Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions. It's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. He's host to the Dr. John Deloney podcast, which is ever so popular, and his brand new book just hit number one last couple of months ago here, Building a Non-Anxious Life, number one best seller, again, twice over. We're answering your questions today about your life, your money, your relationships. The phone number is 828-825-5225. Alicia is with us to start this hour in Lansing, Michigan. Hi, Alicia. How are you?

Hi, Dave. First, I wanted to start with the fact that you're one of my heroes. This is one of the coolest moments right now for me to be able to talk to you, and so I appreciate you taking my call.

I'm honored. How can we help?

A credit The card is suing me, paying some of my stupid tax, apparently. It popped up out of nowhere. I already answered the summons, and I'm trying to figure out where to go from here.

Okay. How much do you owe them?

8,100.

Wow. Okay. Is that the actual balance or the puffed-up balance after they added a bunch of fees to it?

The puffed-up balance.

What was the actual balance?

I believe it was 7,400, 7,500. A little bit of background on this, the reason I don't know the exact numbers is it was actually my abusive ex that opened up the card in my name, and I never used the card myself. I had to run away from that relationship with my kids, and I forgot about the card.

I'm sorry. You knew about the card, but you didn't sign for it?

Correct.

Okay. How long ago was that?

2019. Okay.

How old are you?

I am 29.

What do you make?

I run an in-home hair salon, and I make about $1,300 a month, plus I have child support.

Of how much?

1,500?

And that's from the abusive ex?

No, that is from my ex-husband.

Not the abusive ex?

A debatable, but that's not the ex-husband.

It's not the one you ran from that opened the credit card? Correct. Okay, that's what I'm trying to get straight. All right. You have any money?

I have about $1,500 in savings currently.

Who's suing you? What company is this? What credit card company?

J. P. Morgan Chase. Yeah. Okay.

You have an actual summons to go to court, an actual... The sheriff brought it to your door.

Correct. Well, I was served by a person, not a sheriff.

Yeah, okay. But you got an actual court summons. Okay.

Yes. I answered the summons, and then I got a paper in the mail of the hearing.

Okay. When's the hearing?

January 10th.

Okay. All right. Let me just walk through a couple of things here, because information in these situations, I found when it's me, if I get more information, some of the cobwebs move away and some of the fear moves away. Okay. To start with, your absolute worst case scenario is you do nothing or go over to the hearing if you want to. You're going to lose at the hearing. Okay. There's no defense for this other than one I've got in a minute. But if you just went to the hearing and just sat there, you're going to giggle when you leave. Have you ever gotten a ticket and they say, go to traffic court to get the ticket torn up?

I think so, yeah.

I mean, it's a funny thing. It's almost like Judge Judy, but without the personality. Okay. It's automatic. It's boring. There's no drama. There's no TV cameras or lights. This is not O. J. Simpson on trial. It's a traffic ticket, for God's sakes. Okay, so what happens is this attorney that's representing J. P. Morgan is he runs a factory, a large factory. You are one of 10,000 widgets on the conveyor belt. This is boring. It's not like he personally is angry with you or even knows you freaking exist. He wheels a two-wheeler into the court, or the equivalent of that with a computer download, of a bunch of files, no one shows up, and the judge rules and gives every one of them a judgment. Instantly. It's really boring.

Okay.

Because it's really an open-shot case. You owe money, you didn't pay it, you lose. Now, they have a judgment lien against you, which means they could try to attach your property, if you own any, or your bank account, or if you had a job, which you don't, a traditional job, they could go after and garner you your wages. To start, my point is, don't panic about January 10th.

Okay.

It's a yawn. Now, we do have to deal with this mess because it's going to keep poking you in the side of the head until you deal with it. Now, how are we going to deal with it? Well, we're going to deal with it one of two ways. One is, I don't know if it'll work because you've waited around too long to deal with it, but basically, you are the victim of identity theft. Even though your husband at the time, a husband does not have a right to sign his wife's signature by marriage. That doesn't give you that right. If I sign Sharon's signature, that's fraud. If I have a power of attorney from her to do that, that's different, but he didn't. This is just like a criminal on the street signs your name up and an $8,000 credit card. You don't owe the money because you're a victim of identity theft. Now, I don't know if you're going to be able to pull that off because you waited around. If you had reported it after you left the abusive situation and gone ahead and gotten a police report at the time, it might have worked.

Here's what I would do. I'd call the attorney on the summons and say, I'm in the process of filing a police report. I was in an abusive relationship, and I've just discovered that I am the a victim of identity theft. I did not sign this card, and I am not liable for it. I'm putting you on notice of that. I'll be in touch with you and send you the police report because you'll have to file a police report and sign an affidavit that says, You did not sign for the card. A criminal did. Someone stole your identity. Oh, by the way, his name is and his address is, and they will do nothing about it, so never fear. But that's what happened. It's as if a stranger signs your name to a card. Can you follow me? Yes. Since you did not sign it. Now, the fact that you've tinkered around with it for three years and not done this earlier is going to work against you in proving the fact that you're a victim of identity theft. But hopefully, you can get it pushed through. If that's the case, you owe nothing. Technically, legally, morally, you owe nothing.

Practically, I don't know if you're going to get through that or not. The second thing is, if you can't get through that, offer them 2,000 bucks to it, settled in full. But that's after you fight with them for a while. Hold on. I'm going to have Austin pick up. We're going to put you in touch with the Xander Insurance Identity Theft people and see if they'll take your case and help you run this down and get this identity theft moved as a favor to us. Obviously, if you were one of their clients, they would take care of you. But we're going to ask them to do it for us. Hold on. Hey, guys, whether you're starting on a card table like I did or well on your way to becoming a multimillion dollar company, NetSuite can help your team communicate and plan ahead better like they do for Ramsey. Let me tell you, NetSuite really helped us get our systems together. And more than 37,000 other companies also use NetSuite to know their numbers and their business better. So check out NetSuite today and find out how they can help you become the business you want to be 5 or 30 years from now.

Right now, you can download include NetSuite's free KPI checklist designed to give you consistently excellent performance at netsuite. Com/ramsey. Dr. John Deloney joins me this hour. He's my co-host. Ghost, although I didn't let him say a word last segment.

It's probably better for America, Dave. It's probably better. Hey, I did have a question. Can I ask you a question about that last call? Sure.

Yeah, let's talk about that.

I've had this back in my credit card not paying my bills days, and I get this call a lot on the show. Walk somebody through the difference between the letter you get when the credit card company sends you a letter, it looks like it's from a law office and says you're being sued versus actually being sued. One of those feels like a scam, like a strong arm technique. The other is an actual legal proceeding.

Yeah. Even the actual legal proceeding as I walk through is pretty much like traffic. It's a bit of a joke. It's not like Matlock or Perry Mason is going to be down there, and there's going to some intimidating person on the stand, and there's going to be a secret witness. None of that happens. I did go to rural Tennessee to take care of a traffic ticket, and it was pretty exciting. Was it? It was pretty exciting. That's a little different. That judge is a little bored. It was exciting. He saw a guy roll up with a PhD or two.

No, I sat back in the back, and I learned a lot about the community where I got the ticket.

Okay, more than you wanted to do.

It was very different than I had said.

Whose cousin was dating whose cousin. It was incredible. It's fun. The collections industry functions on one thing. The only effective tool they have is fear. Their job is to activate fear. Anything they can do in the whole process to activate fear, it is the best chance they have of getting the bill paid. It's not loving kindness, it's not working through the logic of your budget, it's not hearing the story about your mom who has cancer. They don't care. It's all about fear. And so cutting you off in mid-sentence. One company even uses people from a different region to call. For instance, they might have Northerners with a New York accent call Southerners because it's abrasive to a Southerner or vice versa because it's abrasive. So They'll do anything they can. They'll pull up a zip code on it and pull a different person in. They even give them names. I had one calling me. Her name was Mrs. Baskervilles, as in the hounds of. Another one called me. Her name was Mrs. Savage. Well done. I told her, I said, That's the greatest name ever. She's like, That's my real name. I said, No, it's not.

But that's great. I got to hand it to you. Because once I got out behind the scenes and started studying the collections business, I understood what they were doing. It is a massive the game. It's a person that can't get a good job sitting in a cubicle with a headset all day long, yelling at people, screaming at them, trying to get them to do stuff. They threatened to file suit. They say, We're about to file suit tomorrow. We have filed suit. They send emails that say that. All of that is a lie. That's why I was asking her so many questions. I wanted to see if she'd actually gotten served and actually had a date at a hearing, which she did. She has been sued. But 9 out of 10 times people call this show, they've not been sued. They've been promised they've been sued. They told they were getting sued. I'm suing you today. All of that, no lawsuit, none whatsoever. Because a lot of that debt isn't even collectible. It's outside the statute of limitations or some other reason they can't get out the debt. They're just yelling, screaming, making a big loud noise to try to get the little child inside of us to be fearful and send them a check.

Even people will pay bills they don't owe. Sometimes. They'll call a mother an elderly mother of someone and intimidate her, yell at her that her son's going to jail if she doesn't pay the bill, and she'll pay the bill.

I've had them call in-law.

It is a nasty business that is outside of the law at most of the time. Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act prohibits almost all of the activities they do on a daily basis. It is an out-of-control, nasty industry. There is a small percentage of the collection's business that is a It's a local hometown collection agency that's collecting for the local hometown pest control or doctor, and they are usually pretty good people, but they're like 2% of the people in the business. The rest of them are just scum. So their job is to yell and scream at you, flap their arms, and act like we're coming to take you away, ha ha, and all this. That's what you've got to do is get the other side of the fear and just go, really, I'm one case in 10,000 of these guys dealing at this. That day, there's probably 5,000 to 10,000 cases I went through there.

There's also, as you're talking, I keep also having this nagging other side, which is, Pay your freaking bill. This money doesn't go away, right?

Yeah. I got a single mom there that's been abused. That's right. She's making 1,300 bucks a month. If she told me she had $8,000 in the bank, I would have jumped on it.

Or in her situation-She didn't even owe it because it was an identity thing. That's scary. I know there's a hole.

Here's the thing. Here's the problem her situation, and it comes up, too, it goes under that same heading, though, is folks, when you have something like that in the closet, 100% of the time, it's going to come out of the closet and visit you at the exact wrong moment. Five years from now, two years from now, just after you got married to that sweet little thing and you're getting ready to buy a house, oh, crap. Back when I was in college drunk all the time, I never dealt with this. Car wreck, and I still owe $1,400 to Freak & State Farm, and they finally find me now that I'm acting like a legitimate citizen. A hundred % of the time, you don't deal with this crap, it has a high rate of resurrection. It will come back to life in the zombie form and at the worst possible time, and it's harder to deal with then. So when you have a problem, deal with it right then. Because it's a lot harder for her to clear this up four years later. If she dealt with it after she moved out from an abusive criminal theft, identity theft boy, if she had turned him in instantly, filed a police report then, and been very proactive, but that's hard to do for someone that's been in an abusive situation.

It's super hard. That's been in an abusive situation. I get it. I get it. I get that. She's not feeling really confident and cocky, right? She's not got a lot of swagger.

All that's real.

But still, if you can find any something down inside of you to bust into it and deal with it at the moment, right then. But when you wait For two years, it's hard for the judge to look at you and have sympathy.

Or when you wait three years. Here's the hard truth. You will have the conversation about, Hey, he stole my card. You can do it now.

Or you can have it later.

Or you can do it four years from now and then not be believed.

Or you can pay a bill, you don't know. Because you're still You're going to have a conversation. Because you're still sitting in fear. Absolutely. You're still sitting in brokenness from that abuse. Our job is to give you courage due to knowledge and due to inspiration to go ahead and deal with everything now.

We're only telling you, if you're finding yourself, if you've exited an abusive relationship, if you're over your head and you just haven't been able to pay, we're telling you this because we love you. It's going to come. Even if you have to find a buddy that will sit with you and make that call with you or will help you, do whatever you got to do because you're going to have those hard conversations. The earlier you have them, the better runway you have to deal with it.

It is so much easier to clean up before it grows. But it gets tentacles. It grows. It grows all inside the closet.

You have to put yourself in the seat of that judge. How many people of those 10,000 people say, That wouldn't me? 9,099 of them, right?

I got to tell you, her going and filing a police report on an ex-boyfriend that Our ex-husband that was abusive, that's an act of courage on her part because she's poking the beehive.

That is super, super scary.

She's either going to do that or she's going to pay the bill.

She's going to pay $8,000, yeah. Does that suck all the way around? Absolutely.

Everything there sucks. The whole thing does. But the deal is, don't let these people intimidate you. They're an idiot in a cubicle 500 miles away that couldn't get a good job. Cleaning septic tanks is much more honorable. At least you're doing humanity some good.

Hey, those guys that clean my septic tank are amazing.

You don't have to lie to do your job. Don't let these people set the tone. You set the tone. Just laugh about it and go, Oh, you're cute. You're just so cute. Listen, If you don't calm down a little bit, I'm going to just let you talk to Mr. Daltun. You're going to hear a little click, and this whole thing is going to go away. Little click. You ready? Little click. Here we go. Okay. I just started messing with them, man. I reached the point that I had studied them so much that it was like a fun game. It's like the guy calls up to sell you the… Andy Andrews did this the other day. A guy called him up to sell him one of the auto… What do you call the? Extended warranties on a car he didn't own. He acted like he was 85 years old. Yeah, I got me one. I don't even have that car, but you sound like a nice young man. Could I sign up for this anyway? He messes with him. He just had a good time. It's a great YouTube video. You got to pull it up.

But you got to do it. You got to have a way of looking at it Where they don't own you emotionally. It's your only shot at getting your arms around this and winning. That's what we're here to do, is to help you do that, not to not pay your bill. The idea is if you owe the bill, we're going to help you pay it, too. But we also don't want to be in control of your life.

This episode is sponsored by Better Help. Hey, it's Dr. John Deloney, and I talk about this all the time. I love, love New Year's resolutions. I love the idea of everyone taking a moment to reflect Select, consider some ways your life is going well, and consider some things you'd like to be different, and then most importantly, setting in place actual steps you can take to heal and improve your life. This might mean making exercise or sleep a priority, doing weekly budget with your spouse, or like I did last year, making therapy an important and intentional part of your new year. If you're thinking of starting therapy, try better help. Because therapy isn't just for people who've experienced trauma or who aren't able to function. Therapy helps you find your strengths, overcome personal challenges, and practice new ways of living and working to be the best version of yourself. Betterhelp is flexible enough to fit your schedule because it's completely online. Just fill out a short questionnaire to get match with a licensed therapist. Plus, you can Switch Therapist at any time for no extra charge. Celebrate the progress you've already made and incorporate new changes this new year with Betterhelp.

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Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Rayana is in Lynchburg, Virginia. Hi, Rayana. Welcome to the show. How can we help?

My husband and I, we've been saving up money for about a year and a half now, looking to build or buy a home. We're trying to decide if that is the right thing to do because I still have student loan payments. Or not payments, but student loan debt.

I have a student loan debt. How much student loan debt do you have?

About $40,000.

How much money have you saved?

So far, we've saved about a little over $15,000. Okay.

And what's your household income?

Together, we make about 86,000. Good.

What do you all do for a living?

I'm a high school teacher, and my husband is an admissions counselor at a local university.

Great. Very cool. Okay. All right. Well, you're apparently fairly new to all this Ramsey stuff. Is that true? Yes. Okay. All right. Well, what we have discovered in 30 years of helping people become wealthy is the shortest distance between where you are and wealthy, which homeownership is a good step in the direction of becoming wealthy. The shortest distance is to be debt-free, have an emergency fund of 3-6 months of expenses, buy a home, then start getting your retirement plan plans going, and then get the home paid off. That's like a five or a 10-year plan I just laid out right there. What we have found is that when people buy a home with $40,000 in student loan debt, that It activates every negative thing that can happen in your life. Because Sally May is living in the spare bedroom. Student Loan has its own bedroom, and the heat and air unit goes out, the roof leaks, and the hot water heater goes out, and you have no money. What we've taught people to do, and it's very unpopular with people who have house fever, because buying a house is a good thing, but buying a house when you're a broke person is not a good thing.

That's why they call them brokers. You need to get a house, but you need to get one after you get rid of your student loan debt is what we would tell you. That's so that the house is a blessing to you and not a curse. Not That's what you wanted to hear.

I do agree with that, and that's ideally what we would like to do. However, I think our situation is what makes that a challenge. We live in a one-bedroom apartment With one son, we want to start growing our family soon. The apartment that we live in- People have families that rent all the time.

Move.

Hey, Rayana, I did what you're talking about. My wife was a teacher, and she had about $20,000 in student loan debt. And lucky for her, she was married to an associate dean of students at a local university who had about $88,000 for the student loan debt. So combined, we had six figures. And I had to have a house because we were having a new baby. And I went stone mad because the math never worked. We ended up selling our house, and I moved into a residence hall with a two-year-old and a wife.

To get out of debt.

To get out of debt. With all of my heart, please rent. Please don't add this additional strain to a young family trying to start new careers, especially as one as chaotic as the world your husband's in. College admissions right now. My gosh.

Start tutoring, start doing side work, and rent as cheap as you can, and get the $40,000 paid off in one year. Live on beans and rice, rice and beans. Don't eat out. Don't go on vacation. Get the stinking student loan debt out of your life, and then save up and go buy you a house. I want you to get a house, but I don't want you to be cursed by the ownership of this house because you justified it in the name of a baby. Don't do that. If you don't want to live in a one bedroom, fine. Go rent a two bedroom. I mean, lots of people do that.

I want to say it as directly as possible. The math doesn't care what you want. We're in a one apartment with a toddler. I can't imagine how scary that is. But dude, we want to start growing our family. Well, you can't afford it yet. Or you can't afford a house, you got to have to start renting. You have to make some hard choices. Pay that debt off, man.

Yeah. Just because I want a bigger house For my family, doesn't mean math takes a break. Right. Jen is in Des Moines, Iowa. Hi, Jen. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi. Hey, what's up?

All right. I've got a question for you. My husband works in the tech field currently, and we have about $80,000 in stocks that are vested. I was wondering if it would be a good idea to pull those out and to put that amount onto our mortgage to pay it off faster.

Yes.

Today, That was easy.

Hooray. That was easy.

You want to know how I did that so fast? Is I just reverse engineer everything? They call it sunk cost analysis. I say, what do you owe on your home today?

We I owe 184,000.

If you owed $100,000 on your home today and didn't own stock, would you go refinance your home and borrow an extra $80,000 to buy stock? No.

No.

Well, it's the same thing. We're just doing it backward.

Okay. I think, yeah, that's incredibly easier than I thought it was going to be.

Ta-da.

Yeah, that's how I did that so quickly. That's why I wanted to teach it to you, too. You can do that with anything. If you have a boat in the driveway that's worth $8,000, you If I had $8,000 in the kitchen table and I didn't have that boat, would I go buy it? No. Well, then sell the boat. Or, Yes, I love the boat. Then keep the boat. That's okay. But you just do a reverse analysis of where you are today and pretend there's that many Benjamins sitting in the middle of your kitchen table and go, Would I buy stock or would I pay off my… Well, I pay down the mortgage.

Where that gets dicey is when my wife looks at me sitting at the kitchen table and she says, Would I do that again? No. Then I'm stuck, man. Hey, I will say this. When you start cashing out stock at your company, his coworkers will look at him weird, or the people ask him hard questions. They just don't get a vote.

I'm not even telling. It's none of their business. It falls under the nunya.

Yeah, but-It's a nunya.

I don't have to talk about it. It's just like, in the old days, people didn't talk about their money.

Yeah, they do now.

I know. They talk about everything now. I know. A certain generation grew up, they didn't think their parents had sex or money. Turns out they'd had both. They had Because we never talked about it, right?

Just little bits of each, Dave. Just little bits, the bare minimum. The bare minimum.

Stephen's in Dallas, Texas. Hey, Stephen, how are you?

Hi, I'm doing really good. Thank you.

Good. How can we help?

I'm just trying to perplex on how I'm going to pay for a doctorate loan. My girlfriend, who I'm engaging in the next month, is going through doctorate of chiropracting school here in August. I just need to know the best way to save up/how should I-How much debt is she going into to be a chiropractor? About 200,000.

Holy Jesus.

Just don't.

She's already done it?

No, she leaves for school in August.

As a guy who worked in higher education for 20 years, please don't do that.

I know you don't get a phone. We're not going to talk you out of this. But, dude, The ROI on this, the average chiropractor makes 60,000 bucks.

Okay.

I mean, it doesn't make any sense. What should we do in that sense? It's not worth $200,000. You all need to do some research into chiropractic and actually understand what's going on out there. I've worked with broke chiropractors for years. They're everywhere.

Man. I would tell you as her boyfriend, I would not start coming up with a plan to pay off her student loans yet. Unfortunately, I know in your situation, everything's going to be perfect, but we wouldn't have a show if people didn't have great plans that didn't work out. Our whole show is made up of people who got engaged and then started taking care of something for their new husband or wife, and then it goes sideways. I would hold off on making up a plan to pay off her student loans until you are married.

Well, and I also would like to start having some real serious discussions if you're getting engaged as to whether she's going to go $200,000 in debt to be a chiropractor. I got to tell you, I strongly recommend you don't do that. If you want to go into chiropractic, fine, but don't go 200 grand in debt to do it. There is no math that says that's smart. None, nowhere. I mean, You can get an MD for 200 grand, for God's sakes. You can actually ROI that. This is the Ramsey Show. Every year, I hear the same excuses for why people don't get the life insurance they need. Let's look at the facts. First, it's not expensive. Getting 10 to 12 times your income on a 15 or 20 year plan is just plain cheap in many cases. Second, life insurance through your work is not enough, and you lose those plans if you change jobs. Lastly, stay at home parents need life insurance as much as anyone, especially with those young kids. Go to zander. Com or call 800-356-4282. Zander has been my trusted choice for all my insurance needs for over 25 years. Our question of the day is brought to you by Neighborly, your hub for home services.

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I am calling Ramsey right now because my wife's birthday is coming up, and I said, What do you want? She said, I want one of those bins to show up in the back of our house to get rid of this old crummy boat you bought off Craigslist. And so I'm calling them today. Today's question comes from Taylor in Indiana. Taylor writes, This is a question for Dave and Deloney. I recently paid off $100,000 in student loans during the last three years. Way to go. I'm proud of myself for the personal discipline and fulfillment for my financial commitments towards repaying the loans. Good. I used my education to have a successful professional career and want to encourage others at the same as possible and worth it for them. I feel a great sense of relief, but I'm afraid to tell my family. My mother feels entitled to be, quote, unquote, paid back for being a parent and has actually stolen thousands of dollars from me in the past. I genuinely feel sad that I'll never hear that she's proud of me and wishes the best for my future without her hand out expectantly. Is it wrong for me to lie about my accomplishments and pretend to be broke in order to financially and emotionally protect myself?

Also, would you mind sharing what you might say as a parent since I'll never hear it from my own? Wow. I'm going to answer this in a couple of different ways, Dave. Hop in. I don't think lying is ever a good idea. I also think there's a middle ground between entering into conversations, parading around. Here's the deal. I don't want you to bring down your sense of dignity and your sense of character and your sense of respectability by choosing to lie. Take the low road. At the same time, no. This mother who stole stolen from you, who is actively looking to steal from you again, who expects to be refunded for her parenting, she has no claim on your life, right? None. I don't think you talk about it. How's Works good. Why are you driving that car? Well, that's- Because I wanted to. That's the car I was able to buy. Well, where's my car? Well, I paid for that one in cash. That was my car budget.

Where's my car? I don't know. When you go get one.

When you get one. When you start developing boundaries, what you're going to find is it's like a muscle and you get real strong, real fast. Exactly. When you tell somebody no, and they start to him and Han and John, and you stand tall through That first initial wave, that assault that comes up against your gates, then you realize, Oh, I stood. It's just going to be that way.

Here's the deal. As long as you have to hide from her, she still has power over you. She no longer should have power over you. Yeah. It's just because all you have to do is just say no. Mom, I love you. I'm not going to do that. If you're going to keep talking like that, we're I'm going to opt out of this conversation, and I'm going to have to walk away. I'm walking away now. It's all you can do. You just have to set a boundary. But you don't have to lie, and you don't have to let her have power over you. But it's also smart and wise on your part, what you have done to recognize this is not a person who is going to celebrate with you your incredible accomplishment for which any parent should be very proud, but your mom's messed up. I'm sorry. It's sad when your mom's messed up, but sometimes moms are messed up. And so yours is definitely.

I almost 99% of the time, and I'll tell you this, Taylor, I would sit down and write my mom three different letters that I'm never going to send her. I'd write her a letter, and this one's going to be hard, to tell her how grateful you are for what she gave you. She may have given you some really thick skin. She may have given you a bunch of hurdles that you had to figure out a way over. But there is some good that is in your life because of this relationship. I want you to read a second letter that starts with, Dear Mom, you should have done a better job. You should have loved me. I want you to mind your soul for that stuff. It's heavy and it's hard. The third letter should be one of freedom and relief and a little bit of grief is, Here's who you're going to miss. Here's what you're going to miss. You begin to teach your body that it wasn't okay, that like Dave just said, she had power over me, and I'm letting that power go. Here's what you're going to miss. I'm not going to diminish myself, and I'm not going to be a person of lesser character to try to avoid you anymore.

As Dave said, you don't get a vote anymore. Yeah.

You opted out. The point is, I wouldn't lie, but I wouldn't expect a celebration. I just wouldn't bring it up. It's just something you get to do for yourself. One of the things I did, Taylor, also is years ago, gosh, it's 20 plus years ago now, and I attribute it as one of about five things that caused this organization to be inordinately successful was I got the first group, I called them a group of eagles because eagles don't flock. You have to pull them together. I got a group of men that were strong, spiritually strong in their marriages. They were successful successful, very successful in business or in their chosen career. Two of them were pastors of huge churches. One of them was a multi-time best-selling author and so on in the room. We met every Wednesday morning for a Bible studies, what we first started calling it. Then we started just reading books, and that went on for 14 years. I'm telling you all that to say one of the rules in that room was that's a group of guys that were high achievers, and we wanted to be a safe place place to brag.

You got to be able to tell the good stuff.

Because there's not everybody you can't brag in front of. That's right. Because it's bragging. But you need to be able to come in and go, Just freaking won the Super Bowl, by God. You got to have somebody that loves you enough in the room that's going to own that with you, that you respect their opinion that you can share that with, especially since your mom's not one of them.

Or they don't feel threatened by it.

Yeah, they're not threatened. They're there to celebrate with you. That's one of our rules. We want you to come in here and brag when something really good is going on, or when you do something really good for your spouse, why don't you come here and brag about it? That really lasted. I've got another group of guys I run with today, and that's one of the rules in that group, too. When something good happens or something super bad happens, you can bring it in, too. But yeah, Taylor, you need to have some guys around that can celebrate with you because your mom's not ever going to be able to do that. She doesn't have the capacity. She's too broken.

She should have. She should. You should have a mom that celebrates you, and you don't. I'm sorry.

Everybody should. And dude, by the way, our lady, I don't know what Taylor it is. Man, woman, it could be either one. Taylor, you paid off $100,000. You have a successful professional career. We're proud of you. We think you're amazing. Big time. Way to go. Big time. Way to go. Do the Snoopy dance, man. Nose up, ears out. Dance. Here we go. Have it, baby. Enjoy the ride. Do it. Don't let her steal that. You don't have to go into someone's presence and cow, meaning they have power over you, and you have to bow down by lying or by enabling or participating in their dysfunction. You just have to smile and shake your head and go, Gosh, that's awful sad. It's awful sad. That's just really sad. Mama can't do that. That's sad. No, not doing that. Sorry.

I'm sad. David took me a long time.

The reason we're going on with this is because it's almost everybody out there.

It's everybody I know. We have a generation. I heard this recently, Dave, someone talking about kids, and it was really a brilliant response. It was an older psychologist who was pretty frustrated. He said, I don't want to hear it again that the kids of this generation have changed. Kids are kids. It's the parents of these kids that have changed.

I was at a FCA banquet with Bobby Bauden one time, years ago, and I asked him, I said, So how much have the kids changed since you've been coaching 500 years, since the 1960s? He said, The kids hadn't changed. The parents are crazy.

They're not doing their way. It's their mom and dad.

That's right. The kids are still doing the same exact stupid stuff the kids have always done. College football players are doing the exact same stupid stuff, but the parents are nuttier and fruitcakes, man. That's right. They got used to. The parents are somewhat of an anchor, but they've lost their bad gum minds.

That's right. Find somebody you can tell the positive stuff to, please.

Yeah. Share it. Share it with them. Don't with her, but don't lie. She doesn't have power over you anymore. This is The Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions. It's the Ramsey Show. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. He's the host of the Dr. John Deloney Show on podcast. You ought to check it out. It's unbelievably popular. Talks about mental health issues and relationship issues there and all kinds of other fun things. It's very entertaining. You got to be sure you're there. He's here to help you today, and so am I. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Jordan is with us in Springfield, Illinois. Hi, Jordan. How are you? Good. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up?

Hey, so I've got a quick question for you.

My wife and I, we're 28.

I'm an Illinois State Trooper. She's a nurse. We bring home around $8,000 a month. I discovered you in September last year. I sold my truck that was paid off for 32,000, paid off my student loans and our rings.

That leaves us with about $45,000 left in student loans and the $280,000 on our mortgage.

Good for you. You're heading on the right way.

Good job. Yeah, that's awesome. Welcome to the gang.

Thank you. I'm excited to be in this journey, but I have a little bit of a problem. In October of last year, my parents announced they were getting a divorce, and my father told me I'm now responsible for the 60,000 parent plus loan. There have been maybe two payments on it in six years. I've tried to have conversations with him about it. It always gets real hostile. He gets defensive. He defers the blame to my mom, stating that he never had anything to do with the loans in the first place. Then my mother handled everything with the loan. I know I'm not legally accountable for the loan, but every time I bring it up, he's always like, You're the one that went to school. I do feel a little accountable.

Was there a conversation back then that you made a contract with your dad and mom, verbally, to promise to pay this?

Not to my knowledge.

We've talked about it. I don't I believe so.

Okay. So your mom and dad were trying to help you out. They took out a parent plus loan. You had no reason to believe you had to repay that until your dad decided later that you did. Is that the actual facts?

Correct.

Okay. All right. Then it's on your dad.

Okay. Should I add it to the snowball?

No, it's not your dad. Okay.

Dude, you're trying to preserve a relationship. You're thinking in your head, I don't want to mess this relationship up. Your dad has already He's done that.

Yeah.

He's the one who's chosen to take out his frustration with your mom on his son.

Right. That's a good way to put it.

That's not your game to play. That's not your mess.

Yeah, your mom did this, and I'm getting rid of her.

That's strong. Because if he had a real problem with it, he should have settled it in court.

The other big issue I have is he's got 140,000 in his IRA.

He's retired. You stay out of his head and out of his checking accounts, too. Okay. You're going to make yourself crazy trying to do dad math on his money.

Did he sign the loan or just your mom?

It's just in his name.

Okay. Then how did How would he do it without his knowledge if he signed it?

He literally said, I've never seen a document about that. I wouldn't even know what it looks like.

That's between him and your mom. That's not between him and you. Right?

Yeah, absolutely.

You don't have to do this. You were just at school, and they were paying for part of it. I think your mom made a mistake. Absolutely. But there's a lot of mistakes in this story between your mom and dad. But I don't think it's your responsibility to take on their mistake. Let's pretend it wasn't a loan. Let's just say she took money out of their joint checking account and just paid for part of your school. Would you have to pay that back if you didn't have any knowledge that you were supposed to pay that back? No. It's the same thing.

Absolutely. Equally, there's that issue. Your dad's changing the rules. He's trying to revisit history here, but more so is- Rewrite. Rewrite history. He won't have a grown-up man-to-man conversation with his son, who's a state trooper. He won't sit across a table and say, Son, this divorce is killing me. I don't have the money to pay $60,000. I know I made an agreement with you. Can we re-? He won't do that. He makes you feel stupid and small because of a decision him and his wife made when you were 18 years old.

Right.

When I didn't have any idea of what I was getting into.

Exactly.

I hate that for you, dude, because he's going to make you the bad guy in this, and you're not.

It's bringing issues in my marriage.

I just- Your wife thinks you'd be crazy to pay it. That's the issue? Yeah. Sounds like you married well.

Hey, and by the way, your dad is the one opting out of future holidays, not you.

Thank you for reassuring me of that because I mean- Yeah, he's welcome. He's welcome if he can behave. Absolutely.

If you act like you're growing up.

It's his decision.

But if you want to run away on $60,000, then we now know the value of your relationship with your son, sir.

Right.

You think we now know the price tag. It's 60 grand.

Right. So just stay on my ground. Yeah.

Here's the thing- If you told them you were going to pay it, we'd be sitting here telling you to pay it.

Absolutely, yeah.

Okay. I want you to change your language a little bit. I don't even know if it's a stay on my ground. I'm walking away.

Got you.

Yeah, it's too long to tell the story. I'm finding more and value in the times I plant my feet on a hill and I'm ready to die on that hill as I'm getting older or just getting smaller and smaller. If someone wants to lie about me, they want to throw a debt on me that I don't owe, they want to take out their frustration about their failed marriage on me. Dude, I can't engage in that. I'm walking away. Have a good day. I know that sounds bad, but I want you to- We're, Jordan, your state trooper around here.

Most of us are gun guys, and a bunch of have done tactical training. The first thing we learn in tactical training is run. Get out. Don't engage.

John Wick is a movie. It's not reality. Run.

Bullets hurt. Run. Get away. That's the first goal. Instead of John Wayne, John Wick, whoever, we don't need to be John. We got guys like Jordan to take care of this, right? That's what John Deloney is saying. He's me.

The only John John, the real John, right? But do you mind if I ask you another quick question? Real fast. Real fast. Yeah, real fast.

We're both contributing 500 a month to our IRAs right now.

I would stop that until you're out of debt.

Perfect.

That's what I was going to ask you. Temporarily. When you're on Baby Step 2, you stop all investing temporarily to totally focus on a singular goal. Jordan, this is going to be hard for you with your dad because he's your dad. You can be sad and you can be kind and you can be strong, but you're not going to convince him that you're right. The only thing you can do is just pull back, pull back, give him room while he's in this wounded state. He's a wounded animal right now. Just give him room. Just give him room. Someday he'll come around or he won't. That'll be on him, though. It won't be on you. I'm sorry you're facing this. It's a hard thing. But you don't owe the money, sir. And your wife is right. This is The Ramsey Show. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. January the 11th, you and 200,000 of your closest friends can join us. So far, 227,000 people have signed up for the free livestream, Break the Cycle. Dr. John Deloney, Jade Warshall, Dave Ramsey, Rachel Cruz, George Campbell, we're going to help you break the cycle.

Did you know that stupid has Is it gravitational pull?

I was going to make a joke about sitting next to you, but I won't.

Too late. Too late. I don't know which one is the gravitational pull and which one is the stupid, but we'll go with that. So either way, it does. It stupid will pull you back in, and you have to break the cycle. It requires an effort to break an orbit. When you're in orbiting stupid, it takes energy to bust an orbit, to bust out of and break free of the gravitational pull of something. And that's what break the cycle is all about. We're going to help you do that. It's time. You can't blame the family curse anymore. You can't blame people like me, people in my neighborhood. No, it's you. We're going to help you do it. We're going to help you face the person in your mirror and go be the person you've always dreamed you should be and could be. We're going to walk you into that handheld high. Here we go. January January the 11th. Go to ramsey solutions. Com and sign up for Break the Cycle. It's completely free. We're going to be going a couple of hours there, so settle in. Get some popcorn, get some pizza, get ready. We're going to do this.

It's going to be an incredible podcast, our live stream. We've been reviewing all the material and putting it all together for this, getting ready for about 90 days. It's going to be the largest live stream we've ever done. It appears like we're probably We're going to have 3,000 to 500,000 folks watching this that night. Come and join us. We'd love to have you. It is completely free. There is no obligation. Oh, and we're going to give away $10,000. Ten of you will get $1,000 of the people viewing, not the people who sign up. The people that are watching that night live, we're going to give out. We're going to show you how to do it that night, and 10 different people are going to get a thousand bucks. So ramsey solutions. Com. Click break the cycle. Logan's in Lexington, Kentucky. Hi, Logan. How are you?

Good, Dave. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

Hey, so real fast, I'll give you a backstory of where I'm at today. April of '22, my wife and I got married. Before we got married, I had about $30,000 in my bank account. She had $5,000 student loan and $17,000 car note. Pretty much as soon as we got married, paid that off, got that out, took care of. We then rented an apartment for a year and decided we were going to stay there until we had enough money to get down paid on a house. Unfortunately, after that year, we had an opportunity, present itself to buy a home from a family friend at a pretty well discounted price, well below what the home value was. We knew that it was too much house for us. It was a 4,200 square feet house, $315,000 is what we paid for it. First-time home buyer, so we didn't have any money to put down, zero % down is what we got. 6.25% interest rate. We knew it was going to be a lot, but we tried anyway. We lived there up until November of this past year, barely making it, living paycheck to paycheck, struggling. Our marriage was struggling.

We just decided we can't do this anymore. If if we want this to work, and we do. So we ended up putting the house up for sale, sold the house in seven days for 415,000, so $100,000 more than we gave for it in March. After realtor fees, et cetera, et cetera, we walked away with $77,000. Within the time that we lived in the home, we accumulated $10,000 for the credit card debt, updating the home. It was built in 2002, so it was very outdated. And to try to get that home value up even more to sell it, we put $10,000 on a credit card, the fire insure for us, and then fencing, and new flooring, et cetera, et cetera. Today, I have right at $50,000 in the bank, $22,000 of that '77. I bought my wife a car. We just found out on Christmas Day that she's pregnant, and did her first baby. I'm 26, she's 25. I have a car note for 37,500 dollars is what I owe on it. So now we have three vehicles, two are paid off, one truck that I have is not paid off 37,500 dollars is what I owe on it.

The reason I have a truck- What are you smoking that you go buy a 37,000 dollar car after you just sold a house because you couldn't breathe?

No, it was $22,000 is what I paid for her car. I already had the 37,000 dollar car loan before.

What do you guys make a year?

130, to together.

Good Lord. Okay. Yeah.

Like I said, I've had the truck- What can I do to help?

What can we do to help?

You got to really walk a ticket, dude, and you blew your nose in it. That's what you did, man.

What can we? You got $50,000 in the bank. After you sell If you're in both cars and pay your capital gains, you're probably even.

Right. Yeah, that's the thing. I don't know how much the capital gain percentage is.

It's not a capital gain. It's ordinary income because you didn't even hold the house a year. It's a 35% tax on the actual gain. The gain is not 415. The gain is after-sales expenses, and you probably did some capital improvements on that credit card debt that you can deduct as well. You probably have a $70,000 gain at 35%. You probably got a $20,000 tax bill. You need to sit down with the tax person and figure out what that is, but it's probably right around there. You have cars you can't afford, and you went and bought another one. Go sell both of them.

Okay, You're not going to, are you? No. What I'm thinking is we live an hour from work, both of us. We live rent-free now on her grandparents' estate. Unfortunately, they passed away. They had a house here that didn't want to sell, so we're living here rent-free.

So what? Does that mean you have to be stupid with cars? No, it doesn't. Rent-free doesn't describe stupid cars.

Right. So we're just trying to decide, should I sell my Yes.

Okay, that's- You should sell the car you just bought her. Okay. You all are broke people, man. You're broke. You make $130,000 a year, and you've made a series of bad financial decisions that have caused you to be broke. The best way to do it is go back to the last time you were standing on solid ground, which is when you had a couple of junky cars that were paid for.

And $100,000 cash in the bank.

Yeah, that was a while back. But Let's get rid of both of these. Get the best car you can get for cash, and figure out what your capital gains are. The $22,000 car you bought her, did you use the $50,000 cash to do that, or did you go get a loan on that?

No, we had $77,000 to buy.

So now you got $50,000 after buying that car. So that car is paid for? Correct.

We have two cars that are paid for and one truck, my truck is not. Okay. But both of our cars are paid Oh, good.

Then just get rid of the truck. Get rid of the truck and pay the capital gains.

Right. That was my main question. Yeah.

Okay, I'm caught up with you now. Yeah. But, dude, you got to quit buying crap. You don't go buy a $22,000 car when you walk out of this disaster you just came from.

It literally... I mean, it's the exact conversation you just had about breaking the cycle. We can't breathe. We got to sell this house. We sold the house. Hey, we got some money.

Let's go buy a car.

Let's go buy a car.

Oh, let's get pregnant.

And then buy another car. And it's like, Oh, I can't breathe again. Well, what are we going to do now? We got to sell the car and do this and do this. Hey, we got some more money. Let's go get a...

Yeah. It's like, Thank God it's Friday. Oh, God, it's Monday. Yeah.

We're in this rent-free house. Well, it's got to have new floors and a new I'm going to move for a new this. Let's put on the credit card. We'll just pay it off later. We don't even have a house payment.

I think you could be dead free if you sell the truck and pay your capital gains and pay off the credit card and chop them up. Then you're going to have to make a decision to never do the stupid crap you've been doing for the past three years. When I went broke, Logan, I was your age, and I had to sit down and do an autopsy, a CSI on Dave. I looked at all the stupid butt stuff Dave was doing and had to go, If you want to live like this, you can keep doing the stupid butt stuff, or I can stop doing the stupid butt stuff and have a better life. That's why I'm yelling at you because I love you. I want you to win, dude. This is the Ramsey Show. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Hey, guys. Just a couple of weeks ago, we hit number one on Apple podcast of all podcasts in the entire world. That's pretty cool. We've been hovering up around 10, 11, 12. We've We went up at seven a couple times five. Never number one, and we hit number one. I don't know where we are today.

It changes, I think, daily or hourly or whatever. But we did make that milestone, and we want to say thank you to you guys because it's you that did it. We appreciate you. We'll I ask you to continue doing what caused that. What caused that was more and more of you are sharing the show. You're taking a link to the show or clicking the share button. You're subscribing, you're following, whatever the format is, whether it's YouTube or local talk radio station, you're telling people about whatever it is. You're letting people know. You're leaving five-star reviews. You're sharing. Thank you for doing that. And please keep doing it. It is the biggest thing you can do to say thank you to us and help us. If you like what you're hearing, share it. Tell somebody about it. If you like what you're hearing, leave a five-star review. Thank you. If you don't, go somewhere else. It's okay. We understand. We're not for everybody, but we are for folks that want to change their lives, want to learn something, and that want some people to tell them the truth that love them. We're those people. We care about you.

We want you to win. That's cheesy, but it's also real. Thank you for hanging out with us. We appreciate the subscriptions. We appreciate the follows. We appreciate the nice reviews, and we appreciate the sharing. Nick is in Lima, Ohio. Hi, nick. How are you?

Hey, Dave and John, how are you guys doing?

Better than we deserve. What's up, man?

I was wondering if you guys could possibly give me some words of wisdom or thoughts on my wife returning to school.

Okay. What's she going to study?

She is looking at studying dentistry.

Okay.

Right now, she is a dental hygienist, is making about $40,000 a year. I'm a CPA. I make about $75,000 a year. Right now, we have $70,000 in student loan debt, and that's on my degree.

Well, she didn't aim small, did she?

No.

I mean, have you priced a dental degree?

Yes. In In Ohio, there are only two dental schools. In Ohio State, which is the cheaper of the two, and I say cheaper in quotes, is going to cost right around $400,000.

That's pretty typical, yeah.

Yeah. We're looking to cash flow this somehow. Pretty much the problem we're running into is we're projecting it's probably going to take about two years, probably to still pay off the rest of my debt, and then another half year to save up the fund, whatever. Then it's going to probably be Probably about two and a half years worth of savings, projected cost of the dental school in order to actually cash flow the whole thing with just my salary.

I'm confused how you're going to pay off 35,000 a year for two years, but in two more In three years, you're going to have 400 grand.

No, we would cash flow out two of the dental school years, so we would save up… 200.

200, yeah.

And you're going to borrow the other 200?

No.

You're going to cash flow it as she goes?

We're going to try and cash flow it as she goes. Pretty much, we wouldn't start until we have the 200 $1,000 saved up.

What's your question?

The question is, would it be worth it to do it, even though she's going to be 30 years old when she starts? We're looking at a 35-year-old graduating dental school.

Why does that matter? My mom graduated with her PhD at 57 years old and was tenured by the time she was 63.

You pay cash for it. She's going to be making dentist money, depending on what dental practice she gets into. The next thing you'll face is she'll want to buy a practice, and that's another 500 or 400.

The big challenge, the question is not, is it worth going to school and her not getting out until she's 30? The question is- Thirty-five. Thirty-five. The question is, you're going to be 35. Does she want to be a dentist when she's 35 or no? But math doesn't care about your timeline.

Why does she want to be a dentist?

Kind of a three-fold question, almost. She's worked for a few dentists. She doesn't always agree with how they want, so she wants to do her own thing. She wanted to be a dentist originally, but was afraid to do the time commitment then. But as she's worked in the actual field, she feels like being a dentist would be a good thing for her.

Is there any chance somebody in the practice would sign her to a five-year deal and pay for dental school for her?

It's possible. I'm not sure how many small dental clinics around here would go for that, but there might be one around here that'd be willing to do it.

Here's what you've done real quick. You've put some constraints. She doesn't want to work at a big one. She wants to work at a small one. We want a cash flow, but she doesn't want to be a dentist all the way until she's 35. She wants to get it sooner. I want to do this, but I don't want to do that. You're all going to have to make some sacrifices somewhere. They're going to be really hard. You're probably going to have to get another job as a CPA on making 75. You're going to need to double your income somewhere. That might mean you got to do corporate tax, or you're going to take on a bunch of Saturday and Sunday private clients over the next six months.

She's going to Ohio State. You're moving to Columbus?

Probably in between. She would commute someone, then I would commute someone's work. We're not too far away from Columbus.

Yeah, okay. You all have children?

Yeah, we have two of One is a year and a half, and the other is five months.

Okay, all right. There's no harm in getting on this path. You don't pass the point of no return until she actually starts dental school. Until then, you're just paying off debt and saving up money. We can get on that path. Then the question I want you guys to ask us a couple pretty regularly is, I don't want her to go through all this and drop 400K to this and then decide she wants to be a full-time mom.

Mm-hmm.

Okay. I've talked to lady MDs. I've talked to people in different situations. Their dream shifted about what they saw their life being after they were already so far down the rabbit hole on the education stuff. It's not to say she can't be a dentist. I'm not I'm saying because she's female, she can't be a dentist because she's a mom, she can be a dentist. She can be. I just want to make sure really $400,000 worth of sure that she's going to play all the way through and work the rest of her life as a dentist, because that's what this is for. You're going to go She's going to work 25 years as a dentist when she comes out until she's 60, and every day going to work as a dentist. Every day. That's her job. Then this ROI's But otherwise, the 400K is absolutely ludicrous. To spend that and then not work 20 years plus in the field is ludicrous.

I think there's a valuable exercise in you all two making a very committed debt payment plan to pay off your student loans and see if that fire and that excitement and that desire is still there in 18 months or 24 months.

If you're willing cash flow it and she's willing to stick with it, I'm okay with it. It's not a bad life plan. I just run into too many people who get too far into this and then realize, Oh, I don't think I want to do that. This is not going to six months of $10,000 worth of certificates on something and then deciding you don't want to do it. This is a big chunk of your life and $400,000 worth of sure. You You got to be sure. It's a major commitment, in other words. In the process of you all getting out of debt and building up the first 200, we're going to ask that question over and over again.

Are you sure? Building your calculations, childcare for two little kids for the next three, four, five, seven years. Yeah. Because it's going to cost a lot, too.

Exactly. This is the Ramsey Show.

Hey, guys. Rachel Cruz here.

Now, most of us know what we should do with our money, but actually doing it?

Well, that's a whole different story.

That's why it's so important to create good money habits.

On January 11th, our team here at Ramsey Solutions is hosting a free livestream where we're going to look at the habits you need in your life if you want to be successful with money.

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Don't miss it. Dr.

John Deloney, Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Spencer is in Eugene, Oregon. If I can figure out how to hit the right button here. There we go. Spencer is in Eugene, Oregon. Hey, Spencer, how are you?

Even, John.

How are you guys? Better than we deserve. What's up, man? What's up?

Perfect. Well, I wanted to run a question by you guys. My wife and I have been married for about 11 years. Of those 11 years, I've been working as a firefighter paramedic for about eight of them. My wife recently brought to my attention that she struggles with certain aspects of my career to the point where she has thought to ask me to change careers. She struggles with the thought of that because she knows how much I absolutely love my job, what I do and where I work, as well as how well it pays for our large family. She's afraid that I would resent her if I were to leave my career, and it would be the hardest thing that I've ever done for sure, because I absolutely have no idea what else I would do as my entire educational career has led me to the point where I am now. She wants to explore more options for counseling and possibly help her through what she's struggling with before we explore the option of a career change, but we don't know where to start. We don't know if we want marriage counseling or individual counseling, so we're just looking for some advice.

Which part of your job does she not like? What parts does she not like?

She has a really hard time being alone, especially at night, and just being the primary provider on the day that I'm at work. We have four kids, and one of them has some problems. It's overwhelming for her to be the loan provider while I'm gone.

She also has a hard time just me missing family activities and holidays every so often, as well as just all the baggage that comes with the types of calls that we run, the PTSD type stuff.

I have a family member that talked to me. I grew up in a law enforcement household and firefighter household. I had a family member tell me, Every day your dad goes to work, I have to wonder if he's going to come home. That fear is very, very real. That's not what I'm hearing here. Because here's the deal. I'm a YouTuber, dude, and I was a dean of students before that. Before that, I worked at Burger King. All three of those jobs, I've had to miss some holiday stuff. All three of those jobs, I've had to work really late and miss a couple of this is and that. That's life. My fear is you're going to quit this thing, and this imaginary life on the other side of this is not going to be real. See what I'm saying?

Not even bankers keep bankers' hours now. That's right.

I would strongly suggest you all go together at the beginning. Let's parse through what this is because it sounds like somebody who is growing increasingly uncomfortable for any number of reasons with the life that she has and is beginning to look out in the crowd to see who can shoulder that with her, and you're the nearest guy.

Okay.

Does that make sense?

It does.

When you're sitting at home and you've got one kid that's sick, and you got three other kids that are burning the house down and making, as Dave said, teardacle noise.

That's not a real good metaphor for a fireman.

Oh, my bad. He has a fireman. It's real easy to- Use another example. Create a story where it's the job, right? If she told me- What I love about this call, though, Spencer, is your wife being so mature that she's, A, recognizing how much you love what you do, and B, saying, Hey, before we make a big change, let's get some counsel.

It might be me. Let's look at... I mean, gosh, that's so selfless and mature on her part. That's awesome. That gives me great hope that you guys She can find some ground that maybe you make a few minor adjustments here or there to meet some of those needs that she's got, and then that'll help her meet you the rest of the way. Because I got to tell you, the way she's approaching this, the way you described her was very mature, very cool.

I really like her a lot. Me, too. I definitely married up.

She's a huge blessing in my life.

But here's the deal. I've I spent my life running around with you guys. The fact that you immediately, when she talked to you, you went to the computer to see what other jobs were available. I know you did. That makes you equally mature also.

Yeah, you guys are willing to sacrifice for each other. You have the recipe for an incredible relationship going forward, regardless of whether you stay in this or not. I think you'll find a way to stay in it, and she'll find a way to work with part of her stuff, and you'll find a way, Okay, I can do this. I can I can make sure with my seniority level, after eight years on the force in the firehouse, that I'm home on these dates. I can plan around that. A minor example, it's not exactly parallel, Spencer, But when we were starting all this stuff that we now call Ramsey, my days were 16-hour days. I missed everything. Sharon will tell you there's about two years she was a single mom because I worked all the time getting this thing going. I was pulling this thing by its hair. We worked all the time. When we finally hit that same wall, a similar discussion, we sat down and we said, Okay, I got to have some non-negotiables. After that, we never booked a live event on a kid's birthday. We never took any speaking gigs ever around a holiday.

I didn't miss any Christmas. I didn't miss any proms. I didn't miss any kids' birthdays after that two-year period. That was me coming back towards her, adjusting my business to be able to still be a husband and a dad. Then in the midst of that, that gave her the strength to take up whatever slack there still was, which there still was. She became a really zero maintenance person from that point forward. It's one of the reasons we've been able to build this incredible life. I just really think you're willing to reach towards her with some adjustments. She's willing to reach towards you. You all can reset a few things here or there. I really think you can find this. Because of the way you're approaching it, I think you're going to be okay.

I think the key here with the counselor is going to be really pulling apart the specifics. What are the specifics? Can we hire somebody that comes in from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM that just helps with at times and helps with dinner. It'll help me clean up? That's easy. Can we do something on Saturdays? Can we make Christmas two days early every year? That's just our fun thing we do together as a family. There's ways around it if you got to.

You spend some of the money you're earning to create a life that becomes tolerable and sustainable. That you want, yeah. Yeah. That's what John's saying. That's help with the sick child. That's a high-quality nanny two days a week. I don't care what it is. But on the days that you're gone, somebody's there helping. They're filling in. That'd be worth it to stay doing what you're doing that you love so much. Then she won't be worried about whether you resent her because it's not her. She's a single mom when you're gone. That's what she's saying. That's the same thing Sharon said, and she was right. That's a very real thing. Hey, good question, man. Sound like good people. I think you're going to find the way through that for sure. Again, I think it's largely because of the way you're approaching it. She didn't stomp in red-face and scream, You have to quit your job. I can't stand it.

You didn't say, No, I'm an entrepreneur, or, I'm a fireman. This is who I I am, so forget you. You know what you married, and that's not helpful either.

No. Instead, you're both saying, I'm willing to give up a piece of who I am to help you be who you are. That's called marriage, I think.

Yeah. This is one of those weird things when you see somebody, you talk to somebody like Spencer and his amazing wife, that it feels like the wheels are falling off. Those of us who have been through this and on the other side of that go, Oh, no. Your car is driving great, It's the terrain that's rough. It's not the car. It feels like, Oh, think we're going to crash. You're not going to crash. You all are doing good. You all are going to figure out your way out through this.

It's very smart to do that because the career, mental health, the money piece, the wealth building piece, they're all woven together in a way you cannot pull them apart. It's almost impossible to build wealth when you have a crummy marriage. It's almost impossible to have a great marriage when you hate your job all the time. All these things work together. The Dr. John Deloney, The Ramsey Show, The Ken Coleman Show, these things, all the stuff we talk about, the portions of your life, they are woven together in a very real way. That puts us hour of The Ramsey Show in the books. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Thank Thank you for joining us, America. Dr. John Delaney, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Thank you for joining us. Jessie is in Atlanta starting off this hour. Hi, Jessie. How are you?

I'm wonderful. Thank you for taking my call. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

My husband and I have read the Total Money Makeover, and we worked diligently to get out of debt. And thankfully, now we've paid off our debt and we own our home. Way to go. So we are now in the process. Thank you. It was actually through your book. God did amazing things through you. But so now we're in the process of looking towards wealth building. And because of that, I've been looking at a podcast and different videos on wealth building. But I've been noticing a recurring theme among a lot of these very well-known people, and it's that to use these phrases, Everybody has a prenup, either the government makes one or you make one yourself. I have always been someone that thinks very negatively towards prenups. My husband and I, when we were married, granted, we were broke, but we always felt that the word divorce was out of the question and that if you're even considering a prenup, then you're opening yourself up to the possibility of a divorce. I wanted your opinion as a Christian, as somebody who is wealthy, what is your perspective on prenups, especially in the Christian realm?

It's more in theory because it obviously doesn't apply to you all.

Correct. But I guess the reason that I'm asking it is because it helps me in discerning, are these people that I should get advice from, like wealth building? Is this people that I should be listening to?

Well, I don't know who you're listening to, and don't tell me. But typically what happens in something like that is a financial person is... The financial people and legal people, both, are the world's worst, and I had to break myself of this when I started doing this several years ago, are the world's worst at looking at life through only one lens. You're asking a question through a relational lens, a spiritual lens, and a wealth building and legal lens. They're only looking at it for wealth protection. If you could live a life, which you can't, that wealth protection was separated from your relationships and was separated from your spiritual walk, you can't. But if you could, then a prenup would be a slam dunk. In their minds, therefore, a prenup is a slam dunk because they only see it through that lens. Does that make sense? Yes. I wouldn't necessarily discredit them for all of their advice as somehow being a heresy or something like that. I would just say whoever you're listening to is only looking at the advice they're giving through a singular lens. Our approach is we believe that personal finance is 80% behavior, and we've proven that.

It's not about math, and it's not about that stuff. Our approach is that the prenup actually could end up stunting your growth because you're not all in on working together. When I first started this show, I was 100% never get a prenup under any circumstances. Don't get married if you love your stuff more than you love her. Period. Just don't do it. That's how I started. Now, having done this a long time, I have one caveat that I've added about a decade ago to this, and that is if two people are getting married, one of them has extreme wealth. There's an extreme difference. Like I had one guy who was marrying a lady who had $10 million and he didn't have two nickels. I suggested a prenup to them to keep their relationship pure about relationship and not about money. The bigger reason I suggested to them is my now experience 30 years later has been the prenup in that case is not really for that couple. It's for all the weirdos in their families because all of a sudden, crazy mother-in-law swoops in from the other side once the $10 million golden goose shows up.

Then you got a little piece of paper and you look at her and go, Sorry, ma, got a prenup. Can't do nothing. It gives them a defense mechanism against crazy in their family because one thing we know about wealth is it magnifies everything, and that includes crazy. When you got crazy members in your family and you marry $10 million, dad Bad gum, the crazy comes out. In that case, I did recommend a prenup in extreme differences. But from 99% of the people, just regular folk getting married. I had one lady call me up one time and said her boyfriend had a 1968 frame-up restoration Mustang, and he wanted a prenup. My answer to that is, don't marry this bozo. He loves his car more than you. That's That's the answer to that. That might not jive with these other guys' podcast or whoever it is you're listening to, but most of the time, I agree with where you're coming from, Jessie, and that is the prenup is simply planning the divorce in advance. 52% of the marriage is in divorce. No, they don't. No, they don't. Not when you take out people with four-year degrees, not when you take out people who regularly attend a house of worship, not when you take out people who the parents on neither side were divorced.

When you Take those statistics out, almost 90% of the people make their marriage work. Oh, and you're older than 22 years old, and you didn't have a baby before marriage. You can take these things out. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Success rate of marriage goes way up. You make $50,000 a year or more household income. You didn't have a baby before marriage. You didn't get married in high school. You take all that crap out, you got about a 90% survival rate of marriages. That 52% figure includes a whole bunch of other crap going on of people who weren't going to make it anyway. You can't use 52% of marriages in a divorce because they really don't.

Jesse, I'm going to ask Dave a question on your behalf. Is that cool? Yeah. Dave, let me throw a caveat in here. Tell me what you think about this. A 55-year-old who's done pretty well, not extreme wealth, spouse passes away, and marries a 57-year-old who's done pretty well, spouse passes away. Both have kids, both have cousins. Does it make sense in that situation, again, to protect from family?

If you wanted to, but you've just got to be very careful because you're entering, you're trying to say this stuff, the distribution of this stuff is more important than this relationship. Man, that's dangerous.

Basically, if you don't have an exit ramp, we got to figure this out. Yeah.

We got to figure it out. Yeah. I mean, if you don't trust her to leave your Bible to your son from the first marriage whose mom died, Then don't marry her. Then don't marry her. That's what I'm saying. There's a whole thing that goes into play here. But yeah, by and large, I'm anti-prena up. Because I believe you're planning your divorce, believe you're asking for trouble. I am, too. It's cheapens the whole affair and puts a dollar figure to it. I'm not doing that. Now, if there's an extreme difference, like I said, there's a few times it's okay, you talk about it, but it's a dangerous thing. Thanks for the It's a good one. It's no secret we love a good deal here at Ramsey, which is why I don't want you to miss this one.

Right now, when you pre order my new book, Breaking Free from Broke, you get $100 worth of bonus items for free.

I'm talking e-book, online Q&A, and enhanced audiobook, all completely free, and all chalkful of what you need to know about credit card schemes, to investing traps, to mortgage myths, to building wealth, all the research is there. The offer ends January 15th, so do not wait. Go to ramseysolutions. Com/store. That's ramseysolutions. Com/store. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Lee is in Cleveland, Ohio. Hi, Lee. How are you?

Hi, I'm good. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

Quick question. My parents, they are entering their 70s, and I swear that is the important part. They called a family meeting with me and my sisters, it's three of us girls, and they wanted to know what our thoughts were on how they leave their basically financial estate behind, whether it be a will or a trust. We're not one. We didn't expect them to even want our advice because it's theirs. But now that they're asking, not really sure what direction They had mentioned a will, an estate. It's a lot.

Do they have a lot of money?

Yeah, the number they said, yeah. Well, it's a lot to us.

What's a lot? How much?

Just south of 5 million.

That's a lot. Very cool. That's a lot for the three girls. So you guys are going to get over a million a piece when they both die, and they're just trying to plan that out. Yeah. Okay. They do not have any federal estate tax, what state are they in?

Ohio.

Okay. You need to find out what the probate tax is in Ohio. But I suspect, like it is in most states, that the best thing they can do is a simple will. Typically, what will happen in a situation like that would be what we call a mirror image will, where they both do the exact same will Except the names are changed. His will would say everything goes to her unless we die together, and then everything goes to the girls, three ways. Her will would say exactly the same thing. Everything goes to husband unless we die together, and then everything goes to the girls three ways. It's not expensive because it's cut and paste. You do one will and cut and paste the thing. Mirror image will. Again, there's no federal estate tax on an estate of $5 million. The probate is a tax to run it through the probate, and you'd have to find out what it is in Ohio. But I would not go to the expense of a trust. A trust is typically going to run you $3,000 to $5,000 to have an attorney do it, and you don't need it. There's no need for it.

Well, that was the other question. Their intent, when they mentioned a trust, is to make sure that is protected. So all three of us girls are married, we're all in our 30s, and they just want to make it so it's ours. Obviously, none of us hope or plan for a divorce, but to make sure it's protected for longevity's sake, and that Well, if you have the use of the money, it's going into your name, it's not protected.

If it's sitting over in a trust and you can't touch it, then it's protected. But that's silly. You need to have the use of it.

Well, they would They want us to... If it were a trust, they would want us to all be, all three of us, to be the managers.

I wouldn't do that.Okay..

Please don't do that. Live off interest, I guess.

Now, the other thing you can check on, and again, the law will change from state to State, and I'm not an attorney. Two things you need to look at, you need to learn about, is find out what the probate tax in Ohio is. In most States, and I think this is true in Ohio, but you need to verify it, If you were left a million and a half dollars from your parents, and three years later, you went through a divorce, the judge would award that money to you. Really? In most states. Now, it's It came from your side of the family. He doesn't automatically get it. Now, if a period of 50 years went by, then there may be a different thing before you got divorced. But But a few years out, five or 10 years, something like that, in most states, the judge is going to cover that and something that came from somewhere else. It obviously was your money. It'd be like if you You buried someone without a prenup, we're talking about that a minute ago, and you brought money into the marriage, and then you get a divorce shortly thereafter, you're going to take that money out of the marriage in most states.

Now, some states have different common law stuff, and so I'd want to learn about that be 100% sure. But by and large, I really wouldn't overcomplicate this for a million and a half dollars.

Sure. Okay, that makes sense.

I would keep my life pretty clean and pretty simple. But learn about it so you can address their concerns. By the way, that also means they probably ought to talk to an estate planning attorney or two.

They have lawyers, and so they were running through the options, and were running us through the options by way of the lawyers just that we're planning their estate. They have a lawyer.

Well, they could address those two issues then that I'm talking about, probate tax and whether or not you're protected in the event of divorce without a trust. Trust, unless you've got $100 million, $20 million, $50 million. It's so cumbersome to deal with. There's some estate planning reasons or estate tax reasons to do that when you get up above $20 million right now. But prior to that, I would just keep my life as simple as I could if I were you guys.

I'd be weary of an attorney trying to push trust on you just because they're going to make a long story short, I lost my mom about two years ago to COVID.

Her and I lived together my whole life, but the last 12 years, we roomed together because her and my dad separated. I honestly feel like the first year I was numb. The last year, I've just been living in survival mode. Long story short, I did stupid about a month ago and went out and traded in my car for a new one. I realized pretty quick it was dumb. I was stressed out and I was going through a box of my mom's stuff. On top of it was a book that I had never seen before. It was Rachel Cruises, Know Yourself, Know Your Money. I started reading that. It turned me on to your guys' show again. My mom listened to you guys here and there. But I guess where I'm at right now is I need to from underneath this car, but I'm not really sure what to do. I feel like I need to sell it. I don't have anything but student loans and the car payment, but it's pretty much top my budget out. I'm like, What if something happens in my rent raises or crazy stuff like that? Stuff I should have thought about before I did it.

But I guess where I'm at is I just don't know what steps to take to get out from underneath this car. I know obviously selling it's probably the best bet, but I'm pretty sure as soon as you drive it off the lot, I'm going to owe more than what it's worth. I'm just trying to get some advice on what to do and where to start without getting to take it from the end of the- What were you driving before? I had a car. I had a I'm the only Kia Sportage. I traded it in for a new one.

Okay. How much did they give you for the Kia?

I was underwater on that, about a thousand bucks, so I put 2,500 down with what they gave me. I ended up putting about a thousand 500 down on the car. The car is $30,000 note, 31,000 actually.

You make what?

I just got a new job working for the government, so I'm making about 50,000 a year.

Yeah, okay. You're right. You do need to sell it. Oh, man. What you've been through, kiddo? I'm sorry. That was a big time grieving and stress purchase, wasn't it?

Yeah. It was just I just said I've had a temporary moment of insanity, but at the same time, it's fueled this.

How long you had the car? About a month. Go back and talk to the dealer and see how big a check you got a right to get out of it. Okay. That's first thing. If the check sounds unreasonable, check what the car will sell for, and you're going to have to cover the difference, the hole that you're in. You're right, you're upside down again, and you're going to have to go buy something super cheap that you can pay cash for and scrape together the money to cover difference to get out of this thing. But you're right, you need to undo this. And the sooner you undo it, the better, because every day you drive it, it's going down in value even more. This is The Ramsey Show.

Hey, good folks. Dr. John Deloney here. Do you feel stressed out and anxious every time you think about your money? If so, I want you to know that you don't have to stay stuck there. On January 11th, our team is hosting a free livestream event where you can learn exactly Exactly what's keeping you stuck with your money, and you can get a plan to make real change. Go to ramsey solutions. Com/breakthecycle to register for free. That's ramsey solutions. Com/breakthecycle.

Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, is my co-host. He's also the author of the number one best-selling book, Building a Non-Anxious Life. It's our latest number one best seller here at Ramsey, and you ought to be able to check it In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, hanging out with us on the stage, Anthony from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Hi, Anthony. How are you? Good. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can we help you today, sir? Just have a question. How do I get my 19-year-old step-daughter to follow the Ramsey plan and pay for college cash when she says she'll let her future self worry about the debt? Your 19-year-old step daughter, your wife's daughter? Yes. Okay. How long you all been married? Ten and a half years. Okay. You knew her when she was nine? Yes.

She said, That's a problem for future me. It's awesome. Yeah. Wow. Can I just take a guess here that the other parent Is he fully on take out every loan and go get them?

Maybe.

Okay.

Yeah. Okay. So her dad is saying, Probably. Yeah, future so. Well, there's a couple of things that pop into my head, and John, you're probably maybe to address this a lot more than me. I'm just thinking like a dad. Unless there's a fractured relationship, your wife is going to have a better chance of having this conversation than you because you're, by definition, the stepdad. Unless you're the only hero in this whole story with this kid, that you've got more credibility than her actual two parents. It'd be nice if she'd listen to your wisdom, but you're probably odd man out. What we've got to do is get somebody in front of her that she'll listen to. That's first what I'm looking for, is who's she most likely to hear from? Then whoever that is, I'm going to school them just as a dad. This is Dave, the dad. One of the hardest times for me in parenting was when my kids grew up and I couldn't tell them what to do anymore. It's pissed me off because it was a lot easier when I could just tell them what to do. Now they're 30 and 40 years old, and I still can't tell them what to do.

It's just awful. I can't even tell them what to do with the grandkids. It's awful. I've had to learn to not use my dad voice. My only shot at dealing with a quote grown up, in this case, a 19-year-old, is to speak to them as if they were someone else's kid, and I was trying to persuade them. Like if one of my buddy's kid was going to do this, I would sit and I would use a different voice than my dad voice. I'd say, I love you, and let me walk you through because I love you, why I think this is stupid and why I think it's stupid for you. It doesn't affect me. You get to do whatever you want to do. But one definition of maturity, honey, is learning to delay pleasure. This little future self thing you've said is an indication you're acting like you're for. That's what I would tell one of my friends' kids, as if they were a collar on this show. But it's not me using my dad voice because the instant she hears anything other than persuasion as a technique, she's going to click off and move on.

Even if she's physically sitting there, she quit listening.

Yeah, I think exactly right. I think it's important for you two, you and your wife, to say, Here's what our rules and boundaries are for our money and how we're going to support or not support. Then Walker, like you said, I think you have that conversation. I have found it really helpful when parents own up to some things they have done, when they put things off to future self, and it humanizes you a little bit, and it's part of the persuasion. You're having an adult-to-adult conversation Even though she's 19 and you know she's every bit a child as she was when she was 16. I did this one time. That may not work, but at least you become more credible instead of just this pointing finger and saying you're going to do X, Y, Z.

I bought a car I couldn't afford, and I thought future self would worry about it. Right.

I didn't sleep a lot.

It tore me up, and I got messed up my credit, and it set me back. It's one of the financial decisions I made that held me back. I just don't want that pain for you because I love you. That thing.

There's also going to be a strange thing that happens, and you've probably dealt with it her whole life, is if she has one parent saying, I think you should do this, then there's a loyalty thing that gets really dicey really weird. Sometimes the greatest gift you can say is, I think you're making a mistake. I don't think this is the right move. I love you, and I'm going to be here when you get back, and I've got a plan for you to pay all this mess off. I don't think it's the right thing. But there's that weird loyalty thing that they feel like if they're doing something, even if it's better for them and they know it, that they're being disloyal and somehow unloving to the other parent. This situation is messy. It's just messy. That's why it's important for you all two to get your boundaries straight. We're going They pay for your first semester of college, but it's going to come at this or this, or we can put this money on the table, but you can't borrow a dime. If you borrow a dime, you are opting out of this money, whatever.

I've got $20,000 to put towards your college, but it's not there if you're doing this.

If you take out a loan, you're opting out of my money.

Because I'm not going to support you in doing something that's harmful to you. I love you too much. I'm not going to buy your drugs if you're a heroin addict, and I'm not going to participate in something I think is a mistake and harmful to you. Not because I'm greedy and not because the money is yours, but it's not yours to do harm with because I love you too much. You need to hear this, if you're participating. If you're not participating in the college education at all, then you're simply trying to persuade. Right.

I like putting the onus on them because what a good 19-year-old will do is when you say, I'm not giving you any of this college money if you take out a loan, then, Man, you're the bad guy. You're withholding. You don't want me to get educated. You don't love me. But when you say, Hey, 19-year-old, you're opting out of this money. It's right here. The terms of this money are X, Y, and Z. You're opting out. You're a grown up, you get to do that.

Now, a similar thing would be in our case with our kids when they were in school. If they were going to misbehave in other ways while at school and they weren't going to make grades while at school, they're opting out. I'm not going to pay for it. I'm not paying for you to go play beer pong. I'm paying for you to go get an education This is not your time to party and daddy pays for it. Screw that. We had these conversations early and often as I sent checks into the thing. But this money is contingent. My love is not contingent, but this stream of money coming at your college experience is contingent.

And they get to decide whether that money keeps coming.

Yeah, that's their behavior. So you're opting in, you're opting out, if you guys are participating. That's the thing on that. But I think the thing is this, it's just a mistake. She says, 44 million people in America that will tell her it's a mistake. They got student loans out there, yin-yang, and they can't breathe, and they're waiting on the President to mysteriously make it go away. And he can't, and he won't. It's a mistake. Anytime you say the future me, that just means I want to buy something now, and I'm being a four-year-old on the cereal while having a fit because I want fruit loops. It's a cute saying, though. I like her angle. That makes me laugh. It's It's funny. But I'll let the future me deal with that. That's funny. She's got moxie. We threw a lot at you.

What do you think?

You're right. We had X amount of money that we had that we said we would give. If she stayed at home, she could have used that for four years, but she decided to dorm and all that's being used the first year, and we said we're not going to cosign for any loans. Yeah. Okay. She used up the money even though she went a direction you said not to do. Now it's even gone further, and we're not cosigning the loans. Now she's going to have to be out of school. Yeah, that's sad.

Or she'll have to go to a local community college and go for free, depending on what state you all live in, right? Heaven forbid. I think that's a great option for families. Great option.

But you guys, yeah. We're further into this than I realized. I don't know why. I thought a 19-year-old wasn't already in school. I was thinking this. I thought we caught it ahead of time. No, we're already in.

But I also… I mean, this is a beautiful opportunity for you to show, here's where the account was, there's no dollars left. It's empty. Now.

Yeah, you used it. I made a mistake allowing you to do that, and I'm not going to make another one by signing for you for sure. If you need a cosigner, you're up a creek. But she probably doesn't need a cosigner. She's probably just going to keep rocking.

Well, it just depends on what school. Is it an expensive private school? No, it's a public school. Public school? Well, they're all expensive now. Not cheap. All right. Best of luck to you, man. I appreciate your question.

I wish I had a magic wand to make that go away. That's some thoughts for you and you parents out there. One guy called up and said, My daughter told me she's going to this school. I said, See, that's where it ended at the Ramsey's because we did the telling. They didn't do the telling.

It's like when someone calls and says, My 11-year-old is addicted to their iPad. I said, No, they're not. You keep handing it to them.

You won't take it away because you have no spine. This is The Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Proverbs 17:17, A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity. Mother Teresa says, Some people come into your life as a blessing. Other people come into your life as lessons. There's mentors and there's anti-mentors.

I think I'm the blessing for you, Dave.

That's it. I knew it when I got up this morning. I said, That's it. Dr. John Deloitte. This is my blessing. He's a blessing. Bless me.

You are my adversity.

I love it. Well, Hey, everybody's got to have a gift. Danielle is in New Loudoun, Connecticut. Hi, Danielle. How are you?

I'm well. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

I'm trying In a place in my marriage where I'm trying to figure out if I should be coming or going. We had twins two years ago, and I think that there was just a lot of unrealistic expectations of having kids together from him to me. He was just very disconnected from them the first year and a half. He started connecting with them through counseling, and it's almost like you're too late, I guess. I don't have those feelings anymore. It's like the more suggestions counseling comes up with, the more it's almost cringy. I'm like, I don't want to do that. Maybe if you did this, that, and the other made the 18 bottles in the first year, I would have gladly accepted to want to go on a date or X, Y, Z, but I'm just I feel like I read that.

Are you leaving your marriage?

I'm pretty close to it, yeah.

What I've got from this call is your husband did not do a good job. During the first year, year and a half, of having twins dropped in the house. Because of that, he sounds like he is trying to work on it and fix things, and you're saying, No, your punishment for those first 18 months is I'm out.

In a sense, yeah.

It sounds like you're out of the marriage, and this has become a great exit strategy for you, a story that allows you a past in your mind to leave.

In a sense, yeah.

Okay, so what's your question?

I guess I'm not trying to just leave.

Like you said, it's- It sounds like that's exactly what you're doing.

I understand that, but what I'm just trying to advise is what else can I do at this point? I don't know. We're trying with marriage counseling. I see the connection now he's building with our kids. I just don't know how to keep trying.

I think you know how to keep trying. I don't think you want to.

Yeah.

Here's the deal. You all got to build something completely new. He sounds like he is really trying to build something new, and you're just standing there in the rubble, and you don't want to pick up a hammer, and you're waiting for that hammer to feel right. It's never going to feel right. The feelings will follow the action. So either you decide, I'm going to go all in. We're going to figure this thing out, or I'm going to stop suffocating everybody in the house with, I don't know, I'm just waiting for... You see what I'm saying?

No, I understand what you're saying.

I think- You've got to fight for your marriage in the same way he seems to be fighting for your marriage. What am I missing?

There's a lot more pieces to it, but for this short synopsis, Like I said, I just got used to doing everything on my own. Now that someone's now coming around trying to help, it feels like it's a ploy. How long is this going to last? Because it's this what happened before. It's just, I'll do this for a little bit, and then it stopped.

Are your parents divorced?

Yes.

How old were you when your dad left?

Maybe 10.

I think you're still pissed at him.

No.

I I have no hard feelings towards any of my parents. Bull. Okay.

Ask me your question because I really don't know. I don't know how I can help. What you're telling me is it's a very syrupy feelings. I just don't feel like... Now, if you came back and said, No, the dude was abusive. The dude cheated on me a lot, and he's trying to weasel his way back in. That's a whole different conversation. But I know we have a very compressed time, but what you're telling me right now is I had to do a lot of work the first 18 months because he was off working when I had twins, and it killed me. Now I got used to doing things alone, and I don't want his help anymore. I'm just going to divorce him. That's what I'm hearing. I can't be right. No. That's it?

Well, we both work. It's not just that he's We both were working during this. He just mentally disconnected from helping me raise our two kids, even though he has other two kids.

I got you. But listen to me. That was yesterday. We're here today. Okay. Let's make a choice about today. If you're going to leave your marriage because your husband is trying to make things right and learn a new way of helping, and admittedly, he the first 18 months, and he's trying his best, and you're like, No, I'd rather do it myself. You have to own that decision. If you're going to leave him over that, then you've got to own that decision.

Yeah.

I don't know. I feel like I'm missing something. But I'll say this, if you're trying to heal a marriage, any level of it being broken, the same as if you're trying to get in shape, the same as if you're trying to get out of debt, if you wait it to feel right, you're never going to do it. You have to just take wild action in the direction of the thing you want to be different, whether that's losing weight, whether that's getting out of debt, whether that's saying, I'm going to fight to the death for this freaking marriage, and you suck the last two years, and we're going to make this right. I'm in. Absent of that, it's just going to be this, It doesn't feel good, and it doesn't... And by the way, if you look around at our culture, we're a feeling to death culture. We all wait for everything to feel the right. It's not going to get that way. What you're going to do is you're going to run wild in the direction of what you want, which is an amazing marriage and some help around the house and two awesome kids with two great parents.

Then When I wake up one day and realize this feels really awesome.

Yeah.

But that choice is yours. I can't make that for you. Yeah.

No, I know. I appreciate it.

Yeah. I feel like I'm missing something, Dave.

I don't know. I don't know what we're missing. I don't know. I've got an opinion, but it's harsh, so I'll just keep it to myself.

I would like America to see that Dave Ramsey is maturing, getting older. I think this is an important step in this show's evolution.

Well, I don't want to sit beside a PhD in counseling and have counseling ideas. It's a bad idea. No, bring It's a bad idea. I think she's still pissed at her dad. I'm just being a pop psychologist, though. The first time her husband screwed up, she transferred it.

Just moved it over?

Yeah, she just moved it over to him. This is our way of hitting back at her dad. But I'm really reaching here. Is that possible?

I think your body puts a pin in that pain and you wait for it and wait for it and it goes, There it is. There it is.

Somebody's not doing what they're supposed to do. All right, I'm out. Somebody's not doing what they're supposed to do. I'm not going to...

Your body throws that wall It's all up and it's game over.

I could be wrong. I'm just a novice at this stuff. I get to sit next to you, though, so there's that. That puts us hour of the Ramsey Show in the Books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one The Way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Hey, folks. Dave Ramsey here. You know budgeting doesn't have to be boring. You just need a budgeting app that's made with you in mind, and that's EveryDollar. The EveryDollar app has helped millions of people work the baby steps and take the stress out of planning and managing their money. Start budgeting with EveryDollar for free right now. Just go to ramseysolutions. Com/everydollar and download the app today. That's ramseysolutions. Com/everydollar.