Stop Settling for a Life You Hate

(upbeat music) - Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. (upbeat music) - Normal is broken, common sense is weird. So we're here to help you transform your life and your money from the Ramsey Network. Here in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio, this is the Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshot, next to me. You already know the man. Dr. John Deloney taking calls. All, a couple hours long here, trouble, 825-225, is the number you need to dial. You've got Lexi who's in San Francisco, California. Hey, Lexi, what's going on, girl? - Hi. - Hi, I'm calling from California. I'm curious to get your recommendations on a housing finance related question. Current name of pretty major, metropolitan area. My rent is over 50% of my take home income, and so if I had the option to move home and not pay rent, I would have to commute probably four hours round trip. - Oh gosh. - To get to, yeah, so it got gas prices in California. And then of course, like probably down the line, more car related expenses. So curious what you all would make of that. - What do you do for a living? - I do communication. - So what if we said that neither of those are the solution, 'cause they're clearly not, you can't pay 50% and you can't have a four hour commute. Neither of those are an option. - Neither of those are a good life, yeah. Anytime I feel backed into a corner, I like to just, for fun, put options 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, even if they're preposterous, but put them on the table to A remind myself that there's always more options than bad A and bad B. But also it begins to expand my horizon a little bit. How much do you make in your job? - Over 100,000 years. - Oh gosh. And certainly now we have another variable, certainly not 400,000 are we driving a four hour commute. So what can we, you said you're in communications? - Yes. - What can you, are there other jobs and communications that are all over the country that you could apply for? And if not, what is it specifically that you feel like it's keeping you in the San Francisco area or in a high expense area? - Yeah, I mean, it's a difficult right because high cost of living but typically higher wages than maybe other areas in California. - Not necessarily, but not necessarily. - Not necessarily, doesn't pan out. - Yeah, and yeah, I feel like that definitely lately. - And make no mistake, like San Francisco's stunning. It's beautiful, it's got cool things to do. All cool bands play there. Like it's a cool place to be. And it also cost a $1,000,000. - Totally. Well, and that's where like quality of life if you can't afford any of the fun things. - Exactly. - And it doesn't even matter. - Or what is your 100,000? And dude, I know there's something magic about saying the phrase, I make six figures. But if you make a hundred grand and you can't afford to do anything, what's the difference in making 85 somewhere where you can enjoy your life, right? - Yeah. - Yeah. And you laid out the stakes perfectly. You said, okay, if I keep doing this and paying 50% rent, obviously, I mean, you already know you're not gonna have the money, you're not gonna have the margin to do anything that would make you a financially responsible adult, right? You won't be able to save money, you won't really be able to invest, you won't be able to build wealth, you won't be able to buy real estate, right? Not on 100,000. And then if you say, well, if I do the other option and I do a four hour commute, well now I'm just burning myself out. I'm burning my vehicle out. I'm burning myself out of job that maybe I started out liking. Now I hate the job and I'm looking up two years from now going, what was I thinking? - And my mom's asking me what I'm gonna be home, right? - So let's get ahead of that. Seeing that, seeing that, let's go, okay, what can we create that we look up two years from now and we think, I'm so glad that I made this change. Is it today, starting today, starting this weekend? We started putting lines in the water, we started making a list of 10 people we know around the country, letting them know, hey, I'm looking, I'm searching, I get on LinkedIn, I read Kin Coleman's book, find the work you're wired to do. I start all that tonight in this weekend and then I start actually applying for jobs. I start sending out resumes, maybe in the next couple of months you land something and yeah, maybe cause you go to Denver or you go to Dallas or you go, gosh, to, you know, butville, Tennessee, wherever you end up going, you're there and now you're making a living, you're making money and all of that other stuff is gone now and you're just able to enjoy your money, you have a new community. I mean, I like this for you. - Yeah, I like to do it, you say it, yeah. Well, I'm curious to, like, where would you put like retirement benefits into this cost analysis? Like, if I have a pretty good 401k match right now, but maybe another job somewhere else didn't have any employer match, like. - Again, you're creating two bad options for yourself and assuming you have to choose either one. Like, there's, like, how good is your match? Is it 25%? - No, no, not that much. - Okay, how much is it? - Four, five percent. - Okay, that's not a great match. That's a regular match. - It's just normal. - You can find that probably anywhere, I'm not gonna say that standard 'cause it's not standard, but there are plenty of companies who offer similar style benefits and I would not, to John's point, let's not make that assumption. Let's make the assumption. There's other jobs out there based on what we know. There's other jobs out there that probably pay 100,000 that probably have a 5% match. Let's just likely, right? So let's not assume anything because if we make assumptions based on our fears and the assumption is gonna line up with our fears, let's actually go out there and get some facts that might contradict our fears and maybe prove them wrong. And then we go, oh, I was wrong all along. There's a lot of great options out here. - So Lexi, listen to James Wisdom here. Here's a great exercise for you. How old are you right now? - 27. - Okay, so 27, let's imagine you at 30. Imagine how much you wanna have in a savings account. Imagine how much in a dream world you'd like to have in retirement. Imagine what you would like to be doing professionally, right? Imagine if you have family or friends or community you'd like to be near or like one jump on a plane away, right? And then begin saying, okay, here's what I want my life to look like when I'm 30 'cause my fear for you is like this is a big deal, right? Quitting your job at 27 or finding a new job, that's a big deal. Moving in with your mom at 27, that's a big deal for our community. All these things are big deals and it's really easy when everything feels like a big deal to do nothing. And then you're gonna blink and you're gonna be 30 and you're gonna be in the exact same situation just with your finances a little worse off all to protect this magic thing called the six-figure job that actually cost you actually living your life, right? And so it might be that you find yourself in Houston or you find yourself in Omaha or you find yourself in any number in Nevada, any number of other places, making a hundred grand, 95 grand, 125 grand, and the cost of living allows you to actually live, right? - Yeah. - And all of those are big hard challenges. You hear me say this over and over and I'm kind of beating the dead horse here but every decision you have in front of you's heart, right? Moving away from family's hard, quitting your jobs hard, getting a new jobs hard, moving states is hard, all these are hard, choose the hard path that's gonna get you where you wanna be when you're 30. I think that's the path. - I definitely think that's the path. And I think if you start today, like I said, you're gonna look up and it's gonna be a wonderful outcome. Before you leave, we will make sure to give you can Coleman's find the work you're wired to do. That's our gift to you. It's an assessment. It's gonna help you figure out the things that you're good at and then it's gonna help you find career fields that are associated with the things that you're good at and that really give you the juice to quote Ken. And I think that's really gonna help you and we'll give you from paycheck to purpose. Throw that in there too. He doesn't mind. (upbeat music) If you've ever been really sick or been the caregiver to somebody who was, you know how broken the healthcare system can be. 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Go to solacehealth.com/ramz or click the link in the description. Checking your eligibility only takes about two minutes. That's S-O-L-A-C-E-Health.com/ramz. You must be 18 or older and remember advocates do not provide medical or legal advice. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) Well, let's head back to the phone line, "Shallowly." We have Brooklyn who's in Phoenix, Arizona. Hey, Brooklyn, what's going on? - Hi, thank you so much for taking my call. My question for you guys is do you have any advice or how my husband and I can kind of keep ourselves financially safe? We're in an uncomfortable, like intertwined financial situation with his parents. They continue to make just a gregiously terrible decisions with their money, which ends up affecting us. We're trying to rebuild and move forward and you were in financial peace with our church, but if their bad decisions keep kind of affecting us and I'll just leave you. - Yeah, it's a whole picture, yeah. - Yeah, so a couple years back, we co-signed their mortgage. - Oh, there you go. - I know, I know. What in the world caused that chain of events? That's crazy work. - I don't know if you guys are called there. A couple years back, there was a really weird housing bubble that happened. Our state was really severely affected. And so overnight we had just hundreds of people coming in from California, paying all cash for houses. - Yeah, that happened a lot of places. - Yeah, it's not a housing bubble. It's just a, in fact, it's the opposite. It was, it made the housing inventory was basically nil, right? - But that doesn't explain you co-signing. - Yeah, my, my unlock were in a rental that they'd been in forever. They got a 45 day notice on their door because they got sold to the one for, they couldn't afford. And there were no rental homes available to get into. And so we kind of exhausted every option we could see and the only other kind of thing that looked like that would work would be to get them into a mortgage and get them into a home. - How old are they? - They're in their late 50s, early 60s. - Okay, so there's already a dynamic that I hear here that you, I think you're hip to this, otherwise you wouldn't be calling. There's a lot of we talking about them and their marriage and their life. And somehow you guys have like sucked that into your marriage and your life and it's a four, it's a four wheel we instead of them and you guys. - Or I imagine, imagine, what would you trade to have had a really hard conversation to three to four years ago when they had to move into a two bedroom apartment versus the conversation you all gonna have to have now, right? - Yeah. - Like a hard conversation was gonna happen but it's gonna get worse, yeah. - Yeah, we've had some really bad conversations and they don't end productively. - I bet. - Well, I think the time for talking quite honestly is over. The only thing you and your husband can do is control what you're going to do next. - Yeah, and so have you gotten out of this situation, have you said, guys, you gotta refinance and get us off this loan? I don't care that the interest rates are what they are. If that means you have to rent, you cannot keep us caught up in this. - Yeah, we have had that conversation. They are not able to refinance us off because they're credit and. - Right. - You guys have to sell this house. - Can you sell the house? - Yeah. - You gotta sell it. - Why not? - They flat out will not. We continue doing this at this conversation probably on a monthly basis, but it usually ends in like a casting screening. - Sure. - And were they like that before? Were they like, were they that, like combat of like that before? - They can be about things that have set them. I think my husband and I did not fully understand how they perceived money. And now we see like where their mindset is coming from. And so it's not a reasonable mindset. And that's our issue. So we've. - So have you said to them, okay, let's take money out of it. I know it's very hard to take money out of this equation, but have you spoken to them on a relationship, father, daughter, in law, just trying to do life together and said, hey, here's what I'm most afraid of. This has already changed our relationship. And I don't know if you've noticed it, but gosh, we don't interact the same. When we end up on calls, it ends up we get belligerent. We don't want to spend Thanksgiving together anymore. That bothers me because when I think about a family, I want in laws that I can talk to on the phone. I want my husband to feel like his mom and dad have a great, right? Have you talked to them on that level and said, I just don't like what it's doing relationally. And can you truthfully say that you like what this is doing to us? And it's worth staying in this house. Can you really say that? Because it's not worth it for me. Have you talked to them on that level? I don't think we've come at it from that kind of an angle. I can definitely, definitely try that. Because that's the truth. I mean, obviously, we can name a million reasons why financially it's bad for both parties. But what I'm really seeing is the deterioration of you guys' relationship. And I don't know if you have kids yet, but that's certainly gonna affect your own kids. It's certainly, do you see what I'm saying? My guess is-- The kids actually is a major factor for us because they help watch our children. And my oldest has really severe special needs. And so there are the only people that we can trust to take care of, so I don't have anyone else. So that's-- Alice, what prompted us to do it in the first place? We were like, OK, well, this is like an investment in child care. These are the people that when you have a special needs kid, Russ is really important because it's really exhausting. And they're the only people that we can trust. Like, my family doesn't help. So are they on, are they, well, I guess I want to challenge you on the word trust. Because maybe they're really good caring for your child, which is amazing. But you don't trust them. Yeah, but no, we don't. And that's definitely affected my-- I mean, like you said, it's affected everything, so-- So let's get down to the best times. I'm going to try that. Are they making their mortgage note every month? No. Two years ago, I came home to a wage garnishment notice from my husband because they had not been paying. Yeah, that was very upsetting. We cleaned up the mess. Said, you absolutely cannot be doing this. Like, if you're going to miss a payment, we need to know we will cover the payment. Like, do not do this to us again. Are you guys homeowners? Do you and your husband own a home? We do. Yes. We own a home. And so we told them this. We were very-- they're like, oh, of course, of course, of course, whatever. And we ran my husband's credit last month. And there's two more. So-- How are you going to keep doing this? How are you doing financially? Like, what's your margin look like? What's your debt look like? We're doing OK. We have done financial peace because we came to the epiphany of we're trying to save them. And we can't keep burning ourselves out, saving them. So we're doing OK. So my real number is what baby stuff are you on? We're on baby set too. So we're paying off debt. We're getting-- we have a little bit of a car loan left. We've got some student loans. We need to knock out. And then we can move forward. Our mortgage is only, I think, it's 23 1/2% of our take-home pay. Yeah, because that's the main thing, Brooklyn. And you already know this, but I'm saying it for anybody listening to this. There is your stuck, right? You did this act. And you know what it is. Now you're regretful of it. You're like, I've learned my lesson. But the hard part is now your-- Love the time machine. Yes, man, you can't get back in the time machine. And now you're in it. And so you've got to be doing the baby steps, which you are doing, because your only hope in this is to hope for the day that they see the light. But until then, you've got to be able to reach over when they don't pay the note. You've got to be able to reach over it to protect your own self. Do you see what I'm saying? And so by you, you're doing the right thing now, walking the baby steps, getting out of this car loan, getting out of this student loan. And just having three to six months, if I was in your shoes, I might have six to eight months, knowing that they have a mortgage. How much is their mortgage? Their mortgage is about 1,700 a month. Their HOA payment is 315 per month. So between the two, they're 2 grand a month. So if I were you, I'd probably always keep 2,000 in an account somewhere that's just in law, in law mistakes. You know what I mean? I would probably put a 2,000-- again, I'm projecting onto you in your margin. Thank you. I would put $2,000 in an account every month, make it a recurring bill. I don't know. That sounds like a problem. You can't do that. Yeah, that's too much. I believe I think they're going to keep doing that, right? Right. But what you can do is if you have it one time in that account-- so let's say we're going into October-- let's say for October, you say, I'm going to put the line item there, 2,000 a month. It's sitting there, sitting there, come February. If they don't pay, you can reach into that pay the rent. And then the next month, now you got to put it back on the budget again, $2,000. So it's kind of like what we would say, a peaks and valleys account. So you're funding it whenever you use it. You have to refund it right away. And that's how this works. [BLANK_AUDIO] For anybody listening, gosh, just remember co-signing guys, it is only there because the bank knows that person cannot pay. They will not pay. They cannot afford it and they don't want to take the risk so neither should you. If your business is making seven figures or more, you should be proud of that. But that growth probably brought a mess with it. 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So if you're out there and you're working the baby steps, you already know the best and fastest way to do that is to use every dollar. And it's more than a budgeting app guys. This is the app that's going to help you stick to the Ramsey plan. If you're listening to this podcast, it's because you think that something about what we're saying makes sense. You know it's logical, you know it's resonating, but you just need to, you need to dive in. And the way that you're going to dive in is with every dollar. Not only is it going to give you a plan for how you spend every single dollar every single month, but it's also going to kind of push you in the way of the Ramsey. Push you in the way of Ramsey that we're teaching everything from our perspective. We're not going to sell you any debt. You're not going to get in there and we're talking about a credit score. None of that. It's just helping you win, helping you achieve your money goals. So start every dollar for free by downloading it and the app store or Google Play today. All right. Let's go to Mark who's in Detroit, Michigan. Hey, Mark. How's it going? Okay. How you doing? We're doing good. How can we help? Well, that is some financial trouble and debt. And due to some forced unforeseen circumstances, I had to make some large purchases, repayments, whatever stuff like that. And it just got out of control. Now I have, you know, I had one card and I tried to get out of debt by doing one of those no interest things for the next month of months. And you know, car got stolen. You know, it was like a country song. So I wanted to, and I know this is kind of a no-no, but I wanted to get a he-lock to consolidate debt. Now, I wouldn't have normally suggested it, but we have my wife and I have so much equity in our house. I wanted to borrow about seven and a half percent of that. Just to give myself some breathing room. The intention is to sell the house in the spring. Yeah. Yeah. But just, I mean, I'm like robbing feet of the paypal. It's creating a lot of stress. Of course. And she, and she, you know, she's an avid listener to some of these financial podcasts. I believe yours is one of them. And she will, she wouldn't budge on it. So no way, you can do a good credit counselor that that'll affect my credit. You know, well, your credit's going to be affected. I mean, you're, you're in a way, but let me tell you something that really bothers me about this for you. If I have, I'm just going to paint you this picture. If I have saved up in a piggy bank, $7,000. And it's my piggy bank. I saved the money. I did what it took for that money to be there. And then somebody came up to me and said, I will let you borrow your own money at 6.42%. I would look at them like they're crazy. What do you mean? You're going to charge me to borrow my own money, right? Yeah. That's what you're doing with this home equity line. You're saying, I have this equity that I, I did the work to have. I made my payments on time. I put the down payment. I held it. I held the asset. It's my money. And you want me to borrow it from myself and pay you 6.42% or whatever it is. That's a little, that's really not what's happening. No. First of all, you got, you know, I'm looking at, you know, you know, user is dead, you know, like, I don't even know, 25, 30%, you're right. I'm sorry, interest rates. I could cut it down to, you know, he locked it 8%. And, and honestly, you know, I say I borrowed money. Mark, it's part of the bank. Oh, it's my house, though. I would, I'm paying them back for the house. How much? And now I'm telling them, hey, you know what? I need to borrow some of that money back. Yes. You're, and you have to pay it back. You have to pay it back. When you sell the house, you don't get to have that money. You've given it away. How much debt do you have, Mark? I, and I got about 25,000. Okay. If I get, if I get it, and, and, and the heel acts are from, you can't get it for, you have to get it for a certain amount. That's right. That's right. Right. Right. So, so here's the thing. We get over $500,000 in equity. I'm, you know, I mean, that's, that's great, but it's unrealized. And you have a 25,000-dollar problem. How much money do you make a year? You and your wife combined? Well, we kind of keep our both separate. So I'm going to, I'm just going to mine is, I make just under 90. Okay. And how come you and your wife have chosen to do life together, but you don't, you don't combine your money together? Because some people are unrealistic about what you can spend. You know, what takes priority? You know, is it going to be a, you know, a pretty dish or is it going to be, you know, so you don't trust that she, you don't trust that she has the self-controlistic to a budget. Is that what you're saying? Well, she does now. Yeah, we separated a couple years ago with the debt. And she is spot on. She's doing good. Okay. Good. So, so, so, so how much margin do you, is, is weird to even talk like how much margin do you have like from your bills that you have to pay every month? Oh, I am, I am like, that's a, whatever income ratio is like, you know, flatlined. You know, when I, after the car got stolen, you know, they didn't, you know, I'd loved having no car payment. It was the best thing ever. And then I walked out to my driveway and my car's gone. So, I mean, is that being, you know, now I have a car note, you know, I mean, that's one of the things that I know. No, no, no, no, no, here's a, here's a problem, brother. You're not owning any of this. No, no, of course, I'm, I'm paying other people to, I know, I know, but what I'm saying is you're not owning, you're getting magically get a car note. You got your car stolen, which is, which is awful. It's a violation of your personal privacy and it took away your actual transportation. And then you as a grown man went and chose not to go get a $3,000 car to get you to and from. You chose to go take out a car note. It didn't happen to you. All of this hasn't, you know, you make it sound so easy. Listen, like, you know, I don't know if you've been out there, but I had a $3,000 car for many years. Brother, you're talking to folks who were out, Mark, you're talking to two people who were all the way out in the street. When it comes to how much time did you spend fixing your car? You know, I mean, not that. And let's be fair, let's be fair for a second. 3,000, I made that number up by the way, right? It could have been eight or eight or nine, right? We could have, we could have gone a little bit higher, but the point that he's making is you made the choice to sign for debt. You made this choice to sign for a certain amount of debt because let's be fair. How much is your car, how much is your car note? What do you owe? What do I owe? That's a good question. I'm liable 14. Okay. So that's kind of the point of that John was making. Could you have gotten a eight or a 10? Yes, you could have. Could we have done this for less? That was the point. So what we're trying to say what we're trying to say here is we can't have part of part of getting ahead with money. And you're talking to somebody here, Mark, who had close to half a million of consumer debt. Okay. And I had a six figure like we've been way more underwater than 25 grand. We've been where you are and then some and we both both of us while we were on the air on this show had colleagues making fun of us because we drove such old used cars. Both of us. Okay. So we're in this with you. Okay. It's not us talking against you. But you hear how animated I'm getting because you're about to go put your house on the block. And if you if you take out a $50,000 he lock because that's the minimum they're going to do it to preserve your precious like debt to debt score. Right. And you do it to give yourself some breathing room and you miss it. They take the whole thing. You get what I'm saying? How would I miss it if I'm if I'm able to just barely because I interest. All right, go for it all right. So I got this user as interest right I can I when I walked right into that, right? Yeah, and what I'm gonna I'm paying, you know, X amount of dollars, and if I can wrap it all up into a, you know Mark I'm gonna cut you off Mark you don't you don't want to know our opinion you're one stolen car away from this all happening again Mark is gonna do Mark is gonna go ahead and take the helot because Mark you didn't call to get our Advice you call to tell us what you're gonna do and that's your choice to do that if Dave were on the line He would have hung up on you a long time ago, but I wanted to just hear what you were gonna say You're gonna do what you're gonna do because if you call the show and you're not open just a little bit If you call the show like this, yeah, we can't help you We can't and I can explain all day and John can explain all day. We have nothing to gain From this so if we're helping you is from a pure point We don't have anything to help you're the one with twenty five thousand dollars of debt We're trying to reduce the amount of risk and stress in your life because we care about you I don't care about winning an argument my friend I care about you going away in peace and you having a situation that's going to be get peace in your life Switching one debt for another type of debt is never gonna do it. You cannot pay off debt by using debt You have to use income and money to pay off debt If you're serious about building a business you need an easy way for customers to buy from you Yeah, that sounds obvious But a lot of business owners leave money on the table not because their product isn't good But because the buying experience is broken or Complicated Shopify fixes that with Shopify you can build a professional storefront and get it in Front of your customers fast no coding no technical headaches and when your customers are ready to buy Shopify's purple shop pay button is One of the best converting checkouts in the world, which means fewer abandoned carts and more sales And if you hit a snag sidekick, Shopify's built-in AI assistant is there to answer questions and keep you moving You've got enough to think about just running your business The last thing you need is to lose sales because the buying experience lets you down All you need is the idea Shopify handles the rest start your free trial at Shopify dot com slash Ramsey That's Shopify dot com slash Ramsey Shopify dot com slash Ramsey Well, if you're new to the Ramsey show, we just want to say welcome We're glad that you're here and you might notice that we kind of answer every question through a series of principles And if you've kind of wondered about that and weren't quite sure what it was Yeah, we have a set of principles that we follow around here It's it's pretty clear, you know, you live on less than you make, you know Avoid debt if you have debt paid off and then from there on a debt-free lifestyle We're real big components on working together with your spouse So these are just kind of like some of the values that we have around money Gods and grand ma's ways of handling money and then out of that we do have a financial plan It's called the the baby steps. There's seven of them and you'll hear us talk about those seven baby steps quite a bit Our last caller he didn't know about those But we want to make sure that you understand that that's kind of the framework that we're teaching here and the point of that The whole point of that guys is we want you to have As peaceful of an experience with money as possible. We're trying to eliminate risk in your life And the truth is John most of us went through We became adults and we never really were given an education On how to handle money most of us learned our education from The media we learned it from our family whether it was dysfunctional or whether it was healthy We still learned something about money. We learned it based off of what we saw our friends doing what we saw people around us doing We didn't have a formal education. So a lot of folks that call in they're calling in because of Mistakes that they now realize they've made based on that education and that's totally cool We're not judging anybody. We're not throwing shade at anybody, but what we do want is to now come here and let us teach you Let us help you learn not just a hey, they said it so I'm gonna do it But we want to actually teach you why a cart lease is bad why debt is detrimental? Why is a zero credit score just as good as a high credit score? We want to teach you that so that you can understand it and actually take that knowledge and learn and we do that through the seven baby steps That's all I want to say good call. All right. Let's move on Tori who's in Houston, Texas Is up next. Hey, Tori. How can we help? Hi, so I I've recently come into a settlement money about 150,000 And I'm torn as to what to do with it. I am one hand. I'm about to be married and My fiancee is coming into the marriage with some debt and I would like to Pay off his debt so we kind of start fresh that was kind of the initial plan He didn't ask me to do that. There's be well clear no one's asked me to do anything with this money, but And the interim my parents have Hit yet another financial hardship in their life. There have been very very poor financial decisions I've put them in the situation And so I I'm forced with the choice of do I help my parents? Stay in their home or Do I start our new life off debt free? Why are your parents going to lose their home? Because they cannot make the payments anymore Is are they in a position to sell the home? Is there any equity in this thing? There is some equity in this home And that is what one option that we're looking at but regardless it would not be enough to Get them started elsewhere So I'm at a half dozen one hand six and the other where it's either I have to help with the mortgage or I have to help put them up somewhere else sure How old are they? In their 70s. Okay So let's put some real numbers around this and let's see what's possible because I Agree with what you're saying a lot of times the situation with the parents is not just as easy as don't get involved, right? You're involved especially if you do have the money to be involved. Let's see if you can be so We know you've got the settlement for 150. What's your normal income? What do you take home every month? So I bring in about 60,000 right now it will increase I'm a therapist, but I'm also in process of licensure so In a year year and a half I'll meet my hours and I will get a substantial almost double that salary way to go Tore I think they're actually helping people Yeah, and do you have any debt? Do not right now great our debt so that money paid off my debt. Okay, good and so after you paid off your debt now You've got the 150 left or was that correct? Okay, and do you have okay? So out of the 150 here's what we must do we need to set aside three to six months of expenses and Have you done that yet? I do have some probably not quite as much but close so let's say 25,000. Is that fair? Okay, so let's set 25,000 away in your emergency fund that leaves us with 125 and then when are you getting married? When's actual wedding? The end of the year so be simple. Okay, and are you is he saving is who's paying for the wedding? We are paying for it together I've taken care of like the smaller things because I make less than he does And then he's taking care of the bulk of it. We are having a very very small wedding. What's the budget? $10,000. Nice Torey courthouse but 10,000 and you guys are just I If you have it split equally or it's kind of like we're just paying for what we can what portion of that $10,000 do you think will fall on you? Probably 30% Okay, so are we thinking that that's coming is the 3000 coming out of cash flow or do you think that's coming out of? It's coming on the 50 okay, I think that's I go. Okay, so wedding is we don't need to factor that into the We need to add fact of the wedding in okay, and how much is his debt? So he has about He's about 70,000 in debt. Okay. What's he going to be doing for what's he doing for a living? He is a lawyer lawyer. Okay. Good. And what's his annual salary? Around 220 220 excellent. I love hearing that. I love that. Okay, so I like the idea if you it sounds like you guys are On one page about how you want to handle the money. So let's say you get married at the end of the year you immediately Together pay off the 70,000 From there what I would think to do is let's start investing some money, right? Let's start because I think cash flow wise you're going to be able to help out your mom you making the 60 him making 220 I think cash flow wise you should be able to reach over and do that right because what's On a on a month where they really need a bunch of help. How much money is that for you? They probably need I don't know about 2000 2500 with medical expenses etc. I'm thinking per month. We have looked at some of their but yeah per month Meanwhile your take home is going to be somewhere between 17,000, 18,000 before investing. - I will say both of us do have retirement accounts. - Right, and my point is what you can do with the remainder of the settlement, you can either put that towards a down payment on a house, we didn't talk about that, you can plop that into a brokerage account, you can invest that money because I don't think that you need that specific money per se to help out your parents, 'cause you're not giving them a lump sum. Really what you're doing is saying, I'm gonna got mom and dad, I'm agreeing to pad your budget in this way. This is what we can afford to do. And I'm not even saying you have to do the full 2,000. I'm just saying that seems to be the amount they need. If you decide 1,000 is good, and I'm gonna put my siblings on the hook for the rest, right? It's up to you to decide what's gonna work well for you to discuss it with your soon-to-be husband too, because this is gonna affect him. But do you see what I'm saying? I think you guys are in a wonderful position where if you want to help, you can. And honestly, I think you should. - But I got the impression you need a, they need a bail out though, right? Are they way under water on their house? - You kind of need a bail out, yeah. - How much? - I'm using the childhood home. - How much? - It's close to the same amount. I forgive the exact numbers, but it's close to the same amount that his debt would be. - Oh, 70,000? - So if the choice says one or the other, yeah. - They're that far behind on the mortgage or that just clears the mortgage completely. - That clears everything. - Okay. - So that's two different numbers. How far are they behind? - I don't know that they're behind yet, but he had been on disability. And so they're monthly income restrictions to get cut drastically. - Is he gonna get so secured? - And that's what's happening. Yes, they do get social security. - So let's sit down with them this weekend and let's plan out what their budget is. Let's say, okay, we're not behind on the mortgage or let's find out if they are behind any payments. That's the piece of homework, sit down with mom and dad, figure out if they're behind or not, and then do a budget with them, and then figure out what is it realistically that you guys need every month after social security, after whatever other money they have coming in to make things work, not to pay off their mortgage, but just to keep things going. And then if you have any siblings, you can take that information to your siblings and say, here's what's going on with mom and dad. And then you guys can sit around. And what I would do is I would say, this is none of our responsibilities. We don't have to get involved, but if you would like to, here's what's going on with mom and dad. Here's what me and Bob, your fiance, plan to do. We just wanna create some transparency here and go from there. (upbeat music) If you're living like no one else with your money, you're probably being smart with your entertainment choices too. And the truth is finding entertainment that's high quality and the lines with their values is not easy. That's where Angel comes in. They make movies that check all the boxes, values driven, quality, and as I'll get to in a minute, affordable. And it's why I'm excited to see Angel's latest movie, Angel and the Bad Man opening October 9th. It's a classic Western with a big name cast. You got Tommy Lee Jones, Zachary Levi, Neil McDonough, and it's all about redemption, love, and second chances. Values the world needs more of. And speaking of value, when you become a premium member of the Angel Guild, you'll get two free tickets to see Angel and the Bad Man in theaters, plus access to Angel's entire family-friendly streaming library and free tickets to every future Angel theatrical release. All that for 20 bucks a month or just 179 a year. I'm a premium member of the Angel Guild myself, and I can attest to the fact that the content, the movies, the TV shows are values driven, and highly entertaining. So to become a premium member of the Angel Guild, click the link in the description or go to angel.com/ramsy. Get all the details at angel.com/ramsy. Limited time offer, visit angel.com/ramsy for details. (upbeat music) Welcome back to the Ramsey show here in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio. We're gonna go right back to the phone lines 'cause we have Lynette, who's in Battle Creek, Michigan on the line. Hey Lynette, John and I are here. How can we help today? Hi, I hope the guys are doing well. I just have a quick question. I am the stay at home, my husband works two jobs. We have one kid, and I recently got a job on my laptop. I can get 20 hours an hour, I can work whenever I want, but I'm struggling trying to find a good balance in how I'm working and how much should I be with my kid. What is a good hourly per week balance? How much debt do you have? We have about 15 and a half pounds. Okay, 15,500. And if you combine, I'm making up a number here. If you work 20 hours in a week and your husband's working these two jobs, how long is it gonna take you to pay that off? Gosh, it depends, anywhere from six to 12 months, it depends on what his overtime looks like. Okay. We should have about 3000 paid off within the next week. Wonderful. Oh, wow. So here's Lynette, how old's your baby? She is eight months. Eight months. Jay hit me with a stick if I'm wrong here, but Lynette, this isn't the season for balance. Baby step two is about doing what you have to do to survive so that you can get you and your husband and this precious little baby's head above water for good. And so expect to, expect everything to feel chaotic while y'all are essentially like in the old days, 30 years ago, day would run around on stage. Like a gazelle, like you call it gazelle, like intensity 'cause gazelle is getting chased by a lion and it's running for its life. And so that sort of intensity, which is, I'm gonna sprint. I'm gonna work 20 hours a week, 30 hours, 40. I'm gonna work with, I'm gonna be so tired, I can't, I don't know what day it is. And my husband's gonna be so tired, he didn't know what day, it isn't good on him for getting two jobs and working overtime and doing all that also. And we're gonna get through this in five months or six months and be done forever. And so that, I would like your energy pushed that way than trying to find this mythical Instagramy nonsense called balance. It just doesn't exist. It's, you enter into seasons and if you and your husband intentionally say, hey, we're heading into a winter season. That means it's gonna be uncomfortable, we're gonna be cold, we gotta wear jackets inside. All that, then just no spring is coming. Summer's coming, right? But we're gonna enter into winter together, we know we're gonna be exhausted, we know we have to be intentional about our marriage. We're gonna, we're gonna be holding this baby and just drooling, we're so tired. And it's only gonna last five months and then we're done. - Okay. - You get what I'm saying? - Yes, I do. - And can I tell you this, you're a good mom. You're a good mom. - I do my best. - No, no, no, no, don't, don't, don't shirk that off. You're a good mom. You're a good mom. Like you're trying to make it work all the way around and I know y'all are figuring out how to do life with a new baby and all that and you're eight months out and it's just like, you don't feel like you're winning anywhere, you're a good mom, okay? And if you work really hard and you're not fully present, eyes open, you know, like, that's okay. Your baby's gonna benefit for the next 17 and a half years because of the peace in your home because y'all get to decide what y'all do next. - Yeah. I think John is totally right and I'll put even a little semicolon next to that and say, you know, as you're working until your eyes are like spinning like that little emoji when they're just like the little circles going in. You also have the ability, Lynette, to go, 'cause I trust you, if you're calling, you've got some good sense. So I trust you to go, if I hit that point where I'm like, I need to pull back a little bit. - Close the laptop. - You can. You are allowed, when you have a life and a family, you're allowed to figure out what your values are in a season and to John's point, if you go, you know what, we're gonna sprint and we're gonna sprint until we can't sprint and then when we can't sprint, we're gonna realign and go, hey, we did that for three or four months. Let's take a quick breather and then let's get back it. You're allowed to do that. If you're looking and go, man, my baby's eight months, I feel like I'm not putting her to bed. I feel like I'm not present, I'm not here. I don't like the way that feels. I'd like to pull back just a little and that's only gonna affect my debt payoff, you know, date by one month, hey, like. - You get all day long. - Do it all day long. So remember when we were in like grammar school and the teacher would say, this is on your honor, like you grade your own paper on your honor? That's what this is. This is on your honor. I think you know, you're gonna figure out what that line is of, I know I'm doing my best and that line of, I know, I could do a little bit more. I think you know, you're gonna know that. I see. Okay, so no balance balances have exist. - Work. - Yeah, I mean. - On your honor. - Work and love your husband recklessly and let him love you wildly. - Work for. - Oh yeah. - And also take care of this baby. It's all of it. It's just chaos, all right? That's just what it is. It's just chaos. - Okay. - And like Jade says, keep close attention to how you're feeling, when you start to fall off, when you just close the laptop, when you and your husband, here's the thing, do everything intentionally. - Yes, yes. - You just don't want it to happen to you. You wanna always remain in the driver's seat and that might mean, hey, I, it's not that I wish I was playing with on the floor a little bit more. It's, I'm running myself into the ground, right? And I've been there, you've been there, we've all been there. And, and I've gotta pull back some. Great, awesome. - Totally fun. - Wait one more month, take two more months to pay this thing off. He's working two jobs, working overtime. Good man on him. Like, man, that's awesome. Just do everything intentionally. - Yeah, I agree with that wholeheartedly. The intentional plays what it is, because, and I just wanna call this out, 'cause I know there's moms listening or even dads listening that are like, hey, what about, the truth is when you do have a newborn, you do have this feeling of like, they're only gonna be seven months one time. They're only gonna be eight months old one time. Like, you don't wanna miss it. - Gilt factory. - Yeah. It's a gilt factory. And even if you're not feeling gilt, you're just like, this is important to me. I want to be there. I don't wanna miss it. And you're allowed to say that. Just know that when you make those choices, there's always a trade-off. And it can be a positive or negative. It just depends on how you view it. If you've said, this is the most important thing to me and you stand on business, then just understand the trade-off would be your timeline is gonna be longer. And you've said, by saying yes to one thing, you've said no or at least hold on to another thing. And that's, you're an adult. You have the right to do that. Just know what you're saying. And to John's point, be intentional. - And it's always been my experience that if I'm entering into a wild season with work, with family with kids, with financial goals or whatever, like when my wife sit down, I remember saying, I'm gonna have to miss some games this spring so that I never have to miss a game ever again. - And you're like, I will make that. I will take that that all the time. - Yeah, right. And instead of missing a few games every season indefinitely because I've got to balance this, make this payment, go right to, I'm gonna miss a lot of games. But I'm gonna miss all the practices and I'll try to come to the games while I'm gonna miss them so that I, and it's that so that. I'm gonna do it right now so that after the future, right? - And it's all a trade. - And being specific about that and being intentional about that to the extent that we're running numbers on it. We're looking at it and saying, okay, what does it mean? If I work 20 hours and that feels great for the values I have, what does that mean versus working 40 hours? - We're just 30 hours. - But yes, it's a dollar amount. It's a math problem. - This is a money show where so we're telling you, actually run out the numbers. Don't just guess and say, I'll feel better. And if I do it like this, that's fine. And get, we don't need to guess. We have too many calculators and too many things at our phone, you know, at our fingertips that we can actually run numbers and decide, how do we feel about this? Does this feel all right? If not, that's taking too long. Now let's readjust and look at that again. So that's all you have to do. Be intentional. (upbeat music) - Hey guys, it's Rachel Cruz. When it comes to life insurance, most people fall into one of two camps. The ones who make a plan to protect their family. And the ones who hope everything will just work out. But hope isn't a financial plan. When you get married or have kids, your money decisions aren't just about you anymore. Your income helps keep the lights on, pay the mortgage and put food on the table. And if something happens to you, will your family have protection or uncertainty? Well at Ramsey, we recommend term life insurance that 10 to 12 times your income with a 15 to 20 year term for the years that your kids are at home and your mortgage is still being paid off. That's why Winston and I have our term life coverage through Zander Insurance. They're an independent broker who works for you, shopping all the top companies to find the most competitive prices on coverage you need. 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 zander.com or 800-356-4282. (upbeat music) Well John, I wish we could get to every call here on the show, but the truth is we can't answer everyone's question. So if you do have a money question and you want an answer for your specific situation, head over to our website and use Ask Ramsey. It's our free AI tool that's built on proven Ramsey principles. You can get an answer that's really exactly like what we would give you here on the show. So if you want to do that, head over to ask your question today. Go to RamseySolutions.com or you can click the link in the description or if you're listening on podcast or YouTube. Yeah, click my bad. Click the link in the description if you're listening on podcast or YouTube. Alrighty, let's go to Don and San Francisco, California. Hey Don, what's up? - Hi, how's it going? I appreciate you guys having me on. - Yeah, no problem. - I was hoping to talk through a vehicle decision. I'm looking at purchasing a new car. And my biggest concern is just making sure I'm not creeping into the lifestyle installation. With, 'cause it's a big purchase, like I guess big purchase I've made. So I wanted to hopefully talk through. - I love that. What are you thinking about getting? - Well, originally, this is where the installation, lifestyle installation comes in. Originally it was looking at like a RAV4 or 4Runner Vod. Use 2015, you know, 100,000 miles on it. And that price was pretty similar to Model Y. So now it kind of set on a use 2023 Model Y, which is running about like 30 to 35. - Okay. - That's like all three of the cars you named are great cars. - Yeah, that's what we were looking for. - But there's reliability. - They're three different lifestyles, right? You'd be like a 4Runner like bro out in the woods or a RAV4 fam or like now we're gonna be like the camels. We're gonna just cruise around in the Model Y. So all three of those are great cars. - So I'm guessing you have the cash saved or tell me where you are financially? - Yeah, so cash is saved. I have it enough how you yield right now. And originally we were looking at a budget of like 20K and for you know, a full self driving car. Still all wheel drive, still can go camping and it still can throw the third boards on top. It kind of seemed like a no brainer. From a long term perspective, like we're young our careers. We want our kids at some point. It could be a family car that type of thing. - Okay. - It sounds like you're struggling with the identity here. What, like if you got the money for it and you don't own anybody any money and it's not more than half of your, you and your spouse's take home income, which doesn't sound like it is. Like what are you really wrestling with? Just that that's a lot of money to spend on a thing. - Exactly. Like I was raised very frugally and I took it from my dad really well. He raised it amazingly, he did really well. He came from poor Italian immigrants but he did really well and that rubleness, I think cost on me the most out of my brothers. And like I'm renting my dad Chevy Volt and I'm like super cautious about how much electricity I use. I don't use the AC in the car 'cause it uses too much gas, like that type of thing. - No, we need to set you free a little bit. - Exactly. - So how much money do you and your spouse make together? - Together about 300, probably-- - Stop it, I'm just saying, so it's-- - Stop it, Dawn. 300K. - I'm also, we've been working for three years, she's been working for one year. So like the new to the whole money thing. - How old are you guys? - I'm 25, she's 24. - Okay, so is there, it's one thing to say, hey, I have these habits from growing up and I get it, sometimes we find ourselves doing things that I'm like, man, am I doing this because I want to do this and I believe in doing this or am I just doing it because I have the habit of doing it from my parents' home, right? Like I think we've all run into those moments. My question is, is it more about that or is it more about a fear of I'm gonna mess this all up? - I think it's that. Yeah, especially our goals that we have and wanting to retire or be work optional by 40, like all of that, spending 30K now, how much does that really affect me in the next 30 years could be a lot? - I think that, and this might be a little mechanical, but it's helped me a lot and I have a feeling it could help you a lot too. I think that when we have fears like that, that are really kind of like, oh gosh, I'm afraid I'm gonna mess all this up. What really, really helps, and I'll send you a copy of my book when no one tells you about money, but what really helps is to kind of put legs on that and say, if I'm afraid of the future, if I'm afraid of messing it up, truthfully, like spend some time, I don't know if you take quiet time or journal time, but take some time and truly write out what it is that you're afraid that you're gonna do. If I buy this car, what am I afraid that's gonna happen? If we make that purchase, what do I think and challenge yourself to be specific? Because when it's kind of just ambiguous, I kind of find on that those types of fears, they don't really have any legs to it. If it's just like, I'm afraid I'll mess everything up. If you really stop and do the math, you're like, no, I'm not. But the ones that are very specific, I'm afraid if I use $30,000 for this car, we won't have enough in our emergency fund. Well, that makes sense. So let's test it. Now we can actually test it against something and see if it's concrete, like if it's a concrete fear. And so for you, what I would really hate is for you to work so hard and have such a blessing of your income in front of you and never truly be able to enjoy it. Wouldn't that suck? So let's take the time and kind of do the work behind this and say, you know what, let me just see, let me write down the things, get my wife with me. And let's test it and let's put some facts, John, this is your thing, facts are your friend. So let's put some facts to it and go, gosh, if I spend this 30,000, run the numbers and see how is it going to affect your retirement? I can tell you just by looking at it's not, if you guys are investing 15% and pretty soon you pay off your mortgage, which you will, because you make a lot of money and then you keep investing more and more, you're going to have millions of dollars, can we agree with that? Yeah. I mean, especially we've already saved like 150 this year. Yes. And so if you look at this and here's the part that you, I always want you to remember this forever, if you look and you say, hey, for us, we're going to have eight million dollars if we keep going this route, you have to tell yourself that it's okay to do things that aren't going to continue to invest in that. It's okay to go on a trip, that's not an investment. It's okay to buy a car, that's not an investment. I'm okay with eight million dollars or I'm okay with the three million dollars, right? And don't let me tell you this. I don't want to make this call about me, but I grew up in the home of a policeman who then became a minister and money was really tight for us going up. And he grew up in the home of a man who was in the, in the Great Depression, who straightened nails out. Like when he, my grandfather passed away, there was coffee cans full of nails. I, before I came to Ramsey when I was working in education and universities, I recognized that I was in different rooms and different positions financially than how I grew up and how even my grandfather was. And I realized I had developed an identity that those kind of people buy cars, those kind of people buy those kind of shoes. And it can be jarring to your identity when you realize, oh, maybe I'm those people too. And it really caused me to back down, because I realized I had developed a bias against people. I was judging people, not even thinking about it. And a gift that Dave gave me in just personally behind closed doors, because of his background, right? He grew up where money was really, really tight and he lost everything and then he's built himself back up is to pay close attention to ratios. So if you made $30,000 a year, a $30,000 car is a hundred percent, right? If you make $300,000 a year and you buy a $30,000 car, it's 10 percent, right? And so it's the same as if you made $30,000 and you bought a $3,000 car, it's just, it's leaning up against those ratios and making sure your state, like James said, you're staying with your values, you give a lot, you save a lot, like leaning on those ratios has helped me tremendously and it's really caused me to transform how I judged the rest of the world. Yeah, I do. I'm responsible for my identity, me and my wife are responsible for who we are going to be as a couple as a family and that's how we navigate the world. Other people don't get a vote. And so I'm going to give you some homework, your homework is to do what John and I are saying, write down those fears and challenge them and then I want you to get on the ramsysolutions.com and I want you to pull up our retirement calculator. I have it here. I put in your numbers. I think I heard you said you were 25 and so from age 25 to age 65, I think I heard you say you already have $150,000 saved. Let's say if you started saving 15% of your income, you're making $300,000, 15% is about $3,700 a month. If you do that at an average annualized rate of 10%, which is what the stock market has done, S&P 500 has done that the last 30 years, my friend, $31 million is what you have waiting for you. Can we agree that that's enough for you to buy? That's if you don't get a raise. That's if you never get a raise. You're good. If you want to free up margin in your budget, one of the first things you should do is take a hard look at your monthly bills because every dollar you overpay is another dollar you don't have for reaching your financial goals. And overpaying for your phone bill, well that makes zero sense and it's why I recommend boost mobile. Their unlimited plan is just $25 a month forever. No contracts. No hidden fees. No surprise, price hikes. If you already have a phone you love, you can keep it and keep your number when you switch. And if you're skeptical, boost mobile offers a 30-day money back guarantee so you can try it risk-free. Listen, your phone bill should fit your budget not the other way around. Reaching your financial goals is easier when you can pay less for the same service. Switching to boost mobile now is just a smart money move. Go to boostmobile.com/ramzie and make the switch today that's boostmobile.com/ramzie. $25 forever requires customers to remain active on boost mobile and limited plan. All right, our Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by Ask Ramsey. Ask Ramsey is your free AI money tool that provides personalized money answers based on Ramsey Principles, so visit RamseySolutions.com/askramzie. All right, today's question comes from Andrea in Washington. Andrea writes, "How should fun money work in marriage? My husband and I each get $400 a month to spend guilt-free. I think unused money should go toward our shared goals, but he wants to save his for bigger purchases." Ooh, so it's not guilt-free. Is it okay for fun money to accumulate for one spouse to spend without the other's agreement or should larger purchases be a joint decision? I would love to us to answer at the same time because I want to know if we think the same thing or not. Okay, so is it okay for fun money to accumulate to spend for larger purchases or should it go on? That's a question. All right, we're going to answer on three. Okay. Can it accumulate? One, two, three. Yes. Okay. Same team. 100%. Here's the thing. I've worked at multiple places where the budget cycle was, whatever you don't spend in your budget, and when I was working at universities, I had millions of different budgets from all over the place that I was managing, whatever you didn't spend, there was a great chance it was going to get taken. Oh, you lose it? That's right. So at the end of the year, they're going to say, "Oh, your department didn't need this much money. So we're going to take it." So the incentive was spend every penny, which is a terrible fiscal strategy. Oh, you're like desperate. Right. And so it doesn't promote management. It doesn't promote stewardship. It promotes spend, spend, spend. And so I love the idea that there's an incentive to get something down the road. And by the way, Andrea, I want you to be careful in Jay to again, hit me with a stick if I'm wrong. You're conflating two things here. One is, should we each be able to spend our own fund money, as however we want, because that's how we set it up, right? We get to make the rules in our house and we made up this rule. You spend your 400 else in my 400, or, and this is where you conflate it, should larger purchases be a joint decision. That's where I think you're, you're, you're, you're double dip in here. If he wants to put $400 in an account for a year and save up 12 times four, right? Buy an Ninja Turtles costume. I was thinking to guitar, but whatever. You do you, Jay? That's what my husband did. He bought like a real replica from the movie in the 90s that we all liked anyway. Do it, do it, everyone do. But yeah, like, and then y'all want to save for a car or a couch, or y'all want to have a boat for the family on the weekends. Those are two different conversations to me. Yes. I agree. So save up. Yes. And encourage him to save up his money. I hate that language, but like, the fun money that he's been allocated, yes, save it up, man. Yes. And can we, I think you and I briefly had this conversation on another episode, but I want to bring it up again. I think for women too, but specifically, Sam and I had this exact conversation one time. I had not thought of, I'm a spender, so I'm like, I rarely hold money over from one month to another. I do. I do approximately zero times. Yeah. But my husband one day, he was like, I finally saved up my fun money long enough to buy because like I said, he had his eye on this cost, this Ninja Turtles thing anyway. And he looked at me. He was like, yeah, it costs X amount of dollars. And I, I was like, that's so fun. Like I'm glad you did that. And he was like, really? I thought you were going to think it was stupid and how could I spend that money? I'm like, it's your money. It's your fun money. And that was when we realized, oh, like, yeah, saving it up is a great thing to do. And I had never thought to even do that. So I, I learned my lesson. I was like, okay, this is how you get what you really want. But it points to a bigger conversation. I love that you pointed this out. And this is not really a money thing. This is just kind of a relational thing. But I love, I feel like so much of what guys are doing. It's career driven. It's, it's got to be about money. It's got to be about career. It's got to be about providing. It's got to be about this or that. Man, I love to see a guy spend money on a hobby and just do something because they enjoy doing it. Yes. It pours back into them and you need to let them do that sometimes. Not only let them, but. Like I talked about the show like I spend a lot of time over at the local comedy club over here down the street and Somebody asked my wife like does it bother you he goes down there once a week and she's like no cuz I get a better version Yeah, he's out there playing with his friends. He's telling jokes that I'm glad he's not telling here He's laughing. He's being goofy with his with his buddies and I get a better husband when he gets home And so there's oftentimes I'm like now. I'm gonna stay home tonight. She's like no go. Oh, yeah, go do your thing go play music with your friends And don't tie it back to that encouragement. Yeah, so don't tie that back to it That's like if she said oh, you're going out to do comedy but make sure if you better be getting a paycheck to bring up right now It's not fun anymore. Now I'm working. Yeah, now you're working. It's the same thing with this funny me like this fun money Don't tie it back to the goals and what we have to be doing because if you've allotted it there that means you have it to a lot It's just there for fun and that goes for her too Like she's gonna be able to do things that build her back up right and Andrea if you're mad that you like to burn through your money Like jade night too And your husband is disciplined like jade's husband and my wife are You can change you can start saving your money or just keep enjoying it month by month That's awesome, but no, I'm I'm full support of him saving up his 400 save it up for 30 years and go buy a jet I don't I don't know what the math on that is but like save your money at man Okay, so then the next question comes is let's pretend he does save it up for a long time Let's say he saves it up and he's got like six or seven thousand dollars should she Know like be privy to the amount of money that he has like where it is all that kind of stuff Because I do feel like they're I do feel like there should maintain a level of transparency like Sam and I are just a type of couple he's gonna say to me man. I saved up my fund money. I got three thousand dollars I'm gonna be like wow you have three thousand dollars like that's the way we are Um, I All bars is in the same account. So like if you're if you're scrolling away in your own secret like a gun save secret fund money account I addiction cash. Yeah, whatever Yeah, I mean, I I mean I can put my thumb on the safe and count it myself. I suppose but yeah, yeah I think there is to her point probably a level where you still want transparency because I Want I also want to know that that person's not stocking up money for like gambling or like something that's like in the fair Yes, but but but also you trust Sam enough and I trust my wife enough and she trust me enough that If I saved fund money for seven months and I had X thousand dollars And suddenly there was an emergency in our home and we needed that money Oh, of course I'm grabbing. Yeah, right. Yeah, I'm not gonna be like nope. No, that's my guitar fun for sure For sure like we can superglue the kids teeth back in that's my play money like of course. I would yeah There's a point that yeah, and so like that yeah, I Andrea I love the idea of you not scorekeeping and Instead of just flipping this whole thing over and celebrating the crap out of your husband I love this. It's a very very good thing. So fun money. Let's just review the teaching here Fun money is a part of the budget Generally after baby step two after baby step three if you're in baby step two baby step three no fun The point is we want you to cut back your budget as much as you can so that you can put that money towards debt But one of the great things about paying off your debt and accomplishing three to six months of expenses is now now There's margin back in your life for some of the things that you enjoy fund money is a huge thing guys And there's no set number amount that we say it's this percent or it's that percent again Yeah, one of those things you're on the honor. Yeah, you're on the honor Please for the love of God don't call it allowance. We hate that word. It is not an allowance. It is fun money Put your name on the budget next to the money Bob's money Sarah's money. That's that's all it is and by the way Nothing ruins fun like somebody being like I can't believe You spent you spent that on on your hair or a massage or a guitar like dude Let the people you love have the things they love. Yep. My wife doesn't understand half the things I love But I she loves that I love some things right in vice versa. Yep, like I love that she loves the things she loves so much I don't get most of them, but I love that she's into them that much. Yes, and I'm gonna celebrate that and don't you think that The fund money amounts should be the same for both spouse. No, you don't get double of course, huh? Okay, I was about to say you said hit you with a stick I'm a rich for my stick. Yeah, I think that it should be yeah, it should be equal not based on who earns what? Because that would be detriment. No, no, y'all both earn the combination of what comes in that thing. 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That's join J-O-I-N Delete me dot com slash Ramsey or click the link in the description Well, we always love when you guys interact with the comments Everyone wants to do we always love me and I'll slide in there every once in a while and see what folks are saying all right Your mind. Here's the thing if you're gonna comment try to be on the the right side of history here and Tell us tell us the good things nothing mad nothing ugly But if you love the episode the whole point is if you like what you hear get in the comments talk about it If you have questions pop those in there we do look at them from time to time When I say we I'm talking about us There's always folks on the team who are looking at those things and so you know Let us know if there's an episode that you like particularly share it with someone the whole point is interact with the show That's what we're trying to tell you to do share an episode like subscribe follow comment all of that good stuff It's good for what's good for the goose is good for the gander. I don't even know what that means me neither But I'm gonna rock with it and we're gonna go to Phil who's in New York City, New York. Hey Phil. How you doing? Hi guys first time caller won't time listen there. Thanks for taking my call If if I just start with the question It's not gonna make any sense So I would just like to give a little bit of context and hopefully that'll help you guys Some guidance perfect so I've spent the majority of my adult life Trying to create the best possible version of myself for a family that I plan to have but don't have yet And I'm about ten months away from graduating school and an entirely different career from what I originally had and I'm having a really hard time Rapping my head around what my life looks like after I graduate when I can't seem to find a significant other to share These accomplishments with so I guess my question for the purpose of this phone call is how can I stop? Feeling like I'm running out of time and how can I shift my sense of purpose or rewire my brain Towards enjoying a life after I graduate for myself rather than for a family that I hope to have one day But it doesn't seem like it's happening anytime soon. Man Can I just I just want to celebrate you for even asking this question because I I talked to tons of men online and behind closed doors And like this is haunting people and so you haven't encouraged to just put it out on the table is is impressive brother, okay? How old are you? I'm 27 27 and Tell me about this and I'm doing this for a reason tell me about the picture you had in your mind of Fill at 28. What did it look like? Ideally would have been I'm Would be in a career that I actually like and enjoy that's fulfilling. There's a lot of room for growth It comes with enough money to provide a comfortable life for both myself and a family So ideally by 28 I would have liked to have been engaged and or married and You know start working towards buying the house and having the children and all that good stuff. Okay And tell me about this career change you're making it sounds like you went to school and started a career and realized you didn't like it And so then you wouldn't got reeducated retrained to do something else So quite the contrary, okay, I came from a single father household and he had never graduated high school So as far as what I would be doing after high school. There was like minimal guidance. So I Just went right to work out of school. I'll kind of leveled up learn a little bit of different things became a truck driver and then at 20 three decided that it wasn't for me. So I got a local driving job that was willing to work with the college schedule. And over the last four years, I've kind of just been paying to go to school, got an associate's degree, which opened up the door for x-ray school, and I'm about 10 months away from finishing that up. Outstanding. Excellent, brother. So it sounds like the path forward for you A is to stay on the path that you're on. You're doing great work, man. I hear me say I'm proud of you. Hear me say I would. The job I have right now, this is going to sound bananas. The job I have right now did not exist when I was 27. There was no such thing. The day was doing a radio show, there was no such thing as podcast or YouTube. Didn't exist. Okay. So you're not behind the eight ball in any shape, former fashion. I know it might feel like that, but you're not. Okay. And I know it's easy for me to say, and that's not going to change the way you feel. I just want to give you some data. Okay. Some facts. You're doing the, I mean, bro, you are, you are one of those men that like I want to shake your hand because you're changing your family tree. You took the lessons of hard work from your father. You went to work straight out of high school. And then you've done nothing but continue to move up, improve yourself work hard. And that's impressive. Okay. I also think many of us young men, old men, we were not taught how to grieve. And what I mean by that is you had a picture for how your life was going to be at 28, 27. And that picture is not going to come true. And it's right to have a season of being down about it. And I know all the Instagram things say you got to crush it and forget your feelings. That's stupid. It's just that's a recipe for rage and adult male temper tantrums. So I want to give you permission to be bummed out that you haven't found that person yet. Okay. It's all good. And part of the words emotional maturity are having huge feelings, being sad, being frustrated, being heartbroken, and getting up the next day and going to do the next right thing. Okay. So it's both and. Now can I challenge you on something? Yeah, absolutely. And I'm saying this because I've been, I just finished a two and a half, two year, two and a half year project on answering the question is marriage still worth it. And if it is, how do you do it? Right. And that meant I sat with experts. That meant I was looking at the dating market. I was looking at all the data across across tons of different different fields. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to continue and finish this degree. And I want you to go get a great job as an x-ray guy and a radiologist or whatever it is and do that with excellence. And I want you to commit to only being in your apartment to sleep. I want you to join leagues. I want you to put yourself out there where you can meet people where you can engage in people. You can have human experiences with people. You can laugh. You can listen to the same music. You can sketch somebody's eye across the room. You can say hi. My name is so and so. And I think you're pretty right. I want you to put yourself out in the world because I think ultimately, not ultimately, I don't think this, the data says this. The single most important decision you make is going to be who you marry. And so I'm going to make that. I'm going to make that my chief investment, right? And the only way to do that is put yourself out there. So go be busy. You got what I'm saying? Totally agree with that. Yeah, absolutely. There's only so much time in a day. Totally. That there's not enough time in a day. And it's just like, I guess. And you're in the grind. I'm in the period where I'm kind of in my own pond, just making sure I'm, you know, the right in the right frame of life before I enter that as you would say season of life. Yeah, but here's the thing, dude. I am a, I'm 17 different versions of away from who I was at 27. So you, you trying to like create this maritalized like statue of yourself, this perfect version of yourself. So then you can go be married. Man, meet somebody and grow together. And I'm telling you, I think you're worth a catch. Jade, you can disagree with me. I think you're, you're exactly what the, what the data tells me is that guys who are graduating, guys who have job prospects, guys, guys who are good men, who treat women with dignity and respect, who are kind, that those are the folks that are good catches. Now you, you've solved all those things. That's who you are. Now you got to go put yourself in a position. You got to get out of your own pond. And that means you're going to be tired. That means you're going to be annoyed, that means you can experience rejection. And it's going to be worth it. Okay. Is that fair? Jade, I, I think that it was yours to ball hog. I think that you could uniquely speak to his experience. And I think that what you said is right on. I'm team Phil, man. I am too. I think Phil, you're probably a fabulous catch. You clearly, you care about what's going on and you're locked in to yourself and you're locked into how you're feeling and you're locked into what you want to create. And I think that that's half the battle for a lot of folks is being really intentional about what they want their life to look like. I appreciate that. I woke up to you and the entire Ramsey team. So that's why I was like, you know what? I think I'm at a point in my life where it's worth having a phone call. Yeah. Well, if nothing else, hang up this phone and courage that Jade and I see not only a good man, but we see a great man and we see a man with a lot of potential and don't rob your future spouse from yourself because you sat in your apartment. Get out there, join some leagues, join some chess clubs or whatever, go join the local church, go do whatever you got to do to put yourself in position to meet real, get off the apps, meet real people in real life and you're a catch, brother. Welcome back to the Ramsey show here in the Fear One's Credit Union Studio. I'm Jade next to me, Dr. John Deloney and on the line up next is Laura who's in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Hey, Laura, how can we help today? Hey, so thank you for taking my call first week. My husband and I, we're at the tail end of baby step three and we're also castling his master's degree, which is going to be a master's in like clinical counseling. So he wants to be like a licensed therapist. Nice. So, but that's not what I have a question on. The question is to do with like my parents. So this happened this week. It just seemed like when it rained at port, literally my parents had a roof week from some heavy rain that came in from that hurricane and then their car broke down and they did ask me for money and and I want to help them, you know, like we don't have an abundance. There's a lot of things going on with the masters that we're trying to cash flow and we're at the tail end of babies step three as well. But, you know, in the process of like kind of asking them like, hey, what's going on? I found out that they're also like really behind on bills and taxes and like, there's, there's like debts I just didn't know what was going on. And this is like things like this that kind of happened before and other family members like have helped them like including my brother, but they kind of end up like back to square one like the spending is just like this is out of hand or it's just like really silly purchases. How old are they? I told my parents I'm like like look, mom's out like like I want to help you guys. I don't want to lend it to you. I want to give it to you because like I don't want them to be like I don't want to hold the bridge against my parents. I love my parents like and my parents love me as well. They just really got it money. Like I only want to help them like if they want to like sit down with me and then if we can just go go over their finances because I have this thinking feeling that there's much more than they're actually telling me. How old are they? And they just don't want to do it. And they like they don't. Laura, Laura, Laura, Laura, Laura, Laura, Laura, Laura. How old are they? How old are they? They're 64 and 63 and like one is retired and the other one's still working. What did they do for work before they retired and what does the other one do now still working? So my dad is a teacher and he he was a teacher and so he's getting his like pension from like the retirement system from Texas. Okay. So I'm in Philadelphia there in Texas. And then my mom does something where like she like works with the government like with like Medicaid like she helps people like do it with like their accounts and like doing issues and doctor issues. I don't know what they make every month. Do you have any idea? You may not. Yeah. Yeah. So it makes 4200 a month after taxes after their insurance is taken out. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So after tax and after insurance. So we know they're insured. That's great. 4200. That's like normal. That's 15. It's normal. Normal life here in America. A little a little under normal. But I think you have to read. I think you have to reimagine the word help because they don't want your help. They want you to bail them out. Yeah. They want your money. They don't want your help. You know what I'm saying? Right. And those are two different things. And didn't you say I think I heard you say that your siblings have given them money and billed them out before but they continue to kind of just spend and then spend, did I hear that? - Yes, that's the part I want. - And that's the part I want to hang out on because what I don't want you to hear me say here is, don't help your parents. That's not what I want to hear you to hear me say. What I want you to hear me say is, if we've tried something and we, it didn't work and then we did the same thing again and it didn't work and then we did it again and it didn't work, would you agree with me that it probably is not a good strategy to do the same thing again and hope for a different result? - Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, my brother is like, he's very generous. So he's, and he's also like, I think he's a little bit more kinder than me when I can be a little of kinder. - It's not a question of, this is not a question of generosity nor kindness. It's neither, neither of you. - It might be that he's more of a pushover than you are. People please are than you are, right? - Maybe, well, he'll say yes and I'll say like, well, show me the money and then I want to help. - The question at hand is, that's not the funny. The question at hand is sustainability because what we've seen, it has nothing to do with who's good, who's bad, who's this, it's sustainability because of what we've seen is if I give them the money, it's not helping. So I can't sustain giving them this money month after month, year after year because there's no habit that's changing. And the truth is, I don't know, but I'm going, okay, $4,200, we should be able to do something here and with their ages, if you had told me, hey, they're 80, my grandma doesn't, you know, my mom doesn't get around well, she's in a wheelchair. Like, so many factors that if you had said them, I would have gone, you got to help. You got to step in. Let's try to figure out a way to do this. But in this case, Laura, I'm looking at this, going, okay, they're young. One of them is still working. They have a pinch and there's money coming in. I'm way more interested in you sitting down with them. If they'll have it, they may not. No money on the table for you yet, or maybe at all, but coming in and just saying, let's help you with the budget. Mom, dad, I can't give you any money today, but I'd love to help you make this $4,200 work. I'd love to help you get ahead. I've been doing this Ramsey thing. It's really helped us. I'd love to show you what it is that we're doing if you're interested. And if they say, no, we're not interested, that is your indicator, Laura, that you can't give them money. You can't. Because I want to put, I always look at trend lines, okay? And if you look at these bailouts that your siblings have given them, their financial situation has gotten progressively worse. It's not a matter of just holding steady, or, man, we had a leaky roof. Of course, you can help your parents. Yeah, of course, yes. Or, hey, we don't have enough money for groceries. We got a systemic issue. Let's sit down and figure that out. But they're getting worse and worse and worse, and now they're behind, and now they don't have taxes, and now, and now, and now, and now, right? So it's a mess, and it's just getting worse. I think it's important, are you married? Is that right? Yeah, I'm married. Okay. I think it's important for you and your spouse to sit down and map out. Here is a dollar amount we would be willing to. Because I want you to go into a conversation with your parents with information, like with where your boundaries already are. Right. And if you choose to have a, and by the way, no parent likes to have money conversations with their kids. No, they're gonna hate this. They might not even do it. Right. Well, if you don't want to give us some money, then you just get a, you want to lecture us. I don't want to hear none of that. That may be what they choose to do. Mm-hmm. Now, if you look at this and you say, let's, let's, let's create a scenario here. Let's say you sit down with them, and you realize, gosh, without, like, just them making their minimum payments, and just like at a bearabones budget, man, they're in the red, $500. Man, they're like seriously in the red. Now we can have a couple of conversations. We can say, okay, mom, dad, somebody's got to go out and earn this extra $500. Now we can say, here are ways to do it. We can help brainstorm ways around that. Let's pretend you looked and you saw an IRS debt. And you, and your husband said, you know, they have an IRS debt of $2,500. We want to take care of that. If you wanted to do that, you could, but just know, there's a track record there. They're not, they'll know we don't have to pay our taxes next year because daughter's gonna come bail a second. So, that's all we're saying to you. I'm not gonna sit up here and tell you, you can't help your, your own flesh and blood. But I, because I would, but I want to do it, I want to do it with sustainable plan. I want to make sure my giving is a net positive and a benefit, not gonna make the situation worse. Yeah, absolutely. And so, this is the hard thing for us to say this. It's like a third or fourth call. It's the sandwich, man. We're cut in the middle. It's like, we're trying to get our own money together. We got kids that are going off to college and then mom and dad are like, hey, by the way, we need you too. And it is like, it's not fun, it's not fun being the turkey. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Buying and selling a home is a big deal. And you want an expert in your corner fighting for you to get the right deal at the right price. That's why we only recommend Ramsey trusted real estate agents. They're hand-picked pros who know their stuff, listen to your needs and have your back from the first call all the way to closing day. To find a Ramsey trusted agent near you, visit ramseysolutions.com/agent. Ramseysolutions.com/agent. (upbeat music) - Okay, so John, you and I were talking during the break. I feel like we're getting more and more calls. Sandwich generation, more and more calls about, how do I navigate this? I'm here, I'm trying to do the Ramsey baby steps. Some of us are further along that train than others. But the reality remains the same. I'm in the stage where I'm trying to provide for my family. I'm trying to do the right thing for my family, like my nuclear family in my home. But then I've got my mom and dad who, for whatever reason, they're on the struggle bus and they need my help too. And John, almost to stay at straight up right here. I have been guilty of being like, hey, that's not on you. You don't have to worry about that, that's on them. And more and more, 'cause I've been in it with you guys. More and more, I'm like, man, if you can help, if you can take the high road, if you can put the water under the bridge, if you have the money, if you can figure out something that's sustainable, if you can do it with the right boundaries, man, if you can go on and help because you're the one that obviously you got to sleep at night, you, it's almost sometimes more draining taking on the request or it can be more draining, living with watching what's going on, 'cause it's not, no one wants to watch someone you love struggle. Like, let's just be real, it's in any way shape or form. If this lady, the last lady, I think her name was Laura, that called, it's hard for her to see, oh my gosh, my parents have IRS debt, it's hard for them to pay their rent. Yes, they're overspending, yes, they're being irresponsible, but gosh, they don't get it yet. And I think that's what I'm getting at is, all of us hit our a-ha moment at a different time. I hit mine when I was 23, you hit yours when you moved into the dorms. I'm still hitting it. You're still hitting it. Everybody has that moment where they run into reality and they're like, something's gotta change. Some people never have it. Some people never hit that moment. And I kind of just, I think I'm just at the stage of life where I'm like, so much of our lives that happen is a result of grace. It's somebody going, man, I don't like that for you. I'm gonna just do this. And it's out of just grace and mercy that you get it. And I can look at many things in my life where I'm like, hey, that's really, that was just a lot of grace there and that was a lot of mercy there. I just wanna offer it. Like if I can, I wanna give it. I don't know. I have a thousand thoughts on this and we were talking in the break, I think at the end of the day, one of the only things in the world I can control is, what kind of man I wanna be when I look myself in the bathroom mirror when no one else is in there? Who are you? And for me, I'm not gonna let my parents be in the street. And they're in a different situation. So it's fine. It's not like it's impending. So I know that about myself. - Right. - And so whether it's my responsibility, whether it's my job or whether that's what you all get, I know as, this is the kind of guy. - Who do I wanna be? - Right. And so I can choose to enter into that with bitterness, with anger, with frustration, with whatever, or I can walk into that with this is who I'm choosing to be. - Right. - And I'll also say to the folks who are listening, I'll look directly into the camera on this. If you, all of us, every person at some point in their life, at not some point, multiple times over the course of your life, we'll have to turn to somebody and say, please help. - Yes. - On a million different things. You'll say that to a dentist, to a doctor, to a teacher, to a supervisor, a boss, or whatever, a neighbor, please help. That's the human condition, and that's what we're all, like that's what relationships are for. - Yes. - But if you call your kids, if you're an eight, if you found yourself in a situation, you call your kids and say, I need help. You can't also bring the ego that was, the parent you were, the rulemaker you were 20, 30, 40 years ago. And it makes that sort of interaction really complicated when I say, hey, I have the problem. this problem, this IRS debt, I haven't paid my rent, I haven't done this, I've been spending like crazy here, I just got a new car over here, I need $10,000. - And you're acting ugly in this high school. - And then your kids say, let's sit down and figure out sustainability and you say, oh, so you don't love me? - Right. - Won't you shut your mouth and give me $10,000? - That ain't gonna fly. - You can't bring that ego to an open hand, hey, can you please help? - Right. - And so if you're asking for support and help, which I encourage everybody to do who needs it, I ask for help every minute of my life, right? You can't also bring the ego that is, and I'm gonna force you to, I'm gonna demand you help me in the way that I wanna be helped, which is, I just want your resources, I don't want you to talk to me, I don't care about sustainability, I'll call you next time I need something to tell you. - Yeah, and that's the part that's, - You can't control it as the kid, but I just want to speak to the, to anybody asking for help in that situation. - You're right, that's the part, and I think for select folks, that's the part that's difficult for them, is that whatever the relationship dynamic that it is, and don't get me wrong, and no, John's not saying this, I'm not saying it, it's not like a give a drunk or drink a thing, there wasn't enabling pattern that was with that last call, that was like, man, you do in some cases have to be careful because enabling will hurt the other person. - Makes it worse, right? - It will make it worse. So we're not talking about enabling, we're not talking about giving a drunk or drink. We're talking about stages where it's like, man, I'm looking at this, and I see that there's a very low likely possibility that they're gonna make this work, and the truth is, they're not going anywhere, but you know of, and so this is probably, if you don't step in, it could deteriorate even more, and now you're in for more money later on when they're 70 or 80, so there's just kind of like-- - It's a mess, it's a mess. - It's a mess, and that's kind of the part I think we, in the sandwich generation, have to think about is, like you said, relationships are messy, man. People come in with their attitudes and with their whatever's, - There he goes, and their-- - There he goes, and so do you, and so at the end of the day, you're looking at yourself, and you're going, okay, how do I want to feel when I go to bed at night? How do I want to look at myself in the mirror? And what can I actually do that's sustainable, that's in line with the budget that I can continue with, and that will respect both of us, because I also think it's a respect thing. Kind of like what we've said with kids, if you step in every time, you're saying there's no possible way you can do this for yourself. - And no possible, you'll ever be able to do it. - Yeah, and the same thing with parents. I'm looking at 60-year-olds, and I'm like, "Yo, you can go get a job, can you do work?" - I know two or six-year-olds, two were retired teachers who looked at their financial situation, and they went back and started over, and drew some retirement while also being a first-year teacher. - Yes. - And that was the math problem in front of them. - Yes. And so that's different than looking at two 82-year-olds as like, "Hey, they can't even go greet at Walmart." - Right, right, right. - You know, so all that to say-- Whenever I'm faced with a mess, a relational mess, I think it's important to pause and make sure I'm who I wanna be, heading into that. - Who do I wanna be here? - Who do I wanna be? And that's what we can control. How we talk to people, how we respect them, how we've done our homework, and say, "Here's how much I can't even help period." - Yeah, 'cause sometimes you just can't, you don't have it. - Right, you know, sometimes you don't have it, yeah. And sometimes you do have it, and you have to ask yourself, "Am I the kind of guy that's gonna try to make a point here?" Or am I the kind of guy who's, I'm not gonna make a point. I don't have an ego on this thing. - Yeah. - And also, I don't wanna wrap up my inability to draw boundaries and say, "No, under the guise of help, when it's gonna end up hurting somebody more than it actually helps." - Yeah, yeah, I agree. And I think that we have to be careful. Gosh, we could talk about this for a long time, but I think we need to think about it in the way of enabling, is it gonna hurt them? Not do they deserve this, if that makes sense, 'cause nobody like deserves such a-- - There's a lot to table. - Yeah, it's like, you know, 'cause well, people call on all the time. It's like, "Oh, my family raised me, and they did this for me." So they deserve for me to, right? And it's like, that's the word. And I'm like, "Stay away from the word, deserve." Let's look at, is this gonna help or hurt? 'Cause could it truly help them? Or if we do this, do we really think that it can hurt them? Are they spending at such a level that it is just-- - Or are you digging a hole for yourself? Or are you going to borrow money? We've taken that for multiple times. There's someone's borrowing a bunch of money to bail out somebody. And all you're doing is perpetuating that cycle. So you're gonna have to reach over to your kids one day and say, "Hey, I had to bail out Graham on their granddad, and now I'm in the, I need some money." And you're just gonna kick that can down the road. There's something important about saying, here's what we got. And sometimes that means they're moving in. Sometimes that means brothers and sisters have to get in the room and have uncomfortable conversations. None of this is easy. - John, I think you and I need to create like a decision tree. We need to create something to help folks with this. - Matter of fact, if you guys think that this is a topic that you care about, I care about it. Let us know in the comments. I told you before, comment the things that you're interested in, I would love to know because we get so many calls about this. How do I know when to help? How do I help? How do I know if it's positive or negative? Let's talk about that and I would love to know you. - How do we love aging parents well? - That's the top. - How do we honor aging parents well? - I love that. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - People ask me all the time. George, what's your number one money saving hack? I'm glad you asked. Nothing makes me happier than helping another frugal friend. So here's the hack. Get on a budget. Seriously, how are you supposed to save money if you don't know how much you're spending in the first place? And that's what makes the every dollar budgeting app a game changer. With every dollar, you'll get a clear picture of your spending. And from there, it's easy to see where you can get more intentional, cut back, and save more money. How much money are we talking? Well, the average every dollar budgeter frees up $395 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. (upbeat music) - Okay, so a lot of you may have filed an extension on your taxes for 2025. And if you did, that October 15th deadline is coming around the mountain when she comes. But the good news is you have a couple of options in order to get it handled. If your taxes are pretty straightforward, you could use Ramsey Smart Tax. That's gonna make filing affordable, simple, plus there's built-in support if you get stuck. But if your taxes feel a bit more complex, if you're a little overwhelmed when you think about it, you'll need to use a tax pro. And that's perfectly fine to help you make a plan because nobody wants to face the IRS alone. Let them help you. So if you're not sure which one to choose, you can take our tax quiz and you can find out quick doing that. You can handle your extension like a boss. Take the tax quiz at ramseysolutions.com/taxquiz. That's what you wanna do. All right, let's go to John, who's in Dallas, Texas. Hey, John, how are you doing? - Hi, thank you for calling. I think you're not taking my call, sorry. - No worries, how can we help? - Well, I'm in the process of switching professions. And I'm thinking of making up with John, my 401k to pay off my mortgage and two loans that I have to basically giving me a breathing room and saving $3600 a month. However, if I do this, I'll be depleting my 401k out of way down to $37,000. - Oh my gosh, what's the total amount that you're trying to draw out of the 401k as an early withdrawal? - Well, it's 165, and it's that amount because I'm calculating the 20% in taxes and the 10% of very withdraw fee that is gonna be hit. So in order for me to get the actual amount that I need, it's 110,000. So I need to do around 165 in order to get, you know, those 110. - Bro, please, please, please. I'm gonna tell you this 'cause I love you. Please don't do this. You're taking out a 30% loan. - Yes. - A loan at 30%, and you're unplugging all of that future growth. - Why is it so drastic that you would even consider this? Right now, we're in a situation that we don't even have a, we kind of leave in paycheck to check, check to check. And before I was able to, you know, have a monthly amount to save, you know? And now we don't, you know, we don't have it either. So it's. - But that tells me you have an income problem and a, like a resources problem. Not to go rob from your age, your elderly self to pay your now bail. I'd rather you solve this problem underneath you than rob yourself, your future self. - Yeah, 'cause what'll end up happening is, right now you have a very real problem. We don't have enough income, we don't have enough money. That's a very real problem. I'm not gonna argue that you that. But you have to make sure that the solution doesn't cause another problem. You wanna choose a solution that solutions the problem at hand, that not one that causes a future problem or another problem. So that's why we don't wanna go this route. Yes, we can run the numbers on the opportunity cost. Yes, we can talk about the tax burden and the penalties. All of that, I think you understand that. That's why you understood that you needed to take out 165. But oh my gosh, please don't do this. Let's try to help you solve the situation that you're facing today because I need to understand why you feel like you need to pay off the mortgage right away and these two loans. What's because you if you do that you're still not going to have any money month to month, right? Well, if I do this the because didn't this new job, it's also it's a bump in pay and then my wife also works or or expenses monthly and that's coming gas and groceries. It's around seven seven hundred. Okay. What the house with the house with the house with the house on these two loans and what your combined take home income between you and your wife. I take home around around nine nine thousand or eighty six hundred actually so you got eighty six coming in a month and your expenses are seventy one hundred help me understand why we have to be so drastic when you have you know almost a thousand bucks a margin here. But those those a thousand the the I guess the thousand dollars left it goes you know I don't I don't see it like my plan is to always have a budget to you know be able to stay here and there but I haven't having been able to make any any savings at all. There's always something happens either you know new tires battery or like different thing or my kids you know their their activities and. Okay, so this is a budgeting question this is I love this this is something that we can solve the day John because this is a budgeting mechanics issue so I don't know do you have every dollar. Yeah, I don't know. No, I just found out about it when I was on hold. Okay, we're going to give it to you for free. That's our free gift. Yep. Okay. And and so what you've got to do here let's plug into this is your homework for tonight because you can't go on like this right we've already painted out the stakes of what takes place if you borrow this loan and it's not good so if you go home tonight and do this homework you're going to be able to find the margin that you need to do the things that you need to be a financially responsible adult and you're going to be able to find your money. You're going to be able to sleep at night because you didn't borrow from your 401k so or just withdraw from your 401k so we go in tonight we download every dollar let's plug in the 8600 we're going to confirm that that's actually the amount that you're taking home 8600 and then we're going to go through and do the budget with your wife. You guys actually get to decide were you just spending $2,000 a month on food because that's just what happened or can we pull it back and spend $1,500 on food and make a choice and be intentional do you see what I'm saying we can go through and look at subscriptions and say do we actually need this or can we cut it back? Yes, and I'm just going to let you know I mean I hear that there's a debt here I think I saw that you have two private loans. Okay, so while we have the private loans we're not doing any investing we're going to wait till we clean up our debt before we invest so that might bring some money back into your paycheck. Are you doing here? Okay, are you investing right now currently? Okay, good. That's a good thing. That's not a negative thing because it's not the thing to do right now you've got debt. So we're just going through line by line with your wife so that's step one of the budget. Then the next thing that you're going to do in that same budget meeting is we're going to start to project out we're going to look into the future because this is the part a lot of people forget to do and we're going to go okay. We've got subscriptions all the things we kind of know about now let's think about the things that are kind of hiding in plain sight. You know do the kids do they have soccer coming up of if so there's a registration fee coming up let's put that on there. Let's think about let's examine our cars to somebody need oil change. Okay, let's put that on there. You kind of have to be really thoughtful at least in the beginning in the beginning. John, I feel like you're kind of it takes about 90 days to lock this in. But then once you lock it in, John, you're like, okay, I know what our life looks like our budget is set with every dollar you can copy and paste the categories from one month to the next and just just make the tweaks and so it gets easier and easier. So that's thing to then after that after you have brainstormed everything you could possibly think of you can pull up your bank statement that'll help you to see what you've spent money on. Then the third thing is you're going to go, okay, we've planned for everything we need to plan for now let's decide when we can actually spend the money because so much of budgeting is the actual cash flow how the cash is flowing and in every dollar you can use paycheck planning to do that you can actually assign when it is that I'm going to spend this money. I can't just spend all the grocery budget at one time because the money's not there but I can break it up an increment so I can know how I'm spending it throughout the month it's very, very helpful. So that's what I want you to do and I think John you're going to find where your margin is. I think you're going to find it I beg of you I plead with you please do not take this money from your 401k your future self will not like that. I very specifically remember going to like seeing all that that we had and I went and sat with the CFO of a very major company he's a friend of mine he was a church like we were church bodies together and I sat down with him and I said I'm going to be a super vulnerable here's all of it and here's how much money having retirement. I want to pull this out and pay all this off and also I wasn't well at the time so I had a bunch of complicated and I'm going to do this and move it and he said I don't understand what you're doing here. I'll never forget him when he said but when it comes to your time it please don't do that please and I was like why it's going to and he's like don't do that. And it forced me to solve the problem another way and now I look at that money in that account that's grown in the last 20 years since then he was right. Oh yeah he was right you're robbing yourself that's right at 30% you've heard from me and the Ramsey personalities for years but nothing beats actually getting together in person. That's why we created the live like no one else crews 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 cabinet Ramsey solutions dot com slash events or click the link in the show notes. All right guys our Ramsey scripture encoder the day is second Corinthians 910 now he who supplies seed to the sewer and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and it will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. Joe more said a simple fact that is hard to learn is that the time to save money is when you have some that is groundbreaking. Don't you believe that on the moon no way the quotes are like yeah like that's what it is good job Joe all right let's go to let's go Sarah who's in Helena Montana hey Sarah how can we help today. Hi I was just calling it was wanting to see about getting some advice on whether my husband and I should add an umbrella policy. On to all of our insurance we own a company that's incorporated we don't carry umbrella on that but we don't really keep much for assets in the company and then we're looking to retire here soon and have a pretty good nest egg. So we're just getting trying to get some advice on that yeah I love that for you guys kind of a rule of thumb is if you're net worth is once you kind of hit that million and above. Point it's a good it's a good idea to start carrying umbrella and especially if you're in if you're in business for yourself if you're kind of out there I think that that's a good idea. Obviously your business is protected if it's in any form of LLC or S corp that's kind of protected from your personal assets but yeah my husband and I carry an umbrella. I have one yeah and so you can go to zander insurance zander dot com and have them set you up with a policy and while you're there have them check the quotes on everything everything else that you have to because sometimes you know that one little altogether and yes and umbrellas are very inexpensive and just a two second teaching on that here's an umbrella does. Let's say you have a car and it maxes out your car insurance and it maxes out at $200,000 of coverage and you have a 17 year old who drives it through somebody's house the house falls over and then it catches on fire and whatever. And then they they see you for pain and suffering and and right the umbrella policy is going to pick up the gap. If they come in and say okay you have a judgment against you for a million dollars and your car insurance only pays $200,000 you're going to owe a hand a grand and so the umbrella policy covers the gaps and so I have it. Yeah yeah probably a million dollars is probably great for you if whatever zander suggests as your net worth goes up they might suggest more and just go with them on that. I think that. That's a great call. - It's a good piece of line for me and my family. - Yes, for sure, for sure. Love that call, thank you for that one, Sarah. Let's go to Megan, who's in Boston, Massachusetts. Hey, Megan, how can we help? - Hi, I'm calling because I have a question about how to talk to an elderly family member about estate planning. It's an aunt and she has very generously decided to leave her entire estate to my children with no strings attached. And I'm very nervous about what that means for them, potentially getting a large windfall of money at a very young age. - And yes, and if there's assets to be sold off, that just creates chaos on top of chaos. - Yes. - Do you have a good relationship with this person? - I do, she does not like to talk about finances with me though, so this is something that I've heard mostly through her brother, who is my father. - Okay, so what is in place now? Is there just a will in place? Is there a trust or is there nothing? What's there now? - There's no trust, it's a will. And my children are minors. And so until they're 18, I would have control over it over it, but then once they're 18, it would be theirs. And if they are 18 when she dies, they would just get it, no strings attached. And my father has suggested to her that she says it, give them a portion of it. So that at least if something bad happens, there's a safety nut down the road and she is unwilling to do that. Is she not trust you? - No, I think she does trust me. She just actually has such blind faith in my children, which is lovely, but she thinks that they're good kids. I mean, my youngest is only six. - Well, I'm sure they can be great kids. - They have had chances to be that they're great kids with great parents and they'll be fine. - Oh gosh, that worries me. - You could be the greatest kid on the planet, and you turn 18 and somebody hands you a million dollars, and you can get off the rails real quick. - And that's what it is, it's between 700 and a million per kid. - Oh gosh. - And so here's the thing, I think that there does need to have a sit down conversation. Probably maybe your dad is there since he seems to listen to her, maybe you're there. And you just lay it out and say, first off, this is so generous, so great, right? You open with gratitude, all of that, it's genuine. But then you say, I have really great kids, but this is a lot of money. And anybody who would receive that at age 18, it has the ability to do so many things. It has the ability to put a damper on their motivation. It has the ability to cause them to have just kind of like a listful, nistless, like what do I do with life? I've got everything I need right here, right? - But done correctly, it can be jet fuel. - Yes. - And shoot them off into the trash here. - If it's just dispersed out, and I think that's clear that she understands I'm not trying to get this money. If you want it to go to them, it all goes to them, but can we disperse it in a way that there's just a safety that there for them? - Are you supposed to know about this? - No. - Ah, that's gonna be tough. - My father came to me because he was concerned, and he said, I think you should know. So at least you can use the next tower. - And that's the other problem. - Just lighting your kids. When they're like, do we have a bunch of money? Be like, nope, I'm just kidding, don't do that. Don't do that, I'm totally kidding. Don't do that, I was just being silly. - He's saying that that's the problem here. When you have in a state, you can't just be quiet and act like it's not there. And then when you die, everybody is like, "Oh, surprise." The wait, and you know this, Megan, we're telling you what you already know, but what she really does need to do is sit down and share, here are my last wishes. Here's what's in the will, or here's what's in the estate plan, the trust. There is a lot happening right now that's not good. You know that, unfortunately, you can't make another adult do something else, but I do think that you can push on this, and I think you should, to a strong degree, I think you should push on this because it does affect your children in a very major way. - I would lean back on my dad. If he came to your confidence, instead of I'm not supposed to tell you this, but each one of your kids is gonna get a million dollars when they turn 18. And maybe when you become, if your aunt and dad in poor health, is she got five more years, 10 more years, what do you think? - I think she's in good health, but she is elderly. - Okay. - I don't remember now. - It may be that you become the custodian of this money, and you're able to sit down with an attorney and map it out, but maybe you have, no, there's nothing you can do. - Yeah. I thank you. - I don't know. - I don't know about my dad. - Yeah, that's where I would go with my dad, and see if he could circle back to her. - Yeah, I push on your dad with it. You know, obviously he's the one that's-- - Having the conversation. - Go say it was at a state attorney too, just 'cause I'm not smart enough on this stuff. I don't know enough about it, but there may be some things you can do as a custodian to put it in a trust once you're holding it, but I don't-- - That was my hope if they are minors that I would be able to do something at that point. - I don't know if you can, so I don't think that you can, but I'm not a lawyer, so I would sit with somebody and say that and ask them about that. But if your dad is the one going, "Hey, I don't want to get involved." She said not to tell you, and I told you anyway, this is when you're gonna have to go dad. We gotta be adults, both of us, for these kids. We can't keep secrets, we can't do that. We have to make sure that we are leaning in for their benefit. And so if that makes things uncomfortable for a moment and Auntie is like, "I thought I told you not to tell them." - You know, it's fine, you'll be able to do that. - Here's my final question for the show today. - Okay. - If it's risking her saying, "Fine, I'm giving this all to," all right. - Yes. - Do you keep quiet then? (laughs) - I probably would, no, I 100% would not problem it. If it was, my 18-year-olds are gonna get a million dollars each or because I wanted it done in the way I thought it was best and that they got zero. - Here's the thing, they're six years old. So we just don't know what they're gonna be like. - I'm sure she's a great mom and, right. But I mean, let's just play it out. If I got a million dollars when I was 18, I like to think I would have had some intellect. I like to think that some people would have come around me, but I don't know. - Oh, I would have been, I would have had people come around me and they would have been very much parasites. They would have taken from me, right? And I would have gone, I know. - Like gone, I know. - Oh, it would have been gone before I hit my 21st birthday. - Yes, and that's the thing. So it's almost like you may as well not have had it anyway. So I think as hard as it is, I think I push on it a lot and if she's a reasonable woman, she's not gonna do that. That's crazy tough. All right guys, thanks for hanging out with us. Now remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. (upbeat music)