This Family Drama Has a Gravitational Pull

7:47Jade Warshaw:Yeah.

7:48Dave Ramsey:And he didn't hide it. He's not sure. He just said, that's who I am.

7:51Jade Warshaw:Yeah, that's right.

7:52Dave Ramsey:And he kind of said, like it or lump it. So I'd lump it. That's what I'd do. I mean, you know, it's just, it's hard to walk away from something like that, especially when all the family ties, it feels like you're being drawn in by a tractor beam. Yes.

8:06Jade Warshaw:Gravitational pull. Yes. Drama has a gravitational pull. I've noticed that.

8:10Dave Ramsey:Drama. Drama, family drama will suck you in and eat your life. Yeah. And then we connect a little$5 million debt to it just for the fun of it. Yeah.

8:20Jade Warshaw:Hey.

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10:22Dave Ramsey:Nicole is in Atlanta. Hi, Nicole. How are you?

10:26Jade Warshaw:Hi, I'm good. How are you?

10:28Dave Ramsey:Good. What's up?

10:30Jade Warshaw:So me and my husband live in an apartment, and we're trying to decide if we should move to a bigger space because we do have two three kids so two or five year old twins and then a two-year-old baby girl so um last year we were able to pay off our vehicle but we have fifty two thousand dollars worth of student loan debt left um and we were going to use we've been using mostly like our overage which is about eleven hundred dollars um that we have a month to put towards our debt and then we also pretty much use like our tax break or whenever that comes in to throw a lot at it just in and out so we're trying to see we want them to you know have a space to have a yard and like just more space is a little bit cramped up um with all five of us here so we were just wondering if we should stay or if we should kind of go like our budget would be tighter but we're just trying to see what we should prioritize what are you guys earning between the two of you right now?

11:29Jade Warshaw:Growth would be$103 ,000. Okay. The hard part with this is what you said. If you were to move from this apartment to a house, it's going to close the gap on how much margin you have to throw out this debt, which means there's going to be a longer period of time that you're going to be in debt, which long term that's going to affect your ability to build wealth. For that reason, I like the idea of home ownership, but I think the first step in that process needs to be eliminating the debt so that you can actually go wholeheartedly into the home buying process and actually do it the right way so that it's a blessing for you.

12:07Dave Ramsey:You're not even talking about home ownership. You're talking about renting a nicer place, aren't you?

12:11Jade Warshaw:Yeah, yeah. We were actually like looking to our rent is$2 ,200. And so we were wanting to rent, like, thinking about$25 ,000 as our max,$25 ,000, but that doesn't include, like, gas and utility. I'm sorry. Okay, understood. Yeah, so we just don't know if that's going to be leaving us with$400 instead of$1 ,000.

12:31Dave Ramsey:How much debt have you paid off so far?

12:35Jade Warshaw:$36 ,000 was the vehicle.

12:36Dave Ramsey:And how long did that take?

12:39Jade Warshaw:That took us two years. Okay.

12:41Dave Ramsey:Making$130 ,000.

12:44Jade Warshaw:$103 ,000, yeah.

12:46Dave Ramsey:Yeah. So you guys suck at this so far, Nicole.

12:50Jade Warshaw:We suck. Yeah.

12:51Dave Ramsey:$18 ,000 making$100 ,000 per year is not enough debt reduction. You guys are still out. You're still going out to eat. You're still going on vacation. You're still spending money. You're still not on a tight budget. And so you made a little progress, but you should have made a lot more progress. If you told me you paid off$36 ,000 in six months, see, then I can take that number and go, oh, wait a minute, you could clear up the rest of this in a year if you'd suck it up and get it done. But at the rate you're going, it's going to take you 10 years.

13:21Jade Warshaw:Yeah.

13:21Dave Ramsey:That ain't cool. That's true. That ain't cool.

13:23Jade Warshaw:Right, that's how we feel. Yeah, we got to not get stuck in that.

13:27Dave Ramsey:And if you feel like you're never going to get out, then you just say, well, to heck with it. I'll just take a big old rent and go ahead and enjoy my life now and get the kids a yard. Right. You're giving up is what you're doing because you're not making fast enough progress. And so I'm going to put you on the beans and rice plan if I'm you. I'm going to sit down with my husband and go, look, we did a little bit here, and we didn't do a bad thing, but we really weren't. It wasn't like we were spectacular. We kind of got the flu here. And we need to really light this thing up. Instead of putting$1 ,500 a month on it, we need to take extra jobs.

14:01Dave Ramsey:We need to sell stuff. We need to not go out to eat. We need to tight, tight, tight, tight, tighten down this budget, not go the other way. and let's get this thing to$3 ,000 or$4 ,000 a month going at the$60 ,000 that's left. And then we can get out in about 14 or 15 months. Then we talk about building an emergency fund. And then we talk about buying a house, not renting one. But what you're talking about is a five or a six-year plan, and you won't even make it.

14:28Jade Warshaw:I agree. If you can have these kids, they're young right now, right? They're five years old, three years old. now's the time that they can be squished and they don't know the difference. You know the difference, but they don't know the difference. And I, for one, would try to stay in that position as long as possible and save as much money as possible so that you can pay off the debt.

14:48Dave Ramsey:Listen, if they're squished and their life is miserable for one year, they'll be fine. That's better than them being not squished and having a mediocre to average life for the rest of their life.

14:57Jade Warshaw:You want to know what, though? I think back a lot of times on the house that I grew up in and I think back on the house that my parents grew up in with six kids. Yeah, nobody told us we were. They were tiny.

15:07Dave Ramsey:Nobody told us we were squished. No. We were, but nobody told us we were. It was a thousand square foot brick range. Hello. And so, I mean, we went out in the backyard and played. They'd say go play in the traffic. You had to go outside. You know what I mean?

15:20Jade Warshaw:You didn't have to go outside all the time.

15:23Dave Ramsey:Did you tell your kids to go play in the traffic? You don't tell your kids.

15:25Jade Warshaw:I don't tell them to play in traffic. I just tell them to go outside. My mother would say that all the time.

15:29Dave Ramsey:Go play in the traffic. Get out of my feet. Yes. That's what caused me to be the way I am. Dustin is in Coeur d 'Alene, Idaho. Hey, Dustin, what's up?

15:40Jade Warshaw:Hi. So I'll get right into it. My dad incurred about$30 ,000 in debt. He has no retirement. His only income is Social Security. He now has dementia, and my brother and I are left kind of trying to manage this for him. um he's currently being sued on one credit card for eight thousand and he owes thirteen thousand on another credit card and i guess my question is should we try and settle this with them does

16:06Dave Ramsey:he own anything i would have no no assets well how would he settle it uh essentially my brother and i would have to help him out why why would you do that just tell him tell the credit card

16:18Jade Warshaw:company to bite me he has no money he has nothing to give they can't get anything he doesn't have

16:23Dave Ramsey:anything, right?

16:26Jade Warshaw:Yeah, he has nothing. It's only Social Security, and I don't believe they can touch that.

16:29Dave Ramsey:They can't touch that. Does he own a home?

16:31Jade Warshaw:No.

16:32Dave Ramsey:No? He doesn't have any money in his bank account except the Social Security.

16:37Jade Warshaw:Yeah, it would just be for me and my brother to have

16:39Dave Ramsey:one less thing to have to deal with. I wouldn't deal with it at all. I got one less thing. I'm just going to show him the smallest finger on my left hand and say that's all you get. Nothing.

16:48Jade Warshaw:Are they calling you? No.

16:52Dave Ramsey:No. I just tell them to jump in a creek. You shouldn't have loaned money to a guy who had dementia and no money.

17:01Jade Warshaw:Okay. And should I offer to have them sign a stipulated judgment to avoid additional attorney fees? Who cares?

17:10Dave Ramsey:They're not going to get any of it. What I would do is call them up and say, if you want to talk to them, call them up and just say this. I want you to make a note in the file. he has advanced dementia and zero assets we're not going to have any conversations with you you might as well write this off because you're not getting a dime okay and i just real simple i mean let's pretend he had passed away okay i just send him a copy of the death certificate as a courtesy to let him know and let him know that there's not a uh there's no estate and then after that i'm not having any more discussions with these people they're morons

17:45Jade Warshaw:none of this can pass to you if you're worried about that no yeah I'm not worried about that I mean it's his debt and I'm not responsible for that

17:55Dave Ramsey:it's just sad and it's one of those part it's a sad sub chapter sub paragraph in this overall sad story that you're dealing with but what I would do is just say I'm not going to worry about it at all and if you want to have one conversation just as a courtesy you could but I'm not going to have lengthy conversations. I'm not going to have multiple conversations and I'm not going to give him a dime. There's no point in it. They shouldn't have loaned him the money. Yeah, I agree. And it's just sad. I'm sorry for you having to face that. And, um, you know, I've run into situations like that in my life.

18:33Dave Ramsey:Dustin, how old are you?

18:35Jade Warshaw:Uh, 44.

18:36Dave Ramsey:Yeah. I've run into situations like that. And what I do is I say, okay, I got to help my dad out. In your case, this is what you're saying. I got to help my dad out. And this is a sad situation. And so what I'm going to get from this is a lesson to never end up like this.

18:52Jade Warshaw:Right.

18:54Dave Ramsey:I'm going to do whatever it takes in my life to not end up this way. It's like, you know, I was working for a guy one time. He goes, I might be working in McDonald's at my retirement, but it'll be the one I own in St. Thomas.

19:06Jade Warshaw:Come on now.

19:07Dave Ramsey:So I'm going to learn a lesson from those old people standing there working in McDonald's because they don't have any money. I don't want to be one of them. And so you look at this and you go, he's got no assets. He's got dementia. And the only positive thing in his life is he's got two sons that love him and are going to care for him. Other than that, this guy's a pauper. We would use old language, but it's very sad. And so take it as a lesson to go. I'm there, you know, and then you teach your kids. Your grandpa ended up that way. Your grandpa was not a bad person, but this is how ended up and this is how we're not at from this point forward the family tree changes we're shifting it it's over right so take a lesson from it at least at least get that out of it but no i wouldn't give those guys any money not a dime

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20:57Jade Warshaw:That's casper.com slash Ramsey, code RAMSEY.

21:19Dave Ramsey:Neil is in Birmingham. Hi, Neil. How are you?

21:23Jade Warshaw:Hey, I'm very blessed to be speaking with you and Jay, Dave. Thank you. How can we help? Yes, sir. So my wife and I are working on baby step four and six. We are both nervous about a retirement and working with a financial planner or advisor. We've never worked with one before, but we both grew up in households with pensions, but no nest egg to fall back on. And so we're really nervous about the future.

21:50Dave Ramsey:Neither one of us want to retire poor. Good for you. Well, what you don't want from an advisor, I'm not sure why you're nervous. I want to hear that in a minute. But what you don't want from an advisor is arrogance or dropping their glasses on the end of their nose and shaming or telling you what you need to do. These are all warning signs that you run from that you should be nervous about. Now, when you sit down with a good advisor, they should be teaching you and saying, this is how this thing works, and this is why I personally use it, and this is why Dave Ramsey recommends this, and here's how it works.

22:37Dave Ramsey:And you say, well, I don't understand. Okay, well, let me teach you another way. Well, I still don't understand. Okay, then your job is to teach me, and then I will decide. I kind of think of it this way. I think about sometimes I go into a nice restaurant and we ask the waiter, you know, what's the best thing in here? You ever done that? Yes, sir. And I don't always get what they suggest because sometimes what they suggest I don't like. Well, yeah, we we don't turn my choices over to them. I just listen to them and then I make my choice. Yes, sir.

23:13Jade Warshaw:So we've been doing it on our own for several years. We basically started putting in 15%, I guess, about five or six years ago after we finally were able to. And so we're trying to – we're playing catch-up because we are in our 50s now. And so we're trying to play catch-up. And so – but we – our 401K is not doing – not kicking out the percentages that we hear on the show, like the S &P did last year and everything. But we have talked to a couple of financial people. Some of them are out of state. We don't know the ins and outs of working with somebody out of state. I would work with somebody in your neighborhood.

23:53Jade Warshaw:Okay. See, that's what me and my wife thought, but we were basically told by somebody we were old school, that that's the old way of thinking.

24:00Dave Ramsey:Somebody's always got an opinion about your money. Have you noticed that? Yes, sir. Oh, yes, sir. Yeah. So what I did, listen, if you just go to Ramsey Solutions, you click on SmartVestor Pro, you'll find several people in Birmingham that we recommend, and we don't recommend them if they don't have the heart of a teacher and they don't agree with the stuff we teach here on the air. And so that's a baseline. And then you sit down and interview them and say, would I hire this person as my tutor, as my teacher?

24:28Jade Warshaw:Okay. So we're kind of nervous. When we work with a smart investor pro, should we be willing to turn over our money to them? I don't know. We don't know how that works, a lot of it.

24:39Dave Ramsey:Well, your 401K, you can't turn over. or you have to leave it at your workplace. They can look at it for you and say, go back over to work, and that's a choice you could make right there that'd make you more. That particular fund outperformed the S &P, the three you got didn't. They can help you look at that, but they can't manage it. By turning it over, all it is is you're setting the stuff under their management, but they're not going to do anything without you telling them what to do. I got you. It's not like you sign them onto your checking account. They're not authorized to do trades. They're not authorized to do anything unless you tell them to do it.

25:17Dave Ramsey:Okay. Okay. See, that's something we didn't know.

25:19Jade Warshaw:We didn't know when we do it, do we just have to turn everything over to them?

25:24Dave Ramsey:I would put everything on the table and let them look at the whole picture. Yes, sir. But I'm not going to lose control of it. I don't lose control of anything. See, when I hire a lawyer, some lawyers get confused. They think they get to tell you what to do. And I'm like, no, you work for me. You work for me. You tell me what the situation is, and then I will decide, based on the information you teach me about this particular law, about this particular situation, what I am going to do. And then I'm going to tell you what to do. Exactly. You just don't want to keep in control as to who's in charge here.

26:01Dave Ramsey:You know what I'm saying? Oh, yes, sir. I completely understand. Like I said, I'm 52, so we're going down the track here, getting closer to the 14 years. Well, all you're doing is saying I probably can make my money work harder with someone who plays with money all day long teaching me. Yes, sir. That's all it is. Okay. That's all it is. Well, that's what, yes, sir, that's what we will do then.

26:23Jade Warshaw:That's where we're just, we don't want to retire poor.

26:25Dave Ramsey:You're not.

26:25Jade Warshaw:That's the biggest thing we're nervous about.

26:27Dave Ramsey:You're not going to retire poor. You're going to retire rich. I can tell just by talking to you because you're freaking paying attention. The people that retire poor don't bother to look at it. unfortunately i think we look at it every day well see yeah you're getting all twisted up man get you a plan ride the plan and have a little peace in your finances but yeah that that's it does it takes um i think not knowing is what kills you 100 the fact that i can already tell

26:58Jade Warshaw:that guy's quite frugal just by listening yeah they're doing the right thing and it's okay But everybody has their moment at different times in life where they wake up and they go, oh, crap, I got to get my money together. And for some of us, it's a little later down the line. But once, to your point, once you start paying attention, there is time to make things right, especially if you're doing the Ramsey Plan.

27:21Dave Ramsey:Chloe's in Orlando. Hi, Chloe. Chloe, how are you?

27:25Jade Warshaw:Hi, I'm great. Hi, Dave and Jade. Thanks for taking my call.

27:28Dave Ramsey:Sure. What's up?

27:30Jade Warshaw:All right. So my fiance and I are getting married at the end of this year in October.

27:35Dave Ramsey:Great.

27:36Jade Warshaw:He has quite a bit of money saved, but we also have debt, and we're also trying to save for a wedding. So we kind of need some help figuring out how to go about this. Cool.

27:47Dave Ramsey:How much do you have saved?

27:50Jade Warshaw:In total liquid saved, we have$123 ,000. Awesome.

27:56Dave Ramsey:Who's we? Wait a minute. How much does he have? How much do you have?

27:59Jade Warshaw:He has, okay let me start with me, I have only about$2 ,000. Him and I together created a savings account that is about$22 ,000 and he has the rest which would probably be that$100 ,000.

28:17Dave Ramsey:Okay and the$22 ,000 I'm guessing is, I hope you're saving for the wedding.

28:22Jade Warshaw:That's correct.

28:23Dave Ramsey:Okay and what are you planning to spend on the wedding?

28:26Jade Warshaw:45 ,000. Are there any family members helping out? Yes, we have, my parents are giving us 10 ,000 and then he has an uncle that has given him 10 ,000 as well.

28:40Dave Ramsey:Okay, that's 42. So that's 42. So you're there. And what is your household, what is your income and what is his income?

28:49Jade Warshaw:His income is a take home around 96, a little bit more with bonuses. And then mine, I just put myself on salary. I do have my own business, but on salary, I take home.

29:00Dave Ramsey:I don't care what your salary is. What's your income? What is the business profit going to be this year?

29:07Jade Warshaw:Oh, probably 80 ,000.

29:09Dave Ramsey:Okay. All right. So you got a$200 ,000 income between you. if you were to be married today. You have$22 ,000 plus. You have pledges to get you up to$45 ,000 for your wedding budget. So the wedding budget's done. Can we agree on that?

29:24Jade Warshaw:Yes.

29:25Dave Ramsey:Okay, good. And then how much debt do you have and how much debt does he have?

29:31Jade Warshaw:Without the home, I have around$14 ,000 in the credit card and my car. and he has a real...

29:42Dave Ramsey:14 is the credit card and car?

29:45Jade Warshaw:I owe about$4 ,200 on my car and then I have$8 ,000 in credit cards. Okay. Okay. All right. And then his truck is about$35 ,000 and he has a credit card of$34 ,000. $100 ,000.

30:05Dave Ramsey:$100 ,000, sorry.

30:06Jade Warshaw:Okay.

30:07Dave Ramsey:All right, cool. Very easy then. You do not need to combine finances until after the honeymoon.

30:13Jade Warshaw:Okay.

30:14Dave Ramsey:So he should pay off his truck and his credit card today out of his hundred.

30:19Jade Warshaw:Okay.

30:20Dave Ramsey:And you need to start working to pay off your 13 as fast as possible and the wedding is already done. Okay.

30:26Jade Warshaw:Now my question is, he's going to be worried about paying his truck off because that dwindles down his savings account? When? You guys are going to have to really quickly have a talk about how you view debt and how you're going to manage debt and finances in your marriage going forward.

30:43Dave Ramsey:He doesn't really have$100 ,000. He already spent$34 ,000 of it. He just hadn't admitted it.

31:05Jade Warshaw:Well, Dave, you know, on the show all the time we get calls about cars, used cars. What's one thing you want folks to know?

31:11Dave Ramsey:Well, really a couple things. Number one is always buy used unless you've got a million dollars. We don't buy new cars. And if you're going to buy used, number two, you want it to last. And that means regular, proper maintenance.

31:22Jade Warshaw:Yeah, that's a big deal. I know when Sam and I moved from South Florida up to Tennessee, that's the first thing you're looking for. You need somebody who can take care of your car. So when we found Christian Brothers Automotive, it was a no-brainer, and they've been absolutely great.

31:34Dave Ramsey:We're excited to recognize Christian Brothers as the official auto repair partner of The Ramsey Show. Christian Brothers keeps things simple, honest, and transparent. Every repair is backed by their nationwide nice difference warranty. Three years or 36 ,000 miles, whichever helps you more.

31:50Jade Warshaw:Listen, Dave, I'm first to admit, I'm not into cars like you are. But the thing about Christian Brothers is I feel just as confident going in there. They're not trying to upsell me. I feel 100 % confident that I'm going to get the service that I need.

32:01Dave Ramsey:Hey, if you want your car to last and stay on track with the Baby Steps, trust Christian Brothers. Go to CBAC.com slash Ramsey to find your local shop, schedule service, and get an exclusive Ramsey discount, 10 % off your visit, up to$250.

32:16Jade Warshaw:Yeah, that's CBAC.com slash Ramsey. See store for details.

32:35Dave Ramsey:Logan's in Indiana. Hey, Logan, what's up?

32:40Dave Ramsey:Wait a minute, let me try again. Hey, Logan, what's up?

32:44Jade Warshaw:Hey, sir, how we doing? Thanks for taking my call.

32:46Dave Ramsey:Sure, how can I help?

32:49Jade Warshaw:Well, I'm trying to get some advice on my wife and I going into debt to start a cattle operation. Okay.

32:59Dave Ramsey:How long have you been listening to this show, Logan?

33:04Jade Warshaw:About six months or so.

33:06Dave Ramsey:Okay. And so you know that about 95 % of what we talk about is telling people to not go in debt and how to get out of debt, right?

33:15Jade Warshaw:Yeah, it is. I feel like I've heard a little bit of information with businesses that sometimes like buying a business or something that can depend on the profit that it brings and how quickly it can be paid off. So I wanted to see if that would work in this case.

33:29Dave Ramsey:No, that would be like buying it from an owner, and the former owner gets the profit until not borrowing$150 ,000 to buy cows from the bank. That's different. Okay. So I don't borrow money, Logan, and I've done that for 40 years. And I run a business, and I've grown the business with the profits in the business without borrowing money to do it. And because the simple fact is this, business has risk. When you borrow money to start a business or run a business, you increase the risk 100-fold. A lot more chance that you're going to go bankrupt. And so what's your household income, sir?

34:14Jade Warshaw:About$120 ,000 to$130 ,000. Great. Depending on overtime.

34:17Dave Ramsey:Good for you. So if you took out a$150 ,000 loan, how fast could you pay it back?

34:24Jade Warshaw:Running the numbers that we ran, given the market now, and obviously as long as it doesn't just completely tank out, within about two years to three at the most, by your third round of calves, everything should be completely paid off, and it would be profit after that minus operational costs.

34:42Dave Ramsey:Yeah, so what would be wrong with starting a little bit smaller and taking four years and making the thing cash flow its way to the exact same position. Buy a third of what you're talking about buying with cash. Okay. And make that third by the next third and by the next third. You don't need any money out of this cattle operation. You could pour every single dollar of profit into growing it. Agreed? Correct.

35:14Jade Warshaw:Yeah, that would be the plan.

35:15Dave Ramsey:Because you have a good income at home already. And so I think it's what we call in business organically growing the business with your cash, your own cash. And that's what we've done here. Although we weren't able to do it as fast as you're going to be able to do it. And that's assuming cattle prices don't do what they have done in the past, which is they're all over the freaking place, as you know. I'm sure you've looked at the trend lines on that. It's scary. So there's times the market has tanked. and it's an agricultural product. And so it's a lot more unpredictable than some other types of businesses.

35:50Dave Ramsey:So you've got to be very, very careful. But if I were in your shoes, I would scratch the itch, but I would save up$50 ,000,$75 ,000 in cash by living on nothing, and I'd dump every bit of that in there, and then I'd take every dime of profit and use it to grow the business. And I think you'll be there one year later than you would have been there if you borrowed the money and everything went perfect, which, by the way, nothing ever goes perfect.

36:19Jade Warshaw:That's true.

36:20Dave Ramsey:Yeah. I mean, the cows get sick. There's all kinds of problems. You know, the Brazilians decide they're going to come in and, you know, upset the beef market. I don't know. I mean, I don't know how the list works, but there's always something, right?

36:34Jade Warshaw:Correct.

36:35Dave Ramsey:So, yeah, I would rather you do that and be tired and stretched on your cash, and then no one's going to take it away from you. You're not going to lose everything because you rolled the dice on this particular horse race. I just crossed metaphors.

36:56Jade Warshaw:You did. That's all right. No, that makes sense. A follow-up to that would be is if you were to cash flow this, what's your opinion on leasing pasture and stuff? Do you look at that as debt, or is that looked at a little bit different? No, that's just overhead.

37:12Dave Ramsey:That's like leasing a building to run your business in instead of buying the building. There's no problem. I would rent the pasture for sure.

37:22Jade Warshaw:Okay.

37:22Dave Ramsey:Because now we've got two businesses. If you buy the pasture, you've got two businesses. You've got the real estate business and the farming business. Yeah. I mean, it's like me. I've got this building here that's 650 ,000 square feet, like$600 million property, right? So I've got this piece of real estate. I'm in the real estate business, and I've got a business that's inside the real estate. But I've got two things going on here, very substantial things, Ramsey and a big old piece of real estate, big campus here, right? I mean, I'm in the office building business, period, no matter how you cut it.

37:56Dave Ramsey:And you can mix those two together and act like, well, they're all one thing. No, they're really not. I've got a big old office building. I could have leased it. There are six of them right down the road down here. I could have leased another one and not put half a billion dollars into this thing, right? So that's the thing. So just no need to get in the real estate business. I just lease it. If you're going to start a restaurant, for God's sakes, don't buy the building.

38:19Jade Warshaw:Oh, gosh, please no.

38:21Dave Ramsey:Just rent the building and get started. Start a daycare. Rent the building. And just don't get in the real estate business until you've been in business a long time and you've got a predictable environment. But you don't have that there. Until then. So, wow. Cool. I think we won that one.

38:40Jade Warshaw:Yeah, I think he's going to take your advice.

38:42Dave Ramsey:I think he's going to do it. I believe in him. I like it. I like Logan. All right. That's kind of nice. I like getting one occasionally. Leona's in Cincinnati. Hi, Leona. How are you?

38:53Jade Warshaw:Hi, Dave. Hi, Jade. I'm good. How are you?

38:55Dave Ramsey:Better than I deserve. What's up?

38:59Jade Warshaw:So I have a quick question. So my husband and I, we have a one-year-old and we recently moved. Well, not recently, last year, we had switched from our apartment because of noisy neighbors and went to a townhome. The townhome, when we moved in there, it was not great. And we sent several emails to the leasing office about the issues that we were having and, you know, mold and spiders everywhere and centipedes and all these things happening in there. we told them that we are not happy with the townhome and they said they'll fix things months went by they weren't fixing anything so we decided to just break our lease because I have legal shield through my job and I reached out to an attorney through there and they said well they fail to provide goodwill living conditions I have pictures of everything and you don't owe anything so you can break your lease and you'll be fine Oh, boy.

39:54Jade Warshaw:That was not good advice.

39:56Dave Ramsey:Oh, wow. Yeah, you got what you paid for with that lawyer.

40:01Jade Warshaw:Did you send them anything in writing? Did you do your due diligence other than just making a phone call? Oh, no. So we definitely sent pictures. You mean to the leasing office or to the legal student? Both. Did you let them know that you were seeking legal counsel on behalf? Like, did you go through the due diligence of making sure that they understand what's going on? Yeah. So I called the leasing office. My husband went up there because they weren't responding to my emails. My husband went up there. He talked to them. They said, OK, we'll take care of things. A couple of months went by. Nothing was happening.

40:39Jade Warshaw:The most they did was change the tray and the dishwasher. OK, so stop.

40:43Dave Ramsey:Let's just stop. I mean, you just moved out when you got mad because you called LegalShield and they said you could.

40:53Jade Warshaw:Well, we weren't planning to break our lease because we did that before to move to where we are now, and that was not fun. So we said we're not going to break a lease unless we get some kind of advice that we can. So after we called the head office, the property management company or whoever, we talked to the district manager. They said, okay, definitely send us emails and everything, all the pictures that you've been reaching out to them about and everything. Did that, no response. Called again, left a voice message, not getting any response. So the legal shield attorney said they sent them a letter to the leasing office and the property management company and saying that they failed to provide whatever suitable living conditions for us and our child.

41:36Jade Warshaw:So we don't owe them anything. So because of that, we decided to just break our lease because they weren't fixing anything. We asked them multiple times, are you going to send any bugs?

41:45Dave Ramsey:Well, then this is on LegalShield. LegalShield needs to defend you for free.

41:50Jade Warshaw:Yeah, they told you that.

41:52Dave Ramsey:You're going to get sued, I can promise you. I promise you 100 % this landlord's coming after you. You don't have the option of just walking away because I got some bugs. Even if you send them pictures and even if they don't answer you, even if they're jerks, even if they have horrible service, it's not how it works. I mean, so now LegalShield's bit this off. They need to pick it up and close the deal, and they're not going to be able to. This is going to be horrible for you.

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43:50Dave Ramsey:Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Jade Walshaw. Ramsey, personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host. Diane is in Chicago. Hey, Diane, how are you?

44:05Jade Warshaw:Hi, I'm doing well. How are you?

44:06Dave Ramsey:Better than I deserve. What's up?

44:08Jade Warshaw:Oh, yeah, same here. Well, thank you for taking my call. I currently have quite a bit of money in the bank, I feel. And I am thinking about my retirement, and I'd like to know how best I should invest it in order to make it last through retirement. How much is it? So I have$600 ,000 in the bank. Wow. I'm debt-free. I have just$250 ,000 in retirement, which I don't know what to do with because it's been with the payroll service since we don't own our own business. And it's just been sitting there. I don't know what to do with it. I know nothing about it. I wasn't actively involved in our business.

44:55I stayed home and took care of our kids, raised them, and decided to go into my own franchise.

45:04Jade Warshaw:And so I know that I will be using some of that money for the franchise. But I don't know that just sitting in a bank is the best place for it.

45:13Dave Ramsey:How old are you?

45:16Jade Warshaw:57.

45:17Dave Ramsey:Okay. And you said you were not involved in the business, and now you're opening a franchise with the business money.

45:25Jade Warshaw:Yes, uh-huh.

45:26Dave Ramsey:Okay. So your husband was running the business?

45:30Jade Warshaw:Yes, uh-huh.

45:31Dave Ramsey:Where is he?

45:36He's at home.

45:39Jade Warshaw:He is supporting me on my business. He's hoping at some point he'll be able to branch out and do something on his own. But everything's been in my name. The bank accounts, the houses, the business. We sold the business last year. And then... That where the$600 ,000 came from? Yeah, we sold it for$1.2 million, but we were given a large lump sum and we paid off some unexpected unknown debts. Like, okay, unknown. You're being cryptic. I didn't know about it.

46:17Dave Ramsey:You're going to have to tell us what's going on because you're just not making sense.

46:22Jade Warshaw:My husband has a gambling debt. Oh. I don't know what he gets. He gets a set amount every month that comes in that he collects, and he uses that for extracurricular activities. I have no idea what he uses it for. You don't know how much he's? Oh, no. I know how much he gets. He gets$3 ,600 a month, and that's his play money.

46:42Dave Ramsey:Okay. I get$750. So he's basically got a gambling problem that ran you guys deeply in debt, and that's why everything's in your name?

46:50Jade Warshaw:Yes. Okay.

46:51Dave Ramsey:All right. That makes sense.

46:52Jade Warshaw:So who's supplying the$3 ,600 a month for him to continue gambling? We have$2 ,500 coming in from our rental. That person bought the business, and he has the option to buy by the end of the year for$350 ,000 if he exercises it right. and then he also gets Social Security$1 ,100 a month.

47:14Dave Ramsey:Okay, so at this point you're okay with losing$40 ,000 a year with your husband?

47:18Jade Warshaw:No, I'm not, but I have no control over that. What's the plan moving forward? Does he know that he has a problem? You apparently have a lot of control.

47:27Dave Ramsey:You've got everything in your name.

47:29Jade Warshaw:Right, everything's in my name. He knows that I'm opening up this franchise, which will be approximately$125 ,000 to open the franchise on my own.

47:41Jade Warshaw:he's just kind of like letting me leave the money in the bank, but I feel like it's not getting the best return. So I'm looking for ways that I can invest it. Yeah. I mean, we could tell you to get with a SmartVestor Pro and invest that money, but I really don't feel like that's the issue of the conversation.

47:59Dave Ramsey:Yeah, there's a lot. There's so much going on. Here's the problem. It's hard to fill up a hole while somebody's digging at the bottom.

48:05Jade Warshaw:Right.

48:05Dave Ramsey:And that's kind of what we're hearing here. But you feel like you've got his gambling addiction under control, and I question that because I've seen so many. Well, I mean, and so as long as you keep this stuff in your name, I guess you have the option of divorce at some point. If he runs up, you know, let's say he runs up a million-dollar gambling debt, and you don't want to pay it with the money that's in your name, then you've only got one option at that point. So anyway, that's what you're facing. So, yeah, I would take the$600 ,000 and I'd take the$250 ,000 and I would sit down with a SmartVestor Pro and begin to invest it in good mutual funds.

48:44Dave Ramsey:If it averages 10 % or more, it will double every seven years. So you basically got a million dollars in seven years. At 64 years old, you'd have$2 million. At seven more years, at 71 years old, you'd have$4 million. So you're going to be fine if you do that and you don't piss it away with this franchise, if this franchise doesn't go belly up on you. And it sounds like you've never run a business before. He ran the business before, and now you're buying a franchise. So that's a little concerning.

49:16Jade Warshaw:Is the franchise in the same field of expertise, or is it something totally different? No, it's something that I'm passionate about, something that is for me, not for him. I don't expect his involvement in it, but I'm very confident and very passionate about this, and I'm expecting for it to be very successful. And I have a family that is willing to stand behind me and support me. So that's not even a question whether or not that's going to be successful. I'm confident that it will be. I've got to tell you that that's not true in the small business world.

49:47Dave Ramsey:So there is risk that you're not perceiving, apparently. So, yeah, you're going to buy it, and you're going to do it. But I want to insulate you from you and this bad decision, if it's a bad decision, and I want to insulate you from him and his continuous bad decisions with$600 or more thousand dollars going over in a regular low risk investment in comparison to gambling and in comparison to franchise purchasing. and so let's put some money over there so if these other two things go sideways and this plan doesn't work then you know you've at least got that money working for you so yeah you need to sit down and do that and you need to put a real limit on the amount of dollars you're going to pour into the franchise before it starts giving you money back instead of you putting money into it absolutely And because if you don't, with the level of unrealistic optimism that you're coming at this with and you're positive, how positive you are about it, then you're going to end up going 300 grand in the hole on this thing.

50:54Dave Ramsey:And if you want to put 125 in it and you believe in it, go do it. Go live your dream. I ain't got a problem with that. What I've got a problem with is these absolute statements. And I've been in business my whole life. And there is no absolute 100%. People are behind me. I feel positive. It's an area I'm passionate about. None of that may matter. You may still lose all that money. So don't go into this$300 ,000 with all your positivity. If you want to put$125 ,000 in it, do it. And then I'd put the rest of it over with a SmartVestor Pro and some good mutual funds to where it's protected from this business risk and the gambling risk and separate these things.

51:32Jade Warshaw:Yeah, I'm going to call it like I heard it. It almost sounded like this business for you is some sort of retaliatory thing against him to kind of prove that you're doing your thing over here. And I would just say, draw a line in the sand and set some boundaries about how long you're going to endure this and to what point before you go and do the things that you need to do and make that separation so that he can get the help that he needs because allowing this to persist doesn't feel like the answer. It feels like it's breeding resentment from you.

52:01Dave Ramsey:Oh, for sure. We kind of should. Absolutely.

52:20So

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55:00Jade Warshaw:All right. Today's question comes from Steve in West Virginia. He says, I'm 66 years old and have been retired for five years. I have 500 ,000 in retirement funds, but I have two debts, 40 ,000 in credit card debt and 150 ,000 on my mortgage. I have social security and pension income of$6 ,000 per month. Should I pay off my debt to reduce my withdrawal each month from my 401k? I wish I had a little bit more information, but off the top, I would say yes, because to have your mortgage paid for, that's money that you're not going to have to take a draw on. And my guess, I don't know what your expenses are every month, but my guess is you probably are living okay on the six thousand dollars per month if you don't

55:47Dave Ramsey:have a single debt in the world now and it's just you yeah make sure you cut up a stupid credit card yeah get on a budget so you don't spend more than you make again yeah that's really what you need to do i don't know if that's old debt it's not the problem it's the symptom of you overspending

56:01Jade Warshaw:yeah and if it's it's if it's old debt and you're like i am i'm not on that lifestyle anymore i just still have it laying around absolutely paid off but if it's current debt then dave is absolutely right about that.

56:11Dave Ramsey:Mike's in Virginia Beach. Hey, Mike, how are you? Good. How are you guys doing? Better than we deserve. What's up? My wife and her siblings inherited some money from their dad when he passed away several years back. And one of the siblings is the executor. And they said they're not going to tell one of the other siblings about it because they don't feel that

56:34Jade Warshaw:they're financially responsible and they're just going to hold their money back from them. Oh, I say that's not that ain't their call.

56:42Dave Ramsey:You're exactly right.

56:43Jade Warshaw:OK, well, I'm smarter than I look sometimes.

56:46Dave Ramsey:The executor, the literal reason they're called an executor is there to execute. Right. There execute the what the will said. It didn't it didn't say you're a trust officer and you get to decide what's best. It said you execute what the will says. That's your only option, even if you don't like it, even if you don't agree with it. You have one option when you're the executor, and that's to execute what the will says. Otherwise, the people on the other side of it are going to sue your butt, and they're going to win because you violated your fiduciary responsibility.

57:21Jade Warshaw:What's your wife think?

57:24Dave Ramsey:She agrees with me.

57:25Jade Warshaw:Okay.

57:26Dave Ramsey:You guys got your part, right? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, I would tell the executor that they're being stupid and they're going to get sued. Well, I kind of did that. Yeah, well, then you've done your job and leave it alone. It's not your problem anymore.

57:40Jade Warshaw:How much is it? Yeah. You know, I think for like$8 ,000 or$10 ,000 each.

57:45Dave Ramsey:Oh, it's not enough to mess with. But here's the thing. The person finds out that they were not given the money they're supposed to be given. The person that is the executor is in deep kimchi legally. Well, that's what I've kind of figured. Yeah, for sure. For sure, but there's nothing you can do about it. I mean, it's just these are people doing whatever they want to do, and that's what people do all the time. That's the problem. When you pick the executor of your will, folks, you need to pick someone who's going to have the integrity to execute your will.

58:15Jade Warshaw:Yeah.

58:16Dave Ramsey:What is it you will to happen?

58:17Jade Warshaw:That's right. That's what that means. They need to be Switzerland.

58:20Dave Ramsey:Yeah.

58:21Jade Warshaw:Did you say deep kimchi?

58:22Dave Ramsey:I just did. Okay. Just checking. Just make sure. Things come up in the Rolodex. Nora is in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Hi, Nora. What's up?

58:33Jade Warshaw:Hi, Dave and Jade. It's excited to talk to you today. I have an exciting question for you. I want to know, should we buy a new car with cash or pay off our house? Ooh, my favorite type of question. Tell us more. Okay, so we are in Baby Steps 4, 5, and 6. We've been on the Ramsey Plan for a solid like seven years. We have$60 ,000 saved for the vehicle and a high-yield savings account. But then when we were doing our annual budget meeting, we were also looking at our brokerage account, which is sitting at$35 ,000. Our mortgage is approximately$83 ,000 left. So if we liquidate that brokerage account, we could pay off the home and be done.

59:12Dave Ramsey:And still have an emergency fund?

59:14Jade Warshaw:Yeah, we do have$10 ,000 set aside for an emergency fund beyond those two amounts.

59:19Dave Ramsey:That's a bit small.

59:20Jade Warshaw:Yeah, is that what it would be if the house were gone? yeah well we use like the brokerage account as like a backup emergency yeah you don't have that anymore in this scenario we have we have ten thousand dollars in our bank account i know as a

59:35Dave Ramsey:i know but if you use the brokerage account and you use the 60 000 from the car and you pay off the house you're down to ten thousand dollars which isn't much well we want to spend approximately 50 000 on a car no are you listening he's saying he's saying if you pay the house i said if you pay If you pay the house off, you've got nothing but$10 ,000 left. Right?

59:58Jade Warshaw:Well, we also have a$10 ,000 savings account that is just a side emergency fund.

1:00:02Dave Ramsey:Oh, so you have$20 ,000.

1:00:04Jade Warshaw:So we would have, yeah, we would have$20 ,000. Understood. If the house is paid off.

1:00:07Dave Ramsey:Okay, that's what I didn't understand. Is your net worth over a million dollars?

1:00:11Jade Warshaw:It is, sir.

1:00:12Dave Ramsey:And this is a brand new car?

1:00:15Jade Warshaw:New to us.

1:00:16Dave Ramsey:Oh, it's not a brand new car?

1:00:17Jade Warshaw:It might be a year old.

1:00:19Dave Ramsey:Okay, that's not a brand new car. It either is or it isn't. Okay. All right. Now, so, wow.

1:00:26Jade Warshaw:I mean, how long would it take you? You could do either. I don't think there's a wrong answer here. How long would it take you if you were to pay off the house? How quickly could you save back up$60 ,000 and buy the car you want? We think by probably August. Oh, crap. Man, I got to be honest. There's not a wrong answer. I'd probably pay the house off.

1:00:45Dave Ramsey:Yeah, there's a wrong answer. Don't buy the car. Pay the house off and then go buy the car. You would? I would never buy that car.

1:00:51Jade Warshaw:I mean, I wouldn't buy the car. I would pay the house off. But I'm just saying, do you think she'd be dead wrong?

1:00:58Dave Ramsey:Yeah, because in eight months, you can go get the car anyway.

1:01:00Jade Warshaw:That's what I said.

1:01:01Dave Ramsey:So get the house paid off. I'm just saying. What are your priorities here? Your priorities are get the house paid off, not buy a stupid car. Stupid cars you can get. I got a stupid car today. I don't mind getting a stupid car. Listen. But they go down in value. I would do the same thing. Yeah.

1:01:14Jade Warshaw:But do you think that lightning would strike her down had she done the other way?

1:01:18Dave Ramsey:Lightning doesn't strike you down on anything on this show, hardly. but then no i'm definitely paying the house off a hundred percent today i paid off today and then i'd save like crazy and go buy the car that you want and you might even get a nicer car parking it in the driveway of a paid for house hello no question that that's the order things got to go down definitely definitely definitely definitely so here's the thing and i'm a car guy I, you know, I've got on a bunch of different vehicles here and there and they all go down in value.

1:01:51Jade Warshaw:Yeah.

1:01:52Dave Ramsey:And so, you know, you can't put appreciating assets in the same sentence with the largest depreciating asset that we buy, even if you've got a high net worth.

1:02:03Jade Warshaw:But what sent you over the edge was the fact that they owed so little on the mortgage.

1:02:09Dave Ramsey:It's simple. Yeah. I mean, if she owed$500 ,000 on the mortgage, then we could have a different discussion.

1:02:13Jade Warshaw:Or even 100. Well, let's see. My tipping point probably would have been like 250. Yeah.

1:02:20Dave Ramsey:I mean, I just, the point is that this is very doable very quickly. And so it doesn't matter. So do it the right way. Yes. I'm with you. And let your actions reflect that you've got an understanding of how these assets work.

1:02:36Jade Warshaw:Right.

1:02:36Dave Ramsey:Because five years from today, that$50 ,000 car is worth 15.

1:02:42Jade Warshaw:Yes, and that's going to be painful. Hopefully you keep it for a very long time.

1:02:46Dave Ramsey:Five years from today, that house will have doubled twice.

1:02:49Jade Warshaw:Yes.

1:02:49Dave Ramsey:You know, so, I mean, there's no question where I'm going with this. And it doesn't mean you never buy a car. I bought one today. Or literally. You bought a car today? I bought a car today, yeah. What'd you get? I got the new Bronco Raptor. Look at you. So I just wanted one. But I'm not mad about cars. That's not the point. That's not the point. The point is they go down in value and they need to be a minor part of your overall life.

1:03:42you

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1:05:17Dave Ramsey:In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Nathan and Megan are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Hi, Dave.

1:05:26Jade Warshaw:Doing well. Great to be here.

1:05:27Dave Ramsey:Good to have you. Where do y 'all live?

1:05:29Jade Warshaw:We live in Woodstock, Georgia.

1:05:31Dave Ramsey:Oh, yeah, just down the road. Well, welcome to Nashville. Thank you. Thank you. Good to have you guys. And how much debt have you paid off?

1:05:36Jade Warshaw:We paid off$155 ,000 in just under five years.

1:05:41Dave Ramsey:Good for you. Way to go. And your range of income during that time?

1:05:45Jade Warshaw:Starting income was$100 ,000 and ending income was$145 ,000.

1:05:50Dave Ramsey:Very cool.

1:05:51Jade Warshaw:What do y 'all do for a living? So I work in technology. I manage a whole tech team in the convenience industry.

1:05:56Dave Ramsey:Oh, yeah.

1:05:57Jade Warshaw:Yeah. And I worked part-time in a credit department at a staffing company during that time.

1:06:02Dave Ramsey:Okay. Good. What kind of debt was it?

1:06:04Jade Warshaw:It was our mortgage. Whoa! I was hoping so.

1:06:07Dave Ramsey:Looking at weird people. I know. That's right. Very cool. How much is this house worth? About$450 now. Good for you guys. That's awesome. And you've been putting money in your retirement all along. That's right. So how much is in that? About$300. All right. Very good. Almost millionaires now. That's right. Look at you guys. Wow. And how old are you two?

1:06:28Jade Warshaw:I'm 28.

1:06:30Dave Ramsey:And I'm 29. So you guys started this in your early 20s. Yes. That's right.

1:06:34Jade Warshaw:Our goal was to get it paid off before Nathan turned 30 in March. And you did it. Wow. So paid it off on Christmas Day, 2025. Wow, that's awesome. All right, tell us the story.

1:06:46Dave Ramsey:How do you guys be smart enough to do this at 22 years old?

1:06:50Jade Warshaw:Well, honestly, he listened to you since he was 12 years old. So I grew up and we didn't have TV. So as a teenager, I couldn't go to bed early. So I'd turn on my clock radio to Dave Ramsey. And I didn't quite get everything at the time of what you were saying. But I started picking it up. I mean, it really just comes from my parents instilling, hey, if you're going to accomplish anything, you've got to work for it. So following your steps along the way, we did Financial Peace University right after we were married and just, I mean, worked as a team together.

1:07:18Dave Ramsey:Wow. Very cool.

1:07:20Jade Warshaw:Yeah.

1:07:20Dave Ramsey:So your mom and dad were doing this stuff and then you're hearing this stuff on talk radio back in the day.

1:07:24Jade Warshaw:Yes. Yeah. And they were, it was really just instilling if you want anything in life, you have to work for it. So that was what my parents gave me. And then you gave me the tools to, you know, us the tools to work together and accomplish this. Yeah. We also bought a fixer upper that needed a lot of equity or a lot of sweat equity. Oh, my gosh. I see the picture. So that's what it used to look like. And we worked really hard on it. And it's in Woodstock, which is where we wanted to grow up. One of the kids to grow up. It doesn't even look like the same house. So that's where we live now. Yeah, that was the dream.

1:07:56Jade Warshaw:Just putting our hard work into it and not just expecting things to come to us and working for what we wanted. Looks like it started with a chainsaw. Yeah, that's right. It did. Wow. And lots of poison ivy. Yeah. So the moment you bought it, you knew you were going to pay it off fast. like you already. Yes. That was the whole idea.

1:08:12Dave Ramsey:Yes, definitely.

1:08:13Jade Warshaw:We wanted to attack it, you know.

1:08:15Dave Ramsey:So Megan, I mean, when you're dating a guy that at 12 years old is listening to a financial show on talk radio before he goes to bed, you might be dating a nerd.

1:08:24Jade Warshaw:I know. I learned this a lot from him and then he got me onto YouTube. And I truly, he is a little bit of a nerd.

1:08:33Dave Ramsey:It sounds like he was an attractive nerd.

1:08:36Jade Warshaw:He was tall, dark and handsome. I was very, you know it didn't take much financial yes so and i truly i mean once i learned it too once we did financial peace i was all in as well we were just trying to do it together and i think that's one of the keys to it was just doing it together well you guys throw those pictures up again on youtube in

1:08:58Dave Ramsey:case someone is 23 years old and thinks it's impossible to buy a house um you can buy that house looks like a jungle put it back up there it's like a dadgum jungle yeah i mean that's the But yeah.

1:09:09Jade Warshaw:And you said it's worth$400 now? $450 now. Yeah, our neighborhood.

1:09:13Dave Ramsey:Woodstock's sweet. It's a great area.

1:09:15Jade Warshaw:Dave always says it's important to dream together. So it actually took us two years to convince this lady it was vacant to sell us the home. And we would drive by and she would get annoyed at me. And I'd go, that's our home. See our home? And we didn't even have it under contract yet. But we'd dream and we'd stare at it. Every time we would drive by it. And following the principles of going, hey, we wanted a 15-year mortgage, not more than 20 % of our take-home pay. How did you get her to sell it? Well, honestly, I was her friend for two years. She didn't know anyone else. And I honestly didn't think we were going to get it most of the time.

1:09:46Jade Warshaw:But I said, I just told her, whenever she wants to sell, she'll think of us first. And one day after two years, she said, all right, I'm ready to sell. Yeah, we wrote her letters, drove to her house at a different residence.

1:09:58Dave Ramsey:She wasn't, it was vacant. Yeah, it was vacant. It looked like it. She lived up in a different place.

1:10:02Jade Warshaw:And we drove there and got her phone number. and they talked on the phone every month until she's decided to say.

1:10:10Dave Ramsey:Until she relented. We're ready.

1:10:11Jade Warshaw:Yeah. Wow.

1:10:13Dave Ramsey:I love this guy. This is incredible.

1:10:16Jade Warshaw:And of course you cash flowed all the upgrades. You did the inside and the outside. We did. We went down to the studs and it was, you know, I had some family help, but it was all us just working through it. We did gas, electrical, plumbing. We did the septic system and we did everything. So you pay, I just need America to hear this.

1:10:32Dave Ramsey:You cash flowed all of that and paid off the$155 ,000 mortgage. Wow. So you 26-year-olds that are whining, I can't buy a house right now. The crap has ruined the world. Oh, kiss my butt. These guys right here hold their beer. Look at this. It's unbelievable.

1:10:47Jade Warshaw:Yeah, tell them what they need to know because there's a lot of naysayers out there. Tell them what they need to know. Absolutely. Dave, you preach it. I actually saw the bumper sticker over there, and I love it. And it was pray like everything depends on God and work like everything depends on you. And that was us going into this. I tell everyone that'll listen. I'm annoying. I'll get passionate about it, but you're the problem. You're the solution. Work hard. I can't stand anyone that says anything different, but there's more opportunity in America than there has ever been in country for all of history.

1:11:16Jade Warshaw:So work for it. It's easy to look at all the obstacles and say, hey, I can't do this, but roll up your sleeves and get to work. Work is underestimated and working together as a team, this has just helped us in our marriage. And now we have a home for our kids and we're just going to continue building the dream. You can pull that headset off and slam it on the floor. No, don't. Don't do that. It looks expensive.

1:11:37Dave Ramsey:Yes.

1:11:38Jade Warshaw:I say to like just, you know, eat at home and practical things like being content with what you have, not comparing yourself to the people around you and also just work inside hustles. We both worked during this whole process. I was a stay-at-home mom, but also trying to help provide some income during that time. And Nathan worked really hard at his job just to work his way up, but also worked side hustles. So do the things that are required to get to that point, but also just enjoy your life and be content with what you have already.

1:12:16Dave Ramsey:Well, I mean, you're not even 30 years old. You have a paid-for half-million-dollar house. You're well on your way to being millionaires within the next probably 36 months or so. the markets are moving and everything's happening. You guys are in really, really good shape. Congratulations. I'm very proud of you. I know your parents are proud of you. Your children, your heroes, you have changed your family tree. So your secret is work at it and stick together.

1:12:39Jade Warshaw:Yeah. And just don't take no for an answer. If someone tells you no, just figure another way to do it.

1:12:44Dave Ramsey:There's always another way. Another way to get it done.

1:12:47Jade Warshaw:Wow. That's amazing. I have one more question. When you went to buy this house, how did you set your expectations? Because a lot of people would have seen that before you renovated it and said, that's a shack, I'm not gonna spend my money on that. How did you know to do that? Well, great question. I mean, my whole life it's been, what do people, we're so wealthy as a country, people throw away great things that we can work hard and make beautiful. So going into it, it was horrible looking on the inside, but we were just looking and we had talked about it. What are the bones? What can't we change?

1:13:21Jade Warshaw:Let's make sure that's good. We can work hard on everything else and change that. Change some paint colors, change the flooring. Yeah, that's right. Just kind of see past that stuff on the outside and just look at the beauty on the inside. And there were no mold issues, no like flooring, foundation issues. Like we were very blessed. God blessed us with this home too. Like we were put in all the right situations where we were like, this is not just coincidental. That's awesome. So, so good, guys. Well, well done.

1:13:51Dave Ramsey:All right, bring the kiddos up. Let's get their names and ages.

1:13:54Jade Warshaw:Oh, boy, are they cute.

1:13:55Dave Ramsey:They are cute, cute, cute.

1:13:57Jade Warshaw:Oh, there's more of them than I thought. Yes.

1:13:59Dave Ramsey:They just keep coming.

1:14:00Jade Warshaw:Yes. We paid it off when he was 10 days old. Oh, wow. What a guy. Yes. Baby James.

1:14:06Dave Ramsey:So what's his name?

1:14:07Jade Warshaw:This is James. James. He's two months now.

1:14:09Dave Ramsey:All right, and the girls?

1:14:10Jade Warshaw:This is Emmy. She's five. And then Lily is two.

1:14:14Dave Ramsey:All right. Yes. You guys are, your parents are heroes. You don't even know it yet. You're too young. but someday you'll know they're the ones that changed the family tree. Way to go. All right, Nathan and Megan, count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. $155 ,000 paid off in five years, making$140 ,000 almost. Baby Steps millionaires already at 30 years old. Let's hear it.

1:14:35Jade Warshaw:Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yeah! I love it. Wow. I love it. I love it.

1:14:48Dave Ramsey:Wow. kids are cute.

1:14:50Jade Warshaw:They are. I love it. That's amazing, Dave.

1:14:54Dave Ramsey:Amazing. Oh, it can't be done. We're all going to die. No, not if you're Nathan and Megan. They got it figured out, baby.

1:15:09Dave Ramsey:Finally, mortgage rates have dropped, and you know what that means? People who've been sitting on the sidelines are about to jump back in to the housing market. So if you've been waiting to buy, this could be your window, but you've got to be prepared and do it the Ramsey way. You need to contact Churchill Mortgage. Their Home Buyer Edge program gives you peace of mind in a wild market. You can cap your rate for 90 days. So if rates go up, you're protected. If rates go down, Churchill will drop yours automatically. And get this, Churchill will even back your offer with a$10 ,000 seller guarantee.

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1:16:12Jade Warshaw:Home Buyer Edge and Seller Guarantee are available for qualifying borrowers and select loan types only and not available in all states or locations. NMLS ID 1591. NMLS consumer access.org equal housing lender.

1:16:43Dave Ramsey:Mark is in Mobile, Alabama. Hey, Mark, how are you?

1:16:48Jade Warshaw:Doing good.

1:16:48Dave Ramsey:How about you, Mr.

1:16:49Jade Warshaw:Ramsey?

1:16:49Dave Ramsey:Better than I deserve. What's up?

1:16:53Jade Warshaw:So I work offshore and I make about$90 ,000 a year and I'm going 20 days out of the month and I'm home for 10. And my wife would like me home and I'd also like to be home too because later we'd also like to maybe start having kids and start having a family. We are on baby step two and just wondering what y 'all would think about that. if I need to stay on the boat until we get baby step two paid off or would it still be okay to come home? I mean, gosh, that's a long time to be gone.

1:17:28Dave Ramsey:How long are you going to be gone? I mean, how much debt do you have and how quickly you get paid off?

1:17:36Jade Warshaw:So we have$23 ,000 in consumer debt beside our house. I bring home$5 ,800. Our bills is$3 ,600 roughly. and then we have$2 ,100 left over that we could put towards debt.

1:17:53Dave Ramsey:Okay, so you'd be debt-free in like 10 months, except your house. Okay. Yes, sir. And you make$90 ,000 and you're only coming home with$5 ,800. There's something wrong with that. Where's all that money going? That's a lot of withholding. 90 is before taxes, and I do have insurances through work,

1:18:16Jade Warshaw:and I also have a life insurance policy through work that I took out a little bit extra. I'm in the process of getting rid of that life insurance policy and going to term life.

1:18:26Dave Ramsey:Good.

1:18:27Jade Warshaw:Okay.

1:18:27Dave Ramsey:Okay, and that'll increase your take-home pay as well.

1:18:30Jade Warshaw:What about your wife? What's she doing? She is not doing anything right now. She is in the process of going to the post office. So about March or April, she will be working at the post office. And what will that bring monthly and yearly?

1:18:51Dave Ramsey:Roughly$3 ,000 to$3 ,500 a month.

1:18:55Jade Warshaw:Okay.

1:18:56Dave Ramsey:So you're going to cut your pay by$30 ,000 or$40 ,000, and she's going to increase hers by$30 ,000 or$40 ,000 by you coming off the boat. Is that right? Yes, sir. You got a job lined up if you did that?

1:19:10Jade Warshaw:I don't have a job lined up right now. I have been looking at different jobs. I just wanted to get someone's opinion on what they would do if they would finish paying that offer. I mean, if you can line something up that's in line with when she starts working, I would do that in two seconds.

1:19:27Dave Ramsey:Yeah, your household is going to have the same money coming in, agreed? Yes, sir. Okay. I mean, you're going to get something that's not going to pay as much as a boat, but you're going to get something. I mean, you need to go search out the job market and figure out what you can land. You might land something almost as much as you're getting paid offshore. I don't think so, but you might. Yes, sir.

1:19:46Jade Warshaw:Well, the job I'm looking at now, it starts out at$40 ,000 a year, and then within two years you can be bumped up to$70 ,000 to$80 ,000.

1:19:56Dave Ramsey:Doing what?

1:19:56Jade Warshaw:So there is margin being a steel mill worker in Mobile.

1:20:01Dave Ramsey:Okay. All right. um well here's the thing we're not really cutting your income from 90 to 40 we're really your household income is going to be the same because she's going to go to work and make up the difference is that a correct statement yes sir yeah based on that i'm coming home yes sir and take the steel mill job and let's get started because you're going to be of debt in the same time as if she didn't work and you stayed on the boat. See? Yes, sir. You still ought to be able to get out of debt in eight or ten months. And no eating out. Both of you take extra jobs, do everything you can, and you're still going to be home more doing that than you would have been on the rig offshore.

1:20:51Dave Ramsey:And, yeah, I think I am coming home based on all of this. but if the only part of the equation was i'm just simply going to cut my income in half then i might stay 10 months and knock it out for the 10 months yeah i might stay another six months and knock it out whatever but you know the fact that she's going to be making up some of the difference you're taking a job that's going to escalate an income over the next couple of years a lot and you can pick up extra jobs and you can get on the every dollar budget and tighten up i put all of that in there yeah i'd want to come home i don't i mean i i've traveled a lot with what I do over the years, but I've never done, I mean, I'm never, very seldom have I done one month or 20 day stretches.

1:21:31Dave Ramsey:Most of the time it's a five day thing or a two day thing or something like that. I'm out and back. And that's not nearly as strenuous as being gone from the family, like an over the road truck driver or military being deployed or working offshore like this. That's right. And so, but you, you know, you can make some money and, and, you know, when, when the Iraqi war, for instance, was wrapping up, there was a lot of civilian positions where people could go over there for six months or eight months and make two or 300 grand doing stuff. And people were doing that for a short period of time to leapfrog forward.

1:22:05Dave Ramsey:And I might be willing to do something like that if I was paying a price to win. But I got to see the end to it. And so, yeah, I think I would do that. I think I would do that. Yeah.

1:22:16Jade Warshaw:She really is the key to this equation, her working is the key to all of this. Exactly.

1:22:22Dave Ramsey:And so if you guys start having kids, she doesn't get to quit unless your income has come up.

1:22:27Jade Warshaw:Yeah, that's right.

1:22:28Dave Ramsey:You're going to have to manage that and keep all that stuff tied in there together. Sarah is with us in Columbia, South Carolina. Hi, Sarah. How are you?

1:22:36Jade Warshaw:Good. Thanks, Dave and Jade, for taking my call. Sure.

1:22:39Dave Ramsey:What's up?

1:22:41Jade Warshaw:I recently became guardian of my dad. He has dementia.

1:22:46Dave Ramsey:Sorry.

1:22:46Jade Warshaw:And we have moved him into a senior apartment. My question is about his finances. I'm not sure what to do with everything that he has, trying to honor what he has done and saved and worked for, but also what to do moving forward with all of his finances. We're going to sell his house. So I'm not sure what to do with those funds.

1:23:12Dave Ramsey:Mm-hmm. Well, we would just manage it for his good, agreed?

1:23:18Jade Warshaw:Yes.

1:23:19Dave Ramsey:Does he have bills that need to be paid?

1:23:22Jade Warshaw:Yes.

1:23:22Dave Ramsey:How much debt does he have?

1:23:25Jade Warshaw:No debt.

1:23:26Dave Ramsey:Oh. That's good. So the only bills are this assisted living situation.

1:23:30Jade Warshaw:Yeah. It's not a problem of not enough money. I'm not sure what to do with all of his money. Okay. What will happen when you sell the house? How much will you have? About$400 ,000.

1:23:41Dave Ramsey:And how much do you have now in other accounts?

1:23:44Jade Warshaw:He's got$355 ,000 in an IRA,$369 ,000 in a Roth, $177 ,000 in a non-retirement. And those are all three with the same financial institution.

1:24:03Dave Ramsey:Okay.

1:24:04Jade Warshaw:And then in a bank, he's got$315 ,000, which I know I should move some of that, but I don't know what to do with it.

1:24:12Dave Ramsey:So he's got like a million and a half dollars, so he's in really good shape. Way to go, Dad.

1:24:16Jade Warshaw:Yes. Good.

1:24:18Dave Ramsey:And you have full power of attorney.

1:24:23Jade Warshaw:Guardianship, which is above power of attorney. Right.

1:24:25Dave Ramsey:But, I mean, you've got the ability to do with this, as you will, for his benefit.

1:24:28Jade Warshaw:Yes.

1:24:29Dave Ramsey:Yeah.

1:24:29Jade Warshaw:Correct.

1:24:29Dave Ramsey:So I would get on RamseySolutions.com and click on SmartVestor Pro and sit and talk to one of the SmartVestor Pro financial advisors that we have endorsed. They don't work for us, but they have the heart of a teacher and say, I've got this million and a half dollars. I want to put it in a place that will care for him and that it will grow without much risk. And so I think you can pick out a series of low risk, not volatile mutual funds, something like some S &P type stuff and let the money sit there and grow and the growth will easily care for him. And you can put it in a situation where it's very easy to manage and without taking a big, huge boatload of risk and just sit there and talk to them and let their job is to teach you how to make these decisions on behalf of your dad.

1:25:21Jade Warshaw:Is it smarter to separate some of those funds and put them in two different financial places? Or is it better to keep it all in one?

1:25:30Dave Ramsey:I would have it in one. Okay. But you're making the decision of where it goes. So you could have it in several different mutual funds with one financial advisor. Okay. But you don't need two advisors. You're going to get crossed up. and you need to get someone. But you're not doing what they say to do. They are teaching you and they do what you say to do. Okay. That's how we're going to approach this. It's your job and they're there to help you do your job. We're not looking for a babysitter, a nanny. This is not a boarding school for money. You're still the parent.

1:26:31We'll be right back.

1:26:50Dave Ramsey:Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studios. Jade Washaw, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Tina is with us in Minneapolis. Hi, Tina. How are you?

1:27:03Jade Warshaw:I'm good. How are you?

1:27:04Dave Ramsey:Better than I deserve. What's up?

1:27:07Jade Warshaw:Well, I kind of got myself in a pickle.

1:27:11Dave Ramsey:Uh-oh.

1:27:13Jade Warshaw:I'm going to try and get through this, but it's so fresh that it's really hard. my husband passed away about four years ago he's in a nursing home for about four years before that any money that we had saved it was like$10 ,000 a month to have him there and then he was on what's called Medicaid in Iowa and now they're trying to sue me for$200 ,000 for his nursing home care they want reimbursed Why? So the only thing I have that they, that's just how. Is it because they didn't think you qualified? It turned out you didn't qualify? No, no, this is part of how to Medicaid. It's a state insurance, and they want their money back.

1:27:59Jade Warshaw:They don't tell you that when you sign up for it.

1:28:02Dave Ramsey:No, that's not how Medicaid works, honey. You're confused.

1:28:05Jade Warshaw:Well, that's what the state has.

1:28:07Dave Ramsey:No, Medicaid is not, Medicaid is administered by the state. It's a federal program, and it's welfare for poor people. And if you go to a nursing home and you qualify based on your assets and your income, Medicaid pays for it. And they don't get the money. And they don't get the money back.

1:28:23Jade Warshaw:Yeah, well, they keep sending them bills saying I owe$200 ,000. But why? Why do they think you owe$200 ,000? For his nursing home care.

1:28:33Dave Ramsey:No, honey. If he qualified for Medicaid, he doesn't owe the$200 ,000. They're wanting it back because they think he didn't qualify. They think you have too much in income or assets.

1:28:44Jade Warshaw:Well, he was on disability and I was on disability, so...

1:28:49Dave Ramsey:Then you need to get an attorney to look at this and negotiate with Medicaid, because Medicaid's gotten some bad information, it sounds like. But you don't automatically... They don't just automatically sue everybody that goes into nursing home on Medicaid. That's not how it works.

1:29:04Jade Warshaw:It was about a month after he passed away, I got this bill of mail for$200 ,000.

1:29:09Dave Ramsey:You need to talk to an attorney about that. Now, what's the other thing that we can help you with?

1:29:15Jade Warshaw:Well, I sold the house because I just wasn't going to let them take that away from me. Because, you know, what they said is they can't come after me until I'm gone and passed away. And they were going to take whatever I owned as payment. And the house was too much for me anyway. I'm almost 60. So I sold it. And I got, you know, it was paid for. So the money was mine. And I put it away in a bust account. And I had my daughter as trustee. She trusted her completely. She never did anything wrong with it. But unfortunately, when people realized I had the money, then all of the handouts came on, can you help me?

1:29:55Jade Warshaw:Can you help me? Can you help me? And unfortunately, I have a giving heart. And so I helped them all expecting to get paid back. They all promised to get it paid back. and now all I get is excuses to get it paid back when I'm financially struggling.

1:30:12Dave Ramsey:So you gave away how much money?

1:30:15Jade Warshaw:$69 ,000. So what are you living on now?

1:30:19Dave Ramsey:You're living on disability now?

1:30:21Jade Warshaw:Disability and social, yeah. Disability and widow pay.

1:30:24Dave Ramsey:What's the nature of your disability?

1:30:27Jade Warshaw:I have anxiety and panic attacks, like stroke-level panic attacks. They look like I'm having a heart attack.

1:30:38Dave Ramsey:Are you being treated for all of that?

1:30:41Jade Warshaw:Yeah, I just can't work. I went back to school to do billing and coding. I've been medical for 20-plus years, and somebody else paid for me to go back to school. So I'm taking that advantage so I can try to get a job working from home. But unfortunately, the catch-22 is they want you to have three years' experience before they'll hire you to work for me. Yeah.

1:31:04Dave Ramsey:So are you able to live on your disability income?

1:31:11Jade Warshaw:Well, I was until, I mean, I found a cheaper apartment. I live in an apartment that was like$8.75 a month plus utilities, and I found another one that's half of that. Good.

1:31:24Dave Ramsey:So are you able to live on your disability now?

1:31:27Jade Warshaw:Well, I am, except for the debt that I've accumulated by living in that more expensive.

1:31:33Dave Ramsey:Oh, how much debt did you run up?

1:31:37Jade Warshaw:Well, I was working, and I bought a car because I needed a rentable vehicle. So I owe$20 ,000 on it, and then I got two credit cards. Where's the car? The car's in my garage right now. I can't even sell it. It's not worth what I owe on it.

1:31:53Dave Ramsey:Yeah, but it is worth something, and you could get rid of it and cut most of that debt away. Because you're living on nothing. You can't afford a$21 ,000 car in your garage, hon.

1:32:03Jade Warshaw:Right. That's got to be sold. I was planning on getting another job, but it just seems like I'm just running into brick walls.

1:32:11Dave Ramsey:Yeah.

1:32:12Jade Warshaw:Well, the first thing we've got to do is quit digging the hole, okay?

1:32:17Dave Ramsey:Right. So, yeah, you need an attorney to represent you and keep Medicaid off of you. So you need to start talking to your relatives about trying to get some of your money back. I don't think you'll ever see any of it again. I don't think so either. That was obviously a huge mistake. You were not in a position to be generous, regardless of what your heart was telling you. And you were in a situation that you needed generosity, not the other way around. Right, right. And so, yeah, I think, and then you guys start talking about how we can get a$5 ,000 car and get rid of this$21 ,000 car because you can't afford it.

1:32:52Dave Ramsey:And so start making some moves in that regard. You haven't hit a brick wall. You just keep having these same, these different things occur. And then you step into something. You step into, I give away$51 ,000 or I buy a$21 ,000 car I can't afford. And see, there's a$70 ,000 swing right there. Yes. Just in this story. And if we had that$70 ,000 back, you'd be in a completely different scenario. And you know, you give an attorney five grand and that'll make the Medicaid thing go away. I hope. I hope he was qualified to go into a Medicaid nursing home.

1:33:27Jade Warshaw:It looks like unless somebody else was supposed to be responsible for it. So if you received any type of settlement, they can come back. If he was injured in any kind of accident and somebody else's insurance should have paid, they can pay for it up front and then want that money back. So I would do due diligence on that. We don't know any of the nature surrounding him going into that facility. But you should look into that and find out and make sure there is nothing on your end that might have triggered that.

1:33:55Dave Ramsey:Yeah, but most of the time, Medicaid is a welfare program that provides nursing home for free, and you don't have to pay it back for people that are certifiably poor. That's right. It's a welfare program. And they don't automatically come and want the money back. So the fact that they've done that tells me that they believe something that's not true or he didn't qualify.

1:34:21Jade Warshaw:Yeah.

1:34:22Dave Ramsey:And you guys took care from the welfare system that you shouldn't have. And then if that's the case, you got a mess. But hopefully that's not the case. Hopefully there's just some confusion about the way the paperwork was filled out and this thing can be made to go away. And that's most of the time what it is when you're dealing with these bureaucrats. That's how the deal works. So just keep chipping away at the different parts of this, Tina. and I think you can make your way through it.

1:35:25Dave Ramsey:If you've been working the plan, paying off debt, saving, and changing your family tree, I'm proud of you. And if you're in Baby Step 4 or beyond, it's time to celebrate. The Live Like No One Else cruise is back March 14-21, 2027. Join the Ramsey personalities and me as we sail to Half Moon Key, Cozumel, Jamaica, and Grand Cayman on the ultimate debt-free vacation. Cabins will sell out just like last time. Lock in yours with a$600 deposit at RamseySolutions.com slash events.

1:36:19Dave Ramsey:Well, we wish we could get to every call and every question here on the show. If you have a money question and you want an answer for your situation, you can head over to the website and use Ask Ramsey. Ask Ramsey is our free AI tool that's built and trained on proven Ramsey principles. You'll get an answer the same way we'd answer it right here on the show. Might be a little nicer. Ask your question today at RamseySolutions.com or just click the link in the description if you're listening on a podcast or on YouTube. Folks, if you're debt-free, the Live Like No One Else cruise is your chance to celebrate.

1:36:59Dave Ramsey:Hang out with us. I'm going to be there. All the Ramsey personalities are going to be there. Sharon will be with us. We've got new sessions on building wealth, live episodes of our shows, and the world's largest debt-free scream on the Live Like No One Else cruise. This is premium cruise line, the best of the best. We're going to be doing the Western Caribbean this time, which means Jamaica Mon. Yeah, secure your cabin with a$600 deposit. We're going to be going one year from March on March 2027.

1:37:33Jade Warshaw:Wow.

1:37:33Dave Ramsey:This thing is getting close to being sold out a year away, so you want to go and get your cabin reserved now. RamseySolutions.com slash events. Book your cabin today, mon. All right, here we go. Salt Lake City is with us. Tiffany's calling. Hey, Tiffany.

1:37:49Jade Warshaw:Hey, Dave. Hi, Jade. How are you guys?

1:37:52Dave Ramsey:Better than we deserve. What's up?

1:37:55Jade Warshaw:First of all, I'm so nervous, so bear with me. I can feel my heart pounding in my ear. Okay. You're doing good.

1:38:02Dave Ramsey:We've never lost a patient. You're going to make it.

1:38:05Jade Warshaw:I hope I'm not going to be the first. Well, first of all, thank you. I'm so honored to talk to you guys. You are part of my, I don't know, you became part of my life. I listen to you guys. You're kind of the dad that, you know, I wish I would have. And, Jade, you're like such a badass sister. I just, you guys are amazing. Thank you, friend. We're glad you're here. Okay, so here's my little dilemma. How do I get strategically, strategically? Sorry, English is my second language. I'm actually from a different country, Europe.

1:38:43Jade Warshaw:How do I get strategically, strategically? Oh, Lord, you guys know what I mean. Strategically? Thank you. Hey, it's just the whole world is listening. That's fine. My family has loaned me so far$2.1 million. My husband and I, we own two companies. We have a framing company, steel framing company, where we do regular framing for residential construction and the roof trusses. And we do have a construction company where we actually build the spec homes.

1:39:24Dave Ramsey:Do you make money?

1:39:26Jade Warshaw:At the point, not. We finally started making some money, or at least it looks better on paper, I guess. It took us about two years to everything started in 2022. we got$1.2 million from a family member to start a company where we got the machines to do those framings. They come in steel coils and you basically just form and build whatever you need. In 2023, we got another$200 ,000. And in 2024, we got another$500 ,000. Our family are new developers as well So they bought a bunch of land Over 750 acres And started developing Or just finished their first development And we're going to be able to build 30 homes out of 50 And that's kind of why we risk it To get in that whole dilemma My issue here is Besides that we keep getting loans got another$200 ,000 from another family member.

1:40:37Jade Warshaw:And right now we're in the process of applying for a first official loan from the bank because we just keep running out of money. We self-finance-ish, I would say. Self-finance the spec homes. So every penny that we make, we put it into the homes, we sell it, and then that profit we immediately take into the next house. Okay, so this is not working. Not at all. Even if you did 50 of the 50 homes, would this make you right side up?

1:41:06Dave Ramsey:No.

1:41:07Jade Warshaw:At some point, there's the hope. No. But I have another...

1:41:11Dave Ramsey:You can't just keep borrowing money because you can't seem to make money.

1:41:16Jade Warshaw:Well, and here comes another big issue. I do the books for our company, and I just found out that in 2025, my husband started day trading without my knowledge. And so he tanked over$113 ,000. I spoke to him last week about it. And he said, yeah, he effed up. He was hoping to make fast money because nothing really worked out last year. And now there's$80 left.

1:42:01Jade Warshaw:So how do I need help to know how do we get out of the mess? And besides that, we have a two and a four-year-old, of course, on top of that.

1:42:16Dave Ramsey:So the first thing is that if he ever comes close to day training again, you can tell him that he's no longer your husband. There's too much stress here, and that is a breach of trust. He lied to you, and he stole the money.

1:42:31Jade Warshaw:Yep, I told him that, too. I told him that.

1:42:33Dave Ramsey:This is not okay. This is not okay. This is really crooked, bad stuff for anybody to do to their spouse, number one. Number two, you guys need to sit down and look at this business model and figure out when you're going to start making money, and it needs to be tomorrow. You guys need to sell some stuff off. You need to quit trying to do so dadgum much. Y 'all haven't made anything yet. All you've done is borrow money and waste it.

1:43:00Jade Warshaw:Yeah, I mean, at least not enough. Like on paper, for example. There's no such thing as on paper.

1:43:06Dave Ramsey:If on paper you made money, you would have some money.

1:43:11Jade Warshaw:Like in 2024, we made$850 ,000 gross. Where did it go? In the other homes. And then again, the other homes.

1:43:24Dave Ramsey:So you're building these homes and you're financing them and carrying the paper?

1:43:30Jade Warshaw:Oh, no. No, we're building them.

1:43:33Dave Ramsey:I know. If you build them and don't you sell them?

1:43:35Jade Warshaw:Yes, we do.

1:43:36Dave Ramsey:So if you put$150 ,000 in homes and build them, don't you get a million and a half out when you sell them?

1:43:44Jade Warshaw:Well, those are like smaller homes, so we're like doing usually between 400 and 500. Okay, but I mean, aren't you getting the money back out?

1:43:51Dave Ramsey:Don't you turn around and sell the house? If you build a house, don't you turn around and sell it and make money? That's how most builders do it.

1:43:57Jade Warshaw:So you should be making money.

1:43:58Dave Ramsey:Where's all the stinking money going? You didn't put it in the house and then it disappeared. You put it in the house and then you turn around and sold the house.

1:44:05Jade Warshaw:You said before that it was broken into two businesses. I wonder if the construction business is the problem and you need to just focus on the steel framing.

1:44:13Dave Ramsey:Or the other way around.

1:44:15Jade Warshaw:And the overhead costs are just ridiculous. We pay over$25 ,000 almost a month. I don't know if you know what profit is.

1:44:24Dave Ramsey:Do you know what profit is?

1:44:26Jade Warshaw:I love when you ask that.

1:44:28Dave Ramsey:Okay. You need to have your income minus your outgo equals your profits. And you haven't made money because all you've done is borrow$2 million and you have no money. So you don't have any profits on paper or otherwise. because if you have profit on paper, honey, you have money in the bank. There's no on paper profit. There's no such thing. If my paper says I have a profit, I need to look over in the checking account and see the stinking money there. That's how this works. So if you put$400 ,000 into a house and you sell it for$500 ,000, you should not only get your$400 ,000 back, you should get an extra$100 ,000 back.

1:45:10Dave Ramsey:So there should be$500 ,000 laying over there after that house sells. That's how this works. And so y 'all suck at this. You need to get in there and get somebody to come alongside you and figure out how to run these businesses. Or you need to sell them and pay your family back and go get some jobs. And if he ever goes near a day trading keyboard again, dadgum, man, that's the end of that. That's the dumbest thing I ever heard. But y 'all been running this without making a profit for four years, and that's just dumb. You've got to figure this out. You've got to turn this thing around or get out of the business.

1:45:45Dave Ramsey:You cannot borrow your way into profitability. That's an impossibility.

1:46:06Dave Ramsey:How many times have you started January saying, this is the year I'm finally going to get my money under control? But then months go by and you still feel broke. You work too hard to keep living like that. Look, there's only one way to move the needle on your finances this year. You've got to have a plan. So start by downloading EveryDollar. EveryDollar is way more than our world-class budgeting app. In 15 minutes, we'll build you a personalized plan to free up extra margin in your budget and use it to beat debt and build wealth. You'll find thousands of dollars on average just the first day, and you'll get new steps and new lessons every day that help you stay on track and create unstoppable momentum.

1:46:51Dave Ramsey:Don't waste one more day feeling broke and stressed. Get your plan in just 15 minutes by downloading EveryDollar for free today.

1:47:08Dave Ramsey:Well, we love debt-free screams. We love them in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on our debt-free stage. We super love them when it's one of our Ramsey team members. TJ is with us here with his wife, Alice. He's a project manager on the EveryDollar team. Been with us about a year. And they get to come in here and do their debt-free scream. Welcome, guys. Thank you. Good to have you. How nerve wracking is this? It's we're here and it's finally real.

1:47:39Jade Warshaw:I love it.

1:47:40Dave Ramsey:How much have you paid off? $165 ,000. I love it. How long did that take? 15 months. Awesome. Okay. And you've been here about a year. So you started on it before. How long y 'all been married?

1:47:53Jade Warshaw:One year and eight months. Oh, wow.

1:47:55Dave Ramsey:So moving here, getting married, starting the debt-free journey all in the last two years. Yes. Wow. Where'd you move from?

1:48:03Jade Warshaw:Central Illinois, but we're originally from the Chicagoland.

1:48:05Dave Ramsey:Okay. All right. So you got married and did you come to Nashville to take the Ramsey job? Yep. Okay. The project manager at EveryDollar. Well, that's awesome. So you people out there that are using EveryDollar to get out of debt, it's all TJ's fault. all the things that are awesome about it it's all tj's fault he's one of the many uh talented folks we got on that team really really working on this so what kind of debt was the 165 000 yeah it was

1:48:32Jade Warshaw:107 in student loans and then 58 in new cars this was before learning about ramsey right gotcha okay very cool how's it feel to be free liberating liberating peaceful it was the best sleep we've ever got oh I've gotten the past two years was uh October 30th when we made our final payment filled in the rest of that I saw the thermometer that we had up there uh filling that in calling those that supported us all along the way and just being able to cheer it so how did the order

1:49:04Dave Ramsey:of events go about learning about doing the Ramsey stuff coming to work here getting married all that

1:49:10Jade Warshaw:how's that all that line up so we got the total money makeover as a wedding gift okay it was not on our registry. We were not familiar.

1:49:20Dave Ramsey:It seldom is.

1:49:22Jade Warshaw:So TJ read the book about three times and then he started on this journey to try to coerce me into reading it. He was saying that it's Bible based, which really resonated with me. And then he was like, Dave's really funny, which I was like, hmm, let me see for myself. And I loved it. We had a conversation where we had combined our finances after getting married and realized that we had$2 ,800 of minimum payments and we didn't feel like we were able to really live, even though we had two pretty good incomes.

1:49:56Dave Ramsey:Very cool. What do you do?

1:49:57Jade Warshaw:I'm a nurse.

1:49:58Dave Ramsey:Awesome. Very cool. Good. Yeah, that is two good incomes. Excellent. Well done y 'all.

1:50:03Jade Warshaw:Yeah.

1:50:03Dave Ramsey:Okay. So you're, you get married, you get the book and you get on the same page and then how does he end up with this job? That's weird.

1:50:10Jade Warshaw:Well, it all came down to, we were Dave-ish. Around Thanksgiving, I got to talk to my Uncle Matt and Aunt Gina, who were the ones that gifted us Total Money Makeover. And we're like, we're doing it. We're doing it. And they're like, are you really doing it? And we were like, well, we have 20 ,000 savings while we're trying to pay down the debts. We, you know, we paid for our wedding and anything that was a gift, we just threw out debt. And I'm like, that felt good. Let's keep going. And they were like, hey, check out their website for additional resources. And I was like, okay, cool. So I started looking around.

1:50:42Jade Warshaw:I saw there was a careers page. I'm like, all right, let's see what this is all about. Saw some jobs. I was like, I could probably do that. I applied. Previous role, I applied for hundreds of jobs, and then I eventually got my one. I was like, all right, Lord, if you open up the doors for me, I'm going to continue to walk through them. And however, was it 12 steps to get here? Yeah. Hiring process. Yeah. But, you know, it really felt like God called me here, able to serve be able to be here and help spread hope to other people that's really awesome so what are you going to do to celebrate we did we did we bought a king-size bed yeah i love that best sleep of my life yeah oh i love that that's exactly right i thought he was sleeping better

1:51:23Dave Ramsey:because he got out of bed too but they got a new mattress he got a new mattress is what it was that's great that's excellent very cool all right so what advice do you have what do you tell people and they say, how did you do that? How do you pay off$165 ,000 newly married in 15 months? That's over$10 ,000 a month.

1:51:43Jade Warshaw:Yeah, God's blessings for sure. Everything kind of had to come right together. We wrote down October of 2025. And when we were writing that, I'm like, everything is going to have to come up right in order for this to happen. And God's blessings allowed us to be there. A new opportunity. She was travel nursing.

1:52:01Dave Ramsey:Good money.

1:52:02Jade Warshaw:which is where a lot of all of that came from.

1:52:05Dave Ramsey:Yeah, that's good money.

1:52:06Jade Warshaw:And it took a lot of sacrifice. I mean, I had to move down here, and I was here for about a month and a half before she got to come down after she wrapped up the contract. That is a big sacrifice. So she was doing some roles that were about an hour and a half away, so a long commute. And I appreciate all the sacrifices that we were able to make, both of us taking up multiple jobs to be able to get there and just want to be an inspiration to others.

1:52:28Dave Ramsey:so so uh working here can be a mixed blessing because everybody's like everybody's doing this you know it's like the positive peer pressure but it's also pressure i mean was it helpful to have your team you know all up in your business or uh you know your buddy's cheering you on or was that a bad i mean they're all standing out there you better be nice but um i mean was is it helpful to be in this kind of environment when you're doing it or not it can i think it could work against you.

1:52:56Jade Warshaw:Yeah. Um, at least I can tell my side. It's been extremely, it's a support system. Um, if we didn't believe in it, then yes, I think it'd be a whole lot of different pressure that we're like, Oh, I don't really want to do it, but we believed in it. We knew that was going to be good for us changing our family tree, going through financial peace university, really seeing the whole scope of where your life can change and being able to use every dollar to keep us on track and on budget. Um, it was, it was a blessing for us because as far as our friends and family, It's still kind of a mixed bag as far as, you know, their thoughts on our journey.

1:53:29Jade Warshaw:So we committed to it. It was amazing for TJ to be working in an environment where we got that support. So it ultimately was such a blessing.

1:53:38Dave Ramsey:Yeah. Cool.

1:53:39Jade Warshaw:Very cool. Any setbacks on the way? Right after we got out of it. I had some health stuff that came up. So we got debt free and then we were able to cash flow 10K in medical expenses. and now we're tackling on taxes. But we were able to cash flow it all. Car repairs and all that, we were able to cash flow it as we went.

1:54:02Dave Ramsey:It's about time to celebrate with some of it. Oh, my gosh. That's enough. Enough already. So you're working on every dollar, your project manager on every dollar. The journey and now the freedom has to affect how you look at all those projects.

1:54:19Jade Warshaw:Yeah. Just. I mean, you're not agnostic anymore. You're in it. You're able to just focus. It's being able to say, okay, I'm a product of this. I believed in it. It makes it that much more motivating to be able to come in every single day, come into work, knowing that I made a difference not only for myself, but for everyone outside of these walls, which I know we preach very dearly here. It's truly inspiring. It's just so nice to be a part of it, something that you believe in, and you're able to say, I'm affecting this. I'm changing this. I'm trying to make this better. I'm trying to make it easier to work the Ramsey plan.

1:54:54Dave Ramsey:Yeah.

1:54:55Jade Warshaw:And that's all the motivation you need.

1:54:57Dave Ramsey:Amen. Amen. I'm proud of y 'all.

1:54:59Jade Warshaw:Yeah, excellent job. Well done.

1:55:00Dave Ramsey:And the teams out here gathered and none of them are working. They're all here to cheer you on. And this is great. I'm glad they're here to cheer you on. It's very, very cool. Congratulations, you two.

1:55:10Jade Warshaw:Thank you.

1:55:10Dave Ramsey:Very well done. All right. We don't ask when our team members are on, we don't ask their household income because all their friends are standing around and that's not fair. But they did pay off$165 ,000 in 15 months. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one.

1:55:32Jade Warshaw:We're debt-free!

1:55:40Dave Ramsey:This is how you do it, ladies and gentlemen.

1:55:43Jade Warshaw:Love it.

1:55:44Dave Ramsey:Man. You know, I can't imagine coming to work in a place like this right after I got married. The place I went to work right after I got married was bad.

1:55:56Jade Warshaw:I mean, lucky for them, it's great because now you're submerged by everything you need to get off on the right foot financially. Yeah.

1:56:03Dave Ramsey:Yeah. I mean, it's like you don't have a choice around here. I mean, well, you're on stage this morning, staff meeting doing Walk the Talk. Oh, yeah. We have a whole system here where we're not being hypocrites. The people that work here need to be doing the stuff we teach. You know, hello. 100%.

1:56:17Jade Warshaw:100%.

1:56:17Dave Ramsey:The non-hypocrite system. Walk the talk, right?

1:56:20Jade Warshaw:On your honor. That's right. The honor system.

1:56:22Dave Ramsey:Yeah, and these guys, they did it. I'm so proud of them. $165 ,000. They were smoking it.

1:56:28Jade Warshaw:15 months? Man, let's get it done.

1:56:31Dave Ramsey:Get her done.

1:56:42Thank you.

1:57:04Jade Warshaw:Hey, good folks. Dr. John Deloney here. Don't you think life is too short to hate Mondays? Listen, you're worth loving the work you do and where you do it. So guess what? Ramsey Solutions is hiring. If you're ready to join an amazing team that's all about changing lives and spreading hope, we want to see your application. Right now, we're hiring for technology, sales, marketing, writing, copy editing, and creative roles. Check out all our job postings at RamseySolutions.com slash careers. That's RamseySolutions.com.

1:57:47Dave Ramsey:Our scripture of the day is 1 Corinthians 15, 58. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. Thomas Sowell said, There are people who go through the motions and people who get the job done. It's amazing how much work you can accomplish just by hiring the latter and firing the former. Amen. Charlie is with us in Cleveland, Ohio. Hey, Charlie, how are you? Better than I deserve. How are you, Dave? Just the same. What's up? Yeah, so my wife and I, we have two young kids, and this month we just got debt-free, so we pay off the mortgage.

1:58:41Dave Ramsey:Wow. Good for you.

1:58:42Jade Warshaw:Way to go.

1:58:43Dave Ramsey:Thank you.

1:58:44Jade Warshaw:Thank you. So the question is, so I have a pretty good job. My wife, she stays home. My dad, he is in his 70s. He's still working. partly because maybe a series of poor financial decisions. So he cannot retire because he has to continue to financially support other family members, adult family members in the family overseas. And so I'm a bit torn because I don't have any that I can help, but I also don't want to continue to encourage bad behaviors. So I'm kind of torn apart in seeking some advice here.

1:59:30Dave Ramsey:So what do you make? $600 ,000. Wow, good for you. And what is it you're being torn about? What is it you're being asked to do or that you're doing? I want my dad to be able to enjoy retirement life. Yeah, but he chose to give all his money to somebody overseas. Well, he lives overseas, so he doesn't live here in the States. Yeah, we are immigrants. Okay. From which country? Korea. Okay. All right. And so he lives overseas, and he's 70 years old, and he has the money to support himself, but he doesn't because he gives it to other family members. Correct. Okay. All right.

2:00:14Jade Warshaw:What's the situation with the other family members? Are they ill? Are they unable to work? Can he stop doing that today, or is the damage completely done? well i say it's a multi-fold right so you know some of the family member he support them uh just to help them with their lifestyle choices and some of the family members they chose uh not to work uh because uh you know some of the the poor choices they made in the past so that makes them makes it very difficult for them to find jobs so basically my dad has been paying for everything, you know, for as long as I know.

2:00:54Dave Ramsey:What would happen if he couldn't?

2:00:57Jade Warshaw:That's the big question. So we don't know. So do you give your dad money? Huh?

2:01:06Dave Ramsey:Are you being asked to give your father money so that he can work and give them money?

2:01:11Jade Warshaw:He makes good money, but I'm worried he probably doesn't have enough say for his own time. Give us an equivalent in U.S. dollars of what he makes over there.

2:01:23Dave Ramsey:Oh, he makes$250 ,000. And he's 70 years old. $2 ,300 ,000. Okay, so let me stop. What's the problem? The problem is he gives all of his money away, and he's going to retire with nothing and ask you to help him. Is that the problem?

2:01:41Jade Warshaw:the problem is you know i don't know if that's gonna make the problem worse because i'm i'm worried that if i give him the the money the money just go to other family members no i wouldn't give

2:01:52Dave Ramsey:him anything i'm just asking you today you're not giving him anything so there's not a problem other than you're observing that in the future there's getting ready to be something happening right correct i'm anticipating yeah that that's what i'm trying to figure out okay all right so what you're anticipating is is that he's going to run out of the ability to work and not have any money because he's given all of his away yes yeah at that point you can decide how much you want to help him i mean and you you'll have the money too you make 600 000 but we're not going to help him to the tune that he has enough to help everybody else only to the tune that he has enough to help himself.

2:02:31Dave Ramsey:I'm guessing, because I'm a redneck hillbilly and I don't know these things, but I'm guessing that part of this might be cultural. It is very cultural. Yeah. Because, I mean, in the Latino world, for instance, It's very normal to have more of a family obligation to support parents than we would have in a typical gringo culture, right? My hillbilly culture, you know, you're not required to do that. Puritan ethics, so to speak, you're not required to do that, right? But in an Asian culture where you're talking about or the Latino culture, it's more normalized to be asked to, expected to, and you've grown up with it your whole life.

2:03:20Dave Ramsey:It's integrated into your DNA that this is how things are done. Is that correct?

2:03:27Jade Warshaw:Yeah, that's 100 % correct.

2:03:29Dave Ramsey:Yeah, and I'm thinking that may lend itself to why he's giving all of his money away as well, even though someone in my seat would look at that and go, why are you doing that? And the answer is it's a cultural difference to do that. It doesn't make it smart. It doesn't make it dumb. It's just an explanation, right? So mathematically, we can all agree it's dumb, but there's a reason that he's doing it. It's not just straight-up irresponsibility, although it is intertwined into this cultural icon. So, yeah, I think I'd talk to him about it if he'll listen, but I bet he doesn't. and just say, Dad, you need to be aware that when you are broke, I will be helping you only with food and shelter, not with enough for you to further on your giving of these other people.

2:04:18Dave Ramsey:So these other people, when you run out of gas and aren't able to work, are going to be on their own. And they should know that now because I'm not going to be held to this standard. I think it's okay to go ahead and communicate that, But I don't think it's going to change what's going to occur. What's going to occur is what you expect. I think that's exactly what's going to happen. Do you, Jade?

2:04:42Jade Warshaw:I do. I think he's 70 years old and he's been making this decision for a long time. And it would be a miracle if he stopped today.

2:04:49Dave Ramsey:And he's old school within that culture.

2:04:52Jade Warshaw:Yes.

2:04:53Dave Ramsey:And he's duty bound.

2:04:54Jade Warshaw:Yep. Yep.

2:04:55Dave Ramsey:And going to follow through on his duty to take care of them, no matter how irresponsible or bad decisions they've been making. He's going to do it anyway. I think, aren't you, Charlie? You agree with that? I agree. I agree 100%. I tried to have a conversation 10 years ago.

2:05:11Jade Warshaw:Didn't really go anywhere. So I decided to focus on my own and try to get that free and protect the family. The hard part for you, Charlie, is going to be to hold that boundary when the time comes because you're likely going to feel guilty and all these other things. But it wasn't your – you didn't make the choice, right? he did and that's the thing that you'll have to remind yourself of many many times and you'll be

2:05:35Dave Ramsey:able to help him to a reasonable degree absolutely but not an unreasonable degree and the and it's not going to be it's not going to make everybody happy no one in the end of the story is going to be thrilled with the outcome but you great news is you make a huge income and you're going to be in a wonderful position financially and if you want to reach over and do a you know help somebody a little bit every month you can do that and you won't even notice mathematically and so that's the thing. So not accounting for cultural differences and you have to account for that. So it's not fair to say that, but you just, folks, you need to plan to not be a burden on your children.

2:06:15Jade Warshaw:Yeah, you do. And you're, you said it exactly right. You know, it might be a reason for a behavior, but it doesn't make it right or good.

2:06:22Dave Ramsey:That's true.

2:06:23Jade Warshaw:And the same way that Charlie was able to look at that and go, that doesn't make sense.

2:06:27Dave Ramsey:Yeah. Yeah. And he comes, He comes right straight out of that. So, yeah, you just got to go, no.

2:06:34Jade Warshaw:Yeah, you can't.

2:06:36Dave Ramsey:Don't park your brain at the door. We're not going to participate in that. It doesn't make sense. Yep, I agree. And I've learned a better way.

2:06:42Jade Warshaw:Yes.

2:06:42Dave Ramsey:And that can happen. You could learn that. I could learn that from his culture. You could learn that from my culture. It doesn't matter. You could learn a better way.

2:06:48Jade Warshaw:That's right. But the hard part is he's going to have to do that at the expense of hurt feelings and family meals and all that stuff is going to be very different. When you draw boundaries like that, people don't like it, and they push up against them and all that stuff. So count on it. Good luck to you.

2:07:05Dave Ramsey:That puts us out of the Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.

2:07:29Happy立刻! Thank you very much. Join us on social media. meio & כן, particularly. Make sure to share that video. And as we look forward to getting yourself really free and snap myódically and and treating me with the indexemi Gaia. Welcome to short contenance episode for www.physhltc.at.pat