You Don’t Have To Live One Emergency Away From Broke

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Ramsey Show – "You Don’t Have To Live One Emergency Away From Broke"

Date: September 5, 2025
Hosts: Jade Warshaw & Dr. John Deloney
Theme: Taking control of your financial life and achieving stability—so you’re never one emergency away from broke.

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Episode Overview

In this engaging episode, Jade Warshaw and Dr. John Deloney tackle real-world money problems by taking listener calls, discussing everything from marital debt disasters, real estate struggles, boundaries with financially-dependent family, to questions about building wealth and spending wisely. The hosts offer actionable strategies and emotional encouragement, emphasizing the importance of budgeting, wise decision-making, and having tough conversations to reclaim financial peace.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dealing with Debt and Marital Chaos

Caller: Lee from Charlotte, NC
Timestamps: 00:13–08:40

• Situation: Lee is facing a divorce after her husband left amid discovering he’d caused significant debt and legal consequences, including a $27,000 lien and additional personal loan debt.
• Insights:
  • Separate finances immediately: Both Jade and John urge quick financial uncoupling (“the good news is his name is not on the mortgage”—07:19).
  • Pause aggressive debt payments during legal uncertainty: “Pay minimums on everything... Wait until your court battle so that can be settled in court.” – Jade (08:23).
  • Key Quote:

    “We don’t want to let the shame you feel right now cloud the judgment.... At the end of the day, we have a math problem to solve.”
    — Dr. John Deloney (03:58)

2. Young Investor in Over His Head

Caller: Dean from Reno, NV
Timestamps: 10:36–19:47

• Situation: At 29, Dean owns two properties and $125,000 in debt, including HELOCs and a family loan, while struggling with recent sobriety and relationship chaos.
• Advice:
  • Sell both properties to pay off debt: “You’re right on the threshold of being totally free...call a realtor today.” – Dr. John (17:27)
  • Address life habits, not just money: The chaos comes less from income and more from life choices and emotional baggage.
  • Key Quote:

    “It’s not the money. You’re making money. The problem here is choices.”
    — Jade Warshaw (16:13)

3. Financial Boundaries in Relationships

Caller: Amy from Wisconsin
Timestamps: 23:35–31:20

• Situation: Amy wants advice on how to tell her fiancé that it’s not their job to solve her parents’ continual financial problems.
• Insights:
  • Boundaries are essential: “You have to metabolize that the bigger issue here is not your parent’s financial situation. It’s that your fiancé is prioritizing his parents over your partnership.” – Dr. John (26:09)
  • Don’t proceed with marriage until values align: “This behavior will keep showing up...I would not marry this person until we figured out how to solve this.” – Jade (27:00)
  • Key Quote:

    “You’re not crazy. This isn’t the only thing he disregards what you want or feel.”
    — Dr. John Deloney (29:09)

4. Recovering from Life Setbacks

Caller: Brenda from California
Timestamps: 54:33–63:19

• Situation: Brenda, a long-time salon owner, is facing mounting medical, flood, and pandemic challenges, with $48,000 in debt but owns her business property outright.
• Advice:
  • Don’t sell a valuable asset if not necessary: “Hold on to the building. It’s a wonderful asset and will continue to go up in value.” – Jade (63:21)
  • Diversify revenue: “One way to build your business is to add pieces that don’t require as much of your time.” – Jade (62:06)
  • Key Quote:

    “We’re going to choose reality here...The reality is you cannot afford to be paying for your son’s college right now.”
    — Dr. John (58:55)

5. Ethics and Limits of Family Support

Caller: Roger from Florida
Timestamps: 86:29–94:16

• Situation: Retired Roger has supported his estranged sister with $700/month for 10 years, but the funds are running out.
• Insights:
  • Enabling is not the same as helping: “You can’t enable somebody and then complain they’re failure to launch… If you want to be generous, do it with a glad, cheerful heart and stop talking bad about your sister.” – Dr. John (94:16)
  • Key Quote:

    “I think the root is she’s family… [but] you are just making up for something.”
    — Jade Warshaw (92:51)

6. Insurance & Emergency Planning

Timestamps: 22:02–23:35

• Point: Skimping on insurance may seem like a cost-saving approach, but it can lead to financial ruin in an emergency.
• Action: Use the Ramsey Coverage Checkup to ensure you have necessary protection for your stage of life.

7. Helping the Next Generation

Caller: Scott from Jacksonville, FL
Timestamps: 107:08–110:59

• Situation: Grandparent wanting to help grandkids with funds beyond just tuition.
• Advice:
  • “Start by coordinating with parents to see what kind of accounts make sense—529 for education, or UTMAs for flexible use.” – Jade (108:40)
  • Overfunded 529s are now more flexible (can roll over to Roth IRA), so that’s a safe default for most.

8. Balancing Spending & Comfort

Caller: Kevin from Houston, TX
Timestamps: 121:34–126:06

• Dilemma: When is it OK to splurge? (E.g., buying an "Economy Plus" seat on a flight)
• Framework: Ensure you’re out of debt, on a budget, properly insured, saving for the future, and prioritizing generosity—THEN spend on comfort without guilt.
  • “Feeling better is OK. You can do all this to enjoy life’s comforts.” – Dr. John (124:03)
  • Key Quote:

    “If you’ve checked those five green lights… you should spend money on fun. F U N.”
    — Jade Warshaw (125:42)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |-----------|---------|-------| | 03:58 | Dr. John Deloney | "We have a math problem that we gotta solve asap." | | 08:23 | Jade Warshaw | "Pay minimums on everything... Wait until your court battle so that can be settled in court." | | 16:13 | Jade Warshaw | "The problem here is choices." | | 17:27 | Dr. John Deloney | "You’re right on the threshold of being totally free...call a realtor today." | | 26:09 | Dr. John Deloney | "The bigger issue here is not your parent’s financial situation. It’s that your fiancé is prioritizing his parents over your partnership." | | 27:00 | Jade Warshaw | "I would not marry this person until we have figured out how to solve this." | | 63:21 | Jade Warshaw | "Hold on to the building. It's a wonderful asset and will continue to go up in value." | | 94:16 | Dr. John Deloney | "You can't enable somebody and then complain that they are failure to launch." | | 124:03 | Dr. John Deloney | "Feeling better is ok... If you can pay cash for it and it makes your day better, do it." | | 125:42 | Jade Warshaw | "If you’ve checked those five green lights… you should spend money on fun. F U N." |

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• 00:13 — Lee’s marital debt crisis
• 10:36 — Dean’s real estate & personal chaos
• 23:35 — Amy’s struggle with in-law financial boundaries
• 54:33 — Brenda’s post-disaster and business dilemma
• 86:29 — Roger’s family-enabling question
• 107:08 — Scott’s grandchild estate planning
• 112:04 — Mike’s house payment & life change
• 121:34 — Kevin’s “when is it okay to splurge?” call

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Tone & Style

The hosts mix tough love and compassion, directly confronting caller’s mistakes while encouraging proactive, hopeful steps. Jade is pragmatic, organized, and solution-oriented; John brings empathy and psychological insight. Both push for clarity, boundaries, and forward motion.

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Takeaways for Listeners

• Financial chaos is often a symptom of life chaos. Addressing habits, boundaries, and emotional triggers is as important as the numbers.
• Don’t pay more than the minimum on debts when legal or life circumstances are uncertain.
• Don’t tie your life to someone who disregards your needs or enables destructive patterns—whether romantic or familial.
• If you’re in a financial hole, it’s rarely solved by taking on more complexity, risk, or debt. Simplify, sell, or cut until you have margin.
• Once you’ve reached stability (out of debt, saving, insured, generous), you can upgrade your life with zero guilt.

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This episode is a must-listen for anyone feeling overwhelmed by debt, family drama, or the emotional rollercoaster of managing money. Expect wisdom, accountability, and encouragement to break the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle—plus some laughs about shorts and Oreos along the way.

Transcript

[Sponsor/Announcer]

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today.

[Jade Warshaw]

Normal is broke. Common sense is weird. So we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network in the Fair Winds Credit Union studio. This is the Ramsey Show. If you want to get involved in the conversation about your life and your money, it's easy to do that. The number is 888-2552 and we'll get you on the line. I'm Jade Warshaw. Next to me, Dr. John Deloney chopping it up with you for the next couple hours. Let's go to the phone lines where we have Lee, who's in Charlotte, North Carolina. Lee, what's going on? How can we help? Hi.

[Caller Lee]

I'm so excited. This is a happy day so I can get to talk to you guys. So recently, my husband left four weeks ago today. And the reason why he left is because I had found out that he took. There was a back in 2021. He never paid a debt. And I went to go get renovations on my house and found out that there was a lien against my home and it was in his name. So this was 2021. So since then, in December, I paid that lien off with a HELOC loan because I didn't want it to go against my house. He was on the deed. Since then, I have found out major lease.

[Caller Brenda]

Sorry.

[Jade Warshaw]

It's okay.

[Caller Lee]

Stuff that he's done.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

So he got called and I guess he may be getting garnished wages because.

[Caller Lee]

He left after I gave him a few choice words. And I found out that he had changed his address and that the state was coming after him from our 2024 IRS that we filed together. That was the only year and he. They took his half and then he took mine. So I am drowning here because he left. He has not held as responsibility any of the debt. So in North Carolina, they can take your 401k. They can take your half in your house. Okay, so I have worked.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Oh, go ahead, go ahead and go ahead.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

So I was.

[Caller Lee]

For eight years, I have worked my.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Tail off for my 401k where I.

[Caller Lee]

Put it in a Ross. So I'm gaining like $3,000 a month. I'm 59 years old.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, so let me back up. Let me back up here. Okay? Help me, Help me understand your. The situation in your marriage. Are y'.

[Jade Warshaw]

All.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Are y' all still married?

[Caller Lee]

Yes, but he left. And I will not.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

It's. It's done.

[Caller Lee]

It's a done deal.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, so have you have you met with an attorney yet?

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Yes. Yes.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, so he. Y' all have separate houses or he put your house up as collateral on some loans? Has he just been running around running up debts and doing all kind of wild stuff?

[Caller Lee]

Okay, well, so what happened was when we got married, which we should have been a red flag. I had good credit, so I put the house mortgage is. He's on the deed, so.

[Jade Warshaw]

The mortgage.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Yes, yes.

[Caller Lee]

Well, that's when they come after him. They put a lien on my house, which I couldn't stand that, so I took care of that.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, you took the heloc. How much was it, Lee?

[Caller Lee]

It would have started out at 21,000, but he disregarded. It was 27,000.

[Jade Warshaw]

So the HELOC was 27,000.

[Caller Lee]

And I had to pay two more.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Loans off that I did when he wasn't working.

[Jade Warshaw]

And what were those?

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Those were.

[Caller Lee]

It was total 48,000.

[Jade Warshaw]

So 48,000 of personal loans. Two.

[Caller Lee]

It was the.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

The HELOCs.

[Caller Lee]

Total 48. 27 was his lien. And then the other two were loans that I took out because he's not been stable working.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, so here's what we need to do. I want you to hear what Jade is doing, okay? You have several things going on at once. One, you're really upset with yourself.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Yes.

[Dr. John Deloney]

The second thing is you've been completely taken advantage of by a dishonest, not good man. And number three, you have a big financial mess. And so what we don't want to do is let the shame you feel right now and the anger you feel right now towards the people involved cloud the judgment of. We have a math problem that we gotta solve asap, and that's what Jade's walking through with you. Okay.

[Caller Lee]

Okay.

[Jade Warshaw]

All right. Thank you. So I just wanna clarify the numbers. Is it 75,000 total, which would be 70, which would be 27 of a HELOC and 48 of personal loans, or was the 27 part of the 48?

[Caller Lee]

Part of the 48.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, so it's 48,000 total. Okay, so. And that's the only debt to speak of? Or is there other things? Are there cars? Are there other things that you guys are involved in together and separately, money wise?

[Caller Lee]

Yes, there is.

[Jade Warshaw]

Tell me about those.

[Caller Lee]

Since he left, I had to use my credit card to get my attorney fee for 4700. And then I had to use some of it to live on because he just went drastically. I have $14,000 on a car loan that I have.

[Jade Warshaw]

And tell me before you go to the Car. You told me that you had 47 from attorney's fees, and then you said you were also living on it. So tell me the total amount of credit card debt.

[Caller Lee]

Right now it's 5,400.

[Jade Warshaw]

5,400. Okay, great. And then there's 14,000 of car debt.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Right.

[Jade Warshaw]

Anything else?

[Caller Lee]

And then the HELOC and them a home, which is 137,000.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay. 137 is what you owe on the mortgage. Okay.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Yes.

[Jade Warshaw]

So here's the thing. You've already started, and John will probably talk to you a little bit more about this. You've already started the process of getting a lawyer. You're getting a divorce. Okay, that's happening. How long were you married?

[Caller Lee]

We were married nine years. Total 11 years together.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, nine years. So there's a good chance that a lot of this is going to be split up and you're not going to be left holding the bag on this. Okay. So I. In many ways, you kind of have to push pause on whatever your steps forward are because we don't know what the courts is going to say about this. Now what you can do today is. Yeah, now is the time to separate your finances. You have your own account. You guys are no longer sharing anything. The good news is his name is not on the, on the mortgage. So probably you'll end up figuring out some situation where you keep the house and maybe you have to cash out his amount, if that even works out that way. But there's a lot up in the air because of this money and, and how it's going to be divided. So today let's focus on, instead of thinking about the debt and all that, let's focus on are you able to eat and pay your personal bills today? Are you working?

[Caller Lee]

Yes, yes, I do have a good job.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, what do you earn?

[Caller Lee]

80,000.

[Jade Warshaw]

Excellent. And what do you do for work?

[Caller Lee]

I'm a property manager.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, great. So you've got 80,000 when you take home your paycheck, how much is it.

[Caller Lee]

Every month now that I backed off on my 401k? It's 1920. About 2100. It'll be about 2100.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, next check every two weeks. So you're four, two hundred dollars a month. Great. And are you using an every dollar budget? Because that's going to give you a lot of peace right now.

[Caller Lee]

No, I'm not.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, before you hang up the line, we're going to get you with a budget because what you need to know today is that Lee can take care of herself. Each and every month. We're putting the debt on the shelf right now because nobody knows what will be with that until we come of court. But on 4200, can you pay your mortgage? How much is your mortgage every month?

[Caller Lee]

Thank goodness the mortgage is only 1079. Excellent line, but see, I have one question. The 27,000, he accrued that the month before we got married. But I'm paying for it. He's not giving me anything.

[Jade Warshaw]

I understand, Lee, but we don't. John and I don't get to decide how that money, how that debt is split up.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Only pay the minimum and keep it from getting any higher. Pay the minimum balance, and then when you go to court, your attorney should use that in his quiver or her quiver to help protect you. Okay.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Yeah, it just, it's.

[Caller Lee]

Yeah, I get it. And thank you so much. It helps me a lot.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So much anger and frustration and shame and rage all wrapped up here and you got to deal with a math problem ahead of you.

[Jade Warshaw]

Uh huh. And so for you, yeah, knowing that you have the piece of being able to pay your mortgage, you can cover your four walls, your food, your utilities, your transportation. You have the money to do that. And like John said, pay minimums on everything else. Do not try to pay these debts. Wait until your court battle so that this can be settled in court.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Don't take out any more debt. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Most of us are guilty of over sharing with the wrong person sometimes. And as fun as it can be to talk to people about everyday stuff, when you need help with relationships, anxiety, depression or other clinical issues, random people may not have the right answers. Sometimes you need real guidance from a licensed therapist who follows a strict code of conduct. Someone who's actually trained to sit with hurting people. And that's why I recommend reaching out to my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is the largest online therapy provider in the world. That means no matter what you're facing, they've probably got someone who specializes in exactly what you're struggling with. BetterHelp is totally online, which makes it easy to fit therapy into your busy schedule. To get started, just answer a few simple questions, nothing scary, and they're going to connect you with a licensed therapist who fits your needs. Plus, if it's not the right fit, you can switch anytime for no extra cost. BetterHelp has been matching people with therapists for over 10 years, and their 4.9 rating shows that they usually get it exactly right. Find the right one with BetterHelp, visit betterhelp.com Ramsey to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H-E-L-P.com Ramsey.

[Jade Warshaw]

Dean is in Reno, Nevada. What's going on, Dean? How can we help today?

[Caller Dean]

Hi, guys. Thank you for having me.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, you bet. What's up?

[Caller Dean]

I was, I was calling because I had a question. I have two properties. I'm 29 years old. I have two properties in Bozeman, Montana. And I have. One of the homes has about 260,000 in equity. I am 125,000 in debt. And I'm trying to decide what the best route is here. Whether I sell and cash out, become debt free and invest the rest of that money, or if I hold that house for more long term gains. Because that would be original plan.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, let me run the numbers out in a way that I can see them on paper. So the first property, tell me what you owe on it and tell me, tell me what it's worth and what you think you'll pull from the sale on property number one.

[Caller Dean]

So property one, I owe 188,000 and it's worth about four. It's worth between 450 to about 470. So we can just say 450 on that. That would leave 260,000.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, that's the one. Okay, that's the first one you spoke about. Okay. And then tell me about property number two. What do you owe on it?

[Caller Dean]

Property number two is a joint property with my girlfriend. That one is. We paid. Oh, sorry. We owe 430,000 and it's worth about maybe five. Five if we're lucky. We just put it on the market. But it didn't go for what we were asking and we weren't. We were going to lose our butts on it, so we decided to pull out of that and just keep it rented.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, so you're renting that one now. Is it losing money? Is it breaking even? Tell me about the rental situation.

[Caller Dean]

So we bought that at the peak of the market. That one is breaking even. The mortgage on it is $3,009 a month. We're charging 3,000 for rent. The other property is. Hold on.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You're actually losing money on that then, correct?

[Caller Dean]

Yes.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Because that doesn't. There's no. There's no upkeep, there's no emergency fund, there's no roof needs to be replaced. You're just barely. You're treading water on that one.

[Caller Dean]

Yes, sir.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay.

[Caller Dean]

Yes, sir.

[Jade Warshaw]

So now that we kind of see the, the Picture here, one's got 260 of equity. One's got, I don't know, maybe after fees, 50 of equity. Is that fair enough?

[Caller Dean]

I would say less than that. Probably around 20, 30.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, 20 to 30.

[Caller Dean]

So, I mean, we're in at 30,000 with the remodel.

[Jade Warshaw]

So in, in total, you've got about 2,000. You're sitting on about 20, 80 of equity.

[Caller Dean]

Yeah, that's fair.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, now, in the beginning, you said, I'm 125,000 in debt. Tell me about that.

[Caller Dean]

So on the first house. Well, is that consumer debt?

[Jade Warshaw]

Because clearly you're in more debt than that. So were you talking about consumer debt?

[Caller Dean]

Yeah. So the first house, I pulled a HELOC on it, and that was 50 for 55, 000, and I still owe 54, 000 on it.

[Jade Warshaw]

And when you, when you quoted me the numbers, was that including the 55k when you told me you owe 188 on it?

[Caller Dean]

No, no, I, I, I was keeping that separate.

[Jade Warshaw]

Got you. Okay, so separate, 55,000 in HELOC. What else?

[Caller Dean]

And then 20,000. I did a debt arbitrator, so there's 20,000 in a debt arbitrator loan.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay.

[Caller Dean]

And then I have, so my dad, he gifted me 50,000 for the first house purchase, but that's been a huge problem, and I've listened to the show a lot, so I feel very guilty.

[Jade Warshaw]

So you got to give dad back.

[Caller Dean]

50 when I did. I mean, it was never discussed under that, but it's created problems.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Get it back to him.

[Caller Dean]

Getting it back.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, so that's, that's, that's the 125. Okay, so this is pretty simple. I think, I think you need to sell both of these properties. Where are you living? Where do you live.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Currently?

[Caller Dean]

It's messy. My, my girlfriend and I, we have a son together, and we are working hard to try to figure things out right now.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I know, but where do you live?

[Caller Dean]

So I'm back, I'm back currently with my father.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, so you're living with dad. Are you paying, are you paying any rent? Basically, I'm trying to find out if you have living expenses.

[Caller Dean]

Yeah, so my living, I do pay rent. My living expenses total about 3,500amonth.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, and what's your income?

[Dr. John Deloney]

3,500Amonth?

[Caller Dean]

Yeah, because of.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

You feel like that's high and, oh.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Child support and all that. Okay, all right, you're right. You're right.

[Jade Warshaw]

What's your income for this? 3,500amonth expenses.

[Caller Dean]

It's it's roughly 8, 400 good. Or 84,000 a year. But I'm starting a new job September 22nd. That'll push me to 100 to 120,000.

[Jade Warshaw]

Great.

[Caller Dean]

Depending on overtime.

[Jade Warshaw]

So here's, here's the problem. That's not the problem. The problem is not your money. Okay. Because it's really easy for you to go ahead and sell these properties, kick out this heloc, pay back your dad, get out this loan arbitrator. You've make plenty of money to support your $3,500 of expenses every month. The problem here is choices. And John can talk to you about that because you've, you're just creating a life of chaos. You're going out and getting properties you can't afford and then you're buying them with your girlfriend and then you're having a baby with somebody that you're fully in a committed relate. Like you're doing things that's just creating drama and that's really where the problem is.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah. And you know that, right?

[Caller Dean]

Absolutely. And I, I don't know if this is necessary to mention, but I, I just got sober.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I'm proud.

[Caller Dean]

That was a very big struggle.

[Dr. John Deloney]

How far along are you?

[Caller Dean]

I'm coming up to two months.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You're about to get 60 day chip. I.

[Caller Dean]

Well, I'm not an AA. I'm just doing this by myself.

[Dr. John Deloney]

All right. Today you go to a first meeting. Okay?

[Caller Dean]

Okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yes. All right, good. How old are you, brother?

[Caller Dean]

I'm 29.

[Dr. John Deloney]

29. All right, here's the deal, dude. You're about to cross the threshold today. And if you go to your first meeting today and you call a realtor and you can go to ramseysolutions.com and find a trusted realtor in your area. And so I'm going to put both these properties up today and you make a financial plan within 90 days to get out of your dad's house and get your own place. Even if it's a one bedroom apartment, you're going to cross that threshold at 30 sober. You don't owe anybody any money. You make six figures and you can begin to wrap your head around becoming the dad that you didn't have and the dad that you want to be. And you and your girlfriend can work on your relationship and if, if it's worth investing in, you'll go get a marriage counselor and see if we're going to make this a run of this thing or not or whatever. But I want you to hear you're underwater and you can you. It feels like you can't see. And you got all this debt here and you're trying to do this. You owe this guy money. Your dad's calling. And Jade and I are seeing a guy who's right on the threshold of being completely and totally free from substances, from the demons, from identity crisis, and from the money. Do you see how close you are to the edge?

[Caller Dean]

Yes, sir.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You're right there, man. You are right there. You've got all the tools and you're making six figures, which tells me if you've been able to do that with all the chaos in your life. Yep, bro, when you get these chains off you, you're going to. You're going to be at $250,000 in the next 24 months.

[Jade Warshaw]

Unstoppable.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You're right there. But I will tell you this. It's my promise to you, you cannot white knuckle this.

[Caller Roger]

Yeah, it's been tough.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I know. You got to walk through the doors of a meeting and sit down and say, hey, my name is. My name is. My name is Dean and I'm struggling. That's today. Okay?

[Caller Dean]

Okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And I promise there'll be a meeting in your area. Game on, brother. Day one. It's day 30 or day 60, but we're gonna give you day one today. I'm proud of you, man. Proud of you. And Jada, love what you said. It's not the money.

[Jade Warshaw]

It's not the money. He's making money. He's a smart guy. He can clear this debt literally the moment these houses sell.

[Dr. John Deloney]

But he's so smart that he fell for. You're stupid if you don't have rental properties in this false truth called passive income. And you're stupid if you don't have this, and you're stupid if you don't have that. And then you wake up and you're almost 30 and you're struggling with substance and you live with your dad and it's about doing the next right, wise thing.

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[Jade Warshaw]

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[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Foreign.

[Jade Warshaw]

Listen. When you're tackling debt or building wealth, people can often forget about one important step to reaching their goals. Insurance. Duh. Having the right coverage, as opposed to too little or too much can really impact how long it takes to accomplish those goals. Skimping out on insurance might seem like saving money, but trust me, when life happens, it's easy to fall back into debt without a safety net. The right insurance acts as a shield around your loved ones and your wallet when disaster strikes. And in some cases, it can even save you money if you're paying too much for insurance or if you got bogus insurance like the cell phone insurance or like warranty insurance. That sort of deal. So how do you know if you have the right coverage? Take the Coverage Checkup. It's a free online resource that creates a personalized insurance action plan that's unique to you and your situation. It makes an overload, it makes an overly confusing topic easy to understand and gives you very clear next steps. So go to ramseysolutions.com checkup to take the Coverage checkup or click the link in the description if you're listening on YouTube or podcast. I love talking about this, John. I'll. I've told you before, when Sam and I used to rattle through life with no insurance, just. Just living on the edge like Aerosmith with. With nothing.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You're crazy.

[Jade Warshaw]

And then my husband broke his finger and I was like, listen, head on over there to cvs.

[Dr. John Deloney]

We're doing this.

[Jade Warshaw]

Get you some tape. Like that's all you have? Oh my gosh. Yeah, you need insurance. It's important. All right. Amy is in Wisconsin. Amy, how can we help today?

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

So I'm wondering how. How can I nicely tell my fiance that her parents financial shortcomings aren't his job to solve?

[Jade Warshaw]

Ooh, I'm looking at John.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, I, I mean, my first answer would be just to read back what I mean to Say back what you just said to. Sit down and say, hey, honey, your, your parents financial challenges aren't yours to solve. I'm assuming that you've tried that in 1700 other iterations of that. And so I think the deeper question is less about you asking him, it's you asking yourself, do I want to here at the doorstep, Do I want to be married to somebody who will put his parents financial shortcomings ahead of the family that we are about to start co creating together? That's the real question here.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

All right, I just, I mean, I understand some of us, some of it, but like it's. At some point we were paying their mortgage and you know, tell us how.

[Jade Warshaw]

The conversation goes when you say what John said, which is, honey, dear, I. I can't live like this. Your parents, their struggles, they're not your fault. We can't solve them. We've got to solve our own for our own financial peace. What does that conversation look like? And what does he do?

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

It's usually, I mean, it never really ends in a fight or anything like that, but it's, it's usually like, you're still my parents. I don't want to see them fail. And I mean, I get that, I do. But like, at what point is it, at what point do you let them learn for them, their selves?

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, listen, you're right. You are correct. So you don't have to convince us that there's a point. He's beyond the point. My question is, is he an only child? Is there some sort of hardship that's caused them to have financial struggles or is it truly just misbehavior with money and he's the responsible sibling and feels like he's the hero.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

He's the oldest of four. And no, there isn't really anything that's causing them to lose money. It's like they have a bunch of pets and they can't pay their light bills so they go out and get a dog, you know?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, like, yeah, but, but you gotta, you have, you have to metabolize that. The bigger issue here is not your parent, not your future in law's financial situation. It's that you sat down with your fiance and say, said, hey, this is a big deal to me and your choices are impacting our life together. And he said, no, I don't care. I'm gonna keep doing what I'm doing. That to me is the bigger issue here.

[Jade Warshaw]

It's a big deal.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And by the way, this will show up again when you'll get married. This will show up again when you'll buy a house. This will show up again when y' all start having kids. This kind of indifference to you saying, hey, this is really important to me. And him going, yeah, I don't care. That's going to keep showing up. And you have to ask yourself, am I going to sign up for this for the rest of my life?

[Jade Warshaw]

Life that. Listen, what John is saying is so true. Amy, I'll tell you a piece of advice that my mom gave me when I got married. She said, the behavior you allow now is the behavior you'll allow for the rest of your marriage. And so it was basically saying, if I let this slide now, to John's point, I'm going to keep seeing this type of behavior play out, play out because I've allowed it. And I said, this is okay. And people treat you the way you allow them to treat you. So if you say it's okay, then it is okay. So I would not. This is hot take. I would not marry this person until we have figured out how to solve this. And I have seen how he enters into and solves conflict.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Absolutely. And by the way, neither Jade nor I are against supporting parents at all. But I want to do it in the right order. I want to put our oxygen mask on first and make sure. As for me, in my house, we've got our four walls taken care of. We are able to financially support somebody else. And my guess is that y' all are struggling too financially. Do y' all live together?

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

We do, actually. We got engaged and then recently after found out that we were pregnant.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, so y' all are. Have your own financial challenges ahead of you and you're concerned that he's putting money in their account and they're being irresponsible. It's not even a matter of them, like, struggling with poverty or health issues. They're just making bad choices. Is right. Jade is so right. You have to have the deeper, harder conversation. Because right now, your fiance's parents financial situation, that's just the proxy war. That's not the real issue. The real issue is you said, hey, this matters to me. And he said, yeah, I don't care, or they're more important than you.

[Jade Warshaw]

And in many ways, he's now also continuing that same chain of bad financial behavior and making bad financial choices.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Right.

[Jade Warshaw]

Because choosing to pay for something that's. That's neither your responsibility or priority instead of what actually is. Yeah, that. That's how you get in the situation that the. In Laws are in. So he's starting to repeat that behavior, which is a red flag.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

All right, all right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So let me. You're not crazy. Okay? You're not crazy. And by the way, this isn't the only thing he disregards. What you want or feel is a it.

[Caller Dean]

No, no.

[Dr. John Deloney]

These kind of things don't happen in a vacuum. People don't work together and they're not aligned on vision and goals and values and priorities. And then there's one weird thing over here that's just not how people operate. And so you have to be honest with yourself. And by the way, you're in his life forever because y' all created a human together, right? So there's going to be some peacemaking here. But it's not too late to not bind this thing together legally and get into a big. A bigger mess, if you will. You are already connected forever. But I want you to be honest about the state of your relationship and how he dedicates his life to service to you and vice versa, or how he is just dragging you along through whatever he gets good and ready to do in the world.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

All right, so. So I guess, do I stop asking nicely at this point? Do I just say, hey, dude, get.

[Caller Brenda]

Your head out of your butt?

[Dr. John Deloney]

I think it's. It's when you enter into those conversations with you with the word you. Y O u. When you start those conversations with the word you first, you're, you're starting a fight, you're declaring war and he's going to defend himself. What's more important here is for you to come up with your or what statement. I am going to fill in the blank. I will not be married to somebody who puts other people's priorities ahead of ours. I will not marry somebody who doesn't care what I want or what I feel or what I want to co create. I will not engage in. And so it's not about you need to get your head out of your butt. It is gently and firmly and in full control. I will not fill in the blank or I am going to fill in the blank. That's the declaration. And then he gets to decide does he want to be a part of this thing or not?

[Jade Warshaw]

Ooh, tough stuff, John. Tough stuff. We're rooting for you, Amy.

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[Jade Warshaw]

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[Dr. John Deloney]

All right, today's question comes from Veronica, Ms. Veronica Vaughn in California. She writes, my husband and I are less than a year away from being debt free. We are self employed and have been married for 28 years. My husband is a hustler who works seven days a week. I'm worried that when there's no more debt, he won't be as motivated as he's leaving the house in the morning. He'll often ask me, how much do I need to make today? How do we continue the hustle when we get to the investing, saving part and we quote, unquote, don't need the money.

[Jade Warshaw]

I love this question. I like this question a lot. So I see what you're saying, Veronica, about you're wondering if he's going to lose, like take his foot off the gas or like lose motivation. But I think it's actually the opposite. So let me kind of explain that. I think, John, that when you are in debt, debt rules all. It is the driver of everything, working.

[Dr. John Deloney]

All day for that guy's money.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah. I mean, but it's it, you're right, it is a driver. I've got to make money so that in the, so that is so that I can pay off debt so that I can keep making more payments. Right. So your mind in many ways is very limited to that thing when the debt is gone. In many ways it's like, you know, when you've been wearing a pair of tight jeans all day or like a tight, you finally or you get home, you take your wig off, you're like, oh, I can breathe. Like I can finally just be comfortable and I can look and see other opportunities and other things. It's not just, you know, tunnel vision. Goggles on my debt. And so there's part of this that, yeah, when you're out of debt, things will change. Priorities will change. You guys might look at your life and go, oh, my gosh, we thought this was the goal. But now that we can see and we're comfortable and we can actually afford to have options in life, right. You start to look at other things that might have been. That might be important to you that you never could have even thought about before. So I do think you might see a shift. But it doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. It really is. You know, Dave Ramsey, John says all the time when he's talking to small businesses, he's like, yeah, move at the speed of cash. Because when you have debt, it changes the decisions that you make. It changes the spirit in which you do things, because there is a lot tied to debt. Now. You've created this pressure in your life, right, to pay the debt. And it's the same thing in personal life when that pressure to pay that debt is gone. Yeah. You can look up and go, you know what? We see it all the time on the show. I want to be a stay at home mom, you know? Or you look up and go, you know what? We thought that what we really wanted was to buy a bunch of new cars right after the debt was gone. But really what we want is to just enjoy life. And suddenly, maybe you don't want to take a vacation. Maybe you just want to sit at home and enjoy your home. Right? There's so many things that shift and change because that barrier that was on your heart and mind is just gone. So I would say let's see what happens. Let's not make it a problem or let's talk about it now. Yeah, we need to talk about it now. That's good. But you won't know.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You won't know. But also, I. Your husband needs to stop working seven days a week and hustling when you don't own. Have any debt. Veronica. So if you're already hating on him in the future, like, he's not going to want to work seven days a week. No, he shouldn't. Y' all are running from your life for. For your lives right now. And so what. What is it always. We're. We're going to shift to being intentional with this, right? And. But I think there's a man. There's such a problem in modern, probably all marriages, but modern marriages, which is. I need to have a conversation. I imagine a future where this thing happens and then you're gonna do a thing and I start getting mad at you about the thing or frustrated with you about the thing that hasn't even happened yet, that I don't even have proof is gonna happen. So just spinning out the conversation now and not with. Are you going to be as dismotivated? We don't own any money. Not that way. But hey, we're getting really close to being out of debt. What does our life want to look like then? Like you were talking about, like, what do we want this thing to look like? And he probably is going to say, I'm tired of working seven days a week, 365 days a year. I want to exhale.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And you might say, well, I like how much money you make when you work seven days a week and I can't wait to spend all of that money on me and us. And you only have that hard conversation.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, I agree.

[Dr. John Deloney]

This sounds like a, it's an imagination, but it's, it's a, it's a, it's an imaginary character assassination. You know what I mean? It's very close to contempt. It's very close to like, I'm up here and I work really hard and I'm afraid he is just going to stop.

[Jade Warshaw]

It's almost like, have you ever had a dream about your spouse doing something?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Oh, and you wake up and you.

[Jade Warshaw]

Wake up mad and you're kind of like playing it out and they're like.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I walk into the kitchen in multiple times to get a cup of coffee and I can feel my wife is mad. I'm like, what happened? And she's like, in my dream, what you did in that dream. I'm like, what? And she'll say, I know it's irrational, but I'm still mad. And I'll be like, okay, I'll.

[Jade Warshaw]

This is that though, right? Like it's a scenario that played out in your mind and you have told no one about it to, to even see if it's real or not. So yeah, John, I agree. Have the conversation. And yeah, there's going to be a lot of unknowns. That's okay. But at least say what you're thinking, which is, you know, how do you think you're going to feel when we're out of debt? You don't have to say it in an accusatory way.

[Dr. John Deloney]

What do you want to. What do we think our work life is going to look like? What do we think this small business is going to look like? This self employed business? What are we what are we? Like, whatever. And if you've been hanging on to something for almost three decades of marriage. Because I'm also seeing how many wives would love for their husband to turn around as they're leaving the house and say, how much money you want me to make today?

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And she goes, this much? He's like, I'm on.

[Jade Warshaw]

Got it.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Right.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

It might be that he thinks he's loving you every morning, Veronica. And if you tell him, hey, when you ask that question, it kind of freaks me out and makes me think you're trying to do the bare minimum. And he might say, no, no, no, I'm trying to. I'm trying to show you that I'm all in for us. Like, it's.

[Jade Warshaw]

Or he might.

[Dr. John Deloney]

He might lose conversations.

[Jade Warshaw]

The only way that he can earn her, like, is. Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Because he's working seven days a week. And I didn't seem to be getting it. So maybe if I. Anyway, it's having those bigger conversations that I think are awesome.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

But, yes, I found. To your point. I found myself. I worked really hard to get out of debt that. And I thought peace would be taking my foot off the gas. And it was actually an opposite. Once I realized, oh, now I can earn money for you forward, not just paying some other guy that I already took it from. I wanted to work so much more because I realized, oh, I. I can do it, and it's going to be mine. It's going to be ours. And so that changed my whole. The whole trajectory there.

[Jade Warshaw]

Oh, good stuff. All right. Thanks for the question. Really, really good. Let's go to the phone lines. We got Brett, who's in Maine. Hey, Brett. What's up? How can we help today?

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

All right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Good afternoon.

[Caller Dean]

Hope both are doing good. My question for you is, I've been dating this girl for a little bit now, and we both kind of came into this with the idea, like, we are dating, fair intentions to marry.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah.

[Caller Dean]

And I'm very much a planner, and so I'm kind of curious what your thoughts are for budgeting for an engagement ring and where the best source of pools of money in different spots. Like, where the best source, whether it's drawing from investment accounts or if it's better just to start saving up and so you don't have to hamper or touch the investments at all, kind of what the best route to go for that.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah. Excellent question. I. Listen, congrats on the successful relationship. I 100% would not pull the money out of any investment accounts. Like, those are Plugged in for a reason. They're there to build wealth for the future. So don't rob yourself by draining those accounts. Plus, you don't want to get hit with fees and taxes. Right? It sounds like this is something that you can cash flow over time and just save up for what you're looking for. You know, we would say 30 days. You know, 30 days of work is probably a good place to start. Some people might argue that and say it needs to be a little more or some people might say it needs to be a little less. At this point, it really is about what you. I mean, obviously you want to get a ring that you think she's gonna like and you know, that sort of thing. But it's pretty simple. Save up 30 days worth. What do you say, John?

[Dr. John Deloney]

What I say, don't call strangers on a podcast and ask them this question. Like, save up what you think the ring is. Is. Is a good amount. I mean, yeah, we've, I've taken calls on the show where it's like, hey, I'm spending 25, 000. And my personal. I was like, you're an idiot. And Dave was like, no, he's not. And so, yeah, everybody's different on this deal. And so it's what you can afford.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yes.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You pay cash for what is it like it's two months salary? No, it's not. But it might be one month, it might be four months salary. It just depends. It depends. And some of you guys can go put a quarter in one of those little tourney things in front of the pizza parlor.

[Jade Warshaw]

Please don't do that.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Whatever you do, you boo. Just pay cash.

[Jade Warshaw]

That's it. Oh, that does it for this hour of the show. Keep on listening. We got more coming at you.

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[Caller Dean]

It.

[Jade Warshaw]

Normal is broke. Common sense is weird. So we're here to help you transform your life from The Ramsey Network in the Fair Ones Credit Union studio. This is the Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshaw. Next to me, Dr. John Deloney, taking calls about your life, your money for the next couple hours. Triple 882-55-5225 is the number that gets you on the line. Let's go to the phone lines. We got Darby in Nebraska. What's up, Darby?

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Hey, thank you guys for taking my call.

[Jade Warshaw]

No problem. How can we help?

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

So I have a unique situation. So I was a stay at home mom. I'm sorry.

[Dr. John Deloney]

No, you're good.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

I've been a stay at home mom for the last seven years. We found some issues with the current home that we're renting. There's nowhere else to rent in our area, even towns 20, 30 miles away. So we saved up money. We are in the middle of building a house and I went and got a job about four months ago to just give us some extra cushion. We have no debt, but I have lost several childcare options due to my son's unique medical condition, I guess you would call it. And I'm. We don't know what to do.

[Dr. John Deloney]

What, what's his medical condition? What's his challenge?

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

So we moved into this house when he was 1. He just, he just turned 5.

[Caller Lee]

Last December.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

He, he was like so non verbal. I was like, is he autistic? They did a random blood test and found out he has extremely high lead levels and it's in the dirt around the home that we live in. And he's a boy, he eats dirt. Didn't think anything of it. So, yeah, his lead levels were through the roof. I did a detox with him. He has finally started talking, but he's only been talking for the last, oh, six months or so.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So he's pretty, at this time, he's pretty delayed, right?

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Right? Yes.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Yeah. Like physically he's. He's fine.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Sure. Have you, have you got neurological testing done?

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

No, we've done.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Or have you gotten him psych evals?

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

We.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Or developmental evals?

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

No, they think that he's good because, like, he knows he can count all the way to 20. He knows all those ABCs. He recognizes numbers and letters. It's just verbal that he is behind.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Is he in a speech path program?

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Yes.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, very good. And so what is it about his speech challenges that make child care impossible?

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

So, because he, he's very independent because he, no one's been able to understand him for the longest time. So he will ask and if he's not being understood, he Just. Just goes and does it. And sometimes he's a little rebellious and he gets very frustrated and mad when he's not being understood. And he will repeat over and over a word. And. Which is like, I love his stubbornness because that's what's got us this far. Like him.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

But constantly.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Are you. Are you. Are you underselling it? Because what you're telling me, that's a very. Those are just five. I mean, it's just working with four and five and six and seven year olds or does he start smashing stuff? And I'm trying to figure out.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

He never gets. He never gets destructive.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay. Here's what I hear. I hear a mom who is underwater with guilt that somehow you did something wrong to this little boy. And I want to free you from that. He didn't. Okay. You're a good mom. Your husband's a good. A good husband. He's a good dad.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Yeah. He's a very hard worker.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I know. And you are, too. And this is a hard, messy situation because nobody likes to uncover. Oh, my gosh. The home we live in, Our one safe place, actually is responsible for making our kids sick. Nobody wants that. And here we are.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Are.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay. My fear is you guys have boxed yourself into an either or situation and now you're building a house that you can't afford or that you can barely, barely, barely afford. And maybe you couldn't rent a house, but I would have suggested if you'd called us a few months ago, get a two bedroom apartment. This is a very short term situation right now. But there's other solutions. But here we are. You've. You're building house. I'm. I'm assuming y' all are under contract and everything, this thing's going forward?

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Yeah, yeah. We've got started on it. And yeah, we have three kids.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

He's our middle.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay. Are you. Are you able to make this payment? Are y' all able to live comfortably without your salary?

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

We can. Yeah. So with. Without my salary, it's. Our monthly payment will be that, like, right at that 25%.

[Jade Warshaw]

Great.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

I. I just really want the extra cushion to. Because we have livestock and our lives are very unpredictable. And if there is something else that my middle child needs, like, I had to go do a bunch of research on this because there was no research on kids with lead poisoning.

[Dr. John Deloney]

There is countless, countless reams of research on lead poisoning in children. And if your physician doesn't know, you got to move on from that physician. It is.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Yeah, Per.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I mean, there's so much literature out there on it. Tons. And it is a big deal. It's a very, very big deal. That's why they removed it from paint. Except in older all. I don't want to derail us. It is out there a lot. Okay. But also, Googling everything can make you. It can trap you. Right?

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Yes.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So here's the bigger situation. You and your husband need to sit down and say, hey, we've created a life with a ton of variables in it, and we have three kids and we're building a home and we're moving. There's anxiety alarms ringing all throughout your house because y' all have put too much on this plate in this particular season. And it may be for this season, we're going to reduce the amount of livestock we have.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Have.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Or we're going to move our cows to another field for two years, and we're going to take that hit so that we have some margin to be with these three little kids, especially the one in the middle with special needs or. And I'm just making something up. But anytime somebody calls me and says we have this problem or that problem, either or. I want you to at least go through the exercise of putting three or four other variables on the table just to see, let's move from Nebraska. What would that look like? We can't do that.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

That.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay. At least we want to put that on the table. We are going to sell this house that we just put a thing in because I think we found a rental house. Well, we're not going to do that. So I want you to. I want you to at least go through that exercise. Do we have to have all these cows? Do we have to? Do we have to? Do we have to? And sometimes you can clear away some of the nonsense. You clear out that closet a little bit, and it's much easier to breathe in there. Okay.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And is there any other question we can help you with? I feel like I just talked over you the whole time.

[Caller Dean]

Time.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Well, yeah, we were just kind of looking at different. Like, I was kind of trying to think of creative opportunities for me to make some income from home. I do a little bit of, like, custom leather work already.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That's amazing. There's never been a better time in history to sell custom leather work all over the planet if you can get it done and get up a nice e site.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, I think that's great. I think anything that you're looking for, it sounds like right now you need money right away. So I'd probably look for Something that's already contained that you can just get started in. And then on the side I'd start the leather thing. And yeah, Ecom, that's the way to do it.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Or next door app or somewhere down the road.

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[Dr. John Deloney]

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[Dr. John Deloney]

And. Oh, you're telling me. And for decades, Dave, I've sat across people who've lost a spouse, they've lost somebody important to them.

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[Dr. John Deloney]

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[Jade Warshaw]

If you enjoy the Ramsey show, let somebody know about it. It take the time to share an episode of the show or if you're watching on a platform like YouTube, take a moment to like maybe make a comment. If you're watching on Instagram, maybe watching one of those clips that we put out, use a little paper airplane and send it some to somebody else. All of that is so, so important when you like subscribe and share. It helps us in the algorithm and more people get this life changing content. We appreciate it. All right, let's go back to the phone lines where Brenda is waiting in California. Hey Brenda, what's going on? How can we help today?

[Caller Brenda]

Hello, how are you? Guys, great. First, let me just say, John, you're one of my favorite people on the radio right now, and I haven't had the guts to actually call your show. And I'm so glad that you're on because this question has a little bit of emotion attached to it.

[Dr. John Deloney]

All right, let's do it.

[Caller Brenda]

The question in its most simplicity is I wanted to know if selling my business property would be a smart move to pay off debt and give me a jump start towards, towards saving for retirement. I've opened my business when I was 20 years old. I've had it for 35 years now. And over the last, since 2019, I was diagnosed with a medical. Well, with a blood cancer. I'll just say there's no cure. However, I do feel fantastic right now. So that's not really holding me back at the moment. And then Covid, the shutdown with COVID And then in 2023, my salon was flooded in the California floods. And so I was, this is like my second go around on trying to get on the baby steps. And so I had to live off some credit cards pretty much from about 2019 to now.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

And.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Brenda, why? How come?

[Caller Brenda]

Well, well, I'll say with the flood, when the flood happened, when our community was trying to save it. I'm a one woman show, so I was literally trying to put 50 pound bags around a fan around my.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Oh, 50 pound bags of sand around my salon. And I injured myself.

[Caller Brenda]

I herniated myself.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

And because I have this type of blood cancer, when I went to have it operated on, they gave me too much blood thinner and I was internally bleeding. So I had a long recovery before I was able to adjust, you know, go and rent another chair and start working.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I, I got that. Did you, did you file malpractice against these people who poisoned you?

[Caller Brenda]

No, I didn't.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, here's what I'm trying to give you back. I'm trying to give you back some agency. A flood will take everything from you because everything's going okay. And then a natural disaster, it literally falls from the heavens and it takes everything, right?

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And it feels powerless. And then when your body gets cancer, the very instrument that you walk and breathe and talk through and love through goes to war against you. And it's scary, right?

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

It feels like you lose ages, you don't even trust your own body anymore. And then it's easy to make the next statement, which is, I had to, for the last six or seven years, live off credit cards.

[Caller Brenda]

No, I didn't live off credit cards for six or seven years. I lived off credit cards for five months.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Oh, for five months. Okay. I thought you're saying you've been doing it since 2019.

[Caller Brenda]

Okay, no, so for five months during the flood time. Because I was already on trajectory.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

So.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, so you're. You're off the sauce.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Okay, thank you.

[Dr. John Deloney]

No, no, no, I'm asking. I'm asking you. You're not using credit cards anymore?

[Caller Brenda]

No, I'm just trying to pay them down. But with 30%, you know, 29.9% interest rates, it's been really hard.

[Dr. John Deloney]

How much do you owe?

[Caller Brenda]

So I owe 24,000 in credit card debt, and I have a most the cash flow to my son's college. And So I owe 14, 5 to a parent plus and then 10 at a super low interest rate that I got during 10,000 during COVID just to survive during that, you know, disaster also.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, so a couple of things right off the top, or let me ask you one more question. How much do you make a year?

[Caller Brenda]

Okay, so there's a little trick on that. Normally, up to maybe right now, currently I'm about at 55,000. Normally I make close to 100,000. However, over the last two years, being that I was been in business for as long as I have, my clients are either starting to retire and moving where their kids are and moved out of the area or to their past income. And so as I try to rebuild, I'm not able to rebuild the clientele as fast as they're dropping off.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay.

[Caller Brenda]

Then they go and leave to other areas. So that's where I'm at right now.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So here's. Here's a couple of. This is me sitting with you at the table. Okay. Not accusational. This is me sitting with you. Okay, sure. We're going to choose reality here.

[Caller Brenda]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

The reality is, number one, you cannot afford to be paying for your son's college right now. You don't have that much money.

[Caller Brenda]

I'm going with, yeah, okay, he's out of college now.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay. And so we're going to exhale. We're not going to pay for anything that we can't afford. The second thing is you have to ask yourself, do I want to continue to be in business doing hair? Because part of your business is going to require you to really hit the streets to get new clients. And you've been doing it for a long time, and it feels like you're going all the way back to starting to square one to go get new clients. And that's what it's going to take. And you're have to learn all the new technology and Instagram and next door app and whatever. But the your clients are leaving. So you have to ask yourself, do I want to be in this business and get back in, take the cycle all the way around and start this thing again and get new clients or am I done with this?

[Caller Brenda]

No, I'm not done with it. I have a good 15, 20 years of hair in me.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, then that means you're just gonna have to choose reality and say, okay, cool, my people are dropping off. Then I'm gonna have to take one less client plant a day for the next two months and I'm gonna have to hammer the streets getting more people.

[Caller Brenda]

Yeah, I have been doing that. I have been, you know, posting. I have more visits to my website now. Like I've been every day doing that.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That's it. You're just gonna have to keep going. Keep going. There you go. Okay, so you're working on that problem. And so talk to me and Jade about the bigger issue, which is do you want to sell your property?

[Caller Brenda]

So the business that I'm a one woman show, like I said in the business, the trickery is the fact that I rented this building from my father for many years. And then about maybe, I want to say 10 years ago, he was in some financial struggles and so he, he basically deeded it over to me.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

I.

[Caller Brenda]

There's nothing owed on the property.

[Jade Warshaw]

What's it worth?

[Caller Brenda]

As of 2023, when I left, it was at 3:80.

[Jade Warshaw]

380,000. Okay, so I'm going to simplify this a little bit. My screen says I'm living off credit cards. Is selling my business a good idea? So are we talking about just selling the property? Are we talking about selling the property along with your salon book of business? What are we talking about specifically? What are you thinking about offloading to pay off this $48,000 of debt?

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

If I understood correct, the property, the.

[Caller Brenda]

Business property and building, not my actual clientele.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, okay.

[Caller Brenda]

Would go with me.

[Jade Warshaw]

And so where would you do hair if you were not doing it? Out of this building? What would be the plan?

[Caller Brenda]

Oh God, it would be a dream just to rent a chair and not have. So what I've always said is like I'm one person, two households. I have, you know, two light bills, two gas bills. Two, two of everything. And people can barely live on with two incomes in one house. I'll be safe. And so that's where I.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Where, where?

[Dr. John Deloney]

So you want to Be out of the, out of the, the building business anyway.

[Jade Warshaw]

How big is the building?

[Caller Brenda]

Property wise, the land and everything's about 3000 square feet. Actual building properties, maybe 1500.

[Jade Warshaw]

See, here's the thing, here's my question. You don't, you, you owe it, you own it outright. You don't owe anything on the property. Right, right. It's just an asset. And it sounds like you might not be this person. So if I'm putting this on you and you're like, hey, I'm just not that person, I feel like you have a great opportunity here because you've got the space that if somebody wanted to rent a chair from you, you could allow somebody in your space, I don't know, that does nails or somebody in your space that does eyebrows and, or an, an esthetician. All of those things. You have the, the ability to house those items and therefore make more money. Me and with you, I don't know what your cancer, you know, the foresight is on that and what that looks like, but on down the line, that might be really good for you. I don't know what the doctors have said, but if you come in a season where you're not able to be on your feet as much or you're doing a treatment, there's still something there that's earning money for you. So that feels like a move to me, along with hitting the pavements, like John said, to try to build your book of business. But one way to build your business is to add pieces to it that don't require as much of your personal time, time and personal effort because you're going to hit a ceiling with that really quick. There's no way to scale out of that until you add people. So there's part of me that doesn't think this is the move.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I don't think so at all.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, I think if you can just keep building your income above 4,000amonth, you can pay off this 38 to $48,000 of debt. And I think that's the move, that's what I would do. Hold on to the building. It's a wonderful asset and it's going to continue to go up in value.

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[Dr. John Deloney]

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[Jade Warshaw]

So we have a fun segment here that we like to call asking for a friend. You know what this is, John? Whenever there's something that you kind of feel embarrassed about asking about.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So I get that all the time. Hey, just asking for a friend. So what if you're. My friend's wife doesn't like him anymore. I get that all the time.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah. Asking for a friend. What is a James is always like.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Hey, I'm asking for a friend. Like, do these like really short pink shorts, like, do they like make my thighs look or My friend wants to know if it makes his thighs look. It does, James. It's good.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay. Oh, boy.

[Dr. John Deloney]

James is always asking.

[Jade Warshaw]

I don't want to ever hear the word James and thighs in the same sentence.

[Dr. John Deloney]

The single grossest thing to happen in in western fashion in the last 20 years is the increasing creep up of shorts of the male shorts. Limp Bizkit did it right in the late 90s. Shorts should be. And that's it.

[Jade Warshaw]

Oh, you are so wrong.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And they are getting higher and higher and higher.

[Jade Warshaw]

I am the one who is buying shorter shorts for my husband because. Show me the thigh.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, here we go. Upper male thigh is the grossest thing.

[Jade Warshaw]

No more. It's worse. Please, let's talk about asking for a friend. Ask for a friend. Asking for a friend. What is an asset? Why is asset coming out short shorts.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Not okay, man, we can set that up better.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay. What is an asset in the way of money? Okay, so assets. Let's just talk about that for a minute. Because a lot of times you hear, you know from the. The dude bros on, on Tick tock.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And on their short shorts. I need some assets. Dude.

[Jade Warshaw]

You need to be making money in your sleep, bro. Right, so they're talking, talking. Basically an asset is something that has a value on it, a monetary value. It's money that if you were to sell it, you would earn more money. Right. That's kind of the best way to think of it financially anyway. And so an example of that would be cash money. Right? Like that's an asset. It's money that you have. Right. When you cash flow everything, you don't need to rely on debt. So it is something that is of value to you. Something else. Real estate. Right. That's an asset. Asset. It's something that, well, it can also be a liability.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That's true.

[Jade Warshaw]

So if you have equity in a piece of real estate at that point. Yeah, it is an asset.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Can we tell everybody what equity is?

[Jade Warshaw]

Equity is if you pay money for something and as you're owning it, it continues to go up in value. So let's, let's pretend you buy a piece of real estate for $400,000 and you bought it for $400,000 in 2024. And then if you look up next year, year, and it's worth, I don't know, four hundred and sixty thousand dollars.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And you've paid forty thousand down on the principal.

[Jade Warshaw]

So now you've got a hundred thousand dollars equity. Yes. Did we do that in a way that makes sense? I hope we did. So that's the idea there. So a lot of times on the show you'll hear someone call in and they'll say, oh, I've got this real estate property. And we'll say, what do you owe on it? And they'll tell us, and then we'll say, what do you think it's worth? And then we'll do that subtraction and that will tell us what the equity equity is. Okay. Another form of asset would be an investment. Yeah, that could be your 401k. That could be a Roth IRA. Any money that's sitting in any type of investment account that is gaining interest is an investment and it is an asset. Getting out of debt and having a fully funded emergency fund is the quickest right way to build wealth. You would invest 15 of your income in a tax advantage retirement account. Like I said, that's an IRA, a 401k and yeah, that is an asset. It's a way that you're building wealth. Next, tax advantaged accounts, another type of asset. These accounts let you keep more of your money by reducing taxes now and later. Okay, so again, examples of this, a traditional IRA, a Roth IRA, an HSA. Even the 529 savings account would be an example of that. And other types of assets. Yeah, your car is an asset as long as you're not upside down. If you could sell your car and pocket the money, especially if it's a paid off car, yeah, that's an asset. Your wedding ring. If you sold your wedding ring today day and you got, you know, a couple of thousand dollars in cash, that is an asset. Boats could be assets. Again, it's. If you sell it and you receive money and you're able to receive more than what you paid for it is really what we're looking for. So you hear this a lot when we talk about net worth, John, A lot of times people don't understand the net worth equation. They think if you're a millionaire, it's because you made a million dollars. And that's really not it. It is. Your assets, which is what you own minus what you owe must be X amount of dollars, in this case, a million dollars. Right. So assets play into that equation. It's what you own that is of value. Did I cover it?

[Dr. John Deloney]

I think you got it.

[Jade Warshaw]

Did I get it? If you have questions, you can email. James Childs.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I love that you snuck asking for a friend into and asking for a friend with the equity question. That was good. I was just trying to get a little bit meta here. And by the way, short shorts, the upper male thigh, not an asset.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Big.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I think you need to bring back the Jinko shorts. Oh, gosh, I'm working on it, man.

[Jade Warshaw]

It depends on who you ask about.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Not the Jenko ones. I'm talking about, like, actual, real car hearts that people cut off to make them shorts because that's all they had the real social D punks back in the day. Those are the. Those are the guys. Hey, we saw New Fun Glory the other night at a local club here in town, and they had Long. The Long Dickies. And it made me happy.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Short should go.

[Jade Warshaw]

I'm gonna go straight onto these phone lines where I got Carrie in Phoenix, Arizona. Tell us what you think about the shorts, Carrie.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Don't it just like a man wearing pink, if he owns it, if. If he isn't, like, ashamed of it, he can pull it off.

[Jade Warshaw]

I love that. The clothes make the man. The man don't make the clothes. Wait, the man makes the clothes. The clothes don't make the man?

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

No, it's the other way around. Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Short should go past the right for a guy.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Yeah. I feel like that's not only modest or appropriate, but otherwise, you know, some guys take it too far and they get a little bit of swimming trunk if you. If, you know. No, like. Like Speedo. Oh, you know.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, we don't want that. Okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That's more George Campbell, but that's a different show. All right, so how can we help you?

[Jade Warshaw]

How can we help you?

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Okay, so did you guys hear about the storms that rolled through Phoenix a couple weeks ago?

[Dr. John Deloney]

I did. Yes, ma'.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Am. Okay. We got hit pretty hard, and I took some damage to my home, which is bringing up the question about whether or not we should do a particular remodel that we have been thinking and planning about for the last, like, six years.

[Jade Warshaw]

Wow.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

So we have, like, if we did the remodel, we would have to obviously pay for everything, including the roof. Well, now my insurance is covering the roof, making the remodel a little bit cheaper out of pocket for me.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, so what will it cost you to do the remodel without the roof cost?

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Okay, so it's not just the roof. Like my train, it picked up my trampoline and hit my back porch and tore my back porch off of my house.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yikes.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

In order to put the back porch back on, we have to move our septic tank in order to build the new back porch to code.

[Jade Warshaw]

Will insurance cover the back porch because of the trampoline? Because of the.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Yes.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, nice.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Yeah. So there's a lot of other stuff that it's going to cover. Now here's the nitty gritty numbers. Okay. We owe about 450,000 on our home, but our home's value is 1.2 million. We got locked into that 2.5 years ago. But since then, and after Covid, my husband got really sick with COVID and we were on top of every single one of our bills. We were paying everything down. And when my husband. Husband got sick and some of our bills kind of went delinquent, our credit took a hit. So we have a total of 68,000 in medical debt. We have approximately 90,000 in other loans. Between two cars and a horse trailer, personal loans, solar panels. We only have 10,000 in credit card. We have. Between my husband and I, we have about 150,000 a year in income. Come. I'm an at home mom, but I make the land work for me. So we're on two and a half acres. I board horses. I sell chicken eggs. I have like 54 chickens.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So write your question. We're up against the clock here.

[Jade Warshaw]

Well, the question Is, should you do this renovation? Right?

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Should I do the renovation, but should I do it with an HEA or a HELOC?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Please don't. No, please don't.

[Jade Warshaw]

Listen, you're already in $178,000 of dollars debt. Here's the thing. You have, you have a great opportunity. And I see the opportunity you're talking about it. You're like, hey, the insurance will pay for the roof. It'll pay for the back porch and some other things on the list that is going to cut down on your renovation costs. And if you were in a position to be able to cash flow the rest of the renovation, I'd be like, yes, I'm on your side. Go do this today. But the truth is, you're just not in that position, Carrie. You owe a lot of money in the debt and the income is great, but you're not there today. So, no, I would not do this renovation. Have insurance.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Please don't.

[Jade Warshaw]

Please don't have insurance. Fix the things that need to get fixed.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Foreign.

[Jade Warshaw]

Don't just set goals, okay? Learn how to actually reach them in the 26. The 2026 goal planner is here to help you, and it's packed with monthly content from myself, from Dr. John Deloney here, and from Rachel to help you stay on track, back with your money, with your faith, with your relationships, and actually follow through on your goals. Now, we sell out on this every single year. So seriously, guys, please do not wait to order yours. You can get one today for a very specific price of [e-mail] store or if you're watching on YouTube or in the podcast, you can go ahead and click that link in the description and you too can get your 2026 goal planner today. I'm. All right, let's go to Jay. He's in Charlotte, North Carolina. What's up, Jay?

[Caller Scott]

Hey, thanks for taking my call today.

[Dr. John Deloney]

What's up, brother?

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Daily listener. Love the show and appreciate all the advice that you guys offer on the, on the interwebs and in the radio.

[Jade Warshaw]

Thank you, Jay.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Got it. Absolutely. I got a question for you. It's kind of a, kind of short, to the point. My wife and I, we own our own home and we're. We're still working a little. I'm working full time. My wife works part time and we have two grown sons and one of them recently went overseas to go to school and we along with him put together some money for him to go over and start going to school overseas. And now he has asked us to help again and just wanted to kind of get some advice and, you know, see what you guys would. Would recommend.

[Dr. John Deloney]

What's he. What's he studying overseas?

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

That's a good question. We're not really sure.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, I would not. I would not put another penny in this.

[Jade Warshaw]

You don't know what he's studying?

[Dr. John Deloney]

None. And I am as pro higher education as anybody in this building. I promise. Maybe the top. I'm probably the most pro higher education person I know, and I would not fund my kid to leave the country to go do a thing that I don't know what's going on or what they're doing, what they're studying, what the. What the. What they are expecting to gain. And by the way, if my kid goes to college, one of my rules is you have to study abroad. I even believe in sending kids abroad. We've got to get like. I'm a huge believer in that. But you don't even know what you're putting money into, so I would not. One more penny.

[Jade Warshaw]

Jay, how much have you given him so far? Far.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

It'S. It's between. Let's say It's. It's around 10,000.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay. So.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

And, okay, his. His mother probably knows a little bit more. We think it's visual art, but we're not sure. I'm. I'm not sure.

[Jade Warshaw]

Is it. Is the uncertainty to. Answer me this. Is the uncertainty on your part or is on. Is it on his part? Has he been kind of telling you and you guys are like, okay, yeah, that. And just not taking it in, or is he being ambiguous and not being clear?

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Yeah, the second. Okay, the latter.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Did he. Did he have grades? And end of semester, if you're a VA student, you would have. Visual art student. You would have a portfolio that you've started your freshman year. So he would have examples of art and examples of all different sorts of product. Have you seen all that stuff?

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Some of it, yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Have you seen the grades?

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Been a while. No. Have not seen any grades.

[Jade Warshaw]

Level with us.

[Caller Roger]

This is.

[Jade Warshaw]

Level with us. Jay, do you think he's still in school or do you think something else.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

I do.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay. Okay.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

I do think. I do think he's in a situation where he is kind of up against the wall. He. He told us he got sick during the first. The first semester there, and he got behind on some of his classes. And I believe that he did get a job. He never had a job before when he was here, but he has a job now, but it's not enough to generate. And we did recommend maybe looking into other options like a small student loan or something like that. But really without an income, I just, I wasn't sure whether or not he was going to be able to, you know, pass and the, the formalities of getting a student loan when he didn't have a job.

[Caller Scott]

But he does have a job.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I don't know if you can get a federal student loan to qualify for an overseas. Overseas university. This. Jay, this is not. I worked the college students for 20 years. This is not passing my smell test.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, it's not sounding good, but there's two sides of it. I want to confirm that there's two sides of this here. I agree with Joe on. I would not keep shelling out money for purposes that you don't know of or what it's being used for. That's thing one. But thing two is there. It sounds like there was a lack of expectation and lack of clear conversation on, you know, how we're going to school, who's paying for it, what's on the table, what's not on the table, what my responsibility is, what your responsibility is. That conversation clearly was never had. And so, so when you do come to your son and say, hey, son, I can't give you any more money for this. Here's why. But I also want to go back and say, here's what I should have.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Done, that I do 100.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah. Does that make sense?

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

He did a lot. He did a lot of it on his own. 75% of it was done on his own. And I know we.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You still don't even know what.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Right. What I'm saying has. That has been a source of bothering me and his mother for over a year now.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So if my kid came. If my kid came to me and said, hey, I'm spending 35 grand of my own money that I saved up, would you help me with the last ten grand to go to college? I would be thrilled. Absolutely.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Sure.

[Dr. John Deloney]

But we'd still sit down before I wrote a check for $10,000 a semester, 40 grand over the course of four, four years. I would still sit down and say, what are you studying? What's your plan with this? What is your day to day going to look like? How can I love you here? And by the way, I. Again, every college is different. And I can't speak for overseas colleges. I know I spent a ton of my time taking students who got sick psychologically, physically, who know, like cancer, psychiatric issues, all of it helping them get back on their feet. And be successful that semester and. Or the next one. And so. So just. Just doesn't. Something's not adding up.

[Jade Warshaw]

Right. Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And so I love Jade. What Jade said is so important, though, because if you sit down and say, hey, I don't know what's going on. I don't. Then he's got to have to defend himself. If you sit down and say, hey, I. I blew this whole college thing, and I want to start over. I. I need some more information. I didn't do a good job. I wasn't clear up front. I didn't ask you what your major is. I didn't tell you. I want to see your. Some. I want to know what the plan is. Why are we studying overseas? What kind of job or life do you want to have? Are you going to live overseas when you get out of school and is there a visa process? Are you going to come back home? I want to know some of those questions because Jay, the question I'm hearing him ask beneath the real question is, I don't know where my son is and what's going on.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah. And he's nowhere near me. He's in another country, Right? Yeah. There's a lot going on. I'm not going to lie. Um, but I do want to make sure that I'm being really clear, just not only for Jay, but for other listeners, too. When it comes to college, John, you know, being able to pay for school, whether all of it or a portion of it, is really a privilege for both parties. It's a privilege for the child to receive it, and it's a privilege for the parent to have the financial ability to say, here's this money for your education. Like, that's an amazing thing. That being said said it's not a requirement. Like, it doesn't make you a good parent or a bad parent if you can't afford to pay it. But the one thing, money aside, the one thing you must do that is so, so important, you've got to have these conversations before the fact.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yes.

[Jade Warshaw]

And you've got to have them more than once because you hear something and, you know, information gets lost and details get forgotten. It's up to us as the parent to have these conversations and say, hey, here's what it is, is when you go to college, here's what we're going to do. We got to pick a place that you can afford. Here's what your mom and I are going to put in. Or here's what, you know, here's what dad and I are going to do. Here's what you need to do. We are expecting you to work. We're expecting you to earn 800. Like, be specific. We're expecting you to cover your room and board. We're expecting you to cover, you know, your apartment. We're expecting you to live on campus. We're expect. We're expecting to give you $3,000 a month. Month. Be so clear and talk about it as much as possible so that when the time comes, there's no question, and.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Start talking about it your freshman year of high school.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yes. Yes.

[Dr. John Deloney]

It doesn't sneak up on you. It's like Christmas. It will be there in four years. And it's a simple reverse engineering math problem to say we're going to have this many dollars in an account to help you.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You're going to be responsible for this. And by the way, here's what the top three colleges in our state cost or this is reality.

[Jade Warshaw]

Or like my dad said, hey, you ain't got a college fund, so you better be good at sports or you better get an academic scholarship. And that's the expectation.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And tell them that their freshman year of high school, not their second semester, senior year.

[Jade Warshaw]

Facts. We'll be right back.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Hey, what's up? Dr. John Deloney here. The new dates have dropped for the money and marriage getaway over Valentine's day weekend in 2027. 6. This is your chance to hit pause on everything in your life and reconnect with your spouse over a long weekend in Nashville, Tennessee. Me and my friend Rachel Cruz will be digging into topics like sex, money, communication and more. This weekend is happening on February 12th through the 14th and early bird prices start at 749 per couple, but the prices will be going up soon. Get your tickets [e-mail] events.

[Jade Warshaw]

Welcome back to the Ramsey show live in Fair Winds Credit Union studio, taking calls here with Dr. John DeLoney. I'm Jade Warshaw. And what is this? Is this Ken Coleman producing the show today?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yes, he's back there producing this segment.

[Jade Warshaw]

All right. It's gonna go off the rails. We got Roger, who's in Florida on the line. Hey, Roger, how can we help today?

[Caller Roger]

Thank you for taking my call. I'm retired about four years now and I have a sister who's been estranged from the family for a very long time and I've been sending her about $700 a month for about 10 years.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Oh, my goodness. Wow.

[Caller Roger]

Yeah, well, she, she's never really had a job. She lives in another state out West. And currently my wife is about to retire and the source that I'm pulling this money from is going to dry up.

[Jade Warshaw]

Oh, man.

[Caller Roger]

And so I'm in a spot and everybody told me I was going to be in this spot, you know, know that I'm not sure I can sustain her lifestyle.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You can.

[Caller Roger]

She's never had it.

[Dr. John Deloney]

She's never had a job because she's never had to.

[Caller Roger]

Right? Yeah. Well, she's never worried about tomorrow.

[Dr. John Deloney]

She hasn't had to because you did for a decade.

[Caller Roger]

Yeah, right.

[Jade Warshaw]

Ten years is a long time, man.

[Caller Roger]

No, it's a long time. If you add it up, plus the incidentals along the way, it's a huge chunk of money in my world. That was a modest income guy, but I kind of did the right things that allowed me to retire comfortably. And I have a little royalty source, but that royalty source is going to dry it up and that's what I use to fund this.

[Jade Warshaw]

So that means it's over.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah.

[Caller Roger]

Yeah. Well, I guess my question for you guys is there has to be social services that actually can step in for somebody who's 75 years old and really doesn't have means. And that's where I'm kind of falling short and trying to discover those sources.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, they're there. She could be on Medicaid or, you know, what, what have you. But don't you think that's hers to discover?

[Caller Roger]

I'd like to think so, but in some ways she just doesn't have that ability to figure this stuff out.

[Jade Warshaw]

Is something going on? Is she. Does she have any disability mentally that's developmental. Is something that's causing her, medically speaking, to not be able to do these things that you know about?

[Caller Roger]

No, there's nothing. There's not really that. I think it's more of someone who's just been naive their whole life about this kind of things, maybe doing end runs around the system, whatever it might be.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And, and, and somebody who for the majority of her adult life has had other people just stepping in and taking care of it.

[Caller Roger]

Well, I won't say that's the case. You know, she's been married a few times and she currently has a husband that's not. Well, they've always seemed to put in a very simple way, she has a husband.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah. Let me, let me reverse this. If you called her and said.

[Caller Dean]

I.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Have a hard conversation to have with you, let me know in the next week when we can have this conversation. And you say, hey, the. I've been sending you $700 a month for the last 10 years in 60 days and two more months that I'm unable to make those payments anymore. And so I'm not gonna be able to send any more money. And so I'm giving you two months notice. I've been doing this for a long, long time, so I'm giving you two months or even three months notice. And I'm gonna send you. I'm gonna Google. I googled this for you. You can do this also. But I Google. I'm googling Florida research, Florida Resources for elderly Folks. And I'm just assuming that's where she lives.

[Caller Roger]

Well, actually, she lives out in Nevada.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Nevada resources. Six one, two does another. And I wish you the absolute best.

[Caller Roger]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And here's the thing, is she call you on a weekly basis and say, hey, I need help with resources.

[Caller Roger]

No, she doesn't. She's not a guilt trip type person in this thing.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, then why do you. Why do you continue. Why do you take yourself on guilt trips that she's not asking you to go on?

[Caller Roger]

True. I will say that. And I think it's a little bit of loyalty to her. Although we. I've seen her like three times in 30 years. You know, it's a little bit trying to be the good guy in this whole thing.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I know, but you've been. You've been solving a problem that it sounds like nobody ever even asked you to solve.

[Caller Roger]

Well, no, yeah, true to. I stepped in, you know, at a. I stepped in at a lower amount of money several years ago. And of course, life gets more expensive, so I increased it and I did. Yeah.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

I don't.

[Caller Roger]

If I still had the wherewithal to supply her and keep her whole, I would do it. Things are, Things are changing. That's the point, you know?

[Caller Dean]

You know.

[Caller Roger]

Yeah. Around me and my family, you can.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Do what you want.

[Jade Warshaw]

Roger, I don't think we can help you, my guy, because I. You want to do this. And as long as you want to keep doing this, you're going to keep doing it. Like you just said, if you had more money to keep doing it, you'd keep doing it. And so I don't think. I think we're at a bit of an impasse in the way that you feel the need to do this. You, like you said, your sister, she's not coming to you saying, help me figure this out. You're just up and doing it. And at that point then, yeah, it's just your choice. We're not mad at you. You. But since you called and asked, how do I tell my sister that I can't be her long, lifelong safety net? We're telling you, you just up and call her and say, hey, I know I've done this for 10 years. The money I was giving you is running out. And not only is it running out, but I've also realized I can't keep doing this. You're going to have to figure out a way to come up with that $700 on your own. And it truly is the conversation truly is that simple. I know it's harder to actually. Actually play out, but the bigger work is for you to figure out why you're having a hard time letting this go.

[Caller Roger]

Yeah. No, you're absolutely right.

[Jade Warshaw]

Can I ask a question? I have an inkling. I. I don't know if I'm right, but just listening to you talking, John is here, so he'll. He'll set us both straight. But just listening to you talk, it almost makes me wonder if a long time ago, something happened that you felt like you were supposed to be there and you. You weren't, and you're just making up for it. I don't know the home you guys grew up in. I don't know anything like that. But I just wonder, are you trying to make up for something? Is there something that your sister should have. You should have been there for and you weren't there? I don't know. And you don't have to answer on this call, but it just sounds like there's something else there that's nagging at you and that's eating at you personally.

[Caller Roger]

No, it's a fair question. I think the basic root of it all is she's family. And it's like, you know what desperation she'll go into if this money's not there. You know, it's like pulling the plug, saying, okay, you know, before, when I've talked to her about it, she goes, yeah, and this is the guilt thing. Well, I guess I'm going to have to sleep in my car.

[Jade Warshaw]

Well, where's her husband? You said he's ill. Is he just not able to contribute?

[Caller Roger]

No. They're not at a point where she's never had a job, so getting a job would be very difficult for her at 74.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

And he.

[Caller Roger]

He's ill where he really can't work. So, yeah, you know, they're living. And this. This is the point, you know, listen.

[Jade Warshaw]

If you want to be. If you want to be generous to John's point, we're never going to stop you from being generous if you feel, hey, I'm called to this, this is what I feel like doing. But there is a component to this that you've also got to be able to afford that.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Right.

[Jade Warshaw]

And you said that you set yourself up to be able to retire, but you also said the source that you were pulling from to fund this is drying up. So the question you have to ask yourself is source that I can pull from. That's not going to take away from my family's ability to retire and be comfortable in my legacy. And if you can do that and if you want to do that, you know what, that's your bag. I do think that you're enabling her. I truly do believe that based on what you're saying.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And you can't enable somebody and then complain that they are failure to launch. That's what right. If you're going to keep funding it, you have to do that with a glad, cheerful heart and stop talking bad about your sister.

[Jade Warshaw]

Foreign.

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[Jade Warshaw]

All right, back to the phone lines we go. John, are you ready?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Let's do it.

[Jade Warshaw]

All right, Elijah, Dallas, Texas on the line. What's up, Elijah. I like that name by the way.

[Caller Dean]

Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you guys for taking my call.

[Dr. John Deloney]

What up?

[Caller Dean]

Really good to be on the Ramsey show. Been a big fan for all long time.

[Jade Warshaw]

Glad to hear it. How can we help today?

[Caller Dean]

So I followed Ramsey's rule about buying a cash car and not getting into a car payment. So the car that I have currently, it was a 20th birthday present and sorry about that. It was a 20th birthday present. I put half and my parents put the other half. Lately this car has become a. This car has become a nuisance. The for Instance when we first bought it, we had to put a thousand into it to get a new engine. About a year ago, had to put another 3,000 because the transmission went out.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yikes.

[Caller Dean]

By the way, all. By the way. All paid for with cash, no financing.

[Jade Warshaw]

Good.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You replaced the two big rocks, right?

[Jade Warshaw]

At this point, it's only up from here.

[Caller Dean]

Thank you, I appreciate that. Now, when I was in college, we ran into some financial troubles after my father passed away. And I played a role in this as well. But I did run up about $6500 in credit card debt.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay.

[Caller Dean]

Recently I paid off 1500 and I was this close to rounding up all the money and then sending it for the big. Okay, here's what happened. First, another eleven hundred dollar expense. Engine mounts went out.

[Jade Warshaw]

Engine mounts went out. Okay, so that's not the 1000 for a new engine. That's a separate amount. 1100.

[Caller Dean]

Yes.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay.

[Caller Dean]

And, and then I was able to pay that and still be able to set myself up to be able to send all the money to my biggest debt, which is 3, 500. Speak.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay.

[Caller Dean]

3400 as of today.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay.

[Caller Dean]

And then fast forward now. The starter and air compressor had gone out.

[Jade Warshaw]

Oh my gosh. What kind of car is this?

[Caller Dean]

You won't believe me if I tell you it is the infamous. It is a infamous Nissan. It is the infamous Nissan Maximum.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Well, there you go.

[Jade Warshaw]

Oh, there's the problem right there, my friend.

[Dr. John Deloney]

All right, so here's the bigger question, Elijah. And you know what I'm gonna say what Jay's gonna say. Here's a bigger question. Do you have 2, 500 bucks, do you have 2,000 bucks to go buy yourself another car that's gonna get you six or seven or eight months more down the road or one year down the road? Because neither of us are going to tell you we would be bad humans if we told you, you know what, after all this bad luck, you should go get a fifteen thousand dollar car note and just get yourself a new Toyota or whatever. We would not be good people if we told you to do that because we'd actually be taking you way further back. You're so close to the edge. It sounds like you're getting super frustrated that you keep getting close to the edge and then keep getting slapped back by life. And I get that frustration. But the solution isn't my, my buddy here. I'll give you this analogy. Here's what you're about to do. I have a buddy named Jordan. Say it. He's a fitness guy. He's a brilliant mind. He said, people get on a diet and they start taking their nutrition really seriously, and then they have one night where they just blow it. They just. Somebody shows up with a bag of Oreos and they just hammer it.

[Jade Warshaw]

Are you talking about me?

[Dr. John Deloney]

I'm talking about myself. My. Literally, somebody dropped off a bag of Oreos the other day, and I crushed it. But he said what people do then is they're like, well, I'm already off, so the rules are off. And he said, that's like walking outside in the morning and seeing you have a full flat tire and then pulling out a knife and going around and slashing the other three tires. And you have had a run of walking outside your house and seeing one of the tires flat, and you're just so frustrated by it, you want to grab your pocket knife and go punch a hole in all the other tires. And Jade and I are going to tell you, please don't do that. You're so close, man. You've worked so hard to get this close. Either pay the stupid money and pay off that crap and just get a starter and get a whatever and get on down the road a little bit further, or go trade that car in. It's depreciated all the way to the bottom anyway. And put another 1500 bucks on top of it and get yourself a $2500 car.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah. What'd you pay for this, Maxima?

[Caller Dean]

So I paid $12,976, and that hurts. If it's okay with you guys, I'd like to run a plan I put together once I get this car back, okay? It's very similar to what you guys actually just said about the 2500$.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay?

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

The.

[Caller Dean]

After all the repairs are done, I know the car will last me at least two and a half, three years.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay?

[Caller Dean]

Within that time, what I want to do is just put together 7508 grand and then actually go the Toyota Lexus route. Get a 2007. Get a 2008. Yeah, buy that and then just get rid of this car. Let it go for 40. 40505 grand.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, love that. Love that.

[Caller Dean]

Okay, so that's a good idea.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, I have an 06 Toyota that I. It will. It will last longer than me. It won't stop driving. Yes, I think you're right.

[Jade Warshaw]

The.

[Caller Dean]

The only caveat is because now I will say so. Currently in my personal checking that I'm using to pay for this, there's $2,400 sitting in there at the moment, okay? The repair, the repairs are going to be about 1750, maybe 1800. That'll leave me with about 6, $700 until my next payday next week. Okay, now I want to know if this is still a good option because I like to keep at least 1500. Actually. Really, really three grand in my checking account at all times. But as you can see, I've had a few setbacks.

[Jade Warshaw]

Why do you like to keep three grand? That's a big cushion for someone who's in baby step two. Why is that?

[Caller Dean]

I guess you can say I'm very extreme. And I like to have money laying around for the emergency agencies.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah.

[Caller Dean]

But I also.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, okay, here's the thing. You get to choose. Are you working our plan or are you working Elijah's plan? Because if you are working Elijah's plan, that'll let me know I'm tracking with you on Elijah's plan. But if you're working our plan, which it sounded like you said you were, then I gotta hold you accountable. So just let me know right quick and that'll, that'll inform what we say next.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Because here's a weird thing. Elijah in this. How old are you, brother?

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Brother?

[Caller Dean]

25.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, here's a weird thing I figured out. If I have $3000 in an account and a mechanic says it's 1750, it's annoying. And I exhale and I got 1750, I'm going to give it to you. Only got 1200 bucks left. This is the worst.

[Caller Dean]

Whatever.

[Dr. John Deloney]

How much, much much we got left? Okay, 1300 bucks left. If I only have that thousand dollar emergency fund, that's all I got. Hey, I got $2,000 less than debt, which for you is a big chunk of what you got left. And then when that guy says 1750, I say, I can show you my checking account. I have $1,000. What can we do right now? And you get, and then he's gonna go, I bet you I can get a good used part right here that will last you for another year. Hang on. Or I can't help you. Get out of my shop. And you say, cool, I'll go find another person. And what happens is you force yourself into some sort of creativity that you have to, you have to find a way which humans had to do for all of human history until like 50 or 60 or 75 years ago. That's, that's, that's the reason we stick to the plan the way it is.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, I, I, I, I truly, I couldn't, I couldn't applaud. What John just said more, you gotta decide how you're gonna tackle this because that $3,000 really is a huge catalyst in how this plays out.

[Caller Dean]

So going so for, for the solution, would you say as soon as I get it back, trade this in and get a twenty five hundred dollar car?

[Jade Warshaw]

No, I was with you. I'm with you on the idea that it's best to go ahead and do the repairs on this car, ride it out because you said if, hey, if I do this $1700 of repairs, I'm going to be able to ride this car for the next two, three years and then during that time, yeah, save up the 8,000 and get you some something more reliable. But what I really want to attack is having and I want to talk to the masses on this. Yes, doing a zero based budget should never mean $0 in your account. You need to have some form of cushion in your account. But what that cushion is does depend greatly on what baby step you're in. Okay. If you're in baby step two, you need as much money at your disposal for debt as possible. So when you think through a cushion you're really thinking about, okay John, what is the worst that could happen that I would not have planned for in my budget? What Amazon prime subscription hits me it's 100 and I don't know how much it costs these days. 160 bucks. Right. For the year. That's kind of what it is. It's like what's the worst could happen? Grandma's birthday hits Amazon happens. So when you're in baby step two, that really is looking like three, three hundred bucks. Maybe, maybe a little bit more than that. Because what it's not the cushion is not an emergency fund. That's not what it is. Baby step one was the emergency fund or baby step three is the emergency fund. The cushion is just there, especially in baby step two. Just to make sure those random things that happen to come out of your account don't overdraw you.

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[Jade Warshaw]

So if you're tired of living paycheck to paycheck and feeling like you just can't get ahead, you need to join one of our free every dollar training trainings. There are new trainings that we do every single month and they're all hosted by a Ramsey personality, one of the money personalities, myself, George Camel, Rachel Cruz. And we show you how to stick to your budget and even find $3,000 of margin using every dollar so that you can actually get out of debt and start building wealth. Plus, you can ask us any questions during the live Q A. So if you're interested in this, go ahead and sign up today for [e-mail] Alrighty then. Scott is in Jacksonville, Florida. Scott, what's up, man? How can we help?

[Caller Scott]

Hi, Jade and John. Thanks for taking my call.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

You're welcome.

[Caller Scott]

I have an estate question. I'd like to start some sort of fund for my six grandchildren. Two of the grandchildren have 529s. The other four grandchildren do not. And I'm just wondering the best way to start that fund for them. They're between ages one and a half to six years years old.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You are awesome, dude. You are awesome.

[Caller Scott]

I listen to your show a lot and I haven't really heard any questions like this. So I'm glad I got through to ask you and Jade about it.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, for sure. So you've got these grandkids. Are you, what's the intent of the money? Are you like, hey, I want to help them with education. I want to buy their first car. Tell us a little bit more of what you're thinking here.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Okay.

[Caller Scott]

The two of the grandchildren, they have college educated parents are all three of our adult kids are married and four of the parents are college educated. So two of the grandkids have a 529 already in place. The other four aren't sure about what their kids are going to do. One couple isn't sure about what college will look like in 18 years. The other one is a single income couple and they're living on one income. And I just want to be able to kind of put money aside for whatever they might need. If they want to go to a trade school, if they want to buy a car, if they want to let the money roll and eventually help them with a down payment on a house or if they get to 55, you know, have some money for retirement. I'm not quite sure. I'm just learning the best way to, to kind of structure it.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah. So if I were in your shoes, I'd probably talk to the parents first. So let me kind of put myself in your shoes, I'd say, hey, I want to give the kids money. What do you guys think? So my first thing would be like, yeah, if you can help. Help us get this 529 to where it's going to be. That would be amazing. Right? And then the next thing would be, okay, from there, we do utmost for the kids every year. You know, we contribute. If you can help us contribute to this utma, that'd be great, because when they're 18, we're going to transfer that money over to them. Or the other thing could be, hey, we're, for us. One of the things we really want to do is help them with the down payment for their first house, you know, when they're, you know, 28 years old, that sort of thing. So I would talk to the parent first and find out really kind of what the need is, since for you, it seems to be, hey, whatever. Whatever they need will fund. And then from there on I'd see, okay, what do they have in place and how can I contribute this money to them? How much are you thinking of gifting every single year?

[Caller Scott]

Well, I thought I'd start with maybe a, you know, a seed gift of maybe two grand per child.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay.

[Caller Scott]

And then kind of go from there. Seeing how they're so young, I could put it in, you know, a more riskier investment vehicle, you know, that might grow quicker, you know, and still weather the ups and downs of the stock market, I guess, is what I was thinking.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah. And what. And who. And you just place them as the beneficiary, Is that what you're thinking? Because I feel like you could do.

[Caller Scott]

Yeah, beneficiary. I can't do a custodial. I've been told I can't do it. A custodial ira. Roth ira. But I could maybe do something else.

[Jade Warshaw]

I. I'd work with the parents and maybe do an utma, something that you can transfer that'll go over to their name, whatever, when they're, you know, of legal age. Okay.

[Caller Scott]

Like I said, two of the grandkids already have five, 29. So I could just. With those parents, I've already talked to them. I'm sure they would just take the money and put in their existing 529. Since the other four parents that really have nothing in place right now at all.

[Jade Warshaw]

Oh, you know, I misunderstood you when you said before that the other. The other two kids had 529s. I. For some reason in my mind, I thought you meant that they were fully funded like they didn't need anymore in the 529?

[Caller Scott]

Oh, no, I don't think so. I think they take any contribution we have.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, then I would, I would focus on that. Because here's the thing. Even if you, Even if they over fund the 529s, over time, that money can be transferred in other ways. Matter of fact, over time, it can actually be transferred to a Roth IRA or IRA over time. So I wouldn't be too concerned with over funding it. And the truth is, with any 529, there's that risk of, well, what if the kid doesn't go to college? Right. So I would, I would start with a 529 9S for all kids. For the families that don't yet have them set up, I would say, hey, I want to do the seed money of $2,000. Can I help set up a 529 for you guys? That's what our mother, my mother in law did for Sam and I, and it's been great. So I think it's a really, really great gift that you're trying to give. And that's the way I do it. Good call. I like that. Thanks for the call. All right, I think we have time to go to Mike, who's in Ohio. What's up, Mike?

[Caller Dean]

Hey, thanks for taking my call.

[Jade Warshaw]

No problem. How can we help?

[Caller Dean]

So my question was my wife and I recently bought a house, and the monthly payment with both of our income combined is pretty reasonable. It's like a little less than a.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Third of our income.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay.

[Caller Dean]

But we just found out we're having our first kid and the plan was we were going to have her quit working. But the problem is with just my income alone, it's going to be a lot trickier.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah. What will that mortgage be with just your income?

[Caller Dean]

So the payment is like 2475 right now. And then. So that would be like 45% of my income. Okay.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, that doesn't work. So we have to solve for that.

[Caller Dean]

Right, Right. So the place plan hopefully was I can refinance in a few months and I'll get like the, like all the fees and everything covered for that. But that would kind of right around coincide when she's. My wife is due. So I was just. My question basically is should we go back to renting when, you know, the rent was like 1900 versus 24, so it's not a huge difference, or should we just stick with it and try to refinance the house when you refinance it?

[Jade Warshaw]

Well, I have a couple of questions. When you refinance it, what will the payment go down to?

[Caller Scott]

So I'm trying to get a lower.

[Caller Dean]

Interest rate because it's really high. So I don't know exactly. I've looked at a few. Like, oh, if we got 5%, it would be like 2,000. So it's kind of up in the air, but okay, hopefully.

[Jade Warshaw]

What's your take home pay?

[Caller Dean]

So I take home 5,500amonth after, like, taxes and everything. Everything.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, so 2000 would still be way too much, right?

[Caller Dean]

Yeah.

[Jade Warshaw]

So that sounds like. And I mean, 5.5percent, you know, that's, That's a pretty good rate. So I don't think you're going to get anything lower than 5%. So knowing that 5% would get you to 2000, and that's still not near the 25% mark, I don't think that that can be a plan. Would you agree with that?

[Caller Dean]

Yeah, it does sound.

[Caller Roger]

Sounds tough.

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

Yeah.

[Jade Warshaw]

I mean, that's a, That's a, That's a big old percent when you're bringing home 5,500. So I think in this season. Yeah, it could be that you guys are looking at selling your house because how are you going to exist on that small percentage of your income? Do you see what I'm saying? I hate. You gotta, you gotta hear me, Mike. I hate telling folks that they have to sell their house, but when you tell me the numbers, I'm bringing home 5,500 and maybe we can get a best possible scenario. Maybe we can get it to 2000. It's tough, right?

[Dr. John Deloney]

How much have you paid down on this house? How much equity do you have in it?

[Caller Dean]

We have, I think like 20,000 right now. We bought the house really recently, but we got it for. Under the appraisal because I was gonna.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Jade, I don't. I haven't really heard us talk much on this show about this. I think I've only heard it one other time, but this. I was wondering if this was a moment for a recast where you're the, the, the length of the mortgage and your interest rate stays the same, but it basically recasts your payment based on what you owe remaining. And that can really drop your monthly payment down without having to go through all the rigamar of a finance, a refinance and all that, but you don't have. Have enough equity. You got 20,000 bucks. I wouldn't change your life at all.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, you would usually do that after you've paid off a big chunk Sum. Yeah. In this case, I hate telling you this, but I think for you guys, yeah. Getting out of this house. Because the truth is, it's not like you've done something really irresponsible. Your life has just changed in a major way. Right. You've had. You have a baby coming and your wife is now saying, I'm not going to contribute by working outside of the home. I'm going to work inside of the home. Home. So, yeah, your financial situation changes. It's okay if your living situation has to change as well. So don't feel any guilt or negativity.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Wrong.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You have a new life now. You have a new kid. And so we have to readjust for our new life.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah. New house, new housing situation. Ramsay shows scripture and quote of the day, Psalm 37, verse 23 through 24, the Lord makes firm the steps of the one who delights in him. Though he may stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand. Slash from Guns N Roses said, no one expects the rug to be yanked out from underneath them. Life changing events usually don't announce themselves.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Amen.

[Jade Warshaw]

That's a fact.

[Dr. John Deloney]

We wouldn't have jobs, Jade, if that wasn't life changing. Moments are not a bug of the human experience. It's a feature. It's. It's hurt and challenge and pain and unexpected things. Is life, man. It's life.

[Jade Warshaw]

And nothing lasts forever in a cold November rain.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Booyah.

[Jade Warshaw]

Just had to do that anyway.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And by the way, just as a call back, Axel didn't, but Slash wore long shorts, as he should. Axel wore very, very, very good.

[Jade Warshaw]

You know, Slash has aged very well underneath that hat, I might add. Like you really can't tell what's going on underneath there.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Hey, he's done a good job.

[Jade Warshaw]

Trace is in Salt Lake City, Utah. What's up, Trace? How can we help?

[Caller Dean]

Hey, how are you?

[Jade Warshaw]

We're doing good. What's up with you? Good.

[Caller Dean]

So me and my wife, we're 21 years old. We have a combined income of $130,000 a year. We're in baby steps. Four and six with no we. We started investing into our retirement in July and wanted to know if we can put more into each one of our Roth IRAs to get it up to the 7,000 for each one of us instead of putting more on the mortgage until April. So then does that make sense so we can max out that Roth for both of us before April so we can do it again for that for the next year?

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah. Maxing out the Roth. So putting the 7,000 or 7,500, I can't remember what it is this year, does that put you over the 15% of your income?

[Caller Dean]

So yes, but we'll max out my Roth at 7000 or 500 and then we want to also max out my wife's. I think we could do another 7,000.

[Jade Warshaw]

Right, yeah, I understand that, but I'm saying that 14,000 together, is that more than the 15 of your take home pay?

[Caller Lee (interjections)]

It would be.

[Caller Dean]

And we, we are still paying the house off like the 15 year mortgage. We still have on the 15 year. So just for the six months, I don't know, like I said, just to take advantage.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay.

[Caller Dean]

Of the tax free growth.

[Jade Warshaw]

So you told me to do that. You told me you make $130,000 a year. So 15 of that would be 19,500. That's what you have for the, the year to put aside. So you're wanting to put 7,000 in hers, 7,000 in yours, that's 14. So technically you still have another 5,500. What are you going to do with that?

[Caller Dean]

And that's another question too. Do I, do I do the traditional or do I just put it into a brokerage account? We had just recently started making 130,000 a year.

[Jade Warshaw]

Are you self employed or do you have 401ks through your job?

[Caller Dean]

We work for the state, so I have a pension and a 400 401K. She doesn't. If. And so we just do the individual Roth IRAs for each one.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, so I love that you're doing the individual Roth IRAs. I'd love for you to put the remaining 5,500 into your 401k.

[Caller Dean]

Okay.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, that's what I would do because it's tax advantaged in a better way than just a typical brokerage account. So I would do that. Now, now what percentage your pension, do you know what percentage that is? What does that look like? Because that's part of this equation as well.

[Caller Dean]

Yeah, I get 60% of it when I retire at 35, but they don't take anything out of my pay.

[Jade Warshaw]

Oh, okay.

[Caller Dean]

If it is, it's not much at all.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, then I wouldn't really add that in then. Okay, so yeah, do the two Roth IRAs and then put the rest into your 401k. Do you know, I'm guessing the 400, 401ks traditional or is it Roth? Just curious.

[Caller Dean]

It's either so I can do a Roth 401K or there's a 403B.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah. Definitely do the Roth 401K option. Okay.

[Caller Dean]

Okay.

[Jade Warshaw]

That way you're paying the taxes now instead of later.

[Caller Dean]

Okay, sounds good.

[Caller Scott]

Appreciate it.

[Jade Warshaw]

All right. I love that. And then, yeah, beyond that, any money that you have extra, you're going to throw that on to. Since you're in baby steps four, five and six, you're going to put extra payments or extra money, I should say, towards your house, and you and your wife can decide what that looks like. It can change throughout the seasons. It doesn't have to be double payments every time. Right. You're in a season of intentionality. You don't have to be as intense. So that's up to you guys to discover, you know, what the rhythm of that looks like in your life. Very good. I like it. All right. Kevin in Houston, Texas, htown. What up? What up?

[Caller Dean]

How's it going? Can you hear me? Fine.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Got you, dude. What's up?

[Caller Dean]

Hey, I just had a general question. Pretty much I'm trying to figure out where should I draw the line whenever it comes to spending a little bit of extra money on things that aren't necessary, but add a little bit of extra comfort in your day to day or just overall life? And I can give you a couple examples of what I'm trying to talk about here.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, tell me.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Give us one.

[Caller Dean]

Yeah, so for example, I recently bought my first economy plus seat on a flight. It was never something that I, that I couldn't afford. It was just something that I didn't really want to spend extra money on. I am six one for reference. And a lot of these airlines are getting kind of criminal with how little legroom they give.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Amen.

[Caller Dean]

I decided, okay, I will. I'll splurge a little bit. And it was. The flight was just 20 million times more comfortable. I could take my feet out a bit, I could lay back, and it was so much better, but it wasn't necessary to achieve the goal.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay, let me ask you this.

[Caller Dean]

Kind of feeling a bit guilty about it.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That's. Where's the story that you picked up? Where's it from that anything above necessary is wrong or morally bankrupt.

[Caller Dean]

So I guess my position isn't that it's wrong and only bankrupt. I guess what I'm trying to avoid is kind of just going down the slippery slope of I just end up spending a lot of money on the things I don't need.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Right.

[Caller Dean]

Just because it makes me feel better.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, but.

[Caller Dean]

But that's my question is what are some things that I Should spend extra money on just because it has a little effort. Comfortable.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Feeling better is okay. That's what I'm trying to get.

[Caller Dean]

Okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

For me, I crossed the line. When I start thinking I deserve this, okay. That's when it crosses. That's. That's a moral line in my head that I don't ever want to cross. But, you know, if you are going to a work trip and you get that, you pay that extra, extra $100 or whatever it is to get extra leg room on that flight, and it lets you stretch out and let you sleep versus being cramped. Then you're. You walk a little bit taller, you're a little bit more rested, and you can go handle yourself in that meeting a little bit better. And there's. That's just a fact. That's a truth.

[Caller Dean]

Yeah, Agreed.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay. And so if you want to get tactile about it, we can put an ROI on that. I think that's a waste of time and money and effort. The reality is, if you can pay cash for it and you have it and it's something that will make your day a little bit better, that.

[Jade Warshaw]

Do it.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Do it.

[Jade Warshaw]

I mean, I'll give you a little bit more practical, because I get it. I kind of have a checklist that I go through in my brain, Kevin, that is kind of the green light, to quote Andre 3000, if I can do this right. So number one is, am I a person who's out of debt? If the green light is yes, check it, right? Then I say, am I a person who budgets their money? Like, am I on a budget? Is this part. Can I make this part of my budget? Yes, green light it. Am I. Do I carry the proper insurances? Right. Have I done the things that I need to make sure I'm taking care of my family life insurance, term life insurance, that kind of thing. Green light. Am I saving for the future? Right. Do. Do I have three to six months set aside? Am I, you know, saving for a down payment for a home, which is also a form of savings? Am I doing those things that are important? Yes. And finally, have I prioritized generosity in my life? If I'm doing those five things and have five green lights? Yeah, buy the upgraded seat, you know, do those things. They're fun. Matter of fact, if you want another piece of. This is for anybody listening, you should spend. If you've checked those five green lights, you should spend money on fun. F U N, that is upgrade your food, right? You're not eating top ramen anymore. Spend more on groceries is what I'm saying. You should spend money on upgrades. That's the U. Yeah. Upgrade your. Your plane seat, Upgrade your furniture, upgrade your jeans. And finally, the N is for new experiences. Yeah, go. Go on vacation. Go to a concert you've never been to. We want you guys to enjoy spending money because that's what it's there for. You get out of debt and you do all of this, John, so that. So that you can increase your leg room so that you can have a better life quality with your money. Like, that's the whole point of this whole thing.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Remember, comfortable isn't the worst thing.

[Jade Warshaw]

You're right. Remember, there's only way to walk with. There's only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Jesus Christ. Jesus.