You Can’t Borrow Your Way to Peace

Summary

Podcast Summary: "You Can’t Borrow Your Way to Peace"
The Ramsey Show
Release Date: July 25, 2025
Host: Ramsey Network (Featuring George Camel and Dr. John Deloney)

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Introduction
In the episode titled "You Can’t Borrow Your Way to Peace," George Camel and Dr. John Deloney delve deep into the financial dilemmas faced by listeners, offering practical advice grounded in the principles of Dave Ramsey. The central theme revolves around the pitfalls of leveraging debt for financial gains and the psychological peace that comes from eliminating liabilities.

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1. Prioritizing Mortgage Payoff Over Investment: Chris from Lima, Ohio

Timestamp: 00:42 - 07:59

Caller: Chris grapples with the decision between making extra principal payments on his mortgage versus investing those funds, especially when projected investment gains appear to surpass interest savings from early mortgage payoff.

Discussion Highlights:

• Behavioral Finance vs. Pure Math: Dr. Deloney emphasizes the importance of psychological peace over purely mathematical ROI. "I want to be at a place where nobody... can take away me and my family's home" (02:13).
• Peace of Mind: Paying off the mortgage provides a sense of security and reduces financial anxiety, which can be more valuable than potential investment returns.
• Holistic Financial Health: The Ramsays advocate for a balanced approach, ensuring that investments do not overshadow fundamental financial stability.

Notable Quotes:

• Dr. John Deloney (01:16): "I wish we were all robots and math was all that mattered, Chris."
• Caller Chris (02:13): "I want to solve for peace."

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2. Roth IRA vs. Roth 401(k): Diane from Louisville, Kentucky

Timestamp: 11:05 - 13:35

Caller: Diane seeks clarity on whether her husband should contribute to a Roth IRA, a Roth 401(k), or both, given their current retirement contributions.

Discussion Highlights:

• Maximizing Retirement Contributions: Dr. Deloney confirms that it's possible and beneficial to contribute to both a Roth IRA and a Roth 401(k), emphasizing tax-advantaged growth.
• Understanding Account Types: Differentiates between employer-sponsored Roth 401(k) plans and individual Roth IRAs, highlighting their complementary benefits.
• Employer Matching: Advises prioritizing employer matches before additional retirement contributions.

Notable Quotes:

• Dr. John Deloney (12:17): "You can do a Roth IRA and a Roth 401(k)."
• Caller Diane (12:01): "They have a fiduciary responsibility to their firm to make as much money as possible."

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3. Balancing Care for a Sick Parent with Financial Stability: Greta from Phoenix, Arizona

Timestamp: 14:25 - 20:54

Caller: Greta discusses the challenges of moving to Phoenix to care for her mother with stage five kidney disease, leading to job loss and financial strain.

Discussion Highlights:

• Personal Sacrifice vs. Financial Health: Greta expresses frustration over sacrificing her career for caregiving, leading to financial instability.
• Prioritizing Self-Care: The hosts stress the importance of securing one's financial footing to better support dependents in the long run.
• Strategic Job Hunting: Encourages Greta to explore various employment opportunities, even if they are outside her primary field, to rebuild financial stability.

Notable Quotes:

• Dr. John Deloney (16:25): "Your job right now is to break the cycle."
• Caller Greta (16:25): "I can't help her and help myself at the same time."

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4. Dealing with IRS Debt: Roland from Mississippi

Timestamp: 33:32 - 43:21

Caller: Roland seeks advice on managing significant IRS debt accumulated due to past business failures.

Discussion Highlights:

• Direct Engagement with the IRS: Advises Roland to contact the IRS directly to negotiate a payment plan rather than relying on deceptive solutions.
• Debt Snowball Method: Emphasizes attacking high-interest debts first to achieve financial freedom.
• Avoiding Shortcuts: Warns against using loopholes or settlements that may not provide long-term relief.

Notable Quotes:

• Dr. John Deloney (40:07): "The only way out of this is through it."
• Caller Roland (43:21): "This is a question of day one."

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5. Overcoming Vehicle Loan Debt: Jared from Jacksonville, Florida

Timestamp: 44:37 - 53:56

Caller: Jared is burdened with substantial vehicle loans, making high monthly payments, and struggles to sell his vehicles without incurring further debt.

Discussion Highlights:

• Addressing the Sunk Cost Fallacy: Encourages Jared to sell the vehicles at the best possible price, even if it means taking a loss, to eliminate ongoing high payments.
• Behavioral Adjustments: Highlights the need to suppress ego-driven financial decisions that prioritize appearances over stability.
• Strategic Financial Planning: Suggests reallocating funds from vehicle loans to more productive financial goals.

Notable Quotes:

• Caller Jared (51:04): "You can't breathe."
• Dr. John Deloney (51:22): "You think you’re living well but you’re not."

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6. Navigating Home Purchase in High-Cost Areas: Brody from Denver, Colorado

Timestamp: 54:05 - 60:02

Caller: Brody and his wife, both in their mid-20s, seek advice on purchasing a home in Denver without exceeding their income constraints.

Discussion Highlights:

• Affordability Criteria: Reinforces the rule of allocating only 25% of income towards housing to ensure financial safety.
• Alternative Housing Options: Suggests considering townhomes or moving further out to reduce housing costs.
• Long-Term Financial Planning: Encourages saving for a substantial down payment to enhance borrowing power and secure better mortgage terms.

Notable Quotes:

• Dr. John Deloney (57:03): "You have to turn off the noise, turn off all the opinions."
• Caller Brody (60:27): "We're trying to build generational wealth."

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7. Teaching Children Financial Responsibility Amid Social Pressures: Samantha from Iowa

Timestamp: 75:10 - 79:25

Caller: Samantha, a stay-at-home mom, struggles with balancing budget-friendly parenting while her friends spoil their kids, leading to social challenges.

Discussion Highlights:

• Creative Budget-Friendly Activities: Encourages finding free or low-cost activities like water balloon fights or park outings to engage children without overspending.
• Emotional Resilience: Advises Samantha to prioritize her family's values over societal pressures, fostering true financial responsibility.
• Special Needs Financial Planning: Recommends the establishment of special needs trusts to secure future care without jeopardizing governmental assistance programs.

Notable Quotes:

• Caller Samantha (75:10): "I'm really terrible with money."
• Dr. John Deloney (79:12): "Kids will have fun doing that. They might get bored at your house, and that's fine."

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8. Managing Overdue Motorcycle Loans: Caleb from Alaska

Timestamp: 111:45 - 115:28

Caller: Caleb is upside down on a motorcycle loan and seeks advice on refinancing or eliminating the debt.

Discussion Highlights:

• Aggressive Debt Repayment: Urges Caleb to use his substantial monthly income to pay off the motorcycle and car loans swiftly.
• Avoiding Refinancing Risks: Advises against using HELOCs for debt consolidation, as it converts unsecured debt into secured debt, risking his home.
• Financial Prioritization: Emphasizes prioritizing high-interest and secured debts to secure overall financial health.

Notable Quotes:

• Dr. John Deloney (112:20): "You have to buckle down and put the rest toward trying to build up enough to get out of this."
• Caller Caleb (114:01): "You're broke, man."

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9. Single Mother in the Foster System Seeking Financial Stability: Katie from Detroit, Michigan

Timestamp: 85:05 - 99:37

Caller: Katie, a 40-year-old single mother raised in the foster system, seeks guidance on managing debt and building financial stability for her family.

Discussion Highlights:

• Emergency Fund and Budgeting: Encourages Katie to establish a strict budget and prioritize debt repayment while building an emergency fund.
• Special Needs Planning: Discusses the importance of special needs trusts for her child, ensuring long-term care without financial strain.
• Emotional Support and Independence: Stresses the importance of financial independence to alleviate stress and build self-reliance, advising Katie to seek employment and reduce dependence on others.

Notable Quotes:

• Dr. John Deloney (91:17): "You're too successful; you should not be preoccupied with this debt."
• Caller Katie (99:17): "It's not about the money. It's about the behavior change."

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Conclusions and Insights

Throughout the episode, George Camel and Dr. John Deloney consistently reinforce the importance of:

• Debt Elimination: Prioritizing the repayment of high-interest and secured debts to achieve financial freedom and peace of mind.
• Behavioral Finance: Emphasizing that financial decisions should not solely be based on mathematical ROI but also on the psychological comfort and security they provide.
• Budgeting and Financial Planning: Advocating for strict budgeting, emergency funds, and strategic financial planning to navigate personal and familial financial challenges.
• Avoiding Debt Traps: Warning against leveraging debt as a solution, stressing that borrowing can often exacerbate financial instability.

Final Notable Quotes:

• Dr. John Deloney (102:18): "Stop living the fear and go do the next thing."
• Caller (95:30): "You've got a life to live."

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Closing Thoughts
"You Can’t Borrow Your Way to Peace" serves as a compelling reminder that financial stability and peace of mind are achieved not through borrowing and leveraging debt but through disciplined financial management, strategic debt repayment, and prioritizing behaviors that foster long-term security. George Camel and Dr. John Deloney provide actionable advice, empowering listeners to make informed financial decisions that align with their personal values and life goals.

Transcript

[George Camel]

Foreign to you by the EveryDollar app.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Start budgeting for free today. From the Ramsey Network, this is the Ramsey show where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm George Camel, joined by my good pal, Dr. John Deloney. And we're taking your calls at 888825 5225. You call us and we will share our opin opinion. And it's, it's worth whatever you paid for it. And today that's zero dollars. So Chris is going to kick us off in Lima, Ohio. What's going on, Chris?

[Caller]

Hey, gentlemen.

[George Camel]

Good to talk to you. So quick question, please. Speaking with another financial advisor, I got some input and I want to know why is it better in your point of view to pay off my mortgage early with extra principal payments, when the projected interest savings by doing that is significantly less than the projected interest gain of investing those extra payments?

[Dr. John Deloney]

I wish we were all robots and math and is all that mattered, Chris. I really do because this would be a much easier answer and I don't think you're gonna like my answer and I don't think you're gonna pay off your mortgage early.

[Caller]

But hey, can we just say, let's.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Walk through it.

[Caller]

All things told. If everything works out perfectly, you are correct. And hopefully that like if you never.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Have a job loss, you never have a divorce, everything works out great. And the markets continue to sore. That's right, yes.

[Caller]

And everything is perfectly stable in the financial markets these days. And with everyone's all. All in on the same leadership. So we, we're going to just go with that because everyone's pretty comfortable right now with, with everything. Right. So assuming all that works out right, you actually are correct, the math works in your favor. And that's where I, at least me personally, and I know George is too. We're playing a totally different game and so about behavior then the, the game is I want to be at a place where nobody, no government, no people, no bank, no mortgage company, nobody can take away me and my family's home.

[George Camel]

Sure.

[Caller]

And so I'm solving for peace. I'm not solving for maximum ROI on every penny in my life. There is places where I, I try to solve for maximum roi, having a house that nobody can take away from me. I, I personally believe there's a neurological connection to safety. If your body knows they can take away your house, if you lose your job, if you lose anything for any reason in this world where you can get canceled overnight for something you post. If you go to the wrong Coldplay concert, your life is over. Right. Like, whatever's happening, there's so many outside factors that can take your life away from you. Your brain would be failing you if it let you sleep at night. And so as for me and my house, we opted out of that ROI game on that particular math problem and said, I want to solve for peace. And so when I was paying my mortgage off, I paid probably a 3% sleep tax, and it was worth every single penny.

[George Camel]

Okay, that makes sense.

[Caller]

Can I have one more question?

[George Camel]

Do you have time?

[Caller]

And I talked over. George. George, what do you think?

[Dr. John Deloney]

No, I. Yeah, I want Ask your question, and I want to hear your numbers to kind of get a lay of the land here.

[Caller]

Yeah, I can give my numbers.

[George Camel]

My other question quickly was just when you get. When I get to that point of the 15% investment in retirement, does that include employer match, or is that just my contribution?

[Dr. John Deloney]

That's regardless of employer match. So you do 15% of your own money, and whether the employer matches 0% or 10% doesn't change that you've invested 15% of your income.

[George Camel]

Okay, perfect.

[Caller]

Can I ask you a question back, brother?

[George Camel]

Yeah, you can, sure.

[Caller]

Was that your question, or was that your financial advisor's question? Yeah, you called me, I want to.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Do it the Ramsey way.

[George Camel]

And they're fighting me with numbers, saying, well, you realize you're giving up all of this gained interest, Right?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Their whole job is to get you to invest. That's it. That's their entire job. They're not looking holistically at how you sleep at night, what's going on in your marriage. And so that's where I think it's sort of a. It's a question and a vacuum.

[Caller]

Well, it's not. It's. I don't think it's a vacuum. It's. They have a fiduciary responsibility to their firm to make as much money as possible, and they probably have some sort of commission triggers on how much money they get in the door. So, yes, they have a vested interest in telling you you're stupid.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So you're saying is, hey, I'm going to liquidate my portfolio with my advisor in order to pay off my mortgage, which means he just got a pay cut. Think about that.

[George Camel]

And I paid you guys nothing today, Right?

[Dr. John Deloney]

As you said in the intro, we get. We get no kickback for telling you to pay off your mortgage or to invest. So I want to tell you that we are unbiased in that regard. Other than wanting you to be free.

[Caller]

I. I'm biased in this way. I'll tell you where I have a bias. I have a bias in looking around at our world and our culture and everybody's insane. And I will tell you that when I call George on a Saturday morning when I'm trying to work out a math problem, George gives me an answer. And he's not insane. He's insane about other things. Make no mistake. But, like, there is a level of peace that I have a bias towards that I wish everyone in this culture would lean towards being people of peace, not people of. Dude, how do we snap into a slim gym and maximize our. Because that's making everybody insane. And that's the world my children are inheriting. And I'm sick of it, man. And so I'm gonna tell you right now, bro, get another financial Advisor. Go to ramseysolutions.com and you can click on Ramsey Trusted and find somebody who will say, hey, I want to do not what's best for me at your expense. But I realize I'll make more money as a business, as a financial advisor over time if you stay with me. And you'll stay with me if I do what's best for you and your family. Okay, that'd be. That'd be my recommendation.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Can I hear your numbers, Kris?

[Caller]

Yeah, go ahead.

[George Camel]

Yep. I have a loan balance of 183k.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay. And if I paid, I was throwing.

[George Camel]

Out 700 bucks extra a month. My savings and interest is about 71,000. And if I were to invest that 700amonth, just assuming the interest rate is the same as my house, which is four and a quarter, and I have.

[Caller]

No other investment, which I do, but.

[George Camel]

Assuming I'm starting at zero, the growth is 196k.

[Dr. John Deloney]

But you're misunderstanding how interest is calculated on that mortgage. It's essentially front loaded. And so if you go to see how much you're actually paying in interest this month, you will be baffled to go, oh, my God, I didn't make that in my savings account.

[George Camel]

Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Even with the same amount of money in there. And so that's. It's not apples to apples, number one. Number two, we're also assuming that you're not doing any investing while paying off your mortgage, which is something we've never said to do. We've said it. Always invest 15% before you put an extra dime on the mortgage, which means. How old are you, Chris?

[George Camel]

32.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You're 32 years old. So let's forecast this out. What Is your principal and interest on your mortgage today?

[George Camel]

It is five. I think it's like five. No, it's like 955.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay. It's about 1,000 bucks right now is what you would free up if you paid off your mortgage early, which then you have the ability to invest for the rest of your life.

[Caller]

That's the other part of your calculation that you're missing is if you pay your house off in three years or four years, then you've got $1,000 a month, month over month over month over month, for time eternal.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So the real question is, here's the thing. You're going to be a multimillionaire just the way you've been talking now. Will you have five million or five and a half million because you did or didn't pay off your mortgage early? That's really what we're talking about here.

[Caller]

Sure.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So that's the optimization part. But the fact that you've burned this many brain calories on it tells me it's just pay it off. You know how many times I've thought about my mortgage interest rate of 0%? None. None @ all. It has freed up my brain space to focus on what really matters. And that's the part that's hard to explain in a radio call.

[George Camel]

Sure.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Is the brain space it frees up to not even think about monitoring one more account and arbitraging and making sure that my investments and savings are doing better than my mortgage savings are.

[Caller]

And you have to stay glued to the next thing that the president tweets out or that the markets are doing or that the. What's the tariff in this? Like you have to stay glued to that because you have to, you have to make that spread versus I don't, I don't know. I don't have a mortgage.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I like to control the controllables and I like to control the knowns. And I know what my interest rate is. I know I can pay it off. That's something I, I can control. I don't know what the markets are going to do. I don't know if I'll have a job forever to be able to pay the mortgage. And so that's why I decided to pay off mine early. I hope you do the same. Chris. We're not trying to beat you down. We're. We're having a fun conversation. But we are rooting for you to solve for freedom, my friend. I've been doing this show for over.

[George Camel]

30 years and some of the saddest calls I have Taken are from situations.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That are completely preventable.

[George Camel]

Yeah. And what's so hard is I feel like one of those, especially the ones that I'm like, oh, it's terrible. People that call in and their spouse has passed away suddenly and they don't have life insurance. We actually took a question of a lady and she had three kids pregnant, and husband didn't have life insurance. And. And I'm like, I can't even imagine. Or even if it was opposite.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

If.

[George Camel]

If a mom passed away, there's a dad with kids and trying to figure out, how am I going to afford childcare? How do I. How do I outsource some stuff that maybe she was doing? Like, And. And it just takes the grief and the sadness of something like a sudden death to a whole new level. Like, when you have to think through.

[Caller]

How am I going to pay my bills?

[George Camel]

How about next week? Yeah. In the middle of all that grief, like, it's just. It is. It's terrible. So life insurance is the one thing, especially as a mom with three little.

[Caller]

Kids that I'm, like, so big on.

[George Camel]

For people to get because it's inexpensive. Zander is the place that Winston and I actually get all of our life insurance. And we keep re upping it because I'm like, I just want it there. Like, there's something about that safety of knowing that you have money if something.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Suddenly happens and it doesn't cost much.

[George Camel]

Because Zander shops among a gazillion different.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Companies, it doesn't cost much.

[George Camel]

You just have to admit that someday.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You'Re not going to be here.

[George Camel]

You got to say it out loud, and you got to say, I'm going to say I love you to my family by taking care of them and taking the time to put this stuff in place. The cost of stinking pizza there really is. So that is one thing to do, to say I love you to your family. So we've used Zander for all of.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Our family's needs for insurance for many years, including, of course, term life insurance. To get a free quote, go to 800-356-4282. That's 800-356-4282.

[George Camel]

Or go to Zander.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Diane is up next in Louisville, Kentucky. What's going on, Diane? How can we help today?

[George Camel]

Hi, guys. Thanks so much to the whole Ramsey team for everything you guys do. My brother and I have a dispute.

[Caller]

Nice. We'll settle it.

[George Camel]

So I think he can do his Roth 401K and a Roth IRA. And he tells me he can only do a Roth IRA, and I have all his numbers, so he makes 100,000 a year. He does 8,000 in his Roth IRA every year because he's over 50, his birthday is tomorrow, and he does 7,000 a year in his 401K. But he does have a Roth option.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, and what's the debate?

[George Camel]

I think he needs to do the Roth 401k, but he's telling me he can't because he already does this. The 8,000 a year.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I think we got to stop thinking. You guys, like the Little Engine that could. Like, I think. I can't just. I mean, you could have Googled this and settled it. You can do a Roth IRA and a Roth 401K.

[George Camel]

It said yes, but then in the verbiage, it said. It just kept saying 401 and not Roth.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, so there's a Roth is just a tax treatment on the account you're using after tax dollars, you're investing, and it's not taxed again when you withdraw as long as you're of retirement age. And so you can max out a Roth IRA and you can max out a Roth 401K.

[George Camel]

Oh, my gosh, George, you're my favorite, because that means I'm right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That's what I was hoping for. I was like, I hope Diane's on the right side of history. I hope she doesn't hate me.

[Caller]

Give me a chance. Is there something like that your parents did that was mean that I can settle? I'm just kidding.

[Dr. John Deloney]

John needs a win.

[Caller]

I'm just kidding.

[George Camel]

No, but I have to tell you, I'm on baby step seven. And, Chris, you got to pay off your mortgage, dude.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yes, thanks. She's referring back to a previous caller.

[Caller]

Exactly. Good.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Way to go, Diane. Yeah, you are correct on this one. And it's a good. You know what? It's. It is very confusing. And so I will give him that. That you're like, wait, Roth. There's a traditional Roth, and there's an IRA, but there's a 401K. One is through the employee. So it is a little bit messy. But to be clear, you can invest in both. Now, there are income limits for an ira, but he can always do a backdoor Roth IRA if he doesn't qualify for that. And so that's the only caveat to all of this. But either way, you can do Roth all the way on every type of account. And I love a Roth account because you're investing with after tax dollars, which means Uncle Sam got his cut. Now he ain't taking it later.

[Caller]

And the, the meta here is listen to your sister.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That's really the underlying question.

[Caller]

To listen to our sister.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Why would you question your sister?

[Caller]

I don't know. Especially when she's holding Google.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Especially when she's in baby step seven with a paid for home. Like, I'll just do what she's doing. What could go wrong?

[Caller]

I didn't think about that. That's why. Because you have your millionaire older sister, like, here's what you need to do. And you have to be like, no, I love. I get that.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah. And actually, you know what's cool is you could do all 15% in baby step 4 in a Roth 401K. You have good options through your employer. You could do it all right there and not touch the Roth ira. But it's, you know, you can always utilize that Roth ira. It's, they're very similar tools in that regard. Just one is connected through your employer and one is outside of your employ. Great question. Let's go to Greta up next in Phoenix. Don't get a lot of Gretas. What an awesome name. What's going on?

[George Camel]

Hi, you guys, I'm, I'm so glad to be here. I'm 51 years old. I uprooted my life two years ago from Atlanta, Georgia to move to Phoenix to take, help my brother take care of our mother who has stage five kidney disease.

[Dr. John Deloney]

She doesn't want.

[George Camel]

No, don't be sorry. She doesn't want to do what she's supposed to do. She thinks she's going to get a transplant. She doesn't want to work. She's going to have to work. She lives in an expensive part of Phoenix that her SSI barely takes care of. I had a job here, but I had to quit it because of. I kept getting eye infections. But I'm constantly looking for work. I'm a phlebotomist. I'm in the healthcare field. I just, I feel this is the worst mistake of my life moving here. I should have stayed at home. I want to do the seven baby steps, but I can't right now because I don't have job. I'm trying and she is not, she is not doing what she's supposed to do. She's thinking that I'm going to be here to help her and I'm, I can't. I got to take care of myself.

[Caller]

I'm going to.

[George Camel]

I can't.

[Caller]

So listen to me.

[George Camel]

I'm so frustrated right now.

[Caller]

Your frustration is right. Your frustration is right.

[George Camel]

Right.

[Caller]

I applaud you for finally getting to the place where you're going to put your oxygen mask on first. Because you're going to be no good to your mom or yourself if you're not paying your own bills and you're not able to look yourself in the mirror. Right. You're right. You are right. You are right. You are right. And the only thing I can tell you is you. You don't have. You don't have an easy path forward. So I want you to take the path. Like, so, like, you have to choose your hard path. I want you to take the path that's going to get you to where you want to be. And because of your mom's health and her stubbornness, where she's going to need you to be in five years or in three years.

[George Camel]

I try to get her. I try to get her to listen to you guys. She doesn't want to do things that. That are going to better herself. She wants to get into all this computer. She's not computer literate, but she wants to do all this different online marketing crap that she thinks is gonna make her.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I think she's falling for a scam is what's happening. She's hopeless and desperate, and she is turning any way she can to find a shortcut out of here. And you're right. She probably is gonna get hurt doing it. And John's also right. You don't need to attach yourself to an anchor. Cause you both are gonna sink.

[Caller]

So, Greta, can I tell you, your anger's right, your frustration's right. Your dismay and heartbreak is all that is right and exactly as it should be. And so this is me sitting across the table from you, looking you directly in the eyes and saying, okay, given this hurt and given the reality that you're. That you've been experiencing for so long, and by the way, this didn't just start happening. Your mom's avoided reality your whole life, hasn't she?

[George Camel]

Her whole life, yes.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Her zip code is in fantasy land.

[Caller]

That's right.

[George Camel]

Yeah. She's that way.

[Caller]

So. Okay, so let me ask you. Here's the only question that you can answer. What are you gonna do next?

[George Camel]

I've been looking for work. I interviewed with. With LabCorp yesterday. They turned me down because they decided to go with the internal candidate. You know, everybody likes me. They just. You know, it's a waiting game. I apply jobs every day. I apply every day, two and three companies every day.

[Caller]

What does a phlebotomist make?

[George Camel]

Not much My, my. I told them I have. I need to be making at least 20 an hour. @ least.

[Caller]

Okay. Will you do me a favor? This is gonna feel insulting, but I don't mean it that way. Will you look around your community and see if you can make 20 bucks or 19 bucks an hour at Starbucks or at Arby's or. And I know you went and got trained for a thing, but I wanted. I want to see if there's other jobs you can get, because right now you got a lot. You have a math problem you got to solve on top of an identity problem on top of a really stubborn parent who's dying right in front of you. And so I want to tackle one of these things as we can. And if you keep banging your head up against the wall. People love you. I like you. And just talking to you for two seconds. I like you. And I get my blood drawn all the time because I'm a nerd. I would love to have you draw them up. Like to hang out with you in the morning while you're poking holes in me. I would love that. But if there's not a job available right now for you, then you have to have the courage to put your ego aside and go to option number two and three.

[George Camel]

Okay.

[Caller]

Right.

[George Camel]

Okay. And I do live. I live close to. I've applied at Circle Tay.

[Caller]

Yep.

[George Camel]

Got turned down. I've applied at Fries that turned down. But I'm gonna walk up here to. You know, because I don't have transportation either. She argues with me about her car if I'm trying to get work, but I. To Taco Bell. I'm gonna go up here and see if they need any help because I can work.

[Caller]

Hey, can I ask you where. Where's home for you? It's not here. Where's home for you? Where do you got friends?

[George Camel]

Atlanta, Georgia. And I've missed it so bad. I wouldn't have had to move.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Will you.

[Caller]

Will you call some friends in Atlanta and see if there's work opportunities there for you?

[George Camel]

Yeah.

[Caller]

Because there's going to come a day when your mom's housing is going to say she has to leave because she's not living in reality. She's got bills. And that might be when she.

[George Camel]

Help her and then try to help myself. Take time.

[Caller]

You can't.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Your job right now is to break the cycle. Your job is not to help your.

[Caller]

Mom at this point because you're not helping her. You're just in service to her.

[George Camel]

Yes.

[Caller]

Right. And so the best way you can help her is that you're in a stable financial, emotional and relational position. Two years from now, when things get desperate for her, which they're going to because she refuses to listen to you. You if you're surrounded by community and you got stable work and you got a place to live, then you're going to be in a position to help her when she's going to need you most. And she will. It's been an honor to talk to you, my friend.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Let's be real. Buying your first home can feel like reading Ikea instructions upside down. It's confusing and stressful and you have no idea if that cam bolt is supposed to go there. And if you try and buy a home with some click and go lender, well, good luck because you're just another line on their spreadsheet. So here's the thing. When I was buying my home, I didn't want to just be a loan number. I wanted a relationship with a real person, someone who was willing to answer all of my questions along the way and understood my goal of paying off my mortgage fast. And that's why I love Churchill Mortgage. They don't rush you. They don't try to sell you more house than you need. They listen. They walk with you step by step and offer guidance so that you understand what you can actually afford. So they teach you how to do it the right way so that you have margin and peace with the goal of becoming completely debt free. So if you want rock solid advice on how to buy a home the right way, connect with a Churchill loan specialist [e-mail] that's Churchill Mortgage. This is a paid advertisement in MLS ID 1591 in mlsconsumeraccess.org equal housing lender if anyone in your life depends on your income, you need life insurance. Now we only recommend term life insurance. And life insurance has one job and one job only. It replaces your income if you were to pass away. We never recommend whole life or permanent life insurance because it tries to do two jobs at once, insurance and investing, and it does a terrible job at both while being wildly expensive. You only need life insurance while someone depends on you financially. So if you're like most people, you need a policy worth 10 to 12 times your annual income for a term length of of 15 to 20 years. This will help you help your family to cover their finances and cover the bills if something were to happen to you. And this should be a level policy which means the premium stays the same price throughout the life of the policy. So 50 bucks year, you know, month after month, year after year for that 15 to 20 years, that's what you want to look for. And if you want some more info and resources on this, use our free Term Life insurance guide. Go to ramseysolutions.com term lifeguide or click the link in the description. If you're listening on YouTube or podcasts, it'll be the best few minutes you spend today. Diane is in Venice, Florida. Up next, how can we help Diane?

[George Camel]

Yes. Hi. Okay. I have a question. We are, my husband and I are, we have, I'm 56 and he's 60 years old and we have approximately 39,000 in an IRA and approximately 45,000 in American funds. It's through Vanguard.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Those two things is that non retirement and then.

[George Camel]

Yeah, that's our retirement. And then we have three IRAs in Jackson and they are 15,000 each. We bought and sold a house down here and we made 100,000. So we've been having that sitting in a CD earning 4% for the last year.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So.

[George Camel]

But that's our entire retirement, you know what I mean?

[Dr. John Deloney]

So are you renting right now?

[George Camel]

What's that?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Are you renting right now?

[George Camel]

No, we own our home, which is worth around probably around 300,000.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay. No mortgage?

[George Camel]

No, no mortgage.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Wonderful. So this is extra gravy on top. You have an extra 100,000 to invest. Where would I invest if I was in your shoes, knowing that you don't have a big nest egg to retire off of?

[George Camel]

Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You guys are going to be working for for a while longer, right?

[George Camel]

Yes, yes, I'll definitely be working for a while. For sure.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, so if 55,000 together a year, how much between 65 together you make 65 a year?

[George Camel]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Why is that? It feels low for a couple in their 50s and 60s.

[George Camel]

I know my husband has arthritis, so he's, he's, he was almost crippled actually at one point in his life. Like he's got really bad autoimmune deficiency disease. So he's not able to earn a lot.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah. Well, the good news is you have a big pile of money at least to help kickstart this. So what I would do personally in your shoes, following through these baby steps, you're in baby step seven, so you can invest as much as you want and I would invest as much as you can. And for me, that would mean maxing out all the retirement accounts I can first. All those tax advantaged accounts are going to be your friend. And once you do that, you're Gonna have a bunch of money left over. I would go ahead and put that in that, you know, non retirement American funds Vanguard account. And so as you walk through the our retirement or investing strategy, it's match beats Roth, beats traditional. So take advantage of any match you guys can get through your employer, then go to any Roth options you have, then to traditional. And then beyond that, if you max all your retirement accounts out, just invest in that non retirement brokerage account for the rest of it. And over the long haul, your money should double about every seven years, the track return of the stock market. So if you guys worked another 10 years, 100k turns into 200k. Now that's good. That's not like do whatever we want in retirement kind of money. And so you're going to need to find a way to increase that income and get that nest egg a little kickstart that it needs to get going. But I'm wishing you guys the best, especially with his health and the income. Jessica is in Fresno up next. What's going on? Jessica?

[George Camel]

Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my call.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Sure. What's going on?

[George Camel]

I so I'm 39, my husband's 40, and we have quite a bit of debt, about 240,000 total. I have 140,000 in student loans. And I'm just wondering what is the best. We're in baby step two. What is the best way to start living below our means so that we can get to a place of tackling all the, all the debt?

[Dr. John Deloney]

I love this question. It tells me you're ready and you're going to love this answer. The best way to live below your means is to live below your means. And here's the tactical way to do that. It's with a budget. The budget is going to be your best friend when it comes to getting out of this mess because it will hold up a financial mirror every single day, every single week, every single month to show you every, hey, 10 grand came in and 11 grand went out. Let's stop that by setting up categories, getting some control of this and going, hey, any extra money beyond our basic bills needs to go towards the debt, not to doordash.

[George Camel]

Yeah. And I'm a spender, so. And I'm a musician, so a lot of the half of my income is very flexible. Like comes in, sometimes it's cash, you know, and so coffee here, car for coffee there. And you know, and I'm trying to buckle down and say like, okay, coffee at home. And you know, I'll eat at home. And so that's been something that's difficult, but I'm. I'm ready to do it. I'm worried about our cars because we. I. I have. I owe 15, 000 on a BMW, and I sort of wish I would have gone for something cheaper and, you know, more affordable, but I went with, like, a flashier car. And so it's not that much more, but, I mean, it is 15,000.

[Dr. John Deloney]

What's the other 100,000 in debt? So you have 140 in your student loans, 15,000 in the car. That means there's 85,000 left.

[George Camel]

Yeah, there's a. His truck is about 40, 40 grand. And credit cards. He has. He has a. Three or four credit cards and.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Sounds like two spenders fell in love and got married.

[George Camel]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

What's your household income?

[George Camel]

It was me that went for that truck, and I regret it that I pushed him to get that truck. I just wanted him to have something nice. And the household income per year, or.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yes, per year.

[George Camel]

Per year is about 110.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You guys have a lot of car. I mean, you are. Is that the only two vehicles you own? Anything else with wheels or motors?

[George Camel]

That's it.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay. I would highly consider selling that truck, which will just get a monkey off your back, at least. What's the truck worth?

[George Camel]

We put. It's probably worth a good. It's a Sierra Denali. It's a nice truck. It is. It's just that it hurts because we put, like, 18 grand.

[Caller]

Jessica down.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Jessica, I don't care if you attached a pony to the back. You're a quarter million dollars.

[Caller]

You can't breathe.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Consumer debt.

[Caller]

You can't breathe, kid.

[George Camel]

I know.

[Caller]

Sell the truck.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And this is called sunk cost fallacy.

[Caller]

Exactly. Sell your BMW, too, because the maintenance on a used BMW is incredibly expensive versus the maintenance on a used Camry. Sell your BMW. And part of this is you having an ego tax. You have walked around telling everybody you're a musician, that you're a songwriter, that you're this, you're that. And you've tried to prove to the world not through album sales, but through flashy things. Now's the time to kill that part of your ego and choose safety and peace.

[Dr. John Deloney]

What was your degree?

[George Camel]

I'm ready to kill it. Ego.

[Caller]

Good.

[George Camel]

I have a master's in Chicano Studies. I am a faculty. I am a adjunct faculty, so I'm teaching as well. Not full time, I know, but I.

[Caller]

Was an adjunct for years. That's like 1700 bucks a semester. Or 3000 if you're really lucky. It doesn't pay anything. But it sounds awesome. Yeah, it sounds awesome to say I'm a musician and I'm a professor. Those two things don't have an economic reality with the world you're living. Right?

[George Camel]

Right.

[Caller]

Okay, let's sell the BMW and buy a Corolla and let's sell the truck and buy a 2010 F150. And then let's tackle this debt with real money, not with fancy titles.

[George Camel]

Like if I have, If I owe 15 on the BMW and I sell.

[Dr. John Deloney]

It for four, you'll need the difference you're underwater on. Sell them private party. Get as much money as you can for them. Any difference that you are, that you need to make up for either needs to be saved up quickly or come from a personal loan from a credit.

[Caller]

Union and somebody will buy that BMW for more than $4,000. Unless you are just wickedly upside down, at which you're gonna have to pay what we call a stupid tax. You have to pay that 10 grand and it's sunk money.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You both are gonna need to work three or four jobs for the next few years to clean this up, but it's definitely possible. But like John said, we got to put down our ego and just get to work.

[George Camel]

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[Dr. John Deloney]

Based business management suite because it helps.

[George Camel]

Your business make the right decisions fast. It brings accounting, financial management, inventory and HR into one place so you're not left shuffling a dozen different spreadsheets. That gives you the visibility you need to make quick decisions based on actionable data. And NetSuite AI automates everyday tasks so your team can focus on strategy. It's one system for full control and no guesswork to tame the chaos. And right now, if you're leading a business doing more than a million dollars in annual revenue, download NetSuite's free ebook Navigating Global Trade. Three insights for [e-mail] Ramsey that's NetSuite.com Ramsay Foreign.

[Dr. John Deloney]

If you're enjoying this show or any other Ramsey shows or shows on The Ramsey Network. Hit the like button, hit the subscribe button, hit the share button. It means the world and it does more than you know. You guys are the best marketing plan we have to keep spreading hope. Roland is up next in Orange County, California. What's going on, Roland?

[George Camel]

Hey, how you guys doing?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Doing great. What's up with you?

[George Camel]

Not much. I just been listening to your guys's podcast for the past couple of weeks, feeling a bit inspired and excited.

[Caller]

Actually.

[George Camel]

I just wanted to see. Yeah, just. I'm just trying to get out of a rut. Just trying to see if you guys be able to navigate me in the right. Right. Pat, in 2016, I used to be a small business owner. I used to sell used cars and it was good for like the first year. I wasn't much of a businessman. I ended up walking away with almost about 30 or $28,000 in IRS debt. And since then it's obviously accumulated. I'm no longer a businessman. I was doing that for almost two to three years and it didn't work out, unfortunately. I'm actually just a straight 9 to 5 guy. I'm a truck driver by, by for a living now. And I have that debt over me. And it's pretty much stopped me from making the big leap of marrying my longtime girlfriend simply on the fact that I didn't want to pass that debt on to her. And so I personally took care of it. So I just.

[Dr. John Deloney]

What do you mean you took care of me?

[George Camel]

I mean, no, till I take care of it, till I pay the debt off.

[Caller]

Number one. Okay, we're gonna talk about the debt. Number one. If you're waiting on this to marry this person, that's just your ego talking. Marry this person.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Or there's other fears that you're not sharing with us about why you start your ring on it.

[Caller]

I get wanting to be like, hey, I wanna. I don't want her to have to take care of anything. But if she's been with you this long, she's picked you. Go get married, dude. Go get married this weekend. And that's 100 straight up ego. And the reason I'm starting there before we get to the math problem is you have to set your ego aside to work this plan and become free. Ego is what gets all of us into this mess in the first place. We start businesses, we have no business, no experience. We buy cars we can't afford. We, we, we. We don't start our life because we're like, we're afraid that people are going to find out what we actually owe, like, it's just ego, ego, ego. So, dude, set that aside. Tell your girlfriend I love you and I love you to be with me. And then her debt, your debt will become yalls debt. But dude, let's get this thing knocked out.

[George Camel]

Okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Do you have any other debt?

[George Camel]

Yeah, I have about $7,000 in credit card debt and then a car note that it's, it's probably around 23,000.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And what do you make?

[Caller]

How much you make in this? Nine to five.

[George Camel]

I take, I take home after taxes, almost around 70.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, that's good. We got a good income to work with.

[Caller]

California, you're probably making 440,000 bucks if you bring home 70, right?

[George Camel]

Yeah, yeah. It's a lot of overtime.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Way to go. Well, the good news is you can clean this up because you're making what, six grand a month?

[George Camel]

No, it's roughly like what, it's about 1500 a week. So. Yeah, like 5600 around there.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay. I was like 1500 a week is six grand a month, man. I mean, my toddler, I think, could have crunched those numbers.

[Caller]

All right, we're gonna, we're gonna start with a shout out to math, Roland.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So shout out to math real quick. Next piece of, next piece of business. You have 30,000 in debt to the IRS. That's going to go to the top of your debt payoff list. So the credit cards, you're going to make minimum payments. The car loan, make minimum payments. The IRS debt, you need to get off your back. Have you been filing your taxes every year since?

[George Camel]

Yeah, just normal. And you know, I do get, I do get some. Like, I would have given like maybe 2400 and they just take that. So I don't get nothing back. So my other question was, do I, do I put a little withholdings on that? Do I put me as a one dependent or just.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Your withholdings aren't the problem here. I mean, they're going to take it. If you get a refund, they're just going to take it. If you owe, they're going to take it. It's going to add to your debt.

[Caller]

And if you play the withholding games, here's what you're essentially doing. You're essentially saying, hey, government, I want to loan you some of my money interest free. And y' all do what you think is best with it. Does that sound even remotely wise? No, no, let's don't play that game.

[Dr. John Deloney]

But when your debtor is the one giving you the money or the Creditor, that's a problem because they're just not going to give you the money because you owe the money. And so you owe 30,000 total right.

[George Camel]

Now it's been, it's gone up. So I don't know what that is.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Well, there's a bit of homework. Yeah, let's figure out what's gone up.

[George Camel]

To like 34 grand.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Now that it is, let's call it 34 grand. What are your total expenses in a given month? If you just bare bones. Here's what I need to survive. We're not eating out. We're not getting snacks at the gas station. We are going to work. We're going home paying the bills. What are those expenses add up to?

[George Camel]

Well, we spend, we meal prep and stuff. So that saves us money during the week. So we spent about almost 400 every weekend for food. And then the mortgage is 16 actually I rent, I rent with my, with my, well, soon to be wife in my mom's house. But we, our mortgage is about 16.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I'm actually on the rent at your mom's house. But you have a mortgage. Are you paying her mortgage?

[George Camel]

Well, technically it's. She puts in a little bit. It was, that house was given to me and my mother. It was passed on, but I had to take myself off the wheel because it can only be from mother, from mother to daughter. I'm the grandchildren.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, neither here nor there. I apologize. The rabbit trail. But are you, can you keep your expenses below three grand? Can you keep your total expenses? Okay, that means there is three grand left over every month. You tracking with me?

[George Camel]

Yes sir.

[Dr. John Deloney]

If you apply that three grand towards the debt, the 34 grand, how many months is going to take you to become debt free? Say 11. Okay, so 11 months from now you've paid the IRS off. If nothing changes if you don't get a raise. Okay, you can do basic math. What has stopped you from doing that? For the last almost decade?

[George Camel]

I was under the assumption that I could save up some money and then try to offer a lump sum payment to them because I heard that they do like some type of settlement. And if you did the settlement, and.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Dude, it's the irs, not capital one, you're not going to settle with these people. It's the government. So here's the deal. That's the math problem. Now you have to actually change your life in order to make that happen every single month. $3,000 needs to go to the IRS come hell or high water. Can you commit to that?

[George Camel]

Yes, absolutely. If there's no other option.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, this is it. I don't have a shortcut for you. I don't. Don't run to some debt settlement company. Who's going to handle it? Roland handles it.

[George Camel]

Okay, but listen. Was always in the back of my mind that. That option. But listen, you're right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You're looking for shortcuts.

[Caller]

Have you ever in your life saved up $30,000? Just cash holding it.

[George Camel]

Never done that.

[Caller]

Okay, then don't ever pretend like you're gonna. That's gonna be your solution out of a problem. You've never done that. Okay, number two. Have you ever solved a problem in your life by. By avoiding it?

[George Camel]

No.

[Caller]

No.

[George Camel]

Absolutely.

[Caller]

When you get off the phone with us, I want you to call the IRS and say, I have a tax. I have a outstanding tax bill that I need to make right with you all. Can I get a tax payoff plan? And they will look at everything. They will give you an A financial enema. And they will go spel. Find out how much you make and how much you worth and all that. And then they'll come up with a payment plan. But at least these penalties will stop accruing every month, every year. There's only one way through this, and that's to call and settle up. And my hope is they say, okay, we're going to do this until you give us 28 grand. Or they might say it's going to be 40. Either way, you're going to finally have an answer and you're going to know.

[George Camel]

Right.

[Caller]

But avoiding this thing is not going away.

[Dr. John Deloney]

The only way out.

[Caller]

Marriage.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah. The only way out of this is through it. There's no shortcuts.

[George Camel]

Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And so it's just you putting as much money away as possible. Keep working that overtime. Can you commit to this for a year of just real intense sacrifice?

[George Camel]

Oh, absolutely. One thing about me, I'm a good, disciplined person. So.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Except for your taxes, except for saving up to purchase anything major in your life ever.

[Caller]

Yeah, ever. Saving.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You've got an incredible work ethic.

[George Camel]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You're not scared of work. And that tells me that you have hope.

[George Camel]

Right?

[Caller]

Okay, let me. I want to give you one more thing. The shame around money for men is especially. Especially acute. It's powerful. It makes us feel like losers.

[George Camel]

Right, right, right.

[Caller]

Like I don't make enough. You even apologized when you. On this. On the beginning of this call. Because, like, I was a business owner, Now I'm just 9 to 5 guy. I want you to hold your head up high. We've all made money mistakes, man. And none of us are where we to want would dreamed of being. Fine. Let's deal with reality. And as George said, you can't go around, you got to go right through it. Hang on the line. We're going to hook you up with financial peace University and every dollar so you and your girlfriend, soon to be wife, can start making a budget. We got you, brother.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You know what makes a summer party great? Good friends, cold drinks and great food. But you know what can bring the party down? Spending way too much money to make it all happen. And that's why I get my summertime grocery hauls at Aldi. They've got USDA choice meats, fresh organic produce and all the stuff you need for an epic or low key backyard barbecue. Without breaking the bank, there's no better feeling than good eats at low prices. So stop paying more and shop at Aldi where they have the lowest prices of any national grocery store. Find a store near you@aldi US that's a L D I.us savings based on regional analysis of Aldi versus select competitors. Prices may vary by location, product availability and the market. From Ramsey Network, this is the Ramsey show where we help people build wealth, do work that they love and create amazing relationships. I'm Ramsey personality George Camel, joined by best selling author Dr. John DeLoney. And we're taking your calls at 888-825-5225. Jared is joining us from Mississippi. What's going on, Jared?

[George Camel]

Oh, man. Just trying to stray. Be busy.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I feel that. What's your question today?

[George Camel]

So my question is. So I guess to make a long story short, I made some very bad decisions in purchasing some vehicles because I thought I was a millionaire and I'm not. So I've got two vehicles, one I owe 35,000 on and one I owe right at 40,000. I'm making a combined payment of, I mean both payments together. I'm making probably over 700, $1700 a month on these vehicles.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Goodness gracious. Yeah, I know that feels like all of your money. How much are you making?

[George Camel]

I make probably on the low end, about 4,500amonth.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Are you commission based? Where's the irregular income coming from?

[George Camel]

I'm hourly and I bring in $31 an hour.

[Dr. John Deloney]

But is it a consistent 40 hours a week?

[George Camel]

It's a. It's a guaranteed 45 hours a week.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, good.

[George Camel]

And so.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So you're making about 65, 70 gross a year?

[George Camel]

Yeah, roughly. I also have a small auto glass business that I Just opened up. But how much you owe on that on the weekends? I haven't really had it so far. I've only done probably about three grand worth of work.

[Caller]

I know, but what did you borrow to even open that door?

[George Camel]

I didn't have to borrow anything. That was a good thing. I'm a mechanic, so I already had all the tools.

[Caller]

Oh, great. Okay, cool. That's awesome.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So what other debt do you have outside of these two cars?

[George Camel]

I've got some medical debt that doesn't add up to a lot. I've probably got, I don't know, probably five grand in medical debt and then probably about five grand in credit card debt. The. I guess the biggest question that I had was I've been trying to get rid of these vehicles because I make enough money to where I could buy a vehicle outright if I wasn't spending it on these vehicles every month.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Agreed.

[George Camel]

Most. Both vehicles have been listed for probably about six months now, and I haven't been able to sell them.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Where are you listing these cars at?

[George Camel]

They're just on Facebook. Marketplace for now. Home.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, are they. How are you getting the value for them? Are you looking at Kelley Blue Book and.

[George Camel]

Yeah, I've got them both listed high. I mean, I've got them. I mean, they're listed for less than what I owe on them, but I still haven't gotten any bites on.

[Caller]

Well, I mean, that's just hashtag economics. If you're listing them for more than they're worth, then they're not going to sell. I mean, like, ta da.

[George Camel]

So I guess my biggest question is what?

[Caller]

Hold on, hold on. The biggest question is like, how can you price these cars so they'll get sold tomorrow? Because every month you hang on to them, you're putting out 1700 more dollars.

[George Camel]

Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So everybody, for six months, you just lost 10 grand.

[Caller]

That's exactly right.

[George Camel]

Exactly.

[Caller]

Whereas you might have had to eat that ten grand and gone to a local credit union. And if you've been making your payments, you could take out ten grand, pay off the balance of these cars, get the, the new owners, their titles, and you're now not on the hook for depreciating assets to the tune of however many tens of thousands of dollars you just owe 10 grand to a local credit union.

[George Camel]

So I. So like, I could go to a local credit union and get a loan to pay the difference for what I want because yes, I'm pretty. Last time I tried to sell the cars to a dealership at one point.

[Caller]

And no, don't do that.

[George Camel]

They're offering pennies, Right.

[Caller]

You have to price it to where it's cheaper for somebody to buy it from you than it is from a dealer.

[George Camel]

Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Have you tried some of these online sites to get bids on what they would take for it?

[George Camel]

I did. Oh, I can't remember which website that was, but I know that.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Try them all and just see what they offer you, because they might offer you what you would have listed it for and you can be done with this today.

[George Camel]

Right. The. I know the last time I did it, they. It was looking like I was going to be about 16,000 upside down combined for both of them.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Well, here's the. Here's the deal. If you hang on to these cars for another eight months, you will have paid $16,000 in payments, right. And so you've got to start doing the math of what's worth it to get out of this payment and get freed up so you can focus on knocking out the rest of your debts and getting an emergency fund in place. Do you have anything in savings or anything else you can sell?

[George Camel]

No, I've sold almost every. I used to have four wheelers and a boat and all this. And, I mean, I've sold everything.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Where are you living right now?

[George Camel]

I'm in a rental house right now.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You got roommates?

[George Camel]

I'm married and I have one kid and another one that will be born tomorrow.

[Caller]

Wow, Congrats.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That's awesome. Well, is. Is your wife. Is she going to be going back to work or is she going to be staying home? What's the plan?

[George Camel]

She. She stays at home. We're single. I'm the only income for us.

[Caller]

What. What cars are these, dude? What kind?

[George Camel]

One is a 2021 F150 Ford F150, and then one is a 2023 Toyota RAV4.

[Caller]

Okay, which one are you the most upside down on?

[George Camel]

Probably the F150. The highest offer I've gotten on hit was, I think 25,040 to hit.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So I guess that thing's definitely worth More than 25,000.

[George Camel]

Yeah, well, that's what I think, but so far I haven't found anybody else.

[Dr. John Deloney]

But I guess if you're in Mississippi and you're Jared, you just want to buy new instead of off some dude named Jared off Facebook.

[George Camel]

Yeah, that's. Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Man, this is. This is a tough situation you got yourself in. And the best way out of it is fast because you got a baby coming tomorrow. That would give. That would put a fire under me to get rid of these cars. Now you're gonna need different cars to drive, won't you?

[George Camel]

Right, Right. Which I have. I mean my parents and in laws have both stated that they could help us get a vehicle. A cheap vehicle that would get us. By which I do own another truck. I've got an old paid off 86 model Dodge that I've had all my.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Life and it's still running fine.

[George Camel]

Oh yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So you can drive that. Now we need something for your wife to drive. Could she borrow an in laws car or they get her something cheap?

[George Camel]

Right, we can get her something cheap if I can just get rid of the vehicles.

[Caller]

What do you owe on the rav.

[George Camel]

For 35000 I think is my payoff, dude.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So you're making 65000 and you have cars that total 75 000?

[George Camel]

Yes.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That's bad man.

[Caller]

Ouch.

[George Camel]

Yeah, it's. It's terrible.

[Caller]

But let's say this. If you. If you what? What do you owe on the Rev4. I mean I'm sorry not what do you owe, but what do you think it's worth on Kelly Blue book with real numbers, not your imaginary numbers.

[George Camel]

It's been a while since I checked it. I want to say it. Kelly blue books. Right. At 30 or 32.

[Caller]

Okay. So if you put it up today and sold it for 30, that's five grand. And you sell that truck and you get 30 for that truck, then you're now you've cleared $60,000 worth of debt and you've traded or 65 grand worth of debt for 15,000. That's a trade I'll make every day of the week.

[George Camel]

So I guess how. What would be my best option of finding someone to be able to give me that?

[Dr. John Deloney]

A lot of work, a lot of hustle.

[Caller]

Yeah. Check everywhere, make it a job. Think about it this way. You're gonna be making 40 grand on this transaction. You'll write yourself $40,000. Just get after it, man.

[George Camel]

I've seen people do everything possible to get out of debt.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Selling stuff, starting side hustles, canceling subscriptions, giving up eating at restaurants, even turning off the air conditioner in the summer and sweating through it.

[George Camel]

But most of them don't know they're.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Overpaying for their phone plan. With Boost Mobile, you get unlimited talk.

[George Camel]

Text and Data for just $25 a month. That's it. And that $25 never goes up. No contracts, no junk fees, and no tricks. So do the math.

[Dr. John Deloney]

It's not that hard.

[George Camel]

And go to boostmobile.com Ramsey restrictions apply. See boostmobile.com Ramsey for details.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Brody's in Denver, Colorado. Up next, how can we help today?

[George Camel]

Brody, thank you so much for taking my call. My wife and I have a question for you guys about purchasing the home in the near future.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Love it.

[George Camel]

We got married two years ago and we paid off our student loans and recently moved to Colorado about a year ago. We make 160,000 a year and we have a $4,000 car loan we're about to pay off next month. And we have an emergency fund for six months and about $50,000 saved up right now. The question is based off your principles of only going 25% of our total income. We really can't afford much in Denver. My work is in Denver. I'm in sales, so I have to stay in this area. So we're just trying to figure out what we should do.

[Caller]

Yeah. This is a math problem that is plaguing young professionals all over the country, especially in urban, like what I would call the cool cities. Right?

[George Camel]

Yep.

[Caller]

And I guess the challenge is like when we get asked this question is a we, we, we both experience this. We live here. And in other times, if we had our same salaries, we'd be living in very different houses. And I can't in good conscience like give you bad math, like. Right. Like a math problem that's going to put you and your family at risk. Does that make sense?

[George Camel]

Yeah. So we've been approved for homes that are, you know, in the 600.

[Caller]

Oh, of course you have. Yeah.

[George Camel]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

A bank will approve you for pretty much anything.

[Caller]

They're happy because, look, your local. More like your local bank. Nevermind, I'll go down a rabbit hole here. Like, most banks don't hold the risk. They continue to sell loans and sell loans, which means they don't have any skin in the game. And they keep passing that skin along to somebody else who bundles it all up and says, we'll hold all of this for a potential return. And that's how you get big messes. But they, yeah, they're gonna, they are gonna offer you the moon. Right. And it's, it's frustrating when you say, hey, what's the way I can, how much can I safely own? And then you call us and we're like, yeah, way less, Way less than that. George, what's the numbers?

[Dr. John Deloney]

I mean, the, the numbers here are if you make 160, do you take home 10 grand a month?

[George Camel]

Month, yes, about. And then with commission, sometimes even more.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Great. So let's call it 12K a month, and so 25%, you're looking at three grand.

[George Camel]

Yes.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay. So now the math equation goes, okay, what can we get for three grand? And if we can't get it, do we need to move further out? Do we need to go look at a townhome? Do we need to pause for another two years and keep saving up the down payment? And so that opens up the opportunities and the options instead of going, well, we can't afford now, so. So woe is me. And the other piece here is why are you hanging onto the car debt? But you have $50,000 in savings.

[George Camel]

Yeah, that's something we've been discussing. My company pays for my car, so I've been debating on paying it off in lump sum as we're trying to shop the market, but we've decided that we're going to pay it off next month.

[Dr. John Deloney]

If they pay for your car, why are you in debt?

[George Camel]

They give you a monthly stipend.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay. So they gave you the monthly stipend, which covers the payments. You're going, well, it's not hurting me.

[George Camel]

Yes. As we're trying to time the market with, you know, homes go quickly in Denver, especially in good school districts. We're looking to buy.

[Dr. John Deloney]

What do you know that we don't know? Brody, how are you timing the market? What wizardry is this?

[George Camel]

Well, we're just trying to find a home that isn't a location we love and that's going to be able to build a family there. Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So you know what the Fed's going to do with rates. Don't gatekeep. I'm not sure the Fed knows what they're going to do. So Brody knows.

[Caller]

You're talking about timing it like you want to have cash on hand the moment your realtor calls you and says, hey, we heard one's going up. Is that what you're talking about?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, but you're not in a place to be home shopping right now. We still have a ways to go because. Let me rephrase, what started the call. We moved to one of the most expensive areas of the nation, and we can't afford a house right now.

[George Camel]

Okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

How old are you guys?

[George Camel]

I'm 24 and my wife is 23.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Beautiful. Here's the good news. You guys have an incredible income, and you're super young, and there's no national law that I'm aware of yet that says you have to own a home before you're 25, or else you're a loser.

[Caller]

There is bad advice from father in laws. But other than that, there's no.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I shouldn't be throwing away money on rent.

[Caller]

Don't pissing it away, young man.

[George Camel]

Like.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Like no son in law of mine's. So here's. You got to turn off the noise, turn off all the opinions, turn off the Internet telling you that you need to arbitrage and get seven rentals by the time you're 30. And instead just focus on what's going to create peace for your house. And that might mean just stacking up 50 grand for the next three years.

[George Camel]

Okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

To have 200 grand down.

[Caller]

Here's the other option. Brother George and his wife started with a town home. Me and my wife moved way the heck outside of town.

[George Camel]

Okay.

[Caller]

And both of us eventually moved to different places, but that's where. That was the choice we had to make. It was a math problem.

[George Camel]

Yeah.

[Caller]

And George and his wife wanted to live closer to town. They like things like running water and cell service. My wife and I liked the idea of just the. Just being opportunistic in case it all comes down.

[George Camel]

Right.

[Caller]

So we're out in the woods.

[Dr. John Deloney]

The word septic makes me want to throw up in my mouth.

[Caller]

Exactly.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So I will not. I will not have anything to do with that.

[Caller]

But. But like, that's just. That's not. We're not giving you advice that we don't follow ourselves. And both of us made different choices, but we. Both of us were faced. Both me and George and our wives were faced with a math problem.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And I wish that my wife and I were making 160 grand at 24 years old. That's incredible.

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And so the sky is the limit for you guys. And once you're out of all this debt. Debt, you could stack away 60 grand a year, couldn't you? 70 grand a year.

[George Camel]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Think about that.

[Caller]

And that's how you. That's how you beat the 25% curve, is a huge down payment. Because if you walk in with $300,000.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You save up 75 grand a year for two more years on top of your 50, that's 200 grand down. And it might be on a quote unquote starter home that isn't your quote unquote forever home. Two of my least favorite words.

[Caller]

Right?

[Dr. John Deloney]

And that. So they go, okay, we can afford a $400,000 house or 450, which means it's a townhome that's further out from the city, and we can afford that. Get that paid off, and then we'll step it up later on.

[Caller]

And by the way, you'll be all of 26 when this happens.

[George Camel]

Yeah, that's. You know, we're not trying to rush things. We're just trying to build generational wealth. We're not having pressure from other people. You know, I think we just. We're listening to your. As a principal, and we're trying to build a life for our grandparents, Grant, you know, our kid and grandkids, and I love that differently.

[Caller]

So one of my favorite quotes is from. Is from Warren Buffett when they said, what's one of your greatest strategies? And he said, time.

[George Camel]

Yeah.

[Caller]

One of the reasons he got so wealthy is because he's lived so long and that money's had time to just grow and grow and grow. So, yeah, dude, if you. If y' all put a. A note on a calendar that said By January of 27, we want to be in a home that we own, and we're going to save, like, BA and a nas to get there. Dude, that's awesome. And by the way, your marriage will be stronger because of it, too, because you'll have a joint goal early on in your marriage, and that'll be. That'll be amazing. And if one of you loses your income, if the market does something crazy up or down, y' all will be ready to rock and roll because you'll have one of the most incredible assets a human can have, and that's cash in the bank ready to be deployed when a good deal comes along.

[George Camel]

Where would you suggest we keep the cash in the bank? Because that's another thing is I don't want it to just sit there and I have it in a high yield savings account.

[Caller]

That's where me and George put our money.

[Dr. John Deloney]

If it's a goal that's less than four or five years out, I'm going to park in a high yield savings account. Because if you're, like, right now, you will have anxiety through the roof if you're watching that number go up and down, up and down. And you're hoping that by the time you close on that house, the market is on the upside.

[Caller]

Yeah, you can use a lot of words to describe our current economic system, but stable is not one of them.

[George Camel]

Okay, and then in the meantime, should we be maxing out, like, Roth IRAs that I think we can do both. But still, like, having over 20% of a down payment. We are waiting for the next year or so.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I mean, if you're in 3B, you could pause investing for two years and just go full throttle saving up the down payment. But right now you have competing priorities. I want to build wealth and also I want to be in a home. And so you might need to go, hey, we're going to do up to the match. And then beyond that, it's going to go to the down payment for just a year or two. Or you go, hey, we're going to max out retirement accounts. But that means we're not going to get a house for an extra, you know, six to 12 months. It's going to delay us. Okay, So I would sit down with your wife and make peaceful with whatever plan you choose and just stick with it and ride it out until the numbers make sense. And I know it's conservative, but man, we get calls every day. People bit off more, they can chew. There's foreclosures they want to sell because it's too stressful. Life happens. Someone lost a job, somebody has twins.

[Caller]

Like, it's just life. Life is. Life is life, man.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And to give you comfort, I didn't buy that town home with my wife until I was 30 years old. And so again, there's no rush on this. I know it feels like everything needs to happen now. It's just not true. It's just the pace of the Internet and social media that's causing you to feel that way. But, dude, I've. The sky is the limit for you guys. The world is your oyster. I'm wishing you guys the most success. And pay off the car loan today. I don't care who's paying the bill. That loan is your debt.

[Caller]

Sam.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Foreign welcome back to the Ramsey show. Open phones at 888-255-225. If you're tired of living paycheck to paycheck, feeling like you can't get ahead, join one of our free everydollar trainings. There are new trainings every week this month. They're all hosted by one of our Ramsey personalities, myself included. We're going to show you how to stick to a budget and find $9,000 of margin using everydollar so you can get out of debt and start building wealth. Plus, you can ask your questions during the live Q and A. Sign up for [e-mail] webinar. Mark is up next in Naples, Italy. Is that correct, Mark?

[George Camel]

That's right, John. Appreciate you guys taking my call.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Absolutely.

[George Camel]

So I'll jump right into it. So I'm in the military. I've been serving for 19 years and I'm kind of looking at the last four years of my career Looking at retirement and I've got a few questions regarding kind of finances, moves and things like that. Right now, I think financially we're doing okay. We're net worth of about 1.1 million.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Amazing.

[George Camel]

We've got about 250k in retirement funds, about 60k cash on hand, 40k of which is invested in index funds. But the big question I have is I've got about 693k of debt, which is all mortgages from rental properties I own. Similar to your previous caller, I was really trying to, in my earlier 30s, stack up a bunch of rental properties, which is good. They've all appreciated over time. But I'm in this dilemma where I'm coming down from making approximately 10k a month, which is doing all right for our single family income, which has been awesome because we've allowed my wife to stay at home with the kids. But we're going to take a cut when I finally retire. And I guess I'm just trying to see where do you. I mean, I know I need to look at paying off this debt and as I pivot, but I'm just trying to see what I should do. And I have the numbers broken down if you want to go deeper on those.

[Dr. John Deloney]

How many properties do you own?

[George Camel]

So I have four properties right now, one of which is actually located in Germany, but I have three in the U.S. two in Virginia and one in Florida.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, and what's the total worth of these properties?

[George Camel]

Yeah, so right, in total, their estimated value is about 1.5 mil is what I'm coming up with. And that's, I would say, a fairly conservative investment or estimate. Excuse me.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay. Is there any that are a real pain in the rear that you'd want to sell?

[George Camel]

I have one, but they're all stabilized right now. But the one, it's. It was. I shouldn't have bought it. But the other three are really well stabilized. And I'm making about 16, 50 in on those. But I'm just recycling that money right back into those, those properties. And I don't touch any of the money that comes in on those rental properties. I just use it to, you know, make the minor upgrades and the repairs and all those things. And I'm not really much money, about 400 if I've saved, because with that rental income, I save 20% of that towards, you know, capital, you know, capital expenditures. You know, things like this is not a cash cow.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You're just sort of staying afloat.

[George Camel]

Exactly.

[Caller]

Okay, can I just throw something out there and give me Your gut response? Yeah, dude, get out of. When you get out of the military, sell all this, take half a million dollars and buy a really nice place for you and your wife and your kids.

[George Camel]

So I'm thinking exactly as you're recommending, John. And I think what we're looking at doing is, and this is the pivot question is do we sell one or two or all and then take a hiatus for one or two years? We've talked about sailing the world, hopping on the sailboat and then enjoying that and then coming back and then getting back into the workforce afterwards. And that's what we're kind of thinking about as like a retirement plan.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That plan feels way more exciting than the current reality of being a, you know, long distance landlord internationally.

[Caller]

And most of the time when somebody calls this show and they're like, we want to sell everything and get an rv, we're like, please don't do this, or we want to get a boat. But you're some, you're calling us from Naples, Italy, and you got like, you're one that I would say, dude, get on a boat and go. Because you know what you're doing, you know how to navigate international stuff, you know the realities of that world. And you could, you could cash flow it.

[Dr. John Deloney]

What does your income look like in retirement? Quote, unquote?

[George Camel]

Yeah, it's a variable if you didn't.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Have real estate actors.

[George Camel]

But yeah, so it would be probably anywhere between 8 and 9500. So, aka 9500, roughly. Like I said, it's variable because some of it depends on disability ratings, which I won't know until I get out of the military.

[Caller]

Okay, but when you say like we're taking a pay cut, I mean kind of.

[George Camel]

Right, right.

[Caller]

You're going from 10 grand to 9,500.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You'll still make 8 to 10 grand even without re entering the workforce is what you're saying, right?

[George Camel]

That's correct.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I think we can make that work, especially with a nice pile of money. Are you guys going to have a primary home?

[George Camel]

So we don't at this time, but if we did, we would probably make one of our rental properties our primary one in particular that we have our eyes on.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I like this plan. I would just sell the other three pay the one that you're going to stay in off and then go live your dream. Okay, man, that sounds super. I mean, that gives you the most options possible. And if you ever want to get back into real estate investing, you'll be able to do that. You could stack up cash and go buy something with cash.

[George Camel]

Right, right. And that's kind of what I was thinking, as well as whatever's left over toward it and then try to get back into another property.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Now we're talking.

[George Camel]

Okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I like this plan a lot. You became a, you know, real estate investor by default. And I want you to do it out of choice this time. If you do re enter that.

[Caller]

Yeah. And here's the thing. This is me being as honest as I can with you. If you cash out this weekend, if you put all the houses up on for sale this weekend, you sell them all within 30 days and you close out. The reality is you got pretty lucky because if you had done this exact same thing in 2007, you would be sunk. Right, Right. And so it's just saying I got lucky. We scratched a lottery ticket. This happened to cash out. This isn't a, like a, like a recipe. For the rest of our lives, we're going to take that money, put it on a house, have no house payment for the rest of our life, take our base of 8, 500 or 9,000 bucks a month forever, and then build an amazing back half of your life, which as a taxpayer I am happy to. This sounds crazy. I'm happy for my taxes to go supporting somebody who's given a quarter of their life to serve your, the country that me and my family live in. So thank you so, so much.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Thanks for your service, man. Hope you guys get to live your dream sailing around the world. Bob is up next in Bentonville, Arkansas. What's going on, Bob?

[George Camel]

Hey, John, thanks for taking my call.

[Caller]

You got it, brother. What's up?

[George Camel]

Oh, not a whole lot. I just need to know if I'm really being stupid by not trying to make any more money.

[Caller]

Almost anytime somebody says, hey, am I being stupid? The answer is yes.

[George Camel]

Yeah, but I can't spend what I have and I'm just stacking cash. I don't have anything invested, but I don't need anything invested.

[Dr. John Deloney]

How much do you have?

[Caller]

Yeah, have I got a deal for you. Hang on the line. I'm going to give you my Venmo and you can just send it this way and I'll be a good steward of it.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Bob, leave John and I in your will if we gave you good advice.

[George Camel]

Yeah, I keep between 60 and $100,000 cash.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay.

[George Camel]

And then it's like, oh, you know, I gave my son a $68,000 sailboat and my other son was getting divorced, so I gave him 35, 34 to buy out his wife, so he keep the house, you know.

[Dr. John Deloney]

What's your total net worth?

[George Camel]

Oh, probably 7, 800,000.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay.

[George Camel]

We own a house with no debt. We, you know, we drive the premium. You know, one of them is the flagship of a brand and the other one's a pristine 1990s, you know, okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You have some paid for cars, paid for house. You got 100,000 in the bank and you're saying you're asking us if this is stupid?

[George Camel]

Yeah, I mean, but I don't invest anything. Just like today, I stacked another 3,700 bucks in the train.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, here's the thing. Nothing's on fire here. What you're up against is inflation because your buying power is going down every year. So you need to at least beat inflation, which means keeping it safe is not the move. Anything beyond your emergency fund, which I would store in a high yield savings account online, making, you know, 3 or 4% at least to keep up with inflation. Anything beyond that I would be investing into the market, into an index fund, for example, in a non retirement account at least so that your money grows like we've seen over decades, 10 to 12%. And that will help you avoid feeling stupid later on down the road. And you go, wait. Every seven years, my money could have doubled, but instead I kept it in a safe and it was losing value every day because I kept cold, hard, physical cash out of fear. There's probably something there, John, a little prepper in there going, if it all goes down, I'll have my cash, which I know you connect with.

[Caller]

I connect with that. And there's, there's some, there's some Walmart vibes in the air there in Bentonville. So I get it. It's air. This is just who we are. Pretty frugal, I get it. But yes, I, I guess if you want to ask George and I what we do, we do have cash in high old savings accounts, but we put our money in retirement fund.

[George Camel]

Foreign.

[Dr. John Deloney]

The Ramsey show question of the day is brought to you by. Why refi when the payment on your defaulted private student loan is as much as some mortgages? It's hard to get ahead. And that's when y refi can help refinancing to a low fixed rate loan built just for you. So find out [e-mail] Ramsey that's the letter y r e f y.com Ramsey may not be available in all states.

[Caller]

Today's question comes from Samantha in Iowa. Samantha writes, I'm a stay at home mom. Mom who Lives well within our means. No debt and a very small mortgage that is very close to being paid off. We are very conscious regarding how we spend money. We love to do free and budget friendly trips, which allows us to meet our financial goals. The problem is most of our friends completely spoil their kids. We're trying to teach our children the importance of saving, but still having fun on a budget. Unfortunately, their friends complained about how boring our house is during play dates because I'm not taking them to do something special. Special makes me sad for my kids. How do I prevent my kids from being left out?

[George Camel]

Ugh.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Find new friends. See?

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Find other friends who can get these.

[Caller]

Little punk kids out of your house. I'm just kidding. Kids are kids are kids. So, George, there's a. There's a balance here. And here's what I'm never going to tell you to do. Well, I'll just. To Samantha, I'm never going to tell you. You know what you should do? You should buy a whole bunch of gadgets and spend money that is not your family's value system. And to borrow money so that elementary school kids will like you. I'll never tell you to do that because that's madness. Elementary school kids don't get a vote. And I also understand. I've been there when my son. When my kids are upset because every kid in their class has a smartphone. But, but, but them. Right? Like, I've been there when. How heartbreaking is as a parent, when you're trying to hold the line and teach values and your kid comes home and says, hey, I'm the only one getting left out here. That's. I hate that feeling. I've. And so I think the challenge here for you, Samantha, is how can we get creative? We're. I'm like you, man. We're kind of boring parents when it comes to, like, I don't know, we don't go to the trampoline parks all the time. And I don't know, whatever.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I've been to your house, John. You're like, hey, the woods are right there. Isn't that fun?

[Caller]

Well, so here's the thing. I've seen kids come to our house and say again, we have acres out in the back and we are up next, like a real live forest. And so kids go to the woods and they're like, yeah, not everything. If you're living in a suburb, you don't have that opportunity. But it may be, hey, we're gonna meet at the park and I'm gonna bring Capri Suns and the kids. And that just shows you that I'm 111 years old. I'm gonna bring drinks and the kids are gonna go have bananas fun in a park, or we're gonna meet at a local hiking place, or we can still go outside and do fun stuff. But you are gonna have to move past the point that you wish this was at your house like it is at your friend's kids houses. And it's not gonna be at your house, but it will be at a park, it will be at a different place, it will be on a hiking trail, it will be at a public pool. And kids will have a blast. They will have fun doing that. But they might get bored at your house if you have no things. And that's fine. Well and good. And yes, as George said, there is some truth to begin exploring other friendships for your kid that they can have some fun together and they don't have.

[Dr. John Deloney]

To keep up with because likely what happens as the kid gets older, they're gonna go, well, mom, she's head to toe in Lululemon and we any of that stuff and you only, it's just.

[Caller]

I have to play Fortnite on a 20 inch screen. Can we have a 60? Like, okay, got.

[Dr. John Deloney]

The comparisons will never end if this is the lifestyle you have to keep up with or else your kids won't have friends. And so there might be a little bit of that. I'm not saying that that's the case here, but there's also the reality that they just might not come over to your house as much.

[Caller]

Yeah, that's fine too. Some parents call that a major win. Right? But I, but here's my, my sneaking suspicion, Samantha, is that you're the one feeling this more than the kids are. You are feeling like, man, all these other kids have Apple watches already. All these other kids have fancy shoes. They all have TVs in the rooms. They all have. They all have. They all have. And if that's the reality, if honestly maybe one or two kids is mouthed off about your house, fine, they're seven. They don't get a vote. But if you're the one going to bed at night thinking, gosh, I hate it that my kid is the only one, I want to applaud you and tell you, in this current day and age, often when a parent says, my kid's the only one, I'll stop him right there and say, congratulations, we need more parents who aren't buying iPads for their two year olds and whose kids aren't playing Single shooter, single person shooter games or collective games all over the planet. But like, we need more kids without smartphones. 24. 7, 365. A new study just came out. 13 year olds and younger with. With that own smartphones have catastrophically different adverse mental health. I just said it like a nerd. Their mental health is worse than kids without them. So we need more parents who say my kid will be the only one kid with smartphone.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Bad kid without smartphone.

[Caller]

That's the George way to say that. Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

There's my caveman.

[Caller]

All that to say. Samantha, I understand being sad for your kids and do the next right thing for you and your family.

[George Camel]

Family.

[Caller]

And it might mean changing how you do activity time. It might mean you being honest and saying, dude, there was two kids that complained at my house. Forget those kids. It might mean your kids are complaining that they don't have a phone or. And that's normal. And I applaud that. I get that.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Whatever happened to good old like water balloon fights? But here's, here's the cheap way to have fun.

[Caller]

If you have kids over to your house and you have buckets of water balloons, I promise they will have fun. They will have a blast. You like, you think playing Fortnite's fun. Let's buckle up, buddy. We're going to do it for real. Right? This is, this is called Sam's Night. And everybody gets a bucket of balloons and it cost 10 bucks. Right. So there is things you can do at your house. It just takes some creativity.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I love it. Thanks for the question. Wyatt is in Tulsa. Up next. What's going on? Wyatt?

[George Camel]

Hey. So basically my wife and I have about, you know, let's say $40,000 in various consumer debts, credit card, car loans, offense, you know, just this different stuff. And what we were wondering, I know that like you guys are generally, you know, against like borrowing money.

[Caller]

Not generally always, but go ahead.

[George Camel]

Okay, well. Well then you may have just answered the question. But, but basically we were wondering, would it be smart for take out a HELOC and essentially use it as kind of a debt consolidation thing? Because the payment on the HELOC is going to be like 20% what we're currently paying on all these other various payments and the interest rate is going to be like seven and a quarter.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah. Because your house is tied to it. You're trading an unsecured debt for secured debt, meaning your house is on the block. And so this is a terrible idea. It doesn't change any of the behavior. Behavior. It's not going to change the balance. You'll just feel a little bit better because you have a lower interest rate and a slightly lower payment. It's not going to make the payment 20% of what you're paying. Now, where'd you get that math?

[George Camel]

Well, I mean the, on the various, like, because right now we have two car payments, the credit card payments, it all comes out to about eleven hundred and fifty dollars a month. The monthly payment on the HELOC loan that we're looking at would be like.

[Dr. John Deloney]

$270 dollars because it's long term with a, let me remind you, variable interest rate on those HELOCs.

[George Camel]

True.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And so this is not the solution to your problem. What got you here is not going to get you out. So what you're doing is just trading one debt for another, thinking, well, I'm very smart. Now the best thing to do is just debt. Snowball your way out of this mess. Why don't you do that?

[Caller]

Can I say something? Dude, listen.

[George Camel]

Sure.

[Caller]

This is going to sound ridiculous, but if you don't make your credit card payment, you know what? You get a strongly worded letter, a.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Collector calling you, saying, hey, this is not okay. You need to pay.

[Caller]

If you don't make. If somebody gets sick or you get in a car wreck and you don't make your heloc, they take your home. Dude, this, this is literally the dumbest thing you can do, is put your family's house on the block. So like, I get it, it feels all chaotic. I want you to take that chaotic feeling and that sense of. And channel that into, I'm going to work 50 jobs so I can get this stupid stuff out of of here.

[Dr. John Deloney]

What's the total debt.

[George Camel]

On the house?

[Dr. John Deloney]

On the balance of your debts, the consumer debts.

[George Camel]

So the, the 40 that we owe in various things, plus 126 on the house. So 166.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, so forget the house right now. If you're in baby step two, we're trying to knock out this 40k. What's your household income?

[George Camel]

About 115.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Go back to when you were 20 years old. If you told future Wyatt he's going to be making $115,000 and still be in debt, would you laugh in his face?

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Dude, you remember when we were kids, like, if I just made a hundred thousand, can you imagine? I'd never. Sure. Clean it up. 40k in debt, you make 120 grand, just knock it out. And less than a year, you can do this. 4k a month, 10 months, it's gone. No HELOC needed, no risk, just total debt. Freedom. That's the answer, my friend.

[Caller]

Hey, what's up? Dr. John Deloney here. The new dates have dropped for the money and marriage getaway over Valentine's day weekend in 2026. This is your chance to hit pause on everything in your life and reconnect with your spouse over a long weekend in Nashville, Tennessee. Me and my friend Rachel Cruz will be digging into topics like sex, money, communication and more. This weekend is happening on February 12th through the 14th and early bird prices start at $749 per couple but the prices going up soon. Get your Tickets today at RamseySolutions.com Events.

[Dr. John Deloney]

From the Ramsey Network. This is the Ramsey show where we help people build wealth, do work that they love and create amazing relationships. Relationships. I'm George Camel joined by Dr. John DeLoney and we're taking your calls at 888 825-5225. Kimberly is up in Dallas, Texas. Kimberly, how can we help today?

[George Camel]

Oh hi. Thank you so much for taking my call. I really appreciate it because this is this might one, it might make you cry. It might give you a good math problem to hopefully solve.

[Caller]

Let it rip.

[George Camel]

Okay, little background. I'm Mary to a wonderful man and we have three children ages 14, five and good to be a four year old in about six weeks. Our middle child Wyatt, who's five, who happens to be the same name as the last caller, he was born at 25 weeks. He had a stroke in my stomach and had to have an emergency C section and he was in the hospital in the queue for eight and a half months. Wow. Yeah. During that time he suffered a bilateral brain bleed which caused half of his brain to be malfunctioned. With that result he's non verbal. The life saving CPR caused a blood clot to go down to his right leg which self amputate his toes. And all knee below is muscle death so nothing works below the knee.

[Caller]

Okay.

[George Camel]

So it's been about five years and he survived the nicu, came home. Wonderful baby, sweetest kid you'll ever meet. But my husband and I are just worried that we are not going to be financially able to take care of him or our children won't be able to take care of him in Texas because he requires so much like medical attention, doctor's appointments, everything. So we want to know what can we do to put money aside for him so that he's well taken care of because he doesn't qualify for. We don't Qualify for Medicaid because how much money we make.

[Caller]

Yeah. What is. Well, it doesn't even matter. First off, thank you for sharing that. And that's a nightmare for a mom and a dad to go through, right? Watching their most precious thing in the world, like, struggle and have so much challenges. And then there's a. To get home and then be faced with gajillions of dollars of medical bills, plus the mathematical realities, plus all the services. Plus, plus, plus, plus. That's a lot, ma'.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Am.

[George Camel]

Thankfully, we are not drowning in medical bills.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You guys have any debt?

[George Camel]

Yeah, we do. We own a house right now. We still owe 299. $299,000 on our house. We have two credit card bills or two credit cards, but we pay them off every week, so there's no balance on them. And we. A car payment, which is mine, which is the car we hold Wyatt in, which we're hoping to actually turn into a handicap van. But Lisa owes $6,975 on that one. And that's it. Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, so as far as consumer debt goes, you have 7,000. The car loan is it?

[George Camel]

Yes.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay. And what do you guys make between.

[George Camel]

The both of us? Our annual income together is 250,000.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Amazing. Okay, so as far as taking care of your family, if something were to happen to you two. Right. That's the question.

[George Camel]

Like. Or take care. Like, if we were to die, heaven forbid. We both have life insurance policies that are our two companies, but one we work for Lockheed Martin, and the other one we work for Dr. Pepper Snapple here in Frisco.

[Dr. John Deloney]

How much life insurance do you have total?

[George Camel]

Right now, it's about four times our salary each.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So is that through your employer?

[George Camel]

Yes. Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You guys need more, and it needs to be outside of your employer. So I would go to Zander's website right now and apply for life insurance through them. And I would aim for 10 to 12 times your salaries. You can go for 10, since you already have four times through your employers. And that's going to really be the best thing you can do in case something were to happen to you to replace that income. Because right now, you could not replace your income with four times your salary.

[Caller]

It is astonishingly inexpensive for the value return on it.

[George Camel]

Okay.

[Caller]

Like, you're talking a couple thousand bucks a year.

[George Camel]

Gotcha. Okay. And so if we do happen to live, you know, happy lives, I mean, you know, get older, of course, Wyatt will probably be living with us. You know, our son Chase, right now, he's 14, about to be a sophomore for a freshman in high school. And we have Shelby, who is our little girl. They will probably be the ones that will take care of Wyatt whenever he gets older because frankly, you know, retirement homes and special needs homes, there are like a dime a dozen here in Texas.

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And they're really expensive, so that you're signing up the kids to be his caretakers.

[George Camel]

We hope that he doesn't. Well, he's going to live with us up until, you know, I guess we're very, very old.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You're saying if something were to happen to you too, that would be the plan, right?

[George Camel]

Okay, that would be the plan. Or we would have. We would need to prepare them to like, hey, please take care of Wyatt. If you need to put him in a home, here are the funds that will help take care of him.

[Caller]

So you need, if you haven't already, y' all need to open a special needs trust.

[George Camel]

Okay. And have it yet.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

SSI and Medicaid will be means tested, so if they, if he inherits money directly, he might lose eligibility. That trust protects all of that.

[George Camel]

Okay. And how much money can they. What's the maximum they can put in there?

[Caller]

I don't. You have to, I don't know. Off top of my head.

[George Camel]

Okay. Special needs trust. Okay. Yeah.

[Caller]

Yeah. And then here, Here's a common challenge of parents with special needs. I spent my whole career working with students in 504 in the ADA world, okay. Is going out 30 or 40 years on a potential problem and trying to solve it right now.

[George Camel]

Now.

[Caller]

And usually it stems from feeling like I'm out of control on this particular issue. I want to control every variable in my life and in my child's life from now until kingdom comes so that there's no more pain and hurt. And what I would tell you is that's an exhausting. It is a not fruitful path. You get what I'm saying?

[George Camel]

And I'm so scared because, like, Yes, I don't. I'm afraid that I'm going to be the one who goes first. Everyone.

[Caller]

Okay, okay, hold on. I'm going to. Stop. Stop. That's an imaginary story.

[George Camel]

Okay, okay.

[Caller]

It's an imaginary story because you have no idea. And statistically your husband is going to go several years before you. Just, just, just, just looking at the data. Okay, so all that to say is this.

[George Camel]

All the women in my family died before, like 15, cancer. So I'm so scared.

[Caller]

Well, so here's the thing. Let's get full term life insurance policies on both of us to replace our inc. Incomes. Okay? George and I both have life insurance through Xander. In this. We're not telling you to do something we didn't. We didn't do in our own house. My wife. I'm. My wife is worth. I. I'm worth way more not alive than I am alive. Let me put it that way. Okay? And that's for. That's for my. So that. That her. She is taken care of. My kids are taken care of. Get with a SmartVestor Pro and you can go to ramseysolutions.com and check out SmartVestors and sit down with somebody who will walk you through a special needs trust. Okay? And there are Aging and disability resource centers, ADRCs in Texas of all shapes, forms, sizes and. Okay, how old are you right now?

[George Camel]

33.

[Caller]

33. Okay. When you were 10, this thing called the iPhone didn't exist, right?

[George Camel]

Yeah, right.

[Caller]

The Internet didn't exist in. In the form as we know it. Social media didn't exist. AI for sure didn't exist. So trying to imagine what resources and support is going to look like in 35 or 40 years in a particular support home is like. I wouldn't even spend one second of time on that because who knows, there may be robots that can't like who know, who knows. So all I have to say is let's solve the challenges in the present. And if you haven't yet, you and your husband go see a marriage counselor to talk about grief, talk about reality and the things we need to talk about for our own marriage so that we can create a safe home.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Does having more money and less stress sound nice but feel impossible? Well, in my brand new book, Breaking Free from Broke, I share my story of going from broke to millionaire and exactly how I did it. You'll learn about the money traps and cultural lies out there designed to keep you brainwashed and stressed out, from credit card schemes to mortgage myths to investing traps. So if you're not where you want to be financially, I can help you finally get ahead. You can get Breaking Free from broke [e-mail] store. That's ramseysolutions.com store. Buying or selling your home is a big deal. With all the clickbait headlines and conflicting data out there, it's hard to know what's really happening in the housing market. So we're here to make the latest trends easy to understand. Median home prices stayed steady last month at about 441 grand. The number of homes for sale hit 1 million for the second month in a row. And buyers now have more options and negotiating power while sellers face more competition. So the average 15 year fixed rate held steady at about 6% last month. So if you're debt free, you got a full emergency fund, a solid down payment, now could be a great time to buy or sell your home. So if you want to learn more about housing market trends and get free tools to help you buy or sell with confidence, go to ramseysolutions.com market or click the link in the show Notes. If you're listening on podcast or watching on YouTube, Tom is in Jacksonville, Florida. Up next, how can we help today?

[George Camel]

Hey guys, first I want to just thank you for changing my life by changing my behavior. So I have a income driven repayment student loan. It's my last bill that I have.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Sorry to hear that.

[George Camel]

Oh no, it's okay. It's okay. I was told why I was going through the course that I had till July of 2026, no payments and no interest. So during that time I've been putting money away. So my balance is 52k. I have saved 32k. I just got a notice this week that as of August 1, the courts have allowed to start applying interest on student loans. My question to you is, do I apply to 32k on the 52k, get a 0% interest student loan, I mean a credit card, pay it off in three months and be good, or do I make a monthly payment, wait till I think it's the spring of 2028, where I will then be paying 25 years on the student loan which will will supposedly I'm to be forgiven the $34,000 balance. Over that two year period, I'll be paying 22,000 on the principal and 6,000 on interest. And I don't know what to do.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So you're telling me you've had this student loan for 22 years?

[George Camel]

What a scam. What a scam.

[Dr. John Deloney]

But you've believed the scam for over two decades and you're like, well, I'm hanging on to see if the scam pays off. Off what's essentially what you're asking us.

[George Camel]

Maybe. So I'm just, Are you married, Tom? Staying with. What's that?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Are you married?

[George Camel]

Yes, I am.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, if your wife 22 years ago said, hey, we have a big fight, I will forgive you 25 years from now, how's your marriage doing for that 25 years while you wait.

[George Camel]

But amen, brother, I get the message there.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You're sleeping on the so I'm just saying.

[Caller]

Can I. Can I throw another thing in there? What? In. I mean, I don't care what side of the aisle you're on. The cool thing now is it seems that everybody's mad and we haven't been this united in a long time.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That's how America started was just united. Anger.

[Caller]

Anger. Yes. What? Yeah. They're gonna start dumping Nvidia chips in the Boston harbor here soon, right? What in the world. World would give you the idea that anybody in any government office anywhere could be counted on for what they're going to do in the next three years?

[George Camel]

Point taken. This. I'm coming to you because this is a discussion my wife and I are having. I do not want to pay another penny of interest, and I want to pay it off. That's why I've been saving and putting money aside. God. For when this came due. My wife thinks it makes more sense to have the 34,000 forgiven. I just. I want financial freedom as soon as possible even. Next.

[Caller]

Okay, so here's the problem. Y' all are measuring. You are measuring something in gallons, and she is measuring something in yards. Both are valid measures, but y' all are talking past each other.

[George Camel]

Other.

[Caller]

What she wants is a. Is she. She wants that $34,000 to stay there, and she wants that forgiven. And I get that. I think that's not going to happen. You want freedom right this second. You're sick of this thing. It's been around for two decades. And so what happens is y' all are having the same conversation. You're both talking about measurements, but y' all are using two different measurements to try to solve the same problem. And so I think about. I think saying, I. I need this gone for the first time in 20 something years. I need this out of our lives, period.

[George Camel]

That's. That's right. Thanks to you two, 100k has been wiped out.

[Caller]

No, no, no. Not thanks to us. We just run our mouths on the radio, bro. You did it.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I didn't know you existed until two minutes ago.

[Caller]

Yeah, you did this, dude.

[George Camel]

Trust me. I listen to you and I'm following, and I can't be more grateful.

[Caller]

Amazing.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Love to hear that.

[George Camel]

I thank you for. I thank you for giving me confirmation on my thoughts being where I need to go.

[Caller]

Can you. Can you take this and take it one step further for your wife? Here's.

[George Camel]

Tell me how to do that.

[Caller]

Please. God, help me here. I want you to ask her. I'm about to send $34,000 or both of us. We're going to decide together we're going to send $34,000 and get this thing paid off forever. Finally. What about that scares you? And let her speak not from a math problem and not from an intellect problem. This feels dumb because they might in three years. Whatever. Let her speak from a. I'm nervous that we're going to take. There's. I found some security and having $34,000 in cash laying around like in an account and suddenly I'm going to feel exposed again.

[George Camel]

Yeah.

[Caller]

And that's when.

[George Camel]

This month.

[Caller]

That's when you can say, honey, we can solve that problem. Like we'll send this money and then we will go all in on replenishing an emergency fund. Because that's my guess as to where she's, where she's concerned about.

[George Camel]

I think you're, you're dead on there, guys. I can't. Thank you. And, and it's, it's not about the money. It's about the behavior change. And I. God bless all of you for what you do.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I appreciate that. Tom. How much you guys make. Make as a household?

[George Camel]

I get a lot of overtime, so it varies, but around 220 for the two of us.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Do you mean you've been making good money for a long time?

[George Camel]

No. And that is. That's the key on why I've been paying on this student loan for 22K. We were living off of my wife's income for quite a long time. And. And you know, I just came into a good paying job in the last five years and I've been making up for my lost time and paying off everything.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I love it. But the last five years you guys been making six figures a year?

[George Camel]

Each of us. Yes.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, so think about this. About $1 million has flowed through your hands in five years and we're arguing over a $50,000 loan.

[George Camel]

That is good word right there.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That's crazy, isn't it? You guys are too successful, too wealthy. You should not be pre preoccupied with this debt that's been hanging around your necks for your whole marriage. It's just not worth the brain calories anymore. You make 220, go ahead and chuck the 31 at it. Leave you a thousand bucks in savings. You'll knock out the rest within a few months and be done with it before the end of the year. You'll have replenished your emergency fund by then. By Christmas, you guys will be celebrating completely debt free with an emergency fund. Building wealth for the future instead of thinking about the past. Hoping Uncle Sam decides to keep his.

[Caller]

His word this time.

[George Camel]

My final, my final question to you. And hopefully you can trust me even though you only met me two minutes ago. Are you okay with me because my behavior has changed?

[Caller]

No, I wouldn't do what you're about to say. No, no, no, no, I wouldn't.

[Dr. John Deloney]

But what are you going to do, Tom?

[Caller]

He wants to open an a no interest credit card for three months and try to pay it off that way.

[George Camel]

I, I don't want to pay any interest to the government and I'll still have an $18,000 balance.

[Caller]

I know. I just chalk it up to a stupid tax and pay it and move on with your life. You don't want to get out of the a bed with one crook and get in bed with another one.

[George Camel]

Okay?

[Caller]

That's what I would do in my house.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Do not open a 0% card. Tom, you told us your behavior change. You told us we change your life. And if you open up a 0% card, I will unfriend you on Facebook.

[Caller]

You're, hey, you're the guy that's like, no, I don't drink anymore. At all. It's cool. I'm just going to pick up six kegs for my buddy and I'd be.

[George Camel]

Like, oh, that's not fair.

[Caller]

Okay, I wouldn't do that.

[George Camel]

I get it.

[Caller]

Just go, dude. And by the way, this will inspire you to get this paid off in two months. Like, you'll get rid of this last 18 so fast. Dude, we're proud of you, man.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And then you're going to, you're going to beat yourself up going, why didn't I do that 22 years ago? This is insane. We've been playing this game for far too long. We have a life to live. Good luck, my friend. Sam.

[Caller]

Foreign.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Hey, guys. George Camel here with some exciting news for our Financial Peace University coordinators. If you've ever led FPU or even just thought about it, you've got to join us for our coordinator rally happening on July 24th. It's packed with insider updates, powerful stories and encouragement from me, Jade Warshaw and Dr. John DeLoney. It's totally free and when you register, you'll be entered to win our three thousand dollar gift giveaway. So just head to fpu.com rally to save your spot today. That's fpu.com rally. Jacob is in Nashville. Phil up next. What's going on, Jacob?

[George Camel]

Hey, good afternoon, guys. How's it going?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Good, how are you?

[George Camel]

If I was better, I wouldn't be calling y' all fair.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Fair. Thank you for the honesty.

[Caller]

What's up?

[George Camel]

Hey. So I'm in Nashville. I run a. I run a concrete company. We do about $600,000 a year gross. At the moment I am about $60,000 in debt and my profit for my business is about 13. We average around that. And I. The reason I'm in debt because of a check fraud situation. We did a large job. The check ended up bouncing after deposit into our accounts and now we're kind of swimming. Swimming around with our heads cut off. I don't have much working capital at all and I'm not sure where to go from here.

[Caller]

Have you circled back with the. With the person who shortchanged you?

[George Camel]

I have. I've been completely blocked and there's been no contact. Tried. The property is vacant. There's nobody there. I'm not sure where to go through. I've tried contacting the authorities. There's a large wait time on that.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So you've reported the fraudulent activity to your bank, right?

[George Camel]

Yes, and the bank closed my account.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay. And then is there any fraud, reimbursement or protection services they offer?

[George Camel]

We spend a good chunk of what, of what was there for the job because we have such low profit margins. That entire job, that entire paycheck was essentially going towards the labor and materials.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So what kind of Debt is the 60k that you're in?

[George Camel]

45,000 is the check fraud. The 60,000 is from a business loan I took out about a year and a half ago.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So I'm sorry, I'm confused how the check fraud created the debt.

[George Camel]

So we didn't have much working capital to begin with. We were between a few different commercial projects. These commercial projects are a lot of times net 60. So we don't get paid for those 60, 60 days without the.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So were you using debt to float and then they didn't pay so you were stuck with the debt?

[George Camel]

Yes, sir.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, so what. Who is the debt owed to right. Right now?

[George Camel]

The debt right now is owed to the bank.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay. Oh man. Because I'm. My hope is that they can reverse the charge and pull the funds out of whoever cashed it. Cuz if they cash that check, they had to cash it into a bank account. Right. Unless they did exact. So we know where they cashed it. Have you contacted that bank?

[George Camel]

I've, I've tried. It's. It's not gone well. Apparently this is. Never experienced a fraudulent check activity like this and it's a little bit confusing to say the least. It was one of those, this guy's out of state and this is a work at different property. There wasn't enough verification or.

[Caller]

They have.

[George Camel]

We have them on contract, but besides that, it's between. I'm in two different lawsuits right now, trying to pay off attorney fees and whatnot.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Oh, man.

[George Camel]

It's a tough situation. I'm only 23.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So how much money are you making? You said you told us the profit.

[George Camel]

My business makes okay. Money. I'm paying myself basically minimum wage. Working 80 hours a week.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That feels like a problem. How long have you been doing that for?

[George Camel]

Quite a while. Let's say I've been doing this about six years.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So you've been paying yourself minimum wage for six years, working 80 hours a week.

[George Camel]

Right around minimum wages?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Sir, I don't know that you should be in business.

[George Camel]

Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Could you go work for someone else and make double or triple today?

[George Camel]

I don't. I think my experience aligns well. I don't think many people expect that for my age.

[Caller]

Doesn't matter, dude.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I don't know what you're saying.

[Caller]

Workers right now so bad.

[Dr. John Deloney]

If you're applied for a job that was paying minimum wage, with your skill set, you would say kick rocks and pound sand. I'm worth more than that, wouldn't you?

[George Camel]

Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So why are you willing to take that from yourself?

[George Camel]

I'm willing to sacrifice the early years of my life to build something that I can.

[Dr. John Deloney]

But, dude, it's been six years with no change. You told me. Yeah, you're just burning yourself out.

[Caller]

You what?

[George Camel]

I drive a 2000 Chevy Silverado. It's got about 300,000 miles on it.

[Caller]

I don't understand what that has to do with an anything.

[George Camel]

Oh, nothing. It's. It's just the fact that I. I can't afford much personally.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That's why I'm telling you to go get a job in a similar field. And you'll make double or triple.

[Caller]

And then you'll start. You'll start doing small jobs on the side, doing small concrete work. I'm actually about to hire somebody to do that at my house out in the woods. You'll do small jobs on Saturdays and Sundays, but you'll have income.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You need stable income right now. And I would clean up the debt and then hope that you can get reimbursed on the back end, but right now you can't even afford attorney fees. You're going to be going into debt for that, right?

[Caller]

I guess I'll say this as nice as I can, but, brother, you're Broke, man.

[Dr. John Deloney]

The check fraud just exposed how risky and broke you you actually are.

[Caller]

Yeah, you had a fragile job, but.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I can't blame the check fraud guy for all of your financial ruin that you've caused yourself.

[George Camel]

You can't. I thought that was a big enough safety net for my company, but when we're dealing with larger jobs like this, it clearly wasn't.

[Caller]

Yeah. And so here's the deal. You learned a really awesome lesson at 23 years old. And I'll tell you this. This will be as valuable as a lottery ticket for you going down the road because you'll never do this again, right?

[George Camel]

Absolutely. Yeah.

[Caller]

Okay. Now is when you have a choice. And you can keep plowing ahead like you are getting nowhere. And we call that male ego. And it causes a lot of damage to your. To your finances, to your psyche, to your relationships, or you can swallow your pride, call somebody in this business, because hopefully you have a reputation of being a real hard worker, getting crap done, and start working for somebody and start making a paycheck tomorrow. And if it's as bad out there as my buddies in construction tell me it is, they are desperate for workers. Like, literally getting desperate. If you show up and know what you're doing, and you can operate a forklift lift or you can operate a front end loader, you can lay con. I mean, you can pour concrete, bro. You'll get gobbled up by a job tomorrow. And then you start working jobs on the side and build up cash reserves. And then at 27, you've got your mogul, right?

[Dr. John Deloney]

You got time to rebuild, man.

[Caller]

Get off the Internet. Get off. You should be by 22. It's nonsense. It's not real. It's fantasy world, dude. And take this as a lesson. I will never leverage me, my company, or my family again.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Caleb's up next. Next in Alaska. What's going on? Caleb?

[George Camel]

Hey. How's it going?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Good. How can we help today?

[George Camel]

So I have a motorcycle loan that I'm upside down on. I owe 43,000 on it, and it's only worth about 30,000.

[Dr. John Deloney]

This is a nice bike. What is this thing?

[George Camel]

It's a 23 road glide Harley.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, so you're upside down 13k on that?

[George Camel]

Yep. And so I can. I tried applying for a loan to refinance it just to get that monthly payment down and interest down on it, and I wasn't able to get approved for that due to horrible past decisions.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So you got bad credit?

[George Camel]

Yeah, I got bad credit.

[Dr. John Deloney]

What other debt do you have?

[George Camel]

So I got about 40,000 on a Tacoma, and I have about 10,000 credit credit cards.

[Dr. John Deloney]

What do you make?

[George Camel]

I net 3,900 a week.

[Dr. John Deloney]

3,900 a week. That's good money. So you're making like 11k a month? 12k a month? Almost.

[George Camel]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Just about Amazing. Well, that's your ticket out of this thing. That means you'll have almost the amount you're underwater on slip through your hands in the next month.

[George Camel]

Yeah, I mean, I got.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So you don't need a loan. You just need to buckle down, down, live on nothing, and put the rest toward trying to build up enough to get out of this underwater motorcycle. And then what's the Tacoma worth? You owe 40 on it.

[George Camel]

That's worth 38.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Perfect. That's private party value.

[George Camel]

Yes.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So you're telling me if you saved up 15k, that would get you free and clear of these loans if you sold them?

[George Camel]

Yes. Yeah, about.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I mean, that feels like a solvable math problem when you're making 12k a month.

[Caller]

Yeah, it sounds like two months.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You save up 7,500 bucks. Bucks next month and the month after that. You've got enough to get out of these underwater cars. Now you'll need a little bit of money to get something cheap for you to drive around for. Now, is there any other vehicle in your life you need to tell me about?

[George Camel]

Yeah, so I do have another Tacoma, and that one's paid off.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Sweet.

[Caller]

The best phone call of your life.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Can you get your expenses down to 3,000 bucks or less the next month? What are your actual expenses add up to?

[Caller]

So they average about 6,000amonth.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Why?

[George Camel]

So I have an apartment or house that I'm living in right now. I travel for work, and that's 2400amonth.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Can you rent it out? Can you get roommates?

[Caller]

No, I'm not able to.

[George Camel]

My fiance and baby and I got two dogs there.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Goodness gracious, you got a lot going on, man.

[Caller]

So it's gonna be four months instead of two.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Still, you can clean this up, but we got to get control of this income, get your expenses down and put the rest towards the savings account to get out of these underwater cars. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. I'm George Camel, here with Dr. John DeLoney. Our scripture of the day, Genesis 28:15. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go. And I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I've done what I've promised you. Ozzy Osbourne RIP I'm about Caring. I'm about people and I'm about entertaining people. I'm a family man, a husband, a father. I've also been a lot of other things over the years which we don't really want to talk about.

[Caller]

That's.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That's honest.

[Caller]

Well played, Ozzy.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That's awesome.

[Caller]

And shout out. Today we lost another great one, the great Hulk Hogan.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Hogan at seven today, man. A lot of greats.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Past this week. All right, let's get to the phones. Katie awaits in Detroit. What's going on, Katie?

[George Camel]

Hi, guys. Thank you for taking my call. I am a 40 year old single mother. I was raised in the foster system. I have an 18 year old and a 19 year old. One of them is currently on her way to going to college. And second, I know both of them have been somewhat homeschooled. We've been schooling online pretty much since COVID Not necessarily by choice, but we've done the best we could, you know, and my son has been working, trying to figure out his thing. But because I was in the foster system, I think, you know, a lot of family members, friends have really come by my side and helped me, supported me throughout the years as I worked and tried to, you know, to do the best I could to raise the kids. And. And I've never completely. Actually, I'm really terrible with money, to be honest with you. I've lived in survival mode and I want to be able to teach my children and also be able to know what to do with the resources that I'm provided because I just feel like I have squandered a lot of it and I really don't want to do that moving forward.

[Caller]

Katie, how old are you?

[George Camel]

40.

[Caller]

40. Will you say out loud? My name is Katie and today is day one.

[George Camel]

My name is Katie and today is day one.

[Caller]

There you go. If you can, this is up to you. My hope and wish for you is that you never again say, hi, my name is Katie and I was in the foster system because that's not the most important thing that defines you. You have worked and scratched and clawed. You have two 18, you have two teenagers who are heading into college. Can we just stop and celebrate you for a second? That's incredible. You know what this is called? It's called changing your family tree. And your tree is short and it's wonky, but it's changed, right?

[George Camel]

That's okay.

[Caller]

So I don't want you to ever stick your hand out to say, hi, my name is Katie, and lead with what you think is this is the scariest thing about you so that nobody can weaponize it against you. Okay. Is that cool?

[George Camel]

Yes, definitely. All right.

[Caller]

Today's day one. We're gonna throw our shoulders back. We did a great, great job. And high five to you for being 40 and saying, Hey, I want to learn some new skills. I'm tired of fill in the blank. Not being able to drive, not being able to get in shape, not being able to. Been. Not being able to handle my money. Today that ends, and we have got you. Is that cool?

[George Camel]

Yes.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Party on. We're gonna knock that Eeyore spirit right out of you and give you some hope.

[Caller]

So, so proud. I think I'm prouder of you than you are of you.

[George Camel]

Wow.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I want less pity party. More just party?

[Caller]

Yeah, More just party.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Same.

[Caller]

So do I.

[George Camel]

Let's get you. I turned 40. You guys are amazing.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Thank you so much. Where are you at financially? I don't care about the mistakes of the past. What's today's reality?

[Caller]

How much do you make?

[George Camel]

Well, technically, I am not working. I don't have an income in terms of, like, paychecks.

[Caller]

How do you do income? Comes in paychecks.

[George Camel]

And family. Yeah. Friends and family have been supporting me.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Wait, lay it out for me. Like, how many people are giving you what and how are they doing that?

[George Camel]

So over the years, I've had, you know, my brother has. Have come together and paid my rent, things like that, while I've been working. And then about three years ago, three and a half years ago, the kid's dad moved out of state unexpectedly, and I, you know, the man I was dating at the time actually generously offered to provide for us financially until I could, like, stabilize things a little bit and go back to work and things like that. Well, it's been, you know, here we are four years later, and it's been a lot harder than any of us ever planned.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You're not in a relationship with this guy anymore?

[George Camel]

No.

[Caller]

What's a lot harder? What do you mean?

[George Camel]

Well, I think that the kids resented me. Number one, they weren't in school, so it was like Covid for four years. On top of the fact that. Fact that they hated me because dad left, and it was just a lot of changes, and just there's. There's just been a lot of.

[Caller]

Okay, so here we are. It's day one. We're gonna go get a job today. You're. You need that financially. You need that dignity wise. And I don't care if it's a minimum wage job, I don't care if it's at Home Depot, if it's at Arby's, if it's a Taco Bell, if it's at a local. What? I don't know what your trade is. I don't know what you're like if you're a nurse. I don't know what it is. Is. But for your sanity and for your dignity, I want you to go get a job asap. Any job. It's not going to be your forever job, but it will be a job that you get up and have to shower for and go to and they will pay you money.

[Dr. John Deloney]

It's a path toward independence instead of codependence. And that's part of what's. It's a path to independence instead of codependence. Because so far everything's been codependent. I need everyone else. That was great for a season, but we, we got stuck there in of years. A couple coma and we need to snap out of that. And that means bringing in your own income. The kids are 18 to 19. They're okay. They don't need you day in and day out. And so what were you doing before when you were working?

[George Camel]

I did hair, I bartended, I served, I did office work, I cleaned houses, I did a lot of things.

[Caller]

Awesome. So you're not scared of hard work, you're not scared of getting dirty. You don't have any ego when it comes to that stuff, which is amazing. So good today, day one.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Do you have any current licenses to where you can jump back into anything those fields?

[George Camel]

I do. I have my cosmetology license.

[Caller]

Sweet.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So I would go get a job doing that and then bartend on the side as well, nights and weekends and start to bring in enough income to cover all of your bills. That's your A1 goal.

[Caller]

I want you to have a 90 day financial independence plan. How can I get my living expenses low enough and my income up high enough that I don't rely on anybody else for money?

[George Camel]

Okay, that's really overwhelming. Can we start like baby steps?

[Caller]

Maybe I'll are like we're baby step.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Baby step is get a job, get a job, then use that money to cover your bills. With the end goal being I have enough to cover my bills and have some leftover. That's called margin.

[George Camel]

As of right now, my overhead is. Is taking care of his cake.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That's the problem.

[Caller]

Problem.

[George Camel]

I know it's a problem. So. But where do I.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Who is it being covered by right now?

[George Camel]

My boyfriend.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So you do have a boyfriend? Is he living with you?

[George Camel]

No.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay. And how much is he giving you a month?

[George Camel]

I have a $5,000 credit card, which I do a lot of things for his house and his family. And there aren't really. It's a source of stress for both of us.

[Caller]

Correct.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So what you're telling us is this situation isn't working and so therefore let's not rel on this money. So you're telling me they give you a credit card with a $5,000 limit and they pay the balance.

[George Camel]

$500. He gives me 500, and that's monthly. Which he.

[Caller]

He's not your boyfriend. He is your boss.

[George Camel]

Yeah, exactly. Controlling dollars a week. And then he gives me. He pays my rent and he pays all of my bills.

[Caller]

Okay, we are going to work in 90 days to get off of his system. You know, this is unhealthy. And I also know. I can tell by your voice that you're hedging how bad this actually is. Correct?

[George Camel]

Yes.

[Caller]

Yes. This is a very bad situation.

[George Camel]

You know, healthy. It's not healthy for anyone. Like, he's got a great family.

[Caller]

Then you have to make a 90 day plan to get off this thing. I will earn enough money to make my own bills.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You're going to be homeless if he cuts you off tomorrow. You understand that, right?

[George Camel]

I know that.

[Caller]

Okay?

[Dr. John Deloney]

And he probably likes it that way. He likes that level of control.

[Caller]

I know. So the only. Okay, but stop living the fear and go do the next thing. If he's abusive and if he's unsafe and you've got to go talk to somebody, okay? So hang on the line. We're going to hook you up with a thousand resources. Okay? We're going to hook up with. Hook you up with FPU Financial Peace University. We're going to hook you up with every dollar, the premium version. So you can start practicing and learning your own budget. We're going to hook you up with one call with a financial coach and three months of better help so you can start seeing a. A license, counselor. From your house, from your computer or your cell phone. We got you with resources. You have to take the next first step, my sister. We believe in you.