Financial Freedom Is Worth Fighting For

brought to you by the every dollar app start budgeting for free today normal is broken 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 dr john deloney host of the dr john deloney show and ramsey personality number one best-selling author is my co-host today and ladies and gentlemen drum roll please it is book launch day that's right we have a brand new book by dr john deloney building the marriage you want check out the scribbly heart and um that's the that's the art design there that's that's my definition of it the 18 year old punk rock and punk rock are still stuck in there is like you put a heart on the cover of your book but the answer is yes we did well it's about marriage it was the right thing to do that's about marriage it's about love that's right so hey this is a seriously wonderful book and honestly this thing has been cooking for several years in your brain since i've known you yeah yeah i mean we've had this back and forth about some of these issues and how to handle certain marriage situations on the air here but also off air just talking about life and and this this is something i've got to address dave and eventually i'm going to get to this dave and this thing this thing's cooked up yeah and i'll tell you the impetus for it was um you and i were doing an event in los angeles and a woman at a signing line leaned over and said hey real quick and you know how that goes someone says like hey real quick and they want to like ask you like a real deep question she just said is marriage still worth it and without even looking up i dumped into this spiel about me and my wife and how we've scratched and clawed and she interrupted me rightfully so and she said i know i know it worked out for you but it's not worth it and i'm not going to but is it still worth it in the 21st century and that broke that i made eye contact with i started laughing and i said i have a personal story and i have a sunday school answer but i don't have a great answer for you and that exchange haunted me and i went down the rabbit hole all the data all the nerds all the all the folks all the conversations you and i've had behind closed doors like and so this is everything i know about marriage this is it well and a ton a ton a ton of research yeah and i think it's probably the biggest book that's ever written in my life ever come out of ramsay solutions it's a it's a it's a tome it's a good it's a big book it's it's well it's it's not that i mean it's not super thick but it's readable yeah oh i wrote it for people who read one or two books a year that's a um but the research in it might be more than anything we've ever done yeah we did we put research into every project but this one's got yeah we dug into it i had to answer that question is it worth it yeah in order to have practical tools to reconnect and build a stronger marriage which is the line right you've got to have some that's right and the practical tools just can't come out of your ear right right and and so this is absolutely amazing so uh one of the biggest myths couple believe if your marriage feels hard it must be broken that's a myth right right and the culture says if it's hard then that means it's it's run its course and you should move on um and now the the more frightening cultural conversation that that the data showed me was parents are no longer recommending their kids like do this thing parents are recommending you need to go to school you need to get a job you need to get economically secure you need to get a house and then if you want to do this other thing and it's just inverted our entire culture and we're seeing it play out uh with the birth rates falling we're seeing it play out with the rise in anxiety and depression like all these different things um all these different social ills i think can be traced back to do you have an anchored connected ride-or-die relationship that you build from not not add at the end of everything else well and certainly the angle that i've always taken in these discussions is that there's always been data on my side of the equation the money side that says that married people prosper yeah build wealth greater i mean for instance here's one we just saw the other day uh from the north carolina family policy council the piece of research they did married men earn 26 more than unmarried men right would you please get up and go to work well you've got your what is the basis of that that's crazy and the net worth of a household is is exponentially bigger over the course of time right because you got two people you got two people working together well a married householder under 35 an unmarried female versus a married female 14 times less net worth that's right that's right the married has 14 times more and five times more married males have 5x at 35 years old of what unmarried right males have and it's partly because of dual income but it's also because of just this that marriage while it's messy is a beautiful thing that's exactly right yeah and so the ultimate answer to that question is yes it's worth it and then this book explores well how you supposed to do that in the 21st century it's hard and the the blueprint that my granddad used for a 72 year marriage doesn't work now the world has changed it's just a different place the principles and values i think are still the same but how you go about dealing with communication and conflict and kids and sex and money it's just different and so my goal is this is the last marriage book i know there's a million out there in the market the last marriage book anybody's ever going to need is right here building the marriage you want in a great bookstore starting today certainly it's pre-sale today it comes out in january oh i'm so sorry january 26th the pre-sale launches today that's right oh my gosh i should know these it hits it hits the bookstores and we wanted to pre-sell it early so we if you buy pre-sale it now a i think it's important to call out you're helping us out because it the the pre-sale metrics help with all the bookstores and all that kind of stuff but we'll send you some free gifts obviously but also we'll send you a postcard that you can wrap and you can put in a stocking or put under the tree and then the book gets delivered in your mailbox in january okay so you get 24.99 for the pre-sale ramsey solutions.com store it's not in bookstores i lied uh you can lock it in it's a hundred dollars in extra goodies thrown in for free the enhanced audiobook which is amazing the early access to the e-book you'll get the e-book two weeks before pub date and uh we got instant access to the exclusive video dr john deloney on connected communication which the video alone is going to be worth the purchase yeah that's one of the talks from the money marriage event that rachel and i put on that's always sells out people are like can you live stream it can you live stream it um this is the first time that's ever been released out into the wild there other than you had to be here on campus live yeah to see it yeah very cool okay pre-sale the marriage you want you're gonna love this go ahead and get it in your stocking um this is an incredible piece of work i'm very very proud that ramsey is putting it out very proud of john for all the hard work he's put into this and uh you guys do not want to miss out on this um so yeah mary you know the thing you said there is first time it's hard everybody thinks well you know everything that's worth it is hard yeah i mean try raising kids right well and people are opting or it is hard try doing anything of value it's hard yeah i mean yeah yeah raising kids is hard is it worth it yeah oh man yeah powerful thing for the world yeah yeah it's pretty incredible but yeah i mean waking up in the middle of the night and oh my god and worrying and stress and and and by the way i think it's important it's not just two knuckleheads on a podcast saying it the data backs it up over time and um so the real question for me is not should i it's how how do i do this yeah yeah well i had a lady one time we were doing q a and um she said well my husband and i we've been married 30 years we've never had a fight and i said i said that's because you lie yeah yeah if somebody tells me we never have a fight i'm like y'all need to go see somebody right away something wrong right away one of y'all is burying something wrong with you yeah you really need to work on this it's part of the fun of the whole thing it's a good fight come on people you're not gonna be able to do it you're not gonna be able to do it you're not gonna be able to do it hey this is dr john deloney i take my sleep seriously because better sleep means better health and if you've been losing sleep or waking up sore because you've got some old thin gross mattress that wasn't designed with you in 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That's Helix, H-E-L-I-X, sleep.com slash Ramsey. With Helix, better sleep starts right now. Jake's in Buffalo, New York. Hi, Jake. How are you? Great. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, my wife of 30 years has been accumulating secret debt for probably the past five years, and I discovered it about then. And I'm struggling with essentially how to reconcile my vow to stand by my wife for better or worse, and my responsibility to protect the future that I've been building for my lifetime. And we're talking about over $100,000 in debt. Wow. For five years? Yes. What's she buying? Well, she is buying things, but I think she gave money to her family. She admitted to giving some to her brother. She won't really discuss this with me. She won't discuss the total amount with me. I've been struggling with this for years. Wait a minute. So this has been going on a long time? This has been going on, like I said, for about five years. I started discovering. I started discovering it because I noted my credit score dropped all of a sudden, because I monitor Credit Karma or whatever. Why is your credit score dropping? Well, because. Is she taking out fraudulent loans in your name? No, she's not, John. But what was happening is we have shared accounts. We have joint accounts. And she was dipping into the credit line. She would go overdraft, and then it would dip into the credit line and impact me. So that's one of the negatives. That's one of the negatives of having a shared account. Okay. So what I'm curious about is five years ago, you discovered this level of deception, and her reaction was not sorrow. It was obstinance. 100%. And you. Anger, blame. At that point, why did you not deal with this? Why are we having this conversation five years later? Well, I think. I think I was trying to be forgiving. And, you know, one of the things that kept getting thrown out at me is like, well, I guess my worst isn't good enough. You know, for better or for worse. And I was being guilted, maybe gaslit. Yeah. into believing that it was something I was doing wrong, that I wasn't being forgiving. And so. So, Jake. You know, and I guess that's. I'm sorry, go ahead. Let me say this. You don't have to agree with me on this, and that's perfectly okay. I call this, we call this financial infidelity. And there's. I tend to take a much broader view of infidelity that's bigger than so-and-so slept with somebody else. And if somebody breaks the unity of a marriage, I am going to go violate your safety and trust, which it violates both of these things. And, like, I'm not going to have any remorse for it. In fact, I'm going to blame you for it. That is every bit fidelity. That's every bit as damaging as going and sleeping with somebody. It's broken the foundation of what y'all two are anchored in building together. That's how I feel. It's not a for better or worse. For better or worse is job loss. For better or worse is, like, an illness. For better or worse is your parents have to come move in with us because they have nowhere else to go. That's for better or worse. That's hard, right? This isn't that. Yeah. For better or for worse isn't I slept with your best friend. And you're supposed to forgive me because this is my worst. That doesn't qualify under the better or worse heading is what John's saying. Or I've essentially stolen $100,000 from us. Our marriage. And given it away. And given it away. And I refuse to talk about what I did with it, which makes you really suspect on other things as well. And so let's back out. Where else will she not be connected with you? Because it's rare that it happens. Just in one area. I would agree. First 20 years, we were on the same page. Things were pretty good. Raised our son. Did a great job. He's doing very well. The past 10 years, she changed jobs. We've both been under a lot of job stress. We both have executive level positions. I think that impacted the marriage some. And we started kind of living as roommates. Mm-hmm. And it's just gone downhill from there. Okay. Well, here's the thing. Your marriage is very seriously broken. I think all three of us can agree with that. You knew that before you called. And so then you've got to decide under what circumstances this continues. And so if I were to say, you know, I wouldn't suggest you end a marriage based on two goobers on a podcast telling you something. But I am going to tell you this marriage is going to end if it doesn't change. And so I'm going to, whatever we got to do to change it. Well, I think you need to go sit down with a marriage counselor. She's not going to go. I don't think. I would invite her and say, I'm going to go sit down with a marriage counselor and see if our marriage can be saved. Because under the current way it's operating, I think it's ending. And I hate that. I don't want that. I want us to stay together. We're too invested. I've always loved you. I want to stick this out. But I'm not going to continue the way this is. And I'm going to go sit down with a counselor and figure out. How we can begin to heal and, or if we can begin to heal, I hope you'll come because you not coming may signal the end of this thing, but we've got to go try. And so you go sit down with someone who can give you a much better wiser than, than a five minute call on a podcast. Okay. Right. But I'll just tell you a hundred percent chance. You're going to go crazy and be in a rubber room or this marriage is going to end. Or it's going to change. And you guys are going to start healing. One of those three things, it cannot maintain where it is. It will not main. There's no such thing as status quo here. It's going to, it's going to burn down. It's going to end in ashes. I think it's already there. Yeah. But I mean, it's going to, you're going to finish off. I don't know if you can turn this around. It doesn't sound like you can. The thing that scares me the most is it's been five years and neither one of you have addressed it. Neither one of you have said, look, either of this fixes are you're gone. Neither one of you said that to each other. I didn't have the worst discussion and she said, go ahead and file. I'm not going to fight it, but I wasn't really prepared to do it at the time. Well, and so now I feel more prepared. Yeah. I think you've got to, well, there is, if it can't get better, there is a, I don't know if it's a common trend, just since I've been looking into this. There is a move where somebody is going to continue to act in a certain way because they don't want to hold. That I signed this paper to end this marriage. So I'm going to continue to push and be not like not be a person, a character to do things that violate our, the agreements that we made and then you go file and then you're the bad guy. Right? So her, like you say, more gaslighting, right? You saying, Hey, I can't do this marriage anymore. And her saying, cool, great. Go ahead. Go ahead and sign up for it. That's, that's a big statement, right? Let me say it this way. She's already left your marriage. She's just asking you to go make it official. And so if you want to rebuild this thing from the floor up, I've seen it done in worse situations than you're in. I believe in redemption. I wouldn't do this show, but the reality is she's already left it. She's got her own money, her own plans, her own deals. I would also take this added steps to close down this credit line, brother. Yeah. Oh, definitely. Like unhook yourself from this thing. Yeah. Point of counts need to be shut down, uh, by the time you get off the phone and then you need to go see a counselor and make a decision on what you're going to do. I just remember something you said, Dave, in one of your other shows that money flows toward what you care about. That's it. And mine was flowing toward our shared goals while hers was flowing toward herself and her family. And, and maybe something else, the fact that she's secretive still is more than just, I'm ashamed I gave this to my dysfunctional family. There might be. There might be something else you find later, it could be, it could be worse than you think it is. And it could be that it started. Yeah. Yeah. Who knows what it could be. And it may be that 10 years ago, you weren't somebody she could come to and sit down and say, Hey, I really want to help our family in this way. And you weren't somebody that she could sit down with it or she felt like you weren't somebody who knows how this thing got all tangled up at the beginning. What we know now is she's left five years she's left and you've got to do the next right thing for you. For y'all and for your future. So John, there's a principle of action. Yeah. You got to take the next right action. When something's not right, it's not going to get right by itself. Right. And sometimes the action is stop doing what you're doing. Sometimes it is, I'm going to go talk to somebody that knows what they're doing, but she got it. You got to move. Not five years later. That's right. You got to do the next right thing. Yeah. 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that stop overpaying for your phone service go to boostmobile.com slash ramsey and make the switch today that's boostmobile.com slash ramsey 25 forever requires customers to remain active on boost mobile unlimited plan if you're working the baby steps the best and the fastest way to do it and it is the best and fastest way to get out of debt and build wealth is by using every dollar it's more than just a budgeting app it is the entire ramsey plan built in you can track your progress you get personalized recommendations just like if you called us and said okay now i'm on baby step two what should i be doing with this it's all going to show up right there it's like having one of us walk with you every day showing you the next right step and holding you accountable you will speed up on your plan start every dollar for free by downloading it in the app store or google play michael is in syracuse hey michael what's up hi guys um i'm looking forward to getting your advice here i am 58 self-employed and for years we've qualified for free new york state health insurance now um the last few years my income has increased and i still qualify for that insurance because i've been contributing to iras and 401ks and that's lowered my income uh supposedly because it's uh tax deductible not tax deductible you know what i mean yeah anyways uh my question is when it comes to uh investing i'm doing traditional ira's should i switch to a roth ira now that i'm making more money and pay my own health insurance or would it be counterproductive at our age at 58 well i would um jump online with health trust that we recommend for health insurance and let them shop the market and give you some pricing so that you're you're dealing with actual facts and figures not feelings and so if you've got a number there and you go okay it's 800 bucks a month oh that's ten thousand dollars a year uh which might be pretty close might be and um you know just as an example then you go okay how does that go against uh the fact that my roth is growing tax-free and uh i've got five million dollars later four million dollars two million dollars later in my accounts and it's all tax-free versus paying taxes on all that money probably better off to buy the health insurance and have roth it's what the math's probably going to tell you you see how i did that that yes um that's what i was thinking we mainly for my wife because um i have an incurable cancer and so they i might make it five i might make it another 10 but i'm looking out for for her interest of course because uh she's healthy as a horse so um i i see where you're going with that yeah i mean five or ten dollars a month is a lot of money ten you know is not the window i was using uh so uh that does change the equation certainly but if you're doing it not for you but for her and if that's actually how this plays out then and it's for her then my original thing does stand right because we're talking about over a long period of time the money is growing tax-free and it's a lot of money and it's a lot more than the cost of health insurance and taxes that you're going to pay by going traditional so i think that's where you're going to end up that you're going to be better off from this point forward doing roth and then gradually how much money have you got now in traditionals um about 1.2 million okay you have any cash that's not any investments that's not uh in retirement yes probably about a hundred thousand okay all right and what's your household income well it was always around 36 but now in the last two years uh it's slowly up to 50 and then the last two years it's like 150 right now yeah that's that good good okay what kind of cancer you got brother um it's uh some kind of rare blood cancer that um no one knows about yeah only about 10 people a year get it man i'm sorry you're dealing with that brother and you're a uh if i had a choice yeah i'd rather have i'd rather have a good life yeah well i you're a noble man for looking at uh what looks like it's going to be a premature stop sign for you but um you signed up to do life with your wife and it's noble that you're looking for her years beyond right yeah well done of course and also i also you've got a lot of money in your account already i also don't want you to get to the end of the life your end of your life and hand your wife a receipt and say we didn't have a lot of experiences together but here's here's a number in an account if you got five or ten years left brother i'd be living my life too oh yeah we do we we work together we're we're always together you're like no no obviously we get along i'm good i'm good and and hey man um i i'm i've reached a new level of optimism with some of the advancements they're making and maybe they'll they maybe they'll be able to cure your cancer but they may be able to extend your life beyond 10 years um with the technology there's some serious move in that yeah so good good good for you brother you're a good man dude yeah you are you are you know i'm going to begin to i'm going to stop and start doing roth and i'm going to look at health insurance with health trust i think you're going to find that's going to be a better math equation for you and your wife and then i'm going to begin to move that hundred that million it's going to take about 250 000 to do it uh into roths because um in uh in seven years if it's in good mutual funds that's going to be two million dollars and now we've got a bigger tax problem and seven years later it's going to be four million dollars and now we've got an even bigger tax problem so we need to move it towards roths out of traditionals steadily sooner rather than later uh you don't have enough cash to pay the taxes to do it all at once so uh you're gonna have to do it a little bit at a time and cash flow the taxes hey dave can i ask you a question um that i've never heard us talk about on the show and it's shown up in two weird ways and i'm going to ask you a question that i've never heard in my life and i thought next time i'm sitting with dave i'm gonna run this by him um i sat with a woman once who lost her husband and he was he was he was an older man and he passed away and when i was sitting with her in her at her kitchen table just talking about here's what we're gonna do next she said i know we have tons of money like they were a pretty wealthy crew but she said he always handled everything and i need gas and groceries and so by the time the checks come and i'm like i'm gonna run this by him and i'm gonna the letters are written etc i'm gonna be out of gas i'm gonna be out of food in this house and i don't know where any of the money is so there was that that i i know intellectually y'all need to know where all the money is and all that kind of stuff then recently i was talking with somebody whose father had terminal cancer and passed away and when him and his sister went to deal with the estate like go through all the stuff and and put everything away he had left a big chunk of cash in the safe for the expenses of dealing with this the day-to-day stuff and i've never heard us talk about if you know if you've got a terminal illness if you know you're in bad health is there some value in leaving cash so that the people who are coming behind you to do regular stuff like pay the bills get the get the house cleaned up get the the yard the driveway power washed and stuff to put the house on the market it seems like there's value in having some liquid cash for people to use for the day-to-day before the life insurance check hits and the house sells and all that kind of stuff yeah i mean uh if you got five million dollars and you had 50k in cash laying around that's right just agrees the wheels that would really it changes everything i found it to be a blessing for your family it doesn't have to be in cash in the gun safe though you could just be in a checking account of course you got access to and just put a pod on it paid on death to the executor of the estate and the executor can then execute and you know function and do the give some liquidity to do this stuff without having to go to court and everything else to get things moving i got my hands on some money you know to get through this first 90 days that's it yeah yeah yeah like the thought of having some cash around seems really important yeah or i listened to this guy talking about how what a blessing it was that him him and his sister got to go grieve, be sad, deal with the estate, deal with the family members, and not have to worry about lunch, not have to worry about, hey, we got to get the gutters fixed, we're going to put the house up because the real estate person said you got to get the gutters fixed. We're able to do some stuff and continue on with clearing the house out and not have to deal with so much other drama. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's not, it, a shortage of money, a shortage of even just cash in that situation magnifies the drama. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's like, you know, you're already grieving and then it just like multiplies it because it adds this layer of stress to it. Hey, it's Rachel Cruz. I don't know about y'all, but I can build something up in my head until it feels way harder than it really is. I'll convince myself it's going to take forever, be super complicated or cost a fortune. Then I finally sit down to do it. And I wonder, why I waited so long. Making a will might be one of those things for you. That's why I love Mama Bear Legal Forms. They've taken something that can feel overwhelming and made it so simple. Their online wills are designed by attorneys and tailored for your state. And while you're on the Mama Bear website, it'll walk you through the whole process step by step. So you feel confident that you're doing it right and that your loved ones will be taken care of. Plus making your will with Mama Bear only takes about 20 minutes. So if you're not sure what to do, you can go to don't make a mountain out of a molehill. Go to mamabearlegalforms.com and use promo code Ramsey to save 20% on your will. That 20% off is exclusive to Ramsey fans only. mamabearlegalforms.com with promo code Ramsey. Ryan is with us in Kansas City. Hey, Ryan, how are you? Hi, Dave. Thanks for having me. Dr. John, I am a huge fan of yours. When I got out of the military, I struggled with anxiety for years. Got your book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, and it introduced me to myself. Number one, thank you for that. And number two, I'm super excited. About ordering your next book. Awesome. Thank you. Thanks for being in the gang, brother. Yeah, man. Okay. So here's the question. I have two wonderful children, an eight-year-old son and a four-year-old daughter, and I have just started investing into their college accounts in Baby Step 5. Good. I'm putting away $500 for each kid per month. Wow. And yeah, I'm trying. And then, so my question is, is my wife and I, we're having a disagreement on how we should be investing this money. I want to put it in a 529 so that they can get all that tax-free growth out of it. My wife is concerned that that's a lot of money to put into a 529. So she kind of wants to keep it in just a standard investment account so that if they want to, if they end up not going to college or something, they can use it for that. And then I'm also hearing about these Trump accounts, and I don't want to miss an opportunity that I'm just ignorant about. So anyways, I wanted to call you guys and get your perspective. Yeah. Well, the 529s are what we recommend, and it's simply because the money grows tax-free. And I will tell you this, 100% of the people that leave high school need additional training of some kind. Okay. The idea that everyone has to go to a four-year college is not true. And we're realizing that more and more, the bigger the mess has been made by these universities, right? In terms of the expense and the ridiculous things they teach and so on. The indoctrination by your communist professor and all that, right? But there's also excellent four-year degrees that you should really be at the top of your list of something to look at. But no one needs to leave high school, and that's the last time they read a book. That's the last time they learn something new. That's the last time they strive to level up in something, in some kind of a career. I don't care if you're going to be a diesel mechanic, a welder, if you're going to operate heavy equipment, or if you're going to get a master's degree in business, an MBA. I don't care. You need additional training. And so let's just settle on that. You and your wife should be able to settle on that. Because otherwise your child's going to be stunted. People who don't keep learning after high school, they don't do well in the marketplace. The marketplace kicks the crap out of them because of stupidity, okay? And so I've learned more academically after I graduated from college than I did the entire time up through college. That's more to your beer drinking in college, but it is what it is, right? Hey, don't talk about my GPA. But I did get out. I did graduate. Shut up. And so anyway, but you see my point. And by the way, your 529 can be used for trade school. Okay, I didn't know that. For code school. For nursing school. For nursing school, for God's sakes. For whatever they're going to study, if it's education, it can be used for that. And so it's not trapped there. And if they're brilliant and they get scholarships or whatever, you can pull the money out of the 529 equivalent of the scholarship value each year and pay no taxes on it. Okay. So the money's not trapped. Now, it's not that big a deal for an eight-year-old though, because we've only got about 10 years to do this. And so you're only talking about $6,000 times 10 is $60,000 growing tax-free. You might have $30,000 in there that grows tax-free. It might be. It might be $90,000 worth, including the growth. And so taxes on $30,000 is, I don't know, $5,000, $6,000 that we're discussing here at length. So it's really not going to determine much if it's 529 or if it's just in a regular account. I would not put it in their name. Okay. Because I don't want them going off the rails and buying cocaine. Right. So that was kind of another thought about it. My thought about this was that if we keep it with us, then, you know, like they come in and they want to buy a reasonable, you know, we want to get them a reasonable car with this funding. We could do that. Or you're going to have that money anyway, though. You're going to have that money in your pocket. Yeah. So I would put it in the 529 and then I would just keep building wealth just because you're going to get some tax break and you're not putting that much in there anyway. 500 bucks a month, $6,000 a year, 10 years is 60 grand. Okay. So it's just not, it's not like you're going to have $300,000 trapped in a 529 or something. You're not, it's not going to be that much. And if you keep it in your name and by the way, it's not even going to be enough to send them to school. Yeah. Yeah. They're still going to have some work to do. You're going to have to come out of pocket with some other money too. And that's assuming for your four-year-old, especially that college looks exactly the same as it does now. And with AI coming, it's going to look different, brother. And I like the idea of you putting it in your, in your name because there may come an opportunity that you're going to have to be retrained too. Yeah. So I'm good. I'm good either way. It's not going to, it's not going to make that much difference, but 529, you've got control of it. And you're going to have to buy the car out of a different fund anyway, because you can't rob this fund and buy a car because they're not going to go to school then. So if they're going to a four-year, you're not gonna have enough money. So, you know, it's good that you're, you're doing a lot. You're way ahead of the average. I'm not putting down your plan, but I am just saying that, um, we're, we're over dramatizing the size of this money and the impact it's going to have in taxes and in, uh, control and so forth. So I'm probably dumping the, continue to put this in a 529 and good growth stock mutual funds that are growing at an average annual rate of 10, 12%. And it's going to grow tax-free and they're going to go to school and teach your kids that continuous learning, is necessary. I brainwashed mine growing up that they were going to college. And I probably wouldn't do that today, but I would say I strongly, I still strongly recommend four years of college for people. I still believe in it. Yeah. As do I. And I'll tell you this, um, based on what he just said about the car. Um, so for everybody listening, this is me. I co-host the Ramsey show. I, part of my package working at universities all the years was my kids got to go. That was my kids' college is baked into the- They get free tuition for your children if you work at the college that's right um and sometimes even beyond that and so when i left to come work here i opened up a high yield savings account because my my kids already one of my kids is older and so i just started scrolling money away last year dave i went to i was getting paid on like a friday and wednesday i went to look at a new truck and i thought oh i want that one so i back and forth with the guy and i called the the banker where my high yield savings account is he's a friend of mine and i said hey i need you to move this over because i'm gonna buy this truck with it and then i get paid this weekend i'm gonna move it back and my buddy said that's your kid's college fund and i go yeah yeah but but i'll do it on friday and he said as your banker i'm not letting you do this as your friend i'm telling you i don't trust you to move this money up and it caused me to wait two days i got a better deal on the truck at the end of the week when i went back and here's the big thing i fell prey to no no it's cool man just and so even like the temptation is so big to what's in your name get it on a used car to go ahead and well let's go ahead and get the shutters because there's that money in that account the idea of a 529 it protects you from you sometimes too yeah yeah yeah and our kids i mean we didn't have 529s but they had an account in their name we use optimus and it was their college fund yeah and i showed them how to calculate what it was worth the share price on the mutual fund multiplied by the number of shares equals the dollar value that's in your account for your college fund and i showed them how to calculate what it was worth the share price on the mutual fund your college fund your college fund your college fund i brainwashed them yeah that's right you're going to college you have a college fund it's just pre-supposed same with somebody like you will go learn you'll go learn something after high school period you're gonna go do something yeah and uh because i mean i just thought they need a four-year degree and all all three of them got good usable right four-year degrees they didn't get a degree in left-handed puppetry you know so um and they didn't overpay for it by going to some ridiculous price college because they want to tell people where they went to college instead of what they learned that's right so we didn't do any of that stuff but we just paid for it yeah 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 115 a month 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 dot org slash budget and use promo code ramsey for 50 credit towards your first month's membership ch ministries dot org slash budget or click the link in the description welcome back to the ramsey show in the fifth air winds credit union studio dr john deloney ramsey personality is my co-host today we are launching in pre-sale his brand new book that'll be out after the first of the year but it's in pre-sale starting today called building the marriage you want with the scribbly heart and so um it's my new branding there i like it i like it a lot we argued about this cover a bunch in some of our creative meetings and uh i really do like where the argument ended up i think it's a good looking cover so and it matches the tattoo you have on your lower back so that's there's that too probably not not really not really i don't think so doesn't i doubt it but yeah there you go yeah i don't even know how to recover from that so anyway john did write a good book in spite of his lack of sense but yeah oh my gosh yeah i'm proud of that book out there's a lot of great uh options we're throwing in with it a lot of extras about a hundred dollars worth and you can get it all on sale right now at ramsey MCSolutions.com. Nick is in Orlando. Hey, Nick, what's up? Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. How can we help? So I'm 27. I'm working a full-time job making $75,000 to $80,000 a year, and I also have a part-time job making $20,000 an hour. Good for you. And I'm working on Baby Step 2, trying to pay off $25,000 in debt is what I have remaining. So my question is, I have a girlfriend. We've been together a year and a half, and we've been talking marriage pretty seriously, but there's some major things we don't align in. As far as budget goes, I obviously follow Baby Steps and want to be very structured. She has said that she's comfortable living paycheck to paycheck and doesn't feel the need to save an emergency fund or for retirement because she struggles with several chronic diseases and doesn't feel like she's going to see 50. So she says, what's the point of saving? In a 401k with money I'll never get to see. She even said that she wants to move to Europe because she feels like going somewhere with socialized healthcare, she'll actually be able to afford to live and will have a better health outcome. And she really kind of feels like that because it has to do with her health and being able to live a decent life is not something she should have to compromise on as far as you know, whether or not she's going to be able to live a decent life. And I'm just, you know, we've been fighting a lot lately and that has a lot to do with it. And I love her. I want us to succeed. I love her family, but I'm not sure if there's a path forward that's healthy for us. Nick, I don't think this is a conversation about money, brother. This is a conversation about you want to, you want to marry somebody and y'all create a unified joint life together. And she's being very clear is I don't want to marry somebody. I want to marry somebody. And she's being very clear I don't want to marry somebody. And she's being very clear is I don't want to, I don't want to create a new life with you. If you want to join me on the life that I feel like having, which is very a hundred percent YOLO, then you're welcome to join me. Is that sound right? Yeah. Money, your budgeting differences is a symptom of a deeper issue, which is her saying, I don't, like, let me be honest with you, brother. Like in, in my marriage, my wife was not as a looney tune as I was. And she was like, I don't want to marry somebody. And she's being very clear is I don't I was about not having a car payment and not having a mortgage, but my wife loved me and loved that she had a husband who wanted peace. And she said, I'm all in on that. And so you get what I'm saying? She was more, my wife was more interested in us building a thing together than her getting her way and me getting mine. And then, then come the, the budgeting principles and the baby steps and flung out stuff. But right now you have somebody who is, I have a chronic disease. I've already projected into the future. I'm going to die young. So I'm going to live completely responsibility free. Um, I'm going to spend everything I got. I'm going to live paycheck to paycheck come what may. And I want someone else to take care of it whenever I get, get struck by lightning. So be it. And if you want to be a part of that chaos and then, then fine. And that's not a marriage that is, that's you hopping onto somebody else's rollercoaster. Yeah. So Nick, my, my, my old pastor that passed away several years ago, when he and his wife got married, um, you know, when the dinosaurs roamed the earth a million years ago, he used to tell the story over and over and over from the pulpit that they didn't have two nickels to rub together. And, um, they got married at like 18, 19 years old, right? Back in the day, you know, and, uh, but he used to tell the story over and over and over again that she said, I don't care if I have to live in a tent, I'm going with you. That's the exact opposite of your girlfriend. Yeah. What she said to me last night was, um, I can either go with her, lose her to dying in America or lose her to, she's going to move on her own. Yeah. I mean, I'm sorry that she's ill. Um, but there's another thing in this, the spirit of Eeyore has gotten hold of her. I mean, it's like, Oh, everything's so bad. Thank God it's Friday, you know, and that's the YOLO thing coming out, but it's all negative. Cause I know some people who are, I mean, there's a YOLO thing that's kind of positive. It's like, I'm going to party, right? That's YOLO. But, uh, this is YOLO. I go like, I'm going to die tomorrow. So I just got to go ahead and party now. And I know some folks with some lifelong, um, disabilities. I know folks with serious chronic health issues who has the exact opposite outlook, which is I'm going to, I'm going to fight this thing. I'm going to, I'm going to plug my, I'm going to plant my heels in the ground and you and me are doing life together and we're going to plan for the next 50 years. We're going to live it up. Yeah, we are. We're going to live it up and live it up together. You and me versus the world. Aim together. So Nick, I think she told you last night what's happening here. Yeah. I think she broke up with you last night, Nick. Yeah. Um, might've been, I mean, that's my real struggle is, um, you know, I, I want to point of, so I understand, you know, She's dealing with a lot of mental issues going on with her. She's facing a lot of different things, and she's asking you to face it with her, but only on her terms, not on our terms. And so this is not, by John's definition, this is not a unified approach to life. This is you being a puppy following along doing what you're told. And you can be her great friend, and you can support her and write her letters and stuff, but this isn't the recipe for a ride-or-die marriage. No. I'm sorry. Yeah, I hate that. God, it breaks my heart. And you said something powerful, brother. You like her family. You like the idea of building a world with her. And that means not only are you going to have to grieve this breakup, but you're going to have to grieve the picture. You have made plans, man, and grieving future plans is hard. It's hard, man. So I'm with you. I'm heartbroken for you. Yeah, coming to the realization that what you were dreaming about is not going to occur. Right, right. Ouch. Yeah. Sorry. Angela's in Kansas City. Hi, Angela. How are you? I'm good. How are you? What's up? Well, my husband and I are contemplating. I know you deal with in-law questions a lot, so I'm glad I'm talking to you and John. We are contemplating paying the $500 to get my father-in-law a will to make sure we are not included in it, because we don't want to deal with. Well, the hassle and the stress that is going to come with it. So my father-in-law just turned 62. Why is there hassle and stress? He has lived his whole life not planning for the future. He does not have retirement. He believes that Social Security will pay for his bills and his retirement, even though he did not even. All right. I'll tell you what. Hang on. I'm bumped into a commercial here. I'm going to come back and hear the rest of this story. I can't. Let's do this one. 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 NetSuite has solved that problem. For more than 44,000 businesses like yours, NetSuite brings financials, inventories, CRM, and more into one place. And their AI tool, NetSuite 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. NetSuite Next makes it easy for you to get started. You don't have to worry about spending too much money. It's easy to get started. You don't have to worry about spending too much. It's a free service. What are the chances that when this thing finally comes to and there's a family meeting, that they all go, oh, okay. Like how much of this are you projecting out into the future and trying to drag it into the present and solve it today because you're mad? Well, I think it shed some light when it happened because they did say, well, what are we supposed to do? You know, we already got a glimpse of it, so I feel like my job is to help my husband is to be proactive, but you're absolutely right. I cannot lead this. And my husband has been very firm for many years about certain things, but we thought, okay, what else can we do that's proactive to help our peace of mind? So who said, what are we going to do if he dies? The three that struggle with addiction. Okay. Call all three of them and tell them. Your husband needs to call all three of his brothers. His sister is a struggle with addiction. Say, hey, heads up. I'm not going to be involved when dad dies and he's a hundred percent broke. Yeah. You need to know this. So you need, that means you need to get your crap together. And they may not hear you, but at least you can point back to remember when I called you on this and, you know, and follow it up with an email if you want. So it's a writing heads up. Dad's broke and I'm not going to be involved with any of it, any of it, any money stuff when he dies. I'll always. Love you and I'll you're, you're always welcome. I'll always buy you a meal, but you're, you're not going to get any money from his estate because there's not any money in his estate and I'm not going to be involved. Don't call me. And maybe you can, he can write and say, Hey, after the conversation we had three months ago, it's been on my heart. So I looked into it just so y'all know. Yeah. And that way he's just responding to a conversation that they've already started with him. Yeah. That's a good idea. Right. Okay. But just real simple. I wouldn't, I wouldn't try to do a will. Okay. That has your name anywhere in it. I would leave it alone. Yeah. Okay. You're, you're taking, I appreciate your efforts. You're taking a stab at fixing stuff that's been broken for 30 years. Oh yeah, absolutely. And a single document is not going to do that. Okay. And tax. So also taxes do not fall to children. Nothing like that. Nothing follows you. Zero. Oh, his name is not, your husband's name is not on any of his dad's stuff. Absolutely not. Okay. He asked for that over the last year. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. He asked 15 years plus and he was firm on no the whole time. So I was, I was in a situation not long ago where the 80 year old passed away renting an apartment with a hundred dollars worth of furniture and they owed $60,000 in credit card debt. Okay. You know what the credit card company companies got? Nothing. They got a death certificate that said they died and there's no money and there's not a thing they can do about it. about it because they loaned an 80 year old $60,000 who lived in an apartment and was broke. They deserve to lose their butt. If you're already enrolled in a Medicare plan, you might think there's nothing else to do. You're good to go. Wrong. The fact is Medicare premiums, networks, prescription coverage, and benefits can all change, even if your health doesn't. So doing nothing could cost you hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year. With annual enrollment time coming soon, you need to talk to Chapter right away. Chapter is the only Ramsey trusted. Medicare advisor. And they save Ramsey fans an average of $1,100 a year. They explain your options simply and help make the smartest decision for your situation. And whether they find you a better plan or confirm you're already in the right one, Chapter services don't cost you a thing. Medicare annual enrollment runs October 15th through December 7th. So review your plan with Chapter now and avoid expenses. To talk to the unbiased Medicare experts at Chapter, go to askchapter.org slash Ramsey or click the link in the description. That's askchapter.org slash Ramsey. Our question of the day is brought to you by Ask Ramsey, our free AI money tool that's there for you. It provides personalized money answers based on Ramsey principles. Only Ramsey principles. There is no Reddit in the data. There is no TikTok in the data. Only things that we have seen. Said on the air or written in a book are in the data. And that's the data that the artificial intelligence is using to answer your question. It's artificial, by the way, like artificial sweetener. So you just have to understand you get out what you put in. And so we control the inputs. And so you get the outputs that we want you to get, which are Ramsey answers, just like you get here on the air and it's completely free. Go to Ramsey solutions.com slash ask Ramsey. All right. Today's question comes from. Maria in Massachusetts. Maria writes, we're out of debt and we're saving up for a solid down payment on our first home. Where's the best place to put these funds to earn more as we save? Should we use a high yield savings account, mutual fund, or is there a better option? If you're going to leave it alone, uh, four or five years, you might use some or all of it in an S and P 500. Otherwise just put it in high yield savings because most of what's going to be in the account. And a two or a three year period of time, like 98% of what's going to be in there is not growth. It's what you put in. Cause you're not gonna leave it in there long enough for it to grow. So even if it got a great rate of return, it's not going to be a lot of growth because it's not a long period of time. So, you know, the difference of 3% and 10% for one year on $10,000 does not buy you a house on $20,000 does not buy you a house. So build your down payment in an high yield savings. Account, unless it's going to be a long-term play. And then you might use some mutual funds. Eric is in Phoenix. Hey, Eric, what's up? Hey, how's it going? What's up? Uh, just calling, uh, asking how to, uh, reduce my credit card day debt can consolidate my credit card data, I guess, is the proper way. Okay. How much credit card debt do you have? Uh, 27,000. How many cards? Five. Okay. And, uh, what do you make a year? Uh, 42,000. Doing what? I'm a special education teacher. How old are you? 37. Okay. Are you married? I am not. Okay. What's your side hustle? Uh, Uber. I do Uber on the side. Okay. All right. Um, well, what you're looking for is a hack thinking that the interest rate is what's keeping you in debt. And sadly it's not what you don't, you don't need to save $200 in interest. You need $27,000 and make this go away. Yes, I do. That's, that's the answer. That's the hack, right? And so I'm going to immediately say, how can I cut lifestyle and how can I increase my income better than Uber? Special ed teacher. It occurs to me, you probably have some pretty serious, um, mentoring or, um, tutoring possibilities at $50 an hour. Most likely. Yes. Instead of Uber. And you're going to make a lot more money and not wear out your car. You could load up Saturdays and Sunday afternoons and make a killing brother. No, every, every afternoon after school. Really helping out families. And really be a. Huge help. Yeah. Because you, you, you're, you have the, the academic capacity and apparently the emotional capacity to work with people in very difficult situations. That is a gift. No, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're a prize. And, and if a family is dealing with a special needs situation and you can go in and tutor slash mentor slash give that family some rest. Uh, and it's a family of means and they pay you $50 an hour and you, you agree to help the young student so many hours a week. Uh, you could build a tremendous business. You might make more doing that than in your day job. That would, that would be pretty amazing. Yeah. But you're going to have to go get that business. I mean, you're building a business here. Right. For sure. Yeah. And, but that, that, and, and so here, here's the thing. What's your smallest credit card debt? Uh, 2000. Okay. So what I'm kind of thinking is between cutting some of your spending and getting on an every dollar budget and. drastically increasing your income you could pay that off in one month oh really yeah and then when you don't have that payment anymore we roll that payment and any other money we can squeeze out of our new income and our old income and throw it at the next one what's the next smallest one uh the next smallest one is like four thousand okay so let's pretend that between tightening down the budget and i don't think you got tons of room in your budget okay but i do you have other debt other than this credit card credit cards like a car i have a little bit of medical debt a couple thousand okay what about car car no i just own it good student loan nope good okay cool all right so what i want you to take all of your debts the medical and the credit cards and list them smallest to largest and i want you to increase your income and decrease your outgo to the tune of at least two thousand dollars a month net between those two things two thousand divided into 27 is 14 months you're done 14 months that would be amazing 27 000 divided by two thousand dollars a month that's what i did and bro you're gonna collapse you're gonna be tired i want you to be tired you have no life right but you're getting your freedom you're fighting for your freedom that's right yeah i i really need the freedom and listen can i can i feel like it's oh it's can i raise you one yeah it is killing me i was when i was a high school teacher i was in a co-taught classroom which means i had special learners in my class too so i know exactly what you're working through okay and how tiring it is at the end of the day and i ended up leaving my apartment because it was so expensive and for one year i went and rented a room in a buddy's parents house because i was so sick of oh wow and so it depends on how how much you can anger and rage and frustration and just you can get against this debt get pissed off at the debt and then i coached in the evenings and on the weekends and in the morning and i took on a third sport because it came with a stipend but you just got to work and work and work and one year of giving that all up to just get after this debt dude it was awesome it's over and i listen i've been doing this i've been doing what i do on this microphone a long time and here's what i know after talking to you for a few minutes i think you're gonna do it i think you're gonna do it in 12 not 14 i i think you're the guy i mean because i can tell when people are like wishing and but you're you're over this you're sick and tired of being sick and tired and that's when things change in people's lives right and i can hear it right down under your voice it's down there i'm done with it and i'm 37 i'm ready to go i'm ready to go i'm ready to go i'm ready to be free and don't consolidate this no there's no hack yeah put them in the hack is get rid of it put them in order smallest to largest and just pay off the smallest one and keep rolling it and rolling it and rolling make sure when you get off the phone you get all those credit cards out and chop them up if you haven't have a ceremony this afternoon a plastic a prelude to freedom let's call it that yeah a plasectomy plastic surgery today right there just like that it's gonna be so much fun eric i'm gonna send you a copy of the book the total money makeover uh at this stage 15 million people have read it and followed those steps to do exactly what i just taught you to do and we're also going to hook you up with every dollar our budgeting app that will hold your hand and coach you through this process and show you how to get out of debt and you're not just getting out of debt for freedom you're getting out of debt so that you can become wealthy and outrageously generous because that's who eric is ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Hey, guys, it's Rachel Cruz. 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Get instant quotes online in just minutes at Zander.com or call 800-356-4282 to get your family protected with term life insurance. That's Zander.com. Or 800-356-4282. Jail is in Denver. Hi, Jail. How are you? Good. How are you? What's up? Thank you so much for taking my call. I'm really excited to hear your feedback and John's as well. So my husband and I were gifted one-fourth of the ownership of a 680-acre ranch in Colorado. And the other three people who are his parents, or like parties, who are his parents, his uncle and his little brother, would really like to sell it. And we would like to possibly keep it, but we do not have the ability to buy them out. How do we navigate the situation peacefully so that feelings are, I don't know if they're never going to be heard, but just there's peace in our family? Okay. So the land is worth what? How much is it worth? I am actually not sure, but it is on prime hunting land. I'm thinking over a million, but it's also part of a land trust for like, and so it's got a cabin on it, but it's also has hunting. It's like prime hunting. I can almost guarantee you it's worth way, way, way, way more than a million dollars. Well, if it's in a land trust, you're saying it can't be built on. It's in a wildlife trust. Okay. Okay. It can't be developed. Got a conservation. Yeah. Conservation trust. Okay. It's a conservation. So it's, it's worth more than a million, but not much. Okay. Um, and grandpa is still alive and he's already deeded it to everybody. Yes. And he did it that way. I think you make it very difficult to. So, um, my husband is really fundamental and so he wants to keep it, but, um, the question you asked was how do we navigate this and keep the peace? Yeah. Well, to start with, the first thing you do is you and your husband write a letter to his grandfather of gratitude for a one fourth ownership and a beautiful piece of ground. Okay. And then the second thing is, is that you respect other people's right to sell what they own. It's not yours. Okay. Let's pretend it was the next door neighbor that put up a piece of ground for sale. You have no entitlement to that whatsoever. It's not yours. You can be sad that someone's going to build on it, but you could be sad. The next door neighbor is selling it, but they don't have to sell it to you and they don't have to not sell it because you want it. So is it worth it? Yeah. So is there any problem with parceling this out and you guys take 150 acres or 175 acres? Truthfully, I am not sure. Um, we have, we keep having the idea and it's just goes like a run and around of like, well, we could sell it and use the money for vacations. So I don't know. That's a great question though, that I can ask. If your husband wants to keep his fourth, parcel it out into fourths and deed that to your husband. Let them sell off their other portion. Okay. Cause if you don't have the money to buy it. Right? Definitely not. Okay. And unless I'm, unless I'm wrong here, Dave, the other three can't sell without your husband's signature. Yeah. Well, they could, they can go to court though. and they have a three quarters i assume this is equal shares right for you so you have 25 of the vote okay 75 can outvote you and if you don't go along with it they'll go to court and a court judge will make you sign it yeah yeah because you're you're in a partnership and you're in a minority interest in a partnership so i'm sure there is no partnership documents grandpa wasn't that bright i don't know he he might he's been fairly successful business-wise and well is did you got were you guys when did you learn about this we so i'm only 26 and my husband is 27 and we learned about it i think when he was probably 21 um like in college but it wasn't when was it dated i i'm unsure i do you know what it was dated to was it dated to an llc a corporation a partnership name or to to four individuals i think probably four individuals is my guess okay well that by definition your grandfather's grandfather is not sophisticated then okay okay so we can we can table that idea because that's a mess and unless those four individuals have written documentation on how the govern how this pro how this partnership is governed according to voting and so forth and i'm guessing that piece of that partnership documentation is not in place because it doesn't sound like we're dealing with that so anyway the first thing is gratitude the second thing is don't have entitlement okay and then you can't be mad at the other parties for doing what they want to do with their stuff yeah when you have gratitude and no entitlement yeah it's sad it's not what you would like to have happen but you didn't you know you just hit the dna lotteries the only reason you got the 175 acres you didn't do anything to earn it that's true i i appreciate that that yeah i mean what that does when i when i put that in my heart if i'm you is it gives me a lot of peace towards the other people the reason you get mad at the other people is if you feel entitled i think there's not um like an anger i like the idea of if they could sell it and we could keep it but i think my husband and i are willing to part if it was to a point where everybody else outvoted us and we didn't want to be the one again you're not you're not holding them up if they sell uh 400 acres and you keep 175 or 180 you're you're one fourth you're one fourth number of acres and then they sell the other part you just have a different neighbor than you had okay and you got 150 acres to hunt on that's a lot or sell the whole thing take some money go do with it what you want to do with it but either one's okay with me but you ask a really good question it's a great question when you started this and it was how can we do this how can we navigate this and not cause problems okay and so the not cause problems thing is we respect your right to sell we don't want to sell so let's talk about parceling it off and how we can design the property line in such a way that you end up with some property you can actually sell i don't want to take all the road frontage or something we'll take our little share of the road frontage and we'll take you know let let a surveyor go out there and divide 680 by four and we can lay this out and we'll keep our acreage and you guys sell the rest of it and we understand we wish it would stay in the family we kind of romantic about it and they'll probably say we're by parceling it out we're all going to make less money because we're going to have less of a bigger chunk of land to sell and you can say yeah and so i think the the question underneath it is how do we do this and not have hard feelings i don't know that you can do this because y'all want different things and hard feelings are okay but let's keep them in their proper place and like you said let's treat each other with with respect and kindness they need to respect the fact that y'all don't want to sell and you respect the fact that they do want to sell and we'll go from there if they feel grateful and not entitled then they shouldn't have an issue with parceling it off sure and if you feel grateful and not entitled then you shouldn't have an issue with them selling their portion you got 175 free acres of prime hunting land that's that's i would take that today right i would take it today you don't want it sign me up that's right that's right i'll go through the hassle of parceling it out i promise you yeah so um and i think also it's probably a good idea to put a valuation on this that's accurate yeah get real numbers have some instead of this uh vague thing of um because what we do know from this conversation is uh 680 acres is not making it one more generation your kids your brother-in-law's kids are not going to end up with 680 acres because somebody in this bunch is going to break this up yeah so we're pretty sure this is not going to hang on since you don't have the money to buy them out and you don't um then there you are but you stuck your finger in the in the air and you came up with a million dollars maybe it's only worth 600 000 maybe it's worth 5 million who knows get some real numbers so you'll all know what you're dealing with here yeah and it's really interesting to sit down look at a piece of ground and start parceling it out it's kind of interesting welcome back to the ramsey show in the fairwinds credit union studio i'm dave ramsey your host today we are pre-launching pre-selling dr john deloney's brand new book that will be out in january called building the marriage you want you got to check this out it addresses one of the biggest myths that couples believe if you're married you're not going to be married you're not going to be married marriage feels hard it must be broken here's a hundred percent chance it's going to be hard if you're married but it's not as hard as if you're not married oh there we go there's a marriage advantage to a whole bunch of things dr john's research proves that out and you're going to see a whole new look on marriage your marriage and marriage as a concept as well you can pre-order it right now for 24.99 at ramsey solutions.com store lock in a hundred dollars worth of free bonus items that include the enhanced audio system and you can pre-order it right now for video book early access to the e-book delivered two weeks early and instant access to the exclusive video dr john deloney on connected communication and that comes from the marriage and money event that he and rachel have done so you don't want to miss out on any of this jay is in canada hi jay how are you i'm fine thank you how are you better than i deserve what's up i appreciate you taking my call and i'm looking forward to hearing your perspective um i own a construction company and a development company here in in our province that i essentially started from nothing in 2021 we generated about 128 000 in revenue for the first year and now we're forecasting about 30 million dollars in our fiscal year we've achieved this through disciplined cash management carefully structured contracts being very deliberate not overextending etc and just managing our money almost weekly and today we have good cash reserves our vendors are paid up to current at the end of every month and we're able to do a lot of things we're able to do a lot of things we're able to do and our goal is to eventually have enough cash reserves to cover any outstanding debts on our books well done but thank you with that we believe we've we've actually accomplished a lot of it with very little debt and just utilized our other companies to use essentially self-fund but over the years several advisors and other business uh individuals have encouraged us to develop a strong commercial banking relationship to essentially pursue operating line of credit and and um basically to allow our company to grow we tried that for a while to engage with the banks but because we didn't borrow they didn't seem interested until all of a sudden the company's bigger we're trying to find out now are we missing something um several advisors have encouraged us to do this should we be pursuing it to grow our company yeah the only thing you're missing is firing those advisors because you're way smarter than they are you have organically grown a company from 120 million dollars to a hundred and twenty-five million dollars to a hundred and twenty-five thousand to thirty million in five years that's called stud and you owe nobody anything brother you don't need any advisor you need a t-shirt that says defiant not compliant well yeah you're a stud man any advisor that's telling you to go into debt to grow a company when you've organically grown it with organic cash that fast this is a moron eighty percent of the small businesses in america fail number one cause and cause of failure is cash flow shortage definition of cash flow shortage is caused by two things one is they screw up their tax planning and get behind with a stupid government and two is they go into debt and as soon as there's a pinch as soon as there's a slowdown in their in their space they get run out of business because they owe the bank because the bank owns their butt and i'm not selling my butt to the bank no man you've won end of story touchdown i'll tell you ramsey started on a card table in my living room thirty eight years ago We've never borrowed a dime, and we'll do $300 million in revenue this year. 100% of it is like you've done it. Tough contract management, cash management, retained earnings, and organically poured our profits back into growth. Yep. And we don't buy it if we can't pay for it. And you know who goes broke faster? There's two areas of business that are the fastest going broke. The highest probability of failure, a stupid restaurant, and people in the construction and real estate development business. Yeah. They die like flies as soon as the economy shifts. You've seen it because you were in the business as an employee before you started this, weren't you? Yep, for about 25 years. You had to have some experience to be able to do this as fast as you did it. You didn't just make this all up in the last four years. So that's how I know that. So you've seen it. These guys, they over-leverage. Betting on the lots are going to sell. We're going to develop this. We're going to plat it out. It's going to sell out. And then the economy slows down for whatever reason. Somebody says something like COVID and everybody freezes and runs and hides in their basement. And the whole stinking thing shuts down and you're bankrupt. If you owe a bank, but you're not bankrupt and guess what else you'll be buying out your competitors at pennies on the dollar when they all hit the wall. Yeah. Is there a. Point where maintaining a level of financial independence becomes too conservative and it slows down your growth. It does slow down your growth, but it increases your sustainability. It's a trade-off. Okay. Debt equals debt equals risk. Okay. And debt speeds up your growth, but increases your risk more than it speeds up your growth. Okay. And let me challenge you on the word growth. Well, dude, like for what? I mean, what? I mean, what? What kind of hockey stick do you want? Look at your growth. Well, I think what happens is as larger projects. So we've had the, we've been blessed with great projects and great clients. And so we focus on the clients, but as a larger project comes, like we had one that came in, it really changed the trajectory of our company and we structure our contracts accordingly. Now we're being asked about the next step. So it's, it's another structure to ensure there's cashflow. Cause we don't ever want to not pay people. Yes, exactly. So you're doing it perfectly. And sometimes you walk away from a deal. All right. Yes, because of that. So we had a large household name retailer come to us about 15 years ago and say, we want a custom made for our brand white label brand with Ramsey on it package of your goodies. I'll just call it that. Okay. And we said, yeah, and it was a $10 million order in the days that we were about a 30. Or $40 million business. So it was a game changer. It was a major deal, right? And we're all excited and dancing in the streets and popping champagne corks and everything else. And then they sent in the contracts and the contract said they had full returns. So translation, we do $10 million worth of products, send it, put it on their shelves with their $8 an hour shelf organizing guy, and he puts it in the back of the shelf, it's to the front of the shelf, nobody buys it and they send it all back to us and want all of their money. Refunded, and guess what that stuff's worth. Cause I got their name on it. Nothing goes into a dumpster. And so I'm like, guys, we can't do this. And we walked away from the deal because we, the terms of the deal made it suicidal. Gotcha. And, um, you know, but that doesn't have anything to do with borrowing money, but that's you negotiating that bid or walking away from it because all business is not good business, please, man. Yeah. And please, please, you are doing so good. Trust you. You're the smartest guy in this whole conversation. Not any of the people you're talking to, and certainly not some stupid, but banker. Wow. You are incredible. Keep it up. Hey guys, we are doing Entrez leadership master series, teaching you how to grow a business from my card table to a $300 million company, November 8th through the 13th. If you want to come learn stuff like we just talked about. Yeah. Click the link in the description or go to the Entrez leadership podcast, or just go to Ramsey solutions.com and figure it out. I finally get to announce that my brand new book, building the marriage you want is available for pre-order. If you and your spouse have been feeling like roommates lately, like maybe this thing called our marriage has just run. It's course like this is just the way marriage is. 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 a hundred dollars in pre-order bonus items at Ramsey solutions.com slash store. We're going cruising. Yeah, baby, you're going to go with us. Come on, man. Listen, if your baby step four or beyond, which means you're out of debt, everything, but the house and have your emergency fund, that's when we tell people maybe steps four or five, six, and seven. Seven is your a hundred percent debt-free. Then it's time to go on vacation, buy an upgrade car as long as you're paying cash for it and hitting your other goals that we go from intense to intentionality. So if your baby step four and beyond, we want you to join us for the live like no one else cruise because we teach people to live like no one else so that later they can live and give like no one else. I'll be there along with my wife and Rachel Cruz and Dr. John Deloney and George Camel and Jade Warshaw and Natalie Grant will be our special musical guest Grammy award-winning Christian artist. Absolutely incredible. Lady. Uh, we have incredible events on the ship the entire time. We'll be, each of us will be speaking and teaching and, uh, instead of having shows every night, you got us. Okay. That's what's going on. And there, that will be like doing smart money, happy hour. And Rachel and John are going to do a money in marriage, uh, thing. And we're going to do an entree leadership thing. And then I'm going to be talking about legacy and what happens with wealth and your kids. And we're going to work you through all that stuff. So those of you that are hitting some other. You're hitting some other gears here. Uh, we're going to give you a place to celebrate that. Have a milestone and continue learning on the next part of your journey. So Western Caribbean on the Holland America, which is not the Walmart of the seas. This is the good stuff. I don't go on the cheap cruises. Okay. I'm a snob. So we're going to grand Cayman cause a male half moon cage, Jamaica suite. And this ship is incredible and we'll do the world's largest debt free screen while you're on there too. It's pretty cool. And, uh, very neat and just incredible. We're going to, each of us will be doing stuff, pop up stuff all throughout the week. We're going to be on the ship with you the whole time and we're not jumping in, jumping out. We're going to be there and we want to walk with you and have you enjoy this. So your baby step forward beyond March 14th through the 21st, there is a few cabins left. We can still get you on the last cruise. We did was a complete sellout. This one we expect to be as well. We've got from now until March to make that happen, but I don't think it's going to be anywhere near that long. So if you want a cabin. Then you should put down a deposit now, check it out right now, March 14th through 21 next fall. Next spring. We want you to go with us on the Holland America. It's absolutely incredible to live like no one else cruise. Check it out at Ramsey solutions.com or click the notes and click the link in the show notes. Princess is in Fort Campbell. Hi princess. How are you? Hi Dave. Hi John. Okay. My question is that my husband is getting. Getting out of the military. We just started working the baby step back in October. So it's been about a year now and we have $21,839 on a car loan. That's the rest of our debt, but we stopped paying off our debt because since he's transitioning out and he's not retiring, he's just separating from the military. Um, we started saving an emergency fund. So that way, like if it's. Part to get a job or. When does he, when does he leave the military? So March, 2027. Okay. And what does he make now? Uh, 1900, the first and the 15th. Okay. $4,000 a month. So he's making us like 60 grand a year. Okay. So what's he going to do with his life now that he's not in the military starting in March? So he's doing an internship right now for welding. So he'll be going. To an apprenticeship for welding. And what will that pay? Um, we're not sure. We don't really know. Then why are you doing it? Well, he wants to get out. Well, that's asinine. I'm going to take a job and I don't know what it pays. Of course, you know what it pays or you wouldn't be doing it. Right. I want to know what it pays by the way. Welders can make a hundred grand a year. in the right situation but they can also make nothing because they didn't have a plan so i want you i mean he's doing an apprenticeship from now until march he ought to be ready to go to work in march and what's he going to get paid and who's he going to go to work for i'm sorry right now he's just learning about like doing an internship learning about welding while he's still in the military i know i know when he gets out they're going to put him with the union why i guess that's how it works no i'm not we're not there's welders that are non-union and there's welders that are union okay so here this is the core problem this is what i was driving at this is why i was asking all these questions the way you're describing this he's going to come out of the military and um make absolutely and you're planning for him to make absolutely no money bad plan i want him to get a raise the first day he's not in the military anymore that's a better plan he needs to do something different either non-union or non-welding i don't care but he needs to go do something with his life that gives him instant money the day he leaves the military you have freaking seven months to plan this but it's going to happen to you if you don't happen to it so y'all need to get like proactive on this and then the car is not a concern see you're planning to fail i've got a pile up savings and do i sell my car to get ready to be homeless you know do you work no i'm staying at home with the children how many children i have three children six four and 18 month old wow you got your hands full okay so we need to have a talk tonight you and him that says okay we need a better plan the a plan where we know how much money we're going to make and a plan on exactly how we're going to get there and how fast we're going to get there and if he's going to make a little bit less at an apprenticeship for three months after the military but then he's going to make a lot more after that fine but if he's going to be in a three-year apprenticeship at thirty thousand dollars a year screw that go do something else okay okay so figure this out but if it's if it's a step back for three months and then you start making a hundred grand after that okay that's fine let's sell the car and pile up some cash i'm with you then right but we got to know where we're going and we're going to make a lot of money and we're going to make a lot of money and we're going with this we can't just let this all just randomly occur because you know you got to tell your life what to do or your life's going to be screwed it will run over you and there is a lot of talk and we talk about it here a lot of talk with the trades and the amount of money you can make in the trades and the amount of life you can provide for your family in the trades but i also have people in my world that are certified tradesmen of various sorts that are have run aground because that's not a magic ticket no any more than a four-year degree is a magic ticket you still got to go out there and work real hard have a plan know who's going to pay you have jobs have some business sense all that stuff still applies okay so here's the thing the military is taking care of you and you hadn't had to think about it right now you think the union's going to take care of you and you don't think about it this is a good way to be broke the rest of your life you have to think about it right and the union is not going to take care of you and the welding trade is not going to take care of you it's your job to take care of you union might be a way that you take care of you that's fine i'm not mad at union but don't rely on some don't if you got a corporate job corporate it's not going to take care of you corporate will piss on you so at first first crack they're going to get you so don't don't you know you got to count on your plan and the way you're going to do this and this is the way i'm going to be a welder because this is the way that welders make the most money the soonest and here's a dollar amount i want to make i'm going to reverse engineer that with my welding how can i go make that dollar amount exactly and then i'm going to go scratch and claw to get that like i'm gonna have a goal already so i make 60 a year i need to make 60 a year starting in march that's right that's my start that i'm going to start with that assumption so what jobs do i have to have to make four thousand plus benefits if i'm on my own but you're going to be sitting around scratching your armpit a year from now wondering what happened and your own welfare right if you don't if you don't lay this out and let no one is there's no calvary coming i appreciate his service to our country thank you for that thank you for the sacrifice you've made as a a wife and a mother for your husband being in the military thank you for that and i want your return to be that you go out there and have a great life after the military you've heard from me and the ramsey personalities for years but nothing beats actually getting to gather 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 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 in the lobby of ramsey solutions on the debt-free stage monty and car are with us hey guys how are you super i'm amazed welcome welcome where do you all live raleigh north carolina fun well welcome to nashville to do a debt free scream so how much have you two paid off four hundred uh ninety seven thousand two dollars and sixty nine cents and how long did this take six years and three months um but it's really been a a 25 year journey sure y'all that's a half a million dollars congratulations man and your range of income during the six years uh i i'm so nervous it's gone out of my head uh i don't know i don't know i we probably started at 60 and i don't know we're probably at 120 now sorry day that's okay what y'all do for a living um i'm a we we have our own business i'm uh mobile home parks oh good yeah that's a good business okay good for y'all well done so what was the 497 000 in debt on well it was all business uh but it just because when i hit hit bottom six years ago it was in business i'm a pretty much an equal opportunity debtor and never saw a loan or an interest rate i didn't like so it it we it went the gamut it was on cars credit cards we had he he had 26 credit cards i want you to know that 26 credit cards and had mortgaged the house twice wow all to keep this business afloat yeah right a player yeah so player what happened what woke you up uh six years ago something happened see i you've been uh i've been in the business for a long time i've been in the business and uh and i first want to say john i grew up down the street from you on interstate 10 no way on the pecos river a little town called ozona texas cool yeah and and dave you've been working with me for 25 years and um i i in fact i can't first 19 i didn't do too good what happened six years ago that's one hard head versus a hard head man i can't believe i'm here i never thought i'd get here in all this in all that time and uh anyway i've um i've been in the business for a long time i've been in the business for a long time i've been well six years ago covet happened and so all the people who were in our firm for mobile home parks we thought he thought wouldn't be able to pay the lot rents and the mobile home rents and therefore we wouldn't get paid and then we wouldn't be able in turn to pay um the mortgages on the four mobile home parks and that's when he told me that we were in debt for that much we'd set up our marriage uh right out of uh we met in bible college right after bible college and i would make money and pay the bills and she would have children and raise them and boy did she raise some good kids but we didn't know i had some kind of compulsive streak and uh it it uh it took coming to a serious bottom before i actually so you got covet scared the crud out of you and that was your wake-up call and then what happened well i said okay i'm listening to you all this time i'm actually going to do this stuff now is that it i was i was right about uh overdebting and i we'd been broke two three times before and here we are getting broke again and we lost half the business and um by the grace of god we kept kept half of it um and i uh i had to i had to deal with the compulsion i and i got lucky if a guy told me about a 12-step program i could get in and that To be continued. carry that compulsion and all your stuff worked great and uh even though our first uh that first year our top line was cut in half uh the bottom line doubled from the year before and every year since then it's there were a lot of miracles a lot of a lot of miracles and we um we scrapped the business model of i make the money and pay the bills and you raise the kids and we got her involved and we started uh having a weekly spending plan meeting and we we got that went to our daughter-in-law all our kids took financial peace and it worked for them it just wouldn't work for me and um and uh they showed me how they used every dollar and uh the first three months that we worked together um failed all three we couldn't we couldn't make it work but we were failing together and then that fourth month you It worked and we've done 77 months now with a weekly spending plan meeting and and using that every dollar we look like a couple of teenagers on a date we're looking at our phones going through each line item just talking about each line item on our spending plan and um there's a picture of you on a cruise that was her that was my thank you to her for uh when you got out of debt that was the payoff yes on our anniversary on august 11th i love it I love it good for you 47th wedding anniversary we we hit the last payment button on that day on the ship and hit the reservation button next on the ship oh no we'd already made i made that ahead of time oh you were on the ship when you paid it off oh i like that yeah that's cool i have a video of of her making the last payment because she didn't do any of the debting it was all me and so she hit that last button on that first day with a golden gate bridge uh behind us and turn around she makes the payment yeah that's that's iconic that's epic right there how does it feel when you're sitting there on that cruise ship hitting that button and for the first time in your adult life you're free i felt like a teenager and i didn't feel nothing and and i was happy she felt something i said i'll probably feel it next month when there's no payment to make and the next month came which was september no payment didn't feel it and i was happy she felt something i said i'll probably feel it next month when there's no payment but at the end of the month a week or so ago doing reconciling the books and checking the pnl i came down and here's this number number number number on the line item and then there's a zero and i went dang it i didn't code something right so i went back through all the month where's my coding air because there shouldn't be a zero all these months have something and i couldn't find it and i went back to that zero and i backed up on the and the line item was called interest expense and it was truly a zero and i had like a spiritual event because i had looked for the mistake and there was no mistake you were free and my my cruise was making a pilgrimage to franklin so that i could come here and i thought it was going to be some of the personalities when i saw you i said i'm not going to be able to talk today because you you're one of the five or six guys in my life that that's that does and look who's doing all the talking and you never you never gave up on me you don't know me but i know you and you never gave up on me and uh i'm so proud of you and hey i'm looking i'm looking at a woman next to you never gave up on you either yeah amen she would stop me in my 47 freaking years yeah and my pacing i'm around in my bottom when i couldn't eat couldn't sleep for the nightmares and she'd stop me while i'm pacing and she'd say open your mouth and she'd spray medicine in my mouth because she went to the doctor because she i couldn't tell her what i'd done i was all pushing those secrets down inside what's your marriage like now oh we've always had a good marriage yeah but i will say there's no true intimacy in a marriage until there's first financial intimacy it's been remarkable well you see he got his degree in accounting from texas christian university and so i thought well he knows his way around money so i don't have to worry about that because i just raised children right and can i shout out to hey lydia hey jorba hey stewart yeah very cool the financial peace university graduates i like it way to go guys i have a lot of respect for a man that looks himself in the mirror and says i need to go get help and he goes and gets the help he needs so he can be the husband and the father amen the businessman that he needs to be i'm proud of you brother amen me too i'm very proud of both of you very well done and i just love the story it's just so redeeming that you you you hit the submit button on the cruise for the 47th anniversary cruise i just it's just that's perfect that's perfect so let's shout them out let's shout them out all right here we go you gotta love it monty and car 497 000 paid off in six years making 60 to 120 count it down let's hear a debt-free scream three two one and they're sitting on the back deck of that ship yelling that people thought they were weird we think they're great 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 are you supposed to save money if you don't know 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 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 colossians 3 to set your minds on things above not on earthly things joe vitale said a goal should scare you a little and excite you a lot luisa is in atlanta hi luisa how are you um hi yes good afternoon thank you for taking my call sure what's up um so i have about a hundred and three thousand dollars worth of debt um because i agreed to co-sign with the church and i'm going to go to the church and i'm going to go to or not co-sign but rather finance things for my boyfriend of three years um i grew up with your principles ironically enough i did i worked my way through college never had any debt of my own not a car nothing um and i got pregnant so we decided to stay together for our baby um he convinced me to open a business for him so i also opened a credit card for the business um his ask and uh that's a twenty two thousand dollar balance i also financed his truck uh sixty thousand dollar balance did you say he left no he did not are we still together he does not know i'm calling you are you married are you still boyfriend no okay we were never married and how old is your child uh my son is two and what do you make a year i uh bring home about 5100 a month how much does his business make um so he's owed a lot in invoices right now about 60k but he hasn't received any payment in about two months uh it's a construction company okay how certain are you of these invoices versus him saying no no no they're they're supposed to be paying me um i have um asked for proof of the emails and the communication that he's kept with the gc's that are owing him has he shown them to you yes okay um the truck is um is 60 000 owed on it but it's upside down because of the miles about ten thousand dollars and the financial entity that i financed it through does not do personal loans um and um i i just i'm backed into a wall here i want to get rid of all of this debt um he did receive a job offer to start as a project manager that starts in november the first week of november good what's he gonna be making uh 90 000 okay and he makes 90 and you make um i make 85 85 okay so so you make 175 000 starting in november and you owe 60 000 on a truck and 25 000 on a um credit card okay um yeah well what would i do if i the two of you need to get aligned on the fact that we're going to clean this mess up and we're never doing it again and that this was a dumb idea if you cannot get aligned on that then you need to see a counselor a therapist okay because you need to get married or you need to break up or break up one of the two my fear is that if i leave he's going to default on all of these payments and leave me with everything because he's legally not liable for any of it yeah but you make 85 000 and you can sell the truck and then you will then you will only owe a few thousand dollars and you can you can work your way through this i don't want you staying with somebody who's unsafe that you feel coerces you into things you don't want to do um because the the safety there will just continue to derode yeah it'll go away yeah you started taking your power back when you started demanding you get a job and i want to see the invoices and he started listening which was the same thing okay so the core the coercion changed directions you start coercing him which is good for his own good and so if he's going to stand up be a man take a job and clean the mess up and he's he's husband material if he's not then it's time for him to move on and you clean up this mess and go i just did a really stupid thing um if i were to leave i would need the truck and the personal credit card at least paid off so that i can afford to live by myself with my child yeah well here's an idea here's an idea before you live in a toxic situation just let them both go into default and live on your money and pay and pay your bills and when they come calling then you can work out a deal with them both of them let them repo the truck i'm way more worried about your safety ma'am than i am about the stupid truck yeah you you've got this perception that this is golden handcuffs or some kind of toxic handcuffs and it's not just stop paying it if he stop paying it tell him where the truck is give him give him his address tell him go pick it up as soon as possible please repo it now and guess what i bet you he'll find some money all of a sudden or they'll sue you for the they'll sell it to you for the difference and you'll owe them 20 grand or whatever and you can say i don't have that money i'm a single mom i will pay you or we'll come up with a payment arrangement yeah just don't pay should i should i borrow from my 401k those 10k to just are you not listening no no no no no no i know you're scared i can hear it i can hear it i can hear it are you are you safe hon yeah i'm in my car no no no i know but when you go home to your house tonight with this boyfriend are you safe um yeah i don't i don't think i believe you anymore i think you need to move out tonight yeah go find your family in the area no my family my mom lives in florida the rest of my family lives in south america okay i think you need to go get a place to stay a women's shelter or something and get your child and get out of there i don't think you're i don't think you're safe and i think you know it and and you're you're putting up with a bunch of bs off this guy because of a truck payment nah forget it just let them have the truck you're worth way more than this you're worth way more than this whole situation it's just a little bit of credit so what you're acting like this stuff has more power than it does and it only has the power if you give it power if you're not safe you need to be gone when he gets home tonight you hear me hello hello yeah i said okay okay and you can you can get online and put a freeze on all of your credit so he can't take out any more loans against you okay okay and then just go hey dude you know you need to pay this bill because by the way i'm going to sue you for child support well he needs to pay that anyway i know i'm gonna make sure he does i was hoping to have a relationship with him as co-parents because we're always going to be in our child's life and no not necessarily not necessarily not if he's not if he's an abuser he's not going to be in anybody's life that's right go to jail do not pass go we're going to solve all those problems after we solve the chief issue in your in your situation right now which is safe safety okay yeah you're talking to two guys you don't co-parent with a gorilla yeah you co-parent with someone who's functional and so this is simple and we don't worry about their income or whatever so if you're not safe you need to get out of there and i can't tell if you're just emotional and you're scared of this debt or if you're truly not safe i can't tell with the tears where they're coming from but if you're not safe you need to be gone when he gets home tonight screw the debt screw him he's not a father he's an abuser if you're not safe that's what it is time to walk little sister yeah now if you're safe and you're just scared of the debt and you feel ashamed because you got manipulated then you push through this and you go see a therapist but i think you said you're seeing someone why don't you call your therapist when you get off the phone and tell them what we just told you yeah asap and if your therapist has any kind of backbone they're going to get you out of there this afternoon if they think there's abuse going on so get on the phone with your therapist make that promise to christian i'm going to put you on hold we're going to make sure we get some people come around you and make sure you're okay kid good gracious dave i don't like that at all i feel pretty helpless right this second i don't like that feeling uh either especially when i want to find a construction boy and pound him but anyway yeah it doesn't help me at all and people call the show with regularity with with debt issues or relationship challenges listen the only thing that matters in these situations first and foremost are you safe yeah and i know leaving can't start from from anywhere else that's right leaving with a child is a big responsibility it comes with a lot of burden it comes with a lot of disruption i get that and your safety is worth every single bit of that disruption that puts this hour of the ramsey show in the book so 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