Live from the headquarters of Ramsey It's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Jade Walsh, Ramsey personality, is my co-host. Open phones at 888-825-5-2-2-5. That's 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. We're glad you guys are with us. We're here to help you. Jade is a Ramsey personality and best-selling author of the book Money's Not a Math Problem. It's one of our Ramsey quick reads, which means it is 74 pages long. Is that right? Yeah, look at that. Pretty close. That's pretty good. Seventy close. It is 74 pages long. Look at that. My memory is impeccable.

Steel trap.

That's it. Hey, thanks for being with us, guys. We're glad we can serve you. We want you to be here and, gosh, help you move to the next level and whatever you're doing. All right, Rochelle is in Houston, Texas. Hi, Rochelle. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hi. Hi, Dave. Hi, Jay. Thanks for taking my call.

Sure. What's up?

I just wanted to get Dave's input on a situation. My husband and I, we have four kids. We're a blended family.

I have a daughter, he has a son, and then we have two boys together.

His father died, and he inherited some land from him. It's family land. When we are talking about inheritance for our children, he wants, and understandably so, the land to be split between the three boys because he wants to keep it in his bloodline. I am fine with that, but where we disagree is on how to do inheritance for my daughter. He thinks the land should be not even taken into consideration when we do inheritance. Monetary value, et cetera, shouldn't matter. And so what we're looking at is actually selling our current home and then using the money that we make to move to that land and then build on it, in which case we would live out the rest of our days there and put our money into it. I think that that also should be taken into consideration. But he thinks that the boys should get the land split between them, and then whatever else inheritance we have left should be split equally between all four kids. I just wanted your opinion on that. Wow.

Does it occur to him how hurtful it is when he says that? I don't think so. If you said that's hurtful, you're a butt.

I haven't said that. I try to talk very nicely to him.

I know, but that's what my wife would have said. I'm just thinking.

It's very sentimental to him.

His dad is in that, right? Yeah, and Sandra has to go, the stepchild has to go and mop the floors while the three other ones go to the ball.

I lost you.

All right.

Are you there?

Yeah, you cut out. I don't know what happened. Sorry. That's okay.

Then like I said, I don't mind them getting the land. That's totally fine. It's family land.

How much land is involved?

It's only about 33 acres right now. It was his grandmother's land. She sold it, and then his dad bought back this portion and was in one of it is the remainder of it surrounding it. My husband wants to buy back the remainder as well, if we can.

The what? The remainder is how much on top of the 33?

I don't know how much more there is that he would want to buy.

What is What is your personal income and what is his income? He makes about 65, and I make about 55 right now.

But we both increase pretty regularly every year.

How old are you guys?

Thirty-six. Okay.

Well, I don't know that our opinion really matters here because Bubba's made his mind up.

Yeah.

I just wanted to know if I was in the- No, I think that probably what you've got is a situation where you need to sit down with your pastor, marriage counselor, or somebody like that. It is a thing to require some thought, but after just listening to you. Here's what I've got, okay? You make half the money in the house, approximately. You guys are going to be married and living there probably 40 years. More than three quarters of your life, his life, is going to be spent doing things together here, including your daughter. I'm just calling BS. I think these four kids should be treated equally because your connection to it, because he's wanting you to use your income and help him buy a house land he doesn't want to leave to your daughter after 40 years.

How old are the kids?

My daughter is 14, my stepson is 13, and then our twins are two.

What a wedge.

That's thing one. Thing two is people and relationships Trump stuff. This kid is more important than this piece of land, and he's her daddy now. She lives with you all, right?

Yes, she does currently. Yeah.

His relationship to her is more important than 33 freaking acres in Texas.

Okay.

I just don't… I would give him about a 20% part of the right answer here and about 80% wrong, so he loses.

I feel like a different scenario would be you guys were 55 years old, it was your second marriage, and the kids are grown. That feels different. That's a completely different situation with saying, Hey- But you're contributing half with the sale of the house and the building of the house and your income for 40 years from age 35 to age 75, right?

You're contributing half all the way through there. And so how your daughter doesn't get into that half is ridiculous.

Okay.

From a math standpoint, from a philosophical or spiritual standpoint, it's just a stupid piece of dirt. I don't really care where it came from. I mean, I've got some dirt that I own that I really love, and I'd like to see my kids and grandkids playing on it, my great grandkids, my great, great, great grandkids, when I'm looking at them from I'd love to see them playing on that and enjoying that dirt, but I don't want it to form their life, and I don't want them to value that dirt over relationships.

Yeah, yes.

Yes, sir. I don't buy off on the sentimental crap. I got some hand tools from my dad. That's sentimental. They're ancient antique hand tools, right? Those are sentimental. But I'm certainly not going to let a wrench and a hammer stand between me and a kid that I'm raising. That's how I put this. That's the bucket I put this in.

I agree. I agree wholeheartedly.

If the step kid wants the hammer, it's okay. That's fine. Give the other one the wrench. It's just stuff. I don't want them. I don't think he's thinking this through. I don't think He's a butt. It was fun to say that.

I do. Yeah. In this moment.

Yeah. I don't think he's a hurtful person. Sure. I think that's what he's doing, okay?

He's not thought of it from all angles.

But I just don't think he's thinking through the message he's sending to this teenage girl. I don't like that message. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, guys, whether you're starting on a card table like I did or well on your way to becoming a multimillion dollar company. Netsuite can help your team communicate and plan ahead better like they do for Ramsey. Let me tell you, NetSuite really helped us get our systems together. More than 37,000 other companies also use NetSuite to know their numbers and their business better. So check out NetSuite today and find out how they can help you become the business you want to be 5 or 30 years from now. Right now, you can download NetSuite's free KPI checklist designed to give you consistently excellent performance at netsuite. Com/ramsey. Jade Walsh, Ramsey personality, best-selling author is my co-host today. Brooklyn is with us in Indianapolis. Hi, Brooklyn. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hi. Thank you for taking my call.

Sure. What's up?

So my situation, we are currently renting one of my parents' properties.

We're getting a discount on rent. I'm sorry, you're renting what?

We're renting from my parents. We're getting a discount on rent.

They own a rental house that you're living in?

Yeah.

Okay, and so you have cheap rent. Okay, cool. Yes.

We have no debt. Our emergency fund is funded. My question is, we also purchased a rental in November. We owe 65,000 on it. We could sell it for 80 or 90, and we could possibly pay it off by July of next year. But we're also really itching to buy a few acres and bill. We just wanted your opinion on whether we should sell it, keep it, or what you think.

What stops you from moving into it? It being your home instead of you renting and then renting another? That just feels…

I I know. We thought about that, too, and yet that's our problem is we do think that we may have done it backwards.

Yeah, I think so, too. It doesn't make sense to be in a renter's position and then buy a house for someone else to rent. I think you're trying to get ahead too quickly. Does that make sense?

No, I agree. That's why once we sat down and we thought about it, we were like, We probably shouldn't done that. It's only 600 square feet, and we have two kids, so that would be Okay, so it won't fit you.

So sell it. What happens if you sell it?

Yeah, sell it and use it towards your building project.

Okay, that's what we were leaning towards. We were concerned about the capital gains on it.

There's not going to be hard.

It's not going to be hard. How long have you When did you buy it?

Six months. We bought it in November. Okay.

How much has it gone up in value since you bought it?

We bought it at 70. I just talked to our realtor yesterday. He said we could probably get anywhere from 80, 85, 90.

Well, your capital gains inside of one year won't be capital gains. It'll be ordinary income, so it'll be at your tax rate. If you make $10,000, it costs you $2,500 in taxes. Okay. Whoopy. I got you.

Okay.

A small price to pay to get on the right side of this.

Yeah, it's not a big deal. It's not like, Capital gains taxes. No, it's 2,000 bucks. It's not even 2,000 bucks because it's actually- After fees. It's all the fees and any improvements you've done to the property are added onto your basis. Then any depreciation you've done, if you depreciated it in this calendar year for taxes, that comes off the basis. You've got what we call an adjusted basis. Then the sale price minus expenses minus the adjusted basis is how you calculate the gain. In this case, the gain will be taxed because it's under one year at ordinary income rather than at capital gains. My guess is that your ordinary income is probably... Your tax rate might be 25%, and capital gains is 15%. So the difference is probably like $300 or $400. It's not a big deal. Now, we could say if it was $30,000 or $40,000 difference between the 15% capital gains rate because it was a lot of money, then we could say, wait until one year mark to actually have the closing.

That makes sense.

That makes you qualify for the 15% rather than the higher. In my case, I'm taxed at about 40%, and my capital gains rate is 20%. That's funny. Because I make over 400K. But still, that's the difference of 20%, and 20% on $200,000 would cause me to wait to close it until the one-year mark. So you would stop and think that through. But for a couple of hundred bucks here or there or $2,000 total tax issue, I'm not going to worry about it. You just need to do the right thing. And Brooklyn, I think here's the thing. I think you guys know now, down inside of you, before you called, that that was the right thing to do. You told us that. You telegraphed the answer, right? And I'm going to warn you and say, you probably knew before you bought this.

Oh, That's good. This is a pop of day moment.

You probably had that moment where you paused and went, Is this really the right order? Oh, no, we're going to buy a rental property, and you just plowed right ahead. Listen to that still small voice. Listen to That tightness in your chest and across the back of your shoulder blades that's telling you not to do something. When you don't have peace about a major decision, that's God telling you not to move forward. Most of us can go, You know what? I knew I shouldn't, but I did it anyway. I could tell you a thousand things I've done like that. You got to stop and listen to that and go, No, I know I'm not. Even though all these other voices saying, Do it, do it, do it on TikTok, I'm still not going to do it. That's good. Yeah, listen to that. Listen to that. It saves you a lot of money. Matthew is in Orlando, Florida. Hi, Matthew. How are you?

Hey, Dave. How are you today?

Better than we deserve. How can we help?

Hey. My My wife and I, we have a net worth together of 1.5 million. Phenomenal. And we have no debt.

Way to go.

Yeah, that's great. I have a business I own. I do car hauling here in Florida, and I'm looking to upgrade my truck and trailer. Both of what I have are pretty old. My question is, is it okay to mix our personal money and business money? I I just started this two months ago.

You started this two months ago and you bought a junk truck?

I bought a 20-year-old truck, but it's reliable. It's just really old.

Two months ago?

Yeah.

Why didn't you think about that before you bought the truck?

It was a, I guess it was an emotional decision when I bought the truck.

What was the emotion?

I guess it's more like a sentimental thing about it. I wanted a truck with a manual transmission. They don't make them these days at all. I wanted a truck with a reliable engine that was all this crazy emission stuff, so it doesn't have any of that equipment on it.

What now you're realizing this doesn't work for you?

The nostalgia doesn't work in the real world.

Well, it's not that the truck has any problems.

It's just not able to- Okay, so here's the deal. Yes, you can do whatever you want. You got a million and a half dollars. You can go buy another truck. There's a couple of things from a business standpoint you need to think about. Anytime you're buying equipment for a business or buying things for a business, they are an expense, and they lower the return, the profit of the business. Agreed? Agreed, yes. What we teach entrepreneurs and small business people in Entree Leadership, I'll be with 3,000 of them in Dallas next week at our Entree Leadership Summit, what we teach them is to buy the least expensive equipment that will, quote, get the job done, unquote. Now, let's define get the job done. Get the job done involves a layer of reliability. Get the job done means they literally have to get the cars from one point to another. In in this case, it has to be able to actually pull the trailer. Get the job done. If you're going to be in the truck 5 or 8 hours a day for five days a week involves a level of comfort. You end up in the chiropractor's office.

I'd also think it involves a level of time, like how long can you use it, and it's in working order. Yeah.

I mean, how much life has it got left in it? Then that tells you that in In the early stages of a business, you do not buy new equipment. So you were wise to buy used equipment. Now, have you proven the business model out? Are you making money?

I have managed to make money in my first two months somehow, yes.

Doesn't It sounds real convincing. Managed somehow are not words I like. What did you make? That's like barely by the skin of your teeth got through. I'm going to keep the old truck till I get this business cooking. When it gets cooking, it justifies moving up in the quality of the vehicle, but even then, probably not a brand new one.

Then the business can pay for it.

Yeah, you can organically out of the cash flows. She's right. Buy the truck. That's what I would do. It's what I do. This is the Ramsey Show. If current times have shown us anything, it's that the least expected events can and will happen, and we have to deal with it. That's why everyone who has a family counting on them needs term life Zander Insurance. For over 25 years, the only insurance company I've recommended is Xander Insurance. Not only because they search all of the top term life plans to find you the best rates, but over the years, they have constantly changed and updated their systems to make the whole process simpler and easier to get the protection needed. You can now apply with a completely touchless experience with everything being done either over the phone or the internet. They also have plans with competitive rates that don't require an exam, allowing you to skip a step and get the coverage you need faster. Go to zander. Com or call 800-356-4282. Great rates and a simple process mean there's no excuse to not get this done, people. Jade Walsh, Ramsey personality, best-selling author, is my co-host today.

Well, exciting news, guys. We relaunched or launched yesterday the Live Like no one else, Cruise. Yeah, baby. We're going on Holland, America. We've got the whole ship, one of the top brands out there. This is not the Walmart on the seas. This is the good ship. This is the good ship lollypop here. Holland, America is the good stuff.

Yeah, the Walmart brand, we won't call them by name.

We won't name it, but you know what it is. Anyway, hey, this is a lot of We had booked this, and our sale date was March 23, 2020. When the Fauci pandemic shut down the seas, nothing happened on the seas. We had to cancel the seas, and we didn't get to go on the seas. It was rather painful. Everyone got their money back. Thank God, no one went broke doing all this thing. But anyway, so now, all these years later, we are announcing today that on On March 22nd through the 29th, 2025, about a year from now, we will sail to Turks and Caicos, St. Thomas, San Juan, the Bahamas. I'll be on the ship with my wife, Sharon, the whole week. Jade will be with us the whole week. Of course, all of the Ramsey personalities, Dr. John Deloney, Ken Coleman, Rachel Cruz, George Campbell, all of us will be there all week. We're going to be doing events on the ship. We'll be some of the entertaining. They'll have some of their little dancing people there, Oh, will they? The little dance. That's what I used to do. You know about these crews, dancing people.

Doing the can-can, yeah. That's it. They're doing more than that.

They'll have their actual talent, but we're bringing our own, too. Man, we've got some friends coming with us. Steven Curtis-Chapman, three-time Gamut, Grammy, award-winning '69 Dubs, and an all-around good guy. Steven and I have been friends for a long time. World-renowned Christian artist will be with us. Monique Shohan from the Food channel, Iron Chef winner. Fabulous chef. Again, a friend locally in the Nashville area. She owns a whole series of restaurants and has done events with us before. She'll be teaching you to cook there on the ship. It's going to be a lot of fun. Dina Carter, remember Strawberry Wine?

Strawberry Wine.

There we go. See, I knew I couldn't do that, but I knew I could cue you. You can count on me, Dave. You can count on me. There we go. There we go. Dina is going to be with us tons more. We've got some of the Nashville songwriters will be with us, comedians, illusionists, all kinds of people hanging out. It's going to be all of us and you. Now, you do not come on the Live Like No One Else Cruise unless you're on Baby Step 4 or beyond. Because one through three, you're getting out of debt and you're not going on vacation and you're not eating out and you're gazelle intense, cleaning up stuff. We don't want you to come. We're not hypocrites. This is a celebration. You've become debt free. This is the ultimate debt free scream in the Caribbean, baby. It's awesome. Yeah. Here's the problem. It's selling out. It's only been on the market one day, and it's selling out. I mean, we melted the internet. The poor Cruise people, they're like, You shut us down. Your people slammed our website. That's awesome. It is not sold out, but the VIP upgrades are sold out already.

There's just a few of the sweets left. If you want a sweet, you better jump on right this second and do it. Ramseysolutions. Com/cruise. It's March 22nd through the 29th, 2025. We're going to celebrate together a lot of onboard board special events with all of us hanging out with all of you. We're going to be on the ship together for seven days, man. It's going to be a blast. Our whole team is pumped about this. They're really excited. They got me to do it again Because after that Fauci pandemic thing, I was scarred and wounded. I bet. And didn't ever want to be near a cruise ever again. But anyway, I'm doing it and I'm excited about it, and it's going to be fun. Here we go, baby. Here we go. We got quite a lineup. There's some really... I mean, the famous people are coming. It's pretty cool. So get your tickets now. Get the reservations done now. I know it's a year away, but if you want cabin selections like anything else, the better ones go first.

You want one with a window, so don't wait.

Yeah, and all that stuff. If you want a suite, there's just a handful left. Again, the VIP upgrades are already gone. But the suites are there. That was some VIP stuff we were doing on the boat and are going to do. I don't How do you call them a boat. Sharon always says, Don't call it a boat.

Yeah, you got to call it a ship. Boats? Ships carry boats.

Boats are what you ski behind. There you go. Okay, there we go. Catch fish out of. That stuff. All right. Anyway, that's what we're doing. Go to Ramsey BabySolutions. Com/cruise. Seriously, if you're baby-stepped for and beyond, this is your chance. We teach you to live like no one else so that later you can…

Live like no one else.

On the Live Like No One Health Cruise. There you go.

Yeah, I'm excited.

Laura is with us in Salt Lake City. Hi, Laura. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hi. Thank you for having me. Sure.

What's up?

Well, my basic question is, is it worth it to move our family to a new state? They're basically a 13,000 annual raise. There's more to it.

It sounds like you don't want to already.

That was a big sign.

Is it worth it? Do I have to? This is awful. That's what it sounds like.

That's a good point.

Where would you be moving to?

Currently in Utah, I'm going to be moving to Missouri, which is where I grew up. I know the area, and I like the area. It's just we have four kids, and we're pretty settled where we are.

What does settled mean? How long you've been there?

Five years, which is actually a long time for us. Okay.

How old are the kiddos?

The oldest one is 15, and the youngest is four. What work is it?

What type of work are you chasing?

This is for my husband's work, and he's an arborist He works on trees. Got it.

Where in Missouri?

In Columbia.

What made him look for a job?

Because he thought that basically the of what he could earn here. The biggest reason we're looking in that area is because we could sell our home here and make 150 to 200,000 on it, and we could buy a house cash over there, or almost cash. And owning our home has always been like not having a mortgage has always been one of our goals. How old are you? I'm Well, I'll be 40 this year, and my husband just turned 40, so we're both 40.

I don't know how it is at your house, but when Rachel Cruz and Denise Whittamore were 15, the drama was unbelievable.

Oh, yes. Now, my older two are boys, and so there's still drama there.

Well, there's not as much, but that's true. True. I mean, those two went to college, and we were left with a teenage son, and we didn't even know he was there. I was just thinking that maybe that was entering into, they don't want to leave, and you're telegraphing what they want.

Yeah, that's it. You nailed it. Okay.

Well, that's the way it would have been at my house. I mean, the kids are like, Everything you do, they're like, Mark Twain said, When they turn 13, put them in a barrel and feed them through a hole, and when they turn 15, plug up the hole. That's how Mark Twain said handle teenagers.

This is all for $13,000 a year, though.

No, it's for getting their house paid off and going back towards where their home is, and the only thing is the kids don't want to go. That's true. All the adults want to go.

The adults want to go. The kids don't want to go.

Am I wrong?

No, you're right.

Okay.

You said When we asked you before how long you've been there, you said five years, and you said, Well, that's a long time for us. Have you guys been moving around a lot? Is that another part of this?

We have moved a lot. Each of our kids have been born in a different state. Why? And we're not military.

Why? Just he's chasing work?

Chasing jobs.

He doesn't have a very high income job. Our kids' feelings got heard and they had input, but They didn't have a vote. The adults make the decision. We love our kids. We want to know how they feel. We want to know what they think and hear them out. But at the end of the day, the adults have to make the decision because the inmates don't run the asylum. That's how we did stuff, and I think you guys are moving, Laura. Now, one thing you can commit to the kids and to each other is we're not moving again.

You can say that.

We're going to stay. We're making this move that we don't move again. That's what I would do. This is the Ramsey Show. It doesn't take a degree in statistics to realize this one stinks. 93% of undergraduate private student loans are cosign mind. So when you're delinquent and drowning, mom or papa or uncle Joe is stuck in that financial stress along with you. But there is a way out. Whyrefi? Whyrefi offers a custom refinancing option with a fixed rate based on your ability to pay. And the average interest rate YreFi offers is 3.9%, which can significantly reduce your monthly payment and decrease your total cost. Contact YreFi at 844-2-Ram ramsey, or go to yrefi. Com/ramsey. That's 8442-Ramsey or the letter Y, then refy. Com/ramsey.

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Jade Walsh, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. David is in Manchester, New Hampshire. Hi, David. How are you?

I have had better days.

Okay. What's up?

My wife passed away a few weeks ago. Oh, my.

Oh, gosh.

I'm going to try and keep it together. I'm sorry. That's okay.

How old was she?

She was just a few days shy of her 60th birthday.

Oh, man. How long were you all married?

33 years. Wow.

What happened to her?

Long story, lots of health issues. In the end, it was heart problems and cancer combined. Wow.

Sorry. Long road then. Long road.

Yeah.

What was her name?

Her name was Lynn.

Lynn. Okay. I'm so sorry, David. Thank you, sir. Hard to breathe right now. How can we help you, sir?

Well, I was a long-time listener. Started listening in the late '90s, and we taught FPU together. We got serious about working the baby steps in about 2006 when we moved up here from Texas. We were debt-free except for the house when she passed, and our networth was just shy of a million.

Good for you. Wow.

Now when I look at those calculations, it just tastes like ash in my mouth.

Why?

Well, all those years of doing things the right way, and then I lose her just before we hit the finish line.

Oh, I see.

I know I shouldn't make big decisions right now, and I'm not.

Go ahead. But I seem just so much more aware that tomorrow is not guaranteed.

All the things we'd planned to do that now we won't be able to do together. Have me mourning not only my wife, my future. My question is, how can I balance the desire to try and live my life fully and still be wise?

I spoke at a friend of mine's funeral with another friend of mine the other day. The other guy speaking is a world-class communicator, and he said something that stuck with me. He said, When a baby is born or when we do a funeral, all of us stop and readjust our lives to the plum line. Those things are Those events are tuning forks. You tune to it, right? You know what I'm saying? I said the exact same thing at her funeral the other day. Oh, wow. Okay. That's exactly what you're doing. That's what your question is about. That's not a bad question. It's a question we all ought to do, but the tragedy that you've gone through recently is just making you very aware of it. We always have this pull between being wise and future-oriented and living in the moment, enjoying the moment, enjoying the present, enjoying why wouldn't I, thing. That's why when I turned I went and jumped out of an airplane. Why wouldn't I? Well, you might die. No, I'm going to die. It might be of this. It might not. And so I'm going to go do it. I'm going to live.

That's the thing you want to do. Now, did I jump out of an airplane without a parachute? No. No. Did I take the class and did I learn from the video all the things that could go wrong? And did I make sure all the equipment and the people involved Yeah, so I was wise about living my life wide open. I'm using that as a metaphor, not as me being smart or something, but it's a metaphor for the answer to your question, I think. Is it communicating?

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, and that's what I'm trying to do.

It's just really hard right now. You can't breathe right now. It was two weeks ago. I've been married 43 years. You've been married 33. Let me just tell you, if Sharon dies before me, I'm useless. I can't even breathe thinking about it, and you're actually living it. I mean, give yourself a chance to just catch your breath and cry a little.

Yeah. Right now, everything is in extremes. You just faced the extreme amount of grief, and now in your mind, the idea of living life to the fullest is all the way on another extreme. I think over time, it'll balance out.

But you're not a guy who's going to live life to the fullest, celebrate the moment, live in the moment to a level of immaturity and burn through a million dollars in four months. You're not that guy. No. You don't have that capacity. It's just not who you are. You're going to be wise. But you're right. You're going to treasure every cup of coffee, every sunrise, every sunset. You're going to treasure every puppy that you buy. You're going to treasure everything now. I mean, everything's a little brighter, everything's a little darker. I completely understand that and embrace that. Then a year from now, when you're doing that thing that you all wanted to do together, just remember you're really doing it together.

Yeah. Yeah? That makes sense.

Yeah. I'm so sorry. It's hard. You can't think your way through where you are. You have to live your way through where you are. It's hard. I'm sorry. But the only thing I can promise you is that you will be thinking clearer, and these answers will be readily available to you six months from now that they're not now. It's not that it hurts less, it's just that you've learned how to walk your way through it, and it's part of the process of grieving. You got good people around you, David?

I do. I've got a great church, and I've got an amazing group of men that have come around me.

That's so vital. That's so vital.

Such a blessing. Yes.

Dr. John Deloney always says this, and I had never heard it before he came on with us and started talking. He said, Grief demands a witness, and that's from one One of the researchers and writers that he's familiar with is quoting. I can't remember who the guy was, so I'm quoting Deloney instead. But I think that's true. Grief is not something to be done alone. We're honored that you would share yours with us today.

Thank you, sir.

I appreciate your wisdom and your insight. I'm so sorry, David. I'm sorry. You're in my age group, and so I've got people in your situation all around me, in my friend group and so forth. The only thing I will warn you is that you've done very well financially, and so you're prime picking. You need to just be aware that the sharks are going to circle, buddy. They're going to come at It's the weirdest thing.

You're talking about the cougars?

How attractive the 60-year-old man becomes.

Interesting.

Oh, wow. Oh, man, it happens. It happens to ladies as well.

This must be a real thing for you to- It's a real thing, believe me, especially when you've done well like he has, and financially.

You're not even thinking about that now, and that's why I'm saying it, because you're not thinking about it. You You need to just be aware and keep your shields up, brother, for a while. Yeah, wow. That's tough. Listen, here's your options, okay? Spend everything you make and be broke and live completely in the moment like a child. Then if something like this happens with your spouse, you've lived every moment, but you've also lived stress and anxiety the entire time.

Yeah.

It's easy to take a story like that and say, Well, that's a reason to not save for the future. That's a reason to not think about there, because you don't ever know if you're actually going to get to live it, live out those HD high definition dreams that you laid up, put on the whiteboard with your spouse. You don't know if you're going to get to live them out. But if you don't plan to live them out, then you leave every year in between there in angst. That's true. He did the best thing he could have done, even though it didn't turn out the way he planned. That's right. And he's right. He's having to grieve the future or lean into a new future now. Wow. That he didn't visualize before. I'm sorry, David. Love you, man. Thank you for calling in. If you need some help, you call us anytime. 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, best-selling author, is my co-host today. As we kick this hour off, we've also got one of the other Ramsey personalities, Rachel Cruz on the line with us.

She's on the road doing a book signing for her new book, I'm Glad For Where I Am, a great children's book and a great bedtime story all about gratitude. Rachel, how's it going in Los Angeles today?

Hey, guys.

Can you hear me?

Absolutely.

I feel like I'm a reporter for the news. I'm like, Out on the streets calling in. But yeah, doing great here in LA. We got in last Last night here, we were in Phoenix before that, New York before that.

So we're just on the road. It's been great. So you had a Phoenix book signing last night. How'd that go?

Yes, it was so great. There were probably, gosh, 50 families or so that came out, a lot of little kids, which was so great.

That's what we wanted.

It's always so encouraging being out because literally every person that came up, they had a story, right? The Ramsey show was always a part of it. Things from Deloney and Ken to Jade and George to you, Dave. Everyone's just rocking it with their money, and it's helped them so much. It's always fun to hear people's stories one after the other with all these little kids.

It was so great. That's so fun. Powerful. Tonight in Los Angeles, the Barnes & Noble at the Grove from 7:00 to 8:00 PM, right?

That's right. Yeah, I'll be there. Same thing.

We did this in Phoenix, and it was so fun.

I do a little story time, read the book, Talk to the kids. Yeah, you got them all right there. It's just so fun to hear from them. Then, yeah, I lined up and we took pictures, sign books, did it all. We'll be there at the Grove from 7:00 to 8:00.

That Barnes & Noble at the Grove is a great store. I've done signing there, and it's a wonderful store. They do a good job for a signing. Any of you in that area, in the Los Angeles area, the Barns & Noble at the Grove, tonight, 07:00 to 08:00 PM, local time. Rachel's book, I'm glad for where I am. Now, this book is Gratitude, right? Yes.

That's a big truck. Passes. Sorry.

That's all right. We're grateful for the cement truck. That's right.

I know. The first book, I'm glad for what I have that came was contentment. This one is all gratitude. I was telling the newsmakers this morning when I did Good Day LA, that so much of my work, I feel like even on the Ramsey show, it's the tactical side of money. We're talking about saving and investing in all of it. But that emotional side of money, those of you that have listened to Ramsey, too, we talk about this a lot. It is such an important part. And so whether it's contentment, gratitude, generosity, all of those emotional side is really important for our kids to grasp and for us to grasp. So yeah, the book is based on really the foundational principle of being thankful for stuff that you can't buy, that money can't buy, which is our family. It's our home environment and all of that.

So teaching the kids that foundation is what I wanted in this book.

So cool. So you're in LA. It looks like later on, you go to Dallas, Atlanta. I want to know, are your kiddos going to make any cameo appearances, Rachel?

You know?

No. But do you know who is? That's my That guy. Wow.

Doing my part. He's doing his part.

He's on the phone with the guys in the booth there at Ramsey, just in case this call drops. I'm going to jump on his phone if this call drops. But we're doing good.

So he came out to LA last night. He's technically I'm really good. I'm really good. I'm really good. I'm really good. I'm really good. I'm really good. I'm really good. I'm really good. I'm really good. I'm really good.

I'm really good. I'm really good. I'm really good. I'm really good. He looks like your bouncer, like your security right there.

Yeah, he's got the glasses, got the LA vibe. This is very good. We look sketchy.

We look sketchy. What are they doing?

I love it. All right, Dallas, Saturday, the 20th, Lincoln Park from 1:00 to 2:00 PM in Atlanta. Next Friday, a week from tomorrow, April the 27th at Mansell Crossing and Alfreda. All those are great stores. I've been to every one of them from one to two. In each case, Rachel will meet with the kiddos, sign books for them, read the book. It's not that long, and so it's a great bedtime story. We've already been using it on the old Ramsey kiddos. Papa Dave loves to read to the kiddos. Good stuff. Contentment, gratitude, that's what the first two are. The first one was a children's best seller. This one will be a children's best seller. It just came out this week, and it's available at ramsey solutions. Com/store, or of course, anywhere great books are sold, like where Rachel is going to be. Again, Los Angeles, tonight at the Grove from 7:00 to 8:00 PM. Dallas on Saturday, April 20th, the Barnes & Noble at Lincoln Park from 1:00 to 2:00 PM in the afternoon, and Atlanta in Alfreda the following Friday, April the 27th, from 1:00 to 2:00 PM.

I'll throw this out there.

Tonight, the illustrator Lauren Gallegos is going to be with me at this Bookside, actually. Oh, awesome. She lives in LA, and so she's coming. You'll get a signature from the author and the illustrator, which is so fun.

I got to tell you, illustrators sign books better than authors.

I bet.

Because they make little pictures. They make little pictures with it every time. Yeah. And Lauren's precious. She does a great job. These illustrations are world-class in both these books. It's one of the reasons they've done so well, the whole process. It's so important as parents, if we can teach our children these skills of character. Godliness with contentment is great gain. Content, content, gratitude, learn to say please and thank you and mean it. This book is all about gratitude, humility. These There are skills that cause children, when they become adults, to become very attractive adults to employers, to future spouses, because they're good humans. That's what we're trying to do is raise good humans. Andy Andrews, our good friend, Rachel, always says that we're not trying to raise great kids. We're trying to raise kids who become great adults. That's right. That's what these skills do. It's very, very vital. Good stuff, Rachel. Proud of you. Keep it up. Thank you. Make sure that you keep that bodyguard straight back there. We're worried about him. Look at him.

So good. Thanks, you guys. Bye, Jay. See you, bud.

Have fun tonight. Bye. I love it. Thank you. We will. We will. Bye. All right. Again, tonight, for those of you in Los Angeles, The Grove, Barnes & Noble from 7:00 to 8:00 PM, tonight being Thursday, the 18th of April, whenever you happen to be listening to or watching this. And Dallas, Texas, April, the 20th on Saturday at Lincoln Park from 1:00 to 2:00 PM, Atlanta, Friday, the April, the 27th, a week from tomorrow, for those of you listening live or watching live. And that's the Barnes & Noble at Mansell Crossing at Alfredo. You can find all this on our website. And obviously, Rachel's Instagram, she's going to post every bit of this and then some because that's what she does. She's the Instagram queen. I love seeing this. Her and you with your cooking.

Yes, that's right.

You got to follow Jade if you want some cooking now. I'm just saying. That is true.

I'm not a chef, but I cook a little bit.

No, you're a cook is what you That's good. I pop that open. I'm like, Sharon, I got to have dinner now. Jade's over here cooking, got my mouth water. Check it out, folks. You can learn all of that at ramseysolutions. Com/store. We'll get you going right here on The Ramsey Show. Thank you for joining us, America. Jade Walshaw, Ramsey personality, is my co-host. We appreciate you being here. The phone number is 888-825-580. At 225. Scott is in Indianapolis. Hi, Scott. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hi, Jade. Hey, Dave. We're really grateful for your ministry. Thank you very much.

Thank you, sir. How can we help?

My mom passed away last year, and my two brothers and I inherited the home that my dad, who passed away 10 years ago or so, had. I'm wondering just how to be a good steward of that asset and wondering if an LLC is the best way to manage that going forward. In addition to that, my middle brother is living in the house and will likely leave in a couple of years. My wife and I are considering purchasing his portion at that time and had some questions about that, just so I was doing that well.

Okay. If you're going to end up purchasing it, and in the meantime, a relative lives there, I don't think an LLC is necessary.

Okay.

The main reason you would do an LLC would be to save on risk management. If a tenant falls off the porch and breaks their face and decides to sue you for $10 million, they have to sue the owner of the property, which is the LLC. You're not the owner. We do LLLCs for risk management. There's really no tax benefit to LLC, and it doesn't cause people to get along who otherwise don't get along. You guys, the three brothers are discussing what we're going to do with this house all the time. Is that what we're doing?

Well, yes, basically. We've done a few renovation to it, and it's in a decent area. My wife and I wanted to get involved with some property, real estate.

So you're thinking about it to live in or as a rental?

As a rental. We were wondering about limiting our own liability Just in case, not just my brother, but if something happens.

If we're going to keep it as a rental, I would put it into an LLC, at least your ownership portion. Now, how old is your little brother that's living in He's 53. Okay. Somehow I had him in college in my head or something. In the world, why has he got to live there for two or three years? Was he there before your mom passed?

No, but that was something she wanted was to have him. He was renting an apartment nearby, and she wanted him to have a home to live in. I helped her with her estate planning, I'm the executor of her estate, but the intent was to give him a place, a home to live in. He has a daughter who's married now, but eventually will have kids, and he would like to move closer to her when that happened. He basically stated his intent that it would be a short interim period, maybe a couple of years, and then he would likely move to be closer to her.

The other two of you are not receiving rent from him?

We have discussed that, and he is paying rent, but it is part to go into the operational cost of the home. It's like a pile of money that we all contributed to in order to service the home, and that rent is being accounted for in that accounting.

Okay. All right. As long as everybody's got their expectations set and we have a game plan, It occurs to me that you guys could all put this into an LLC, and then the way you purchase the home would simply be to buy the shares from each of your brothers.

Okay. I think that's where we were leaning, just based on your real estate experience.

Yeah, that would make sense. In this case, now I'm catching up with what your plan was. I thought he was just going to live there, and then you guys were going to move in it at the start of the conversation. That's why I'm changing my stance here. But I don't own anything anymore. I don't have a single in my name. My cars aren't in my name. I'm a complete poverty case. I own nothing. It's all in some a company, a trust, an LLC, and it's all risk management associated. It's not going to be a good deal. We're very, very careful and very direct about that. Something happens, worst case scenario, you can bankrupt an LLC, and it's just that piece of property. It doesn't touch anything else. It's no big deal. Obviously, you don't want to do that. But before you let somebody take all your other stuff, that's what you'd have to do. Anyway, that's what you're facing. I'd go ahead and drop it into an LLC now. I think I would put as much of this in writing, even if it's in letter form, that this is what our intent is. If you guys can go ahead and come to a formula type agreement as to how you're going to price their shares to buy them out two years from now and go ahead and put a two-year date on your brother so that two years isn't five years because she didn't have children.

Yeah, that was my main concern was that timeline. I wondered how fluid it would actually wind up being.

Yeah. It sounds like all of you have a lot of grace for each other, and there's nobody grabbing or anything. You're being very kind loose with this, and that's good. But also the best way for that grace to remain is if we all have a clear understanding of what the other one's doing. If you just said, I want to write all this up, and then you guys all sign off on it, and here's how I'm going to buy you guys out at the end of two years. The 53-year-old is going to move at the end of two years. In the meantime, the rent comes in, and it's just piled up there for the three of us to use to update the house and keep the house moving, operationally, as you said. All of that makes sense, and there's nothing wrong with any of that. But I have found that even When I'm doing something internally inside the company, I will send out an email, and sometimes I'll copy myself.

Just to have it as a record.

Because I forget what I said. I got a couple of things going on. That's great. I can't remember what all I've done. I slept since then. I don't want to not keep my word just because I'm stupid and forgot. That's possible with me. I like writing it all down, and that way I remember what I said, you remember what I said, we all said the same thing.

If it comes to it, you can reference it. Then I can just pull it up and go, Okay, this is what we talked about.

Now, if we want to do something different, we can, but this is where we left it. Then you've got a baseline to have a changed discussion if you need to, or you've got a baseline for referring back to, I think we probably need to go with what we said, and that thing. It doesn't have to be mean, but it really helps maintain the quality of these relationships. Scott, it sounds like the three of you have a very quality relationship, or at least you and your brother, your one brother. I'm assuming, based on the way the whole conversation went, that all three of you are getting a loan, and that's good. But I'd lay out the formula now. What's the price going to be? Or it's going to be, we're going to get an appraisal at that time by I'm a certified appraiser. I'm going to pay for it, and I'm going to pay you guys 80% of appraisal for your share, or whatever the formula is. I don't care. That's not a bad formula, by the way, because if you put a house on the market and sell it and you list it on the market with a real estate agent at appraisal, you very seldom get that number, so it's negotiated down.

Then you have real estate fees and you have closing costs and you have other fees. You don't usually net more than about 85. 85 cents on the dollar. So somewhere in there, 88, 85, somewhere in that range is where you're usually going to end up. Then if they sell to you, that's still approximately what they're going to end up. So whatever the formula is, you all lay it out, and I don't care what it is, but it's just really good to lay it out in advance and nobody's mad later.

Well, yeah, we're on a two-year timeline.

It's easy to forget in two years. Two years goes so fast. I mean, it's blinding. I I mean, just everything moves so quick. And of course, the older we get, the faster it moves. It goes faster. It just goes, goes, goes, goes, goes Three of you own equal shares in it, and you're able to buy out the other two shares. You actually can probably quit Claim Deed at end of the LLC, and you won't have any registration costs, hardly. Then when you buy the shares on the LLC, there is no registration cost because it's not a Register of Deeds issue. So it's going to save you on that, too. Make sure you guys keep good, strong insurance on this property as well. This is the Ramsey Show. Jade Walsh, best-selling author of the book Money's Not a Math Problem. One of our Ramsey quick reads, a whole 74 pages. You can read it in one setting, and you're going to learn some stuff about money and yourself when you read it. She's a Ramsey personality. She's my co-host today. Our question of the day comes from Barry in Indiana.

Yeah, Barry says, I'm hoping for some validation on a decision we have made regarding flipping Baby Steps 5 and 6. We completed Baby Steps 1 through 4, and we have 95,000 parked in CDs. Instead of saving for college, we currently pay 5,000 a month on a 4.85% mortgage, where the monthly payment is about $2,500. If we stay on track, the mortgage will be paid off in four years. Once the house is paid off, we plan to use the extra 6k that we have been putting on the mortgage to cash flow college. What are your thoughts on this plan?

What are you doing with $95,000?

I underlined it. I don't know. It sounds like they already made the decision, but I mean, I'll get that.

That's not even Baby Step 5 and 6. That's just too much in cash.

Facts. I mean, he never says- You flipped Baby Step 3. Yeah. Yeah, that's a lot of money. There's a lot here. Yeah. Go ahead. No, you're fine. Have at it. You feel like you had something to say. My thing is the baby steps are in order for a reason. In four, five, and six, you can do them simultaneously, but you do them in order simultaneously. If you're going to prioritize one over the other, you prioritize it in order. Does that make sense? You don't skip four to do five, you don't skip six to do four, you do four. Then if you have money left over, where you do five. Then if you have money, you do six. If five doesn't apply to you because you don't have kids, then you skip it. Does that make sense? My thought is- You have an emergency fund of 3-6 months of expenses, which is not $95,000 so you take some of that and throw it at that mortgage. That's right. My thought is, I think there's a lot of ambiguity around baby step five. It's like, How much do I do? How often do I have to do it?

I think that that's something that you guys can sit and decide because it sounds like- I'm fine if you put 50 bucks a month in baby step five. Me too. That's what I'm saying. I'm like, It's not to say that you have to stop putting extra to the mortgage. Just put a little something because this is a four-year plan. Who knows what's going to happen over four years? I want to have something put aside for them. The only reason I might… It's not to say that you wouldn't put it aside. It's just where you put it. If this is a less than five-year, less than four-year deal till college.

We don't have his mortgage But by the time I drain most of that 95 down to three to six months of expenses, it might be a three-year plan.

That's true.

And so $50 a month going into the kid's college for three years while you lean heavy on the mortgage is perfectly fine. But, Barry, I've been doing this for 30 years, and I don't flip baby steps.

Yeah, don't do it. Just put something aside.

There's no reason to.

Dave, you can correct me on this, but if their kid is I'm not putting it in a 529. I'm just throwing it in a HYSA.

Let it sit. It doesn't matter. Again, the interesting thing here is that he didn't just try to flip five and six. He's also sitting on 95K. I see. You're just making up your own deal here, Barry. That's what we're saying. This stuff works if you work it. We've taught 10 million people to do this, literally. Actually more, but that's a minimum. That's what we recommend. But the point of five of $50 is just you're building the muscle, you're making an intellectual, not a big mathematical, but you're making an intellectual spiritual muscle building moment says, I'm doing college, and then I can move on. It's also- For instance, let's pretend you got two-year-old. Right. $50 a month for three years, and then you do it and you pile it on. Yeah. Let's But he doesn't- He doesn't say how old the kids are or when they're going. We plan to use the extra 5K. We've been putting on the more cash flow college, but it indicates you got teenagers, but maybe. But either way, I think you're going to accomplish exactly the same thing you want to accomplish You put $50 towards this, and especially if you use the vast majority of that 95 and take it down to a three to six months of expenses, because you do not have…

You've got too much in cash. The fact that it's sitting in a CD is somewhat laughable. Erin is with us in Richmond, Virginia. Hi, Erin. How are you?

Good. Thank you for having my call.

Sure. What's up?

All right. We are, my wife and I, are in Baby Step 2. We've just been in and found you, which is fantastic. However, it has occurred to us that we hit tax season and we had to pay this year, and we're worried about stopping our investments because we're going to have to pay probably three times more next year in taxes. I'm really wondering what's the justification of it's Not paying ourselves first in investing and more so paying the government and losing out on some of that money, even though we'll have more to go towards baby step two.

How much are you putting in your 401k?

I have a 6% and a 6% match.

The match doesn't count for taxes. How much are you putting in the 401k in cash?

About 540 a month.

So $6,000 a year? Yes, sir. What's your household income?

131 $1,000. Okay.

So this saves you $2,000 in taxes?

Okay. Right? Yeah, it does.

Okay. How much debt do you have?

About $120,000.

On what?

We have 12,000 on credit cards, 50 on student loans, and 16 vehicles.

Okay. So I'm trying to keep from being a smart ankle. You've got $120,000 in consumer debt. You've been spending more than you make on credit cards, and now suddenly you're worried about tax planning. Sorry. What we have found is that the power of focus supersedes a little bit of tax savings and missing out on a little bit of match for a short period of time. You've got cars you can't afford. You've been living a life you can't afford, and so you've never addressed the student loans. They have their own bedroom at your place. You make a ton of money and you're still broke. A little bit of tax savings does not fix that. What fixes that is a dramatic change in by you and your wife to completely take your lifestyle to scorched earth and get this freaking mess you made cleaned up. With that visceral emotional movement, the way I just said it down in your stomach, that's when you quit everything because the house is on fire and we're trying to get the family out alive. We're not worried about whether or not we turned off the faucet. Does it make any sense?

You're majoring in minors.

Right. Is that something we just need to budget for the taxi?

Yeah, you change your withholding to where You have the appropriate amount withheld so you don't have a tax bill above your withholding at the end of the year. But the loss on taxes and the loss on the match is temporary. Mathematically, you come out way ahead 10 years from today because you actually do clear the debt because you actually do transform the people in your mirror. That's the key to this. It's not a math problem. If you When you're doing math, you wouldn't be where you are. People that do math don't buy $60,000 cars they can't afford. People that do math don't have credit card debt. This is not a math problem. It's a behavior problem and a shift in how we live and how we think and who we are as people. That's what we're trying to get you to do. When we start nuancing and carving off the edges around the thing, it changes. It keeps that from occurring.

You have to have balanced reasoning on both sides. If you say you care about the $2,000 saved in taxes, then why don't you care about the $2,000 that you're losing on interest on your student loans and your cars and your credit cards? That's way, more than that every month keeping that debt around. Yeah.

Let's get in attack mode and clean this out of your life for the last time, Brody. I mean, Erin, that's what we would tell you to do. Yeah. It's not a math problem. It's a me problem. Personal finance is not the problem. It's the symptom. This is the Ramsey Show. Hey, folks. Dave here. If you're in Baby Steps 4 through 7, join me for the ultimate debt-free celebration as we set sail on the Live Like No One Else Cruise. We're taking over an entire ship for seven days in 2025, and we'll stop at some incredible places like Turks and Caicos, St. Thomas, San Juan, and the Bahamas. We'll also have some special guests joining us, including Stephen Curtis Chapman and Moniette Shohan. Book your cabin now at ramseysolutions. Com/cruise. Com. Who's Jade Walshaw, Ramsey. Personality is my co-host. She's the author of the Ramsey Quick Read, Money's Not a Math Problem, which is what we were just talking about.

That's right. It's more about your way of thinking sometimes.

Dave, I don't want to take my savings and pay off my credit cards because it doesn't feel mathematically correct. Like you were doing math when you ran up an 18% credit card. It's interesting when we choose to do math and we choose not to.

I think that's a cop-out when people say that. What it really is, is I don't feel like doing that.

I don't want to do that. I think I figured out how I'm smarter than this system that 10 million people have done. That's right. Yeah, that's what that is. It's like I heard a personal trainer, and he was helping me at the house, at our home gym, and Sharon's making fun of me. She's like, he goes down and counts to 10. You don't know how to count to 10? You got to have somebody count to 10 for you. You can't count to 10 by yourself? She's giving me a hard time. I'm like, no, he's here because he has a six-pack and I have a keg. And so what he says to do about that matters more than what I think I need to do. That's true. And she said, That's true. That she agreed with. So there you go. The keg part, especially.

Well, then there's the layer it where you actually have to do what he says.

Oh, God, now you're getting meddling. Just saying. Just meddling. All right. Janice is with us. Janice is in Cincinnati. Hi, Janice. How are you?

Hi, Dave. Thank you so much for your ministry, and Thank you for taking my call.

We're honored to talk to you. How can we help?

Well, I would like to know if you can help me work through numbers to see if it's okay for me to retire. I've been working. I'm retired from the Navy and from teaching, and I've been working for about eight years. I am really tired, so I need to know if I have enough to retire.

Okay. How much do you have coming in from those two, from the teaching and from the Navy? Thank you for your service.

You're welcome. My retirement for teaching, I have 4,490,31. Just to break it all down, I have 12,000 coming in monthly because I've got a rental income, I've got the Navy retirement, and I'm working two other jobs. I'm working two jobs.

Yeah, but that counts you not retiring. So I'm trying to figure out. 4,400 from teaching, how much from the Navy?

$608.90..

So that's 5,000. And how much from rental?

Well, the rental is $2,800 a month.

Then you have expenses?

And I have expenses, yes.

It's probably netting 1,500, right?

Right.

Okay. All right. You got about 6,500 if you don't work. Does that sound right?

It Sounds about right, yes. Okay.

How old are you?

We're the same age. I'm 63. I just turned 63 on April. I mean, on Sunday.

Okay. Well, happy birthday. Okay, so how How much debt have you got?

Okay, that's my big problem. I have a condo. I've listened to you for years. I got out of debt, brought my cars in for cash, and now I have a condo that I owe $98,000 on. In the pandemic, I brought it for $270, something, so I've been paying on it as much as I can.

That's your only debt?

That's my only did.

Do you have any money? Do you have a nest egg anywhere?

I have 30,000 in a…

Gosh, I'm so nervous. In a money market in the Navy, Federal Navy Credit Union. Good. Then I have… Yes. You have anything else? I just paid a big lump sum on the condo in order to get that. It came down to 30. It was 100, so I paid 60 or 70 to get it down to 90. What was your question?

I'm sorry. You have anything else? Any other money?

Any cash? No.

You have investments, a retirement account?

I have a retirement account of 200, about 200,000. Then you told me, so when I turned 62, I stopped contributing to the 403 so I can start getting money to pay the condo off. Then I started putting in an IRA.

How How much is in it?

About $20,000.

Okay, so your nest egg is $220,000 plus the $30,000 in the Navy Federal Credit Union. Anything else?

No, that's it.

Okay. Are you making $6,000 a month at work?

I'm making $4,000 at my one job, and then at my other job, I just found out I need to pay more taxes, so now it's down. I'm just getting $470. I'm having to rest go to Uncle Sam because I had to pay last week, and I don't want to have to pay it a lot.

Okay, so you're making about $4,500 a month take home pay working.

Is that right? No, I'm making it's 12,000.

No, honey, I'm talking about at your work. I already got your 6,500 from everything else.

Okay, yes.

What do you take you to live? What can you live on?

I got a budget I got a budget about 2,000. Well, for my house up here, for where I live at, because I don't live in the condo, it's $2,331.

Where do you live?

I live in Ohio, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Where's the condo?

It's in Florida. It's in Florida. It's in right about three miles from Disney.

Oh, that's the rental.

Got it.

That's the rental, yeah.

Okay, so when you pay it off and retire, are you going to move in My home is our family's gathering place.

The answer is no. I may go down there for a couple of months. I would like to.

You're going to rent in Ohio while you're on a condo in Florida? No.

You told me to pay this house off, and I paid this house off.

Oh, Jesus. Oh, way to go. Okay.

That's great. Okay.

All right. What's the condo worth? I'll follow you. I talk to- That's okay. What's the condo worth?

I'm saying about 394.

What would happen if you sold it and quit work? You'd have a half a million dollars in investments, and you have $6,000 a month coming in. That's great.

So you think I should sell the condo?

I mean, it's only making you- I just asked you. I said, what would happen if you sold it and put 300,000 to go with your 200,000? That'd be 500,000 in investments. With a SmartVestor Pro, you're 63, you have zero debt. From teacher and Navy, you've got $5,000 a month coming in that you easily can live on.

Right.

The $500,000 is just going to sit over there and grow, and your current home is worth what?

About $300,000.

Okay, so you have $800,000 net worth at that point, soon to be a millionaire. Sell the condo.

I like the condo.

I don't. It's in Florida, and you're in Ohio.

Okay.

You want to quit? You know what? You're working your butt off. You call me because you're tired, because this condo owns you.

Yeah. Well, the one plan I was thinking is to sell the condo and get another condo there. I did boot camp in Florida, and I I really want to go down to Florida.

They got hotels in Florida, honey.

How much time do you spend in Florida?

Well, now that I'm working, I'll fly down for a weekend or- See, it's summer.

See, it's- I don't think- I don't think- I don't think- I don't think- I don't think- I don't think- I don't think- I don't think- If you're retired, How much time would you spend in Florida, honey?

At least three months because I don't like the winter.

Okay.

You want to be a snowbird.

Then you need to work another year and pay the condo off and keep it. Don't put renters in it, honey, if you're going to live in it.

Because they're going to destroy it.

Hello. You can't live there while they live there, and that's how that works. If you want to go down there for three months and you have a renter in there, you can't go. If you're going to use it as a vacation property, use it as a vacation property. Otherwise, sell it and retire in Ohio, almost a millionaire. Within a year or two, you would be a millionaire if you sit down with a smart investor pro and do good investing with the mutual funds with a half million dollars. It'll double about seven years, roughly. 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. She is a Ramsey personality and a best-selling author of the book, the Ramsey Quick Read, Money's Not a Math Problem. So joining us to help us answer your questions about your life and your money. Open phones here at 888-885-5225. Bill is in Chicago. Hi, Bill. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave and Jay. Thank you for having me. Sure.

What's up?

Last year, my father passed away, and he had a business, but he left the business in a trust, and he put the accountant that he was working with as the executor of the trust. Since then, I've had very little contact with the accountant. I've been calling and emailing, and I'm just trying to get answers on what I can do to find out how the business is doing.

Are you the beneficiary of the trust?

Yes, I am. I am a 50% beneficiary along with my sister. Okay.

The accountant is not responding?

No. I mean, I'm lucky to get a response like once in a blue moon.

Okay. What is the business? How big a business are we talking about? My dad had it valued at roughly about two and a half million. What is it?

Just before he passed. It's a generator repair and sales.

Who's operating it? The accountant is. He's doing generating, operating and repairs, and he's accountant?

Generator repairs.

Yeah, I understand. I said it wrong. The accountant…

No, you're fine.

I could have said it wrong. No, I did. I'm sorry. So it's got employees, and this guy's running the business?

Yes.

Where is it?

In the northwest suburbs of Chicago.

And you live there?

I live just south of there.

Okay. All right. You should contact an attorney, and you and your sister should remove him as the trustee. He's not the executor. Trusts don't have executives. Trusts have trustees. Okay. The trustee makes the decision, but the trustee is supposed to run the trust for the benefits of the beneficiaries. Not returning the phone call or the email of the beneficiaries is not something you get to get away with when you're a trustee, you will be removed. Okay. The first thing you do is contact an attorney and find out how you're going to do that under Illinois law. Then right after you leave the meeting with the attorney, go ahead and just drive over to the office where this guy is. Okay. And say, Baba, we're not doing this anymore. I'm the beneficiary, which means you work for me. That's what a trust means. You're not going to be working for me anymore unless you start working for me. Okay. How does that sound? I like that idea. Okay. We remove him and remove him from the business and put someone in to run the business or sell the business, right? Right. Or he decides to straighten up his act and go, Oh, I didn't realize you were my boss.

It seems like he got it twisted, as they said.

I don't know why your dad did this. This is very strange.

My dad did us the will and trust as almost like a last minute deal. I don't think he actually had an- You don't think he even understood what he pulled off?

Right.

I don't think he had the time to dot all his eyes and cross his keys.

Yeah, okay. Well, it would have been real simple to just leave the business to his kids.

Oh, I understand that.

Yeah, okay. All right. But anyway, yeah. I think I'm going to contact an estate attorney, a state planning attorney, and send them the documentation of the trust. I'm sure you have a copy of it. If not, it's part of the public record. It had to be filed with the bill being filed and everything else, and then sit down with that attorney and say, What is the process to remove a trustee who is not acting in the best interest of the beneficiaries?

Okay.

Because the beneficiary is the actual... They are the ones who benefit the beneficiary. You're the stockholder. You own it.

Right.

Yeah. If the trustee is not acting in the best interest of the beneficiary, they can be removed in almost any trust.

Okay.

But I want to know what my rights are. I want to know what the law says in Illinois. I don't. If I'm you, you need to become an expert on that. Then you need to go have a conversation with Bubba about whether he wants to run this thing or not.

Bubba's tripping. Bubs is getting ready to be tripping after this conversation.

He's going to be having an issue. He's got a new issue. His issue is Bill. We're going to help Bill be an issue. Brody is in Jacksonville, Florida. Hi, Brodie. How are you?

Hey, Dave and Jade. How are you all today?

Better than we deserve. What's up?

I've been in a tailspend for the last 6-8 months. I jumped out of a career where I was making between me and my wife, almost 300,000, but it was coming at the sacrifice of my family. I missed my daughter basically growing up until she was a year old and just woke up one day and couldn't do it anymore. I jumped ship on that career and have moved over to a lower paying career. It's going to give me a little bit more of some family time.

What were you making before?

I was making by myself, not including my wife. I was making about $250,000.

What were you doing?

Selling new construction.

Why couldn't you just work less?

It was a pretty set schedule. It wasn't really an option to work less.

I was gone- Working 80 hours a week?

Well, just gone every weekend. I got two days off during the week and basically never saw my wife. I was commuting over an hour each way to the community I was in.

Your wife works?

Makes 50.

My wife works Monday through Friday.

I see.

Okay. You just said, Okay, I quit. Now, how How much do you make?

This year, I'm expected to make roughly 160 by myself.

She took $100,000 your pay cut.

Yes, sir. I'll be home with my wife and daughter on the weekends.

Does that work with your budget?

It definitely does. We're 100% debt-free. Great. All we have is our mortgage. We owe about 340 on the house.

You have a $210,000 income, so you can afford a $340,000 mortgage.

What's the question?

Yes, sir. The question is, we've got roughly $160,000 just sitting in a savings account. We pretty much stockpiled my entire income while I was selling new homes. We've lived way below our means. I'm wondering if I should take some of that, throw it at the house and recast the mortgage.

No. No.

More room in the budget.

The point is to pay it off. You don't want a lower payment.

Well, we've only had the mortgage roughly eight months. We just moved in. My thought was it wouldn't really extend the loan that much, but it would just put some more buffer in our monthly- You don't need buffer in your monthly.

You make $210,000. You need to pay off your mortgage. You need to pay off your mortgage.

That's definitely the goal.

Keep 3-6 months aside. Other than your emergency fund, I would throw every piece of cash I've got at this mortgage, and then I throw a bunch of income at the mortgage. Noah, you don't want to recast and take your payment down. It's right. No, no, no, no. You're going the wrong way, Brodie. Wrong way, dude. This is The Ramsey Show.

Hey, friends, it's Ken Coleman, and I've got some big news. The GetClear Career Assessment is now paired with my new book, Find the Work You're Wired to Do. Every Book comes with access to the assessment so you can discover who you are and how you're wired. Then I'm going to show you how to use your results to get specific in your job search and find the work you enjoy. Pre-order Find the work you're wired to do at ramseysolutions. Com/stoy. Com.

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It's just a little over a month away. I'll be doing the Ramsey Investing Essentials event. It's a two-night, two-hour-a-night virtual event. I'll be doing it. George Campbell is going to come along and help me, come in and interrupt me periodically. That's how George helps.

A little snark here and He's an expert at that.

He is. Yes, he is. About like me anyway. But yeah, we're going to have some fun. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to lay out the basics of investing, number one. Then number two, we're going to go beyond investing 101 and go into 201, 301, and 401 in some graduate levels. I'm going to unpack details on mutual funds, how I actually personally select my mutual funds. We're going to get into real estate at length. A ton about real estate. I own several hundred million dollars worth of real estate. I don't sell a course on TikTok on how to do real estate. This is just me. I'm going to tell you what I do. If you want to know what my playbook is, and I actually do it, I've actually done it for decades. It's not like a theory, like I'm doing this out of the trunk of my car or something. Anyway, we'd love to have you. It's going to be May 21st and 22nd. Dave Ramsey's Investing Essentials. It's pretty cool. I've never covered this material in public before.

Dave, give us a- I'm a little nervous. Give us a taste of what a topic might be in the 401 conversation.

The details of exactly how to place valuation on an investment real estate property. I like it. The stuff you would learn if you get a CCIM, which is the highest designation in commercial real estate as an example. We'll unpack that and then look at internal rates of return, which is how you properly measure real estate returns, and look at risk management and risk measurement and things like that as well. We're going to unpack every bit of that. It's pretty high-brow It's junk and it's pretty nerdy. If you don't have two nickels to rub together, you probably shouldn't spend your time or your money on this. I'll probably teach it again someday, or it's going to be recorded, so we'll have it out there somewhere, I'm sure. But anyway, I think it's a couple of hundred bucks for the ticket or something. Dave Ramsey's Investing Essentials. I've never done the material before, so I'm looking forward to doing it. It's going to be fun, but it's me teaching nerd finance class. Some of the trollers or whatever think I don't actually know this stuff, and that's the humorous part of this. Anyway, we're here to help everyone, even people who have a lot of money.

So there you go.

I love it.

Ramsey Solutions visit our website, www. Com. Com/event. Com, to sign up for any of our events. And that includes, of course, that one. So thanks for being with us. David is in Atlanta. Hi, David. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Thank you, sir. I appreciate you taking the call.

My pleasure. How can we help?

I don't know that you can. I was told to be brief, so I'll be brief. I recently got into our rental home back in March of this year. We are already behind, and unfortunately, we were not completely forthcoming with the landlord that we leased from.

In what way?

He doesn't have my correct social security number.

Okay. Why?

Because the way we've been living over the last several years, we have been kicked out of previous homes that we've rented.

How many?

At least six.

You've been evicted six times, and now you're behind on your rent for the seventh?

Yes, sir.

Okay. We are. Why?

There are several reasons. A lot of it has been me attempting to try to make my spouse happy and not making the right decision as a man, as a leader, and being too passive.

Is that in the form of you not working or are you choosing places you just grossly can't afford?

Choosing places we can't afford.

Okay. What do you make, David?

I have a few sources of income, sir. I work That brings in about a thousand a week after taxes. Once I'm done with that job, I have other companies that I work for when they need me to do towing and changing tires and getting people's keys out of their cars and things of that nature. On a slow week, that adds about another 300. On good weeks, it could add up to around 600.

So around 50.

So let's call that another Another $6,000 a year, give or take. Okay. And does your wife work outside the home?

No, I get an additional 4,153 now through the army.

From a retirement or medical discharge? Correct. Okay. So you get another $4,000 a month?

Correct.

Okay. So I got 52, and 6, and and 48, and so you're making over $100,000 a year. Pray tell, what is your rent?

2610.

Okay, which you actually can afford.

Exactly.

It's the lifestyle. What else are you doing with the money instead of paying for the rent?

This time around, it was because I made the poor decision to promise a trip for one of my children. It was one of the situations where- You're bringing in $10,000 a month.

You have $2,600 in rent. Where is all the money going?

We had to buy a car outright, and we've had to put up to this point about- How much?

How expensive a car did you buy outright?

It was $1,400, sir.

You bought a $1,400 car?

No, this is… Sorry, this can't be it because there's some- That's not even close.

Okay, so I'm not talking about this month. I'm talking about over the last several years, you've been making serious money and have chosen not to pay your rent.

No, sir. This has only transpired over the last nine months.

Okay, so why did you get kicked out of the last place then? Why weren't you paying your rent? You have a huge car payment anywhere?

No, sir. Okay.

How many kids do you have?

I have five.

Okay. How old are they?

The oldest is 28 out on her own. The other one is 23. He's out on his own. Good. Then I have a 21-year-old, a 19-year-old, and a 12-year-old that are living with us. Okay.

Does your wife work She doesn't work outside the home, sir?

She doesn't work outside the home. She's doing something on her own on the side, and that brings in an additional now, 1,400 a month.

Okay. If you brought in $10,000 last month, why did you not pay your rent? Because you promised a trip and bought a $1,400 car?

Well, it was a $1,400 car, but unfortunately, it deeded about $2,500 with the repairs that we weren't aware and now it needs another 14.

How long have you been making $100,000 a year? How long have you been making a decent income?

No, nine months. As he said, nine months ago, he got this job. Nine months.

Got you. Okay, I missed that.

All right, David, there's something really glaringly missing in this whole equation, and I can't put my finger on it. I hesitate to just start lashing out at this very frustrating situation because you're hurting and you're scared. Here's the simple... Let me just back into the way you should be doing this. Okay? Okay. The way you should be doing this is you ought to be bringing home the money, and the first thing it does is buy food. The second thing is lights and water. The third thing is you pay your rent. You have the money to do all of those. What in God's name causes someone to buy a $1,400 car and then spend 2,500 on it and then propose to spend another $1,400 on it? You drive that thing over the junkyard, park it, and take a check, and walk away, and go buy something else. This is dumber than a rock, man. Don't do that. Then you guys have got to get on a game plan and start to control your money. I don't know, and quit promising kids stuff, and then you get evicted. Oh, and by the way, commit criminal fraud and don't give them your actual proper social security number, too.

That's like go to jail stuff, man. Don't do this stuff. You guys got to get control. Here's the thing about investing advice. You can find it just about anywhere, but that doesn't mean it'll always help you with your personal goals. Here's another option. Check in with a smart investor pro. These financial advisors can review your plan or help create one that's personalized to you. To find a SmartVestor Pro in your area, go to ramseysolutions. Com/smartvestor. Go to ramseysolutions. Com/smartvestor. Ramsey Solutions is a paid non-client promoter of participating pros.

Learn more at ramseysolutions.

Com/smartvestor.

Jade Walsh, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in, we'll talk about your life and your money. Caleb and Christina are with us on the debt-free stage right here in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions. Hey, guys, how are you? Doing good. How are you, Dave?

So excited to be here.

Well, we're honored to have you. Where you guys live?

Denver, Colorado.

Very cool. Thanks, man. We appreciate you all coming all the way out here. How much debt have you paid off?

We did 102,000 over 36 months.

Good for you. Nice. And your range of income during that time?

We started around 85,000, and we are around 200 now.

Very good. What do you all do for a living?

I'm a personal trainer and online health coach as well. Then up until now, I've done a nursing by trade. I'm an energy medicine I'm also a makeup artist.

Oh, very cool. Up until now, what do you mean?

Up until now because I've made this transition into coming out of nursing and doing my energy medicine practice full-time.

Very cool. Got a baby on the way. Yes, we do. The second one. Okay, very good. Good for you guys. What debt was the $102,000?

A little bit of everything. Cars. Credit cards. Credit cards. And student debt.

Student debt, a couple of personal loans in there, too. How long you guys been married? Two years. Yes. Okay, all right. A little bit before you got married, you started thinking about this stuff. Yes.

We didn't do things exactly the day Ramsey way. Okay, all right.

You decided to get in attack mode on the $30,000, I mean, on the $102,000. Tell Tell us the story. How did you get plugged into the Ramsey stuff?

It was actually right around just before COVID started that we were introduced to you guys. We had a friend that had paid her debt off, and we saw one of her posts. We were just asking about it, and she told us. We both bought the FPU course, and we started going through that. It wasn't long after that that, boom, pandemic.

That messes up personal training. Yeah. The gym closed for a little bit over three months.

That was a big part of where the difference in income was. Because for that time, I ended up working at Costco for a while and making $15 an hour.

That was really all I was doing at the time.

But I also saw that as an opportunity where the biggest portion of the student loans was mine. I noticed that I found out whenever they were pausing the payments and the interest, I was like, this is the time to attack this. That's right. Yeah.

Even though we weren't making as much, we just started attacking it then.

From there, as things started to reopen and life started to get a little more normal. I went back to training and got a different job, got out of the retail world, and we just built it from there.

Yeah, it just took off.

I love that you didn't allow your decrease in income for the time. You didn't let that take an opportunity from you, like that interest-free period and that payment-free period from student loans. That's really cool. Yeah.

That would have been an easy thing to use as an excuse, is what she's saying. Definitely. Might have been a few people I don't know, but not you guys.

To be honest, in the beginning, him and I were not on the same page. We come from very different financial backgrounds, and he was gung-ho from the first go. To be honest, the first 12 months was a little bit rough between both of us because he was like, We're doing this, and I was like, Man, I'm okay to have a little bit of debt here and there. It's totally fine. I was lukewarm. I'm like, Well, babe, Dave says. He's like, This guy. That's How'd you go from lukewarm to boiling? Okay, this is... Well, we listened to your guys' show when we're working out together, and we listened to one of your episodes where some collar was talking about how she sold her home to pay off her debt. I took out the AirPod and I was like, Have you ever thought about this? He was like, Babe, I've literally thought about this a million times, but I know that you won't do it. For me, I was a single mom when I met Caleb, and so it was really important to me to keep this rental, or I mean, this condo that I had purchased by myself.

And I was like, I'm going to save this for my future kiddo so that he always has this piece of investment in his life, or he can do whatever he wants with it later. And then when we heard that podcast episode, I was like, Wait a second. He gets really stressed out with finances, okay? So for me, it was almost a stresser on me, too. And I was just like, Look, if this is going to make our life that much easier, then 100%, I'm on board. Let's get rid of this mortgage. Let's pay off the rest of this debt. Let's get into step three, and I'm all in. Since then, it's not been easy because budgeting is not very fun for me. Obviously, I'm the extrovert, so I need to have all the fun around it. We made it into a date night, and it became something that I wanted to do. Now I'm like, Babe, it's the 30th It's like, We need to get on reviewing what we did the month before, and then we need to get into our every dollar and make sure we're prepped for the next month.

Caleb quit using my name as a cussword. That's right. That's a shift.

It was no longer a threat, yes.

I love it. Way to go, you guys. Very cool. How does it feel to be free?

I was one of those people… When I came out of college, I had 55, close to 60,000 in student debt, and then I didn't them for a few years, and they just built up to a maximum of around 70. There was a good amount of time where I just saw that and I thought, this is just what people live with.

Just hopeless. Yeah, and I'm never going to pay this off. It's just going to be something I have.

When I finally started to realize that's not how you have to live life, you can have a debt-free life, and you don't have to carry these loans and all this extra weight on you, it It feels incredible. Caleb has been dreaming about this moment. When we first started FPU, he was like, I cannot wait until we're on that stage. We're going to do our debt-free scream. We were supposed to go on a baby moon, so this is our baby moon, so I compromised.

Nashville. Nashville's a cool baby moon. It works.

It works. She wanted Vegas, we settled on Nashville. I just wanted to be by a pool.

Somewhat the same, I'm afraid. Way to go, you Way to go. I'm proud of you all. Thank you. I'm proud of you all. Was anybody cheering you on from the outside?

Yeah, I mean, more or less. A lot of our friends and family, even though a lot of people look at it and they don't maybe understand what we're doing, it's not something that they necessarily believe in themselves. We had a lot of people saying, This is really cool that you guys are on this journey. Yeah, I think it's really cool because when you start this journey, you actually start sharing it. People that are also Dave Ramsey weirdos come out and they're like, Oh, yeah, we're so with you. Then they share their story with us, too.

You have to know the code, though. Then they start coming out of the woodwork.

We figured it out.

Better than I deserve is the code. When you say that, that's code for we're doing this.

Yeah, we figured out people don't talk about it unless you bring it up first.

Yeah, because they get trashed by their crazy friends. That's right. That's it. Way to go, you all. Proud of you. Hey, we got a couple of years of every dollar for you. One year of subscriptions for to say thanks for coming down. Thank you. We really appreciate you guys. All right, let's bring the young man up. What's his name and age?

Neil. And he's seven.

Neil is seven, and his parents have changed his life. I love it. Way to go. Very cool stuff. All right, Caleb and Christina and Neo, 102,000 paid off in 36 months, making 85 to 200. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Ready?

3, 2, Two, one.

We're dead free. This is how it's done right here. Oh, man. I've heard the story a lot where I go from cussword to saint. It's possible. All in one fell story arc right there. I love it. This is The Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, this is Habakkuk 3:19, The sovereign Lord is my strength. He makes me as sure-footed as a deer, able to tread upon the heights. Tina Faye said, Confidence is 10% hard work and 90% delusion. Love it. I'm with it. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money. Amy is in Boston. Hi, Amy. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. Thank you for having me. Sure.

What's up?

Well, I was hoping you could help me figure something out. I'm dealing with a lot of resentment and anger and frustration over the fact that I have a friend who is basically committing worker's compensation fraud. She was injured on the job. It was legitimate, and she was collecting worker's comp for a couple of years. For four years, she's been absolutely fine. She collects a good portion of her salary for doing whatever she wants. She acts like it's okay. What's worse is she puts me down for working. I don't know what to do about it. I think if she were not part of my friend group and I wasn't going to see her, I would just stop being friends with her. But she is, and I don't want things to be uncomfortable, and yet I just have such a hard time with this. I've worked my whole life. I raise two kids by myself. I'm divorced since they were three and four. They're in their 20s now. They're both struggling to buy a house, even though they work really hard and they're saving their money. I think they were $40,000 in taxes last year. I got you.

It's just maddening.

Are you the only one in your friend group who knows this? Is this a secret or everybody knows?

Oh, everybody knows. Everybody knows.

Are you the only one who has a problem with it? Because what I'm trying to decide here is if she's the problem or if the friend group in general is the problem.

Well, we go back a long way. We've been friends since grammar school. There were a lot of years when we were raising our families. We're in our 50s now, where we didn't see each other very much. A lot of this wasn't really known. But, yeah, we all have a problem with it. For some reason, we just don't.

Has anyone confronted her with it? Because if you're telling me, I'm trying to put myself in your shoes. If I have a good buddy, which I do, and I've had this situation, I've earned the right at that point to speak truth and say, Hey, listen, here's what you've told me. Unless there's something I'm missing, here's what I'm observing. We've always held each other to higher standards in this. What's going on? If I'm your friend- She's always been the person who will tell you exactly what she thinks.

But if you do it to her, she'll cut you off at the knees. Okay.

Well, she can dish it out, and she can't take it.

Exactly.

What is the big draw here? Why not just- Yeah, cut it off. Why not just several in this relationship? There's no point. You don't have to be mean and call her up and say, I break up. But just quit hanging out with her. She's not good people, period. I don't think there's any chance you're going to change her. Why hang out with people that are misbehaving? You're going to become one of them.

Oh, no.

Yeah, you are because you become who you hang around with, and you're angry all the time about something that is not even your problem.

And that was the indicator. When you first told us, I have a friend who's committing fraud, but then after it, you were like, I do this, and I've done that, and I pay my taxes, and my kids are trying to buy… That's when I was like, Oh, this is really making you feel some type of way. It's not worth it.

Yeah. Why hang out? You're right.

Cut it off.

Why? Okay. What's the purpose? There's no purpose. There's nothing gained when you're with her.

Well, I don't hang out with her.

It's enough to make you call the show.

Yeah, I know. You know why? Because I saw her today. You're right. It makes me crazy I guess my problem with it- That's you.

That's not her. It's not bothering her a bit. She's living rent-free in your head, and she's committing fraud. This check's got it all the way around. I would just let her go do whatever she's going to I know lots of people who misbehave, but I don't want to hang out with them, and I'm certainly not going to spend my brain calories trying to fix them when they don't even want me to.

She's at home eating a ham sandwich, and you're here ripping your hair out over her. Over nothing. I know.

Yeah, you're right. I know. I know, and I think the reason… The reason why I haven't done that, I think it's because I don't want it to be awkward when I know I'm going to see her.

I don't need to see her.

Yeah, I don't even think you need to have any.

I have a friend that I have known for 45 years, roughly, who has Because about 10 years ago, I said, I don't even want to be in the room with them again because they have a tremendous problem with their temper. They'll be going along just fine and sweet as they can be, and then just decide they're going to light somebody up. They usually do it digitally because usually they're a coward. They'll light somebody else in the friend group up and just tear them to pieces. Then go on and act like they didn't do anything. Just pretend like it never happened. Those people are dangerous, and I don't want to be around them. I just made a decision. I've known them a long, long time, but if they're going to be at the party, I'm probably not. I don't want to be around them. It's not awkward at I don't want to expose myself to the foolishness of this human being. That's what you're talking about. It's sad, but…

Friendships run their course, and that's fine. Yeah, they do. Everybody is not a lifer, and that's okay. For sure.

I mean, for sure they do. Because your life changes, they change, everything changes. You move different areas of the country, you start to… Commit fraud? I'm sorry?

I said you start to commit fraud.

Oh, yeah, there's that. You start to be a criminal, and then there's that. Then you run other people down who work hard. Because I run banks, but you work. Look at you. But yeah, I mean, that's... Amy, you're spending too many calories trying to fix somebody that doesn't want to be fixed, and you're doing it over and over in your head, and she doesn't care. I You don't have to call her up and break up. I just wouldn't be around when she's around. That's simple. Then if she calls up and says, Hey, where are you been? Going, I just had enough of you. I just got a gut full of your fraud, and you're running me down, and I'm a hardworking person that pays my bills, and I don't cheat and steal, and you do. I just have enough of you.

You can't be friends with someone you don't respect. Bottom line, there has to be a base level of I respect you as a human being.

I respect something about you. I have people that are friends of mine that vote wrong, but they've got great intellect, and they're just using it poorly. It's a lot of fun to hang out with. I like getting in good-spirited friendly arguments with them. There you go. Because I like being around people that believe things I don't. Of course. Just to learn and to check my ideas against them and all that. It's a little intellectual sparring, if you will. But that's different than, this is the person I'm I'm going to call when my family's in trouble. Because this person, a friend is somebody, a 2:00 AM friend, we call them. So you call at 2:00 AM when the kid's sick and you got to run them to the emergency room and you need somebody to keep the other kid. Yeah.

Well, there's also a level of this, and I'm not trying to go too deep, but if you're committing fraud, you're lying, and it's hard to be friends with liars.

There you go. There you go. Everything moves at the speed of trust, right? Yeah. Wow. Good stuff. All right, that about puts this particular hour of the Ramsey show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.

Dr.

John Deloney here. Mental and emotional health challenges, broken relationships, it's all just part of life, but they don't have to define you. The Dr. John Deloney Show is here to help. It's a collar-driven podcast where you can get practical advice on dealing with anxiety, loneliness, depression, relationship challenges, your kids, and so much more. Listen to questions from our callers, or if you're walking through a tough situation and need some help, give me a call. You are never meant to do life alone, and that's what this podcast is all about. Follow along on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or the Ramsey Network app.

Remember, you're worth being well.