Following a Proven Plan Is the Fastest Way To Build Wealth

23:37Dave Ramsey:This your oldest child? She is. Yeah.

23:43I, here's the conundrum you find yourself in is, are you going to use money as an anchor? Or are you going to use tuition to punish? Or are you going to look at a legal adult and say, this isn't the decision we would make, but we're going to be your biggest cheerleaders? Because I'll tell you, the greatest way she can figure out how the world works is to go figure out how the world works. Okay. And I've heard a ton of kids who are like, I'm moving out. And I just start rattling off numbers and their eyes get real big. She's making three grand. She's not going to have a great life, right? She's going to have one bedroom apartment and it's going to be really tough.

24:21I would give her some pretty strict boundaries. Like we'll keep covering tuition, but you're going to be on your own for this stuff. And I will walk with you every step of the way for how cell phone works and how insurance works and all that kind of stuff. The risk you run right now is you say no and she walks anyway and you've lost your relationship too. And it's not like she's doing drugs. I mean, she's working in a nursing home. It sounds like she wants to work full time and take classes online. Incredibly hard worker. Yeah. So it sounds like she's a kid.

24:47Dave Ramsey:She's bright and she's mature. Yeah, great character. Yeah. 100 % she should move out and 100 % you should support her. I'm with John on that. The only thing I would do is, you know, let's go shopping for apartments together. And I'll help you build your budget on three grand. I want you to know what you're moving into because you don't want to be, you know, if you're going to make this decision, we would rather you stay until you finish college. You know that. And if you want to stay until you finish college, you're welcome. That's your message, right? But if you're going to go do this, let me walk with you, and I'm not going to tell you what to do.

25:30Dave Ramsey:I just want to see that you've considered all the variables that have to be in this budget. here's what the electric bill is going to be at that apartment here's what the apartment costs here's what the contents insurance costs which is about 500 bucks a year okay here's what your um cell phone's going to cost here's what this is going to and let's build a but let's see how what your life looks like on three thousand dollars a month or more if she's working more that's fine but let's let's figure out what you've got to do to exist and let's do this let's begin with the end in mind, as Stephen Covey would say in the seven habits of highly effective people, right?

26:09And so let's plan it all out.

26:12Dave Ramsey:And I'll walk with you and coach you. You may, when we do the budget, it's possible you may want to delay this because you may look at the budget and realize it's harder to do this than it is in your mind right now. So if she's going to do this, I want her to deal with, I want her to do it based on reality, not based on fuzzy dreams and feelings. That's what I feel like it's been up to this point. I think it has, too. Will every dollar allow me to kind of put out a projected budget like that? Yeah, she needs to build it. She's 21. She needs to have one. She needs to build an every dollar budget.

26:47For me to help her, will every dollar allow her to help her?

26:49Dave Ramsey:Yeah, she can build it, and then you look over her shoulder and say, okay, have you thought about that? Have you thought about that? And I'll go with you, and let's look at the apartment. Do you feel safe here for this price? because I don't want my daughter in an unsafe situation. And we're not going to supplement your living. You're going to have to do it on your own if you move out. And those two lines, we're going to be your biggest cheerleaders, and so we'll walk with you through this thing. We'll help you every step of the way. And financially, here's what we're going to provide for you.

27:26Tuition. That's it. That's it, right? Right. And and you you being an adult enough to you modeling what adult is, is we're going to we're going to live in reality. You just we're all clear. Yeah.

27:39Dave Ramsey:And if the budget works and she can live on the celebrator and then that's going to actually give me, if I'm you, more peace. Because right now you're worried about it. I'm a little worried about that. This is a dream that's going to turn into a freaking nightmare. That's that's my fear. Yeah. Yeah. and your wife has gone even further, she's like, she's going to be in a ditch in a cardboard box. You know, that's what happens. Yeah, so this is the way this stuff goes, and this is all with a good kid. Yeah, yeah. Hey, can I give you one more thing to tell her? Sure thing. This would be really like – this would be handing the maturity baton to her.

28:24Look at her with your wife and say, hey, we're really sad you're going. We love having you here. Okay. Because there is financial stuff, but I promise you part of this is that's our oldest, that's our kid. If she leaves, who are we? What's our house going to feel like? She probably helps. She sounds like a great human being, right? She really is. Yeah.

28:42Dave Ramsey:That's the problem with parenting is you raise them to be independent and dadgumph it doesn't work. I know. And so it never occurred to me in a million years that if I found out about a new hunting or fishing spot, the first person I would think to call would be my 16 year old son. And it is now. It never would have occurred. If you, if you lay out 10 people, I can go hang out in the woods with, he's going to be my number one pick. Cause I like being out there with him. He's funny. He makes fun of me back. Good. We have a good time. I trust him. All that. It never would have occurred to me. And so if you and your wife are also wrestling with grief, like, Oh, our oldest is about to fly the nest.

29:19Um, and she had to be, we didn't kick her out. She had to be the one to say, Hey, I'm ready to fly, look her in the eye and say, we're going to miss you. We're going to be sad. That'll be a gift to her. It'll humanize you and your wife, and it will start the grieving process for you and your wife. You're losing a cool human being that's been a part of your life for almost a quarter century. You're not losing them.

29:37Dave Ramsey:They're just moving to an apartment. That's true. Yeah, you still got tuition payments. Yeah, they're still on a dead gum leash. But you're right. I mean, when we dropped our oldest off at college two and a half hours away, we cried halfway home. We dropped Rachel, the next one, off from college. We cried one exit. Yeah. And when the third one got ready to go to college, we pointed towards it and said, it's that way. He drove himself. That's right. Yeah. It's like, it gets easier. It does. But, man, I – yeah. Dave, I even think there's – What a great dad. A great dad, great mom. They've raised a great kid.

30:08I mean, if my 21-year-old who's working full-time in a nursing home says, hey, I want to take classes at night in a different situation so that I can keep doing – man, I want to celebrate and cheer that. But that's going to be a bummer when your kids move out. I love – Dave, I love the idea of a 21-year-old crashing and burning too a little bit. Like realizing this is a struggle and I got to get another job on top of this one.

30:34Dave Ramsey:Don't do it based on a feeling. Do it based on mathematical facts. That's right. And then you're staring the reality in the face and still choosing that reality. Now we've got a good decision. That's right. But if that may lead her back home, she may say, I don't think I want to do this right now. Or you may watch her just soar. Yeah, could happen.

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33:12Dave Ramsey:Really important that you plug this in if you're going to do this stuff. Maybe you just enjoy listening to the show. Thank you for doing that. We appreciate it. But if you're going to actually do the stuff we're talking about here, you need to be doing it together if you're married, and you need to be doing it with a detailed plan, and this is the tool, and it's free. Every dollar for free. Download it in the App Store or Google Play. Rachel is in Nashville. Hi, Rachel. How are you? I'm good, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So my husband and I, I'm 26 and he's 23. We are curious as to, like, we just kind of want your opinion or your thoughts on whether it's better to, like, buy or build our first home.

34:00Dave Ramsey:How long have you been married? Three years. What price range are you looking in? See, that's up in the air right now, too. There's three options we were kind of thinking of, and it was either to just buy a home and start building equity, a small home, like a three-bed, two-bath kind of thing, because he works from home, so he'd need an office. Or we could build a small slab house while we cash flow our Barn Dominion build that we would prefer to do. or we could get a construction loan. Those are kind of the three options we were looking into. Last year we made$86 ,000. He's been doubling his income every year in his business since he started two years ago.

34:50He made$26 ,000 the first year and then$48 ,000 the second year. Good.

34:53Dave Ramsey:Good for you guys. We're on track for about$60 ,000. It's really, you're in a good place, and I can just give you the pluses and minuses, and you can decide, all right, which way you want to go. The positives of buying a, just buying a three-bedroom, two-bath, and getting started, and then just start piling up some cash and doing the Barn Dominium as stage two, sell that house when you get ready to do the other one. But just get started in home ownership. It's simple. It's clean. It's not going to extract a lot of bandwidth from your life. Okay. Did you say he started a business? Yes. Okay. Then I'm probably going to go that way if it's me because I don't want him taking his eyes off this business that's prospering because he's over screwing around building a barn to many of them all the time.

35:53Yeah.

35:53Dave Ramsey:And if you tell you can't do two things at once and do be any good at them. Okay. So I want him to continue to grow this business. It's the goose, man. It's laying the golden eggs. Let's, let's just kick that thing into high gear for the next three or four years. And then, then you can write a check for a good contractor and bring in the barn to many of them. Now, if you're going to build, the downside is it is a, it is a great strain on most marriages. when you build a home. You're going to fight. Okay? Just count on it because you're going to have disagreements about this. And for some reason, we decide that we're going to kill each other over the color of the kitchen.

36:33Dave Ramsey:I don't know why, but we do. It's like we die on the most unusual of hills, right? And so you need to back up from that and commit to, A, we're going to be nice to each other through this process. We're both going to have a vote. You don't get to scream, I deserve this, either one of you, all that crap, okay? So then when you do that, then the next thing you need to do is there's three things that drive a build. Otherwise, you're going to drive yourself crazy, and you're going to have scope creep, and then things are going to end up being a financial nightmare. One is you lay out a detailed blueprint of exactly what we're going to build and you go over it and over it and over it and over it and you tear it up and you do it again and you you it is very cheap to build a house or a barn dominium on paper and it's very cheap to change it on paper but if you make it up as you go it's super expensive 73 000 change orders right no yeah so that's a piece of paper number one then that will lead you to piece of paper number two which is a detailed budget of exactly what's going to be the dishwasher exactly what are we going to spend on lighting exactly what is the bid for the concrete who's putting up the structure and what's that going to cost what's the roof and what's the bid on that get hard bids and you build a budget that you need to hit that budget you know there's going to be a couple things change but the last house i built i hit within two percent because we made the budget in great detail before we broke ground okay in detail and we're in agreement on that sharing and me this is what we're going to spend the decorator comes in with the neat idea toughies okay toughies this is what the budget is we decided ahead of time decorator you're going to operate within the budget you don't get to set the budget contractor you're going to operate within the budget, you don't get to set the budget.

38:37Dave Ramsey:So these are the pieces of paper we managed to. Then the third piece is the schedule. And how long is it going to take to build this? And before we broke ground in June, we knew that February 14th was the day, Valentine's Day, we were going to start installing trim. We knew when the plumbing rough end was going to be done. We knew when the roof was going on to the day. It was all scheduled out throughout the next 14 months and we built a we ran a 14 month schedule and finished it in 12. We came in within 2 % of budget and we finished with early and the builder loved us because we actually did what we said we were going to do.

39:18Dave Ramsey:We didn't drive him crazy. There was very little drama. All the drama happened on the paper before we broke ground. So budget blueprint schedule and then freaking stick to them. Otherwise, this thing will cost you twice as much as it should, and you're going to go broke doing it. But I recommend that be your second project, not your first. Your first one should be you guys go buy a house and grow a business. Dave, I think you just broke her brain a little bit. I mean, Barn Dominium's looks so cool when you're scrolling on Instagram, and then when somebody pulls apart all the little pieces, it's like, oh, okay.

39:57Okay. Yeah, not as glamorous. This is me. I can be sometimes my wife says I'm way too risky on some things and too risk averse on others. I would want to see that that business have a couple more years of oomph to it before I leveraged on a brand new build. Because I would hate for y 'all to have planned because the temptation is going to be it doubles every year. And if you're on track to hit 160 this year because you hit 80 last year, it's going to be it would take an active. God's worth of discipline to say, we're not going to go ahead and pretend you're going to make, you know, 320 next year.

40:37Dave Ramsey:Yeah. All right. I would love that you all have - You'll build a much better place if you wait two years. Yeah. You can have the place of your dreams in a few years, especially if you got cash. Yeah. And you put yourself in a cash position. Meanwhile, you're sitting in a home that anyone else will be happy with. Three twos are always pretty easy to move. Yeah. It's a great property. Yeah. It's like the ultimate American property. That's it. You know? So, and barnuminiums, by the way, are not. Correct, yeah. So, they're like what's called a white elephant. No one wants them but the guy that built them.

41:10Dave Ramsey:That's it. Selling a used boat. Yeah, that you carved out in your basement. Yeah, that's the one. Of those three things you identified, where do most people get sideways when it comes to building their own thing? all three all three they change they they don't they don't spend enough time on the blueprint and so they they build by change order which doubles your cost and and doubles the length of time that you're building which also doubles your cost right yeah so you get scope creep on the money is the problem with all three and so you don't stick to the budget because your budget's not realistic because you didn't lay it all out and you didn't do it but i can hand the electrician the blueprint a year in advance and he can give me a bid.

41:57Dave Ramsey:Yeah. I can hand the roofer a blueprint a year in advance. He can give me a bid. Now he may price adjust it a little bit later, but I'm going to be real close.

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43:40Dave Ramsey:Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio. John Deloney, Dr. John Deloney, number one bestselling author, is my co-host today. Edgar is in Fort Worth, Texas. Hi, Edgar. How are you? Good. How are you, man? Better than I deserve. What's up? So my question was, obviously, we follow you. We've been watching you for a little while. But how do we get started on this? You know, I like your steps. I like the thought of being financially free, not having a mortgage. But how do we get started? How do we get that discipline into getting to where you guys are, where like a bunch of your people that call, you know, how do we get there?

44:26Dude, you're the man, Edgar. What brought you to this point? I don't know. The thought of being financially free, like I said, I feel like the biggest debt that we have is our house. I wish I didn't have that. Even some of my neighbors that are older, you know, one day he was telling me that he paid his house cash. And I was like, dude, how? How do you do all this? How? And obviously he's older than me, but I want to be there, you know? Dude, you came to the right place, brother. So, I mean, there's two questions in the question.

45:03Dave Ramsey:Question number one is philosophically, psychologically, how do you create discipline? And that's a great discussion. And then the second question is just what's the first thing I do? Well, the first thing you do is you do a budget on every dollar with your wife. And you will find as soon as you do that tonight, it's free to download, that you're going to find several thousand dollars in margin in your life. And then what do we do with that margin? Well, we're going to apply it to baby steps. And first baby steps,$1 ,000. Second one, let's get everything paid off except the house. And then when that's done, we're going to build an emergency fund.

45:38Dave Ramsey:So how much do you have in savings? I have about maybe$30 ,000. Yes, sir. How much do you have in debt, not counting your house? So that's the thing. I feel like, honestly, I can't tell you the correct number, but I think our biggest debt is her car, maybe$14 ,000. And then, well, the biggest one is the house, obviously. Yeah, not counting the house. You got$14 ,000 on a car. What else you got? Maybe a couple of credit cards over$2 ,000. Okay. Well, the first thing you do if you're lost is you have to find that sign in the mall that has a red arrow on it that says you are here. And that means you need to get a detailed list out and figure out where you are exactly.

46:24Dave Ramsey:And you and your wife go over that. You say, okay, here's our debts. We've got these five debts and to the penny, figure them out. What does it take to get debt free? Okay. And it sounds like$30 ,000 will get you out of debt. It does, but it's also, like you said, I think it's more of the mindset of like, okay. I know that, but I'm talking about the money. You got the math here. I'm not talking about your brain. I'm talking about your math. The math is once you decide to do this, and the two of you are sitting down looking at your every dollar budget, I would write checks and be debt-free today.

46:58Yeah.

46:59Dave Ramsey:And then knowing that I'm going to live on this budget without any payments and I'm going to rebuild my emergency fund as baby step three of three to six months of expenses. So as soon as you write checks and you're debt free, you're going to be working on baby step three. And when you finish that, which will just be a few months, then you will start your investing in baby step four. And you just start following the stuff you're just talking about here on the air in detail. But if you don't think you're going to follow through, you won't start. What's your hang up with the discipline part? I don't know, honestly.

47:35I feel like coming from nothing, you know, I mean, I'm not rich. We're not rich. We don't come from rich parents, none of that. So saving up even to now, 30 grand, the fact of knowing that, okay, I can be debt free, but it took me so long to get there. So what's your income? I think together we're like 120 was what we made last year.

48:01Dave Ramsey:Okay, so if you didn't have any payments but a house payment, couldn't you save some stinking money, Edgar? I mean, mathematically? Hello? Sure you could. Here's the thing I think you're struggling with. My dad was a policeman. My wife's parents were teachers. We didn't even know what it was going to feel like. and I grew up you probably grew up in a home where those people had that kind of stuff not people like us right and you probably got boys that you ran with and you've got survivor's guilt and you got that we got out guilt all that stuff is going to hold you back and so here's what I want to tell you you got to be led with math and with a plan and you can't let your feelings dictate what you do next the thing about discipline is i can't be swayed by motivation i can't because there's dude take exercising i'm pretty disciplined when it comes to my exercise if i waited to be motivated i would never work out because you know what i'm motivated to do sleep in and eat ice cream for breakfast and gummy bears and gummy bears because all three of those things are awesome but i have an an end goal which is i want to be able to roll around on the floor when i'm 85 with my grandkids.

49:15And so I don't wait for motivation. I don't wait for feelings. I do the next right thing. And that next right thing is the plan in front of me.

49:24Dave Ramsey:And I know you could do it. I know you can. So the math says you can do it. And you're a guy that was able to save 30 ,000. So I don't know why you couldn't save 30 ,000 really fast. You've had no payments. You've attached identity to look how much money I got in this account. And you've allowed that to say this is what I'm worth and actually if you take away your car payments and you take away your credit card payments and you put that in an emergency fund you're not as free as you feel like you are because you've just never seen a number that big in a checking account right so here's the thing discipline is pretty simple um it's you have to want something other than what you have now more than what you have now.

50:11Okay?

50:12Dave Ramsey:I have to want to be a different place more than I want to be where I am, and that moves my butt off of center. It's that simple. Where do I want to be, and do I want to be there bad enough to leave the comfort zone? Because the comfort zone is an illusion. It's a place where things die. people lives turn mediocre you don't want to live in a comfort zone bodies atrophy yeah yeah anything that's inactive is dying yes by definition and that's what we do in a comfort zone it's the problem we have in america in general exactly the problem in america is you can be half butt at everything and live a life that is better than 98 of the rest of the world right You can have an incredible life in America and be a complete half butt.

51:07Dave Ramsey:I mean, just mail it in at work, overeat, slob, binge watching everything that you shouldn't be watching on Netflix. And nobody likes you. You're a spiritual moron. And you can still have an incredible lifestyle. A comfortable life. A comfortable lifestyle. in America. And it will catch you. That's the problem. If instead you were freaking starving to death and you came off a dirt floor in your home, the floor was literally dirt. There was no floor. Then you'd be going, I ain't going back. And there'd be a desperation in your soul and you'd be scratching and clawing and spitting and flipping and getting stuff done, man.

51:54Dave Ramsey:And that's the change. Leaving mediocre is harder than leaving pain. And it feels different than you think it's going to feel. Keep going anyway.

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53:58Dave Ramsey:Today's Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by YREFI. Defaulted private student loans can derail your money plans, but YREFI helps borrowers explore refinancing options designed to get them on track again. Learn more at YREFI.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey. Might not be in all states. Today's question comes from Antonio in Pennsylvania. He writes, I'm 21 and I graduated from college this month. I'm about$50 ,000 in debt and I've not started investing yet, but will when I start my new job. What advice would you give recent college graduates on what we can do to be smart early and set ourselves up for success?

54:44Maniacally, as crazy as you can, your friends are going to think you're nuts. Your parents are going to think you're nuts. Your old professors will think you're nuts. Do whatever you can to get this student debt paid off as quickly as humanly possible. Make an obnoxious plan, get your first job and then get a second job. Because here's the thing. And then get a third job. For recent college grads, students used to always say, hey, I'm going to take a year off and then I'm going to go get my graduate degree or whatever. I would always tell them, just go do it because when you graduate and get your first job, your body will adjust to busy.

55:20And so if you go get your first job and you go ahead and get a side hustle and get a job on the weekends too, you're 20 freaking one. You got this thing called energy and you got a metabolism. You can eat Arby's and Taco Bell and still be fine. Here's the thing. Gross. It is gross. It would cost me a week of my life to do that now, but you're 21, you can get away with it. I should. Just work maniacally because you're going to adjust to, you're going to be tired no matter what you do. You're going to adjust to tired. Just go work like crazy and look up at 25. Have a whole bunch of money in your emergency fund.

55:51Have no money that you owe anybody and then start investing and you'll be a jillionaire. That's what I would tell you to do. What do you think, Dave? Exactly.

55:59Dave Ramsey:Exactly what I would do. And don't buy a car. God help you. Dave, I left college. Number one thing we do. We go, I'm out of college. I've got an adult job. I'm going to get an adult car payment. That's a dumb butt idea right there. I was driving an ee, ee, ee, ee, like a Tercel, 88 Tercel hatchback. And when I graduated college, sexy. Dave, I doubled the amount of debt I had my first year out of college. And it was for cars. With a car. I'd never said no to myself. I was rich. I was making whatever, 40 grand a year. I thought I was a millionaire. Don't, please, God, don't buy anything. Don't buy a car.

56:33Dave Ramsey:Number one mistake people make in the first two years out of college is they go buy a new car. Put every spare penny, pay the student loans off. Yep. Drive the hoopty. Drive the hoopty. Shut up. Ride the bike. Keep doing it. Drive the hoopty. If you'll drive like no one else and work like no one else later, you can drive like no one else and work like no one else. And people will tell you, you got to rest. You're 21. Work like a maniac. Work like a maniac. Don't be a wussy. Don't be a wussy. You need to rest. Oh, give me a break. No. Get it done. Yes. Get it done, man. And I'll add something else.

57:07I just finished this big project, Dave. Go on dates. That's another good thing. It's a good investment for your life. Find somebody to marry. Cheap dates. Cheap dates. That way, if you're driving the same car and you're going on cheap dates, you'll know she really likes you. Yeah. So, yes, do it. Do it.

57:24Dave Ramsey:If Sheila went out with you and you're driving a hatchback to yourself. That's how I knew. I knew this girl's with me. You were just a handsome stud because that car wasn't. She is ride or die because that's the car we went on dates with. Or you know you're in a bad way when she's like, hey, what if we just took my car? And her car was a used Camry. It wasn't like we were cooking. But, no, I knew that girl liked me because of my car. You know, Sharon and I, I had a 1974 Monte Carlo. It was 1982, by the way. But, yeah, we're on our second or third date. And that thing had 480 ,000. I mean, it had 200 ,000 miles plus on it.

57:56Dave Ramsey:It had been hit on every side and fixed. I was on the third transmission and the second engine since I had bought it. I mean, I ran that car. That's the most East Tennessee thing I've heard today. And so we're on the third date, and I'm explaining to her. I got$1.12 in my checking account, right? And I'm explaining to her how someday I'm going to be a millionaire. And we went across a railroad track and the muffler fell off my car.

58:22Dave Ramsey:I rolled up on the car with the toolbox, put it back on because I'd done it before, and we'll do it again after that, too. And she's like, oh, he's the one. How did that happen? I'm marrying potential. How did that happen? It worked out for her. Rick is in Atlanta. Hey, Rick, what's up? I need your help. Dave, like Princess Leia says, Obi-Wan, you're my only hope. Uh-oh. We are in a position where we thought we would not be. We've paid off everything. We have no debt, no mortgage, no nothing. Good. But we're in the process where, thanks to age and other things, we're needing to downsize and get a different house.

59:01Dave Ramsey:Okay. We tried to get a HELOC to go ahead and pay for the house that we were thinking about, But because we have no credit, we have no credit score. And so no one will loan us money because we have no credit score. We're hoping to sell our house and use the proceeds from the house to the house that we're going to buy. I'm 65. We're 66 at the end of August. How much in your nest egg?

59:32I took a chunk out of a 403B to pay off the mortgage, and we've just been putting money aside. How much in your nest egg?

59:43Not enough. Honestly, I don't know.

59:47Dave Ramsey:What's not? I mean, some people think$2 million is not enough. What is in your nest egg? Is it$50 ,000? Is it$800 ,000? Is it$1 million?

59:56Actually, we don't really have one. We've got some cash on hand, but we don't have that much money. I just have a pension that comes in. My wife and I, we do Social Security.

1:00:09Dave Ramsey:So you cleaned out all of your retirement savings, and you have none in order to pay off your mortgage? No, we've paid off the mortgage. I know. You said you took the money out of the 403B to do it. Right. And now there's nothing in the 403B? Very little. Very little. Like 50 grand? We took a calculator. Less than that. Okay. Okay. All right. I got the idea. That's close enough. Okay. So that's not a source of money. What's your home worth? Last year the appraised a little over four, but it's not in the best of shape, so we're probably going to be less than that. Okay. And so how are you going to sell it?

1:00:53we're going to do what we can. We're clearing stuff out. We're going to try and get everything out and get it in the best shape that we can to get it fixed and just sell it as is and hope for the best. Have you already signed a contract on a new place? No. Okay.

1:01:11Dave Ramsey:Listen, you're broke. You have no money except this house and a pension that's coming in. I don't want you to have a home equity loan because if the other deal if it never if it doesn't sell you're going to have a home equity loan for five years if this doesn't sell and so i don't i don't i wouldn't go with this plan at all no i wouldn't do this what i would do is put your house on the market and sell it and go rent something with the cash in your pocket for six months and um or put your house up for sale. And then when it does sell, run by something and set up a simultaneous closing. But I would not put a home equity loan on your home and then go buy something.

1:01:57Dave Ramsey:And then we'll, well, we'll put it on the market in the spring and then, oh, we got to work on it and it's going to be next fall. And then the market slows down and it takes you two years to sell it. And you're paying a payment the whole time and you don't have a payment now and you have no money now. Would you recommend someone in this situation buy a house for$250 ,000 and put$150 ,000 back in retirement? Yeah. Put it back into investments. I don't know if they can put it into retirement or not. Investments for a nest egg. Yeah, so that you're not broke. He's talking about moving down. You're right.

1:02:29Dave Ramsey:So I would fix this house up as much as you can. Get it ready. Get it market ready. Get a Ramsey trusted real estate agent to come over and talk to you about it. What you got to do to get it ready. What you put it on the market for. Put it up for sale. and when it sells, delay the closing as long as you can and then go out with money in hand, buy another house, contingent upon your house closing the same day, and you close it with the money from the sale of your house. I would not borrow money, period, in this situation. I wouldn't borrow money, period, but I certainly wouldn't in this situation.

1:03:10Thank you.

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1:05:34Dave Ramsey:Andrew's in Portland, Oregon. Hey, Andrew, what's up? Hey, fellas. Thanks for taking my call. I appreciate it. Sure. So I recently got into a major accident and it is putting a financial strain on me in the way of I don't know if I can afford my daughter's tuition anymore. So I was just kind of curious what you guys' thoughts on that were. the caveat is there's an emotional aspect of it to where like i rarely see her anymore um when she comes home she spends all of her time at her mom's she bails on me for christmas and stuff like that so i'm just kind of curious what you guys's thoughts are on that i i would this is tough to do when everything feels like it's happening all at once but i would do my best to separate things and so right now what you're faced with is a mathematical reality you have a relationship challenge you've got issues over there on the side but right now you have a math problem and conflating the two um makes it messier and it makes it's just going to cause more drama i you're going to have a hard conversation either way but sitting down with your daughter and saying this has happened and this is my now my financial reality i can't continue to do this and having this conversation as soon as possible because school starts up in a few months.

1:06:55Dave Ramsey:How much is the tuition? My part, her mom and I are divorced, so my part of it is$12 ,000 a year. She's going to be a senior. I was making$75 ,000, but the issue is I've been out of work since November because of this accident, so I'm on disability. Are you permanently disabled? I don't know yet. I'm still working on getting everything healed. There's lawyers involved. So it's a thing. So lots of MRIs, lots of doctor's appointments. What happened to you? What's broken? I got hit by a boat when I was snorkeling. And I can't say too much because it's still a legal thing, but I'll just say that. I got hit by a boat while I was snorkeling.

1:07:46Dave Ramsey:So, I mean, lawyers don't heal you. I'm more trying to figure out, aside from the fact there's obviously a lawsuit and obviously that you're going to get a collection from that at some point, I'm more worried about you. Are you going to be able to get back to work? Are you going to, is your body healing enough that you're going to be able to do something? I mean, it's been seven months, and I've had a couple shots, and it hasn't even touched it. So it's kind of looking towards maybe finding a different career path because it's a very physical job that I have. Okay, that's fair. Okay. All right, so you're living on short-term disability insurance, right?

1:08:25Yeah, and I just got kicked to COBRA, my health insurance, so I'm paying for COBRA now.

1:08:31Dave Ramsey:So what is your temporary income? $3 ,000 a month. Okay, and obviously everyone knows you had this accident last. Your ex and your daughter know that you had this accident, right? Correct. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, and I messaged the mom and said, hey, is there any way that, like, I can help, you know, and she wasn't very receptive. Is this part of a settlement, or did you, is this just a handshake agreement? This is just a handshake agreement. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Well, yeah, I think as soon as possible, you call your daughter, like, today and say, hon, I don't have any money. I don't have a job because I've got this, this, and this wrong from the wreck or from the accident.

1:09:19Dave Ramsey:And for right now, I'm not going to be able to pay your tuition, my part of it. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't. And it really has nothing to do with the relationship. It's just you simply, like John said, you simply mathematically do not have the money. Okay. That's correct. Am I missing something? I mean, do you have a million dollars in a bank account I'm missing? No, I had this money set aside. I sold a place and I moved in with a girlfriend, and so I had this money set aside. How much money do you have set aside from that situation? I have$10 ,000 left. $10 ,000 left from selling the house?

1:10:00Yes, because she goes to a really expensive school. I've already paid$37 ,500.

1:10:05Dave Ramsey:No, no, no. That's not what I'm asking. I'm asking. You sold a house and you got a lump sum and all you have left of that, all that money is$10 ,000. Correct. Where did all that money go? Tuition. Her tuition. You only made 50 grand on the sale of the house? Yes. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I'm not going to be able to pay tuition this next semester. Okay. But until I get an income going and get, you know, enough healed and I have my new career in place and start making some money, I'm not going to be able to help you, hon. I'd like to. And, you know, and I know that that's what we talked about. But we also didn't talk about me getting run over with a boat.

1:10:54Dave Ramsey:Right. And so that happened. And I don't have any income. and I don't have the margin to give you a$12 ,000 gift right now. My hope would be that if you all had the tightest relationship ever and she came and saw you all the time, you all were always having lunch together once a week, you'd still be having the same conversation. Exact same conversation. Yeah, okay. We're not doing this to punish her for not coming around and ditching you at Christmas. This is just you simply don't have the money. Okay. Yeah, I appreciate that. I mean, if she came around all the time, you still wouldn't have the money.

1:11:31Correct. Yeah. Yeah.

1:11:33Dave Ramsey:And just so just make sure you keep that bucketed separate and the and, you know, don't. Well, you know, and by the way, you never come see me. Well, this is not the same conversation. Right. Right. OK. And steal yourself, brother. She's you know that she's getting an earful from her mom about all the money you got from the sale of the house. It's in some secret account somewhere. And you know that she's she's a senior. She's going to be upset. She should be upset. All that's right and good and fair, you just have to continue to tell the truth and be a person of integrity. And you're going to weather the storm of an upset 21-year-old.

1:12:05That's just, I mean, that's part of being a parent. Yeah. Okay. I hate this happening to you, man. Yeah, I'm sorry.

1:12:11Dave Ramsey:I hope you heal. Man. Dude, I have been a diver. Forever. For decades, several hundred dives. And there's nothing scarier than a boat going over the top of your head. I've never had that happen. I can't imagine it. It's like I'm 40 feet deep or 80 feet deep, and I'm still scared of it. It's not coming down there. It's not a submarine. But golly, that just gives me chills. He was snorkeling, and so he's just below the surface probably or right at the surface. And this boat, ooh, wow. Scary stuff right there. John's in San Diego. John, what's up? Hey, guys. I really appreciate you taking my call.

1:12:55It's an honor to speak to both of you. You too. You guys are my favorite hosts.

1:12:59Dave Ramsey:Oh, thank you. So basically a rundown. So I've been a mechanic for 30 years. I lost my job. I know you talk a lot about diesel mechanics. That was my trade. I started a job at$83 ,000 a year. And I was there for two months, and I was very foolish. And I bought a couple items that I've always been wanting. I'm a guitar player. I lead worship at my church. And I think John Deloney, I don't know if I've heard you like guitars also. My wife says I have a problem, but go ahead. I bought a Gibson J45. As you should. Only if you can afford it, though. But then you lost your job. So what's that guitar worth?

1:13:49And then I lost the job. um so it's worth because i was stupid and i actually etched my initials to prevent me from being tempted to sell it i know it's it's like what is it worth yeah well if you sell it um i'd say around probably 13 to 1500.

1:14:09Dave Ramsey:okay and how much debt do you have i have a total of 12 000. okay yeah sorry brother that guitar's got to go i've sold guitars to pay bills and to get myself out of credit card mess. I've done the exact thing. I hate it, but you got to.

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1:16:18Dave Ramsey:Becky's in Oklahoma City. Hi, Becky. How are you? Hi, I'm good, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can we help? So my husband and I purchased and remodeled a house, and the first contractor that we hired left the job, which caused us to hire another contractor and pay about an additional$75 ,000 to finish. Why, you had overdrawn, you'd over-advanced the first contractor? Yes, essentially. Why would you do that? Lesson learned there. They told us that they had ordered materials and things were being delivered. And of course they weren't. So then we ended up with, you know, no materials and the money paid.

1:17:04So we have consulted with an attorney and we do have a case that we could take against them. However, he did tell us, you know, be prepared. This could cost upwards of twenty five thousand, you know, hopefully less. But a worst-case scenario, that's kind of what he has seen in his experience.

1:17:23Dave Ramsey:Okay. And that sounds honest. And the contractor that bailed on you that you would be suing, are they wealthy? That is our concern. So we originally were a little concerned that they may not be able to pay us. The first refund they offered us was a little under$6 ,000, which obviously was not anywhere close to appropriate. And so our attorney had asked us some of those questions, and he did ask us about assets they have. We know they do own two properties, and those are in the business name. So that's something that we're trying to now take into consideration. Are they mortgaged to the hilt? um one of them is paid for in full but it is a lot that it looks like they're building a property on and the other one appears to have about 50 000 in equity from what i can find from their current mortgage owed filed um and then like a zillow is there not a construction loan lien against the other property that they're building on there is not nope i have not found any liens filed on it How much money did he walk away with?

1:18:34It cost him$75 ,000. Yeah. So in the end, to finish our house, we had to pay an additional$75 ,000.

1:18:42Dave Ramsey:So you'd be suing for$100 ,000, right? We would be suing, the case would be for$75 ,000. If we could have them pay attorney costs to include up to that$25 ,000, that would be$100 ,000, yes. That's what I was doing. Yep. I'm going to sue him for everything. If you're going after him, go after him. Yeah. Absolutely.

1:19:06Dave Ramsey:You want to be very, very, very sure that they have the money before you pursue this. Right. Or that you could get a property or you can get something out of it, okay? Because if you get a judgment lien of$100 ,000 against somebody who has no money, it was completely useless. Right. And you're going to find the court system to be a complete pain in the butt. okay we have this idea in america that there is justice in our court system and it's not been my experience um and so i avoid it if i if i can um i sometimes i have to defend myself and i do that all the way to the bottom right but um yeah but but the uh um but you know you definitely have been wronged.

1:19:59Dave Ramsey:You definitely should be able to recoup the money morally, emotionally, psychologically, financially. But this is going to be two years of your life, and it only is going to get you money if they have an asset that you can get a hold of. Right. And that's kind of where we were. You know, our attorney told us we can seize assets, but, you know, okay do we just file a lien behind you'd have to in oklahoma i don't know what you do you'd have to ask your attorney but in in most states texas you can't but in most states you would put take a lien against that lot that's worth a hundred thousand and either either in turn they go borrow the money and pay you out um or you that you have a sheriff sale and you sell the lot and whatever the lot brings you get.

1:20:50Okay, okay.

1:20:52Dave Ramsey:And then the same thing again until you get your hundred. But you're going to be in the foreclosure business and in the taking liens on property business and because I'm guessing these goobers don't have any money sitting in a checking account. It's not a multi-million dollar operation. This is a crook. No. Yes. Part of the reason he left is he's incompetent. Part of it's because he's crooked. Correct. Okay, can I throw something else out here? Sure. This is not anything to do with math, okay? Okay. And I've gotten myself in trouble with this mindset, but it tends to be where my head goes first.

1:21:33You may not recoup your money if you choose to sue him. but I'm thinking about the family that hires this guy that doesn't have the ability to go track down another 75 grand one day and is there a possibility you can expose this person to protect future families yes and that has kind of been a thought in our minds as well is you know okay let's say worst case scenario we broke even or maybe we're even out a little bit? Could we help protect this from happening to somebody else? Because I'm honestly surprised it hasn't yet. You know, that may be a futile thing, but I don't know. I just, I can't stand people who operate.

1:22:16What was the call like when you said, hey, you took$75 ,000 and they said, well, we'll give you six. How did that call even go? Oh, not very well. I was asking for spreadsheets and receipts and things to understand because we wanted them to finish the job. And we wanted we were like, we're not asking you to work for free. We want to pay you if we owe you money. But we have to understand where our prior money we paid you has gone. And they were just not wanting to provide that information. um you know just saying that that basically we were always in agreement i said no we're not because i have text messages from you that that show that we had a difference in communication and so they just weren't very friendly so their story is you owed us this money correct yeah and that we still owed them more even though they couldn't tell us what we owed them more for And so then ultimately I said, well, I think our funds have been misused somewhere.

1:23:22And then that caused them to say, we're not coming back to finish your house. So we said, okay, well, that's how it is. Then we expect the materials we've paid for to be delivered. And we want a refund for any labor that hasn't been done that we've paid for. We want a refund for materials that we've paid for that can't be delivered here. And that's where they turned out that there was about$6 ,000 worth. Yeah, that gets my blood boiling. I can't stand bullies. I can't. I can't. Yeah, it gets me fired up. Yeah. And that's what's been hard, too, is, you know, there's obviously been a lot of emotion wrapped up in the case.

1:23:58But at the end of the day, we're thinking, well, what's the most financially smart decision? And we don't we're not going to go into debt for this. You know,

1:24:04Dave Ramsey:we refuse to take out a loan to pay for the most financially smart decision is forget it and move on. Right. Yeah. That's the most financially smart decision. But then the question is, you know, do you, do you need to punch a hole in the universe here? And some, sometimes you do, you know, sometimes you do. And, um, I have done that a couple of times. My wife has told me there's too many holes in the universe, John, stop punching. That's my bent. It's going to, cost you more in emotion, more in money, more in, uh, time and running this over and over and over in your head, then it's going to benefit you.

1:24:51Yeah. Yeah.

1:24:53Dave Ramsey:You know, so, um, and you know, it, it, it, you're just not going to go in, in 20 minutes in front of Judge Wapner or Judge Judy, and they're going to go, oh, you ripped these people off. Give them$75 ,000. You know, that's not how this goes, okay? Right. This is a long, drawn-out, blood-sucking process. So be steeled, be emotionally buffered, ready to go in for the long marathon if you're going to do this. And shout-out, Dave, for the Judge Wapner reference. Yeah. How great is that? There you go. That's OG call out right there. Well, I mean, before there was Judy. Before there was Judy, there was Judge Wapner.

1:25:37Well done, man.

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1:27:12Dave Ramsey:welcome back to the ramsey show in the fair winds credit union studio i'm dave ramsey dr john deloney is my co-host claire is in charleston south carolina hi claire how are you i'm doing well how are y 'all better than we deserve what's up i really appreciate you guys giving me some advice on this issue. I see a train coming down the tunnel and I'm stuck on the tracks. My parents are a little bit past retirement age and they do not have two nickels to rub together to make a fire. But they are always coming back to me and relying on me to help them out constantly. I even paid their bills for them for a very long time, all the utilities and what have you, for a very long time.

1:28:06I finally had to put my foot down and say, no more. This is ridiculous. You guys have made a lot of money and got a lot of money, and they just blow every dime there is and keep coming back to the well. But now the well is, hey, I need money for groceries. Hey, I need money for medicine. and things of that nature. I'm debt-free. I've saved up. I've done everything. I've went by your principles, and now I'm not sure what I need to do to help them out.

1:28:38Dave Ramsey:So what is your net worth? Mine is, without my house, I have about$300 ,000. I'm sorry, how much? Say again. $300 ,000 saved with my savings account. And how old are you? I am 45. And what do you make? I make$130 a year. And are you single? I am. It's just me and my daughter. Okay. And how old are mom and dad? Mom has turned 74. And she just went through a really bad bout at the hospital last year where she can't do anything anymore. And my father, he is 69, and he is working part-time, and he has like a bunch of side hustles. But they still owe everybody money and taxes and Social Security, and just they owe everybody money.

1:29:38So they're just, they're so stuck. They owe Social Security? Yeah.

1:29:45Dave Ramsey:How do you owe? They're supposed to be getting Social Security. I do not know. It was something they did. They were taking Social Security while one of them was working because they were still working full-time while taking Social Security. I don't know the whole thing, but they just keep looking at me. But they're now getting Social Security checks, right? They are, but they're going to start garnishing all of their money because they owe it back. Social Security. They've got an overpayment. Yes. So they're in a really tough spot. And what's their home worth? They have no home. They are renting.

1:30:30And I pay for their car for them, so they haven't got to ever worry about that. So I just don't know what else to do to help them.

1:30:38Dave Ramsey:So you're paying a car payment, or you bought them a car? No. No, I bought their car. Okay. So they have a car. For cash. Okay. Mm-hmm. All right. But basically, you're sure they have no income coming from Social Security, or this is just the story they told? Well, they have income coming in right now, and I'm trying to work with the Social Security Administration to not garnish so much so they can still live. and all the paperwork, and I'm working on Medicaid. I'm working on all these things trying to help them out. But I just can't keep all the plates in the air spinning and also deplete everything that I've worked for.

1:31:21Are you their only child? No. I'm one of ten.

1:31:28Dave Ramsey:Where's the other ones?

1:31:33Some of them are adopted, and they're very young. So they're just now starting their life out. So I've not asked them for anything. The other ones, they are not financially stable whatsoever. I am the only one that has no debt, that has bought a house, that has done all the things and done the responsible things. Everybody else has went kind of sideways.

1:32:01Dave Ramsey:You do not have the money to 100 % support two households. You don't make enough. No, no. So you're going to have to decide a dollar amount, one dollar or more, that you are going to commit to this. I did that already. Okay. And then after that, the answer is just no. Okay. It's just no. I'm sorry, Mom. I just don't have the money. I'm sorry, Dad. I have this much money, and I'm giving you enough to cover your lights and your groceries. There's that coming in, and I can't cover the other stuff. You're going to have to do something else. You're going to have to figure it out. Yeah, because I did that for years, and they took the little bit of money they did have and blew it.

1:32:54So that's why I guess because I was thankful for that, too.

1:32:57Dave Ramsey:You told me three times how bad they are with money, which means you resent giving them money. So a zero is a possible amount to give them. Okay. I'm just trying to honor them and take care of them. No, you're not honoring them. That's bull. Honor your parents from the Bible does not mean give money to people who are misbehaving. That is not what that Bible reference means. It means that we honor the office of father, the office of mother. But if your mother's doing cocaine, we don't give her cocaine and call that honoring your mother. That's bull. Okay. So no, you're, they're misbehaving and we're not going to honor their misbehavior period.

1:33:40Dave Ramsey:Now you get to decide how involved you still want to be in this. You could go all the way to, uh, I'm going to give you$500 a month and you're going to give me your social security check and control of your money. And you don't get to spend anything except what I say. And that way I know you're buying groceries and your lights are kept on because you people are acting like you're 14 years old and you live in Congress. Actually, there's 14-year-olds that do a better job than you people. And so you're correct. You know, you can go that far and just take over and take care of them as if they're complete imbeciles, which they may be, okay?

1:34:21Dave Ramsey:Or you can say, I'm going to do nothing. I've done all I'm going to do. Good luck with it over there. Figure it out, boys and girls. You're freaking adults. You can say that. There's nothing wrong morally with any of that. But you decide we're in there. But your problem, what's driving you crazy is there is a constant moving target that you have allowed. And once you say no more moving target, then you're going 100 % chance you're going to get pushback from them. Okay. Because they're boundaryless people, and when you set a boundary with boundaryless people, 100 % of the time they resist it. And you have in the past, and they've run right through it, right?

1:35:08Well, yes. I'm going to give you this amount of money and no more, and I'm just going to send you the check, and you all figure it out. I'll tell you what I would do. I would buy grocery cards, and I would pay directly to the light company. I'm not giving anybody money anymore.

1:35:25Dave Ramsey:Yeah, that's good, too. I'm going to send you$200 worth of grocery cards from Publix every month, and I'm going to pay your light bill through the end of the year. There's no way that you don't feel bad about what comes next. The person I want you to not feel bad about is you. Yeah, 100 % chance they're going to piss you off.

1:35:59Dave 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.

1:36:58Dave Ramsey:Mary is in Virginia. Hi, Mary. How are you? Hi. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? I, about two weeks ago, discovered over$100 ,000 in debt from my husband that I was previously unaware of. We are a military family, and he will retire in eight months. So I'm trying to wrap my head around all of it and how I can pay that off in eight months since our economic situation will change drastically then. And I was looking at a HELOC, even though that's not something that I necessarily want to do. But I'm wondering if that is going to be our best option because, again, we'll completely lose his paycheck in eight months.

1:37:40Not completely, obviously, like he'll get retirement. But I have to lose his paycheck. How long has he been in the military? 22 years.

1:37:47Dave Ramsey:Okay, so he's getting 20-year retirement, which is pretty strong. Yes. What's the debt?

1:37:56$92 ,262.85 from two cars, a credit card, and a personal expense. And then I found a fourth account, like a F-O-R-T-H, where it looks like he submitted to get them to negotiate the debts. And there was$28 ,532 in there. And then I have$33 ,000 in credit card debt as well, too.

1:38:25Dave Ramsey:Okay, so you guys were not handling your money together. He's handling his money over here, and he wasn't hiding it. He just didn't tell you. I mean, you don't have car debt with cars sitting in the driveway, and you're confused that we own cars. You knew you owned cars. Yeah. We've been married for five years, and I tried to combine our finances, and he fought it. like an uphill battle up until last month when he pulled money from a joint account. And when I was asking why he needed that much money, I just kind of like really put my foot down. I was like, I really need access to all the accounts.

1:39:00And that's when everything kind of just unpacked because I realized that he had been pulling money from other accounts. He was spending 800 on eating out, 300

1:39:11Dave Ramsey:on gaming and there's just you guys really had substantially separate lives yes financially no i mean lives your lives were separate yeah he had a whole life over there to the side that you weren't even half watching i mean i knew that he was eating out all the time and the gaming it's just i didn't know that it was that severe and even when i brought it up about him eating at home and all these things. He just wasn't. And it just, the car thing was something that caused a huge fight. So now where is his head today? Because he was bullheaded and didn't want to do anything smart back then. Is he now still defensive of this ridiculous position?

1:39:53When I took over everything and I basically couldn't sleep and saw everything, I had to sit him down and say, for my mental capacity and my nervous system regulation, I need everything. So I took his card. He's only living on cash over the last two weeks. If he needs something, he has to ask me for it. I removed every credit card off of Amazon. I've deleted everything from his phone. I needed to have complete control of everything. And so I now have complete control of the finances and he hasn't said anything. I don't know that he's on board, but he's just... Well, this will last for a second.

1:40:32Yes, it's not going to last. Obviously not sustainable. So think of it as the words we use around here is financial infidelity. Yes. You found out he was cheating on you. And it's important to come up with a seven-day plan and then another seven-day plan on, I need to know that I can trust you for seven days. And that's often like when somebody cheats on you, like I want no more phone, no more this, right? But you got to do this money thing together. I don't think he wants to, but. Well, and you have to ask, I mean, if behavior is a language, he's telling you, I don't want to be married to you.

1:41:09I'm not interested in sharing a life with you. I like you at home taking care of the stuff so I can go do whatever I want, buy cars I can't afford and go out to meals I can't afford. But I don't want to build a life with you. Right? And that's hard to metabolize. But if behavior is a language, that's what he's telling you, pretty loud and clear. So when you said, hey, both of these cars, we're selling them tomorrow, what's the response? If you would ask, how is he getting to work? Uber. A bicycle. Right? Because if you sell both these cars, that clears up a chunk of the debt, right? A scooter.

1:41:43Yeah, get him a moped. No, I'm not kidding. I'm not playing at all. Yeah, I mean, this is a big deal, but the fracture is, I mean, or you're not retiring. You go back, you re-enlist for four more years because we don't have the money to retire. Yeah, he can't. He can't re-enlist. Like he's at the rank where he can't. Like there's a possibility that he could advance in August, but he's not. That's not a guarantee, obviously. And so he's packed out. He's done as much time as he can. So that timeline is not moving. Okay, but then it's he retires from the military and goes and gets a job the next day.

1:42:19Yeah. Right.

1:42:21Dave Ramsey:And takes a military retirement. and all those checks go in one pile to clean this mess up. Okay. So if we sell all the cars, we don't have$100 ,000 in debt, right? No, we also have three houses. Oh, okay. We'll sell two of them. Which is not what I want to do because two of them are rented out. I don't want you to do any of this. I didn't want you to discover that this separate life you were leading led to an absolute disaster because your husband was moronic with the handling of his side of the money. and you guys never bothered to be intertwined enough in your marriage to know what the other one was doing.

1:42:56Dave Ramsey:I don't want any of that for you, but that is where we are. You have a hundred thousand dollars in debt and no, I would not take out a home equity loan and keep another property that's an investment property and run the debt up on my home. Because right now all this debt is in his name, right? You didn't sign any of it. No. Okay. So, I mean, if there's a divorce, it's his. So I'm not running up a home equity loan on our home, especially if his, in case this whole thing comes crashing down. If he hasn't fallen on the floor in front of you and said, I'm going to do whatever it takes. I want to keep this marriage.

1:43:34Oh, instead he's just sitting over there sucking his thumb in the corner, like a whip pup. Yeah. So you're going to take out a home equity loan, put your house on the block, and then he may go buy another car tomorrow. I mean, when I started telling him how this is ridiculous, he was, he tried to say, throw it in my face. that it was the house's fault. It was my, I'm the investor in the family, I guess. And so he was like, it's the house's fault. And I was like, you can't say that this started when we started buying houses because you didn't have anything to your name before you got married to me.

1:44:02How much equity do you have in those houses? My property that I bought before we were married has over 200 ,000 equity in it. The property that we bought together when we got married has over maybe 50. And then the last property, which is the one that we're losing, not losing money on it's just the one that we live in and the one that's the hardest because it was a multifamily because I thought I could scale up because again you like you said we weren't living separate financial lives and I thought that that's where we were at is the one that even if I tried to sell it we would maybe break even we would clear our overhead as far as bills but this house still needs work okay but you just told me two really easy things you sell the the joint house y 'all bought together and it brings in 50 grand and then you sell both the cars and you're debt free.

1:44:51Okay. I mean, none of this you want to do, but again, I'm way more worried about your marriage and your financial situation, to be honest with you. So am I.

1:45:04Dave Ramsey:Yeah. Yeah. You guys have got to grow past this and combine everything and become a team, not a scolding mother. And that means you don't buy rental houses without you both saying this is what we want to do together. We want to be landlords. And he doesn't buy. There's no more you and me. There's now we. We. Or there's not going to be a we. Because you guys, this is exposed. The situation has exposed the weakness in the system that you were using. The system you were using doesn't work. We do not find in all the data and the research and the people that we study, people who become wealthy living extremely separate lives while married.

1:45:48Dave Ramsey:They just don't. And this is the reason is this kind of stuff happens. We only find that they're hand in glove working together, symbiotic and aligned on our values and aligned on our goals and aligned on our targets and pointing and firing at the target and firing at the target together. and you guys got to get back to that and uh and then you've also got to get rid of the debt and the way you get rid of the debt sell the house and the cars

1:46:39Hey 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.

1:47:19Download the EveryDollar app in the App Store or Google Play and start for free today.

1:47:45Dave Ramsey:Buying or selling a home is a big decision. With so much conflicting housing market news, hard to know what's really going on. We keep up with the market and all the trends and do all the research. And if you want to know what's going on, go to RamseySolutions.com slash market or click the link in the show notes if you're listening on the podcast or YouTube. and you'll be like up to date on what's really going on, that kind of thing. So that's the whole idea. Now, if you're going to get an agent, you want to get a Ramsey trusted agent because that's someone, if you're going to buy or sell, that does a whole bunch of transactions and that we have spent time with.

1:48:22Dave Ramsey:We trust them because they're excellent at what they do. Proven professionals. Mark's in Omaha, Nebraska. Mark, what's up? Hey, Dave. So I just graduated college. I lived on campus all four years. And I'm officially, you know, moving out now and going to tackle the world. But my question is, while researching places, I have discovered that rent isn't just the number listed. And obviously there's a bunch more expenses, gas, electric, Wi-Fi. So with this being my official move out, my first official move out into my own place and not in a college dorm, How much should I be willing to spend and still be confident in the place I live?

1:49:05Dave Ramsey:25 % of your take-home pay or less. Is that for rent and all the... No, just the rent. Just the rent, yeah. On just the rent. Or less. Okay. That's the most. Less is good because rent, what are you doing when you're renting? We're sitting there planning to buy, and we're planning to buy by saving money to buy someday. three years two years whatever right and the more rent we pay the less money we can save so or less is a good number okay the least possible rent that you can get by is the best number but 25 your max okay what's the new job what are you making uh 89 000 doing what electrical engineer.

1:49:55Dave Ramsey:Congrats, man. Way to go. First job out of college making 90. What a world we live in. Look at you. Way to go. Do you have any student loan debt coming out? I do not. Bro. How'd you do that? I was very blessed. My parents. Yeah, you were blessed. Where'd you go to college? I went to a small school in Pella, Iowa. Okay, good for you. And you're going to be living in Omaha, or where are you going to be living? I'm moving down to Lincoln. Okay, good for you. All right. Hey, if you can sit, if you can live dorm life for two years, three years, and just stack cash. Meaning don't rent something fancy.

1:50:44Rent something that your mom, when she comes to visit you, goes, I thought you were doing well. Ew, I'm worried about you.

1:50:50Dave Ramsey:Do I need to pray for you? Yeah. And if you can, God help you, don't buy a new car. Just keep the same car. Even though all your colleagues would be like, what are you doing, man? Just park at the back of the lot or park in the front. Just three years of doing that straight out of college, making 90, you're going to stack cash. Let me tell you how I know this is going to work. We did the largest survey a millionaire has ever done, Mark. 10 ,167 of them. One of the things we researched was what occupations showed up the most often among millionaires. Number one occupation among millionaires, engineer.

1:51:31You.

1:51:32Dave Ramsey:You. I'm excited for you, brother. It's going to be an awesome life ahead of you. But listen, you're not prepared for all of the people who are going to be barking at you when they know that you're doing well about what you should be doing. You should be buying a new car. You should be buying all new suits. You should be getting a fancy apartment. If you can weather that noise for a couple of three years, you will set future you up so, so well. Yeah. Write this down and put it on your mirror. Dogs don't bark at parked cars. what does that mean well if if if you're if you're moving and you're doing stuff somebody's going to be barking oh there you go a hundred percent of the time so everybody's got an opinion about your money just get ready but by the way this is a great example parents were able to support him and take care of him uh take care of his college but also it's clear they taught him well because he's asking good questions at 21.

1:52:3321-year-old me with no college debt making 90 grand? I mean, that's way more than I was making. But I would have ended that year at 100 grand in debt. Oh, yeah, for sure.

1:52:44Dave Ramsey:Got to buy a house, got to buy a car, got to buy, got to buy, got to buy, got to buy, got to buy, got to buy. I would have had a cool guitar. I got the got to buys. Yeah, you do. And this young man is just like, he's asking, okay, what should I spend on rent? And he actually called like a national show to ask that. And I bet Lincoln, Nebraska, I don't know the market, but I bet the Midwest is a good place to - Fairly affordable. Get a nice three-bedroom, two-bath house in a few years. I mean, he could be off to the races. Pay cash for it if he watches what he's doing. Yep. It could happen. It happens in America right now among 21-year-olds.

1:53:21Dave Ramsey:Turns out socialism does suck and capitalism is amazing. All right. Ashley's with us in Raleigh, North Carolina. Hey, Ashley. How can we help? Hi. How are you? Better than I deserve. Thank you for taking my call. I'm wondering if financially my husband can retire early due to health concerns. Okay. I think he can, but he doesn't want to quit because he doesn't want to put that burden on me to work longer and be the sole provider. What do you make? I make$130. And if he retires, is there any money coming from his retirement? How old is he? He's 57. So, no, he'll be retiring without any retirement right now.

1:54:05Dave Ramsey:And what does he make today? $100. Okay, so your income's going to go in half from$230 to$130, right? Correct. Okay. Ed, can you do that? I think we can. No, it's not a think. It's a math problem. That's how I did math in elementary school. I think it's four times four. Yes, math-wise, we can. Okay, so you did a budget on your income, and you can exist on that budget. I have done a budget, yes. On your income. Yes. And he looked at it. And so how old are you? I'm 55. And how much is in your old's nest eggs? About a million. Good for you. Well done. House paid for yet? We have$75 ,000 on it. You broke up.

1:54:53Dave Ramsey:Do it again. We have$75 ,000 left on it. Okay. How much do you have in savings that's not retirement? $130 ,000. Pay off the house today. Okay. That was easy. And now it's a lot easier to live on$130 ,000 than it was 10 minutes ago. Yes, for sure. Good. I like it so far. What's his health condition at$57 ,000? He has heart disease. Okay. And has had heart surgery or is going to? Yes, he has. He had heart surgery? Yes. Okay. And he didn't repair he's not going to come back or what? Well, physically he can still do some stuff, but it's a genetic and it's not going to get better. I mean, he can still work.

1:55:49It's just we're trying to mentally the stress is also there. Okay. So, all right.

1:55:57Dave Ramsey:So it's possible that he could do something that didn't create stress and did not stress his heart either physically or mentally. Okay. And probably not what he's doing today. Correct. Yeah. Sitting on the couch is probably not a good prognosis, though. No, he would not be able to sit on the couch. Yeah, I didn't think so. But he may need to get away from the track he was on prior to the heart attack or the heart surgery or whatever we had here. I'm not a medical doctor, but it sounds like he needs to get away from the stress of this job and find something that he can physically easily do and without the stress.

1:56:38Dave Ramsey:And he might only be making$50 ,000, right? Correct, yes. Yeah, let's go that route and pay off the house today. And for sure, for sure, he needs to check out of that other job. I'm with you. But well done setting yourselves up for when life happened. Y 'all were financially ready. Both of y 'all are doing great. Yeah, you got paid for a million dollars in the bank. Yeah, you got a million dollars in the bank about to have a paid off house before the day is over. That gives y 'all a ton of options. Yeah, at 55 and 57. Ding, ding. Millionaires. I just talked to another one. There they go. Well, hey, Mark, did I talk to a minute ago?

1:57:12Dave Ramsey:That's your future right there, except you're going to get there at 35.

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1:58:11Dave Ramsey:Our scripture of the day, Luke 638. Give and it will be given to you. A good measure pressed down, shaken together and running over. It will be poured into your lap. J. Paul Getty said money is like manure. You have to spread it around or it smells. This is true. Brian is in Arkansas. Hey, Brian, what's up? Hey, how's it going, Dave? Better than I deserve. How can we help? So I was looking for some advice on making a highly irresponsible financial decision. Yes. I love those. Well, at least we've analyzed this properly. What in the world? So my wife and I, I retired four years ago. I'm 48 years old as a lieutenant paramedic in the fire department due to a medical condition.

1:58:58And so we have pretty consistent income. We have about$7 ,500 a month in income, and I'm about to gain another$2 ,500 potentially. That was completely unexpected.

1:59:11Dave Ramsey:So$10 ,000 a month income, you're 48 years old and you're not working. And our house is completely paid off. We have no vehicle. We have no debt other than a loan I gave to my brother a little while ago, which I'm not concerned about. It's not a ton of money, but really no credit card debt and nothing whatsoever. We are pretty flexible. You borrowed money to give to your brother? I took a portion of a little 15 ,000 home equity line. He's my family. I know that's also irresponsible, but he's my blood. Do you have any cash? Do I? Yeah. So everything, I dumped all of our savings into land and our home after I was diagnosed with something the doctor said could potentially take my life.

1:59:59And so I decided to safeguard my wife's future because she gets my pension if I pass away. And so I ultimately made a decision, which we followed. We went to FPU 20 years ago, and we did everything you said to do, and it's been awesome. I'm so thankful to you for that. But when I was diagnosed with my epilepsy, the doctor pretty much told me that at any point in time, the next one could be your last one. And so those are hard words to swallow. So I just made a decision and said, you know what? I'm going to buy a home cash. We're going to buy vehicles cash. And I know she gets my pension. So just doing the basic math, if anything happens to me, my wife is good for the rest of her life.

2:00:37And that was the decision I made, whether or not I was wise or not. And you have no cash. We don't have a ton of cash.

2:00:43Dave Ramsey:We have we have land, though, and stuff that's very liquid if necessary. How much cash do you have? Maybe$15 ,000. OK. That's not much of an emergency fund in this situation. Okay. It's not. And what is the land worth? The land's about$150 ,000, and the home is about$425 ,000. Why is the land liquid? I don't think it is. Well, the market here is just hot. And so if I listed the land for sale, I say liquid, I mean it's the wrong term, but if I listed the land for sale, I'm confident that each parcel would sell within a week or two. It's very, very popular. Does your wife work outside the home? No, she's my boss.

2:01:32I have a home inspection business and a handyman business that she runs, and so she does that. Is that part of the$10 ,000 income? No, that's completely separate. That is upwards of about—I don't add that because it's not the—I say guarantee, but it's not part of pension.

2:01:49Dave Ramsey:What are you making on that? About$60 ,000 a year. Okay, so you have a$15 ,000 a month income and you have no cash. Where's all your money going? This just started, and so this is all relatively new. All this income literally has been generated and established in the last, say, about two years, and I'd say about half of it in the last year. I think I got the picture, sort of, mostly. Now, what's the irresponsible decision we're going to make? Right, so here's the irresponsible decision. If we really get this additional$2 ,500 a month, I don't know the answer to the question or I know why I'm calling, but we are really wanting to do the great loop, if you're familiar with it, where you buy a large two-bedroom, two-bath boat, and you pretty much travel on the water full-time.

2:02:42And I'm pretty confident that I could do that with about 50 % of the additional$2 ,500 a month as far as the debt we would incur. So purchasing the boat is the highly irresponsible decision.

2:02:55Dave Ramsey:What's the boat cost? I'm pretty confident I could get the boat at about$150 ,000. Why don't you rent the boat? Impossible. I assure you I've tried and tried. Nobody will do that. There's no organization on the planet that would just rent the boat, and it would probably cost triple or quadruple if it existed.

2:03:23Dave Ramsey:Okay. Well, I mean, yeah, you're right. You know the answer to the question. I'm not going to finance a boat. I love the idea. It kind of sounds cool. I'm not a sailor. I'm a master craft water ski guy. But either way, I think it's a cool idea. I would save up and buy a boat and do that. And then maybe it doesn't require a$150 ,000 boat to do it. right the only other option i was going to suggest or you could sell the land we were debating selling everything home land and everything and buying a smaller home paying for the boat in cash yeah you can do that direction as well do that if you want to go that bad yeah yeah or you could or you could wait a couple years and save up you know everyone i hear that waits you get sick and and they never do it.

2:04:11Dave Ramsey:And so I think we're ready to go. You're 48.

2:04:17Dave Ramsey:Please, don't be drama queen. Well spoken. Yeah. No. I mean, if you want to sell everything and go do it, then you can sell the boat at the end and come back home and reestablish your life. You know, if the two of you want to do this thing, I mean, what's it take about a year to do it, doesn't it? For a year. I'm sorry? We would do it for one year, yes. Yeah. I've known a few people that did it, and they're sailboat fanatics, and it's like the favorite thing they ever did in their life, that kind of stuff. But, yeah, you've set yourself up in a life that allows you to go do this, but I would only do it if I paid cash.

2:05:00Dave Ramsey:And if your wife and you both, you have kids at home? So our daughter is leaving the Navy in a month and a half. Okay. And our son just got back from the Air Force, and he is very well established for himself already. Okay, good. All right. So there's nobody. So, you know, I don't think. I wouldn't call it financially irresponsible if you pay cash for it by selling off stuff or save up the cash. I would absolutely yell at you if you take out payments to do this. Especially you've got other options to do it. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Yeah, I mean, but would you do that? I don't want to go that far back.

2:05:42Dave Ramsey:I don't want to take that many mother may I steps backward to do something that I think is a dream. Because every time I've done something that I thought was going to be the coolest thing ever, it never has quite lived up to the way it was in my head. Right. And to me, that feels like you're scratching a lottery ticket on – because you're basically pausing real life for a year to go literally on a fantasy ride, and then you're going to come back to real life. And I would want to be honest with myself about what I thought that was going to do for me. I have found being gone for many nights in a row, I start to really want my own bed and I want my own light.

2:06:21But everybody's different. Everybody's got their own adventures. I would struggle, and this does not make it right, and I'd probably have to check myself. I would struggle at my thinking of my kids at my funeral and them valuating how much that land is worth that dad sold for his boat ride. Right? And that's a stupid way to live your life. But right now, yeah, I'd have to ask myself, do I want to sell everything, scorch earth, and take a year off of life, and when I get back, I'm going to have to jump right back into the real world? So that'd be tough for me. But also, I also know when you're like him and you have an opportunity that people have spoken to, to peer over the edge of this thing called, you may not be here tomorrow.

2:07:03It tends to spark some fire in your eyes to like, I want to go live life right now. And the balance is, do you have to pause life for a year and go sailing, you know, or can you live life now in your own seat? I don't know. Yeah, that's a big live life now move. It's a huge all-in Live Life Now move.

2:07:25Dave Ramsey:Yeah. But, yeah, you probably could sell the boat for almost as much as you bought it for a year later after you make the run and then come back home and buy a house. Could you buy somebody's boat who just made the run for, I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. I'm thinking if you're walking around with cash, you might make a different boat decision. I know you would than you would if you otherwise. That puts us out with 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.