It’s Never Too Late to Start Building Wealth

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Ramsey Show – "It’s Never Too Late to Start Building Wealth"

Host: George Campbell
Co-Host: Dr. John DeLoney
Release Date: January 20, 2025
Podcast Description: The Ramsey Show empowers listeners to take control of their finances, build wealth, and create fulfilling lives regardless of past financial missteps.

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1. Introduction and Listener Engagement

The episode kicks off with George Campbell promoting the upcoming live stream titled "Take Control of Your Money," encouraging listeners to participate for a chance to win $4,000 (00:00). He emphasizes the importance of listener feedback through an annual survey, offering a $500 gift card incentive for participation (00:00).

2. Caller Andrea from Phoenix: Balancing Home Ownership and Retirement Savings

Summary:
Andrea, a 60-year-old employed individual with $69,000 in her 401(k), seeks advice on owning a home while saving for retirement. Living with minimal expenses, she aims to relocate back to Ohio.

Key Points:

• Income and Savings: Andrea brings home approximately $2,864 monthly, with over $2,154 remaining after essential expenses (01:34).
• Savings Strategy: She has $45,000 in savings but currently invests only 1% of her income (03:12).
• Advice: George and John stress the importance of increasing her savings rate to at least 15% for retirement and investing wisely to outpace inflation (04:15). They discuss the feasibility of continuing her current lifestyle while building a substantial nest egg (08:25).

Notable Quote:
George Campbell advises, "You can’t save your way to wealth. We have to invest this money" (04:57).

3. Caller Gene from Fort Lauderdale: Recovering from Financial Fraud

Summary:
Gene shares his experience of being scammed by a friend, resulting in significant debt accumulation.

Key Points:

• Debt Situation: Gene lost approximately $35,000 through Cash App and Apple Cash, leading to over $100,000 in various debts (12:37).
• Emotional Impact: Dr. John emphasizes the need for Gene to forgive himself and move forward, highlighting that everyone makes financial mistakes (14:24).
• Recovery Plan: George recommends increasing income, potentially through additional jobs, and avoiding further borrowing to gradually eliminate debt (19:03).

Notable Quote:
Dr. John DeLoney states, "The more you hang on to that, the more you're choosing to be miserable in the present and to not be able to move forward" (14:43).

4. Caller Tanner from Manhattan, Kansas: Utilizing a Trust Fund to Pay Off Debts

Summary:
Tanner, a recent graduate and soon-to-be-married individual, inquires about using a trust fund to pay off student loans totaling around $60,000.

Key Points:

• Trust Fund Details: The trust is expected to hold approximately $250,000, with access contingent upon family agreements (22:37).
• Financial Strategy: George advises prioritizing debt repayment while also building personal savings to ensure financial independence (25:14).
• Family Dynamics: Dr. John highlights the importance of understanding the trust’s original intent and maintaining open communication with family members involved (28:27).

Notable Quote:
George Campbell recommends, "Let's get gung ho on this debt. Let's take all of our savings, future income, if we need, if we can dip into the trust fund, let's knock out this debt fast" (25:34).

5. Caller Kayla from Eau Claire, Wisconsin: Managing Lack of Life Insurance in a High-Risk Job

Summary:
Kayla and her husband, a firefighter with cystic fibrosis, seek guidance on protecting their finances without his access to term life insurance.

Key Points:

• Insurance Dilemma: While Kayla has secured life insurance, her husband cannot obtain term life insurance due to his medical condition (36:57).
• Financial Protection: They consider mortgage life insurance and sinking funds to mitigate risks (38:18).
• Strategic Planning: George and Dr. John advise establishing a robust emergency fund and exploring alternative insurance options to ensure financial stability (38:59).

Notable Quote:
Dr. John DeLoney encourages, "How do we become self-insured as quickly as possible? How do we make sure that if something did happen and we needed to replace that income, that we would be okay?" (40:11).

6. Caller Amber from Cedar Rapids, Iowa: Navigating HELOC and Multiple Debts

Summary:
Amber discusses her challenges with a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) that has ballooned, along with multiple credit card debts totaling over $60,000.

Key Points:

• Debt Complexity: The HELOC has matured, and the bank demands refinancing or repayment, threatening the loss of their home (44:22).
• Debt Management: George advises selling non-essential assets and leveraging local credit unions to manage negative equity in their van (50:35).
• Financial Discipline: Dr. John emphasizes the necessity of ceasing further borrowing and committing to aggressive debt repayment strategies (51:17).

Notable Quote:
Dr. John DeLoney asserts, "You have debt all over the place. You got your hiding debt in the couch cushions at this point. You are going to have a huge mess, and you'll have to make an ironclad commitment" (50:29).

7. Caller Leslie from Grand Rapids, Michigan: Considering a Business Loan

Summary:
Leslie contemplates taking out a loan to purchase her family's veterinary practice, seeking advice on whether this financial move aligns with wealth-building principles.

Key Points:

• Business Proposition: The practice grosses $1.3 million with $80,000 in annual profits (56:36).
• Personal Concerns: Leslie is hesitant to incur significant debt despite being debt-free apart from their mortgage (57:56).
• Alternative Solutions: George and Dr. John suggest revenue-sharing or sweat equity instead of traditional loans to maintain financial flexibility and preserve family relationships (60:09).

Notable Quote:
Dr. John DeLoney advises, "Please don't go to a bank and take out a loan and buy this from your dad like that. There are alternative ways to invest in the business without sinking into debt" (56:28).

8. Caller Cindy from Miami: Dealing with Rising Property Insurance Costs

Summary:
Cindy and her firefighter husband manage a high-value mortgage and are apprehensive about skyrocketing property insurance premiums, debating whether to become self-insured.

Key Points:

• Insurance Surge: Property insurance has dramatically increased from $1,200 to $7,700, with expectations of further hikes due to natural disasters (66:23).
• Financial Strategy: George recommends maintaining property insurance while establishing a sinking fund to cover future tax obligations and potential emergencies (68:55).
• Mental Well-being: Dr. John emphasizes the importance of emotional health and setting realistic financial boundaries to mitigate anxiety (74:25).

Notable Quote:
George Campbell states, "I would rather pay this premium to have it covered for me and they shoulder the risk" (68:11).

9. Caller Noel from Dallas, Texas: Balancing Family Obligations and Debt Repayment

Summary:
Noel faces a conflict between attending a paid trip to visit her sick grandmother and the opportunity to earn extra income to expedite debt repayment.

Key Points:

• Conflict: The trip is fully funded by the grandmother, but Noel worries about missing out on earnings that could reduce debt (75:40).
• Emotional Stress: Dr. John identifies underlying feelings of resentment and anxiety, urging Noel to address the root causes rather than focusing solely on financial implications (78:13).
• Resolution: The hosts encourage open communication and prioritizing family relationships over minor financial setbacks (80:42).

Notable Quote:
Dr. John DeLoney advises, "You're stuck in a situation having to work when you want to be home with your baby, and it's real frustrating" (78:20).

10. Caller from Oklahoma City: Managing Vehicle Expenses While Paying Off Debt

Summary:
A caller in baby step two with an $80,000 consumer debt seeks advice on whether to save for a better vehicle or continue using an old, unreliable car to avoid incurring more debt.

Key Points:

• Vehicle Issues: The caller's 2004 Chevy 12 Laser requires costly repairs, impacting their debt repayment progress (82:44).
• Financial Advice: George suggests setting up a sinking fund for a new vehicle instead of financing, ensuring financial flexibility without additional debt (83:56).
• Long-Term Planning: Dr. John emphasizes avoiding new debt and maintaining financial discipline to stay on track with debt elimination (84:13).

Notable Quote:
George Campbell recommends, "Set aside $400 a month so that a year from now, you've got five grand that'll get you another beater to get you through" (83:56).

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Concluding Insights

Throughout the episode, George Campbell and Dr. John DeLoney provide practical, empathetic advice tailored to each caller's unique financial challenges. Key themes include:

• Debt Management: Emphasizing the importance of avoiding new debt, increasing income, and prioritizing debt repayment.
• Investment Strategies: Encouraging disciplined investing to outpace inflation and secure retirement.
• Emotional Well-being: Recognizing the psychological impact of financial stress and advocating for self-forgiveness and open communication.
• Financial Independence: Highlighting the significance of building personal savings and investment portfolios to ensure long-term financial security.

Final Notable Quote:
George Campbell reinforces the episode's core message, stating, "What happens in your house is way more important than what happens in the White House. No president or administration has more control over the success of your life or your money than you do" (10:37).

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This comprehensive summary encapsulates the key discussions, insights, and practical advice offered in "It’s Never Too Late to Start Building Wealth," providing valuable guidance for listeners aiming to take control of their financial futures.

Transcript

[George Campbell]

Hey, guys, if you're ready to get ahead with money and start building wealth this year, don't miss our free Take Control of youf Money live stream. It's on January 23rd, and you could win $4,000 just for signing up. You got nothing to lose. Go sign up right [e-mail] livestream from the Ramsey Network. This is the Ramsey show where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm George campbell, joined by Dr. John DeLoney this hour. The phone number to call is 888-255-2225. And as you're listening, if you could do us a tiny, huge favor, let us know what you think about the show, what you don't like, what you want to hear more about. And the way to do that is with our annual listener survey. And it's now live. You can text the word survey to 33, 789 or go to ramseysolutions.com survey. We'll also drop a link in the description wherever you're listening. And if you sign up today, you'll be entered to win a $500 gift card. And it means the world to hear what you think. And it definitely affects the content that we do here for the rest of the year.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

And our pay, so be nice doesn't affect that.

[George Campbell]

But thank you, John, you can put a good word. John Deloney deserves a raise. He's doing so good. All right.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Anybody will write that.

[George Campbell]

Let's try to help someone. John, how about that? Andrea's in Phoenix. Up next, what's going on?

[Caller]

Andrea, hi, and thank you for taking my call.

[George Campbell]

Absolutely.

[Caller]

My name is Andrea and I am 60 years old and I am employed. I make about. I bring home about 24, $2,864 a month. I live with my son and his family. The only outgoing bills I have is my car insurance and I pay for gas and any other incidentals. I want to know, is it possible for me to continue or to own a home and still save for my retirement? I have 69,000 in a 401k. And I'll tell you a little bit. I was in Ohio and I relocated to Arizona before the pandemic. And since I've been here, everything has gotten so integrated. So my decision now is to go back to Ohio. But while I'm here in this kind of situation to save and not have to pay any bills, I have some time before I get go back to Ohio. So ask me anything.

[George Campbell]

All right. So you told Me, your stated goal was I want to be able to own a home and retire one day?

[Caller]

Yes.

[George Campbell]

Okay. That's going to take a sizable nest egg and a pretty solid savings rate. So how much are you able to save right now? You're saying you get. You got almost no bills. So out of that 2864, how much is left over?

[Caller]

It'll be 2, 2154, like $2154 with. Minus the car insurance and the gas. But I plan on getting a job in my. Where I work at. To work from home, which that will save on the gas. And I do have like 45,000 saved up.

[George Campbell]

Okay. That's in a savings account and no debt whatsoever?

[Caller]

Well, no, not if I have that. I just pay it off every month if I use a credit card. But I did get the Every dollar app. I recently did that. I'm still working with that. And I've just only been listening to you guys for like three weeks. Three or four weeks.

[George Campbell]

Awesome. Welcome to the party. Well, we. We have a pretty controversial stance around here, and that is debt robs you from your future, even if it's temporary, even if I'm paying it off tomorrow. And so John and I do not own a single credit card. We just use our debit cards. We use our own money. And what you're facing here, Andrea, is an income problem. We've got to get your income up because that's going to create more margin for you to save for that home. And so you're in what we would call baby steps 4, 5, and 6. If you're debt free with an emergency fund, which you just told me you have 45,000 liquid.

[Caller]

Yes.

[George Campbell]

Great. And so we'll call that your emergency fund plus some down payment fund because you don't need 45,000, I imagine, to cover your expenses for three to six months.

[Caller]

No.

[George Campbell]

Okay, so your. Your A1 goal, if it is buying a home, is to put money away for a down payment. But before we do that, we should be investing 15% of our income into retirement. So how much are you investing right now?

[Caller]

So right now I'm not investing that much. I think I'm at 1% and I can probably put that up to where I should be.

[George Campbell]

Why is it at 1%?

[Caller]

Because my in my mind is thinking before I listened to you guys, I was going to get more in my check to save more. But that hasn't worked out as well. Wanted it to.

[George Campbell]

Well, you can't save your way to wealth. We have to invest this Money. Because right now you're not even beating the rate of inflation if that money is just sitting in a checking account.

[Caller]

Yes.

[George Campbell]

If you invested the stock market, the U.S. stock market last year, Andrea, in 2024, returned 24%. So you put $100,000 in that account. Now it has $124,000. Do you see the difference? Invested in the stock market. And we're not saying a single stock. You, you're going to do mutual funds within that retirement account that will grow at a steady pace, probably 10 to 12% over the next 10 years, and that will at least help give you some cushion. I don't know that we're going to have a dream retirement at this stage of the game. We might have to do what John Deloney says and choose our reality and grieve what could have been and create a new picture of what's next.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Why don't you want to live with your son?

[Caller]

I just, I just don't, I don't want to, I think I just don't want to be honest.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

You get to do whatever you want. Going all the way back to Ohio. That's a long way. It feels like an intentional move away from family.

[Caller]

Well, it'll be away from the. Yes, it'll be away from this family. But then my sisters and brothers are all back east and they're all getting older and they're all, like, sickly.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Okay.

[Caller]

And I guess I wanted to be closer to them. Not that I don't want to be closer here, but it's easier for me to get here right now. It's not easy for me to get there.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Gotcha.

[Caller]

And be there as a help.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Is there a possibility you could move in with one of your brothers and sisters in a garage apartment or something? I, I, I'm just trying to, like, reimagine buying a house right now versus if you're going to be in a caretaker role, moving in with somebody.

[Caller]

I could. That is a possibility. I'm not going to lie. It's not. It's a possibility.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

I know it might not be ideal, but, man, I love the idea of you saving some money over the next five or 10 or 15 years until somebody can help you. Right. Because you'll need that. You'll need somebody to love and care on you also.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

If you move to Ohio, is your job going to go with you?

[Caller]

Yes.

If I get the job from home, my job comes with me.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Okay, great.

[George Campbell]

What does that job pay?

[Caller]

About 40,000 a year.

[George Campbell]

Okay. What job is.

[Caller]

What kind of role I work in the medical records department.

[George Campbell]

What would it look like to make 60 or 70,000 at your age with your experience in that field? What does the latter look like?

[Caller]

I'm not understanding the question. I'm sorry.

[George Campbell]

What would your supervisor be doing in the medical records field? Is there another job out there where you could not just settle for whatever job you could get, but go, how do I grow in this field so that I can actually put more away for retirement and save up for that house?

[Caller]

I do have a certification for medical coding, but it's been just difficult to get a job because I don't have any experience in that particular job.

[George Campbell]

What an entry medical coder make 40,000?

[Caller]

They could make. They could start off at 40,000. Yeah.

[George Campbell]

So that's what I would be doing. If the trajectory is higher with your certification, even if it's not the exact role you want, I would just try to get on a ladders. And the truth is, Andre, you might be working into your 70s to make this dream happen.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

Are you okay with that?

[Caller]

I realized that.

[George Campbell]

Okay.

[Caller]

I am.

[George Campbell]

I just crunched the numbers for you. You know, you got 69 grand in that retirement account. You keep investing, let's say 1,000 bucks a month. If you can do that to 72, you'll have over half a million in that nest egg. And on the way, get yourself, you know, a reasonable mortgage. And that way you're not stuck paying whatever market rent is for the next 12 years.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Or, yeah, you take the last two bedrooms in one of your brothers or sister's house when you're caretaking and you're helping out and maybe you let that dream go of I have to buy my own three or four bedroom house, but we have a great place to live and you get to care and serve like you like to.

[George Campbell]

Thanks for the call, Andrea. This is the Ramsey Show.

[Caller]

Foreign.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

This show is sponsored by Better Help. Hey, everyone, listen. We all have stories. The family and cultural stories that we were born into. The stories of the things that have happened to us, both the good stuff and the challenging stuff. And we have those stories that we constantly tell ourselves. And none of us can go back and change any of our old stories. But the world is waiting to see what each of us is going to write next. As we enter 2025, I encourage you to examine your old stories and be intentional about the new stories that you're going to write. And I'm not talking about making goals that are going to be long gone by February. I'm talking about writing new stories that will change your life and the lives of those you love for the better forever. If you're like me, therapy can be a great place to explore the old stories and heal from them and begin writing new ones. If you're thinking about starting therapy, I want you to consider my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy and you can talk with your therapist when it works for your schedule. You just fill out a short online survey to get matched with a licensed therapist and you can switch at any time for no extra cost. So start writing a new story this month with better help. Visit betterhelp.com DeLoney to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp H E L P.com/Deloney welcome.

[George Campbell]

Back to the Ramsey Show. Open phones at 888825 5225. Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Thank you, George.

[George Campbell]

It's inauguration Day, John. A lot going on, very busy day. And no matter how you're feeling today, we've said this a million times. What happens in your house is way more important than what happens in the White House. No president or administration has more control over the success of your life or your money than you do. And we're going to prove it to you this Thursday at our free live stream. We're calling it take control of your money. Dave Ramsey and Jade Warshaw will walk you through practical ways you can create more margin, build more wealth, and get ahead with money this year. And I'll be there along with Rachel Cruz, taking your money questions live. And here's your first step. Go to ramseysolutions.com livestream to sign up. You'll be automatically entered to win $4,000 cash. And once you're signed up, create a free EveryDollar account to get a bonus entry in the giveaway. And this is super important because we'll be using everydollar throughout the livestream to show you immediate ways to take control of your money so you can have your own budget live, doing all the things we're telling you to do to show you how it can affect your wallet, your budget, your household. Then share the event with your friends and family. Again, it's totally free. It's virtual. Join us from anywhere. You'll get a bonus entry for everyone who signs up. And it happens this Thursday, 7pm Central. Go to ramseysolutions.com livestream Gene is joining us in Fort Lauderdale. What's going on, Gene? How can we help?

[Caller]

Hello.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Hey, what's up, dude?

[Caller]

Yeah.

Yeah. Hi. How are you?

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Fantastic. What's up, brother?

[Caller]

Yeah, I have an issue that I've been dealing with for the past few months. Okay. I've. I recently got scammed by someone that I thought was a friend, and there's. This is a very complex story. It's kind of hard to explain. I don't know. I've. I don't know if I have enough time to explain it.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Give me the overview. How'd you get scammed?

[Caller]

Okay, well, this started in California before I moved back to Florida. You know, there's two. There's two. There's two different parts of this story.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

But give me the super, super, super distilled version.

[George Campbell]

Did you send the money? Just give us the. The details.

[Caller]

I. Okay. I. I sent her. I sent her money for. I sent her money to help with her. Her. Her lymphedema surgery that she was supposed to get, but she never did it. She kept making excuses on why she can't get the surgery and all this stuff. And then the other part was co. Signing a car for her, which I co. Signed. Which I co. Signed a car for her before I left to come back to Florida. The money part was after I came back to Florida.

[George Campbell]

Okay, so what are you on the hook for now? You sent money via what? For the surgery. How did you send it?

[Caller]

I sent it to Cash App and Apple Cash.

[George Campbell]

Okay, and how much did you send?

[Caller]

It was somewhere between, like, about. Somewhere between 30 to 35,000.

[George Campbell]

And you had this money in cash?

[Caller]

Not. Not cat. Not straight up cash. Like, I didn't have it.

[George Campbell]

Like, you went into debt for this?

[Caller]

I went, yeah. I. I was already in debt, but now I'm in more depth. Like, I just, you know, I feel like the dumbest person in the world talking about this to.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

No, you're good, man.

[George Campbell]

We're not trying to beat up on you. I'm trying to get to the bottom of this to see what kind of hole you're in and how we can get you out of it. So you do you owe 35, 000 in debt?

[Caller]

No, that's how much I lost.

[George Campbell]

Okay. And the co sign?

[Caller]

More in depth than that. I owe way more in depth than that. I have credit card debt, student loan debt.

[George Campbell]

Yeah, you were in a bad situation before this. It just got way worse.

[Caller]

Yeah, because I helped.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Hold on.

[Caller]

And they screwed me over.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Yeah. So here's the deal. Before we get to, like, the tactics part, you're going to have to do two things. One, you have to release that you did it. It's over. Okay.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Somebody was hurting, and you reached out and said, I can help you out, and they bitch it twice bad. Okay?

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

The more you hang on to that, the more you're choosing on a minute by minute basis to be miserable in the present and to not be able to move forward. Right?

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

So let's let go. The second thing is you have to forgive yourself, man.

[Caller]

It. I've been having a hard time.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

I know you have. We've all done stupid stuff with. With people that we. We're romantically interested in. We've all done stupid stuff with money. We've all just done stupid stuff. Now, we haven't all done it to the tune of 20 or 30 or 40 or $50,000 like you have, so congratulations on that one. But, like, we've all done stupid stuff, and you got to forgive yourself because it's keeping you from doing the next right thing. You get what I'm saying?

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

You got a good heart, and I'm glad there are people like you out there that are willing to step in and help. And you got bit, man. And so now you got a big old pile of debt. You got a big old mess, and you're the only person that can clean it up. Right?

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Okay, so let's own that. Let's release the other nonsense, and we're gonna. We're gonna move on and do the next right thing. Cool.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Okay. Say I forgive myself on. On national radio.

[Caller]

I forgive myself on national radio.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

There you go, man. There you go. You didn't have to say the on national radio part, but I'm. I'm with. I'm with it. I'm with it. All right, here we go, George.

[George Campbell]

All right, so, Gene, what is your total debt load all in of what I owe?

[Caller]

In, like, everything?

[George Campbell]

Yes.

[Caller]

I mean. I mean, it's a lot after I have to add it up.

[George Campbell]

Is it half a million dollars or is it 100,000? Give me just a ballpark.

[Caller]

I mean, if you add everything with what I owe on my car, my credit card debt, to my student loan debt, to what I owe the irs, it's, like, probably more than a hundred thousand.

[George Campbell]

Okay, and what is your income?

[Caller]

Right.

Right now I'm like. Like, if I had to make a guess, like 40,000 a year.

[George Campbell]

And what are you doing for work before taxes?

[Caller]

I work at FedEx.

[George Campbell]

Okay.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

You can't make. You can't make your monthly payments every month, can you?

[Caller]

I'm barely hanging on by a thin Strain.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Okay. All right.

[Caller]

And you know, I was doing. So I. I wouldn't say I wasn't doing like, really bad, but I had. I had a little something going. Okay? I been. I was investing in crypto for like almost seven years, and all that's gone because I sacrificed and helped this person out and they screwed me over. I was too trusting. I have too much of a heart. That's one of my problems that I have. Hold on, hold on.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Remember we just talked. Open your hand up right now. I can hear your hands are clenched. I can feel it on you. Open your hand up. Let it go. Let it go. Because replaying what you had and what you did over and over and over again will keep you from moving forward. What I hear somebody who, A, has done it before so you can do it again, and B, you got a great heart. The world needs more of both of those attributes, you see? A little more wisdom. Okay.

[Caller]

No. I will never let this happen again.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Okay, good.

[George Campbell]

What was owed on the car loan.

[Caller]

For my own car or the one I co. Signed for?

[George Campbell]

The one you co signed for.

[Caller]

It's like. I think it's like 30,000 in value.

[George Campbell]

Are they making on time payments?

[Caller]

So there. Well, here's. Well, here's the thing. She's. She's still making the payments. Even though they're late payments, but she's still making the payments, which. Which is the part that confuses me here, you know, And I get the feeling that she's. I suspect that she's using my. My money to make the payments on the car.

[George Campbell]

Well, she does with that is. Is her business now that money's gone. Do you have a way to get in touch with this person? If they cut off all communication.

[Caller]

I cut off all communication. I. I couldn't take it no more. She. She is a. She's a weirdo. She is a narcissist. Okay.

[George Campbell]

I'm like, I'm guessing it's too late to go, hey, I need to get out of this. Would you refinance the loan into your name?

[Caller]

She's not going to refer. Like if she were to refinance it, she's not gonna be able to. She's not gonna be able to do it until July of this year because I co. Signed for the car and you know, last year in July and at Carmax, you have to wait a year to refinance the car.

[George Campbell]

And I'm guessing this credit was so bad they work with these. These shady companies like Exeter.

[Caller]

Yeah, she. Yeah, she. She didn't have Good credit. Which is why I co signed, I helped co sign for the car in the first place.

[George Campbell]

And then I'm guessing the interest on this thing is like what, 12%, 15%?

[Caller]

It might have, might be 12%. I'm not sure. I have to call about it.

[George Campbell]

We're running out of time, Gene. But I'm gonna send you a copy of my book, Breaking Free from Broken. And in the book I talk about this one line that will change everything for you. It's not all your fault, but it's your responsibility. So like John said, we have to let go of the anger and move forward and go. Gene has a hundred thousand dollar mess to clean up.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Your own life, right? Your own credit cards, your own student loans, your own cars. If she's making payments, let her make payments and go on about cleaning up your mess because you're not cleaning this deal either, man.

[George Campbell]

And so you're gonna have to get your income up. That might mean a second full time job once you get off the first full time job. But you can get out of this. It's going to take a while and it's going to take stop borrowing money. And obviously you're done getting scammed. So sorry you're going through this, man. This is the Ramsey Show.

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[George Campbell]

This is the Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell joined by best selling author Dr. John Deloney. We're taking your calls at 888-255-225. You call us and we'll help you take the right next step for Your life, your money, your emotional health, mental health, relationships, whatever is going on. Tanner's up next in Manhattan, Kansas. What's going on, Tanner?

[Caller]

Hi. How are you guys doing?

[George Campbell]

Doing great. How can John and I help?

[Caller]

Yeah, so I am getting married in May after my fiancee and I graduate. And thankfully, I've had some very generous parents and grandparents, and I'll be graduating debt free. My fiance will have some student loans that we'll need to off because I know that I'll be inheriting that debt as well. My question is, should I use a trust fund that my grandparents have set up for me to help pay off those debts, like, right after the honeymoon?

[George Campbell]

Okay, tell us more. How much debt is this?

[Caller]

I think it's around 60 or 70,000, but I'm not entirely for sure.

[George Campbell]

Okay, and then tell us about the trust fund. What's it made up of? How much is in there?

[Caller]

So I don't actually have access to it yet. I'll get access. 125. I've been able to take out money to max out my Roth IRA these last couple of years, but I think it's around 250,000.

[George Campbell]

Wow. Incredible. Okay, and how old are you now?

[Caller]

23.

[George Campbell]

Okay, so you couldn't even do it immediately. You'd still have to wait.

[Caller]

Correct. So I guess I'm wondering if I should even ask about trying to get access to some money to pay off that debt debt. Even though I won't technically have access yet.

[George Campbell]

What will your household income be once you guys are married?

[Caller]

Yeah, we both accepted jobs, and I think we'll both be making $58,000. Okay, so I guess a total of 120,000. Yep.

[George Campbell]

Awesome. And this is the all the debt that will be to your names. The 60, 70 grand. Her student loans.

[Caller]

Yes, we might. We'll probably have to buy a new car. So we're not a new car, but by a car.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

So who's the custodian of the trust?

[Caller]

What's that?

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Who's the custodian of the trust?

[Caller]

My grandparents set it up, but I know my parents can, like, move money around.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Are your grandparents still alive?

[Caller]

Yes, they are.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Okay, so are they in charge of it? Like, if you had to go ask, how do you take withdrawals? Let me ask you that.

[Caller]

It's always just been, we get to the end of the year and it's time to contribute to the Roth ira. So then I ask my mom, and she is able to transfer the money.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Okay. I would find out who's in charge of the trust.

[Caller]

Okay.

[George Campbell]

Sounds like your parents might be trustees on this thing where they can control it.

[Caller]

That sounds right.

[George Campbell]

Okay. Do you have any savings?

[Caller]

Yeah, I just studied abroad last semester, so it's a little low now, but around like 4,000.

[George Campbell]

Okay. And with your newfound income, I would begin paying it off in the meantime. And if you're able to get access to it to knock this out faster, that's great. But there's another piece of this that I want to make sure you get, and that's I want you to be able to have your own investing savings muscle and not rely on this trust fund. And it's not because the trust fund's bad. I just want you to have the muscle to where, you know, if I needed to put 5,000 of my own money away every month from my income, you could do that. And that's gonna be a really good habit for both of you to build as you build wealth together.

[Caller]

Yeah, that's definitely the plan. As soon as we start the job and have a stable income, is to set up 15%. I guess another part of the puzzle is like, do I take the 15%, whatever, do the company 401k, and then afterwards I meet that 15%, do I go to my trust and max out.

[George Campbell]

Roth or beyond the 15%, you'd go into baby steps five and six, which would be safer. Kids, college, I'm assuming you guys don't have kids. And then baby step six is attacking a mortgage. Do you guys have a house or will you.

[Caller]

We're planning on renting.

[George Campbell]

Okay, good. So here, if I was going to financially coach you guys as premarital counseling, I'm going to go, let's get gung ho on this debt. Let's take all of our savings, future income, if we need, if we can dip into the trust fund, let's knock out this debt fast. Let's get a fully funded emergency fund, begin investing 15%. Beyond that, I would begin saving up a down payment for a house.

[Caller]

Okay.

[George Campbell]

And if you need a car in the meantime, let's set up a sinking fund. Is this like an emergency situation or is this a year from now? We need a car.

[Caller]

It's not a great car that she has now. I think she's just ready to start new and get a new one. So.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

So I would tell you that is the one of the top two or three wealth killers for new couples, especially when they're under the age of 25, is this quote, unquote, I'm just tired of, or this was my college car or we just feel like we or you're my new wife and so I want to buy you. That's when people get themselves, they buy a depreciating asset that just is a such a wealth suck versus if you all shook hands and agreed on the first two years, let's just keep driving the same crappy cars and let's just get so far ahead financially that we can get whatever car we want for the rest of our time together.

[Caller]

Yep.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

I can't think of a bigger mistake I made right when I graduated college than running and trying to buying by after driving a tiny little crummy car that is probably still running somewhere because you can't kill those old Toyotas. I went and bought the stupidest, biggest, dumbest truck I could find. It was so dumb.

[George Campbell]

That's a rite of passage for every Texan, for every idiot.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Not for every Texan, but for every goofball like me. Yeah, dude. And I think, I think an important call out here, George, is your heart is right, brother Tanner. Like when y'all get married, her student loan debt is yalls student loan debt. I would want to know what was the main purpose of this trust? Was it to get, was it set up for everybody, all the grandkids to get everybody through college and now you're through college and it's still there. Like what's the purpose of this, of this trust? What is the original, what was its original intent? And what I don't want you guys to do is be married and have your mommy still dangling this account over your head like, well, are we gonna get Grant? Like I don't, I don't like that. That makes me feel like, eh, I don't. Yeah, getting out of college, man. I wanna know if there's a trust with my name on it. I want to know what the rules and regulations are of this thing when it's fully mine, when I'm in control of it, what the original intent was, all that kind of stuff. And that's just about having a grown up conversation with whoever the trustee and the custodian is.

[Caller]

Sounds good. Thank you guys very much.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

You got it, brother.

[George Campbell]

Absolutely. Yeah. The conversation might be grandma and grandpa go, yeah, we'd love for you to use this as a down payment on a house and get your financial future going and knock out her debt and get you guys some, you know, the right financial steps.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

But I could see a, a very real world scenario where, oh well, this wasn't for you paying off your wife's student loans. She needs to and now we're in a.

[George Campbell]

There's strings attached.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

That's right.

[George Campbell]

It gets messy.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

It gets super messy. And that's what I want. If that's the case, then best of luck to you guys. We're going to take care of our own financial future at our house. Thank you for having this thing. Get me through college debt free and getting some Roths funded, but I don't want to be controlled by this imaginary puppet string over off to the side in a new marriage.

[George Campbell]

Yeah. And that's the context we don't have. That'd be an interesting call to get grandma on the line.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

That's right.

[George Campbell]

Say what's going on here? And she's like, no, absolutely. Use it forever. He wants. We just wanted to leave a legacy and, you know, as long as you're not mismanaging the money.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

That's right.

[George Campbell]

Which John and I would say paying off debt is not mismanagement of the money. But I could see a family going, no, this is for us to build wealth with.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

This was actually for you not to.

[George Campbell]

Pay for someone's past mistakes and debts.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

And that's right.

[George Campbell]

That's not who this family is. You know, you just never know.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Right.

[George Campbell]

Yeah. That part gives me just some pause. You got to take a ton just thinking about some of those conversations. But the idea of a trust fund, I mean, that's. That's legacy. As much as we, you know, people make fun of, oh, you're a trust fund baby. And I'm like, go create that same privilege for your family if you're so upset and jealous that someone would have money left over instead of leaving their children with a pile of financial mess to clean up.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Or I think the TV show version is a trust fund has $80 billion in it and you're just not working and flying around in jets when actually most trusts are.

[George Campbell]

It's like that.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

I don't say it's small, but it's a chunk of money. It's got a very designated purpose. Get you through school, get you that first house.

[George Campbell]

It gives you a leg up.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

You married. That's right.

[George Campbell]

But it's not a sit back, relax in a hammock for the rest of your life.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

That's right.

[George Campbell]

Situation. So I think there's. There's a lot of wisdom there, Tanner, and you're asking some great questions, especially at 23. At 23, John, I was a knucklehead, you know, still making a lot of mistakes. And clearly this is what happens. It's not just the money side. It's the, the character, the financial literacy that was built by his parents. His parents, parents. And you know, the Bible is very clear, leaving inheritance to your children's children. I believe that's not just about money. I mean, that's, you know, inheritance of a lot of things, character.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

And that's where it's one of those moments where it's been about money and it's been about asking. Now it's about a transfer of wisdom and trust. Hey, I want to sit down and talk about the guts, the nuts and bolts of this trust. And that's just an adult conversation that's uncomfortable, but you got to have it.

[George Campbell]

Thanks for the call, Tanner. This is the Ramsey Show.

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[Dr. John DeLoney]

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[George Campbell]

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[Dr. John DeLoney]

All right. Today's question comes from Kathy in Rhode Island. Kathy writes, am I supposed to pay off a loan my husband took out from the bank without my knowledge? He recently passed away and it was only then that I learned that he had a $10,000 loan. When I asked the bank what it was for, they told me that information was confidential and they couldn't tell me why he needed it. They just said that I'm liable for it. As his spouse, what should I pay it off or let it go to collections? Sheesh. I, I would guess that you inherit the entire account, including the notes. But yeah, you're gonna have to talk to somebody in Rhode island because I don't know what the particular, the laws there are. Yeah. Yeah.

[George Campbell]

You may want to contact an attorney to See if there's a way out of this.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

Versus, you know, co signing on a loan.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

But generally, if it was only his name on the debt, the spouse wouldn't.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Be liable for it unless the estate's liable for it. Yeah. Who knows, man? I would. You need some more information here. My fear is the bank's coming for you and they're not being fully open because whatever is confidential is going to be in that bank file. And if you inherit everything, then you inherit everything.

[George Campbell]

I feel like there's a. There's more going on.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

There's a. Yeah, there's some stuff going on here, and I don't know what that is. She doesn't know what to get an attorney and dig into it. Kathy.

[George Campbell]

Yeah.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

That's really the best. Yeah. In some situations, your estate is liable for the debt. And in some places, like student loans, when you die, the loans go with you.

[George Campbell]

That's the only way to get rid of student loans. In most cases, it'd be dead.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

That's right.

[George Campbell]

That's dark stuff.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

Oh, my goodness. I'm so sorry for your loss, Kathy.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

And if you have the money and you don't want to burn the brain calories on this, pay it off.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

That's right. Yeah. And by the way, don't let it just go to collections. If you are on the hook for it and you're gonna. It's going to go into collections and you're attached to it, then. Yeah, you got to just pay it off. Or if he somehow took it out in both of your names or he took it out under an account y'all share. Yes. You're gonna have to pay this thing.

[George Campbell]

That's the only thing I can think of is if it was a joint account with the bank and somehow they took out the loan under that same account.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Right. If he did just go to a rando bank, open up an account, take a loan out, and just his name and that bank got your name, is trying to collect on you, then you may. You may have a. A case to not pay it, but you need to check with a local attorney there.

[George Campbell]

I'd also pull his credit report and make sure there's outstanding.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

That's a good idea.

[George Campbell]

Debt sitting out there, too.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Yeah. And this is yet case number 5,870,000,000. Don't have secret accounts. Don't keep secrets like this from your spouse because one day you will die and you'll leave them with all of that nonsense. Man. Don't do it. Don't do it. If you're trying to take secret accounts, trying to take secret loans. George and I, we do this all the time. You will be found out. Don't do it. Don't do it. For gambling debts, for secret girlfriends, for secret, like, gifts. You want to buy your. That. Just don't do it. Don't do it. Because this kind of crap happens all the time, and you just leave a grieving spouse wondering, what else do I not know? And it's just. It's just. It's bad all the way around. Don't do it.

[George Campbell]

All right, let's go to the phones. Kayla is up next in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. What's going on? How can we help Kayla?

[Caller]

My husband and I recently spent two years paying off $152,000 in student loans.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Congratulations.

[Caller]

Which.

Thank you. It was a grueling journey, so we want to make sure that we make wise decisions moving forward as we kind of, you know, restart our financial foundation. So we have a fully funded emergency fund, and we're contributing in a 529 for our son. And currently we rent, so we're working on a down payment. And I guess one of my big questions, it all kind of surrounds around. We were able to get a life insurance policy for myself, but my husband has a medical condition where he cannot get term life insurance. And so as we move forward, we're trying to decide, like, should we be looking at a smaller house so that, like, you know, that kind of stuff is within our means since we won't have his life insurance if something were to happen when we do buy a house, do we get insurance for the mortgage that would kind of act as, like, you know, like, life insurance that would pay the mortgage if he were to pass away or, like, even, like, looking at our jobs, like, should I get a job that pays more? Just, you know, trying to look into the future and how can we best protect ourselves since we can't get life insurance for him?

[Dr. John DeLoney]

What is. What's. What is the medical condition he has?

[Caller]

He has cystic fibrosis.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Okay. All right. Does he. Have they given him any sort of timeline here, or is it just.

[Caller]

No, he is. He's super healthy. So, I mean, they. He doesn't have any kind of a clock or anything. They're expecting him to have a really long, kind of normal life.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Okay, great. Can I just applaud you before we get into the nuts and bolts? Can I applaud you for. For a lack of better terms, just owning reality, Because a lot of folks get so mad, and they Go to war with reality and you're already like, okay, well maybe we'll need to have a different kind of house or I'll need to have a different kind of job or we'll have to take a different kind of mortgage insurance, whatever. That just shows a level of maturity and wisdom that is just awesome. So I just wanted to high five you for that.

[Caller]

Thank you.

[George Campbell]

Yeah, you're asking really good questions. And you're right, this is one of those tough things where if there's no way he's going to get life insurance, we're going to have to look into probably a more expensive option with a worse payout. And so that's something like a guaranteed issue policy. And then like you mentioned mortgage life insurance, which would just cover the mortgage balance. And so those are two I would look into. Have you contacted our friends at Zander about this or where'd you go through for the life insurance?

[Caller]

That's who we talked to initially of trying to get term life insurance. And then we didn't really like go back to them after.

[George Campbell]

Okay. I might reach back out and just get their take on what might make the most sense for you guys between the guaranteed life, mortgage life, and then beyond that, my. If I was, if I was you in your shoes, I'd go, how do we become self insured as quickly as possible? How do we make sure that if something did happen and we needed to replace that income, that we would be okay? That might mean a bigger emergency fund, that might mean we pay off the house faster and get the smaller house like you mentioned, so that we have less liabilities and we can reduce our expenses. Because if you can keep your expenses low and learn to live off your income alone, that's going to reduce the risk in your life.

[Caller]

Yeah. Because like right now, even like with the job that I do have, we do basically live just like on my income. And then the rest has been going towards our down payment fund. So.

[George Campbell]

Awesome.

[Caller]

We're at a good spot there.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

What if y'all built a world where that might just be your reality forever?

[Caller]

Yeah, that is a good idea.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Well, and by the way, grieve, grieve it. Because that's a bummer too, right?

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Because maybe you wanted to be a stay at home mom one day or you wanted to do this or you wanted. He wanted to become X, Y and Z. Like it's just a matter of being like that was our dream and it's not going to happen. And that doesn't mean everything's bad in our Life, that means it's just going to be different. And so what if for the next 20 years while he's super healthy or 30 years, we just socked his income away?

[Caller]

Yeah, that just reminded me like another question that I have kind of related to this is I currently work in the school system and so my retirement is wrapped up in a pension. And so I've been like waffling back and forth of if I should go change jobs to a job that, where I can invest in like a 403B or something like that to add even further stability.

[George Campbell]

Well, you can always invest on your own through a Roth IRA as well. Yeah, that can be a hedge for you.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

So let's have a world where let's say in 10 years, y'all bought a smaller house, y'all paid it off, and you just used his salary and every bit of his salary just goes to paying that house off. And you know, at Ramsey, we tell you to take your time paying your house off and do other stuff, but y'all know your life situation's a little bit different. And so now you've got a paid for house and yeah. Then you dump his money into Roth IRAs and just general index funds. For the rest of your time, y'all are going to be. And plus your pension, y'all gonna be loaded up if y'all learn to live like that.

[Caller]

Okay.

[George Campbell]

Yeah, you do that for 10 or 20 years, you'll be self insured in no time. And generally when we say get term life, it's for a 15 to 20 year term because by the time it, it's over, you've self insured, you got the house paid off because you did a 15 year mortgage, you've been investing for 15 or 20 years and that nest egg is several hundred thousand dollars. And so you're, you're doing all the right things, John and I want to applaud you. We're here to just cheerlead you on and say keep at it.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Yes. And there's gonna be days you're driving a used Camry 15 years from now and you're gonna see one of your colleagues pull up in a brand new Tahoe and you're gonna be annoyed. And that's okay. You have permission to be annoyed. And then you go do the next right thing.

[George Campbell]

That puts this hour of the Ramsey show in the books. Thank you to my co host, Dr. John DeLoney, all the folks in the booth keeping the show afloat, and you, America, will be back before you know it. Hey, what's up, guys? It's Jade Warshaw and I'm just gonna cut to the chase. If anyone knows about paying off student loans, it's me. Okay? My husband and I had $460,000 of debt and 280, 000 of it was student loans. So I know the pressure that you feel when you have that debt weighing you down. But I also know there's a way out because we did it and you can too. Getting out of student loan debt starts with taking control of the situation. And Laurel Road can help. Laurel Road offers a free 30 minute consultation with a student loan expert to go over your repayment options and help make a plan based on your specific situation to get your student loans paid off fast. Okay, truth be told, refinancing is not the move for everyone. And my advice is that you should only consider it if you can get a lower rate or a shorter term. But if refinancing is your next move, I think it should be with Laurel Road. They offer low competitive rates and terms that could help you pay less over the lifetime of your loan. Plus they offer interest rate incentives like an autopay discount. So go to LaurelRoad.com Ramsey to find out more and schedule your free 30 minute consultation. That's LaurelRoad.com Ramsey. Laurel Road is a brand of Key bank national association. From the Ramsey Network, this is the Ramsey show where we help people. People build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm George Camel, joined by Dr. John Deloney. Open phones at 888. 825 5225. You call us and we will do our best to give you advice that only John could give.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Or George.

[George Campbell]

They say the advice is worth what you paid for it. Amber's gonna kick us off in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. What's going on, Amber? How can we help?

[Caller]

Hi. So I have. It's kind of like a threefold question. We got ourselves into quite a big mess with our finances. We took out a HELOC on our house a little over five years ago. And when we did it, they did not. All they told us was that it was 1% interest rate. It would be. It would take care of all the debt that we had. We wouldn't have that debt hanging over our head anymore and we would be fine. So we did that. They did not tell us that the HELOC would balloon or mature, which it did. And now they're saying that we have to refinance the HELOC or pay off the Total amount. And on top of having to do that, we have to include our other debt as well.

[George Campbell]

What's the other.

[Caller]

On top of that, which. I'm sorry, what was that?

[George Campbell]

What's the other debt?

[Caller]

So we have two credit cards through the bank, and then we have six other credit cards that had gone into collections, and we were working with them to pay those ones off. The ones through the bank. We cut up the cards when we found you guys and stuck using them. But they still have a balance and we're current on it. It just still has the balance. So it's $17,000 for one with the bank, another $4,400 with another one from the bank. And then with the ones that had gone to collections that we were working with them on, that total is about. About 19,000 total. And they're saying that we have to include the two through the bank and two of the ones that had already gone through, like the beginning legal proceedings of the other credit cards, which was one was 7000 and another one was like, was 2400.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

When you say you want to include.

[Caller]

All of that onto the heloc.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Well, they want to do that because they want to. They want. They don't see you guys as likely to pay all this back. And so they want to have your house on the block.

[George Campbell]

They'll become a secure debt.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

That's why they're doing that.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

And so you might need to go. George, I don't know if you can go get it another bank and see if you can get a HELOC with another bank and refinance.

[George Campbell]

That's what I'm wondering. Could you get a traditional mortgage with another bank?

[Caller]

Yeah, so that was my. That was my question. I guess I didn't lead with that. I was wondering. So they're saying this is our only option and this is the trap we fell into every time. I understand it was us that got us into this situation, but like, as soon as we did that, Covid hit like a year and a half later. And then I had a company reach out to us and tell us it was a debt relief company. And they said to. Yeah, and I did it for that. They said to not only let your.

[George Campbell]

Credit crash, give us the payments, and.

[Caller]

Beyond that, they said to. Because they would just take every. Take care of everything and the payments would just kind of, you know, go away. They would be able to settle it all to max out the cards because the more debt that we had, the more they would be able to work with them to the more likely they would be able to get rid of it.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Okay.

[George Campbell]

You.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

You hear yourself telling us that, and you can even hear that that sounds insane. Right.

[Caller]

I understand how insane that sounds. You feel like an idiot.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Well, George and I both done stupid stuff with money. You're not. You're. You're like millions and millions. Like, they wouldn't run this playbook if those plays didn't work on people.

[George Campbell]

There's a sucker born every day.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

That's right.

[George Campbell]

And I hate you got caught up in it.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

But. But here's the thing. Two different times, somebody told you if you just do X, all your debt goes away.

[Caller]

Yeah. And that's why I was calling you guys, because I don't want to do the same stupid thing. They're telling us this is our only option. And I've heard you guys say countless times there are other options.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Yes.

[George Campbell]

Yeah. The best option is to go to a completely different lender, stop doing business with this bank, get a traditional mortgage that covers all of this.

[Caller]

So we do have our mortgage company, our main mortgage company that we work with. And that was going to be. My other question was, would it be better to reach out to them and see if we did. If we worked with them and explained to them that we had the HELOC with the bank and that now it matured and see if we can work with them.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

I would use that language.

[Caller]

All of this additional debt onto our house.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

I would tell them we found ourselves five years ago in a scared place during COVID in a predatory heloc. Okay, can we. I wouldn't give all the balloon and maturation. I wouldn't do all that stuff. And yes, see if you can roll us up in a traditional mortgage.

[George Campbell]

My bigger question is, can you guys actually afford to live in this home?

[Caller]

So we can afford to live in the home. My husband brings in, on average, $2,000 a week. Our mortgage is. Well, we had a. We were behind a little bit on the escrow because of our homeowners insurance that had to switch. So they added that onto the principal. So it went from 1,300 to 1,700amonth. So, I mean, the mortgage payments are not a problem.

[George Campbell]

So if you took on a new mortgage, could you refinance and just do one new mortgage that encapsulates all of your debt.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

And move your payments to 2,500 bucks a month to talk to.

[Caller]

The mortgage company to do it all in one?

[George Campbell]

Yeah. I would keep the credit card separate and deal with those on their own and debt snowball those, settle on your own. But with this heloc, could you absorb.

[Caller]

The heloc, add all of that onto our house?

[George Campbell]

Agreed. And I don't know if the bank would even let you. Yeah, because they need that tied to their collateral, not tied to your personal debts. What is that? What's the balloon payment on the heloc?

[Caller]

The total amount or the payment amount?

[George Campbell]

The total amount.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Total amount.

[Caller]

29,000. And they want to add that 17 plus the 45, plus another. Plus another 10. So we're looking at over $60,000 that they want to put onto the heel.

[George Campbell]

To get out of this. And so if you. If you refinanced your current home and added 60,000 to the mortgage, that would get you out of it?

[Caller]

Well, we would only need to. They want to add all of that on. The HELOC itself is only 29,000, but they're telling us that in order for them to redo the heloc.

[George Campbell]

No, we're not redoing any of that.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

No, we're not doing any business with them.

[George Campbell]

No more heloc.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

You're gonna have another balloon at the end of a new heloc. You just.

[Caller]

Yeah, and they're telling us that we won't, and I don't believe them.

[George Campbell]

Do you guys have any other debt? Car loans, student loans?

[Caller]

We have. All of our current debt that we have is through the bank. We have a van payment through them. We have a camper through them, and we have the two credit cards that we already cut up and don't use.

[George Campbell]

Amber, you know all this needs to go right.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

All of it.

[Caller]

Yes.

[George Campbell]

The van gets sold tomorrow. The camper gets sold tomorrow. We use all of that to clean up our debts, and we stop playing with this.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Stop.

[George Campbell]

You guys have debt all over the place. You got your hiding debt in the couch cushions at this point.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

How much?

[Caller]

How would I go about. We are planning on selling the camper, but we don't know how we would be able to sell the van because we're upside down.

[George Campbell]

You need the difference in cash or go to a local credit union and get the difference. There's the only ways out of that. You need to come up with the difference to clear the title.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

And, Amber, you're gonna have to get probably one job, two job, three jobs. Your husband's gonna have another job. You'll have a huge mess, and you'll have to make a ironclad commitment. We will never borrow money ever, ever again, ever again. Got to stop. Got to stop. Yeah, the bank sees y'all as a huge liability. So they want to roll all this.

[George Campbell]

Debt into that house so they can take your house.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

If you can't take your house on any of these small credit cards, they can take your house from you. So don't do that.

[George Campbell]

This is the Ramsey Show.

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[Dr. John DeLoney]

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[Dr. John DeLoney]

For decades, Dave, I've sat across people who've lost a spouse, they've lost somebody important to them.

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[Dr. John DeLoney]

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[George Campbell]

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[George Campbell]

Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. I'm George campbell joined by Dr. John Deloney. Open phones at triple eight eight two five, five two two five. Leslie's up next in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Hold on before we go to Leslie.

[George Campbell]

I won't do it.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Let's. Yeah, Dig. Sorry, Leslie. Well, hang on one second. Like I.

[George Campbell]

You're stuck on our last caller.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

I'm stuck on the last caller and how. It sounds nutty, but it is America. It's the current state of personal finance in America. Yeah. Seven credit cards, a mortgage, a HELOC on that mortgage. Because somebody said, oh, you got equity. And what Amber said, the last caller said was so important that somebody called her and said, you won't have to worry about this other debt ever again. And it just sounds so amazing. Right.

[George Campbell]

Well, when you're that desperate.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

That's right.

[George Campbell]

And someone calls you like, this is the savior we needed.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

And people get on to us all the time. They beat us up all over the place because you have all this quote unquote equity and you can just pay off everything. But here's what happens. People don't. Then they go are like, oh, we got some extra money. Let's go get a camper. And instead of buying a used car for 7,000, because that's all we have, it's so easy to go to the lot and be like, well, we got the new ones over here. And it's like, we took out that heloc. We have another. And you find yourself.

[George Campbell]

And they go, we can make way. What payment do you need? We can make that work.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

We'll make it work. Yeah. And we'll just. We'll balloon it later. That's a problem for future you. And if people need any, if they're thinking about taking out a loan, man. Oh, and then. Oh, and then Covid happened, Right. If you're thinking about borrowing money, go back and listen not to the question Amber was asking. Listen to her voice that haunts me. Because people call and they call and they call, and all they did was what the banker told them to do. All they did was what the lender told them to do, or the guy on the phone called or their uncle called and everything. You get so desperate that you begin looking for. As Brene Brown says, whatever you're looking for, you're going to find it. A magic wand shortcut. Take it all away and you just dig a deeper, deeper hole till they come and say, hey, you're going to do what we say now, or we're taking your home from you. And that's when you realize, oh, gosh, we're about to lose everything. Right. It's over $29,000. You might lose your house. Right.

[George Campbell]

It didn't seem like a big deal at the time. And that extra credit card didn't seem like it would be the thing that sinks usually. And here they are in a giant mess.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

That's right.

[George Campbell]

Making a hundred, over a hundred thousand dollars, which we can all agree is a great income, but not when it's propped up artificially with thousands in payments every month.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Thousands and thousands of payments. But more. More. It's when a banker calls you and says, hey, you're ours now. You're gonna do what we say. You're gonna take all this debt because we don't trust you anymore. And because now, because we've owned you for a long time, and now we're going to call it out, we get to decide what you do next. And there's just a panic in somebody's voice, and it haunts me. Please, please, please don't borrow money.

[George Campbell]

Proverbs 22. 7. The borrower is slave to the lender.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

That's right.

[George Campbell]

It was true back in ancient times, and it's very true today. Yeah, man.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Let's go to Grand Rapids now. We can talk to Leslie.

[George Campbell]

All right, Leslie.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Hey, Leslie.

[George Campbell]

What's going on? How can we help?

[Caller]

Hi, I. My question is, should I take out a loan to purchase a family veterinary?

[Dr. John DeLoney]

No way.

[George Campbell]

I hope you weren't listening the last five minutes of the show.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Oh, geez.

[Caller]

I was listening.

Yes.

[George Campbell]

Okay. Tell us why you're the exception.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Oh, incredible.

[George Campbell]

Now tell us more about this business.

[Caller]

Yes. So this is a father daughter business. My father owns the business. I have been working in the business for almost 11 years now as an associate veterinarian. I'm not a partner. I'm not an owner, and I work full time as a veterinarian. I've got two little girls, beautiful little girls. One and four and a half. And my amazing husband works as a school teacher. And my. My. I guess my. Currently, the practice is grossing. Last year in 24. We grossed 1.3 million, and our profits are 80,000 a year. My biggest question. And my brother actually said that I should call and ask about this, because my gut reaction is absolutely, no, I do not want to purchase this practice with a loan. But the reason the question is coming up is because my husband and I in June finally paid off $250,000 in student loans.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Yeah, you did. Congrats.

[George Campbell]

Way to go.

[Caller]

Thank. Thank you. And we are debt free, except our mortgage for the first time in our lives.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Awesome.

[Caller]

And it's. It's amazing.

[George Campbell]

And you're like, why would I want to go back into hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt?

[Caller]

Absolutely. Yeah.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

So is your dad trying to get you. Is he trying to get you to buy this, or is he offered it to sell to you? What? How's that? How did it come up?

[Caller]

Yeah, so we've been talking about it for years now. I'm pretty vested emotionally in the business high. I'm a 120% kind of person. And so I run the day to day and I manage our team. And so we have talked in the past, and I've been very undecided if I wanted to move forward with purchasing the practice or at least becoming an owner. And I finally agreed that, yes, if we can do this, if we can figure out a way lack year. About a year and a half ago, I said, we can figure out a way without me having to take out a loan to do this. I'm on board. And it came up again recently and he said that he didn't actually believe me when I had told him that I didn't want to take out a loan when it came up again. And so that really made me feel very unheard. And my we. Our relationship is very strange because of this business. And I have worked really hard to try to be mentally healthy for my patients and my family and my team sometimes working against him.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Okay, so let me, let me hop in here. So a couple of things here. Number one, please don't go to a bank and take out a loan and buy this from your dad like that. Okay? There is some ways that, like for instance, y'all shake hands and he agrees to take 25% of the profits over the next five years. That kind of thing's okay.

[George Campbell]

So revenue sharing, a gradual buy in, some sweat equity, something like that, like you're talking about is we're not going to do debt, but I'll give you this much revenue over this many years in order to, to essentially pay this off.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

And what I like about the percentage is if suddenly there's a covet hits, then you don't like. If you take out a loan from the bank and covet hits, you're still paying the bank what y'all agreed on. If you have a percentage payout over time and the. That $80,000 a year profit goes down to 20 for a couple of years because of, I don't know, there's a, a dog flu that hits or I don't know, then y'all both have skin in the game. And if he looks at his daughter who's been with him for 11 years and says, no, then I don't want to do business with him. Okay, okay, here's the other side of it. You're gonna have to take language like I don't feel heard and I have. I'm. Makes me sad. This is a business transaction, and you are going to have to get business partners to help you. Because when family does business transactions like this with family, it gets very emotional. So what does that mean? You're gonna have to get a third party appraiser to come in and say, we're going through your books. This is what this.

[George Campbell]

It's not how he feels about the business. It's what is it actually worth?

[Caller]

Okay?

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Because dad might say it's worth $10 million. I want $10 million and I deserve 10 million. I put 40 years of my life in this things. I want $10 million. And now he's put his daughter in a really precarious situation, both financially, but also, you're gonna look at your dad and say, dad, it's only worth $3 million. It's only worth $2 million, dad. Right. So now we've got a problem. We're gonna get a third party appraiser. And if he says, well, I'm not doing that. Then again, if you're running this practice, essentially, if you're already a veterinarian and you're leading the team and you're running payroll and you're hiring and firing people anyway, then you can go start your own company.

[George Campbell]

Yeah. I'm questioning if this is the place for you long term, whether you own it or not.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Because.

[George Campbell]

Because of this strained relationship, it hasn't been going well so far. Owing dad $400,000 or a million dollars is only going to make it worse.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

And by the way, in his generation, you just went and took out a loan, which is why his generation's in the mess that they're in. So don't get mad if he's like, what? I didn't know. There's another option. That's fine. I'm not going to get mad at him about that. But I'm not going to go to a bank and mess up every Christmas for the next 15 years because I owe somebody. Because I didn't have the courage to tell my dad no.

[George Campbell]

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[George Campbell]

Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John DeLoney. The phone number to call is 888-8255-2225. Well, John, it's tax season and that means a lot of people get a little sweat on their brow. There you go. Oh, my gosh, this again. Every year we have to do this.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

I know. It's like Christmas. It just surprises us.

[George Campbell]

At least Christmas there's some joy, you know, unless you're a cpa. And even a CPA is probably going, oh, gosh, get me through this, please. So here's the deal. We want to make it easy on you. We know taxes are confusing. And so we have a hub for [e-mail] tax where you can find our no nonsense tax software called Ramsey Smart Tax. You can find highly qualified tax pros that are Ramsey trusted across the country in your area. And we have some great tax resources. I personally use them. Every year I go to the site and I download the tax prep checklist. I read over the Beginner's Guide to Taxes as a little refresher to go. All right, I'm ready for this. Puts a little pep in my step. So go check it out. RamseySolutions.com is the place to go. Cindy's joining us up next in Miami. What's going on, Cindy?

[Caller]

Hi, John. Hi, George. Thank you for all your good work and your sound advice.

[George Campbell]

Thank you.

[Caller]

I'd like some clarity and I'm looking for your professional guidance. I'm currently with my husband on step four and six. I'm a teacher in Miami. My husband's a firefighter. We purchased the house in 2017. It's now valued at 1.3 million. We have a 15 year fixed mortgage at 2.35 and we have 160,000 left on our mortgage.

[George Campbell]

Amazing.

[Caller]

We always overpay our mortgage when my husband gets overtime. But that comes in waves. So we're anticipating maybe six to seven years left on this mortgage. I'm very concerned with our property insurance. When we bought in 2017, our property insurance was 1,200. When we paid it in 2024, it was 7,700. We don't escrow and, and what's happened in Asheville and these horrid fires in California. I'm anticipating a huge property insurance hike. Now my question is, since we're on step six and we're anticipating this, should we go back to Gazelle Intense and try as hard as we can to pay off this mortgage and then become self insured?

[George Campbell]

I would never get rid of property insurance. That's what you're talking about. You're saying, hey, we'll take on the risk of having to rebuild this million dollar home.

[Caller]

Well, what we're thinking of is just we currently contribute, we have a six month emergency fund and we're continuing to put $1,000 a month into it. I just don't know if it's better to be self insured or stay with these high prices of property insurance. That I'm thinking because we've never seen something like this in California.

[George Campbell]

Sure. Well, I'll tell you two quick things to help. Dave Ramsey has hundreds of millions in real estate. He insures every property even though he doesn't. He could afford it, but he says the risk isn't worth it on my part. I would rather pay this premium to have it covered for me and they shoulder the risk. And I think the same is true for you. So there's a simple solution and I'll hand it to John, but just set up A sinking fund. And even if it goes up to $10,000 and you want to live in Miami, call it the Miami tax you got to pay. It's like having a high HOA fee because you live on a beachfront condo. That's the tax you pay. So we're going to put away $833 a month into the savings account so that when it comes time to pay the property taxes, the money's there.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

And Cindy, every bit of your language reminds me of a guy I used to know. And I'll call him John DeLoney 2.0. So tell me if I'm wrong. You're. You survived Covid as a teacher.

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Your husband's in a very high stress. First responder job.

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

You're in a very high stress. I'll call. Teachers first responder job.

[Caller]

Correct.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Caught up in all the politics, all the nonsense. Plus you. I grew up in Houston. Your situation is worse than what I grew up in. And I still have in my nervous system. Hurricane Alicia, when we had to eat on a camp stove for 10 days because we had no power in the city. And you deal with that every year now in Miami.

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

And you've probably been scrolling and scrolling and scrolling through your hurricane season through what happened in Tampa or almost happened. Bad, bad in Tampa and what happened in North Carolina, what happened in the fires. You're an anxious, anxious mess.

[Caller]

Yeah, I wouldn't. I would agree with that.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

And now here's what you're trying to do. You're trying to take what's happening inside your nervous system and create future tragedies that you're trying to solve in the present. You're making yourself nuts.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Okay.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

So here's. Here's what I want you to do. Cancel for 30 days. Get social media off your phone.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Commit to not going to a news source for 30 days. You're a teacher. If something bad happens, your students will let you know.

[George Campbell]

They know about it before you do.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Yes.

[Caller]

Yeah, for sure.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

And I want. I want you to detox. Okay.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Now here's the simple. Here's the simple thing. Are y'all gonna leave Miami?

[Caller]

No.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Okay.

[Caller]

This is our long term goal.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Okay? So this is where you live. You have a million dollar house. Your husband's a firefighter. You're a teacher. You will never be able to accumulate a million dollars in cash to self insure yourself.

[Caller]

So, no, it'd be very difficult.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

You're going to make yourself nuts trying to catch that dream by the tail because you can't and so all you're going to do is scroll job listings. You're going to scroll extra job. You're going to make yourself bananas. So y'all are living there. This is our home. This is our castle. This is where we planted our flag. And so like George said. Okay, well, the. Our dream tax or our home tax, they might make it $10,000. I don't think they're going to. I think they've priced it in the market. They've gone up 8 jillion percent over the last five years. But if hurricanes keep happening and they keep getting more intense and happening more frequently, then it's going to go up. They have to cover their spread or they're going to go bankrupt. Okay, so let's just put 10,000 bucks. If we pay our house off, we'll have a 500amonth plus our property and property taxes. This is what it will cost. Ta da. That's problem solved now. Okay, you get what I'm saying? And I'm saying it this calm on purpose because I want you to practice this. Because Brene Brown calls it dress rehearsing tragedy. You're. You've already imagined yourself standing in front of a knockdown house and wondering what we're going to do. Don't do that until it comes.

[Caller]

Yeah, we'll cross that bridge when. That's right, we come to it.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

That's right. Okay. So, yeah, I like the idea of getting. Get that 10,000 now. Now if you're. If I'm you and this is going to kind of break with the Ramsey protocol a little bit. If I get to. I'll just tell you what I did with my. With my last house. We got right to the very end where we owed 100. Whatever. Yeah, we. I went full baby step two. I went bananas. But it was for a very limited sprint. You can't do that for five years. You can do it for two.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

So you and your husband, y'all could do math. But listen, that's about making a more peaceful, less anxious house than it has anything to do with being able to predict what an insurance company, what the weather's gonna do or anything like that.

[Caller]

Okay?

[Dr. John DeLoney]

That's you controlling what y'all can control. And a part of making a non anxious house for me and my family was. I don't want us to owe anybody anything.

[Caller]

Right.

[George Campbell]

That was part of John creating that world. He was running towards something versus just away from the thing that could be. And that's what I would tell you is you're. When we talk about baby steps one through three. It is gazelle intensity. Once you're in four, five, six, it's intentionality. And that's a tough move to make when all you know is, go, go, go. Dave said, right. And so I would set an intentional goal with your husband of, hey, what if we could do this in 40 years? Could we do that? It's 40 grand a year. All right. Yeah, let's commit to that. Spit shake. We're gonna commit to that.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Two years. Be bananas, right?

[George Campbell]

Two years. If you want 80. Could we do 80 grand of yeah, we could do that, Whatever that is for you guys. But like John said, do it for the right reason. So I love paying off the house regardless of the interest rate because it's going to set you guys up for freedom. You can invest that payment, but I would keep your property insurance forever, no matter what, and just make a sinking fund and do it and say, well, we did our good deed for the day. We paid our property taxes. Hopefully it went to something good. We paid our insurance. It covered us. I can sleep better at night knowing my house is going to be.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

And one last thing I want you and your husband to do. This is for all teachers and first responders. At night, when y'all have shared meals together, open the meal with five things you're grateful for, look each other in the eye and say them out loud. Because I want us to remember when the world feels like it's burning down around us. We do have things we can be grateful for. It's a practice. Thanks for the call.

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[George Campbell]

Welcome back. To the Ramsey Show, I'm George Camel, joined by Dr. John DeLoney. Open phones tr 888-255-225. Noel joins us up next in Dallas, Texas. How can we help Noel?

[Caller]

My question is, am I in the wrong because I don't want to go on a spring break trip with my husband and daughter to visit their sick grandma.

[George Campbell]

Oh, wow. Okay. What's the heart behind.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Yes, you're wrong. I don't.

[George Campbell]

Is there more context or is that it?

[Caller]

The context is we're in baby step two and we had already invested about $800 to get a plane ticket for just my daughter to go out and visit Grandma. Grandma has been battling cancer for years and she's probably on her last year. And so we definitely wanted her to spend time with her, but that's what the we had discussed. And then today my husband says, why don't we all go? And I'm just not sure that's the right thing to do.

[George Campbell]

So he's going with or without you to see his mom?

[Caller]

Sounds like it. The other. So it's his grandma. So my daughter's great grandma. And the stipulation, I guess that's important is Grandma's willing to foot the bill to pay for our tickets.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Okay. Can she afford that?

[Caller]

She can.

She's got a paid off house.

You know, she's invested well, she's ready to spend her money at the end of her life. But, you know, my thing is I'm missing out on an opportunity to earn money. When it's spring break, I'm a school teacher and so when I'm on break, that's a great time for me to pick up extra jobs and make more money. And my son can still go to daycare, but I am going to miss out on the opportunity to make money and pay off our debt if we go on this trip.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

How much are you talk. I mean, how much can you earn in a week?

[Caller]

500, $600?

[George Campbell]

How much debt are you guys in?

[Caller]

We've got 11,000 in a car that should be paid off by March due to cashing out a whole life plan. And then we have my husband's student loans.

[George Campbell]

How much is that?

[Caller]

60,000.

[George Campbell]

Okay, so the current trajectory, when is all this debt going to be paid off? All 71,000. With your household income?

[Caller]

If I continue working, then in 18 months.

[George Campbell]

Okay. And if you skip this extra week of work, that would have amounted to $500. It would slow it down to 17.7 months.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Okay, well, Noel, hold on.

[George Campbell]

So I just Want to make sure we. Like, that's really what we're talking about.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

No, this has nothing to do with that. You're mad at your husband.

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Because you want to stay at home and you're having to work to pay off his student loans. Yes, yes, yes. You have to get to the root of this thing, because on its face, let me just say, you can feel however you want to feel. Your feelings are yours, and you get to do them. And there's lots of spouses that go visit family members that don't want to, but they do it. And if it's grandma's last year of her life and she's offering to pay to fly everybody to say goodbye one more time. Time, then if you can do that, I would say do that. But you've got to address your anger. And maybe it's not wholly at your husband. Maybe it's at just life. And you love him and you're glad you married him and all this stuff, but it just is what it is what it is. You knew you need to address that because you're creating a life that you're resentful of. Does that make sense?

[Caller]

That sounds true.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

I'm like, okay, so, okay, I was gonna make sure I'm not crazy. Like, so have that conversation with yourself and with him, because right now, for him, he thinks he just figured it out, oh, we can all go, and it's going to be free for us.

[Caller]

Got it.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

I mean, and. And if you don't want to go and you need to work and you've already committed spring breaks just a few weeks from now, if you've already committed, then say, I got to commit my commitment. And if this is the last year, we're all going to be going back anyway for the funeral, you know, in the next year. So if that's the case, that's the case. But I'd much rather you deal with what's really going on here, which is you're stuck in a situation having to work when you want to be home with your baby, and it's real frustrating.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

I mean, tell me I'm bananas.

[Caller]

You're not. Okay.

[George Campbell]

I think you were able to justify.

[Caller]

The tension in my body.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Yeah, I can hear it through the phone, man.

[George Campbell]

You've been trying to justify it by going, well, we're in debt and I could make more money. It will speed it up. And we just proved with math that it's 0.3 months of, you know, it's really not about that. But I do think relationships are not convenient. Family is not convenient. Health crises are not convenient. And that's a part of life on the baby steps. And so we would tell you, hey, if this is really important to your family, you might need to just pause and take the trip and let it slow it down by a few weeks and we'll make it up on the back end. But right now, I think you might need to be there for your husband.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Or the other side. If being around grandma and her family, aunts and uncles are going to be there, make you sick to your stomach. There's been. They've said ugly things about you, whatever, then have that honest conversation because it's going to be bewildering to your husband who doesn't know that you are this against going or you're this frustrated with. With the life that you're leading. And he's not going to be able to figure out over $400 that you're. Or 500 bucks that you may earn over a spring break week. You know what I mean?

[Caller]

Yes, I know what you mean. I think. And to be honest with myself about where the anger is coming from and have that conversation.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

There you go. And if you get to the end and you still don't want to go, don't go. But just be honest about why you're not going. And if. George, this is kind of epidemic levels of people opting out of family because they're annoying or they're man. Sometimes you just go. Sometimes you go and you sit by your husband, you sit by your wife, and you hold their hand and make sure they're not alone when they're going through a really hard moment. Right? And again, you. And I don't know if this grandma meant to him, if.

[George Campbell]

If it's hard for her husband to share this, that, hey, here's really why I want you to go.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What I'm guessing is happening is he sees how stressed she gets and how frustrated she gets when she has to work this extra week. And he thinks he just solved it. He's like, oh, dude, expenses played. Trip and I get to see grandma, but we get to go to Texas. And she's like, I don't hate all of my life and you. And not really hate, but you know what I mean? So, yeah, sometimes getting to the root of the root of the root of the issue is where we got to go.

[George Campbell]

Absolutely. Good word. John is in Oklahoma City up next. What's going on, John?

[Caller]

Hey, guys.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Hey.

[George Campbell]

Get right to the question.

[Caller]

So my question is, I'm in baby step two right now. So I drive a beater. It's a 2004 Chevy 12 laser, has 295, 000 miles on it.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Starting to happen to do a lot.

[Caller]

Of repairs on it and everything.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Hey, John, a lot of times people call us and say they got a beater, and they tell us what they're driving. You actually are. So I applaud your brother. Yeah, congratulations. You got it for real beater there, dude.

[Caller]

Yeah, it's. It's a true.

[George Campbell]

It's old enough to drink this year, so there's something to celebrate.

[Caller]

So my deal, I'm starting to put some more repairs into this, which is taking extra money. I have roughly $80,000 of consumer debt to pay off, and then I'll start baby step three. But my question is, if I can make this vehicle last through the debt payoff, is it okay to save up some cash to buy a better used vehicle before I start the 36 months of expenses?

[George Campbell]

Yeah, I mean, if you need to, like, you know, repair it, drive it until it can't be driven anymore, but also know it might not have two years left in it. And so I would set up a sinking fund that'll probably slow down your baby steps, but at least it won't be this, oh, my gosh, I gotta go finance a $30,000 car. I had no idea it was gonna explode. All, you know, just set aside, you know, 400 bucks a month so that a year from now, you got five grand that'll get you another beater to get you through.

[Caller]

I'll just set up a sinking fund to put, you know, fix some cash in. Like I said, it will slow down my debt payoff. But I do work full time, and I do a side gig doing doordash on the side to make extra money.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

You're getting it, brother. And, hey, it'll slow you down. But if you. You go borrow it, you're going to go backwards.

[George Campbell]

And so that's what really slows you down.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

That's right. And George and I, like, we'll all tell you, just be cautious because, man, it's tempting when you get on that lot and you see what you get for five grand and you see what you could get for ten.

[George Campbell]

Gosh, automatic windows and power steering. Don't tempt him with a good time.

[Dr. John DeLoney]

Air conditioning, that works always for 15. I'm in. Right? So just make, like, get that sinking fund and commit to just that being the number.

[George Campbell]

Drive like no one else. So later you can drive like no one else. John, you're doing it right, man. Hey. The rest of the Ramsey show is in the Ramsey Network app. That's where we're going to keep the party going. So download it for free using the link in the show notes or just search Ramsey Network in the app store. If you're on radio, stay tuned. Everyone else, don't miss what's next. We'll see you in the Ramsey Network app.