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22:47Dr. John Delony:I actually keep the quote, live like no one else now. You can live like no one else later in a couple of places just so that I stay focused on my long term goals. But lately I've been struggling with feeling like whether it's worth it. I'm a single 30 year old with no kids and it's just starting to feel like I'm constantly missing out. I'm saying no to friends, family vacations, and I'm not putting myself in spaces right where I can meet people because I'm not going out. And it's just it's getting really lonely. How much do you have left? I still have about 60K in student loans. And then I'm working on my car payment now, which is sitting at about 10.

23:29Dr. John Delony:So about 70 altogether. How much have you paid off so far? I was at 120 when I started. Wow. Way to go. You're halfway home. Man. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How much time? Like, what's the timeline on this 70 ,000? I probably should sit down and like remap that out. Yes. Because I haven't done that for a while now, but I am on year two of like working this program. Okay. So I love this question. And hopefully I can say something that'll encourage you. So my husband and I, our timeline was seven and a half years of paying off debt. Now, granted, we were married, and so I had somebody to kind of look over to when I wanted to fall off.

24:13Commiserate with, yeah. Somebody to lament with. And yours is a little bit different, but you can find that person. I think that person's out there. But a couple of things that I just want to throw out there to you. Number one, you got to know a timeline. I think for you, even if it's shifting and it's not the same as it was, I think every once in a while looking up and recalculating it and recalibrating it, that just does so much for you. Anytime you can recalculate numbers and it looks a little bit better, that's going to give you a little bit of a boost. Even if it's just a little bit, oh, it's three weeks closer than it was.

24:44I think that you need to sit down and do that tonight. And anything that you can do to slightly rev up that timeline. So you calculate it out and you're like, oh, man. And then you say, well, what would happen if I added a little side hustle on Saturday? And then suddenly you see the timeline go down a little bit. So I think you could really use the motivation that that brings. So that's thing one. And I do think that you also, in that, you need to carve out a couple of milestones that you can build some rewards around. Because when you're in this thing, the average person, John, when they walk the baby steps, they're out of it in 24 months out of baby step two.

25:26That's kind of like on average. It's like a one and a half to two year sprint. when you're one of these people like Chelsea or like me or John, I don't know how long was yours?

25:34Dr. John Delony:Well, I was an idiot, so it was a long time. But my point is when it's longer than that one and a half to two year sprint, when you're getting into four, five, seven years. It's a beating. It's a beating. And honestly, it's not good for your mental health to say, I don't do anything. I don't go inside of a restaurant. I don't do this. So if you're a person who's beyond that timeline, you need to be thinking. Like for Sam and I, it was like, okay, after a certain point, we were sleeping on an air mattress for so long. We're like, hey, we're four years in, we're buying a mattress and we're buying a bed for crying out loud, right?

26:08And then there was a, I think at the six-year point, we needed a new vehicle. And so we stopped paying off debt and we bought another vehicle. It was cash flowed and it wasn't overly priced. But when you're in a longer stint, you do have to be very intentional about planning. okay, I got to do something to keep myself going. At some points, maybe it's a pizza. At some points, maybe it's like, I'm just going to like drive to the beach and have, you know, have a good time. And I'm not going to stay more than one night in a hotel, but I'm also not going to take a flight right at your fourth year.

26:41Right. So I want you to hear me on that because at that point, yeah, you're not going to, John, you don't disappear from society for five years. Right.

26:49Dr. John Delony:And Chelsea, you called something out that's, it's, I think it's really important and I'm challenging you, but I want to, I'm challenging you like on your team. Does that make sense? What does saying no to everybody and everything? Tell me more about that. so okay most recently i'll say i feel like i'm kind of like failing in my friendships where they'll be like oh i just need like a girl's night like today was just so hard like can you know i get all my friends together and they want to go out for no invite them to the crib and i'm like no i can't you guys it's not in my budget and so i feel like i'm failing in my friendship okay so i this was like a big eye-opener for me when i'm in i'm in the same spot you are now Granted, like Jade, I was married, and so I had someone to be sad with.

27:38Dr. John Delony:But I had some buddies who were, when I say light years ahead of me financially, I mean comically light years ahead of me. I was there. It was brutal. But we just started Monday or Tuesday nights. Everyone would just clean out their fridge. And so I had some of the wealthiest people I knew at the time bringing over half-eaten casseroles, a bottle of wine with half of a glass left in it. and those ended up being magic Tuesday nights or Monday nights and everyone would just show up at the house and bring what they had and there was times I went out and we all hung out and I drank water I drank Diet Coke or I had enough in my budget for one drink and that was it and and so it was like I I it was part of it was like from my meal budget right but it was not an excuse to go crazy.

28:31Dr. John Delony:It was not an excuse to whatever, but it also was an excuse to withdraw from society because being lonely is going to kill you too. Yeah. This is creative. This is just you creatively solving that problem. Because I'll tell you this, I think the best hangs are at the house. Yes. Yes. Yes. To your point, it's a potluck. Everybody brings a little something because then you're just there to chop it up about whatever happened, right? Your girlfriend could talk about her breakup. You could talk about what happened at work and you just want to be together. It's not about, the egg rolls at Chili's. You know what I'm saying?

29:03Dr. John Delony:You'll find now again the folks I meet now who you might think are famous or have a big Instagram photo almost all those gatherings are hanging out at people's houses. People wearing shorts and t-shirts and having a great, great time. And once you get the hang of the creative spend time with your friends time man you look at restaurants differently and you look at going out all night until 3 a.m. you just look at all that differently and you actually get rejuvenated from hanging out with your friends and in your situation tell people to bring over other friends that y 'all haven't met yet and that can be super weird and awkward and like oh that guy is just eyeball it can but also the research tells me that at work and a friend of a friend is a great way to meet people in the new world now where dating has been so outsourced to apps?

30:04Dr. John Delony:I'm terrified of apps, but yeah. Good, good. You should be. Get off of them. They're nonsense. But all to say is I don't want you to think you have to pick a life or a free-for-all. You can absolutely be buzzing through your deck. And if you have a group of friends who are ride or die with you, they're going to support you. and also you can show up and just say, no, I'm drinking that Coke tonight. It's all good. And let me also say this. I will tell you after seven and a half years of sacrifice being on the other side of that and the debt being gone and me being at different phases in my life, I never looked back, John, and was like, man, there was a pair of jeans I wanted back in 2013 and I never got them or there was a movie that I wanted to see in the theater and I never saw it.

30:50Like, you don't think about it. Like once the time has passed, it's passed.

30:53Dr. John Delony:But when you're 40 and you got your person and you don't owe anybody any money, you can pay for floor seats. That's right. The concerts are more awesome. Yeah, you can do it right. Right.

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32:37Dr. John Delony:Let's roll out to Pensacola, Florida and talk to Monica. Hey, Monica, what's going on? Hi, thank you so much for taking my call. Of course. Thanks for calling. What's going on? I'm 47. My husband is 49. We have two teenage daughters. um we make a very comfortable income but seven years ago i was diagnosed with parkinson's disease oh man i'm sorry thank you how's it play out now i'm well i just recently stopped working okay um yeah it's starting to get a little harder yeah um but we're technically in baby step two cleaning up some financial messes. And my question is, so after baby step three, should we prioritize funding retirement, paying off the house or like experiences with our daughters while I'm still well enough to travel and things like that?

33:51Yeah, all of the above. Yeah. All of the above. You know, tell me more about the baby step two. Tell me what's left to pay off.

34:02Dr. John Delony:Yeah, we have. So at the beginning of the year, I was taking a look at our finances and just realized, you know, I feel like we're treading water constantly. And so I said, I told my husband, we just need to get rid of the stupid credit card. I hate seeing that thing. So we've paid off$7 ,000 in credit card debt, and then we owe$39 ,000 in two car loans. What do you guys earn? You said you live real comfortably. What's the income? Yeah. Between my husband's military retirement, his VA disability week, and then I was very fortunate to get a disability retirement from my employer. We earn about$26 ,000 a month.

35:00And that's never changing.

35:03Dr. John Delony:um he has i guess he has a very stable job um did you say 26k a month yeah yes so his military retirement that portion that goes on forever and your disability will go on right correct until I reach retirement age, which is the problem. I don't know that I will actually reach retirement age. Right. And we have 1.2 already in retirement. Okay. So the good news is, yeah, you're exactly right. You have a wonderful, comfortable income coming in. There's no reason in the world that this$39 ,000 in cars shouldn't be paid off in the next couple months, like lickety split. Two months. Yep. You know what I mean?

35:56And I mean, yeah, you're used to, right? You're used to enjoying$26 ,000 a month, but I think you tighten the purse strings a little bit in several key areas. And I think you can have these cars knocked out, you know, in three months and be rolling. Absolutely. Now, what about the mortgage?

36:16Dr. John Delony:It's quite high. we have $648 ,000 left on it and what's it worth? it's probably worth about $850 ,000 okay so yeah I think that you're in baby step three well I didn't ask you do you have any liquid cash? surely you do we have some but we've decided to throw that at the cars start to throw that at the cars this month. And how much was that? It was actually not as much as you would expect. Okay. It was$13 ,000. Okay. And that cleared out your liquid cash? Yes. Okay. So that's exactly right. I probably would have kept maybe$1 ,000, but you guys have such a great monthly income. Next check, just pull out$1 ,000, keep it aside for baby step one.

37:14And yeah, keep checking away. at these two car loans right quick. And then you're quickly gonna save up three to six months of expenses. In your case, I would do six months of emergency expenses. And then from there, yeah, my whole entire goal would be, of course, we're investing 15%. Of course, we're putting aside a little bit for college. But John, I would set a vacation and experiences fund.

37:36Dr. John Delony:For sure. And I would just fill that bad boy up. You guys have a lot of expendable cash. And yeah, I would do it up. I would have a great time because as long as you're doing the things that cause you to be a financially responsible adult, which you are in the process of doing, and that checklist is it's five things. If you're a person who is living on a budget, which it sounds like you could tighten yours up quite a bit. if you're a person who is debt free and prioritizing being debt free if you're a person who carries the proper insurances if you're a person who is prioritizing savings in the way of having your baby step three making sure that you're putting away for you know 15 for retirement putting extra on your house right your home is a forced savings account and finally if you're prioritizing generosity as long as you're in that land then yeah start putting money aside and yeah i think that you do need to enjoy life.

38:29There are certain things that jump right to the top of the list. Do you know what I'm saying?

38:33Dr. John Delony:And Monica, I've had the fortune of sitting with a lot of folks who lost loved ones over the years. Okay. And I, again, this is, this is anecdotal. So take it for what you want. But I heard, I've heard people talking about in their grief about the trip they took. One time me and my husband did X, Y, or Z, or one time me and... I've heard that some, but man, the things I hear over and over again are the meals and the really hard laughs. And so as you're thinking through this idea you have of shared experiences, of course, y 'all talk about the vacations y 'all want to go on, and I call them the funeral stories, right?

39:24Dr. John Delony:Like the one time we all went to Italy or whatever the thing is y 'all want to do, but a really valuable way to just, um, extract the soul out of the life you have going for you. That's, that's, that's left, right. Is schedule a weekly breakfast with your, with your kids one-on-one schedule a, a time that like, they're going to tell that story that mom, after seven years, right? And then the next 10 years, as this challenging disease slowly took over, we went to breakfast every week and she always got the same weird pancakes. And I always tried something like, those are the stories, right? And so think of the big things, but invest in the little things.

40:13Dr. John Delony:And here's the beauty of those little things. They're relatively inexpensive financially. They come at a cost to time and intentionality and planning, but man, they don't cost a lot of money. And then when the big concert comes to town, good grief, you better go and be on the front row screaming with all you got, right? Because you'll have the resources to do that. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Thank you. And be careful about, it sounds bananas to most of our listeners because they're sitting here going, you make 26 grand a month. That's what comes in your house. But you know, as well as I do, that can just slip through your fingers.

40:50Dr. John Delony:So Jade's wisdom on make sure you're budgeting and you're intentional with this money. Y 'all will be astonished at how much you actually have. Yeah. Y 'all can be out of debt here, like completely consumer debt. And then ask the hard question, you and your husband go on a one day retreat and just say, hey, what do we want the next five to 10 years to look like? Do we need an$850 ,000 house or do we want to downsize? Kids are about to go to college. Do you want to go ahead and sell now? Or we got a quarter million dollars of equity in this thing and get a smaller place so that we can spend more intentional time together and not have a mortgage, right?

41:27Dr. John Delony:Things like those kind of what do we want our life to look like the next five years, next 10 years is probably long for you, but next five years, next three years, right? Have that dreaming conversation and set that thing in motion. Yeah.

41:42Dr. John Delony:Thank you. and will you do me a huge favor for your it's not doing me a favor at all it's doing it for your kids will you make a regular practice once every six months or so put on the calendar to write them a letter and if slowly this parkinson's takes your your your writing hand speak it record it write your kids a letter tell them how proud of them you are write your husband send a letter and read it to them. Don't let anything go unsaid. Just cherish the moments you got. It was an honor to talk to you. You're a saint. We'll be right back.

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43:44Dr. John Delony:Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio. I'm John Deloney joined by Jade Warshaw. This is the Ramsey Show. Let's go out to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and talk to Madison. What up, Madison? Hey, thanks for answering my call. Of course. Thanks for calling. What's going on? All right. My question essentially is, do we save up for a new car or a new house? Our situation is we just moved cross-country, me and my husband and our two kids under two years old. Both of our cars are old and about to croak, and we're currently renting and have never owned a house before. So we're trying to figure out what to do with our assets.

44:25How much cash do you have saved?

44:28Dr. John Delony:We have about$16 ,000 of liquid cash. It's kind of like our emergency fund slash available spending money. Well, wait a second now. Hold up. Thank you. It can't be both. So just real quick. And then I want – you know what? Why don't you go ahead and finish talking, and then I'll come back to that. My husband's the one who mainly manages the finance team. That's why I said that way. Oh, no. $12 ,000. Strike two, Madison. Keep going, keep going. I'm sorry. No, we're playing. Don't be sorry. We're playing with you. We're playing games to be good. I know. $14 ,000 in a 401k. We've got$2 ,500 in stocks that my husband manages.

45:10Dr. John Delony:Zero debt. Two cars that we own outright. And then my husband, he just took a new job, and the base salary is going to be$70 ,000 a year with bonuses. Cool. That's kind of the financial situation we have right now. And you're home with littles? Yes. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Hey, kudos on not having any debt. I think that's fabulous. How old are you guys? I am 24 and he's 26. Yes, absolutely. So good. Zero debt. Here's where I'm going to give you good news and bad news. Which one would you like first? um well good news and hit me with the bad news okay the good news is you're so far ahead of so many people your age because you don't have any debt you have a fully funded emergency fund uh you've got a little bit working in your 401k and oh that's a fabulous fabulous fabulous place to be and you got two healthy little kids and a husband that likes you and a husband that's you know, he's got his job cooking.

46:10He's starting to take off. You're winning. Yes. So that's, please plant that as a very good seed in your brain. Because the bad news is, you're not really in a position to do either of the things that you said. And you're not far off. It's just, I want to reframe that. So let's talk about the emergency fund. The way we teach and the way that I experience it and what I do in my life and what John does in his life is we set aside money for an emergency fund. And that means we don't touch this money unless it is a flat out emergency, which means it has to meet a little bit of criteria to be discerned as an emergency.

46:51It has to be completely unexpected. Like, oh my gosh, I didn't know this was going to happen. This came out the blue. It needs to be urgent. Like, oh, I got to do this like immediately. and it has to be completely necessary. Like I must do this thing. So here's what's going on in your mind. I must do this thing today that I had no clue was going to happen. Like that's how it goes. And so obviously buying a new car or a new house doesn't fall underneath those parameters. So the good news is you are in a position that today you could begin saving up money to do either of the things that you think is more pertinent, whether it's, man, one of these cars is literally like on its last leg.

47:33Let's start saving up$10 ,000 or whatever amount of money you think you want to spend. No more than your vehicle should be no more than half of his annual income. But you could start to do that. But I wouldn't be in a huge rush to buy a house.

47:50Dr. John Delony:No, no, no. And Madison, how old are your kids? They're both under two. The one's like a year and a half, one is three months old. Wild, wild west. You've probably already experienced this, but if you haven't, as a father of two kids sitting next to a woman who's also got her own two kids, I can guarantee you they will use this emergency fund.

48:16Dr. John Delony:They will break things. They will set things on fire. They will destroy, like all of it, right? Yep. And so please, please, please give yourself, your nervous system, your home, your marriage, the safety that is having that$16 ,000 in the bank that we don't touch. Okay. Just pretend like it's not there. The second thing is I want you to give your nervous system, your spirit, the peace it needs and deserves by not just outsourcing the finances to, quote unquote, the finance guy in the house. you all need to do this thing together. You need to know where the accounts are. You need to know what bills are paying.

48:58Dr. John Delony:You all need to be on the same page with your vision for things. The third thing is I know I've been there. I wanted my wife to have the nicest car possible when we had little ones. The reality is y 'all can't afford the nicest car and that's okay. And so even if y 'all save up the money, buy a 10 grand car or a 15 grand car, not a$45 ,000 car, because you're building something together and a depreciating asset won't get you there. Right? I'd say no more than 15 ,000 each. Like if you have a car, yours is 15. If he has a car, his is 15. That totals 30. That puts you at that parameter. And can I ask you a personal, personal question?

49:47Yeah, sure.

49:47Dr. John Delony:I'm super okay being wrong. I'm wrong a lot. The folks on Reddit tell me that. But here's the thing. I'm finishing up a long multi-year project, and something that kept coming up in my conversations with stay-at-home moms, especially young stay-at-home moms, was this. This feeling of I need to do something. I should be – it's that phrase, I should be in a house. I should be driving a nicer car. I'm not providing any economic value to the house because I don't make a salary, so I need to be fill in the blank. And it just was this sense of this built-up, pent-up energy that got spent looking for homes we couldn't afford, looking for houses we should probably buy, reading all these blogs telling me why I'm failing at this version of motherhood or that version of wifehood or whatever.

50:39Dr. John Delony:Is that your situation at all? No, I wouldn't say so. I grew up with a stay-at-home mom. My husband did. We're not flashy people. We drive older cars. We just know that we've been so blessed, and we're hyper-aware of the head start we were given, and we want to make sure our kids have the same thing. So it's kind of like, what can we do to be good stewards now? Go slow. Go slow. The tortoise wins every time. Every time you read that book, the tortoise wins. And all your stuff, it's kind of like if there were different containers that you needed to fill up, you've got a little bit in each container that's ready to grow and ready to keep going.

51:20Like you've got a little bit in your 401k, keep doing that. You know, keep putting 15 % at this point, you're on baby step four, right? So keep 15 % of your husband's gross income every single month into that 401k.

51:33Dr. John Delony:Maybe husband sells his$2 ,500 in stock that he's playing with. And that's the seed for your new car fund. Exactly, exactly. And yeah, just keep working away at it. And once you've funded the cars that you think you need, then yeah, I would start and I would kind of go back to 3B, which is saving for the down payment of your house. And if you want to do that at the same time as you're investing, you can. Or if you want to unplug investing for two to three years, you can unplug your investing. That 15%, you could stop that and put that towards your house fund for a little while. And Jade, I don't know about you, but there's been times that my wife and I save up for a car and we get that chunk of money in there.

52:11Dr. John Delony:And we're both like, hey, the cars are fine. Let's put that on the house. Or let's put that on the house. Like, once you get that big pile of cash, it's hard just to go throw it in a car sometimes. True that.

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53:47Dr. John Delony:Let's go out to the ATL Atlanta, Georgia and talk to Hannah. Where is Hannah here? I'm trying to find her on the thing. Here it is. Oh, line two. What's up, Hannah? Hey, how are y 'all? Doing great. How are you? I'm doing well. Thank you so much for taking my call. You got it. What's going on? Okay. So I just need some guidance with the situation that I have found myself in. My husband was married 10 years next month. And in January, he very abruptly shut down his small business permanently after about three years. After he did that, I found out a few days after he decided to do that, that he was in deep financial trouble with the business.

54:34Dr. John Delony:somewhere between$100 ,000 to$250 ,000 is a rough guess that I have. And then found out yesterday that we are about$4 ,200 behind on our mortgage. We are about, with the business and all, about $40 ,000 behind in taxes. I got a notice that the water would be shut off today. And then yesterday, God called it. He had about$7 ,000 owed in a credit card that I didn't know about. and two, I'm sorry, my voice is shaking. No, you're good. I'm a little bit nervous. And I am home with our three children. He left two days ago to attend the police academy and it's completely inaccessible until next week.

55:19Dr. John Delony:Wow. So that shaking in your voice, that terror inside your chest, it's right, okay? Hear me say this, you're not crazy. Okay. We call this here financial infidelity. The trust that was the foundation of your marriage has been turned to ash. Okay. So you feel like you're free fall and you are. All right. So hear us say that we're with you. Okay. Okay. This is a scary, scary situation. I would also like to throw in here that about a year and a half into our marriage, a very similar circumstance happened. Very similar to what I'm saying. And we worked through all of that. And then about four years later, it happened again.

56:14Dr. John Delony:Oh, no. And worked through it again. Is it him starting businesses and them failing? Or it's just some sort of a... The first time, yeah, it's just like he had two cars with car loans that I didn't know about and then multiple credit cards I didn't know about and a lot of purchases and money owed. And just it's been a pattern for our entire marriage. Does he shut you out of knowing about the finances or is he just going, is he saying, here's the account that we're spending money on and you know everything that's going on with that. but then he goes to the side and just does obviously God knows what?

56:57Or are you pretty much like I'm out of everything?

57:02Dr. John Delony:Now I'm pretty much out of everything because he was using the business account for all of our personal finances, which I'm not on any of. And how did you have money to spend? He would transfer money into our personal checking account, which I had a debit card for. Oh, geez. Oh, boy. And just a little bit a month for you to do what you needed to do? Anytime that I needed to purchase anything, the picture was painted that we had a ton of money. And so if I wanted to go for a shopping day or book a trip or anything at all, it was not a big deal at all. He would just slide it over to you. Okay. Here's what I want you to do today.

57:47Dr. John Delony:I have a feeling in my guts that this is not the bottom of the mess, that there's more out there. Unfortunately. Okay. I want you to pull your credit report, and if you are able to pull his, get his too, and at least get a picture. And if you can't pull his, I don't want you to commit fraud, but I want that to be the first thing when you all are able to communicate. Okay. Because you're in a, you've got three little ones. You need to focus on four walls ASAP. Because they're about to take your house. They're about to take your, shut your water off. You're about to shut your electricity off. Right?

58:32Dr. John Delony:You're in a five alarm fire right now. Okay. Do you have access to any cash at all? um before he left he gave me about five hundred dollars in cash but there's no money in a checking account or anything i think there's about a hundred dollars in our checking account oh my gosh do you have do you have family nearby i guess i do i do sorry that's mom and dad or sisters and brothers what is it just my mom and dad okay um here's what i'm thinking about um and john jump in at any point.

59:13You've been a stay-at-home mom. Have you been in the workforce at all at any point? Yes, I'm a registered nurse, but I decided to stay home with our children for a little while. Okay, fabulous. Because my brain goes to, if you have to exit the situation, how can you stay on your feet? How can you keep yourself afloat? Because it sounds like there's going to be a lot of, if this comes to a point where it goes before a judge, all of this is going to come out and it's going to be a lot more there. And I just want to make sure you're okay. And so for me, it's great that if you have family, community, friends around you that can help you for a season of time, if you need it.

59:54And I love that you have a career path if you have to go back to work. And if kids, gosh, end up having to go to daycare or something like that. I feel confident after hearing what you said that you'd be able to make that transition.

1:00:06Dr. John Delony:Yeah. Do you? The reality is you need to come up with$5 ,500 like today. Okay. I mean, you've got to write down and you might call the mortgage company and tell them what's going on, that you're just getting notice of this and you're going to try to make it right. And just let them know I'm a terrified, scared, stay at home mom. my husband's at the police academy and I'm just getting all these notices. Right. And I would write down and they'd be my first call since you're behind 4 ,200 bucks. I don't know if, is that two months or three months? How far behind is that? I think it's about two months plus fees.

1:00:45Dr. John Delony:Okay. I would call them and just let them know. I hear you. I see this. I'm just getting this like y 'all are. And I need to come up with a plan here and they might give you an extension or a plan. I don't know the, the, the terms of your mortgage. I don't know your relationship with your mortgage company. And then I would write down what's the electric bill? How far behind are you? What's the water bill? Like these four walls we talk about. Do you have transportation? Do you have electricity? Do you've got water? Do you have a home? Do you have food, right? And you're at that level. And it might be that, I don't even think might be.

1:01:22Dr. John Delony:I think you're at a position now, this is scary enough that you need to call your family and say, hey, I got to go start applying for nursing jobs this afternoon. But even then, you won't get a paycheck for another month at the earliest, right? But it's like, I need to drop my kids off starting now. And none of this is what you planned. None of this is what you wanted. But this is, you're a scared, basically a scared single mom who's in a big, big, big mess because you were betrayed by your husband again and again and again. And so this is just choosing reality. We'll grieve later. We will be sad later.

1:01:59Dr. John Delony:We'll be mad and angry later. I got to go get some money right now. And I would hate for you to run down to the credit union and see if you get another loan, because that's the last thing you'll need is yet another pile on, right? Yeah. The good news is you probably have the cash to keep the water on. You probably have, you know, some food in the house, keep some groceries going. My question, and I'm not trying to get dramatic. You know for a fact that he went to police academy? Like he's coming back? Yes. You have contact with him? Okay. I'm trying to make sure he didn't skip out. But I mean, that's going to be a$50 ,000 a year job, right?

1:02:36Dr. John Delony:I hope so. I think so. I mean, not while he's in academy. It'll probably be much less than that until he gets out. But even then, that's not going to cover this mess y 'all are in. No Right And I don't know The fullness Kind of what you were saying About going before a judge And all of that But he has had Some police reports filed And I've had people Locate me on Facebook To try and remedy Some business things going on So Yeah Someone suggested I get security cameras At my house So Anyway It might be time for you To Yeah to go stay With your family members And leave the house for a bit and not, I'm going to ask you to do that.

1:03:19Dr. John Delony:I want you to go stay with your family members, step out of this situation for a minute, and I want you to call an attorney and they'll walk you through getting to the bottom of the mess. So sorry you're going through this.

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1:05:38Dr. John Delony:Let's go out to Lexington, Kentucky and talk to Lisa. Hey, what's up, Lisa? Hi, how are you all doing? Thank you so much for taking my call. You bet. Thanks for calling. What's going on? Yeah, so how do my husband and I have the conversation or should we try to have a second conversation with my father-in-law about the importance of getting life insurance? Just a little backstory. He's the sole income earner for their family. My mother-in-law has been a stay-at-home mom for the last 20-some-odd years. And my brother-in-law, who has some disabilities and is unable to work, lives with them as well.

1:06:16Dr. John Delony:My father-in-law, he's kind of of the impression that, you know, you can always get it later. It's not important right now. Just doesn't have a good opinion on it. And so, me and my husband, we have life insurance. We see the value of it. My mother-in-law, she was like, hey, tell me about life insurance. What should I be looking for? What should I not be looking for? And so we're not just wanting to give unsolicited advice to them. But just how do we have a second conversation or how should we approach the subject? Well, it sounds like there's two things going on. One is mom is feeling exposed.

1:06:51Dr. John Delony:I'm worried about dad. And then dad is saying, I don't really care if she feels exposed. I'm not doing this. Yeah, they don't have any consumer debt. They just have their mortgage. she said that they were looking they've been shopping for for life insurance they have a person that's looking for them and they you know brought up the idea of mortgage insurance but the value that they were being told and and that he's convinced about you know it's not even going to cover their mortgage well yeah and the problem the problem with that is you still have a stay-at-home mom and a special needs son they need incorrect right so um i'll tell you this is going to sound like an ad, but I was using Xander insurance for my term life insurance for my, me and my wife for years before I even thought about coming over to Ramsey because I trust him.

1:07:41Dr. John Delony:And then when I got to Ramsey, Xander's who we endorse and who we've been talking about for years and years and years, but that's where I would go. And Xander tops, this is like a commercial Xander. They shop all of the top companies and, or many of the top companies to find you the best price. They work for you and not for the insurance companies. And so they're going to bring you, here's how much money you got. Here's how old you are. Here's how expensive it's going to be. Here's the price. And depending on his age and all that, it's going to factor into it. But that's where, not where I would go.

1:08:13Dr. John Delony:That's where I did go. Yeah. I would bring your husband into this. Yeah. It's his conversation to have with it. Yeah. He's fully in it. He had a conversation with his father and his father kind of like he blew up and he got mad about it and he was saying that no it's only greedy people that have life insurance and he believes that it's like crackpot idea and we're like but no it's like because you love people and because you want to make sure that the people that you care about you know as you all say like you want to solve for peace you want to make sure they have peace when they're grieving right you don't want to add to it i've sat with There's people who lost their husbands and they've got nothing.

1:08:52Dr. John Delony:And they're looking at going to work on Monday. Right. I mean, it's a harrowing experience sitting with a widow who realizes, oh, we got nothing. I'm going to be honest with you. This kind of ego in older men pisses me off at a way I can't even comprehend because they're going to bleep me because the show's on the radio. I get so mad at this kind of arrogance and ego. and dismissiveness of your wife, your special need kids. Like it makes me infuriated, but here's the deal. Y 'all can't do anything about it. Yeah. And I'm just curious because, you know, if Ken were here, he would say to just ask questions instead of, instead of saying, you need to do this, you need to do that.

1:09:35A couple of well-placed and well-thought through questions that you just let hang in the air when you say, okay, if the worst happens, dad, and you know, on the way home, you get in an accident, how is mom going to pay the mortgage? How are, you know, I don't know what the brother-in-law's name, how are we going to take care of little Bobby? How are we going to, I'm just wondering what your plan for that is, or have you considered what your plan for that is? Right? Maybe come up with one or two questions that your son can ask at the right time with dad. It's not in the middle of a heated argument.

1:10:11It's not, you know, when they're already talking about one thing and now he brings this up to it's they go to breakfast they go out just the two of them and at the right time he says you know we've had a lot of questions we've had a lot of conversations about this i'm just wondering you know um and he asked the two questions and just let it sit there

1:10:30Dr. John Delony:sit there and his dad might look at at him and say she's gonna be your problem right that may happen yeah and then to which he can say no that's not an option you're gonna have to come up with something but i mean yeah yeah yeah i mean like we were me and my husband were both first-born kids like my um my mom currently lives with us um you know so we've kind of taken that on ourselves we're both very financially stable um so like we've we've kind of prepared ourselves for that you know if we do have to take care of my husband's mom as well like we would be able to but again you know like i want them to take care of themselves our job it's supposed to be her husband you know like and here's the deal it's it's just um it's choosing reality yeah right we it should be and he's looking at y 'all and saying looking at his wife and saying nope not going to um which again i just cannot wrap my head around that kind of ignorance and ego but it is what it is so we're gonna choose reality and um we're gonna start making that play and i think you've got a a tiny crack in the door and that mom asked for it.

1:11:38Dr. John Delony:So I'm going to give mom the Xander contact for term life insurance. Do not, do not, do not buy some nonsensical whole life policy. I've been listening to you all long enough. Yeah, you know it. You know the deal. Yeah, we're going to send it on to them and we're going to go from there. Let me tell you something, John. I'm getting frustrated because I feel like the number, the top two calls that we've been getting lately and I'm not, picking on men. I'm just telling you what I'm getting. The top two calls are a wife who calls in and her husband is either locking her out of the money, doing something shady with the money.

1:12:13She's kind of been removed little by little from the situation. And now like all hell is breaking loose. Or it's families who the parents cannot get their act together. And they're leaving and burdening their children with things that they should be taking care of themselves as adult grown people with grown jobs and grown houses. And I'm just like, what is going on? Get your life together. Get your act together. What's going on? That's my question for the heads of families here. It's what are y 'all doing? You need to get yourself together.

1:12:52Dr. John Delony:I can't wrap my head around, I mean, I can't, I'm going to sound like a broken record. I can't get my head around the arrogance and the, I mean, I can just go for words. Your daughter-in-law should not have to call into a national YouTube and radio show saying he doesn't care enough about his own wife to take out coverage that's going to cost him, I don't know, 300 bucks a quarter. Or my father-in-law has such deep-seated arrogance that when his son came to him, he blew up and threw a third-grade temper tantrum because he couldn't handle a hard conversation with his son. Well, that's the through line is arrogance.

1:13:31It's arrogance on both of those spectrums.

1:13:34Dr. John Delony:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And by the way, for folks listening, the previous segment, we had a caller, her name was Hannah, and talking about the financial mess and multiple issues. And as the call kept going on and on and on, She brought up issues of personal safety and maybe she needs to get security cameras. I want everyone listening to know off air, we obviously circle back and providing her with some resources. And we'll do our due diligence when it comes to paying for financial coaching for her and things like that. But also with contacting local police and authorities, because a woman with three young kids does not need to be worrying about, should I go get security cameras?

1:14:14Dr. John Delony:because the mess that my awful, terrible husband has left me in has now jeopardized our safety. So just know, listeners, we're taking care of folks behind closed doors too. We're not just going to leave people hanging. Fathers, husbands, take care of your families. That's how low the bar is. We'll be right back.

1:15:01Dr. John Delony:Welcome back. Jade, my blood pressure's still up. Listen, mine is too, but, you know, at the end of the last segment, we kind of went in on, like, dad's men needing to step up. But let me also say for the ones that do, because that it's such a blessing. And we were talking over the break. I was telling him about something that Sam, my husband did that is like just showing up, just doing the best you can. And if you do have, I'm totally taking this from you. If you do have a man in your life that is a real man, like doing the best he can, leading for the family, financially, you know, doing all the transparent, please tell him, please go home today and be like, thank you.

1:15:40Thank you for being the opposite of what sometimes calls into the Ramsey show. We need men like that. We need leaders like that. We're grateful for you. Keep doing what you do.

1:15:49Dr. John Delony:And I'll just say from my brothers out there, the bar is so low. Show up. Like, just show up. Show up. When she calls and says, hey, what's the, I got you. I got it. Yeah. I got it. And it's just, yeah. Put your ego aside, man. And by the way, when you set your ego down, life is so much more fun. It's so much more fun. Yes, to just let somebody see who you really are. Yes. That's all I'll say. All right, let's roll out to Atlanta. Let's go back to Atlanta and talk to Chelsea. What's up, Chelsea? Hello. Thank you for having me on. Thanks for calling. What's going on? Yes, I'll go ahead and just back you up and say that we are in a positive marriage, a very great marriage.

1:16:36Dr. John Delony:I love that, Chelsea. What's his name? We have a positive financial experience. Good. What's his name? Forrest. Shout out, Forrest. Shout out. That's what I'm talking about. Shout out, good men on this show. All right, so what's going on? How can we help? Yeah, so we've been working through the baby steps. We've paid off all of our debt. We have our emergency fund created. We jumped ahead and already have five two-nines going for our two children, and we have a third on the way. Way to go. Thank you. So we're on baby step four, technically, with the investments trying to save 15%. And I guess I'll ask the question and then kind of explain.

1:17:17Dr. John Delony:But my overall question is, does it ever make sense to work on baby step number six in the mortgage before completing the 15 % for investments? You're talking my language. Go ahead. Why is that? Tell me the reason behind it. So it makes sense in my head, but I am a stay at home mom, but I also do freelance marketing. So I'm bringing in about twenty five hundred a month. And then my husband makes about one hundred and twenty five thousand a year with his company. He has a 401k four percent match that he participates in. He also has an ESPP company stock program, so he puts 10 % away to that every month or every paycheck, but then every six months, he gets a 15 % discount for the company stock if you were to sell it.

1:18:16How quickly does that vest?

1:18:21Dr. John Delony:I'm not sure. Okay, so I'm not sure I understand that question. sometimes with stock option purchases when you're when you're able to buy stock from the company you have to sit on it for 24 months before you can turn around and sell it sometimes you can buy it and then sell it the next day usually if you're buying at a discount they don't let you do that though okay yeah so it's every six months so he participates in it every paycheck takes 10 and then it's every july 1st and every um january 1st you can sell it um for a 15 discount discount. Okay. So here's... And that does have capital gains tax, if this is maybe answering your question.

1:19:04Dr. John Delony:Well, I don't care about that. How much is in that account right now? Right now, there's about$15 ,000, I think. Okay. So here's... Generally, this has been our house project fund as how we had to get new sighting, we had a new deck, things that would help us not go into debt if we use this. But now our house is at a good place. So we're thinking it's either investment or putting it to the house. Well, I think you've just got to, I think you've got to recalibrate on your investing because you've got 10 % going towards a single stock, a single company stock, which is not what we would suggest. I hear you on the 4 % 401k.

1:19:46So you're investing 4 % there, your company is matching it, I would not put the other 10 % in the company stock. I would put the other 10 % in the 401k.

1:19:57Dr. John Delony:Even if it's a very good, well-known company? Yes, even if it is. I don't know if I should drop it. No, don't drop the name. But a good investment is diversified. Yeah, I'll tell you right now, I just had this with a close personal friend of mine. got a stock option windfall of$225 a year ago. And I said, it was a single stock, and it was this whole, you could move it over here. And I said, hey, cash it out now, sell it. And they said, are you crazy? We're making these investments. And this is a global company. That person just recently called, we were talking on the phone and said, bro, that stock is at$160 now.

1:20:40Dr. John Delony:Should have listened to you. and so it it it it doesn't matter how good they're telling you it's good we're doing this and we're stable when you're sitting on a single stock there's no checks and balances yeah it's just up or down and i i have a personal lived experience my mom worked at this tiny little company called enron which i think was the fourth biggest company on the planet and it went away over a weekend, right? And so I am big on if you get one single company stock and they give you a deal to buy it on it, great. And the moment you can invest it, cash it out and either put it in retirement or use it to pay it on your house or whatever, but get out of that stock because just holding it and holding it a single stock with all that money, man, you were playing roulette.

1:21:26Yeah. If I could recalibrate this today, I would make it to where you're investing the 10 % along with the other 4 % into the company 401k. And if you max that out, then you can move over to a Roth IRA. You can do one, he can do one. And then if there's a little bit of money left, or if there's something that he's required to do, that's fine. But I would change that lickety split because you don't want all of your money tied up in this. And if you're saying, well, we're still investing in the 401k, you're only investing 4%. And our rule here is, If there's a match, it's a fantastic thing, but we really just consider that gravy.

1:22:06Like we really want you working the muscle of 15 % because what if he switches jobs and there is not a 4 % match, right? Or what if something changes with your situation? So we always want you kind of in the driver's seat of what you're doing with your money. And yeah, consider that 4 % like gravy on top of a biscuit is what Dave Ramsey would say.

1:22:27Dr. John Delony:How much do you have left on your mortgage? So we have$252 ,000 left on the mortgage. And we are also, I should say, we put$100 a month. I know it's not much, but$100 a month to his personal IRA as well. Okay. And then overall investments, we probably have over about$200 ,000 in all of our investments right now. Are you putting that in a traditional IRA or a Roth IRA? A Roth IRA. Okay, great. $200 ,000, does that include the stock you have on the side? The$15 ,000, yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah. You know, if I were you, whatever company stock you do have, I'm with John. I would, you know, cash that out.

1:23:07Maybe that goes towards your mortgage.

1:23:08Dr. John Delony:Or that goes in your Roths and you can max them both out this year and call it. Like, I, because here's what it sounds like you're doing. It sounds like you're putting in 4 % of your own money into a retirement vehicle. And then you're taking what, you know, approximately the rest of the 15%. and you're just putting it into a stock and y 'all are using that stock as like kind of like a glorified emergency fund-ish to deal with house stuff. Right, which we're done with now and we want to do well with it. So even if we didn't do the ESPP at this point, though, I think maybe my question might still stand if I can ask that too.

1:23:50The original one about paying off the mortgage first?

1:23:54Dr. John Delony:Yes, just because thinking about even if we did the 10 % just to regular either 401k or the Roth IRA, we would still need about$400 a month from our budget somewhere in order to hit the 15%. That's right. And I don't know where we would exactly get it right now. Like there would be some pension and pennies and whatnot. Yeah, definitely. And you might have to pinch pennies. So one thing about the baby steps is just because you've paid off your debt and now you're starting to invest, it doesn't mean that you're all of a sudden rolling in a bunch of extra money because you're now investing 15%. So you're going to have to get to your budget and take a look at this because what I don't want is for you to say, ah, it feels better to do to pay off the mortgage instead.

1:24:39And before you know it, you look up and you've neglected your investing. The mortgage is going to get paid off. You're going to find little bits of money here and there. I'm sure he makes bonuses that you can pay this off.

1:24:59Dr. John Delony:Welcome back to The Ramsey Show and the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio. I'm John Deloney, joined by the world-famous Jade Warshaw, taking your calls on your money, your life, your relationships, everything. 888-825-5225. to go out to Fort Worth, Texas and talk to Allison. Hey, Allison, what's going on? Hi, Dr. John. Hey, Jade. How are you guys? We're doing awesome. What's up? Well, I've found the Ramsey information somewhat recently. So although we're in a pretty good spot financially, I really appreciate that it's prompted me to kind of look at our whole financial picture and realize that we need to go back and readjust some things or fill in some gaps.

1:25:42Dr. John Delony:So thank you for all that you do with that. Very cool. Welcome to the cult. Welcome. And I realized I have a question about 529s that I haven't heard you guys address before. Okay. We have opened up a 529 account for each of our kids when they were young. And we've been very blessed that each set of grandparents wants to help us save for the kids' college. One set of grandparents will make contributions directly to the 529s that we have opened, and the other set of grandparents has opened their own account for each child. Nice. Okay. Nice. And I'm unsure of, is there any kind of logistical things you should be aware of?

1:26:31Dr. John Delony:I'm going to set you free. Are you ready? Sure. I'm going to set you free. it's their money and they're choosing to do it that way and so i would open my hands to it and i would get with my spouse and plan as though that money won't be there okay and because it's fighting them over it like get like it just is that way and for whatever reason that's why how they've chosen to do it with their money and i would just say great cool I don't think it's a bad thing. No, it's not. But it's just how they're doing it and trying to talk to them about it or discuss it about. It just is what that is. I don't know, though, Jade.

1:27:11Dr. John Delony:I don't know the logistics of can a grandparent open a 529 for a kid and a parent open a 529 for a kid and both of those accounts be used to pay for the same kid. I don't know the answer to that question. Uh, so like the way that ours is my, my mother-in-law opened it because it was a get, there was something she was gifting, uh, before Sam and I, well, before we were out of debt. And then, so she technically was the owner on the account. And then she set up me and my husband as like, we would be owner in succession. Like if she died or something, we'd become the owner, but we all have access.

1:27:46We can all add money into the account. And then the kids are set up as the beneficiary. So that's just kind of the way it's been. And I don't know if we transferred it at some point into our name, but I think it's still in her name and it doesn't matter because she's not using it. She's, you know, 63 years old.

1:28:03Dr. John Delony:And Allison, I gotta tell you, I'm super biased. I worked at universities for like 20 years. And so the number of students I met with and parents I met with who had a grandparent holding a checkbook saying my kids, my grandkids going to study X, Y, or Z, and they're not going to be in this program. And they're going to go to this school, man. I was just like, dude, if anyone wants to tell, like, try to play puppeteer over my life with their checkbook, I'm out. And so I take my bias for what it is, right? If they hold this account, just assume it's their money and they're going to want to steward it how they best see fit.

1:28:45Dr. John Delony:And that might be turning it over to the parents and saying, wherever junior wants to go to college, that's awesome. Or whatever junior wants, trade school or whatever wants to study, great. But they might use it as, no, no, my grandkids going to this school if they want my money. And you can say, cool, we've already made other arrangements. So my answer has a big bias to it. But that just is what it is. Which that would be, I mean, if they did that, listen, And we've heard all sorts of calls on this radio. So anything's possible. But if they did, it would be such a waste because then it's like, well, they're not going to that school.

1:29:15So now what you got to do? But, you know, the good news is you can have multiple 529s that fund a single student. Like, that's fine. It's no problem if you've got one over here, one over there and one over there. Do you sense that that's what they're trying to do? Or are they just like, hey, it's a financial thing. We want to do our thing over here. We don't want to mingle it up. I get that.

1:29:36Dr. John Delony:I don't believe that there's any kind of ill intent in it. They're being very generous, so we definitely appreciate that. I think I was more a potential concern, like I don't know the logistics around. I saw somewhere when this once opened, which was maybe close to 10 years ago, so I don't know if laws have changed since then. But that if a child received money from an account other than the parents directly, that it counted as income for them and it could somehow, you know, either affect taxes or financial aid or something like that. So are you aware of anything along those lines? I'm not. I'm not.

1:30:20I've not heard that. That sounds too vague for me to form a clear opinion on it. I would just double check whatever your question, like form a clear question around that. I mean, if the money is used for education expenses, there shouldn't be an issue. Now, what you said about financial aid, I'm not sure what you're trying to – I wouldn't play that game at all anyway, yeah. I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish there. Okay, got it. The goal would be pay cash, use the 529s, use them up, and be grateful to whoever's contributed.

1:30:58Dr. John Delony:Yeah, wants to put some money on your kid's cash. And let's say there is a tax liability at some point down the road. It's still going to be far less than tuition was, right? There shouldn't be if they're using it for education expenses. Now, if they're just pulling it out, I mean, if you're pulling it out, you're going to be on a 10 % penalty for sure. And that's going to be income taxed. But hey, Allison, can we just tell you, welcome to the gang. Thank you. Yeah, I listen to you guys all the time, strolling the baby around the neighborhood and doing chores in the house. So I really appreciated all your advice.

1:31:35Dr. John Delony:Awesome. Well, thank you so, so much for calling. Really grateful. Hot take. I was going to say, hot take is I probably should dial back some of my biases. I just have so many experiences that taint my rosy picture of the world sometimes. Well, I was going to ask your hot take on 529s. What do you think about when you are with friends and it's like a gift giving situation, like a birthday or Christmas, and they're like, just give to my kids 529 plan. And they're like sending you a link. Good or bad? I had a buddy. Yay or nay? I mean, one of my closest friends in the world, the guy who's the executor of my will, he opened an account when Hank was born and said, at the time, and this was right, he's like, I don't super trust you.

1:32:26Dr. John Delony:So I am starting an account for your kid. And every year on his birthday, I'm going to add money to it. And when he goes to school, I'll pass it along. So it was a cool, generous, awesome thing. Yeah. I mean, like, it's Hank's birthday. Oh, and I'm going to send out a link. And you send out a link that's like, hey. I'm probably not doing that. Donate to my kids 529. Is it tacky or hacky? What do you think? I think it's tacky. I go with a big capital T. I think it's tacky. Yeah. I know someone who's done it. Let's give their name and address on the air. I may have hosted with them.

1:33:02Dr. John Delony:Oh, I can tell you. Listen. Does his dog have a wheelchair? You got to do what you got to do. You got to do what you got to do. That's all I'm going to say. No. I'm going full tacky on that one. And he knows who he is. We'll be right back.

1:33:46Dr. John Delony: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.

1:34:33Dr. John Delony:The Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by Y-Refi. Defaulted private student loans can leave you feeling stuck and overwhelmed, but Y-Refi helps you explore refinancing options with a low fixed rate and a payment based on what you can actually afford. Visit YRefi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y, R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey may not be available in all states. Okie dokie. Today's question comes from Jared in Wyoming. He says, I realize that money is a personal topic and it can be volatile. But when I hear my coworkers brag about credit card points. It makes my head spin. How do you recommend discussing financial issues in casual social settings?

1:35:15Should I engage in conversation and try to be helpful or just keep to myself? I'm going to tell you a story about what I don't do. And I learned it because I was around someone who did do it. So I'm mostly a plant-based eater. I don't eat meat. Occasionally I'll do some dairy, but I once knew somebody who was so heavy handed with every situation. If she was in a situation when other people were eating meat, it was like, I can't believe you're eating meat. Like this is the worst. Like how could you, right? And it's just such an off putting, like it was giving all of us a bad name. I was like, Hey, you need to stop that.

1:35:59It's making all of us look bad because nobody likes to be beat over the head with something that they possibly don't agree with and they didn't even ask your opinion anyway and they don't really care what you do and they they like doing what they're doing right so I'm the type who I mean John you know me I don't really talk about I most of my friends are uh carnivores and that makes them happy and I'm fine with it and I don't really mention it and because I don't care and they don't care and we eat together and we eat together in peace. And one day if John is like, Hey, I noticed you never eat meat.

1:36:31Uh, tell me about that. Then I'm happy to tell him about it. And I'm literally just sharing it from my perspective.

1:36:37Dr. John Delony:So I'm on the other side of this. Tell me in 2012, there was rumblings in the nerd community, right? Um, about this, the effect of ketogenic diets. Got you. Okay. Okay. Okay. So this is before they became mainstream and everything was keto. Right. I went down rabbit holes. I met with everybody I could. I talked to folks over at the med school, but I became the most annoying human who's ever lived. Every, I mean, someone could ask me a question about higher ed finance and I'd figure out a way to turn it back into, you need to be eating a ketogen. I was the, I was unbearable. Were you? I mean, I was the worst and I'm bad now.

1:37:20Dr. John Delony:I was so bad. And so, and A, I was wrong on a huge chunk of what I was preaching about. Sure. And I was unbearable, so annoying to be around. And so I, from that and a couple other things, I just adopted a policy, which is, I try, I fail sometimes, but most of the time, I try to answer questions if you ask. Yeah. And so when it comes to people talking about how I do my money and look how much I make, I just smile. All right. And by the way, to everybody who thinks Dave is out lecturing his friends, Dave's friends lease cars. Dave's friends have credit cards. You don't hear him preaching about it.

1:38:01Dr. John Delony:They know what he thinks about it. And he's their friend. And they're his friend. And so, and I joke about this. My oldest best friend on the planet is a banker. Yes. And here's what that means. That means every day he goes to work hoping I fail in my job on the Ramsey show. And every day I go on the air hoping to put him out of business. and he's my best friend on the planet. Yeah. And so we have, we disagree about this thing and he loves my family and I love his family and I love him and he loves me. And dude, I'll go to war for that guy and vice versa. Yes. We disagree about this and we don't have to preach and fight and argue about it, right?

1:38:38Dr. John Delony:And all that. And I'll go out on an even further limb because in culture, and I know I'm opening a can of worms here, we can tend to vilify the folks who aren't on our same stratosphere. Like we don't have the same opinions. You don't vote like me. You don't this and you got the shot and you didn't get the shot. Yes. It's madness. Sometimes we can think, oh, if they're not doing it our way, they're wrong. Yeah. Or worse, they're evil. Or they're bad. Yeah. And the thing is, here's the thing. There's plenty of people out there, John, and I know a few. They have their credit card. They pay it off every month.

1:39:14Do I agree with that? No, I wouldn't do it. Yeah. I wouldn't teach it. I wouldn't, right? But they do it and they're fine. They're not bad. They're not broke. They're doing fine. Now, plenty of them are broke. Yeah.

1:39:24Dr. John Delony:Most of them are. Let's do that. Right. But you got to just let people live their life. They're grown. You don't have to insert yourself. You don't have to. There's a lot of ways to do life out there. And people are doing just fine. And if they're struggling, that's usually when you can sense that and you can ask God or whatever you do to open up that opportunity to kind of share a little bit. But other than that, and I'm not saying that Jared is doing that. I'm really going out on all of them here. But just don't go out looking for a fight. A fight. That's it. Yes. Looking to defend yourself.

1:40:00Dr. John Delony:just the toughest guys i know the guys who fought professionally are the guys who will walk away and grab their wife's hand or grab their kid's hand and get in their car and go home because they got nothing to prove right right they don't have to throw a punch i don't have anything to prove to you yeah right and so i so jared great great question and we've all dealt with this yeah um i would smile and let them just talk and if they ask you what's what's your opinion I don't mess with credit cards I don't play with credit cards I don't want single moms who are struggling with overdraft bills to pay for my free flight See now you already went deep really fast You went deep really fast I'll say it and it usually shuts up a conversation but like if you ask I'll tell you but dude I want us to have a good time tonight so run your mouth and we can move on with our days I love it Alright let's roll out to H-Town and talk to Dean Dean, I'm up against the clock, so get right to your question, brother.

1:41:01Dr. John Delony:Hey, how y 'all doing? We're doing good, man. I'm kind of a little nervous. I'm going through a lot. I have$144 ,000 worth of debt just myself. Me and my wife recently got married a year ago. She has about$12 ,000 worth of debt in student loans and$1 ,200 worth of debt in credit cards. I recently just wanted to start getting my life together. Me and her recently got saved, and I really felt a call to really get my finances in order. And so I went ahead and paid off my car and paid off of my credit card. And so I still have that$144 ,000 worth of debt. I'm having trouble getting my wife on board with me with this, living debt-free.

1:41:45Dr. John Delony:She's not on board with it, so I'm kind of doing this all by myself. we agreed to have a wedding and we recently last night just found out that she is pregnant and so now we have about 14 ,000 worth saved towards the wedding that we have probably agreed that we're not going to do the wedding anymore at least right now and so my question is what do I do with my finances like what position do you guys feel like that I am in my finances and also how do I get across to her to be on board with me with this being that free thing. So let me be clear. So if you guys don't do the party, like you don't do the wedding party, I still think you should get married.

1:42:29Go in the courthouse and get married. Yeah, I think that's just going to solidify.

1:42:31Dr. John Delony:We're already married in the courthouse. You're already married. Okay, fabulous. Okay. You know, I love that you are interested in getting yourself together. You've had, you had a transformative moment, right? You had a moment, God shined down. You're like, I'm doing this thing. and ready, set, go. Sometimes when you have a moment like that, that's just a catalyst and you're just ready to go, you're assuming that the person next to you should just jump right into your level of excitement. And it's not always like that. And sometimes it's multiple conversations of you sharing your heart and sharing your fears for them to even be like, okay, I may not share your passion, but I'll go along with you on this ride until maybe one day I do.

1:43:18Dr. John Delony:That's me and my wife, Dean. As a Texas male, it's hard to sit down in front of your wife and say, hey, my past actions have led me to a point where I'm scared about our future. Yeah. Would you join me in this? And I'll tell you, like, if she's ride or die, like a good spouse is, my wife was like, I don't have that same fear that you have, but I'm in. Yeah. You get what I'm saying? Yeah. Hey, hang on the line. You asked us a couple of big questions, and I want to make sure we answer this thing all the way. I'm going to hold you over the break. We usually don't do that, but I'm going to hold you over the break.

1:43:48Dr. John Delony:So hang on the line and we will come back to you right after this commercial break.

1:44:27Dr. John Delony:All right, let's cut to the chase. It's easy to get discouraged about crazy house prices and interest rates. But when you have the right real estate agent to help you buy and sell the right way, you'll have confidence to make smart decisions. Ramsey Trusted Agents aren't just experts who guide you through buying or selling. They're people you can trust to have your back from the first call to closing day. Find a Ramsey trusted agent near you at RamseySolutions.com slash agent. That's RamseySolutions.com slash agent.

1:45:08Dr. John Delony:Are you sick and tired of working so hard but have nothing to show for it? That's normal. And normal is broke. You don't have to live that way. Our EveryDollarBudget 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'll find thousands in hidden margin. You'll feel like you've got to raise. Don't live normal when you can live like no one else. Start EveryDollar for free in the App Store or Google Play. All right, right before the last break, I took a call from Dean in H-Town in Houston. and dean um is just realized he's got a ton of debt recent recently married got a new baby just found out last night he's pregnant him and his wife are pregnant and he is trying to get his wife on board he wants to get his financial house in order and so we held him over we're going to walk him through how to clean this mess up and get his feet underneath him dean you there yep all right man thanks for hanging over the break with us all right we're going to walk you through the plan here on out.

1:46:08Dr. John Delony:One question I got for you. What's this$140K? You said you got rid of your credit cards, you paid them off, you paid off your car. What's this$140K? It's all student loan debt. All student loan debt. It's federal. I have 99 in states. Wow. Okay. What do you do for a living, brother? I do real estate now. I went to school for business, but I recently got a job in real estate two years ago. And yeah, so I do real estate now. What's your annual income? Last year, I made$65 ,000. This year, God has blessed me so much, I've already made$40 ,000 in the last three months. And if I stay on this pace, I'll be at like$125 ,000 to$150 ,000 if I can just continue on how I'm doing now.

1:46:50Dr. John Delony:Outstanding. Dude, that means you're getting your feet under you in a wonky business, man. Congratulations, dude. Yeah. What about your wife? What does she earn every month or yearly? Yeah, she makes$40 ,000. She's a dental assistant, so she makes about$40 ,000. Okay. So there's a couple things linked in here. Let's first talk about debt aside and paying off debt aside. How does she feel about combining your finances together and just saying, hey, we have one account. Both of our paychecks go into it. We have transparency. We make financial decisions together. Like that whole bag. How does she feel about that?

1:47:28Dr. John Delony:She actually wants that. I've been the one that's hesitant to do that. Why? With our marriage. just because we just don't think about finances the same way. You know, for instance, we recently had a conversation about the fact that she has a lease and with me, she's leasing a car. Right. Me kind of finding more out about finances and she was just like, I'm not giving up my lease. I like to have a new car every three years. But let's take that. Let's take financial philosophy off the table for just a second. And just the idea of combining to become one. and we're just going to do this thing together to have full transparency.

1:48:06Aside from, because it's going to take some time for you guys to have similar values and you're never going to think the same. You're just going to have similar values. So if you just say, hey, I married this woman, I'm in it now. Could you be on board with, let's have transparency, let's share, let's do this thing together. And we're not talking about debt and plans yet. We're just combining our money. Would you be okay with that?

1:48:31Dr. John Delony:Yes. Let me put it this way. You've already combined DNA to make a human. The least you can do is combine your checking account, right? Yeah, yeah. You're already in it now. Yeah, because we do have a joint account where we do bills, but we haven't done the whole thing. Yeah, I think that's your first step because we teach baby steps around here and we have seven financial baby steps. But there's just I think for you, there's even some smaller layers that we can get to that is just going to help you inch towards where you want to go. So I think tonight, that's the first conversation you have is it's not about paying off debt.

1:49:06It's not about accomplishing goals. It's just, hey, you know, we're married. We're about to have a baby together. Let's do this money thing together. I want us to jump in with both feet. I know we don't see eye to eye on certain things yet. That'll come later. But I just want to know that you and I are together on this.

1:49:22Dr. John Delony:Even if you got a budget for six months for the lease payment. Yes. Yes. It all goes on the budget. You're all working together on the same team. Because that's the first thing. You can't convince somebody to do what you want to do if you haven't fully committed. If you won't do it. Yeah. Yeah. So the first step is we're committing that we are sharing our money and let it marinate for a minute. Like let it breathe. You don't have to, you know, have this conversation tonight. And then by Sunday, you're already talking about paying off the debt. Right. Get the money together. Let it breathe for a moment.

1:49:54And then while you're while you're continuing to learn, because you're you're you're new to this, too. Then we can start having conversations about, okay, now that we see what our budget looks like, here's some of the things that I'm noticing with our budget. I've got a lot of debt and it is like eating up the majority of our margin. And you've got a lease. I've noticed that's, you know, that's something that I'm taking note of. Right. And you can start to say things that you're just noticing and you can start to share things about how you're feeling. And again, let this unroll. It's okay that this takes a little bit of time.

1:50:29I don't think, John, I've ever had a financial conversation with Sam where we have opposing views or differing views that happens in one conversation. Never.

1:50:39Dr. John Delony:Yeah, never. It doesn't happen. So take that out of your expectation because not only is this a delicate conversation, but you're newlyweds, right? And you just both found out you're having a baby, right? Yeah. You're a new person of faith. All this is new, right? Right. So you think of this word in your head, practice. You've never done any of this stuff before. You're going to practice just like if you never shot a free throw before. You're going to get up there and look silly for the first few times and you're going to keep shooting and shooting and you're going to get better and better at it.

1:51:10Dr. John Delony:That's what we're doing here. We're practicing. We're practicing this conversation. We're practicing like combining our lives together. We're practicing combining our money together. We're practicing, hey, how much do we need for groceries this month? We're practicing all these things. And you have two in my and John, you jump in at any time. In my mind, you have two frameworks of conversation only. It's here's how I feel. And here's, I've just been thinking about the future. Wouldn't it be cool if? And so you're just painting, you're painting cool visions of the future that you see. Man, I just, I can't keep thinking about like, wouldn't it?

1:51:44I just keep thinking about what it would feel if I didn't have debt. And if we didn't have debt and I was actually thinking about that and that would feel amazing. Right? So all you're sharing is your feelings and your vision. Nothing that she has to do, nothing that she has to change. It's just you talking about you.

1:52:00Dr. John Delony:Bring it back to your childhood. I grew up in a house where my old man was always stressed about money. And I have a dream for our kid to never know that kind of stress. Yeah. If our kid makes the basketball team, I want to be able to get him the best shoes and not even think about it. Yes. Right? And so what you're doing is you're painting a picture. You're not lecturing with numbers. You get what we're saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's very true for me too in my past. It was for most of us. And you inviting her out for a half-day dreaming retreat on, hey, we're having a baby. Both of us come from this background and she comes from that background.

1:52:40Dr. John Delony:What do we envision us wanting our house to feel like when our daughter or our son comes home and they're 12? What do we want the house to feel like? Right. And we get to construct that. We get to build that up. Right? And often, not always, but often, oh, dude, I care less about my car. I want my house to feel like that one day. Yeah. Right? And so, again, it sounds counterintuitive to put the money aside for a second, but let's dream and get a crystal clear picture of what our vision for our life wants to look like and feel like. And then it's just a matter of reverse engineering it, and let's just build that thing out.

1:53:18Yeah. Yeah, and Dean, I'm going to send you a copy of my book, What No One Tells You About Money, because it does a good job of, you know, when you're dealing with a framework like the baby steps, it shows how some people feel versus how other people feel. And I think it'll really help you get an insight as to the way she might be feeling, and it'll help you pinpoint how you might be feeling. And I think that's just really going to be good for you. Now, obviously, when it comes to the debt, when the time comes, when she's ready, when you're ready, yeah, I'm going to recommend the baby steps all the way.

1:53:46And we're going to make sure you're set up with every dollar That's our wedding gift to you. We'll make sure you have every dollar. We'll make sure you have my book. We'll also give you Dave's book, The Total Money Makeover. We're just going to load you up because I want you learning and learning and learning. And I want what I want is that every time she looks at you, you've got a piece of our material in your hand or in your face. And she's like, dang, this guy is like every time I look at him, he's got his face planted in Ramsey.

1:54:12Dr. John Delony:and you can look at her if she rolls her eyes at you whatever and say honey I'm in this with you for the long haul and I'm going to change my family tree I'm going to make sure that you guys are doing well I'm going to make sure we're successful we got you man and hey if it comes down to it just tell her two goofballs on the radio gave you a year of the best budgeting app on the planet every dollar and invite her to use it with you because it was free

1:54:43Thank you.

1:55:01Dr. John Delony:Dave Ramsey here. Most people stay stuck with their money because they're not paying attention to it. Most people are living paycheck to paycheck, stressed out and broke. Don't be most people. You work way too hard to be broke and feel broke and you deserve to have something to show for it. That's why we built the Every Dollar Budget app. It gives you a personalized plan for your money that shows you how to free up extra money every month and use it to beat debt and build lasting wealth. Plus, you get real coaches guiding you through your plan step by step. Look, most people hearing this will just keep hoping something changes, but not you.

1:55:41Dr. John Delony:You're ready to make change happen, starting now. Go download EveryDollar in the App Store or Google Play and start for free today.

1:56:02Dr. John Delony:Today's scripture is Proverbs 1624. Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones. Elizabeth Elliot says, Lord, deliver me from the urge to open my mouth when I should shut it. Oh man, I need to get that tattooed on my forearm. I know that's right. That's a good one right there. Let's go out to Grand Rapids, Michigan and talk to Emma. Hey Emma, what's going on? Hi, how are you? We're doing great. How are you? I'm pretty good. I have a question. My husband and I are on our debt snowball. So we're on baby step two. And my husband has irregular work. So he is a flat rate motorcycle mechanic.

1:56:41Dr. John Delony:So most of his money is made March, well, more like April through September. And then we take a big pay cut. So we looked at what the minimum is to live during the winter. And we kind of estimated that we need about$700 a month during the busy season to put into a sinking fund so that we would be good for the winter. But we were looking at the minimums. If we pay off what we think we're going to pay off in debt by September, then we wouldn't need any additional money because all of those minimums would be gone. That's great. So yeah, so we're wondering, do we just make the sinking fund? And then if October comes and we don't need it, we just throw that to debt.

1:57:31Dr. John Delony:Or do we hold it just in case through the winter since there's no way to like make really extra money for him? Why is there no I believe that there is a way that either of you can make seven hundred dollars extra a month. Yeah. Teach me about flat rate motorcycle mechanic. What does that mean? I never heard that. So so it's a it's a form of commission. And so essentially, like, if you are billing, you know, let's say the customer is billed 10 hours for a job. If you can do the job in five hours, you still get paid 10 hours worth of work. So you can essentially do 90 hours of work in a 40-hour work week.

1:58:15Dr. John Delony:But there are no motorcycles being ridden, really, in Michigan. Ah, okay, gotcha. So it's kind of like y 'all are farmers. Yeah, so it's not like you can just magically make extra motorcycles come in. But he could go – He still has to be there. Could he go work at a mechanic shop working on cars? No, they're not the same, and he has to be at the motorcycle shop. Right, but I'm thinking – okay, you're saying that$700 is the deficit monthly. I just believe that – In the winter, yeah, yeah. Right. And I'm thinking of, I don't know, teachers or pastors or people who kind of it's like this is my main job, but I also need a side gig.

1:58:57$700 is not a scary number to go out and make for a month. And so I'm wondering, rather than you guys having to be like squirrels and it being at a detriment to your baby step two, I just feel like you've got time between now and September to say, let's pinpoint work that we do in the winter months. On top of what's already there for us to pull in$700. And I just think that that's a great practice anyway.

1:59:23Dr. John Delony:You're talking$2 ,800, right? Is it four? I guess the Michigan winner is nine months long, right? How long are you talking? It's about six months. Okay, so you need$3 ,600, right? Yeah. Or$4 ,200. What do you do? Me? Yeah. Ministry work. Okay. So I got to believe. I have two side hustles already. Okay. I'm capped out and we have four kids. Okay, so that's kind of what's making me think that there's more to this because side hustles are there for like sprints. I wouldn't want this to be something that's – I want you guys to be able to lock in and have this money without having to – does that make sense?

2:00:07I don't want it to be a detriment to your baby step two.

2:00:09Dr. John Delony:If you're a farmer, you work all year and you get paid in one or two big chunks, right? And so you have to budget those two big chunks as though and spread it out over the year. And so I'm with Jade. Like I would love to see y 'all be able to say, OK, we need forty two hundred extra dollars over the course of a year. Yes. Can we scratch and claw and figure that out? If you're telling us, no, there's zero percent chance we're scratching and clawing to get to. We only need forty two hundred dollars left. Then, yeah, it's very tight. It's a matter of budgeting 700 bucks in the good months and putting it into a sinking fund of$4 ,200, and we're going to withdraw from it for six months.

2:00:48Dr. John Delony:But we wouldn't need that if we do pay off the stuff we were planning on paying off. We just wouldn't be putting anything toward the snowball in those months. That's kind of why I'm saying what I'm saying, which is why delay your snowball payoff? if you can commit to by September, we're going to be debt free. But we also know that we might not have enough money. So during that next sprint, we can come up with ways to make an extra step if we need it. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Because I hadn't thought about that. If you continue to aggressively do your snowball, you're not setting aside the$700.

2:01:25by September, you're debt free, right? No, we would just have a, we're looking at 24 months before. Oh, okay. So then for two years, for two years, you have to fill the$700 gap, right?

2:01:38Dr. John Delony:Well, no, we would just, so if we were to take off, we have six things we're thinking we're going to have paid off by September. Those minimums would be gone and two of them are car payments. So it's quite a lot of$900 a month. I think that's, that's even more fuel in my mind. I would definitely do that. To keep writing this out. Because, again, if you pay off those few and you get those minimums back, great. But if you can keep your foot on the gas and you can say, hey, let's pick up whatever work we can until all of the debt is completely gone. I mean, I would tell anybody to do that. Okay. And then once the two years is over, all the debt is gone.

2:02:17Then you can do what John said, which is, yes, now we take our lump sum of money and we spread it evenly over the 12 months and we're good to go.

2:02:24Dr. John Delony:Are you worried that you're going to pay this debt off and suddenly you're going to have needed that some cash? Yeah, because we're just still trying to figure out the budgeting. And so the concern is there's no way to like for him to build the extra money. So that's the concern is that it's kind of an unknown charted territory. Now, I do feel like for irregular incomes, I'm thinking of people like realtors where it's just like, yeah, I don't know month to month. It's great to it's always good to be to have a month's worth of expenses just sitting in your account. So essentially, you're always a month ahead.

2:02:59In your case, that might benefit you guys. You might feel a lot better to just always have that money there, because if you don't know necessarily what's coming in month to month, then that's a great practice to have. Right. And I would certainly do that because in that case, yeah, you're just like any other volatile, you know, kind of irregular person. It's like, if I don't know that I'm going to make my whole month, I want to know that the month is there. And I would do that. But beyond that, I would make sure my goal would be to not have to touch that money if that were the case.

2:03:32Dr. John Delony:OK, yeah, we we're lucky because we do know a minimum of what he's going to make. So we have that figured out. He makes a bare minimum just for being there. And is that enough to cover? It's it's not. That's why it's seven hundred dollars short. But that's if we don't have these payments. But if we pay the two cars off, that's 900 right there. That's gone. Done. Okay. So tell me about a good month. What happens? You know, obviously there's, what's a good month look like? How much over does he go? Yeah. Over what he regulates, like what the winter months are, um, sometimes about$8 ,000. Oh, so I feel like, I feel like there's way more money on the table here.

2:04:15yes so you're telling me on the months where he goes like crazily over that doesn't give you the $3 ,600 that you need it does but we've been putting it toward the debt right now but I mean and then some and then some yes so we've been putting it toward debt so that's why we all of it's going toward debt minus that 700 right now okay yeah I mean my advice doesn't change but I think there's more money here than meets the eye.

2:04:41Dr. John Delony:Yeah. How long, how long do you pay these cars off? Well, we just paid one off today. Congratulations. Thank you. And then the next one will be paid off in two weeks. That's exciting. Oh, what? Emma, why are you calling us? Because I'm not sure if, because it says the irregular income thing. So I got kind of hung up on that. Well, you don't have an irregular income. You have a regular income. Okay. It's just, it fluctuates significantly. But the gross total is the same annually. Yes. Like, you don't get paid every two weeks or every month, but you get paid a few times a year. It gets paid every other week, but it can range by$30 ,000 a year.

2:05:26Dr. John Delony:But you know that range based on the time of month, right? Yes. Okay. All right. Well, that's it for the Ramsey Show. Jade? Yes. Thanks for letting me sit in your shadow today. Remember, there's only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.