Dave Ramsey (2:51)

So you got a $4,000 down payment, a big bunch of payments on a 28 foot cruiser. What's the story? How can we help you?

Caller (2:57)

Cash stashed. I found out that he had hidden $15,000 hidden money. Because I thought, where did this money come from? And I started going through the closet, thinking, I'm going to find it. He's got money hidden in here somewhere. And I found 15 grand a year later in cash. In cash. So he's been hiding and being deceitful with cash.

Dave Ramsey (3:26)

Why?

Caller (3:26)

And I couldn't. I don't know. I confronted him. I confronted him finally, and I said, what the heck's going on? So he said, I thought I was doing something good. I put money away and I'm like, in the closet. In the closet in a pouch that was very well hidden, but I found it. And.

Dr. John DeLoney (3:49)

Okay, so the big issue here is you don't believe his answer.

Caller (3:52)

No, I don't believe his answer. And when you start popping up with big ticket items and go, look, honey, I got this for you. And there's alcohol involved, too. There's alcohol abuse. So.

Dr. John DeLoney (4:09)

Let me say it like this. I have. When I am an anxious guy and over the course of my marriage, when, like, a major world event is happening, I have told my wife I would feel comfortable if we had some cash at the house. And she rolls her eyes and says, okay, and we agree on a number, and I go get some cash because I'm dramatic. But the key there is. I told her I didn't hide it.

Caller (4:34)

You told her? Thank you.

Dave Ramsey (4:35)

And so why is he deceitful with you? What's the problem? Why is he doing that?

Caller (4:41)

I have no idea.

Dr. John DeLoney (4:43)

You do. You have some idea?

Caller (4:45)

Well, he has told me in the past that you like to spend money. And I'm like, I help my daughter or I help my mom and dad. I don't go by. I am not close and boutique in person.

Dr. John DeLoney (5:02)

Do you talk to him about those purchases or are you both doing the same thing behind closed doors?

Caller (5:06)

Yeah. No, no, no, no. Not behind closed doors. Okay, I'll come up with whatever. And it's like, yeah, I got this. And he's like, great, honey, or whatever, you know, and that's fine. Or, my dad broke his back. I'm going to send them a mattress so that it's good for his back because they can't afford $2,000 for a Tempur, pedic, whatever you need. He's like, go ahead and do that.

Dr. John DeLoney (5:25)

Okay.

Caller (5:25)

And whatnot. So there's justification so I can do this. But I tell him, I tell you what I'm doing, and you're not being honest and truthful. If you're hiding liquor and you're hiding money, leave you at all.

Dr. John DeLoney (5:40)

Yes, you're right to do that.

Caller (5:42)

Thank you.

Dr. John DeLoney (5:43)

But if You. But if you. If you. I guess. I guess the challenge for you I would have is if you go to him and say, my dad broke his back, so I'm gonna do this with our money instead of saying, I would love to honor my old man. You know what I'm saying? But other than that.

Caller (5:58)

Yeah.

Dr. John DeLoney (5:59)

Dave, what do you think? I mean, yeah, if he's stealing thousands of dollars and hiding them, the bigger deal is you don't trust him. If my wife found $15,000 in cash, she would have questions, obviously. But her first default setting wouldn't be, you're preparing to run away or you have a problem with addiction. She would think, hey, you need to go see a counselor because you're spitting out on me again. But it would not. But your default is to, I don't trust this guy, and he's doing something nefarious, which, like me and Dave both said, you know, other things are going on.

Caller (6:26)

Right, Right. Right.

Dr. John DeLoney (6:28)

Then what makes you not trust yourself? Do you not want to. Do you not want to deal with what you know to be true?

Caller (6:39)

No, it's. It's. We have a tumultuous relationship anyway.

Dave Ramsey (6:44)

You're kidding.

Dr. John DeLoney (6:45)

Yeah.

Dave Ramsey (6:46)

I'm so shocked.

Dr. John DeLoney (6:47)

Is he planning an exit strategy here?

Caller (6:50)

But the thing that really bothers me is that $65,000 of that is for caretaking for my son that has down syndrome. And when I met my husband, my son was $55,000. My son's.

Dave Ramsey (7:05)

No, I mean, wait a minute. I had 15,000 in the closet, and I had a cabin cruiser. Now I'm at 65 grand. What happened? I just got lost.

Dr. John DeLoney (7:12)

Yeah. Where's that money?

Caller (7:14)

65,000 a year goes into our account. So on a monthly basis, divide that up. But it's 65,000 total a year that goes into our joint checking that he keeps pulling money out of 65,000 to.

Dave Ramsey (7:30)

Care for a Down syndrome child.

Caller (7:32)

No, we don't.

Dave Ramsey (7:33)

Okay, so you're being melodramatic. You brought the kid in as a flag wave here. All you've got is a husband. You and him are not in agreement on where the freaking money's going. He feels nagged about the alcohol. He feels nagged about, and he thinks you spend too much, and so he squirrel money away. So you guys need to sit down with a good marriage counselor and decide if you're going to go forward. If you're going to go forward, and I think you should, then what you're going to do is you're going to quit all these side deals, both of you. You're going to have one freaking account and both of you are going to do one budget and you're both going to be in an agreement on everything that goes out of this house. And there's no, you know, there's no coming out of the closet with 15 grand in your hand and there's no buying boats. Surprise. Honey, look what I bought that I wanted and called it your anniversary gift. It's a bull. And there's no. I get. I have to protect everything from you because you're deceitful. You've got to get, you guys got to get on a basis of trust here. And the trust is going to come from transparency and working together. And both of you have a vote. And that's going to come in a marriage counselor's office. If you don't do that, you're probably divorced within a year.

Dr. John DeLoney (8:45)

Amen.

Dave Ramsey (9:01)

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Dr. John DeLoney (10:38)

Oh.

Dave Ramsey (10:41)

Well, I mean, the number of times that we find people that are hiding money or buying things or doing purchases without their spouse. And to me, when that's happening, it is not the thing. It's not the actual hiding that's the problem. It's the fact that that is a symptom of a broken relationship.

Dr. John DeLoney (11:04)

Always. And when it. Yes, when you can't go to your spouse and say, I'm scared about something, I'm frustrated about something, I'm uneasy about something. Then that, yeah, that's. Then it manifests itself in a bunch of different ways.

Dave Ramsey (11:18)

Or because I watch you behave, you know, give money to your. Whoever, your family, or because I watch you spend. I'm a saver. I'm activated. I'm going to go over here, and that's my permission then to revenge, save deceitfully instead of saying, we've got to get on the same page.

Dr. John DeLoney (11:39)

Scorekeeping is one of the most devastating things to a marriage.

Dave Ramsey (11:42)

That's what it is. That's what it is. Because there's always a justification, always, for why I deceived you did this.

Dr. John DeLoney (11:48)

So I get to do this.

Dave Ramsey (11:49)

You. You. You have the budget so tight that I couldn't breathe, so I had to hide my target purchases under the bed.

Caller (11:55)

Right.

Dave Ramsey (11:56)

Or whatever.

Dr. John DeLoney (11:56)

You helped out your ailing father, so I got to buy a boat. Just nonsense.

Dave Ramsey (12:00)

Yeah, that. Which is asinine. Yeah, obviously. So the. But. But so what is the fix? The fix is to. If you have the. The urgent to hide or a concern about your spouse over saving, over giving, overspending, under organizing, you have really one healthy option, and that's put that in the middle of the kitchen table and set it on fire until we deal with it.

Dr. John DeLoney (12:34)

That's right. And the best way to do that is to start that conversation not with a you statement, but with an I statement. When you sit down and say you've been hiding. Now we're in a war and your partner's got. Your spouse is going to defend themselves. If you sit down and say, I'm feeling this I'm scared about, I'm struggling with, then that's an invitation.

Dave Ramsey (12:54)

It occurs to me that for most people, they see conflict as fearful. They're fearful if we're doing conflict. So when that guy hides 15,000 in the closet, he's being a coward.

Dr. John DeLoney (13:13)

Correct.

Dave Ramsey (13:13)

Because he didn't have enough courage to sit down with his own wife and say, I'm not okay with the way this is going.

Dr. John DeLoney (13:21)

Well, what I would say in that situation, I think there's a threshold. If you're hiding, I don't know, you're looking at websites that you know your spouse would be upset about. You're hiding things. Those are bellwether issues you got to deal with in your marriage. Or when you start hiding $15,000 in cash and you got a drinking problem and you're buying boats, you're hiding an Addiction, you're hiding much bigger things. Right?

Dave Ramsey (13:43)

Yeah. But what I'm saying is I'm talking to the guy or the gal that says I feel the need to do a thing on the side, whatever that is, rather than deal with my spouse.

Dr. John DeLoney (13:55)

Yes, it's. Yes. So it's either cowardice or it is fear. Like you're going to hurt me, you're going to take everything and leave me. Or it is, I'm scared.

Dave Ramsey (14:05)

Both are fear.

Dr. John DeLoney (14:05)

I'm not going to get my way.

Dave Ramsey (14:06)

Cowardice is fear.

Dr. John DeLoney (14:07)

There you go.

Dave Ramsey (14:07)

So both of them are fear. So in other words, it requires more courage to do it, to put an issue on the table and solve for unity.

Dr. John DeLoney (14:17)

Correct.

Dave Ramsey (14:18)

Than it does to do this nefarious crap off to the side.

Dr. John DeLoney (14:23)

Yes.

Dave Ramsey (14:24)

Or have my own account. I need my own account because I can't be with you on the most.

Dr. John DeLoney (14:28)

Courageous thing you can do is put on the table and deal with it.

Dave Ramsey (14:30)

And solve for unity.

Dr. John DeLoney (14:31)

That's right.

Dave Ramsey (14:31)

And solve for that. Because that level of conflict is not as devastating, but what it does is it forces you to say, okay, really? At the core of this is I don't trust you. At the core of this is I don't, I don't respect your earning ability. I don't respect your. You're not being a grown up with the handling of the money, you're immature.

Dr. John DeLoney (14:57)

Or I'm not getting what I want. So I'm going to do this thing which goes against what you said. Solve for unity. Dude, if I could get every couple in America to solve for unity. You deal with a lot of challenges most people are solving. Most people use their marriage as a way to self actualize themselves. And so they're not solving for unity. They're solving for what's. What can I get away with so I can get what I want? And that's not how healthy marriages last over time.

Dave Ramsey (15:23)

Yeah, I mean, I remember like I was buying a. We had a couple sea doos down at the lake and they broke down two times in one summer. And I can't stand a dadgum boat that doesn't work. Drive me nuts. So you don't spend enough time there anyway. You don't want to be working on a stupid boat. So I told Sharon, I said, I think we need to upgrade these sea doos. So when the grandkids and everybody's down here, stupid things work. And she's like, oh, what's that gonna cost? And I told her and she's like, I don't think so. I'm like, yeah, but I think so.

Dr. John DeLoney (15:53)

I would love to. I would. Paid.

Dave Ramsey (15:54)

Yeah, but I mean. But I think so, but I don't think so. But the other option would have been she just shows up and there's two sea doo's sitting there.

Dr. John DeLoney (16:01)

Correct.

Dave Ramsey (16:01)

Which I could easily do from a tactical standpoint.

Dr. John DeLoney (16:04)

She probably wouldn't notice.

Dave Ramsey (16:05)

But here's the. Yeah, she wouldn't notice.

Dr. John DeLoney (16:07)

Okay. She would have.

Dave Ramsey (16:09)

That one wouldn't have got by her. No. But the point is that it was more important to force ourselves into a unified decision than the purchase was important.

Dr. John DeLoney (16:23)

I love that. Yes.

Dave Ramsey (16:24)

And that's what you've got. You got to decide which is more important, what's more important, having savings or being unified.

Dr. John DeLoney (16:31)

That's right. And you know, every spouse is different. You know, when I put this on the table, this is going to be three hours. I know this. Or it's going to cost me X. And that is worth it. So that we are together on this.

Dave Ramsey (16:45)

Yeah. I mean. Yeah. I have to deal with all the feelings. Like I have to get my wife's permission. I must be a wuss. You know? And no, I don't. I have decided that the best way to handle money and marriage and to have a great life is to be unified in these decisions. That is a decision I made. I have a better life when I solve for that than if I just do whatever I want to do.

Dr. John DeLoney (17:06)

Than a temporarily comfortable life that then explodes on you.

Dave Ramsey (17:09)

Exactly.

Dr. John DeLoney (17:10)

Yeah.

Dave Ramsey (17:11)

It's short term thinking.

Dr. John DeLoney (17:12)

That's right. It's Michael Easter. It's just we're going to do hard stuff day by day so that we don't have nuclear implosions at the end.

Dave Ramsey (17:19)

Well. And then wonder why we don't. But these little. The Bible says the little foxes spoil the vine. These little details just swept under the rug. Swept under the rug. Swept under the rug. And then we're gripe because we got a lumpy rug.

Dr. John DeLoney (17:32)

That's right. The best way I've ever heard it said is conflict deferred. Is conflict amplified.

Dave Ramsey (17:36)

Yeah, yeah. That's.

Dr. John DeLoney (17:36)

You're gonna have a bunch of little skirmishes. That's fine.

Dave Ramsey (17:39)

That's it.

Dr. John DeLoney (17:39)

If you don't, you'll have a world war.

Dave Ramsey (17:41)

So you're, you're. My point is you're kidding yourself.

Dr. John DeLoney (17:44)

Yes.

Dave Ramsey (17:45)

When you think you got away with this.

Dr. John DeLoney (17:47)

Right.

Dave Ramsey (17:48)

Or you think that this is. That running it in a disunified, chaotic manner is actually working. It works for us. I've heard. I've had people tell me that on the Air. Oh, Dave, that system works for us. No, it doesn't. No, it doesn't. It just means you don't have to deal with it right now. It's conflict, delay.

Dr. John DeLoney (18:04)

It's just false peace.

Dave Ramsey (18:05)

Now, these things have a high, as Les Barrett says, has a high rate of resurrection. These zombies come back to life and they will come through and choke your family out.

Dr. John DeLoney (18:14)

And look at this guy here. It's very similar to when you sit down with folks who have done pretty big white collar crime. It started with, I ran up on the weekend to grab a thing and I went ahead and grabbed this too, and I was gonna pay it back, my petty cash on the desk. I grabbed my neighbors because I needed this thing, but I'm gonna pay it back. And this guy pulled, I guarantee you, he pulled a couple hundred bucks and put an envelope and put another hundred bucks and then put a thousand bucks and then put. Bought a wife a boat to look over here, and all of a sudden you look up and you've got $15,000 that you're hiding. You can't just pull that in one fell swoop. And it just builds on you and builds on you and builds on you.

Dave Ramsey (18:52)

Mansfield talks about the leaders that fail, but it also, I think it applies marriages that fail too, is they. Sometimes the person builds a side secret life. And so when I see hidden alcohol, that's one thing. When I see hidden alcohol and I see hidden 15,000 and I see the third piece is a surprise boat, I'm betting on an affair big time. Percentage wise.

Dr. John DeLoney (19:21)

Absolutely.

Dave Ramsey (19:22)

Because he's built his side life, he's got another world. He's got a separate life over there, a second world. And when you, you know, it's almost like these video games where you build your own little world thing, but people literally physically do that in the real world, right? And they build a side life that they think is a secret life. And buddy, when those things come out, everything melts down.

Dr. John DeLoney (19:44)

It all does.

Dave Ramsey (19:45)

There's too many different secrets in that story that I didn't get a check. What'd you get?

Dr. John DeLoney (19:50)

Oh, he's got another world.

Dave Ramsey (19:52)

Yeah, okay.

Dr. John DeLoney (19:52)

Yeah, he's got a whole other planet.

Dave Ramsey (19:53)

Yeah, yeah, whole nother planet. That's his.

Dr. John DeLoney (19:55)

But if you find yourself having to create an alt universe to survive in, you gotta deal with that.

Dave Ramsey (20:00)

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Dr. John DeLoney (20:56)

That's boostmobile.com Ramsey restrictions apply.

Dave Ramsey (21:00)

See boostmobile.com Ramsey for details. Aaron's in Los Angeles. Hi Erin, how are you?

Caller (21:20)

I'm good. Thank you for having me.

Dave Ramsey (21:23)

Sure. What's up?

Caller (21:25)

So my husband and I got married two years ago and we both have started late with retirement savings. We're in baby step two and I a year ago started a really lucrative position and it's just going to grow over time to even more lucrative, which is wonderful. But, and I love the job, but it's not my dream. Our dream is to move to the Caribbean and start a bed and breakfast and maybe an off road company. But we don't have a lot in retirement. So I'm just wondering how soon I could quit the lucrative job and how much I need to have in reserves before I can do that. We have a child, so I don't want to be irresponsible, but we do want to chase that dream someday.

Dave Ramsey (22:13)

Okay. What do you make?

Caller (22:19)

So right now I'm making around 150 and my husband makes around 130.

Dave Ramsey (22:25)

Okay. So we got 280 to work with in Los Angeles. Okay. So you're not rich, you're about minimum wage.

Dr. John DeLoney (22:32)

Yes.

Dave Ramsey (22:36)

And how much debt do you guys have?

Caller (22:40)

We have about 50,000.

Dave Ramsey (22:42)

Okay. All right. It sounds to me like what I would be doing first you need to go through baby steps. One, two and three. Okay. You need to get your, you need to get out of debt and have an emergency fund before we even start talk about any of these things. I assume quitting your job is simultaneous with you moving to the Caribbean and doing that and building the business there. Right, Right. Okay. All right. And so I would be putting 15% of my income away in baby step four into retirement. And then I would be saving like a crazy person aside from that into an investment to buy the BNB and to start the four wheel business. And you know, you'd probably go to the Caribbean on some of your vacations and talk to people that have Got businesses like that for sale or bnb. You know, look at, look at properties in the particular island you're thinking of. Learn what the regulations are for operating on those islands, what the governmental structure looks like and so forth. Because it is different from island to island for sure. And the real estate market would be different, the BNB market would be different. And you know, develop a business plan while you're on vacation, mess around with it because it's going to take a while and go, okay, what do we need? Well, we need a half million dollars or we a million dollars or what do we need to do this? And then that becomes your savings target and you start working towards that.

Dr. John DeLoney (24:13)

Okay, you don't like that answer?

Caller (24:15)

No, it's not that. I was just hoping for more of an ex. I know everyone's different but like while we're in this position, I want to stack up money because we don't want.

Dave Ramsey (24:26)

That's what I'm telling you to do. Retirement, I'm telling you.

Caller (24:28)

Yeah, and I'm 43. So it's like if we stack up, do we need a million dollars before I can quit the job?

Dave Ramsey (24:35)

Well, I don't know, I don't know what you need to start the other business down there. That's what I'm telling you to go do the research and find out.

Caller (24:42)

Okay. Because we have a good match with the 401k. So I'm just wondering, you know, how much we need there before I can quit a lucrative job and take a risk.

Dave Ramsey (24:51)

You can't quit a lucrative job and take a risk because you don't have the money to start the next gig if it's all in the 401k.

Caller (25:00)

Oh right.

Dave Ramsey (25:01)

So that's what I'm telling you. Put 15% of your income into retirement in 401k. And then above that start saving to buy the first BNB or to buy the BNB and then figure out what it's going to take to add a four wheeler operation. You could add that as phase two of this. You could move down there, start the BNB, live on that. Now if you're 59 and a half before this happens, you could use some of the 401k money to do that. Yeah, but, but that's 15 years. So I don't know that that takes this long. But the more you know the way I start looking at that one. Because I have a business goal. If I'm you and I've been in the exact same situation, I've got a set of money Here beyond my retirement that I can do something with. I'm already putting 15% of my income into retirement and I got a set of money I can do something with and I can spend it, I can give it and I could squirrel it away for the Caribbean bnb and you know, so every dollar you spend vacating, buying cars, other LA crap is another day you're delaying quitting your job and going to the Caribbean. So these are trade offs. And so once I've got that identified, then I'm going to be trading off like crazy. I'm going to be going, no, I'm working towards this goal and so I don't really need to go on vacation.

Dr. John DeLoney (26:25)

So Dave, help me with this because I'm developing a strong allergy to the words I want to follow my dream or follow my passion as it's, I'm hearing it more and more as a, a hack to life. I don't want to do this, so I'm just going to chase this thing. One of the things I've learned sitting ringside with you over the last five years is people who go chase a thing. It does work, but those are the ones that supernova. But a lot of those things when you try to like, I want to have a coffee shop in this city, nobody ever asks or few people ask, does the people in that city need another coffee shop? And what I've learned by sitting with you is it was I want to teach this stuff about how to get out of debt. And you look up and you have a Sunday school class with a thousand people showing up every week. Or people keep asking me how do I do this in my business? Like, I'll start talking about leadership then. And then entre's born and then, man, I wish we taught this in high school, but it's a constant response to the market. Not a, I want to go out and do a thing because man, I just feel like you get yourself in a lot of trouble and I don't want to tell people, don't follow your dreams because that's important. But man, you gotta, you gotta understand also that people have to be asking for this thing. And I don't know how to find that matrix, right, because people, I'm sure people told, you know, whoever, if you start this company, you're an idiot, I wouldn't do that. And they kiss, kept pressing, pressing and pressing and it works. But man, there is a trail of people who just wanted to go start a candle company and it didn't work.

Dave Ramsey (27:51)

And well, they had an Incomplete picture of starting a candle company or starting an Airbnb. So the thing is, when it's at the stage she's at, it's at the dream stage. And so dream is probably the right word. The trick of changing it from a dream into a vision and then into a goal and then put work clothes on it and break it down into tactical pieces of how we're going to execute. And then you start to realize this dream is not all unicorns and Skittles. There's actually freaking work involved in the Caribbean. You have governments that are unstable and you have. I don't know, if you had something like Covid happen, you could be completely bankrupted if you did the Airbnb wrong because nobody's allowed on or off the island for a year and a half.

Dr. John DeLoney (28:34)

Or you get it and you get it all lined up and it's perfect and you realize, oh, our take home is going to be $19,000 this year. Yeah, that's it. Because we didn't do.

Dave Ramsey (28:41)

And we're using. And we're used to 280.

Dr. John DeLoney (28:43)

Right.

Dave Ramsey (28:43)

You know, and so, you know, these dreams can become nightmares if you don't walk through them like a grown up. But sometimes when you say, I just want to live my dream, and she wasn't saying that, I'm not making fun of her, but I'm with you. I get that a lot these days. Follow. And Mike Roll always laughs and says, no, why don't you try working? And so. But, you know, but I want to follow my dream. It's like sometimes when someone's saying that. And I'm not accusing this last caller of this, she may or may not be, but I'm not accusing her. But in general, the revulsion you have to the same one I have is it's like, okay, because I have a dream, the rules don't apply to me.

Dr. John DeLoney (29:21)

The world needs to bend to what I can.

Dave Ramsey (29:24)

I can just go do this tomorrow. I can microwave it because it's in my. And I want to do it. And that's a child.

Dr. John DeLoney (29:32)

Gotcha.

Dave Ramsey (29:33)

That's a childish behavior. And so the adult reaction to that is, okay, I'm going to take it from a dream to a vision to a goal. I'm going to put work clothes on this thing and find out how you get bugs out of a house in the Caribbean, because there's going to be bugs there and I can't have them in the bed with those people that are staying here because I'll get a bad tripadvisor. Review. And the whole stinking thing is going up in flames. Yeah. Hello. How do you do? How do you kill bugs? And so, I mean, you're going to get down into that kind of stuff before you find out that this dream actually is a business. And it's like. Like it's not always fun or.

Dr. John DeLoney (30:02)

What I hear often is people love. A small subsection of people, myself included, love going to coffee, love the feeling of going to a coffee shop. And the thought is, I want to. I want this to be my life all the time. And they think buying a coffee shop and running one is going to feel like that. Or. I had a great experience at a BNB in the Caribbean a few times. This is the life I want to live. That's different than running a business there.

Dave Ramsey (30:25)

Yeah, I mean. I mean, four wheelers, 100% of them roll over. And you have medical bills.

Dr. John DeLoney (30:32)

Always.

Dave Ramsey (30:33)

100% of them break down. 100% of them have to be replaced about every three years if they're in a rental program. So it's.

Dr. John DeLoney (30:40)

But they are fun, right?

Dave Ramsey (30:41)

Yeah, but. But for the 30 minutes you're on one, it's a blast. It's 100%, though. This is the Rams. Hey, what's up, guys? It's Jade. And listen, if you're waiting on the government to cancel your student loans, I hate to say it, but that's like expecting your broke cousin Boo Boo to pay you back the 40 bucks you loaned him. It ain't happening. Now, when it comes to student loans, no one else is going to pay them off for you. So if you want the loans gone, you've got to take control. Now, that might mean cutting back. It might mean throwing every extra dollar at your debt. And for some of you, it might mean refinancing to get a better interest rate.

Caller (31:37)

And that's where Laurel Road comes in.

Dave Ramsey (31:39)

With Laurel Road, you can get an initial rate quote in less than five minutes. And if you have a more complex situation, you can schedule 30 minutes. Minutes to talk to an actual human being. Look, guys, refinancing may not be for everybody. And Ramsey's advice is clear. We want you to pay off your debt as fast as possible. So if you can get a lower rate or a shorter term that helps you do that. Go for it. Laurel Road has low rates, plus ways to save even more money, like an autopay discount. Don't sit around hoping for a miracle. Change your life and change your mindset. Go get it done. Go to LaurelRoad.com Ramsey to check your rate today. That's LaurelRoad.com Ramsey Scott's in New Orleans. Hey, Scott. How are you?

Caller (32:37)

Hey.

Dr. John DeLoney (32:37)

Good afternoon, Dave. Thanks for having me.

Dave Ramsey (32:39)

Sure. What's going on up?

Caller (32:41)

I was wondering. My stepdad is in his 80s and my mom is in her 60s. And he is likely to pass before her, but through their prenup, he will not be leaving her anything. And she is not that well off. I was wondering if that's right or not.

Dave Ramsey (32:57)

How long they've been married?

Caller (33:00)

Five years.

Dave Ramsey (33:01)

Okay. Well, I mean, it's what she signed up for, so it's not. It's not morally wrong. But I would, you know, I would come down on the side of I wouldn't do that to my wife, so.

Caller (33:21)

Right.

Dave Ramsey (33:21)

I don't think she needs to be.

Caller (33:22)

Treated like one of his kids equally maybe, but maybe to leave her something so that she's not a destitute widow.

Dave Ramsey (33:30)

Yeah, well, she. They've been married. They've been married for how long?

Dr. John DeLoney (33:34)

Five years.

Dave Ramsey (33:35)

Okay, so she's 60 and she was 55. She had no money when she was 55.

Caller (33:43)

She has no savings.

Dave Ramsey (33:45)

She went into this. She went into this marriage destitute?

Caller (33:50)

Pretty much.

Dave Ramsey (33:52)

Well, then she's not net destitute now. She would be pretty much now, unless she spent that money or something. What she do with it?

Caller (34:00)

Well, it's all wrapped up in her house.

Dave Ramsey (34:03)

Okay. Where's. She owns a house.

Caller (34:07)

Right. That she's gonna have to sell that eventually. The only reason that she's still in it is because he doesn't want to move right now.

Dave Ramsey (34:14)

So they live in her house.

Caller (34:16)

Correct.

Dave Ramsey (34:18)

Okay. And his assets have been supporting that. A lot of it, yeah. Okay, so she. Because she can't afford to live there without him.

Caller (34:29)

Correct.

Dave Ramsey (34:30)

Okay. How was she affording to live there before him?

Caller (34:33)

That's why she has no savings. She wiped it out staying in that house, I think.

Dave Ramsey (34:39)

Okay. All right.

Dr. John DeLoney (34:41)

Did your dad leave or pass away?

Caller (34:43)

They got divorced.

Dr. John DeLoney (34:44)

They divorced. Okay.

Dave Ramsey (34:45)

Yeah. So she held onto a house, kept a house she couldn't afford all that time and drained herself down.

Caller (34:50)

So we were out of high school, but she never got rid of it after we left.

Dave Ramsey (34:54)

Yeah, she drained herself down. Okay. So I can go back to being on the side. I want him to leave or something. But I also want you to reframe this in your mind. She's not destitute. She owns a house. So you need to quit saying that. And she can sell the house and she can have a life. And if she doesn't have any Money. It's because she never handled the money right to start with, not because of him. The fact that she's not set up, okay, at this stage of the game is her fault, not his.

Caller (35:31)

I agree with that.

Dave Ramsey (35:32)

Okay, so let's not make him a villain in this, because it was a little bit. Felt that way for a minute. I was getting ready to call him a villain for a second there, but I'm not. And so she signed up and said, okay, prenup is I keep my house. You move in. We do expenses. You cover expenses or whatever. But whatever wealth you have attained, go to your children upon your death. And you're 20 years older than me, so you will probably pre decease me statistically. So that's what. That's the deal they signed up for five years ago. Okay.

Dr. John DeLoney (36:08)

Are his kids gonna sue her for his part of that house?

Dave Ramsey (36:12)

He doesn't have any part of that house. It was hers before they got married. The prenup says she keeps her house.

Dr. John DeLoney (36:17)

Okay. Okay. So he's paying into it. He's paying the bills.

Dave Ramsey (36:20)

Yeah, but. But she's not gonna have that anymore, so she'll have to sell the house. Okay. And she's 60 years old. So what's the house worth?

Caller (36:29)

Probably 700,000.

Dave Ramsey (36:30)

Is it paid for?

Caller (36:32)

No, she owes 250.

Dave Ramsey (36:34)

Okay. All right.

Dr. John DeLoney (36:38)

Do you not like this guy?

Caller (36:41)

No. I just don't think that she's getting the full benefits of a marriage by not having financial security. If he were to leave, I mean, she would have to change her lifestyle completely and probably.

Dave Ramsey (36:53)

But she was going to anyway. She was gonna have to anyway.

Caller (36:57)

I guess so.

Dave Ramsey (36:58)

Yes. Yeah. Because she could. What she was doing wasn't sustainable. You already said that. Right. Right before this guy. So she's getting ready to have to change her lifestyle anyway. So the fact that he came along actually extended her ability to stay in a property that she couldn't afford is all it is. So, yeah, if I'm in his shoes, I would want to make sure she was better taken care of than what you're describing. So I agree with your sentiment on that. You're asking this as a question, but you're really making a statement. And I'm okay with both. So, yeah, I would if I was in his shoes. Now, if I'm not in his shoes and I put on her shoes, this is the trip she signed up for. And so she needs to start making plans now to be ready to sell that house when he dies and move to a property that she can pay cash for. With the equity of the house, hopefully he lives a few more years, and the house is worth a million. And the debt goes down. And so she's going to clear 800 instead of clearing 500 like she would today. Every year he lives, the debt goes down, the house goes up. So her asset is increasing in value. And her livelihood, which is her entire livelihood, I assume she's not worth working. Correct. Okay.

Dr. John DeLoney (38:17)

And she's gonna have to change that because. Because she's got this looming math problem over her head.

Dave Ramsey (38:22)

Oh, she just changes the perception of when he dies, the house is sold. And the longer he lives, the more money that means for her because the house is going to go up in value, that it's going to go down because this is the deal she signed up for.

Dr. John DeLoney (38:37)

But you don't think she needs to get a job now, too? Yeah, she probably should start stocking some money away.

Dave Ramsey (38:41)

Yeah, she's 60 years old. Go, go, go get, you know, go work five years and put, you know, put a couple hundred thousand bucks in the bank in a 401k. And then when he dies, you're okay. And if he doesn't want her to go to work, then he needs to change his will, his prenup.

Caller (38:56)

Yeah.

Dave Ramsey (38:58)

You know, if she. He needs to stay home, she needs to stay home and take care of me. I'm old. Okay, cool. Then you need to change your will. And, you know, the caretaking is going to cost you some money, but, you know, because otherwise I don't have a sustainable thing because I signed up for a deal. You signed up. We both signed up for a deal here with our eyes wide open. That's a bad deal. Yeah. The prenup is different than the will, too, by the way. So prenup would not. But the prenup probably addresses the will. But in terms of. Prenup would be upon. Not upon death. It would be upon divorce. The will actually would be the. The dictating document. Yeah, he. He. I. I would want to say if I was married, you know, something happened to Sharon, I got remarried, that I would want that person to be taken care of. And I would assume that my children. If I'm. If I marry a lady, it means I love her, that my children would want her to be taken care of.

Dr. John DeLoney (39:54)

But. But not to have the full extent of. Of the.

Dave Ramsey (39:57)

Yeah. He didn't have to get a full half cut or the Ramsey.

Dr. John DeLoney (40:00)

Yeah, the fortune. Right.

Dave Ramsey (40:01)

But I can do that. But absolutely not.

Dr. John DeLoney (40:02)

Yeah. Make sure she's okay. But also, again, man, I always Hate talking bad about somebody's mom. So don't hear me say talk about her. But she has a pattern of pushing.

Dave Ramsey (40:12)

Off reality, kicking the can down the road.

Dr. John DeLoney (40:14)

And like we were talking about earlier in this show, like it's. That conflict will come up and it's just going to be. She's going to be 75 and he dies at 95, and she'll have nothing. And then she won't be able to just go get a job like you might be able to when you're 60.

Dave Ramsey (40:28)

Yeah, I would go. I would go create an income right now.

Dr. John DeLoney (40:30)

Right now.

Dave Ramsey (40:30)

And I would start. I would have a go through the mental exercise of, if he dies this year, what is my plan?

Dr. John DeLoney (40:38)

There you go.

Dave Ramsey (40:39)

And if he dies next year, what is my plan? And it sounds like the plan is you're going to be selling the house.

Dr. John DeLoney (40:44)

Well, no matter what, we're selling that house. But if we have to buy a condo with cash, then maybe we only have 3,000, 300,000 left or 200,000, and so we need to have some more money in the account when that day comes.

Dave Ramsey (40:54)

Yeah, yeah. But, yeah, I think it is. So I agree with your sentiment that if I were in his shoes, I would want to make sure she was taken care of. And that's Scott's sentiment, and I don't disagree with that. But it doesn't make the guy a villain, because your mom signed up for this. This is the deal she signed into. And she's kicked things down the road. So she needs to come up with a plan to take care of herself, which is what she should have been doing five years ago anyway, sustainable situation, because he's not going to be here here or. And he's not leaving or anything.

Dr. John DeLoney (41:29)

The calls I'm increasingly getting are from children. Are Children are. Have two young kids or three young kids. And their finances are tight and they're staring down the barrel of a parent. Or parents who just refuse to acknowledge reality. And they're starting to say, I see myself becoming a caretaker. Like, the train's coming at me and mom and dad won't do anything about it.

Dave Ramsey (41:51)

Sandwich generation stuck between my kids and my parents. Yeah, that's the money going both directions. So that. That's a problem. But I think the way you deal, I think it's a real good idea since they were so smart to put everything on paper up front. Let's just go ahead and talk about the implications of that. Mom, he dies, you're selling the house. Hey, you guys, if you're looking to save big on groceries without sacrificing quality.

Caller (42:32)

You'Ve got to check out Aldi.

Dave Ramsey (42:33)

That's right, Rachel, because let's be real, I'm bougie, but I'm also frugal. So you're bougie, George. Thank you for admitting it. So why pay more for the same stuff just because it has a fancy label? Aldi shoppers save up to 36% on a typical shopping trip over name brand products at other stores which adds up to about $4,000 per year for a family of four. It's crazy.

Caller (42:53)

Yeah. And you know what, their organic produce.

Dave Ramsey (42:55)

Their fresh meats and even their private.

Caller (42:57)

Label, it's all delicious. So it's good quality stuff that's not.

Dave Ramsey (43:00)

Going to bust the budget. And the best part, no membership fees, no gimmicks, no headaches.

Dr. John DeLoney (43:04)

Just a simple shopping experience with the.

Dave Ramsey (43:06)

Lowest prices of any national grocery store.

Caller (43:09)

So beautiful.

Dave Ramsey (43:09)

Okay, so stop paying more and start shopping at Aldi. Find a store near you today at.

Caller (43:15)

Aldi.Us that's a L D I us.

Dave Ramsey (43:33)

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey show. Where we help people build wealth, do work that they love and create actual amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Dr. John DeLoney, number one best selling author, host of the Dr. John DeLoney show on the Ramsey Networks, Ramsey personality, he's my co host. Katie's in Spokane. Hi Katie, how are you?

Caller (44:01)

I'm doing great, thank you Dave. Thanks for taking my call.

Dave Ramsey (44:04)

Sure. What's up?

Caller (44:07)

So I have kind of a tricky situation with my mom. My husband and I are doing great. We are on baby step six. We're debt free except our mortgage and we are in the position of we provide a home for my mom. She was widowed in 2013 and my father passed away leaving her with a mountain of debt, medical debt, debt they'd accrued over the years. And she filed bankruptcy and then later sold her house. So she is sitting on about 100,000 left from that. But we provide a home for her. We charge her like a quarter of the rent that she would because we built a mother in law when we built our house. My question is so she lives next.

Dave Ramsey (44:49)

Door to you or adjacent to you?

Caller (44:51)

Yes, we have like a shop apartment that she lives in currently.

Dave Ramsey (44:56)

Oh, I got you. Okay. So she's on your property that isn't that you're not providing her a standalone separate home. I got you. Okay.

Caller (45:03)

Yeah, it's, it's like an apartment on the property it's separate from.

Dave Ramsey (45:06)

And how Old is she?

Caller (45:08)

She is currently. I believe she'll be 69 this year.

Dave Ramsey (45:12)

Okay, cool. All right.

Caller (45:14)

Yeah. So when she. When my father passed away, she decided not to get a job again. She wanted to be there for grandkids. There's, you know, seven children in our family and lots of grandkids. We've tried to advise her to get a job. She has not. So we provide her a place because she can't really afford rent. She's on, like, $2,000 Social Security. My problem is I have an older sibling who her whole life has been a series of just unfortunate decisions, and she's in one financial problem after another. And we found out that my mom has been paying bills for her and loaning her money, and all of this out of pretty much a tiny nest egg that she hasn't invested, she's just sitting on. And we feel. My husband and I feel that we are supporting her financially and finding out that we have siblings who are taking advantage of her financially. I don't really know how to address it with her in a respectful way that I love my mom. I don't want to come down hard on her, but it's just tricky because we know we're going to be caretakers for her eventually. She really doesn't have much to support herself with.

Dave Ramsey (46:34)

So basically, the 100 grand that she had, she's going to burn through it. Supporting the parasite siblings.

Caller (46:40)

Yes. Yes. That's our concern.

Dave Ramsey (46:43)

Then you're going to be stuck with mom in the house, and you're going to be caring for your mom, and she's going to have Social Security checks. All she's got to blow now.

Caller (46:52)

Yes.

Dave Ramsey (46:52)

How close are we to that? Is 100 gone yet?

Caller (46:56)

I just recently talked to her. She said she has, like, 109. And she's very cagey about being open with me about how much she's helped. But I do know she's providing bills. And this sister, she's recently divorced. She has two kids. She refuses to go to work more than two days a week because she wants to keep her government aid, et cetera, et cetera.

Dave Ramsey (47:15)

Yeah.

Caller (47:16)

And.

Dave Ramsey (47:17)

Well, I guess you got two choices. You just tolerate this crap, or you tell mom you're gonna stop this or you move out. Those are your two choices, right?

Caller (47:25)

Yeah. They're harder to make.

Dr. John DeLoney (47:28)

They're hard. But listen, your life right now, every minute you wake up, you're thinking about this. And every time one of your siblings texts you or calls you, you get into rage. And every time you ask your mom A question. And she's cagey. You say something like, well, you're in my house. Like you're making yourself crazy. You're already. You're already having a hard life, is what I would say. And so you can keep having that hard life, or you can choose another hard life, which is to put all this junk on the table and deal with it. But either path is hard. One of them is going to bury you. One of them may clarify the whole thing or blow up.

Dave Ramsey (48:01)

Or you can just make peace with it and go, she's going to piss the money away to the parasites and she's going to live with us. And I'm going to go with that, and I'm going to quit worrying about it. You can make peace with it and let it run. That's not my style, but you could do that. That's a valid option. Staying where you're staying is not a valid option. You either need to put up some ultimatums and say, we're going to conduct this situation properly and you're not going to support the parasites while you live here for free or virtually free. That doesn't work. If you're going to do that, you're going to find another place to live. Mom, I love you, but I'm not going to tolerate this behavior because I feel like I'm supporting the parasites and it's against my morals to do that.

Dr. John DeLoney (48:41)

How much of this is. You're not mad at your mom, but you're mad at your siblings?

Caller (48:44)

Yeah, it's not my mom at all. I. My mom, she. She. She's meaning.

Dave Ramsey (48:52)

Well, most enablers are sweet people. They're just enablers.

Dr. John DeLoney (48:57)

Have you ever.

Dave Ramsey (48:58)

I'm wondering.

Caller (48:58)

My question. Well, I'm wondering if I should address my mom more with this, or should I?

Dave Ramsey (49:07)

It's the only way to stop. It's the only way to stop. It's the only. It's the only way to stop it.

Dr. John DeLoney (49:11)

Have you ever had a conversation with your siblings when they were like, you know what? You're right. Ever.

Caller (49:19)

One.

Dr. John DeLoney (49:20)

No, they're not going to start now. They're not going to take.

Dave Ramsey (49:24)

You want me to quit being a.

Dr. John DeLoney (49:25)

Parasite for free money? You're right. Yeah.

Dave Ramsey (49:29)

Yeah.

Dr. John DeLoney (49:30)

That's not gonna happen.

Dave Ramsey (49:31)

That's not gonna happen. The only thing you can do is convince mom to cut them off. And probably the only way that's actually going to happen is if she believes she's gonna have to move.

Dr. John DeLoney (49:38)

And you're not gonna do that.

Caller (49:41)

Yeah, you're not.

Dr. John DeLoney (49:43)

And so one more second. Spent thinking about your siblings is a second. A second wasted on loving your husband, loving your life, doing something like you're just wasting your energy because they're never going to change. Change. Parasites like that don't change.

Caller (49:58)

Yeah. Proof is in the history. Yeah.

Dave Ramsey (50:00)

Yeah. And they're not going to. And so, I mean, you can address it with your mom and say, listen, I know this is going on and I think you're out of control. And I really think you should stop because I think you're harming them. Because enabling is always harming the recipient too. Because by giving your sister money, by giving your sister money, you are giving a drunk a drink because she refuses to work. And now she gets to refuse to work. But if she, she didn't have the money, then she would go to work.

Caller (50:30)

Yeah.

Dave Ramsey (50:31)

Or she'd sit on government assistance or whatever she was going to do. But your mom's not helping her, she's harming her. Enabling always harms the recipient. And enablers always think they're sweet, kind people, but they're not. They're harmful people. Your mom thinks she's sweet, but she's not. She's harming. She's harming her own children and she should stop it. That's what I would tell her.

Dr. John DeLoney (50:59)

Or in a.

Caller (51:00)

Don't disagree.

Dr. John DeLoney (51:01)

In an even further extension of that, your mom's actually a parasite in a way too, because she's using your kids to feel better about herself because she won't have that hard conversation. You see how this just continues downstream?

Caller (51:14)

Yeah.

Dr. John DeLoney (51:16)

She's using them to feel good about herself because she says it has to live in her other kids house.

Dave Ramsey (51:21)

You know, at a minimum. At a minimum, I would say you're gonna have to do two things. Probably for sanity's sake. You do what you want to do. I'm just putting myself in your shoes because I don't think you're gonna tell her to move. Might be the best thing that happened to her, but I don't think you're gonna do it. And so I think you gotta make peace with it, number one. Number two, I think you need to have a very clear, calm, but very direct conversation with your mother about her misbehavior behavior. And she should stop it. This is the Ramsey Show.

Dr. John DeLoney (52:14)

Foreign. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. All right, we all know this. The world is going bananas and we're under huge pressure to perform and look like we're keeping it all together. Check this out. 76% of people globally agree that mental health care can help resolve personal problems. Yet 6 out of 10 people still believe that society discourages people from asking for help. Listen to me. Real strength. I'm talking real bravery comes from opening up about what you're dealing with and then doing something about it so you can be your best for yourself and for everyone else that you care about. If you're feeling the weight of the world, please talk to someone. Anyone. A friend, a loved one, a family member, or a therapist. I see a therapist every week. If you're thinking about trying therapy, contact my friends at Better Help better help is 100% online therapy, so it's affordable and convenient for your schedule. To get started. Just fill out a short online survey to get matched with a licensed therapist and if it's not the right fit, you can switch therapist at any time. And it's easy and it doesn't cost any extra money. Talk it out with better help. Visit betterhelp.com DeLoney to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp h lp.com DeLoney.

Dave Ramsey (53:44)

Buying or selling a home is a big deal. With all the clickbait headlines that are out there and confusing data and friends with an opinion, it's tough to know what's actually really going on because everybody dramatizes it. Well, here's some real numbers. The average house price in America went up slightly last month. It's about 440,000 right now. And we just hit over a million homes for sale. That's the most inventory we've had since 2019. House prices have not fallen. They have continued to rise. The average 15 year fixed rate is a little bit up. It's still under 6%. 5.95 and so if you're ready and you want to learn something about buying a home right now or selling yours, you can check out everything about the market, trends and everything else with confidence@ramseysolutions.com Market or click the link in the show notes. Our question of the day is brought to you by why Refi? Why Refi works with borrowers who have defaulted private student loans even when other lenders have said no. With a lower payment and a low fixed rate, you could have a clear path forward. You could get out of this mess. Visit yrefi.com Ramsey that's the letter y r e f y.com Ramsey might not be in all states.

Dr. John DeLoney (55:04)

All right, today's question comes from Nikki in Georgia. Nikki writes, I'm reading building a non anxious life but getting over anxieties Hard hard. Our annual income will Be a hundred thousand dollars soon as my husband is changing jobs. He was laid off during COVID and our debt spiraled from there. We worked hard to recover from that setback and we'll be debt free by December. My father never handled money well with my family suffering the consequences. I know my husband's a good provider, but how do I get over my fear that things will go south again? Dave, when I. I guess first and foremost, I'll tell you, Nikki, things will go south again. 100 chance things will go south again. The question your body's trying to solve, not as if things are ever going to go wrong. It is what will happen to you when those things do go wrong. And to go back when you got laid off during COVID what Your body is remembering your childhood. Your body remembers that when Covid, when a bad thing happened, y' all started borrowing a whole bunch of money. And debt doesn't happen to you. It's a choice y' all made to continue a certain life. As that was happening. So your body just is remembering and so it's just sounding the alarms. Right? And so a great first step. I'm proud of you guys being debt free by December. I promise you, when you cross that threshold, your body will exhale a little bit because you'll be a little bit safer. And you get an emergency fund, it will exhale a little bit more. And then y' all commit to each other. We will never put ourselves in a position financially that we're not going to be okay. Your body will go okay, good, good. And then something's going to go south, Mouth. And then you're gonna, you're gonna keep your promise to yourself. And bodies don't go. Bodies get nervous, they get scared. If you talk to elite military guys, they're scared, they're nervous, but they're not anxious because they've drilled that thing so many times. And everybody knows where everybody's going to be at all times. And if they're not, they know what to do next. And so they're not anxious about stuff. And so that's what we're doing here. We're just going to keep doing the next right thing over time. But you got to give your body a chance to not be sounding every alarm, which means you can't owe people money. You got to trust yourself and on and on.

Dave Ramsey (57:10)

Yeah, you make building a non anxious life tells you exactly how to do that. You make deposits in those six areas.

Dr. John DeLoney (57:15)

And that's why we're never going to do an anxiety free scream I don't want to live in a house without a fire alarm.

Dave Ramsey (57:19)

Right.

Dr. John DeLoney (57:20)

I want my body to be anxious when it should be. But I'm going to do all of the things I can every day to know that if I am anxious, it's for something real. Right. Not for all of these things I've created in my world.

Dave Ramsey (57:32)

Yeah, yeah. You really do want to be anxious at the appropriate times.

Dr. John DeLoney (57:39)

Yeah.

Dave Ramsey (57:40)

A friend of mine showed me a picture this weekend. I was playing golf with him. He was in Africa doing one of these safaris. So the major male lion in the pack comes up and just lays beside the car. And it's open car, you know, one of those things. And they're taking pictures. And he's got the picture right, you know, at his feet. Almost there. And the guide is like, don't worry about it. He's just lazy. He'll lay there a minute, and then the female, the mom, starts coming over, moving towards the truck. And the guide goes, okay, time for us to move now. But I mean, yeah, you want your body, you want to go, this is a wake up call here, right?

Dr. John DeLoney (58:15)

If the guy knew, hey, this is not safe, and I'm just gonna keep sitting here. And then he sees that line getting closer and closer.

Dave Ramsey (58:21)

I don't have any anxiety.

Dr. John DeLoney (58:22)

His body would be failing him if it wasn't ringing every alarm off the hook.

Dave Ramsey (58:25)

Yes, exactly. And so if you're broke, you have no money, and everything that happens is an emergency, then you're, you know, it is good to have anxiety. Anxiety is telling you to straighten up, go get. Go get your house, get your crap together. You know, that's. Anxiety is your friend. And. But also, if you have a fully funded emergency fund, a half million dollars in mutual funds, your house is paid for, everything is paid for. You have zero debt, and you're making up stuff. You're catastrophizing in your mind now, that's not good exercise.

Dr. John DeLoney (58:58)

Absolutely. Go sit with somebody.

Dave Ramsey (58:59)

There's something wrong. Then.

Dr. John DeLoney (59:00)

Yeah, the alarm's not working right. It needs to be recalibrated. And that's all good. Go get that work done. But I think, Nikki, I think, to be honest with you, I think your body's working perfectly right now. You shouldn't be anxious. You've been through this road before. You grew up in this world.

Dave Ramsey (59:14)

And then you did it again during.

Dr. John DeLoney (59:15)

COVID and then you did it. Yeah. And so your body's trying to get your attention as it should. Just keep doing the next right thing.

Dave Ramsey (59:21)

Work a stinking baby Step work six jobs. A little desperation is good for the soul.

Dr. John DeLoney (59:26)

Yes.

Dave Ramsey (59:27)

It'll cause you to go out there and bust it.

Dr. John DeLoney (59:28)

Sacrifice and win some good hard work is good for the soul.

Dave Ramsey (59:31)

Yeah. Tara is in Evansville. Hi, Tara. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Caller (59:37)

Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure.

Dave Ramsey (59:40)

What's up?

Caller (59:42)

I'm in a really tough spot and I need some help. I went through divorce in September of 2024. And as part of that settlement, I was ordered to pay my ex husband $170,000 them. So it's been almost a year and I've paid down. Why? Because we had a business and a house and they're intertwined. So the house is on personal acreage with a barn and then we have seven cabins that we own. So his buyout portion was 170.

Dave Ramsey (60:10)

But you kept all that?

Caller (60:12)

I kept all of that.

Dave Ramsey (60:13)

And you had to buy him out. Okay, all right, I'm with you. And how are you planning to do that?

Caller (60:18)

So I did pay. I was able to pay off 100,000 to him. Of course, I borrowed it from other people because during our marriage I traveled and I travel as a quality director of nursing. And so I've traveled a lot and paid for a lot of our bills that personal bills. And then I supplemented the business if I needed to. And so I really didn't have the interworkings of the business very, very well. He stayed here. He didn't work or do anything. He just took care of this place. And so we came to 170 as an agreement. I paid the 100 when I took over the business, it was like $35,000 in arrears. There was $3,000 in the account.

Dave Ramsey (60:56)

When you agreed to pay him $170,000 last fall, where were you planning to get that money?

Caller (61:04)

Refinanced the house and then the loan. The loan is separate. So we had an LLC at that time.

Dave Ramsey (61:09)

Did you do that?

Caller (61:10)

The llc? I haven't been successful yet.

Dave Ramsey (61:14)

Why?

Caller (61:14)

The business is not a problem. I went back to the same bank that has our loan right now and I asked to refinance and to take the additional money out. And they declined and said I do have one other loan besides the property, the SBA loan. And they said, no, we won't do it. Now I. There's a lot of personal things as far as I'm concerned. Like I live in a super, super small community and I know like my ex husband and him are best friends, so that's some of it, but either way. And so I went to you would.

Dave Ramsey (61:46)

Think he would want his his best friend to get $170,000. So I don't agree with your conclusion.

Caller (61:53)

Well, they want us. No, my ex husband wants me to fail so. But then the other part. What? I guess I didn't know much about the business to be oh. And I did go out to another place and I got all the way through the whole entire process with the house and they would do the refinance but they would not give me the extra 70,000. Now a couple reasons. I am a contract worker. So what do you make contract 200,000 a year.

Dave Ramsey (62:18)

Okay. And why are you holding onto this piece of trash land that drags this dragging everything in your life down the.

Caller (62:25)

Seven cabin rental business?

Dave Ramsey (62:27)

Yeah.

Caller (62:29)

Why?

Dave Ramsey (62:29)

It doesn't make money. It loses money. Why would you want to keep actually.

Caller (62:37)

Used to bring in a lot of money. We make about 250,000 with growth and then we make about 30,000 a year.

Dave Ramsey (62:45)

Yeah but there's nothing in this, there's no fun anywhere in this discussion. This thing's killing you. Why don't you just sell it?

Caller (62:54)

Well, well one thing. I put all my retirement and everything into it.

Dave Ramsey (62:57)

It is. Well, it'll come out when you sell it, won't it? Or have you leveraged it all up to the eyeballs? No.

Caller (63:05)

Oh no, no. I, I, I have. It's 1.6 and I owe right now on 800.

Dave Ramsey (63:11)

I don't think this you're not making money on an asset that size. That's scary. I think I would consider selling it. And the 70,000 is not a big deal. But I'm getting out of this mess. Foreign hey you guys. Health insurance costs are only moving one way and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer and it's harder than ever to get anything approved through the bureaucracy. So if you feel like the system is working against you, try a biblically based alternative to to health insurance.

Caller (64:03)

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Dave Ramsey (64:05)

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Caller (64:12)

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Dave Ramsey (64:15)

CHM has also helped them stay true to their values and avoid miles of red tape. And CHM support goes far beyond meeting financial needs. They also help meet spiritual needs.

Caller (64:28)

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Dave Ramsey (64:29)

Who will pray with them and for them when they experience a medical event. So listen y' all, there's a better way to take care of healthcare costs. CHM programs start as low as $98 a month. So learn more today and join@chministries.org budget. That's chministries.org budget in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt free stage. Alan and Sabrina are with us. Hey guys, how are you? Welcome, welcome. Where do you guys live? Casper, Wyoming. Ah, fun. Welcome to Nashville. And how much debt have you two paid off?

Dr. John DeLoney (65:14)

$208,005 and one quarter.

Dave Ramsey (65:17)

Okay, good. And how long did that take?

Dr. John DeLoney (65:20)

58 months.

Dave Ramsey (65:21)

Good for you and your range of income during that time.

Dr. John DeLoney (65:23)

Oh, so during this process we start at 140. 40. And then we went up to 280. But in six months of this we were down to 72, 000.

Dave Ramsey (65:31)

Now you're at 72.

Dr. John DeLoney (65:32)

No, during our process we were at 72, 000 at one point.

Dave Ramsey (65:37)

Oh, I see. Okay.

Dr. John DeLoney (65:40)

140 down to 72.

Dave Ramsey (65:41)

Up to 280. Okay. What do y' all do for a living now?

Dr. John DeLoney (65:43)

I'm a project manager in pipelines and.

Dave Ramsey (65:46)

I'm an engineer in the oil and gas sector. Oh. Thus the volatility and the. Okay, I got it. Okay, cool. In Casper, Wyoming, no less. All right, very cool.

Dr. John DeLoney (65:55)

You've had a boring four or five years there in Casper, so it's been up and down.

Dave Ramsey (66:01)

So what kind of debt was this? 208.

Dr. John DeLoney (66:02)

This our mortgage.

Dave Ramsey (66:03)

You paid off your house? Looking at weirdos. How old Are you two weirdos? I'm 36, 44. All right. And a paid for house. Nice house. We're seeing a picture of it pop up here. A little snow on the ground there in that pick. What's this house worth? Well, we actually, we got a mortgage for 235. So that was back in 2015. And it's probably worth over 400, 450 right now. Yeah, I bet it is. And I saw a picture you standing on the in the snow with your bare feet to see if the grass feels different. That was two days after. Pretty cold.

Dr. John DeLoney (66:35)

Yeah, two days after. So Dave, I thought you'd appreciate the snow is wider.

Dave Ramsey (66:38)

Yeah, there we go. Okay, there's the grass. All right. I like it. Very good, Very good. Good. Fun, fun. Way to go, guys. Okay, so how much in your retirement nest eggs?

Dr. John DeLoney (66:49)

We bought about 253 hunters.

Dave Ramsey (66:51)

We're pushing three quarter mil. Yeah, you're bumping towards a million real quick. You're gonna be baby steps millionaires and in your 30s. Wow. Way to go, y' all. I'm proud of you. What started this Whole thing. How'd you do this? What got you on this Ramsey train? Well, we were quite stupid. When we both graduated from college, we.

Dr. John DeLoney (67:09)

Took out a lot of different debt.

Dave Ramsey (67:10)

We financed snowmobiles, we paid for a wedding, took out a loan for furniture, we bought our house, wedding. And so all, you know, we kind of financed everything at that point. And then kind of normal. Yeah, we were very normal, but. And then Alan lost his job. Oh, probably about two years later. And we were living off my income, which was about 70 at that time, and we couldn't pay our bills. So we, we panic it.

Dr. John DeLoney (67:37)

So when we first came across you, it was actually me. I was out in the oil field, consultant to a producer and broke country. You can only listen to so many of those songs as they be repeated. You know, kind of like King George and Alan Jackson said Murder on Country Road. But anyways, our blade operator had to run and go listen to talk show. And I was like, well, I'll listen to it.

Dave Ramsey (67:59)

And two hours later, on the way back in the Casper from the field.

Dr. John DeLoney (68:03)

Out in the Powder River Basin, there was a guy named Dave Ramsey that came on and I looked in the rearview mirror and he was talking to.

Dave Ramsey (68:08)

Me and I when you're an oil.

Dr. John DeLoney (68:12)

And gas, you know, you depend on that drill rig. If they're not drilling, you don't have a job.

Dave Ramsey (68:16)

Right.

Dr. John DeLoney (68:17)

So I came home, talked to Sabrina. She created a spreadsheet that just. It was a forecast system of what we were able to put in every month. And we were trying to improve it, trying to prove it wasn't there. And every week, you know, I was like, hey, let's try this out, try this out out. And we finally both got on board, did that and then I managed to break my foot at my grandfather's funeral.

Dave Ramsey (68:41)

And so we were living off of.

Dr. John DeLoney (68:43)

Sabrina's income plus the insurance coming in from the company. But then I got on with a new employer and paid off our consumer debt, went refinanced the house at 2.375.

Dave Ramsey (68:57)

And then I don't know if you're.

Dr. John DeLoney (68:58)

Around here around in 2018, 2019, there's a thing called Covid. Tell me more about that. Yeah, so I worked for a Canadian company and they sent us home for two and a half years. And I'm a person has to be around anybody. I don't care if I like you or not. I got to be around somebody just to interact. And so he's driving me. I had some mental issues going on and I looked at Sabrina and says, I can't do this no more. I says, I need a break. And we looked at everything and luckily all we had was, was our mortgage. So I was able to take life off for six months, recuperate. And that's where the $72,000 came in. When we were 72,000, when we were doing our mortgage and just recuperated in life, got employed, and that's where the income came back in. And we created a mortgage tracker and just tracked it down. Everything, all our savings went or extra from every month went towards the mortgage mortgage.

Dave Ramsey (69:56)

And this was about the time when we left my Excel spreadsheets and kind of got onto the every dollar budget and really started using that pretty hard. So that was a big transition for us. Going from Excel spreadsheets to the every dollar.

Dr. John DeLoney (70:10)

That's hard for an engineer to say, yes, I'll try somebody else's path.

Dave Ramsey (70:14)

I mean, I liked my spreadsheets and Alan didn't, you know, and so we kind of had to make a compromise and go to the Every dollar budget tracker. So there we go. All right. And then here we stand just a few months later and the house is paid for.

Dr. John DeLoney (70:26)

Yep.

Dave Ramsey (70:26)

Yeah. Because that it really, about the time you leaned into the house, it only took about two years. Yeah. Yep. If I got the story right on that, you are correct.

Dr. John DeLoney (70:34)

If I followed that and you. And you've come back big time with the new job and a new salary. Crushing it, huh?

Dave Ramsey (70:41)

Yep.

Dr. John DeLoney (70:41)

Yeah, my salary pretty much almost tripled after I took the six months off.

Dave Ramsey (70:47)

Wow. Yeah.

Dr. John DeLoney (70:48)

Good for you, man.

Dave Ramsey (70:49)

Well, your timing was good too. Very good. A lot of opportunities up for us since then, so. Yeah. Amen. Yeah, amen. So what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? I think you have to be on the same page as their partner. I mean, you know that communication between spouses as far as spending and, you know, just the budget, that was probably one of the biggest challenges for us was communicating and making sure that we knew purchases and where we were headed. So you have to be on the same page in a marriage. Just open communication.

Dr. John DeLoney (71:26)

Don't be afraid to say, hey, I want to buy this or no, let's push that off till next month.

Dave Ramsey (71:32)

So what's the big thing you're going to do now that you're 100% debt free and almost millionaires? We're going to go get a steak dinner tonight at Paris. That'll do. Yeah, that'll do.

Dr. John DeLoney (71:41)

We got some work to do on the house. Some siding, fencing, back patio needs to be refurbished kitchen, so.

Dave Ramsey (71:49)

All right.

Dr. John DeLoney (71:50)

But also a little bit play time in there too.

Dave Ramsey (71:53)

Yeah. Amen.

Dr. John DeLoney (71:54)

Sabrina, what do you tell the person in the marriage that is the spreadsheet person that continues to say, no, no, my way is going to work. Just trust me, it's going to work. It's going to work. Work. Is there a hack to that conversation.

Dave Ramsey (72:10)

That will help somebody that moves you.

Dr. John DeLoney (72:11)

To every dollar exhale and say, you know what, we're just gonna do regular budget?

Dave Ramsey (72:14)

I think you have to be open minded.

Dr. John DeLoney (72:17)

You just have to be flexible.

Dave Ramsey (72:18)

You know, I think for me, like, I understood my spreadsheet really well, but I had a. I didn't communicate it to Alan very well, so he would ask questions and, you know, question the numbers and I, I didn't communicate them well. So I think just finding what works for you as a customer couple and how your minds can kind of work together, but definitely be open minded. You know, if somebody has different, you know, numerical ideas or different tracking ideas, then you, you know, it's okay.

Dr. John DeLoney (72:45)

So, brother, what did you do that six months? Did you go to a counselor? Did you go hit the gym? What did you do? Actually, I always send a counselor short before then, but I increased my visits with them. But we. I volunteer for animal rescue Resignation that Sabrina's on the board. So I transported dogs from Casper, Wyoming, up to Billings, Montana, Reno, Nevada, Bozeman, Boise. So I was all over the road. Just go out and do something. You had a purpose. Yeah. Good for you. Yeah, good for you. So good for you. You didn't just take time off and just stare off into space and hope it all got better. You. You got after it. I went out. I'm proud of you. Good for you.

Dave Ramsey (73:21)

Yeah. Way to go. That's hard work right there. That's very good work. Very good. Proud of y' all. Way to go. Who was cheering you on along?

Dr. John DeLoney (73:30)

I think each other.

Dave Ramsey (73:31)

I mean, we were each other's biggest cheerleaders. You know, we had a couple neighbors that kind of knew that we were on the Dave Ramsey program. And, you know, they were egging us on at different times, too. One of our neighbors brought us cookies after we paid the house off. I like it. Well, you need to take them a steak back. Yeah.

Dr. John DeLoney (73:49)

Dave, since you mentioned that, the funny thing was the consumer debt. I was the nerd.

Dave Ramsey (73:52)

She was the free security. I was the spender.

Dr. John DeLoney (73:56)

We flipped on the mortgage.

Dave Ramsey (73:57)

We did.

Dr. John DeLoney (73:57)

I wanted to go play, watch football, buy guns. We gotta get going because we're running up against the Clock.

Dave Ramsey (74:03)

I like it. All right, count it down. Let's hear a debt free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt free. Yeah. 208,000 paid off in 58 months. Quite a story. Way to go, heroes. We're proud of you, Rachel. Do you ever get these sketchy text messages that are like, hey, you need to update your address and verify so we can get you the package you didn't order?

Caller (75:00)

Yes, I have George Sketchy and never trust him.

Dave Ramsey (75:04)

And that's why we recommend Delete me.

Dr. John DeLoney (75:06)

They help with that.

Dave Ramsey (75:06)

Yeah, they do. Delete Me actually goes in and removes your information from data broker websites. And it is an incredible service that everyone needs. And there's a lot of shady companies.

Dr. John DeLoney (75:16)

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Dave Ramsey (75:18)

Sell your personal data to bad guys. And that means your info, like your email address, your home address, your kids names, your name, everything is just out there for scammers and spammers to find.

Dr. John DeLoney (75:28)

So much.

Dave Ramsey (75:28)

But Delete Me will delete your data.

Dr. John DeLoney (75:30)

Hence the name.

Dave Ramsey (75:30)

It's gone. They'll wipe it out for you so you can sleep easy. That's right. And then once they remove your information, then they're going to send you a.

Caller (75:37)

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Dave Ramsey (75:39)

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Caller (75:45)

So detailed and it's beautiful.

Dave Ramsey (75:47)

Get this. So far they've reviewed 27,000 listings on my behalf, removed me from 240 data broker sites, and saved me 77 hours of time.

Dr. John DeLoney (75:56)

It's incredible.

Dave Ramsey (75:57)

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Dr. John DeLoney (76:04)

I love it.

Dave Ramsey (76:04)

So you got to be sure to check them out. Ramsey fans get 20% of the off their annual plans just go to join delete me.com Ramsey. That comes up to less than nine bucks a month. Super affordable. Again, that's join deleteme.com Ramsey make sure to check it out, you guys. Well, so many of you out there are trying to share Ramsey with people. Like our last debt free scrimmers are telling their neighbors that they're getting out of debt. That kind of stuff. It's kind of hard sometimes to explain all this stuff. If you want some help, we put together the new Ramsey one on one playlist. We made it easy for you. And so this playlist is filled with classic Ramsey clips. Like the baby steps, how that works, Paying off debt with a debt snowball, how to have an emergency fund, how to work together with your spouse, all those kinds of things. Click the link at the top of the show, notes, open Ramsey101 playlist on YouTube. Text it to someone. DM it to someone, send it to a group chat, say, hey, think this might help? Just trying to be helpful here. Don't say you're stupid. Listen to this. Don't do that. If you're listening on the radio, we got a playlist featured at the top of our YouTube channel. Check it out. Who's the one person you're going to share this playlist with? It's one share, one step that could change everything for one person. Hector is with us in Scottsdale, Arizona. Hey, Hector, what's up?

Caller (77:30)

Hey, how you doing?

Dave Ramsey (77:32)

Better than I deserve. How can I help?

Dr. John DeLoney (77:35)

So.

Caller (77:36)

Oh, and by the way, how you doing, Dr. John? I have actually have your book right next to me, and I started reading it this morning. I got it on Saturday, so it's going well.

Dr. John DeLoney (77:44)

Thanks, brother.

Caller (77:46)

Yeah. So I'm 24 years old. I have $16,000 saved up. I am going to Europe in less than a month because one of my best friends is getting married there. And I'm spending. Then I'm going backpacking. So I'm going to spend about. I'm budgeting, like, five to six thousand dollars. My current job as a server, the restaurant is closing right before I leave. So when I come back from Europe, I'm going to be jobless as well as I'm resuming my career in aviation. So I'm going to be taking on a lot of debt when I come back. So my question is, how do I manage my money, which is going to be almost less than $10,000 when I get back.

Dr. John DeLoney (78:34)

Do you know what show you're calling?

Caller (78:37)

Yeah.

Dr. John DeLoney (78:38)

All right. All right, good. Just before we get going, just want to make sure we're on the same page, man. I would tell you that you call your friend and you tell him you love him. I can't make it because I'm about to be unemployed, don't have any money, and I would.

Caller (78:53)

We actually work the same job, too.

Dr. John DeLoney (78:55)

I know. I. I would tell you I'd be.

Dave Ramsey (78:58)

Looking for a job.

Dr. John DeLoney (78:59)

Yeah. Asap. You know, you can't go backpacking, bro. It's just not the season.

Dave Ramsey (79:02)

24 and broke.

Dr. John DeLoney (79:05)

Yeah.

Caller (79:06)

Yeah. I mean, I already bought my ticket and everything, so.

Dr. John DeLoney (79:10)

Yeah, it's all good. I'd rather you lose $2,000 than 10. Yeah, life happens.

Caller (79:17)

I mean, I figured you guys would say something like that.

Dr. John DeLoney (79:20)

Well, we've lived it, man. Like, we're not just like, listen, trying.

Dave Ramsey (79:23)

To have fun Nowhere in this description of anything you laid out was making money. All of it was spending money and going in debt and destroying savings. Everything in your story was no money. No money. No money, no work, no money. That's your whole story that you just told us.

Caller (79:42)

Yeah.

Dave Ramsey (79:43)

So everything's going the wrong way, man. This is not going to end well for you. We're going to hang up with you and our lives are going to go on. We're going to be fine. Okay. But I'm worried about you, honey.

Dr. John DeLoney (79:52)

Yeah.

Dave Ramsey (79:53)

I mean, your plan sucks.

Dr. John DeLoney (79:57)

It's a plan for. It's a plan for anxiousness and misery is what it is, man.

Dave Ramsey (80:00)

Not good for you. Going deeply in debt to be an airline pilot is not a plan because you don't get to be an airline pilot for many, many years. So, no, you don't need to go $100,000 in debt to resume my aviation career. Bull crap. Crap. What you need to do is resume working.

Caller (80:20)

Yeah, I mean, well, technically I'm gonna be working until they close and they close a week after I leave.

Dave Ramsey (80:28)

So technically, look for a job. Yeah, because you're getting ready to lose your.

Caller (80:33)

Like, I know when I'm in Europe, I'm gonna be. I mean, I'm already looking at other serving jobs.

Dave Ramsey (80:38)

Hey, Hector, you do whatever you want to do. Honey, you called us and asked and we told you what to do. There's nothing in this. You're not gonna be able to talk your way to where John and I think this is smart. We are worried about you, honey. I think this is not gonna end well for you. This time next year, you're gonna be sitting neck deep in poop and trying to. And just. Cause you've been shoveling on yourself and that's what you're heading towards. So you need to rethink this. You act like this is Skittles and unicorns are just gonna pop out from somewhere and they're not.

Dr. John DeLoney (81:06)

Or this thing like that, you get to do what you wanna do and that math or these other things will just circle around you. I was about to lose my job and I had $16,000 to my name. I'm not. I'm not taking the trip. I call my friend and say, I can't make it, man.

Dave Ramsey (81:21)

I'm going on a European vacation to celebrate.

Dr. John DeLoney (81:23)

Yeah, I. I've got to. Yeah. And maybe Dave, I don't know. You know what? Maybe this is one of those situations where you're 24 and. Dude, I thought I was really a tough guy until I walked into an MMA gym at about that age and got my head handed to me a few times and realized, oh, I didn't need to. I need to listen to some of these other guys who are wiser than me, but maybe this one me that.

Dave Ramsey (81:45)

Would have told you not to go.

Dr. John DeLoney (81:46)

Over there, hit on the chin a few times, but my goodness, man, it's.

Dave Ramsey (81:51)

Not going to work.

Dr. John DeLoney (81:51)

Don't do this, Hector. Please.

Dave Ramsey (81:52)

You can. You can play this back in six months and see if. See if we came true or not. I don't know, but I'm. I'm. There's nothing in this that you described that sounded like a good ending to me for you. I'm worried about you. If you're tired of living paycheck to paycheck, you wonder where your money's going. Our team is hosting a free budgeting training this month. You'll learn step by step how to make to and make and stick to a budget a plan using the EveryDollar app, the world's best budgeting app. And it's also going to guide you through the baby steps and everything else. Plus, you can get your biggest budgeting questions answered in a live Q and A. Spots are limited. Sign up for free@everydollar.com webinar. Jake is in Chicago. Jake, go straight to it. I'm short on time. Time.

Caller (82:36)

All right.

Dave Ramsey (82:37)

Hey, guys. Just wanted to say happy Father's Day.

Caller (82:40)

Got a girlfriend that I in love with. Godly relationship.

Dave Ramsey (82:45)

Go to wrap things up, call it.

Caller (82:46)

A night last night, and she popped.

Dave Ramsey (82:48)

The question of whether or not I.

Caller (82:49)

Want to get a prenup and a.

Dave Ramsey (82:53)

Prenup for being a girlfriend.

Caller (82:55)

Yeah, right.

Dave Ramsey (82:56)

No, we're.

Caller (82:56)

We're talking about getting married.

Dave Ramsey (82:58)

Oh, okay.

Dr. John DeLoney (82:59)

Working towards that.

Caller (83:00)

Working towards that goal of getting married, married, starting a family.

Dave Ramsey (83:05)

Why do you need a prenup?

Caller (83:08)

There's just assets that. I probably have more assets than her, More or less.

Dave Ramsey (83:12)

What are your assets? But how much are you worth?

Caller (83:15)

At about 600, 000 in cash and assets.

Dave Ramsey (83:18)

Yeah. All right. And what do you make?

Caller (83:21)

About a buck 10 to a buck 20 a year.

Dave Ramsey (83:24)

What'd she make? She's a school teacher.

Dr. John DeLoney (83:26)

She makes under 70.

Dave Ramsey (83:28)

Yeah.

Caller (83:29)

Probably like 60.

Dave Ramsey (83:29)

Have you all been married before? Either one of you? Nope. I'm 29.

Caller (83:33)

She's 30. We've both been engaged, though, and it.

Dr. John DeLoney (83:35)

Did not work out.

Dave Ramsey (83:37)

I. The only time I recommend a prenup is with extreme wealth on one side versus the other. And 600k is not extreme in my mind. It's a Lot. You've done very well. I'm not making fun of you, but if it was 6 million, I'd probably say, yeah, okay. But if it's 600k, I probably wouldn't. I'm just going to combine my assets and bet my life on this girl.

Caller (83:58)

Perfect. And side note, she got. We got a. We got her out of a car payment.

Dave Ramsey (84:03)

All right.

Caller (84:04)

Yeah, we.

Dave Ramsey (84:05)

We.

Caller (84:05)

She.

Dave Ramsey (84:06)

We do that. She had a car payment. You're not married.

Caller (84:09)

Not married.

Dave Ramsey (84:10)

You know, your advice and her money.

Caller (84:13)

Yeah, her. Yeah, my advice and her money.

Dave Ramsey (84:15)

Good. Okay. I like. That's a good formula.

Caller (84:17)

You using the tools from my mentors that I watch.

Dave Ramsey (84:19)

And it's my second time calling in.

Caller (84:21)

You guys. Help me out about three years ago.

Dr. John DeLoney (84:25)

In a predicament with finances, and I'm debt free.

Dave Ramsey (84:28)

Good.

Caller (84:28)

We're working on her getting a debt free. She was about 5,000 in student loans.

Dr. John DeLoney (84:32)

Awesome.

Caller (84:33)

The federal government's going to help her out with at the end of the year.

Dr. John DeLoney (84:36)

What do you think? You keep saying we're working towards getting married. What are you waiting on, man?

Caller (84:41)

Waiting on.

Dr. John DeLoney (84:42)

I gotta go get.

Caller (84:43)

You know, do the cordial and play thing and ask your parents.

Dr. John DeLoney (84:47)

Do it this weekend. Weekend.

Caller (84:49)

All right.

Dr. John DeLoney (84:49)

Just do it this weekend.

Dave Ramsey (84:51)

How long y' all been dating?

Caller (84:52)

We've been dating for about eight months.

Dr. John DeLoney (84:54)

Okay, never mind. I. Back up. I thought you were talking. I thought you were together for like five years. My bad. Take your time, bro. That one's on me.

Dave Ramsey (85:02)

Jake, you're good. You're good, man. Way to go. I. I would not worry about a prenup at that level. It's okay to discuss these things and talk about them. Even document that you came into the marriage with the premarital assets. That's an okay thing to document because in most states that would be respected anyway in the event of a divorce. But I don't think there's enough money there that it's going to create weirdness in your extended family, which is usually my primary concern with the prenup is it's not you and her. It's her crazy brother that thinks he got up that it thinks he hit the gold mine because his wife married a guy with assets.

Dr. John DeLoney (85:42)

Her sister married somebody.

Dave Ramsey (85:43)

Yeah. Some parasite in the family decides they're going to latch, and that's the only. And you can just look at him go, I can't do that. I got a prenup. It's the only. That's what it's mainly good for. And of course, the end of a marriage Those kinds of things. But nah, I, I wouldn't Jake. In this case. Thanks for the call, brother. This is the Ramsay show live from the headquarters of radio. Welcome to Ramsey Solutions. It's the Ramsey show where we help people build wealth, do work that they love and create actual amazing relationships. Dr. John DeLoney, number one best selling author and host of the Dr. John DeLoney show on Ramsey Networks. Ramsey personality, he's my co host today. Jessica is in Missouri. Hi Jessica, how are you?

Caller (87:04)

I'm good. How are you, Dave?

Dave Ramsey (87:05)

Better than I deserve. What's up?

Caller (87:08)

I just got married in March.

Dave Ramsey (87:10)

Congratulations.

Caller (87:12)

Thank you. My husband and I have been working on baby step number one. But as we approach babysit number two, I've been getting a ton of phone calls and letters in the mail from different organizations offering personal debt consolidation loans. And, and it is becoming more and more attractive to me to consolidate all of our debt into just one monthly payment to help manage our monthly budget a little bit better, possibly lower our interest rate on the debt. I just want to know what you think of a personal loan for debt consolidation.

Dave Ramsey (87:51)

I would not do it. No, under no circumstances unless it was to avoid bankruptcy. And you're not bankrupt. That wasn't why you could called. You've made the mistaken assumption that one payment gets you out of debt faster than 16 payments and 16 payments added together is equal to more than the one payment. Which means you're going to get out of debt faster, continuing to work the debt snowball and you're going to get the feedback loop of paying it off. The problem with debt consolidation is number one, people end up rolling lower interest rates into it than they're actually going to pay on it. Number two, because they started out with I got this 26% credit card and I can get it down to 12, but then they roll some of the 5 and 6% stuff and 0% medical bills and other things up into it because they want this convenience of a single payment. That's problem number one. Problem number two is 88% of the time, that's nine out of ten times that people do a debt consolidation loan. They don't change their habits. And if you don't change your habits, what you're gonna do is run up more debt. So you end up at the end of the story running up all the debt again and you've still got the debt consolidation line. So you end up doubling debt because you don't change the habits. Cause the problem is not interest rates. The problem is the person in your mirror. Yeah, you've got to get them changed. And so you and your new husband have to sit down and say, we're gonna sell so much stuff that the dog is hiding. We're going to take an extra job. We're going to live on less than we make. We're not going on vacation, and we're not eating out, and we're going to get rid of this stinking debt so we can have a life. How much debt have you guys got?

Caller (89:32)

Including my husband's student loan, at 76,000.

Dave Ramsey (89:36)

Okay, and what do you guys make? What's household income now?

Caller (89:40)

Our total household is 97,000 annually growth.

Dave Ramsey (89:45)

Okay. And so if you paid it off in two years, that'd be 34, or it'd be 35. Be like $40,000 a year.

Caller (89:55)

Yeah.

Dave Ramsey (89:55)

Okay, so we're talking about three, 4,000 bucks a month. You got to put 4,000 bucks a month, and you'll be out of debt in less than two years and you make 97. So all I'm asking to do is put 40 on it and live on 57. When? Yeah, right. Yeah. Nothing. How much of that? How much of this? How much of the 76 is cars?

Caller (90:17)

11.

Dave Ramsey (90:18)

11. So cars aren't the problem. How much of it's a student loan?

Caller (90:23)

40.

Dave Ramsey (90:24)

Okay, good. And so you get out the credit cards. Tonight you have a plastic surgery party. Light a candle, chop them up into little bitty pieces. No more borrowing money.

Caller (90:33)

Yeah, we. We haven't borrowed anything new for the past year. So we did that a while ago, you know, got rid of all the credit cards.

Dave Ramsey (90:41)

So you quit digging the hole. That's good news. That's a good start. So and so I'm telling you, if you'll take the debt, snowball, list your debt. Smallest to largest, pay minimum payments on everything but the little one. Attack the little one. What's your smallest debt?

Caller (90:55)

I have $795 in a medical bill as my small.

Dave Ramsey (91:00)

What's your next one?

Caller (91:03)

$1,500 of a medical bill.

Dave Ramsey (91:05)

Okay. Yeah, those two need to be gone this month. In one month, we got to pay 3 to $4,000 a month on this debt you're gonna crunch.

Caller (91:17)

I don't know how to crunch numbers to get an extra three to 4,000. Like, I can cut out a ton and get maybe an extra thousand dollars a month to pay towards it. We also have four kids in, and I just don't know how to keep on cutting more and more.

Dave Ramsey (91:33)

Do you not think a family of with four kids can make it on $57,000 in Columbia freakin Missouri.

Caller (91:39)

So our monthly. I think.

Dave Ramsey (91:41)

No, no, no. Listen, listen, listen, listen. You gotta work backwards into this because you're. All you're doing is looking down the barrel of your normal life. And your normal life sucks. It has to change, right?

Caller (91:51)

Yeah.

Dave Ramsey (91:51)

Because you make $97,000. If I need 40 out of that, that leaves me 50. 50, right? 47. If I need 40,000 bucks out of that, I got 57 left over. 97 minus 40 for two years. And that's not counting taxes. We got taxes coming out of that. You got to stop your 401k contributions. You have to correct your W2s to where you're not getting a refund. Have you got any money in savings? Not retirement savings, savings?

Caller (92:23)

Nope.

Dave Ramsey (92:24)

We're working on the first thousand. Okay, so you don't have a single. You don't have any money stuck. You don't have some stupid stock or bitcoin or something laying around?

Caller (92:35)

No, but I was curious about taking out a loan on my 401k. I have about $20,000.

Dave Ramsey (92:41)

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Quit borrowing your way out of debt.

Caller (92:45)

Well, just to pay off the debt.

Dave Ramsey (92:47)

I know you're trying to borrow your way out of debt with a debt consolidation on your 401k loan. You're, you know, the problem is, is you have got to cut this to the bone and you got to find $3,000 a month and you'll be out of debt in two years. If you do that. That's where you're going to be. And you may need to work extra. Y' all may need to do some other stuff. The kids, you know, the travel team may not be able to do travel, ballet or whatever the flip you're doing over there. Okay. So you know, you got. That's. This is the kind of stuff, this is when you got to decide this is what's holding us back. And the more intense that you get, the faster you're going to get out. And the faster you get out, the higher the probability is you're actually going to get out. You're still looking for a pill to take an easy pill. You're still looking for an easy button. There is not an easy button. This is growl. I'm pissed. I'm not living like this anymore. I'm stopping this. Until you get that thing going in your voice and you don't have it it yet. You're not going to get out. You're still trying to wander, find some easy way. And I'm not accusing you of being lazy or something like that. I'm just telling you the magic formula is when people lose their dadgum minds. When people go crazy and their friends think they joined a cult and their mother thinks they need counseling. These are the people that get out of debt. You got to go nuts for a short period of time here because you guys have been living in stupid land long enough. It's time to get out. It's time to get out. Yeah.

Dr. John DeLoney (94:11)

Dave, I hadn't considered this before because I've talked about this with marriages, but I think it's the same. There almost needs to be a moment when you say, the life we had is over.

Dave Ramsey (94:20)

Yeah.

Dr. John DeLoney (94:20)

We are now doing a new life. We're building a new life because I think people want to. How do we keep our life going and do this crazy Ramsey thing?

Dave Ramsey (94:29)

No.

Dr. John DeLoney (94:29)

And you can't. The life you had is.

Dave Ramsey (94:31)

The crazy Ramsey thing involves a totally new death and rebirth.

Dr. John DeLoney (94:34)

That's it.

Dave Ramsey (94:35)

A phoenix.

Dr. John DeLoney (94:36)

Our life was over. It was fun, and it's exhausted now. Now we're going to live a new life.

Dave Ramsey (94:41)

Yeah. Not only did we cut up the credit cards, we're selling everything in sight. The kids are next, right? I mean, this is you guys. Everybody in the house is going to work. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are now.

Dr. John DeLoney (94:51)

No fancy shoes for two years. Everybody's gonna live.

Dave Ramsey (94:53)

Yeah. You're gonna be all right.

Dr. John DeLoney (94:54)

Get it done.

Dave Ramsey (94:54)

Yeah. You can't jump that much higher in Air Jordans anyway.

Dr. John DeLoney (94:58)

I mean, you can, but it's cool.

Dave Ramsey (94:59)

No, you can't. Foreign. Hey, guys. I love summer, but do you ever notice how fast money can get out of hand this time of year? You know how it is. You want to make all these great memories. It's so easy to just put your brain in beach mode and swipe that credit card. But then you end the summer saying, where the heck did all this debt come from? Look, I want you to have some fun. I just want you to plan for it with a budget. The EveryDollar budget app is the easiest way to make a plan for your money. And I'm telling you right now, when you do that, you'll see that a budget doesn't confine your money. It defines it. It puts you in control of where your money's going so you can enjoy your summer. Summer without overspending or going into credit card debt. So go download everydollar for free in the App Store or Google Play right now. Two weekends are now on sale for the money and marriage getaway. You can spend Three incredible days here in Nashville with your spouse, learning the tools to strengthen your connection, deepen your intimacy and money with Dr. John DeLoney and Rachel Cruz. Now this will be seriously fun. It's in November or in February. Two different events we're doing and they're weekend long events here at the Ramsey campus and right here in Nashville. Tickets start as low as 7:49 per couple. Get the tickets for the lowest price before the end@ramseysolutions.com Ramsey or/getaway. Or click the link in the show notes and you can check out all the possible options there and get signed up. You do want to do this, John. You guys have a lot of fun at this.

Dr. John DeLoney (97:13)

It's my favorite thing that I'm a part of here. Yeah, we have an absolute blast. And they always sell out. People come from. We have people from different countries last year. We have people who are engaged. We have people who have been married forever. Like, it's, it's awesome. I love it.

Dave Ramsey (97:27)

All right, up next is going to be Jane in Fort Worth. Hey, Jane, what's up?

Caller (97:32)

Yes, sir, my name is. Yeah, you know my name. Sorry. I have questions regarding what to do about my mom and my two youngest sisters who just graduated high school and college. They're in a bad situation and they're trying to get out here to us. And we were looking at.

Dave Ramsey (97:50)

Out here from where?

Caller (97:54)

Sorry? From Oregon to Fort Worth.

Dave Ramsey (97:56)

Okay. And why are they in a bad situation?

Caller (98:00)

Abusive, sir.

Dave Ramsey (98:02)

Okay, so like a stepfather or father?

Caller (98:05)

Yes, sir.

Dave Ramsey (98:06)

Okay. All right. Have they left yet?

Caller (98:10)

No, sir. We've been trying to financially get them where they can leave and we've been offering to take them in and we're finally in a situation where, where we can do that better. So we were looking at either renting another place to help them initially for them, like first and last, set them up and they're actively looking for jobs. Or we could go ahead and buy a place that we could all live in because that's our goal anyways. And eventually we're going to take my mom.

Dave Ramsey (98:47)

No, let's get them into a rental and get us, get, get a sustainability and get them out of the abuse now.

Caller (98:52)

Okay.

Dave Ramsey (98:53)

They don't need to be there another minute.

Caller (98:56)

Yes, sir.

Dave Ramsey (98:57)

They need to leave. Tell them, tell them to get down there this week and y' all find them a rental property. That's. It's that simple. And then they get jobs and they create a sustainable life and they begin their healing process. Yeah, this is a, There's a world of hurt. Going on here. And there's a process they're going to go through to. To heal after this, John.

Dr. John DeLoney (99:17)

Yeah. And this is going to sound counterintuitive, but part of their healing will be their bodies learning to trust them again, too. And that sounds like a mess. We don't have time to go into it all, but you saying we've set you up. We've got your first month's rent taken care of. It's super generous. And we paid the deposit, which is the last month's rent. The first thing you'll need to do is get here and get a job, even if it's just a. Not a forever job, of course, but just something. And it will give them something to go towards, not just running from an awful situation and just sitting. You get what I'm saying? So that would actually be a blessing. But you. Them staying there for another day while you put your house on the market, you'll look for a house and it closes in 30 to 60 days.

Dave Ramsey (99:59)

Well. And you don't need to be living with people that are going through this healing process they need to be doing. It's good for them in the healing to stand up alone and create a sustainable environment. The dignity of that. They're going to help heal from the abuse.

Dr. John DeLoney (100:10)

And you'll be over there all the time anyway, right?

Caller (100:13)

Yes.

Dr. John DeLoney (100:13)

Yeah. Y' all are a good family man. These. Is this your brother? Sister? Who is this?

Caller (100:19)

It's my mom and my two youngest sisters.

Dr. John DeLoney (100:21)

Okay.

Dave Ramsey (100:22)

How old are the. How old are your youngest sisters?

Caller (100:26)

Last time I checked, it's terrible to keep track of 18 and 22, I think.

Dave Ramsey (100:32)

Okay, so they're. Everybody's old enough to work then?

Caller (100:35)

Yes. Yes.

Dave Ramsey (100:36)

Okay.

Caller (100:37)

They've been working part time.

Dave Ramsey (100:39)

Tell them to pack their clothes and come to Texas now.

Dr. John DeLoney (100:42)

Yeah. Get out of that mess right now.

Caller (100:44)

What I've been telling them do.

Dave Ramsey (100:46)

Yes, Right now.

Caller (100:47)

My husband as well.

Dave Ramsey (100:48)

Yeah. And if you got to put them in a hotel for a week while you get a rental house lined up, that's fine. They need to leave the abuser. Now. Let me tell you, in a domestic violence situation, in an abuse situation, the victim will hang on and hang on and hang on and hang on and have every excuse in the world to hang on because they have this ridiculous idea that the moron who's using them as a punching bag is going to change. They need to leave now. Okay.

Caller (101:20)

Yes, sir. We've been trying. Yes.

Dave Ramsey (101:22)

Now, I'm serious. I'm going to get up in their face because they are in danger. They need to leave now. What?

Caller (101:32)

Yeah, so we've been trying to get. We've been trying to get them to leave immediately. Yeah. But they keep coming up.

Dr. John DeLoney (101:38)

Why is the 18 and 22 year old staying there? They're, they're, they're emancipated. They can go. Why are they choosing to stay in that mess too?

Caller (101:45)

They're there to stay with my mom as well because they don't leave her behind.

Dr. John DeLoney (101:51)

If we're really honest, is your mom gonna leave or no?

Caller (101:54)

Yes, yes, she will. She's going to leave. Then why has grew up financially. No, no, no.

Dave Ramsey (102:02)

Right now you've told her you would take care of the hotel. Move. Go right now, load your stuff in the car and come now. Why hasn't she done that?

Caller (102:12)

My mom and my sisters are not liking the fact that they have to leave. They don't. They, it's a whole stand your ground. They, they. How do they put it? They shouldn't be the ones to leave.

Dr. John DeLoney (102:27)

I got it. I got it.

Dave Ramsey (102:28)

They shouldn't be there.

Dr. John DeLoney (102:29)

They shouldn't be.

Dave Ramsey (102:30)

Not fair. But it's also not going to change.

Caller (102:34)

Yes. Yes.

Dr. John DeLoney (102:36)

Yeah, we're preaching to the choir here. We know.

Dave Ramsey (102:38)

Yeah. Okay. This is your only option. And no, you don't need. It's not good for them to be in the same property with you. It is not good for them at all. They need the emotional healing and the dignity of creating a sustainable life without the abuser and without, without sister being a crutch. And so you can support them and help them get started. Like John said, help them get moved. But man, this is bad. And let me tell you what, Stand your ground usually means something violent in reverse. And you don't need to be doing that. That's not a good phrase to use. That's a phrase used in the law about protecting your home and shooting someone. That's not a phrase you should be hearing coming out of their mouth right now. They need to get out of there. And even though it's not right, not fair, whatever divorce will take care of taking into taking the house away from him. You don't have to worry about that. And wow, it's probably been going on for years. Michael is in Atlanta. Hey, Michael. What's up?

Caller (103:41)

Hey, it's great to speak with you today.

Dave Ramsey (103:42)

You too. Back in 2008, my wife and I, we pretty much lost everything when all.

Caller (103:48)

The mortgage crisis went down.

Dave Ramsey (103:50)

Our house and everything. And the worst thing that ever happened to us, why we had a lot.

Caller (103:56)

Of people file Bankruptcy.

Dave Ramsey (103:59)

We owned several businesses. They filed bankruptcy against us.

Caller (104:03)

We lost a lot of money. And one day we got $62,000 worth of bankruptcy notices.

Dr. John DeLoney (104:09)

Wow.

Dave Ramsey (104:09)

Okay.

Caller (104:10)

So we had to start over. And, you know, like I said at the time, it was the worst thing that ever happened.

Dave Ramsey (104:15)

Now, looking back, it's the best thing.

Caller (104:17)

That ever happened to me because I refused to let it happen again.

Dave Ramsey (104:21)

Amen. And we've rebuilt everything. We now own another house.

Caller (104:25)

It's valued at 680,000. We owe 270 at 2.875. I am currently investing $5,000 per month into our retirement. My wife is putting in another 1200 through her work.

Dave Ramsey (104:45)

Doing those.

Caller (104:46)

We're working on baby step number six.

Dave Ramsey (104:49)

My question is we're planning on selling.

Caller (104:51)

The house in years due to. I've got some health conditions. I've got something called dish and opll. Basically, my spine's fusing itself together and we're on the downsize and knowing that. Should we continue putting that 5,000 into our retirement and savings and bonds.

Dave Ramsey (105:14)

5,000 a year or a month?

Caller (105:16)

A month.

Dave Ramsey (105:17)

Every month. What's your household income?

Caller (105:20)

About 120,000.

Dave Ramsey (105:22)

No, you should not be putting in. You should only be putting 15% of your household income into retirement at this stage.

Caller (105:29)

That was what my curiosity is, because.

Dave Ramsey (105:31)

15% is nowhere near $70,000. You're putting $70,000 away? Yep. Yes, sir. Jesus, man, you're way too much going in there. Yeah, you need to be lowering that to only 15% of your household income, which is a lot less than this, and throwing the difference at the mortgage. I wouldn't stop retirement, but I would lower it to 15%. That's baby step four. Five is kids college. Six is pay off the house early. Hang on. I'm going to send you a copy of the book the Total Money Makeover to help you walk through this.

Dr. John DeLoney (106:10)

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Dave Ramsey (106:14)

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Dr. John DeLoney (106:18)

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Dave Ramsey (106:19)

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Dr. John DeLoney (106:20)

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Dave Ramsey (106:22)

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Dr. John DeLoney (107:08)

Well, I guess Paducah, Kentucky, is our closest big city.

Dave Ramsey (107:11)

Okay, well, welcome to Nashville. Good to have you. And how much debt have you paid off?

Dr. John DeLoney (107:16)

We paid off $42,000.

Dave Ramsey (107:18)

All right, and how long did that take?

Dr. John DeLoney (107:20)

11 months.

Dave Ramsey (107:21)

Good for you. And your range of income during that.

Dr. John DeLoney (107:23)

Time at that time was about 70,000 during that period.

Dave Ramsey (107:26)

Okay, cool. What do you all do for a living?

Dr. John DeLoney (107:28)

I'm senior project manager of residential projects for roofing exterior company.

Dave Ramsey (107:33)

Mm. And I'm a stay at home mom. Okay, very cool. Good. What kind of debt was the 42,000? Oh, there was a medical. Yep. And then there was. Yep.

Dr. John DeLoney (107:43)

Consumer.

Dave Ramsey (107:44)

And then stuff. Improvements.

Dr. John DeLoney (107:47)

It was our heloc, which was. We didn't have a mortgage. The HELOC was the only thing against our house. So when we paid it off, we paid off everything.

Dave Ramsey (107:54)

So your house is debt free?

Dr. John DeLoney (107:56)

We are. We are completely, completely clean. We don't owe nobody a dime in the whole world.

Dave Ramsey (108:00)

I love. What's the house worth?

Dr. John DeLoney (108:03)

I would guess probably somewhere 250. 260.

Dave Ramsey (108:05)

Wow. Good for you. How's that feel? Great.

Dr. John DeLoney (108:08)

Feels good.

Dave Ramsey (108:08)

No payments in the world. Way to go, you guys. Excellent job. Very cool. All right, so what started this journey here 11 months ago?

Dr. John DeLoney (108:19)

Well, we were. We were in Florida. We had a house and we bought it the wrong way. And it was. We had Airbnbs. It was just. It was the anxiety levels just huge. And so we wanted a place where we could live and actually afford to live for. To have all of our kids and be able to just do all the things. And so we moved to Kentucky and then we started to go backwards and it was like our dream of moving from Florida to Kentucky and then having a home outright and all those sort of stuff. It just kind of things just would come and it just sort of was fading farther and farther and farther away. And I remember one point I looked at it, I was like, man, it's going to be like four, five years now. We thought we were so close, and it was just. It just kept getting farther and farther.

Dave Ramsey (109:04)

Away before we'd be homeowners out, right?

Dr. John DeLoney (109:06)

Yeah, it was. And so then we found your YouTube videos and just. We're watching along and it was a couple months. We got the books from the library and then we got the Every Dollar app. Got the Every Dollar app. And we were getting like, we were like, really close to that tipping point. And it was.

Dave Ramsey (109:26)

It was the day after our son was born.

Dr. John DeLoney (109:28)

The day of.

Dave Ramsey (109:28)

The day of, like, yeah, like an.

Dr. John DeLoney (109:30)

Hour after she gave birth to our fifth son.

Dave Ramsey (109:33)

And he's like, I think we should stop using credit cards.

Dr. John DeLoney (109:36)

And at first I said, no.

Dave Ramsey (109:37)

And he's like, I think we should stop using credit cards. And I said, okay, well, if we're gonna do it, we're gonna do it all right the way.

Dr. John DeLoney (109:44)

And so then, like, I can feel the intensity. She's like, if we're going to go through this, it is.

Dave Ramsey (109:50)

It is. It is. We're.

Dr. John DeLoney (109:51)

We're not the real deal.

Dave Ramsey (109:53)

Not.

Dr. John DeLoney (109:53)

Not. Not halfway is nothing. And so then my response was, well, then I'm not going to buy any cigars. No bourbon, no guns, no ammunition until all this is cleaned up. And then her response was, pretty much double down.

Dave Ramsey (110:08)

And.

Dr. John DeLoney (110:09)

And, I mean, we just did our normal working stuff. We had $17,000 in an independent brokerage account that cleaned it down to 25. And then we just didn't buy anything for 11 months. And Sarah just managed our home so well, and just nothing that we bought at the grocery store went to waste. And she just made everything just as it could be so that we could just get it all behind us in our rearview. They let you stay in Kentucky if you don't drink bourbon or buy ammunition. It was really hard. It was really hard.

Dave Ramsey (110:41)

It was against the law there to kick you out. They'll revoke your passport, man. Way to go, y' all.

Dr. John DeLoney (110:51)

It's amazing, guys.

Dave Ramsey (110:52)

I mean, that. That's. You know, when people are going to do it is when they start going, okay, the things that matter to me, I'm going to set them on the shelf, because now getting out of debt matters more. And this is not forever. We're going to live like no one else so that, by God, we can live like no one else and give like no one else. And. And, you know, like, you said, no McDonald's, we're going to eat. No eating out. We're not. The kids are. You know, and 11 months after a new baby, you're done. House and everything. Everything. Wow. That was very intense.

Dr. John DeLoney (111:20)

Oh, yes. Yep. But, you know. Yeah, I. I hear people say, you know, it's a. It's a year of saying no, but it was really, I think of as a year of saying yes. Like, yesterday, we did things like going to parks, having fires in our backyard, things that didn't cost money, and we were saying yes the entire year to what starts now and moves forward the whole year. It's like, no, we're not saying no to doing these things. We're saying yes. Yes to the future.

Dave Ramsey (111:50)

Yeah. Yes, we're going to have a great future. Yes, we can live like no one else later because now we're paying a price. That's a good way of looking at it. I like that framing. Very, very good. Very cool.

Dr. John DeLoney (112:00)

And how many kids do you have?

Caller (112:01)

Five.

Dr. John DeLoney (112:02)

Five. You know, you have a bunch of kids when you're having finance discussions an hour after one of them is born, right? Yeah. We're like, all right, well, we got the fifth one done. Now let's see. Let's open the spreadsheets and look at the budgets.

Dave Ramsey (112:14)

Well, and the medical bills were from the fourth son.

Dr. John DeLoney (112:17)

Yeah. We're like, okay, well, you know, we had another son here, and then this one over here is not even paid off yet.

Dave Ramsey (112:23)

Gotta make sure this one doesn't get repoed. We gotta clean this up. Yeah. Well done, you guys. Very well done. Hey, the good news is, is that the switch flipped for both of you at about the same time. I mean, you both, something about that birth and that new baby coming, said, okay, we really gotta do this. And you're just. You within hours are looking at each other going, we gotta do this. And that's pretty impressive. That's the good news, because we run into so many couples, it's six months or a year later before the spouse gets on board, whichever spouse it is, right. And that kind of thing. But you guys, it's just you, you were. You were messing with it. You already had made a sacrifice, you'd already moved and everything else to try to get there. But then it wasn't a magic pill. You still had to deal with the stuff, right? Yep. Yeah.

Caller (113:14)

Wow.

Dave Ramsey (113:14)

That's good. I like that. Very good. What do you tell people? The key to getting out of D. That is find funny things in the event, whether it's a playground, whether it's an event at the library. Go and find the free things in the area. Yeah, make.

Dr. John DeLoney (113:26)

Make free fun. One of the biggest things for me was listening to you guys on my way to work, you know, back and forth. Because, you know, it's like, for those times, as. As difficult as certain things were, it was like, these are the clear voices. These are the voices that tell me I'm not crazy. Listening to people do this debt free scream. I remember sometimes just be like crying in the car going, that's going to be me. That's going to be me. And just, you know, surrounding yourself with. With With. With. With the positive. Good voices that are saying this is where you want to go so that you just don't get lost and wander around in the middle of that journey.

Dave Ramsey (114:05)

Very good. You guys are heroes. I'm so proud of you. Who was. Who was cheering you along long.

Dr. John DeLoney (114:11)

Lots of co workers, different friends.

Dave Ramsey (114:14)

So you were talking about this Ramsey stuff all the time then? He was. You're sharing it.

Dr. John DeLoney (114:18)

You're one of those guys, huh?

Dave Ramsey (114:19)

I. I'm.

Dr. John DeLoney (114:20)

I'm a salesman. Whatever I like, whatever I think is. Is just great. I'm. I'm trying to win everybody over to doing that. So it's just. Yeah. So we just. And, you know, I'm. I'm hoping that there's a lot of other people that we know that'll, you know, come along with us so that, you know, it's kind of one of those things you like. You jump in, the water's great. Come on in and just breathe the air.

Dave Ramsey (114:43)

Yeah. Amen. Amen. So how old is your oldest? He'll be 10 in September. 10 in September. So he's nine right now. So he's old enough to know what happened.

Dr. John DeLoney (114:54)

Oh, yeah. Now, the kids were watching our oldest three for sure. So I get paid for every Friday. And so. So every Friday, we were popping it up and looking at the debt snowball and getting it closer and closer and closer. And so, you know, we didn't tell them.

Dave Ramsey (115:09)

They have a very clear memory of the time that the old man, the old lady, changed their whole lives. Dadgum family tree's completely changed because you're two heroes.

Dr. John DeLoney (115:16)

Oh, and I remember Wilbur. He's five. One time, we were riding in the car, and we were playing it, and from the backseat, he just. He goes, dad, am I debt free? And I said, yes, buddy, you're debt free. And he goes, yes. You know, and so it's just. And then, you know, we get the little credit cards in the mail, those offers, and every time we get them, the kids are like, can I cut it up? Can I cut it up? And we just. It's just.

Dave Ramsey (115:43)

It's just.

Dr. John DeLoney (115:44)

It's just fun because we just. We created a culture where we just.

Dave Ramsey (115:48)

Yeah.

Dr. John DeLoney (115:49)

We live in freedom.

Dave Ramsey (115:50)

Well, and now the. But the kids have watched this, and so it's seared into their memory. This is foundational for them. Well done, y' all. All right. They're. They're. Are they here? Yeah, they're here. Get them up there. Yeah. Free screen with you. I'm sorry. They're off camera. I didn't see them. Okay.

Dr. John DeLoney (116:04)

All right.

Dave Ramsey (116:05)

Come on, guys. Let's go. Come on, Come on. Let's run, Run, run, run, run. All right. 42, 000 paid off in 11 months, making 70, 000 a year. Count it down. Let's hear a debt free scre one. We're debt free. Yeah. There we go. But you can't do this stuff with a large family. Absolutely you can. Those guys are heroes.

Dr. John DeLoney (116:46)

Foreign.

Dave Ramsey (116:49)

You work your butt off for your money, but your money's never going to return the favor if all you do is hope for the best. If you're ready to learn how to make your money work for you, check out the SmartVestor program. SmartVestor can help you find advisors who specialize in retirement planning, charitable giving, advanced investing strategies, and more. Whatever your goals, your pro will take the time to explain your options so you never have to invest in anything you don't understand. Head to ramseysolutions.com smartvestor to get connected.

Dr. John DeLoney (117:21)

Ramsey Solutions is a paid non client.

Dave Ramsey (117:23)

Promoter of participating pros.

Dr. John DeLoney (117:25)

Learn more@ramseysolutions.com SmartVestor.

Dave Ramsey (117:46)

Our Scripture of the Day. Job 34, 32. The Lord detests dishonest scales, but accurate weights find favor with him. Earl Wilson said to sell something, tell a woman it's a bargain and tell a man it's deductible. That'll work. Lindsay's in Shreveport, Louisiana. Hi, Lindsay. How you are? Are you.

Caller (118:13)

Hi. Good. How are you?

Dave Ramsey (118:14)

Good. How can I help?

Caller (118:17)

So me and my husband. Well, actually, it's my husband. My husband's father passed away and they did a lawsuit against him. In that lawsuit, my husband wasn't even born yet. So they put his money aside into a trust or a settlement of some sort. With the receiving of the full lump sum on his 30th birthday, which is just shy of a million dollars. Fast forward to today. His birth. 30th birthday is in about two months, and we're not really sure what to do. And with a million dollars.

Dave Ramsey (118:50)

Wow. Wow.

Dr. John DeLoney (118:52)

So I'm going to give you my Venmo. Okay. I'm just kidding.

Dave Ramsey (118:58)

Send it to Dave's Bahama Fund.

Dr. John DeLoney (119:00)

Right?

Dave Ramsey (119:00)

Yeah. All right. Now the. All right, so what is your financial condition today?

Caller (119:06)

We make roughly 50,000 a year before taxes. We're about 27,000 a year debt, 20 of it being our house payment, or not our house payment, but our house. We still have about $20,000 towards our mortgage, and then we have $7,000 left on my student loans.

Dave Ramsey (119:25)

Okay, good. And so you've been living on 50,000.

Caller (119:31)

Yes, sir.

Dave Ramsey (119:32)

Okay, good, good. All right. Well, there's three things you can do with money and you should always practice doing all that. Three, you can give it for generosity, you can invest it for the future and you can enjoy it. And I would urge you to do all three things with some of this money. Okay. And I want you to develop a plan for that and I want you to develop a written contract with yourselves that that's what you're gonna do. Okay. That whatever it is you're gonna do. So my personal recommendation would be, obviously I'd rather check the first day and pay off the debt. Okay. That's a very small amount out of a million. Okay. The second small check I would write is I'd put $20,000 in a high yield savings account for your emergency fund. That's all I would do there. Okay. And then with the rest of it, we've got to decide what we're going to do now. What do y' all do for. For a living?

Caller (120:36)

My husband's a police officer and I am stay at home.

Dave Ramsey (120:40)

Okay. All right. And is your plan to continue all of that?

Caller (120:45)

My plan is to stay at home, yes.

Dave Ramsey (120:48)

Is the two of you, is your plan to just continue life like it is?

Caller (120:53)

Yeah, we want to, for the majority of the most part, we would like to put our kids, I have two kids that we would like to get in a bigger and better school district currently.

Dave Ramsey (121:03)

Okay. So we might move. We might move.

Caller (121:05)

We, we would like.

Dave Ramsey (121:07)

Okay. But he's going to, he's going to continue to be a police officer and you're going to continue to stay at home. That's the plan.

Caller (121:12)

He's going to continue to work. He's actually in school to be a cyber security specialist.

Dave Ramsey (121:17)

Great, I like that. Okay, good plan. Let's just continue on all that plan. And so what's your current home worth?

Caller (121:26)

Our current home worth about 120.

Dave Ramsey (121:28)

Okay. And what would the move up home cost?

Dr. John DeLoney (121:31)

Cost?

Caller (121:33)

Anywhere from 375 to 450.

Dave Ramsey (121:38)

Okay. Let's call it 4 20. Let's call it 420. Which means you need 300, right?

Caller (121:44)

Yes. We're relocating to the DFW area and that seems to be the average.

Dave Ramsey (121:52)

Okay. How are you relocating to the DFW area? And he's continuing to be a police officer and retrieve board.

Caller (122:00)

He's leaving that to go do cybersecurity. He should graduate at the end of this year in December.

Dave Ramsey (122:05)

Okay. Okay. All right. So you, but you would Have a job lined up before you made this move?

Caller (122:11)

Yes, obviously.

Dave Ramsey (122:12)

Yeah. Well, I'm not obvious to everyone, but it is to me. Yeah, yeah. And so. Okay, all right. Talk to several people today that it wasn't obvious to. Yeah, that, yeah, that's what we're going to do. Okay, so we're going to have a job, we're going to spend 300,000, upgrade. We're going to sell the house in Shreveport, put 300 with it, buy something in the 400 to 450 range. We're going to have a zero debt, we're going to have an emergency fund. And then we also probably need to upgrade some cars and we probably need to go on a vacation. And so let's spend another 100,000 on that. So that's 300, 400, 450. 500 will cost it. So you got 500,000 left to invest and do some generosity with. We're going to upgrade your cars. We're going to go on a nice trip. We're not going hog wild, we're not losing our mind, but we are going to enjoy some of this. And then we're going to invest 500,000. Okay, now let me help you with how important that is. You need to lay every one of those things that we just talked about out. Just write them down, down a sheet. Just make you a little one page game plan strategy. This is where the money's going. I'm spending the million. Okay. I'm spending 300 on a house upgrade. I'm spending a trip, I'm upgrading the cars, I'm paying off the debts, I'm putting $20,000 aside an emergency fund. You with me on all this?

Caller (123:35)

Yes, sir.

Dave Ramsey (123:35)

You line item it, write down a yellow pad if you want to and write it out. And then y' all initially, because you gotta freaking stick to this. Cause in the middle of the night when your brain starts spending this money, you have to tell your brain to shoot. Shut up.

Caller (123:49)

Those Amazon shopping sprees, darn it.

Dave Ramsey (123:52)

Yeah, yeah, those things. Because what you can do is if you, if you know a million dollars is coming in, you can spend 3 million in your head, right? And that's what I'm trying to avoid. I'm laying out a game plan here. So. And then you stick to your. This is your million dollar budget. What are we going to do with this million dollars? We're going to have a budget. We're going to give every one of these dollars a name before they get here. And you guys got to do that. This Weekend, two months before the money comes. You got to lay it out just like we laid it out. Go back and play this callback. Okay?

Caller (124:19)

Okay.

Dave Ramsey (124:20)

And the two of you, write it all down. Now if you will put a half a million dollars with a Smartvestor Pro, go to ramseysolutions.com, sit down with an investment professional and if you will put a half a million dollars, $500,000 in there. How old are y' all?

Caller (124:34)

I'm 29. And he's going to be 30.

Dave Ramsey (124:37)

He's going to be 30. Okay. So it will, if you will put it in good mutual funds like we're going to talk about, it will double about every seven years.

Caller (124:47)

Wow.

Dave Ramsey (124:47)

Okay. So when you're 37, that 500 is going to be a million. When you're 44, it's going to be 2 million. When you're 51, it's going to be 4 million. If you keep your stinking hands off of it.

Caller (125:00)

Yes.

Dave Ramsey (125:01)

Okay. Because you had a game plan and you stick to the game plan and then you guys go be cybersecurity, build your own wealth in dfw, restart your lives there debt free. Stay debt free. Stay on a budget, stay on a plan, live on less than you make and leave this money alone and let it double every seven years. So when you're like 70 years old, this is going to be $10 million. You follow me?

Caller (125:28)

I'm following.

Dave Ramsey (125:30)

This is an important assignment. This is an important assignment. You are going to be one of the few people that actually becomes a millionaire because of inherited money. Very few actually do. But you're gonna do it. Cause you're gonna do this right and you're gonna be smart about it. So hang on. I'm gonna send you a copy of the book the Total Money Makeover and Baby Steps Millionaires, which is the largest study a millionaire has ever done. You guys need to study what millionaires do. Cause you are getting ready to be one. And then you need to do it the way they do it so that you stay one. That's the point here. And we're also gonna put you into every dollar premium with Financial Peace University, the whole shebang. Give em everything Christian. So. And everybody that thinks they need some of your money. Let me teach you a word.

Dr. John DeLoney (126:15)

No, I was going to say I would. Dave, tell me if I'm wrong. I wouldn't tell anybody. I wouldn't tell the real estate agent we just had a million bucks.

Dave Ramsey (126:23)

I wouldn't tell the story.

Dr. John DeLoney (126:23)

I wouldn't tell the story.

Dave Ramsey (126:24)

Oh, just between, you know, there's no reason to tell it. It doesn't do anything. You can tell it later, someday, but in the near future, until you emotionally learn to handle all of it, this money and the responsibility that's coming with it, the last thing you need to do is have to run off a bunch of crazy friends and relatives by saying, no, no, no, no, no.

Dr. John DeLoney (126:43)

Well, in the difference between spending $400,000 on a house and 650 in Dallas, Texas, is two blocks. And that money can just evaporate on you if you're not careful.

Dave Ramsey (126:53)

Yeah. Yeah. That's a good. That's a good budget, by the way, because median household. Median house price In America is 431,000 right now.

Dr. John DeLoney (127:00)

But that means there'll be a whole bunch of other nicer houses in Dallas you're gonna have to say no to.

Dave Ramsey (127:03)

Yeah, no, Stick to the plan. Stick to the plan. You got a good plan. I like your plan. Now stick to it and go be a multimillionaire. I love it. That puts this hour of the Ramsey show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the prince of peace Christ Jesus.

Caller (127:33)

Hey, you guys. I was shocked to learn that 88 of you out there are sharing the Ramsey show. I mean, that is so incredible.

Dave Ramsey (127:41)

Thank you so much. And I want to tell you that.

Caller (127:44)

We'Re making it even easier to share. So this June, we have pulled together.

Dave Ramsey (127:48)

The brand new Ramsey101 YouTube podcast playlist.

Caller (127:52)

A quick start collection of how to get started walking the Ramsey plan. Now, this playlist is perfect for that.

Dave Ramsey (127:58)

One person in your life who needs help winning with money and just doesn't.

Caller (128:03)

Know where to start. So here's what's inside. What the baby steps are and why they actually work. How the debt snowball helps you pay off debt fast, and how to build wealth and invest for the future and so much more. So here's what you need.

Dave Ramsey (128:18)

Need to do.

Caller (128:18)

Click the link at the top of the show notes. It'll take you straight to the YouTube playlist.

Dave Ramsey (128:24)

Copy it, text it, send it in a group chat.

Caller (128:27)

Just say, hey, I thought this might help, because one playlist shared at the.

Dave Ramsey (128:31)

Right time could be the turning point.

Caller (128:35)

One share, one playlist, one step could.

Dave Ramsey (128:38)

Change everything for that one person in your life.

Caller (128:41)

So click the link, share the Ramsey show, and let's.

Dave Ramsey (128:44)

And let's help someone out there start winning with money.