Financial Chaos Doesn't Have to Define Your Future

8:26Rachel Cruze:Fair. Very fair.

8:27Dave Ramsey:Yeah. Use that and just say, honey, that scares me, and I'm not okay with this. I'm not okay. I'm not okay with the situation, and we're going to change it. And you're not going to sleep until we change it because I'm going to keep you up.

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10:24Dave Ramsey:Sam is in Los Angeles. Hi, Sam. How are you? Hey, Dave. Long time listener. How you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up in your world? All right. So let's see here. I'm going to try to wrap it up real quick.

10:39Rachel Cruze:First time in my life, I feel very scared and nervous with what's going on in my situation. I have a total of about a little bit over$130 ,000 in debt, car loans, credit card, personal loans. I am a homeowner right now. I pay about$5 ,000 a month, not including property insurance or taxes. I'm behind on my property taxes. I'm behind in my 2025 taxes. I'm starting to get served for my credit card debt. I have three kids. I've been married about 20 years, separated, renting right now, not living in my own home. and I'm getting ready to file for divorce. So I just need some guidance help.

11:35Dave Ramsey:Has your income changed? My income has been increasing. So why are the bills unpaid if you were making them before and now you're not? Why?

11:49Rachel Cruze:Because we, you know, I didn't follow the rules and guidelines for you. We did some remodeling in the home, which was not a good move. My debt went way sky high. Our kids are in private school.

12:02Dave Ramsey:That was an added cost as well. What do you make? Gross,$240 ,000 a year. Does your wife work outside the home? She just started working. She makes about$1 ,600 a month. Okay.

12:24Dave Ramsey:Wow. Okay, well, the way you eat an elephant is a bite at a time. And so there's a whole lot of moving parts here. And it's real easy with that many mosquitoes flying around your head to point at the wrong one. So we need to sit down and say, okay, what is the first priority with my money? I have$240 ,000 to work with. I'm going to buy food for me and my kids. That's first priority. Okay, that's done. We're going to keep the lights on and the water going at both locations. Okay, we can do that. All right, and we're just going to go down the list like that until we start running out of money. And if it's forced ranked, the things at the bottom of the list when we run out of money are the least important things, like the credit card debt.

13:17Dave Ramsey:They can jump in a creek right now. If you can't pay something, they're a good one to not pay. They bark and foam at the mouth and roll around the floor, but they don't really do anything other than mess up your credit. Okay? You got cars you can't afford, I'm guessing?

13:33Rachel Cruze:Yes. So I do have a plan for a car. There's one that I'm going to sell. I owe$13 ,000 on it. I do believe I could sell it for about$10 ,000, which I'll have to put out.

13:43Dave Ramsey:Yeah, just get rid of that. All right. And so what is she driving and what are you driving? I'm driving now a truck that's been paid off for. What about her? She is driving a vehicle that we owe$21 ,000 right now on that. Okay. Why not the$13 ,000 and sell the$21 ,000?

14:05Rachel Cruze:Yeah, that is an option.

14:07Dave Ramsey:She makes$1 ,600. After the divorce, she's not going to be able to afford to keep a$21 ,000 car.

14:15Dave Ramsey:Yeah, you're right. Okay. And you're not going to be able to keep this house either? No, I've already had that discussion with her. Yeah. So the house needs to be on the market. The$21 ,000 car needs to be on the market. If the divorce is really going through, if there's no chance of reconciliation, is there?

14:35Rachel Cruze:We've gone through counseling. And, you know, the financial aspect of it has a lot to do with it. I've broken down, showed her all our debt, what we make, what I make. and she's just unwilling to look at it to face reality, and I'm just done with it, unfortunately, after so many years. Gosh, Sam. Yeah. Well, if that is going to be happening, then also all the – you said you were behind because that's going to be part of the prioritization list that you make is getting current on what you can. And so you're behind. You named off a couple of things that you're behind. Property tax.

15:13Dave Ramsey:Yeah, which you don't have to worry about if you're selling the house. I assume the house has equity, right?

15:18Rachel Cruze:Just pay it with the equity when it sells.

15:21Dave Ramsey:About$350 ,000 in equity.

15:23Rachel Cruze:Okay.

15:24Dave Ramsey:And she's going to get a big chunk of that and go start her new life, and you're going to get a small chunk of that and start your new life with your big income, and she's going to get a big chunk of your income called alimony and child support. and so you know this is how you know a divorce turns a marriage into a business transaction what do we keep and who pays for what and that's the questions and um you know so the reality is in the mediation and uh the discussion between the two attorneys we've got to get the house on the market and we got to get that car sold and um you know out of the or she's got to pay it off out of the proceeds of the her portion of the proceeds of the house and keep the car she could do that if you're going to sell the house she's going to get enough money to pay off the car if she wants to keep that car um i wouldn't recommend it but that's if that's what she wants to do that's fine and then sell the 13 000 car you know which one you want to keep honey because we're going to sell one of them and you're going to pay off the other one with your portion of the house proceeds when it sells.

16:28Dave Ramsey:So which one do you want? And get the other one sold, right? And your portion of the equity will probably clean up almost all these bills if you sell those cars, if you pay off the cars and or sell the cars. So$13 ,000 and$21 ,000, so$34 ,000. What's the other$100 ,000 in debt? Taxes? How much do you owe the IRS?

16:54Rachel Cruze:I owe$12 ,000 for the property taxes and about, I'm calculating$10 ,000 for my 2025 taxes that I haven't done yet. So an additional$10 ,000 in...

17:08Dave Ramsey:Why have you not done your 25 taxes yet? This is June.

17:13Rachel Cruze:Yeah, no, it's a lot of stuff going in my mind and I just make it a priority.

17:19Dave Ramsey:Yeah, not filing is a bigger penalty than not paying. So figure out what they are, even if you don't pay them, and get that filed. And see, all these things start to relieve your brain. Your brain is overwhelmed by 93 things swimming around at one time. And if we just start setting them to the side one at a time, one at a time, one at a time, that's what I meant by eating an elephant a bite at a time. Then you go, okay, I'm going to file the taxes. I'm going to pay them later. I may have to pay them out of the proceeds of the house. I may have to pay them out of what income I have left after child support and alimony.

17:53Dave Ramsey:And then you've got a pile of credit card debt, too, don't you? Yes. Yes, I do. Okay. Over$50 ,000. Yeah.

18:01Rachel Cruze:What was that on, Sam? Was that her racking it up? You know, yeah, there was some remodeling that I had to put on. Oh, you put that on the credit cards. Okay. Right.

18:12Dave Ramsey:Okay. Yeah, well, you're going to, again, proceeds from the sale of the house. What I'm doing, if I'm your attorney's, is I'm looking at$300 ,000 coming out of the house. I've got a clear$130 ,000, give or take selling a$13 ,000 or$21 ,000 car. And then we're going to split up the rest of it. She's going to get most of it. You probably got a 401k. You're going to try to protect and give her the most of the house money. But$130 ,000 needs to be paid off out of the sale of the house. The house needs to get sold as soon as possible before you get behind on it.

18:41Rachel Cruze:That's what's hard. You know what I mean? It's a lot of the stuff that can take.

18:45Dave Ramsey:Yeah, but it's put it on. Take a lot. Again, the leaving things in limbo, waiting, dragging things out six months, having too many discussions about stuff. If it is over, it's over. If it's not over, it's not over. It's two different sets of decisions. And so you cannot drag this out. That will kill you guys, both of you. It's going to take both of you out. And so you're going to end up losing the house or something silly like that.

19:17Rachel Cruze:Right. Right.

19:17Dave Ramsey:That's what I was thinking is like, I don't know, would you get current on stuff and see if to make it? I would get current on that house and stay current on that house because it cleans up the rest of the debt when it sells. And then you need to get the divorce mediation to begin between the two attorneys and get that house on the market as soon as possible. And then you've got to work through, you're going to end up paying your taxes and figure out what you're doing with these different things. But again, break it down one thing at a time and then it's not as overwhelming. Force rank these things.

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21:28Dave Ramsey:Laurie is in Los Angeles. Hi, Laurie. How are you?

21:32Rachel Cruze:I'm good. Thank you.

21:34Dave Ramsey:Good. What's up?

21:36Rachel Cruze:I'm 63 years old. I have no savings. I have a home with about$225 equity in it. I'm wondering if it might be an option to sell my home, purchase a mobile home with cash, taking the rest of the money and investing it for retirement.

22:01Dave Ramsey:You ever seen a 25-year-old mobile home?

22:05Rachel Cruze:A 25-year-old one? Actually, I have. Yeah, I've been looking at them lately.

22:10Dave Ramsey:It's not where I want to live when I'm 85.

22:12Rachel Cruze:25-year-olds are not.

22:14Dave Ramsey:Not where I want to live when I'm 85.

22:16Rachel Cruze:They're not the nice ones. No, but. They go down in value and they rust. I didn't think about the rust.

22:24Dave Ramsey:Yeah.

22:24Rachel Cruze:In California, actually, honestly, they are going up. No, they're not.

22:28Dave Ramsey:They might be sitting on dirt that's going up, but the mobile home is not going up.

22:32Rachel Cruze:Oh, that could be. Gotcha.

22:34Dave Ramsey:Dirt goes up. Mobile homes don't. They go down.

22:37Rachel Cruze:Yeah.

22:38Dave Ramsey:Nope. Nope. Nope. Are you working?

22:43Rachel Cruze:I am working full-time. What do you make? I've been at my job over 30 years. I make out$48 ,000 a year.

22:52Rachel Cruze:My son, who has epilepsy, his wife and my granddaughter live with me. I'm a family of four.

23:03Rachel Cruze:I look at the choices I've made, and I feel pretty silly. I realize I can't sit in Philly. I got to make some type of a plan here.

23:12Dave Ramsey:So the wife does not work?

23:17Rachel Cruze:Not yet. She may be, she can have surgery next month. So we're waiting for after that. She's had quite, she's not been well, unfortunately. She's had.

23:28Dave Ramsey:And your husband, your son's epilepsy. I'm not married. No, I'm sorry. Your son, I must have spoke. Your son has epilepsy. Yes.

23:35Rachel Cruze:He has had this for 10 years and literally in February with his seventh neurologist finally got diagnosed. So this neurologist is working to be able to get him a permanent disability status. How much will that bring in? Do you know? Per month? You know, I don't because he has worked very little. He's been unable to work for 10 years and he's coming up on 40. So I'm not sure exactly how much he might be entitled to.

24:12Wow.

24:13Rachel Cruze:I have$20 ,000 in retirement and$10 ,000 in credit card debt.

24:19Dave Ramsey:What do you do for a living?

24:22Rachel Cruze:I'm an office manager for an air conditioning contractor. I have severe arthritis, so I'm struggling to stay working full-time. But being there so long, it's a small family business, and I'm appreciative. They understand my time off. And I'm still, I just ask God to keep me an asset to business. And so far, so good. But, again, I'm 63. You know, I'd really love to be able to retire by 65. But there's got to be a plan. And I'm late to the party. I am late to the party. Okay.

25:00Dave Ramsey:Okay. Well, you got a lot on your plate, kiddo. I'm sorry. But a mobile home doesn't fix the problem. It treats the symptom. The symptom is the strain. The problem is income in the household. And as a ratio in$48 ,000 and you've got these other three folk you're looking after right now, and you're doing that on$50 ,000 a year in Los Angeles, that's tough. That's a tough number right there. There's not a lot of room. You guys haven't got a lot of wiggle room in this. So, yeah, sadly, you're going to be working, and so is she and so is he, as soon as all of you can, because you don't really have a choice.

25:48Dave Ramsey:You're going to have to bring some income into this house. Now, what I might do at some point would be to leave Los Angeles and sell a house and buy a much less expensive home in a much less expensive area of the country to try to make your all's income go as far as it can go at that point.

26:10Rachel Cruze:I hadn't thought of that. Okay.

26:12Dave Ramsey:But I don't want you on a 25-year trajectory at 63 to 88 of declining values to add to your problems.

26:25Rachel Cruze:Gotcha. Okay.

26:26Dave Ramsey:Okay. That's what I'm trying to help you avoid. But it doesn't fix the strain that you've got today to hold on to this house. What's owed on the home?

26:38Rachel Cruze:I owe 95, I think it is. I did have a realtor go and look at all the specs, and so she told me I should get about$225 ,000 out of it.

26:47Dave Ramsey:Oh, it's not$225 ,000 in equity. It's$225 ,000 in value.

26:51Rachel Cruze:No, no, I'm sorry. She said in my pocket.

26:54Dave Ramsey:Oh, okay. Okay, so it is.

26:56Rachel Cruze:So it's a$325 ,000 house approximately. Yeah. Okay.

27:02Dave Ramsey:Okay.

27:03Rachel Cruze:Lori, are you guys month to month okay? Oh, pretty much. Because you're living on your salary for all these people. you're able to stay current on everything? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But I'm blessed that I pay my bills. Absolutely. In fact, I just told them we have a couple of streaming services. I said, okay, I'm cutting those off. We don't need the streaming stuff. Granted, it's only$11 a month, but I go, that I could put$11 toward my credit card that's climbing the charts. So, you know, trying to, any little thing we can do. But they do get SNAP, which is like food stamps.

27:44Dave Ramsey:Yeah.

27:44Rachel Cruze:So I don't have to pay. My daughter-in-law's grandmother lives in town. She just about provides everything for my granddaughter in the way of school clothes, supplies. You know, she helps, you know, with anything that the granddaughter might need. So that's a big help. But she's older than I am.

28:03Dave Ramsey:What's the nature of your daughter-in-law's health problems?

28:10Rachel Cruze:Last year she had gallbladder out. The year before she had half a hysterectomy the year before, the other half of the hysterectomy that was supposed to be full. She had a horrible thyroid issue, which causes her to, on their anniversary, her gift is to sleep 48 hours straight. And the doctor's like, you're immune to everything. What is the operation she's getting ready to have? Carpal tunnel on both hands. When can she be able to work? Do you know what the recovery time is? You know, I don't know what recovery time is. I'm thinking probably by the time school starts again in September.

28:51Dave Ramsey:Yeah. Well, so what I would love for you all to do is to have a plan, and it might even involve going ahead and moving now to a less expensive area, but to have a plan to create income for this household. anything you can do to get your income up and certainly maintain the income that you have anything they can do to add income his getting permanent disability is going to be social it's going to be SSI coming in there may be SSI available for the child in that situation too and you know just be learning about all of those things and anything he can do within the framework of permanent disability to still earn an income.

29:32Dave Ramsey:There's a limit, but he can do some things. I want him to do it. Because if this is not, the trajectory of this is not good. It's not sustainable. So we've got to get some income coming into this house somewhere and or get our outgo down. And that's what led you towards getting rid of the house payment by getting the mobile home. I would leave L.A. before I did that and take my 235 and go to wherever cheap area of the country, name it. And that kind of thing. And, you know, but again, you guys have got even then when you do that, you've got to land a new job and each of them has to land an income.

30:19Dave Ramsey:And so it doesn't fix everything because that 225 will go away real fast. 100%. If you cash out of this house. For sure. Yeah, do not buy something going down in value that doesn't solve your problem. So I see how you got there, though. You're thinking, you're trying to find some options. Wow. You call us any way we can help in the future. We'll try to be more help, but that's what I'm seeing right now.

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32:34Dave Ramsey:Will is with us in Chattanooga. Hi, Will. How are you? I'm great. Thanks for taking my call, Rachel and Dave. It's an honor to be on the phone with you. My wife and me are freaking out.

32:43Rachel Cruze:We're huge fans of the show and your ministry. It's awesome to be with you. Well, thank you.

32:48Dave Ramsey:How can we help?

32:48Rachel Cruze:Yes, sir. My first quick question is about tax loss harvesting or direct indexing. I'm assuming because I've been following what you teach since high school, you're not a fan because you don't recommend to buy single stocks, but my financial advisor is recommending inside of my non-qualified account that I'm starting to build to look into that.

33:10Dave Ramsey:Well, I'm not doing – you can do tax loss harvesting without doing single stocks. You can do that as a function of a mutual fund. And there's nothing wrong with that. Here's the first. The first thing is concentrate on making money with your investments. That's the first thing. And then while you're making money, is there a thing over here on the side that we can do some moving around inside a mutual fund and do a tax loss harvesting strategy? Yes. But that doesn't need – you don't need to lead with tax loss harvesting. You need to lead with make money.

33:51Rachel Cruze:With good funds.

33:52Dave Ramsey:Yeah, with good funds. And then you can – so, in other words, the only way tax losses occur in investing is if you lost money. You had a bad investment.

34:04Rachel Cruze:Or, yeah, one of the stocks within the index or the mutual fund goes down and they can sell with like a like-kind stock. And you get to write off the loss. And they do that all, which is – I mean, it's a great function. It's one that I was even just talking to you about. My husband and I moved some money into an account probably two years ago with this like new investment strategy within an index fund. But it can happen within it, which is great because you write off the losses and move along. Not doing single stocks to do it.

34:30Dave Ramsey:But no, not single stocks. I would not do that. And I don't want it to be the primary. The primary needs to be make money.

34:37Rachel Cruze:Yeah. And most all, you know, mutual funds, index funds, as we've seen the past couple of years, have all gone up. I mean, you know, in value.

34:44Dave Ramsey:Ridiculously up.

34:45Rachel Cruze:But there may be a couple within there that you can use for that advantage, which is great. But yeah, no.

34:50Dave Ramsey:So the reason I'm being cautious in how I word this is the concept is fine. What scares me is that financial goobers that are out there, the guys in the business, they love a math riddle. and they can go down the rabbit hole on their enjoyment of their nerding out on a math riddle and miss the point and the point is first make money right but don't don't you know but the shiny new math riddle is always around the corner and all financial advisors just about can fall for that trap i know because my brain works the same way i love looking at a new math thing and i'm going, wow, that's kind of cool.

35:40Rachel Cruze:But if it's for, if it's for your advantage, then you're like,

35:43Dave Ramsey:again, it can't be just because they got all excited about their little nerdiness that then that becomes the primary. And the primary is make money. Okay. That's the primary. And then we can do math nerdiness and have some fun on the side and get to the advantage and do the tax harvesting. The concept in and of itself is, but it's number F, not A, B, C, D, or E. It's on down the list of things I'm worried about.

36:11Rachel Cruze:Of prioritization.

36:11Dave Ramsey:And of course you're out of debt, house, and everything. Before we talk about having a non-qualified account of that size, I assume your house is paid off, Will. That's the only debt I have. No, then you don't need to be talking about any of this. None of this should be on the table. You shouldn't have that kind of money in an unqualified account. It should be going on your stinking house. Remember? Remember that part when you said you followed our stuff? Baby step six is pay off the house. Will is just asking. Yes, sir. Yeah.

36:40Rachel Cruze:Will, I hear you. You know what? I think, listen. Yes, have your 401k, your Roths, do your 15 % into your retirement.

36:47Dave Ramsey:And everything else goes on the house.

36:49Rachel Cruze:And pay off the house, yes. And then the investments above retirement.

36:52Dave Ramsey:How much in your non-qualified accounts, Will?

36:55Rachel Cruze:It's about half of that to about, I have$85 ,000. invested. Half is in mine and my wife's Roth IRA and the other half's in non-qualified. We just purchased a house. I'm 22 and I've just been putting money in that before and I haven't taken it all out.

37:10Dave Ramsey:Well, you need to follow the baby step at three is an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. Four is 15 % of your income going into qualified accounts. Roth and Roth with match are your first two things until you get to 15 % of your income and everything else goes for home, enjoyment, life, generosity, and paying down the house. And we pay off the house before we start talking about that. So no, I don't like your financial advisor anymore. Because now he's got you paying, he's got you screwing around with$45 ,000. No money,$45 ,000, a tiny butt little account, and you're doing tax harvesting with this thinking, this nerding out on something you should be dealing with$450 ,000 before you're screwing with that.

37:56Dave Ramsey:and so no you need to get your house paid off and will called to learn no i know but the shiny little nerd guy has got him thing going on no i don't like him no not not will i'm talking about his financial advisor he should not be advising this this is exactly what i was talking about okay the guy gets the guy the financial guys get all whooped up about something and he's got a 22 year old screwing around with$45 ,000 on this instead of paying off his house because he learned something in financial advisor class that he thought was cool.

38:29Rachel Cruze:There you go.

38:30Dave Ramsey:Fair. Yeah, that's what we don't want to do.

38:32Rachel Cruze:Fair.

38:33Dave Ramsey:That's what we don't want to do. So no, let's fast forward. Okay, Will, you're 28. Your house is paid off. You've got half a million dollars now in your qualifies. And now you're in baby step seven and you're starting to chunk some money away. and you've got$100 ,000 laying over here in a brokerage and you're doing some index funds with it and some other stuff, then we can start talking about worrying 10%, 20 % worrying about tax harvesting, 80 % worrying about making money. There you go. But now is not the time to do this. And this guy, he's got – yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I had to get to the bottom of it for a minute.

39:17Dave Ramsey:but I could the just mad no the people that I have been trained with my whole life these financial people I love them our smart investor pros you know they do a great job but the the way our brains work in that is we just love a good math thing and it's just shiny for us and we want to and so it's the answer you know now we have a hammer so everything's a nail you know and it's

39:42Rachel Cruze:it's not it's a one-track mind at that point versus zooming out and looking at your entire financial picture and getting yourself in a place with priorities, like what you're saying.

39:50Dave Ramsey:Don't get enamored with the sophistication. Live on less than you make and save money. There you go. But when these people start getting enamored with something that's sophisticated, tax harvesting, tax loss harvesting, it just sounds very sophisticated. It's like, oh, geez. Don't get sidetracked with this stuff. That's when people lose their butt. They're chasing some kind of hack that's going to make everything easy. What's easy is living on less than you make and investing the difference and you'll be a millionaire. And that's not all directed at Will. It's mainly, Will, you're doing a really good job.

40:23Rachel Cruze:Yeah, incredible. At 22. And actually,

40:25Dave Ramsey:you did call in and to your defense, you said, I don't think you're going to go for this, Dave. But I didn't know why I wasn't going to go for it until the end of the call.

40:33Rachel Cruze:He knew you better than you knew yourself.

40:35Dave Ramsey:Well, because he knew his numbers. I didn't ask the numbers. I didn't get to$45 ,000 until I was six minutes into this rant. But yeah. So guys, Will is going to be a multimillionaire. Here's the rule he used. Don't do something you don't understand. And that if it feels funny, it's because it's funny.

41:00Rachel Cruze:And for his financial advisor to be talking about single stocks and tax harvesting with him.

41:04Dave Ramsey:after he's been listening to me since high school.

41:07Rachel Cruze:Yeah, he's like, that feels weird. Yes, there you go. The flag went up.

41:10Dave Ramsey:And so this is a very wise 22-year-old. Very wise. He recognized a few points that were off. He's trying to be cognizant. He's trying to be intentional.

41:21Rachel Cruze:And probably trying to learn. He's trying to be on top of it.

41:24Dave Ramsey:And then this guy comes in with this shiny penny that's a plug.

41:28Rachel Cruze:Yeah, yeah.

41:31Dave Ramsey:So because he's intentional, because he's trusting his feelings, he's checking against what he knows to be true, all those kinds of things, he's going to be a multimillionaire. He's going to do great. Yep. He's going to be amazing. Just do the steps in the order. But it won't be because he taxed loss harvested on 45 grand. I can promise you that.

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43:36Dave Ramsey:Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union studios. Michelle is in Provo, Utah. Hi, Michelle. How are you?

43:45Rachel Cruze:I'm great. Thanks, Dave. Thanks, Rachel.

43:48Dave Ramsey:How can we help?

43:49Rachel Cruze:Thanks for all you do for everyone with all your advice. My husband got$38 ,000 of inheritance money last summer, and he didn't tell me about it. And he spent$20 ,000 on pornography with a little cyber affair. And he came clean finally and told me about it. but he's going to be getting another$250 ,000 of inheritance money in a couple more years when his parents' home is sold. And he says that he is not going to be paying off my student loans when he gets that amount of money. So I guess my question is, do you think that he should help me with my student loans with his inheritance money? And should I get divorced if he refuses to?

44:51Wow.

44:54Dave Ramsey:How long have you been married?

44:57Rachel Cruze:We've been married for 12 years.

45:01Dave Ramsey:Why are you more concerned about paying off your student loans than your husband having a porn problem? These are two different things that shouldn't even be in, like, porn problem, big deal. Inheritance, little problem.

45:16Rachel Cruze:Yeah, but him pinning her in a corner and I'm not feeling like being on the same team either.

45:21Dave Ramsey:How about he's a jerk on two or three fronts? But, I mean, I'd be a lot more concerned about the quality of your relationship with a guy that's treating you this way than I would whether or not you get access to his inheritance.

45:37Rachel Cruze:Yeah, I'm concerned about that.

45:41Dave Ramsey:Are you all in counseling over his porn?

45:45Rachel Cruze:Yeah, I talked him into counseling when he finally ran out of inheritance money to pay for porn. I think he might have used a few marital assets to pay for it, and then there was just nothing left to pay for it. So he finally kind of came to his senses and finally agreed to go to counseling. How long ago was that? He just stopped the affair about two months ago

46:16Dave Ramsey:How long have you all been in counseling?

46:22Rachel Cruze:About three months I knew about the affair during the first month of counseling When you said affair, you meant with pornography? A specific person It was a specific person. It was a cyber affair with a lady on OnlyFans. So I think he thought it was a real person, but he found out that it was, I mean, I've since then explained that it might just be a lady who sells her content. And he was chatting with her thinking he was having a real relationship. Yeah, he basically built a relationship with this person. Yeah, and sending her nude photos and things like that.

46:59Dave Ramsey:If you call only fans a relationship, prostitution is not usually relationship. But yeah.

47:04Rachel Cruze:That's what it feels like to her. I mean, yeah, he's been freaking communicating with a woman. I mean, yeah, that is all in all. Yes, Michelle. So Michelle, at this point, I don't feel like you have had time in the work you guys have done to rebuild any level of trust. And I think the sting is he says, I'm going to still withhold money from you when I get it. And I'm not taking care of you. I'm not taking care of you on an emotional front. I'm not taking care of you on a financial front. Like all of that to me is one problem and it's coming out multiple different ways. And you're getting that feeling of this doesn't feel right.

47:36Rachel Cruze:None of this, none of this seems right. And it's all connected because it's all coming out of the root. Same issue in my opinion.

47:43Dave Ramsey:Yeah.

47:43Rachel Cruze:And you've not had time to rebuild the trust, Michelle. I mean, it's only been two months.

47:47Dave Ramsey:There's no reason to rebuild the trust. He's still being a twerp. Yeah, that's true.

47:51Rachel Cruze:Yeah. I mean, it was in the same conversation that he'd wasted all the money and then, you know, mentioned that he was not going to share the future inheritance with me.

48:02Dave Ramsey:What did your counselor say about that?

48:06Rachel Cruze:We've had a few different counselors.

48:08Dave Ramsey:I mean, you had a counselor lately. What's your latest counselor? You had this exact same discussion with them. What did they say?

48:17Rachel Cruze:um well the female counselor she tends to side with the women i'm guessing but she said that

48:25Dave Ramsey:it was i had a female marriage counselor that was not siding with any women i can tell you that she was she was siding with the truth and would get up in your grill regardless of your sex Yeah.

48:40Rachel Cruze:Well, her opinion was that the relationship was past repair. Okay. Is that your last counselor? She would end the relationship. We did see another counselor one time after that, but I guess...

48:58Dave Ramsey:You saw one counselor after that one time?

49:02Rachel Cruze:Yeah, we've seen four counselors in the past.

49:05Dave Ramsey:Why did you leave the other lady? because she said she couldn't help you. He was messed up.

49:12Rachel Cruze:She just said that she would get a divorce if her husband did that to her. And so I guess I just told my husband what she said. You're not at the end of your rope to that point is what you're saying, Michelle. I could have continued with therapy, but it's been difficult because there's a lot of blaming the pornography on me and things like that and saying, you know, because it was miserable to be married to me that I'm responsible for how he spent the money.

49:47Dave Ramsey:Yeah, I can fix that. If you're miserable being married to me, I can fix that. Yeah.

49:54Rachel Cruze:Yeah.

49:55Dave Ramsey:Well, he sounds like there's not a lot of remorse on his list. This guy has zero repentance, zero remorse. Rachel's right.

50:02Rachel Cruze:It's what it feels like.

50:03Dave Ramsey:Why? I mean, why would—

50:04Rachel Cruze:He should be—

50:05Dave Ramsey:What gives you hope that he's just going to turn around? Why do you have hope?

50:09Rachel Cruze:Well, he said he was sorry. He cried a couple tears and gave me a plate of cookies. When was this?

50:18Dave Ramsey:Before or after he was online with OnlyFans whore.

50:22Rachel Cruze:Well, I actually filed for divorce because he refused to show me the credit card statement. and I knew that I would get access to what he'd been hiding. He got really hostile when I asked about seeing the statement. It just popped in my head one day. I haven't been very good about checking where our money's been going. So I asked and he refused to give it to me, so I filed for divorce. And then a week later, knowing that I was going to find out anyway, he said he was sorry and he came clean. He told me everything, but it was, you know, kind of under pressure knowing that I was going to find out anyway very soon.

51:01Rachel Cruze:So I'm not sure if he's genuinely sorry. No, he's not. No, he came clean because he got caught, not because he's begging, begging for your marriage to be healed, Michelle. Yeah, it's not looking good right now.

51:16Dave Ramsey:We're not professional counselors. We're just regular people sitting and listening to a lady whose heart is broken because her husband, his behavior is saying he's done. His mouth may see something else, but his behavior, as John Deloney says, your behavior is a language. And every single bit of his behavior says he is not interested anymore. That's really sad. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. And I wish he would go to counseling with you and would be remorseful and repentant.

51:46Rachel Cruze:And would do his own work.

51:47Dave Ramsey:Turn from his wicked ways and become a good husband. But it doesn't sound like he's going to, based on what you told us. But don't make a decision based on calling a podcast. You make a decision sitting down with your pastor and prayerful, sitting with a therapist who loves you and knows what's going on in your life. A couple goobers on a microphone don't need to make your decision for you.

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53:37Dave Ramsey:So what about investing at the next level? I mean, we talk about the four mutual funds to put your 401k in and good five to 10 to 20 year track records when you're picking those inside your 401k or your Roth IRA. But I mean, what about another level when you get to baby step seven? What do you do? It can be really confusing. There's a lot of stuff to consider. So we've done a two night virtual event two times. This is the third time we're doing it. So we don't do it very often, in other words. and it gives you a simple strategy that you can feel confident in. It's investing essentials. It will be September 1st and 2nd.

54:17Dave Ramsey:It is me and George Camel and I'm going to unpack my personal playbook, what I do for investing in wealth planning, what I do with real estate, how I pick my real estate, what I do with my mutual funds, how I do that. And I want to go through all the different categories and buckets of investing and some of them, why I don't do them and explain to you clearly. And then you get to pick out what you want to do, but I'm going to show you what I have done to get the net worth that I have today. And this year we've added a bunch of new content, like getting out of taxes, reducing taxes, navigating the wheels, and building a lasting legacy.

54:54Dave Ramsey:We're going to get into the legacy piece a little deeper this year than we have before. People are always asking about this stuff, like how do I build wealth and not ruin my kids, that kind of thing. And so tickets start at$199. It's my playbook. Me and George are going to go through it. It's September 1 and 2. Get yours today that goes on sale today, right? This is the first announcement, right? This second. Get yours today at RamseySolutions.com slash events, or click the link in the show notes. If you're listening on podcast or YouTube, we'd love to have you. This is an online event. It's only the third time we've done it.

55:28Dave Ramsey:And we're changing up some of the content. If you've been at one of the other two, you'll get some fresh content. So a lot of fun stuff. I like working on new stuff like that. Alex is in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Hey, Alex, how are you?

55:42Rachel Cruze:I'm doing well. How about you?

55:43Dave Ramsey:Better than I deserve. What's up?

55:47Rachel Cruze:Yes. So my wife and I, we have some equity in our house. And our question would be, do we sell the house to take out the equity to pay off debt?

55:58Dave Ramsey:Do you like your home?

56:02Rachel Cruze:um it's not my dream home and that wasn't what i asked i said do you like your home

56:08Dave Ramsey:is it a good house would you be selling it if you didn't have the debt problem no i would not okay that's that's the bottom line okay now how much debt do you have roughly 135 000 on what on student loans credit card how much student loans

56:30Rachel Cruze:student loans my wife has about 28 000 and i got about 6 000.

56:36Dave Ramsey:okay what else um credit cards loan loan oh on credit cards she owes 4 700. that's it okay that's it how much on the cars.

56:54Rachel Cruze:She owes $10 ,000 on her car, and we just bought a truck for$50 ,000.

56:59Dave Ramsey:Good God.

57:01Rachel Cruze:Hold on. I love the she owes$10 ,000, but we owe$50 ,000 for the truck. Her debt, her debt, but it's our debt for the truck.

57:13Dave Ramsey:She's got$4 ,732 on a credit card, but we bought a$50 ,000. Somewhere around $50 ,000 on a truck. That is That's pretty funny.

57:22Rachel Cruze:We owe 47 on the credit card. Okay.

57:26Dave Ramsey:Yeah, that's fine. I love it. You're a good sport. All right. Now, so 65, I'm still 100 short. I'm still a bunch short, not 100 short. What else are you missing?

57:40Rachel Cruze:Yes, sir. We have a home loan for roughly$33 ,000.

57:45Dave Ramsey:A home equity loan? Yes, sir. Okay. Do you have a first mortgage as well?

57:54Dave Ramsey:I guess I don't know. Okay. I mean, is that your only mortgage? You only owe$33 ,000 on your house?

58:02Rachel Cruze:No, sir. Oh, so our total debt would be, we owe$135 ,000 in consumer debt, and my mortgage, I owe$169 ,000. Okay. Okay.

58:12Dave Ramsey:All right. So$33 ,000 on a second mortgage on a home equity loan. I got you. All right. Yes, sir. That's about it. Okay. And your household income is what?

58:26Dave Ramsey:Between$160 ,000 and$170 ,000. Okay. And how long have y 'all been married?

58:33Dave Ramsey:Roughly five years. Okay. Cool.

58:36Rachel Cruze:A little less than five years.

58:37Dave Ramsey:That's kind of what it looks like in the numbers. It looks like you guys have been normal, and normal is we spend a little bit more than we make, and we see something we want, and we buy it and put it on payments. And then you look up after five years, and you went, oh, crap. this is a mess. And that's normal. And that's what these numbers actually look like. They don't look like you've done anything extremely done with the possible exception of the truck. But the rest of it was your death by a thousand cuts. The only big one was the truck. Yes.

59:09Rachel Cruze:And then the home loan, I got into a motorcycle accident. So I was put down for about six months. So we had to take out that. To live on.

59:18Dave Ramsey:You didn't work for six months?

59:20Rachel Cruze:Yes, ma 'am.

59:21Dave Ramsey:Okay. Yes, sir. Wow. Okay. Well, cool. What do you do for a living?

59:25Rachel Cruze:Yeah, I broke my femur. Right now I did a career. I did a transition, so I'm in project management for general contracting.

59:34Dave Ramsey:Good. Good for you. Okay. All right. And you're not in the motorcycle business anymore. That's gone, right?

59:41Rachel Cruze:Yes, sir. I got rid of all that stuff.

59:43Dave Ramsey:Yeah, I bet. Okay.

59:45Rachel Cruze:Well, Alex, do you guys know, because we bring home what per month? Probably around 10? yes it depends so my wife's a hygienist so she depends on if she's able to secure temp shifts or not and then we opened up a small business we own a little drink trailer selling dirty sodas coffees stuff like that so her temp shifts have stopped and now she's focusing more on her side business so it's roughly between eight to ten thousand okay take home and then how much does it take to keep you guys afloat on bare basics you know like to pay the mortgage keep the lights on pay insurance like do what you need to do yeah that that number is egregious it is

1:00:31Dave Ramsey:a little less than 8 000 yeah okay okay so you're not going to like the prescription that the doctor is going to give you to fill out okay that you're going to have to go to the drugstore and pick up but i'm going to give it to you okay because i love you and i want you to win and are you guys

1:00:47Rachel Cruze:in your early 20s uh late 20s we're 29 okay yeah because i mean you you fit all the exact numbers

1:00:55Dave Ramsey:so this is where most people are and it's not a fun place your budget's tight you don't have a lot of wiggle room you're not blowing a bunch of money you're not going out every night you're not going on lavish vacations you don't have all that and you're also not making 170 000 a year if you're only bringing home eight so something's screwed up in your numbers but you need to get into this and figure out because what's really going on is you guys have just been sloppy. And so if I woke up in your shoes knowing what I know, I think you could be a millionaire in about 12 years from today. And here's what I would do.

1:01:30Dave Ramsey:I would sell your truck immediately, and I would get on a detailed written game plan budget on the EveryDollar app. And we're going to give you a premium version of that to get you started. and not charge you. I want to get you in there. And the two of you sit down and figure out exactly how we are not making$170 ,000 because that's not$8 ,000 a month.

1:01:56Rachel Cruze:No, I mean, they're probably bringing home$10 ,000.

1:01:58Dave Ramsey:No,$8 ,000 a month is$100 ,000 a year. They don't have$70 ,000 worth of missing money.

1:02:03Rachel Cruze:No, he said$160 ,000.

1:02:05Dave Ramsey:$160 ,000 to$170 ,000.

1:02:06Rachel Cruze:And then they bring home around$8 ,000 a month.

1:02:08Dave Ramsey:Which is$100 ,000 a year. There's a$60 ,000 or$70 ,000 gap there. That is not taxes on that. Not even close. Where is he from? Huh? New Mexico. It doesn't matter. Yeah, it does. There's no taxes of that level in any state. Well. There's no 50 % taxes, okay? It wasn't 50%. Well, it's 40. It's around 30?

1:02:29Rachel Cruze:70. It's around 30?

1:02:30Dave Ramsey:It's not going to be. Nowhere near. Nowhere near. You ought to be coming home with about 15 or 14 right in there. And yes, you should. That's 144.

1:02:38Rachel Cruze:That equals$150 ,000 without taxes.

1:02:41Dave Ramsey:It's$144 ,000. and 170 minus taxes is going to be about 144.

1:02:46Rachel Cruze:All right. Okay.

1:02:47Dave Ramsey:Run some numbers at the break. It'll help you. You'll understand.

1:02:49Rachel Cruze:I think there are more. People pay more in taxes. I can't put you on, Hope, but I would if I could. I'll put your old calculator out and we'll be looking at taxes right now.

1:02:57Dave Ramsey:So anyway, I'm going to put you on a detailed every dollar budget where you have every dollar written down and you need to find out where your income's going because your numbers aren't adding up regardless of if Rachel thinks they are. and then you need to sell your truck. And if you do those three things, I think you're going to see your way through this. You do not need to sell your house. You need to sell your truck.

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1:04:44Thank you.

1:05:00Dave Ramsey:Miriam is in Green Bay. Hey, Miriam, welcome to the Ramsey Show.

1:05:05Rachel Cruze:Hi, can you hear me?

1:05:07Dave Ramsey:Yes, how can we help?

1:05:09Rachel Cruze:Hi, thank you so much for taking my call. I'm wondering about how to look at getting a job for specific financial goals without it becoming my money, his money with my husband, and also to hopefully not express to my husband that I don't think he's providing enough.

1:05:35Dave Ramsey:so i'm kind of you want to get a job and do something with that money that's not part of

1:05:41Rachel Cruze:what the family wants to do to an extent he he my husband isn't unsupportive of the these ideas but it's also like um he's not he's not excited about it what what's the idea what's the idea beth what are you wanting to do? I'm sorry, Mary. Everything from, everything from, I want counseling for myself, which also would be required for me to maintain a job for various reasons. And I have some health things I want to get looked at that are expensive. I want, there's some random furniture that are not necessary that I would like to get. If I'm going to do that, I need to get a job in my head. There are some things like I would like more money to be put towards saving for a down payment or for a vehicle replacement eventually.

1:06:35Rachel Cruze:I'd like a little bit more buffer there. So things like that that I feel like, okay, these would be things I would really like to have. And if I'm going to, if we're going to do that, I should go get a job. And I but then I feel like I'm doing this and it's it's I don't want it to be me versus him. And I don't want it to be my money, his money. But also I want to he's a spender. And so he sees a bucket of money in the to be assigned category in our budget. And he's like, oh, we could put that. And I'm like, no, I want my paycheck comes in. I want to put it like this is exactly how I will delineate it.

1:07:12Rachel Cruze:And it'll never it's just going straight into the categories. So you don't feel a lot of safety with your money when it comes to your differences with your husband? Correct. Yeah. And you're wanting some safety. Have you expressed that part to him?

1:07:32Rachel Cruze:To an extent, probably not enough. We have enough. But if things change, we don't. What does he make? He makes about$43 ,000 a year.

1:07:46Dave Ramsey:And what would you make at this job we're talking about?

1:07:52Rachel Cruze:I'm looking for jobs that would pay either$20 an hour or at least$30 ,000 a year.

1:08:05Dave Ramsey:Could you all have children?

1:08:08Rachel Cruze:No, unfortunately. Okay. That's the whole thing. anyway. Okay.

1:08:15Yeah.

1:08:16Rachel Cruze:I mean, you guys are living on a, on a tight budget at 43 for sure. So what, what do you do during the day? What, what's going on with you? Cause you said something about having to keep a job or you're not able to, are you not able to work?

1:08:32Rachel Cruze:Emotionally? No. Hence counseling is the highest line item. Okay. What's going on? Can I ask that? What, what, what's, what's keeping you there? um who how to be concise um i have had a few jobs where i've been able to where i i lack currently lack the skill set to deal with backbiting and gossip and um corporate just shenanigans and that's that's something that i want to work on in counseling i have had very few jobs where that's not been an issue and they've either been me working by myself working for myself as a household cleaner um or because you easily get you easily get wrapped up into that is that what you're saying or or when it happens you're paralyzing it bother me okay I let it bother me, and I just completely descend into dysfunction and hate everything about life because of it.

1:09:40Dave Ramsey:Okay. So, no, I would not do your plan, to answer your question, because it's not good for your marriage, it's not good for you. Instead, I would still accomplish exactly the same goals and do exactly the same thing, but do them in a different way. Okay. So, yes, I'd go get a job. And yes, I'm going to add that income to the pool. And yes, I am one of two votes on this budget. And my vote is that some of our money that we make and put in a pool is going to pay for my counseling. And yes, some of our money is going to go for this. And no, you're not going to blow money over here while I'm not being cared for with the counseling that I need.

1:10:22You're not going to blow money over here while these health concerns have not been addressed.

1:10:29Dave Ramsey:and no and so we're both going to talk about this and you your vote doesn't count more than mine they count the same and so I'm I'm willing to add some money to the equation but the equation is going to be that the two of us sit down and we plan out the money in the best way that is good for our lives and our lives include me being healthy emotionally and being healthy medically and it includes us buying a stick of furniture every now and then and it includes us getting out of debt and it includes you having some fun too whatever his fun bucket is and those kinds of things but we're going to have a written detailed every dollar budget that both of us agree to where every one of the dollars that both of us bring in are going and we are going to come become aligned as a couple on that and then that accomplishes exactly the same thing but the way you're going about it bluntly, you're avoiding dealing with the weaknesses in your marriage.

1:11:31Dave Ramsey:And I want you to go into those head on. And by the way, they're not deal breaker weaknesses. They're just normal people that had never sat down and done the conflict work of getting engaged and doing this together and getting aligned.

1:11:47Rachel Cruze:And my hope is that your husband is not so sensitive to be able to look at the math and say, hey, here are some needs and wants that I have too. And in order to accomplish all of this, we probably need some more income. So I am going to go and make some more income. And that's not a shot to his providing.

1:12:01Dave Ramsey:We're going to go from 43 to 75. And we're going to sit down and spend that money. And it's going to include some of the care things that I need and some of the things that you need to do. And some things that as a couple, we need to work on, like getting out of debt and building an emergency fund and some of those things. But going over here and building a separate life to accomplish your goals that don't include him supporting you in your goals, means that you haven't done the work on the marriage at that point.

1:12:31Rachel Cruze:Yeah. Because I mean, the ideal picture would be even with just as you're talking about, you know, your struggles at work and counseling is that he's alongside you in that journey with you, right? Like you're doing the work on yourself, but he's involved in conversations and encouragement and curiosity and ask, like, right. But when you start to divide, even from a financial standpoint, if I'm going to put this here, that's still one step of isolation of doing it on your own. All of this works in like a, in a cohesive way. Right. And so one follows the other with the money and your goals and everything.

1:13:04Rachel Cruze:So working together is so, so key, Miriam. So yeah, I would push into that. It's probably a great question.

1:13:09Dave Ramsey:And I appreciate the spirit the way you ask the question. Thank you for that. So folks, when I started this stuff 30 something years ago, I thought this was a math problem. That getting into debt was a math problem. That it was an income problem. That it was a spending problem. Those aren't the problems. Those are the symptoms. The problem is the guy in my mirror. The problem is the relationships with my employer, the relationships with my spouse, the relationships with my extended family. Those are where the problems are. The actual symptom is the money problem. The money issues are a symptom of other crap that we don't deal with, all of us.

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1:15:28Dave Ramsey:If your revenue is at least seven figures, go to netsuite.com slash Ramsey for a free product tour. That's netsuite.com slash Ramsey.

1:15:45Dave Ramsey:We wish we could get to every call and question here on the show, but we simply can't. The lines stay full the entire time we're on the air. It's kind of hard to get through. Sorry about that. But you can head over to the website at ramseysolutions.com and use Ask Ramsey. Ask Ramsey is our free AI tool that is built and trained only on Ramsey answers. Three years worth of this show, books we've written, articles we've written. No sewage from Reddit will be mixed in. Just Ramsey answers, pure Ramsey answers. You'll get an answer the same way as if we answered it right here on the show. And it's completely free.

1:16:21Dave Ramsey:It's an AI tool, but AI is driven by the data set that you put into it. And this data set is all Ramsey. So if you don't want a Ramsey answer, don't ask Ramsey. But if you do want a Ramsey answer, ask Ramsey. It's free. Ramseysolutions.com, or you can click the link in the description. The Ramsey Show Question of the Day is brought to you by Why Refi. If you've fallen behind on your private student loans and don't know where to turn, Why Refi works with borrowers and other lenders, and, well, where other lenders won't. And they help explore low fixed-rate refinancing options. Go to whyrefi.com slash Ramsey.

1:16:57Dave Ramsey:That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey might not be in all states.

1:17:02Rachel Cruze:Today's question comes from Amber in Rhode Island. She said, I'm about to pay off my car and currently have full coverage. Once the car is paid off, should I lower the deductible, which would increase how much I pay every month, or save the deductible into a separate savings account? It would wipe out most of our emergency fund if I had to use it for car repairs.

1:17:28Rachel Cruze:No. I think I would be just getting full coverage. I would keep the full coverage.

1:17:33Dave Ramsey:And anytime you can raise the deductible, a larger deductible, and you have the money in your emergency fund to cover it, it's going to drop your car insurance rates. Okay? And so the difference in a$250 and a$500 is huge. The difference in a$500 and$1 ,000, depending on the price of the car, the value of the car, is huge. And a way you can analyze it is this. Okay? If you go from$250 deductible to a$500 deductible, you're taking an additional$250 worth of risk. Divide that into the savings. And so if it saves you$25, then that's a year. That's 10 years. No, I wouldn't do that. If it saves you$250, then you made your money back in one year on the risk.

1:18:28Dave Ramsey:so how much does this does the premium the insurance premium drop as you raise the risk you're taking and compare those two and if it's you know if it's if you can make your money the risk money back even though you don't actually spend the money out unless you have a wreck if you can make it back in about three years you ought to break even on the increased risk in about three years so like i've got expensive cars and i carry i think it's a ten thousand dollar deductible now but these are expensive cars and so i but it drops my deductible i mean drops my premiums way down okay so but you know so you just kind of got to look at that and most of the time the best deal on a thirty thousand dollar car and under is somewhere around a five hundred or a thousand dollar deductible somewhere in there is what you're looking for and and so just divide out the difference, the savings, take the savings on your premium, divide that into the additional risk.

1:19:30Dave Ramsey:And if that's about a three, about a three-year risk pattern, you're probably, it's probably wise to take the higher deductible in that case. But almost every time you're going to find that to work on going from$250 to$500. So no, you don't lower the deductible. We're always trying to raise deductibles and raise the amount we have in savings to cover it. So we're giving the insurance company less money. Insurance should cover catastrophes, not hangnails. That's what you're looking for. And so the more in anything you're doing, like if you can do a high deductible health insurance plan, like an HSA plan, your premiums go way down on your health insurance when you do that, because you're accepting the first five or seven or$10 ,000 worth of risk on the health insurance.

1:20:19Dave Ramsey:And$5 ,000 or$10 ,000 is not going to cause you to bankrupt on a medical bill. What caused you to bankrupt is$350 ,000 with a NICU stay with a baby, or$350 ,000 with a heart bypass, or a million, or whatever it ends up. That's the ones that break you. So what you're covering is the big stuff on a car wreck, the big stuff on a health insurance. And the deductible is the little stuff. So as soon as you can keep enough of your insurance, your emergency fund up there. You want to do that, like Rachel said. Larry is in Nashville. Hi, Larry. How are you?

1:20:54Rachel Cruze:I'm good, Dave. I'm retired.

1:20:57Dave Ramsey:My pension income covers my monthly expenses. I have about$4 ,000 in the bank. I do not have anything to cover my burial expense should I get a low amount term life insurance policy to cover that burial? You're how old? I'm 80. And you have$4 ,000 to your name? Yes. Do you own a home? No. And you're living on pension and Social Security? Correct. Are you renting, Larry? Yes. Okay. What's your income? About$3 ,600 a month. Okay. And you sound a lot younger than 80 on the phone, I'm telling you. Okay. Thank you. Congratulations. I just turned 80, and I just got divorced. Oh. Okay. I'm sorry. Wow.

1:22:13Dave Ramsey:What a thing to do at 80. You have children? Yes, adult children and some adult grandchildren. And neither of my two children are in financial need. I don't need to think about leaving them something when I die. except to pay for my burial. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I would not spend a ton of money, but if you can find a little$10 ,000 policy through your checking account at the bank or something like that.

1:22:53Rachel Cruze:I was going to say, your life insurance probably will not be the best way just because of your age. That's not my favorite way of doing it, but that's one way you could do it.

1:23:00Dave Ramsey:The second thing that comes to mind is to add a little bit to the$4 ,000 as we go along. You don't have tons of room in this budget, obviously. But if you can add a little bit to it and then arrange for, you know, go ahead and do some shopping on an inexpensive funeral process, cremation or an inexpensive burial. I mean, we're looking for the Chevrolet casket, not the Cadillac casket, you know, that kind of stuff. Right. And so what can we do for five thousand dollars? and just assign that money to that issue. Don't prepay it, but kind of predetail it, preplan it to where you know that you've got it covered.

1:23:43Dave Ramsey:And if you can get really, really close with your cash, I would prefer to do that. And even if you added another$1 ,000 to it and you say, okay,$5 ,000 is the emergency fund and the ultimate emergency is my funeral expenses. so that I'm not a financial burden to the kid or the grandkids. How? Wow. But, you know, if for$5 or$10 a month, I don't think you can. But if you could find something like one of these gimmick-type policies that are guaranteed issue, I don't know what they would cost at 80. But they obviously have to be guaranteed issue. It's not standard term insurance. Standard term insurance won't write you.

1:24:29Dave Ramsey:but this would be like something that came with your checking account or something that came through an association you used to belong to because you were a teacher or whatever something like that but their little gimmick policies is what they are and they're guaranteed issue no medical and if you know ten dollars or something you want to do that it's not my favorite thing though i would rather just arrange pre-detail and plan out and have the cash to cover that that's That's A.

1:24:58Rachel Cruze:B would be to get an inexpensive issue, non-medical pre-issue. Yeah, average funeral costs around$7 ,000 to$12 ,000.

1:25:07Dave Ramsey:Yeah, that's average. But, I mean, you can do it. You can do like a cremation. I mean, yeah.

1:25:12Rachel Cruze:You get a casket for two, funeral home services too, and that's close to your$5 ,000.

1:25:17Dave Ramsey:Costco's got caskets.

1:25:18Rachel Cruze:Yeah. George Camel actually mentioned that. Yeah, he loves Costco. I walked by him.

1:25:24Dave Ramsey:I think it was$1 ,800 when I walked by it. I think that's right.

1:25:50Dave Ramsey:Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio. Beth is in Tulsa. Hey, Beth, how are you?

1:25:58Rachel Cruze:I'm good. How are you all?

1:25:59Dave Ramsey:Better than we deserve. What's up?

1:26:02Rachel Cruze:Wonderful. So my husband and I are expecting our first child next month. Yay! Thank you. And we recently paid off all of our debt in April. Yay! And for you guys. Yeah. So we're both contractors, and we are paying for the birth in cash because we don't have access to health insurance. So as soon as we paid off the debt, started tucking money back. But I recently found out that I'm having a few mild health concerns. So I just went from full to part-time, which means all that extra parameter we had and our monthly snowballs now disappeared. So my question is, how do I deal with the guilt of choosing to take less money, knowing it would slow us down so I can prepare for this baby?

1:26:51Rachel Cruze:you don't i mean from what you just described i feel like you don't have much of a choice right i mean you have you're eight months pregnant you're having some health stuff so you have to slow down for the health of you and your baby right yeah welcome to mom guilt number one i mean like i mean that that i feel like there's not really an option beth i feel like that's what you have to do and that's way more important than you know money you'll make in a month how much

1:27:18Dave Ramsey:would you make in a month extra above what you're going to make now if you were if you were able to go full at it probably about 25 2700 okay it's real simple one side of the scale 2700 other side of scale healthy baby no question okay no guilt zero even if you guys you could write a check for the health of your child for$2 ,700. You do it in a heartbeat.

1:27:47Rachel Cruze:Yeah, absolutely.

1:27:48Dave Ramsey:I'm sorry. What'd you say, Rick? Yeah.

1:27:50Rachel Cruze:No, I was just saying, even if you had debt and you guys had to pause the debt snowball for your last month of pregnancy, you're okay. You know what I mean? Like you are by, by all means good to do this.

1:28:00Dave Ramsey:So yeah, no, you have to do it. It's what were you doing for work?

1:28:04Rachel Cruze:You said you're a contractor. What type of contractor were you? Yeah. So I'm in sales and marketing. Uh-huh. Okay. You're really good at what you do, probably. I think so. So I do wonder, just like as a working mom to working mom, that you're, I mean, not in a deep way necessarily, I'm not putting this on you, but there's an identity shift that happens. And when your sudden value that you're bringing to the table comes to a screeching halt and you're no longer in that world providing that value, you're like whiplashed over to this new role as mom, as you are, right, carrying this baby, there probably is a level of, yeah, of just time, money, value, whiplash that you're probably going through to a degree.

1:28:49Rachel Cruze:If you're really good at what you do and you're passionate and you love your job and you're a hard driver and suddenly that stops, I think that can be sometimes a little hard just to kind of find that balance again. Yeah, I agree. And I think the hard part for me as well is my husband and I have worked so hard over the last two years being so gazelle intense, and it feels like we haven't taken a step back because we paid off all that debt, but it does kind of feel like a step back watching all that extra parameter just disappear off of the budget. Yeah, that's normal.

1:29:24Dave Ramsey:That's normal. But, again, you just say, what's the tradeoff? The tradeoff is a good trade. You're not trading and saying, I want to be lazy. and sit in the backyard and drink soda water.

1:29:40Rachel Cruze:Right.

1:29:40Dave Ramsey:You know, that's not what we're doing. We're delivering a human being the highest calling of either one of you, you and your husband. It's the best thing you can do. It's much better than getting out of debt.

1:29:56Rachel Cruze:Thank you. That's a very good perspective. Thank you.

1:29:58Dave Ramsey:Very good. Good for you guys.

1:30:00Rachel Cruze:Yeah, and Beth, and you probably would be one of these couples that we talk to who are on like baby step seven in a few years. And you're like, I still just, we can't spend money. We don't know how to spend money. We can't slow down. You know what I mean? It's a good exercise just to slow down. You're good. You are good. This money stuff, this money stuff is here to create a life that you guys love. It's a tool in your life. It's not something to be worshipped or to place all this value in, right? It's here to support you, not be the thing in your life. And so you guys have done an excellent job up until this point of getting out of debt, driving hard, having a goal, doing all of it so that you can have peace right now because you guys are debt free.

1:30:42Rachel Cruze:You did it.

1:30:42Dave Ramsey:Hey, go to Health Trust also at RamseySolutions.com and hook up with our advertiser and get some health insurance.

1:30:50Rachel Cruze:Okay.

1:30:51Dave Ramsey:Y 'all don't need to be walking around without health insurance. That's going to – now that could blow things up. That could be a mess. And, you know, it's not going to cover labor and delivery at this point. but it actually could cover other things that happened at the birth. There's something other than just normal labor and delivery happened. So you need to get in touch with Health Trust and let them search you out some health insurance. And you can find how to connect with them on the website easy enough. And so, yeah, for sure. Don't be walking around with health insurance. But anyway, aside from that, that's not the issue here.

1:31:26Dave Ramsey:The issue here is just margin and tradeoffs. And I appreciate your question. It's got a good heart. And congratulations. You're out of debt and you're having a baby. Life is great. This is about as good as it gets. Kevin's in Milwaukee. Hey, Kevin, what's up? Hey, Dave. Hi, Rachel. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. How can we help?

1:31:45Rachel Cruze:Yeah, so I actually just recently got let go from my job. Should I apply for unemployment or just work side hustles to supplement the income until I find a new job?

1:31:58Dave Ramsey:I'd work side hustles. yeah that's what i was thinking you're more employable yeah you want you want different and you talk different when you walk into the interview if you're um not sitting at home collecting a government check okay that's what i like to hear yeah what were you making because i was making about 76 000 why were you let go

1:32:23Rachel Cruze:um just wasn't aligned with my skills um i recently just found out i have a passion for

1:32:29Dave Ramsey:sales and i'm 30 years old and um i'm just ready to get after it okay good news is if you got a passion for sales there's always work to be done absolutely yeah henry ford said nothing happens until somebody sells something it's like it's the highest paid profession on the planet and if you're

1:32:51Rachel Cruze:If you're good and you're on commission, you can kill it.

1:32:53Dave Ramsey:Yeah. You get in a high-quality product that you're proud of and that's really serving the customer and really their life is better because you're selling it. And you pour on some passion and some enthusiasm. And you get in there and smile and love people and serve them well by making sure they get a hold of that high-quality, high-margin product. And you will get rich. And you should. It's a great profession. Highly recommend it. So I'm glad you found that passion. and you get to prove it now by your side hustles too. Pick up some side hustles that have got something to do with marketing or sales.

1:33:27Rachel Cruze:Sales aspect.

1:33:28Dave Ramsey:Yeah, don't be driving Uber. Let's go be doing something and move that. Take that same passion and do the other. And meanwhile, get to work. I'm going to send you a copy of Coleman's book, Proximity Principle, which will help you land that next job too. Wow.

1:33:41Rachel Cruze:That's good. Good luck, Kevin.

1:33:43Dave Ramsey:Yeah, it's going to be great. It's going to be amazing. This is a guy who's leaving$76 ,000 and is going to end up making$100 ,000 after being let go. Isn't that a great phrase? Like he was being held captive. We let him go. It was a butterfly, and he was in a jar, and we let him go.

1:34:36Rachel Cruze:Hey guys, Rachel Cruz here, and I love summer. There is more fun on the calendar, more time with your people, and way more chances to make memories. But you know what else there's more of? Spending. Oh, between the extra groceries and gas and camp fees and family trips, it all starts to add up so fast. And before you know it, money stress starts to steal the fun out of everything. And that is why I love the EveryDollar Budget app, because it helps you plan your money, track your spending, and find more margin in your budget so that you can put extra cash towards the goals that matter most. Enjoy your summer without the money stress.

1:35:15Rachel Cruze:Download the EveryDollar app in the App Store or Google Play and start for free today.

1:35:44Dave Ramsey:Are you sick and tired of working so hard but having nothing to show for it? Well, that's normal. Normal's broke. You don't have to live that way. Our EveryDollar budgeting app helps you find extra money every month and builds you a personalized plan to beat debt and build wealth. In just 15 minutes, you're going to find thousands of dollars in hidden margin, and you're going to feel like you've got a raise. Don't be normal anymore, especially when you can live like no one else. Start EveryDollar for free in the App Store or Google Play. Kyle is with us in New York City. Hey, Kyle, how are you?

1:36:16Dave Ramsey:Hey, Dave. Hey, Rachel, how are you?

1:36:19Rachel Cruze:better than we deserve what's up so my question is i am 26 years old i make a hundred thousand pre-tax uh each year and i'm currently working on baby step six so i've worked my butt off my entire life to be able to save up money um i feel like i'm doing pretty okay for myself but a lot of uh people are in my ear colleagues friends family telling me i'm working too hard i'm I'm missing out on some of the best years of my life. Do you agree with that sentiment?

1:36:50Dave Ramsey:What are you missing out on?

1:36:53Rachel Cruze:These are the same people that are taking vacations every year, several vacations, new iPhone, new Apple Watch every year.

1:37:01Dave Ramsey:That's how you define living life well, is an Apple Watch?

1:37:06Rachel Cruze:But if I'm lucky enough to be an old man one day, I don't want to look back and say, you know, I... I didn't have an Apple Watch? No. No. Is it time for me to start letting off the gas a little bit?

1:37:22Dave Ramsey:I don't know. How many hours a week are you working?

1:37:25Rachel Cruze:So currently, I already kind of cut back a little bit. I'm currently pushing between 55 and 65 hours a week, depending on like an on-call schedule.

1:37:34Dave Ramsey:Okay.

1:37:35Rachel Cruze:But from the ages of 15 to 22, I was working three jobs just trying to get ahead.

1:37:42Dave Ramsey:Yeah, but you're not now. 80 hours a week. You're not now. So what? I work a lot of hours too, but I'm not now. So what's the problem? I mean, now you're working 55, 60 hours. Most people that are successful work 55 or 60 hours. There's no 30-hour-a-week successful people.

1:38:00Rachel Cruze:Yeah, but you can work a 40-hour work week and do well with the baby steps. Well, you can do well.

1:38:04Dave Ramsey:But, I mean, if you want to have success, you're not going to do it on 30 or 40 hours. You're going to put the coals on a little bit. That's part of life. Oh, well. And so.

1:38:13Rachel Cruze:My biggest thing is before I really decide to let off the gas and start taking it a little more easy, spoiling myself, I want to get the house paid off.

1:38:25Dave Ramsey:Okay. How much do you owe on the house?

1:38:28Rachel Cruze:I owe$249. Okay.

1:38:31Dave Ramsey:Well, here's the thing. You can't let other people decide what you want, what they want for you to be your deal. You need to decide what you want. And listen, when you're 72, you're not going to go, oh, I wish I'd had an iPhone when I was 30. That doesn't come up, okay? But now if there's people that you love that you're not spending time with, you need to do that and turn off Netflix. If you need to go on one vacation, there's nothing wrong with that. Go on a vacation. You're single, you said, right?

1:39:06Rachel Cruze:No, I am in a relationship, not married, though.

1:39:09Dave Ramsey:Okay. Well, I mean, you know, if that relationship is starving for lack of water, then put some water on it. But that's not, you know, that's not what you said. You said people are saying you should take more vacations like they do, and they're broke. Yeah, mostly families are saying you're missing out on an iPhone watch. Oh, my God.

1:39:35Rachel Cruze:And, you know, what I keep justifying it as is, you know, I'm going to be on cruise control relaxing when they're all, you know, still stuck in the wrap race one day. But I really don't want to grow old and think, you know, you were working three jobs when you were an 18-year-old.

1:39:52Dave Ramsey:These are people that confuse leisure with happiness.

1:39:58Dave Ramsey:Leisure does not equal happiness. Leisure is a good thing. it's a time to reboot reset replenish replant leisure is good travel is good for that reason you know go sit somewhere and put your feet in the sand or whatever read a book there's nothing wrong with that reset that's why we have a sabbath once a week we don't work on sundays you know that's that's people of faith do that uh that that's leisure and that's time for your spirit to reset your body to reset physically and time to make sure your relationships are blossoming but people who just don't want to work are not models you want to follow.

1:40:36Rachel Cruze:Well, that and Kyle, on both ends of the spectrum in this call so far, you've been talking about people. On the front end, it was like, well, people are telling me I should relax. And then your motivation on the other end is, but I just know if I work hard and I do all of this, they'll be trying to work hard and I'll be good over here. It's all, yeah, it's a lot of people, people, people. I would just put the blinders on Kyle. Be happy for everyone else. That's fine. They can do what they want to do. They can buy their iPhone watch and all that stuff. But what you need to do is focus on what makes you happy, Kyle.

1:41:07Rachel Cruze:What do you want to enjoy? Do you want to say, yeah, for the next two years, I'm going to pull back some work hours and work 50 hours, not 65, and have some more time with my girlfriend. And I'm going to do this and that. And then I'll probably plug back in here and try this. I mean, make a life you want, Kyle, not for everybody else and not for the motivator of what other people are going to do or not do or what they're saying or not saying.

1:41:31Dave Ramsey:Rachel said in one of her number one bestselling books, Comparison is the Thief of Joy.

1:41:38Rachel Cruze:Well, I think Theodore Roosevelt said that.

1:41:40Dave Ramsey:Oh, did he?

1:41:41Rachel Cruze:I said, I said. You quoted it. I know, I quoted it. But I will say, Comparison will not just steal your joy. I did say, it will not just steal your joy, it'll steal your paycheck, too, because you'll end up spending money, a.k.a. Kyle, on all this stuff that other people talk about and what other people want. And it steals your joy in your paycheck. So.

1:42:00Dave Ramsey:And they're chasing happiness up a tree that hadn't got it. There's no happiness fruit on that tree. So I never met a soul in 30 years or 40 years of doing financial coaching who's just, you know, I'm so happy I finally got an eye wolf on the watch.

1:42:14Rachel Cruze:No, it's called an Apple watch. Apple watch, whatever it is.

1:42:17Dave Ramsey:I mean, stupid thing. I mean, It's like, I'm so happy I got that car. That car changed my life. That house changed my life. That's the dumb thing when people say, it's not my dream home. None of them are. Well, as soon as you get in there, your dreams will change. So there's no such thing as a dream home. That's just a dream. That's not real. And so it's just a stupid house. If your happiness is defined by where you live, you will never be happy. If your happiness is defined by what you wear or where you travel to, you will never be happy. Because happiness is a bully in the schoolyard. It says, cross this line and then we'll fight.

1:42:56Dave Ramsey:And you step across the line. He steps back and draws another line. It says, come on over here. And then come on over here. You know, it's funny. It's perpetually chasing something that's not there. It's not where meaning comes from. Yeah.

1:43:08Rachel Cruze:And Arthur Brooks, who literally studies this when it comes to the brain. Yes. happiness with money, he says four things will give you happiness with money. One will not. Giving money away brings happiness. Buying your time back and actually letting, you know, and using that time for good. Spending it on experiences with people you love, that brings you levels of happiness. And actually saving creates happiness because there's a actual progress happening in your life and your brain sees that as joy. The thing that will never bring levels of happiness long-term that sustain is buying stuff. So buying stuff is not bad.

1:43:45Rachel Cruze:We're not against buying stuff by any means. But it's the belief, yes, that I need to go and enjoy. Now, do you need to enjoy? Yeah, sure. But to think that that's the end goal of all of this, you've missed the point. And you said it earlier, and I think it is true. When you actually find work that you do enjoy and you have fun with, it doesn't feel like this trap that you have to go to Monday through Friday as well. So there's a balance in all of it. And I think you need to find your balance, Kyle, in this part of your life. You've worked hard. You don't have debt. You got your emergency fund.

1:44:18Rachel Cruze:You're in the baby steps where you don't have to be gazelle intense. You can enjoy some of it, but also run your own race, Kyle, not for everybody else.

1:44:26Dave Ramsey:Yeah, the friends and family don't get a vote. Some of the happiest people I know are some of the hardest working people I know. They're really, really happy. and they're not confused and their friends and family don't get a vote.

1:45:26Dave Ramsey:You should not feel uncertain about investing, and you don't have to. That's why we created Investing Essentials, a two-night virtual event where George Camel and I walk you through my playbook for investing and wealth planning. We'll simplify everything from 401ks and mutual funds to passing on wealth so you can invest with confidence. Tickets start at$199. Get yours today at RamseySolutions.com slash events or click the link in the show notes.

1:46:10Dave Ramsey:In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Scott and Kim are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Hey, we are great, and it's an honor to be here today, Dave. We're honored to have you. Where do you guys live? We live in Applegate, California.

1:46:25Rachel Cruze:It's about 50 miles east of Sacramento.

1:46:28Dave Ramsey:Ah, that's a beautiful area. That's a pretty area. Very cool. Welcome to Nashville. And here to do a debt-free scream, how much have you paid off? We paid off$420 ,000, Dave. Whoa! Oh my gosh. How long did that take? It took about 10 years once we got focused. Okay, that's good. And your range of income over that decade?

1:46:50Rachel Cruze:Range of income was about$160 to start, and we wrapped up at about$260. Okay, very cool. What do you all do for a living? I get people ready for the work day, Dave. I work for a company called Centos, and I'm a service manager. Gotcha. And I am officially retired after 36 years of teaching. Wow.

1:47:16Dave Ramsey:Oh, my gosh. What did you teach? Yeah.

1:47:19Rachel Cruze:Mostly fifth grade, four, fifth, and sixth.

1:47:22Dave Ramsey:Oh, there are angel wings on your back.

1:47:24Rachel Cruze:God bless you. As a mom with little ones in those grades, we love you, teacher. So thank you. Thank you.

1:47:29Dave Ramsey:Very cool.

1:47:30Rachel Cruze:Congratulations. Good for you.

1:47:32Dave Ramsey:So 420 over 10 years in the valley outside. That's a house and everything, isn't it? Yes, it is, sir. Way to go, guys. Whoop, whoop, whoop. Looking at weird people. We're weird. No payments. No payments. and said, oh, how does it feel to not have a stinking payment of any kind?

1:47:52Rachel Cruze:Man, it's still surreal. We just did this in April, and, man, it feels great,

1:47:57Dave Ramsey:but we're still getting used to it. I love it.

1:47:59Rachel Cruze:You got two months without a mortgage payment. That feels amazing.

1:48:03Dave Ramsey:How long y 'all been married?

1:48:04Rachel Cruze:36 years.

1:48:05Dave Ramsey:Have you ever been without a payment? No. Had a payment the whole time of some kind?

1:48:10Rachel Cruze:The whole time until April. Yeah.

1:48:12Dave Ramsey:Wow. Constantly. In fact, we thought that was the way of life. Oh, yeah, everybody does. It's normal. We wanted something, we bought it.

1:48:17Rachel Cruze:Did you guys have a consumer debt journey as well besides just the house? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. How much was in there? How much was consumer debt? About half of it. Okay. Well, half of it, we also had some unfortunate IRS debt and some student loans, but a lot of it was credit cards and a car payment and all that stuff.

1:48:38Dave Ramsey:So you got that cleared up and then went after the house? Yes. Right down the baby steps? Yes.

1:48:42Rachel Cruze:Oh, yeah.

1:48:43Dave Ramsey:Follow them to a T. In 10 years. So the house is worth what now? The house is worth about$650 ,000. Okay. And how much in your nest egg for retirement at this point? Just over a million dollars. So a million six net worth at least. A million seven. Way to go, y 'all. Golly. Good job, you guys. You're a millionaire. Who was that?

1:49:01Rachel Cruze:And we're weird. She's so proud of that.

1:49:04Dave Ramsey:We work at Centus, and we were a teacher, and we're millionaires. Getting ready to be multi-millionaires. Yeah. Yep. Wow. That's so impressive. I'm proud of y 'all. Well done. Thank you, dude. How old are you? I'm 62. 60. I'm 60. and retired job i am i know i know i heard it i like it i'm gonna keep at it for a while dave i

1:49:22Rachel Cruze:like working so i'm gonna keep doing it good for you i love it i love it so what happened 10 years ago that you guys said gosh we gotta we gotta be weird we gotta we gotta change the way we've been doing doing our money you know we were just we were starting to feel it so we had a lot of payments we were doing silly things like paying off credit cards with credit cards and just feeling the weight of it and uh my i mentioned it to my brother he mentioned the show um i didn't jump into it right away but i was driving home from work one day flipping through the stations and uh stumbled on this guy uh talking about getting out of debt and i was hooked and so i came home and told kim about it and we jumped right in we set up our envelopes and beans and rice rice and beans a long time.

1:50:10Rachel Cruze:Although I really think that it should be grits and collard greens. Whoa! Now that I'm here. Change it up. Now that you're in the South. Now that you're in the South. Yeah. Welcome to the Promise Leaves. I know, I know. Okay, so was that all around 10 years ago? Were you guys around that 50-year mark of age? Okay. Yeah. Which I think is so encouraging for people because some people get on the stage, you know, and they're in their early, late 20s and it's unbelievable they're doing it right away. But it's so good to see and hear from couples that you're like, no, we, yeah, you guys were in your fifties and you're like, you know what, we're still going to, we still have the ability to change and do something different, which I think is so encouraging for people that you can make that big of a jump.

1:50:49Rachel Cruze:And the student loan was for our younger son. We have two boys. Now we have three granddaughters and he's actually right now, he's debt free. They're following the program as well. And he is getting his doctorate at the university of Georgia. So it's really cool that we're here. It's awesome to see her. Our new little baby. Full circle. I love it. Full circle moment.

1:51:13Dave Ramsey:It's awesome. Well, congratulations, you guys. Thank you. All right. Now that you did it, 10 years. You busted it, got rid of the consumer debt. Baby steps one through three. Then you did four through seven, getting out, you know, investing. And now you've got a million dollars in investments. $650 ,000 paid for house. Your baby steps millionaires. You did all of that basically in a decade. From mess to multimillionaire. in a decade. Yes. That's very cool when you think about that. And that's very hopeful for other people. What do you tell people the secret was that caused you to be able to do that?

1:51:49Rachel Cruze:Stop borrowing money. Don't buy it unless you have the money to pay for it. And invest when you can. And have fun free. There's just so many things that you can do that don't cost any money. Go out, spend time with your elderlies. I just spent some time with an elderly woman that's next to our Airbnb. And she said, you know, first of all, once I was like totally enthralled with all of the fireflies. Oh, my gosh, you have fireflies. Never seen one before. She said, go out and take your elderly people outside of their house. And that's totally free. There's so much that you can do where it doesn't cost money.

1:52:33Rachel Cruze:and it just opens up your heart and it makes you feel really good. I love that. Beautiful.

1:52:37Dave Ramsey:Spoken like a good fifth grade teacher right there. I know. I know. It's so good.

1:52:42Rachel Cruze:Okay, so what was the hard part of the decade when you look back and you're like, oh, man, that was tough. That part sucked. Yeah, we had to really tighten it up and it did suck. Getting my nails done. Yeah, cutting out some stuff. We had to cut out a lot of stuff and just living tight, passing on trips and dinners and things like that when friends wanted to do things. Do you regret it? I do not. Not at all. I don't either.

1:53:08Dave Ramsey:Okay.

1:53:09Rachel Cruze:Not at all.

1:53:09Dave Ramsey:Live like no one else, so later you get to live and give like no one else. Absolutely. And here you are.

1:53:14Rachel Cruze:Yep, yep, yep.

1:53:15Dave Ramsey:Way to go. Well, I'm so proud of you guys. You're inspiring people. Way to go. Way to go. Thank you. All right. From working at Centus and a fifth-grade teacher, in 10 years they pay off$420 ,000, house and everything, putting them in place mathematically to be multimillionaires at 60 years old. Pretty stinking incredible. Making$160 to$260.

1:53:38Rachel Cruze:With a retiree.

1:53:39Dave Ramsey:And then retired. And then retired. Here we go. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free. Yeah.

1:53:59Dave Ramsey:Wow.

1:54:00Rachel Cruze:So great.

1:54:03Dave Ramsey:You know what they didn't need? They didn't need a government handout. You know what they didn't need? They didn't need a universal income. You know what they didn't need? All this stuff that everybody talks about that someone else is going to give you. Instead, they just went to work and went to work.

1:54:25Rachel Cruze:Didn't go into debt?

1:54:26Dave Ramsey:invested. Get out of debt. Ten years later, they go from $420 ,000 in debt, house and everything, to no debt, to multi-millionaire. So they're at$165 ,000 today, so they'll be at$2 ,000 if they hadn't already got some other assets, putting them up at$2 ,000 right now. So a couple million dollar baby steps millionaires. This is where they come from. They followed the baby steps exactly. They didn't call me up and go, well, I don't know. We didn't hear any of that whining. We didn't hear any of this. I want to go. I'm tired. I want to go on vacation. Nobody called. They just did it. And did you hear that they regretted it?

1:55:05Dave Ramsey:No, they don't. You know what they can do now? Anything they want. They don't have any payments. They have a million dollars in retirement. Shut up. These people are heroes. This is how it's done right here. And so don't Please don't tell me you're not willing to pay a price to win. They're standing in front of you saying it's worth it. Pay a price and you'll win.

1:56:05We'll see you next time.

1:56:07Dave Ramsey:Hey guys, Dave Ramsey here. Every day on this show we help people work through real money problems and figure out what to do next. Now you can get that same kind of help anytime with Ask Ramsey. Ask your money question and get answers built on Ramsey principles we use on the show. Whether you're making a decision or just want something explained, Ask Ramsey is here to help. It's fast, simple, and free to use. Go to RamseySolutions.com and try Ask Ramsey today. That's RamseySolutions.com.

1:56:56Dave Ramsey:Our scripture of the day, 1 John 3.18. Dear children, let us not love with words or speech, but with actions and in truth. Thomas Sowell said, People say you're a very tough person. I'm not tough. Life is tough. I'm merely trying to acquaint you with a vax.

1:57:16Dave Ramsey:Ivy is in Greensboro, North Carolina. Hi, Ivy. How are you?

1:57:22Rachel Cruze:Hey, good.

1:57:24Dave Ramsey:Hey, what's up?

1:57:25Rachel Cruze:So, sorry, my brain went to mush. I'm calling because I inherited a house from my dad who didn't raise me, and I didn't know him until I was like a preteen. And he lived in a different state than me. And later in life, we reconnected when I was an adult.

1:57:55Rachel Cruze:and he ended up raising... How long ago did he pass? Okay, so he passed four years ago, but his wife married him two years before he passed, so she became the life tenant and I was the remainderman. So I didn't have any financial obligation to this house until this week. And so...

1:58:19Dave Ramsey:So she passed away?

1:58:21Rachel Cruze:She did, yes.

1:58:23Dave Ramsey:Okay.

1:58:23Rachel Cruze:Where is the house? It's in Florida.

1:58:28Dave Ramsey:And what's it worth?

1:58:30Rachel Cruze:The local comps say$350 ,000.

1:58:33Dave Ramsey:And what's owed on it?

1:58:35Rachel Cruze:$92 ,000.

1:58:37Dave Ramsey:What are you planning to do with it?

1:58:39Rachel Cruze:So that's where I'm not sure, but, like, I've been preying on it since I found this out on Wednesday because it was a very emotional situation because the girl that my dad raised, who's like 10, 12 years younger than me, she came into his life when he had remarried the first time. And then her mom went and did her own thing, and he raised this girl. And when he passed four years ago, she sent me all these really hateful text messages because she couldn't believe that he left the house to me and not her. And she demanded I sign it over. And I just responded as nice as possible. And I kind of pulled a Dave Ramsey move where you kind of just say, I'm sorry you're going through this.

1:59:32Rachel Cruze:I know it's hard. And I just defaulted to those sentences. And then I just stopped communication. And then so she continued living in the house with the lady that passed away. So now she's in the house, but the house is my house. And it's like totally mine. There's no probate or nothing. It's a done deal. I understand.

1:59:59Dave Ramsey:How old is she?

2:00:01Rachel Cruze:I think she's roughly 29 and I'm 41.

2:00:05Dave Ramsey:So here's what you need to do. Okay, stop just a second. Okay. This person, the longer they stay, the bigger the problem's going to be.

2:00:17Dave Ramsey:So instantaneously, you need to reach out to her. Like, as soon as you get off the phone and say, I'm getting ready to put the house on the market, and so you're going to have to make other plans to move. If you haven't moved by the end of the month, my attorney will be in touch with you.

2:00:35Rachel Cruze:Yeah, so that's like the advice that some family members are given and then some other families are given advice. Why does that make you cry?

2:00:41Dave Ramsey:You don't even know her.

2:00:45Rachel Cruze:Because other people are saying, well, this can be an income investment, do this, do this.

2:00:50Dave Ramsey:No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You don't need this house and you don't need this trouble.

2:00:55Rachel Cruze:Yeah. And so even like kicking her out breaks my heart because I've been praying on this and I've tried to think like, I feel like my dad left this to me because I feel like he had a lot of regret and we were getting

2:01:07Dave Ramsey:it doesn't matter why he left it to you the bottom line is it's yours and it's yours to do with as you want and there is no point in this conversation that this 29 year old needs to live there anymore they've lived there for free for 10 years longer than they should have because their mother was there. This is a 19-year-old who was freeloading for a decade on her mother.

2:01:36Rachel Cruze:It's not even her mom, I don't think. It was like the next wife or something. So that's even more.

2:01:42Dave Ramsey:This is very weird.

2:01:43Rachel Cruze:It's even more of a dysfunctional issue, Ivy.

2:01:46Dave Ramsey:So please, take a deep breath, just be kind and be very quick.

2:01:53Rachel Cruze:Yeah. I just, I know it seems so simple because you're Dave Ramsey,

2:01:58Dave Ramsey:but emotionally... I don't know why it's emotional. You don't even know her. You don't even know the house.

2:02:07Rachel Cruze:Because I know the Lord. That's why it's emotional. The Lord doesn't make it emotional.

2:02:11Dave Ramsey:I know the Lord too, but it doesn't make it emotional.

2:02:16Rachel Cruze:Well, I had considered this. This is what I considered, and I'd been praying and praying, and I woke up yesterday, and I just felt this thing that said, here's the solution. is that the market value in the comps are$3.50, and I thought maybe I offer to her for$2.75 and give her a deal, and then I still have enough to pay my own house off because I've followed all the baby steps since 2018. I have a whole library of all of y 'all's books, and I have Rachel Cruzen's wallet. That's fine if you want to do that.

2:02:52Dave Ramsey:That's not what I would do.

2:02:54Rachel Cruze:Okay.

2:02:55Dave Ramsey:You can do that if you want to do that. If you feel like that's the Lord. I don't know if that's the Lord or you just being sweet and guilt-ridden over something you didn't even do.

2:03:04Rachel Cruze:Well, I don't know why I should have guilt. I don't either. I don't think I have guilt. I just feel—

2:03:08Dave Ramsey:I don't know why you offer this girl a dime. It's not like she's ever going to be happy with you.

2:03:16Rachel Cruze:Yeah.

2:03:16Dave Ramsey:If you give her the freaking house for free, she's still going to be a biatch.

2:03:21Rachel Cruze:I feel like she lost a dad that I never had, and as much as it paid me to lose him, I try to think. The house hasn't got anything to do with that. I try to think. Yeah, you're right.

2:03:30Dave Ramsey:And writing her a check doesn't have anything to do with that. Those are two separate issues. Writing her a check does not make her have the dad or didn't have the dad or you had the dad or didn't have the dad. Checks don't fix any of that. That was the dad.

2:03:46Rachel Cruze:Okay.

2:03:47Dave Ramsey:Money doesn't change that. Okay. I'm telling you, if you play with this girl, you're going to be dancing with her for the next five years. If you give her one quarter, you're going to be dancing with her. But you do what you want. If you feel like that's God, I'm not positive if it is or isn't God. I sometimes challenge people when they play the God card. But you said I heard that in prayer, okay, is what you said. That's God. And so if you think that's God, you should be real sure that it's God, and then you should do what God said, not what Dave said. But I'm not positive if it is or isn't. I don't see any biblical principle that says that you ought to do that.

2:04:27Dave Ramsey:I think this is a dysfunctional mess.

2:04:29Rachel Cruze:Yeah, and I know you're a tough love. I know you're a tough love. It's not tough love. It's not tough love. It's just love.

2:04:35Dave Ramsey:And it's just accepting the reality of who this woman is. She is not going to be okay because of this house transaction, regardless of how the house transaction goes down.

2:04:49Rachel Cruze:I agree. I agree, Ivy. I think your heart is in a really great place, just in a sense of you are genuinely looking out. But also, Scripture talks a lot about wisdom, running away from foolish situations. I mean, you could back it up the other way, too, with Scripture if you wanted to play that game, right? I mean, you could. and so again if you feel like you have a conviction there's something deep in your soul and your spirit is moving yes you can follow it but also when we look at the facts of everything you just said in the six minute call uh the mess that you're probably gonna end up being in with her for the exactly right for the next couple of years is what i was thinking in my head i'm like oh ivy's gonna be attached to this girl forever because she's trying to be nice and it's almost like this codependence of I have to make her okay with this and you can never make her okay it's just it's that's not gonna happen and she's 29 years old Ivy that's why I asked her age if she's 18 I'd feel for the girl and be like all right let's figure out a way to set her up well in life

2:05:52Dave Ramsey:what a gift that's a she's 30 years old and has lived for free she's 30 years old with a woman

2:05:58Rachel Cruze:who isn't even her mother why don't why does she go buy her own condo like she's like right let her figure it out. That's not your problem. That's not your problem. And the fact of how hateful she is, all of it, it's a, it's a, I would, I would put up a boundary with her. You're not related to her. She's not part of your life. Like this is crazy.

2:06:18Dave Ramsey:You need to be out of the house by the end of the month or our attorney will remove you. And then we will sell the house and then we will move on with our lives. All of us. And that's what I would do. Very simple. That puts this hour of the Ramsey show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.