Don't Wait For Motivation - Take Action

Doing nothing with your Medicare plan could cost you hundreds or even thousands next year. Chapter can help you avoid that. Go to AskChapter.org slash Ramsey. Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Normal is broke and common sense is weird. So we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network and the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio, this is The Ramsey Show. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author and host of The Dr. John Deloney Show. Dr. John is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Christine is in Kansas City. Hi, Christine. How are you? Hi, Dave. First of all, I just wanted to say it's been 11 years since I went through FPU. And I would not be in this position asking you this question had it not been for that. So thank you. Oh, thank you. I'm glad you worked it. Good for you. Proud of you. Yeah. And thanks. Yeah. So my husband and I are in our early and mid-30s. We just had a baby and we are on baby step seven. And based on our situation, I'm wanting to know if it's okay for me to be able to stay home and raise our son. Because speaking to our financial advisor, he originally said we had a 2% chance of success. So I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not a bad thing, but I'm not sure if it's a good thing or not a bad thing. So I'm not sure if it's a good thing or not a bad thing, but I'm not sure if it's a good thing or not a bad thing. For someone who has no mortgage and, you know, like, so what do you make and what does your husband make? Well, combined total, we're at 227K. 60% of that is from me and 40% of that is from him. But half of his is taxable or is taxable and the other half is a medical retirement pension. So that's tax-free. So that's tax-free. So that's tax-free. So, yeah. So he makes almost 100 and you make 100 and a quarter? He's a little bit less. I'm a little bit more, but yes. Okay. What does success mean? What did your advisor say you were going to fail at? Well, originally he said that we were going to run out of money by the age of 69. And by the time I turned 69 and I'm an engineer and I was looking at that and I was like, that doesn't even make any sense from a money standpoint. But I just wanted to make sure that, like, if I do take a step back from this, that it's not going to be something that I'm going to regret long-term. Okay. What do you do for a living? So, I'm an engineer. Oh, you said that. I'm sorry. Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, I don't like your financial advisor very much. I don't like your relationship with them. You need a new one of those. Because those guys get confused sometimes and you have to explain to them, you work for me, dude. Mm-hmm. Not the other way around. It's like some of these lawyers, they think I work for them. They're confused. I wonder if he's doing the math on you're not going to contribute as much to his wealth. I mean, honestly, we kind of questioned that at one point. So, okay. Let's set him aside. We'll come back to him in a minute. So, the bottom line is that can you raise a child if you're 100% debt-free on $100,000 a year in Kansas City? Most likely. Mm-hmm. And that's what your husband. And by the way, you're probably not going to go to zero. You have all kinds of opportunity for side gigs and very minimal side hustles. You could probably make 50 grand. Mm-hmm. Right? But, I mean, if you want to practice it, here's a way to practice it, to test the emotions of it. 100% run your household on his income for three months and put all of yours in the bank and act like you didn't make any money. And then you can say, oh, yeah, we can do this. Lay out your every dollar budget with only his income. Yeah, and I did run that. No, I didn't run it. Did you live it? Oh. Well, I mean, not. I'm trying to technically because I had the baby, but I've been on disability leave. And so, it's kind of been, you know, a little bit different situation. Yeah, you had income coming in. Do you want to? Yeah. Do you want to? Do you want to quit your job? Yeah. I mean, I've been an engineer for over a decade. Not what I'm asking. Not what I'm asking. If I'm being honest, yes. Okay. So, don't, don't, don't blame the kid. Yeah. And so, when you ask the question, how do I make a decision now that I won't regret later? No one can inoculate you from what happens in the future, but the path forward for you is to say out loud, I would rather stay at home with this baby than go back and build someone else a building. And then you're taking ownership of what you do next. And then you and your husband will figure out the money and the spending and all that kind of stuff. But that starts from a place of ownership, not from a place of the guilt factory that every new mother in the United States goes through, which is I have to do X, Y, or Z because they say or because she says or because he said. You get to decide, I want to stay at home with this baby. And then you and your husband will figure out the rest of that stuff. Y'all have set yourself. Baby Step 7 is so you can do whatever you want. Now, how old are you guys again? Early in the 30s. And what does your husband do? He works as a civilian for a police department. Okay. All right. So, here would be what I would tell you to do. If you can do it, how old is the baby right now? Four months old. Okay. So, you're back to work now? No, I've been on disability leave. Okay, why are you on disability for pregnancy? No, I had a difficult delivery. Okay, how much longer will you be out? Well, technically, I just got cleared yesterday on disability, but I haven't even used my maternity leave yet. So, how much longer will you be out? I mean, I technically have a month more of maternity leave. So, you could take a month, you could take a month and not count your disability and only count his income and live on it for one month. And do it with every dollar and get comfortable with this idea, right? Yes. Okay. Well, and another question I was going to ask on top of that was, because when I did run the budget and everything, I'm a very Excel, Microsoft Excel crazy. But I ran the budget and like we don't quite, I know, I know all the baby steps backwards and forwards and we don't quite hit the 15% mark with that. But the thought was because of what we currently have in retirement. No, I don't have that. I thought I'm going to put 15% in retirement and I'm going to live on his, of his income and I'm going to live on his income. Okay. That makes it work. That makes it work. I'm not going to cut back on that. But the other thing we can add to that is, again, you can do, you need to keep your certifications up anyway. So, I want you doing some, a little bit of side hustles over a year and you'll make 30 or 40 grand doing that and loosen this thing up. But if you want to run a test and say on every dollar, we're going to live on this. I'm not counting my disability and we're going to take 15% of his income out approximately $15,000 out of the equation per year and we're going to live on that. I think you can do that. And how much have you already got in your nest egg? Um, 485 K. Okay. And so in seven years, that'll be a million dollars and you will be putting money, 15% of your husband's income away. And if you get a side hustle, some of that away as well, and maybe someday when the kid goes back to work, you may want to go to school. You may want to go back to work because engineers make a lot of money and it's, you know, it's wonderful if you can't, but you don't have to, to have a 2% chance of succeeding. If you add nothing to retirement, you're going to be millionaires before you're 40. Well, and we, with our house paid off, we're, oh, you already are. You already are. Okay. So you're going to, but you're gonna have another, another half million dollars in your retirement. If it'll double, if you don't add anything to it, but if you're steadily adding to it and you're living on your husband's income, you're supplementing with a little bit of side. You guys are going to be multimillionaires and you need to change financial advisors because I don't like anybody gives me a 2% chance of success when I've got my house paid off and I'm a millionaire and I'm 30 years old and you're not, and you're giving me advice. So yeah, you need, even if it's a smart pro one of ours, go get a different one that, that the arrogance of that pisses me off. So yeah, if you're living like no one else with your money, you're probably being smart with your entertainment choices too. And the truth is finding entertainment that's high quality and aligns with your values is not easy. That's where angel comes in. They make movies that check all the boxes, values driven quality. And as I'll get to in a minute affordable. And it's why I'm excited to see angels latest movie. Angel and the bad man in theaters. Now it's a classic Western with a big name cast. You got Tommy Lee Jones, Zachary Levi, Neil McDonough, and it's all about redemption, love, and second chances values. The world needs more of. And speaking of value, when you become a premium member of the angel guild, you'll get two free tickets to see angel and the bad man in theaters. 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I mean, I've been married since dinosaurs roamed the earth. And I love it. I love this book. And, I mean, it's like 45 years now, you know. And it is absolutely incredible, guys. So the idea that, you know, I don't want to get married because marriage is hard. Let me just tell you, not being married is harder. Marriage is hard. But I have to make my own sandwiches if I'm not married. Hello. So, no, not being married is harder. I have to make my own sandwiches and I am married. I know. I'm kidding. She pointed towards the kitchen the other day and I'm like, what's in there? It's an odd place. It's an odd place you have over there. We address that in the book, everybody. Listen, in 45 years, Dave and Sharon have had some serious arguments and some serious rough patches. No question. But the idea that it's broken because it's hard is false, right? Absolutely. And that's what you address in here so beautifully. Yeah. And it's everything from new ways to communicate, new ways to do conflict, sex, money, being married with kids. Just everything I know about. Everything I know about marriage is in that book. There we go. And a bunch of research went into that. Yeah. And you said something important. And, Dave, I have to say this. You brought this to me as a former nerd, as an academic. The goal of that world was to here's a bunch of ideas. And you've pushed me over the years to say, okay, but what do I do with those ideas? And so this book is me sitting at your kitchen table with you, hopefully with you and your spouse, saying here's the next right move for y'all. And, yeah, I'm proud of it, man. Practical Tools to Reconnect and Build a Stronger Marriage. You preorder for $24.99 right now. You'll get the book when it comes out in early January. You'll get the enhanced audio book. You'll get early access to the e-book two weeks early. And instantly we will send you a video of Dr. John Deloney on connected communication from the Marriage and Money event, the weekend-long event that we do here at Ramsey Campus with him and Rachel, which is coming up next week. Next weekend, yeah. Yeah. All right. So building the marriage you want. Check it out, boys. And, girls, you're going to love it. Sam's in South Bend, Indiana. Hey, Sam, what's up? Hi. Thanks for having me, Dave. I really appreciate it. Sure. How can we help? So I'm trying to get out of debt right now. I have paid off about $20,000 in the past six months. Good. Since I called, and you guys gave me some advice. Thank you. And I kind of have an interesting prospect right now. I have a family member that is trying to sell a house. His brother passed away, unfortunately, and he's got a place. It's only worth, well, not worth, but they're only selling it for $50,000. And I'm kind of almost interested and tempted to try to see if I can sell my house and downgrade to move into it. Oh. And I just want to know how much sense that makes. For what reason? Just realistically, I think. My wife and I just got a little bit too giddy at the beginning of our relationship and just jumped into a house that was a little bit more than we could afford. How much is the house that you're living in worth? Right now, about $240,000 to $245,000. Okay. What's your household income? About $60,000 a year. Okay. And the house that we're talking about buying, the price would be what? The price is $50,000. It needs just a teeny bit of work. I mean, it's livable as is, but it would need just a few grand to really bring it up to just where I would like it to be, I guess. And what's it worth? You know, it's a little bit hard to say necessarily what all it's worth. Somebody appraised it. It worked $90,000. But there's a few nuances to that that, I mean, the family member can help. How long have you been married? Four years. And how much other debt do you have left after you paid off $20,000? $45,000. How much equity do you have in your home? How much do you owe on that $240,000 house? So I owe about $189,000 right now. So you can almost pay cash for this. Or you could be debt-free and get a small mortgage and a little bit of money to fix it up with, right? That's what you should do. Yeah, you pay off all your debts and you keep a little cash and you use the cash to fix it up and you get a little mortgage at the credit union is all you're going to get. It's not even a real mortgage. It's just a little bank loan. Has she been in this house? Yeah, I'm just thinking your wife is not on board with this. This is like, because guys will live in a tent. And women actually want like a house. This sounds like a tent. And I know that it does. I was so surprised. I mean, it's been sitting for probably about a year and it's her great uncle. It was his cousin that was in it and he was trying to help him fix it up. Unfortunately, he ran into some health problems. And like I said, he passed away. Is it in the middle of nowhere, like out in the middle of a field somewhere? It is a little bit out of town, kind of in a little bit of an obscure area. But it's not. Okay. Is your wife on board with this? Or is she rolling her eyes when she walks away from you? You know what? Actually, she was the one that brought up the idea in the first place. Because she's been kind of on me about the fact that we're kind of house poor. And we've been really having to cut into the budget so much just to even try to pay off this debt. So she was the one that approached me with the idea once she was the one that saw the house. She brought me to see it. Okay. If you do it. If you do it, you have to promise that 18 months later, the house is in spectacular condition. Oh, yeah. That's really the goal. Not just livable. Spectacular. Yeah. I want to come up in front of it, and I want to go, oh, I wish it was an Airbnb so I could rent this cute little house. Yeah. That would definitely be the goal. And then you're probably going to sell it. So go ahead and make sure it's spectacular. Because I don't think. You're going to live there for very long. Yeah. No, my plan would be to try to move away from the area that I'm in within the next six or seven years. I want to try to do it before the kids get a little too old and into their school system and everything. I'd like to try to just, you know, change things up. How many kids do you have? I have one and I have one that's on the way within the next probably eight weeks. And how many square foot is this tent? It's 1100 square feet, which is about the same size as my house now. Okay. All right. The thing I don't want you to do is I don't want you to do it and get stuck in the rehab and the rehab is in perpetuation. It goes on forever and everybody lives with sawdust in their pants forever. Okay. And that's what happens to people in these things. The second thing I don't want you to do is I don't want you to treat this like you have to keep it for 10 years. This might be a step back for a five year move to allow you to leap forward later. And that's what your wife is saying by house poor. But if you make this a permanent decision, it's probably a bad decision. If you can say it's a temporary move, we can go in there, fix it up, clean it up, we're going to live there for four or five years and we're going to dump this thing and move back up in property for we get our feet on the ground and financially and get rid of this debt. That's okay. But this sounds it sounds like a dramatic move down, and I don't think you guys have processed emotionally how much of a move down it is. So, you know, you just be careful with that one. Yeah. And it just when me and my wife did something very silly. Similar. And we sold our house and moved on to a into a campus dorm apartment. It just took a lot of us making sure we're on the same page regularly. We'd increase the amount of time we're talking and make sure we're on the same page. And it generally means the same page. And this is a it's a process we're moving through. It's for it's for a purpose. It's not it's not. Yeah, we can camp for a little while, but we got to get rid of the tent. Yes. And by doing that, these other things have to be true. We the money we save has got to go towards the debt. The money we save. It has to go towards savings goals or whatever. But it was all very intentional. We're going to make this sacrifice so that right. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Just you have this idea that we're going to be there 10 years emotionally changes the decision for me. I wouldn't do it if I was the case. Thank you. okay george we hear from so many people that are trying to live out the ramsey plan right they're getting out of debt and everything but the hard thing is there's not many banks out there that actually support the way we teach people to handle money yeah most banks they don't want you to win with money so they charge a bunch of nuisance fees there's all this fine print and worst of all they are pushing debt products at you non-stop yes but the good thing is is that fairwinds isn't like most banks they're not like the other guys they're not like the other guys yeah they are not pushing debt and they actually want you to win with the baby steps and so what's great too is they created the smart bundle for ramsey fans which includes a high yield savings account and no monthly fee checking which is huge because it's rare to have a checking account tied to a high yield savings account you can get all that with fairwinds and for the nerds out there you can have a 10 different high yield savings accounts for different goals so you got your emergency fund the car upgrade fund the vacation fund the world is your oyster so beautiful and check out the debit card the new one the live like no one else debit card it's so beautiful we that's a conversation starter it's so good well and when you swipe or you tap you know every time you take it out of your wallet you're remembering that you are living like no one else and you're being intentional with your money i've been using fairwinds for months and months now i love their features the app the customer service it is all so good and so aligned with the ramsey principles absolutely so y'all we both bank at fairwinds and we love their commitment to ramsey values so check it out you can get that smart bundle we're going to drop a link in the description or you can go to fairwinds.org slash ramsey today that's right that's fairwinds.org slash ramsey insured by the ncua sarah is in syracuse new york hey sarah what's up in your world hey how are you thank you so much for taking my call i really love you two are my favorites well thank you we're our favorites too we'll tell the rest of them you said that what's up um so i have a couple questions so we are in baby step three and we have just kind of lost motivation like we paid off a car and a truck and we paid off a personal loan and a couple credit cards and now we're like maybe a third of the way through baby step three and we just can't figure out where all our money is going um my husband is a retired medically retired um army veteran he now works for the state of new york uh corrections and i'm a part-time remote therapist but you were all you were all of that when you paid off all these debts right yes and i just don't know what's happening we so tell me about getting fired up to get out of debt um well we have a special needs daughter um we just wanted a better life for her and we wanted a better life for ourselves and we wanted a better future for our kids and how does that not translate to finishing the emergency fund and then starting to build wealth i don't know that's that's kind of why i called i just we we like over our budget like i write down everything dave i've been how long did you how long did it take you to get out of debt i think we started maybe with baby step two i don't know two and a half years ago and then we're you know gung-ho and like i said we had um you know an ultima that we paid off i paid off our tundra i just so what was the total debt you paid off in two and a half years um probably like around sixty thousand okay so you're paying off about thirty grand a year about um two thousand bucks a month give or take twenty five hundred a month right yeah absolutely and what's the uh what how much is in your emergency fund now your baby step three so far uh about five thousand and how much is the target uh like fifteen okay all right so you need ten grand and you've averaged two thousand dollars a month so you should be there in five months or four months right yep yep and we've been at it for like that so so why if you lay out your budget and you have twenty five you've paid all your bills and you have twenty five hundred dollars going into uh savings you don't really have an option once you lay it out and you say that's our goal you don't lose steam you're telling yourself what you're going to do because most people i mean like if you if you lose a bunch of weight from going to the gym um they don't suddenly start liking going to the gym they just keep going because it's working yeah what would you tell a client that calls you and says i'm looking for motivation somewhere where would you tell them to find it i mean i would probably ask them you know what's behind that but i don't know and like that's why i appreciate john you being on like i don't so i just feel so stuck so here's i'll tell you uh i i think you're turning an action problem into a cognitive problem okay and that's that's me talking nerd speak to a fellow nerd okay right yeah i i i think the motivation you're looking for you're probably exhausted you're probably tired you're both working your husband's got a stressful job you've got a stressful job and you got a toddler and your special needs yeah special needs like you got a lot going on you're tired what i'm not going to do is negotiate with myself and so many mornings i wake up and in no way am i motivated to go lift weights i know though that that helps me feel better and so motivation is something that happens after i start making commitment to keep promises to myself and i go do that thing over and over over quite regardless of how i feel and then i start feeling great and then the motivation is there okay so when you finish baby step three you will move from intense to intentional you will relax a little bit on your budget and start putting 15 of your income away into retirement at that point right right and you'll be able to quote go out to eat maybe start saving for a vacation doing some things you haven't been able to do while you were getting out of debt is that correct yeah okay so the finish line is four to five months away to be able to take your foot off the gas so you have run nine miles of a 13 mile half marathon finish you're so close shut up and finish quit thinking suck it up buttercup thinking and do it finish you got this you can do this and knock it out just put it on the refrigerator five months put a little thermometer up there whatever the flip you need to do where you can walk in there and look at it or a little little links of paper that you can tear that's what i did if you're yeah i mean whatever whatever version of first grade you want to channel but get it out there and you know and lean into it and go we're busting this we're busting this we're stepping up on the scales the weight is coming off we're stepping up on the scales we're gonna finish this because this is what adults do and so it's not a feeling and it's not a motivation it's an action it's an action and you just say it's a discipline and you just say the two of us okay second breath we're turning the corner we got three miles left in this 13 mile run finish the race you'll see that you'll turn the corner in two months and you'll see the yellow tape you'll be almost there so but and if you just write it down like that and go this is how we're going to get there and then lay it out and force yourself to do it it's not a feeling and to john's point you are you have done so good but you are running probably largely on a little bit of a high knocking off those debts and a little bit of fear that i'm got to get ready i got to be ready because i got a special needs kid and i got to be ready to take care of them you said that was your motivation it's a noble motivation and that stuff's probably your tank's gotten low and now you're going to have to as an act of your intellect force your will to say regardless of my uh emotional frustrations my emotional tank being empty i'm i'm so close i'm not going to quit this race i'm going to push through and it's just suck it up buttercup that's what it is we all have to do it the with each other to ourselves and you can do that but you're right it's not a it's it's not been it's quit being fun it's quit being exciting because it's not exciting it's not novel anymore the debt's all gone and now we're just trying to save money and it's not as you know but you're just that close so you need to lay it out in a very incremental very concrete way this is how close i am and then i'm next month i'm going to be that much closer and then the next month and then you know what are we at christmas you know june or i'm sorry january february you're done you're done then then you see the guys that the men and women across the finish line and they're rolling around on the floor and people are pouring ice down like that's you but you're you're so close but it's not time to roll around yet right run through the finish line here you're so so close yeah so close yeah you're now running on um not excitement it's the grind you're running on an intellectual decision it's it's now an act of your will it's a grind yeah and i man that's a that's a big deal because people that can finish things in a culture that has the attention span of a gnat people that can finish things are they they they create a life that is so much head and shoulders above the average person's life can i tell you what i what i've done i haven't talked about this very very publicly um i found myself exhausted i've had i've been running hard the last year or two and i found myself starting to get into a pity party oh yeah so uh 104 days ago i decided i'm gonna run one mile every day no matter what period and for me that's not a lot that's not hard it's not a hard physical challenge but it is when you do it every stinking day the number of 1 a.m runs i had to do because i drove 17 hours i i didn't realize i planned a hunting trip with my son the last three nights were in the middle of a field in nowhere west texas getting these last couple miles in to not break the streak but it's not break the streak but it became all about will you finish this thing like the the actual jogging a mile is not hard running a mile is not hard can you do a hard thing can you keep a promise to yourself and i i i'm telling you it sounds crazy i i feel like i'm six inches taller like oh i can do i can do something for a long time yeah the pity party stopped the woe is me stopped like i can do it let's go get it done then right and i made this promise i'm gonna go do it so something as silly as run a mile every month i mean every day for for 100 days three months and what i what i bet is if they sit down with zero payments in the world and say i'm not doing this for four months let's do it in three i'm gonna take a few more clients i'm gonna be a little bit more tired yep and then come january one we're just gonna make snow angels out in the middle of the yard we're gonna be done i want to get done faster because i want to get to the finish that's it that's it man that's a good question sarah i love it that's a human problem when you're facing this because personal finance ladies and gentlemen is 80 behavior it's only 20 head knowledge so what she's doing there is addressing the person in her mirror which is necessary for you to do if you don't want to be broke your whole freaking life don't wait for me to do it i'm gonna do it i'm gonna do it i'm gonna do it i'm gonna do it i'm gonna do it i'm gonna do it i'm gonna do it i'm gonna do it i'm gonna do it for motivation just take action if you've ever been really sick or been the caregiver of someone who's been really sick for you know how broken the health care system can be man nothing is easy finding the right doctor sitting on hold for hours or gosh trying to understand co-pays and treatment plans and weird medical terms 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older and remember advocates do not provide medical or legal advice lisa's in birmingham hi lisa how are you i'm good how are you thank y'all so much for taking my call sure what's up well uh my question is about converting a traditional ira to roth and how aggressive my husband and i should be about doing that and i'm just curious what you would recommend okay how old are you i'm 54 and my husband is 61 okay and how much is in the traditional 2.8 way to go you guys are awesome so proud of you and by 2.8 you mean 2.8 million right yes and i know you put it there because that's the only way it could have been put there that's not inherited money you are amazing no it's not inherited can't be couldn't be in it couldn't be in an ira okay so um wow um how much money do you have that's non-retirement we do not have any uh non-retirement okay all right um okay here's the advantages of getting it into roth okay okay you're 54 he's 61 is that right yes okay so when you are 61 this 2.8 will be about 6 million dollars today you have to retire i'm sorry he is retired he retired almost three years ago good okay but when you if it's invested in good mutual funds it will double about every seven years or so if you don't add anything to it this will double about every three years or so if you don't add anything to it this will double about every seven years or so today you have taxes due on 2.8 million dollars seven years from now you will have taxes due on six million dollars seven years after that you will have taxes due on 12 million dollars so the advantage is it will grow from the point you convert it to grow that growth will be tax free and so instead of taxes on 12 million dollars someday you will have paid taxes now and next year and the next year by converting some of this so your tax bill is going to be substantially lower than it would be 15 years from now do you see what i'm saying yes okay that's advantage number one advantage number two is when you're 75 you have required minimum distributions rmds you are required even if you don't want the money or need the money to start pulling it out because if it's traditional because the government wants their freaking tax money and so that's 15 years for your husband 14 years not very far okay yeah and um then when you both die if you leave a traditional ira and the beneficiary is one of your kids they will have to pay income tax on that when they take it out and they're required to take it out under the biden secure act of 2.0 they're required to take it out within 10 years and they're required to take it out under the biden secure act of 2.0 they're required to take it out within 10 years and they're required to take it out under the biden secure act of 2.0 they're required to take it out within 10 years within 10 years of receiving it and by the way that they then will be taxed if you don't move it to roth on that 15 or 20 million dollars that this money has become and they're going to have to cash that out and pay taxes on it as they go along so there's a lot that's three really good reasons to move it to roth as soon as we can reasonably all right what's your household income they will also have to have to count that as earned income correct yes no no it's not earned income but it will be taxable it'll be taxable your kids if it's ira if it's a roth rmds don't apply and there's zero taxes on inheritance okay okay there's because you've already paid the taxes roth grows tax-free all right yeah now so what's your household income um 150 okay where did this money come from oh your husband's retired what was he making back then um uh he i think he was around well he worked a lot of overtime too so he was around one probably 20 to 130 okay so you cut your income in half when he retired give or take okay all right um and you don't have any money except this right right okay because here's the thing if we take some of the two points and pay out and pay taxes with it we've reduced the balance yes and it loses some of the advantages i was just talking about in the terms of the growth but you don't have anywhere else to get the money so what i'm going to do is i'm going to as much as you guys can cash flow the taxes i'm going to go ahead and start pulling that out every year and rolling portions of this to roth sit down with your financial advisor and calculate your tax advisor more than anything but i'm going to go ahead and start pulling that out every year and out of 150 how much can you guys spare to pay taxes let's just make up a number let's say i want to pay fifty thousand dollars in taxes that means i can pull two hundred thousand dollars a year i can do that for the next six years that's a million dollars i can get moved out of your cash flow without touching this nest egg then after that you're going to have to touch the nest egg to pay taxes on it in order to move it but i would i would reduce the size of the nest egg by the tax bill in order to get it moved the net effect isn't as fun because we've reduced the size of the nest egg but um so i if you had told me you had six hundred thousand in a separate brokerage account in addition to this i'd have been so excited because i would have spent that on taxes in a heartbeat yeah that's well unfortunately we don't that's okay i you got these are good problems i got three million dollars is a good problem i'm so proud of you what was your what was your career um my husband worked in maintenance okay and you do what administration you did I only work part-time. Okay. Yeah. So where's the $150,000 coming from? Is it from a pension of some sort? No, she's making $150,000. Yes, ma'am. She's still working. Yes. Oh, so that $150,000 is what you're earning? Yeah. No, no. We're drawing off the retirement. You're drawing some off of this $2.8 million? Yes. Oh, okay. All right. All right. Yeah, I'm going to run some numbers with your tax guy. I can't do it in my head here on the air, but I want to systematically move this to where in the next 10 years, five years, something like that, seven years, that this is all Roth, even if I have to reduce the size of the nest egg to pay the taxes to get it there because I don't want you guys rolling into RMDs. And if we can get it there, the faster we can get it there, the faster it's going to double every seven years tax-free, whatever's left after paying the taxes. So. I mean, if you just did it all at once, it probably costs you 700 grand, which makes me want to puke. Wow. But yeah. And so instead of 2.8, we have 2.1, but it's 100% tax-free from then on. So it's hard to stomach that. But it's one way to do it. I don't, I don't like that. I'm not suggesting that, but you know, what can I do to get this moved and sit down and talk to somebody? I'm not going to be losing my mind about it. It's not the end of the world. You've got $3 million shut up. Life's good. Okay. But it's just, it's a, it becomes a math riddle for me. And that this is my version of nerd coming out. I like to nerd out on the math and how fast I can get it moved over. I accidentally stumbled into this folks. I didn't know. I, I wish I could tell you I was that smart. All I wanted was tax-free growth, the RMD stuff and the stuff on the kids. Don't have to pay income tax on Roth when you get it in inherited IRAs. That are Ross. Um, I actually just looked up and realized that after I had moved all mine years ago, but I just love the Roth. I love the math on the Roth tax-free. So I moved everything years and years and years ago, and I've never done anything except Roth since then. Even to the point that Ramsey that I own matches my 401k and the company that I own and our matches required by law to be traditional, the underlying can be Roth, but the match has to be. And every year at the end of the year, I get to pay taxes on it because our role, my. Match where I matched myself out of traditional into Roth at the end of the year, because I, I'm not going to have anything except Roth every 12 months. That's nice of you. Yeah. It's good of me to do that for me, patting myself on the back. Thank you. That's pretty nice. I matched myself. Yes. It's quite, quite an employer benefit. One pocket to the other. I'm just saying, if you really love yourself, you could keep Washington, DC out of my pocket. I hate them. Did I mention? I hate them. Let me tell you what I get asked all the time. When should I get term life insurance? How much do I need? Is it affordable? Those are the right questions to be asking. So let's take a quick review. The fact is term life, isn't a baby step. So if anyone is dependent on your income, you need to have 10 to 12 times your income in life insurance now. And most people are surprised by how affordable term life really is. Even if you're not in perfect health, look, I understand the hesitation since most insurance companies make it more of a hassle than it needs to be. Not at Xander insurance. They're not an insurance. They're a broker that works for you. That means they'll shop and compare the top term life companies to find the most competitive options on the coverage for your family. For almost 30 years, I've recommended Xander for straight answers, competitive rates, and coverage that actually protects your family. Call 800-356-4282 or go to Xander.com for a quick and easy quote. That's Xander.com. Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the fair winds credit union studio. Dr. John Deloney Ramsey personality is my cohost today. Steven is in Richmond, Virginia. Hi, Steven. How are you? Good. Are you better than I deserve? What's up? Yes, sir. I need some advice. So currently I'm living in an apartment, um, but I have three rental properties and I'm trying to see if I should just, uh, get rid of them and take the equity out, invest all that money or keep the rental properties. Okay. Well, it's a little strange that you live in an apartment and you own rental properties. Would you agree? Uh, yeah, I've heard that. Yeah. Yeah. And how old are you? I'm going to move back up, uh, 37. Okay. Are you single? Yes, sir. Okay. Uh, that, I mean that it makes a little more sense then. Um, so, um, is there equity in these properties? Yeah, probably around total around two 50 or so. Okay. Is one of them worthy of living in? Uh, yes. I'm actually getting to move them back there, uh, shortly, probably the next couple of weeks or so. Oh, I think I will stay there and maybe, okay. So now I have a house and two rental properties. Yes, sir. Okay. All right. That's cool. What do you make a year? Uh, about one 50. Okay. And the two rental properties. That are remaining after you move into the house are, uh, property number one is worth what? Uh, around 400. And what is owed on it? Uh, two, two 40. Well, good. Okay. And property number two is worth what? About two 15. Okay. And, um, what do you owe on it? Uh, like one 75. Okay. And again, you told me, but I'm sorry. I, I, it dislodged. From my brain. About one 50. Okay. All right. Cool. So, um, are you disillusioned with being a landlord or what? Oh, well, I'm paying it. So I'm probably paying at least $300 a month in HOA fees alone. Um, so that's kind of, you know, I'm like, I could put that money elsewhere. Um, cause it seems like, well, it's just throwing down the drain. Um, so, and then, you know, maintenance comes up and, you know, it's like whether it's worth it or not. You know, I just put it in the market and leave it alone and not have to worry about, you know, anything else. So. Okay. All right. Um. I'm just trying to see if it's worth it. Just keep them, keep them. I mean, I have a low interest rates on them. Um, so it's whether it's worth it or not. Um, I'm just trying to see if it's worth it. stock market okay but then the idea becomes we got to get that 240 paid off okay and we got to get your house paid off that you're living in you get those two things paid off that's a solid foundation for wealth and some of your other cash flows you can start loading up your roth iras and dumping money in the market and so on dave teach me about this how on an appreciating asset like a home how are you able to depreciate it year by year it's just the tax regulations allow it okay and so the concept is that the actual bricks and mortar structure the structure is going down in value but we all know that's not true because it's aging yeah that's the idea uh functional obsolescence is the phrase they throw around but actually you know it's it's not going down in value it's going up in value so it really is a misnomer but like for instance around the office you know we're allowed to write off some of the capital assets that we purchased to operate ramsey sure but we can write that but they become worth nothing three years that copier is not gonna be worth it's not worth anything yeah it's not worth by the time we get out of the box it's usually or if you're a plumber like your truck's gonna go down exactly because a stupid truck is going down depreciation makes sense here i just never understood it doesn't make sense on real estate not not in that and not along that logic sure yeah but um but the it was tied to the same concept that that roof is deteriorating those windows are getting old okay so you will have to replace windows you will have to place a roof yeah over time but and then if but the weird thing is not 10 000 bucks a year you get to add that to your basis exactly and start depreciating it again so yeah yeah so it's it's the logic doesn't flow but it's still the tax law okay so still there that's a that's a great question it's an interesting nerd question i like it so it is good to look back though folks it doesn't give you an excuse to go into debt and if he called me up and said i'm going to go 240 000 in debt to buy i would say don't do that but you're there now and if you want to ease out of this dump the little one and then start paying off your mortgage and then pay this rental off at making your 150 as a single guy it's not a bad portfolio while you're building up your retirement plan and good mutual funds so you'll end up with millions of dollars in mutual funds millions of dollars in real estate 20 years from now if you keep on that track and that's not a bad plan yeah it's not the end of the world it doesn't justify going in debt to do it because the debt kills it so let's go back here we're going to go into debt and i'm going to give you a little bit of a tour of what we've been talking about in the last couple of weeks i'm going to show you a little bit of what we've been talking about in the last couple of weeks and then i'm going to show you a little bit of what we've been talking about in the last couple of weeks and then i'm going to show you a little bit of what we've been talking about in the last couple of weeks and then i'm going to show you a little bit of what we've been talking about in the last couple of weeks and then i'm going to show you a little bit of what we've been talking about in the last couple of weeks and then i'm going to show you a little bit of what we've been talking about in the last couple of weeks and then i'm going to show you a little bit of what we've been talking about in the last couple of weeks and then i'm going to show you a little bit of what we've been talking about in the last couple of weeks a stranger from the internet showing up on your digital front porch because they found your address online it is so easy for creepy data brokers to get a hold of your information these days they're out there right now buying and selling your personal data without your knowledge or consent that is all trick no treat my friends and i don't know about you but when it comes to my personal data i prefer to be a ghost online and that's why i've had delete me for years they don't just remove your personal data once they keep monitoring and removing it for you just in will crush who just won't let go and although i love a game of hide and seek with my toddler i don't want to play it with my data online and that's why i appreciate that delete me sends me regular privacy reports showing me what information of mine was out there where it was found and what was removed that is real protection not just some service dressed up in a costume get 20 off any privacy protection plan from our partners that delete me for cyber security awareness month go to join delete me.com slash ramsey to get the deal or click the link in the description that's join delete me.com slash ramsey our question of the day is brought to you by ask ramsey your free ai money tool that is built 100 on ramsey answers there's no sewage in it like reddit or tiktok it's all our stuff that we answered and put in this so it's only going to spit back out what we answered and put in this what you would get if you called the show here it's free and it provides personalized money answers based on ramsey principles go to ramsey solutions.com slash ask ramsey and try the free ai ask ramsey tool it's pretty cool all right today's question comes from deloney in nashville i mean mark in arizona many of the financial experts in quotes are saying that 2026 is the best time to invest in the world and the best time to invest in the world they say they say that people over 40 with 401ks or iras are in real trouble is this a claim that has weight behind it or just unnecessary grandstanding for clicks and views as long as there have been humans there have been negative humans and there will always be negative humans somebody standing on the street corner saying the end is near the end is near chicken little get your helmet here comes the sky is falling there's a wolf there's a wolf the boy that cried wolf yeah and in the christian world it's when jesus is coming back in 1988 a book came out 88 reasons why jesus is coming back in 88 we're still waiting um yeah it's just it's the same stupid stuff um same stupid people tricks yeah it is clicks and it is because sometimes people just are negative people and they have to figure out a way that the world's coming to an end uh the only thing i can look at is data and history not feelings okay and data and history say that these experts aren't experts that they're morons that's what data and history says and some of them are motivated by something other than they actually believe this in that yeah they get clicks and views and the price of gold goes up if you believe this oh and the midterms are here so if we can trash the future and make enough people believe it we vote for the other party that's not in power or i'm i'm paid like an influencer from a hedge fund and everyone benefits if this thing actually goes on like there's so many yeah man there was there was nothing i mean so here's the thing the stock market is based on this let's talk about it all right if a share of home depot a share of stock in home depot has value based on the profit that home depot makes and based on what the plans are the strategies are for home depot to continue to grow and based on what home depot owns in terms of assets and that there's analysis that goes into those numbers that says that this portion of ownership that's what a share of stock is in home depot this one one jillionth of a percent of is worth whatever home depot is selling for today fifty eight dollars a share of apple is not based on your negative ninny experts opinion the share is based on the profit that apple makes the plans that they have to continue to raise the price on iphones and have a new version come out every 26 minutes and they have more money in retained earnings than egypt today does literally uh. so they've got a big ol pollock hash they've got a moat one of the most successful companies in history and a share of stock is a share of ownership in that there's a calculation that people that buy stock and know what the flip they're doing are doing to determine that that share of stock is worth this to predict that randomly in twenty twenty six all these people with their four oh one case that have apple and home depot and microsoft and coca-cola and mcdonald's and shiver and general motors and ford and whatever that all have shares of stock that are based on the profitability in the assets owned of that individual company the price of that stock is based on that to predict that the price of that stock is suddenly going to go in half and all those profits and assets remain exactly the same it's freaking asinine it's ridiculous that just randomly everybody's going to get up and go oh it's worth half of what all we all thought it was worth four months ago that's just mathematically asinine and that's what but that that but these people have been able to float this bull crap ever since i've been doing the show for forty years you know this stuff is not based on a feeling it's not based on well i mean it's it's been up a long time so it's gotta come down what the flip are you talking about this is not an aesop's fable it's a math equation this is not that it's not that hard and so it's based on a what's known as reality not your freaking feelings and so it's like I just I just knew that real estate would just really okay I got my real estate license in 1978 the first house I sold was for $42,500 that house sells today for $600,000 and the house is really freaking old now okay so I want to ask I want to ask uh anxious questions is that cool yeah how does you want to step into the step into the den way yeah exactly okay so what is the difference between like when an IPO comes out and that business has like it's speculation transfers over to a stock price exactly I don't know what that means well that's a projection of what the profits are going to be so when a company's going public like they're saying that we've made this much profit so far we have this EBITDA right now we have this earnings before taxes no money they've lost billions but we think we're going to earn it this one day that was the tech bubble okay I mean if you take something public that has not made a profit that's called a wild scientific guess right okay that's just a freaking wet finger in the air but the stock market is not based on that but an IPO price could be the IPO could be but I mean Facebook when it went public several years ago everybody's like are you not buying Facebook no I'm not buying Facebook I don't buy IPOs I don't buy single stocks but the Facebook was very profitable right before it went public but now we did have a whole series of dot coms in the year 2000 right year 1998 right that dot com dot com dot com and they never made a profit and they took them public Amazon was one it survived obviously but most of them are bye-bye most of them are history but that's that's the exception the stock market when you're looking at okay Nike has lost 200 billion dollars of its value okay the stock due to their political stances have they've shot themselves in the face right okay it's all over the it's all over the financial news okay and so Nike stock has gone down in value why because their sales have gone down because and their profits have gone down and they were just delisted they were in the top 100 Nike got delisted well they're not completely delisted from the stock exchange but they were in the top 100 and they're no longer in the top 100 they got thrown out of the top 100 because but the reality is the company's not making a profit okay but that's what they were making that's important there's sentiment there's anger there's politics when it comes down to it when it affected are you selling shoes that's that's the stock price yeah can you sell me a Colin Kaepernick t-shirt or not or or a new pair of Jordans or whatever but it's it's selling that's it it all comes down to this thing so where does the sentiment come in like the tech stocks are down or that sentiment is not the sentiment is not going to drive it too far down if the react let's say a company's making a bazillion freaking dollars and everybody gets mad at that company right well a couple people will bail but as that price goes down to a certain level I'm getting in because it's on sale because it's called a bargain right the thing's making money and I put money in it I get money out hello it's a machine so the stock price doesn't go down because everyone gets mad at a company the stock prices goes down because everyone gets mad at a company and people quit buying their things yeah when when their value when their profits go down and they're in their gross revenue go down and you know they lose consumer confidence and it shows up in their pocketbook that's when the price goes down gotcha so it you know you can have a drop on bad press but it doesn't stay down if your if your product is quality if the if the if the if the revenues don't follow it the reason you'd have a drop on bad press is people think the revenues are going to go down right okay but if they don't go down it'll come back up gotcha the value will come back up the value is so confusing to me man so that's why this is absolute bullcrap y'all people are going to buy when there's profit and the values hold not when your grandmother thinks the world's coming to an end because it's almost annual enrollment time and you wish you could save money on health care costs but every year it's the same story premiums go up again and yet you can't even control your choice of doctors chm is not insurance it's a health cost sharing ministry where members literally share each other's medical bills instead of paying into a big uncaring system chm programs start at just a hundred and fifteen dollars a month and they're not going to be able to pay and while insurance premiums keep climbing chm isn't raising their prices this year and you're not locked into an enrollment window either so you can sign up right now before you watch your premiums jump again y'all ramsey has trusted chm for over 15 years because their mission is simple christians helping christians cover their medical bills visit ch ministries.org budget and use promo code ramsey for 50 credit towards your first month's membership ch ministries.org budget or click the link in the description jade is in utah hi jade how are you i'm great how are you better than i deserve what's up so here's my question my husband and i chm has invested $200,000 to my sister and her boyfriend to start a countertop business about four years ago the business failed and they broke up should we seek legal action and risk damaging family relationships or is it time to move on wow where did you get the $200,000 well my husband has worked really hard um we've invested in some property in washington's state and sold it and that was our our $200,000 so what is your total net worth today oh well our our net worth um um as far as like take home and no no no do you have any money saved or anything that you own of value yeah we have our home is um it's worth about two over two million is it paid for no we owe we owe about a million okay and do you have money in investments like retirement and so forth yes we do we have about 800 okay all right so you're worth a couple million dollars give or take yeah yeah a couple million and what's your um what's your household income today um at the time we lent this money out it was a little higher than that we're at about 200k okay a year um how offended would you be if i said that loaning her two hundred thousand dollars to do this with her boyfriend was extremely stupid i'm not offended at all i it was so dumb it was it was one of the worst mistakes my husband and i have ever made okay fair enough because no bank would have lent these two bozos 200 grand well yeah that's why they came to us yeah exactly and that because they didn't know nothing about nothing and they proved it okay right so they used this to set up a company that failed right is there anything left of the company that is yours or that they offered to you or anything i mean is there like equipment that can be sold or anything yeah there um there's some equipment that is estimated we think it's around 150 oh really around 150 yes you think you could get that for it well possibly there's a saw and some other expensive equipment um however the boyfriend filed bankruptcy and right before he filed bankruptcy he put the equipment in my sister's name well that won't work there's a callback and in bankruptcy you can't just move assets out and then file bankruptcy and everybody ignore it um so the equipment's in your sister's name has she offered to deed the equipment to you no why no she well she would like to get the equipment back herself and start a new company and she's made it clear that she doesn't want us to be part of that in fact when we approached her about it um she accused us of taking advantage of the situation well hello kettle here's black calling um it sounds like it sounds like the relationship you are trying to preserve doesn't exist in real life that's true um it's true so do you do you have is anything in writing on this loan this is this is it's it's worse it gets worse um my husband wrote up a contract and her con artist ex-boyfriend talked him into sending him the money before the contract was signed um and and after the when he was sent, he said, actually, I don't agree to the term, so I'm not signing the contract. There was never a contract signed. So there is no contract. There's no contract, but there's been plenty of text messages and emails. He just sent us an email a couple months ago saying that he's planning on paying us back. Doesn't matter. He filed bankruptcy. All I want is the equipment. Mm-hmm. Okay. So when I do something stupid, and I have done dumber things than this, believe it or not, and this one's really dumb, but I've done dumber things than this, okay? Giving them the money before the contract signed, not having a good business plan, and doing this deal with your sister, all of these, and her unmarried boyfriend. Yeah, all of these things. There's like multiple red flags here. Now that we see them, and you know, the beauty about it is that it's not just a business. It's a business. It's a business. The beauty about hindsight is it's 2020, right? So it's easy to look back on this and see all the stupidity. I've done dumber. When I do something dumb and I lose money, I call it stupid tax. You are going to pay some stupid tax here. It's just a question of how much stupid tax. Now, let's take all of the emotions and the relationships out of it for a minute. Sit down with an attorney, with the text messages, and with the verbal agreements that you can prove, which is probably not much. I don't think you're going to be able to do that. I don't think you've got much of a case, and if you've got a good attorney, I think he's going to tell you to just bite it and walk on. But if there's any chance that you could sue her and get possession of the equipment and recoup 100 of your 200 by selling it at auction, I probably would do that. Okay. And it's not a matter of whether I'm trying to preserve my, or sue my sister or something. She's already made all those decisions. She's just reaping what she sowed. And so if your sister had one of those decisions, she's going to be able to do that. And so if your sister was a person of, one moniker, one little tiny percentage of, of integrity or honor, she would immediately call you and say, we screwed this whole thing up and you're my sister. And I'm so sorry. And here's a deed to the equipment. Let's sell it and get as much as four we can. And I don't know how I'm going to pay you the rest of it, but at least we can limit the damage. That's what your sister should do if she was a normal freaking human being, but she's not, she's a con artist who runs around and sleeps with other con artists. Right. And so that's the problem you've got. So now, uh, but that's what should happen. I don't in business, I don't hardly ever sue someone because usually the person that you're trying to get money from is broke and getting a judgment, spending 50,000 bucks, getting a judgment against somebody that's broke means you have a judgment against somebody that's broke. You can't get any money out of somebody that doesn't have any money. In this case, she's got a hundred thousand, $150,000 worth of equipment that you could get. So that makes it worth doing from a math standpoint. It's not a, it's not a revenge thing. And so I would talk to an attorney about at least sending her a letter and saying, if you don't turn the equipment over to us within 10 days, we're going to file suit and bluff her if nothing else into doing the right thing. I, I, I'm okay with the relationship with the loss of the relationship with my sister. It's already gone. Right. I agree. However, my mom is involved and your mom is not involved in my siblings. No, no, no, they're not. Nope. They don't get a vote. They will never talk to me again. Well then they are dysfunctional morons. Yeah. How are they taking your sister's side in this deal? I mean, what kind of idiot takes her side in this? I don't know. I'm so confused. Yeah, I am too. Yeah. I really don't know that I don't care. So if you don't hear anything else on this you're not crazy. Yeah. Your family's crazy, but you're not, you come from a long line of crazy, but you're not, I don't know how it happened. I'm perfectly sane except for that part where you loaned your sister 200 grand that part. But other than that, I think you're a normal person that got screwed by your own, by your own lack of judgment and your bad character sister. And a few things in the world hurt worse than when your family turns on you and you didn't do anything wrong. Yep. When they expect you to be the peacekeeper while somebody else in the family is actively hurting you, few things hurt worse than that. If you don't want me to sue her, send me 200K. Otherwise shut up and go to your corner. Yeah. Yeah. That's answer mom. I'll help you with this. You can play this back for your mom, send her a copy of this podcast. Mom, none of your business. Go to the corner. You raised a dysfunctional moron that stole from your other mom. Yeah. I don't want to see you taking her side. It's pretty simple. So yeah, good Lord. Yeah. I'm going to threaten her with a suit just to see if I can get some of the money or just bite it and walk away, but don't bite it and walk away because you're crazy family. Bite it and walk away because you decided you just wanted peace. If your business is making seven figures or more, you should be proud of that. But that growth probably brought a mess with it. Systems that don't talk to each other. It's impossible to track down your numbers because they're scattered everywhere. That's a visibility problem. And Net Suite has solved that problem for more than 44,000 businesses. And that's a visibility problem for businesses like yours. Net Suite brings financials, inventory, CRM, and more into one place. And their AI tool, Net Suite Next, builds AI into everything, automating busy work like forecasting demand and chasing down overdue accounts. It's not complicated to use. You just ask it questions like you're talking to a person. And you're not starting from scratch because Net Suite is built on leading practices from thousands of businesses. And you're not starting from scratch because Net Suite is preloaded and ready to go. Ramsey Solutions switched to Net Suite years ago. It helped us know our numbers. And we've never looked back. If your revenue is at least seven figures, try Net Suite Next for free at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. That's netsuite.com slash Ramsey. Or click the link in the description. And we'll see you next time. We'll see you next time. Trip over. It's like we're driving along, and there's a sign that says bridge out. And then there's another sign that says bridge out. And we speed up. And there's another sign that says bridge out. And we speed up even faster. And then there's a barricade that says bridge out. So we floor it. Right. Like there's all these signs that are there that any normal human being can read. And yet we go into the drink. We drive straight into the freaking river. There's a ton of psychology research about exactly what she was experiencing. And it could be any number of things. But there's a survivor's guilt to that. And there's a why me when my rest of my family, including my parents, are struggling, aren't doing as well. Maybe if I go make it, then I can help. That was the problem. And I can almost guarantee that that last caller has spent her whole life making sure everybody was cool. Everybody's okay. That's been her job. She got out. She got married. They built something pretty amazing. And there's that that nagging voice that that is, I can tell you that. Take care of them. I can heal them. I can solve this thing. And you end up getting yourself in deeper and deeper and deeper trouble. And I think it comes from a good place. It's hard to hold the principles when family's looking at you. It's just tough. It's tough. But all of us, whether you get out of the neighborhood, you get out. Like, there's that sense of you owe us now. Yeah. And we help make you. And so you're always in our debts. And that's a tough thing. So you have to give back as if you've taken something. Yeah, you owe. Rabbi Lambin always says, don't tell people you give back because you didn't take anything. So you're not giving back. You're just giving. I'm giving. If you want to give to the old neighborhood, that's fine. But you don't have to give back because you didn't take anything. Yeah. That's a wrong. Because it implies somehow that you've done something wrong by escaping the crazy. And the way we wallpaper over that exchange is we call it a loan or we try. to business businessify businessify the language to make our helping out folks seem more palatable if you just want to give your sister 200 grand you wouldn't do that and so you say okay well we'll loan it to you actually compounding the problem makes it worse um yeah it's tough man and i get it dude i i get it i deal with it it's tough and at the same time um so wait though it so that advice that i've always given uh fits into your scenario there exactly perfectly makes it sound like my advice was right is like never loan never family money under any circumstance never loan friends money under any circumstance if you have the money and you think they need it and you want to give it to them give it to give it away because but if you won't give it to them right then you should shouldn't be doing this because you're you're you're taking a relationship you're about to give it to them well and you're but you're adding the extra layer of business betrayal and that's why i always say the lender is the one that should be holding the bag here because i mean there is there's moral obligation to pay back your debts all that stuff but there's the the lender here at the end of the day i'm choosing to turn our family relationship our friend relationship our brother sister relationship into a business relationship into a master slave into the to the lender and it's hard to eat dinner thanksgiving dinner with your master yeah it's tough no fun the turkey tastes funny yeah so don't load your kids money never loan your kids money give you're not helping yeah you codependent enabling parents well and here's stop it but here's the thing some people think i'm gonna loan it to them i'm gonna teach them i'm gonna teach them a lesson right that's the dumbest thing i ever heard yeah here have some cocaine i'm gonna teach you a lesson god that's just dumber than crud yeah i'm gonna teach you a lesson yeah get you addicted to drugs yeah oh man so that that you're exactly right that's some of it is i run into this when we used to do i used to do all those things for the uh those i would do these uh rookie camps for the nfl and i would go and explain to these young guys you know they're making millions of dollars now for the first time in their life this is before nil they now they make millions of dollars before they even get in middle school but yeah but uh you know i'm going to explain these guys nfl stands for not for long average nfl careers 3.8 years uh 78 of you are going to leave the league permanently physically disabled your divorce rate is 10 times the national average and your bankruptcy rate by the time you're 30 is four times the national average wow you guys suck at money as a group y'all are awful and this is how i would do the seminar you know and so i sat down on the edge of the stage after we're done and this little guy sits there and he's a big star he just gotten a 10 million dollar thing and he goes so what how do i tell my mama no i'm like you're 22 years old yeah you just got 10 million dollars how much are you giving your mama so i give her 50 000 a month and she calls me by the seventh or the eighth every month wanting more how do you tell your mama no i said well someday you're not gonna have any money and it's coming pretty fast and the whole that's a big deal and then you're gonna have to tell your mama no because you ain't got no money what are you gonna do then and that that conversation's coming yeah and so you might as well go ahead and do it now and because but but but she that she's the reason i'm here that's what she tells me and no honey she ain't the reason you're here you're here because you want you you absolutely don't know how to do anything in this world except play with football you're really good at football but you suck at every other part of life or i mean maybe he is there because she drew him to practice and she worked four jobs all that's true and good but you suck at every other part of life good but you can't turn around and say now you owe me back like you as though it was an investment let's go 401k now you owe me a return like you're not a sports agent you're his mother that there you go that's a good way to put that yeah you didn't you know you didn't you didn't you didn't pay for my pads and you know when i was in high school so you expect me to be an endorser when i'm out you know that's that's that's a business deal but this is your mother you know so you know how you tell your mother no i said well you press your tongue towards the roof of your lip make a no that's how it sounds when you do it release the air push the tongue forward no and though and the weird thing is i'm going to tell you no to fifty thousand dollars a month i'd be better off i'll buy you a house now and then we're going to call it but she ain't gonna call it because there's no end to her that that's the greatest gift i could give all of us is to say no so that i've got money in 10 years or in 15 or in 20 years yeah um yeah it's tough tough and um you got you have to decide really early if you're going to do something that you're not going to do to build a quality marriage a quality situation where you build wealth who has a vote absolutely and if you don't take the people that think they have a vote out of the voting business you're going to be broke yeah whether whether it's mom on eight and 50k whether it's sister wanting 200k and mother guilt tripping because she's a travel agent for guilt trips this mom and so um you know what is who is it gets a vote and you know as for me and my house we serve the lord so jesus gets a vote and sharon gets a vote rest of y'all are screwed you don't get a vote yeah you know you're screwed unless sharon and jesus and i decide that you get a vote i mean that we're going to do something in your situation but we're not obligated and let's i'll flip this around and make it even more dark here most people i don't even think her first thought might have been i want to help my sister the the thing underneath that is i want to stop hurting and when you are hurting and the way you try to alleviate that hurt is by going around and trying to solve other people's issues it sounds awful but you're actually using them so that you feel better and if you set somebody up to fail like i'm gonna give you a $200,000 loan on a speculative business that you don't know how to do then you're actually putting them in a position to fail and you know i'm saying like so in order in order for you to feel better if you are going to do good so that you'll stop hurting so you'll stop feeling guilty go talk to somebody because that's not the reason the reason to give is because like out of a joyful spirit because you're like so excited to be a part of this thing not so that you can stop hurting not as a response to guilt yeah yeah welcome back to the ramsey show in the fair winds credit union studio kim is with us in charlotte north carolina hi kim how are you hi i'm good good what's up so my husband and i um filed a chapter 13 bankruptcy six months ago and it's for five years and so i'm wondering if we should stay in the bankruptcy for the entire time or try to come out the bankruptcy and snowball the debt wow five years seems like a long time i have two rental properties you have you have two rental properties in this yes yes okay all right let's kind of walk through it and see if there's a way out i love the idea of getting out early and being through with this which is your goal i don't want to be in this for five years now that's your goal who were you behind with that raised the level of emergency that caused you to run and file um it was a lot of credit cards a lot of loans for like after covid so i have a small business that i run as an education business um i shut down the commercial building and brought the business to my home we added an addition to the home that we live in and so um because covid and everything was shutting down like it was just a big deal we were constantly borrowing money things wasn't working everything was so the business wasn't profitable and you propped it up with that and is it profitable now it is what are you making now profit um i'm making 80k a year yes okay but when you filed this 18 months ago you said um it's only been six months you were not profitable six months ago and now you're making 80 000 a year right yeah so it's child care versus education so in the summertime i'm just like teachers so we just really didn't have any money um and so it was mainly like child care child care we've seen a decline in child care so i wasn't i only had like a couple kids i couldn't get kids we were doing everything trying to get children and so then i switched over to teaching school age children and so when school started in august the money went up what happens next summer business um well i have a year round so i still have it where i do have the children the small children as well so i still have that income on top of the school age income so i kept both are you sure that we're talking about profit and not gross revenue i was going to say what's your draw from this um so it's it's over 100 so i had to do all of my profit and loss statements and all that so at the end it came up but that's not including the rental income yeah my husband and i have a husband and he makes a lot of money and i have a husband and he makes a lot of money and i have a husband and he makes like 30. okay so you looked at your profit and loss statement you brought in a hundred and you netted 80 on 100 is that right yeah a little over 100 so it's like it varied but yes 80 because you've alleviated all of your expenses by getting rid of the commercial building yes okay now a chapter 13 has two possible things in it at least one of them are assets that are secured like a rental property and you have to pay the minimum payment on it plus something on the back payments in the bankruptcy were you behind on the rentals no everything was up to okay like no i wasn't then the other thing you have is do you have like a car payment that's in this yes so my husband has a car no i don't but is it in the chapter 13 it is okay so you were behind on it and you're now making the regular payment plus something on the amount that you were behind in the chapter 13 he wasn't yeah we wasn't behind everything was kind of up but it was just real what about your personal home credit card where everything is up to date so i live we live in the home no i know it's not up to date necessarily did you mean the the regular payment has to be paid plus something on the arrearage the back the amount you were behind you shouldn't be up to date if you've been in a bank in a chapter 13 for only six months you should still be behind on it does that make sense when we first filed yes when we first filed yes when we first filed we was we was paying the payments on time and then so the house was not behind no okay the house wasn't behind the car wasn't behind what was the what was the bankruptcy for the credit card the debt okay well and getting out of the lease on the commercial building no i had already left the building so the only thing the debt is the loans in all the credit cards so those what we were getting behind on the credit card how much debt is there um the credit card in the loans together was averaged 120k okay and the rental property rental property number one is worth what 275 000 and what do you owe on it 186 okay and rental property number two has what owed or what's it worth 320 okay and what do you owe on it 212 okay so if you sold both of those you could probably just pay off your credit card debt right and then how much sba loans do you owe the sba the the total the total of the covid loans yep so i wasn't actually like taking covid loans i was taking the sba loans like personal loans to kind of pay for the business to keep going okay so if you if i understand you're right you're current on your car you're current on your home you're current on the rental properties if you sold the rental properties you could pay off the credit card debt and dismiss the bankruptcy yes today why would you not do that today um because the one rental property is a 2.5 percent interest rate and the rent is not they pay 1950 a month in the market you're in bankruptcy i don't care what your interest rate is or your cash flow is you're in bankruptcy because you didn't pay credit cards because you didn't sell rental houses to pay off the debt that you owed yeah that's what you need to do so okay so let me hear let's talk about this for a second what if you had no payments but your house payment that'd be great you could almost be there by doing this you probably pay off his car too right if you had zero think about that think about the hassle in your life with all those credit cards flying around like a bunch of bumblebees and you poke the nest right that's what it feels like and and all these renters and all the stuff breaking at the rental house and all these people all these lawyers and lawyer fees the crap you that is spinning around in your brain all day long would be shoveled out we're cleaning out the stable it's going to be clean you're going to be able to breathe again you've been carrying around some you're juggling knives that are on fire and you've been juggling them for so long you don't even realize how wild that is all for a 2.8 percent lay the knives down and put the fire out and get your life back be out of this in about 20 minutes get call a real estate agent today sell these two properties then call the bankruptcy trustee the chapter 13 trustee and say i got good news i'm sending you a check we're going to voluntarily dismiss this because i don't know nobody nothing except my house and now we make 110 120 000 a year between me and my husband we're gonna get that house paid off so we're never back here again ever under any circumstances sounds like freedom and peace to me you've heard from me and the ramsey personalities for years but nothing beats actually getting together in person that's why we created the live like no one else cruise for seven days we're vacationing with you and 2500 ramsey people in the western caribbean with live shows up and running us new content us and more if you're on baby step four or beyond come spend the week with us next march choose your cabin at ramsey solutions.com slash events or click the link in the show notes the fastest way to get out of debt and build wealth is proven it's called the baby steps it's a process for applying the biblically based common sense that we've been teaching here for 30 or 40 years and we show you not only how to get out of debt but how to build wealth and if you're working the baby steps the fastest way to do that is by using every dollar it's more than just a budgeting app it now has the whole ramsey plan including the baby steps built right in you track your progress you get suggestions automatically from the app for your personalized situation you get coaching and personalized recommendations that fit the baby steps with fit right where you are and tell you the next thing to do and it speeds you up big time it's like having one of us walk with you every day and holding you accountable but also teaching you and lifting you start every dollar for free by downloading it in the app store or google play brandon is in springfield missouri hey brandon what's up hey uh thanks for taking my call dave appreciate you sure how can we help um well hmm my wife has incurred a lot of credit card debt um and i just found out about it um and it's bad enough that she doesn't know the extent of it she also got some personal loans um there's a lot of pay-as-you-go stuff like a firm that i found out in our banking account um and this is like the second time this has happened uh the first time it's bad enough we got a huge amount of money he locked on our home to um get things squared away the plan with that was to get the he lock make some home improvements pay that off and sell the house um i found out a couple weeks ago that it happened again um my question let me stop a second so she's handling her money by herself you're not involved no she's kind of been in charge of the finances um a few years ago i had okay so she ran the bank and she ran the bank and she ran the bank and she ran the bank and she ran up there and hit it and you got a he lock loan to pay it off and you said hey let's keep doing that why don't you keep handling the finances because you suck at it i'm sorry you said to her why don't you keep handling the finances since it's not working when you handle it why did you not jump in and help with this i i was trying to um but she was very hesitant to let me see it and i just i guess she's hiding it yeah what is she what is she buying brother i i just found out about the firm stuff yesterday what is she buying i think it's just i think it's just things off of amazon honestly what's the and you don't know she doesn't know the the total debt here that's what she keeps telling me so i she's she estimated it like i don't know she doesn't know the total debt here i don't know she doesn't know the total debt between 14 and uh 16 000 okay what do you make a year i make 16 72 twice a month okay what does she make uh 17 06 a month okay all right about 5200 yeah so you're making about 80 000 a year minus taxes okay y'all got money going into 401k - Yeah, the numbers I gave you those after taxes and everything. Yeah, how much is going into 401K? I just did an adjustment on that. I actually work for the state of Missouri. Doing what? I'm a supervisor for DPTs, death and program technicians. Okay. All right. So let's establish something very gently but very firmly. The program you guys have been using to handle money in your house is horrible. Yeah. And it's given you horrible results. And I think what has happened, I might be wrong, but I've been doing this a long time. I think your wife is attempting to meet your expectations of how this household should run with not enough money to do it. And when she goes into debt to keep the house running the way she thinks it should run and she thinks you want it run, she's ashamed of that and hides it. I don't think this woman has a boyfriend on the side. And I don't think this woman has malice at all. I think she's out of control, incompetent, and doesn't know what to do with the money. And so it makes a big mess. And then shame keeps her from telling you about it. What do you think of that? Do you think that's right? I think that's funny. Okay. So here's. Here's how we fix that. This is fairly easy. You need to go to her when you get off the phone and sit down with her and take her two hands in your hands and look her in the eye and say, I am so sorry. Because you are. You dumped this on her and she didn't know how to do it and you didn't help. And so the two of you starting today are going to unpack every single expense in this house and the two of you and the two of you starting today are going to make every decision together for the rest of your lives. She is no longer in charge of the money and you are no longer in charge of the money. We are going to have full disclosure, full transparency on every single transaction. And we are going to do these transactions together in the budgeting app, EveryDollar, every month before they happen. And you're going to help instead of just, dumping this on her and then being upset that she made a mess. You are, you should apologize to your wife for doing that to her. - I did, with when we got the HELOC and I've been trying to get her to-- - You didn't hear a thing I said. You start talking about HELOCs. - Well, no, is she freezing you out? She won't let you, she won't work with you? - She starts to, and then she plans up. - This is no longer an option. This marriage is not going to last if you two don't start working together in full transparency. Because you have, her incompetence has caused you to completely lose trust in her. And you're starting to lose trust in her integrity. And so she's got to overcome the shame and say, I'm going to accept help. And the two of us are going to do this. We're going to do this together. And that's going to give us strength. But if she can't do that, then you guys don't need to go see a marriage counselor tomorrow because you're going to end up in divorce court. If you don't, it's not going to work. And the stress and the sadness that is in your voice is killing me listening to you. I want to cry with you. And yet I'm telling you, you've still got to go in there, man up and help and say, honey, I'm sorry. I asked you to do this by yourself starting today. I can't do it. I can't do it this way anymore. I'm terrified. We are going to have to do this together. And I'm going to, we're going to unpack this. And then we may or may not go get a HELOC. You probably won't. It's only $14,000. Shut up and go pay it, you know, but you've got to get on the same plan to do that. If it's $140,000, we might have to sell the house, but it's 14,000, maybe. - And you can go to freecreditreport.com and you'll find out exactly what you both owe. - Except for the Affirm crap, which doesn't show up there. - Yeah. Disconnect stupid Amazon and disconnect Affirm. Affirm affirms, let me tell you what Affirm means. It affirms that you're stupid when you use it. That's what Affirm means. Cause you just put a t-shirt that was on three $19 payments and paid $60 for a freaking t-shirt because Affirm gave you easy payments. It's a disease on the internet is what Affirm is. - I don't know what Affirm is. - It's one of these pay as you go things. Anytime you get ready to buy a t-shirt or anything else, it's stupid on the internet. A pair of shoes, you can do three easy payments. It's called Klarna Affirm. It's all these crappy companies. They're payday lenders of t-shirts. And so it's just stupid. And so, dude, you've got to take this over with her and the two of you together handle this. She cannot do it by herself. She doesn't have the capability. - And if you lay it out, like Dave said, he had a more generous read on it than I did. But if you lay it out and she looks at you and says, no, I'm not doing this with you. I'm not telling you what I spent this money on. I'm not showing you this stuff. Then like Dave said, y'all have way bigger issues than just- - Than HELOC. - Than her spending problem. - HELOC will pay for your divorce lawyer. - HELOC will pay for your divorce. - I get it. This book is me sitting at the table with you and you and your spouse, helping you both take the next right step towards the marriage you both want. Marriage is still worth it. Order now for $24.99 and get over $100 in pre-order bonus items at ramsaysolutions.com/store. If you didn't know you can stop by and watch the show. We do it from one to four central time every day, Monday through Friday. And it's on the glass. So you can sit and watch the show, listen to the show. We're like a couple of monkeys in a cage in here. And yeah, you can watch it happen. And we've got free, wonderful coffee. And the ladies over at Baker Street, which is our coffee place and all the stuff for sale over there and all that is they make homemade chocolate chips. They ship cookies for you. And it's just, you're in mama's kitchen. You come hang out with us and watch the show. Stop by and see us. Also in the lobby where all of that's happening, we have a thing called the debt-free stage and on the debt-free stage are Ty and Blythe, which means only one thing that they are debt-free. Welcome guys. How are you? - Great, Dave. How are you? - Doing well, thank you. - Better than we deserve over here. Where do y'all live? - Panama City, Florida. - Ooh, a little hurricane action, huh? - Yes, sir. - Y'all do okay? - Yes, sir. We came through it. - Very little hurricane action. - Good. - We're grateful. - Good, that's a good thing. I like it. So how much debt have you two paid off? - So together, 110,000. - I love it. And how long did this take? - Two days. - There's a story here, okay? - And you've got a good, you've got a generous overtime program at your job. - I'm a public school principal, John. That's not true at all. - Oh, there's no overtime there? - No. - Your range of income during this two days? - Together combined, 190,000 a year. - Okay, and you're a public high school principal? - Yes, sir. - Okay, and what do you do, Ty? - I have my own handyman business and also work for the cabinet company. - Okay, excellent. Okay, so what the flip are you talking about? Two days, I don't understand. - So Dave, the story started several years ago as a single mom, and I started the program at the beginning of 2020, and I was at Baby Steps four, five, and six when I met Ty. - I see. - And so on our honeymoon in Destin, Florida, two days after we got married, we went to the bank and paid off my mortgage. - Wow. - Okay, that works for me, all right. So Ty, you did good. - I far out-kicked my coverage by all, you know. - By all measures. - We all did. - All measures, okay. So you didn't have any debt and you had some money, and when we get married, we paid off the last debt that you had, Blythe, which was the mortgage. - Yes, sir. - That's correct. - And y'all obviously live in that house. - We live in that property. - We do. - Okay, phenomenal, phenomenal. So in 2020 or sometime after that, you got introduced to Ramsey. How did that happen? - Well, I was introduced to you actually well before that. In 2010, I was married to my first husband, and I got him on board to do the plan with me, and we went as far as Baby Step two, and then he didn't want to take it any further. So I just kind of settled for the good enough. We weren't in consumer debt anymore. I was grateful for that, but at the end of 2017, he suddenly left our family, and so, It took me a couple of years to kind of get my bearings. get my feet back under me friend of mine at work loaned me the book the legacy journey and I read it it was at the end of 2019 and I was reacquainted with everything that I love about the program and I looked around and said I don't have to convince anybody anymore and I had two girls that were looking at me and I had to I had to step up and I had to I had to make things right for them so I got on the plan it really wasn't hard I had about eight grand in debt six thousand was my daughter's car two thousand and some furniture I had enough in savings to clear that and March I started baby step three three months later I topped it off got with my financial advisor and settled into a rhythm of baby steps four five and six and threw money at the mortgage as I could cash flowed everything else vacations home projects and like a poster child way to go was in that mode when Ty came along and didn't know you and I indoctrinated him pretty quickly okay all right now my next question is what do you do when you're in a situation where you're in a situation where you're in a situation where you're in a situation where you're in a situation where you're in a situation that you took your school some of the teachers or whatever through financial through smart dollar right that is correct which is our program for HR to walk the employees through like U-Haul and Costco do it and you took your school through it I did I did it at the middle school and I am currently still doing it at the high school thank you absolutely what kind of success are you seeing there well we've cleared over two hundred thousand in debt John so I'm pretty pleased with the results but um it's changing lives and I've had a chance to lead FPU through my church and through my school so um I've seen it firsthand what it does for our folks and it's been remarkable yeah what's interesting is the um when we did the study of millionaires teachers are the third most likely career to become millionaires so and then you gave them some tools to do that so that's awesome way to go principal so Ty you meet this beautiful amazing brilliant strong woman and then she says I got to tell you about this balding old man and uh the way I was talking about George and and like so what was that conversation like that you were like yeah absolutely let's pay off all this debt and let's let's run into the I already had common sense before Dave is what Ty said yeah it was already pretty quick uh you know in the process we were just dating and we hadn't even you know started doing the you know maybe marriage talk at that point and she's showing me books and uh and passing smart dollar along to me and you know and purposes i i just i've gotten by on i don't like to spend money uh and so i work hard and and put money away where i can uh and i've never liked debt um so you know this was easy principles to get behind um you know love god love my wife i just want to honor uh honor god with everything i do well well done sir well done that's incredible man okay so um yeah the the fact that you all struggled for two days to pay off this mortgage well i got a couple of buddies like you ty that are like okay wait wait what now you tell people to not borrow money and i'm like yeah and that's the whole business pretty pretty much how did you make a business doing that because everybody borrows money borrows money yeah so yeah until ty comes along i love it this is great way to go guys i'm so proud of you thank you so you've been married how long um just over march was a year okay and you don't have a single payment in the entire world not one what's the house worth about 430 okay and what do you guys got in nest eggs um we just calculated before we came including the house 1.365 right now we're literally baby steps millionaires i love it and if you didn't hear you can do it in two days if you marry right if you marry right absolutely yeah talk about get rich quick that's fun well they put one year on the application i said that's probably best i didn't want you to have me investigated before we got here the story the actual story is better than the fake one what what is what's the impact been on your daughters watching their mom get way knocked down rise up from the ashes literally by herself and because that that meant i talked to a lot of newly single parents who want to give their kids the world and will put themselves into that because there's that inner guilt that that sadness of i don't want to hurt them anymore and yet you said the greatest gift i can give my kids is to watch them watch their mom do hard things what's been the fruit of that fruit of that has been exactly what you guys teach more is caught than taught i've got a 23 year old that is killing it right now living in atlanta um she is um handling her money like a champ um and i've got a daughter still at home as a sophomore in high school and she has literally watched me do all the things that i've done in my life and she's watched me live through this and and um you know saw me go through the struggle but you know rise out of the ashes and this these resources they were the tools to my success they were the hope in the storm um because i it literally took me a good two years to kind of yeah shake the cobwebs off and i was just absolutely floored you know when when life turned unexpectedly um and so i was just committed that we can do this my kids can see me do this and and we're going to be okay so um yes to saving money and you know i cash flowed my help put my daughter my oldest daughter through college she graduated debt-free um and i already have a nest egg in a 529 to assist the youngest one when she gets there in a couple years i just i didn't have time to do the 529 for the oldest one she was a freshman in high school when um the marriage you know ended so you didn't stop there you you looked at buildings full of teachers and said i'm gonna give everybody smart dollar and i'm gonna give you all these same tools because i want y'all to have the same kind of peace it's amazing yeah you became an evangelist thank you you're awesome thank you both of y'all are awesome incredible story y'all so proud of you thank you you're amazing let's do it all right ty and blythe i love it you gotta love it 110 000 paid off in two days making 190 000 baby steps millionaires count it down let's hear a debt-free scream three two one we're debt-free and the whole smart dollar team's out there yelling yeah i love it people ask me all the time george what's your number one money-saving hack i'm glad you asked nothing makes me happier than helping another frugal friend so here's the hack get on a budget seriously how are you supposed to save money if you don't know how much you're spending in the first place and that's what makes the every dollar budgeting app a game changer with every dollar you'll get a clear picture of your spending and from there it's easy to see where you can get more intentional cut back and save more money how much money are we talking well the average every dollar budgeter frees up 395 dollars in their very first budget and if you ask me i think it's going to be a lot of money i think it's going to be a lot of money i think it's going to be a lot of money i think you're way above average so why are you still listening to me go download every dollar for free and start saving more money right now our scripture of the day proverbs 29 25 it is dangerous to be concerned with what others think of you but if you trust in the lord you're safe that's a different version than i've read i like that version whatever it is benjamin franklin says it takes many good deeds to build a good reputation and only bad one bad one to lose it you know we've heard that one hey folks if you've worked hard to get out of debt you're on baby step four which means you're debt free everything but the house and you have your emergency fund that's when you move from intense to intentional and baby steps four five and six work together and that's when you lighten up and you can go out and do your own thing and you can go on a vacation and you can upgrade your car with cash and you can upgrade the couch with cash or whatever right and you build in you start putting 15 of your money away for retirement and that's when you live like no one else so that later you can live and give like no one else that's the point of working your way through this and that's why we call the cruise the ramsey cruise the live like no one else cruise you should not come on the cruise with us unless you're on baby step four and beyond if you're in baby step two getting out of debt you should not come on the cruise with us but once you do we want you to come on this cruise it's amazing we will be good we will be sailing uh march 14th through the 21st all the ramsey personalities including dr john me rachel george and jade and sharon my wife everybody will be on the cruise the whole family it's going to be great we're going to grand cayman we're going to cozumel we're going to jamaica it's pretty stinking incredible and we're going to be doing teachings the whole time so the the shows on a cruise we're going to be doing the shows on a cruise are us so we'll be up there john will be john and rachel will be doing a marriage and money thing george and rachel will be doing a live taping of smart money happy hour on the cruise i'll be teaching about what to do how to teach your kids so that they're not ruined by the fact that you became successful uh and so on and all the all the stuff that happens when you're a baby step seven and beyond all the questions people have about estates and everything else we get into all of that yeah this is next level stuff setting new goals after beating your debt, ways to continue building wealth, creating a legacy that lasts beyond you live tapings we do pop-ups we'll just be walking along and jump up on a stage and start doing q a we have a blast on this and the world's largest debt-free screen so baby step four and beyond march 14 through 21 there are a few cabins left we would love to have you you can do it with only a 600 deposit to hold the cabin ramsay solutions.com slash events or click the link in show notes and we'll get you going logan is with us in phoenix hi logan what's up hey how you guys doing better than we deserve how can we help so my situation is uh my wife and i we got married about a month ago actually a month ago yesterday and we moved to phoenix from san diego i currently uh own a condo in san diego i bought it in 2023 or so and um you my question is it it's currently sitting vacant and been sitting vacant since about march and i'm wondering whether we we sell it still or if i should rent it or we're kind of like it's been sitting so long we just don't really know what to do okay why is it sitting well that's a good question i've been told that the condo market is is tough right now and it's you know we've been we've been lowering the price uh pretty consistently uh it's it's currently listed at about 269 started at what six months ago six months ago started at 350 okay wow that's substantial drop and um the you've seen a comparative market analysis a cma on what the condo is supposed to be worth from your real estate agent i have yeah what's it say it says that we should probably be listing it at about 270. right now and right now it's at 269 or the market didn't drop that far in that period of time you dropped the price that far but the condo market didn't drop that far in san diego in that period of time that's a lot of drop so you had it overpriced at the start we we probably had it overpriced and i guess the caveat is it's a it's a 360 square foot studio so it's one of the smaller units that you can get in that market and so um yeah i think it's i think it's just a small unit you thought it was more desirable than it is i at the time that i bought it yes definitely thought it was more desirable than it was okay all right that's fair all right how do you feel about your real estate agent um he's he's okay i mean he communicates well i think that he i've actually contacted a couple different ramsey real estate agents and and they they've looked at the listing and they think that it's marketed well um but they they think that yeah it was probably a little bit probably overpriced at the time okay all right um sometimes in the business is that is there anything that needs to be done to the condo is it in good shape it's in pretty good shape it was remodeled when i got it and so um yeah we we're we're currently on phoenix so it's we haven't been back there in in a couple months so haven't checked on in a while but it's in pretty good condition so you think it's actually worth 275 and you have it on the market for 269 um we believe so yeah all right that's yeah so you finally have it priced right so you blew six months okay hey um the only other thing i know of is in the business sometimes if you take a property off the market and put it back on it gets a new mls number and it pops back on the new listings and so it pops back up in front of other real estate agents eyes that wouldn't have seen it otherwise so sometimes we have a property that's not in the market and we have a property that's we call a shop worn which means it's been on the market and it's only not selling just because it's not selling because everybody goes well it hasn't sold there must be something wrong with it and so they quit looking at it just because it hasn't sold and there's actually nothing wrong with it it's just a psychological thing called shop worn does that make sense that is yeah it's like a sweater that's been on the rack too long and it's got a few handprints on it you know and a few people like you need to send it to cleaners take it off the rack for a month put it back on the rack and put it brand new brand new offering and all of a sudden the sweater sells it's not worn it's just you know it just didn't sell because it didn't sell so um yeah if you stay with this agent i would take the property off the market for two weeks and then put it right back on the market and give it a new real give it a new number if you if you if you want to you can use this opportunity to change agents does your agent how many houses did your agent sell last year that's actually a really good question i don't i don't know the answer to it okay you need to find out if your agent's a high producer because 80 of the people in the real estate business only sell about five percent of the houses 20 of the people in the business sell about 85 or 90 of the houses most real estate agents suck gotcha they don't produce so you need a high octane high protein real estate agent that actually sells 30 to 300 houses a year not two okay gotcha and a lot of agents sell two and you don't need somebody marketing something where you like this it sells two let me let me speak to that i i honestly thought that was like all right it's the house is a house is a house they all put the same mls i had a house on the market for various reasons multiple offers that fell through over a series of months it was on the market for nine months i shook hands with the realtor and said i got to go a different direction and i asked around and said i want the number one salesman in this city yep guy came and met with me he walked through the house with me he showed up in a in a escalade had rings on everything and i was like all right guy he said this house will be sold in 30 days and i said he's been on the market for nine months and he goes it'll be sold in 30 days i closed in 30 days and i and i remember shaking his hand and it was a it was a it was a 120 000 i wouldn't it was nothing of a house for him and i remember telling him i didn't believe in you and i know you've got bigger properties to sell thank you and said like don't ever say that again like you need to sell this house and you're the sale mattered to me it mattered to you and we got it done and it was like it the right agent matters i could not believe my experience there yeah don't don't put low octane in a race car i mean that dude showed up and sold that house in 30 days yeah it was wild it's it i'm telling you there's the guy the guys and gals that are like that they're the ones that move the property it's the data is there most people don't make it in real estate business it's you know they're starving to death so anyway check all that out and this is a good time to change agents restart it in two weeks and see if you can find john's agent 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 you