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. I am your host, Jade Warshaw. Your other host for the day is Dr. John Deloney. To my right, give us a call. Number is triple 8825-5225. We will talk about the things that are concerning to you, about your life and your money. I'm here as kind of the money expert, and my guy John is here as your mental health and wellness.

I still don't know why I'm here.

We're thinking about it. We're figuring it out. We're figuring it out as we go, but give us a call. Like I said, the number is triple 825-5225. We'll chop it up with you. Let's go directly to the phone lines. We got Laura in Phoenix, Arizona. What's going on? Laura? Laura, are you there? Did I get her? Are you there? Okay. It was my nails. I blame my nails. Are you there?

Hello?

Okay. What's going on?

Laura.

Jade's nails got in the way again. What's up, Laura?

Yeah, so I need help on so currently we're on 30,000 in debt. So we always sit down and talk about our debts. Say, like, we sit down on the Monday, everything goes good, and then the weekend starts. We have an issue where my husband likes to drink sometimes Friday through Sunday.

Wow.

And then during that time, he forgets about our budget.

Well, I would think so.

Yeah. So then that goes out the window, and then Monday comes, and it's like.

You'Re ready to start again.

Yeah. And he's like, what happened? I thought we had sat down and talked about our budget.

How long has that's been going on?

I would say, like, six months. We've tried to get together and try to pay off our debt, but it's just not working.

Yeah. You're married to somebody who's really struggling with alcohol. This is not a budgeting issue at all.

Yeah.

This is a you love someone who's an alcoholic.

Yeah. And it sucks because he doesn't see it that way. So it seems like I'm the nagging wife.

Right. And here's what you've got to do. Unfortunately, there is no healing in your marriage. There's no healing in your financial life. There's no healing in underneath your marriage and underneath your financial all that leads to this moment where you don't feel safe in your own house, do you?

No.

None of that changes until he chooses to get clean. And so no matter what the issue is, when somebody comes in and says, hey, I'm struggling with X and Y and Z, and I'm drinking, and I can't quit doing X, Y, substance, nothing happens on the mental health side, the marriage side, the emotional, until somebody says, I'm willing to go get clean. And what that means is you have to take care of you because you're not safe. And I don't even doubt that this guy loves you. This guy's got some significant struggles that he, at this time, is unwilling to deal with. And so you have to make your safety priority number one. What does that mean? It probably means you need to find somewhere for him or for you to go for 30 days and say, hey, I'm not going to live with somebody who's unsafe anymore. I'm tired of being on eggshells in my own house. I'm tired of not knowing where all our money goes. I'm tired of not knowing where you go, and then you come home on Monday and kind of make it my fault. And I thought we had all this.

He's got to decide to do something different, and that means going to a meeting starting tomorrow morning, even though tomorrow is Thanksgiving. See what I'm saying? This is a way bigger deal than budgets.

Yeah.

And can I just be honest with you?

Yeah.

You know this, right?

Yeah. He doesn't get upset about it. He just says, what's going on? We sit down, and then I'm like, well, this is what happens. And then he's like, oh, you know what? Yeah, you're right. I'm going to work on it.

So, listen, behavior is a language, and what he's telling you is, I don't care what you and I agreed on. I don't care about our marriage fidelity. I don't care about our agreements. I don't care about our financial health. I care about going on Friday and Saturday nights and doing whatever the crap I want to do, period. I don't care how you feel in my own house. I don't care if you feel like I'm a liar. I don't care if you can't trust me. I get to go party on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Yeah, well, he doesn't go party, but he drinks at home.

Okay, well, he's going to disappear on his own house on Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Yeah. Behavior is a language, and he's talking to you loud and clear. So this is the point. When you go get a friend, you go get a pastor, you go get a therapist, and you sit down and come up with some really ironclad boundaries that are going to be brutal for you to enact. It's going to break your heart.

Yeah.

And that might be there is no alcohol in my home anymore, period. If you lie to me and commit financial infidelity again, then I'm out. I'm going to go move in with my sister. You have to go to AA. Your boundaries have to be pretty tough at this point. Is that fair?

Yeah.

I can hear it on you. You're worth more than the life you're living right now.

Yeah.

Jade. Am I crazy?

No, you're not crazy. I hate this for you. It's tough. And people all the time, they call in and they're talking about issues that aren't they're not money issues. And here we're always telling people, like, combine your money, combine your money. But there are times where it's like there are situations where like, no, don't combine your money. Like you said, you seek counsel. And I tell people all the time, there's this acronym I use about keeping your money safe. And it's like if you're in these situations, like our friend calling in here, Laura, where you're concerned, the first thing is you need to seek like, that's the S, you got to seek counsel. And the A is if there's abuse and if there's addiction, that's when you got to do it. Or the F, financial infidelity, that's what we're looking at. And then they're going to give you the E, which is you can evaluate your options based on the boundaries you have. Because I'd like to say it's as easy as, all right, move out tomorrow. But it's never that easy.

Never.

And there's always awake. You know what I'm saying?

Always.

And so I would just encourage anybody who's in that situation, like I said, abuse, addiction, financial infidelity. Yeah, like you said, you're not safe in your own home. And that person cannot have continued access to the things that make you safe in your family. That keeps your kids safe. Because if you have somebody who's spending all the money on substance and your kid can't have groceries and your kid can't eat and you can't get to work because there's no money for gas yeah. You got to put some boundaries in place. And you have to say, like you said, in my home, there will be none of this. And until this happens, you will not have access. And that's probably the toughest line that you can lay down. But that's loving yourself well. And honestly, that's loving them well.

Right. And it's loving this thing that we decided to create together, which is called a marriage.

That's right. It's so tough. I hate that she's going through that. I hate that it's happening during a time like this. The holidays where you're supposed to be able to come together with the ones you love. Sometimes you have to create that distance, that separation, and create that boundary so that ultimately things can get better and you can find healing. This is the Ramsey show.

Yo, yo, Dr. John Deloney here. Hey, it's pumpkin spice, late season. Just joking. Those are gross. But it is fall. It's a little cooler. The sun's going down earlier, and God help us, daylight Savings time is ending or starting or whatever. The time is changing again and it can be exhausting to adjust. So make sure you're moving your body every day. Make sure you get some sunlight in the morning and hopefully in the evening. And make sure you get seven to 9 hours of sleep every night. And I can't stress enough how important this is. Sleep is the cornerstone to your physical and mental health. And for me, amazing sleep starts with an extraordinary mattress. And that's why I love DreamCloud right now, DreamCloud is running an incredible offer. 40% off all mattresses, plus an additional $50 in savings exclusively for our listeners. Go to dreamcloudsleep.com and enter promo code John Deloney. That's Dreamcloudsleep.com with code John Deloney for 40% off all mattresses plus an extra $50 in savings.

Hey, what's going on? You're listening to the Ramsay show. By the way, thank you for listening to the Ramsay Show. I'm your host today, Jade Warshaw. I am joined by my buddy, bestselling author, host of the Dr. John Deloney Show. The guy's name is Dr. John Deloney. If you were not sure about that, we are going to take your calls all afternoon. Give us a call. The number is triple 8825-5225 and we will help out, sort out your situation. Let's go straight to the phone lines. We've got Anthony in Anchorage, Alaska. What's going on, Anthony?

Hey, how are you guys doing today?

Doing good. How can we help?

I'm calling I've been struggling with making my payments every month to try and get out of debt. I've never missed a payment since I've had start building my credit, but I can't afford to make more than the minimum payments and I'm never able to catch up. And that's the problem I'm facing.

How many payments are you trying to make? Like how much debt do you have?

Between me and my wife both, we've got about 30,000 in consumer debt and another 5000 in student loans.

Okay. So can you sort out for me what the 30,000 is?

It's all credit card vet bills, furniture.

Credit cards, just bad decisions, various credit card credit lines?

Correct.

Okay. And can you tell me what you guys are earning each month combined, what you're taking home?

Monthly take home after taxes? I get about 5000 from my job after paying for benefits and everything.

Okay.

Currently I'm a full time student, so I get another $2,200 a month for my veteran benefits.

Okay, cool. What about your wife?

My wife just started her own business back in July. Right now she's only making enough income to sustain her business to pay her rent, pay for her supplies and stuff like that. Correct.

Okay.

Is there a trajectory on that business after half a year? Is there an honesty reckoning? Is this a really nice hobby or are we headed somewhere?

We've had that conversation a little bit. We pay for her to go to school and then she just started the business in July. Ideally she needs to be able to help contribute once I am no longer a full time student is the plan right now.

What's the nature of the business that she's doing?

She is an esthetician.

Okay. My question is, is there a way that she can do that business and also bring in some part time income as well?

That's a discussion we just had last week in regards to her looking into some part time work to at least be able to help me pay some of this stuff down because I don't have the time to pick up any extra shifts between working full time and going to school full time, bringing any extra income.

And what does she feel about that?

She is open to it, unfortunately. She doesn't nothing against my wife, she doesn't have any college or post school secondary training.

I don't think she needs it to pick up part time work. And when I say part time, go make $20 an hour, I don't care. I just want her bringing in some form of income. And I think that's going to help in many ways. A, it's going to help you guys get more income in, but two, it's going to help take a little bit of the heat off of her in this thing that she's trying to build right now. She can still feel like, all right, I'm building this thing for myself, but I'm also contributing in another way that my family really needs right now, and that's going to help everybody. So that's kind of something. Put it on the shelf, you and her, think about it, pray about it, whatever. But the reason you called in is you've got this debt here, $35,000 of debt, and you're feeling the crunch of that because it's a lot of payments that you're throwing away. You mentioned it's $30,000 of various credit lines. So each month you're having to keep track of that. And I can tell you firsthand, when you've got all those debtors that you've got to pay, it's just frustrating.

It's just a lot to keep track of. And I think you're feeling that the advice is the same that I would give anybody, regardless of the amount of debt, regardless of how many debts. What I would tell you to do is list these debts from smallest to largest. So those 30,000, I'd go through each one and be like, all right, what is the smallest balance? And list them from smallest to largest via balance. All right. And then it's like, okay, now we know what it is. We got to pay these off. And the method to pay that off is simple. You got to get cash on it. Do you have any cash saved anywhere that's not retirement money?

I don't. All the cash I've had in savings has kind of dwindled over the last year between my wife going back to school and me kind of supplementing everything. I've been doing the snowball method a little bit. I had about $40,000 in debt earlier this summer, and I paid off some small 1000 $502,000 bills, whether it's to the vet or for furniture or whatnot. So I've kind of taken care of all the small stuff that's now coming towards the bigger credit card.

Oh, go ahead, John.

I was going to say, is this the time? It sounds like you got two people in school, you got a wife launching a business, and you're working full time. Either one of two things might just have to be true this season that you're going to finish school and you're going to pause. Your goal is going to be to get out of school debt free. And then you all going to attack this when you get your full time gig. Or, I just need to take six months off from school. I need to take a leave. I had students do that every single semester. I took a number of leaves across all my degrees for various things that happened. I had a kid, wife got sick, had to go do this, wanted to make some more money, whatever the thing was, and just saying, I'm going to go earn 10,000 extra bucks in this semester and get this stuff paid off, or $15,000 or whatever I'm like, I've got to do.

Or your wife takes full time work and says, I'm just doing the anesthetician stuff on the side as a hobby until that's right. But you all are all trying. They're all trying to do everything, all the dreams.

I don't want to kick you while you're down, but $30,000 isn't a ton of debt. That's like you and your wife really making some hard calls for a very short period of 18 months max. See what I'm saying?

Right?

So tell me, what's your world look like if you quit school for a semester? You pause school?

Part of the reason why I went back to school is because I get that monthly tax free stipend.

Yeah, but is that just going to school?

No, and it goes directly into my bank account. I'm a veteran, so I get a GI bill housing benefit.

Okay.

It pays me $2,200 a month, tax free and income directly into my bank account.

What's happened to that other $5,000, then?

I have a very large mortgage. I owe $470,000 on a mortgage. I've only been in the house for a year and a half.

What's the monthly payment?

$3,200.

Dang it. Okay, now there's the problem right there.

Lead with that next time.

Well, John, you detected that. Okay, there's your problem, right?

Sell your house. Homie.

You're so far above the percentage.

I feel like I'm stuck, that if I sell my house, I'm going to lose money and go into a rental that's going to cost me.

Well, let's not just be scared of that. Let's see if that's actually true. So what'd you buy the house for and what do you owe on it, and what would it sell for? Let's actually ask those real questions and see if that's true.

We were renting. I was paying $2,500 a month in rent. This was beginning of 2022.

Okay.

I looked into purchasing our home. We found a home, purchased it in May of 2022. Four and a half percent interest. It was roughly all the fees. Ended up being close to $500,000.

Okay, so what do you owe on it?

472,000.

And what can you sell it for?

I don't have a locked in estimate, according to my mortgage broker. I need somebody to come out and reevaluate the home to get up to date.

If I'm you, I'm starting to get those numbers, and I am holding on as tight as I can for the next few months because I want you to own it. Two years, so that if you do have a windfall on this, that you're not hit with capital gains. And I want you to seriously consider, like, if I was your mama, I'd be like, you better do it. Sell this house.

Can afford it, man.

It's half it's so much. And there's not a trajectory that you have shown us that gets you there in the next even five years. Your wife's building a business. You're in school. The business is not making money yet, and you're in debt. And I just think that when you get out from under this house, you are going to take a giant, deep breath. You don't have any kids yet, right?

I have a six year old.

Okay. You have a six year old. So we're finding something. Honestly, at this point, anything that's less expensive than the over $3,000 that you're spending right now is going to help you.

And you're a veteran, brother, so think of it through those eyes, through that lens. When you're faced with a whole bunch of variables and they don't all add up. Let's begin to pull variables off the table. Things that we thought were absolutes, they're not. Your wife doesn't have to start a new business right now. You don't have to be in school. You don't have to be in a big $500,000 house. All these things can come off the table. Let's seek freedom. Let's don't seek to try to make duct tape this chaos together. Let's seek freedom over all else right now. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Hey, folks, it's Dr. John Deloney. This time of year can be hard, and seasonal affective disorder is real. When I moved to Nashville, the time change caught me off guard. It got dark at like, 430, and I was ready for bed by 06:45. P.m.. Things weren't as fun. Even the food lost its flavor. Now I know how to prepare my body. When things get dark, I go outside to enjoy nature. I stick to an exercise routine, and I intentionally connect with people. Another thing I did is therapy.

Therapy can be a bright spot even when the sun goes down too soon. Something positive and interactive to make us feel grounded and give us the tools to manage the way seasonal change can affect our bodies. So if you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. BetterHelp is flexible because it's totally online, so it can fit into any schedule. Just fill out a short questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist. You can switch therapists at any time for no charge. Find your bright spot this season with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com Deloney today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. He lp.com deloney.

This is the Ramsay show. Thank you for listening. My name is Jade Warshaw, joined by Dr. John Deloney. We're taking your calls this hour. The number is triple 8825-5225, but quick shout out to you guys, to the folks listening to the show, whether you listen on podcast or maybe you log into YouTube and you watch it on YouTube, or maybe you go directly into the Ramsay app and you listen to it through there. Number one, we're just grateful to have you because the fact of the matter is, without you guys, there's no show and nothing around here actually happens because we need people like you to watch it and enjoy it and for it to help you. And you've proven that it does because this thing is like number one in so many categories. Or if not number one, it's like right up there. So thank you for doing that. As a matter of fact, we would like you to consider continuing to do all that. So keep listening. And while you're listening, go ahead and get on there and like and subscribe and share it. Do all those things. Because if this show has helped you, chances are it can help somebody else and you might be the catalyst to make that happen.

So, like, subscribe, share. We would be truly, truly thankful in this season of thankfulness. So thank you so much. Let's go to the phone lines. We've got Jackson in Grand Rapids, Michigan. What's going on, Jackson?

Sorry, Ms. Jackson. What's up?

Hi, guys. Thank you so much for taking my call. So I'm going to try and articulate my question best I can. Okay? So I'm fairly new to listening to you guys over the last couple of weeks, and I've introduced this whole plan to my wife and we've got ourself in quite the hole. And my main question is she deals with a lot of mental illness and she has a really hard time seeing the big picture. And honestly, it's all very overwhelming for me as well. But I'm kind of like the backbone to everything and just trying to get her fully on board with everything and not thinking that this isn't something that we're capable of doing.

When you say what's she struggling with.

Specifically, she has depression, anxiety. She's been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, Add. So it's just kind of like a handful of things.

So the first thing, if I meet somebody and they come to me and say I've been diagnosed with all of these things, the first thing I'm going to tell them, whether it's my friend or whether somebody's in a coaching situation with me or a family member, I would tell them, I need you to go find a new provider and get reevaluated, because that's a lot of variation there. It's all over the place. Yeah. As a part of there's a very different conversation if somebody truly has borderline personality disorder and their emotional life feels like it's on fire. Right. That's a different conversation. Trying to get somebody to learn about how their emotions interact with reality, with the real world, as well as it's a different conversation when you're talking to somebody who's struggling with depression or anxiety. Right. So I would start there. The second thing I would start with is this. Does your wife know that her feelings are very big on things, whether they're up or whether they're down? Can you all agree on that?

Yeah.

Okay. Will she trust you?

She does trust me, I think, to an extent.

Your voice tells me absolutely not even a little bit.

I think she trusts me, but like I said, she just has a hard time seeing the bigger picture.

That's not what I'm asking for. Asking somebody who has borderline personality disorder, asking somebody who's got anxiety disorders to see a bigger picture is truly unfair, especially at the beginning. What I'll often ask is, will you hold my hand? Do you trust me? And you watch somebody's shoulders drop, and they go, I do, and say, okay, we've got to make a budget because I don't feel safe. Okay. And my body feels like you're taking something from me. You're stealing something from me. My body feels like it's on fire. I feel like I hate you. I feel like you're the greatest person. Whatever. They're feeling great. Do you trust me yes. To make the next right choice for us? Yes. And that only works if they are seeing a provider that they can get some true clinically based support and help for. Right. And if you can't get that basic level of trust, then you have to start asking yourself, how can I make sure that we are safe? Because we can't work in partnership together at this moment. We will someday, but we can't right now. Does that make sense? Yes. And really, I hope I'm not over clarifying it, but I'm trying to overclarify it, because you're allowing your like, I'm the backbone.

I got to do all this stuff. I got to make her happy. With all four of those diagnostics, you can never be, quote, unquote, happy. Right. You just gave everyone I've got a couple of those diagnostics, dude. Sometimes I don't care what I feel like. I just got to do the next right thing.

Wow.

Yeah.

So I haven't spent my life trying to be happy. I've spent my life saying, if I do these things, my body's going to feel good at the end of the day. Does that make sense? Right. That took a lot of therapy, a lot of counseling. My wife's pretty amazing. I have some great friends. Right. I had to do a whole lot of stuff to get here.

Yeah.

So don't try to solve it all at once, but I definitely would start with good getting having a new conversation. Do you have a particular issue you all are struggling with right now?

I just did the math, and we have over $130,000 in debt. We don't even own a house, and we make okay money. She works part time. I'm working two jobs right now.

How much?

Before taxes and everything? I did the math. We made 80,000 this year. One of my jobs is 47, and the other one is about 15, and hers is 20. That's all before taxes and everything, but I just don't even know where to start. We did this debt consolidation thing, which I just feel like was a band Aid.

It wasn't, actually. You took a knife and stuck it in the other leg? That's what that was.

And then I did a 401K loan.

Then you took a knife and stuck it in your arm? Yeah. What else did you do?

We have a lot going on, and honestly, I lost. I don't know where to start. And I trying to get her on page when I don't even know 100% what I'm doing. I just know we need to do something.

So if she's got those challenges, you know what she senses? She feels that you don't know where you are on the map. Jade's going to walk you on the map, but I want you to hear this before she says anything. Jade had way more debt than that. Me and my wife, we had way more debt than that. That number you just gave me doesn't scare me at all.

Not a bit.

Okay. You just have to decide. I'm going to go make this thing a priority.

Absolutely.

And your wife has to make her healing a priority. You get those two things lined up, man. Dude, it's game. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, what John said is exactly I'm not blinking. When to hear $130,000 of debt. I mean, look, it's not good, but don't be scared. Just go. Okay. It's like John said. What's the next right thing that I need to do? And for you? The next right thing. If you're not on a budget, you need to get on a budget. Are you on one?

I did the free trial of every dollar, and we kind of walked through a little bit together.

Okay, good.

So we're kind of working through that a little bit, figuring that out.

Okay.

This is, like, new within the last couple of weeks.

Okay, good. So Austin's going to pick up, and after this call, he's going to give you a copy of my book, money is not a Math Problem. And as part of that, you're going to sign up, and you're going to get three months free of every dollar. Premium, because I think you need premium that's going to help you walk through this, and you'll get three months free of that to test it out.

Thank you.

That's going to be everything, because this budget. Is going to tell you what's what. I want you guys sitting down and I want you to complete your budget, if you haven't already, tonight, because you just getting a handle on the numbers, even if it's not good. Even if you do that budget and you realize, man, we're negative $75 every month, no wonder there's a problem. Just seeing it and knowing what it is is still going to make you exhale and be like, all right, I know what it is. Now I see we have an income problem. Or you might do that budget and realize, hey, we have a decent amount. It just looks like we're spending too much. And if that's the case, again, you're going to exhale and know, okay, we've got to cut back on our spending, or it's a combination of both. And so just knowing that is going to go, okay, I see what the game plan is. Now we need to create a plan of attack. Does that make sense? Yes, it does, because at the end of the day, the math is the same. You still have to make the payments.

And this is for anybody listening. Debt doesn't go away unless you make the payments. You can't move it over here. You can't take out this loan and cover it up with your mortgage. You have to actually make the payments. And for most of us, that's called going out and getting an old fashioned job, okay? You can't get aside the work. You have to put on work boots, do the work. You have to cut back your spending. No more chilies, no more applebee's. You got to do the work. You got to make the sacrifice and trust and believe it will show. You can't do this and kind of do it sneakily or do it without anybody noticing. You're going to see it and you're going to feel it, and it's going to suck for a minute, but then you're going to be out of debt. This is the Ramsay show.

I say it all the time. Debt is dumb and cash is king. But when it comes to life insurance, cash value is crap. Cash value life insurance is a high cost product with little to no return on your so called investment. The main benefit is fat commission checks for your agent. Term life from Xander. Insurance is a much better way to protect your family's future. Xander shops the top companies to find you the most affordable term life rates. Then you can use what you save compared to those cash value premiums to really build wealth. Go to xander.com or call 803 5642 80.

You are listening to the Ramsay show. I am jade. This is John. We're with you for the next couple hours taking your calls. The number is triple 8825-5225. If you want to give us a call I'm kind of hype. I'm not going to lie. Tomorrow's Thanksgiving. I'm excited about that. But more than that my favorite part of Thanksgiving is actually the day after Thanksgiving. Not just because of the leftovers.

John, I can imagine the leftovers in your home are pretty amazing. Are you cooking a spread?

Look, they're on point. I'm not going to lie about that. But more so, I'm talking about Black Friday.

I know Black Friday.

Come on. Do y'all go shopping for Black Friday?

I go to the woods because I have self control problems, and so I just take myself out of internet range.

John, you're different, man. And I'm not mad at that. You're doing right. But the rest of us listen.

The other night I was having dessert with my wife, and I couldn't stop, and I literally took my fork and I just hit it under the floor. And she goes, did you do that on purpose? And I go, yeah, but I'm not.

You couldn't stop eating the dessert?

I could have. I didn't want to stop, so I have to put these roadblocks in front of me.

What was the dessert? Now we want to know what it was.

Do you know what it was just sugar and goo and whatever. I don't know.

So John's in his house, like Winnie the pooh just gobbling down bags of sugar and honey.

I love it. I love this time of year, man. I love it.

Me too. Not gonna lie. Black Friday. I love it. We're the type. We get up early, we go out into I love it. I will elbow somebody for an air fryer in 2 seconds. I love the madness. I save up a budget and I put the line item, and I just get wild. I love it. I don't know what it is. Best Buy. I don't need anything at best buy, but I want to be there at 07:00 a.m. Going crazy. But here at Ramsay solutions, we are also having a black Friday sale. And the good thing is you don't have to put anybody in a headlock to get your deal because it's on the interwebs.

John, you can just roll over, pick up your phone, and start clicking.

You don't even have to get out of bed. But we've got early access. Some of our best deals of the year. You can get meaningful gifts for your whole family, your friends, everybody as low as $8.

I know this is nothing. You're about to learn this because you got a book coming out. This is the time of year when Dave just starts selling all your stuff. And for those of you who don't know, we make a commission off the sales price. And we always love it when Dave's like, how about $5? Thanks, Dave. Thanks, Dave.

That's all right, because his are on sale, too. I mean, you can get best selling books like the total money makeover. That's his book. So if he's putting it on sale for $10, look, we're all a little bit different place.

We're a little bit different place.

Really?

I'm just kidding. Of course you are. Baby steps. Millionaires. And here's your book, John. Own your past, chain your future for just $10.

Why not, man?

Why not? That's right. Put it for 70% off.

There you go.

Financial Peace University. I will say this is my favorite one. The fact that you can get Financial Peace University for under $60 is madness. Sheer craziness. I tell folks all the time the principals in Financial Peace University are what helped my husband and I pay off almost half a million dollars of debt. So technically this product is worth half a million dollars and you're getting it for 60. That's crazy. Rachel Cruz wallet is back. That's on sale and that's a product that somehow is almost never on sale. So the fact that it's on sale is great. And of course, questions for humans, cards are on sale cards starting at $10. So that's pretty good. So shop Black Friday. If you're not like me, you don't want to go out into the cold or out there with crazy folks who will just cut you in line. Just roll over in your bed, turn on your internet and log on to Ramsaysolutions.com slash store and get yourself a deal and get you some gifts for everybody in your family. But don't go over budget doing it. All right? Is that cool? Cool with me. Let's go to the phone lines.

We have Andrew in Sacramento, California. What's going on, Andrew?

Hey, thank you for taking my call. How you guys doing?

We're doing good. I'm cutting up.

Are you a Black Friday dude? Are you going to go?

No, I'm just like you. I'll go to the woods and hide away.

I love it.

You guys are good. Good job. How can we help?

So my question is, I'm 32. I'm debt free. Besides my mortgage, I have my six months emergency funds already put aside. My question is about the 15% retirement. Is that gross? Is that like on top of your employer sponsored or is that including your employer sponsored what you already contribute to that.

So you want it to be off of your gross income period. Okay, that's it.

So gross income. So I'm already putting money into my employer and sponsored. If that already equals close to 15%, that's fine right there. Or should I add more on top of that?

Help me understand. Tell me again.

Let me say this. If your employer has a match up to 5% and you put in 5% and they put in 5%, we want you to put in another 10% in. We want their match to be gravy.

Oh, I see what you're saying. Thank you, John. I was confused as to what you're asking. Yeah. No matter what your company sponsored, you were always doing 15%. And the reason for that, there's a reason for that. And that is basically we just want you building the habit of investing and the fact is, you might move on and go to another company that offers no match or offers a lower match or offers something different in way of benefits, and we want your budget and your habit used to, no matter what, I invest 15%. And so that's kind of the reasoning behind that. Fair enough.

Yes. And then my second question was I want to buy a second home, but I'm not sure if I should focus on paying off this mortgage first before I start saving up for another home, because ultimately, I want to make this house a rental property and then move into my forever home. Should I focus on paying off this mortgage first, or is it okay to start saving up more money for my forever home and then just have renters end up paying this mortgage off?

Yeah, if it were me, I'd pay off your current home first. That's what we call baby step seven is once you've paid that house off and you're completely free, and then think about how much money you would have saved up not having a mortgage that you could quickly save up and pay cash for another residence that you decide to be a rental. Or maybe you move in that one and make your current one a rental. You've got so many options. The only thing that I would say is, whatever you end up buying after your primary residence, buy it in cash, dude.

Okay.

Yeah. So this is kind of, like, the.

Best thing I could just hear, like, want. Yeah, I know, bro. This is exactly what I'm doing.

Okay.

We paid off the house that we live in, and now we're saving up for dude, it's the worst, man, because we could go pull a mortgage right now, and I'm not putting myself right back in that mess.

Yeah.

And I hate it because everything in my life feels like it would be better if I just did that, except for the one thing, which would mean I'm back to being owned by a bank, and I don't like that. I don't like being owned.

That's true.

Andrew, you're 32, and you're not the only one. I think that there's just such this rush that we feel like, I got to hurry up and get this, and I got to hurry up and get my rental, and I got to hurry up, and I get it. We all want to get to this perceived place of success, and, like, okay, I made it with my money. We're all trying to get there, but we really have to be careful in all of our getting that we're also getting the right understanding and that we're doing things correctly so that it doesn't end in folly. Right. Because the worst thing ever would be if you were like, I'm so excited to be rich and I'm so excited to be successful that I don't pay off this mortgage and I go get this other mortgage. And now you're racked with debt and you thought you were going to rent it out, but your renters are kind of wishy washy and they're not paying. And then the roof breaks, and then there's earthquake. Like all these things that have the ability to happen. It will feel totally different had you not gone into debt as opposed to being strapped with debt.

And I'm like, you're in Sacramento, so whatever real estate you're talking about buying is not going to be $100,000 is all I'm saying. So you don't want that strapped to you. I would much rather approach this knowing, hey, I get to control this and time is not pushing me to do anything. I make the call. Does that make sense? And I think that way you're walking along that path and you're doing it with the least amount of risk, but honestly, the ultimate amount of reward.

If you really think about it, we just came out of a scenario where I think in your state it was illegal to evict people even if they weren't paying during COVID that's show. But that mortgage still has right. And so it's not like we're just making this up for fun. It's just we just take call after call after thousands and thousands of calls of people going, what do I do, what do I do, what do I do?

And that's a good point, John, because.

We just went through it.

That's a good point. It's not like we're trying to think of every bad thing that could ever happen.

No, we just take the calls of the thing, the real things that do happen.

Yeah. And the fact of the matter is most of our best laid plans are with this assumption that everything will go well.

Even the phrase, I'm going to buy my dream home, dude. No, you're not.

Yeah, we don't know. We don't know. You just don't know what's going to happen. And for that reason alone, I just love operating with as less risk as, right, that's so anyway, thanks for listening, guys. That does it for this hour of the show. Be sure to hang on with us. John and I will be back for the next hour. 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 amazing relationships. I'm your host, Jade Warshaw. I am joined by Dr. John Deloney who is making silly faces at the camera. If you're watching on YouTube, we're going to take your calls all hour. Give us a call. The number is triple 8825-5225 and we're going to try to help you out. Hey, it's the day before Thanksgiving and I am excited. I've actually been really on ten this whole month because John, you got your fancy book out. Well, I don't know how fancy it is, but I'm pretty proud of it.

Super fancy.

Thank you.

Number one, you're on a cover and you're fancy. And two, the stuff in it's awesome. And three, we sold a Bajillion Redefining Anxiety Quick Reads, and your book is way surpassing the way mine got out, so it's pretty exciting, man.

Well, it is exciting. And you can still preorder it. The actual drop date, as they say, is not until December. So until then, preorder. Because you get some cool things in the process. You get three months free of every dollar premium, which is the business, if I do say so myself. So go ahead and preorder it today. Here's the thing. It's $10. It's $10. You can't get anything for $10 anymore.

John two cups of coffee.

Two cups of coffee and not at Starbucks, because you don't even think about it, because Starbucks drinks are that's a.

Cup and a half at Starbucks.

Okay? $10 and you can finally get to the bottom of why you have not been able to stick to your budget. That is the number one question. Jade I made the budget, just can't stick to it. Or Jade, I tried it, but for some reason, it's just not working for me. We are getting to the bottom of that in this quick read once and for all. And by the way, it's called a quick read. Because you read it quick, it's fast. You can read this thing in maybe two, two and a half hours. If you're me, it might take you, like, 245, because I read a little bit slower, John.

Here's what's also good about that. If you are 55 and you make a good income and you still can't figure out how to hold together, you can read it. And if you are 14, you can hand this to your kids and say, I want you to read this now, because by the time you get there, they're going to have some other scheme they're trying to get you on. They're not going to be bitcoin. It's going to be, I don't know, whatever. They're trading stuff, animals, toys, whatever. Read this. It's for everybody. It's awesome.

The book's called money's, not a math problem. Because it's not. It starts up here in the old cranium. That's what we're talking about. The things you believe, the lies that you believe. And anybody can read it. It is me talking to you. It's not a bunch of facts and numbers. It's just us talking. So pick up your copy today. I would be so grateful if you did. Or give it to somebody as a gift. They'd be so grateful if you did. Let's go straight to the phone lines. We've got Linnae in Jacksonville, Florida. My state home state. What's going on, Linnae?

Hi, I'm calling to see if I can get you all's opinion or advice on whether or not I should sell my home. Okay, just a little background information. I purchased my home in December of last year. Now, this was purchased prior to me finding the Dave Ramsay steps. Okay, I am on Ramsay step number two. I have $95,000 in debt that is a mix of student loans and some consumer debt there.

Do you mind breaking that down a little bit further just so I can have a good idea of it?

Absolutely. So 70,000 for student loans and the remainder would go to car, which is about 1500. Not much left on that. Credit cards and personal loans.

Okay, so 70,000 on student loans, not seven.

Yes.

Okay, sorry.

No, 70,000, I got you.

Okay. And then the other 13,000 is about various things.

Yes. Credit cards and personal loans there.

Okay, keep going. Keep telling us more.

You got it. My take home pay or yes. After insurance is taken out. And four three B investments is around 6600 to about 8000 a month. And that is if I pick up some extra shifts with another practice that I work with. So my mortgage is 3600 a month and it's just I want to get you all advice on, hey, can I buckle down and for sure just still try to tackle this debt? Or is it best for me to go ahead and sell this home so I can have more to be able to put towards the debt? Because again, I'm about $95,000.

Yeah. She okay, first, thank you for sharing all that because it's not easy to get on the air and just lay it bare. Right. So thank you.

Yes, absolutely.

So as it sits yeah. Your mortgage is more than half of your income on a lower month. Those months that you don't do the extra work, you've got the 403 B contribution. Are you able to stop that?

I can, yeah.

Okay. How much a month is going towards that?

600.

Oh, 600, okay, that's helpful. Okay, good, I like to hear that. So now we're doing better. So now we're closer to 7200. So I like that. The point is, can we find another 20% of income to keep coming in all the time so that we can get this from 50% at least into the like 30%, 29% range? Because that I can feel good with. Does that make sense? So we just found $600 just in your 403 contribution. And by the way, I'm not saying that this is the situation for always. This is just temporary while we're paying the debt off. Right, fair. So tomorrow I turn that off. I turn that off instantly so you can get that money back. And then if you add your overtime work, we're getting right, so obviously nobody wants to work overtime the rest of their life. John. So the next part is we've got to get this debt paid off and then we've got to get our income up. Is there a trajectory that you see your income going up long term that's not you overtiming and side hustling?

Not currently.

What do you do for a living?

Nurse practitioner.

You're telling me there's not a job trajectory for you as a nurse practitioner?

Again, remember, we're just looking for 25%. We're looking for 25% more money.

Right.

And you're paying to a 403. B, are you working in a nonprofit?

Yes.

Correct.

Okay. Are you at a university?

No.

I hear in your voice that you want us to tell you to sell this house.

No, I mean, honestly, I love my home. I really do. It's just a matter of I'm already trying to work some extra shifts outside of my primary role so that I can get that extra income. So then it becomes, okay, how else can I bring in some extra income to really make a dent in the debt?

I may have missed this, and truthfully.

Obviously, I want to pay it off as soon as possible. I may need to be a bit more patient, be a bit more realistic in know going.

And me and jay don't like patient. We like to just get stuff done.

I know.

If you sold this house right now, what would you pocket?

I purchased price was 415. Currently looking at about 440.

Okay, so after your realtor fees, you wouldn't take home a ton, but it'd be some right, right.

This is tough. Look, at the end of the day, you can look at this equation.

Honestly, I love my home. I would love to stay in it, but at the same time, I want to be able to you want freedom. It's paycheck to paycheck.

Right, I get it. And the thing is, you've got one of two paths here. You can either find a way that you're earning 20% more right. Because, again, the 25% is off your gross. It's not your gross after your deductions. Right. So we found some of it with the 600, you got to find 20% more income, and you have to ask yourself, is this me getting my career up over time, or am I not going to find the 25% and I'm going to get out of this house? The choice is yours. This is the ramsay show. Hi, everybody. I'm Kathy lee gifford, and I've been around a long time. Every one of us, as we age, realizes that things are changing in our bodies, in the world around us. Lots of times I don't like what's happening. So what can I do about it? Well, the one thing we can do is pray, right? The other thing we can do is take better care of ourselves. I do that by taking balance of nature, because I'm not really good at nutrition. I'm too busy, I'm on the run, and I don't eat enough vegetables, and I certainly don't eat enough fruit.

And when I take balance of nature, I can feel good that I've done something for myself that I can actually control. So take control. Get balance of nature. Start your journey to better health with balance of nature. Go to balanceofnature.com to get 35% off your first preferred order with free shipping and our money back guarantee, go to balanceofnature.com or call 1802 468751 and get this special offer by using discount code KLG. What's going on? This is the Ramsay show. I'm Jade Warshaw. This is Dr. John Deloney on the right of me, and we are taking your calls all afternoon along. Give us a call. Triple 8825-5225 is the number. I will talk to you about the things that have to do with your money. And John will jump in on that because he knows the stuff, too, but he's the guy that's going to help you with the relational stuff, what's going on, all the other stuff. Right. I feel like money is almost never just money. Right.

It's always something going on.

It's always something going on. And we'll help you with that. So give us a call. We'd be happy to have you on the line. Let's go to the lines. We've got Laken in Nashville. Nashville, Tennessee, in the ville. What's going on, Laken?

How are you guys?

We're doing good. How can we help you?

Well, I was just curious of how I could do better or what I could change. I don't know if I'm missing something, but I'm 23, I'm a student. I work part time. I don't have any debt. I have some money in 401 and I have some stocks. I have $2,500 in a high yield savings account and then about $3,500 just in a regular savings account.

Okay.

And so I'm just wondering what else I could be doing.

How old did you say you are? 23. Okay. What's your living situation?

I live with a roommate in just a little town.

Cool. And what's your job? What are you earning? Because you're doing a good job, an excellent job.

Thank you. I work at Starbucks. I'm a barista, so I get free tuition through them so don't have to pay for school. I make about $800 a month worth everything taken out. And then through college, my parents give me $1,300 a month.

Okay, so you got kind of a combined situation there, because I was going to say, how did you manage to save this money making $800 a month? But we got a little allowance here from mom and dad.

I'm not what are you worried about? You're winning across every metric for every college student I know.

Well, I wouldn't necessarily say I'm worried. I just want to put myself in a really good position. My parents have done a good job of preparing their lives for me and my sister and helping us out, and I want to be able to do that starting now, just for my future and then my kids future, and just setting up my whole family line on a good trajectory. So I don't know what else I can be doing.

Look, I'm giving you a slow clap. I'm just giving you the Mighty Ducks slow clap because I just love that you're thinking like this. Do you understand at 23?

Thinking generationally dude, my brain cells were.

Not doing that at 23. And I'm so grateful that you are. Hey, let's walk through what you told me. No debt. Excellent. You told me you've got a 401K through Starbucks. That's great. And you're contributing to that. And then you told me you've got about $6,000 saved, some of it's in a high yield and some of it's just in a regular savings.

How much you got in stocks?

I just have like $1,000 in stocks. All that's been free. Starbucks gives us stocks every year. And then in my four hundred and one K I have just about 15,000.

A little over that 15 grand in a 401.

Really? So look again, I'm just very good. Shook. Very good. What I would do is I'm just going to walk through and just literally be a fine toothed comb because you're doing such a great job. The money you have saved, I'd probably put it all in the high yield savings account just so you can get a better rate of return. They're pretty high right now, so that's good. And for what I'm just going to call that is, I'm going to call that your three to six month expenses, right? Because it covers your rent for a couple of months. How much is your rent, by the way?

Well my portion would come out to maybe 1300, like all the utilities and whatnot.

Okay. So what I would do is I would sit down with a calculator or sit down with your budget and calculate out what your expenses are. Like basic I'm not talking about the budget with all the bells and whistles. I'm talking about just the basic expenses it takes for you to get to live if you were to lose your job, create, find out what the number is for six months of expenses. And that's your next goal. That's what I want you to save up. You've got 6000 now. What do you need to put with it in order for that to happen? The stocks, we're not really stock people around here. It's kind of one of those risky things. So it's not like you're buying it, right. They're just giving it to you.

Yeah.

At some point if you're ready to cash it out because you're trying to buy a house or something, great, do that right now. The house is not on fire. So I'm not like sell them, sell them immediately. But what I do want you to come away from this conversation is that if you're going to buy investment stocks are not what I would tell you to buy. Right. I'd want you to buy mutual funds or ETFs that have a lot in it. Right. We're not going to do single stocks because that's the riskiest way to invest. So learn that from this conversation. I love that you have your 401K. Technically, you're a little ahead of yourself because you've started investing before you've gotten your three to six months saved. Right now, you've got about three months saved, so I'm not going to tell you to stop, but I want you to get up to six months saved because I think that's just going to be best for you because it's only you and you're working at Starbucks. And mom and dad, let's be honest, are providing more than half of your income. So let's bump that up very actively.

And other than that, good know. After this, my next big goal would be when do you graduate, by the way?

I graduate, I believe in a year and a half.

Okay, cool.

All goes to plan.

You're a.

You know, I was actually looking online for the past, like, I don't know, six months of internships with Ramsey Solutions because I look so close.

Yeah, keep looking.

Come on over here.

Keep send an email to HR because we want people like you around here. And I'll tell you this, if you've got a bunch of investment vehicles, I want you to move to the very top of your investment list. You. You are the person I want you to. Here's what it means. Make sure you get out of college 18 months from now and you don't owe anybody anything. Make sure you have done every internship you can get your hands on, made coffee in every meeting room you can get in. Ask your professors, hey, is there a way that I could get invited to this? I want to see this. Can I work behind backstage at the showcase? Whatever. The thing is, leave no stone unturned so that when you graduate, you don't owe anybody anything and you have a slate of experiences to lay down in front of a future employer and say, I've already been there. I'm ready to rock and roll. And so you're investing in experiences that I can't tell you the number of adults that we talk to who are 50 and 60 that don't have $15,000 in you're. So far ahead.

So far.

So your investment is in you. Okay. I want you to be ready to run and gun 18 months from now and you walk across that stage and you're already researching internships. Man good grief. People who are worried about next generation need to talk to people like Laken.

I know that's right. My dog has it online.

We're going to be all right.

She's going to be great. Wow, look at this. John yeah. If she was looking for a goal, probably my next goal would be to not have to accept any money from my parents. That would be the next thing on my horizon. It's like, okay, they're giving her this stipend or allowance per se now while she's in school. That's nice of them to do that. When she goes out, graduates, gets her big girl job. It's like, okay, cut them out. And now, honestly, the next thing for her to do is save up to buy a home, save up for a down payment, and she's set herself this is why we teach it, John. This is why. Because I look at this and I go, man, if at 23, my life would be I mean, you can't really say it like that, because what we go through makes us who we are. But my point is, this is what I want for my kids, right? This right here. I don't want them to have to make the dumb mistakes that I made with debt. I want them to be set up like this. And it's like, hey, what do I want to do next?

The world's my oyster.

And think of it this way, parents, sometimes we think that if we take all the we clear all the struggles out of the way so that our kids can have the fastest, quickest path from wherever we are to success. And sometimes we try to clear all the hurdles because we have some guilt. We were working when they were young. We couldn't buy them all the stuff when they were little. We had to cancel the athletics because we couldn't afford the travel. Sports, one year, whatever. And we try to clear the path. I want you to think of it like this. It's like going into a gym and your kid is in there exercising to get stronger, and you take all the weight off the bar. For them, that's not helping them out. It's not helping them get stronger. That's helping them go to the gym and think they're getting stronger. And they're either staying the same or they're getting a little bit weaker. But like her parents have done, they've told her, you're going to have a job and you're going to work and you're going to make good grades and you're going to do internships, you're going to graduate, and we're going to help you a bit.

So you're not taking the weight off the bar, but you are spotting them.

Oh, yeah.

And that's what good parents do. Right. They don't clear the deck. They walk alongside you.

That's right.

Or they walk right behind you. Right? Awesome job all around. I love it, man. You're way ahead of the game, Lincoln. Well done.

This is the Ramsay show. You are listening to the Ramsay show. Thanks for hanging out with us today. I am Jade Warshaw, your host joined by your other host. His name is Dr. John Deloney, and we are here with you hanging out all afternoon long. We'd love if you gave us a call. The number is triple 8825-5225. Today's question of the day is sponsored by Neighborly. Neighborly is your home, your hub for home services. The easiest way to find expert local help is to download the Neighborly app, where you can find services, schedule appointments, and get exclusive special offers and discounts. Download the Neighborly app now to get started.

All right, today's question comes from Rebecca in Alabama. Rebecca writes, my 25 year old sibling is married with three kids, six, three, and three months. The couple has never had consistent employment and one is currently a stay at home parent. This person's had multiple job opportunities within walking distance, even some that offer free childcare, but they refuse to work. During the entirety of their marriage, they have both begged and borrowed for everything they have. They continue to make very poor financial decisions that have caused them to be behind on rent and car payments. In order to play catch up, they took out a personal loan with their place of employment that will now cost them more than their original rent. Each month, they've borrowed thousands from family members claiming to need it for bills. But the bills never get paid. At this point, the children are deeply suffering from the consequences of their parents'poor choices. In what way could an outsider help the situation? I'm seriously considering calling CPS, but that doesn't change their financial or long term situation. Is this something I should come to terms with and let it work itself out? Any advice on helping someone that is oblivious to their wrongdoings?

Man, this is a mess, so I'm just going to go. Order of importance. When it comes to children, I simply don't mess around with that. My friends know that. My family knows that. My colleagues know that. I do not mess around with this because it's your brother or sister. It's a sibling. Before I called CPS, I would probably take them out for coffee and say, I'm offering to take your three kids in for a period of two or three months while you get your crap together. I will call CPS if you decline this option.

Well, wait, can I ask you?

Yes.

What point because we know it's bad, but we don't know what that means.

Yeah. Let me clarify. The children are deeply suffering. I want to know what that means. Right.

And I want to know at what point you, John, would be like, do that whole thing of I'm taking you for coffee.

If I find out kids are missing meals, if I find out kids are walking around in the street at 11:00 at night because mom and dad are watching TV if I find out kids three year olds are spending the night in neighbor's garages which I've heard about because they can't get back in the house, I'm calling like the heat's off.

The air is off.

Right. If mom and dad are leaving at night and leaving the six year old in charge of the three month old kind of stuff, I'm calling. I'm either going to offer your kids to come stay with me. You have two choices. There is no choice here over the next 60 days where they stay with you.

I'm with that.

Yeah. Now deeply suffering. If it's mom and dad are sitting there watching TV. I parent differently than that. It frustrates me and makes me upset. They're not deeply suffering.

Sure.

Right. If they're having meals, but they're not organic foods, they're not deeply suffering. Right, sure. So I want to be very clear about this, but assuming the things that I've run across in my professional career, kids are struggling, I'm going to put a very clear thing. So when it comes to kids, I don't mess around with that. I don't play with that. Kids are very important. The second thing is any advice on helping someone that is oblivious to their wrongdoings? I'd reject that. They're not oblivious. They're doing exactly what works because everyone in their life keeps giving them money, period. So they're not oblivious. Why in the world would you work if family members keep giving you thousands and thousands of dollars for you to do whatever you want with it? And by the way, family members, if you have a family member that comes to you and says, hey, I really need help, to the tune of thousands of dollars to pay bills, and you are able to help, what I would say is, give me the number to the light bill place and I'll call and pay it. Give me the number to whatever, I will buy you a grocery card at Kroger or publix or whatever, and we'll take care of it.

That way you're not just forking them.

I'm not giving you thousands of dollars. Right. Because then I'm contributing. Right.

Oh, 100%.

So that's number two. Let's take kids off the table because kids is a whole different ballgame. Yeah, let's take kids off the table. Clearly mom and dad are contributing to this. Clearly other family members are contributing to this. So in what way can an outsider help a situation like this, where they have a sibling that mom and dad are continuing to let make poor decisions or cousin or what? Nothing. And I think one of the hardest things we can do is watch people we love make decisions that we know are hurting them.

Yeah. You want to try to get in there and fix it?

You can't. You haven't been invited in. What you can do is make sure when the call comes and it will, that you have your boundaries in order. You have your house in order. You're working on you and your marriage and your finances and your parenting. So when the call comes and it will, can you help that you're in a place that you can help? And the help is not going to be, I'm going to give you a bunch of cash. It might be, I'll take out and help map out a budget with you. I'll take and give you some hard truth about you all got to go to work, but we already decided we're going to stay at home with our kids. You can't afford to stay at home with your kids, right? I might do that, but I'm going to work on me right now.

You're exactly right. But I sympathize with this person.

It breaks my heart because you're like.

Okay, I'm supposed to sit back like this and I got to take my hands off the situation because they won't let me. Like you said, they won't let me in. How do you make peace with that?

There is no peace. I experienced this personally. There is no peace.

There's no peace.

It's hard.

Just like waiting.

It's a death. It's loss. Yeah.

So it's grieving.

It's pure grief. And by the way, I think that one of the great cancers of our current culture is everybody trying to insert themselves into situations, families. I haven't asked for your help.

Yeah. Can't fix it.

Do it this way, do it this way. I haven't helped. Instead of people going home and looking in the mirror and saying, make sure my house is in order, I'm going to make sure my spiritual life, my financial life, my physical life, my marriage is in order. So that when people invite me in, I'm ready.

Well, then there's the other side of that, John. Like, they might blow themselves up.

Exactly.

Might. We hope there's a bright side that comes along, but they might blow themselves up.

That's exactly right. And so you have to make some space for that. That's one of the things I learned training with the SWAT guys is we're going to train with every minute of every day so that we have a positive outcome. And because we can't control what other people decide to do, we're going to create a little bit of space for if this whole thing goes sideways. And that's a heartbreaking thing to realize that I can't control everything, but this person is trying to how do I insert myself into this and fix it? And I would lovingly tell them, you can't.

Wow. And so then for the person who's listening, who's like, man, I've been there. I did the thing. I took my hands off the wheel because they weren't letting me help. They weren't letting me get in and help them drive to get there. And they did implode the thing, and it is bad. And now I feel guilty because I'm wondering, was there anything I could have done? What do you say to the person who's got guilt?

You hold that guilt. You hold that guilt and it moves. I mean, guilt is a natural thing.

But should they even feel guilt.

For.

Doing the right thing?

I haven't been able to figure out how to not, quote, unquote, feel guilt. I can choose to not head into resentment. And so that means I intentionally will turn left and head into guilt instead of heading into, I just am so mad at you all the time, I'm going to choose to say, hey, you're an adult. You're running your life. I'm not going to participate in this, but I'm going to be heartbroken. I'm always going to ask myself and maybe you write them a letter and you say, I love you guys, and when you're ready to change your life, I'm here to help. You can do but that's what you can do. But I haven't found a way, especially initially, to not feel that guilt.

Yeah. You can't rationalize life. You can't rationalize it away, for sure. OOH, this is tough. This is a tough one.

I hate it. Don't we all right. Wish that we could go to our loved ones and tell them to live their life like we want them to live it.

Well, yeah, there's that. That's the thing. That's the hard part. People's lives are going to look different than yours. And in this case, it does smell bad. Like, it looks like there are some real, real issues going on. I don't think this person's being dramatic. I don't think that it's when she says deeply suffering based off of what she said financially and with their jobs and employment, I think that's the case. And it's just I mean, the fact is, you're watching a car crash and you can't look away. Even if you look away, you still hear it going on. Right. It's like there's no way to get away from it. So I feel for them. I really do.

Yeah. But we live in a world where there's different paths people can take. And I think we also live in a world that says everyone should take the same path as us. And I don't think that's right.

No, it's not right.

And at the same time, man, it's just heartbreaking when people we love are headed to ruin.

Talking about some stuff on the Ramsey Show today, we get into all of it the relationships, the money. We are not afraid to take your call, whatever it is. So stick with us. This is the Ramsay show, guys.

Let's be honest. Some things should just stay in the 90s where they belong, like boy bands and waking up at 04:00 a.m. To stand in line for Black Friday deals. And that's why for this entire week, you get to skip the crowds and find new meaningful gifts for as low as $8 in our week long Black Friday sale. From our popular books to questions for Humans conversation cards, you're going to find something for everyone in your life. So hurry and shop@ramseysolutions.com. Slash store for early access to our Black Friday sales. That's Ramsaysolutions.com slash store.

This is the Ramsey show. I'm Jade Warshaw, your host, joined by your other host. His name is Dr. John Deloney. He's sitting right here to my right. We're going to take your calls all afternoon. Please give us a call. The number is triple 8825-5225. We'd be happy to talk with you. Whatever's going on in your life, whether it's money troubles or you've got some things bleeding into your relationship, your spouse is tripping spending all the money. Whatever it is, give us a call. We'd love to talk about it. Something else I want to talk about is George Campbell. He's one of our Ramsay personalities. GK. That's what I'm talking about. He also has a brand new book coming out in January. The book is called Breaking Free From Broke. I actually think I have it here. For those watching, I can show you what it looks like because I think that this I don't know, the COVID is just unique. I really, really like it. We want you to preorder this book today. You can preorder it. It's just $20. Right? But when you preorder it, you get $100 in free bonus items. So you get access to a talk that he's done.

It's called show me the money. I've heard the talk. It's legitimate. So you want to get that. It's going to help you so much. And you get a free Q A with George. You get access to the audiobook and the ebook, plus you get a very, very special offer with every dollar. You get three months of every dollar premium. That's like the creme de la creme. Three months for free. So that's pretty legitimate. It says, the world is filled with money traps and distractions designed to keep you brainwashed and in debt. With undeniable research and data, george exposes the most common money myths and excuses head on. So he's talking about things like credit card schemes, he's talking about investment traps. He's talking about mortgage myths. This is all the stuff he's going over. And I like George because he's kind of like he's like Inspector Gadget. Like, he gets in there and finds out everything that's going on. I'm the type of person I'm like, it's too much to read all the books and look underneath the mattress. And he does all that for you?

Yeah, he's the guy that reads literally the fine print and then calls the company. He's like, hey, you said in section four two A that I could have this for free. And they're like, okay, man.

Yeah. He goes he knows the bylaws.

Yes. And when somebody says, that's not real, dude, he can't sleep until he either realizes he's wrong or yes, it is.

Yeah.

He gets the bottom of this book, pulls every excuse and just throws it in the trash. It's incredible.

That's right. Read it. I think you should read it because at every conversation, any debate, someone's going to try to debate you at money. You're going to just mic drop them every time after you read this book. So I suggest it. It's on preorder. Remember, it's $20. The book is breaking free from broke. You can get it on Ramsaysolutions.com or anywhere they sell. Fine. What is it? Fine reading.

Reading material?

Yeah, fine reading material. So pick up your copy today. Let's go to Los Angeles, California. We've got Dana on the phone line. What's going on, Dana?

Hi. So I am 29 years old and I've been planning to purchase a home, but I'm planning to purchase it with my brother. So is it a smart idea to have my brother as a co owner of the property? I mean, majority of the down payment is going to come from me and so is mortgage.

Yeah. No. How old did you say you were?

I'm 29. 29, okay. Can I understand why are you guys doing this together? What's the purpose in your mind?

We've been living together for three years and we've been planning to purchase a property.

But why is my question.

Because well, we're both single and we don't know. We wanted to stop renting and we wanted to have our own property.

So this is your way. You felt like you couldn't afford it separately, so you're doing it together. Is that accurate?

Yes. Personally, with the current housing market, I don't think I can afford the monthly mortgage.

Well, let's look at it. What do you make every month? What's your take home pay?

I make around every month?

Yeah. Around 6000, 206,200?

Yes.

That's your take home pay. Okay. So what type of home are you trying to buy? Like when you say, here's what I need, and you're realistic about what your needs are and you're not going was what does a home like that cost you in Los Angeles? Because I know it's going to be expensive.

Yeah. Since I'm single, maybe a condo or a townhouse, a single bedroom.

I'm just living alone. Sure, that's fair enough. What would that cost you in the area that you live in? The area you're trying to be looking?

Yeah, it's around like 450 to five, I think. No, 450 to 600.

Okay, so 450 to 600, that's a big range. And then my next question is, what kind of work do you do?

I work as a lab scientist in a hospital.

A lab scientist, okay. Thanks for giving me the particulars. I don't think that you should like John said, I don't think that you should buy a home with your brother. There's a lot that can go wrong there. It would be different if one of you were purchasing the home and one of you put the down payment on and said, hey, if you want to live here and pay me rent or pay for your room here, you could do that.

I'm okay with doing that.

Yeah, that's fine. The hard part comes when you're dating somebody and you're ready for them to move out, and now they feel like they got the raw end of the deal. There are many things that can go wrong, and I just want to call that out.

There's one other thing. When you're married and you get divorced, there's a legal path towards separation. Same reason we tell people, don't buy a house with your boyfriend or girlfriend because the separation isn't so clean, it's a mess. Similarly, if you and your brother just go in as brother and sister, boyfriend, girlfriend, just two people. The separation part is going to be a disaster. Not to mention are you seriously SIS? You're going to make me pay you back for your down payment, right? Well, yeah. Are you kidding me? I'm your brother. You don't love me. Yeah, or vice versa, right? Or he's going to start dating someone and bringing them to your house and she's not like the way you cook. Dude, the greatest way you can love each other is to not go into a legally binding agreement together. See what I'm saying?

Right?

What if you buy the house and rent a room to the other one? I'm fine with that.

And do it right? Even when you do the way John said, do a lease is it a year lease? Let's just start with a year to year thing, right? And do it by the book so that at the end of the day, if the hammer has to come down, it's not you doing it, it's the lease, right? You know what I'm saying? Like, hey, the lease is up. We did say and you can always point back to the terms of what you guys agreed on. I'm not going to lie, I still don't love it. But it's your life if you want to live with your brother. I'm not mad did it. I just went into it, man. That's all I can say at the end of the day. Here's also where I stand, though, with purchasing a house, there is a piece of this, whether it was let's say you didn't have a brother and let's just say you were calling and your hope was to get a roommate to live in the house. It bothers me for somebody to own a home that they can't pay for in full on their own, because like I said, something can happen and whoever's living with you moves out and it could take you a longer period of time than you thought it would to find a replacement.

And so now you've got to be able to cover the mortgage. Do you see what I'm saying? So my goal here is to get you thinking about every angle of this thing and just with me poking a few holes, I don't love it. Look, I want you to have a condo. I want you to have a home. I want you to not be a renter, but I want it to be done in the right way. My question for you next is what would it look like? And this is just for you to brainstorm. You don't have to answer this now. Where you live is really expensive. What does it look like for you to do the same type of work elsewhere? I can move, I guess, but I.

Feel like my current job right now is really good, like benefits wise it.

Is, but it's not allowing you to live. You want a home, right? And it's not allowing you to do that. Look, I have family who lived in California for years, and they're married. And at one point they said, she's a teacher and the other one works in gaming. And they said, we're never going to have the life we want here. And they picked up and moved to Georgia.

Yeah.

All I'm saying is you may have.

To consider hospitals, need lab scientists in Kansas City, where you can buy a condo, maybe for 300 instead of 600 or maybe 350 instead of and I don't know, Kansas. People are going to be like, you can't. But I don't know. But all to say is, you have to decide which dream we want.

Which dream? That's so true, John OOH. That's a hard one. But she's got some options. She's just got to allow herself to see the options. 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 amazing relationships. Wow, my voice really cracked on that. I'm, Jade Warshaw, joined puberty.

Gets us all eventually.

Oh, my goodness. Thank you, John Deloney. Joined by my co host, Dr. John Deloney. We're taking your calls. The number is triple 8825-5225 I'm just excited because it's Thanksgiving. I think my voice went into higher registers than usual because of that. Let's be honest about that.

You can just go with whatever story you want to.

That is right. But we're happy to be here with you guys. Give us a call. We are going to help you with the things that are going on in your life and your money. That's what we're going to do here with Woody from Bowling Green, Kentucky. What's going on? What's going on?

Woody, can you hear me?

We got you. What's up, Woody?

I'm on a flip phone. I'm old fashioned.

We're old fashioned, too. Perfect. What's up, man?

Okay. Yeah, my girlfriend's having well, I found.

Out a I think I lost you still there?

Sorry. That was on me. Sorry about that, Woody.

Okay, so she's getting a heart transplant, and then I found out she's getting a kidney transplant. Yeah, she's on the list and they're looking for one right.

On that's like a new body. Yeah, that's a chip. And Joanna makeover that's all the way to the Studs, man. What's going.

And that's down at St. Thomas is where they're going to do looking for they're looking right now. And it could happen at any time, I guess. And it might not, but you just don't know. But anyway, the question is, am I responsible for her medical bills?

This is the concern.

Well, let me tell you, in life work and family, work comes first, family comes second. And why that is, if you ain't got no money, the family's going to leave anyway.

Wait a minute. No, I think you got.

That backwards, brother.

No. Well, when you under the bridge down there and they say, daddy, what's going on?

Who said, Daddy, what's going on? Woody. Woody. Pull back.

Hold back.

Hold back for a second.

Hold up, hold up.

Thank you. It's interesting to me that this is your girlfriend. How long has she been your girlfriend? Number one.

Please. Say six weeks. Please.

20 years, Woody.

20 years?

Yeah.

Woody, why haven't you married her yet?

I'm Catholic.

What?

That means reason to marry her? Because I know you all living together.

Well, you worse than help, but yeah, I've been married one time, she's been married one time, and we just rather not.

Woody, you've been married for 20 years.

I know, right?

You can pretend all you want and play games, but you've been as married as any other married folks have been.

Everybody thinks that. Everybody says that. They keep calling my wife I said she's not my wife.

Yes, she is more your wife. Why do you feel that way? I'm trying to understand why you feel that way. Why you don't want to go all the way. Take it to the limit.

You ever heard the song The Me you?

Hey, Woody. You watch Woody too much yellowstone is what you do.

Woody is a rolling stone.

Hey, Woody. That is your, like, woody. She's your wife. And you can call her whatever you want to. She's your wife. Let me ask you this. Let me ask you this, and this is all seriousness, okay? If I had a friend I'm thinking of, I have a particular friend in my mind, just a budy of mine, a guy that I grew up with. If that dude lived with me for 20 years, was just my ride or die friend, and he had to go to the hospital and have just a complete transmission change, right?

Yeah.

Not obligation, but as my brother, I would participate in helping where I could. I'm struck by your question, because she is your wife. You can call it what you want. She's your wife. You've been together for 20 years, living together. Do you not want to pay? You don't want to help? What's the root of the question?

Well, the trouble is the money. The money is not there.

Then why ask the question? It don't matter what you're obligated. If you don't got it, you don't got it.

I mean, she has insurance.

Yeah, she's got humana and Medicare or whatever.

And so do we know? Have you guys talked with them to know? Okay, what is this going to cost? Like, what's your out of pocket maximum? Is she doing stuff that is above and beyond her coverage? Do you guys know what that is? Because those are real questions I do want you to ask.

We're not going to aim massive.

Why?

Because we want her to have the heart and the kidney.

Well, yeah.

The money don't mean nothing.

It does. It does mean something. Woody, I'm going to challenge you on that because she has insurance. All you need to do is call them up today and say, hey, my girlfriend is having this procedure. My common law know as far as we like, she's going to the doctors and stuff that she's supposed to our per year. What's the maximum we're going to pay per year? Because this is going to be some ongoing treatment. What's the maximum we'll pay per year? And they might say something like $7,000 or $4,000 or $10,000, but knowing is good. Then my next question is, has she been working? Does she have any money anywhere?

That's where I come in at.

Okay, so your money bags I provide.

Her a roof and food.

A roof and food. Okay.

Yeah. When I found out that she was sick, actually, we was getting ready to part ways, kinda because I travel a you know, we get along great. And she watched the house for me. Make sure nobody don't steal nothing. You know what, Woody?

You're describing my dog, Rose.

This is not the first time you all have tried to part ways. Let's be honest about that. You keep ending up together.

My country dog watches the house while we're gone.

Yeah, well, she's had a rough I say a rough life.

She's been with you for 25% to 30% of it.

I know it.

Hey, do you love her or are you just with her out of convenience and out of I'm comfortable?

It's both, I guess.

Hey, let me ask you this, brother. Just guy to guy, nobody's listening to us except for a couple of million people.

Yeah.

What are you afraid of? Are you afraid about to lose the person that you love? Both no. I want you to be honest. We've been clowning around. I want you to be honest. Are you terrified that you're about to lose your best friend?

No doubt.

Okay.

We've been through several things, both of us. I know you have paraphrasia, and I know how this world works.

None of us get out of it alive.

The lawyers don't care.

No, we're not passing none of this crap off to the lawyers. This is about you being my brother. One stayed over a grown man. Not putting your head in the sand when something scary is coming up up against the woman you love. You're going to do what Jade said once you call the hospital, get some numbers on this thing. It's not about am I responsible for her bills? The woman I love might die. I'm going to do what I can. And she's not a pet. She's not somebody watches the house. She's the woman of the last quarter century of your life. Let's see what we can do with some real numbers and some real action and let's support that woman. We'll be right back.

Folks.

Changing your family tree takes more than rice and beans and side hustles it's also about transferring the big financial risks off your family by having the right kinds of coverage in place. That's why my team created the Coverage checkup quiz. It only takes about five minutes to find out what types of insurance you need and don't need to protect your finances. Make this quiz one of your regular checkups, starting right now@ramsaysolutions.com. Checkup that's, Ramsaysolutions.com.

Checkup.

You're listening to the Ramsay show. I am Jade Warshaw, joined by Dr. John Deloney. We are taking your call, so give us a call. Triple 8825-5225 is how you can reach us. By the way, if you're a new listener and if you want to dive deeper into the Ramsay baby steps, you can go ahead and go to ramseysolutions.com and click on that get started button. We'll help you figure out the best next steps for your financial journey based on exactly where you're at today. So if you are new, head over to Ramsaysolutions.com and click get started. We'd love if you did that. Let's go straight to the phone lines. Richmond, Virginia, we've got Brion on the line.

Hi. How are you guys doing today?

Doing well. How are you?

I'm doing all right. Just getting a little stressed.

Okay. I feel that what's going on?

So my situation is a little two part. I've been listening long enough to know a little bit of how to get out of debt, but I keep starting budgets and don't know how to stick to them, and then they kind of fall apart.

Life happens.

And then the second part of that is I know the easiest way is to increase income. And in my position, I keep hitting this brick wall of you're overqualified and don't have enough experience in stuff like grocery or trying to pick up extra shifts at, like, a local restaurant, doing server work or that kind of stuff. So I don't know how they're saying.

You'Re overqualified when you try to get that extra jobs. I see.

I've had a McDonald's tell me face to face, yeah, you're way overqualified to ever work here.

Do you tell them, hey, this is not my be all, end all. I'm just trying to make some extra cash?

I have told some yes.

So, hey, before Jade answers, because Jade's just the guru at walking people through this. In both of the scenarios you just painted, you've kind of cornered yourself as this tragic victim in this story, and you owe a whole bunch of money, and you're running up against some roadblocks. But I want you to you got to change your psychology on this, or it's just always going to be too heavy. Does that make sense? It does. It feels like you're going through life and life keeps happening to you instead of you saying, no, this is my one precious, reckless life, and I'm going to live it all the way. I'm going to go all in. Right. And that means I'm not going to let an assistant manager at McDonald's tell me I'm overqualified. I'm going to convince them I need to work, and I'm going to work harder than anybody you got on staff, and I got 15 hours. You see what I'm saying? It's just a matter of I just refuse to be a victim in this story. And so I want you to change your psychology there, and Jade will walk you through it. She's the goat at this.

But let's throw your shoulders back, man. Stand up tall, and we're going to go head on and deal with this problem.

Hey, how old are you?

I'm 32.

Okay, 32. And what's your real job?

So I'm a full time videographer.

Okay, videographer. And is it your business, or you work for a company?

I work for a company.

Okay. So what would it look like if you really are getting these doors closed in your face? If I were in your shoes? I'm always one that if I'm looking for some side hustle work, I'm going to do the thing that's directly related to what I already know how to do, because I probably already have connections I already know I love doing it, and I can charge more because I've cut out the middleman. You know what I'm saying? So what would it look like you going out and getting some clients and you videoing some weddings and you being at the bar mitzvah or whatever it is. Are you able to do that?

So it's funny you say that. I do that on the side, and it doesn't bring in enough for me to I have kids. I guess I left that part out.

I have kids.

How many?

And so it's kind of four.

Is it just you, or do you have a wife?

I'm divorced.

Okay. So you're saying is it a time constraint? Is that the problem?

Not so much as a time constraint, as much as I save money and then kids need new clothes or new shoes.

Right, but that's a budgeting issue. That's a budgeting issue, and we'll talk about that. Are the kids with you full time, or do you guys split it 50 50? How does that work?

They're with mom full time, and I'm kind of at this point, I'm the cash cow.

Okay, there you go.

Back into your, like, corner. Quit being the cash cow.

Wait a minute, because yeah. You have four kids. You need to pay for them.

Oh, absolutely.

Okay. The way you said it made it seem like you were kind of mad that you had to pay for your kids. I'm just saying the way it came across, you might not have meant it that way. I forgive.

Not at all.

Okay, moving on, moving on. Here's what I number one. I wholeheartedly agree with John because it's kind of like, I tried this. I hit a wall. It didn't work. Woe is me, I tried this. I hit a wall. It didn't work. Woe is me. Rarely will it work the first time. Like usually you have to keep swinging and swinging and knocking and knocking and kick these doors down because nothing gets just and you know this. Nothing is handed to you, and nothing is free and almost nothing is easy. And so I really want you to go, hey, look in the mirror tonight and go, this is going to be hard. This is going to be really hard. And once you've just been real with yourself, like, okay, now let's go. This is not going to be easy. This is a season, and it's going to be tough. Once you admit that, then it's like, we're off to the races. So keep knocking on the door doing the videographer work, then go get you an instacart job, too. Now you're making more money. I want you on a budget here. We do an every dollar budget.

I want you to download it. You can download it for free on your own tonight. And then once you have the budget, those things that are what I would call just normal monthly expenses that come up will no longer be these things that throw you off your game. And you're having to dig into your savings because on the every Dollar budget, you'll be able to say, okay, I bring in X amount of dollars each month. So how much money do you bring in each month?

About $3,000 after taxes and insurance.

Perfect. So at the top of your budget, there's a place for you to put income. You'll put $3,000. Then there's a place where you can list everything that you could ever think of spending money on in a month, and it will do the math for you. So you're going to spend that $3,000 on paper or on digital paper on purpose. So December is coming up. I want you to say, okay, I'm making a budget for December. How am I going to spend this $3,000? And you're starting with the four basic walls, right? Your rent and your transportation and your utilities and your food. That's first. And then you go back through the next most important items. And then you make sure to write all the things that your kids might need. And look at their feet. Do they need new shoes? If you see, okay, the shoes are getting worn out, I'm going to start putting aside a little bit of money for that. But when you give this money a plan, suddenly it's like, okay, I see where it's going. And like you said, you can identify it. Seems like it's a little bit of an income problem, and maybe it's a little bit of a I just needed a plan problem.

Hold on. It sounds like it's a massive income problem.

Yeah, it is. You're right, bro.

You make $50,000 total, 48 probably. Yeah.

And that's including the side hustles.

Yes. With four kids. Yeah, bro, your videography dream is over. I'm not playing. You got to go make some money. You can be an assistant manager at McDonald's and make that money.

That's real.

Like, you got to let that dream go, dude. You got four kids, and you're drowning in debt. How much do you owe?

Total debt, about 140,000.

Holy smokes.

Okay.

Yeah. The dream is over, man. Or at least it's on pause. You can't afford their life. You can't afford it.

So you said you're overqualified. What makes you overqualified? What degree do you have? What are they seeing on paper?

So I have a bachelor's degree in mass communications. I used to work in news, and news doesn't pay very well, right?

Neither does whatever you're doing now.

It pays a lot more than news.

All right, this is a wake up call. This is a wake up call, because here's the problem. We can tell you all day I'm getting mad. We can tell you all day long, here's a solution. Here's a solution. If you don't want to see the solution, there is no solution. You see what you want to see. You go through life, and you can look for reasons that you can, or you look for reasons that you can't. Right now, dude, you are looking for every single reason that you can't, and you will find it every single time. But I promise you, the moment that you wake up and you say, I want to see reasons that I can do this, you will start to see them. This is all going on upstairs. You have told yourself that you've lost, and you have told yourself that you are the victim, and there's no getting out of this. And only you can control that, John. And I can tell you till you're blue in the face, there's options here. You can look at this. You can look at that. But we can't be the ones to change your mind, and we can't be the one to tell you.

We can only tell you you can do it. We can't go out and do it for you. We can't do it for you. So you've told yourself, I won't do it. I won't do it. That's what you told yourself. And I'm telling you, you can say you won't, but don't tell me you can't. People pull themselves out of holes every single day, holes deeper than yours. They go out, and they work, and they get it done, because they know they can do it, and they know they need to do it. This is the Ramsay show.

Hey, if you're planning ahead and already starting to think about Christmas presents, number one, you are my people. And number two, I've got a great idea for you. What if you skipped the scented candles and matching pajamas and instead gave a gift that can change lives, the gift that keeps on giving? I'm talking about an EveryDollar gift card for just 49 99. You can give loved ones an entire year of premium budgeting features that will help them kick money stress to the curb. Just head over to EveryDollar.com slash store to get the deal. That's EveryDollar.com slash store.

You're listening to the Ramsey show. Thanks for hanging out with us today. I'm your host, Jade Warshaw. I am joined by my other host for the day, dr. John Deloney. We're taking your calls, so give us a call. It's the day before Thanksgiving, which is awesome, and Thanksgiving day is awesome, but what's really awesome is black Friday. And if you are looking for some great deals, be sure to head over to Ramsaysolutions.com slash store. We've got some really great black Friday deals going on. Lots and lots of books on sale on there. Dave's got some books on sale. Total money makeover, baby steps, millionaires. John, I know you've got a couple on sale for very low.

Your new book is out. Go get it.

My new book is out. It's very low. It's $10. Let's see. George Campbell's got a book out. His is $20. It's called breaking free from broke. My book is called money is not a math problem. But I'll be honest, out of all the book releases that we have going on, rachel Cruz has one out that I am like, look, if you have kids, this is for you. The book is called I'm glad for what I have, and it's teaching our kids about contentment. And I look, John, the way my kids are, we go to target, they're already telling me on the way to the store, like, what they hope to get. And I'm like, you don't need anything. I've seen your room. You don't need anything. And so this book is so great. It's so heartwarming. It's got this message that really teaches kids about the feeling, like, entitlement contentment, true happiness does not come from stuff. Like, at the end of the day, your contentment, your source of, like, okay, everything's good and fine, it really comes from Jesus Christ. So if you were wondering, it is a faith based ending, but that's all right by me.

And honestly, what a great message. I don't care, really, what your belief is. It's good to know that our contentment doesn't come from stuff. So if you're interested in that, you could head over to Ramsaysolutions.com store and order your copy. It's $15. I'm in it. I love it. Do it. All right, let's go straight to the phone lines. We've got Tony, who's in Syracuse, New York. What's going on, Tony? Sorry I threw you off.

So much for taking my call.

You're welcome.

What's up?

So essentially, I'm 21. I have a pretty good job, and I'm recovering from a gambling addiction. I just quit a little over a month ago.

Do you have a 30 day chip?

I do not. I'm not in any sort of classes for it. I've really been kind of coaching myself through it.

How's that going?

It's going good. It's getting to a point where I really don't have any urge to do it. I would say I caused enough problems from it to where I kind of got fed up, and I'm pretty much just trying to get myself back on track here to better my finances currently and going into the future, and was just looking for some advice on that.

Okay, jade is going to walk you through some stuff, and we're going to honor you. You got 30 days sobriety, a little bit over 30 days. So we're going to hook you up with some free stuff to get you started. I mean, to keep you going. But I'm going to tell you right now, there is zero, none, no long term life change done in isolation, period. So when it comes to your money, when it comes to not gambling, when it comes to, I don't know, going to the gym, when it comes to your spiritual whatever you got going on, you have to have at. Least somebody preferably more than just one person that you can walk alongside with you, that you can call and say, dude, I've got the urge bad right now. Can you come over? Or, hey, I'm coming over, or, dude, I'm about to spend something. I just had somebody call from the past, wants me to come over. Like, you've got to have other people that you can communicate with. You can white knuckle for a while, for real, but, man, life will come hit you in the mouth, and you got to have other people.

Is that fair? And I'm only telling you that because I've just been doing this too long.

I agree.

Okay. Do you have somebody you can call when things get dicey?

No. I would say more so. I rely on people who I know care about me. There's definitely people close to me who I can talk to about it.

Okay.

I haven't really gone the professional route.

That's fine. That's okay. That's all right. But you got people in your life that know the extent of the damage you've done.

Yes.

What did you do? You said you blew something up so bad you quit. What did you do?

Well, it kind of started with me just blowing paychecks sports betting about a year ago, just coming into having some good money. I kind of didn't know what to do with it all. At first. I was real good, and then I found out about sports betting. Had a problem with that. And what it really came down to that was kind of my rock bottom was I had been investing in crypto for a while, and I had about 10,000. So this was like money I would not touch for so many circumstances. I refused to touch it even throughout me doing the sports betting. And I started to gamble that on crypto casinos online. And this was money that to me, regardless of how volatile the crypto space is. I cherished it. I was very reluctant to touch it at all for a long time. And essentially I let that consume me and blew every last dollar of that. And that was ultimately the thing that really hit me hard enough to say, okay, this is really bad. I need to stop for know.

All right. So I'm turning this over to Jay and she's going to walk you through the budgeting and all that stuff.

Well, can I ask a question?

Yeah, go ahead.

Correct me.

Go for it.

I feel like usually when people dig into these things, it's because they're trying to mask something else or escape in some way. Have you gotten to the bottom of what that is? Because I can give you all the money advice in the world, but if you don't know what that thing was, it's not going to help you, I don't think. Is that fair enough, John?

Yeah. The question is most people go to these things to feel alive. What is it about your day to day life that you don't feel like you've got enough adrenaline pumping through your veins?

Are you gone? I think I may have lost him.

Do you bail on us?

That's okay. Let's keep talking about it because he can hear us.

Yeah.

Do you see what my point is? If there's some sort of hurt or pain or something about your life that sucks and you're like, I'm doing this instead. Figuring out what that is, I feel like is a big piece of this. That being said, that's his homework, right?

Right. So the question really switched for me. It was about ten years ago, a little bit more than that, when I stopped asking, dude, what's the matter with you? Why would you gamble your paycheck away? And I start asking, man, what is happening in your life that this is the best way your body's figured out how to get through a day?

Exactly.

And until you figure that out and that's why my first question is you got a chip. Have you been sitting around a table with a room full of people getting to the bottom of what is your body trying to do? Numb or distract?

But he said no.

Pump gasoline through vape. So he's just white knuckling. He's going for it. Some people, the data says they can do that for a season, but you got to have people that you can.

Call and they know exactly what's going on.

They know, hey, dude, I've shared my Amazon account. Not me personally, but I have given somebody else access to my checking account because I trust them and they're going to look at it every once in a while. People who are trying to get off pornography, they give their computer log into somebody else right. Or whatever. Right. Real accountability, having accountability. And not in a judgmental way, but in a, hey, I'm here with you. Kind of way, right? And it lets your body go, and then you can get to the real stuff.

And I'd say he needs that. When it comes to this money, 100%.

He's 21 years old.

He needs somebody who, like you said, has access, can log in and see what you've been spending your money on. So that it's not just you giving your word, oh, no, dude, I didn't do it. I didn't do it. They need to be with you and walking with you. We say all the time, you need accountability, but this is a whole other level of that. And I think that it's extremely necessary. At the end of the day, if you've acquired debt from gambling, we got to start working to pay it off. But first things first. I think with him just getting in the habit of saying, this is my paycheck and I do what I said, I'm going to budget with my paycheck. Don't get caught up with a bunch of other things. Just practice the habit of I stick to my budget, whatever that is. I make $3,000 a month. I plan the $3,000 a month, and I stick to it. If you can get there, I think that's good. And then we go to the next level. Okay, how do I bump it up a notch? And now I'm going to start accomplishing different goals.

So he hasn't done this in a while. Obviously he's been battling with this. But that's the next step for you. Get on an every dollar budget. Take whatever money you're getting in budget it and stick to the budget. Build up some confidence that you can do what you say you're going to do. And in the meantime, make sure you have somebody else looking at those numbers with you. It feels different when you know someone's looking over your shoulder. This is the Ramsey show. You're listening to the Ramsey show. I'm Jade Warshaw, joined by Dr. John Deloney. And it is officially Thanksgiving over here because John is gobbling up these cookies.

I got cookies, man. So good. They make them over here at the cafe. They're the best.

I'm not mad at you. Look, when I get home, I'm going to get into it. I don't know what I'm getting into, but I'm going to get involved in something. I know that the scripture and quote of the day. It says, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His love endures forever. Amen. That's one. Chronicles. 1634. Or as some people might say, One Chronicles. Did you get my joke?

That was excellent. That was incredible. Well done.

Oh, boy. And then Ernest Timmingway said, my favorite book, ernest Hemingway said, now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is. I love that. In the spirit of thankfulness and gratitude, I love that so much. Let's go straight to the phone lines where. We've got Ian in Chicago, Illinois. What's going on, Ian?

Hey, guys. How are you doing?

Well.

Yeah. So my wife and I have been doing baby step two. I've been on it since July of 2022. It's going really well. Kicking butt. I had $130,000 of IRS debt, and I've knocked it down to just below 60 grand now.

Okay.

And I'm wondering, should I get a loan to get it out of their hands and stop paying the extra fees?

Why do you have this IRS debt?

So I'm also a recovering addict, and for several years, I did not pay my taxes. I'm responsible for paying quarterly estimated taxes as self employed, and I just didn't do it for five years because I was messed up.

Okay. How quickly are you going to be able to pay off this final 60K? What's your margin? Like, what are you throwing at it each month?

The minimum I'm throwing at it every month is $2,700. But lately, I've really been able to go hard and throw extra at it, so we've paid off $26,000 of it in the last two months, which feels awesome.

That is amazing.

Proud of you, man.

Way to go.

I'm so proud of you. It's incredible.

I'm so grateful we saw you guys at Willow Creek when you guys were here in Chicago. It was awesome. We're just so inspired, man.

I'm inspired the fact what you're telling me you're kicking this debt's butt now. What else do you have after it? Because I have a feeling that that's kind of more what's making you consider this route. Do you have other debt besides this IRS debt?

So we just got married in September, and we married our debt. So my wife brought in $53,000 of student loan debt, and then that's it. We've paid off our cars. We've paid off our credit cards.

Yeah, I probably wouldn't do that. I understand the sentiment behind your thought of, I can move it over here, and there's less fees and penalties, but you're going to have an interest rate, and my guess is that it's kind of trading one set of problems for another set of problems. Had this debt still been at the 130, possibly we could have talked about it if you were telling me, hey, I'm getting hit with these kinds of taxes and these kinds of penalties. Like, I'd want to know exact numbers, but honestly, at this point in the journey, man, I would just run it down the field.

Do you have a settlement with them?

I did, and then during COVID I was out of work, so I had, like, an installment agreement. But interest and penalties still accrue even during that.

Yeah. What are the penalty?

I'm tempted to say go get one.

I want to know what the interest and the penalties are. What are we talking about per month? When does it hit? Is it per quarter? How's it going?

The IRS interest, it amounts to about eight and a half percent. And the loan I was looking at is 9%. So pretty similar. And then the penalties, I don't know, they seem maybe random or quarterly. I haven't figured out.

Probably quarterly.

Hard to talk to someone there.

Yeah. Yes, you are right about that, my friend.

Man, if it's a wash, I just don't want to do business. But who's going to give you a $60,000 loan at 9%?

Exactly. So far, no, I ain't going. And I am telling you, no, I am not going.

Yeah, you're making just you're trading one deal, the devil for another one at that.

And the thing is, you're burning through this like you just told us you paid off almost $30,000 in a few short months. So I think you've got momentum. And you're right, the IRS is the worst. It's like they only want to talk to you in letter form, one letter, once a year. It's the worst. So I think you keep running the ball down the field, and I think by the end of the year, you're going to look up. Not by the end of this year, but for sure, like going into the next year, in twelve months, you're going to look up and this is going to be gone. I would not get in bed with anybody else on this. I just go through it.

The only person I would consider getting in bed with, Jade, would be if, say, a local credit union wouldn't give you $60,000.

Exactly.

If you got it down to 25 and you sat down with a banker and said, here's my trajectory, and I would actually be honest, I am a recovering addict. Here's where I've been, here's the last five years. Here's what I've paid off. I'm sick of doing with the government. They may do that. If you can look at a banker in the eye and shake their hand, they may do that.

Yeah, they might do it.

But $60,000? Dude, I would not get in bed with another loan shark, like another nationwide loan shark that's as big as the.

IRS, because at the end of the day, that's a student loan. It's not crazy. If you had told me it was, like 22%, like something crazy, like a credit card interest rate, I would have definitely been more along the lines of, how can we get this lower? Now, those quarterly fees that you were talking about, if you could guess, what have those been? What do they look like? Is it just $20?

Well, yeah, over a few years, I think they climbed up to between 802 grand or something like that.

Total.

Yeah.

Just pay it off.

Pay it off. It's not worth it. I think it sucks to pay extra, but that's kind of part of the stupid tax here, right, is you didn't pay it. Yeah, whatever you want to call it, you didn't pay it and they're paying you. You have a penalty on it and it's hard sometimes you can't get out of that.

Hey, while I got you, man, let me turn the tables and ask you a question. It's not magic. It's probably a ton of hard work and humility. What's the path you took out of addiction?

Twelve step, baby.

There you go.

All the time.

60 months. You're five years out.

I'm three and a half years.

Wow, dude, I'm so proud of you.

Congratulations.

You got little ones.

Such a blessing.

What's that?

You got little ones.

Not yet, but we're trying.

Awesome, man.

I love it.

Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. You got six figures of debt, just like Jade and I did. And we're both free. And you will be, too, man. I'm proud of you. I love it.

That's a great way to enter into Thanksgiving, being super thankful. Look, IRS debt is nothing to play with and for anybody listening. If you have IRS debt, even though we always say list your debts from smallest to largest, right. And you pay the little one first, regardless of interest rate, IRS debt is one of the only debts that we say, no matter what, put that at the top of the list because you don't want to mess with the IRS. Number one, they are so hard to communicate with. And number two, they have the power to literally reach into your account and garnish your wages for stuff. They have the ability to take your passport away if you don't pay. There are real things that they can do to make your life very difficult. So if anybody has that sort of debt, always put it first. That's what you want to do and that's what he's doing. The fact that he blew through, man, I mean, he's almost done. I'm excited for him. And he's sober and they're having a kid. Look, it doesn't get any better than that.

John, good for you. That's impressive.

Very, very cool. All right. I would say we have time to take another call, but I don't think we do. Casey is from City.

Oh, yeah. We won't have time. Let's do this. What's something you're grateful for as we head into Thanksgiving besides me and Jade? Well, that's funny. That's what I was going to say.

Who are you more grateful for?

I am thankful for my were saying during the break but we'll let that ride on air. That's cool. That's cold. I'm not going to tell them what you were saying during the break because I can't say it on the air. That's fair.

That is also true.

Jade, what are you grateful, man?

You know, I'm really grateful. I had some friends come see me that you guys know I'm from South Florida and so I miss my friends and my friends surprised me. They came up here and yesterday, two days ago when I was working out, doing my workout in the garage at like 06:00 a.m. In the morning, my best buddy popped in there, and I almost lost it. John, it was the best. So really grateful for friends. Friends are medicine, man.

That's incredible.

What about you?

I had a buddy gosh. He's in his 50s. He's the CEO of a lawn care company in Texas. His name's Kevin, and he called me yesterday and said, hey, before Thanksgiving, you're going to hear these words from me, and you're going to sit there and take it. I love you, and I'm glad that you're my friend. And I was just really blessed that he did that. I'm grateful for my friend.

I love it. Find something that you're thankful for. There's a lot going on. Things want to steal your joy. They want to take your peace. Don't let it happen. You get to control that. You get to control your joy and your peace, and you've got a lot to be grateful for. You've got a lot to be thankful for. Hey, I'm thankful for you. This is the Ramsay show.

If you're a leader, your personal growth matters for your organization, because whatever you lead can only grow as much as you do. I know from experience, I've been CEO of Ramsay Solutions for over 30 years, and now I'm sharing that leadership and business coaching experience with you on the Entree Leadership podcast. I'm taking your calls and helping you figure out how to overcome challenges within your organization. One episode could change your business. Check it out on Apple spotify YouTube or on the Ramsey Network app.