You Can’t Build a Future on Borrowed Money

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Ramsey Show – "You Can’t Build a Future on Borrowed Money"

Release Date: July 15, 2025
Host: Dave Ramsey
Co-Host: Dr. John Deloney, PhD in Counseling

"The Ramsey Show" episode titled "You Can’t Build a Future on Borrowed Money" delves deep into the challenges individuals face when financial decisions intertwine with personal relationships, business ventures, and unexpected life events. Hosted by financial guru Dave Ramsey and co-host Dr. John Deloney, the episode offers actionable advice, real-life stories, and insightful discussions aimed at empowering listeners to take control of their financial futures without falling into the trap of excessive borrowing.

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1. Moving In Together Without Marriage: Josh from Orlando

Timestamp: [00:47] - [04:39]

Caller: Josh, a 25-year-old earning a $100,000 salary, seeks advice about moving in with his girlfriend, who is a teacher earning less. The couple considers splitting expenses 50/50, with Josh having extra money he contemplates saving for their future.

Discussion: Josh expresses concerns over his girlfriend’s proposition, feeling uneasy about saving money together without formalizing their relationship through marriage. He fears potential complications if the relationship ends.

Dave Ramsey's Advice: Dave emphasizes the risks of attempting to merge finances without the legal and emotional commitment of marriage. He states, "The problem, Josh, is you are trying to do a married thing without being married" ([02:12]). Dave highlights data showing that couples who marry before moving in together tend to have better financial stability and relationship longevity.

Notable Quote:

"If you were my son or she were my daughter, I would tell you, don't move in together unless you're married." – Dave Ramsey ([03:44])

Takeaway: Ramsey advises Josh to consider marriage as a foundational step to ensure financial and personal stability, protecting both parties from potential financial and emotional fallout.

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2. Dealing with a Repossessed Car: Bridget from Toledo, Ohio

Timestamp: [10:04] - [18:04]

Caller: Bridget is struggling with a 2016 Ford Fusion loan that remains unsettled years after the loan term ended. She faces high interest rates and accruing late fees, resulting in a significant deficit between the car's value and the loan balance.

Discussion: Bridget details her efforts to negotiate with the lender, including seeking itemized statements and considering legal action. Despite her attempts, the lender insists she owes $17,494.31, far exceeding her car's worth.

Dave Ramsey's Advice: Dave categorizes the lender as a "subprime company" and advises Bridget on her limited options:

1. Continue Fighting: Persist in negotiations for another month to settle the debt amicably.
2. Hire a Lawyer: Take legal action to challenge the lender's claims.
3. Surrender the Car: Return the vehicle to the lender to avoid further financial harm, though this option worsens credit scores.

He warns against the third option due to its long-term repercussions on credit and financial freedom.

Notable Quote:

"This is your chance to be free of a $20,000 loan." – Dave Ramsey ([35:01])

Takeaway: Ramsey encourages Bridget to persist in negotiating with the lender while considering legal counsel to prevent her from sinking deeper into debt and damaging her credit further.

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3. Navigating Business Loss and Bankruptcy: Jeremy from Los Angeles

Timestamp: [21:38] - [31:32]

Caller: Jeremy, a 23-year-old business owner, has incurred a negative net worth of $280,000 after a major client filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Faced with $330,000 in personal debt and $50,000 in living expenses, he seeks guidance on whether to declare bankruptcy or continue his struggling business.

Discussion: Jeremy explains his high-stakes business practices, such as accepting large projects without adequate deposits, leading to significant losses when clients fail to pay. He acknowledges the unsustainable nature of his current business model.

Dave Ramsey's Advice: Dave critiques Jeremy's business approach, emphasizing the dangers of over-leveraging and not securing proper financial safeguards:

• Assess Business Practices: Shift away from risky practices like being the "bank" for contractors.
• Avoid Borrowing: Stress the importance of running a business without relying on debt.
• Focus on Profitability: Encourage Jeremy to restructure his business to ensure cash flow and profitability.

Dave underscores the necessity of learning from past mistakes to avoid repeating them, advising Jeremy to seek a stable and debt-free path forward.

Notable Quote:

"The industry standard is you don't be the bank for contractors... you'll never do this business this way again." – Dave Ramsey ([24:21])

Takeaway: Ramsey advises Jeremy to overhaul his business strategy to focus on sustainable practices, minimize debt, and prioritize profitability to regain financial stability.

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4. Choosing Between Parsonage and Homeownership: Tim from Philadelphia

Timestamp: [32:43] - [42:31]

Caller: Tim, a co-pastor at his church, contemplates whether to remain in his current home or move to a parsonage offered by the church. With substantial home equity and recent renovations, he seeks advice on leveraging his assets for long-term financial growth.

Discussion: Tim evaluates the benefits of staying in his independently owned home versus moving into the church-provided parsonage, considering factors like equity growth, tax implications, and future financial security.

Dave Ramsey's Advice: Dave recommends Tim to stay in his house, emphasizing the financial advantages of building equity and maintaining property value. He explains that owning a home contributes significantly to long-term wealth, especially compared to the transient nature of parsonages which can lead to financial instability if the housing situation changes.

Notable Quote:

"Unless they're going to make the numbers so unequal that the parsonage is. But it doesn't sound like that. It sounds like the parsonage is a break even with the other." – Dave Ramsey ([38:19])

Takeaway: Ramsey encourages Tim to continue investing in his own home rather than relying on the parsonage, highlighting the benefits of property ownership in building wealth and financial security.

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5. Family Investment Pool Concerns: Justin from New Mexico

Timestamp: [65:16] - [67:34]

Caller: Justin, a 35-year-old with a net worth of $2.5 million, discusses his family's decision to pool $5 million to invest collectively for greater returns. He questions the wisdom of intertwining family finances for investment purposes.

Discussion: Justin expresses reservations about merging his family's finances, fearing potential conflicts and lack of control over investment decisions.

Dave Ramsey's Advice: Dave strongly advises against pooling family finances, stating, "I'm a hundred percent sure I wouldn't" ([65:16]). He explains that consolidating investments within a family doesn't offer substantial advantages over individual investments and can lead to significant financial disputes and strained relationships.

Notable Quote:

"There is no advantage with $5 million pool to invest over two and a half million dollar pool to invest. None whatsoever." – Dave Ramsey ([66:06])

Takeaway: Ramsey recommends that family members maintain separate investments to preserve financial independence and avoid the complexities and potential conflicts that come with shared investment pools.

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6. Celebrating Debt-Free Success: Emily from Decatur, Alabama

Timestamp: [85:10] - [113:19]

Caller: Emily, a 42-year-old French and ESL teacher from Decatur, Alabama, shares her success story of paying off $110,000 in debt over 15 years while increasing her income from $39,861 to $68,052 annually. Her journey includes purchasing a home worth $118,000, now valued at approximately $300,000.

Discussion: Emily credits her disciplined approach to budgeting, avoiding credit cards, and adhering to Dave Ramsey's Baby Steps for her financial freedom. She also highlights the role of supportive family and a structured financial plan in achieving her goals.

Dave Ramsey's Advice: Celebrating Emily's achievements, Dave emphasizes the importance of living within one's means and the effectiveness of the Baby Steps in eliminating debt and building wealth. He lauds her commitment to financial discipline and encourages others by showcasing her as a model of success.

Notable Quotes:

"Don't buy it if you don't have the money." – Dave Ramsey ([113:42])
"Half of Americans don't have enough life insurance or they don't have any at all." – Dave Ramsey ([20:03])

Takeaway: Emily's story serves as a testament to the power of disciplined budgeting and strategic financial planning in overcoming significant debt and achieving substantial wealth growth.

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7. Overcoming Personal Trauma and Financial Struggles: Katie from Houston, Texas

Timestamp: [114:45] - [123:50]

Caller: Katie, a 27-year-old single mother, recounts her traumatic experiences between 2022 and 2024, including domestic violence, a miscarriage, divorce, homelessness, and accruing $30,000 in debt. She seeks guidance on rebuilding her financial stability while managing emotional healing.

Discussion: Katie details the compounded challenges of personal trauma and financial mismanagement, highlighting her low income as a server and significant debts, including a $24,000 car loan and credit card debt.

Dave Ramsey's Advice: Dave approaches Katie's situation with empathy, recognizing the immense trauma she has endured. He recommends focusing on small, achievable goals to rebuild her confidence and financial stability:

1. Establish a Morning Routine: Incorporate spiritual health and beginner exercise to enhance well-being.
2. Achieve Quick Wins: Set small, consistent habits like daily walks and Bible study.
3. Focus on Employment: Encourage her to return to work as permitted by her health condition while avoiding additional debt.
4. Seek Professional Help: Utilize resources like Better Help for therapy and Financial Peace University for structured financial guidance.

Notable Quote:

"You're putting a wall around... it's a walled city, like a medieval city. It's a walled city and the only two people that live in the city have to be in agreement before anything goes outside those walls." – Dave Ramsey ([91:42])

Takeaway: Ramsey advises Katie to take gradual steps towards financial recovery and emotional healing, emphasizing the importance of building a strong personal foundation before making significant financial decisions.

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8. Understanding Housing Market Dynamics: Real Estate Discussion

Timestamp: [94:53] - [103:07]

Caller: A listener from Nashville, Tennessee, inquires about selling a home that has doubled in value since 2020 but faced selling challenges due to increased inventory.

Discussion: The caller questions whether selling at just under double the purchase price is a sound investment strategy, especially amid fluctuating housing market trends.

Dave Ramsey's Advice: Dave clarifies the concept of market value versus distressed sales:

• Market Value Definition: Represents what a willing buyer would pay a willing seller without any duress.
• Distressed Sales Impact: Sales under duress, like foreclosures, do not accurately reflect market value and can temporarily skew neighborhood prices.

He underscores that overall market trends indicate stable or rising median home prices, advising listeners to rely on substantial market data rather than anecdotal social media reports.

Notable Quote:

"Median home prices stayed steady last month at about $441,000 nationally...numbers are continuing to go up." – Dave Ramsey ([94:53])

Takeaway: Ramsey educates listeners on interpreting housing market data accurately, advising against reactionary decisions based on isolated or sensationalized information.

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9. Final Thoughts and Celebrations

Throughout the episode, Ramsey and Deloney emphasize the importance of financial discipline, avoiding unnecessary debt, and making informed decisions that align with long-term financial goals. Celebratory moments, such as Emily's debt-free scream, serve to motivate listeners by highlighting real-world successes achieved through following Ramsey's principles.

Scripture of the Day:

"And he went on to say to them all, watch out and guard yourselves from every kind of greed because your true life is not made up of the things you own, no matter how rich you may be." – Luke 12:15

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Conclusion

This episode of "The Ramsey Show" reinforces the foundational belief that financial stability and wealth building are attainable through disciplined budgeting, informed decision-making, and avoiding the pitfalls of excessive borrowing. By sharing diverse caller stories and offering tailored advice, Dave Ramsey and Dr. John Deloney provide listeners with practical strategies to navigate complex financial and personal challenges, ultimately guiding them towards a debt-free and prosperous future.

Transcript

[Dave Ramsey]

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey show. Where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Dr. John Delum, PhD in counseling, Ramsey personality number one best selling author, host of the Dr. John Deloney show on Ramsey Networks. He's my co host today. Open phones here at Triple 882-55-5225. Josh is in Orlando. Hey, Josh, what's up?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Hi, Dave.

[Caller]

How are you today?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. How can I help?

[Dr. John Deloney]

I have a quick question. My girlfriend and I, we've been together for a little bit under a year and a half and we're finally starting to have that talk about moving in together. I'm 25, I make $100,000 salary, I'm doing well for myself. She's actually a teacher, so as you can assume, she's making less than what we would wish she was making. So when moving in together, the conversation arose of, hey, if I move in, we'll be splitting 50, 50 everything because we aren't married or anything like that. And you'll have extra free money to spend. I'm currently on step two. So she asked me what that extra money would go towards and her response was a little unnerving in the fact of she said, well, technically you're saving that money because of me. So I feel like that money that you're saving should go into a savings account for us and our activities since you wouldn't be saving that money if we weren't living together.

[Dave Ramsey]

Wow, what a mess.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I kind of understand where she's coming from because she is helping me save money and that money is paying off debt. But at the same time, I feel like that's not necessarily like a healthy mindset because overall, even if I do put that money into a savings account.

[Dave Ramsey]

The problem, Josh, is you are trying to do a married thing without being married.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Fair.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so you're trying to solve a riddle that cannot be solved. So you want a roommate that you sleep with, but you don't like their answers about money.

[Caller]

And she's totally exposed if she moves in with you, pays off your debt, and then you break up with her.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Right? That, that's fair. Yeah, that's fair.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Caller]

She'd be crazy to me.

[Dave Ramsey]

Let me ask you something. If you're ready to move in, why don't you just get married?

[Dr. John Deloney]

I got a couple. I'd like to be debt free. I'd like to have a house before before we get married. Because why? I just, just neither one of us were.

[Caller]

Yeah, I wasn't.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That's fair. That's fair.

[Caller]

You just said it would help you get to those things faster.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Agreed.

[Dave Ramsey]

Her.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Us moving in. Yes. Would.

[Dave Ramsey]

Would allow me to marriage would actually go forward. Moving in won't. Moving in actually sets you back on several fronts. The data is horrible on living together. It's where the relationship data and the financial data sucks. And so, you know, it just doesn't. It sounds all cool. But I mean, I'm serious. If you were my son or she were my daughter, I would tell you, don't move in together unless you're married. And because the data tells us that your marriage is going to be better, your relationships are going to be better and your finances are going to be better. Now that kind of was not what you called for.

[Caller]

And here's the other thing. Here's the bigger red flag for me because you're doing what everyone, you're doing what feels like culturally is the next logical step. Even though the data says don't do that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Fine.

[Dave Ramsey]

The.

[Caller]

The bigger issue is, is your girlfriend threw a great flag, which is I don't want to be a commodity on your journey towards your goals if we are going to do something. And she said she, she tried to get there. And I would challenge her on how she tried to get there, but she tried to say, hey, let's save up for us when I am not a cog in your system to get your finances under control. When they're our finances. That's a totally different question. And so my bigger concern is she threw a flag and you're trying to end around it instead of dealing with the real issue, which is you have a girlfriend that doesn't feel safe in this relationship or she's feeling used in this relationship.

[Dave Ramsey]

And at least, at least a little bit.

[Caller]

Let's have that conversation.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. And then also so I really would, you know, my challenge to you would be as cause I love you and I want you to win. Would be let's reset our thinking, our decision making framework here. And what would it look like and what would the timeline be for us to get some pre marriage counseling, get engaged and get married. And it doesn't. You don't have to do two years. I mean you could do that in a month if you want to. You know, you gotta decide what you're gonna do, the wedding and the production and all that crap. But the technicality part of it is without the drama is that because here's the thing we do know. The data tells us that people that are married in their 20s have a substantially higher net worth than people who are shacked up in their 20s when we revisit them at age 40. We do know that. And it's because of exactly the problem you're facing is that you're trying to pull together but you're not really together legally, financially, because you're both exposed. If either one of you wants to walk off, let's say you bought her a car. Car and gave it to her and she wants to walk off. Well, she's got a car. If you buy your, if you and your wife buy a car that she drives and she wants to walk off, there's a thing called divorce. And then we discuss what happens to the car.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so it. Financially, legally. And then that's the overtone, then the underbelly of that is it drives your relationship much deeper because you are aiming at the future together. You have a very clear idea of the house we're going to build that's going to have the golden rocking chairs on the porch when we're 92. And the household that we're going to build.

[Caller]

Yeah. And then that's when your debt becomes yalls debt. And then she's all in. Because y' all are building this debt free future together. She's all in on all of her money and all of your money are going towards paying the business because it's now our money. Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

But until you're married, it's not our money. So that's the problem. It's a real challenge to do shacking up well. And the data shows us that the divorce rate is higher for people that have first lived together. The wealth building is worse for people that live together than people that are married. Even health issues. We're even seeing men live, what is it, seven to ten years longer.

[Caller]

Married men, eight to ten years longer.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Caller]

Women live four to five, which is fair.

[Dave Ramsey]

You have a theory about that?

[Caller]

No, it's not a theory. I actually dug into why do men live longer? And it said the, the, the, the status said because men do fewer dumb things when they're married, especially as they age. So I mean there's a, there's some.

[Dave Ramsey]

Truth to that, but death defying feats of stupidity. Yeah, okay. Women live longer too, but only about three years longer. I know. And married women live longer.

[Caller]

Married men, every woman in the audience when we talk about that, they all be like, yeah, we can see dying earlier because we've had to deal with you.

[Dave Ramsey]

We.

[Caller]

I get that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Actually, 75 of the ladies outlive their husbands. Yes, that one we do know. That's another one. So there' interesting stuff in here, folks, that you can think about. So there's socioeconomic. The thing is, when we try to take personal finance, and I love to do it in the early days when I first started on this, and just do math, it doesn't work because personal finance involves all the personal stuff like relationships, your spiritual walk, how you take care of your body, your career, and how diligent and excellent you are at your work ethic. All of these things end up weaving back back into your finances. And. And so you can't take the finance piece and just set it over here on the table by itself and analyze it in a vacuum. Vacuum. Because that's not where it exists. I've seen people do everything possible to get out of debt, 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. But most of them don't know they're overpaying for their phone plan. With Boost Mobile, you get unlimited talk 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, it's not that hard. And go to boostmobile.com Ramsey restrictions apply. See boostmobile.com Ramsey for details. Thanks for hanging out with us, America. Bridget is in Toledo, Ohio. Hi, Bridget. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Hello.

[Dave Ramsey]

Hi. How can we help?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Hi, I'm calling because I have an issue that's going on with my car situation. The vehicle I purchased and it is still not cleared, even after year number seven.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, explain to me what you're talking about.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, so I have a 16 Ford Fusion that I've been paying on since 2017. At this point, my loan was supposed to mature back in 2023 of April. We are now in 2025 of July. And I owe more than what the car is worth. And I need to figure out what I actually owe in terms of all these late fees and extensions that we're taking out.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so basically, is it a Ford Motor Company loan or is it a high interest rate loan?

[Dr. John Deloney]

High interest rate loan.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so you're dealing with a subprime company and you had a bunch of late fees over the years.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I did.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And those have not been paid. So they've been added to the balance.

[Dr. John Deloney]

They have.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, Is that What the balance is, is then, or, I mean, is there something else wrong?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Not to my calculations, no. The amount that they're coming up with, I don't know where they're getting this numbers from. I have a full printout of all of my payments and latencies and the repossession that was on the account. And it's still.

[Dave Ramsey]

They repossessed the car.

[Dr. John Deloney]

They did. For one day.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

How much are they telling you you still owe?

[Dr. John Deloney]

$17,494.31. 31 cents.

[Caller]

You still owe that.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That's what they're saying. That's what I need investigated.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Caller]

Have they printed you an itemized list of all the fees and how they've added up and how they got that number?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Not how they're added up, but they did print all the payments and the fees so far. But I believe there is some missing because the information that I received from the company themselves, calling them numerous times to try to get information, I came up with numbers on my own with the printout that I've been asking for for over three months, and I just finally got it.

[Caller]

Yeah, but they're not. They're not giving you a printout of what you actually owe, correct?

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Caller]

They mean they have to give you an itemized bill if they've continued to jack up the.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, well, you've got two options. Okay. What you're wanting is to solve for the truth of what is really owed. And your guess is, based on your math, that it's not 17, but that you do still owe something because you've got a bunch of late fees stacked up and you probably got some repo charges stacked up in there as well that were not paid at the time of the repo. That's my guess. So you're thinking that there's somewhere south of $10,000, but something is. Oh, that's what you're thinking, right?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Not that much, but yes, that is true.

[Dave Ramsey]

I said south of 10,000. We don't know how much south.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Correct.

[Dave Ramsey]

Z between 0 and 10. Right. But it's not 17 for sure. But you in your mind, because of the math you've done. Okay. And what was the interest rate?

[Dr. John Deloney]

The interest rate that I had on the car was 18.95.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. Okay. All right. You have two options. Well, you've got three options, and one of them is not a good option. So you have two good options. One is continue the fight that you're doing, and your frustration is real. And I go along with your frustration. You're dealing With a subprime lender. They loan money to people who have bad credit. They loan money to people who don't pay their bills. They are not usually nice to work with. You have figured this out. Okay, this is not news to you. You already knew this. And so they're, you know, there are three notches above a loan shark and so. And two notches above the tote, the note guy down in the bad end of town. That rips people off even worse. But they're for sure it's not a clean business. And as people who aren't as business like as you would get in a different situation. And you've already discovered all that. So your frustration is real. You've either got to plow through that and get to the bottom of this. Dealing with the morons and incompetence and the I don't cares on the other end of the phone, or you got to hire a lawyer. That's your second option. Hire a lawyer and sue them for $17,000. I'm suing them before I walk away. Okay, that's another option. I would try and say I'm going to devote one more month to this getting to the bottom of this. And if you guys can get me a number that we can agree on, I'm gonna get it paid off. But guys, I gotta get that and I'm gonna have to apparently I'm gonna have talk to somebody's boss over there to find two people, somebody has two brain cells to rub together. So let's just keep pushing and fighting for a month. If you can't do that, then you say at the end of a month, if I can't get you guys to get to the bottom of this and together we figure out what is really owed and why and come to agreement on that so I can get this paid, then I'm gonna hire a lawyer and I'm gonna sue you.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, understood.

[Dave Ramsey]

And if that doesn't work, the third option, which is not a good option, is toss them the keys. Tell them to come.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, tell them to come get it and sue me. Good luck with that because I'm going to countersue you and we'll see how that repossession thing goes. You're going to get nothing if you do that, people. And so I can do that, but I don't want you to do that because two things happen. One is you further destroy your credit and two is you lose control of the amounts and you start having to negotiate on based on their weird numbers, not real numbers.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And how about just the fact that I just want my car? I've been paying on it all this time.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's fair. But you don't want that car for $17,000.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Absolutely not. Because it's not even worth that.

[Dave Ramsey]

I got that. I don't want that. So there is a point at which I don't really want this car. That the principal doesn't matter. Okay. The principle of the thing doesn't matter. Not the principle of the loan amount. Now, last question. Our last point to be made. I want to make real sure. Because when I do something like this and I've done stuff as dumb or dumber than you did when you bought this car at 18 freaking percent interest rate, have you learned your lesson? Are you ever going to do this crap again? No, Dave, I'm going to pay cash.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That's right.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yes, Dave, thank you.

[Dave Ramsey]

Love you, darling. Thank you for calling. Wow. Because let me tell you, if you do 18% interest, it's because you were scared.

[Caller]

Oh, yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you think there's anything else? Life. There was no way. No. You feel trapped. No way. These things come out of your mouth that are not true. And you start making these absolute fatalistic statements. I've been there. I was forced, like I had a gun.

[Caller]

Had to get a new car.

[Dave Ramsey]

I had to get a car. And let me just tell you, there's two dumb things in this Ford Fusion and 18%. These are two dumb things in one sentence right here. Unbelievable. I'm surprised the dadgum thing lasted seven years. But oh my God, what a piece of crap of a car. And at 18% interest.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Well.

[Caller]

And I guarantee you, it's like buying.

[Dave Ramsey]

A Dodge Neon, you know, one of.

[Caller]

Those square Kias that are like cars, man. But here's the thing. If you miss your payment, I guarantee you that rolled from 18 in the fine print somewhere, it went up to 34% or whatever. Yeah, I'd be willing to bet they.

[Dave Ramsey]

May sort of done that. They may be carrying a higher interest rate on the unpaid late charges. That's right. There's a possibility that's in the contract. Yeah.

[Caller]

Or there's a $10,000 repo fee that got lumped into.

[Dave Ramsey]

Because when you sign something that stupid, you don't read it right. I mean, relief.

[Caller]

You literally drive off relief if you.

[Dave Ramsey]

Tried to read it. You know, I just. I just want. Just give me some wheels. I got to get to work. This other one keeps breaking down. It's a piece of crap and it's costing me so much. And Cost you nothing. Like Ford Fusion. 18% money. I'm just. That's some serious money right there. And so. Oh, my God, what a mess. Bless your heart. I've been there. Guys, when you do something stupid, here's the thing. Doesn't mean you're stupid. It means you did something stupid. I've done stupid with zeros on the end. I've got a PhD in dumb. The trick is, my goal has always been, and it's worked real well for me, is don't do the same stupid thing again. At least learn from it. In other words, now I might do new stupid stuff, but I've got a whole list of things that I don't do anymore. And not doing all of those things has helped me become wealthy. Just all the stupid stuff I used to do that I don't do anymore, you know, just. I don't do that. And I don't do that. Why? I don't really have to explain it. I don't do that. We don't do that. We don't do that. Nope. We don't do that 100% of the time. We tithe to our church a hundred of the time. We don't borrow money a hundred percent of the time. Dave and Sharon are in agreement before we buy something. Because when I do something without my wife's agreement, she does something without my agreement. We do stupid stuff. And so this is, this is. These are basic things that I've learned over the years. And that's why we have this show to help you guys do them. Statistics show that half of Americans don't have enough life insurance or they don't have any at all. I don't understand this, John. Why don't people want to take care of their family? They think they're going to die or something.

[Caller]

Well, I used to be one of those guys. I didn't even think about it. And one of my buddies said, hey, the only reason to not have life insurance is if you hate your wife and kids. And I immediately went and got term life insurance.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's a gut punch.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And.

[Caller]

Oh, you're telling me. And for, for decades, Dave, I've sat across people who've lost a spouse, they've lost somebody important to them. They don't know what to do next.

[Dave Ramsey]

Me, too. I mean, you're going to have a crisis here, and, you know, you got two options. While you're sitting and talking to a young widow, she's concerned about how she's going to invest all this money properly and not mess this up or she's concerned how she's going to eat tomorrow.

[Caller]

That's exactly.

[Dave Ramsey]

These are the two options. And take care of your dadgum family, man.

[Caller]

Term life insurance can replace income, pay off debts, cover funeral expenses. So your family can actually have the opportunity to just be sad. Yeah, to just miss you.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's exactly what it's supposed to be. It's saying I love you to your family. Term life insurance, Jeff Zander and the team at Zander Insurance makes it easy and affordable. I've used them personally for 25 years. They're the only people I trust. Go to Xander.com or call 800-356-4282. Jeremy is with us in Los Angeles. Hi, Jeremy. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. What's up?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Hi, I'm calling because I have a net worth of negative $280,000 after a vendor in my business filed for a Chapter 7 bankruptcy after we did a job that we were expecting to get paid around $2.4 million. I'm calling to see because I've always been in business, never really held a real job, and I'm trying to see if bankruptcy is a good option because I can either take on more debt because it's a low margin business to continue to do these typing jobs, or I can figure out how to work off a large amount of debt. I have around $330,000 in personal debt and $50,000 across six months of living expenses. My.09 Ford F150 and a Roth IRA.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so I'm sorry, 2.3 million and you were $280,000 in debt is not low margin. That's high margin.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I'm sorry. The job costs $2.1 million. I spent all the liquidity that I had and in the business to try to.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, so you put 2.1 million on the table to make 2.2 to make $100,000. You make 2.4 to make $200,000.

[Dr. John Deloney]

The margin is like, it's like.

[Dave Ramsey]

With no draws and no deposits.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yes. I personally lost $2.1 million on completing this job. It's around, it's 17% margin if you don't include credit card points with credit car around 18 and a half to 19% margins.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, but you did not take a single draw or get a deposit of any kind from this customer?

[Dr. John Deloney]

No, they're filing chapter seven right now.

[Dave Ramsey]

But you were their bank. I mean, how many of these jobs have you done like this where you put all your chips on the table and then one hand comes up bad. This is the first time a hand came up bad or you just want. This is the biggest one you've done?

[Dr. John Deloney]

No, it's happened before, but with happened before with a much smaller job. But I was aware that the company, like this company had very good credit and we took most of the paid up then because they were much. I'm 23.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, all right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So it sounds like I should just probably. I mean I'm very, I'm very much in the faith. I was like, okay, it makes the most sense here to declare bankruptcy instead of taking on more debt and continuing to do the business or trying to work this off.

[Dave Ramsey]

Most of your other jobs were smaller jobs. How did you start with no money?

[Dr. John Deloney]

I was just the person who bid the smallest amount of money on jobs. And so probably the industry standard for margins is a lot like 25 to 30%.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. And the industry standard is you don't be the bank for contractors. That's the industry standard. You get draws as the job progresses.

[Dr. John Deloney]

It was a very large aeronautics company.

[Dave Ramsey]

The industry standard is you don't do that crap because you go bankrupt when they go bankrupt. If you do, that's the problem. You had bad business practices and I don't want you to extend those going forward. So I've had trouble with collections. And when I have trouble with collections, I blame me and I change the terms. I'll give you an example. A long time ago, before you were born, there was a thing called the dot com bubble. The first time the Internet took off around the year 2000. Okay. And there was a huge bubble and all these dot coms were buying ads from us and then they were going broke. And so I figured that out. I'm like, okay, I'm not doing that anymore. So if dot com is in the name of your business and you want to advertise on the Ramsey show to this day, you prepay. I'm not going to be your stupid bank because you're not dependable if dot com is in the name of your company. And so you figured out here that sometimes this crap happens and so you'll never do this business this way again. There's no business, no amount of business. It's worth putting everything on the line for it. You did learn that lesson, didn't you?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Of course.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good. Okay. I'm just making sure. So then we say, how can you go make money? What is your fastest way to go make good money again? Because obviously you're a high capacity 23 year old, you've done amazing things for somebody your age, even though you stepped in a big old bear trap and it ripped your leg off, but you still did amazing things. And so I would have to. What's the best way. What's the best way for you to go make the most money the quickest?

[Dr. John Deloney]

I'd have to take out more debt.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, maybe we're not listening. All right, let's try again. We're not borrowing money to run the business has not been a blessing to you, sir.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Correct.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so we're going to say we're going to run a business with a huge brain of yours without borrowing money. What is the fastest way for you to go make money? Your entrepreneurial genius.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Even though often. Okay, I understand. I have trouble because I'm new to the business. We. I've been in business for about one and a half to. I started two years ago by. Really? Actually, I'm not shocked.

[Dave Ramsey]

Thank God you didn't start 10 years ago. You'd have been 14. Okay, so how did you get $2 million?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Right. I. We just. We always were the lowest. We didn't bid the lowest below other low bidders.

[Dave Ramsey]

But you made. You did a bunch of jobs and you made money.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And often times even like bill pay for half the job up front, but it's still. What?

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, there we go. Now we're talking.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay. But that's not enough to complete the full like I'd have to ask for.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, if you're the low, I'll give you guys the low bid. If you will not make me also be your bank.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

If you will put money up front, we'll. We'll order the materials and get the people on the job. And then I need a draw as we go along so that I'm, you know, and the profit you can pay me at the end, but you got to cover my costs with cash flow as we go along. One or two draws on the job and so on. That's not unusual in the construction business. I'm sitting in a building, a couple of buildings here, 600,000 square foot under roof. 100% of this was cash flowed by me, not the contractor. They. Every two weeks we would sit down and have a payment schedule as to the work that had been done. And we paid them and then they paid the bill. They did not bank any of this.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Right. I have some concern about my reputation not being large enough for people to be willing to pay a significant portion up front.

[Caller]

How many jobs you do to get $2 million?

[Dr. John Deloney]

What's that?

[Caller]

How many jobs did you complete to get that first $2 million in two years?

[Dr. John Deloney]

I've done about 30 jobs, okay?

[Caller]

You can't find 29 other people besides the one that just screwed you. You can't find 29 other people to say this guy's good.

[Dave Ramsey]

Of course you can.

[Caller]

That would vouch for you.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, I can.

[Caller]

Your reputation is much better than you think. You're 21 years old. You earned $2 million in two years. That's astounding.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so if you only earn $500,000 in the next 18 months profit, you pay off the 280. And you have a really nice life because you do one fourth the number of jobs on our new pay schedule that we just laid out. You can't get as many jobs. A maybe your reputation is tarnished by this. Maybe, maybe not. But somebody believed in you, Jeremy. And I think you need to believe in you again. I think you did a lot of things smart. You did two things dumb. One is you believed debt was your way up. And two is you bet the farm on one company because they were a fancy pancy aeronautics place and you found out fancy pantsy places go broke too.

[Caller]

And I also have to believe that your reputation that you think you have is non existent. Is an older a group of wiser construction folks that took advantage of you and it felt good. They patted you on the back, but they knew they were taking advantage of you because they know the game. And it wouldn't surprise me if somebody chapter seven their way around paying you back because they knew they could roll over on you and not lose their future ability to hire other contractors. And so this, this thing that you think is your best is best bet is your best attribute, I bet was to you.

[Dave Ramsey]

Could have been. Could have been. Yeah, you can pay this back. Cuz you have high capacity. Switching banks can be a hassle.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And I totally get that.

[Dave Ramsey]

But when Winston and I opened up.

[Caller]

Our Fairwinds account, we were shocked by.

[Dave Ramsey]

How quick and easy it was.

[Dr. John Deloney]

It just took a few minutes online. We didn't have to block off an.

[Dave Ramsey]

Entire afternoon or track down paperwork. And the next day we got a personal call from a Fairwind specialist just checking in.

[Caller]

I couldn't believe it. When I answered my phone and I.

[Dave Ramsey]

Was talking to them, I was like.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Y' all are the nicest people.

[Caller]

Now if you're working hard to save money, get out of debt and build.

[Dave Ramsey]

A future, you should have a bank.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That supports that, not fights it. That's why I recommend Fairwind.

[Dave Ramsey]

They created these smart checking and Savings.

[Caller]

Bundles specifically for Ramsey fans.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Plus they have a great app and.

[Caller]

You have access to over 33,000 fee.

[Dave Ramsey]

Free ATMs and more than 5,000 shared.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Credit union branches across the country. So you can have access and withdraw.

[Dave Ramsey]

Your money just like you're used to.

[Caller]

No matter where you live, don't settle.

[Dr. John Deloney]

For a bank that slows down your progress.

[Caller]

Make sure you choose one that helps build you up and helps you win with money.

[Dave Ramsey]

Visit Fairwinds.org Ramsey and open your smart bundle today.

[Caller]

Fairwinds.org Ramsey Fairwinds.org Ramsey FairWinds is federally insured by the NCUA.

[Dave Ramsey]

Diana is in love with Texas. Hey Diana, what's up?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Hi. I just had a question for you. I just had one of my vehicles totaled out by the insurance for hail damage and I still have a loan on it and they're giving me the option to maybe buy it out just because it is totaled by, by the hail. But it's still, it still works. It's just not pretty looking and I'm just waiting for also for my gap insurance to approve it to see if they would cover because I still owe 20, 20,000 on the truck that I have.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, and so they're going to pay off the truck and take the truck between the gap insurance and the Hailed Admin trail, right?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yes, if it gets approved. Because unfortunately the first time I had damage, we didn't use all that money to fix the truck. So they're using that against or they took it off the value. So it might interfere with the gap. So I'm just waiting for them to give me an answer on that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so you're not sure if you're even going to get enough to pay it off?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yes. Yes, sir.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. The problem is once they declare it total, it goes to a salvage title. And so reselling it is very difficult at any stage. And you're dealing with a $20,000, $15,000 truck. You're not dealing with a $3,000 truck. If you're dealing with $3,000 truck, yeah, maybe drive it until it finishes dying. But 15,000, you got a lot of life left in that thing. A lot of time to drive ugly around town. And no, I think this is your get out of jail free card. If I'm you, I'm gonna pay it off and let them have it and move on with my life. If you can get completely clear and then take a few, scrape together a few dollars and buy you a hooptie until you can save up some money and get a decent car. And get out of the. Get out of the vehicle debt business forever.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

This is your chance to be free of a $20,000 loan.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yes, I hear you. That's just. We do have another car that's paid off, but my. I'm a stay at home mom, and so my husband works two jobs, so he's using the car. I don't ever have time to go out or do groceries or do anything.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, but I'm not saying live on one car. I'm saying get you a cheap car to sit in the driveway to do grocery shopping with and then save up and pay. Because the stinking truck payment was what, 500 bucks?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, about 600. 600 bucks a month.

[Dave Ramsey]

So in 10 months, that's $6,000.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's not a bad truck.

[Dr. John Deloney]

No.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so go buy you $1,000 garage sale car to drive around somewhere and then save 600 bucks a month and go buy a decent truck truck for six grand and then go do it again. And then go do it again for the rest of your life. You pay yourself car payments and buy a car with cash. That's called saving money.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, okay, so just buy it with. With cash. Because my. My credit, it's not that great because.

[Dave Ramsey]

No more borrowing money. We're getting out of the car payment business.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, Okay, I hear you.

[Dave Ramsey]

You called Ramsey. We're not gonna tell you. Go get a car payment.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah. Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

This is your get out. This is your chance to get out of car payments. You're stuck in a $20,000 truck that you didn't fix the last time it got hit with hail.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

And now you might be free.

[Caller]

You pay 600amonth to go get $400 worth of groceries, don't you?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Caller]

That's madness. Don't do that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. It's time to get out of that world. It's time. Time to stop. And no, don't listen. There's no deal to be made here. The thing what you want to do is fly and be free. If I'm you. There you go. Tim is with us in Philadelphia. Hey, Tim. What's up?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Hey, guys. How you doing?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. How can we help you guys?

[Dr. John Deloney]

You guys have been a huge blessing to my family. And our church hosts FPU classes, so we're very thankful for your work. Your ministry just made a big difference in our life. I got a question for you. I'd love to hear your perspective on it. So I'm one of two pastors at my church, and I came here about eight Years ago. And at the time, they offered me two packages. I could take a higher salary and find my own housing, or I could take a lower salary and live in the parsonage with all of my housing expenses covered. So at the time I chose the higher salary, we bought our own house. And the idea was I wanted to build some equity. So here we are about eight years later. We've pretty much remodeled the whole house. It was a short sale when we bought it for 115, which you can't even get a shed for that these days. And I could probably sell it for about 220, I would guess. The question I'm wrestling with is the parsonage is still available. And I'm trying to decide if it would be a better move long term to stay put and pay down our mortgage or to sell the house and tap into that equity to invest or boost our retirement savings. And I'm not quite sure which way to go.

[Dave Ramsey]

I would stay in the house, just.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Stay put and pay it down.

[Dave Ramsey]

Unless they're going to make the numbers so unequal that the parsonage is. But it doesn't sound like that. It sounds like the parsonage is a break even with the other. And then you have no equity, no property going up in value. So pastors that live in parsonages throughout their whole lives have to save money to buy a house at the end of the story anyway, because you become homeless at the end of the story. And of course, we're talking 20 years from now or whatever. And house prices have gone zoom, zoom. And you have to save money, you have to have a mutual fund labeled house payment or house purchase for the end for your. When you retire and don't live in the parsonage anymore and they give it to the next guy. And so you've got to offset that with investments. And so if you're going to do that, you might as well live there because the housing allowance, you've got a great deduction on that. Anyway, while you're there, let that thing grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow in value and be part of your investment portfolio. The fact that you own a great home, that's what I would. Stay right where you are, my man.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay? So the. The idea that we were wrestling with is basically, you know, having that lump sum available and how fast we could get ahead with that versus the.

[Dave Ramsey]

You don't get ahead any faster with that than you do on in the house.

[Caller]

You just borrow from future you.

[Dave Ramsey]

Now, mutual funds are going to go up in value houses are going to go up in value.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That's pretty simple. So you. So long term play, stay put. Well, we're entering into baby steps. 4, 5 and 6 are 15%. Be happy with that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yes.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And the grass is not greener on the other side.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yes. Yes.

[Caller]

Well, we talked to too many people who are 70 or 65 or 58 and just got fired or let go or their church closes and they've been living in a parsonage and now they have nowhere to go. And they, they got paid $22,000 a year plus quote unquote free housing and now they've got nothing.

[Dave Ramsey]

So that, and, well, that. But that lump sum that you took out, it would have grown to enough, to your point to buy a house at that point. But it's not gonna do anything else for you. It doesn't, it doesn't create more wealth than just owning the house does. And owning the house gives you a lot of other flexibility, you know, in terms of, you know, when you're in a parsonage, the church holds two things over the deacon board, the elder board holds two things over your head, your job and your home. If they just hold your job over your head, then that's a different discussion in some of those meetings. But if they got your home too, it changes the flavor. And so it, and it changes, you know, the flavor of that discussion changes from denomination to denomination, too. There are some denominations that do a lot more parsonages and. But most standalone evangelical churches have gone away from that model. They're not doing parsonages. That's more of an old line denomination of some kind, typically Methodist, Presbyterian, something like that, where you're going to find a parsonage. There's exceptions to that, but I'm talking about, we deal with about 50,000 churches in America right now. And so that's been our experience. So I just like the. I like keeping everything real clean and you guys own your house and it's going to go up in value. And like you said, be patient with the 15% baby step four, you're going to turn out beautiful. And Tim, thanks for your service. Thanks for your service to the community and for your walk with God. We appreciate that we need men like you in the pastorate and so honored to help you, sir, any way we can. This is the Ramsay Show.

[Caller]

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[Dave Ramsey]

You get your money back.

[Caller]

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[Dave Ramsey]

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Dr. John DeLoney, PhD in counseling, host of the Dr. John DeLoney Show, Ramsey personality and number one best selling author is my co host. Today, Sid is in Phoenix. Hi, Sid. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Hello, Dave and John. How are you guys today?

[Dave Ramsey]

Great, man. How can we help?

[Dr. John Deloney]

So I'm 33 years old, married with two kids. So recently the solar salesman came knocking on the door or say like, oh, the solar credits are going away after the big beautiful bill. I'm kind of in a situation whether I should go solar before the tax rate goes away or just pass on the opportunity and then just let it go.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. Yeah, you're right. The credits on solar panels on residential go away at the end of the year and the tax credit for them. Solar panels are excellent in some areas of the country and it depends on two things, obviously, sunshine and high cost of electricity. If you live in an area like Phoenix, has a lot of sun and you have a high cost of electricity, you can break even on a solar panel purchase fairly quickly. And if you do, then solar makes sense. It never makes sense to buy solar on debt. Do you have the cash to do this?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yes, sir. I don't have any other debt except my mortgage.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And you have the extra cash to buy the solar panels?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yes, I do have extra cash. I have cash sitting around. I was planning on putting that towards my mortgage.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, that's fine. What was the, what was the bid on the solar panels? How much?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Before tax credit? It was $31,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

And what's your home worth?

[Dr. John Deloney]

My home is worth 610 and I have 400,000 left.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. All right. So you have an extra $31,000 laying around to do this?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, I have 35,000 sitting around.

[Dave Ramsey]

I was not counting your emergency fund.

[Dr. John Deloney]

No, I have separate emergency funds.

[Dave Ramsey]

All right. I'm just making sure because sometimes I ask these questions and get different answers. Okay. Did they, did they run a break even analysis after the tax credit? Because after the tax credit is your real cost. Because you get a full tax credit.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah. That will be $22,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. And then how long does it take for you to get 22,000 back in energy savings?

[Dr. John Deloney]

I did a quick math. It's taken around eight to nine years.

[Dave Ramsey]

Don't do it.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I guess our buyback rate is done.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Solar needs to have a break even of six years or less. Okay, here's why. Here's why. Let me explain why. Here's why. Solar is technology. Eight years ago, solar technology was substantially different than it is right now. Eight years from now it will be substantially different than it is right now. It's like a computer. I mean, you know, unless you're operating on an eight year old computer, which most people aren't if they use their computer. Okay. Because what's a computer that you've unpacked from the box? Already obsolete. Right. And so, I mean people don't use 8 year old technology for hardly anything. A few things. In our cars we do a few things here or there. We do. But by and large this thing you need eight or nine years is just too long on a technology based application. And solar is technology. I believe in solar. That's why I was asking all these questions. And there are places that do that. But you need to break even, you need to get your money back faster on something that the technology is becoming obsolete at breakneck speed. Because I promise you, I mean, look at 16 years ago, what solar looked like, the number of panels that it would have taken to do what your number of panels it takes to do now, drastically different. You'd had to fill up your whole yard and your neighbor's yard, eight feet thick. Yeah. And you know, think about your television, you know, the one on your wall. You know, somebody said the other day, I saw a good meme this weekend, said in 1964, no one looted and carried a off color televisions because you had to have a box truck to do it. It was, it was huge. And so it was a piece of furniture.

[Caller]

But the other day I went in to grab one. They're, they're like 239 bucks.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Caller]

Remember Plasma came out and they were $7,000, $8,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Caller]

And they weighed two ton. Yeah, man.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Caller]

It just goes quick.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, I got one of those back in the day, those nice plasmas. It's in the, on the wall.

[Caller]

Probably still on that same.

[Dave Ramsey]

We ain't moving that thing. Yeah. And that's, that's the same thing. Okay. So don't, you know, you wouldn't buy a television, you know, and eight years later you don't have to replace your television if it's 8 years old. I'm not saying that, I'm not saying you're doing something wrong. But technology just has a high rate of change and solar is in that camp. So you do want a quick break even regardless of the. And you know, here's the problem for the solar world. World. It's going to get 30% harder as of January 1st.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's actually going to have to make sense. Not counting tax.

[Caller]

I'm wondering how the margins are going to be on those solar companies. They be tough. Be tough, tough, tough.

[Dave Ramsey]

Going to be a bunch of them go bye bye probably. And I wouldn't want to, I'm sad for that business and for those of you out there in business, I was in a business one time in the 80s that was based on the tax benefits and then the tax benefits went away and it bankrupt the business. It's called real estate. We used to could write off double declining balance for those of you in accounting in the early 80s. And so you could buy a piece of property, put it on a 15 year straight line and do double declining balance, which means you wrote it off in seven years. And then they, and they did a whole bunch of loans and this thing that they used to have, these bank type things called savings and loans. They were everywhere. They were like credit unions, they were all over America, savings and loans. And they all went broke because they had loaned money on investment real estate with double declining and the government with a stroke of the pen did away with the double declining and the value of those properties went away simultaneously. Because we based our business on tax law rather than on economics. Good economics. So now the solar people have based their business on tax law. Now they're going to have to base it on economics. Meaning that the solar panels are actually going to have to pay back, not counting and the government subsidizing it.

[Caller]

So either the cost of solar panels are going to have to go down drastically. Go down. Or the business goes away.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yep. Or the, or the technology, the technology improves.

[Caller]

Has to get better.

[Dave Ramsey]

Right. Dramatically. Yeah.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

They've 30% better by January 1st.

[Caller]

Let me ask you a, this a cultural question then. So back when savings and loans went away with the stroke of the pen, we didn't have Social media back then, but I can imagine there was mass hysteria that there is going to be. This particular business is going to go away, lending is going to crash, everything's going to go. What was it like seeing things pop up like local banks or credit unions, things that emerged out of that, out of that ash. Because we're watching real businesses being upended by technology in wild ways or in stroke of a pen, government orders. And it's easy to say, oh, this is the end of everything without thinking out of that soil grows new, new things.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Well, all the stuff that those SNLs, it was, they had, they didn't have the FDIC, they had the FSLIC insurance plan.

[Caller]

So there was life before fdic, which means there'll be life after fdic, whatever that looks like.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. And it became something else. And the government basically took all the assets and dispersed them and you know, we went on with our lives.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

It was just. But everybody in those businesses were gone. They had to start doing something else, do something else. And it, that was part of what contributed to my crash as well. But although I really wasn't doing as many tax based deals, but had a lot of friends that were doing tax based deals and they went, they lost everything same time. Exactly. And that was Ronald Reagan, by the way, that signed that. Yeah, he did away. He's the one who screwed that up. Yeah. One of my favorite presidents, but he screwed that up royally. Yeah. This is the Ramsey Show. Foreign.

[Caller]

This show is sponsored by Better Help. Life can be chaotic. Work can be stressful. And when your life outside of work and your work life collides, your mind and your body feels it. Listen, there's a ton of research about workplace stress impacting your mental and emotional health, your boss impacting your mental and emotional health. And most of us can't just say peace out and leave work anytime we want for a vacation. But we can start with small steps to help manage our work stress and our personal lives every day. This includes getting great sleep, taking care of your relationships, exercise, and for many of us, it's seeing a therapist. Therapy can help you navigate whatever challenges the workday or your personal life brings. And if you're thinking about starting therapy, contact my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online and that means it's affordable and convenient. You just fill out a short online survey to get started and you get matched with the licensed therapist as the largest online therapy provider in the world. BetterHelp offers access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise and BetterHelp has an app store rating of 4.9 out of 5 stars based on over 1.7 million client reviews. It's incredible. So manage your workday or everyday challenges with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com Ramsey to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H E L P.

[Dave Ramsey]

If you're tired of living paycheck to paycheck and feeling like you can't get ahead, join one of our free Every Dollar trainings. We will train you. We do these every week this month, and they're all hosted by one of the Ramsey personalities, showing you how to use the Every Dollar budgeting and finance app to get your money under control and start making the moves to win with this. So we're going to show you how to stick to a budget and even find $9,000 worth of margin on average. That's pretty cool. That's like a head start. Remember when you were a kid in the backyard and you're doing a race and the little kid gets a head start? Yeah. $9,000 head start. I remember that.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. And you can ask questions during the live Q and A, which kind of turns it into like this show, except you can actually get on. So sign up for [e-mail] webinar Jeremy's in Houston. Hey, Jeremy, what's up?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Hello. Afternoon. How you doing today?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. How can I help?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Well, Dave, I don't. I'm sorry. You said Houston. I'm actually in San Antonio. But just a small correction.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, I'm sorry.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Not your fault. It's all right. I wanted to pick your brain not only as a financial guru, but someone for our knowledge, you own a lot of residential real estate and I wanted to get your opinion on something back. On February 20th, I sadly lost my mom at the age of 71. She had been retired about six years. And it was a hard time because I think my daughters took it the hardest because I was their only living grandparents and they were her only grandchildren children. So it was not a good spring break that year, but February 20th, after she died. The next week I got she had just signed a new lease at her apartment that she was in. And I told the property manager about what happened. I said, you know, we'll get her stuff out as soon as we can. She said, of course, you know, take your time. I understand. And it was about two weeks later after she died on March 7, me, my wife, got everything out of the house, cleaned it up, turning the keys. And she was just the best. I gotten a. I kept a phone on for a while to keep, you know, just to make sure all loose ends were tied up. Up. And she. I'm getting a rent request from Venmo because that's one of the ways she was able to pay was her Venmo. And she said, no, don't just ignore it. It's okay. Like, okay, it's turning the keys. Assumed Everything's fine. April 1, as a Venmo request for rent. Again, I call the property manager, says, again, I will talk to the landlord. Don't worry about it.

[Dave Ramsey]

And May.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I'm getting. I'm getting now letters because I have enlisted as a contact reference for her on the lease. And it says that she's delinquent. Seriously delinquent. And so I finally get a hold of landlord and tell him, look, I don't know why you're sending this. She passed away. I've turned the keys. The apartments cleaned out. You're good to go. He. He's insisting that he's entitled to the full remaining value of the lease because at least she signed. She's had a new one, and it took effect this past January. So he is. He is insisting that he's invited. Entitled to the full value of the lease. I try to tell him. What are you talking about? She's dead.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, he is tragic for a family. He is from her estate. Does she own anything?

[Dr. John Deloney]

She. All she had was a savings. Because when.

[Dave Ramsey]

How much was in savings?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Over 200,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, then she. 200,000 has to be used to pay the lease. Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Really? That's a lease violation if you die.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, it's not a lease violation. She. Her estate. When you die, what you own stands good for what you owe. Assets versus liabilities. Okay. And what she owed was a lease.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Wow. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so she had. If she had $10,000 in credit card debt, that doesn't just go away because she died. Well, it's the same thing. Same thing. It's still a liability. It's a contractual liability that she owed. Now, you don't owe any. Anything, but her estate does owe for this lease. And, yeah, he's technically right about that. He's being weird about it for sure.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Well, he's being disrespectful. Really, he's trying. He went off a tirade on me the last time we talked about how it's post Covid. I'm a landlord and I have no rights anymore. It's cost me money, and I feel.

[Dave Ramsey]

Like My tenants are all dying on me. Yeah. What a jerk. Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I feel like he's. I feel like he's taking a leak on my mom's grave. And with me, there's just some boundaries you don't cross, and that's why.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, well, you're gonna lose. Probably. You need to. You probably do not have this estate being probated.

[Dr. John Deloney]

No. I was her only son. She was never married. And there was no one else. Only.

[Dave Ramsey]

I think I'm gonna. I think I'm gonna spend the 500 bucks to go get an estate attorney and have it probated. Because in most states, and I don't know Texas law, but in most states, and Texas has some weird laws because it's a republic. It's not a real state. I'm kidding, but not really. I'm kidding, but not really. Really sitting next to my resident Texan here. But anyway, no, they do have some interesting real estate laws that are different than a lot of states. So check this out. But in most states, if you go through probate, what you do is. And I don't know, since he's notified you if you can get by with this or not, but they post in a widely publicized thing like a legal newspaper, a notice to creditors. And if none of the creditors apply, that they submit that they have a claim against this estate, then they lose their right to claim against the estate after 90 days or whatever the notice of creditor's period of time is. Okay, so you get all of that by going through probate and going with an attorney. If that is Texas law, and I don't know if it is, I'm just saying. But a lot of you listening out there, that's what you would face. So I think it's going to be worth your time to step out of this. This and let the probate attorney deal with the jerk.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, I don't want to talk to that guy ever again.

[Caller]

The other thing again, it could have all changed, but when I was in Texas, they could only hold you for the gap until they filled that apartment back.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's. That's true.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That's why I'm thinking, like. Because I feel like that's double dipping.

[Dave Ramsey]

If you're not held to the liable, at least in most states, if they've rented it as he re rented it.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I. Even the property manager I spoke to, unfortunately, is no longer there there. And I haven't even been by that apartment because it's on the other side of town.

[Dave Ramsey]

I bet.

[Caller]

So it may be that you only Owe two months of. Of rent or three months.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I knew March because her belongings were still in there. We didn't clear up that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Marvin, honey, it's a liability, okay? It's a contract. Just a stream of payments. And technically, in most states, you're going to be held the. Not you. The estate is going to be held liable. You're not liable for anything. You understand?

[Dr. John Deloney]

I think that's. I think that's where this guy screwed up. Because the other thing I haven't told you yet was I got a summons. This pastor said Friday, and he is suing me for the value for $27,120 the remaining 16 months.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, you're not on the lease, and so I'm going to counter sue him for a hundred thousand dollars.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah. Because I know on the. On the summons, he's not suing me as the. As the executor of her state.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Power of attorney over. Over her stage. In her last year, she had been on dialysis, and she wanted to make.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sure that he can sue you for. As. As the power of attorney or as the executor, but he can't sue you. You're not on his lease. So what this guy is. Is a cowboy out of control, and we're going to have to get an attorney, smack him back off the saddle. Okay. We'll do. Yeah. You're going to have to get him straightened up because he's. Not only is he. Is he overstepped his bounds legally there, but he's also just being a jerk because normal people would say, hey, your mom passed away, you're technically liable for this whole thing. Let's work something out. I'm so sorry you lost your mom. That would be the phone call you got from Ram. Okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

How would you deal with a tenant who passed away?

[Dave Ramsey]

I mean, yeah, now, if they. But, you know, if they got $10 million in their bank and they don't want to pay, I'd go get it, but I wouldn't. I wouldn't have been a jerk about it. And I'm not going to give you a lesson on Covid. Landlord rights. That's just. That's. None of that's relevant. All that's relevant is simple thing. Your mom's estate is liable for her lease, probably in Texas, like it is everywhere else. Again, check your. You need to go get a lawyer. And you spend 500 bucks on a lawyer.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Do you recommend probate or.

[Dave Ramsey]

I would start with probate and ask the probate lawyer if he can handle this. Eviction or this other lawsuit and smack cowboy down. Because cowboy's out of control here. He's lost his dadgum mind. He's pissed off, pissed off redneck landlord and he thinks he can sue everybody and he can't.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I mean, I had enough dealing with my daughters about my mom passing. I don't need this.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, I mean, it's, it's just, you know, it's $200,000 in the bank versus cleaning this mess up. That's, that's, that's the way you got to look at it instead of, I mean, this guy didn't know your mother. He, you know, it's just, it's, it's just sad that people don't have any sense. I don't have any relational sense anymore. And so you, you can handle stuff like this and be firm and still be nice. You don't have to be a jerk about it. But the guy being a jerk is going to get him. And then he went and got all crazy and sued the wrong person.

[Caller]

Well, he's got somebody on retainer that just prints these letters for him every other week and it just doesn't mean anything to anybody.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, but even that guy, if somebody's on retainer, they ought to look down at the lease and go, this guy's not on the lease. That's kind of like fourth grade level. This is not, it's not, this is not graduate level business law.

[Caller]

No, they're just flexing on people.

[Dave Ramsey]

Basic stuff. Yeah. Seeing who we can piss off here. Oh, gosh. Sad. Yeah. Get a, get a lawyer. That's what you're gonna have to do. I'm sorry. Hate to pay those people, but somebody needs to. Sam, like this show. We would appreciate some help. Subscribe, Follow, Share, Leave Five star, five star reviews. All those kinds of nice things. Tell people about us, in other words, and it helps us a bunch. We appreciate you. Thanks for hanging out. Our question of the day is brought to you by why Refi? If you're struggling with defaulted private student loans, why Refi offers a great solution to get you back on track. For a low fixed rate and more flexibility, go to yrefi.comramsey. that's the letter y r e f y.com Ramsey might not be in all states.

[Caller]

Today's question comes from Justin in New Mexico. Justin writes, I'm 35 years old and I have a net worth of about 2.5 million bucks. My fam. Oh, great. My family has decided to pool money and invest together for a larger return. We currently have $5 million in the fund. Now that we have this nest egg saved, where should we invest it for the best return? I don't think I would do this with my family. Is that bad, Dave?

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm a hundred percent sure I wouldn't. There is no advantage with $5 million pool to invest over two and a half million dollar pool to invest. None whatsoever. There's no deal you can do with $5 million that you can't do a similar deal with two and a half. The only way you would get that kind of leverage is if you got, you know, okay, we put money together. Instead of 2 million, there's 100 million. And now we start talking about hedge funds or something else that are ultra high plays that are completely different than anything you guys should be doing with this money. So the. No, I, I would not pool my money together at 35 years old with my family. So I think it sounds like the cow's already out of the barn, though.

[Caller]

It feels like it. And it feels like he is funding half of this Bankroll. Yeah, he's 50% of.

[Dave Ramsey]

And they don't even know what they're gonna put it in.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

This is really dangerous. Yeah.

[Caller]

Justin, I would not do this. I would say, you know what? I've had second thoughts. Family, I'm out. And the math works the same. The same.

[Dave Ramsey]

So it works the same. I mean you can buy a 2 1/2 million dollar piece of real estate, pay cash for it, get the rate of return, get a similar rate of return what you get for a five million dollar piece of real estate. I've got both. So I mean, I've got properties that I paid two for. I've got properties I paid 10 for. Got property, you know, and they all, you know, it's, it's all about buying the property. Right. Not about that set amount of money. And so you can get the same rates of return in real estate on two and a half that you can get on five. So there's no advantage to pooling the same. Thing's true. Certainly with stuff like mutual fund investing and that kind of thing. And there's no real break. The break points are all done in a million. So in terms of commissions and that kind of stuff with your financial planner going into mutual funds. So once you got a million in, you're not paying commissions anyway. So I don't see any advantage of pooling it. And I see a ton of disadvantages. So if you can not do it in a gentle kind way without, without it being a Reflection on you hate them or something. Yeah. I would not do it.

[Caller]

I can't imagine a way this ends. Well, I'm trying.

[Dave Ramsey]

If you stay in it.

[Caller]

If you stay in it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, yeah. Somebody somewhere is going to go cuckoo. Yes.

[Caller]

Or it's not fair that you're taking half the returns and you would say, well, I put half the money in this fund. And they're like, yeah, but it was for all of us and we should. All this just ends badly.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Family socialism. Yeah. Alex is in Reno. Hi, Alex. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Hi, Tim. Thanks for taking my call. I appreciate it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sure. How can we help?

[Dr. John Deloney]

So I'm in step two, attacking my debt. I'm $15,000 in debt, including my car payment. I'm working two jobs right now, but I'm still living paycheck to paycheck. And I've had a index universal life insurance for myself and for my daughter. It sounded really good at the time. I'm not so sure it's the plan for me anymore. And I'm looking to pinch pennies where I can. Ultimately, one is a face value of 250,000. My daughter's is a face value of 150,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

How old is your daughter?

[Dr. John Deloney]

And my daughter's nine and she's had it for five years. No, correction, nine, seven years.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, all right. I can save you a lot of money. I would not. I own that stuff. It's crappy investment and it's crappy insurance bundled together. So it's a bundle of crap. And so, you know, I would just go to Zander Insurance that We've recommended for 30 years here on the air, get a good term insurance policy on you. And a 9 year old doesn't need life insurance. They're not producing an income. She needs coverage. And your family needs coverage if you pass away to replace the income that dies with you because they're counting on your income. And so you need life insurance, a lot of it, 10 to 12 times your income. But your 9 year old doesn't need life insurance. You didn't buy it for life insurance anyway. You bought it for an investment on her. And so you're much better off to do your investments and other things and following the baby steps, getting out of debt and then loading up in real investments, not insurance crap with cash that is freed up because you got out of debt. That's how you build wealth. Wealth. So yeah. Make sure though, you get the term insurance policy in your hand before you cancel because I don't want you dying between Policies.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So definitely just there's no surrender value on either of these. So just take the bite on it and move on, essentially.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, so everything you put into it, they're going to keep.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, you got screwed. How long have you had this?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Since 2019. 2018.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good Lord, six years. And they still have not given you any cash values?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yes, sir, that's correct. I was essentially making the minimal payments of it and I assume that's probably why when they wanted more. But the more I look at it, I'm like, this just doesn't feel right.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, well, you may not have put enough in to make it. Make it past your commission base then, because they collect all the commissions up front. And that's one of the reasons it's a crappy problem. Product is. Oh, God, man, you got hammered. You could have paid a tenth of this for the same amount of insurance all this time for six years you've been getting screwed. So, yeah, regardless, you need to get. Yeah, definitely get the term insurance in place as fast as you can. Go to zanderinsurance.com or you can call them at 800-356-4282. You hear them ads on here every day. We've been advertising for them forever. They're great people. And just get your good term insurance policy in place as fast as you can, 10 to 12 times your income. So I've been investing for six years and my investment equals zero. It's a quality investment.

[Caller]

So golly, dude, how do you sell.

[Dave Ramsey]

That stuff with a straight face to your friend that you went to college with?

[Caller]

I don't know how people sleep at night, man.

[Dave Ramsey]

God, what a horrible product. I've been investing for six years. What's your investment worth? Zero. Where all the money go that you put into it? Oh, no, they kept it, I guess.

[Caller]

My old roommate has a cool new truck. Man.

[Dave Ramsey]

Gee. Wow. Steve is in Charlotte. Hey, Steve, what's up?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Hey, how you doing, man?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better not deserve. How can I help?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Hey, got a question and I want to know what would you do in this situation? I'm getting ready to turn 65. I'm retired. I have 300,000 in my retirement account and from retirement I get $7,400 a month and it cost me about 1400 to run. Pay all my bills, my house is paid off. I have a way to go thousand dollars. Thank you, thank you, thank you. That's what my mom said. I have $1,000 in my emergency fund and I have one car payment that'll be paid off in about three months. But my question is, how much do I, when I build my emergency fund up to the full amount, how much does that need to be? Since I'm already retired and I love traveling?

[Dave Ramsey]

$10,000.

[Dr. John Deloney]

5,000. How much?

[Dave Ramsey]

$10,000.

[Dr. John Deloney]

10,000. Okay. Until my emergency.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yes.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And out of that 5,000, and out of that 5,000 that I get every month, how much can I put toward traveling? Because I love traveling. I got a son in LA and one in New Hampshire and I just love traveling, going to different sports.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, obviously you can't spend more than that because you can't go into debt to travel. And if you spend less than that, you've got some money to give and you've got some money to invest. So I spend less than that. But how much less than that's up to you.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Sam.

[Dave Ramsey]

Not just another summer sale. The summer Black Friday sale gives you the tools to help you win with money, relationships, career, beat back, anxiety, all of this without blowing your budget all week long. You got a chance to score sale prices on products. So be sure and check back every day because we're going to drop new deals always. The products include select audiobooks, ebooks, questions for humans, decks, the Get Clear assessment merch and more. Go to ramseysolutions.com store. If you're watching on YouTube or podcast, click the link in the Description. Sale ends Friday, July 18th at 11:59. So get your deals while you can. Brianna is with us in Phoenix. Hey Brianna, what's up? Or not. Anyway, where am I going? There. There we go. Okay. There we go. All right. And, and how about that? Brianna, are you there?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Hi, can you hear me?

[Dave Ramsey]

Yes. How can we help?

[Dr. John Deloney]

All right, well, to give you a little background, I am a newly single mom and I'm living with my parents right now while I get back on my feet. I have a one year old daughter, $10,000 in savings and I owe about the same on my car until it's paid off. I just returned to work as a.

[Dave Ramsey]

Server.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And I just want to make smart choices and work towards buying my first home. And I'm just wondering what your advice would be for, for me if you were in my situation.

[Dave Ramsey]

How old are you?

[Dr. John Deloney]

I am 25.

[Caller]

Do you have child support coming in?

[Dr. John Deloney]

No, sir.

[Dave Ramsey]

Why?

[Caller]

How come?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, I'm just trying to keep the peace right now.

[Caller]

Tell me more about that.

[Dr. John Deloney]

We didn't really end on very good terms. He was cheating on me, so right now he doesn't really care to see our daughter. So I'm not going to Push for it and don't really care to get child support from him right now.

[Caller]

I think that, I think you're making a very short sighted gambler. If he was abusive or you were scared for your life, I would tell you to call the police. If the fact that you're mad at him and you don't want to risk him seeing his daughter so that you don't have to deal with him for her, for you, financially, emotionally, otherwise I think it's a very short sighted move.

[Dave Ramsey]

He needs to pay to take care of his child, take care of his.

[Caller]

Kid, even if you don't want to see her.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's A, the law, B, it's the right thing to do, do.

[Caller]

And unless he's horrifically abusive and not anyone say horrifically unless he's abusive or whatever, she needs to know that her dad is out there because she's going to ask those questions whether you like him or not.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, I know.

[Caller]

So that would be step one.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Then step two is you said you're 25.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so regardless of how we got here, what do you plan to do with your life?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Well, I was a stay at home mom for the last year. Right after I had her, I just returned to work as a server where I make pretty decent money. I don't know if that's what I'll do for the rest of my life.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, I hope not.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Right. But right now it's just getting back on my feet so I don't have to live with my parents and my daughter.

[Dave Ramsey]

And hopefully the first step is get some income coming in and get a job. I don't blame you for that. But you don't want to be a 55 year old server. No. Okay. That's not your career goal. You're just trying to get. You're just trying to recover emotionally from what you've been through and find some safe space and everything else. But I want you to dream again. What is it you're going to be that makes $100,000 a year? Year. $200,000 a year, $300,000 a year? What are you going to do with your life? You're not defined as a waitress that had a baby. That's not your definition.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Thank you.

[Caller]

So what's your answer? What do you want to. What do you want to do?

[Dr. John Deloney]

I don't know. I've thought of going back to school. For what?

[Dave Ramsey]

Why?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Well, originally my first career choice was a teacher, but my father kind of strayed me away from that because they don't make the best money.

[Caller]

They make way more than a waitress does.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah.

[Caller]

And they have. Not a great one, but they have a retirement plan and health insurance.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah. So I guess my next step would be going back to school.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, well, if that's what you want to be. I don't care if you. You don't need to go back to school to escape. There's. Going back to school is not a magic pill unless it takes you somewhere. You're going back to school to study these three things because I have to know these three things to go be what I want to be or whatever the thing is. Okay, So I want you to figure out what you're aiming at and then figure out how to get there. If school is the way to get there, fine. But just. I'm going back to school. Just generally, I'm 25, I had a baby, I live with my parents, I'm going to go back to school.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Why?

[Dave Ramsey]

Because that's what everybody does. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That sounds like a good way to get a bunch of student loan debt to me.

[Caller]

Exactly.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, you need to go back to school only if it's with a purpose, to get the skills to go be the thing that's going to cause you to be a really smiley 60 year old grandmother someday.

[Caller]

Do you have an undergraduate degree already?

[Dr. John Deloney]

No, I don't.

[Caller]

Do you have any classes at all?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, I went for the first two years before COVID happened and that kind of.

[Caller]

Okay, before you go to school, if you want to be a teacher, I want you to call one of the region centers in Phoenix or in Arizona because they're so short on teachers right now. They're paying premiums and they're paying signing bonuses and they're putting people through fast track programs in certain states. Or if you want to go to nursing school, or if you want to go to med school, like whatever it is you want to do, like Dave said, decide who you want to be be and then reverse engineer that. Write a letter to your 35 year old self and say, thank goodness that when I was 25 I took these steps so that we, you and your daughter can have this life when you're 35.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, but I can hear it.

[Caller]

You're a frantic to get out of your parents house. And this is a recipe for coming up with some schemy mortgage that you can't afford in a house you can't afford because you quote unquote, have to have a house, house. And you're trying to get this life that you thought you were having. You're gonna try to duct tape it together. Please don't do that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Please develop a game plan and step by step by step, gradually walk into what you need to. If that's first, into an apartment, that's fine. But you don't need to leave your parents house into a. Into a new home. Purchase as a waitress. No, thank you.

[Caller]

We'll send you a copy of Ken Coleman's find the work you're wired to do and you can take the career assessment in there and see if that'll give you some guidelines lines. But man, I'd be real careful about. If you want to go do something and people are already throwing grenades at you, well, that's not going to make any money. You're not going to like that. Maybe. But also maybe not. And maybe you've taken advice from some folks you shouldn't have been taking advice from from a long time.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Something to think about for sure. All right. Precious is in Chicago. Hi, Precious. How are you?

[Dr. John Deloney]

I'm all. How you.

[Dave Ramsey]

Are you Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Dr. John Deloney]

All right, so my question is, how do I find work while on workers comp?

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, I think if you're out on workman's comp, it's because you're not able to work physically.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yes, to an extent.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm sorry.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yes. Do an accept.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. So when will you be able to go back to work? That's the key. Because if you go get a second job while you're taking workers comp, they're going to deny your workers comp.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Right, right. So I will go back around September. Or September is what they're saying. It might be October, but September is the earliest.

[Dave Ramsey]

Why is that the earliest?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Just from what the doctors and the physical therapists are saying.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so they are saying you're not ready to work.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

So. But you say you're ready to work.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I'm ready to work only for the financial benefit because what. When I'm getting on workers comp is not enough and I'm depleting my savings quickly by trying to stay afloat.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna work with your employer and your doctors to get released and get back to work. What do you do?

[Dr. John Deloney]

So I was a truck driver for a nonprofit, but since the injury from the job, I'm not able to do that quite yet.

[Dave Ramsey]

Is that what you'll be doing again in October?

[Dr. John Deloney]

No, I'll probably be doing some type of light duty work.

[Dave Ramsey]

Then let's see if we can get that going now? Because here's the thing, if you go take a side job and they discover that they're going to make you repay your workers comp. Workers comps based on you being disabled and unable to work. That's what it's based on. And so it's workers compensation, compensation for workers who can't work. And then you go work. They're not going to go along with that. So, you know, I'm going to start to work back into the job is what I'm going to do as fast as I can, as far as fast you're able without hurting yourself. Hey, everybody. Our summer Black Friday sale is here. Here's how it works. Each day this week has a new deal. This isn't just random stuff. It's the books, merch and products that help keep you fired up for your goals. They give you the encouragement and hope you need. So if you're sick and tired of being sick and tired, now's time to get tools that really work. Check back daily so you don't miss the deals. Go to ramseysolutions.com store today ramseysolutions.com store live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey show where we help people build wealth, do work that they love and create actual amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Dr. John DeLoney, Ramsey personality is my co host. Today it's a free call at 88824. Kelly is in San Diego. Hi Kelly, how are you?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Good. Hope you all having a great day.

[Dave Ramsey]

We are.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So my question is kind of twofold though. My parents are in their late 70s and God willing I don't get their inheritance and for the next 20 years. But I just want to be prepared because my fiance and I are getting married in March. And I know you always say prenups are more to protect from the crazy brothers, cousins, uncles, and he's got those. We've made really good rules in our lives where we aren't giving away money to family members. But my fear is if one of his brothers or either of them have a child that's going to be a soft spot for him because in his mind, the children are innocent. It's not their fault that their parents are irresponsible with money and don't make really enough to sustain life. So I'm trying to protect the inheritance that I will receive from my parents. I'm an only child. My fiance and I are entering the marriage with almost equal assets. So prenup wouldn't be for those items it would just be for the inheritance. I don't know.

[Dave Ramsey]

How much do you stand to inheritance? Inherit?

[Dr. John Deloney]

About 2 million. There's a million in stock and a million in real estate.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And so I don't know if it's a thing that my parents would have to do to word it or protect it in a specific way. So it only comes to me and would never be his.

[Dave Ramsey]

They could leave it. They could easily leave it into a trust and then it's completely protected.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay. And so even though we would be married like he would.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. If you're the only beneficiary of a trustee to have no. No marital access to it, as a matter of fact, you can stay in the trust that they have to. Someone has to be in the bloodline to receive the benefits. But that's not your real problem. Your real problem is you and your fiance have not come to terms yet on how you're going to live your lives. You just told me you can't trust him with $2 million because he has a soft spot. That's a little scary. That's a little scary.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah. Kids are his weak spot.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. That's a little scary. Scary.

[Caller]

But that means you're coming into this marriage with your one foot out of the canoe already. You're already hedging against a perceived or a real deficiency that he has. That's a scary place to enter into a marriage.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. You guys need to be in agreement on that regardless of if there's $2 million on the line. Because it's not the $2 million of your parents. It's the $2 million you all will earn in the next 10 years. And you're not prenupting that and you're not in agreement, and you're not in agreement on that. So when he wants to take 500 bucks out of your checking account that the two of you have together that both of you put money in while you're both working, we're going to have a problem. And the prenup is not. This question is not solving that for that problem. So I'm going to tell you to go back to the pre marriage counselor and the two of you need to sit down. You all need to work through this because you've got to have enough belief in your husband having your best interest and be in agreement with you over and beyond anyone else outside of our walls.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay?

[Dave Ramsey]

You remember the old language. You may not be old enough, but the old language in the marriage vows were a man leaves his mother and father and a Wife leaves her mother and father and cleaves leave and cleave. It's old English language. You ever heard that?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

It means that you set up an independent household and it's the two of you together against the world. And against the world, including nephews and nieces and mother in laws and whatever. And y' all don't have that right now because you feel like that the future nieces or nephews have a secret passageway through the wall into your lives. And that's not a prenup problem. That's a husband problem. It can be solved, though. I mean, I'm very hopeful. I'm not saying this is a dire situation, but I think your fear is revealing more than just what happens to the $2 million from your parents. It's revealing things that you guys are going to face as you go along.

[Caller]

Does that sound right to you?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, a little bit. I mean, his brothers have said they're not going to have children, but.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That's not a for sure.

[Caller]

That's not talking about.

[Dave Ramsey]

Not the point.

[Caller]

That's a proxy.

[Dave Ramsey]

The point is that you think your husband's soft heart towards crazy is going to cause him to do something irresponsible with money without you going along with it. It.

[Caller]

Is that making sense?

[Dr. John Deloney]

I think, yes. I think the. The way I'm seeing it, and that he would see it as well, is that, you know, you say that we could give like no one else. He'll see it as charity.

[Caller]

Okay, I know, I know.

[Dave Ramsey]

But my point is, My point is you've got to solve for that.

[Caller]

Y' all have to see this as charity, and y' all are going to have a thousand of these kind of issues pop up. No matter how well you think you know each other, each other. You can have a thousand of these. And Dave and I both have soft spots in our hearts for different things. And our. Our wives do, too. That's not the issue here. The issue is you. You have a value. And he says, when it comes to this, I don't care what your value is. I don't care what our values are. I'm going to do what I want to do. And until you address that issue, you're going into your marriage and it's going to have a hole in the boat. That's what I'm saying.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, exactly.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Got it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Like.

[Caller]

Like the kid part of this, the charity part of this, like, I have. I have a soft spot for over tipping. I worked at Burger King for four years and I know how people are treated like garbage and I have, I have. It's a pathology. And my wife has said, I love this about you and you are making it to where we can't go out to eat much anymore because you over tip some much. And she was right. And I was using the waiter to make me feel. So there's all this to it. It has nothing to do with the issue of tipping. It had to do with a shared set of goals and values that we had and I was overriding it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. And you can't let the waiter violate the walls that were formed by leaving and cleaving.

[Caller]

That's right.

[Dave Ramsey]

You're putting a wall around. It's a walled city, like a medieval city. It's a walled city and the only two people that live in the city have to be in agreement before anything goes outside those walls.

[Caller]

That's right. That's right.

[Dave Ramsey]

And if he can't be dependent, if you can't depend on him to not send stuff over the wall without you two agreeing to it, then you've got issues that you guys need to get to the bottom of. And it's. Otherwise it's going to pop up at the most, at the weirdest time and you're going to be left being the bad guy.

[Caller]

Exactly. It'll be, oh, you don't care about so and so.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, what are you a test pilot for broom factories?

[Caller]

You don't like children, you hate children. Or so and so has special needs. Why do you have hate that? Why do you hate them? Or you will turn at him and say, why do you. Are you so generous? Right. So it's that deeper issue that we're talking about here.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yep, yep, yep.

[Caller]

I know it's hard. I know that's hard. It's so much easier to solve for these proxies.

[Dave Ramsey]

You can't, you can't, you can't solve for it by just think. But if you want to fix the parent thing, it's pretty easy. Call them and tell them, put the money into a trust to you and blood only can touch it. So you and your kids be the only ones that can touch that money then and, or you, your designee. But he can't just throw that money over the wall. But that, that, that this is pointing out a broken part that you guys need to solve for now because it's going to come up again in a different setting having nothing to do with inheritance.

[Caller]

And I promise it's going to come up. Nobody else, nobody has just one soft spot where they Violate the values that shows up everywhere in a relationship.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, my soft spot's probably gun purchases.

[Caller]

I was gonna say a couple others, but I'll go with that one.

[Dave Ramsey]

I don't violate though, because it cost me a purse every time. Hey, guys, George Camel here. Do you ever feel like insurance companies only care about your money and not.

[Caller]

What you actually need? Well, there's a better way.

[Dave Ramsey]

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[Caller]

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[Dave Ramsey]

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[Caller]

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[Dave Ramsey]

Only get you what you need at the best price. Go to ramseysolutions.com insurance ramseysolutions.com insurance buying or selling your home is a really big deal. With all the clickbait headlines and conflicting data out there, it's hard to know what's really happening. And we're here to make the latest trends easy to understand. Median home prices stayed steady last month at about 441,000 nationally. Number of homes for sale hit a million for the second month in a row. This is the highest inventory since 2019, and yet prices are continuing to to go up. The average 15 year fixed rate also held steady just under 6%. 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 and we'll help you out.

[Caller]

Hey Dave, can I ask you a quick real estate question real quick?

[Dave Ramsey]

You can?

[Caller]

All right, so this might be bad math in my head. So let's say we're in Nashville, Tennessee, where the real estate has gone way up in value over the last five, ten years, right? Okay, so let's say the house I bought back in 2020 is quote, unquote, worth double and I put on the market for double what I paid for it in 2020. And let's say because of the influx in inventory, I have to drop the price a bit and somebody comes in and bids $10,000 left. So it's just a little under double. I feel like on social media and whatever it the report is, house prices are falling, falling. But the way I look at it is I'm still on house money because it's worth almost double what I paid for it. And just because I take is that, is that a bad way for me? To look at the real estate investment.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

Do you get what I'm saying?

[Dave Ramsey]

No. It is house money, but it's different than that. The reason social media is wrong is for a different reason. Market value of a property. By definition, when I went to real estate, when I got my four year degree in real estate, I have a degree in real estate and finance. Finance. If you go to appraisal class and you go to take, even take your real estate test, they teach you this. What a market. The definition of market value of a piece of real estate is what a willing buyer is able to give a willing seller and willing when neither are under duress. Okay, so in other words, if you're getting foreclosed on, that's not of that valid. Say you can't use that sale when you're doing an appraisal. Right. Because it does not establish market value because one of the parties is under duress. Okay. If you've had a house on the. If you bought another house and you're having to sell your house out of desperation because you shouldn't have bought the other house and now you got two house payments, one of the parties is under duress.

[Caller]

Okay, so they might sell it, quote, unquote, below market value.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yes. Just to get rid of it. Yes, because. But it has. But it does not establish market value. Value. So when someone says house prices are going down, they mean market values are going down. Market values have not gone down. But there are some parties because the market has been sluggish that are under duress. Gotcha. And are selling.

[Caller]

They may have leveraged what you call.

[Dave Ramsey]

A motivated seller for one reason or another. And house has been sitting on the market and they lower the price below what the appraisal would be what a willing buyer. But they're no longer without duress, they have duress, meaning they're in a stress situation. And so that doesn't establish market value. That doesn't establish what home prices are doing now. But if you're in a seller's market, then the buyers are under duress because they can't. That's when you get 83 offers on the house. If you're in a buyer's market, which we haven't seen in a long time because inventories have never kept up with demand. But if you're in a buyer's market, that means there's houses everywhere and the buyers could come in and cherry pick what they want and they can demand stuff from sellers because the sellers are under more stress and that drives prices down. But we haven't seen that in two decades.

[Caller]

But even if market value went down 20%, I'm still up.

[Dave Ramsey]

You're still on house, Martin. But house prices would have gone down if that was the case.

[Caller]

Correct. There you go.

[Dave Ramsey]

So social media would be. Correct. Social media is a drama queen.

[Caller]

Correct.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's not functioning on anything except, you know, some 20 something year old living in his mother's basement having a little snowflake attack.

[Caller]

Correct.

[Dave Ramsey]

And that's your social media. That's not going to do with the actual reality of what's happening in the market. That's just somebody pissed off because they feel like they got boxed out of the market because they're a barista after getting a PhD or they're pissed off.

[Caller]

Because they did some napkin math and looked at their own Internet website and said my house is worth $1.2 million. They get an offer for 700 and in their soul they feel like they.

[Dave Ramsey]

Lost $500,000 when if it was not worth 1.2.

[Caller]

That's exactly right.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. It was never worth that. And so is there actual market value. So if you're going to do an appraisal on a piece of residential real estate, you find three comparable sales within the last 90 days, comparable in area, comparable in attributes and comparable in square footage. And you adjust for square footage. If one's a five bedroom, one's a four bedroom, one's got six baths, one's got four baths, one's got a five car garage, one's got a three car garage, you adjust for the differences and you do that and then you take the average of those three after adjustments and you have a residential appraisal. But the qualification is all three of those comparable sales cannot have had a buyer or a seller under duress. So you can't use two foreclosures in the neighborhood as your comp, as your comparable sale. Otherwise you have an invalid appraisal.

[Caller]

What did they do in 2008 when whole neighborhoods were getting white out?

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, then you've got a new market. The market established that this neighborhood is foreclosure neighborhood.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

So it drove it down. Yep. Because everything in there was. So if you had like those townhouses and stuff where they, you know, where these bogus investment deals, that's what all happened in 2008. And the mark, the mortgage, bank securities, all that crap crashed. And so they started punting on these loans left and right and so they end up with whole neighborhoods back. Now you got a complete reset on that neighborhood, but that's Not a statement of real estate. That's a statement of that neighborhood. That neighborhood was full of investment real estate. 100% renters and 100% of the investors in air quotes were leveraged, walked away. Right, and so now you got a reset and now we've got, okay, what will people pay in that neighborhood where neither are under duress. And that takes about a generation to get through that. Not a generation of people, but a generation of sage. Because the bank, when they take it back, they're under duress, okay? So when the bank resells it, you can't count that. That's a real estate owned an reo. You can't count that as your appraisal. And so that's what we're getting into. So no, we, that's what this thing I just said go to our website. We track this stuff. There's 1,036,101 homes on the market right now. We know exactly how many are on the market. We know exactly when we're tracking all this stuff in detail. And you can go there and find the actual data and you're month over month over month, every month this year, median house price, which is the middle, not the average, it's the middle of house prices, is what a median is in statistics, has gone up every single month. It's not gone up much, it's gone up like a thousand bucks or 2,000 bucks.

[Caller]

But it's not crashing like every month.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's not going down is the point. It's going up and there's good inventory and there's good demand and everybody's sitting around waiting to, to see if the Fed chairman is really going to get fired and if we're really going to see some interest rates adjusted. And once they get past that waiting game, probably about September, you may see this market take off like a dad gum hero on fire thing. September could be wild in terms of house prices going up again. But we're not. We've been telling you guys this out there and it's proven to be true. I've been telling you this for five years. House prices are not going down. This is not a bull bubble. A bubble is when there is an. Is when the prices have gone up faster than the demand. Demand has outpaced inventory. Demand is higher than supply. Every time you see that in economics, you see prices go up. It's a simple thing. It's seventh grade economics, if anybody taught economics in seventh grade anymore. But that's it. I mean, when there's a shortage of Goods or services, the price goes up on those. When there's an overabundance of goods or services, the price goes down on those. It's very simple. And you really can't hardly figure out any time in economics with an open market anyway that that gets violated. It just shows up that way every single time given it given a half a minute. But I mean you get weird anomalies like Covid and that kind of stuff that hit a marketplace. It takes a little while to get the wrinkles out of that, out of the sheet on that like the supply chain stuff. Same thing. But the, this is it. It's just, it's. The problem is everybody's just so frustrated that wants a house and can't get one right now.

[Caller]

Sure to expend.

[Dave Ramsey]

So they're so they're throwing all these darts out there that they call truth to try to make themselves feel better about it. And it's just not, it doesn't change anything. You still have to do the machine, Sam. Hey everybody. Our summer Black Friday sale is here. Here's how it works. Each day this week has a new deal. This isn't just random stuff. It's the books, merch and products that help keep you fired up for your goals. They give you the encouragement and hope you need. So if you're sick and tired of being sick and tired, now's the time to get tools that really work. Check back daily so you don't miss the deals. Go to ramseysolutions.com store today ramseysolutions.com store or in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt free stage. Emily is with us. Hi, Emily, how are you? Hello. I'm Good, thank you. Mr. Ramsey, good to have you. Good to have you. Where do you live? Decatur, Alabama. Very cool. And how much debt have you paid off, Emily? 110,000. All right, and how long did this take you? 15 years. 15 years? Yes, sir. All right. And your range of income during that time? Let's see in my notes. I have, it was 39,861. Okay. Up to what? And now I am at 68,052. But in Alabama we get a 3% raise in our district this year. So I love it. I love it. What do you do? I teach French and esl. Very cool. And who's the good looking gentleman to your right? Well, this is my dad, Jeff West. All right, Jeff, welcome. Good to have you, sir. Thank you. Dave, thanks for being here to support your daughter and Emily. Very cool. Emily, 15 years. Yes, sir. There's a story here, I think. So tell me about this. How did you get started on this Ramsey stuff and what does a 15 year journey look like? Well, thanks to my dad and my mom, they raised us on you guys, of course, and your principals. Anyways, before I went off to college, my dad had paid off the house and he called me downstairs to the basement and said, said, hey, I'm gonna call into the Dave Ramsey show and I want you to listen. And so just seeing him do that was pretty inspiring for me. So. Oh, so he caught you. Did your debt free scream from the basement? Yes, sir. Made your college age daughter watch it about 24, 25 years ago. Oh, man. It was in 2000. 2000 or 2000 now? I'm looking at a baby steps millionaire for sure. Yes, sir. Yeah, well, cool. Very cool. I like that. Thank you. It's good stuff. All right. And so anyways, we were able to pay for my college and stuff. I didn't have to have student loans because they were able to pay off their debt from the house and stuff. So where was I? So you. So you started this journey then what was 110,000 in debt? What kind of debt was that? That was to pay off my house. You bought a house after college? Okay, well, actually I went to North Carolina and, and taught there for two years. And then I moved closer to home to Decatur, Alabama, of course. Anyways, two years after being there, I bought my house. Oh, okay. All right. And then 15 years you've been paying off the house? Yes, sir. It was just a good investment at that time. All right, so single lady teaching French in Alabama. You teach high school, I guess. Yes, sir. All right. And you fight your way all the way through and have a paid for house? Yes, sir. What's the house worth? Let's see. I think it was 118,000 at that time. Now what's it worth now? Oh, now, 300,000. Well, say 300,000. Yeah. Okay, very cool.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Wow.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you've been investing in your retirement all that time? Yes, sir, I have. Good. What's that look like? What's the balance on that? Well, let's ask this man right here because he stays on that one for me too. Okay, well, the, her schooling or her school actually takes out about 500amonth. So she's putting in roughly 10%. Yeah. Okay. All right. And then she's got another. A little bit of nest egg. Yeah, that goes in also. How's that feel? How old are you? I'm 42. And you have A paid for house? Yes, sir. And you do anything you want to do. How's it feel having no payments? It feels fantastic. Wow. Yes, sir. And I don't do credit cards either. Good for you. Well done.

[Caller]

Yeah, that's amazing.

[Dave Ramsey]

Thank you.

[Caller]

And especially I just, in fact, I just went through with my show producer Kelly, the number of families that call in that either kids aren't talking to their parents or parents aren't talking to their kids anymore over political issues or drama or whatever. And so it's pretty cool to see a father and a daughter still united and working together on things this far down the road. That's pretty cool.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yes, sir. Dave, I got one story right quick. Whenever Emily and I've got a younger daughter that's two years younger, there was a rainbow vacuum cleaner salesman. Oh yeah, you remember those? Oh, yeah, I do. Well, he. It's kind of like buying a Cadillac. Exactly. So he come and he knocked and I let him give his spill. And I think Emily and Jessica, my younger daughter, was there and they was just shaking their head. And then all of a sudden whenever the salesman started telling about the to buy it on payment plan, payment plans, they just started shaking their head and said, uncle Dave's not going to go with this. So he kind of got, he got headed on out the door. So that's what that was the day I knew my daughters were going to make it. That's. So you've been gone, your name's been Uncle Dave. Okay, I'll take it, I'll take it. I've been uncle. I've been uncle. Do a lot of worse things, I can tell you.

[Caller]

That's good, Emily, what's next for you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Let's see. I'm a few years out from retiring from education and I think I'm going to go into real estate maybe. Okay, fine. Something I'm looking at. Good for you. And I travel overseas every summer and stuff. And as I had wrote into my email, I use my tax refund check as my spending money over there so I don't have to use any of my money here.

[Caller]

Well, it's still your money, but it's still my money.

[Dave Ramsey]

But you know, it's like that extra.

[Caller]

That you just like loaning it to the government a little bit a year.

[Dave Ramsey]

There you go. All right. All right. So 39,000. She starts out now making 68,000 French teacher, has a paid for $300,000 house and she's 42 and has substantial money in retirement. So it's interesting that when we did the study of millionaires that the. The most likely career to be a millionaire was an engineer. The second was accountant, and the third is teacher. And people always write in and go, well, that can't be. You can't do that when you're a teacher. Well, ladies and gentlemen, meet Emily. Okay. And I got. I got news for you. You can do this, but, you know, that's amazing what you've done. This is. Thank you. Incredible. I'm so proud of you. Thank you. I have two paid off vehicles as well. And obvi. Two. What you need two for.

[Caller]

For weekend Emily for me to work.

[Dave Ramsey]

On so she's got something to go mudding in on the weekends. I like it. I know you're proud of her. Obviously you're here to support and say, way to go, man. This is absolutely incredible. Very well done, young lady. Very, very well done. I appreciate it. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? Emily. No credit card. And you just. If you don't have that money, you don't get it. You pay for what you have and you put back. And then you just work with the system, which is what you've done. That's exactly right. You've been very. I can tell you're very. A very precise person. You're very. It's all about system. Yes, sir. Yeah. Good for you. Thank you, sir. Very, very well done. Proud of you, kiddo. Thank you. Good work. I guess I get to do my scream now because I didn't do it at the beginning. That's right. We're going to do it now. All right. Emily and Jeff going to help. From Decatur, Alabama, 110,000 paid off in 15 years, making 39 to 68 French teacher in high school. Count it down. Let's hear a debt free scream. Count it down. Let's do it. Okay. Five, four, three, two, one. Here we go. All right. Debt free. Yeah, yeah, that'll work. I'll take it. Good stuff. Well, the, the interesting thing is, is that, folks, you can do it. That's the point. Why did we start doing these debt free screams? Because somebody just started screaming one day on the phone, and then some guy called back the next week and said, hey, can I do that? And we said, sure. And so it started with that.

[Caller]

And he must have been from Alabama, too.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, well, he definitely was country. I remember his country fried like that. That sounded like I did, you know, and so I knew, I knew where from he came. Came from. But anyway, yeah, let's celebrate. Let's celebrate this is hard work. It's sacrifice. You sell so much stuff, the kids think they're next. You live on beans and rice. You don't go out to eat, you don't go on vacation. You get the debt cleaned up. So you get your life back and the companies don't own you anymore. Your stress level goes down, your relationships are better, and you get on this process of building wealth. And it's called hope. Yeah.

[Caller]

And it just goes counter to everything we're taught today, which is maximize everything, leverage everything, get all the shiny new stuff all the time. Get new stuff and get new stuff and get new stuff that you can't afford. I love how simple what she said. What Emily said was what was the key here? Living on less than you make.

[Dave Ramsey]

Don't buy it if you don't have the money.

[Caller]

Don't buy it if you don't have the money.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sounds like her great grandmother would have said, yeah, honey, if you you don't have the money, don't buy it.

[Caller]

And 20 years ago, $118,000 house, I guarantee you there were people pressuring her to get a bigger, nicer place than that and to have the discipline even back then, to get a house that was 118,000. This is what it looks like she's paying it off at in her early 40s. And now she's free. It's awesome.

[Dave Ramsey]

100% debt free on a teacher's salary at 40 years old, 42 years old. Shut up. Don't tell me this stuff doesn't work.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Sa.

[Dave Ramsey]

Our scripture of the day, Luke 12:15. And he went on to say to them all, watch out and guard yourselves from every kind of greed because your true life is not made up of the things you own, no matter how rich you may be. Dr. Joyce Brothers said credit buying is much like being drunk. The buzz happens immediately and it gives you a bit little lift. The hangover comes the next day. Amen. Katie is with us in Houston, Texas. Hi, Katie, how are you?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Hi, I'm good. How are you doing, Dave?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up in your world?

[Dr. John Deloney]

So between 2022 and 2024 was probably the roughest part of my life. I am very Young, I'm only 27, but I was married, experienced domestic violence. We se dealt with a miscarriage. Then I got divorced. Didn't feel like being on earth. But I come to find to really, really, really know Jesus Christ more than I thought I knew him. So that's the plus of it all. But I made a lot of foolish no matter what I went through, I can't victimize all the foolish financial mistakes I made. I used to, like, be a restaurant manager. I've made over 60k. Over 65k before, annually. Last year, I experienced a bit of homelessness, and I was able to come back home with my parents in October. I didn't have a job for about six months. I never imagined being there. And I finally got a job. But the income. This is probably one of the lowest jobs I've ever had, which is not. Anyway, it's 37, I think 35 or 37,000 for me. Just never knowing how to budget or like, I've seen a budget sheet and thought, oh, that's cute. Let me try to play with the number. Never really, like, understanding, not knowing what to do. Like, I'm like, help me. I think I got about, like, $30,000 worth of debt. Not too much.

[Dave Ramsey]

You have a car?

[Dr. John Deloney]

I've been watching the show for the last. Yes. And I would be negative if I tried to sell.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, no, I wasn't what I was asking. I'm asking how much you owe your car. It's all I ask.

[Dr. John Deloney]

20, 24,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, and is that in the 30? So there's six more or there's 30 more?

[Dr. John Deloney]

No, no, six more.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And so six is on credit cards?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. All right, Good news. All right. So here's the situation as I hear it, and then Dr. John can chime in as well. I hear a person who is a true trauma survivor. Okay. When you go through a miscarriage, that's trauma. When you go through a divorce, that's trauma. When you go through domestic violence, that's extreme trauma. Okay? All of these things gut punch you. All of these things mess with your confidence and. And. And therefore, you end up on the street and are bouncing back in mom and dad's house and getting a fresh start. That's how I. What I heard.

[Caller]

Tell me about this. Tell me about the six months of not being able to work. Were you unable to find a job or were you struggling with your mental and emotional health? Tell me about that time.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So I have experience with, like, sickness due to type 1 diabetes. So when I came back initially in October, I had strep throat, but it just hit me way worse maybe than it should have. I'm not sure. I was out for, like, maybe two to three weeks with that. And then I started back on the job hunt around, I think, a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving. I was filling out applications. At first I was doing it, you Know on. Indeed. But I'm like, okay, well, let me put in some more effort, fill out full applications. I have found that on a YouTube I watch. Let me fill out the full application and I cannot get any interview.

[Caller]

Those usually don't be successful.

[Dave Ramsey]

Are.

[Caller]

Are you staying with your parents now still?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yes. Yeah.

[Caller]

Do you have a good relationship with them? Is that an okay place to be?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yes.

[Caller]

Okay. I would love. Let me ask you one more question. How old are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

27.

[Caller]

Oh, 27.

[Dr. John Deloney]

27.

[Caller]

I would love for you to get a whole bunch of little wins in a row before. What I hear is somebody that like broke a kneecap, broke the other ankle, tore their Achilles tendon, and you're just now walking and you're calling us asking how you can get what marathon training program. If you had nowhere to live, a very unsafe situation, then we would be having another conversation because you would be in a mess. The fact that you have a safe place to land. Plan for a minute. I would love to see you go 60 or 90 days and just do this job. Clock in, clock out, feel good, start to trust yourself again. Work really hard at this job. Even if you think like, man, it's just a $37,000, be the best person in that whole arena. And if it's selling cell phones, sell cell phones. Like no one has ever sold a cell phone before. Come home and be a present like present with your family. Hey, let's get our feet underneath us for a second.

[Dave Ramsey]

While you were racking up this debt and all this trauma was going on, did you also gain weight?

[Dr. John Deloney]

I recently. The last year through homeless. I never noticed. But when I came back, all of my family was telling me how much weight I gained. Yeah, and I forgot to tell you all, actually in between 2021 and 2023, I actually couldn't walk. I was dealing with peripheral neuropathy. But thanks to God I could walk again. So it was just.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, that wasn't a slam. It was. It was. There's a normal correlation with that. Okay. Because when all things fall apart, it's not unusual for people to eat their way out of it. I even tried that during COVID It didn't work. I ate every donut in a 50 mile radius. It was great. And. But the. But it didn't work. But I tried it. So you know what I would add to John's thing on your quick wins is it sounds like you've got a recently found, great, wonderful faith in Jesus. And so I would set up a morning routine that involves your spiritual Health and some beginner exercise program going for.

[Caller]

A walk for 30 days.

[Dave Ramsey]

Let's get some beginner exercise programs going that releases a bunch of wonderful chemicals in your body that helps you feel better. And you'll have the benefit also of losing weight and feeling better about yourself from the discipline. So lots of little wins. Let's see how many days in a row you can walk at least a mile. Getting up at 5am let's see how many days in a row you can read at least two chapters in the Bible and spend 15 minutes in prayer. Let's see how many days in a row. Let's get some streaks going, some good streaks. And then that gives you the foundation for I'm winning and I can start talking about, okay, okay. When I'm 37, I want to be a XYZ. And that means I need to start making some career moves that way. But right now I'm with John. I think a good 60 or 90 days of just going on a walk every day, doing a Bible study every day, going to work every day and being an excellent version of you, that's going to be really. That's going to be a breath of fresh air for you, kiddo. And that's going to build the confidence back up. Because all this crap that's happened to you. When I went through bankruptcy, one of the things it did is it stole my confidence. Confidence. I was a cocky little twerp and all of a sudden I was completely humiliated.

[Caller]

He's got that back. Don't, don't make any. Don't worry about it.

[Dave Ramsey]

It'll come back. It'll come back. But I mean, no. Now I'm just confident it's different. But what happens is your confidence grows back with these experiences. Your experiences with the Lord every morning, your experiences with the rain and the sunshine out there doing that one mile walk or whatever it is every day. Day. Get some light weights and start moving them around to get some tone back. You're going to start to feel better about you. And that version of you has a lot better chance of landing better and better and better jobs.

[Caller]

I'm also going to hook you up with my friends. I'm going to give you three months for free with our friends at Better Help Free Therapy. You can do it at home, on your computer, online, with a licensed therapist.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, thank you.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Caller]

You got to use it, though. Is that fair?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, that's a deal.

[Caller]

Awesome.

[Dave Ramsey]

And we'll also put you into every dollar into Financial Peace University. We want to walk with you while you get better on this, but I think you're going to walk before you run again to John's point.

[Caller]

And that's so. Okay. It's the way you got to do it.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay.

[Caller]

Is that cool?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just so unfamiliar, just being just this broken. And it was like, okay, God, where are you? But it's like, okay, like, I'm ready.

[Dave Ramsey]

He's right there. That's where you find him, is right.

[Caller]

A whole bunch of little steps in a row.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's. That's. That's where you find the best parts of him, is right there.

[Caller]

We're super proud of you.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Good job. Awesome. Good job. Hang on. Christian will pick up and get you taken care of. That puts this hour of the Ramsey show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the prince of peace, Christ Jesus. What if you could watch the Ramsay show before anyone else? Well, good news.

[Caller]

Now you can.

[Dave Ramsey]

For the first time ever, you can stream the show a day early, early in the Ramsey network app. That's tomorrow's episode today. Real calls, real answers, real fast.

[Caller]

It's free, it's easy, and the content.

[Dave Ramsey]

Might just change your life. So search Ramsey network in Google Play or the app store or click the link in the show notes. You never know what calls coming up next.