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. Jade Washaw, Ramsey personality is my co-host today. As we answer your questions about your life and your money. That's right, baby. We're going to talk about you right in front of you. The phone number is triple eight, 825-5225. The call is free, and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. Carlos starts this in San Francisco. Hey, Carlos, how are you?

I'm doing well. How are you? Thanks for taking my call.

Sure, man.

What's up? This is exciting. First I'm calling… I have a question. My wife and I have been saving for a while. We have 20% down for a house here in the Bay Area.

Whoa, you got a pile of money.

I know that's right. Pretty much it's 1.5 or above. We also have a year's worth of emergency fund. If I was to not be able to work for a couple of months or whatever, I am the only young-to-young income in the household. My wife stays at home. And it's just confusing. It's a little scary. We have prepared for it, but it's a large amount of money that the homes are going for out here. Oh, yeah. I just wanted to hear you guys with advice. We've done everything that you have asked of us with the baby steps, no debt, two daughters, two and under. We rent currently. Our rent is pretty okay. My work pays for a chunk of my rent, so it's even better. Cool. We want to grow our family as well, or we want to continue growing our family. But yeah, just-.

How old are you? I'm from the.

General culture.

Thirty-three. What do you do for a living?

I'm a BGNLineman.

A what?

A lineman.

Oh, okay.

All right. Yeah, so of electric lines, pre-build, construction.

Yeah, you're making bank. You're working your butt off and you're.

Making bank. You said you already have 20% saved.

Yeah, I work a lot of hours because my job, the work is there. It's just depending how much time in my room we trade in for money. That's all it comes down to.

That's on top of the year's worth of expenses you have to save too, right?

Yeah. Well, like I said, we don't have any debt. Obviously, we have a rent. Our rent currently.

Is $3,100. In your line of work, if you're not respectful of risk, careful about risk, you die.

Correct.

Your nature is to apply that formula to everything else. That's correct. It's okay at work, but you're probably over-analyzing buying a house, dude. I think so. You're not going to die from it, okay? You've done everything right. You've laid the foundation. You've got the money. You've done a really good job. You've prepped the job site, so to speak, okay? Yes. There's nothing that you said that gives me a tilt.

Me neither. I wanted to ask you what's stopping you? Is there something else going on that we don't know about that stopping you from pulling the trigger?

No. The only thing is my wife and I are pretty confident about the amount of work that is here. Every year that I've been here, I've made $100,000 or more in the last... And it's never ending work, really. The only thing that is taxing is the time that I'm away from home. And my wife is concerned that buying a house that's X amount of dollars would require me to continue being away from home, which it would be true for... Obviously, we're trying to get a 15-year mortgage, and our plan is to pay it off within 5-7 years.

Yeah, I think you're on track. You're okay. And you can dial back at any time, dial up at any time. You've always got work. You always got extra work. You're in good shape. You're fine. Hey, if you do it for a while and you live in the house three or four years and you decide, Oh, we're going to live somewhere else, sell the house, you're going to be fine. It's not like you're sitting in a real estate bubble in freaking San Francisco. I mean, it's going to go up. He could also- It's always gone up. I mean, as long as I've been alive and I'm older than a dinosaur. You're fine. You're sitting in a great market real estate-wise, and you're going to have a great time, man. I think it's normal to if you've never done something before and you're in a career field that causes you to analyze risk, you can get caught up in paralysis of the analysis. Sure. Ready, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim. Oh, pull the trigger. Yeah. Seriously. That's the thing. I can do it, too. Anytime any of us can do that if we're really careful, we're trying to be wise, we're trying to be diligent, but you've never done it before, so you don't know what it feels like, and just to step off that diving board that first time.

Yeah, I felt like that when we bought our first house. But to his wife's point, if she feels like the amount of work that he's doing is not a normal or sustainable amount of work over the long haul, they could always pull the numbers back and say, Well, what would it look like? This is more normal or this is what we're hoping for, and they could buy based on those numbers as opposed to the current numbers if they wanted that margin. Yeah.

But I mean, in '33, you're going to have more. There's going to be another thing happening with your income later, too. It's okay. You're going to be okay. You're going to be just fine. Folks, that's why we tell you to do a 15-year fixed with the payments no more than a fourth of your take-home pay. You've got some margin in your budget. You've got what economists call disposable income left in your budget, which allows you to have extra investment. It allows you to have extra generosity. It allows you to have the margin to create a sustainable work pattern. Then you can go from that and say, Okay, I'm going to dial it up for a little bit, knock.

This puppy out. Well, let me be the peanut gallery, because I always hear people in the peanut gallery talking, Dave, 15 years, that's not going to give me more margin. That's going to make my monthly payment go up.

No, it makes your monthly payment exactly the same. It's going to make the amount of house you buy go down. There it is. That's what it's going to be. You don't get the one with the Jacuzzi, the skylight, and the racquatball court. You're 24. Shut up. Okay? Seriously. That's what it is. It's all about lifestyle. That's right. I grew up in a thousand-square-foot-house, one-and-a-half baths. So don't talk to me about your needs, okay? Seriously. Now, need would be a shelter. Right. Wanter shelter would be a bigger shelter, right? Right. A nicer shelter, a shelter that does things for me automatically. Oh, man.

I know that's right.

That would be a better shelter. All of those things are fine, but the need is shelter. When the little baby dinosaurs were running around with me when I was a child, we were in this eighth grade. We had the civics class, they called it. They taught us the difference between needs and wants. Food, shelter, clothing, transportation, and utilities are needs. Transportation, however, is a hoop dee, not a $65,000 F-150. So what you're saying is- That is a want. H-g-tv- It isn't a valid want, but it is a want.

H-g-tv doesn't determine what our.

Needs are. They just determine what you're going to be discontented about because you wish you were them and they live in an edited world. That's not a real world. I know that's right. Kind of like your friends on, what do they call them? Influencers. No, that's not real. It's not real. Help you. It's not real. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, guys, it's Rachel Cruz. If your healthcare costs are increasing while your choices are decreasing, check out Christian Healthcare Ministries. Chm is not health insurance. It's a biblically-based health cost-sharing ministry that has helped thousands of families across the country by sharing each other's medical bills. Chm is an affordable alternative to health insurance that aligns with your values and makes it possible for you to save on health care without giving up your freedom. Check out more at chministries. Org/budget. That's chministries. Org/budget. Jade Walshaw, Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Today's question sponsored by Naverly, your hub for home services. Naverly has top quality providers like Precision Door Service, Junk King and more to help you take care of projects before the weather gets cold. Find the local help you need by downloading the neighborly app today.

Today's question comes from Krista in Maryland. She says, My husband and I have had separate accounts with a joint account for bills since we've been married. We recently started Baby Step 2 and purchased every dollar premium. I find that the app has been a game changer, but my husband finds it to cause too much conflict and feels too controlled with his spending, even though he has had to cut back. To help this, we have placed a budget item for fund money, $100 a month for each of us. This is still not enough and too controlling. How do I get through to him that bucking down for a short amount of time to pay off our debt is a good thing? We currently are $122,000 in debt besides our mortgage, and I feel suffocated by this amount. This is a good one. My guess is you guys have had separate money for a long time, and he's been able to go and do his thug thizle and not had to answer to anybody. Now you have the same account, and I'm going off the words on the paper. It sounds like all of this so far has been your idea, and you're getting every dollar, and you're getting the family on a budget, and you're going to put fun money in the category, and you're going to check it, it doesn't sound like this is a joint effort yet.

It sounds like he's there like, All right. You're having to pull him along and drag him along.

Yeah, you know why he feels controlled? Because he is being controlled. Not by the budget, but by you. Because he's not got a vote in the process or has not chosen to.

Cast his vote. She said, Well, here, you can have $100.

Yeah, you're not his mommy. You're his wife. He needs to sit down and say, Okay, the two of us together have a high-definition dream, a very clear picture of the future.

Then.

We say, What must be true to get there? Then together, we cast a vote on our money each month on how we can best get there while still surviving and having a reasonable life. Or in some cases, not even a reasonable life, but we chose together to not have one. You're trying to use the budget to whip him into shape. Not going to work. That budget is not a whip and post.

Yeah, there's got to be a why behind it. It can't just be we're paying off debt just to pay off debt. For some people, that might work, but for most people, that's not going to work. There's got to be that bigger reason why.

Yeah, why are you doing this? And see, he's like, Okay, I'll go along, instead of like, Okay, let's sit down, honey. Let's do this together. Because a grown man can choose what he wants to do. A grown woman can choose what they want to do with their money when you sit down and both of you have a vote.

Yeah. When you know what the prize is at the end of it, the stronger the win, the stronger the try.

I'm going to increase the food, the fun money, even though I know it's going to delay the prize. You can do that. You both have a vote. You can make an argument for that. But he feels controlled, and it has nothing to do with every dollar.

100%. Yeah, every dollar didn't do it.

Nope, didn't do it. By the way, if you want to learn about every dollar and how to build that budget on that app with your spouse or as a single, either one, Jade Warshaw, to my right, and Rachel Cruz and George Camel are periodically doing free webinars at everydollar. Com/budgeting on how to build that out and use it. It's completely free. Did I mention that it's free? If you don't like it, we'll give you half your money back. It's free, okay? So come on, check it out. You're doing several of these a month, and you can get signed up for one. Do you know when your next one is off top.

Of your head? I do not. It's in November. We'll do two of them. Just to clarify, the webinar is free, and you can sign up for every dollar for free. Both sides of it is free.

Like free? Free indeed. It's a lot of free. Everydollar. Com/budgeting. Betty is with us in Denver. Hi, Betty. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Thank you for having me.

Sure. How can we help?

I need to open up a new bank account, and I also need to have a new apartment. Both are requiring me to unlock the freeze on Experian. When I went online today and went through the steps and put in my telephone number, they said that that telephone number was not recognized, and that's as far as I got.

Okay. I'm wondering how hard it is. I guess you're going to have to.

Call them.

I could not find a telephone number. I tried to Google search on that, and I wasn't able to see a telephone number for Experian to talk to someone in.

Customer service. They have a chat room or anything? I've never tried to unfreeze mine.

I didn't see any chat room service come up on.

Anything online. I don't understand. I mean, I do understand an apartment, want wanting to check your credit and yours is frozen. But my credit has been frozen at nothing on it. It says zero, says I filed bankruptcy in 1988.

Here's what I found. Okay. It says if you have an Experian account, you can unfreeze your credit by logging in, clicking on the Help Center, and then toggling the free status from unfrozen to scheduling a.

Future thought. But when she tried to log in, it didn't accept her login because it didn't like her phone number.

Is that right?

I wonder if you can- Is that what happened, Betty? The login was rejected? Yeah.

What if you do the forgot my password deal?

I could try forgot my password. Try that. I didn't even go to forgot my password.

Yeah, I would jump in. Did you get logged in?

I was just starting to get.

Logged in.

Okay, yeah.

I think you need to see if you can get logged in. If not, I would jump on, try to find one of the chat rooms. Back to what I was saying before Jade so rudely interrupted me. No, I'm kidding. But with the actual answer to the question, which is problematic. But the bank account should not give you trouble. I've never unfrozen mine. I've opened hundreds of bank accounts. But now a certain apartment might want to pay your thing. But my account has not been unfrozen since they allowed you to freeze them some 20-something years ago when they first came out with that law or that change in the service that they provide as a response to Congress breathing down their neck. I'm worried about your bank here a little bit. They think they want to do some overdraft protection debt thing attached to your checking account, and that's why they want to check your credit instead of you just opening an account. Interesting. That's very possible there. I think you could just tell the apartment complex, Look, here's my job references, here's the down payment or the deposit, and you can't check my because it's frozen.

The reason it's frozen is there's nothing on it, and I don't allow goobras like you to mess around on my credit review or reports. You want to rent me an apartment or not? Otherwise, I'm going to cross the street because there's 73 others that look just like you around here. Really, the idea that you pull a credit review report to rent an apartment is a little bit unusual.

Yeah, it's a lot.

But if you want to get it unfrozen, it sounds like you need to get a login process. I have not done it to answer your question, Betty, so I'm not sure, but.

I mean... I mean, this is what it says on their site. I think she just needs to go one step, follow the steps through.

Going a little bit deeper and then see if you can't get past the phone number thing. Edward is in New York City. Hi, Edward. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hello, Dave, Dave. Good afternoon.

How are you guys doing? How can we help?

All right. It's basically a quick story. Married, six years, two kids, five and two. No student loan debt. But we do find ourselves in 114,000 of consumer debt without the account in the house. Total take-home roughly the month is about 9,600.

I'm just trying to- Yeah, what's the 114 without student loans? You got big cars. What's the deal?

It's two cars. One of them is about $13,000, the other one is about 23. Two personal loans. One was a debt consolidation before we bought the house. We basically were debt-free when we sold the house. We paid everything off, and then little by little, everything crept up within the past three and a half years. Now it's just at a scary point that I'm going down a road that I don't want.

To go down.

We need a behavior change. We're trying.

To figure out. I think you've identified what the problem is. The cars aren't the problem. Thirty-six thousand out of 114, you got something else going on here. It sounds like you guys have tried to borrow your way out of debt with these debt consolidation loans and didn't change your habits. So hang on, we'll set you up with every dollar and put you through Financial Peace University so you can get a game plan going to either start shedding yourself of stuff, certainly shedding yourself of lifestyle to get down under your income and start really turning this thing around. When your business gets to a certain size, the cracks can start to show. If this is you, learn these numbers. Thirty-six thousand businesses have upgraded to NetSuite by Oracle, the top cloud financial system. For 25 years, NetSuite has been helping businesses do more with less and drive costs down. And one, because your business is one of a kind. Right now download NetSuite's KPI checklist absolutely free at netsuite. Com/ramsey. Jade Walshaw, Ramsey personalities, my co-host today. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Jonie is with us in Jackson, New Hampshire. Hi, Jonie. How are you?

Well, as you said, better than I deserve. Much better.

Good. How can we help today?

Well, and my dad used to say, advice is worth what you pay for it. That was fun to start to show off with that. Okay, so my daughter's two 40-ish years old daughters, and I co-own a cabin that's across the road from my house where I've lived at this house for 40 years. We bought the cabin five years ago. We're all three on the bead. As you said, a few weeks ago, we'd never go into business with anyone. One reason being that they will have different interests from you. That's what we're facing. I'd like to move from my home to the cabin, which needs some serious work to make it livable. My daughter is one of them wants to just do as little as possible and make it into a seasonal rental. The other one wants that also, but she doesn't want me to have a home there because she can deny it because we all have to agree since we're co-owners. We all have to agree on work done there. About 20 years ago, she was doing a bunch of bad stuff, and I had to told her, If you keep this up, you're going to have to leave.

I had to kick her out of the house, and she wants to punish me for that.

The way you handle that, you have a daughter that wants to punish you, and you decide to buy a cabin with her.

It wasn't-.

You bought the cabin five years ago. Twenty years ago, you kicked her out.

Well, five years ago when the cabin came up for sale, the owner wanted to sell it to my daughters, and so they, on paper, bought it. I paid 200,000 for it. I paid for the taxes and the purchase price and all of the repairs that we have done.

They put no.

Money in it? Did they have any money in?

Excuse me? They put no money in?

Right. Oh, gosh. I bought my house.

Over the years ago for $29,000. Do you guys have any written agreement on this at all?

We have one agreement that they came up with that says we all have to agree on any work that's done.

Did you sign that?

Yes.

Why? I don't know why you did any of this. If you had $200,000 buy the cabin, don't buy the cabin. Why did you put them on here knowing that this one daughter is going to be a problem from day one?

I didn't know that. Yeah, you did. The daughter would not sell it to me alone. She wanted to sell it to my daughters.

Why?

We either wouldn't get the cabin or the girls would both be on the deed.

What was initially the use of the cabin? When you first bought it, did you buy it because you said, You know what? I'm going to move in here, and everybody knew that? Or was the initial purpose of the cabin to rent it out to someone else?

It was me moving up. There was an option. We didn't talk about any plans. I started doing little bits here and there, having a cabin chinked, making sure the roof was good.

Okay, Joni, let me ask you this. How old are you?

I bought it to protect the value of my house so that we're surrounded by national forest. Johnny. I bought my house for $29,000. Johnny. Now it's worth a million.

Johnny, how old are you?

Seventy.

Seventy, okay. You have made a mess. That's right. This is a mess, okay? You're really left with only a couple of options. One is to convince your daughters to deed the property over to you, given that they put no money in it to start with, and they have no rights to this morally or ethically. Okay? This is an absurd deal. You should not have done this deal. It was a dumb deal. It was a bad deal. You set yourself up to get punched in the nose. Now you're getting punched in the nose. Now the only thing you can do with this is you can convince them to deed it over to you, or you can hire an attorney and sue them and force the sale of the cabin, and show the judge that they put $0 into this and that at least you get your 200,000 back before there's anything split at the sale. Now you get to decide, are you going to be able to convince them that you guys are all stupid? What you've done here is all stupid. You're not stupid, but what you've done is ridiculous. It's a horrible plan, and your daughters are horrible that they took a third of this knowing that they didn't get along with their 70-year-old mother, and she paid 100% of it.

That's like being a thief, okay? That's what that's like. I don't really like your daughter.

As much. This is not going.

To be easy. I don't know that you're going to be able to convince these two dwebs to turn the thing over to you. I'm afraid you're going to be faced with a judge to do it, or you've just gotten screwed out of 200,000 because you've lost control of this because you've got a 2:1 vote and the deed doesn't have any restrictions on it whatsoever. You've got three people and they have two of the votes. But a judge can untangle this, and a judge can force the sale of the cabin and give you $200,000 at the sale. One other option on the persuasion side you could do is you can offer the dwebe some money to go away. I'll give you $25,000 a piece if you've got it or whatever to sign the deed over to me. Oh, gosh. Which is immoral, thievery, blackmail, whatever you want to call it. But it's going to be cheaper than court.

She's not going to like them much after that, though.

Well, I don't like them, so it's easy to not like them. I mean, they're not likable. That's right. Who does this to their parent?

Oh, I don't know.

It's weird. You threw me out of the house 20 years ago, so then I'm going to get back at you is I'm going to get you to pay full price for a cabin that I own one-third of, and then I'm not going to let you do anything. Good God. This is terrible. How four-year-old is this? Needs counseling. Unbelievable. Some people's children. Guys, you cannot enter into these things wide-eyed, open, and expect a crocadile to do anything but bite your leg off. Crocadiles is what they do.

I just can't understand. Even if they liked each other, right? It's a dumb- What would be ever the purpose of going into something like... It makes no sense. If she was going to move into it anyway, just buy the house for herself.

Well, the guy wouldn't sell it to her, which is weird. Yeah, that's weird, too. There's a lot of weird here. But yeah. Johnny, I'm sorry. I wish I had a magic wand to make your pain go away. But your pain is not a cabin. Your pain is your daughter's. That's what you're going to have to deal with one way or another. Probably the cheapest way to do this is just buy the dwebes out and get them to sign it over. It's a dwebe fee. It's a stupid tax fee. I do something stupid and it costs me money, Joney, I call it stupid tax. You're probably going to pay some stupid tax here. You are going to.

Pay some stupid tax. They better not ask for.

A third. You're going to pay a lawyer. Well, they'll ask for it. You know these dwebes will. You're going to either pay a lawyer, you're going to pay the dwebes, or you're going to lose your 200,000. These are your three-way... But you're going to lose money. You're going to lose money.

Something's going on here. I'm paying a lawyer. If it's me, I'm paying a lawyer. I don't want to fool with these girls anymore. Wow.

It's your kids.

They're dwebes.

To quote a well-known philosopher.

Oh, man. Oh, that's terrible. I feel bad, but...

I was doing a thing with some wealthy people the other day, and they were all worried. They were saying, How do I raise my children when we have wealth and then the wealth doesn't ruin them? I told them, I said, The wealth won't ruin them. It's just going to expose if you did. If you run them, the wealth is just going to give you the exposure to that. It's going to magnify. Because whatever goes on in a family is magnified when it gets wealth. In other words, the crazy gets super crazy. But I mean, this is all tied to $200,000 with the teavery here. Jonny, I am so sorry. Your heart must be broken. Mine's broken for you. I'm angry for you. I just can't do anything about it. Except Ray all about it. This is The Ramsey Show. Look, life insurance has one job: to replace your income for your dependents if you die. That's it. So if someone tries to sell you high-cost life insurance that doubles as savings or an investment strategy, scams like whole life, cash value, variable life, then run. Term-life from Xander Insurance is a much smarter way to protect your family's future.

Xander shops all the top companies to find you the most affordable term-life rates. Then you can go build wealth with what you save not by falling for those crap policies. Go to zander. Com to learn more. That's zander. Com or 800-356-4282. Jade Walshaw, Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us. Jessica is with us in Salt Lake City. Hi, Jessica. How are you? Good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

Hi. I have a couple of months left in baby step three, but I'm just trying to decide what to prioritize after that because I really want to buy a house, but I also really want to catch up in my retirement savings. I also really want to do grad school so that I can raise my income so that I could do both of those other things faster.

Grad school and what?

It's in education, so I'm a teacher. If I get a grad school, then I get a pay bump.

Oh, automatic. Yeah, it's built into the system. Yeah. Okay. How long will it take you to complete grad school?

About a year, maybe two years if I go slow. I'm going to be doing it online.

What's the cost?

It costs 4,000 per six months. Hopefully, I'll keep it under 10,000.

Okay. If you did in one year, that'd be eight. If you did in one year and a half, it'd be twelve, right?

Right. Okay, all right. Then I'm hoping that I can... I don't know what I was about to say.

Are you single?

Yes, I'm single. What's your income? Right now, it's $57,000.

Okay. What's the pay bump after you get your red level done?

It'll be about $5,000 or $10,000.

Five or 10?

Well, because the salary schedules are a little bit different depending on how long you've been teaching. Most of them are about 7,000.

Well, I mean, you know how long you've been teaching. How much pay bump will you get?

Well, I don't know next year's salary schedule, if that makes sense.

It does not change $5,000 or $10,000 every year, though. I mean, what would it be if it was this year? It would be 7,000. For you. Okay, all right. So you get your money back in a year and a half. From then on, you got an extra 7,000. That's a pretty good deal. If that delays you buying a house a little bit, I'm cool with that.

Okay.

But that also makes me want to get through school super fast.

I know, yeah. Then do I contribute to retirement during that, or do I just go as fast as I can through that and then.

Through the- Can you cash flow school and do retirement?

Yes.

I would do that. Yeah, let's do that. Then if you get out and you get your 7,000 bump and you want to start saving for a house, you want to turn off retirement for one year while you save for a house or something, that'd be okay. But you could turn it on for right now and get some started, right?

Yeah.

Love it.

But I think the trick is the faster you finish school, two things happen to the math. One is they're no longer charging you four grand every six months, and that much faster you get 7,000. In other words, you finish school in one year, it makes you an extra 7,000 versus finishing it in two years.

Right.

It saves you another 8,000 in tuition. Yes. I'm doing this in a year.

Okay.

If I can figure out any way that's sustainable and pull that off, I mean, that-.

That's interesting to me. The cost is not based on the load of classes she's taking.

It's not based on- You can only take, butYeah, it is. But it's not a per class in this. She's buying a program.

It's just the.

Package deal. She's buying a degree and the degree costs X, and how fast can you get through it? You got to sign up for a minimum number. Got it. But if you take classes in traditional brick and mortar and you pay the quarterly or the semester tuition, you can take 10 hours or 15 hours. It's the same. It doesn't change. At most schools, it does. Yeah. Okay, so that's the way that's coming off. Natalie is in Cincinnati. Hi, Natalie, how are you? Good, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

I am trying to figure out how to purchase my next home if I should go ahead and try to get a conventional loan myself or get a conventional loan together with my fiancé or if I would even qualify for an FHA.

An FHA? Okay. Why?

Well, I've never owned a home. Okay, so I own a home because I got a quit Feed from my grandparents who passed me their home, but they never had any loans on it. It was already paid off.

What's wrong with that? What's wrong with that house?

It's just small. My family is outgrowing it, and it's in a very bad school district.

You have kids. How many kids do you have?

Yes, I have two kids.

You have two kids. How old are your kiddos?

Three and three months.

How long have you had granny's house?

Almost six years now.

Three-year-old is not in school. Correct. Oh, not six months. Did you say six months or six years?

Six years I've.

Had the house. No, I'm sorry. The children are how old?

Three years old and three months old.

Yeah, neither one of them have a school district problem.

Not yet. The kids, are these the fiancé's kids? Yes. Okay. I see. I'm just putting the pieces of the.

Puzzle together. Now the mystery comes clear. Good catch. Okay, so when are you getting married?

Hopefully whenever we go to a courthouse, we don't have a date set. This weekend. -we're very open to just.

Going whenever. It's open today. Congratulations. Number one, do not buy a home with someone that you are not legally married to.

You will.

Get yourself into a pinch, all kinds of problems, and just do not do that. So you need to get married and then buy a house. What I would do if I were in your shoes listening to this is I would get married and I would live in granny's house because neither one of these kids have a school district problem. When things unfold over the next two or three years and you want to start talking about moving, we'll sell granny's house and the combined income of the two of you plus the down payment coming from granny's house, will be the purchase of your next house in a better school district. But you do not need to buy a house before you're married. You do not need to buy a house after you're married.

Right now. What's granny's house worth? I'm just curious.

I think we can sell it for about 200,000.

There you go. That's no slouch.

No, it's not.

This is not a shack. Yeah.

No. Okay. It's just small for us. And like I said, with this school district, we have an opportunity to get a house that's not on the market yet coming up soon in a school district we really like.

Sorry, you're not ready.

We haven't tried.

There will be more opportunities. There will be.

More opportunities to do that. You don't need to buy a school district for a three-year-old. Okay. You just got a house fever here and this newfound responsibility of stepmothership is carrying a burden for you and you're trying to do the right thing and be a good mom, and I appreciate that. That's smart of you. Thank you for that. But you got time. You got time. You'll get there. If I were you, I would just get married and live in Grenny's house for a while. Then when we get ready to move later, we'll work on finding the right deal in the right school district at the right price to sell Grenny's house for the down payment. The two of you now have a nice combined income. You will not need an FHA loan. You'll get a conventional loan with the two of you. Fha loan, usually the only reason anybody ever does that is they just don't have any down payment hardly. They don't have anything saved, and so you don't need to do that. Now, I think what's happened is this one particular house popped up and the fever set in, and now we're trying to figure out a way to back into the deal.

Yeah, that is the fever. That's the thing. Sometimes when you're in a moment, you think, If this moment passes, it'll never happen again.

You're right, it won't. That moment won't happen again, but whoop de dup de.

Yeah, something else will happen that'll be.

Just as good. There's a stinking house on every corner. They're everywhere. There's only one house now. No, there's a lot of them. I've owned a lot of them. I've lived in a lot of them. It's just a house. You'll get you another one. It's my forever. No, it's not. It's not your forever house. That's a joke. You're not going to be there forever. That's dumb.

Dave, the interest rates went past 8%. They did?

Yeah. Yay! Don't say yay! That's awesome. Finally, there's going to be some bargaining in the real estate market again. I was ready for... I haven't seen bargaining in like a decade, man. I'm ready for some real estate bargaining.

Dave, you just pissed off all those people. I know. You don't care.

Hey, it's not going to be 8% forever. No, it's not. We're going into an election cycle. Do you think the Democrats want high interest rates? That's how you lose the White House. Okay, come on.

Facts.

Think.

Facts.

The number of sitting presidents that survive a bad economy and high interest rates for housing and get reelected is really close to zero. You just can't find that in history. I think next year is going to be really exciting. I do, too. This is The Ramsey Show. 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. Jade Walshaw, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. I'm Dave Ramsey. The phone number is triple-eight, 825-5225. Jeff's in Indianapolis. Hi, Jeff. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. Pleasure to talk.

With you. You, too. What's up?

My wife and I are in our early '70s. My son lives about a mile from us. He's in his early 40s. He relocated back here to Indiana from California about 11 years ago from L. A, where he was working in the music business. He was going to take over my insurance agency a few years ago, retired about nine years ago. He did take that over. He got into tax problems when he was in California because he was working for a music composer that actually treated him as an employee, but paid him as an independent contractor, so he didn't know anything about paying taxes, got behind with the state and the IRS, end up owing them 30 or 40 grand, I think. We helped him work out a structured repayment plan as a condition to him coming back and getting into insurance. That's been paid through wage garnishments since then. I discussed with him before he came back the need to stay on top of his taxes and finances because he's never been good with money. During that period of time, many times I'd ask him if he was on this and he'd just blow up and wouldn't talk to me about it.

Three months ago, he called us and told us that he was in tax debt to the IRS again and wanted his mom and I to bail him out, basically. Basically using our share of our estate when we die. We thought he probably owe about $50,000 or $60,000. Turns out he hasn't filed any state or federal tax returns for the past four years, nor has he paid any estimated taxes for 2023. We're meeting with our accountant next Thursday to go over all this to get specific numbers, but I'm guessing, from what I've seen, it's going to be over $200,000, and about half of that is just interest and penalties. He also hasn't paid any 941, withholding, or state unemployment tax. He has no business being self-employed, obviously. My question is, we have the assets to do that, but we would have to sell off property and mutual funds. I don't know if you need our income or what.

Exactly- How much is your net worth?

Net worth is probably about 2.3 million. About roughly half of that is in two pieces of real estate. Our residents here in Indiana and another home we own in Florida.

I'm sorry, Jeff.

80%, including the real estate, the majority of our assets are in IRAs, Roths, and 403(b)s from what my wife taught.

We've got about $130,000 in the money market fund. What does he make? What's his income at the insurance company?

Well, he just resigned from that position because after he took it over, he ran it into the ground. He couldn't make a go of it. Right now, he's doing a sales job, and it seems to be going pretty well, but he's only been doing it a couple of months. He's making about 75,000 a year plus bonuses.

Is he married?

He's not married. He has an eight-year-old granddaughter that we absolutely love and spends a lot of time with us. He was going to get married, but they did it reversed. They got pregnant first, and then they didn't get along, so they didn't get married. So both of them are here in town, and both of them have jobs in our own businesses, and they get along fine. We all get along fine.

The insurance agency was yours and you sold it or gave it to him?

I actually worked for a captive company, so they actually owned it. When I left, they paid me a percentage of my renewals, and that's one of the cornerstones of my retirement now. I didn't have a say in.

Where the call was meant. You had a book of business. But what did he come into? He didn't take over your book, did he?

He did, pretty much. Not all of it, because they gave something. It was a big agency, so they split it up among other agents. They gave him about half of it.

Okay, and he ran your book into the ground. Okay.

Ran into the ground.

Okay. Jeff, does he have any other debt besides the tax debt that you know of? Do you know what that number looks like?

I don't think he rents. He doesn't own a home. I don't think he owes anything else. He doesn't have credit card debts or tax debt's the only one that I'm aware of.

I hear your disgust for his behavior in your voice. I also hear a dad that loves his son, even though he's been stupid.

You hear very well.

I guess there's two options. One is you bail him out, which doesn't sound real appealing. If you don't bail him out, what happens? He just has to work with the IRS for a lot of years and actually grow up. Yeah.

We've got to go up. The thing is, Dave, this has happened so many times I can't count them.

But you've been there to bail him out every time.

Yeah. We had to take him out of high school because of his behavior. We had to send him out to a survival camp in Idaho, and then we put him in a private school in California and all that required a second mortgage on our house at the time. We bailed him out of a car loan that he didn't keep up with that I cosigned for. It's just been one thing after another. He just.

Is very- I'm okay with no being the answer. Yeah. If it.

Were me, I wouldn't do it.

Here's what I'm going to suggest. He got a severance package from the insurance company that's going to pay out about 30 grand over the next five years, about 6,000 a year. I told him that we would help him out if he would sign that over to me to pay back what we're going to advance him. But I initially thought we could do the whole amount.

I don't think you should do any of that, Jeff.

I really don't. That's the way I think.

I think that he's grown and I think that he makes a living. He's not poverty level. There's nothing wrong with him. I think he just needs to be man and do man things.

I totally agree with you.

I think you're a great dad.

Thank you. There's one other question to take this out a little further because I don't think my son realizes how bad of a position he's in, if he pays this over the next 20 or 30 years, he still may not have it paid off and we die.

That's all right.

But we have all of our assets and our real estate is in trust, and my daughter is the trustee and the executor. We currently put a clause in our will that allowed my son to take our house here as part of his settlement of the estate because he loves our home. But I'm concerned that if he doesn't have this paid off, I don't even know that I want to leave that share of the estate to him because I think the IRS could put a lien on that.

They can. After he becomes the owner, they can.

Yeah, and I want to make sure that ultimately it was for him, but it's ultimately also to go to our granddaughter. I don't want to eat up our share of.

That estate. I think these are two separate questions. Do you help him today? Yeah, they are. Yeah, do you help him today? Jade and I are both saying, Sadly, I probably wouldn't. I probably wouldn't. That's the way I'm thinking. And then do I change the will? In a few years, I might. You can change it now, you can change it later.

Can he put something in there that says if the debt's not paid off, the home goes elsewhere until the debt.

Is paid off. You could leave it in trust for the granddaughter and bypass it, bypass the kid they can't seem to find his way. Yeah, it's so sad. This is The Ramsey Show. Fake it till you make it. It's popular career.

Advice.

But it doesn't work for very long. If you don't love what you do, you can't fake the enthusiasm and energy you need to win at work. You also can't fake your physical health and energy.

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Your first order. Hey, guys, if you like this show, you can help us. If you don't like this show, what are you listening for? If you like the show, you can help us. We would appreciate it. Click the subscribe button, the Follow button. Whether you're a YouTube follower or a podcast, click the appropriate button. It changes the algorithm and pushes the show forward and lets people that don't know about it know about it. Thank you for doing that. You can also share the show. Some of the platforms have a share button. Others are you're just listening on talk radio and you say, Hey, I listen to such and such a station. The Ramsey show is on there. Tell people about that sharing. You need to share. Click the share button, share a link, whatever it is. Do all that. Leave a five-star review that says we love Ramsey. You guys are our marketing plan. We don't own a football stadium like, Silly.

Gazuntight.

Sorry about that. We don't have $300 million to put into marketing around here, so you guys are it. If you want this show and this whole movement to grow, spread the word, baby. Thank you. All right, Dan's in Chicago. Hi, Dan. How are you?

Not too bad. How about yourself?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

I have a question. I've been listening to you for probably about four or five months now, and you're probably going to yell at me, but I have several whole life policies. After listening to you and doing a lot of research, come to realize how poor of an investment this is. Sorry, it's not an investment, an expense. But wondering if we do decide to cancel our policies, what we should do, whether we should leave the policies in place and just keep the lower death benefit, or if we should take the cash render value and invest that someplace else.

First thing you do is make sure you have the proper amount of life insurance in place and term life insurance. Go to an independent broker, somebody like Xander, and get the best possible price on that. Once that's in place, we can talk about canceling these, and then I would cancel them completely. I'm not playing with rattlesnakes.

Right. Yeah, I've already actually gone on to Zander and have several quotes, so I'm just looking at the best one, ready to get that in place. Then like I said, so.

You would cancel it. Then just cancel it. Just cancel it. Then drop some cash value into your hand. Then wherever you are on the baby steps, you'll take that cash value and advance your baby steps.

How much money do you think it will be?

It will be roughly $115,000 in cash.

Earner value. Fabulous. Where are you in the baby steps?

Well, we're in theout and paying off for-.

The house is paid off?

Sorry, sub-sticks.

Okay, where are you on your home?

I'm paid off early next year. Roughly $200,000.

Okay. All right, we're halfway there. This will just advance that then.

I thought I read some places that there is a time frame where you have to have a policy. You have to have a policy in place for a certain over a year before you can take the cash or earn a value out, otherwise you get hit with a Beverly. Is that accurate?

No. Your basis in a whole life policy is what you've put into it. Anything you take out that's more than that is a gain. But very seldom do you get more out than you put in because the fees are so high and it's such a horrible product. You actually lose money almost every time. So it's not a taxable event.

Right, yeah. We have lost money up to this point, which is frustrating. I'm glad I started listening to you guys.

I'm curious, how much have you put in?

Roughly 170.

Yeah, and get $115 out. Wow. Yeah. You do not have a taxable event, period. Because it's not an investment, so you don't approach it like a gain. If you had a capital gain investment, if you've not owned it one year, capital gains don't apply, ordinary income applies. But this is not an investment, so that does not come up. If you bought a whole life policy this year and you cashed it out this year, capital gains calculation does not apply to that. It's simply your basis is what you paid for it. Are you getting out more or less than what you paid in? That's the simple calculation on the taxes. So you're fine. You're fine. You're not going to pay any taxes. You're not fine, but you're not going to pay any taxes.

No, he's not fine. He lost a lot of money. It's so sad. It's a.

Horrible thing. Eli is in Little Rock, Arkansas. Hi, Eli. How are you?

Hi, Dave and Jay. It's an honor to talk to you.

How are you all? Better than we deserve. What's up?

Yeah, I just have a quick question. My wife and I have a vehicle that is a $20,000 car loan. We are in baby step number two. We have our $1,000 safety net and everything. My question is about the vehicle. What we have is we have $20,000 in student loans to pay off, and we have the vehicle which has a $20,000 note on it. The payment per month is $355. We make between $6,000 and $7,000 a month. We're both an education. So my question is what to do with that vehicle? We can afford the payment. Obviously, we can pay it off. Dave, I know you hate brand new cars. We did buy the car brand new, but that was before we really started with this whole process.

Yeah, that's their next purchase. We worry about that. The way we look at cars is two things. If all of the things you own that have wheels and motors added up equals less than half your annual income, you're okay. This one is, do you have an expensive car in the second car?

No, sir. Our second car, there's no note on it.

No, I'm asking what its value is.

Oh, the value. The value of that car, Blue Book, it's around $19,000.

Okay, so you got $40,000 worth of vehicles. You make $85,000 a year, so you're about half. You don't need to buy anything else with the dead gun motor, I can tell you that. Right. Yeah, I know.

We're definitely not going in any.

Deeper than the fact. Then the second thing is, can I be debt-free other than the house, baby step two in two years or less? Can you pay off $40,000 in two years or less?

I.

Believe so, yes, sir. I think you can, too. If you want to struggle through and keep the car, you can. If you want to move down in car and accelerate this process by about six months, you could do that. But I think you got two years of plowing through $40,000 worth of debt, make an 80.

Yeah. All right. What do you think you'll do? I'd probably plow through. What are you going to do?

I think we'll plow through. We have two small children, and it's a great car. It's been a great car for us. We've had no issues with it. I'm to that point where I'm just like, Oh, I just want to get done with this. But I think that if we were to sell it, we would take a little bit of a hit. And I ultimately think that we would be in this situation where we'd be looking for something. It needs to be... My wife and I both live, we live about three hours from our family. So we take quite a few little trips to see our parents and things like that. We want something reliable, but I wanted your input.

I figured that was- You need to get that every dollar budget dialed in and crank that lifestyle down. Crank that lifestyle down, and you got to be at a $2,000 a month burn rate. Yeah.

You might be able to crank it up and keep the car by adding more income in. Are you guys doing anything extra to bring in income?

Not at this moment. I know it sounds funny, but we actually have in the past, we've donated plasma. We have a plasma center right down the road. You wouldn't believe how much people would pay for plasma.

I hear. Not as much as they'll pay you to tutor.

No, you're right about that.

You're right about that. There's no needles involved.

They shouldn't be. They shouldn't be. That's funny. Shouldn't be in theory anyway. That's funny. Yuck.

Look, people are out here giving plasma and making a hundred dollars, I don't know, per vial. I don't know how they do it, but I'm like, I'd rather deliver pizzas.

Yeah, I think I think... Well, yeah. Guys, here's the deal. The car, I love cars. I'm just a boy. I like cars with big mufflers and loud engines. I'm a redneck boy. I'm all about cars, but here's the thing. It's the largest thing that you and I buy that goes down in value. Then the average new car loses 60%-70% of its value in the first three years. That means you're turning $30,000 into $12,000, and then scratching your head and wondering why you're broke. See, what you ought to do if you're driving one of those things, you got to roll down the window and just throw $100 bills out as you're going down the road because that's basically what's happening. If you're driving a $50,000 car and you make $60,000, you're broke people. You're always going to be broke people because you have too much of your mathematical juice tied up in something that's going down in value. I love cars. I get it. I get the fever. I understand. But it's the dumbest thing we do with money, you guys. It's particularly a middle-class dumb thing to do. This is The Ramsey Show. Jade Walshaw, Ramsey personalities, my co-host today.

Thank you for being with us. Caitlin is in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Hi, Caitlin. How are you? Good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

I guess to get short with it, I need to figure out how to essentially get my spouse. He is mentally on board with me, but not physically on board with me in not just baby steps, but financial aspects in general. He has a bit of addiction with instant gratification. Okay.

It's not an addiction. It's not an addiction. It's just immaturity. That's a very good point, yes. How old is he?

He is the same age as me, he's 32. Okay.

How does that manifest? What does it look like, his spending? We'll put it in a dictionary for quotes right now.

Sure. He's got a little bit better, I'll give him that credit, he is pretty selfish. Some examples are instead of... I mean, the family car was a decent family car one that fits the kids. We unfortunately outgrew it, not to him knowing. But then instead of just leaving it as a daily, he needed to lower it, which makes it more expensive and ruins the car more. Then he needed to buy a customized steering wheel that absolutely wasn't needed. Then he needed to do this and he needed that.

He souped up your family minivan. Wow.

It's not the minivan. It was a wagon. It was his daily that would still fit us at the time, not anymore, but at the time would fit all of us. Then I had a daily that would fit all of us.

Is he creating debt while doing this?

I can't even argue. I can't even fathom the amount. Being a person that before I met him, I bought my own house as a single mom, it completely destroys me. I have so much stress from everything he's done. Actually, the last year I spent hearing stress, seizures.

Okay. You said he had children. How many?

We have three children. One of them is not biologically his, but he, since day one, has taken care of her like he has. She has given to me. Okay.

Well, this is not a money problem. It's not a budget problem. This is a marriage problem. It's a marriage problem. We end up backing into those sometimes through budgeting and that stuff. But budgets don't control people. People control budgets, or in some cases don't do a budget, or in some cases don't live with a budget. But budgets, they don't have any magic powers. It's just simply a roadmap. Maps don't control people. You just look at the road map and am I going to go down the road or not? That's all a budget is. It's just a map. Wives don't control husbands, and husbands don't control wives as much as they'd like to and as much as it would be awesome if we could pull it off, we just can't do it. What we've got here is, as you said, selfish and immature guy who's putting his own impulses ahead of the good of his family.

Have you guys reached out to a counselor?

That's what you need.

Yes. We've done marriage counseling already that I set up that then he denied. You're not done. Then he's done marriage counseling, but he was ready. No, I know. We've done these things because that's where it's led to.

Did he go?

He went two times to the one I set up, and then he denied going because he was essentially being blamed for things, and he didn't like it. He's getting defensive and it's like, Well, not saying that I'm perfect, but your selfish habits are creating an issue. Then he set up marriage counseling. He also more recently is going back to therapy for himself.

For.

Himself, okay. Years ago, but he is going now. Now he is seeing a... I don't remember the difference between a psychiatrist and psychologists, but technically, I guess, seeing both.

He's got a lot of stuff going on, huh?

Unfortunately, yes.

Yeah, the first thing you said when you said, Hey, we went to counseling. He didn't like my counselor because this and that, I will say both spouses need to feel good with the counselor because Sam and I, we've gone to counselors and it's been like, I don't like her or I didn't like him. You do sometimes have.

To- But if you don't like them because they're telling you the truth, that's a problem.

Yeah, that is a problem.

Yes. He also didn't like it that the guy didn't get his name right a couple of times, which I won't argue, whatever. But it was mostly because of he's telling him the truth and he doesn't want to hear it.

Yeah.

That's most likely. He is going and he is going for himself. That's good. I think the hard part with this is this is not necessarily going to mean that next week things are different, right? This is something that's going to play out over time. He's still actively creating debt for your family at this moment in time, right?

Or no, that's stopped. Unfortunately, yes. Even though we try to work out things that give him... I mean, it isn't really the word.

The debt, if he's running these things up on credit cards, is your name on the credit card or is it just these are cards that he's pulling out and he's doing this on his own?

Hes he had one in my name that he put in the collections that then I paid off because I was also on it trying to help him build credit from when we first.

Got married. Okay, and that one's closed.

Yeah, and that one's closed. He did have... He's got three of his own. He hasn't touched credit card for the couple of years. And then we discussed how we're going to make things work, and I asked if he was ready. And so he got a $300 limit back like two weeks ago. And he racked that up. Plus, he had $100 cash. He spent $400 about five days. I took the credit card away. I was like, You clearly aren't ready. You told me you're ready.

Well, I think as a rule of thumb in your family in general, you need to cut up all the credit cards and no one uses them. No one uses any more credit cards. That's thing one, is we just don't operate on debt anymore. I mean, my screen says that if you're trying to do the baby steps, you definitely cannot use credit cards anymore. Those get cut up. Then after that, yeah, you probably do need to have a real conversation about how his access is to this money if he's just going to go off and spend $500 and $600. I mean, that's a scary position to be in, Dave.

Caitlin, at some point through you working with the counselor and/or working with his counselor, the day is going to come, and it's coming pretty soon based on the tone of your voice, that you're finally going to say something like, If we can't get on the same page with money and you can't be a grown man and take care of your family instead of buying freaking steering wheels, then I'm not going to be able to be here anymore because you're terrifying me. I am awake at night. I've never been in debt like this. Your out-of-control, childish behavior with money is terrifying me. I can't live like this. If you can't be a grown man and learn to control your impulses, you're not a 12-year-old little boy, you're acting like one. But if you can't be a grown man and we can't get a bead on, we're going to manage our income together for the good of this family. That will include you doing some fun things and me doing some fun things, but it's going to include being a freaking responsible grown-up. If we can't get to that point, I'm not going to be able to be here.

You need the guidance of a good counselor on how to say that and when to say that. I'm not suggesting you hang up the phone and say, Dave Ramsey said that. But I'm telling you, if you do not get there systematically and begin to put that in front of him, one day, here's what's going to happen. I know this because I've counseled thousands of couples. You're going to have that little switch that particularly ladies have down inside them, and it's going to blow a fuse, and you're going to be done. No amount of talking, and no amount of conjoling, and no amount of logic and no amount of preachers, and no amount of nothing is going to get you back in the marriage. You're going to wave bye-bye because you're going to blow a gasket and you will have had it. I've tried to read all these back in after they've blown it and show them that the guy gave... He gave in. He gave in too late. She's gone. All you see is her back walking away. She's done. You just kept on, you kept on, you kept on, you kept on until she blows a freaking gasket.

And it's in your voice, I can hear it. So you need to keep away from that gasket blowing by getting some coaching on how to bring him to bear before you don't care if he comes to bear anymore. This is The Ramsey Show.

Hey, guys, it's George.

And Rachel. Now, we've been around the block of time or two when it comes to.

This money stuff.

And one thing we've both learned is how important it is to have a budget. One hundred %, George. Now tell me, what's the boujee thing you have in your every dollar budget? Oh, gosh, a thousand % it's our French Bulldogs. They have their own budget line for their fancy, specialized, veterinary brand, Kibble. Oh, my gosh. Yep, that's definitely boujee. But hey, that's the great thing about budgeting. It's how you prioritize.

The important things.

Because if George didn't budget, let's be honest, he'll probably end up wasting that kibble money.

On hair care products for himself. Okay, all right, shots fired.

Well, how often would you spend your grocery money on those creepy thriller novels you love? I know. Okay, fair.

You got me. Well, guys, you can.

Experience the same focus and freedom that comes.

With having a budget.

Download our app every dollar.

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Start budgeting today.

Jade Walshaw, Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Open phone is a triple-eight, 825-5225. The number one cause of divorce in North America today is money fights and money problems. The number one barrier to building wealth is not being on the same page, not working together. We found in the data when we studied millionaires, this is data, not your feelings, not your broke brother-in-law's opinion, not some moron on TikTok who's an influencer, but actual data that 87% of the millionaires say one of the key reasons they were able to build wealth was they were able to work together as a team with their spouse.

Yeah.

Proverbs 31 says, Who can find a virtuous wife for her worth is far above rubies? The heart of her husband safely trusts her, and he will have no lack of gain. I like that phrase, no lack of gain. I want some of that, no lack of gain thing. That means I get to listen to my virtuous wife. If you is a wife and you is virtuous, that means you don't think you're the Holy Spirit, you think you're the wife. You're not in charge, but you have common sense, as my wife says all the time. I have common sense. Well, there's a- That's what Sharon always says when she's arguing with me. But I have.

Common sense. There are some caveats to what you said there, Dave. A, the wife's got to be virtuous, and then B, the husband has to... His heart has to trust her. Yeah.

There's- Let me just tell you. When we went broke, I bought houses. I bought entire apartment complexes that my wife didn't even know existed. We went to dinner the other night in Nashville, and these areas of Nashville that are being gentrified, they were the hood, and now they're coming back. I used to buy that stuff back in the day, 30 years ago. We're down there in this area that's now cool and didn't use to be. I said, Well, we used to own that right there. She goes, You're kidding. This is 35 years ago. She never knew we owned it. It's fun. But I bought Kraber, and guess what? I went broke, too. Now after that, and I read that proverb in my late 20s, I'm now in my 60s, and I since then have never again made major financial decisions without my wife's input. My wife, by the way, is a full-time mom with a degree in child and family studies, Home Ec. I run a $300 million business. People all over America listen to what Dave Ramsey says about money. He checks with his wife. Why? Because I want no lack of gain.

I.

Safely.

Trust her. I don't want to mess with Sharon. That's all.

I'm saying. Well, you don't want that either. There's that hillbilly thing. But they're highly trained in pots and pans. I'm not saying just the cooking part, okay? But the yeah, I mean, if you know this, why would you go against the system? The system is couples that work together have high-quality communication, quality relationships, a higher probability of ending this thing together, not apart, and a higher probability of wealth building. There is nothing in this whole set of data that tells you to lower the car and buy a steering wheel.

Right. But there is part of this whole conversation that this is the thing. When you do start combining your money and when you do say, You know what? Let's do this thing together. It will air all the dirty laundry. It'll show everything in your marriage that needs help. It will show who's immature. It will show who's... It will start.

To reveal that stuff. You can't hide target bags under the bed anymore and think it's cute. No. Retail therapy princess. You can't. It's not cool. Yeah. It's a girl thing. No, it's a stupid thing. It's a little girl thing. It's an immature little girl thing. Yeah. What does? Women actually have a backbone walk and go, Look, this is what we're buying. I get a vote, too. Yeah. But the point is- I don't need to hide stuff from my wife or her from me.

The point is you do set out on a journey where it's like, Okay, I thought I could do things my way. You can't do everything your way. I thought, You know what? I'm realizing I have some trust. You start to realize these things about yourself, about your spouse, and it's fine. You have to continue to go through that journey so that you can do this thing and you're doing it together, and it's something that's bringing you together as opposed to, Well, I tried to share my finances with him, and he's just like this. No, you have to walk.

Through it. You have to go through it. That means that you have to deal with the da, da, da. That's part of it. That's part of it. That's part of getting your marriage act together, getting your money act together is part of the deal. Here's the thing. It's harder, but it's easier.

Yes, I get that.

It's harder because I can't just do whatever I want to do. I have to actually work with someone else and come to agreement that this is good for the greater whole called the Ramseys, not just what Little Davey wants. Little Davey wants a car. Little Davey wants a new bass boat. Those bass are out running me. I need a bigger motor. Little Davey. I'm serious, because here's the thing. Here's the funny part about this. Larry Burquette used to talk about this. When women go crazy, they buy an expensive purse. When a guy goes crazy, he buys a $35,000 thingy with an engine in it of some kind, a side-by-side, a 18-wheeler, I don't know it. All the things I bought over time, I bought them all because I have four-wheelers, five-wheelers, eight-wheelers, no-wheelers, boats. You know what I'm saying? We dropped 30k, she drops 300.

You know what? I'm with that. Yes. Guys, you have.

Expensive taste. When we go big and stupid on the impulse, we go big.

Yeah, I'm with that.

By and large, and then go, Honey, look what I did. I get that. I hope we can afford this because I just bought it. Oh, my God. No, no, no, no, no. Here's the thing. Two grownups learning the difficult process of learning to work together and loving the other one so much that I actually will listen to them, causing us to be in concert where the music is beautiful is the highest probability of a fabulous marriage, ending up married together at the end, and becoming wealthy. Very few people in our data became wealthy in spite of their stupid spouse.

Right.

Yeah. That wouldn't play. They did whatever they wanted to do. We have separate accounts because I believe in independence. You shouldn't have gotten married if you believe in independence because it's not really good for your marriage, this independence thing. Look. I have rights. Yeah, I didn't say you didn't have rights. In sickness and in health, for richer for poorer, unto thee all my worldly goods, I pledge.

If Sam Warslaw walked up in here and said, I'm going to keep my money separate from you. I want my own account, you would never see him again. I'm just telling you, you would never see him again, Dave.

Whoa, that's pretty hardcore. Never find.

The body. I'm just saying that I.

Would take a fence to that. Is there duct tape and baseball bats involved? I don't want to know here.

I'd take a fence that if I'm with a spouse, I've had your dad go and babies, and you're saying you don't want to share money, I have a problem with that. Don't come in my bed. Don't even come in there. Don't do it. And don't...

Dave, don't get me started. You want to share some things, but.

Not others. Exactly. It doesn't make sense. You have to think about this. It doesn't make sense. These things that you'll share and then suddenly you can't have it all or nothing. When you do marriage, you go all the way and you can't say 90%, but not 10%.

The preacher says, And now you are- One. Now you are a joint venture. He doesn't pronounce you a joint venture. That's right. Where we do this thing. Sort of. We're going to share a bed, but not the mayonnaise. Yeah. Not the mustard. That's your mustard because we're roommates.

Sort of doesn't work on much. You can't be faithful.

Remember, roommates in college? Do you ever fight over the mustard? You used my mustard?

Yeah.

That's how stupid this is. Yeah, it's dumb. Yeah, it's just dumb. So all you little people out there that get all upset when we do this stuff, that was your cue. Yeah. It's dumb.

This.

Is The Ramsey Show. 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. J. A. D. W. R. R. Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Triple-8-8255-2255 is the phone number. Jet is in Phoenix. Hi, Jet. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hi, how are you doing, Dave?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

Not much. We've been doing all the baby steps. Gosh, as long as I can remember, I'm 25 now. The only one we're not on is step six because we don't have a home. I recently got married and told my wife we're going to rent for a couple of years, save some money to put a down payment on a house and waive the PMI. I've been very blessed recently. She got a new job. I got a huge new job, and our household income has doubled, if not tripled right now.

Way to go.

It's a blessing. It really is a blessing. I'm sorry, I know it's a lot of trying, but I'm just trying to think what we're doing. But my question for you, we were looking in the house range of $300, $400, and now it's a huge promotion. We have our lease ending in two months. Do we find another lease, save up another $100, $200,000, and now jump into the housing range of $700 to $800 and see what the interests are doing. I just don't know, hey, is it better to just get in the housing market now, get a $300, $400 house, or wait another year where you can put 20, 25, 30 % down on the house and get a bigger house that we've been wanting that we're going to fill children with, and our dog will finally have a yard. It's the question that I have for you and the housing market and what used to be happening.

I don't think either plan is bad. I think it's just a matter of personal preference. Right. So you buy the 300, what's going to happen is in two years you're going to sell it and move up.

Yeah.

Which is fine. You'll make money on it. You'll make money on it. Phoenix is a wonderful market.

It is. I'm competing with a lot of people coming to.

Phoenix from the West. You'll be all right. They're going to have a lot more money than I do. You'll be all right.

You're 25. Did you say you already have kids or you will have kids?

Well, we're starting to look to have kids. If the Lord provides that, then awesome. But I really want to get a house. She really wants to get a house before we start trying to have kids. That's fine.

The little ones don't take up much room.

Especially in the beginning. They're like.

This big. Yeah, they're tiny when they come out, they're little.

The only thing I thought of off the top is just moving is a pain in the butt. You're thinking, Okay, I'm moving from this house to that house, and then that house to the next house. Moving is a pain. It's expensive. That was the first.

Thought I had. I am not afraid to rent for a year longer and call that patience. I'm not afraid to do that if I'm you. I have done that, so I know I'm not afraid to do it. I'm also not afraid to jump in, buy something, and plan on flipping out of it and moving up a notch two or three years from now. Either one is fine. It's a matter of whether, like Jade said, I hate moving, but- Me too. -i grew up with real estate. My parents are real estate business. When I was a kid, our furniture was trained to jump on the truck. We moved all the time. It was just part of it. Real estate people trade houses like nothing. You can do that, or if you hate moving and you really want to just sit there and go, I got this very specific thing, what does your wife want to do?

Listening to you guys, especially the last segment, she's very trusting in me in this situation. We don't mind the renting. We would love to be in the house. She's ready to be in the house. I'm ready.

To be in the house. Of these two choices, what does your wife want to do?

I really think that she's fine either way. I think she's ready to get into a house. That is where I think she is not telling.

Me that she is. Why don't you ask her?

Oh, I have. She's like, Jeff.

Whatever you want to do- I know, that's not an answer. -we can take you.

With this. Ask her to pick.

Yeah, whatever you want to do is I'm going to bring it up later if you do it wrong. I don't want to go with that one, okay? No, whatever I want to do is what I want to do is I want you to say it out loud, and then we'll discuss whether we do what you want to do. That's okay. I mean, ask her. Because when I get Sharon actually doing that called talking the problem through, that's when I get gold in the relationship, and I get gold in the financial wisdom of working together as a married couple. But yeah, she was the worst. In the first seven years we were married, man, she's like, Whatever you want to do, honey, which is southern for later, I'm going to kill you. I mean, it's like, Whatever you want to do, honey. It's like, Oh, God, you're killing me with this passive-aggressive stuff. But that was the first seven years of our marriage. Then I went and did whatever I wanted to do. You did? I thought she meant it. She didn't mean it. I found out later. It's like, What's wrong with you, Nathan? She didn't mean that either.

That's why you threw a pen across that dad company. Anyway, all right, Jacob is with us. Jacob is in Nashville. Hi, Jacob, how are you?

Hey, I'm doing fantastic.

How are you guys? We're having way too much fun and getting paid. What's up?

That's great to hear. Hey, I have a long-time listener, and this is my first time talking to you. I have heard you guys discuss this with folks that are a little older than me, but I'm in my 20s, and I'm asking about buying a toy, specifically a play car. Cool. What is it? Well, I haven't ironed it down yet, but I like muscle cars. Yeah.

What's your favorite, too? What's your favorite, too?

Either a Mustang or a Camaro. Not necessarily a Ford or a Chevy guy.

Like a 60s vintage?

Whichever one I like better.

Or 70s.

I have more newer.

Oh, like new Camero. Okay.

Yeah, like a 50 or a new C-62.

Oh, wow. Okay, cool. All right. What's that thing run?

How much? Buying news, not new, and thinking in the.

30-40 range. Okay, and what do you make?

A married, household income, no kids. We're between 150 and 200 a year.

Okay, and how much money do you have?

40, right out of 40. For the past four or five.

Years- You have $40,000? Yes, sir, sir. That's all the money you have in the world.

Oh, no, sir. No, sir. No, sir. Just keep that.

Aside for the car. Thank you. I said how much money do you have? Not for the car total. How much money do you have?

Okay, probably between 80 and 90.

Is that including an emergency fund? Do you have three to six months of emergency set aside?

Yes. That includes the emergency fund, and then we've got a little extra liquid cash, and then I have a car fund that has $40,000 in it.

Got it.

Okay, number one rule for toys is pay cash. Yes, sir. Yeah, and they don't matter. Number two rule is I use the burn it in the middle of the living room floor rule. If I take that much money and I burn it in the fireplace tonight, $40,000. I'm going to burn it in the fireplace. Does my life change? In your case, that would be an ouchie. That would hurt. If you've got $100 million, it's not an ouchie, right? You don't notice. It's like buying a biscuit. Yeah. Right? For sure. That's the rule I use. I don't think yours passes that test. I think it'd take your breath away if you burned up 40K. That's what a toy is. You're just poof. The money's not gone. You can sell with a car again. I don't mean that. But that tells you if you're putting too much money in things that don't matter.

Yeah. I think you're.

Over the line on that. That's what it smells like to me. You do what you want to do, but that's how I measure it. If you pay taxes to the IRS every quarter or run a small business and you're not using a CPA, what are you doing? The more complicated your tax situation gets, the more you need expert help. With a Ramsey trusted tax pro, you can get top notch service year round for payroll, bookkeeping, quarterly tax payments, and of course, tax filing. Let an expert take the stress off your shoulders. Go to ramseysolutions. Com/tax to find a Ramsey trusted tax pro today. That's ramseysolutions. Com/tax. Jade Walshaw, Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Gray is with us in Cookville, Tennessee. Hi, gray, how are you? Hey guys, it's a pleasure.

To speak with you.

How are you? Better than I deserve. How can we help? Good.

About a month ago, I learned that my mom actually passed away suddenly.

I'm sorry.

My dad's still alive, so I've never had to be in this situation before. I'm the oldest brother of two, and so I'm taking care of everything. She has a car that still has a loan on it. I Kelly Blue Book The Value. She's upside down in it. I still have possession of the car, but I'm lost as to where to go from here. She has some other dead.

Okay, stop a second. I'm sorry. How old was your mom?

She was 54.

I'm sorry, gray.

I'm sorry. What happened to her?

I don't really know. I just, I think, found her asleep.

Okay. She and your dad aren't together?

Correct.

Okay, so she was a single lady, divorced, and you're her oldest son, and so you'll be taking care of the estate, but there was no will.

Correct. She doesn't have a lot. The car was pretty much the only major asset that she had and just some small accounts here and there, so no property or anything like that.

All right, here's the thing. When you pass away, what you own stands good for what you owe. What assets minus liabilities is called net worth. With what you've described to me, the car is upside down more than all the other things that your mom owned, so she had a negative net worth. Does that make sense?

Yeah, I haven't gotten any information on any accounts that she had as far as death benefits, life insurance or anything like.

That yet. Life insurance is not included in the equation. Okay, got you. What is owed on the car?

About.

$12,000. What is it worth?

About $9,000 or $10,000.

Okay, so it's $3,000 upside down, we'll say. Does she have more than $3,000 of assets anywhere else, accounts or anything else, do you think? No. I don't think she does either.

It would be close if so.

Yeah, I don't think she does either. Here's the thing. You don't have an estate to settle. You do not owe any money. Her estate has to stand good for what she has. If there was a $10,000 CD before you could put that in you or your brother's pockets, you'd have to cover the deficit on the car, the hole in the car. But there's not a $10,000 CD. What this means is the bank gets the car and that's all they get. Call them and tell them to come get it and give them a copy of the death certificate. You can order that from the state and it takes about two weeks to get the death certificate in, but you can just tell them what's going on. There's no will. The lady died without a will. That means in test state without a will in the state of Tennessee, which is where you are, and there's no assets. She doesn't have anything. You need to take the car back, folks, because it's all you're going to get. No one is going to pay you the balance on the loan different because no one is liable. Is it a local bank or do you know?

I think, no, it's not. It's corporate.

Okay, all right. I just holler at, try to get a phone number out and tell them what's going on, say, I'm trying to do the honorable thing. How's the easiest way I can get you the car? Because there's no assets in this estate. There's no estate going to be probated. There is zero. But no one's going to pay for the car. No one pays $12,000 for a $9,000 car, so you guys need to come get it. You're not liable for it. You understand me, gray? I understand. Okay. You do not pay a payment. Do not pay any insurance. Do not renew the tags. Do not put any of your money in this black hole. Whatever money you put into this is gone. Don't do it. Just tell them to come get the car. If they want some help just to make it easy, we'll get them a copy of the death certificate so they know what's going on. But that's all there is. But you don't need to hire an attorney. You don't need to do anything. It's just done. It's sad. I'm so sorry. That's the bad news. The good news is you don't have to do anything.

There's no big rigmarole. There's no big probate court hearing and trying to figure it out with your brothers because there's $6,000 we have to try to figure out how to split up or something. Good Lord. You spent more time on that than it was worth because it's great news that there's nothing you have to do except just get rid of the car and let people know where they can come get it. Please don't spend any of your money on this. You are under no moral or legal or financial to take care of any of this. You're letting the folks that have the car loan know where the car is is a courtesy on your part, and that's the extent of it.

Otherwise, if he did not do that, they would have to basically track this down on their own.

Yeah, they just have to come try to find the car, but it's going to be sitting somewhere where the tires go down and somebody's going to tow it and it's going to end up in some impound lot or whatever. I mean, it's just going to disappear into the ether, into the nothingness that is our world. That's sad. Yeah, it's horrible. It's really good, folks, for you to remember out there if you're dealing with an estate, because people get this stuff screwed up all the time. Like dad had credit cards in his name, you're not liable for those.

People think they.

Have to pay for it. Yeah, you're not liable for those. But he had a paid-for $60,000 car. Oh, well, now the car has to be sold to pay the credit cards. We want to keep the car. Well, then you're going to pay the credit cards because the assets have to stand good for the debts. That's how that works. You can't just take the assets and let the debts be. It's not how it works. But in Gray's case, there's just not enough assets to cover the debts. Yeah. That's the whole process. So, ouch. That's touch. Wow. All right, Adam is in San Antonio. Hi, Adam. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up?

So I've got a little bit of land and I'm looking to put some light industrial space on it. Those cross doors roll up in a small office space inside of it. Right now, I've got a total of 225,000 to 230,000 broken down. That's 40K in cash, 130K in taxable, non-retirement investment, and 55 in Roth. My question is, do I cash out the taxable, non-retirement, or do I sell my house to be able to pay for this construction to go into place? Because my mentality is the housing market went up in 2022. I'm sitting on the 3.75 % interest rate. I don't think we're going to have a giant jump in rates in homes anytime soon, but my accounts, they're still not where they have peaked back about a year ago. I still think there's some upward mobility on that.

Just looking for your insight. You don't sell your personal residence to do investing.

Okay. I mean, I'm a single guy, so an apartment wouldn't break me.

I know, but you're pushing it too far. You need to keep your investments separate from your… Just because you're single doesn't mean you don't need to keep your investments separate from your personal. You could build an apartment over the top of one of those rollups and go live in it.

That's a cool idea. Yeah, if.

You want to do that, but I wouldn't do that. No, I wouldn't either. I would just... I mean, you can put up a building for $140.

No, I've got the other cash and then I've got some funds for this.

I'm sorry, you just told us all the funds you had.

I've got another investor getting on it. This is my house.

Okay.

No. This is different.

You own the ground. You don't need a partner. Slow your butt down. You are going at 100 miles an hour. You're going to run in the wall, man. Slow down. It's okay. You got plenty of time. Old are you? 32. Yeah, you're going to be okay. You're going to be okay. Yeah. What's it take to build the building?

I was going to phase it, and so we.

Were going to do- What's phase one? -about 30.

Phase one is going to be one building, five units with the slab. How much? And then I think we're getting to it. So about… You're.

Not ready. I don't know.

You're not ready. You're not ready. You don't know your numbers either, so that's another reason you're not ready. No, you don't bring in partners. The only ship that won't sell is a partnership. You're going to get yourself in a mess, dude. Don't do that. Slow down. Don't sell your house. You got time to do this.

Do it right.

How many of you have heard a deadfree scream and said, That's going to be me someday. But then something else got the focus in your life. Money got tight, and now months or years have gone by, and debt still has your family by the throat. Don't just say you want to be debt free, decide that you must be, and the proven fastest way to beat debt is Financial Peace University. This class works because it puts a group of people around you who will hold your feet to the fire and get this done. It's that accountability that's caused millions to be debt-free in two years or less. The only thing stopping you is you. And yes, things are busy. That's why we've got thousands of virtual and in-person classes happening on nights and weekends. So don't tell me you don't have the time. Decide that it's worth it to stand on this stage and scream that your family is finally free. Join a Financial Peace University class right now at fPU. Com. That's fPU. Com. Jade Walshaw, Ramsey personality is my co-host today. If you didn't know, you can come and watch this show happen. We're on the air from 1:00 to 4:00 Central Time every day.

Our lobby is a fun experience. You get to see a lot of cool, Ramsey things. And those of you that are plugged into this stuff, there's a great bookstore, there's free homemade chocolate chip cookies and free coffee. Yum, yummy, yummy. And see, if you people don't come visit, Jade and I have to eat, and all those cookies. It's a rule. It's completely free. A lot of folks, while they're doing some drive-through or buy Nashville, put us on one of their stops. Thank you for doing that. We get to meet all of you, come out and take a picture with you and all that stuff. In the lobby also, right across the glass from Jade and I, we're looking at these beautiful people, Grant and Christine are with us, standing on the debt-free stage, which can only mean one thing. They're debt-free. Welcome, guys. Welcome. Good to have you. Where do you all live?

St.

Louis, Missouri. Oh, fun. Cool. Well, welcome to Nashville. How much debt have you two guys paid off?

288,000.

Love it. How long did that take? About 10 years. Good for you. And your range of income during that time?

We started out at about 100.

And.

We're at.

160 this year. Good for you. What do you guys do for a living? I'm a nurse practitioner. I'm a psychotherapist with a private practice. Very cool. Very cool. And 10 years, 288,000. Is that your house?

Yes, indeed. Yeah.

Looking at weird people. Knocked out the big dog. What's the house worth?

About 240.

About 240. So the 288 included more than just the house. Okay, we'll come back to that. How much is in your nest egg?

About 1.4 million.

Nice. I hate meeting millionaires. Look at you, baby step millionaires. Yes, indeed.

You said it with such a straight face, too.

She's very calculated. She's been calculating. Grant, he's dancing around, but she's been calculating.

Very awesome, man.

Way to go, guys. She's a free spirit with a calculator.

I.

Love it. How much of this money did you all inherit, by the way? None. None, okay. You're worth 1.4 million. No, plus the house. Or that's a total. That's a total. Nice. Total net worth including the house. All right, very good. What was the rest of the debt?

We had 168,000 in consumer debt, about 110 of it was-.

The house. Your student loan first. Yeah, our.

Student loans, and then a lot of.

Stupid with credit cards and cars. Yeah, we've all done stupid. That's what keeps me in business.

Thank you very much.

You guys, you're fun. All right, so what started this whole journey? How did you get connected to this Ramsey stuff a decade ago?

Well, we were at church, and in the bulletin, it said Financial Peace University. Because our church's name is Peace, I thought it was the pastor offering it. We went over there and you jumped out on stage on the videos. This is not what I thought it was. This is not what I thought it was going to be.

I went in kicking and screaming. Oh, did you? Your line of... I saw the heel marks in the parking lot. Yeah. That was me. That was you? All right. That's going to be a stuffed shirt sitting in front of a wall of law books or something like that, suit and tie. When you came out in jeans and a shirt, I was like, Okay, this might be okay. I like this guy. All right. Well, I used to come out stuffed shirt, but I learned a lesson over the years that it's not very relatable. I quit doing the stuffed shirt thing. I didn't like it anyway. All right, so how far into the lessons, Grant? I mean, what lesson were you on you went? I think this is going to be okay? Because it wasn't just the jeans at the front. I mean, come on. You still were sitting there with your arms crossed. But the first lesson gets you or did a couple more in or what? Absolutely. I remember tearing up when I saw the gazelle. You got to run. You got to run. Just that feeling of that's what it takes. You are literally running for your life.

When that hit, when we had all this student loan debt, we both have graduate degrees, and that was when it really got real. Yeah, well, you're in the psychology world, psychotherapy, you know that transformation does not occur without a visceral experience. It's not an intellectual, I think I want to transform. I mean, you got there, stuff has to break, and you see it all the time, I'm sure, in your practice. But you guys did it. I'm so proud of you all. Thank you. Way to go, heroes. I feel to have no debt of any kind. It's phenomenal. That's fantastic. Absolutely fantastic.

I love it. What was your first act after paying off the mortgage? What did you do to celebrate? What was that moment? We're here. This is it. This is.

Pretty much it, yeah. Okay, now you got to upgrade. What are you going to do? What are you going to do that's cool now. Well, now we have a whole bucket list going. Okay, what's the first thing on the bucket list?

I would love to do an Alaskan cruise.

Oh, yes, ma'am. We got some Alaska people sitting here. Yeah. Yes. They'll tell you. I've done a couple of them, and I'll tell you, put the train ride over to Denali and hang out at Denali a couple of days and go up on the glaciers. That's even better than the cruising. Love it. We did that on our last one. It's a little expensive, but you got the money. Yes, that's right. That's right.

Oh, I'm excited. That's fun.

Very cool. I don't think they call it Denali. I don't know anyway. I don't forget. But whatever. I can't keep that stuff straight. But way to go, guys. Way to go. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? I mean, you kept at this 10 years. You did this the appropriate way.

The first four were really intense. Then like you say, we went intentional with.

Investing and.

Paying off.

The house. Now, what's the keys to getting out of debt? Planning, talking to each other. Have to be on the same team. It's our money. And going through Financial Peace University made you get that connected up then? Yeah. Then we- Facilitating it more than a dozen times. Oh, wow. You can't not do it if you're the facilitator. I brought it into my practice one time and made the mistake of putting it on Facebook and stuff like that. We had people on the stairway. We had to bring in extra chairs and stuff like that. So it's like, Oh, maybe we probably should find a bigger venue to do this if we're going to do this like this again. Wow, very cool.

That's very cool. When you coordinate it, it's motivating for you as well, right? I mean, there's something about that.

Absolutely. It really reminds you of all.

The.

Details that are important.

Yeah. Every time you come back to host a new class, you're further ahead, too. It's like you get to see your progress over and over.

That's wonderful. It's so good, guys. Way to go. Seeing that light bulb come on for people when they're like, Oh, I can do this. Who was cheering you on outside the two of you? Lots of family and friends were a little bit naysayers, but when she sets her mind to anything, she's going to do it. They knew I didn't have a choice. They're like, Watch Christine's dust. Exactly. Here we go. Exactly. Our grandson, Gavin, when we would be driving him around to get him to take a nap, he's in the back seat out cold, and at the end of a desk, free-to- scream, you'd see him come alive from the back seat.

So just remembering that face on a two-year-old. That's so perfect. That's great. Way to go, you guys. Hey, we've got the live and give box for you. It's got the Baby Steps Millionaires book in it, which you guys are there. Way to go. Ding, ding. Baby Steps Millionaire's. I love it. And of course, the total money makeover book as well, you'll be able to give that to one of the folks that need some help that you'll run into, and a Financial Peace University membership, also something you'll probably give away, I suspect. But that's the live and give box and our way of saying thanks and saying we're proud of you. Very cool. Look at you, man. You just did it. You just did it. That's so fun. How old are you two? I will be 65 next summer, and she's not.

Okay. That's a great answer.

She's not even 60 yet. That's a great answer. Well played. Well played. You got me out of that. Grant and Christine, St. Louis, Missouri, 288,000 paid off in 10 years, making 100 to 160 baby step millionaire in it. Did it, baby. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Go ahead. Three, two, one.

We're debt-free.

Yeah, baby. Yeah. That's how that happened. I just saw it. Love it. Wow, I love that story. This is The Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Isaiah 58:11, The Lord will guide you always. He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Mary K. Ash says, For every failure, there's an alternative course of action. You just have to find it. When you come to a roadblock, take a detour. I'm in. Angelo is with us in Fair Banks, Alaska. Hi, Angelo, how are you? I'm doing great. How are you all doing today? Better than we deserve. What's up in your world?

I'm calling because me and my wife have a question for you all. I'm 20, she's 21. We both work full-time. We've been wanting to have kids for a while now. We're super excited to be parents.

How old are you?

I'm 20 and she's 21.

Okay.

But I've been having some concerns about it because I realize that having two full-time incomes right now is pretty sweet, and it makes paying the bills a lot easier.

Once we.

Have a kid, we agreed she should be a stay-at-home mom, and it is something we could definitely afford, no problem. But I'm concerned because it would slow down some of our financial goals that we want to do.

Great trade. Make the trade. Make the trade? Best thing on the planet is babies. Okay, so.

We've just been worried because I know it's weird for people this young to be excited about having kids.

I don't know who you're running around with, but I mean...

I mean, your life is going to look different, and that's okay. I mean, she's going to be at home. You're going to go down income. You've done the math. You've looked at it. I think that maybe more so than the numbers, I think you're getting your head around how your life in general is going to look and how.

Things do slow down. If your wife had a baby and she's 21 or 22 years old, she's going to be the youngest room mother over at the elementary school. The coolest youngest room mother ever. Yeah. I know there's going to be a decade older than her. It'd be awesome. So yeah, have at it. I mean, you do whatever you want to do, dude, but I'm just telling you, if you're going to trade money for something, the best thing you trade money for is babies.

It.

Is a trait, though. It is a trait.

I've been over-analyzing it.

I guess, now. No, you're not over-analyzing it. You're just analyzing it. But I'm just telling you, it's a value-based judgment is what it is. On one side of the scales, baby. Other side of the scales, some money. Which one tips the scales? Baby.

Also, we have a bunch of positives that come out of it.

From.

It, too.

My wife, she's.

Going to college right now, and she'd be able to do more college work and get her degree faster so she could boost her income once she does come back to work.

Yeah. Yeah.

What do you make?

I'm active duty Air Force.

So my pay.

Is a little weird. After my housing allowance and my food and all that good stuff is taken out of my retirement, I make 1,500 a paycheck.

Yeah, but all that other stuff is worth another couple of thousand, right?

I think if you include all that, it comes out to.

Like 60K, something like that. Yeah, that's good. Thanks for your service. Well, thank you for saying that. It's up to you. You did nothing wrong if you said, We want to stack cash high before babies, but you did nothing wrong if you said, We want to start our family while we're young, or, And we're going to stack cash a little more slowly because babies are here. There is nothing wrong with either one of those answers, nothing improper. It is a value-based decision. Absolutely. I just said, We look back, the best things we ever did were babies. Actually, the best thing was if I'd have known how great grandkids are going to be, I'd have been nicer to their parents. But grandbabies are the best because if one of them is broken, you just hand it back. This one's apparently broken. It smells. You need to take this. I don't know what to do with that. That looks like Rachel needs to fix that.

That's a good discussion because it is very based on your values. It's based on what you want to do as a couple. Because Sam and I, we had so much debt. It was like we couldn't fathom starting a family in that place.

We were like- They didn't wait until you got out for your kids.

Didn't you? We were married 10 years before we had kids. Okay. Yeah. We paid off all our debt first. But that's not to say that somebody else would ever have to think to do that. You know what.

I'm saying? It's really- He's not in debt. He's just saying I'm going to take less wealth. Yeah, exactly. I'm going to have less income. That's a little different than... A little different.

Well, it weighs heavier on you, I think. The debt does.

Yes, absolutely. I'm going to get wealthy slower is different than I'm overwhelmed with debt. Right.

But I mean, you could be a couple and you're in whatever amount of debt and you could still choose to have kids.

Yeah, you could. That's my point. There's not a wrong choice. There's not a wrong answer. It's like, Never have children. Always have children. No, neither one. Neither one, right? But it's just my personal experience is the best thing I've ever done. I've done a lot of fun stuff in my life, done a lot of stuff of note, but the three Ramsey Kids are the best things I've ever done. I feel that.

I second that sentiment.

There we go. All right, Lee is in Lubbock, Texas. What's up, Lee? Hey, doing well. How are you doing? Well, how are you? Better than I deserve. How can we help?

Okay, so my wife and I, we're getting ready to pay our house off in the next couple of months. I make base salary $60,000, she makes 50. But then at the end of every year, my bonus will be anywhere from 100,000 to 130,000. What we're wanting to try to figure out how to do is now that we're getting ready to pay our house off, we want to start trying to max out our 401(k)s and Roth IRAs. But if we were to completely max our 401(k)s and our IRAs out, that would leave it a very slim margin to live off of before the bonus comes in. I'm just wondering your.

Advice- Do it out of the bonus.

Yeah, can you lump some it out at.

The end of the year? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. The 401(k) is payroll withheld and you don't own the company, right?

Exactly, yeah. My bonus pay can't go towards the 401(k) I guess.

No, it can, but it would just be late in the year before it got there. You can have the same percentage of your bonus going in the 401(k) if you do the rest and add it up to where you get to the 19,000 or 28,000 or whatever it is right now.

Oh.

Yeah, you can have bonus go to 401(k). It just has to be payroll withheld.

Okay. I did not realize that. I talked to our payroll lady, and she made it sound like I couldn't do that.

Well, because she doesn't know how to do it. But that doesn't mean it can't be done. Got you. Yeah, it definitely can be done because we do it here, so I know it can be done. We have folks that... What I do here in Ramsey, which is what I was leaning towards, but you can't do that, is I just load my 401(k) out of my first couple of checks in January every year, and then I'm done for the year. I max it out.

Yeah, what if you did that. When do you get the bonus?

Well, he can't because he can't control that like.

I can. How it's.

Dispersed out? I own it so I can make that happen. He has to just take a percentage of his income putting into 401(k). It's the only way they'll do it. It's the only way they're allowed to do it. I'm not doing anything illegal, but I'm saying because I own it, I can choose to fully fund mine early and quickly. I've got the flexibility of the accounting people like work for me and stuff. That changes the whole equation versus the payroll lady that doesn't even know how to do the deal. I think you're probably going to have to just figure out you're making 200 and you want to put whatever your max is in and figure that out as a percentage of 200, and then just make the percentage of your check. Okay. All the way through. And then, of course, we're making sure you got 22, five your max. So if you made two and a quarter, you put 10 % in. You follow me? Yes, I do. Yeah. But you're going to have to also make sure payroll lady gets just figured out because it'll screw it up if she screws it up.

Exactly, yeah. I will have to have conversation with her.

Okay. But you can do that. You may have to do a little bit of research and bring her the actual documentation and showing her that not only can she do it, she actually has to do it if you ask her to.

There you go.

Okay, I better. That's the best play on it. Then you can do that. Now, if it's Roth IRA, days, you can load those on January first for the whole year, and you can load them on January first for the year before as well.

That's.

Right. Yeah, that's right. The year before because as long as you put the money in prior to filing the taxes for the year before, you can do that. You can also go ahead and do the next year while you're at it and just knock it all out and just max the thing up. That's what we do. Again, January is just a big savings month for the Ramseys, and that's cool. Good job, Jade. Well done. Well done, booth boys. The men and the booth. The booth dudes. Well played. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of peace, Christ Jesus.

Hey, what's up, guys? It's Jade. Look, if you like what you heard in this episode and want to know more about getting started on the Ramsey baby steps, go to ramseysolutions. Com and click the Get Started button. We'll help you figure out the best next step for you based on your specific situation. That's ramseysolutions. Com, and click Get Started.