A $60,000 Mistake Turned Into a Wake-Up Call

26:03How late at night was, okay, I got to do a follow-up. America needs to know this. How late at night was it? I don't know. It might have been 10 or 11 or something. Was she in bed? It might have been in the middle of the night. It might have been like I woke up to get a glass of water and I was having trouble sleeping or something. And so you're right next to her? So you're right next to her listening to the Old Testament? I'd be pissed too. I don't care if it's the Bible or not. I'm trying to sleep. Go to the living room. but that doesn't sound like but that doesn't sound like worthy of this yeah I was trying to get at did you do anything like did you cheat did you were you being a jerk in some kind of way okay I was listening to your bible too loud do you not understand yeah I'm sorry well I just want to ask you you laughed when I said it and I don't mind being laughed at you know it happens all the time I'm sitting right here it really does do you not understand what I mean when I say you dodged a relationship bullet here?

27:03As hard as this is, and I hate that the custody thing is a thing. I got a lady in the front row. This is a wise woman I can just see. And she's giving me a thumbs up. So that means I'm right, which is rare too. You know, you've dodged a bullet and I share that to say, this is painful. This is tough. But I think you need to understand that what you have a responsibility to is child support. That's right. So I would on the fine. Let me tie this up in my opinion. And then I got an outlier towards the end here. And I want to get out of the way, let Jade weigh in. But I'll say that I think part of your healing needs to be, I really dodged a bullet here.

27:41This is a very complex relationship I was in. It's messy. She does not seem like long-term material to me. I'm not judging folks. I call balls and strikes, okay? And so we dodged a bullet. That should help you recover a little bit quicker. Two, I'm okay with you continuing to give her the money that you agreed to because you said it was a small amount. And I would keep your word unless she does something that would then morally disqualify her. And you go, well, you didn't keep your word. I'm going to keep you in mind. And then I would wait for the judge to decide. The problem is that she continues to ask for more and she's been spending on things that aren't essential.

28:16That's not your problem. Tell me what. Hold on a second. Tell me. Hold on. It's not your problem. I don't care how many times she asks. you give her what you agreed to unless she violates the agreement then you don't have to give her anything and then I'd wait for the judge to tell you because the judge is going to tell you well and I want to know what that amount is what are you giving her now it was uh I basically went off of what she got child support from from her other people and it was something like um it was something like 250 to 300 out of every like couple weeks and so it was only like 500 a month but I went back and ultimately I was giving her because she would continue asking for more and ultimately it was like two to three times as much as what I ended up giving her.

28:55And so I went and I talked to her and I was just kind of like, Hey, I feel like you're asking for a lot more than what we originally agreed on. And so I kind of tried to switch to just like, can you just like let me know when you need groceries or something? No, stop. She doesn't have this control over you, man. I want to jump in here because there is part of this. I want to know more because the truth is if you were taking care of, because the child support obviously needs to start while she's pregnant because she's carrying the baby. So usually it's based off of a percentage of what you're earning.

29:26So likening it to the other guys, ah, I get why you're doing it, but it might not necessarily be fair if you were making more than them and if you were in a situation where you were previously providing more. So there's part of that that I want to be fair to the baby and fair to what it actually takes to carry a baby. Well, we need to get a judge involved in this. And you need to do that sooner than later. But not give her any more money. Don't give her any more until we get a judge involved. You give her what you said you're going to give her. I'm going to take a hard line on that one because she's asking for more, and she's manipulating you, and she's holding that baby over you.

30:02I don't like it. One of the concerns is like obviously just kind of like there's, you know, and that's kind of why I wanted to talk to you guys because obviously there's a lot of emotional parts involved for me, but her two fathers, her only income source is child support. She lives for free on her grandmother's property. Another problem. But her only income is child support. And so her two fathers basically stopped paying child support. So it's kind of like if I'm not supporting her, like nobody is. Not your problem. It's not. But I mean, she's the mother of my child. Like, I obviously don't want her to go hungry while she's growing our baby.

30:33I understand that. Your only commitment is whatever the fair and equitable child support number is. If you want to give more than that, you can. But she's manipulating you right now. The very nature of that question is a guy who's been manipulated emotionally. And I get it. You've got a good heart. But she will take advantage of this. Her two deadbeat dudes that she got pregnant with the first time, that's her problem and their problem. It's not your problem. This is a country music song is what this is. This entire call is a number one hit. And I know because we're in Music City. I mean, if you've got any musical talent, you might want to write this one.

31:09It could really take off. In the meantime, in the meantime, Elijah, go online and look at just kind of some standards to get an idea. I'm looking here. Standard is usually 17 percent for one child, 25 percent for two, 29 percent for three. I will disagree with my colleague and say her home situation does affect how she's carrying your baby today. So you need to weigh you need to weigh that in. I'm not saying be taken advantage of, but I'm just saying she's a mess no matter how much money this guy. But it's all together. It's all together is all I'm saying. I get it. I'm thinking of the baby. It's a country music song.

31:42Somebody write that.

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33:00All right, let's go to Taylor who's joining us now in Cleveland, Ohio. Taylor, how can we help today? Hi there. So my question is, my husband started a side hustle last year doing home inspection. So this is not his full-time career gig. This is just something that he thought would be lucrative. And I think he just really wants to be a business owner. And I appreciate that about him. My question is, so we have no debt on the business, praise Jesus. But up front, we spent about$13 ,000 for him to go to school, to get his permits, all the equipment he needed. And then every month, we're paying like$300-ish for the program, the software he uses, our insurance and all of that, like business insurance.

33:53And obviously, home inspections are not super consistent. Like they can, you know, vary every month. So I guess my question is, at what point do we say this business is costing us money every month? It's not making us anything. It's not profitable at all? Well, okay. So like I said, it varies. So like this month, he's had no home inspections at all. So we have been paying the$300 on all these things that we need to sustain the business, but haven't made any money. um what about over the life of the home inspection you got to look at it over the life of the business when did he start it he started so he he was off the ground in march okay and since march how much has you got to look at it as it is since march how much he's brought in it's just you know a balance sheet how much he's brought in minus how many expenses and what's what's the number?

34:52So with the debt of about, well, not debt, but what we paid out about$13 ,000. Plus the$300 a month. He's done, yes, he's done about eight home inspections at roughly like$400 a piece. Okay. So$32? Right. And that's, that is all at this point. Okay. And do you guys, have you decided at what point the break even should be and at what point he should be profitable because here's the thing if you guys didn't set out what the plan is then we don't know at what point to pull the trigger because it's fair it's fair to say it's going to take some time to earn a profit but once he starts turning it everything after that is profit so once he makes 13 000 uh or 14 000 with the 300 a month then then you're profitable so you guys have to decide that yeah that's true i could absolutely see where you're coming from Are you calling or are you calling on behalf of him?

35:51In other words, he's wondering. I thought so. No, I am not the risk taker. Right. So if I run into him today and we don't know about this call and I say to him, what do you do? And he says, I'm in Cleveland and I've got this job, but then I've got a little home inspection business that I've got going. And I say, well, how do you feel about that? What's he going to say to me in response to that question? He's going to say it's great. Okay. And he's going to say, like I said, he's more of the dreamer. So he is like, you know, we just have to wait another month. I just need to be doing this or that, or I need to get in with a realtor, which in theory, absolutely he does.

36:30And I support that. The problem is, like I mentioned, this is his sidekick. So he can't put as much effort into this as he does his full-time career because we also have two small children and I work part-time. You know, so we have all these other factors. Got a lot going on. All right, let me ask another question. Right. Do you manage the budget? Are you the nerd that's more in the numbers? Yeah. Okay. By the way, and so then the$300 a month, how tight is that from a number standpoint, not from an emotional standpoint? We know the answer. The idea that we're spending$300 a month and it's not ROIing is driving you nuts.

37:10It's driving you crazy. You're breaking out in hives. I get it. But I'm talking real numbers. How much does the$300 a month affect you guys? I mean, it's not like we are trying to rub nickels together here. What I will say, the other factor that's kind of, it plays in for me is that his full-time job, he recently left the position that he was in and went somewhere else. And we did take a pay cut there. so and that was his choice and i was hesitant about you know how much about so he is making about ten thousand dollars less a year than he was and what baby step are you guys on so we we are completely paid off aside from our house okay that's great can i ask you a question we're 32 and 34 okay so you have time my question for you um if i were your husband what's your husband's name?

38:07You don't have to say. It's Eric. Okay. It's okay. If I was Eric, my question would be okay, honey. How do you think that we, cause the truth is we've, we've sunk 15 ,000 into this. My plan was that over time we'd recoup that from the business and then we'd be profitable. Yeah. If we stop the business now, honey, how do you think that we are going to recoup the 15 ,000? okay so i can tell you the answer to that hit me so he he's like well i can start a mowing company or like a lawn care business so it's business after business after business because he'd have to create a new no no let me tell you what i'd tell eric okay wait wait wait she didn't answer the question that was how eric that's how eric would answer i want to know how would you answer i want to know in your mind how do you recoup the 15 000 if it's not through the business that was supposed to recoup it?

39:03So I honestly, if it were up to me, I would just say, call it a loss, time to be done. And I would take the money that we were putting towards the business every month, and I would be putting it on a house payment. That's just the way we actually just got our PMI taken off, which saves us about$200 a month for that, which I then in turn have been putting on our principal. so I would like to put even more on that if we could because it's not you know like I mentioned it's not like we're rubbing the nickels together to get this 300 a month but I feel like we would be better suited putting it somewhere else.

39:40On a scale of one to ten what's your risk tolerance on a scale of one to ten? I'm raising my hand but it's my turn. Probably like a two-ish. I am not I'm not. And I know I need to work on that. Can I go now? Okay. Here's the deal. Here's the deal. I'm trying to set you free. Okay. He wants to do something entrepreneurial. You guys have already invested the$13 ,000. Yes, he's slow going, but he's got a lot going on. This is a good man. There's no marital tension here. I'm talking to two responsible people that are on baby step six. Here's what I think your encouragement would be to him. Hey, babe, how many realtors do we know?

40:25And if we don't know any realtors, who do we know that know any realtors? And this does not take a lot of time. He can carry a full-time job, help you at home with all of his husband and dad duties, and still connect to realtors and go, hey, I've launched a business. If you're looking for somebody reputable, or if you get in a pinch, even though you may have a guy, I can be your guy. And And he does this. And this is phone calls on the way to work, phone calls on the way home, phone calls during lunch. This is a simple solution. There's no need for him to stop this business and go to something else.

40:56He hasn't given enough time, nor can I say, and it's not a critique. It's not a critique. He's just not given enough energy. And so you could say to him, hey, babe, I have a little bit of right here because we're putting 300 a month in. And I'd like this to start to ROI. But I believe in you. And so I think this is what we need to do. and you can say I called the Ramsey show blame it on me I don't care it's easy because I'm not going to be in the dining room blame it on me too because I agree with you okay that's why I was chomping at the bit to go I think you're focused on the wrong thing and I love your okay I love that you want it to ROI and it should but instead of shutting it down you got to give it time you got to give it time and don't forget what this is for him this is a bigger deal to him than what it is to you.

41:40And I think I'd let this thing play, but it's okay for you as one half of this marriage to have a voice and to say, I think it should ROI. And babe, here's what I think we do. And by the way, you could go reach out to some realtors. And it's okay for you who's a two on the risk meter to say, I do want to put some sort of timeline on this, that if we get to a certain point and we're still nowhere close to ROIing on this, that we need to consider what comes next. That's fair. That is a hundred percent fair. And I think that becomes obvious. It's not for us to decide. But I hope that helps. You're a sweet, sweet, sweet lady and a great wife.

42:14Let this thing play out. Let's start recruiting. Let's go find more realtors. The more realtors he's in front of, that he gets some type of a deal with, the more inspections he's going to get, the more inspections he gets, the more money he makes, the happier you are when you see that budget every month. And that is what it's all about. Happy wife. Happy life.

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44:11welcome back to the ramsey show in the fairwinds credit union studio dayton is joining us now from vancouver dayton how can we help today hey there guys um yeah calling in just i'll make it as brief as i can um it's a bit of a mindset kind of thing um my wife and i quite a few years ago we had We had quite a bit of debt, about$22 ,000, and we had worked hard to pay that off. And then since then, we've had three kids, bought a house, and a lot of things have happened and racked up quite a bit more debt. My mindset question to you is, what are some ways that we can kind of protect ourselves from doing this again?

44:48We're just starting the baby steps, and we don't want to get out of debt and then get back into it. There's a lot of shame around sticking to our budget, looking at our finances and stuff. So I'm just wondering if you guys can kind of help us with the mindset of getting out and staying out. So my first question would be, back in the day when you paid off the$22 ,000, what did it look like to pay that off? Was it painful or was it kind of like we're going to do this and once it was done, it was done? Initially, it was kind of painful. Like, I can't believe I did this. Credit card companies saw me come up to a mile away at 18.

45:26And then I just worked. I was at a job where I could work tons of overtime, so I pretty much worked seven days a week, 60, 70 hours a week kind of thing. And we worked through it, and it felt really good when we got out of debt. It was a grind getting through it. How long did that take? I was able to pay that off in about 11 months, I think it was. So without giving us too long of a story, what happened? Because you said, and then things happened, and we accumulated debt again. What type of things? Well, in that window, pretty much right after that, we got married. And then we had our first child.

46:08And then we had our second child. And then I did a career change that cost me quite a bit of money to go to school down in Texas. And then we bought a house. And then we had a third child. And, you know, when you buy a house to make it what you want, you end up spending money thinking that it's going to be OK. So what kind of career change was this? What are you doing now? I'm a firefighter now. And what did that cost you? It cost me about$20 ,000 to get into that. Do you still have a loan on that? No. So, well, yeah, I guess it's part of my one of my line of credits I used to get into that. And so I'm hearing one of your line of credits, and that's what we did to make the house great for three kids?

46:53Yes. Interesting. Yeah, I'm just thinking about what you're saying. And first off, you haven't paid off the 103 yet, right? So you haven't allowed yourself to go through that process. I'm a person that I think everything is in the process. The first time it took you about 11 months. The truth is the debt wasn't that drastic. it probably was uncomfortable to pay it off but you were able to do it i think now because more is on the line and you're going to feel this one a lot more because it's you it's your wife it's your kids and you're going to have to change your lifestyle which you're going to feel that i have a feeling that this one is going to stick a little bit more however you asked what's the mindset that you need and i i think i hear the mindset that got you into it and i'll try to give you an idea of the mindset that got you out, that's going to keep you out, which is I think, Dayton, a lot of times when we're in our life and we've got our money, we start to develop kind of an I deserve mentality.

47:59And it's not, it doesn't have to be ugly. It's just kind of like, I work hard. I deserve to spend, right? I deserve to spend money on the things that I want. I deserve to have the lifestyle I want. I deserve to have the car and the house I want. After all, I've worked hard. And if we're not careful, that can really, really, really do us in. Because that's what's happened to you. You listed it. You're like, well, we had kids. And then I wanted this career. And then I wanted this house. And it's kind of like, what other thing would cause you to go into debt, other than the fact that you think you simply deserve to have those things?

48:31Right? I mean, is that fair enough? Yeah. Yeah, I would agree with that. And then the other side of that I deserve is you're also seeing what other people have. And it's like, well, how do they deserve that? I deserve what they have because the people around me have the house, the people around me have the car. And so you're, you're making that comparison and you're trying to keep up with the things you see. Is that fair enough? Yeah. Yeah. To a degree. I mean, like I never, we don't buy any nice cars. We don't have any car payments or anything like that. It's been like, yeah, totally lifestyle, like wanting to do things with the kids, wanting to make sure they got a nice space, pretty place, you know, that kind of stuff.

49:05And so I think the mentality going out of it and, and don't get me wrong, I think coming out of $103 ,000 of debt is going to change you in a different way than coming out of$22 ,000 of debt is. But I want you to adapt the mentality of what you truly deserve, which is you truly deserve to have a good night's sleep without debt over your shoulder, right? You deserve to feel good about the money that you earn and that it's enough for your family and not feel like it's not, you know, because the opposite is what makes you go out to get debt. The opposite is what I'm contributing is not enough. What I'm bringing and earning is not enough.

49:42Therefore, I must. And then you go to all these debt sources, but you deserve to feel good about the life you're providing for your family. Yeah. Dayton, I want to flip that. She's right. But let's just for a second, let's be real gut level honest with each other, the three of us. What are the emotions you're feeling, the negative emotions attached to this debt and those debt payments and that interest and all the things that you now obviously regret, which is why you called today. And you said, how do I keep from doing this again. What is the most negative emotion? Describe it. Oh, well, I would say it's like mass amounts of shame because I was in a good position and I've made good money for a lot of years.

50:19And I'm back to making good money now. And it was a lot of shame to like, look at the finances. I knew they were getting out of hand, but I literally like every time I think to open up the banking app or to do my budget, my immediate thing is like, Oh, don't do that, man. You're just looking your failure in the face, right? That's big. That would have been how it got out of hand for sure. How much stress, how much pressure do you feel? Oh, lots. Especially now looking at my new two-month-old baby and thinking like, because I'm the sole income earner in our family. Thankfully, my job allows for that.

50:56What if I told you I could snap my fingers and take away the shame and take away the stress? Well, how would you react to that? I know it's fantastical question, but how would you feel? How would you feel? I know it would make me feel better. That's for sure. If I'm not carrying that baggage around. Right. Okay. So my two cents on this is the way that you keep from ever doing this again is to in these moments on a daily best on a daily basis, remind yourself how awful this feels. and I don't ever want to feel that again. Like that to me, if you talk to somebody who's lost a ton of weight, somebody who beat some type of an addiction, and I've been able to interview people like this, I know people in my personal life.

51:38If you trace their story of when they recovery, you know, we've heard Dave say this for years on this show on stages. It's the I had it moment. You know, you've talked about that. You talked about it earlier in the show today. I think you have to bottle this emotion not to stay with it and I really want you to focus on getting out of that shame Because we all carry shame and it's powerful But I do think you need to sit with it long enough to go. I don't ever want to feel this again And it's actually really simple To never get back in this again. You can get out of it You've done it before you're going to do it this time But to never get back in it because I don't ever want to feel that again and I have total control as to whether or not I ever feel this way again.

52:17And I think that will be really helpful. So get your chin up. Walk the baby steps. You can do this. Throw off that coat of shame. You're not a deadbeat. You're not a jerk. You're not a loser. You're not a bad man. You made a bad financial decision. Walk into the club, pal. You're going to be okay.

53:09www.feyyaz.tv

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54:32All right, all right. When we hear calls like that one where people are dealing with guilt and shame, it is important to know the difference, right? When we feel guilt with our money, it's generally kind of like that second stage of buyer's remorse or remorse where we're like, man, I wish I hadn't have done that. And it feels guilty, especially if it's affecting our loved ones. It's not just us. Now our kids are affected. Now our spouse is affected. That's really where we feel a large amount of guilt. But when it crosses that barrier, Ken, of it's not just this thing I did, but now I am the mistake and I'm wearing that mistake as an identity.

55:12That's when we get into shame. And that's why that call is tough, because if you're wearing that identity, I am the mistake. I'm the reason we're not getting ahead. I'm the reason that our finances are bad. Then, yeah, going forward, how could you trust yourself? Because in your mind, you've personified yourself as a failure. it would be very hard to trust your decisions going forward. And so these are the types of things I talk about in my new book that's out now. It's story, story, story, by the way. Story, story, story. What no one tells you about money is just the sort of thing. No one tells you that there's such an emotional struggle going through.

55:49Because with that last caller, he understands the baby steps. He's done it before. He knows that, yeah, you got a list of debts, smallest to largest. But what's blocking him is his emotion. What's blocking him is the shame and the guilt that he's feeling over past mistakes. And he's just the sort of person who needs what no one tells you about money, because I actually walk people through how to get past that. That was something that Sam and I dealt with during our money battle. I know for Sam, there was a lot of shame because most of the student loans came from his end of the equation. And so for him, it was, I'm the reason we can't get ahead.

56:23And that aggression can't stand. You have to learn how to forgive yourself and walk through that. Because until you forgive yourself, you really cannot go forward. And I'm glad you mentioned it. We're so excited. Jade's new book, What No One Tells You About Money, is now available for pre-sale. And I love this. We were talking about this earlier. This is not just another money book. This is real stories from her journey. She and her husband, Sam, paid off over$500 ,000 worth of debt. And she focuses on the emotional side of money. That's the idea. What No One Tells You About Money is what? that it's really, really tough emotionally.

57:00Even though we give you a tried and true process of the baby steps, that does not mean that you aren't going to have those rough days where you want to quit, where you feel frustrated, like you can't ever get there. It works for everybody else, Dave, but it ain't working for me, Jade. The plan's only 50 % of the equation. I mean, the logic, we can all look at the baby steps and go, yeah, that's logical. That makes sense, feels practical, but when you start doing it, Ken, it's a whole different story. You get waylaid by a whole slew of things that you might be feeling, whether it's frustration, whether you're angry at the system or your mom and dad, or whether you're like the last caller, you're feeling a lot of guilt and shame, or maybe you're just caught up in like self-pity.

57:44Woe is me. Well, I got to tell you, if that was me and I wanted to be coached up by somebody who'd actually walk the walk and doesn't just talk the talk, it'd be Jay. Could you imagine Jay training you? Could you imagine? She runs marathons. I mean, look at the guns on the book cover. If you're not watching the show today, you've got to go to RamseySolutions.com slash store. You can see. She's got the guns out, folks. Did you do push-ups before that photo shoot? Tell the truth. I ran a marathon before that photo shoot. I was in tip-top shape, Ken. I've got to tell you. Still am. My next book cover, I might go sleeveless.

58:15We'll see how that goes. I don't know. I'll let you borrow the tank top, Ken. That would probably look good. Your belly button's going to be showing. That's not a good look for middle-aged guys. Not a good look. Nobody wants to see that. But hey, if you want to get the book, ramsysolutions.com slash store. Pre-order now. Yes. Pre-order. And you get$100 plus in free bonus items. And you want to get it now. It's the best deal in the book. $24.99. I'm doing a book club. $99. You're doing a book club? If you pre-order, you get a free slot in my book club. Okay. It's three weeks and we're going through it chapter by chapter.

58:48so can i can i get a friend uh connection on this uh or do i have to do i have to buy your book or can i get a friend uh spot in the book no can you gotta buy the book come on that's just you being a good friend that's a good point you know i just exposed myself as being cheap you know what's going on i'm starting to act like george that's a question george would ask because he doesn't want to spend any money what am i doing i'm better than that let me tell you what i'll get it i'll get it. I, I, I'm pre-ordering, I'm buying a copy of my own book today. You are? Yes. That I have, that's part of it.

59:23If I don't buy a copy of my own book, why can I expect anybody else to buy one, Ken? All right. Well, I'm very excited for you. You're going to, you're going to get some free bonus items. I wanted to tell you that. That's right. Yeah. Ramsey solutions.com slash store. Great book, by the way, there's no money book like this on the planet. It doesn't exist. I looked. Go get it. Yes, you did. Brett is up in Charlotte, North Carolina. Brett, how can we help? Hey, I got a pretty difficult decision to make here in the next 24 hours or so, so I was hoping to get some advice on what I should do. All right.

59:56So Wednesday, our team, everybody on our team was told that our team was being eliminated and everybody was being laid off. Oh, my. Effective today. But they've come back with two severance options, and I'm having a tough time picking between the two. Okay, give us number one. number one is i remain on the company payroll for 60 days i get my normal check i have health insurance you know my all the deductions are normal everything stays the same i just don't have any work responsibilities okay the catch to that is that if i become employed anytime during that 60 days um it stops okay so i have to let i have to let them know and any further benefits you Sure.

1:00:41Or pay will cease. Okay. So the other option is they'll give me 45 days of salary, and the separation is effective immediately. Like when the money is deposited for the lump sum, that ends the relationship. And so there's no health insurance or no further benefits whatsoever. So one is all at once, and the other one is over the course of the 60 days. Correct. How does the, for the 45 days, how does that work with insurance? Cause that has to play out over time. Like with the benefits. Yeah. I asked about that. The insurance stops, you know, pretty much the day the lump sum of the positive. So no insurance.

1:01:25I think that's a no brainer for me. Which way are you leaning? I'm leaning towards the 60 days because my thought is for, if, If you wanted to, if you let's pretend you got a, you know, you start looking for a job immediately. And let's pretend in the next two to three weeks you land something. You could easily say, here's my start date that I'd like to start. If you felt like your previous job was paying more or there was something beneficial that you were getting from having that additional 60 days play out. Or let's say you land a job in the next three weeks. You get paid more. The benefits are better.

1:02:02Who cares if this has to turn off? You're in a new job now. Yeah, that's the question I have. And this may be an unfair question. And if it is, just say, Ken, I don't know. And I get it. Do you have any sense of your ability to land somewhere else fairly quickly?

1:02:20Yeah, I don't know. What do you do? I'm an IT project manager. Okay. Given that, you've got to make a decision pretty quick. I'm with Jade. I'm leaning towards option one because that gives you 60 days as normal, gives you two months where life is normal. It's already awful enough what you've experienced. And I want to point this out so that you sit with this. We know from psychology studies that losing a job, even being laid off where you didn't do anything wrong, you're part of a massive deal. It is the same emotional equivalent as losing a loved one. So you need to grieve this and know that this is hard.

1:02:59And for that reason, I think I'm going to take the 60 days. I know I got two months more of normalcy in the midst of a lot of grief and confusion and fear and all the stress. Right. And if I get another job and it stops, that's fine, because we're talking about a Band-Aid situation at most. So I'm with Jade on that. I think I'd take stability, but I would act as though you got nothing coming in. That's right. Starting tomorrow. Actually starting today. You know what I mean? Like, I'd tell the whole world, I just got laid off. There's no shame in that game, by the way. That happens all the time.

1:03:32Of course. And what's to say you don't get something better, you know? Yeah, so I'd act as though nothing's coming in starting now. And I think that's what I would do. But so sorry. But you're going to be okay. But I'm going to tell you something. Here's what, let me, and I'm not saying this is you, but I've coached thousands of people in my time here at Ramsey on this particular issue. And there is this temptation to feel so bad for yourself that you just get stuck in this rut of, well, nothing's really working. No, I mean, you act as if you are starving and you're thrown out on the street. That's the response.

1:04:22I've been doing this show for over 30 years and some of the saddest calls I have taken are from situations that are completely preventable. Yeah. And what's so hard is I feel like one of those, especially the ones that I'm like, oh, it's terrible. People that call in and their spouse has passed away suddenly and they don't have life insurance. We actually took a question of a lady and she had three kids pregnant and husband didn't have life insurance. And I'm like, I can't even imagine, or even if it was opposite, right? If a mom passed away, there's a dad with kids and trying to figure out how am I going to afford child care?

1:04:59How do I outsource some stuff that maybe she was doing? And it just takes the grief and the sadness of something like a sudden death to a whole new level. When you have to think through how am I going to pay my bills in the middle of all that grief. It's terrible. And so life insurance is the one thing, especially as a mom with three little kids that I'm so big on for people to get because it's inexpensive. Xander is the place that Winston and I actually get all of our life insurance. And we keep re-upping it because I'm like, I just want it there. Like there's something about that safety of knowing that you have money if something suddenly happens.

1:05:34And it doesn't cost much because Xander shops among a gazillion different companies. It doesn't cost much. You just have to admit that someday you're not going to be here. You got to say it out loud and you got to say, I'm going to say, I love you to my family by taking care of them and taking the time to put this stuff in place. It costs a stinking pizza. It really is. So that is one thing to do to say, I love you to your family. So we've used Xander for all of our family's needs for insurance for many years, including, of course, term life insurance. To get a free quote, go to 800-356-4282. That's 800-356-4282, or go to Xander.com.

1:06:24Our question of the day is sponsored by Y-Refi. You didn't take out private student loans hoping to default, but life does happen and Y-Refi isn't going to shame you over this. They're actually going to help you explore a real plan to get back on track. All you got to do is go to Y-Refi.com slash Ramsey to find out more. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey. It's not available in all states. That's right. Today's question comes from Kelly in Colorado. she says, my debt, my only debt is$16 ,000 on a car loan. And then I have about$16 ,000 in savings. So I have my emergency fund built up.

1:07:03The only thing is I'm scared to death to pay off this car loan because my husband and I would like to potentially look into buying a home. I'm truly scared that if we were to do something like that, something else would pop up. I don't know if I should build up a little bit more money and then tackle it or do it now. Okay. So first, Kelly, let's just, I'll give you both sides of it. Let's talk about the baby step side of it. And then we'll talk about the emotional side. So Kelly, the baby steps would tell you that if you have debt, you're in baby step two. All right. You've got, you know, baby step one, obviously you put a thousand dollars aside.

1:07:39You got that. You got$16 ,000, but the baby steps say you're supposed to take everything else aside from the thousand and put it on the car and pay it off. So essentially you'd be paying 15 ,000 on the car if you were really following the steps to a T. And then after that, yeah, you would save up three to six months and then, and only then Kelly, would you then start to save up for your down payment for this house. Now that's a timeline. That's, this is not going to happen overnight, right? This is going to be something that's going to take an extended period of time. So that's when we start getting into the emotional side of this.

1:08:12Whereas Ken and I, we could just tell you, Kelly, here's the steps, do it. But the truth is you're going to feel some emotion around that. Number one, you're going to feel the fear of getting rid of your savings because that is a security blanket to you. You feel that at night, you probably check your bank account balance just to make sure it's still there, right? It feels good to have$16 ,000 off to the side. Then there's the part of, oh my gosh, Jade, you're telling me that I have to do all of those other things before I buy this house. I want to do it much sooner than that. And so there's a little bit of an emotional pill to swallow there when you realize, wait a second, the thing I thought I was going to maybe be able to do in the next 12 months is actually maybe going to take me closer to 48 months or possibly even longer.

1:08:57So I just want to take a moment and validate that that is absolutely real. And there's part of this where we're asking you, Kelly, to do something that you've never done before and possibly never even seen done before. And there's a lot of fear in that unknown, Ken. Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of things that have never been seen before, earlier in the show, I was talking about how in a future book, I might like to, let me see your book. And by the way, if you're watching, and by the way, if you're in the lobby and you want to see something special, move back to that screen back there. You're about ready to see something really special.

1:09:32This is Jade's new book. Of course, we've been talking about it, What No One Tells You About Money. And I was talking to her earlier about, look at her guns. And, you know, she's been working out, training for a marathon, all the things. And then I said, maybe my next book, when does it become socially acceptable for a guy to wear a sleeveless shirt on something, you know, formal? And so James Childs, being the genius that he is, and the crack team back there behind the glass went to ChatGPT and put me in your tank top on your new book cover. Let's show the audience. Oh, Ken. There it is, folks.

1:10:09I mean, look at those guns. Listen, the guns are out. Face is a little warped, but the left arm looks a little stronger. You have a strange way of showing your excitement for my book, Ken. The teeth look fantastic. Your teeth looked great. so it's just fascinating how socially acceptable it is for women to be sleeveless and you all look lovely we see it all the time TV out in the town but a guy goes sleeveless and you either look like a wannabe or a try too hard yeah that's true or white trash so there you go I don't know why that is so anyway I'm sending that to Dave to see what he thinks about a future book cover.

1:10:57See what he thinks about that. I'm pretty sure the answer is no. Hard pass. Hard pass. You sent that picture to Sam, your husband, and his reply was hilarious. What did he say? He was like, this is deeply disturbing. So good stuff. You need to keep those weapons concealed. They're going to stay concealed, folks. These babies are dangerous in all 50 states. Listen, I don't want to say. I think that picture might have done you a few favors, Ken Coleman. I'm happily married. happily married uh elliot is up in idaho elliot how can we help um so me and my wife just found out we were pregnant like three weeks ago congratulations thanks and i'm trying to figure out how much we need to save up in the nine months to be able to pay for it all outright Right.

1:11:48Yeah. Yeah. So tell me where you are in the baby steps. Is there debt? Is there not debt? Tell me where you're at. Yeah, we have a car payment of$5 ,100 and that is about it. Wow. $5 ,100 for the car payment? Yeah. No, no. You mean the total amount? Yeah, total. That was the total amount of what we have left. Got you, got you. Yeah, the way you said that, America just all did a collective gasp. I know, that's right. And that's it? Just the car? Yeah, just the car. Okay. What do you guys earn? Combined, a little less than$60 ,000. Okay, good. So yeah, during this time, we kind of call this stork mode, which is basically you're pausing any real financial traction that you're making to save up.

1:12:35Every dime that you have, you're saving that up so that when this baby comes, just in case, if you need the money, it's there. Now, obviously, I hope that everything goes off without a hitch, but it is nice to have that money there because many times you do hit the deductible. And it's nice to at least at the very least have that insurance deductible there so that, you know, you're not having to come out of pocket last minute for that. Do you know what yours is? I believe deductible is$2 ,500. Okay. And is that the same as your out-of-pocket max for the year? Out-of-pocket is$6 ,500. $6 ,500. So if I were you, that'd probably be somewhere in between those two numbers would be my goal over the next nine months to save up.

1:13:18And then the good news is, let's say you save up the whole$6 ,500. The good news is once the baby's born, everything's good. Mom's home, baby's home. You can take that whole amount, throw it towards the car, pay it off just like that. And you got a little something, something to start your three to six months off on the right track. Okay. Make sense? Yeah. Good, good. Let that sink in. All right, there you go. All right, let's talk about the emotions. Okay. Nice segue, Ken. Just slap it right in there. Let's go. Let's talk about the emotions of bringing a child into the world. Oh, Lord. You're in the baby steps, right?

1:13:56And this was a very specific question, but just in general, it's been a while, right? But I'm thinking back, I know you've done it. There's something happens And how do we manage that natural fear of, oh, my gosh, I now have to take care of somebody more than just me and my wife? Because I remember Stacey and I, it's like I never felt like, OK, I've got to take care of Stacey because she was working and I was working. Now I know, you know, obviously we're married, but it's like we were both working, double income, no kids. And the moment when a child comes in, I know as a dude, I feel like the provider muscle starts to flare a little bit more.

1:14:35so a what you think the common emotion is and b how do we make sure we don't overreact and stay calm i think obviously depending on the person it's going to be different i know for me i can speak from my personal opinion uh and just personal experience for me it was kind of twofold the idea of bringing a child into the world and then we had this half a million dollars of debt for me it was a wake-up call of, I am in a current state of struggle and financial trauma. I was like, I can't bring a child into this. I have to get my act together. Sam, we have to get our act together. We've got to create stability.

1:15:11So for us, it was like lighting a fire under our butt. And then there's also kind of the historical framework. So you think about what was money like when you were a child? How did you feel? Did you feel like it was a scarcity mentality? Did you feel like it was abundant? Did you feel? And all of that plays into the moment when you find out we're pregnant. Yeah. And if you're not careful, it can freeze you dead in your tracks or you can take that and it can be just the catalyst that you need to get you moving in the right direction, possibly for the first time ever. And so that's exactly the type of thing I'm talking about and what no one tells you about money, how to convert those emotions into fuel to actually help you win.

1:15:58Thank you.

1:16:29Jake, you know this. I got to tell everybody else. The all new EveryDollar is here. Hey. And it's more than just a world-class budgeting app. Okay. So when we say that, I mean, there's a bunch of advanced features, all the things, but I think what's really cool is the real-time help. That's right. Talk about that. You're in the weeds. Oh, real-time. I think the best thing is, yeah, the coaching aspect. Not only does it create a plan that's customized for you, but we also have coaching. There's free one-on-one coaching that you can get involved in. There's group coaching that you can get involved in.

1:17:01We do webinars once a month so you can get help from real people. Yes, there's the digital component, but there's also the human component. And I think that's the best of both worlds, baby. Get every dollar for free today in the App Store or Google Play. And it really is fantastic. I mean, the way I like to describe it is if you've ever been familiar or been a part of or led Financial Peace University. Imagine that digital on steroids to the nines. It's like having one of the personalities in your pocket, like having Ken or I, Ken in your right side pocket, Jade in your left side pocket. I don't know.

1:17:33A little scary. I was getting ready to say, I thought everything was good until that. I think now everybody ran for the hills when you told them I might be in their pocket. We'll let that one go. Trevor's up in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I've been there before. You ever been to Sioux Falls? I have not. It's gorgeous. Falls run right through the town. Trevor is there. Trevor, how can we help? Hey guys My father-in-law wants to gift me his portion of a family business and I don't know that I want to be partners with the rest of his family without him involved I don't want to be unappreciative So don't do it Do you already work in the family business?

1:18:15So I manage it Okay. And how long have you been part of it? This is my fourth year. Oh boy. And what's his stake? What percentage is he offering you? He has 25 % of it. Who are the other family members once he's out? His parents and his brother. And you work with these folks for four years? Yeah. You've been behind the curtain and you don't want it.

1:18:47um i mean ideally at some point i don't the whole thing but i don't know that i want to be involved right and and and you know your reasons yeah and because it's family i'm not going to ask you to list them because you're calling in at a show but i i guess my point is that's everything i need to know because you it'd be one thing if if you called and you didn't work in the business and maybe you were just adjacent and you just knew very little, I think I'd be the one that would go, you know what I would do? I would at least go kick the tires, ask a lot of questions. But the fact that you've been running the business for four years tells me you have enough evidence and I don't even need to know your reasons why.

1:19:30And I think in this case, you got to honor your gut. Does that? It does. You got any head checks on that? It does. I do have more questions just based on two things you said. Number one is you said, I wouldn't want to be in it without him. So I wondered, what is it about your father-in-law that you feel like that brings kind of like stability to the chaos? Well, I know he's got my best interests in mind.

1:19:56And he's able to kind of push things. Like if we need to make a change or something, he's going to be able to kind of get it pushed past his family, I guess. So he's kind of an ally? He's an ally, and he kind of knows how to navigate the BS. What position is he in right now? Or has he been in? He's recently retired, so he's gotten more involved. But he just kind of helps with the day-to-day stuff as far as just manually. I guess my point is, so your position is what? What's your title? So I'm the manager. so I'm kind of in charge of everything. Okay, who's above you? Who do you report to?

1:20:45Basically, I report to my father-in-law. Yeah, but father-in-law's out. Once he's gone, who do you report to? Who does he report to? If he helps get things pushed through, it implies that there's somebody above him. Who is that? Well, his parents own 50 % of it, so I guess they would be the... Okay, that's 50. He's offering you 25. Where's the other 25? The brother. The brother. Is he involved in the business? Yeah, he used to be the manager before I got involved. So two other questions then. First question is, the parents, they've got to be aging, right? Yeah. So what happens to their cut when they leave and when are they leaving?

1:21:25It's supposed to be split between my father-in-law and his brother. So you would get another 25%. So essentially at the end of the day, it'd be you owning 50 % and the brother owning 50%. Is that right? Yeah. Okay. Then my next question is, what's the business worth?

1:21:46It's probably over a million dollars. Huh. I was hoping for more. Okay. Are you, do you have a, well, okay. I have two quick questions. one is it part of your plan to if I say no now and I just keep doing a good job running the business that once um grandparents are gone and uncle and father-in-law are in charge and once they age out that you just inherit it all at that point you go sure I want it then but only then is that where your head is at or do you have another play outside of this um yeah Yeah, I mean, that's... Yeah, what? If his parents weren't involved and... The uncle. And the uncle.

1:22:38Yeah, I guess that would be... Right. But that's a long time from now at best? I mean, his parents are in their 80s. No, I know, but we've got to go through another layer. Did you mention this to your father-in-law, that you would do it if he were involved, but have you told him this is my question? I've kind of, it's been, I mean, we've been talking about this a little bit, so I've kind of brought it up that I don't really want to be involved without him. And is there pressure from him for you to stay involved, or does he go, totally get it, young man, I appreciate that?

1:23:14Yeah, a little bit. I gave you two, I need you to tell me. He wants to see the business continue, but he doesn't, he doesn't want to have to, I think he's getting kind of sick of dealing with his family. Yeah, but I mean, is he pressuring you to stay in it? Or is he saying, if you don't want it, that's totally fine. That's what I'm asking, A or B? He's not really pressuring me, but I mean, he knows that I want to be in this long term, I guess. So you do want to stay in the business long term? I do, yeah. Is there a world where... Okay, so parents, they're getting older. I got to believe they're going to age out of this in the next five to ten years.

1:23:55Is there a world – you said they're in their 80s now? Yeah. Maybe even sooner. I mean, only you know that. But is there a world where once the parents come out and you're 50-50 with the brother-in-law, is there a world where you could then buy the brother-in-law out financially? Are you in the position to be able to do that so you can get to a position of ownership faster? I'm not really a financial position to do that. Got it. And are you okay working with the uncle? No. I'd prefer not to, no. There you go. Okay, so I got to tell you something. I don't think this is worth the wait for you. Because it feels like the uncle's going to be in charge for a good while.

1:24:34Yes? Yeah. Okay, then. How old are you? 30. Okay. You know what I think? I'm not telling you to do this, but this is what Ken would do. Get it. I'm not saying this is what you should do, okay? What I would do is I would tell everybody. You've already told father-in-law. I'd tell uncle-in-law. I'd tell grandma, granddaddy, whatever you call them. I love you guys. I'm going to go out. I'm going to go a different path. What about? I'm out. And here's why. Once you go do your own thing, and the reason I'm telling you to go do your own thing, whatever that is, you go work for somebody else, you go whatever.

1:25:11You just leave the business because you don't want to work with these people. You've already determined that. and you certainly don't want to wait as long as it's going to take for you to get the chance to run it so go do your own thing and here's what's going to happen at some point when uncle's ready he's got to figure out what he's going to do and you're probably the best candidate anyway and so you're a young man you're 30 i believe you said i would go another direction and let it come back to me i know jade's got something here i i'm with that i i agree with ken i would not stick in it um i have nothing more to add to this yeah i mean go west young man i think it'll come back to you but they're waiting for this is not a good option and stepping into something you know you don't want to do isn't a good option so that means there's a far better one somewhere else and i'd take it

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1:27:28Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studios. I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw is alongside. Colleen is up in Calgary, Alberta. And let's go to Colleen. Colleen, how are you doing today? Hi, thanks for taking my call. You bet. What's up? So my question is, I've been listening for a couple months, and it must be a basic question, but I can't wrap my head around it. So my husband and I, we use our credit cards basically for everything, but we do pay it off every month. We've never carried a balance. I'm really interested in switching to cash only, and my question is how do you do that so that you'd actually have money left over that you could last the rest of the month to then switch to cash.

1:28:15Yeah. So you're kind of, you're a month behind essentially because just the sole way that they work, you're always like kind of a month paying a month late. Yeah. So the best way to do this is to, to do the budget first, like let's do a budget first and let's get in our mind what we honestly need for a month, not going over, not depending on a, you know, a line of credit, just what does it take for our household to run realistically? Have you done that yet? Uh, no, we haven't. I've been on my husband to get started with that though. Yeah. So, okay. Before we get off the call, we'll make sure that Christian gives you, uh, the all new every dollar so that you guys tonight can make that first budget because then you're going to have a starting place of knowing, okay, we need $5 ,000 a month or we need$6 ,000, whatever that is.

1:29:03And then from there, I want to ask, do you happen to have any money saved? Yeah, we do. Like we could pay it off with our savings. Like we have a savings we could pay it off. Okay. So what's on the credit card now? I'm just wondering in general. Yeah, we could do that for sure. So what's, tell me your real numbers. What's on the credit card now and how much do you have saved? Oh, we have probably at least like 30 ,000 in a savings account that we could just pay it off. And how much is on the card? Oh, probably our cards right now are only maybe like five grand. Okay, great. We could, we could pay it.

1:29:44I was just not maybe wanting to take it from there and pay it off and instead just make that switch. Well, I'm going to, I'm going to repeat, repeat back what you wanted to do, which is you told me that you wanted to stop using the credit cards for monthly payments and just use your money. And then you agreed with me that you're essentially a month behind because that's the way credit cards work. So the only way to get in front of it is to pay off the existing debt. Well, the first step I told you is to make a budget so you know how much money you even need for the next month to month budget. Then the second step is now we have to get even, we have to get to zero because we have to pay off the debt.

1:30:23So that's the next thing you're going to reach over from that 30 ,000, pay off the debt, and then you're going to be at ground zero. and then now you have the budget going into the month of November and you say, okay, here's our budget. Now we just use our money that we're going to get paid. That's how this works. Now we can get into the gears of how to set a budget if you want to do that, but that's the first three steps to accomplish what you said you wanted to do. Yeah, no, I have no doubt that we could live off of like our income and what we make. So I guess it is just a matter of getting it paid off so that we're at kind of starting point with no, like no debt with credit card and then just go from there with the budget.

1:31:07Now, if you have, I don't know what your income is. What's your income? Because if you can cash flow both, I'm fine with that. If you're like, hey, Jade, I actually make enough this month that I could pay off the credit card and have enough to float November's budget. that'd be pretty awesome too what do you make uh so yearly combined with my husband we're probably around 190 okay what does that break down every month what is what do you actually bring home

1:31:34uh this is why we need the budget yeah I'm trying to think probably like 10 to 12 ,000. Okay. So there could, there could be a world where you can cash flow most of this and, and dip into savings very little. I'm just not sure because I haven't seen your budget. There could be things that are stopping you from it. Yeah, for sure. That makes sense. The answer is super easy, right? I mean, she, listen, Jade gave you the tactical stuff, But again, I'm going to tell you something. You're going to have to realize that you're making a major change from being responsible. I think you're responsible. You're obviously responsible.

1:32:16But there's a difference, Jay, between being responsible and being strategic. That's right. And strategy is what we teach. And so the idea here is that when you know what's in your budget and you know where the money's going and you're telling the money what to do and it's doing something for you, now you're so much further ahead. So it's just a simple do exactly what she said, but then to get to the next level of we're not just using credit cards as some loosey-goosey backup and we get these benefits. We're actually being strategic to win with our money. That's a big difference. I agree. so are you gonna do it yeah just oh yeah i'm 100 on board and i do think it'll make us a lot more conscious of what we're spending our money on instead of just like swipe the card and yes pay for whatever that's right yeah and let me go i was gonna say let me give you just a little nuts and bolts thing on the budget um i don't know when you get paid but most people get paid twice a month usually like on the the the 15th and the 30th right it's kind of normal?

1:33:19Yeah, that's his and I'm biweekly. Okay. So just a little nuts and bolts thing. Generally, when you're getting on a budget for the first time, the check from the 30th is going to go towards the next month. So for instance, if you got paid yesterday, that check technically should go towards November. So your paychecks that you're budgeting for, for the current month are from the 30th of the previous month. So the 30th of October will go for your October budget or for your November budget and your November 15th paycheck will be on your November budget. Does that make sense? Yep. Yeah, it does. So instead we're just kind of paying for things before instead of after.

1:34:00Yes. That way you always have the money to pay for what you need all 30 days of the month. Because if you let that October 30th check go for October, well, the month's already over. Everything's going to be late. So that's just a little tip. A lot of people get hung up on that. Okay. Awesome. No, that sounds really good. All right. Thank you for the call, Colleen. Yeah. There's a lot of people, we get this question a lot and it's always fun for people if I'll meet somebody and then they find out I work at Ramsey Solutions and they'll be like, okay, hey, so, okay. By the way, isn't it funny? It always drops down.

1:34:32Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. It's like, oh, hey, yeah, yeah, I got it. Okay. So let me just ask, like, what's the problem with just, you know, we pay everything and we pay it off. And it's really fun how that happens. But again, it's less about, I think sometimes we get painted with this brush here at Ramsey Slewis that we're just anti-everything and we're not. You know what I mean? We're for your money winning. Yes. And we want you to feel good about it. We want you to feel like you're the one in control. We don't want you to do the things that we teach because Jade and Ken said so.

1:35:06Yeah, right. We want you to do it because it makes sense to you. You like the idea of peace. You like the idea of freedom and being in control of your money and with your emotions as well. Yeah, it is always funny to me when somebody goes, okay, I think I get it. And by the way, this call is a great example, by the way, of realizing, oh, this isn't just anti-credit card. There's a bigger strategy at play. Oh, yeah. And she's beginning to see it. And the light bulb goes off there as she says, I can see how this is going to help us when we know where our money is and we're going to be even more strategic, more responsible.

1:35:41Yes. Cash does that. And I liked her call because I actually talk about that in the book, What No One Tells You About Money. I go through each baby step and I say what it is. And then I say what it actually feels like and what it actually means. And it's juicy. It's juicy. Let me tell you, I'm telling you the raw and the real. I don't hold back. All right.

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1:37:25all right let's talk insurance real quick everybody needs it uh but you may not need as much as you think or you may have too much uh and you need to find somebody who's a pro not somebody who's looking to make a buck off of you but people who know their stuff want to take care of you. And you can do that with a Ramsey trusted insurance pro. You're not going to have to deal with all the sleazy, slimy sales crap and know that we've vetted these folks to make sure that they're market experts who are going to take care of you. Ramseysolutions.com slash coverage is where you go. Ramseysolutions.com slash coverage.

1:37:58Let's go to Matt in Charleston, South Carolina. Matt, how can we help today? Hey, how are y 'all doing today? We're doing great. What's going on? So I recently came into some lottery money. Whoa. That's juicy. Let's not roll right by that. Okay. How much did we win, sir? So we won right at$200 after taxes. $200. $250. $200 is what you take home? Yeah. Okay. Wow. Was that state lottery? Yeah, it was a state, kind of a second chance thing. They do. Wow. Wow. That's something. Okay. You know what? I've never had anybody on the show. Can I ask one quick follow-up? I've never taken a lottery call on this show.

1:38:42Was this a random, I'm in the grocery store or I'm at the gas station and I see the ticker and I go, I'm going to shoot my shot? Or are you like a guy who played it all the time? Well, I was a guy that played it all the time when this kind of happened. I since stopped playing, but it was a second chance. So you scan a ticket and they put your name in a hat for a second chance and they luckily drew my name. Wow. Dude. That's so funny. Okay. All right. So to the reason you called, what's your question? All right. So prior to this, I was very not financially savvy. Like I was credit card debt, student debt, personal loans.

1:39:26Essentially, I was working week to week and going down to zero or sometimes negative in my account. So with this, my plan is to go ahead and pay off all of my debt, which is about$30 ,000, and potentially put a down payment on a house. My wife's car just broke down to potentially get her a new car. But what I don't want to do is mess it up and get back to where I was a month ago, week to week, getting down to zero in my account. Well, let's talk about that first. Let's talk about that because you've got Jade here to walk you through this. Describe for her what you think was the cause of you being week to week, never having enough there.

1:40:08Because that wasn't that long ago. So presumably we haven't solved what was going on. So describe what you think is the source of that. I think I got credit cards in the mail and I was like, okay, I can use those. And I just started overspending and not paying attention to my spending. Okay. and then you know i had other debts that i just kind of just kept piling on i just was not being responsible understood what what's your income uh i make about 105 a year okay so it's not like you're scrapping and is it just you or is there a wife kids anything um i just married my wife um two weeks ago and then we have three kids three kids okay and does she work outside the house Yeah, she does work.

1:40:55What's she make? Roughly 40. Okay. Our finances have been separate. Okay, but they're coming together. I think the key here is you've got to look at what you're bringing home every single month. You've got to look at what you have to spend, what's your margin, and you've got to just give every dollar an assignment. And then that's the practical part. But then the emotional part of actually sticking to it, Ken, is what's going to be your struggle. Because if you set out and say, hey, we're only spending$150 on restaurants and you write that on paper. Now it's your chance to say, am I going to be the person that keeps the promises to myself or am I going to be a person that flakes out every single time?

1:41:42am I going to be a person that I can depend on that I I can depend on me to say what I do I what I say I'm going to do I'm actually going to do or are you going to let your emotions lead you and go well I work hard I deserve to go to Applebee's one more time right that's where the real battle starts so I love that he asked the question because you know as much as Ken and I do know know that the two hundred thousand dollars that is a wonderful thing you had some good luck but But that is not the solve of the problem. The solve of the problem is Matt deciding that he's going to be a guy who can look in the mirror and trust himself to do what he says he's going to do.

1:42:18And have a process for doing it. Yeah. In other words, if you say, hey, I want to get in shape, put on muscle, cut up, or I want to put on 15 pounds of muscle, or I want to lose 50 pounds of weight. You've got to have a process. You can't just say, I want it to happen, expect it to happen. Right. You've got to have a process that is attached to a willingness to change. And so I'm going to start with the budget for you. You didn't know what was going on with any of your money. So let's take care of the man. Let's get him in every dollar. Let's get him in every dollar. And I think you need to give him a, what does he do tonight with every dollar to change this around?

1:42:56Yep. Tonight you sit down with your wife and you put all the numbers and you're going to put in what you guys earn. You're going to pull up the HR website. You're going to look at your check stubs after taxes. that's the number that you're going to put into the budget. Then you're going to go back and you're going to look at all your bank statements and you're going to put accurate numbers for, okay, we already know, yes, this is our cell phone payment utilities. We know our mortgage or our rent payment, but what do we really spend on groceries? What do we really spend going out to eat? What do we really spend on gas?

1:43:23And you're going to plug those numbers in so you have an accurate picture of, okay, this is what it takes to run my lifestyle. And then you're going to say, okay, honey, we've got this money. That's enough to break us free. It's going to give us a get out of jail free card on this debt, on the car, and it's even going to help us get a down payment. But today we look ourselves in the eye and say, but this is our real income,$150 ,000 and this is what we get to live on. And we have to be okay with that. We don't have to keep up with anybody else. It's just us. And you guys, you have to kind of, you know, decide that you're both going to do that and that you're both going to hold each other accountable because trust and believe there's going to be temptations, obviously.

1:44:06There's always another trip to take. There's always a better car to buy, right? There's always a nicer restaurant to eat at, but you have to be okay with what your lifestyle is. So don't squander this. And I don't think you will if you internalize what we're saying. Yeah. Hang on the line. We're going to get you started in every dollar. Stay tuned into the show. Create some accountability to where you go, okay, I'm now living this. I'm putting in new financial data into my head as opposed to living like everybody else. And let's talk about that for a minute, Ken. You talked about getting cut, working out, trying to get muscles, whatever the goal is.

1:44:42I'm trying to keep up with your book cover. Let's be honest. You are likening it to getting on a plan with your money. And a lot of people forget that they've got to set themselves up for success. Because if you're trying to get ripped, do you want to know what you don't keep on the counter? Chips. Oreos. Oreos. Halloween candy. oh boy all right listen i said that and there is a bowl of halloween candy on my counter right now at home uh wait till i get the tax when i get home let me tell you i take a tax on whatever mrs coleman has bought for the little ones that are coming by tonight mr coleman takes a tax chef snack that's a chef snack i go through it all i go i'll have one of these thank you very much but you know uh if i cheat tonight on some candy yeah as i will guess what you gotta pay for it I'll pay for it tomorrow.

1:45:29Ooh, don't you pay for it. So you, A, you got to have a process. You know what you do? So the first thing you do is, I'm playing along with you. I'm going to go, all right, I'm going to eat better. So I got to remove the junk, but I also got to put good stuff in my body. You got to put it there. And you got to have protein. You want to add muscle. You got to have X amount of grams of protein. So it's not just what I eliminate, frivolous spending. Yes. It is. Watch this. Instead of listening to everybody else who's broke, maybe I buy Jade Warshaw's book. maybe I listen to the Ramsey show two or three times a week or every day.

1:46:02I'm going to put good money practices, good money philosophy in as well. That's right. That's like putting protein in my body in order that the workout, I get the maximum out of it. I'm with you, Ken. That's what I'm saying. And make it easy. If I put healthy food in the refrigerator, I put it at eye level so I can just grab it. It's the first thing I see. And it's the same thing with this. You need to be setting reminders in your phone to check your every dollar budget. You need to be doing the things that are right there at eye level. Put the podcast. Let that be the first podcast that pops up.

1:46:33Stop unfollow all of the ads and the things that are unsubscribed, all the things that are trying to sell you in your email and on social media and start following people like Ken Coleman and myself. Set yourself up to succeed with money so that when the time comes, it's an easy choice. It's right there in front of you. You keep preaching like that. I might do an altar call, have a baptismal service right in the studio. By the way, I have gone out to eat with this one and her husband, and she orders the cleanest stuff. Ain't no fun, folks. I try.

1:47:15Ever feel like you're doing everything right with money, but still stuck? I was you in debt running hard, but taking three steps forward and two steps back. Turns out it's not the numbers. It's the fact that changing our ways with money is emotional. That's why I wrote my brand new book, What No One Tells You About Money, to help you push past what's really been sabotaging your progress so you can finally win. You can preorder now and score over$100 in free bonus items. Just go to RamseySolutions.com slash store.

1:48:02All right, let's go to Megan in Spokane, Washington. Megan, how can we help today? Hi, thanks for taking my call. You bet. What's up? Um, I was, I'm calling because I'm a single mom and I'm in baby step three B. And so I'm currently only saving up to my match in my retirement, but I live in a really expensive area. Um, and you know, like don't want to move really because the, like it helps to have a lot of community when you're trying to raise a kid on your own. So like, I'm trying to figure out, um, And if I were to really realistically try to buy a house under the Ramsey guidelines, I would probably need a$200 ,000 down payment with my current income.

1:48:51And that would take me, I'm saving very aggressively. I have a really good living situation right now, but it would take me still probably over five years to do that. So I'm kind of wondering, it seems too long to pause my retirement, but then I'm going to be even saving longer. If I wait, if I don't pause retirement. So yeah, just kind of wondering what your guys' thoughts are about that. Like if it would be smarter to pause my retirement and maybe just save what I can and give up having a house or like it feels like it would provide a lot of security to have a house. You are correct. It does provide security to have a house.

1:49:28That's the largest line item on your budget. And to have that stabilized, it's a very, very important part of security and wealth building. So you're exactly right. Yeah. You're also right on how tough it is to save up a down payment because gone are the days where you can just say, oh, put 20 % down. And now you're right at 25 % of your take home. That math is different now. So in order to make the payment 25 % of your take home, in many cases, you're putting down well above 20%. In some cases, you're putting like 50 and 60 % down in order to make that happen. That's just the reality. So for you, probably what I would do is I would go, when you're in baby step three B, you do have the opportunity, you have the choice to say, I'm either going to kind of split and I'm going to do some investing and some saving for the down payment.

1:50:22Or you can say, I'm just going to go ham on the down payment and get that done. If I were in your shoes, I'd start there. I'd start on not investing. I'd start on everything going to the down payment. And then probably at the three year mark is when I would say, okay, I have to start putting something into retirement. And I realized that's going to make me go slower, but hopefully by then there's some change that's happened. Your income has gone up. Maybe your life has changed in a way to where there's more income coming in. But I want to, if you were here right now, I'd be looking you dead in your eye and validating the fact that it is tough.

1:50:59It's a longer timeline than what people are used to. And it is a lot more money that must be put down on the front end than what people are used to. But I would also tell you, if it makes you feel any better, for my husband and I, we had a 10-year. We had to wait 10 years to do our house. Oh, wow. Yeah, for us, because we started out broke and we had to clean up debt. But time is time, right? And the biggest thing I can leave you with is when the day comes and you have the money and you put it down and you move in that house, it's all going to have been worth it. I'd like to ask. Yeah, I love having a timeline on that.

1:51:38Like that feels good to be like, okay. Yeah, and I love that Jade acknowledged how tough this is in the current situation. But I'm going to push a little bit because I think sometimes there's more than one way. and certainly waiting longer is fine. It stinks to tell people that, but just because it takes longer doesn't mean that it's still not the best decision. And you've already got a good living situation. How much of a house are we talking about? How much are we looking at? How big is this house and what price point? I mean, I live in a tiny house right now, so I am definitely not looking for a big house.

1:52:15I'm living in a tiny house that I built. Oh, an actual tiny house? Yeah, I built a tiny house like five years ago. So I'm living in that house now, and I would be very happy with just even putting my tiny house on a piece of property. But I'm just having a hard time finding a property that I could even put it there. Well, tell us, though. It would be not a huge house. Right, but I just want to have some fun with the numbers for a minute. All right, so based on what you've told us, you've got a number in mind, correct? A price point. Yeah, well, I'm thinking like the average houses in our area are between like, like around$400 ,000.

1:52:54And that's for like a pretty, like a small, you know, house. Yeah, like how many? Okay. So, so there's nothing in the$300 ,000 or$250 ,000 range? Not that I have seen recently, but that, you know, it could fluctuate a little bit. Like, I think it could be possible, like 350 could come up eventually. But that's not like a very common. How close do you have to be to where you work? What's that situation? Well, my daughter is in a school, so it's more, I work remotely, which is wonderful. So I, but my daughter goes to school every day. So I'm driving her, I'm driving it down twice a day to get her.

1:53:36Where is your tiny house? Are you renting the land or the space? I am. I am renting the land basically. Yeah. So it's in Coquitlam. I don't know if you know. No, I don't know where it is. I guess what I'm saying is, is that if all I'm doing is encouraging you, not in any way, you know, tsk, tsk, you should be doing something different than you're doing. but I certainly will be looking at every opportunity to go, okay, if I could find something that's a little bit cheaper, that shortens my timeline, right? Because it's less I have to save. And I'm now going to incrementally work my way up. And you're actually a prime candidate for that, given the fact that you're in a tiny home.

1:54:13And I also think if I were you and you love the tiny home and you go, Hey, if I could find land, I'd get really aggressive in looking for something like that because it might be a lot cheaper than a house. Yeah. And I could always build a house on it later. Down the line. And that's right. And so let's say you get it. Go ahead. Oh, so just there's also an opportunity to build to buy a house that's cheaper because it's with a like group that has a deed restriction. And I'm a little bit hesitant to do a deed restriction. It's like you basically don't own the land, you own the house, and then you have to sell it like you can't sell it at market value.

1:54:51You have to sell it. No, don't. Don't do that. but don't do that. No, you never want to buy something that comes with all these restrictions. It's like, I didn't buy anything. I signed up for some deal that has all these problems. And you're not desperate. That's right. That's the thing you got to remember. You're not desperate, but you are a person who had a timeline and you have a timeline that you want to make. And the hardest part of all of this is readjusting expectations. You know, that's the emotional aspect of this. You know the numbers. I don't think we have to go over that. You understand the benefit of the numbers, but the hardest part is the part of you that's got to go, man, this is, I'm disappointed.

1:55:33This is not going to happen as quickly as I wanted it to. Yeah. And I am, you're right. I am disappointed and I'm a little scared. Yeah. I'm being honest. Well, yeah. The fear says, what if I wait too long? What if I'm priced out of the market? What if I, you know, a lot can happen in the next five to six years. so there's a fear of the unknown that's there um and you built your tiny home yeah yourself yes like with help obviously but yeah but that's yeah that's amazing so i'm not trying to turn you into joanna gains but i would also if you can find something that's not a death trap that doesn't end up costing more money but like with a little bit of love and tenderness you know and it's structurally sound.

1:56:17In other words, it's got good bones. You know, that might be a steal for you too, especially being a single mom with one kid you're used to living, you know, in some little thing. I'm sure it looks amazing, by the way. But I just, I guess my thing is, is that when I'm in a situation like you're in, and I know that there's a good long-term play, and it's going to require patience, then I know, okay, that will win. The tortoise beats the hare every time. All right. However, it never hurts to go, have I looked at everything? Have I turned over every stone? You know what I mean? And I guess that's my only encouragement.

1:56:53Doesn't hurt. You're not going to do anything stupid. You've been very smart to this point. So I'm not saying turn over every crazy stone. Like, I'm glad you brought up the one situation because that could be tempting. No, don't do that where they're going to force you to sell and you don't own the dirt underneath your house. Like, that's not a stone we want to turn over. Or if we turn it over, we see a bug, we go, ooh, and we turn the stone back over and we run. So that's one that you do there. But I would look at everything that you possibly can to see, can I progressively step into something because I'm making good financial decisions along the way.

1:57:26Yes.

1:57:42Bye.

1:58:04Our scripture of the day is Psalm 37 verses 3-4. Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Take delight in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Our quote from Maya Angelou today, I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back. I love that. I love that. So fun. You know, we've had, it's interesting. We were just talking with James, our fearless producer. There have been a lot of calls today where we've seen the emotional side of money. Yes. Talked about. And you and I were talking about this earlier today.

1:58:44There's so much fear. Yes. That is involved in money decisions. And you write about the emotional side of money in your new book. Yeah. What no one tells you about money. And that is the emotional side and how very difficult it is to win with money and also process all of the range of emotions that come with money and its rhythm in life. That's right. We saw it in a couple of calls today. We saw the young lady who had she wanted to stop using credit cards and she had the money in savings to pay off the credit cards and start fresh. But there was fear there. We saw it with the previous caller who was like, I'm afraid I'm never going to be able to buy a house if I say keep saving at this rate with the market the way it is.

1:59:23and we've seen it throughout, woven throughout other calls as well. And I wanna take a moment, can I wanna read this section out of the book specifically about fear? It says, fear is a negative expectation of the future based on a rational or irrational belief. So if you think about that, some of our fears are totally, they're like totally valid. It's like, this is rational. I could see where that's coming from. Some of them are irrational, but I go on to say, I added the element about the future because if you think about it, fear is rarely about what's happening in the moment. It's really about our perception.

2:00:00It's really about our perceived outcome or what we think is going to happen in the future. If I do this, then some negative thing will happen later. That's what we think. And it's never about what's happening in the moment. We're projecting ahead and going, oh gosh, if I do this, that thing's going to happen out there and that thing's, and we really don't know. And so in the book, I walk through understanding that and taking a moment and just writing out, what is it that you're afraid of? What is it? Write it down. Because when you can look at it staring back at you at the page, it has a whole different life.

2:00:31Right. It's a great point. And then you can ask yourself, is this actually true? Is it rational or is it irrational? And I have found that the irrational ones can, they tend to be kind of vague. It's kind of like, oh, I'm afraid I'm going to mess everything up if I do that. Well, that's kind of vague. What do you mean by that? What are you going to mess up? How are you going to pay? But the more rational ones tend to be a little bit dialed down. Well, Jade, I'm afraid if I take a side hustle, it's going to be when I come home from work in the evenings, which means I won't be able to pick up my kids, which means I'll miss their softball practice, right?

2:01:03And you've really dialed it down. That's probably a little bit more rational and we can talk about that. But once you've written the fear down, once you've asked yourself, is it true or is it not true? Is it rational or is it irrational? then we can get about the business of landing on, well, what is a more truthful statement that I want to replace that fear with? Yeah, that's absolutely right. I love it. Just one of the many times that you talk about emotions. By the way, we've told you about it because it goes on pre-sale today. So exciting. What no one tells you about money. You can pre-order it right now.

2:01:34You get it for the best price,$24.99, RamseySolutions.com slash store. You get to see Jade's phenomenal arms on the cover as well. that's all about the arms forget about the content inside yeah that comes with the book that's just that's just bonus content uh for those of you men and women alike that would like to have better arms right it will motivate you better arms better money starts today there it is that's the that's the subtitle of the book uh but no you can get it right now it's a fabulous book uh by the way we don't have a book like this no we don't there's not a book about the emotional side of money so Well, this is a great book that I'll tell you just personally is hand in glove with anything else we've ever written on money.

2:02:14Because if you don't understand the emotional side of it, you can and will many times get tripped up because you are a human. You're right. It is human. And, you know, we think about human doing, but we forget sometimes that we're actual human beings. Yes. And the human being part makes the human doing part harder. And Jade's come alongside of us and given us a real-life story full of stories. Oh, it's all story-driven. On how to win with it. So you're really going to enjoy it. Go get it now. Ryan is up in Virginia. Ryan, how can we help today? Good afternoon, Ken and Jay. How are you doing today?

2:02:52We're doing well. What's happening with you? Well, I seem to be having some decision paralysis, and I was wondering if you could just give me some help. I'm a natural saver, and at the moment I have about$180 ,000 in cash savings, and I'm just trying to figure out how to best deploy it for retirement, eventually purchasing a home, and just the future. Okay, so do you have any debt? That would be helpful. No, debt free. All right, so you're familiar with the Baby Steps? Yes. What Baby Step are you on? understanding, I believe four, five, and six. Okay. So you are actively investing in this 180 is above and beyond your normal 15 % that you're putting into retirement.

2:03:42Yes. Yeah. Currently I have, if I did my math right, about 20 % going into retirement through a mandatory retirement with my state and then a supplementary 403B. Okay. And what is your emergency fund? Is it three months, four months, five months, six months? How much is it? It's just the$180. Oh, so the$100. Okay, so what would be three months of your expenses? Three months of my expenses would be$4 ,500. Okay. And is it just you? It's just me. I'm single. Okay. Hold on a second. Three months expenses is$4 ,500? Yeah, I live pretty frugly. What's your, I mean, what's your, you live under a rock.

2:04:30What's your rent? What do you pay for rent? Yeah, that's about right. At the moment I pay, I rent a room from family members. So in addition to monetary blood and sweat. So current rent's about$400. Okay. And how much blood and sweat are we giving? Sounds pretty gross. Just enough to keep things, the household moving. All right. Who are you living with? My parents. How old are you? 34. How much do you make again? What's your take home? Take home monthly is a little over$4 ,000. Hey, bro, you're 34. It's time to flee the nest. Yeah, what's up with that? I know. I know. We've talked about it. Whoa, whoa, whoa.

2:05:22Who's we? I have me and my brother. so we're pretty open financially how old's your brother? now he's 32 so your brother is like hey man, it's time right? oh no, he's also on the property oh no that's what I'm getting at, you've got two brothers who are still living at home, I assume there's no women on the radar for either one of you no, there's no women on the radar not at the moment I didn't think so. Do you think there might be a correlation between the fact that you're mid to low 30s living with your brother at your mom and dad's house? Probably some of it. The other is I'm a homebody. Yes, but be a homebody in your own home.

2:06:10Yeah, okay. Well, it's not a dating show. So regardless of no women being on the screen, you need to be out on your own. So you got$180 ,000. I'll give it to Jade. We got about a minute and a half. He's got 180 in cash. No debt. He's investing about 20%, Jade. I know. So here's what I want you to do. And he's washing the dishes every night. I forgot to mention that. Thing number one is I want tonight, your homework tonight is go look and see where you can rent an apartment. Start doing research on places, areas of town you want to live in and find out how much an apartment is. Okay. And then what I want you to do with that information of the apartment.

2:06:50Tell your brother. Well, yeah, listen, he's got his own fish to fry. Let's get them both out at the same time. For the first time ever, I want you to live on your own. Yeah, I agree. I agree. You can afford it. I have lived on my own before. Good. And you're going to do it again. And what I want you to do once you've figured out how much rent is, now I want you to save up a real three to six months of expenses based off of that number. Because the$400, the$4 ,500, that's not going to serve you once you move out. So do it based off the rent numbers of a real place. And then after that, when's move-in date?

2:07:24Because that's really all you need. You've got the money. And then I would turn around. And with the money that you have, I would keep it in a high-yield savings account because you're going to keep adding to it. Because eventually you're going to go from renting a place to buying your own place. So don't invest it. Keep it liquid because you're going to do that in less than five years. And remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Got it.