You’re Not Stuck You Just Need a Plan

Summary

The Ramsey Show Podcast Summary

Episode Title: You’re Not Stuck, You Just Need a Plan
Date: May 1, 2026
Hosts: Jay Borcha, Dr. John Deloney (with Dave Ramsey joining for segments)

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Ramsey Show, "You’re Not Stuck, You Just Need a Plan," is a deep dive into the power of intentional financial planning, practical debt management, and the emotional undercurrents tied to money decisions. Hosts Jay Borcha and Dr. John Deloney take live calls, addressing real-life struggles—from student loan dilemmas and family debt issues to career crossroads and relationship challenges—consistently returning to Ramsey's proven steps: take ownership, make a plan, and act with integrity. The tone is empathetic, direct, and solution-focused, blending financial expertise with behavioral insight.

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Key Discussions & Insights

1. Student Loans & Parental Co-signing

Caller: Ann from Salt Lake City [00:36–09:01]

• Ann worries about her son taking private loans for medical school and considers co-signing to lower interest rates.
• Advice: Jay & John strongly discourage co-signing, citing financial risk and its capacity to damage relationships.
  • Quote:
    “Even if I did agree with debt, I would never agree with co-signing. …You're on the hook for it. …That is always has the ability to ruin a relationship.” – Jay Borcha [06:18]
• John shares personal experience:
  • “My mother-in-law was the third wheel in our marriage for almost seven and a half years.” – Jay Borcha [07:39]
• John recommends financial gifts over loan entanglements if the parents wish to help.

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2. Over-Investing vs. Paying Off Student Loans

Caller: Haley from Houston [10:32–19:52]

• Haley is investing $45-50k/year but holds $90k of student debt; wonders about temporarily pausing investments.
• Advice:
  • Pause heavy investing, focus on eliminating debt.
  • Integrity and peace of mind trump maximizing mathematical returns.
  • John provides a pointed perspective about PSLF (Public Service Loan Forgiveness) when the caller makes a high income:
    • Quote:
      “You make $220,000 bucks, you have the ability to repay these student loans that you signed your name on, and you're choosing not to so that me and my wife …are going to pay them for you.” – John Deloney [14:49]
  • Jay reaffirms financial freedom comes from debt elimination and the emotional relief it provides.
    • “There's something to be said about no one having to save you in life with money. It is a good feeling to say, I took my income, I paid my debts, I did what I needed to do.” – Jay Borcha [19:52]

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3. Supporting Spousal Career Changes

Caller: Sean from Des Moines [22:39–31:31]

• Sean’s wife has taken multiple medical certifications, wants to become an RN, accruing student debt; Sean feels exhausted and worries about the financial impact.
• Advice:
  • Address the underlying marital misalignment, not just the financials; have an honest, united vision for the future.
    • “Supporting your spouse isn't just blindly writing checks. …Y’all are united on your decisions.” – John Deloney [25:07]
  • Redefining support to include honest feedback and boundaries driven by shared goals, not enabling.
    • “Support is, I’m going to be honest, to put everything on the table and let’s co-create a vision together.” – John Deloney [29:12]

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4. Employer–Employee Relationships & Lending Money

Caller: Nick from Sioux City [32:53–41:46]

• Nick, a small business owner, keeps financially helping an employee in repeated cycles.
• Advice:
  • Stop the bailouts; direct him to financial education/resources instead.
  • “When somebody comes and asks me for one time, help. Done. Easy. Somebody keeps coming back …we're going to have a deep conversation, a bigger conversation.” – John Deloney [41:10]
  • Provide Ramsey education tools (Total Money Makeover, EveryDollar) instead of cash handouts.

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5. Multiple Mortgages, Messy Family Asset Management

Caller: Alexis from Des Moines [43:58–52:47]

• Has three mortgages, family living in one property, confusion about what to sell and how to organize.
• Advice:
  • Sell unnecessary/accidental assets, involve family in decision-making, focus on intention versus default living.
  • “What I want to challenge you to do is be very intentional about what stays in your life by default versus what you actually want it to look like.” – Jay Borcha [50:51]
  • Two hard conversations—about family properties and with adult children—will radically simplify their financial life.

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6. Long-term Marital Money Imbalance

Listener Question: Melody from Connecticut [54:39–63:06]

• Melody’s husband sequesters his social security and puts all financial responsibility on her.
• Advice:
  • Acknowledge and confront established patterns, own participation in ongoing dynamic, and make changes for personal peace, maybe outside of expectations for spouse’s behavior.
  • “The only person you can control is you. …For 40 years, I have chosen to carry all of this weight for the house.” – John Deloney [59:03]
  • “Give yourself a chance. …If you can do that and your spouse says, I'm not interested in being married to you…you'll have inner peace because I did the best I could.” – John Deloney [62:44]

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7. Elderly Parents’ Financial Instability

Caller: Mark from Fort Myers, FL [65:27–71:11]

• Worried in-laws will run out of money and become a financial burden.
• Advice:
  • Pre-decide with spouse what you’ll do if/when parents ask for help to avoid stress and resentment.
  • “The only person you can control in this equation is you. Assume they're going to call and ask for money and have a pre-agreed upon message…” – John Deloney [66:26]

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8. Paying Off Mortgage vs. Investing at a Low Rate

Caller: Scott from St. Louis [71:37–77:53]

• Debates using proceeds from a sale to pay off a mortgage with a 2.85% rate, against his advisor’s advice.
• Advice:
  • Ignore advisors pushing annuities; prioritizing peace and ownership over marginally higher returns is legitimate.
    • “I will pay 3% in what I call a sleep tax…because no one can take my house.” – John Deloney [73:36]
  • Historical data: Millionaires pay off their mortgages—they value peace of mind.

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9. Parental Responsibility for Kids’ Student Loans

Caller: Jen from Scranton [79:13–84:46]

• Wonders whether parents are morally responsible to financially help pay down their son’s student loans after giving poor advice.
• Advice:
  • Own the mistake, but help only once you’re financially stable; let the child also have “skin in the game.”
    • “Do the best you can, and when you learn more, do better…It’s right for you to say, ‘Hey, we gave you bad advice. We don’t have any money. We’re working to dig this thing out…’” – John Deloney [83:13]
  • Replicate what you would have done for college savings, but don’t feel compelled to rescue.

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10. Rebuilding after Financial Relapse from Personal Crisis

Caller: Mark from Charleston, SC [85:25–94:13]

• After nearly clearing debt, a relationship breakdown triggers a relapse into $65k in debt.
• Advice:
  • Recognize self-responsibility for both the choices and the recovery; focus on tactical, small-step victories (settling collections, selling the overvalued car).
    • “A real bad thing happened. And what is my and going to be. And it’s my responsibility.” – John Deloney [86:49]

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11. House Poor & Asset Liquidation Decisions

Caller: John from Denver, CO [99:37–104:54]

• Bought a house with friends’ plans to cohabit, now stuck paying alone as home value dropped.
• Advice:
  • Either sell and take a short-term loss, or aggressively find new roommates—the cost of dragging it out often exceeds ripping the band-aid.
    • “The only way out of this is through it.” – Jay Borcha [104:19]

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12. Self-Sabotage, Health, and Housing Choices

Caller: Lucy from San Jose, CA [116:58–126:07]

• High-earning, deeply in debt, facing health issues and a costly new apartment lease signed impulsively.
• Advice:
  • Break the lease, absorb the (painful) immediate cost, keep emergency savings, and attack high-interest car and student debt for future stability and health.
    • “Just take action on these things.” – John Deloney [125:01]
  • “You cannot stay at the new apartment. …You're going to feel house poor.” – Jay Borcha [123:33]

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13. Blending Finances in a Blended Family

Caller: Sam from Fresno, CA [106:03–113:14]

• Single mom, heavy legal/financial scars from custody battle, entering new relationship—wants to know how/when to combine finances.
• Advice:
  • Don't combine money before marriage. Emotional and practical safety come first and most feelings of unworthiness are stories from past pain—not truth.
    • “You’re going to have to teach your nervous system… that ‘I am worth being loved.’” – John Deloney [112:01]

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14. Should I Use Savings to Pay Off Student Loans?

Caller: Matthew from Virginia Beach [113:14–115:10]

• $140k in student loans, $70k in investments/savings—should he cash out to pay debt?
• Advice:
  • Pay down the debt to reclaim full control of income.
    • “As long as you're paying money in debt payments, you do not have your full income at your disposal nor do you have your full range of peace or freedom.” – Jay Borcha [113:47]

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “What you’re trying to do is take the guilt you have from not helping (with undergrad) and you’re going to put your relationship with your son on the line.” – John Deloney [07:23]
• “Debt is serious. Around here we believe in our whole heart that your biggest wealth building tool is your income.” – Jay Borcha [12:27]
• “You supporting your wife by saying, quote, unquote yes, yes, yes to everything...support is...let's co-create a vision together.” – John Deloney [29:12]
• “Rarely is throwing money at a problem the solution.” – John Deloney [41:46]
• “People speak in actions...Behavior is the language.” – John Deloney [55:36]
• “For 40 years, I have chosen to carry all of this weight for the house." – John Deloney [59:03]
• “The only person you can control is you.” – John Deloney [66:26]
• “For me and my house, we’re solving for peace.” – John Deloney [77:47]
• “Your income is the biggest wealth building tool you have.” – Jay Borcha [113:47]

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Segments & Timestamps (important calls/discussions)

• [00:36] - Parental co-signing & student debt risks
• [10:32] - Investing vs. debt payoff; the emotional cost of student loans
• [22:39] - Marriage, career-chasing, and boundaries on education spending
• [32:53] - Employer-employee lending; when helping hurts
• [43:58] - Real estate mess: multiple mortgages, asset simplification
• [54:39] - Marital money imbalance and behavioral participation
• [65:27] - Coping with in-laws’ financial instability
• [71:37] - Mortgage payoff vs. investment debate
• [79:13] - Responsibility for children’s education debt after bad parental advice
• [85:25] - Rebuilding after financial and relationship setbacks
• [99:37] - House poor and dealing with failed shared-home plans
• [116:58] - Debt decisions, health crises, and self-sabotage
• [106:03] - Blending money in blended families / new relationships
• [113:14] - Deploying savings to crush student loan debt

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Final Takeaways

• Don't panic; make a plan. Financial messes can be untangled with honest self-assessment and swift, intentional action.
• Behavior and emotion are as important as math. Peace, integrity, and relationship harmony are core to Ramsey advice—never sacrifice them for “maximum returns.”
• Set boundaries in both family and work money matters. Rescue efforts often backfire if they skip honest conversations and practical education.
• Control only what you can. Most often, that's your own choices, not your spouse’s, parents’, children’s, or employees’.
• Financial freedom is about more than money—it's about agency, peace, and the people you love.

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For more advice, resources, or to listen live, visit ramseysolutions.com.

Transcript

[Dave Ramsey]

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

[Jay Borcha]

Normal is broke. Common sense is weird. So we're here to help you transform your life and your money. From the Ramsey Network and the Fairwinds Credit Union studio, this is the Ramsey Show. I'm Jay Borcha. Next to me, Dr. John Deloney. Taking your calls really for the next three hours, if you want to get involved, the numbers triple 882-55225 gets you on in Salt Lake City, Utah. Ann, what's going on?

[Caller]

Hi, thank you for taking my call.

My question today is my, our youngest

son is going to be starting medical school in July this summer. He's married and has a 2 year old and then has his wife is pregnant. They're going to have their second baby in the fall. And our question is because of the changes in the federal student loan program, they are not able to borrow enough money to even really pay the tuition for the medical school. And so they're going to need to take out private loans. And so our question is, please don't do this, please don't do that.

[Jay Borcha]

Hey, let me ask you before you go any further with this, I want to ask you one question. Why do you think they put limits on it, on how much they can borrow?

[Caller]

They're trying to do, they're trying to get the schools to change their policies so they don't require students to borrow as much money. They're trying to get them to lower the tuition. But I think in this kind of, in the gap, the tuition isn't going any lower. Right.

[Jay Borcha]

Right now. But the crux of the question is why do you think they're putting caps on how much students can borrow?

[Caller]

Well, I think for some professions that makes sense. He's going to be a doctor.

[Jay Borcha]

So I think the question is, and I want, because I want you to think of this because this is going to inform my answer to you. Why do you think they're putting caps on how much these students can borrow

[Caller]

simply because they are able to pay them back?

[Jay Borcha]

Yes, ma'.

[Caller]

Am.

[Jay Borcha]

Yes.

[John Deloney]

What kind of medicine is your son gonna go into?

[Caller]

Still deciding. But he's working right now with in a urology clinic and is either interested in that or maybe endocrinology.

[Jay Borcha]

Wow.

[John Deloney]

So I, I've got friends who are at medical school startups, at universities. I've worked with medical professionals my whole career. That's, that's just where I've lived. And I'm just telling you just parent to parent, my son is 16. I would love for him to be a physician. I think that's a great, noble calling. It's a good, good position. I mean, it's a good profession. I would, I mean, he can do what he wants at his age. I would tell him, do not borrow money to go into this profession. And, and that's, that's me having friends that are physicians, working with physicians, working with medical education and having a kid that I would love to see be a doct. I don't know what the AI's impact is going to be on in one year, in two years and 10 years on the need or the ability for that person who owes 5, $600,000 to be able to recoup that so good. And a local pediatrician is not going to make 500, $600,000, especially with insurance reimbursements. A surgeon, they will, they'll do great. A urology surgeon, they might. I, and again, I don't, I don't. All that is so region specific and correct, all that, you know. But all that to say is, you and I, the world we grew up in is the safest thing, is go be a lawyer or go be a doctor. Like that's what we were taught, right? And just look at what's happened to all the kids for the last 20 years who have been told, go to coding. Go get, go get a degree in coding. Go get a degree in it. They're out of jobs. You know what I mean? Like, they created a thing that's going to take all their jobs away. I, I cannot in good conscience, as, as proud of your son as you are, as excited as he is, if a bank is telling you you're too much of a risk for us to give you this money to go around the bank and try to figure that out. Like the bank's whole business is, I'm going to loan you this money and I'm going to make money on you paying me back. And when banks say I'm not going to do that, this is too high of a risk. Listen to what they're trying to tell you. They're trying to say, I don't, I don't want to do business with you because I don't think you're going to be able to pay us back. And I, I know I'm blowing up everything. And that's not even why you called. I just got to tell you, parent to parent, a guy who I worked in higher ed for 20 years, if they're saying we're putting the brakes on this, I would listen to, to, to why they're putting the brakes on it. And all I have to say is even more strongly, I would say don't go get private loans because those get people into so, so much trouble.

[Jay Borcha]

Yeah, it's really tough. So we completely hijacked you.

[John Deloney]

Yeah, totally hijacked. Sorry, ask your question.

[Jay Borcha]

But we wanted to make you clear on what our stance might be. So go ahead and ask your question just so we can hear it with our own ears.

[Caller]

Yes, I guess we're just trying to, you know, my husband and I are, we have, you know, I'm 58, he's 61. We're both working full time. Our combined income is probably about 225,000 a year. We have about $40,000 left to pay on our home. And when my, when our children were kind of going through their higher education process, we really weren't able to help them very much because of kind of the situation we were in. But we've kind of changed that situation now. And so we're just trying to figure out how we can. Because we didn't really contribute at, to his undergraduate education at all. He funded that himself. And so we're just trying to figure out if we can, if there's something we can do on our end. And so what we work is that on the private loans, the interest rate is dramatically lower if we co sign on that loan for him rather than him just doing that himself. So we were trying to figure out how to mitigate that risk if we had a couple of ideas of how to do that.

[Jay Borcha]

But I love that you're thinking in that way because I think that's, as a parent, you do you want to look at ways to lessen the load, especially financially. Even if I did agree with debt, I would never agree with co signing. So even if, even, even if I was a person who was like, oh, student loans are fine, I would still say co signing, please don't do it. Because here's what's going to happen. You co sign a loan, you're on the hook for it. His name is on it. He's just starting his life with his baby, his family, his wife. He might think, this is not an, this is not something I'm interested in paying off right now. That's always going to be attached to you. So if you decide, oh, we want to move, we want to buy a house, we want to do something that might involve our credit, you're attached to it. It's debt that's in your name and that is always has the ability to ruin a relationship.

[John Deloney]

Yes. You're not only putting his credit score on the block, you're putting Yalls relationship on the block. If y' all have cash, he's write him a check today. Yeah, you'll. I will high five you to the moon and back if you want to support your kid through medical school, even.

[Jay Borcha]

Even if you can't do all of it.

[John Deloney]

Yeah. Fund some of it and say, here's a gift. We weren't able to do this. We're going to give you this gift. But what you're trying to do is take the guilt you have from not helping an undergrad. And you're going to put your relationship with your son. He's going to sit at Thanksgiving with y', all, and y' all are going to be his lender.

[Jay Borcha]

Oh, and Ann, I can tell you because that's what me and my husband did. My husband's mother, my mother in law co signed for his loans and she was the third wheel in our marriage for almost seven and a half years.

[John Deloney]

Why'd you buy that car? Why'd you buy new. Is that a new purse? Why'd y' all buy that?

[Jay Borcha]

And hear me say, she is the sweetest, most generous woman. Like, there is nothing like. I can't say anything bad about the woman, but I am saying because her name was on that loan, that she was part of the marriage. Because when she was ready to buy a house, when she was ready to do things, it was like, when are you guys going to pay in the nicest way? When are you guys going to pay this loan off? Are you guys making progress? Right. Because it's her right to ask. Because her name was on it. She had every right to want to know about it. But as a result, it did become at many times a point of contention. And I just. I hated that it was like that. Now everything's good, the loans paid off. It's all gravy. But I hated that that's how we got off. That was the foot we got off on in our marriage.

[John Deloney]

And it did that way we just totally ruined your plans. And so I'm sorry, you're probably not gonna listen to what we said, but, man, if it plants a seed of doubt in your mind, let it grow.

[Dave Ramsey]

Statistics show that half of Americans don't have enough life insurance or they don't have any at all. I don't understand this, John. Why don't people want to take care of their family? They think they're going to die or something.

[John Deloney]

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

[Dave Ramsey]

That's a gut punch.

[John Deloney]

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

[Dave Ramsey]

Me too.

[John Deloney]

They don't know what to do next.

[Dave Ramsey]

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

[John Deloney]

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

[Dave Ramsey]

That's exactly what it's supposed to be. It's saying, I love you to your family. Term life insurance, Jeff Zander and the team at Zander Insurance makes it easy and affordable. I've used them personally for 25 years. They're the only people I trust. Go to Zander.com or call 800-356-4282.

[Jay Borcha]

All right, Haley's in Houston, Texas. Haley, you are on the line. How can we help today?

[Caller]

Hi, thanks for having me, but, so I had a question regarding my retirement investments. I guess I've been investing about 45 to 50k a year these last several years. And I'm, I was wondering when I can maybe pull back some on that and maybe focus on other things like saving for a house or just other life events.

[Jay Borcha]

I mean, I want to say today, but tell me more about your financial snapshot because just for those listening, Haley is investing above and beyond what we would say generally in the baby steps, unless you're to the point of baby step seven where you've paid off your home and everything. So what you're doing, Hayley, is pretty awesome in the way of building wealth, but let's make sure that it's in the right parameters of your financial situation. So tell us more. Tell us what you earn. Tell us if you have any debt. Give us the goods.

[Caller]

So I make, I take home about 220ish a year and about 145 of that is like my actual income. And then I work overtime, okay, for the remainder, and then I do have 90k in student debt, which is the only debt I have. But right now it's on deferment. So like they're like I'm on the save program and they're not letting me pay on it right now.

[Jay Borcha]

Okay.

[Caller]

So I don't know. That's one thing I could.

[Jay Borcha]

They're not letting you. You can, you can pay on it?

[Caller]

Yeah, I can.

Yeah.

[Jay Borcha]

Don't say they're not letting you.

[Caller]

Well, I'm on hold and I'm on the PSLF or I'm trying to do the PSLF program. So I'm not wanting to get out of that because then if I change into a different payment plan, it will mess it up a bit and understand that.

[Jay Borcha]

So you're giving me some insight that I am grateful for because it is informing what I think is the best route for you. And what I'm going to say is what John and I did is what Rachel and George did. I'm sure it's what Dave would have done had he have had student loans. I don't know if he ever did, but. So you make a really great income and you've made some what I would call smart choices. You could have done way worse by investing 40 to 50% of your income. However, I would pull it back because debt is really serious. And around here we believe in our whole heart that your biggest wealth building tool is your income. You need the full force of your income at your disposal to truly be able to, number one, mitigate risk in your life. Number two, be able to build wealth. And then number three, be able to do it in a peaceful manner. Like those, those are things that we really care about here. So the number one thing that we're going to teach you is debt elimination. Getting rid of the debt and then pledging to yourself that you will live a life without debt, especially consumer debt. And so I would say the same thing for you. You know, Haley, I'd say let's pause investing for a moment. You've done so well. Let's go back and let's just knock out these $90,000 of student loans. I mean, you're single. Are you single?

[Caller]

Yeah.

Yeah.

[Jay Borcha]

Okay, so are you telling me that if you lived on 190, you couldn't knock these out in a year round?

[Caller]

Number wise, would you recommend maybe like not stopping investing completely and maybe doing like pulling back like 20k and then putting that towards student loans?

[John Deloney]

What's your fear of investing? What are you scared of? You're putting away a jillion dollars yeah.

[Jay Borcha]

What do you have already?

[Caller]

About 270 right now.

[John Deloney]

How old are you?

[Caller]

But that's including my pension.

I'm 30.

Yeah.

[John Deloney]

You're not gonna believe me because this is deeper than, like, intellectual knowledge, but you're good. I'm. I am way more concerned. Like, that quarter of a million dollars in 30 years is going to be a whole bunch of money. I'm way more concerned. Can I just be a jerk for a second? Is that cool? Can I just be mean?

[Caller]

Like, yeah, that's fine.

[John Deloney]

Me, I got two kids. You make 200, and would you say 225?

[Caller]

220.

[John Deloney]

Okay. You make 220,000 bucks, you have the ability to repay these student loans that you sign your name on, and you're choosing not to so that me and my wife are, as part of our taxes, are going to pay them for you. Now, if you were. If you were making 40,000 bucks a year as a assistant district attorney, trying to help the least of these in my community, I'm all about that.

[Caller]

Right, right.

[John Deloney]

And so, like, you sign your name to a piece of paper, you're making a, like, almost a quarter million dollars a year, pay the debts that you said you're going to pay back, and then get on with your life. I'm way more concerned about your financial picture long term. You holding on to these and crossing your fingers for some government repayment program. It. Which, by the way, may come through. It might.

[Jay Borcha]

It might.

[John Deloney]

They've ticked up. They, They've. They have ticked up how many they're processing and all that. That's all good, but, man.

[Jay Borcha]

And how long have you already waited? How long have you already been waiting for this?

[Caller]

Well, I'm on.

Well, they've been on deferment for about almost two years, but I'm technically almost five years into these.

[Jay Borcha]

You see what I'm saying? Like, that's a long time to. And here's the thing. Here's what's on. Here's what's at stake, because I think this is, this is beyond mathematics. You're clearly good with numbers. You're thinking about the future. You're thinking about wealth. No one's going to fault you on that, at least for sure. I'm not. But part of personal finance, a huge part of it is, is emotional. We know. We know about the behavior, we know about the numbers, but we forget the emotional part, which is we human beings want freedom. We want to feel freedom, and we want to feel peace. That is just who we are at the core. And so as long as this is taking up space and residency in your heart and in your brain and in your mind, what's the ca. Like, why is that worth it for you, especially now, don't get me wrong. If you were making $40,000 a year and it was a struggle, I can understand it a little bit more. But, girl, you've got the means to pay this off so quickly. This should have been gone. Like, this should have been out of your life. And I would just hate for you to postpone the amount of freedom and autonomy that you can have inside. On the inside, because you can go out and buy what you want right now, but on the inside and just say, yeah, to John's point, I signed for this. Let me let it go. And let me make you feel a little bit better about something here. How old did you say you are?

[John Deloney]

30.

[Caller]

I'm 30.

[Jay Borcha]

Okay, so you're 30 years old. You've already got 270,000 sitting in your investments, let's just say, you know, until the age of 60, let's pretend you didn't invest a single more dollars. Like you just were like, you know what? I'm not gonna put nothing else in here. And we just let it grow because that's not going to be the case. It's already $7 million. Okay.

[Caller]

Wow.

I feel like it's not. That's. No, because, like, that's not real.

[Jay Borcha]

No, you're so young. It's because you're so young. And then if we just say, hey, she's going to spend one year and pay this off, and then she's going to jump right in at 3, 15%. Right, because 15% for you is about $2,700 a month. And let's just say, okay, we're going to start that at age 31, since we're going to take a year and pound out this debt. And then if I calculate it, you're at $13 million. Do you think that's all right?

[John Deloney]

Can you scratch by on that?

[Jay Borcha]

I think you can. I think you can claw by, you know, on. On the 13 million. And sure, we could do the math on, well, what if we added an extra year to it? Okay, let's do that. Let's say, okay, let's. Let's account for the year that she just didn't feel like paying off the debt. So let' another year to it. Okay, it's 14 million. You know, you got a million more.

[Caller]

Wow.

[Jay Borcha]

But do you see what I'm saying?

[Caller]

Right?

[Jay Borcha]

A million dollars is a lot of money. There's time to make it up is what I'm saying, and then some. It's a year of time to get completely free, to feel like, you know what? I paid my debts in this world. I did what I said I was gonna do. I love that. And then from there, the good news is, to your point, because I think I heard you talk about this. Yes, you can pause. After you pay off the state, you can pause investing. You can pull back to 15%. And for your down payment, hey, you could even pause for two to three years completely if you wanted to, in order to stack up a down payment fast.

[Caller]

Okay.

Okay.

So you'd recommend I completely pause, get the loans paid off, and then, you know, from there on, do whatever.

[John Deloney]

And, Haley, this is just me. Is just me. I'm only speaking for John Deloney here. If they come out next year and say all student loans are forgiven forever, I wouldn't be mad, because for me, it's an. It's an issue of integrity. I signed a piece of paper that said, if you all help me get through college, I'll pay you back. And I did what I said I was gonna do. And so would I wish I had that money back. Yeah, because I paid six figures back. But I did what I said I was gonna do. And at the end of the day, nobody can take my integrity from me, so I'm gonna be okay with that. But, yeah, I'd get it paid off because it's the right thing to do. And more importantly, you've got the means to do it right now, so knock it out.

[Jay Borcha]

And there's just something to be said about no one having to save you in life with money. It is a good feeling to say, I took my income, I paid my debts, I did what I needed to do. I got my own freedom. Nobody had to get it for me.

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[John Deloney]

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[Jay Borcha]

Buying or selling your home is a big deal. And with all the clickbait headlines and conflicting data out there, it's hard to know what's really going on in this housing market. But we're here to make the latest trends easy for you to understand. Like for instance, last month the average 15 year fixed rate mortgage rate ticked up to about 5.56%, but at least that's still below 6%. And if you're financially ready, a small rate increase shouldn't hold you back, especially since waiting around could mean facing higher home prices as this busy season continues to ramp up. Meaning home prices went up to 415,000 last month, which is typical for this spring market. With more homes available and more buyers entering the market, it is a great time to buy or sell. Now, if you want to learn more about the housing market trends and get free tools to help you buy or sell with confidence, go on over to ramseysolutions.com market or you can click the link in the show Notes if you're listening on pod or YouTube. All right, let's go to Sean in Des Moines, Iowa. What's up, Sean? How you doing?

[Caller]

Hello.

I'm good.

[Jay Borcha]

How can we help?

[Caller]

So I want to know if I should continue to support my wife with her continuous education.

[Jay Borcha]

Tell us more.

[Caller]

Okay. So I'm 39. I'll be 40 here in a couple months. She's a few years younger than me. She's worked a job for 10 plus years, was let go about three years ago. I stepped up and got a better job making more income. So now I make, you know, $100,000 and was able to support our family. She went to school, first was medical billing and coding, finished that, Then she went for phlebotomy, finished that, then she went for medical assistant and she's wrapping that up. They're doing mock interviews, found out that she's only going to make about $20 an hour. We've got about $25,000 in student loan debt and I just don't feel like that is acceptable for the amount that you spent. Huh?

[Jay Borcha]

For the amount that you spent on these certifications.

[Caller]

Correct. I do see that the amount that we're in debt equals about a year's worth of her income. But now she wants to go for. To be a nurse, the RN program, and that's going to add probably about another 20,000.

[John Deloney]

My big concern here is less about the education and the money. My big concern here is the way you're talking about her tells me y' all are not together on this at all. Like, no, you know what I mean?

[Caller]

I want to. I want a supporter, but I know it to what?

[John Deloney]

Because I know perpetual students. I was one who went to school a lot, so one to get credentials, but two, so I didn't have to deal with the real world.

[Caller]

Right.

[John Deloney]

And it wasn't until me and my wife sat down and she was like, hey, what are you. What's. What are we doing here? Where are we headed with this? Because these three. These three jobs. She'd be a nurse by now.

[Caller]

Yeah, right.

[John Deloney]

But if she learned along the way, I like. I actually like the medical field. I like doing this part of the medical field. I can become a nurse. That's not a bad trajectory.

[Caller]

Jury,

[John Deloney]

what's the thing beneath the thing here? Because you sound frustrated with her, like. Like it's not acceptable. She didn't set the market rate. Y' all may not have sat down together and looked at, hey, we're going to spend this much money, how much is this job going to pay? And y' all didn't do that calculation together. And that would be frustrating. But I would tell you, as a husband, you own that as much as she does. Like, supporting your spouse isn't just blindly writing checks. It's. Y' all are united on your decisions. And here's why we're doing the things we're doing, and here's the sacrifices we're both going to. Together to get where we want to go. That's being married. But, like, you're blaming her. It sounds like. You know what I'm saying?

[Caller]

I'm not. I'm not blaming her for it. But you're right. I. I like that. Where. You know, where are we going with this?

[Jay Borcha]

Yeah.

[Caller]

You know what happens after the rn? You know, is there something else? Like.

[Jay Borcha]

Yeah, it sounds like you're worn out because you. Every time you think it was the end of the line, it. It. Something else is the problem, and now we got to go for the next thing. Am I right or wrong?

[Caller]

I am. I'm kind of burned out with work. I'm a Truck driver. So being gone all the time and not being with my family all the time, I mean, that, you know, not having that 2 income, you know, that, that strong going forward. But I'm also optimistic and I like to look towards the future and that's why I agreed to the schooling. Like. Oh, yeah. Like we, you know, we can both make, you know, six figures. That's great.

[John Deloney]

Where did you get that number? You just made that up in your head?

[Caller]

Yeah, I think they said that she would be around like 76,000. And I make, I mean, I'm at 40,000 right now as of this week for this year. So I think I'd make about 110 to 115. Realistically, would it help.

[Jay Borcha]

Would it help if you took, obviously in the past, it sounds like you took out student loans for the education. Would it help you get on board with what she's trying to accomplish? If you said, hey, I'm for this, but we just need to cash flow and I don't want to go backwards financially to make this happen. How would she feel about that? And how would you feel about that suggestion?

[Caller]

So being that at my age right now I don't have any retirement and that's been my main focus, like the main thing on my mind is I need to get my 4,401k built up.

[Jay Borcha]

Okay.

[Caller]

I don't want, I don't want to work for the rest of my life. I actually do want to retire.

[Jay Borcha]

Right. Okay.

[Caller]

Right now, as far as I cash flow net, like, I just don't have the means paying for our entire household off of just one income.

[Jay Borcha]

How long have you guys been married?

[Caller]

16 years.

[Jay Borcha]

Okay. And this is, Is this the first marriage for both of you guys?

[Caller]

Yep.

[Jay Borcha]

Okay, tell me. Okay, so here's what I hear and John jump in at any point. It's Almost like for 16 years, I don't know what you guys were doing, but now all of a sudden it's like, we gotta lock in. And it's. You're ready to lock in, but she's almost still, like, finding who she wants to be. And I, I mean, I'm playing the field on this because I agree with you there. There does come a point where it's like we need to make a decision. We need to lock in and go forward with that. I feel you on that. I also feel you on not wanting to burn extra money because there are fish to fry, like retirement and making sure we're paying off debt. So it sounds like a really kind of come to Jesus meeting needs to happen with you and your wife where it's. I need to understand the career hopping. Do you know where it is that you're wanting to go, or are you still feeling like you're in experiment mode? Like, tell me for real, like, tell me what you're really thinking so that I can understand where you're coming from and we can take some time and like, like cool out on that and then come back together and really talk about it. But understanding where she's at and her understanding where she's at is going to be paramount on this, and she may not know.

[John Deloney]

And I want you to redefine the word support. I'll take Kelly Daniel, who is the producer of my show. She supports me in that show. She supports me by saying, hey, you did this really well. And she also supports me by. By helping create a vision for where we want to go with it. But she also really supports me when she says, hey, you blew that. That was. You did not handle that call well. And so you supporting your wife by saying, quote, unquote, yes, yes, yes to everything. And I'm gonna get a job where I, where I'm dying because I can't keep doing it. And then I'm gonna start keeping secrets about how scared I am about our future, and I'm gonna start keeping secrets about how my back hurts and I can't move and I'm not sleeping well. That's not support. And so support is you. My buddy, Will Guidera says every. He's one of the world's best restaurateurs. And he says every shift, the, the, the wait staff goes and fills up their pitcher so they can spend the rest of their shift making sure everybody else has water. That's support. But they can't first start by supporting all of their client, all of their customers if their pitcher's empty. And so you have to look at. Expand. Your definition of support is I'm not just going to blindly say yes, yes, yes to everything. Support looks like, hey, let's take a half day. I'm going to take a half day off of work. I'm ahead of schedule financially this year. Where are we going? Who do we want to be? What do we want our house to feel like? And right now, this debt is scaring me to death. I would love for you to be a nurse because you could be a nurse into your 70s. And AI will take parts of nursing away, but it won't take the human contact away. Like, that's a thing she could do for a long long. Maybe we can't afford that for the next two years. Let's settle into this phlebotomy job or whatever for two years. But support is, I'm going to be honest, to put everything on the table and let's co create a vision together.

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[Jay Borcha]

Back to the phone lines where we have Nick from Sioux City, Iowa on the line. Hey Nick, how can we help today?

[Caller]

Hey guys, just wanted to call. First off, big fan of the show. Thanks for taking my call. I listen to it all the time. So the reason I'm calling is I'm a small business owner. I've got about nine employees now and my main guy is great guy works hard, shows up every day, but I think just made a lot of poor decisions. You know, when he was kind of younger and getting started, he's only about probably 28, 29 years old. He's got four young kids. You know, I remember he was buying some vehicles from some used dealerships and probably paying, you know, top dollar and not getting good interest rates and you know, probably probably spending more than what he should have out of the git. Over the last several years I've, he came to me and said, hey, I'm short, I'm not going to be able to make my house payment. I'm not going to be able to make my car payment. Can I borrow some money? I've always lent him money. Just slowly took it out of his check. As the weeks and months went on after that. He's to the point now where him and his family are down to one vehicle. He has a loan on that vehicle. He has a loan on two other vehicles that he doesn't even own anymore. He had to turn them. He had to basically give them back to the bank because they were broke down.

[Jay Borcha]

Know this

[Caller]

well.

When he keeps coming to me for money all the time, I feel bad and I'm like, what's going on?

Hey. Oh, yeah.

I'm like, you work your butt. You work your butt off every week, man. Like, you work, you know, 60 hours a week.

[John Deloney]

What do you think is.

[Jay Borcha]

What do you think is going on? If you. If you really. I mean, not in a gossipy way, but if you just had to say, like, you know what I think? Da, da, da, da, da. Like, what do you think's going on over there?

[Caller]

Well, I. I think part of the problem is. And that may not a problem, but I think he's a person who's just not really motivated by money. It just. It doesn't. It doesn't, you know, do anything for him. Maybe some people are just like that.

[John Deloney]

Yeah, that's right.

[Caller]

He's pretty laid back. So it just doesn't really bother him. I don't. And that's the thing. And that's honestly why I'm calling, because the last thing I want to do as an employer is get between one of my guys and their significant other. Like, I don't. I don't want that at all. Yeah, I just feel like. I just feel like, you know, I'm willing to help, but. But when it's every six months and I'm just helping and, you know, I actually bought him a truck. I bought him a used truck to let him. And I just gifted it to him, you know, so he titled it and everything. And now that's having some problems. And you're not.

[John Deloney]

You're not helping. You're not helping anymore, Nick.

[Caller]

I just got to cut the cord.

[John Deloney]

Well, my good buddy Henry Cloud, he wrote a great book, but one of the first stories in the book is a family that came and they had a young adult kid who kept asking for money and asking for money, and they, you know, the family came to him as a psychologist and said, hey, how do we help our kid? And he's. And he said, the greatest gift you can give your kid is some problems. And that sounds heart. Heartless.

[Caller]

Right.

[John Deloney]

But for a guy that doesn't care about money, he'd care. He's going to care about having a roof over his family's head. And until he feels that and you keep bailing him out. And by the way, you're making it worse for him to come to work every day. And this sounds counterintuitive because you're not just his boss now, you're his bank. And that shame he feels every day, he feels it even heavier.

[Jay Borcha]

Yeah. That's eventually going to lead to one or two things. He's either going to leave the company because he can't handle it, and you're going to cut him off. And so he's either going to be mature and go, yeah, that feels right, and that's good, and he's going to keep working there, or he's going to go, I can't believe this guy cut me off and he's going to leave.

[John Deloney]

He's going to blame you for his bad decisions. Let me ask you this, brother. It's rare in my world where somebody is great in every aspect of their life except for one sliver. I have to believe that a guy that handles his personal finances this way, that handles his home this way, his marriage, his kids this way, that has to impact your business.

[Jay Borcha]

Yes. Yes.

[John Deloney]

Is that true?

[Caller]

I'm sorry, say that one more time.

[John Deloney]

So it's very rare in my world that somebody has everything in their life together professionally, and just when they get home, everything's a dumpster fire. This has to bleed into his work, right? Maybe not.

[Caller]

I. I mean, I. I run. I run a small construction company, you know, so he's. He's directed by me every day. I mean, he. He knows. He knows what to do and, you know, under my guidance and supervision. And he has a good job. And I think it's a little bit of a. You know, to be honest, I almost think he likes coming to work because it's a little bit of a break from probably what's going on there. You know, I feel two things. One, you know, I don't like seeing somebody work that hard and, you know, struggle at that point. Especially I rely on this guy. I mean, this is my main guy.

And.

But at the same time, I just. I'm like, well, if you can't get to work, have you tried me now? Yes.

[Jay Borcha]

Have you tried gifting him the gift of knowledge versus money? Have you tried, you know, getting him on with some of the Ramsey products or anything like that? Financial peace?

[Caller]

I should. I should probably try to do that and push that a little more. I've always been very cautious. I. I try not to ask too much. I try to just kind of stick to the, you know, I just don't want to get, I don't want to get too personal. I don't want to seem like I'm pushing.

[Jay Borcha]

You've already been personal.

[John Deloney]

Yeah, you've been. When somebody comes and asks you for money to pay their rent, it's personal. Now.

[Caller]

I, I get that. I just, I understand what you're saying.

[Jay Borcha]

Yeah, we've already ventured into that. I mean, at this point, if I, if I were in your shoes today, and I think this is where we're at with this call. Yeah. I'd probably, I wouldn't wait for him to approach you again. I would approach him and I'd say, you know what? I've been thinking about your situation, and I think I made a mistake. I really wanted to help, and I gifted you money, and I did all this. I think that was the wrong move on my part. I really should have shared with you some of the things that have really helped me. And that's a great on route for you to say, you know, here's the plan. I follow, here's a great podcast. I even, you know, here's every dollar. I was able to get you this one to get you started and use the line that, that we folks say, if I give you, if I gift you this, will you do it? If I gift you this financial piece and this, every dollar, will you promise me, if I, if I give you the total money makeover, will you read this book and, and, and pose it to him like that and just say, man, I don't want to see you struggle. I, I, I'm, I'm grateful that you shared with me what's going on, but I don't think me giving you money is the answer anymore. And I'm not, I can't keep doing that, but I can give you this. And then that way you're helping him, but you're also pushing him out. Like, don't, don't come over here asking me for money.

[John Deloney]

Ramsey Solutions even has a, called Smart Dollar, which is which giant companies use and small businesses use it, but it's a way to teach employees. A close friend of mine is the CFO of a, a landscaping business, and he realized a lot of his guys were blowing so much of their money and they were struggling at the end of every month, and so they got Smart Dollar for the team. And it's like, hey, as a company, we're all going to do this, we're going to learn these, these principles, but you've got Some great data, which is, I've given you a truck, I've given you money multiple times. Times. That's not helping. And so I'm going to stop doing something that's not helping. And I can help you here. And hang on the line. We'll send you a copy of Total Money Makeover. I'll send you a year of every dollar. We'll send you the digital financial Peace University product. We'll send that to you. And you can just turn on and gift it to him if you'd like to. But, man, you've made it personal by getting into his finances. And so when somebody comes and asks me for one time, help. Done. Easy. Somebody keeps coming back and saying, can I borrow some more money? Can I borrow some more money? Can I borrow some more money? We're going to have a deep conversation, a bigger conversation.

[Jay Borcha]

Well, yeah, because at that point, it's what we would tell anybody. It's a, it's symptoms of a bigger problem.

[John Deloney]

It's a systemic issue.

[Jay Borcha]

Yeah. And, and putting a band aid on it, it's, it just, it does not work. And I think that enabling calls are probably some of the toughest calls we deal with. Because you do you want to help as a, as a human being, if you're a, you know, any sort of conviction inside of you. Yeah. You have a pulse, you feel guilty and you want to help. When you see somebody else hurting, you want to help them carry that burden. Like, that's just who we are as people. I think we just have to be careful of how we do that and make sure that we're not making it worse.

[John Deloney]

Rarely is throwing money at a problem the solution. If somebody needs to eat today, done. Throwing money at that problem will solve that. They'll get a meal today or a place to stay tonight. Like 100%. I'm all about that. But if somebody keeps coming back and coming back, the greatest way to help somebody is to peel. It's back up 30,000ft. And if somebody's struggling, they got two cars they're paying on that they don't even have anymore. And a third car, plus the car that you gave them is falling apart, man, you got bigger issues. It may be that as his employer, hey, I'm going to pay for 10 counseling sessions for you and your spouse. I'll cover that, and I love that. Or I'll pay for 10 financial coaching sessions or something with Ramsey. But, man, yeah, I, I, I, I would not loan somebody I care about money. I'll either give it to them or we're going to have a bigger conversation.

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[Jay Borcha]

Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fair Winds Credit Union studio. Let's go to Alexis again in Des Moines, Iowa. We got two calls from Des Moines. What's going on, Alexis?

[Caller]

Yes, I'm calling because, trying to get my husband on board. And we have three mortgages, a little bit of a mess on the same

[John Deloney]

house or three different houses.

[Caller]

Well, two houses and then a mobile home, the best one.

[Jay Borcha]

Okay, so tell us. Tell us how much you owe on each house and what it's worth and do the same for the. The mobile home.

[Caller]

Okay. Tennessee home is 147,000. It's worth probably like 340. Okay. Mobile home, probably worth 60. We're underwater in Iowa.

[Jay Borcha]

Okay.

[Caller]

And we probably owe 63. Iowa main home, primary home. Now we owe 257, and it's probably worth 290.

[John Deloney]

So you could sell your Tennessee home in a state you don't live in and clear both your debts today.

[Caller]

Technically. But his family member lives there, so he didn't want to sell, but that

[John Deloney]

sounds like his family member's problem. I don't want to be. I don't want to be cruel. I know that sounds cruel. What, why. Why do y' all own a home and you're paying a mortgage on a home that you're his family member lives in?

[Caller]

Well, they pay rent, so it's the rental to them now.

So they do cover that one.

[Jay Borcha]

How long is the lease for?

[Caller]

It's yearly. They want to do longer and in hopes of purchasing it, so.

[Jay Borcha]

Well, that's not an option, but I'm just saying, like, what's the lease, the immediate lease for?

[Caller]

Till September.

[Jay Borcha]

September.

[John Deloney]

So what's your big question? How can we help?

[Caller]

So he's also had five different jobs within the past year because we had to move back to Iowa because my mom has dementia and to help her care. So if he doesn't like a job, he quits and get another one. But he makes more than I do from work because I work a job that doesn't pay as well.

[Jay Borcha]

What do you make?

[Caller]

So I make 41.5 from work. He makes about 62,4 due to his pay decrease. And then we have monies that come in from our military service.

[Jay Borcha]

How much is that?

[Caller]

Disabled veterans.

[Jay Borcha]

How much do you get from that?

[Caller]

Probably about 70k.

[Jay Borcha]

Okay, so what's your month look like on a monthly basis? How much are you bringing in?

[Caller]

On the low end, 12,5 on the high end. If we include like, the rental income back, child support that I receive and other miscellaneous, it could be about 18,000.

[Jay Borcha]

Okay, so there's. There's a lot going on here. You know, when you called, you're like, oh, man, we're a million mess. And it's actually doesn't. It's not as bad as I feel like it sounds. I think you guys have a lot of money coming in. It just sounds like there's disorganization. You've got the income there and you've got assets that you can sell to really simplify this really quickly. I think you just feel disorganized and unorganized. So what I would do if I were in your shoes is come September, I would let that family member know in. In as few words possible. Basically, we've got to simplify our life. And part of that we've got to sell this property. And so in September when the lease is up, you'll have to move out. And I know that you had dreams of maybe buying this place, and if you want to buy it in September, fine, but we're going to have to put it on the market because we've got to get our. Our life together. Right? And so I would say that. And then, you know that's. There's $193,000 in equity there that you need to get your hands on. I think I missed it. When you said the mobile home was worth 60. Did you say you owe 63 on. On it?

[Caller]

I owe 63. I'm not exactly sure how much it's worth. It's a 20, 25. Like, I just bought it last year.

[John Deloney]

Okay, who'd you buy it for?

[Caller]

He. Huh?

[John Deloney]

Who'd you buy it for?

[Caller]

It was for us. So we were renting and then the cost of rent and then I thought it would be easier just to purchase that because with our cash flow, when he was making more money, it just seemed like I could easily pay that off quickly. And then.

[John Deloney]

And then he quit his job and then y' all went and bought another house.

[Caller]

He didn't quit his job, so he was living in Tennessee, I was living in Iowa. So we were living in two states because I had to get here quickly to help with my mother's care. Rent in our area is still high for what you're paying for old homes and stuff like that. So to me, it didn't make sense to just be paying rent. I was like, I'd rather waste it on a mobile home.

[Jay Borcha]

Okay, so. But you don't need it anymore for that.

[Caller]

So he. So then I just got the mobile home in my name right now. Our son that's in college here and then our older son, they live in the mobile home right now. Your son trying to get their life together. Yeah.

[Jay Borcha]

Okay, so. And how old are the sons?

[Caller]

One is 20 and one is. Well, one's 21. One's 19.

[Jay Borcha]

Okay, so what I would do with the sons are, do they have jobs?

[Caller]

One is on medical leave from work, and then the other one, he's a college student, so he doesn't have a job.

[Jay Borcha]

So I would say to the sons, I'd say again, same, same narrative your dad and I, we've got. We're trying to get organized. We're trying to get our financial life together. We've made a couple mistakes. Part of writing that, writing those mistakes is we've got to sell this, this mobile home. And so your options are you can hang out, you can move back in with us for a couple of months, and then you've got to figure out an apartment or if you're going to live on campus. And that would be what I said. And you've got to get a job so that you can fund an apartment for, especially for the 21 year old, for the 19 year old. Yeah, you can extend. I think you can extend more grace there. But you can't, you can't keep this, this mobile home that's going down in value every single day that you have it. That really, I don't think. If you sat down, let's pretend that you were just living in the Iowa house, you didn't have the Tennessee house. You didn't have a mobile home. You're just living in your house as it is now. I don't think you would go, you know what? The boys need someplace to live. Let's buy them a mobile home. I don't think you would make that choice. I think you probably would have said, they need to get a job. Maybe we'll help with an apartment. Right. I think your train of thought probably would have been down a different line. And so what I want to challenge you to do is be very intentional about what stays in your life by default versus what you actually want it to look like. And right now, there's things in your life by default. The.

[John Deloney]

The.

[Jay Borcha]

The. The trailer is there by default. The Tennessee house is there by default. Right. So that's what we're trying to do, to get organized and go, this is not actually what I want. Let's get that out of here. Let's get the next thing out of here. And then let's take that money and actually pay down some debt and. And create some security for ourselves.

[John Deloney]

It seems like you're two hard conversations away from cleaning up your life,

[Caller]

but

[John Deloney]

it seems like y' all are doing a lot of gymnastics to get around those two uncomfortable conversations. And in the process, you're making your own marriage really uncomfortable. Right?

[Caller]

Yes. He just doesn't agree with selling the Tennessee house. Like, he's fine, but keeping it, so. So, like, creating a plan paid off.

[Jay Borcha]

Again, ask him the question I asked you. I want you to go, this. This is your homework. You have two pieces of homework for me. The first homework is look on Kelly Blue Book, or look to however you sell campers or trailers, find out what the thing is worth and get it on the market. That's a piece of homework number one. Homework number two is I want you to pose the same question I posed to you to your husband and say, hey, let's just pretend for a minute. Let's be intentional in an effort to be intentional, conventional. Let's pretend that we were just here in Iowa. We never had a house in Tennessee. We never had that. And we thought to ourselves, let's. Let's buy a rental. Would we, on purpose, look in another state, specifically Tennessee, and choose to buy a rental there with the intent of a family member moving there? Would we choose that and just wait and see what he says? Because I guarantee the answer is no. And that's going to help him see that this happened by default, which means we don't have to stay there. We can make changes and do things on purpose.

[Dave Ramsey]

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[John Deloney]

Attorney Advertising results may vary and no

[Jay Borcha]

specific outcome is guaranteed. Let's go to our Ramsey Show Question of the Day Today's Ramsey Show Question of the Day is brought to you by Y Refi. If you've lost control of your private student payments, find your financial progress has stalled. Sold out. But why? Refi helps borrowers explore refinancing options with payments built around their real life situations. Learn more@why refi.com Ramsey that's the letter y r e f y.com Ramsey Remember, it may not be available in all states.

[John Deloney]

Today's question comes from Melody in Connecticut. She writes, I've been married for over 40 years and I've always managed our household finances by myself. When we were young and broke, it was my responsibility to worry about budgeting for groceries, bills that need to be paid except Etc. My husband recently retired and opened up a separate savings account solely for his social Social Security deposits. I do not have access to those funds so my paycheck now has to cover the mortgage, utilities, car payment and all his incidental spending. He never asks if we have enough money to cover his purchases. Jade I'm getting pissed off.

[Jay Borcha]

Me too. Me too.

[John Deloney]

He just expects my paycheck to be enough. How do I get him to understand that without his income I can't cover everything now, my gut tells me, tell him we don't have enough money to make the. Make the bills. But my gut also tells me you've tried that he don't care and he don't care.

[Jay Borcha]

I, I think he has made.

[John Deloney]

What?

[Jay Borcha]

What? This is your phrase, John. People speak in actions and their pictures. What is it?

[John Deloney]

Yeah, we think in pictures, but we speak in. I mean, we speak in words, but we think in pictures.

[Jay Borcha]

And so, but he's, he, his actions are speaking very.

[John Deloney]

Yeah. Behaviors. The language.

[Jay Borcha]

That's what it was.

[John Deloney]

Thank you.

[Jay Borcha]

Behavior, Language. He has said, I don't care, and I care so less that I am going to separate myself from the hole over here and do my own thing on the side. And by the way, that's what I'm getting from this.

[John Deloney]

He did that 40 years ago when he said, I don't care. You figure it out. And he's left you to manage the whole house like a coward for 40 years. I don't want to deal with reality. That's your job. Job. I'll go make the money. And then the day he retires, he's like, cool, this is mine now.

[Jay Borcha]

Yeah, I, I mean, she's right to be concerned about that. She's right to be frustrated by that now.

[John Deloney]

Frustrated. Concerned. She's right to be enraged by that.

[Jay Borcha]

Thank you.

[Caller]

You're right.

[Jay Borcha]

I was being, I was being light,

[John Deloney]

Light enraged by that. Yeah, I, I, I. Gosh, Jade, here's the thing. I speak to so many men who are all awesome, and they are busting it on behalf of their families and their spouses and their kids and guys who are going to counseling for the first time in 30 years and guys who are patching stuff up with their dads and their, and their aging parents that when I read these, I get overly mad. Oh, yeah, because it's such a coward. Unmasculine, unbrave. Way to do life, to just cash out of your own life and put all of this on your wife as you've done for 40 freaking years. Years. Melody, I hate to tell you this, but you have a spouse that doesn't care, doesn't care about the stress you're under, has never cared for almost a deck. I mean, almost half a century. Doesn't care that y' all don't. Your math doesn't line up. He wants to do whatever he wants to do, doesn't care for whatever. And this is going to sound petty, I don't know, a way outside of an honest conversation. Hey, let's look at the bills. Together. And I'm assuming you've done done that. I don't know another way to deal with this kind of thing than to deposit the money in your account and start venmoing him or start asking for him to pay bills, because that's how he's living anyway.

[Jay Borcha]

Yeah. Yeah. I want to ask something to you, John, about this, because I think we get a lot of calls, and this, at this point, is going beyond the why refi question, because we get calls all the time where a spouse, female, feels this. This type of situation where another spouse has really just separated themselves, has kind of just walled off in a certain area, whether it's they keep all the money to themselves or they're, you know, keeping money to the side or whatever that is. And you can always tell that this has been a pattern that's been going on for a long time. And I. When I hear that, I'm filtering it through. Oh, my gosh. If Sam Warshaw ever tried hide it, like, it'd be Unsolved Mysteries.

[John Deloney]

You'd be texting me in the middle of the night saying, hey, we need to hide a body.

[Jay Borcha]

Exactly. Exactly. And so what I want you to answer, John, in. In a tactful way is how much of this is. It's easy to point at the. In this case, the husband, and go, I can't believe he's doing that. Oh, my gosh, this guy, this guy, this guy. But how much of it is the other spouse who's been allowing a certain type of behavior to persist? Like, where does that pendulum fall on. On what we allow versus what we

[John Deloney]

get at the end of the day? And this is the hardest thing about talking about marriage. The only person you can control is you. And so, yes, it's easy to look back and to say, for 40 years, you have made me. The honest thing is, for 40 years, I have chosen to carry all of this weight for the house.

[Jay Borcha]

Like, you're participating.

[John Deloney]

I've participated. That feels like victim shaming and blah, blah. What I want people to hear that, as is empowerment. I chose this. I wish I hadn't have chosen it, but I did. I won't choose this any longer. And so no matter what you're going through, there will come a moment. A loss of a spouse, a loss of a child, a horrific incident at work, whatever, a loss of a job. At some point, the question emerges, what are you going to do now? And if you get to that question and you immediately start to loop over again, but they did. And then you're Just going to spin your life on, on, on the, on the rent cycle. At some point, Melod has to say, okay, what am I going to do now? Am I going to keep doing this for the next 20 years of our marriage until I die and resent the last 20 years, or am I going to make a change now and that change may cost you the image of the marriage you think you've been propping up for half, for half a century.

[Jay Borcha]

Right.

[John Deloney]

It may be that this guy has been out for years and you're just going to make it come concrete. It may be that when he realizes this is kind of, I'm, I'm kind of lame. Like I had my little pity party when I retired and this is not how spouses do life together. Yeah, I'm sorry, I didn't realize how bad it was or whatever. And Melody has to be honest about has she blown things out of proportion for 40 years and we sure we don't have any money? We do, right?

[Jay Borcha]

Yeah.

[John Deloney]

And he's just like, whatever. And so all that comes into effect. But your question is a good one. Everyone who comes to me and saying, hey, I want to work on our communication and marriage, what they're asking me is how do I get my spouse to do what I want them to do? And someone's like, we learn how to fight. It is how do I get them to do I want them to do?

[Jay Borcha]

Yep.

[John Deloney]

The hardest question, the hardest answer I always give is you can't make them do anything. The only thing you can do is be the best version of yourself in your marriage. And that means I got to be honest about what I participated in and I got to be real honest about what I'm going to do next, period. I wish it was more complex I than that. And I know that's it's simple, but it's very complicated. I wish it was more, it was harder than that. It's that simple for Melody.

[Jay Borcha]

And, and I also think there's gotta be if you truly want to be happy, and I'll add this on and, and you can tell me if I'm wrong. You, you also have to do what you're going to do without an expectation from them because you can't go, I'm going to put it in, in simple terms. If you're like, man, I wish my spouse would be more servant hearted towards me. So all the time you're like, would you like a glass of water? Would you like me to. Right. You're, you're doing all these extra things hoping they bad.

[John Deloney]

You hope there's an ROI on it.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Jay Borcha]

And then when they don't, now you're. You're still getting, like, resentful and angry on the inside. So it's almost like you have to do right just for you, without the expectation. So you can feel like if the incomes. I know I did all I can do, and I did.

[John Deloney]

I tell couples all the time who are thinking about getting divorced, give yourself six months to be the best version of yourself. And that's the person who is looking past the dirty laundry to say, hey, I saw how hard you're working at work. Thank you for being in the store, this house. That is the person who looks past the extra 10 pounds or the. Past the. The gruff or the eye roll it. Give yourself a chance. If you're sitting at a divorce, in a divorce attorney hearing that, you know, I showed up as the best version of myself. And if you can do that and your spouse says, I'm not interested in being married to you, wow. It's going to make it hard.

[Jay Borcha]

Yeah.

[John Deloney]

But you'll have inner peace because I did the best I could.

[Jay Borcha]

You'll know.

[John Deloney]

Don't show up to the table being like, what? Well, yeah, I. I did do whatever, so. And almost every time when two people decide I'm going to be the best version of myself so I can be in total service to my spouse and they do it back. Ain't going anywhere near a divorce office. Right. Because y' all are building the life you want to have. You're building the marriage you want.

[Jay Borcha]

And, and the hard part with all of this is when you truly are the best version of yourself, you're doing the best you can. That is so vulnerable. It's scary because you're putting yourself out

[John Deloney]

there every day and your spouse may say, don't care.

[Jay Borcha]

Don't care. Don't notice. Don't care.

[John Deloney]

Oh, and. But I'll tell you this. When you're going as is, let me go back to, like, something as silly as high school sports. It's easy to be like, well, if I had just worked out, I would have been fast. Whatever. It's scary to put all the work in and still be seventh place.

[Jay Borcha]

Oh, man.

[John Deloney]

Right?

[Jay Borcha]

Yeah.

[John Deloney]

But you, you stop running because you, like, that's as best as I can do.

[Caller]

Right?

[Jay Borcha]

I did my best.

[John Deloney]

I did my best. And so, Melody, ask yourself, not, what is he? Ask yourself, what am I going to do now? This show is sponsored by Better Help. Financial stress does not just damage our bank accounts. It can also take a toll on our relationships and on our mental and emot health. Money fights are one of the leading sources of conflict for couples. I know this personally. My wife and I have struggled over the years with money conflicts over and over again. Therapy can help even with money. Therapy is not about giving you financial advice, but it can give you strategies to better communicate about money, help you build healthier ways of coping, and help you build a plan to move forward with your mental and emotional health and your money. I want you to consider talking to my friends about BetterHelp. BetterHelp is an online therapy platform that matches you with a licensed therapist based on your goals. BetterHelp therapists are fully licensed in the United States and they work according to a strict code of conduct. You can message your therapist and schedule sessions right in the platform and if the first therapist isn't the right fit, you can switch at any time for no extra cost. When life feels overwhelming, therapy can help. Visit betterhelp.com Ramsey to get 10 off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H-E-L-P.com Ramsey Ramsey.

[Jay Borcha]

Mark is in Fort Myers, Florida on the line. What's up Mark? How can we help today?

[Caller]

Hey John.

Hey Jade. How are you guys today?

[Jay Borcha]

Doing all right?

[Caller]

Great. So the reason I'm calling is my father and mother in law mall they just moved down to Florida about almost two years ago and after he retired and you know, after speaking with my wife, they're going to be out of money in about 20 months.

[John Deloney]

How do you know?

[Caller]

Big spenders. I know this because my wife who's actually a financial planner, she finally just took over for them. They never wanted to use her in the past and now they have and now she's got all their information. And anyway they've always been big spenders, never paid off their mortgage and all their big earning years and now it's not looking so good. So I'm really just fearful that they're going to come to us in time and need financial help. So I'm just not sure how to really navigate that.

[John Deloney]

So I think.

[Caller]

Or maybe what discussions.

[John Deloney]

Yeah, it's a great question. Let's just you and your wife get together and run the exercise like they call us. What are we going to say? Because you can't control them. The only person you can control in this equation is you. And so assume they're going to call and ask for money and have a pre agreed upon message from you and your wife as to what we will and will not support.

[Jay Borcha]

Do you Think your wife and you do agree on what that message should be, Mark?

[Caller]

We do.

And when we have talked about it, her and I are in complete agreement. Agreement. And I think the most frustrating part is that he. So they moved into a community and he's on the HOA board like, and he's working almost 40 hours a week not being paid. Like, man, go out and get a job.

[John Deloney]

Yeah. But like you're,

[Jay Borcha]

you can't control that.

[John Deloney]

Yeah. Your compassion is real, dude. And I want to honor your compassion for your father in law. But what you're doing is you're taking his choices and, and in potential future issues and you're dragging them into your present and you're the one dealing with them. Or as they say in a naa, you're drinking poison, hoping he gets sick. You know what I mean? And so what I'm not going to do with the precious time I have with my wife on this planet is spend time worrying about other people's decisions. Especially if we've already aligned on our, our response to the consequences of their decision decisions or the potential consequences. Right. That's anxiety is grabbing a potential outcome in the future into the present and trying to solve it now. That's just, it's just a recipe to ruin today. It doesn't solve any of their activities or actions.

[Caller]

Right.

[John Deloney]

And so yeah, he's making idiotic choices. He's making bad choices with his money and he's using, he's trying to build reputation in his local community. A. I get that. If he just moved to a new place, he wants to be on the in crowd and gets an open. I get that. That. And also he can't afford to do that.

[Caller]

Right.

[John Deloney]

But if y' all are already aligned on what your response will be, you've. You've gone further than most married couples do. So I applaud you for that, man. Now your choice is to look at your wife and say, hey, what kind of fun can we have today? I, I don't know the other option other than just to choose misery on a problem that you can't solve.

[Jay Borcha]

Well, I'm curious. Your, your wife is, you know, they, they've given over the information to your wife. She's helping them. Surely she has said to them, here's what I'm finding. You got 20 months left. And I'm sure she's made some suggestions. How have they reacted to that?

[Caller]

Yeah. Yes, she has. And he just keeps saying, oh, I have a plan. And we're like, but what's the plan? Dude, like, you're not telling us. And so we just don't really know.

[Jay Borcha]

How old are they?

[Caller]

He is 69, and she is. The wife is, like, 60.

[Jay Borcha]

Okay. Are they with it? Like, are they. Is everything still full capacity? Is it possible that they have money or assets that you guys don't know about? If they say. If he says, I have a plan or I'm fine.

[John Deloney]

Yeah. There's the other side. What if you just trusted him? Cool. They got a plan.

[Caller]

Yeah, I guess you're right. I don't.

[John Deloney]

Here's the thing of anything, but you get to. Anything that you're thinking right now is a story you're making up.

[Caller]

Right? Right.

[John Deloney]

And so let's. Let's deal with a potential bad story, and let's choose to make up the most positive version of this story. That's not being Pollyanna. That's not being in denial. That's just saying I get to choose which one of these things I meditate on every day. One of these stories that I make up is going to let me sleep a little bit better. And the other story is killing me. It's going to give me a slight stroke, and it's not going to change his financial habits at all. I. Dude, I totally get your frustration. I mean, I get it deeper than you can possibly imagine. I won't talk about it on the air here. And at some point, you have to decide. I'm not going to strangle myself and lose oxygen here over a problem I can't solve. Y. I will have. I will have an answer for what comes, and so be it. Jay, we were just talking about this all air. If you and I and all of our teammates here on the Ramsey show, if we could just get people to. If we could empower people to hear this message. You can only control you.

[Jay Borcha]

That's it.

[John Deloney]

I think. I literally think the world changes.

[Jay Borcha]

Absolutely.

[John Deloney]

And I don't say that in a. In a. Every man for himself, but, like, take care of your house, take care of you, and take care of the problems that are already in your lap. Don't create new ones and dragons them into your lap. And if other people want to go do wild stuff, I don't like it.

[Caller]

I'm.

[John Deloney]

I hate it for them. I hate it for us, but I can't do anything about it.

[Jay Borcha]

You don't have to attach yourself to it or it. It doesn't have to become the conversation that you guys circle around every day.

[John Deloney]

And maybe once a week. All right, 30 minutes. Let's just get it all out and

[Jay Borcha]

we just rag on. How could they do this crazy. And then we're done.

[John Deloney]

Let's go to dinner.

[Jay Borcha]

I love it. Thanks for the call, Mark. I wish it were different. Let's go to Scott in St. Louis, Missouri. What's going on? Scott?

[Caller]

Hi, how you doing? Excellent.

[Jay Borcha]

Let us have it.

[Caller]

Okay, so I, I'm in this predicament where my friend from Primerica, I just started buying Roth ira, you know, with him. And he's telling me that, okay, so, so I have an investment property in Las Vegas and I have a house here in St. Louis. I want to sell the investment property in Las Vegas and I'll come out with about 250,000. I want to pay off all I,

the only two debts I have left

are my Jeep and my house here in St. Louis.

I can pay them off and be, you know, scot free.

Step seven.

Yeah.

You know, on top of the world.

[Jay Borcha]

Yes.

[Caller]

You know, but, but my year, he's telling me I'm the stupidest guy in the world because my mortgage rate is only 2.85.

[John Deloney]

Get a new financial advisor, dude.

[Caller]

All right.

[John Deloney]

Get a new one.

[Jay Borcha]

He's, he's forgotten that there are different. There's multiple components of money, right. We get caught up on the dollars and cents. We all know about numbers. Then there's the behaviors you need to budget, you need to avoid debt. And then there's the emotional sense. And we talked about this earlier, so much of money is emotional. It's how we want to feel. We want, want to be free. We want peace. It's who we are.

[John Deloney]

He doesn't have, he's not have to deal with your peace. He wants the arbitrage. He doesn't make any money if you're not investing the gap to him.

[Caller]

Yes, sir. Yeah. He wants to give me put. He says take that 250, put it towards an some kind of annuity.

[John Deloney]

Dude, fire him. Today. Today. Today.

[Caller]

Okay.

[John Deloney]

Today.

[Caller]

Well done.

[John Deloney]

Because here's think, bro. I'm telling you, I've been on both sides of this equation. When you sleep in a house that nobody can take from you.

[Caller]

Yes.

[John Deloney]

I will pay 3% in what I call a sleep tax on what my mortgage, my interest rate is versus when I could be theoretically getting in the, in the market. I will pay that sleep tax every day of the week because no one can take my house.

[Jay Borcha]

And.

[Caller]

Oh, that's awesome. Thank you, sir. I love that. And there's really love that.

[Jay Borcha]

And there's the other part of it where if we do want to get into some facts and data, we can. We've done the largest study of millionaires here at Ramsey. There so much time was put into this study and we found that when we look at millionaires, baby steps millionaires, net worth millionaires, whatever you want to call them, it was clear that these people, they valued paying off their houses, they paid for their homes, their home residents, they were, they were maybe purchased with a mortgage, but it was a priority to pay them off to where they had that ownership. They had that peace. And so that's something that we know. It's not just an emotional thing. It shows itself in the numbers as well when we look at everyday millionaires.

[John Deloney]

And this is what I love about SmartVestor Pros. You tell them what your goals are and they lock arms with you to accomplish your goals. They don't call you stupid and try to sell you a product.

[Caller]

Sam. Foreign.

[Jay Borcha]

We talked about it on our last call with Scott. But if you need help with investing, you need a good SmartVestor Pro in your corner. Someone who's gonna listen to you, right? They're not gonna sit back there and tell you that what you're doing is stupid and not explain it to you. You don't want that. Our SmartVestor Pros are registered investment professionals who lead with the heart of a teacher. Hear that? Heart of the teacher. And we've been connecting listeners to them for over 20 years, which means these folks are going to sit down with you, they're going to listen to you, they're going to teach you, they're interested in you understanding so that you guys can work together. Smartvestor pros can create a plan to help you reach your goals and help you make informed investing decisions. Decisions. We'll show you up to five SmartVestor Pros in your area for free. And then it's up to you to vet them. You can interview them, you can decide which one you want to work with. Go to ramseysolutions.com smartvestor to find an investing pro near you. Or if you're listening on YouTube or podcast, go ahead and click that link in the description.

[John Deloney]

Hey, real quick. We were talking about this off air with brother Scott there for that last caller. I like that dude.

[Jay Borcha]

I did too.

[John Deloney]

I always tried to be compassionate here. So I'm going to put myself in the seat of his financial advice advisor and I have a client that comes and says, hey, I'm gonna, I'm going to sell a rental property that's in another state and I'm going to get $250,000 of equity. I want to pay off my house and pay off my Jeep. And it's a logical question. What's your interest rate on your house? 2.9. Okay. I can get you the market returns. The last two years have been 23%.

[Caller]

It.

[John Deloney]

It can feel financially foolish to do that.

[Jay Borcha]

Yes.

[John Deloney]

And if you're looking at a calculation calculator, I want to honor that. That investment guy on the other side of the table. You're right.

[Caller]

Yes.

[John Deloney]

You're right. And I think that's where. If you are walking in to sit with a financial professional, whether it's what somebody you found in. In the yellow pages, because I'm 180 years old. That you found online or a smart vester, I think it's important to come in and say, until I don't owe anybody anything, I'm solving for peace. And then we'll start solving for resources return. And I get what you're saying. I appreciate it. By the way, I will never, ever, ever, ever put my money in an annuity. I know that you make more money on that. I'm not going to do it, but I do, I do get. There is a math problem here where you, you think what I'm doing is foolish and mathematically I'll even agree with you.

[Jay Borcha]

That's right. That's right.

[John Deloney]

That's for me and my house. We're solving for peace. We're solving for not owing anybody anything. And then we'll start playing the calculator games.

[Jay Borcha]

Yeah. John, I'm glad that you said that because that is so true. When that guy, when that guy called in and he said, yeah, my invest. My investor wants me to do this, my f. My first brain goes to, well, yeah, like there's a lot worse you could do with that money. Right. And, and I want to remind people, listening, we have a method that, that works and we have a way of thinking around here. And it's not just numbers. We're always factoring in the person. We're factoring in who you. Who you are and how we. How you want to feel. Yeah, right. And that's been a theme throughout the show, even just today, where we're trying to solve for people's freedom, we're trying to solve for their peace. And that goes beyond mathematical equations. Math is certainly a part of it. Numbers, of course, we're talking about money. Behavior is part of it. We talked about that before. And the emotional part is also very, very real. So when you sign up for the Ramsey Plan. Yes, we're giving you a series of seven baby steps. Yes, we're telling you to budget. Yes, we're telling you to live on less than you make. But it's also that. And it's so that you can have. It's not just building wealth, but it's having this life of peace. And it's being able to give like no one else, so later you can give and live like no one else. Like, that's the whole part of it. And so peace is at the core of that every single time. And so you're going to hear that theme throughout the show when we answer people's questions. All right, I love that discussion. But now we're going to get to Jen, who's in Scranton. Scranton, Pennsylvania. How can we help Jen?

[Caller]

Hi, John and Jade. How are you guys doing?

[Jay Borcha]

Excellent.

[John Deloney]

Ridiculous. We're running a scam called a podcast. It's the best.

[Caller]

That's funny. That's funny. Well, I'm hoping that you can help my husband and I settle a disagreement.

[John Deloney]

Yes.

[Jay Borcha]

My favorite. Yeah, not that you guys are disagreeing, just I like this type of call.

[Caller]

Awesome.

Our question is, should we be on the hook for part of the student loan debt that our son accrued due to bad advice that he received from us when he started college, when we ourselves didn't know any better about taking student loans?

[John Deloney]

Great question.

[Jay Borcha]

So you advised him to take out the student loans back in the day?

[Caller]

Yes, we did. And I don't even think he was really ready to go to college initially. So he changed his major a couple times and there's some health issues thrown in there as well. So he's racked up about $60,000. Luckily, he's graduating in June with a Bachelor of Science and supply chain logistics and transportation management.

Management.

You know, he's, he's job searching. I don't know if he's necessarily the most motivated to job search right now. He is working full time, but he. I don't know. I think morally because we gave him the bad advice and we kind of pushed him to go to college before he was ready. I kind of feel like we're on the hook morally for that. My husband, he's been in the trades. He never had any student loans, loan debt. I myself was, I'm a teacher, so I have a master's in teaching. So I got some student loan debt from, you know, for my, for my profession. I've, I've since paid it off and whatnot. But so I thought that, you know, our son was just Doing the normal thing.

[Jay Borcha]

Yeah.

[Caller]

So where.

[John Deloney]

Yeah.

[Jay Borcha]

Do you have.

[John Deloney]

The big question is money you'll have. Could you write him a check for 30 grand today?

[Caller]

No. So here's. Here's the deal. We're graduates of Financial Peace University. We're currently finishing baby step two. We're going to have $113,000 of consumer

debt paid off by June.

[Jay Borcha]

So then we have.

[Caller]

Yeah. This coming June. Yeah, we're just. Yeah, yeah. So we're really close.

Thank you.

So, I don't know, what do you guys think? Should we at some point help him pay it back?

[John Deloney]

I want to say something mean. Okay. Is it that cool?

[Caller]

Okay.

Yeah, it's totally cool.

[John Deloney]

So.

[Caller]

And my husband's here with me, too.

[John Deloney]

Oh, nice.

[Caller]

What's.

[Jay Borcha]

What's your husband's name?

[Caller]

His name is Mike.

[Jay Borcha]

All right, Mike, we hear you on the line. Chime in at any time.

[John Deloney]

Okay. So here's. I have this conversation a lot with folks who call the show and they want to go into ministry, and they. They went and got a degree in something, and not necessarily a dumb thing, they got a degree in business, and they took out 70 grand. And they called and they say, quote, unquote, I feel like I'm being called to the ministry. Right. Or I want to go do this other thing. And what I always tell folks is you dug yourself a hole that you have to with integrity refill before you start living into. That's why we tell people to don't go into debt. Right. Because then you're faced with these moral dilemmas and you, regardless of if you think you morally have an obligation to your son, you don't have any money money. And so you can't. And it might be something that you sit down with your son and you say, hey, we're this old and we're still wrestling with debt. We want to walk alongside you. And so in five years or in 10 years, if you've paid off this much, we'll be in a position to help you this. Like, something like that. I. Okay, Jade and I may disagree. I like the way you're thinking. I wouldn't make it so caustic as you. As you like. It's not a moral fail failure. But I do love the Maya Angelou quote, like, do the best you can, and when you learn more, do better.

[Caller]

Right.

[John Deloney]

Like, change what you know. And so I. I like that you are going, oh, gosh, we told you to do this. And by the way, growing up in Houston, Texas, where it's a thousand degrees, when I was a kid playing soccer like 6, 7 year old. We were not allowed to drink water during athletic events because the prevailing science was it would give you crazy cramps. We had to eat orange slices. Right. That's madness. And my parents didn't know any better. None of the parents did. And so we'd be like, I need some water, I'm dying. And they're like, no water. It's bad for you. Right. And so as a parent, you do the best you can. And then when you know better, then you sit down with your kids and say, man, I messed this up. And so here's the next thing going forward. And so when it comes to money, man, yeah, your, your kid took your advice and now he's 60 grand in the hole. And yeah, I think it's right for you to say, hey, we gave you bad advice. We don't have any money. We're working to dig this thing out and we're gonna like, man, the quicker you can get this paid off, that'd be awesome. And if we get in a position where we can help you, we're going to.

[Jay Borcha]

And I would, I'd treat it like the baby steps. You know, you pay off your debt, save up the three to six months, start investing. And when you get to baby step five, if you want to say instead of putting money towards a 529, which is what we would and should have done, we're going to put that towards the debt. But payments and help you run this thing back. I, I actually really love that idea because that's probably what you would have done if you had a little bit more time. Right? You would have put a, a certain amount aside every single month to put towards his education. And it's not too late to do that. It's just going to have a little interest on the side.

[Caller]

Right. It's on the back end, probably.

[John Deloney]

He didn't just take out loans just for tuition, room and board. He probably took out the full loans and had his fun too. Right. And so some of that, he needs to have some skin in the game too. I think also, I don't know that you need to swoop in with $60,000 and wipe it clean. But I, I like the idea of you saying, hey, we gave you bad advice and so we're going to be a part of paying the piper on this, but he has to have some skin in the game too.

[Jay Borcha]

Welcome back to the Ramsey show and the Fair Ones Credit union studio. I'm Jay, this is John. And we're going back to the phone lines where we have Mark in Charleston, South Carolina. Hey, Mark, how are you?

[Caller]

Good. How are you doing?

[Jay Borcha]

Good. How can John and I help?

[Caller]

So

I was really close to. I was 300 away from being financially debt free, aside from my car mortgage. And then a bad life event sent me spiraling down and I have recollected all of that debt back.

So I'm currently

including house and car, I'm 169 in the hole with about $20,000 in personal debts. And the mother of my child cheated on me with. With a guy that she was employed for and sent me back down to an unholy lifestyle. I should say.

[John Deloney]

Can we. Can we. As we dig out of this and Jade's going to give you an ironclad path.

[Caller]

Okay. Okay.

[John Deloney]

But here's where I want to start with it. Okay.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[John Deloney]

A real bad thing happened. And what is my and going to be.

[Caller]

And it's my responsibility.

[John Deloney]

I want you to own. I went and chose to handle this bad thing in these ways.

[Caller]

I. I did.

Yes, absolutely. There's no doubt about that.

[John Deloney]

Okay. That ownership is critical for. For the next step.

[Caller]

Yep.

Right.

[John Deloney]

And so, man, I hate that. That dude, I wouldn't wish that on anybody. I hate that happen to you. And I hate that like your default setting was, I'm gonna go run back and make a bunch of bad decisions and on. On unhealthy decisions. And here I am. And so that sense of ownership will be what gets you out of this mess. Cool.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[John Deloney]

All right. Cool. Same team.

[Jay Borcha]

So let's spread it out. Because I do think that mentally it helps when. And this is for anybody, when you're listing out your debt. Smallest to largest. Baby. Step two, which is the step that we pay off consumer debt. It is just that it's consumer debt. And so let's leave the mortgage out of it for a moment. And that's going to help you mentally to get your head around what the task at hand is. So can you tell me what your debt is aside from the mortgage?

[Caller]

65,911.

[Jay Borcha]

Okay. And I want you to list out what those are. For now. They don't need to be smallest to largest. Just list out what they are.

[Caller]

Oh, yeah, they are.

[Jay Borcha]

So, like, tell me how much the car is. Tell me how much is on credit cards. Maybe tell me how much is personal loans. That sort of deal.

[Caller]

Okay. So the car.

I have 37, 178 personal loans that are right now past due.

[Jay Borcha]

Okay.

[Caller]

Are 18 to 88.

[Jay Borcha]

Okay.

[Caller]

And then the rest are all in collections, which is 10,444.

[Jay Borcha]

Okay, so the good news is I see a couple of things right away that we can do to get you some quick wins. Because when you're in baby step two, paying off the consumer debt, that it's all about quick wins. That's how you maintain. Just feeling good about it. Right, thank you. I was looking for the word. That's how you maintain momentum and that's for anybody listening. So whenever you have debts and collections that can feel terrible because you've overdued and they're blowing up your line 1-800-pay-me is calling you. But the good news is now you have bargaining power. And so instead of paying 10,400, you're going to pay like 30% of this. And so you're going to save up. Your first number one goal is, okay, let me just, instead of paying them a bunch of small payments or coming up with a payment plan, I'm going to meet my other minimum payments and I'm going to stack up any other margin that I can for a little while and I'm going to save up, I don't know, three or four thousand dollars and then I'm going to call them up and I'm going to settle all of these individually for cash and I'm looking for 20 to 30% of the actual, actual what's due. So if you have one that's $4,000, you can offer them 2, 200, 2 or 300 and see if they'll take it. Do you see what I'm saying?

[Caller]

Okay.

[Jay Borcha]

And when you do that, you want to make sure you get the deal in writing before you pay. Don't give them access to your checking account and you want to make sure it's in writing first. And they will do it. They have the means to do that. So if you talk to someone on the line that says, well, I don't know if I can do that, yes you can hang up and call to the next person. Okay, so you're going to have to, that's going to be, that's going to feel like a full time job to do that. But trust me, it's going to be worth it. You're going to save $7,000 doing it that way. Okay, so that's homework number one. Homework number two that I see right off the bat is this car. So it's 37,000. Do you happen to know offhand what it's worth?

[Caller]

Probably around 35.

[Jay Borcha]

Love that for you.

[John Deloney]

Sweet.

[Jay Borcha]

Okay, so you have a couple of options. I don't know what your income is. Tell me what your income is.

[Caller]

So reliably. My. So I'm on VA disability. Reliably it is $4,080.

[Jay Borcha]

Okay, and what is it? Unreliably?

[Caller]

Unreliably, it can vary from six to seven grand.

[Jay Borcha]

Okay. What's the 2000 that you're getting? That doesn't always come through from a side hustle. Okay.

[John Deloney]

What keeps you from getting a full time job like even at Home Depot?

[Caller]

Well, it kind of is my full time job. So my, my, the mother, my son and I, we share custody and the days I have him, I don't work and that's only due to lack of support right now. But hopefully my parents, my parents and I have found an opportunity for them to move down here to where I'm at and they can help out. So after that then I could turn this side hustle into a full time business operation.

[John Deloney]

Okay, what, what does, what does child care look like? Like when you, how old you your son?

[Caller]

He's five.

[John Deloney]

So is he in school?

[Caller]

He goes to school right now, but he only goes to school for three hours a day because he's in early childhood development because, yeah, he has autism.

[John Deloney]

Okay.

[Jay Borcha]

Okay. So for now, and I know you're working on that, but just for today, we'll say that I think that the best thing for you to do right now is to save up the margin from your 4 to $6,000 and do this debt collection deal. And in the meantime. Yeah. I'm going to go over to the credit union and I'm going to say, hey, I need a $7,000 loan and 2,000 of that is going to go to meet the difference on this car. And then the other 5,000 is so that you can get a junker in cash to keep yourself going. Maybe you spend 6,000. But the point is I want you going down in debt from 37,000 to around 5 or 4, 5 or 8,000. Do you see what I'm saying there?

[Caller]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jay Borcha]

Now my guess is that your credit is horrible.

[Caller]

It's.

Yeah.

Terrible.

[Jay Borcha]

Yes. At this point, and I'm just telling you this, I think that anything is going to be better for you. It as far as interest rate, I'm not saying get a payday loan. Never, never do that. But if you have, if you can do, put it on a credit card, if you can put it on any sort of personal loan, that is going to be good for you because we're going from $37,000 to $8,000. Right. So this is a good thing. And now that you've got the momentum back, you'll have that money back in your pocket. Pocket. You can knock that debt out because that now becomes your smallest debt aside from the collections. Okay. And so once the collections are settled, now we're tackling that personal loan that you took out in order to get out of this car. And in the meantime, you're selling that car. Kelly, Blue Book personal sale is what you're looking to do. And that's going to free up so much money because I know that that car payment is going to go back into your pocket. And then from there now we can start working on the personal loan that's passing do. And because it is personal, you might be able to pop in there and make a deal on that, too. Likely not. But at least now at this point, we're just looking at chopping down an $8,000 tree, which you can do.

[Dave Ramsey]

Hey, guys, Dave Ramsey here. Every day on this show, we help people work through real money problems and figure out what to do next. Now, you can get that same kind of help anytime with Ask Ramsey, ask your money question and get answers built on Ramsey principles we use on the show. Whether you're making a decision or just want something explained, ask Ramsey is here to help. It's fast, simple, and free to use. Go to ramseysolutions.com and try AskRamsey today. That's ramseysolutions.com.

[Jay Borcha]

All right, we've got Kelly, who's calling in from la. What's going on, Kelly? How can we help today?

[Caller]

Hello. We spend $1,700 or more on. On gas every single month, and I want to know if we should get a hybrid.

[Jay Borcha]

That's a lot.

[Caller]

Whoa.

[Jay Borcha]

That's a lot.

[John Deloney]

How do you so to put it in context, I filled up today, my truck, and it was the most expensive it's ever been by like 25. And I, I actually, Jade and I were talking off air. Like, the thought of me struggling to make it, and then all of a sudden, I've got to fill up once a week and I have an extra 100 bucks. Like, that's a lot of money.

[Jay Borcha]

Yeah.

[John Deloney]

Where do you get 1700amonth, though?

[Caller]

So my husband is a private investigator. He works in his car. If they turn it off, then he's, like, cooking. So the engine's always running and he

has to travel really far distances.

About a year ago, he bought a truck, and then it went up because the gas mileage was really bad. So it's just added up and now the more he works, the more it costs us.

[John Deloney]

Yeah. Is he in a position where, like everybody's having to do right now, now where he can escalate his rates to cover the gas?

[Caller]

I mean, they have like a gas reimbursement, but it's only, I think, like 83 cents a mile or whatever. And it hasn't gone up with that before.

It.

Yeah, it hasn't increased.

[Jay Borcha]

I'd be. If I were him, I'd ask about that. I'd say, hey, obviously, you know, and I don't know how long he's been working for that company. Let's say he's been there since 2020 and the rates never go gone up. I'd say, hey, I've been here. This has always been the reimbursement rate. Obviously, prices have gone up. Is it possible that we can adjust this with inflation? Because I'm spending this X amount of percentage more than I was in, you know, when things started and kind of just lay out the numbers in a. In a. In a diplomatic way?

[John Deloney]

Yeah. I talked to one person who works in the oil and gas industry, and he said they're. They're doing something called a supercharge, which is. We're. We're telling you all as customers right now it's going to go up, up, but we're not. It's not a permanent price increase. It's just because things are bananas right now and so uncertain. What keeps you all from just taking the truck down and trading in for a Prius?

[Jay Borcha]

Yeah,

[Caller]

I don't know. Like, I actually have never even thought of that. Yeah, we got the truck for about 9,000. He really wants the Santa truck because he's kind of tall, so he wants something where he can fit.

[John Deloney]

I'm a big guy, too, and I drove a Prius for you years and Dave used to laugh at me. But I tell you what, that thing got a million miles to the gallon. It's pretty sweet.

[Caller]

Could you sit in it for 12 hours a day?

[John Deloney]

Oh, yeah. It was awesome.

[Caller]

Maybe we should look into trading it in then.

[John Deloney]

Well, like, and let's let me be super, like, transparent. I don't drive one anymore. Now I drive a truck. Right. But it's. It's less for. It's less because I'm a tall guy and more because I do a lot of outdoor stuff and I got place out in the woods that I've always having to use the. I use the truck, if that makes sense, but get something that's comfortable.

[Jay Borcha]

But yeah, split the difference and get what makes sense. But the point is you're going down and you're going to a vehicle that has better gas mileage. That's the point. And obviously not going into debt for it.

[John Deloney]

And that's the, the main, the main thing for me is like pan out from the gas situation. Millions of people right now are having to deal with the fact that their job is different now. Whether it's because of AI, was because of gas prices. It's become energy sectors is a zoo right now. Like whatever you're having to do, step back and ask yourself, what changes do we need to make in our house? We don't want to be making these changes, not by our hand, but it's in our lap. We got to make some changes and stay inside your value system, which is we're not going to borrow any money. We're not going to leverage this moment and get ourselves in a two or five or ten year dilemma because we were uncomfortable right now. So either y' all need to adjust your spending up or down to accommodate the increased gas prices or maybe the, his boss will say, you're right. Or maybe 83 cents a gallon. I mean 83 cents a mile of reimbursement. That's pretty good reimbursement. Maybe I'll reusing the extra as to pay bills with. And now it just needs to go with what the reimbursement's designed for, which is to pay for the gas. And you're going have to cut spending somewhere else. Or maybe you just go take the trip truck and get a used Prius or used hybrid Camry and you're off to the races. But it doesn't give you permission to go be reckless with your spending and borrowing.

[Jay Borcha]

Yeah, I would agree with that. Yes. Everybody's feeling the gas prices go up. All right. John is in Denver, Colorado. John, how can we help you today?

[Caller]

Thanks for taking my call. So I'm a bit of a pickle and I'm just wondering if I could. I should sell my house.

[Jay Borcha]

Interesting. Give us the deep.

[John Deloney]

I love pickles.

[Caller]

So. Yeah, well, they're delicious, but maybe not this one. So I bought, I bought my house around two years ago with a friend and a few family members. And the plan?

[John Deloney]

Yeah, strike one, strike two, strike three.

[Jay Borcha]

When you say that, can you clarify when you say you bought it with them, Is everybody's name on the mortgage?

[Caller]

No, unfortunately, it's just me.

[John Deloney]

So you're the only one on the mortgage that's actually good. That's probably the best case scenario, actually.

[Jay Borcha]

Okay, so you bought the house with your brother and two friends?

[Caller]

My sister, her fiance and the friend.

[Jay Borcha]

Yeah, sister, fiance and friend. Okay.

[Caller]

And basically, I'm in a situation right now where almost all of them have completely moved out. And now my mortgage is looking like it's going to go up like around 200. 200. $200 by June.

[Jay Borcha]

Okay.

[John Deloney]

So why do you have an adjustable rate mortgage?

[Caller]

It's not an adjustable rate mortgage. I think it has to do with my property taxes.

[John Deloney]

Yeah.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Jay Borcha]

Okay. So it's going up by 200.

[Caller]

Unfortunately, the value of my house has gone down. So I think if I sell it, I talked to my real estate agent and I got it down to, like, a reasonable price.

[Jay Borcha]

Why'd the value go down, or did

[Caller]

you overpay the value? Actually, when it was evaluated, when I bought the house was actually, I think, like 15 more than what I paid for it. I think there's just not a lot of good comps in the area so that there's not, like the value ends up being a little bit less than it was.

[Jay Borcha]

Tell us real numbers. Tell us what you bought it for and what you think it's worth.

[Caller]

So I bought it for 460. It evaluated for at 475.

[Jay Borcha]

Okay.

[Caller]

And it. I just got a. An appraisal, like, a few months ago because I was planning on doing a refinance, and it evaluated at 450.

[Jay Borcha]

Yikes.

[John Deloney]

Some.

[Jay Borcha]

Sorry.

[Caller]

Yeah. Quite a bit of difference. So I'm in kind of a situation right now where, like, I did the math and it's looking like after, you know, commissions for the sellers and buyer's agent, I'm going to be losing money on it. But is it worth it to just do that, take on, like, a little debt and just pay that off or hold out? Even though realistically it's going to be really tight being just me.

[John Deloney]

How much is a little money? Because I, I one time I took $4,000 to closing with me to get out of a house, and that was the beginning of me and my wife starting baby step two, and it ended up changing our entire life. If you're. If you're talking about you're going to be $50,000. Now, that's a different story.

[Jay Borcha]

I think with fees, you're going to be. You're going to be getting close to 30.

[Caller]

Yeah, it's looking like at worst, it's going to be around 30. And at best, if, if it doesn't, you know, if I don't sell it at A reasonable price, it's gonna be around like 15, so not great, but at least, like, if I were to get, like a personal loan and come up with a little bit of money myself, maybe cover a little bit of a difference, you know, I can't see myself taking more than like a year if I work really hard to pay that off.

[Jay Borcha]

Well, because I'm also thinking you've got time, like when. When the house goes on the market. Like, you've got a couple of months there to save up some cash. Like, how, realistically, in three months, how much cash could you save up? I mean, I know it's hard because you don't have roommates anymore and you're trying to pay this big old mortgage, but is there anything you could do to start stacking some money towards this?

[Caller]

I don't know, to be honest, with no help, it's going to be really tight. It's. The problem is the reason why I want to sell in the first place is because I feel like it's going to be so tight, I'm not going to be able to put money away. Can you, Like I'm going to be a situation, you know, where something happens. I just end up losing house anyway.

[Jay Borcha]

Can you rent out the rooms? Can you do, like, temporary rent out the rooms to other folks while you get this money together to sell the house?

[Caller]

I, you know, I've looked for. I've been looking for rentals when people first started leaving, and I haven't really had any luck with that. I've tried furnished finders. I've tried reaching out on, like, Facebook, Marketplace, joining groups, and I've even lowered the price three times at this point. And I. Maybe it's just because they don't want to have, like, a roommate or. I'm not exactly sure, but I just haven't had any luck finding someone interested.

[Jay Borcha]

I mean, this is a cautionary tale we tell folks all the time. You know, do not buy a house with the intent that somebody else is going to help you prop up the mortgage payment, because this sort of thing happens all the time. The only way out of this is through it. You're either going to have to take a personal loan for the difference and eat that cost, or you're going to have to find a way to buy yourself time with roommates or stacking up the cash yourself.

[Dave Ramsey]

All right, let's cut to the chase. It's easy to get discouraged about crazy house prices and interest rates, but when you have the right real estate agent to help you buy and Sell the right way, you'll have confidence to make smart decisions. Ramsey trusted agents aren't just experts who guide you through buying or selling. They're people you can trust to have your back from the first call to closing day. Find a Ramsey trusted agent near [e-mail] agent that's ramseysolutions.com.

[Jay Borcha]

The right insurance acts as a shield around your loved ones and your wallet if disaster strikes. Our free insurance coverage checkup helps you figure out if you have the right coverage by giving you a personalized action plan with clear next steps. So go to ramseysolutions.com checkup to take the coverage checkup and find out if you have the protection that you need. All right, we got Sam who's in Fresno, California. Sam, how can we help today?

[Caller]

Hi, thanks so much for taking my call.

I am a single mom of a nine year old year old. Her dad hasn't been around for about five years. He actually gave up parenting time if I agreed not to pursue the court ordered child support. I spent a hundred thousand dollars on legal and travel expenses and that just had a major financial and mental impact on me. A hundred thousand dollars?

[Jay Borcha]

Oh, wow.

[John Deloney]

Why wow?

[Caller]

He wasn't looking to reach an agreement. He was just looking to ruin my life, which he did.

Okay, so I'm in a great relationship now.

You know, we're making future plans, talking about what, you know, marriage might look like for us. And we have discussed me potentially working less to be more present for my daughter. And you know, I'm aware that I am the one with the child. He doesn't have many kids and I don't want to put more on him than is fair. I've had resentment in past relationships. I do not want to recreate that. So how do I lead into building a life and finances together without feeling like I'm taking from him or like I don't deserve that?

[John Deloney]

I think you're asking like three different questions at once and that's why the outcome feels so heavy.

[Caller]

Heavy.

[John Deloney]

And so number one, your body's working perfectly. Like your child's. Dad gave your child up for a number, right? Like, what kind of scumbag does that? I get divorce, I get breakups, but I can't. My daughter's been gone for two days. She comes back today and I haven't been able to catch my breath. Breath. And I'm not special, Right? So like your body has a lived experience with a terrible human being. And so forget the money and forget the support and all that. Your body is saying, hey, we've run this before and it doesn't end well. And all that means is it's just trying to keep you safe. The second part of it is the story you're telling about this is my body feels a certain way. It must be because I don't do deserve it. You're making up a story about yourself, right?

[Caller]

Yeah.

[John Deloney]

And so what we're going to stop doing is making up stories about ourselves. We're just going to tell the truth. And the truth is I'm worth being loved. I'm worth being a relationship where I'm safe. I'm worth being not connected to a scumbag who would give his child up for a number. And that tells me all I need to know about a grown man. Right. Like so all that kind of stuff. The third part of this is you're obviously, obviously really smart and really talented. Fair.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[John Deloney]

Okay. So you know, just looking at data that attaching yourself to a boyfriend, no matter how stable he is, how great of a guy he is, he might be awesome, that still puts you in a very vulnerable position.

[Caller]

Uh huh.

[John Deloney]

Right. Because you're trying to build something. You're trying to build a house without a foundation, without legal protection, without emotional. Like we looked at each other in front of our friends and family and priests and God and said till death do us part. Like you're trying to build a house without that foundation and your body's right to sound that alarm. And so I would rather y' all in this, in y. You may be past dating. Right? That sounds like 16 year old something 16 year olds do. Right? But y' all are boyfriend and girlfriend. It's awesome. Nobody roots for love more than I do. I love it. Right. And so now as we're going to talk about values, conversations, who do we want to be, what kind of life do we want to build together? And then when you're ready to say I do and he's ready to say I do, put his money in his actions, where his mouth is and you too, then we're going to start combining money. Because now I've got a foundation that's yes, it's got some legal protection, yes, it's got some emotional spiritual protection. But it's you and I, we put a stake in the ground on this day, at this time, in front of these people and said till death do us part. And now we're going to say, let's share a chapter checking account. And then you're going to have to practice and I say this With a smile on my face. If, if you, if you were here in person, you'd see me smiling. Right? Like some of it. This sounds so callous. You're just gonna have to get over like, I don't want to feel resentment because he loves me and wants to take care of me. And then you're gonna have to go. I have that feeling. And that feeling's dumb. Right. And I'm gonna like, if we're married, we're building a life together and I'm gonna be a part time mom and he's gonna be the, the full time employee.

[Caller]

I.

[John Deloney]

Awesome. Because we are building something together.

[Caller]

Right.

[John Deloney]

And he is, he is in a relationship. He's thinking about marrying a woman who got done real, real wrong. And so he has to know part of him loving you well is being extra transparent, extra honest, extra patient with big feelings. Because your big feelings are. Right. They've kept you safe up until now, right?

[Caller]

Yes.

Yeah, they are.

[John Deloney]

You get what I'm saying? So there's, there's multiple problems here and you think it's all one big bucket and then you feel crazy when you pull the problems apart. Man, my body's working pretty dang good. I'm not going to start building a house without a foundation under it. I'll start talking about the design, the architecture and design plans. That, that's awesome. But we're not going to start building and man, until that day, I'm taking care of me and mine because that's, that's what I got. That's my responsibility as the adult and the parent of the. This kid.

[Caller]

Yeah, I guess. Ever let go of that? Like it's been so long, it'll hang

[John Deloney]

on to you until you practice being seen and known by somebody else. You're going to have to. You'll. It sounds nutty. You're going to have to teach your nervous system, not intellectually, but through practice, that I am worth being loved. And that's hard to do. Just takes time, takes practice.

[Caller]

Yeah, but you're.

[John Deloney]

You sound like you are on the right path.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[John Deloney]

And I know that doesn't feel like you're on the right path, but from what you're telling me, it sounds like me. And you are. This guy has won the lottery with you.

[Caller]

He thinks so.

[John Deloney]

Okay.

[Caller]

Do.

[John Deloney]

Do you believe him?

[Caller]

Well, I'm working on it. I am working on it.

[John Deloney]

That's awesome. That's. That's good. That's a win. That means you're moving in the. You're.

[Caller]

You.

[John Deloney]

You don't Just say no. I, I don't believe him. You're like, I'm working on it. That's awesome. That's awesome.

[Caller]

Yeah, yeah, it's definitely God, we've been together.

[John Deloney]

Yeah. Well I, I mean it sounds like you're on the, on the right path here but if you were my sister, if you were my daughter, I, I, I, your body would be working perfectly if it was like, man, I don't know if I should go all in and let this boyfriend of mine take care of me and make myself economically vulnerable, emotionally vulnerable, relationally vulnerable. Bring another man into my daughter's life after she's already already had just nonsense in her first image of a male role model. Like your body's right to not anchor into that wow. To not build a house without a foundation. So you're, you're, you're, your body's working pretty good.

[Jay Borcha]

I love that. I think we have time to take Matthew in Virginia Beach. Matthew, we're up against the clock but I think we can help you. What you got?

[Caller]

Hi.

I have about $140,000 from my engineering degree that I got mm and student loan debt. I built up about 70 grand between my savings and my brokerage account.

[Jay Borcha]

Uh huh.

[Caller]

It's kind of tough because the numbers kind of say long term I'd make more money if I would leave invested. But you're thinking about pull it out and pay off my debt.

[Jay Borcha]

Listen, I'm going to, I'm going to take that, I'm going to take that money every single time and use it to pay off debt. Only because, and I said it earlier in the show, but I'm going to say it again, one thing we believe around here and we know it because we've seen it work with millions of people and not just folks out there. John's done it, I've done it, George, all of us. And we know that your income is the biggest wealth building tool you have. You need your income at your disposal and that's the way that you build wealth. So as long as you're paying money in debt payments, you do not have your full income at your disposal nor do you have your full range of peace or freedom. And so by you taking this money out of savings, this is non retirement funds, I'm assuming you can take that money out of a brokerage account, cash it's in, and pay off this debt, you are one step closer to freedom and you're one step in the right direction to having the full power of your income work for you. And So I would do that every single day a million times to find that freedom, John. I mean, yeah, it's the easy. That's, that's, that's the easy button. That's a no brainer for me. And I get it. We all like the feeling of seeing a pile of money sitting there. But if you just do basic math, you will realize very quickly if I have $140,000, but I have $70,000 of debt, or if I have $70,000, I'm sorry, in cash, but I have $140,000 of debt, I don't actually have $70,000. I'm negative 70.

[John Deloney]

You're just holding the banks 70 grand for them.

[Jay Borcha]

That's right. So the math will also tell you that we're right.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

When I talk to people on The Ramsey Show, 90% of the problems I hear come down to one thing. Not having a plan. They're not living on a budget. They have no idea where their money's going. Money is just happening to them instead of them happening to their money. And guys, that is so normal. But it doesn't have to be normal for you. And that's why I want you to go download our EveryDollar budget app. EveryDollar not only helps you tell your money where to go with a budget, it also builds a plan to free up extra money so you can pay debt off faster and start building wealth. And the best part, your plan is completely personalized to your life. It's the same advice that you would get if you call the show and it's right in your pocket. So don't keep living normal. Go download the Every Dollar app, answer a few questions and get your plan today.

[Jay Borcha]

Our Ramsey show scripture, unquote of the day, Joshua 1:8. Keep this book of the law always on your lips. Meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will put be prosperous and successful. J.K. rowling said this British accent do is impossible to live without failing at something. Unless you live so cautiously, you might as well not have lived at all. Terrible. That was.

[John Deloney]

You nailed it.

[Jay Borcha]

I mean, Harry. Moving on, moving on. We've got lucy who's in St. Lucy is in San Jose, California, not San Josie. How can we help? Lucy?

[Caller]

Hi. How are you guys?

[John Deloney]

Good.

[Jay Borcha]

How can we help?

[Caller]

Yeah, so I'm in kind of a difficult situation. I'll kind of explain my debt first and then the situation. So I have $57,000 in student loan debt and the interest is around 6%. My payments are 640. I do have 13 months left of forbearance. So if I needed to defer at any point, I am able to do that. But obviously the interest is still accruing if I do go on forbearance.

[Jay Borcha]

That's right.

[Caller]

I have 13,000 in a car payment. My car broke about nine months ago and I just got a new car, used car. The payments that are 275month and it is a 9% interest rate. I have no idea why I have good credit, but that's. I tried to get it lower and I couldn't. So that's at 9%.

[Jay Borcha]

Okay.

[Caller]

And that's my debt and I have $14,500 saved. And my dilemma right now is that I've been having a lot of health issues. I had to get a, of, couple, couple of surgeries just from actually injuries, like accidents. And following that, I started to have like a lot of health issues, just like insomnia and other things that kind of started from that. And my health is kind of like really deteriorated. I'm 30 years old. I just turned 30 in March.

[Jay Borcha]

I'm sorry.

[Caller]

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. And then also I realized that I have mold in my apartment. It's hidden, but it's definitely healed. And I've spent a lot of money out of pocket trying to like get the apartment complex to do something. And they're, they're basically because of the air test they did, they're saying that it's not significant enough.

[Jay Borcha]

How do you know? How do you know that it is significant enough?

[Caller]

Well, to be honest, like just to save your guys this time, it's really hard to know what you're dealing with unless you can find it. And it's hidden. And I know that it's here because my apartment has a very earthy bad smell when everything's closed up. And it even kind of lingers even when everything's open.

[Jay Borcha]

And when they tested just didn't. It didn't show that there was mold or that there was enough mold.

[Caller]

Right. It said there's a normal amount of mold. And apparently the air test isn't super accurate because it's kind of like a point in time. So it's like it could fluctuate. Right.

[Jay Borcha]

Understand.

[Caller]

And so to be honest with you, I don't know that it's affecting my health yet. And it's also very hard to know

[Jay Borcha]

because when's the lease up?

[Caller]

I had. So I'm on a month to month lease, which is nice.

[Jay Borcha]

You're out Roll out.

[Caller]

Yeah. So here's what I did. And just so you guys know, I do make good income. I make 135 a year. And after I live in California, which is a mistake, I'm going to try to get out of here. But after taxes and everything, I take home 7100amonth.

Good.

Go ahead.

Sorry.

[Jay Borcha]

Oh, no, I'm saying that's good. Get to your question. Tell me, tell me what you're trying to do.

[Caller]

Okay, so here's where I messed up. So ideally, I want to pay off my debt as soon as possible. If I stayed in a rent range that I'm at Now, I paid 2,500 with everything. I could save like 2,000amonth, which is great. Or not save, but put that towards my debt.

[Jay Borcha]

Sure.

[Caller]

What I made the mistake of doing is my emotions took over and I found an apartment that would be really good for my health and that I really like. And rent here is just insane. I got locked into a good rate because I moved.

[Jay Borcha]

You already took the. Lee, already took the lease. You already signed up for something.

[Caller]

I did, I did sign it. So my question is like, do I, do I break it? Because it's 3,400amonth. That's with everything. And given the debt that I'm in,

[John Deloney]

what's the, what's the fee to break the lease?

[Caller]

So I probably need to pay the first month's rent because it will definitely get rented quick. It's a great place, which is 3400. But on top of that, I'm going to have to pay rent where I am until I find a new spot that's hopefully cheaper, but it might.

[Jay Borcha]

You were going to have to do anyway. Yeah, so that, that part is. That part's neither here nor there because you, you signed a lease anyway, that you were going to have to pay two rents, which is wild. But.

[Caller]

Oh, no, no, I wouldn't pay two rents actually because the date that I selected as my move in date, there wouldn't be a double rent. So it would just be for the one.

[John Deloney]

But hold on. Yeah, like you have $14,000 saved. I would take that first month's rent, go hand it to them and say, I'm out of this lease. I haven't even moved in and I'm breaking the lease. And you got cash. Thank. Thank goodness.

[Jay Borcha]

Yes.

[John Deloney]

And then on your drive home, have three other apartments, you go, look at, you're. It's. It's this. All of this emotion and story is compounding on itself and it's A really simple I, I'm going to pay $3,400 and we jokingly say it's your stupid tax. I did something dumb. Right. I got emotional and I did a thing. Cool. We all done it. And it's going to cost me that and I'm going to be down to what is that, 10,000, 11,000. Right. In savings. And then I'm going to, on the way home I'm going to put a deposit down a new place and then call it.

[Jay Borcha]

Yep.

[Caller]

Okay. Back from them, say I actually had 18. I actually had 18,000 saved but I had to pay a $3,000 deposit.

[Jay Borcha]

And you won't get that back or will you?

[Caller]

I should get it back. I don't think they can legally keep it because I didn't move in. So there's no fee that like, there's no cleaning or anything.

[John Deloney]

Well then it might just be your own hundred bucks.

[Caller]

Yeah, plus the rent that I'm paying here. So yeah, it would be like, I'd be losing like 5,000.

[Jay Borcha]

That's fine. John and I are fine with all of that. You can't, you cannot stay at the new apartment. So if it's cost, whether it costs you 500 more dollars to get out or 5,000, you gotta, you gotta leave because you can't handle that rent.

[Caller]

And then from there I did the

math and I should still be able to save. You can't handle it around 900 to a thousand. But you think it's not.

[John Deloney]

Darling, you're broke.

[Jay Borcha]

You've got $57,000 of student loan debt.

[John Deloney]

Yeah, you're broke hun. And I say that and I, because I love you like you're, you don't have any money.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Jay Borcha]

And you're going to feel how you're going to feel house poor and it, yeah, it's going to take you double as long because to your point, it's going to cut into your margin by over $11,000. So it's going to take you double as long to pay off the debt. That's, it's not worth it.

[John Deloney]

And what was your car note again? How much do you owe that car?

[Jay Borcha]

$640. A month. No, 275amonth.

[Caller]

No, no, no. So this, this, yeah. 275, yeah. You know, I think I was trying to justify it like this is a one year commitment to get my health in order.

[John Deloney]

I know, but just to tell me how, tell me how much you owe on your, on your car.

[Jay Borcha]

13,000.

[Caller]

Yeah, I just got the car in February, I put 2,000 down.

[John Deloney]

Okay, here's what I want you to do. I want you to go settle up with the apartment complex ASAP today because here's the thing. I know about autoimmune issues and overall general health issues. The more stress you have, the more all those things are exacerbated.

[Caller]

Right.

[John Deloney]

And so let's stop going like, let's don't say like I'm going to take a year for my health because your body is going to register 50 to 60% of my take home income is in this apartment.

[Caller]

Right.

[John Deloney]

It will know you're not safe. It will know that debt's only going up because I can't even barely keep up with the. You're going to pay minimums on your student loans and the balance is going to move $1. Right. And so your body will be keeping that score to quote vendor culture. So let's go get cleaned out of that. And then this afternoon, with whatever cash you have left, minus a thousand bucks, I want you to pay the car off.

[Jay Borcha]

Yep. Keep a thousand dollars saved. That's your starter emergency fund. No matter what, keep a thousand.

[John Deloney]

Just take action on these things. Yeah.

[Caller]

Okay. Yeah, I, that's what I figured you were gonna tell me to do. I think I just needed that reminder. Yeah, it's hard just with the health stuff, because it is.

[Jay Borcha]

But this is going to help you, your health.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Jay Borcha]

This is going to help you to

[John Deloney]

John's point, reducing stress.

[Jay Borcha]

Yes. And, and there's just something good about taking action. Like you feel like, okay, I've done, I've actually done something. I didn't just get the research, I didn't just ask more and more questions. I actually went and did the thing and I can see the results. And I think that if you literally take to heart exactly what John said, which is, I'm doing this. I don't know what time it is in San Jose, but if it's past business hours, I'm doing this tomorrow. I'm waking up bright and early. I'm to going, going down to the apartment complex. I'm paying whatever I owe them. They're going to refund me back what they owe me for the deposit. Then from there I'm literally going back home. I'm making the final payment online on my car. I'm keeping the thousand dollars aside. I'm going down the bank, I'm putting it in a high yield savings account. You will have done three major things for your future in less than 24 hours.

[John Deloney]

And all you'll have left is 57. 57,000 bucks on student loan.

[Jay Borcha]

Love that.

[John Deloney]

Then you're free.

[Jay Borcha]

All right, we're out of here. Remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of peace, Christ Jesus.