreciate you taking my call. It's an honor to speak to both of you.

[Dave Ramsey]

You too.

[Caller]

You guys are my favorite hosts.

[Dave Ramsey]

Thank you.

[Caller]

So, basically a rundown. So I've been a mechanic for 30 years. I lost my job. I was. I know you talk a lot about diesel mechanics. That was my trade. I started a job at 83,000 a year, and I was there for two months, and I was very foolish. And I. I bought a couple items that I've always been wanting. I'm a guitar player. I. I lead worship at my church. And. And I think. John Deloney, I don't know if I've heard you like guitars also, but my

[Dr. John DeLoney]

wife says I have a problem, but go ahead.

[Caller]

I bought a Gibson J45.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

As you should.

[Caller]

And then.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Only if you can afford it, though.

[Dave Ramsey]

But then you lost your job. So what's that guitar worth?

[Caller]

I lost the job, so it's worse because I was stupid and I actually etched my initials to prevent me from being tempted to sell it. I know. It's.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's like, what is it worth?

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Caller]

Well, if you sell it, I say around probably 13 to 1500.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And how much debt do you have?

[Caller]

I have a total of 12,000. Okay.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Yeah, sorry, brother. That guitar's got to go. I've sold guitars to pay bills and to get myself out of credit card mess. I've done the exact thing. I hate it, but you got to.

[Caller]

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[Dr. John DeLoney]

your budget, because programs start at just

[Caller]

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[Dr. John DeLoney]

Go to CHMinistries.org budget and use promo code RAMSEY.

[Caller]

That's CHMinistries.org budget and Use promo code Ramsey.

[Dave Ramsey]

Becky's in Oklahoma City. Hi, Becky, how are you?

[Caller]

Hi, I'm good. Dave, how are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. How can we help?

[Caller]

So my husband and I purchased and remodeled a house and the first contractor that we hired left the job, which caused us to hire another contractor and pay about an additional $75,000 to finish.

[Dave Ramsey]

Why? You had overdrawn, you'd over advance the first contractor?

[Caller]

Yes, essentially.

[Dave Ramsey]

Why would you do that?

[Caller]

A lesson learned there. They told us that they had ordered materials and things were being delivered and of course they weren't. So then we ended up with, you know, no materials and the money paid. So we have consulted with an attorney and we do have a case that we could take against them. However, he did tell us, you know, be prepared, this could cost upwards of 25,000, you know, hopefully less, but a worst case scenario. That's kind of what he has seen in his experience.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And that sounds honest. And the contractor that bailed on you that you would be suing, are they wealthy?

[Caller]

That is our concern. So we originally were a little concerned that they may not be able to pay us. The first refund they offered us was a little under $6,000, which obviously was not anywhere close to appropriate. And so. So our attorney had asked us some of those questions and he did ask us about assets they have. We know they do own two properties and those are in the business name. So that's something that we're trying to now take into consideration. You know, we are.

[Dave Ramsey]

I mean, are they mortgage to the hilt?

[Caller]

One of them is paid for in full, but it is a lot that it looks like they're building a property on. And the other one appears to have about 50,000 in equity from what I can find from their current mortgage owed, filed and then like is the lowest.

[Dave Ramsey]

There's not a construction loan lien against the other property that they're building on?

[Caller]

There is not? Nope. I have not found any liens filed on it.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

How much money did he walk away with?

[Dave Ramsey]

So it cost him 75 grand.

[Caller]

Yeah. So in the end, but to finish our house, we had to pay an additional 75,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

So what would you be suing for? 100 grand. Right.

[Caller]

We would be suing the case would be 475. If we could have them pay attorney cost costs to include up to that 25, that would be 100. Yes, if that's what you're.

[Dave Ramsey]

What I was doing.

[Caller]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm going to sue them for everything. If you're going after them, go after.

[Caller]

Yeah, absolutely. So.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you want to be very, very, very sure that they have the money before you pursue this.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

Or that you could get a property or you can get something out of it. Okay. Because if you get a judgment lien of a hundred thousand bucks against somebody has no money, it was completely useless.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you're going to find the court system to be a complete pain in the butt.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

We have this idea in America that there is justice in our court system. And it's not been my experience. And so I avoid it if I can. Sometimes I have to defend myself, and I do that all the way to the bottom. Right. But you definitely have been wronged. You definitely should be able to recoup the money morally, emotionally, psychologically, financially. But this is gonna be two years of your life, and it only is gonna get you money if you. If they have an asset that you can get a hold of.

[Caller]

Right. And that's kind of where we were. You know, our attorney told us we can seize assets, but I, you know. Okay. Do we just file a lien behind?

[Dave Ramsey]

You'd have to. In Oklahoma, I don't know what you do. You'd have to ask your attorney. But in, in most states, Texas, you can't. But in most states, you would put take a lien against that lot that's worth 100,000 and either in turn they go borrow the money and pay you out, or you have a sheriff's sale and you sell the lot and whatever the lot brings, you get.

[Caller]

Okay. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

And then the same thing again until you get your hundred. But you're going to be in the foreclosure business and in the taking liens on property business. And because I'm guessing these goobers don't have any money sitting in a checking account. It's not a multimillion dollar operation. This is a crook.

[Caller]

No. Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Part of the reason he left is he's incompetent. Part of it's because he's crooked.

[Caller]

Correct.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Okay. Can I throw something else out here?

[Caller]

Sure.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

This is not. This is not have anything to do with math. Okay.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

And I've gotten myself in trouble with this mindset, but it tends to be where my head goes first. You may not recoup your money if you choose to sue him. But I'm thinking about the family that hires this guy that doesn't have the ability to go track down another 75 grand one day. And is there a possibility you can expose this person to protect future families?

[Caller]

Yes. And that has kind of been a thought in our minds as well, is, you know, okay, let's say worst case scenario, we broke even, or maybe we're even out a little bit. Could we help protect this from happening to somebody else? Because I'm honestly surprised it hasn't yet. You know,

[Dr. John DeLoney]

that may be a futile thing. A futile thing, but I don't know.

[Caller]

I just.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

I can't stand people who operate. What was the call like when. When you said, hey, you took $75,000, and they said, well, we'll give you six. How did that call even go?

[Caller]

Not very well. I was asking for spreadsheets and receipts and things to understand because we wanted them to finish the job. And we wanted. We were like, we're not asking you to work for free. We want to pay you if we owe you money, but we have to understand where our prior money we paid you has gone. And they were just not wanting to provide that information. You know, just saying that. That basically we were always in agreement. I said, no, we're not, because I have text messages from you that. That show that we had a difference in communication. And so they just weren't very friendly.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

So their story is you owed us this money, Correct?

[Caller]

Yeah. And that we still owed them more, even though they couldn't tell us what we owed them more for.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Nice.

[Caller]

And so then ultimately I said, well, I think our funds have been misused somewhere. And then that caused them to say, we're not coming back to finish your house. So we said, okay, well, that's how it is then. We expect the materials we've paid for to be delivered, and we want a refund for any labor that hasn't been done that we've paid for. We want refund for materials that we've paid for that can't be delivered here. And that's where they turned out that there was about $6,000 worth. Yeah.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

That gets my blood boiling. I can't stand bullies. I can't. I get, like. I can't. Yeah. It gets me fired up.

[Caller]

Yeah. And that's what's been hard, too, is, you know, there's obviously been a lot of emotion wrapped up in the case, but at the end of the day, we're Thinking, well, what's the most financially smart decision? And we don't, we're not going to go into debt for this. You know, we refuse to take out a loan to pay for.

[Dave Ramsey]

The most financially smart decision is forget it and move on.

[Caller]

Right? Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's the most financially smart decision. But then the question is, you know, do you, do you need to punch a hole in the universe here? And some. Sometimes you do, you know.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sometimes you do. And my wife, I've done that a couple times.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

My wife has told me there's too many holes in the universe, John, stop punching. That's my thing.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's going, going to, it's going to cost you more in emotion, more in money, more in time. And running this over and over and over in your head, then it's going to benefit you.

[Caller]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

You know, so. And you know it, you're just not going to go in in 20 minutes in front of Judge Wapner or Judge Judy and they're going to go, oh, you rip these people off them $75,000. You know, that's not how this goes. Okay.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

This is a long, drawn out, blood sucking process. So you be, be steeled, be emotionally buffered, ready to go in for the long marathon if you're going to do this.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

And shout out Dave for the Judge Wapner reference.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

How great is that?

[Dave Ramsey]

There you go.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

That's. That's OG call out right there.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, I mean, before there was Judy.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Before there was Judy, there was Judge Wapner. Well done, man.

[Dave Ramsey]

If you run a business, you already know this. Bad information leads to bad decisions. And right now, AI is everywhere. But AI is only as good as the data behind it. The best AI is built on the best data. That's why I recommend NetSuite. NetSuite is the number one AI cloud ERP, and more than 43,000 businesses run on it, including us here at Ramsey Solutions. Their AI isn't bolted on, it's built in. And it connects everything that runs your business, accounting, inventory, customer data, all in one place. Because when your numbers are connected, AI actually works like it's supposed to. NetSuite's AI helps flag cash flow problems, spot inventory issues, close your books faster, and cut down on manual reporting. If your revenue is at least seven figures. Go to netsuite.com Ramsey for a free product tour. That's netsuite.com Ramsey. Welcome back to the Ramsey show and the Fairwinds Cross Credit Union Studio. I'm Dave Ramsey. Dr. John DeLoney is my co host Claire is in Charleston, South Carolina. Hi, Claire. How are you?

[Caller]

I'm doing well. How are y'? All?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than we deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

I really appreciate you guys giving me some advice on this issue. I see a train coming down the tunnel and I'm stuck on the tracks. My parents are. Are a little bit past retirement age and they do not have two nickels to rub together to make a fire. But they are always coming back to me and relying on me to help them out constantly. I even paid their bills for them for a very long time. All their utilities and what have you for a very long time. I finally had to put my foot down and say, no more. This is ridiculous. You guys have. Have made a lot of money and got a lot of money and they just blow every dime there is and keep coming back to the well. But now the well is, hey, I need money for groceries. Hey, I need money for medicine and things of that nature. I'm debt free. I've saved up. I've done everything. I've went by your principles, and now I'm not sure what I need to do to help them out.

[Dave Ramsey]

What is your nest egg? What's your net worth?

[Caller]

Mine is without my house. I have about. About 300.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm sorry, how much again?

[Caller]

300,000. Okay. With my savings account.

[Dave Ramsey]

How old are you?

[Caller]

My. I am 45.

[Dave Ramsey]

And what do you make?

[Caller]

I make 130 a year.

[Dave Ramsey]

And are you single?

[Caller]

I am. It's just me and my daughter.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And how old are mom and dad?

[Caller]

Mom has turned 74 and she just went through a really bad bout at the hospital last year where she can't do anything anymore. And my father, he is 69 and he is working part time and he has like a bunch of side hustles, but they have. They still owe everybody money and taxes and Social Security and they owe everybody money. So they're so stuck.

[Dave Ramsey]

Social Security?

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

How do you owe. So they're supposed to be getting Social Security.

[Caller]

I do not know. It was. It was something they did. They were taking Social Security while one of them was working because they were still working in full time while taking Social Security. I don't know the whole thing, but they just keep looking at me.

[Dave Ramsey]

But they're now. They're now getting Social Security checks, right?

[Caller]

They are, but they're going to start garnishing all of their money because they owe it back. Social Security overpayment. Yes. So they're in a really tough spot.

[Dave Ramsey]

And what's their home worth?

[Caller]

They have no home. They are renting and I pay for their car for them, so they haven't got ever worry about that. So I just. I don't know what else to do to help them.

[Dave Ramsey]

So you're paying a car payment or you bought them a car?

[Caller]

No, no, I bought their car.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so they have a car. Okay.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

But basically you're sure they have no income coming from Social Security or this is just the story they told?

[Caller]

Well, they have income coming in right now, and I'm trying to work with the Social Security Administration to not garnish so much so they can still live and all the paperwork. And I'm working on Medicaid, I'm working on all these things, trying to help them out, but I just can't keep all the plates in the air spinning and also deplete everything that I've.

[Dave Ramsey]

Are you their only child?

[Caller]

No, I'm a child. I'm one of ten.

[Dave Ramsey]

Where's the other ones?

[Caller]

Some of them are adopted, so. And they're very young, so I'm. They're just now starting their life out, so I've not asked them for anything. The other ones, they are not financially stable whatsoever. I am the only one that has no debt, that has bought a house, that has done all the things and done the responsible things. Everybody else is. Went kind of sideways. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

You do not have the money to 100% support two households. You don't make enough.

[Caller]

No. No.

[Dave Ramsey]

So you're going to have to decide a dollar amount, one dollar or more that you are going to commit to this.

[Caller]

I did that already.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

And.

[Dave Ramsey]

And then after that, after that, the answer is just no.

[Caller]

Okay?

[Dave Ramsey]

It's just no. I'm sorry, Mom. I just don't have the money. I'm sorry, Dad. I have this much money and I'm giving you enough to cover your lights and your groceries. There's that coming in. And I can't cover the other stuff. You're gonna have to do something else. You have to figure it out.

[Caller]

Yeah, because I did that for years and they took the little bit of money they did have and blew it. So that's why, I guess because you get to decide.

[Dave Ramsey]

You get to. You told me three times how bad they are with money, which means you resent giving them money. So a zero is a possible amount to give them.

[Caller]

Okay. Or I'm just trying to honor them and take care of them.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, you're not honoring them. That's bull. Honor your parents from the Bible does not mean give money to people who are misbehaving. That is not what that bible reference means. It means that we honor the office of father, the office of mother. But if your mother's doing cocaine, we don't give her cocaine and call that honoring your mother. That's bull. Okay? So no, you're there misbehaving and we're not going to honor their misbehavior period. Now you get to decide how involved you still want to be in this. You could go all the way to I'm going to give you $500 a month and you're going to give me your Social Security check in control of your money. And you don't get to spend anything except what I say. And that way I know you're buying groceries and your lights are kept on because you people are acting like you're 14 years old and you live in Congress. Actually, there's 14 year olds that do a better job than you people.

[Caller]

You're correct.

[Dave Ramsey]

You know, you can go that far and just take over and take care of them as if they're complete imbeciles, which they may be. Okay? Or you can say, I'm going to do nothing. I've done all I'm going to do. Good luck with it over there. Figure it out, boys and girls. You're freaking adults. You can say that there's nothing wrong morally with any of that, but you decide where in there. But your problem, what's driving you crazy is there is a constant moving target that you have allowed. And once you say no more moving target, then you're going 100% chance you're going to get pushback from this them,

[Caller]

okay?

[Dave Ramsey]

Because they have bound. They're boundaryless people. And when you set a boundary with boundaryless people, 100% of the time they resist it.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

And you have in the past and they've run right through it, right?

[Caller]

Well, yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

So I'm going to get. I'm going to give you this amount of money and no more. And I'm just going to send you the check and y' all figure it out.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

I'll tell you what I would do. I would buy a grocery car and I would take. I would pay directly to the light company. I'm not giving anybody money anymore.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, that's good too. I'm gonna send you 200 worth of grocery cards from Publix every month and I'm gonna pay your light bill through the end of the year.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

There's no way that you don't feel bad about what comes next. The person I want you to not feel bad about is you.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. 100% chance they're gonna piss you off. Hey, guys, Dave Ramsey here. Every day on this show, we help people work through real money problems and figure out what to do next. Now, you can get that same kind of help anytime with Ask Ramsey, Ask your money question and get answers built on Ramsey principles we use on the show. Whether you're making a decision or just want something explained, Ask Ramsey is here to help. It's fast, simple, and free to use. Go to ramseysolutions.com and try Ask Ramsey today. That's ramseysolutions.com. Mary is in Virginia. Hi, Mary, how are you?

[Caller]

Hi. Thank you for taking my call.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sure. What's up?

[Caller]

I, about two weeks ago discovered over 100,000 in debt from my husband that I was previously unaware of. We are a military family and he will retire in eight months. So I'm trying to wrap my head around all of it and how I can pay that off in eight months since our economic situation will change drastically then. And I was looking at a heloc, even though that's not something that I necessarily want to do. But I'm wondering if that is going to be our best option because again, we'll like completely lose his paycheck in eight months. Not completely. Obviously, like, he'll get retirement, but I have.

[Dave Ramsey]

How long has he been in the military?

[Caller]

22 years.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so he's getting 20 year retirement, which is pretty strong.

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

What's the debt?

[Caller]

92,262, 85 cents from two cars, a credit card, and a personal expense. And then I found a fourth account, like F O R T H where it looks like he submitted to get them to negotiate the debts. And there was 28,532 in there. And then I have 33,000 in credit card debt as well, too.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so you guys were not handling your money together. He's handling his money over here. And he wasn't hiding it. He just didn't tell you. I mean, you don't have car debt with cars sitting in the driveway and you're confused that we own cars. You knew you own cars?

[Caller]

Yeah, We've been married for five years and I tried to combine our finances and he fought it like an uphill battle up until last month when he pulled money from a joint account. And when I was asking why he needed that much money, I just kind of like really put my foot down and I was like, I really need access to all the accounts. And that's when Everything kind of just unpacked because I realized that he had been pulling money from other accounts. He was spending 800 on eating out, 300 on gaming. And there's just.

[Dave Ramsey]

You guys really had substantially separate lives.

[Caller]

Yes. Financially.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, I mean lives. Your lives were separate. He had a whole life over there to the side that you weren't even half watching.

[Caller]

I mean I knew that he was eating out all the time and the gaming, it's just, I didn't know that it was that severe. And even when I brought it up about him eating at home and all these things, he just, and it just the car thing was something that caused a huge fight.

[Dave Ramsey]

So now where is his head today? Because he was bullheaded and didn't want to do anything smart back then. Is he now still defensive of this ridiculous position?

[Caller]

When I took over everything and I basically couldn't sleep and saw everything, I had to sit him down and say for my mental capacity and my nervous system regulation, I need everything. So I took his cars. He's only living on cash of the last two weeks. If he needs something, he has to ask me for it. I removed every like credit card off of Amazon door that like I've deleted everything from his phone. Like I just, I needed to have complete control of everything. And so I now have complete control of the finances. And he hasn't said anything. I don't know that he's on board,

[Dr. John DeLoney]

but he's just, well, this will last for a second.

[Caller]

Yes. It's not going to last. That obviously not sustainable.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

So think of it as the words we use around here is financial infidelity.

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

You found out he was cheating on you and it's important to come up with a seven day plan and then another seven day plan on I need to, I need to know that I can trust you for seven days. And that's often like when somebody cheats on you. Like, I want no more phone, no more this. Right. And but, but you got to do this money thing together.

[Caller]

I don't think he wants to, but.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Well, and, and you have to ask your. He. I mean, if behavior is a language, he's telling you I don't want to be married to you. I'm not interested in sharing a life with you. I like you at home taking care of the stuff. So I can go do whatever I want, buy cars I can't afford and go out to meals I can't afford. But I don't want to build a life with you.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

And that's hard to metabolize. But that's what's. That's if. If behavior is a language. That's what he's telling you pretty loud and clear here. So when you said, hey, both of these cars, we're selling them tomorrow, what's the response?

[Caller]

He would ask, how is he getting to work? I'm with the kids.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

A bicycle.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Because if you sell both these cars, that clears up a chunk of the debt.

[Caller]

Right?

[Dave Ramsey]

A scooter.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Yeah. Get him a moped.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, I'm not kidding.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

I'm not playing at all. Yeah, I mean, this is a big deal, but the fracture is. I mean, or you're not retiring, you go back, you reenlist for four more years. Because we don't have the money to retire.

[Caller]

Yeah, he can't. He can't realize, like, he's at the rank where he can't. Like, there's a possibility that he could advance in August, but he's not. That's not a guarantee, obviously. And so he's. That he's tapped out. He's. He's. He's. He's done as much time as he can. Well, I mean, but then it's not moving.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Okay, but then it's. He retires from the military and goes and gets a job the next day.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

And takes a military retirement. And all those checks go in one pile to clean this message. Okay, so if we sell all the cars, we don't have $100,000 in debt, right?

[Caller]

No. We also have three houses, so that's.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, okay, we'll sell two of them,

[Caller]

which is not what I want to do, because two of them are renting out.

[Dave Ramsey]

I don't want you to do any of this. I didn't want you to discover that this separate life you were leading led to an absolute disaster because your husband was moronic with his handling of his side of the money, and you guys never bothered to be intertwined enough in your marriage to know what the other one was doing. I don't want any of that for you, but that is where we are. You have $100,000 in debt and. No, I would not take out a home equity loan and keep another property that's an investment property and run the debt up on my home, because right now, all this debt is in his name. Right? You didn't sign any of the.

[Caller]

It. No.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, So, I mean, if there's a divorce, it's his, so I'm not running up a home equity loan on our

[Dr. John DeLoney]

home, especially if his.

[Dave Ramsey]

In case this whole thing comes crashing down.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

If he hasn't fallen on the floor in front of you and said, I'm going to do whatever it takes. I want to keep this marriage.

[Dave Ramsey]

Instead, he's just sitting over there sucking his thumb in the corner like a whip pup.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Yeah. So you're going to take out a home equity loan, put your house on the block, and then he may go buy another car tomorrow.

[Caller]

I mean, when I started telling him how this is ridiculous, the amount of debt he was, he tried to say, throw it in my face, that it was the house's fault, that we. It was my investor in the family, I guess. And so he was like, the house's fault. And I was like, you can't say that. This started when we started buying houses because you didn't have anything to your name before you got married to me.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

How much equity do you have in those houses?

[Caller]

My property that I bought before we were married has. Has over 200,000 equity in it. The property that we bought together when we got married has over maybe 50. And then the last property, which is the one that is the one that we're not losing money on, it's just the one that we live in. And the one that's the hardest because it was a multifamily, because I thought I could scale up, because again, like you said, we weren't living separate financial lives. And I thought that that's where we were at, is the one that even if I tried to sell it, we would maybe break even. We would clear our overhead as far as bills. But this house still needs work.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Okay, but you just told me two really easy things. You sell the. The joint house y' all bought together, and it brings in 50 grand, and then you sell both the cars and you're debt free. Okay, I mean it. None of this you want to do. But again, I'm way more worried about your marriage and your financial situation, to be honest with you.

[Dave Ramsey]

You. You guys have got to grow past this and combine everything and. And become a team, not a. A scolding mother.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

And that means you don't buy rental houses without y' all both saying, this is what we want to do together. We want to be landlords. And he doesn't buy.

[Dave Ramsey]

There's no more you and me. There's now we or we or there's not going to be a we we. Because, you guys, this is exposed. The situation has exposed the weakness in the system that you were using. The system you were using doesn't work. We don't. We do not find in all the Data and the research and the people that we study, people who become wealthy, living extremely separate lives while married, they just don't. And this is the reason is this kind of stuff happens only we only find that there are hand in glove, working together, symbiotic and aligned on our values and aligned on our goals and aligned on our targets and pointing and firing at the target and firing at the target together. And you guys got to get back to that. And then you've also got to get rid of the debt. And the way you get rid of the debt is sell the house and the cars.

[Caller]

Hey, guys, Rachel Cruz here. And I love summer. There is more fun on the calendar, more time with your people and way more chances to make memories.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

But you know what else?

[Caller]

There's more of spending. Oh, between the extra groceries and gas and camp fees and family trips, it all starts to add up so fast. And before you know it, money stress starts to steal the fun out of everything. And that is why I love the EveryDollar budget app because it helps you plan your money, track your spending, and find more margin in your budget so that you can put extra cash towards the goals that matter most. Enjoy your summer without the money stress.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Download the EveryDollar app in the App

[Caller]

Store or Google Play and start for free today.

[Dave Ramsey]

Buying or selling a home is a big decision. With so much conflicting housing market news, hard to know what's really going on. We keep up with the market and all the trends and do all the research. And if you want to know what's going on, go to ramseysolutions.com market or click the link in the show Notes if you're listening on the podcast or YouTube and you'll be like, up to date on what's really going on, that kind of thing. So that's the whole idea. Now, if you're going to get an agent, you want to get a Ramsey trusted agent, because that's someone if you're going to buy or sell that does a whole bunch of transactions and that we have spent time with. We trust them because they're excellent at what they do. Proven professionals. Mark's in Omaha, Nebraska. Mark, what's up?

[Caller]

Hey, Dave. So I just graduated college, I lived on campus all four years, and I'm officially, you know, moving out now and going to tackle the world. But my question is, while researching places, I have discovered that rent isn't just the number listed. And obviously there's a bunch more expenses. Gas, electric, wi fi. So with this being my official move out, my first official move out into my own place and not in a college dorm. How much should I be willing to spend and still be confident in the place? Place I live?

[Dave Ramsey]

25% of your take home pay or less.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Is that for rent and all the.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, just the rent.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Just the rent?

[Caller]

Yeah, just the rent.

[Dave Ramsey]

Or less.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's the most. Less is good because rent. What are you doing when you're renting? We're. We're sitting there planning to buy, and we're planning to buy by saving money to buy someday. Three years, two years, whatever, right? And the more rent we pay, the less money we can save, so. Or less is a good number.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

The least possible rent that you can get by is the best number, but 25% your max.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

What's the new job? What are you making?

[Caller]

89,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

Doing what?

[Caller]

Electrical engineer.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Congrats, man.

[Dave Ramsey]

Way to go. First job out of college, making 90. What a world we live in. Look at you. Way to go.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Do you have any student loan debt coming out?

[Caller]

I do not, bro.

[Dave Ramsey]

How'd you do that?

[Caller]

I was very blessed. My parents.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, you were blessed. Where'd you go to college?

[Caller]

I went to a small school in hell, Iowa.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, good for you. And you're going to be living in Omaha or where are you gonna be living? Living.

[Caller]

I'm moving down to Lincoln.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, good for you. All right.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Hey, if you can sit, if you can. If you can live dorm life for two years, three years, and just stack

[Dave Ramsey]

cash, meaning don't rent something fancy.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Rent something that your mom, when she comes to visit you, goes, I thought. I thought you were doing well.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, I'm worried about you. Do I need to pray for you?

[Caller]

You?

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Yeah. And if you can, God help you. Don't buy a new car. Just keep the same car. Even though all your colleagues will be like, what are you doing, man? Park at the back of the lot or park in the front.

[Dave Ramsey]

Just three years of doing that, straight out of college, making 90. You're going to stack cash. Let me tell you how I know this is going to work. We did the largest survey a millionaire's ever done, mark 10,167 of them. One of the things we researched was what occupations showed up the most often among millionaires. Number one occupation among millionaires? Engineer.

[Caller]

You.

[Dave Ramsey]

You. I'm excited for you, brother. It's going to be an awesome life ahead of you.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

But listen, you're not prepared for all of the people who are going to be barking at you when they know that you're doing well about what you should be doing, doing. You should be buying a new car, you should be buying all new suits. You should be getting a fancy apartment. If you can weather that noise for a couple of three years, you will set future you up. So. So.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, yeah, write this down and put it on your mirror. Dogs don't bark at parked cars.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

What does that mean?

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, if, if you're, if you're moving and you're doing stuff, stuff, somebody's going to be barking.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Oh, There you go.

[Dave Ramsey]

100% of the time. So everybody's got an opinion about your money. Just get ready.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

But by the way, this is a great example. Parents were able to support him and take care of him, take care of his college. But also it's clear they taught him well because he's asking good questions. At 21, 21 year old me with no college debt, making 90 grand. If, I mean that's way more than I was making, but, but I would have been, I would have ended that year 100 grand in debt.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh yeah, for sure. Gotta buy a house, gotta buy a car. Gotta buy, gotta buy, gotta buy, gotta buy, gotta buy, gotta buy, gotta buy. I would have had a cars. Yeah, you do. And this young man is just like he's asking, okay, how can, what's, how, what should I spend on rent? And he actually called like a national show to ask that.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

And I bet Lincoln, Nebraska, I don't know the market, but I bet the Midwest is a good place to fairly, fairly affordable get us get a nice three bedroom, two bath house in a few years.

[Dave Ramsey]

Man, he could be all cash for it if he watches what he's doing. Yep, it could happen. It happens in America right now among 21 year olds. Turns out socialism does suck and capitalism is amazing. All right, Ashley's with us in Raleigh, North Carolina. Hey, Ashley. Ashley, how can we help?

[Caller]

Hi, how are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve.

[Caller]

Thank you for taking my call. I'm wondering if financially my husband can retire early due to health concerns. I think he can, but he doesn't want to quit because he doesn't want to put that burden on me to work longer and be the sole provider.

[Dave Ramsey]

What do you make?

[Caller]

I make 130.

[Dave Ramsey]

And if he retires, is there any money coming from his retirement? How old is he?

[Caller]

He's, he's 57. Okay, so no, it'll be retiring without any retirement. Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

What does he make today?

[Caller]

100.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so your income's going to go in half from, from 230 to 130, right?

[Caller]

Correct. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Ed, can you do that.

[Caller]

I think we can.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, it's not a thing.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

It's a math.

[Dave Ramsey]

A math problem.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

That's how I did math in elementary school. I think it's four. Four times four?

[Caller]

Yes. Math wise, we can.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so you did a budget on your income, and you can exist on that budget.

[Caller]

I have done a budget, yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

On your income?

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

He looked at it and he looked at it and. So how old are you?

[Caller]

I'm 55.

[Dave Ramsey]

And how much is in your old nest eggs?

[Caller]

About a million.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good for you. Well done. House paid for yet?

[Caller]

On it.

[Dave Ramsey]

You broke up. Do it again.

[Caller]

We have 75,000 left on it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. How much do you have in savings? That's not retirement.

[Caller]

130.

[Dave Ramsey]

Pay off the house today.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

That was easy. And now it's a lot easier to live on 130 than it was 10 minutes ago.

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good. I like it so far. What's his health condition at 57?

[Caller]

He has heart disease.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And has had heart surgery or is going to.

[Caller]

Or he. Yes, he has.

[Dave Ramsey]

He had. He had heart surgery.

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And it. And he didn't repair. He's not going to come back or what?

[Caller]

Well, physically, he can still do some stuff, but it's, you know, it's a. It's a genetic. And it's. It's not going to get better. I mean, he. He. He can still work. It just. We're trying to. Mentally, the stress is also there.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. So. All right. So it's possible that he could do something that didn't create stress and did not stress his heart, either physically or mentally. Okay. And probably not what he's doing today.

[Caller]

Correct.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Sitting on the couch is probably not a good prognosis, though.

[Caller]

No, he would not be able to sit on the couch.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, I didn't think so. But he may need to get away from the track he was on prior to the heart attack or the heart surgery or whatever we had here. I'm not a medical doctor, but it sounds like he needs to get away from the stress of this job and find something that he can physically easily do and without the stress. Stress. And he might only be making 50, right?

[Caller]

Correct. Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Let's go that route and pay off the house today. And for sure. For sure he needs to check out of that other job. I'm with you, but well done setting

[Dr. John DeLoney]

yourselves up for when life happened. Y' all were financially ready. Both of y' all are doing great.

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

You got paid for house.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Yeah. You got a million dollars in the bank about to Have a paid off house before the day is over. That gives y' all a ton of options.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, at 55 and 57. Ding ding. Millionaires. I just talked to another one. There they go. Hey Mark, that I talked to a minute ago. That's your future right there. Except you're going to get there at 35. Hey, George Camel here.

[Caller]

We often talk about how being normal

[Dr. John DeLoney]

sucks when it comes to your money.

[Dave Ramsey]

But guess what? Normal isn't so great when it comes

[Caller]

to your job either.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Normal is staying in a job you hate, dreading Mondays, and working for people

[Dave Ramsey]

you don't even like. Sound familiar? Well, the good news is you can

[Dr. John DeLoney]

break free from normal because Ramsey Solutions

[Caller]

is hiring and we refuse to settle for the ordinary.

[Dave Ramsey]

In fact, we are anything but normal and we are proud of it.

[Caller]

And right now we're hiring for technology, sales, marketing, writing, copy editing and creative roles.

[Dave Ramsey]

So head over to ramseysolutions.com careers and apply today. Our scripture of the day, Luke 6. 38. Give and it will be given to you a good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over. It will be poured into your lap. J. Paul Getty said money is like manure. You have to spread it around or it smells. This is true. Brian is in Arkansas. Hey Brian, what's up?

[Caller]

Hey, how's it going, Dave?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. How can we help?

[Caller]

So I was looking for some advice on making a highly irresponsible financial decision.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yes,

[Dr. John DeLoney]

I love those.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, at least we've analyzed this properly. What in the world?

[Caller]

So my wife and I retired four years ago. I'm 48 years old as a lieutenant paramedic in the fire department due to medical condition. And so we have pretty consistent income. We have about $7,500 a month in income. And I'm about to gain another 2500, potentially. That was completely unexpected.

[Dave Ramsey]

So $10,000 a month income. You're 48 years old and you're not working.

[Caller]

And our. Our house is completely paid off. We have no vehicle. We have. We have no debt other than a loan I gave to my brother a little while ago, which. Which I'm not concerned about. It's not a ton of money, but. But really no credit card debt, nothing whatsoever. We are.

[Dave Ramsey]

We're pretty borrowed money to give to your brother.

[Caller]

I took a portion of a little 15,000 home equity line. He's my family. I know that's also irresponsible, but he's my blood.

[Dave Ramsey]

Do you have any cash?

[Caller]

Do I. Yeah. So everything. I dumped all of our savings into Land and our home. After I was diagnosed with something the doctor said could potentially take my life. And so I went. I decided to safeguard my wife's future because she gets my pension if I pass away. And so I ultimately made a decision which we follow. We went to FPU 20 years ago, and we got. We did everything you said to do, and it's been awesome. I'm so thankful to you for that. But when I was diagnosed. Diagnosed with my epilepsy, the doctor pretty much told me that at any point in time, the next one could be your last one. And so that's a hard words to swallow. So I just made a decision and said, you know what? I'm gonna buy a home, cash. We're gonna buy vehicles, cash. And I know she gets my pension. So just doing the basic math, if anything happens to me, my wife is good for the rest of her life. And that was the decision I made. Whether or not that was wise or not.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you have no cash?

[Caller]

We don't have a ton of cash. We have. We have land, though, and stuff that's very liquid, if necessary.

[Dave Ramsey]

How much cash do you have?

[Caller]

Maybe $15,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. That's not much of an emergency fund in this situation.

[Caller]

Okay, it's not.

[Dave Ramsey]

And what is the land worth?

[Caller]

The land's about $150,000, and the. The home is about 425.

[Dave Ramsey]

Why is the land liquid? I don't think the market is.

[Caller]

Is. Well, the market here is just. It's hot. And so if I listed the land for sale. I say liquor, it's the wrong term. But I listed the land for sale. I'm confident that each parcel would sell for within a week or two. It's very, very popular.

[Dave Ramsey]

Does your wife work outside the home?

[Caller]

No, she. She. She's my boss. I have a home inspection business and a handyman business that she runs. And so she. She does that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Is that part of the $10,000 income? Income?

[Caller]

No, that's completely separate. That. That is upwards of about. I don't add that because it's not the. I say guarantee, but it's not part of pension or.

[Dave Ramsey]

What are you making on that?

[Caller]

About 60,000 a year.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so. So you have a $15,000 a month income and you have no cash. Where's all your money going?

[Caller]

This. This just started. And so this is all relatively new. All this income literally has been generated and established in the last. The last, say about two years, and I'd say about half of it in the last.

[Dave Ramsey]

I think I got the picture. Sorta mostly now. What's the irresponsible decision we're gonna make?

[Caller]

Right, so here's the irresponsible decision. If we were to get this additional $2,500 a month, we. I don't know the answer to the question or I know I'm calling, but we are really wanting to do the great loop, if you're familiar with it, where you buy a, a large, you know, two bedroom, two bath bombs boat and you pretty much travel on the water full time. And, and I, I'm pretty confident that I could do that with about 50% of that additional $2500 a month as far as the debt we would incur. So purchasing the boat is the, is the highly irresponsible decision.

[Dave Ramsey]

What's the boat cost?

[Caller]

I'm pretty confident I could get the boat. About 150 000.

[Dave Ramsey]

Why don't you rent the boat?

[Caller]

Boat? Impossible. I assure you, I've tried and tried. Nobody will do that. There's no organization on the plant that will just rent a boat and it would probably cost triple or quadruple if it existed.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, well, I mean, yeah, you're right. You know the answer to the question. I'm not going to finance a boat. I love the idea. It kind of sounds cool. Cool. I'm not a sailor, I'm a mastercraft water ski guy. But, but either way I think it's a cool idea. I would save up and buy a boat and do that. And then maybe it's not. Maybe it doesn't require $150,000 boat to do it.

[Caller]

Right. The only other option I was going to suggest was we were debating selling everything, home, land and everything, and buying a smaller home, paying for the boat in cash.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, you can do that.

[Caller]

Directions do that.

[Dave Ramsey]

If you want to go that bad. Yeah, yeah. Or you can. Or you could wait a couple of years and save up.

[Caller]

You know, everyone I hear that Waits gets sick and they never do it. And so I think we're ready to go.

[Dave Ramsey]

You're 48. Please don't be drama queen.

[Caller]

Well spoken.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, no, I mean I. If you want to say, if you want to sell everything and go do it, then you can sell the boat at the end and come back home and re establish your life. You know, if the two of you want to do this thing, I mean, what's it take? About a year to do it, doesn't it?

[Caller]

For a year? I'm sorry, we would do it for one year. Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. I mean I've known a few people that did it. And they're, they're say, you know, they're sailboat fanatics and they're. It's like the favorite thing they ever did in their life, that kind of stuff. But, yeah, I, you've, you set yourself up in a life that allows you to go do this. But I would only do it if I paid cash. And, and if you're, if you, if your wife, you both, you have kids

[Caller]

at home, so our, our daughter is leaving the Navy in a month and a half, and our son, Our son just got back from the Air Force, and he is very well established for himself.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, good. All right. So there's nobody. So, you know, I don't think. I wouldn't call it financially irresponsible if you pay cash for it by selling off stuff or save up the cash. I would absolutely yell at you if you take out payments to do this when you especially. You got other options to do it.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Yeah, it, yeah, that's, I mean, that's all. That's good.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. I mean, but would you do that? Would you? I, I, I don't want to go that far back for, you know, I don't want to take that many mother may I steps backward to do something that I think is a dream. Because every time I've done something that, that I thought was going to be the coolest thing ever, it never has quite lived up to way it was in my head, right.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

And I, to me, that feels like a. You're scratching a lottery ticket on because you're basically pausing real life for a year to go literally, on a fantasy ride. And then you're gonna come back to real life. And I would want to be honest with myself about what I thought that was gonna do for me. I have found being gone for many nights in a row, I start to really want my own bed and I want my own light. But everybody's different. Everybody's got their own adventures. I would struggle, and this does not make it right. And I'd probably have to check myself. I would struggle at, at my thinking of my kids at my funeral and them evaluating how much that land is worth that dad sold for his boat ride.

[Caller]

Right?

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Like, and that's a stupid way to live your life. But right now, yeah, I'd have to ask myself, do I want to sell everything, scorch earth, and take a year off of life? And I'm gonna get back. I'm gonna have to jump right back into real. The real world world. That'd be tough for me. But also I also know when you're, when you're like him and you have an opportunity, the people I've spoken to, to peer over the edge of this thing called you may not be here tomorrow. It tends to spark some fire in your eyes to like, I'm going to go live life right now. And the balance is, do you have to pause life for a year and go, go sailing, you know, or can you live life now in your own seat? I don't know.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, that's a, that's a big live life now move.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

It's a huge all in live life now move.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. But yeah, if you, if you, you probably could sell the boat for almost as much as you bought it for a year later, after you're, after you make the run and then come back home and buy a house, could you

[Dr. John DeLoney]

buy somebody's boat who just made the run for.

[Dave Ramsey]

I don't know. Yeah, I'm just, I don't know. I'm thinking if you're walking around with cash, you might make a different boat decision. I know you would than you would if you otherwise. That puts us hour of the Ramsey show in the book. So we'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of peace, Christ Jesus.