Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from Dallas into a studio, this is The Dave Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about your life and your money. My name is Anthony O'Neal. And cohosting with me on this hour is Dr. John Delany, eight eight two five five two two five eight eight two five five, 2005. Give us a call. We'll have a conversation with you going out to Arizona. Let's have a conversation with Greg.

Greg, good afternoon.

How can Dr. Dean, I hope thank you for taking my call and honoring the wife. And I have discussed we're down to just one on our house, not thirty eight thousand on the house.

You got thirty thousand left, Greg. That's a yeah. Hey, congratulations, man.

You're working hard and thank you. And for some, her work, her previous employer, she was given stock in lieu of raises and she purchased stock and employee stock plan at about thirty thousand dollar amount. And we debated whether to cash that so that the house. All in one shot, do it in two steps and spread out the capital gains. We were just wondering what you guys had in mind. What's your household income right now, Greg?

Bring home is about 53 to OK, so 53000 outside of your mortgage.

Do you have any other debt? No. OK. All right. So and you have a fully funded emergency fund already. Well, that's what we were using the stock as the 30000 as being in our emergency fund.

Oh, OK, interesting.

So right now, outside of the stocks, you don't have you don't have three to six months in actual savings account right now. No, no.

There's like five grand savings. OK, five grand in a savings account. And I guess right now you already are not investing 15 percent of your income into retirement. I am. You are OK, here's a GSP at work, ok? OK, ok. All right. Sounds good.

Now you are 62000 in that one.

OK. All right. What I want you to do is we to get we got to get the savings account up before we pay off the house. I want you to get at least three to six months cash liquid inside of a savings account. Stocks are not for emergencies. Stocks is especially single stocks. I'm not a fan of those. I know Dave is not a fan of them. If you were to have a fully funded emergency fund and you're already investing, I would say, OK, I have no problem with you taking the single stocks out, paying off your house.

Now you're 100 percent debt free. I would have no problem with that. Here's where I do have a problem. We're going to pay off the house without having a fully funded emergency fund, which means that we're going to jump over baby set number three to go to baby sit number six. And I can and will not advise you to do that, Greg. So what I would say is sit tight, get this fully funded emergency fund up to at least three months minimum, then.

Yeah, single stocks. I don't have a problem with you taking that out and paying off your house, but I don't want you to pay off your house before you have a fully funded emergency fund. OK. All right, look, looking to retire in twenty twenty three. Yeah. How long would it take you to get three months into your savings account? You have no other debt. I'd have to write down a good budget on that. There you go.

There you go. You said you said the key thing right there. I'm glad you said it. I need you to go ahead and download every dollar tonight. I need you and your wife to sit down and just go ahead and listen to all your income. Are you going to list all of your expenses at the bottom? That issue equals zero then once you do that. Greg, what I want to do also as well, look on and see what can you cut, what can you all fall back on so you can go ahead and get three months, for an example.

What what is your mortgage payment right now? About 1050. OK, so you got 1050 all utilities, what would you ballpark that at? How much is that?

All utilities? Probably some time. One about 450, roughly 450, all right. And as far as any medical bills for you and your wife. I meant what they doing off yesterday, OK? All right, now, as far as I would you spend on gas and food? Gas is probably ninety ninety five a week from a truck in her car. It's probably 30 bucks for two weeks.

OK. All right. So you see what I'm doing? Know food is. A hundred and fifty a week, maybe that's a lot of money for just two people, 150 dollars a week. Well, Anthony, we got seven grandkids.

Oh, so you have seven. You watch them all every week.

No, but you feel like that stuff to feed them when they're here.

Oh, I mean, 150 dollars a week. That's six hundred dollars a month. I think that's where you can save some money right there. Greg, you better tell. You got to tell your children, hey, you know, keep kids home, you know, a few days, you know.

But do you see what I just did? So I just literally went down and just listed. And I'm curious how much of you and your wife spent on your grandchildren a month.

I couldn't honestly tell, you see. You know, not I wouldn't say a whole lot. OK. All right, here's the thing, Greg. You and your wife need to get on a budget and you said it, I believe with your income right now, you're spending six hundred dollars a month on groceries. And I get it. You want to have all the nice snacks, the cookies, the candy, the popsicles for for all your kids when they come over.

But I mean, I think that's there for the goals that you're trying to do. So you can retire by 2023. You need to get a fully funded emergency fund. And to be honest with you, at your age, I'm doing six months. I'm going to take those single stocks out. I'm going to pay off my home, and I'm just going to be focusing on that. And you need to have a conversation with your kids, like, hey, you guys, these next six months of our lives are going to actually switch a little bit.

They're going to change a little bit because your mom and I are trying to retire and we want to make sure we we we retire correctly and healthy. So this way we don't put any stress onto our kids so that you can focus on you and your family, you know. And so that's what I highly, highly recommend right now for you.

What would you think about selling the single stocks to fully fund the emergency fund? I mean, a six and a half dozen other I'm not a fan of single stock, so I really don't care.

But I think if I was him, I would just go ahead and fund that myself and take the stocks out and just put it straight into my house of the house. You know, that's just me. Yeah. I don't I don't I'm not buying any single stocks. I do growth stock, mutual funds. But right now, I just think he and his wife need to focus on doing that because he's going to pay some penalties and stuff when he cashes out the taxes.

I'm not taxes to stock, so that's what I was. Oh, man. Great question. Triplette 8255 225. Give us a call. We would love to talk with you. This is Anthony Neal right here on the Dave Ramsey. Folks, I just discovered an amazing service that is saving people hundreds of dollars a year. It's called single care and it can save you up to 80 percent on your prescription medications. It's free and there is no sign up required.

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Going out to Los Angeles, California, you're going to have a conversation there with Lucy. Lucy, good afternoon. How can got to be in Ohio. Hi there, gentlemen.

Thank you so much for taking my call.

Oh, you're so welcome. Thank you so much for giving us a call. Such an honor. How can we help you? So I just have like an overwhelming amount of debt and I'm just trying to figure out what my next step is, my life is coming up at the end of this month. And I haven't found a place. And I'm kind of contemplating like, do I really need to settle for renting out a room or can I get like a one bedroom apartment?

Because I feel like with all the debt that I have, I'm never going to get out of it. Yeah, OK. All right. All right.

Well, I want you to slow down your cell. Young. How old are you, Lucy? I am twenty eight. All right. I know it got me a nice little millennial here, OK? And now what's your gross income?

About almost 55. Case 55.

All right. How much debt are you in? I have one hundred and thirty three K of school debt, and then I only have the dollars left on my car payment.

How much against say it one more time you went out on me. Hello, Lucy. Lucy, did we lose you, Lucy? I'm here, can you hear me? Yeah, yeah, yeah. There you go.

There you go. We lost you. Glad to have you back. Sorry about that. No problem. All. Now, how much do you own your car? Three thousand three. You see, you have no credit cards or anything like that, correct? I have credit cards, but they're all paid off. OK, so you have credit cards. All right, cool, great. So we're going to get those cut up. All right. How much are you paying for rent right now?

Right now, I'm renting a room with friends and I only pay seven, 10, not including utilities, seven, 10.

All right, cool. And how much can you get a one bedroom apartment? Four out there in California right now. Where I'm at, I found one just under a thousand dollars, not including utilities, but including like hot water, of course. OK. All right. Sounds good.

Now, what do you want to do? Let me ask you this question. Do you want to continue running? Are you. Is it a problem with where you are right now with renting a room? So this specific lease is ending, so I have to find somewhere else to go. I feel like I would like to feel like a sense of independence, which is why I really would like to have a one bedroom apartment. But at the same time like this, that does feel like it's hovering over me and it causes me like so much anxiety.

OK, would you take would you take a hundred and thirty grad student loans? Would you major in. I went, I wanted a private Christian education, so I'm a marriage and family therapist. Awesome.

Are you using that degree right now? Yes. All right, that sounds good. All right, so here's the thing. If you found an apartment that's less than a thousand dollars, you're saying right around a thousand dollars, correct? I'm fine with that, because right now you're you're seeing about right around 4000, 4500 dollars a month, so about net, you're going to be right around about around 3700 dollars. So a thousand dollars is going to be right there on a line of where you should be at 25 percent of your Take-Home Pay.

And so I'm fine with you getting an apartment now. I want you to do some more research. So, Lucy, because what if you can find you another roommate that you can live with to keep your margin down on your rent, at least for another two years? Because we got to attack this debt and we got to get your income up. To be honest, 55000 dollars in L.A. is not a lot of money. That's Asmus stomping grounds.

My brother lives there, so I totally understand the whole California lifestyle and the cost of living out there. And so have you.

Let me ask this question. Have you ever considered moving away from California? Because of the licensing, I wanted to get licensed here so that I can move out afterwards.

Yes. So how much? So yeah. Yes, my goal. That's the goal. OK, when can you move from California? And I take about a year or two before I get licensed. All right, sounds good. So here's what you're going to do. Go ahead and move. OK, get the apartment. Get focus on getting your license. All right. Then you're going to move and you can be making 75, 80 K and you need to go ahead and pay off your car.

All right.

When you move, you're going to get this 3000 dollars paid off A.S.A.P. You're going to be driving a car that's going to free up some more money. All right. Then what you're going to do is I want you to sit tight. I am going to send you a copy of my Destroy Your Student Loan Debt. Quick read. Kelly's going to jump on the phone with you when we hang up. She's going to get your information. I'm going to put that in about I want you to read this, because this is going to walk you through on how to pay off these hundred and thirty three thousand dollars of student loans that you have.

OK?

OK, but don't be stressed.

All right. You're not alone in this. We're going to walk you through this process. This book is going to give you the step by step process is 88 pages. All right. There's no bluff in it. There's no intro in it. I get straight to the punch. This is what you need to be doing today so you can get these student loans going. But you're a bright young lady, Lucy. And I believe, John, that she's going to be all right.

Yeah. And Lucy, I want you to hear two things from you, from a fellow mental health person, OK? Number one, I want you to hear a couple of things you mentioned out loud. You mentioned that you really wanted a private Christian college. And you got it, and it's real, real expensive, and you're going to continue to pay on it for a while, right? You also really want your independence. You also really want to live in California and live in a cool place.

So all of these really, really wants if you were seeing a client, you would tell them the same thing I'm about to tell you, which is at some point you're going to have to decide what the reality is, what truth is, and how that lines up against what quote unquote you really want.

The second thing is this. I want you to get with your clinical supervisor. You're getting your hours in, right. So you can get your licensure.

Is that correct? So I want you to ask for ways that you can see groups on the weekends that you can take extra shifts on Sundays when people are desperate to see clients and and folks won't work on many clinicians won't work on Sundays. I want you to take on as many extra shifts as you can, if he will, or she will sign off on you seeing private clients, whatever you got to do to begin to to attack this debt, you've got to earn more money for the quote unquote wants that you that you have right now.

And then at right. I want you to go through that book and paying off that debt becomes a priority. It is heavy. It is hard. It does feel overwhelming. I don't want you to get overwhelmed, like Anthony said, follow a plan, attack it and really do the day.

The only way you toggles she's got Anthony is her wants and her income, right?

Absolutely.

That's the scenario she's in. So she's got to dial back the wants and she's got to crank up that income.

She has to focus on vision. I mean, and clearly paying off her cars. The first thing that's going to be clear, that's going to be easy, 3000 dollars. She's doing about 4500 hours gross a month. So she should be able to do that without no other over the next two or three months because she has no other debt. Oluseyi, here's the next thing. I need you to do this today. All right. Cut up your credit cards.

All right. I don't want you to get tempted. I don't want something to come up. I don't want to get any ideas. Oh, I could just use my credit card. No, no, ma'am. Cut them up. And as a matter of fact, if you cut them up and when you cut, it doesn't matter if when you cut them up, lose them once you take a picture. And I want you to put it on Instagram and I want you to tag me in it and say, Anthony O'Neal told me to cut up my credit cards today because I'm taking over my future and I'm going to repost it.

I'm going to show America that this bright 28 year old who is about to be one of the best people, best therapists, they are just doctors out there, just did a huge, huge, huge thing.

One of my mentors and professors, Dr. Aretha Marshall, she's just a saint and and really spoke wisdom into my life for years. She said mental health practitioners cannot effectively help people if they are worried about their bills.

Mm hmm. Why don't they?

Nobody can. Right. But if you are not whole, if you are worried they're going to turn the lights out on me or I've got this wild, heavy debt hanging over me, you cannot effectively enter into somebody else's space and be the light to them that you need them to be.

And so, yeah, tack the debt, get this thing off and you will find yourself as a clinician, better as a as a friend and partner, better and as a community. A better community member. Yes, absolutely. Get it. Get it. Get it. I don't get it, Lucy. I don't think no one can do that. Doctors can't focus. You know, lawyers can't focus on abuse, can't focus if they're in trouble and in debt and living paycheck to paycheck and stress as well.

Life, I can't focus. I remember them days. But that's that's why we're here to help people focus. This is Dave Ramsey. People all over the country are discovering a faith based and budget friendly way of meeting health care costs through Christian healthcare ministries, Christian health care ministries, or S.A.M., is a nonprofit organization that helps members carry one another's burdens with health care expenses. And they have successfully shared each other's medical bills for nearly 40 years. CFC is right for you by visiting S.H. Ministries.

Drug C h m is a proud sponsor of Dave Ramsey live events. His troops got to be that no parent ever wants their kids to experience a panic of being unprepared for a crisis, but teaching them how to be smart with money can feel like a big responsibility, a.k.a. a job. We've got your back, though, with our fully digital self study courses. You can rest assured that your team would know the right way to handle money and never make the same mistakes millions and millions of people have made.

And the best part, there is no instructor needed and the courses are self-paced. If your teen has a tablet or computer, they are all set parents. I want to go to Dave Ramsey dot com for Self Study to learn more about all of the different courses we have available for middle school and high school students. Never worry about your kids being unprepared again because Anthony O'Neal is in the building, you know, and that's true. You know, I have a heart and passion for young people.

And I sit down with our president of the Education Solutions side and say, hey, listen, how can we make something that's attractive to young people, specifically middle school, high school and college students to where we can teach them about money, but they can laugh, they can learn and they can walk away. Really, really say, you know what, OK, I feel better about going into the real world. I know the difference between a credit card, a debit card.

I know how to apply for a mortgage. I know what to expect with taxes out of my paycheck. I know how to budget. I know the basic stuff to get me started in life. And that's exactly what this self study is. It's just me sitting down, just telling my stories, explaining my mistakes. I mean, just really teaching from my life experience. And I'm telling you right now, parents, you want to go to Dave Ramsey dot com for self study, because I'm telling you, your kids will enjoy this.

Your young person will enjoy this, and they will thank you. When they graduate high school. They will thank you when they graduate college because they have the education that their peers do not have.

I love it. I'm glad you're telling that story.

Oh, man. I had to tell the story.

I mean, I have to and see the videos coming out of this place and they are not your normal shot on a crummy camcorder thrown up on YouTube. Everything here is world class, the producers, the films, the sets, everything is extraordinary.

And so that's that's that's really great.

And how many millions and millions of kids are sitting at home right now at home schooling. Yes. Doing their schoolwork on the Internet.

So I'm picking up a selfie is a great idea. So let's go to the blind dotcom question of the Day Blind's dot com. Find out for yourself why Blind's dot com is the number one online retailer of custom window coverings. You get free samples, free shipping with the new promos they run every month, you will save even more. Use promo code Ramsey to get the best deal. Rules and restrictions apply. All right, Anthony, this is a question that I'm interested in how you're going to respond to this.

All right, let's go. So today's question comes from Tracy in Connecticut.

She visits Dave Ramsey dot com to ask six years ago, six years ago, half a decade ago, plus one while we were going through a rough time, my husband and I moved into a property that belongs to my parents and they have never charged us rent.

Over the last couple of years, I've been trying to convince my husband that we need to move out and rent somewhere since we aren't ready to buy.

He doesn't want to rent and would rather stay here until we are able to buy. I'm afraid he's become comfortable with our living arrangement. You think I feel like this arrangement is hindering our ability to be mature adults and I'm losing respect for myself and my husband.

What should I do?

How do I convince my husband that we have overstayed when him and my parents think this arrangement is OK? Hmm.

There's so much here, man. Break it down there, Doctor. So I'm going I'm going to ask you I'm going to run you through some questions, like I would ask somebody if they just plop this in front of me. OK, all right. Question number one, you have lived rent free for six years and you were still not in a position to get your own place.

Tell me about that. And number two, over the last couple of years, you've been trying to convince your husband that you need to move out.

How do you convince your like what is what's going on for a couple of years that it's not sinking in? Right. Yeah. That you want to move out and rent somewhere since you aren't ready to buy. Number three, he doesn't want to rent.

He'd rather stay here until we're able to buy. I understand that sentiment. If you were actually working towards getting ready to buy.

Right. I understand the Baath Party. There you go.

That leads me to no, I don't even know. Number on number 41. Right. Number four, I'm afraid he's become comfortable with our living arrangement. Yes. Any time you put somebody in a place where they have no rent, no bills, and they're just going to be able to coast, you are correct. That is a recipe for comfortable living arrangement.

Number five, I feel like this arrangement is hindering our ability to be mature adults and I'm losing respect for myself and my husband.

That's all I want to park. Is taking a rent free arrangement from your in-laws.

Less mature, less responsible, less respectful. What do you think, Anthony?

I wish I can ask more questions right now because there's so much that I really want to dive into one.

Why did you all go there in the beginning? And then I'm like, you number two, OK, you all been there six years and you're still not in a position to do something, are you? Not in a position to purchase a home or are you not in a position to even move out?

And again, apartment is over here. What I recommend to her and again, I'm not married, so I want to leave this majority on you because I want to make sure that, you know, I'm respecting my lane. That's a good part.

You know, as a single person, I want to make sure that them to actually all of them, all the parties, the in-laws, the husband in her need to have an honest conversation. And we need to come to an end date to win.

OK, when will this partnership end? OK.

When are you all moving out? When are we moving out. Here's the date. And then from here, moving forward, the wife and the husband need to have a conversation. All right. That's our date. What are we doing to meet that date? And right now they're not in a position to buy.

No home. No home. We're going to rent. All right. We're going to rent. They should be in a position. They should be debt free, to be honest. They should have no no major bills because they've been living rent free for six months, six years, six years. I mean, I keep saying six months. Six years. Oh, man. I wish I could just call into the show. I really wish they could just call in to the show.

If you're hearing us right now, call in to the show the next time Dr. D or myself, we're on because I have a lot of questions.

I want to focus on mature adults and losing respect. One of the cornerstones of maturity to me is this idea of intentionality. Yeah. Do you have a plan?

Yeah, I don't think it it immediately suggest you aren't mature if you are able to live rent free in an in-laws home while you get your stuff together.

I think the immaturity comes those later. There's no plan.

Yes, there's no objective. There's no hey, you know, we're going to do this for seven years and we're going to pay cash for our house.

And let's clear this up. We're not calling them immature. What we're saying, the decision that that you've made over the last six years sure is immature.

And you're clearly not on the same page with each other. Right? Right. One of you is losing respect for for both of you. You're trying to convince one another. Like that's just not how relationships work. So what should I do? How do I convince my husband that we have overstayed? It's very hard to convince somebody.

It's very hard to convince a man. Let's just be real. Well, either works both ways. Two men are can be especially hard headed, but it works both ways. I think the idea is to less try to convince somebody, try to quote unquote, change their mind. And really, you need to get out of this free house. Now, again, you're talking six years. This is a whole different level of enmeshment.

You need to get out of here and really let him here. Not nagging, not complaining, not I'm losing respect for you, but here is my vision for us. Yeah.

I want us to have our own place.

I want us to be together and have shared goals that don't include my parents, that include us working together and moving forward and letting somebody hear that that's different than hey. Hey, what about this? What about this? What about this? You disagree with me, so bring about.

Yeah, I don't know if I would say that wife should come back and say, here's the vision that I have for us.

Here's here's my dream. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's I've got to say because I mean some ladies may be like, oh, Anthony Reilly, but I think the vision needs to come from the both of you cocreator it.

But it starts with one. It starts with one saying, I want you to hear my heart. Yes. And here's my passion. Here's my vision for us. And here's the deal. Parents got Tracy and her husband under their thumb. Yeah, of course, they're going to be great with that arrangement. So to practical step here is first thing is pray ask God to give you the words and wisdom, to have a conversation with your husband, have a conversation with your husband away from the in-laws.

After that conversation, you and the husband come back, sit down, have a meeting with the in-laws, and you all go from there. Got a dream together? Yes. Psalm 23, verse four, says, Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with your rod and your staff. They comfort me. Dr. Henry Link says we generate fears while we sit. We overcome them by going out to Orlando, Florida.

We're going to have a conversation with Tyler. Tyler, good afternoon. How can I help?

Hey, how y'all doing? A little bit nervous. Never been on the show before, so. Well, good. Well, how can we help? So I got a little situation right now where I'm going through a divorce and child custody and just want to have some baby steps. And just because I've been a little tight for money, just wanting to see, you know, when I get a little bit better financially, you know, do I put this divorce and child custody lawyer before the baby steps in, baby step two?

Or, you know, I was wanting to know exactly where I should really be dealing with that. Do you have a payment arrangement with them or or have you are you holding a bill in your hand?

What's your payment arrangement all along? Well, I was able to a little the here I was able to go down to 75 once to my original bill was two thousand dollars because she said it's most likely going to be contested races of 5000.

Tyler, Tyler, Taylor, slow down a little bit and talk directly into the phone. OK, I know you're a little bit nervous. There you go. All right. Talk to me. Talk to me like I'm old. I got you.

I was a little bit more times financially and just off with the divorce and child custody of the two thousand dollars. And then he said it most likely is going to be contested. So he raised it to 5000. And I'm currently paying two seventy five a month.

OK, so if if he has worked out a plan with you to just pay the full divorce installments of 275 a month, then we're going to, Anthony, defer to you on the rule that your baby steps. It's going to be one of your normal bills. You may want to move that up is as closely as possible, but it sounds like you've got other things going on in your life. I am as concerned about your heart health and making sure you've got people around you that you trust and love and that you are focusing on healing after divorce, being connected as much as possible with your kid than I am about you obsessively trying to figure out where this goes in the baby steps.

Yeah. Yeah. How long have you as a divorce final? How long have you been divorced?

So it hasn't even really taking place. OK, there's some confusion about her. She can't really stay in one place for one time very long. OK, so it's hard to really just locate her to go to serve papers and things like that. I kind of started this process about a month and a half ago, but we've been, you know, not together for a couple of years now. I was just not able to have the funds to be able to because I didn't know that receiving payments.

So I was worried about the need to save up all this money. Where's your kids while he's currently with me? Thankfully, because of that situation, like I said, with our sure son, thankfully, he is with me today and actually his birthday.

So very cool, but always fun where you work and where you work in Tyler right now, I'm an apprentice electrician working in Orlando here, so I'm not really great. I'm actually going to be trying to pursue law enforcement and trying to get a sponsorship to the academy. So I don't have to worry about paying that on top of trying to get this course taken care of.

OK, so I want you to focus on a couple of things in the right order. OK, first being make sure your son is safe, make sure you were stable with him and make sure that you are intentionally over connecting with him every day.

And that means I want you to spend time with him. Last night I was working on a writing project. I didn't get out until two a.m. The first thing I did this morning was I skip my workout and I went out and played catch with my son in the grass in the morning. That's over connecting. That's me trying to lean back into a relationship that I violated last night because we had some stuff going on last night and I ended up having to work late.

That is part of life. That's part of being there. But I want you to do things like that over connect with your son. Number two, continue to work directly with your lawyer. And then number three, in celebration of your son's birthday, we're going to give you Ramsey.

Plus, I want you to follow this. I want you to walk along, son. Let your son hear you doing this. I want you to stay on the line. Kelly is going to connect with you, Anthony and I and Dave, we're going to pass along Ramsey. Plus, it's going to have Financial Peace University. I want you to walk through this. It's going to have the all the apps. It's going to have all of the material.

It's going to have connections to the podcasts. It's going to have everything. And this is going to be a moment for you to begin to look at your son, look at your legacy, and begin to make some systemic long term changes and then work closely with that lawyer. Don't let that stuff slide, continue to pay your bills and then move on from there.

And I love it. You know, I really, really do love you, vice chairman. And there was a question over here earlier that I wanted to ask you earlier, and I don't see it here. Hold on to it. I don't see it here. So I want to ask you that question.

Oh, excellent. Good man. I say myself, no, no, no, no. You're good. You're good, good, good. But, you know, that's that's a good response. Let me ask you this question for those going through divorces right now, they're feeling that life is done.

I'm feeling depressed. They're feeling like they'll never get remarried. What should they be doing right now? So it's interesting you asked that I. Recorded some YouTube stuff.

Not a few weeks ago, the global searches, our CEO folks, our search engine optimization folks have reported back to us that searches for divorce, how to get divorced, how do you know if you should begin, are up all over the world.

Divorces are through the roof. And some of that is financial difficulty, sometimes relational difficulties.

And some of that is folks have realized without all the busyness and all of the distraction and just being crammed in a house with somebody for six months, you realize, oh, this marriage was over a while ago.

And so one of the things I always want folks to do, number one, is to recognize again, Dave says this all the time. We don't make good decisions when we're panicked. We don't make good decisions when things are stressed.

And so if you are feeling like, you know what, I'm cashing out, exhale, find a counselor, exhale, sit down and have these hard conversations with your partner.

It may be time. It may be time to answer your question directly.

I think people often jump to the divorce part, they jump to the process part, and they don't properly grieve this loss. They don't sit in it and say, I'm losing a part of me, I'm losing a dream. I'm losing a 10 years down the road. I had a picture of my head of what Thanksgiving was going to look like.

I'm beginning to doubt myself. I'm losing trust in myself.

I trusted myself enough to say they were the one and this was it, and it didn't work out. So there's all these different moments to grieve and to mourn and to just experience loss. And Anthony, we can not do that by yourself. Yeah, you got to find a group.

You got to find somebody that you can trust to be vulnerable with, be honest with and really don't race back into other mess.

He'll grieve and then slowly begin to take care of your business, your current relationships that are in your sphere.

And then you think about what's next. I think the key thing you said there was just to heal, to grieve, take time, to take care of yourself. Right. To allow you to think the thoughts that you're thinking, to process the thoughts. But then after that, you need to get around someone. So that way you can articulate your thoughts and they can help you process the thoughts correctly. Right.

And they can call you on your nonsense. And they can, you know, like Tyler, he he's been done for several years. Right.

And he's just now getting around the money and the challenge. And so every situation is different. Every relationship is different.

But at the end of the day, you've got to grieve it.

You've got to understand there are so many different layers to it and losses to it sometimes just feels like once I get to this line of things going to be good, who that's not how that works usually get to that line.

And that's just when the real reality and the hurt starts.

And so having a group of people, having a counselor or a pastor or a couple of close friends you can rely on is just cornerstone to grieving properly.

I love it. I love it. And I just want to ask that question because I just feel as if a lot of people are going through, oh, man, I've got close friends, I've got distant friends.

It's it's all over right now. So it's a real challenge.

Yeah. Yeah. Well not today has been fun man. Thank you. It's always a blast rocking out with you bro. Always grow every time I'm on a show with you. And I want to thank our producer Zach Bennett, phone and associate producer Kelly. Daniel, I don't think you American for giving us the opportunity to serve you and help you. You guys, this has been the Dave Ramsey Show.

We'll see you again soon.

This is James Childs, producer of The Dave Ramsey Show. Once again, you made The Dave Ramsey Show, one of the top four most popular podcast last year to get your daily dose of motivation and inspiration from the Ramsey network. Subscribe or follow today wherever you listen to podcast. Feel like you're in a rut and living life, just going through the motions, build confidence in yourself and learn to trust the God who created you. Check out the Crystal Wright Show where Kristi inspires you to break through your limitations and create the life you're proud to live.

Hey, all, I'm Christi. Right? You know, it's so easy to feel stuck. You live life just going through the motions, doing dishes, doing laundry, carpool lines and a whole list of commitments that bring you no joy. Why do we live like that? That's why I want you to check out the Christy Wright Show. Each episode will help you build confidence in yourself and the God that created. You hear more from the Ramsey network, including the Christy Wright Show wherever you listen to podcast.

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