My Mom Wrecked My Rental & I Have To Evict Her

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Normal is broke in common sense is weird, so we're here to help you transform your life

from the Ramsey network in the Farewinds Credit Union Studio.

This is the Ramsey Show.

I'm Jade Warshaw next to me today.

George Campbell, you ready to get started, George?

I'm pumped, let's do this.

Let's get into it.

We've got Brandon, who's here locally in Nashville, Tennessee.

Hey, Brandon, how can we help today?

Hi, good afternoon.

I appreciate it.

Take my call.

Most definitely.

Well, I have a situation where I know I usually rented out my house to my mother about

13 years ago, and she's fallen on very hard times because of some very bad decisions.

And after trying to move around, we've identified maybe about $20,000 of damage as a very

rough estimate that needs to be taken care of.

And I'm trying to decide where I should take these funds from.

Okay.

I'm assuming she has no money if she's fallen on hard times.

Yeah, that's correct.

She actually owes more money than she has, so very hard times.

How long has this been going on?

Well, the past two years, she quit her job.

She's been living on all her retirement for the past two years, and she thinks she's

exhausted.

All of those funds and has...

Once the last time she paid rent.

So this was the last month.

I talked to her because it was the first month she paid in cash, and I thought that was

very suspicious, so I confronted her on it.

And she told me she only has enough for one more month of rent, so we've been spending

the past few weeks trying to get her moved out so we can get repairs done.

Where is she going?

She's still up in the air, either with myself or my younger brother, which isn't...

I don't believe either of those options or the best option, but those are the only options

we have.

It's...

Certainly.

Is she...

Is she well?

How old is she?

She is 63.

Oh.

So...

Why isn't she working?

You know, there's not a good answer for that.

And the answer is she's giving me, you know, or just not very valid.

So I can't...

I can't give you a good excuse.

It's either health problems or stress problems or mental problems.

You know, it's all those combined, but it doesn't legitimize her decision making.

So there's 20,000 of damages, and the question was, where do I take the money from?

What are your options?

So I currently have about 19,600 liquid stretched across my banking accounts.

I also have a paid off truck that I use as my daily driver.

And I have a Mustang that I currently own 9,000 on as kind of something I'm a little

more sentimentally attached to than the truck, but the truck is my daily driver.

What's...

What...

What's it worth?

It's probably worth 30 to 35,000.

Oh, wow.

So question, long term.

So let's say your mom moves out, you cover the 20,000 in damages.

What happens next, you bring another renter in who has the propensity to do the same thing.

And now, you know, again, you're on the hook for however much the damages are.

Like, what's the long term play here to not be in this situation again?

Right, me and my wife are still kind of debating that question.

Whether it's worth keeping and renting out a little more legitimate with a very detailed

lease agreement or selling the property, which I would prefer not to do, but that option

is there to just make all these problems go away.

So here's what I'm thinking.

Let's talk about the 20,000 first and then let's talk about Georgia and I can give you

some ideas for the long term play on this based on your finances.

Yeah.

I don't think your mom has the money.

I think continuing to hound her about this is just going to be like you bashing your

head against the wall.

Fair enough.

Right.

So yeah.

I forgot the bruises to prove it.

You don't have a landlord insurance policy.

No, no, this is strictly just because I was trying to help my mom out.

And she wasn't a legal tenant then.

There was no deposit, nothing signed.

Okay.

So this is, it's on you that I think that stinks to realize and we also need to take

our part in owning that we made a whole lot of mistakes on our own that got us here.

Number one was letting mom live there, kind of knowing that she wasn't in a good financial

spot and probably this day would come where she didn't take care of the place.

She can't afford to rent and we have to evict our own mother.

Right.

Everything you said is accurate.

And I even let her know if she did move in with us that I don't, I don't want to have

her pay any rent.

All I care about is her getting back on her feet.

So I'm, I'm fully acknowledged that this is in my hands and I'm going to have to be

the one to solve this problem.

And she'll likely be your burden financially as well for the foreseeable future.

That's right as well.

That's one of my concerns.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So yeah, if I'm you, I am going to scrounge together this, this money and I'm going to try

to get this stuff done for the cheapest price possible.

It's possible that you can do it for 20, for less than 20,000.

Maybe you put your own sweat equity in it.

I don't know the nature of the repairs.

But let's talk about further down the line.

The way you mentioned the 20,000, you know, scraping together from here and there.

I want to know about your financial snapshot and if it makes sense to even keep this rental

house.

So tell us about you.

Yeah.

I'm retired in military.

So I have a very stable pension that allows me enough to support two mortgages.

It's not going to hit me financially at all.

Just a big hit is going to be this complete liquidation of all my savings because I only

have 19,600 liquid.

So it's going to put me back to square one, which I'm trying to avoid.

How much are you making a month?

$8,700.

And then what are your total expenses, including everything insurance, food, bills, all the

mortgages?

What's your outcome?

I pay 3,000.

My total income for the mafia 8,000.

My total expenses is 3,000 after bills, not counting groceries, just the bills.

So counting everything now, are you spending about 5 grand a month, you'd say?

Yeah.

OK.

So you might have 3,000 left over each month.

Yeah.

So we can cashflow this over the next month, two month, three months to where you're not

fully liquidating it all at once.

Maybe we spend 10 grand now and then another 5 grand next month, 5 grand the following

month, and then we're done.

All the while, we're using as much of our income to cashflow it versus draining the savings.

OK.

Now what's that tell tell me about your current residence, what do you own on that?

Um, we bought this property in 2021 for 300.

I think we owe 280 still left on it.

Uh-huh.

Uh-huh.

261.

Uh-huh.

261, I'm sorry.

OK.

Um, what's it worth?

Probably.

Um, no 400 maybe and what about the rental?

What do you own?

What's it worth?

The rental, you know, 88,000, it's probably worth 240.

OK.

OK.

So after selling it and everything aren't probably pocket one, one 40, what would you do

with that one 40 if you had that sitting around on an account?

I would like to invest it into, um, you know, the SMP in the Dow or whatever would be best.

Um, and you get there.

I love that.

Well, think about that plan versus being a landlord, it sounds like you don't love

dealing with the physical issues, a tenant, the upkeep in maintenance.

So if you could get a return by that money just being invested, it might be even more

than you would have gotten if you had a tenant.

I agree with that.

Right.

And I don't know if you've, I know you said you have a pension, but do you have a nest

egg anywhere invested?

I do.

I have a small investment with the Roth and the, uh, or not the Roth, I'm sorry, the SMP

in the Dow.

OK.

Um, not very anything substantial.

I'm talking about it's 60, 600, but I do have the TSP from my time in the

military.

Then I mean, I got to say based on how this is hitting you as an inconvenience, I could

see down the road, this content, this rental continuing to be an inconvenience.

Um, I like the idea of you selling it and taking that money and investing it for your

future or however you think it would be best spent, especially with mom potentially

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All right, back to the phone lines we go where we have Cordell who's in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Hey Cordell, how can we help today?

Hey, how are you?

Doing good.

What's up?

I have, so I'm in a little bit of a pickle.

I bought a car in 2023 and the car no longer runs.

It needs a new engine and it's been like that for a while.

It's been just sitting outside.

I quoted the dealership.

They said $8,500 to get the new engine.

But I don't want to put any money into the car at all and I'm stuck with, I think I

just around like seven grand, I think I just checked it's like $7,100 on the car.

Oh, wow.

I want to say worth and it's current state.

Nothing?

Yeah, I called the dealership and they said $200, but...

The car's worth $200, like that's what they would give you for it.

That's what they would trade in.

Did you buy this car from that dealership?

I did.

Okay, it feels like you keep going back to an abusive ex.

Of course, they're going to screw you on every turn and so I would not go to the dealership

to get this thing fixed.

I would go to an independent mechanic and maybe two to get some quotes on what it's going

to take to get this thing up and running.

How much money do you have?

I don't have anything liquid, a lot liquid, about a thousand.

That's about it.

What are you driving now?

That's for bulltune.

I have my mom's car.

She gifted me, so everything's in my name, title and everything, she gifted me her car.

It's paid for?

And it runs good.

It's paid for?

Her car?

That she gave you?

Yes.

It's paid off.

Right.

There's no payment or anything.

So this is great news because it means you don't have to go buy a new car and whatever

we can get for this thing is what we get for it.

Now we need to pay off the loan.

That's the problem.

So we need to come up with a difference or scrape up the cash to get this thing fixed

and then sell it.

You said you only had a thousand dollars liquid.

What do you have non-liquid and what's the nature of it?

In like my 401k.

I thought it.

Okay.

Just making sure you didn't have stocks or like some coins sitting around.

Okay.

Yeah.

I'm with George.

We started doing that, but we're not at the point yet where it's like we can take out

the money for liquid, you know, I mean, you started.

So tell us about your work.

Are you working?

I am working.

Yes.

Okay.

What do you bring it in?

I'm about $50, $55,000 a year.

Okay.

Okay.

And is it a spouse at home?

Yes.

Okay.

Some married.

Are they working outside the home as well?

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

What do they make?

We're on the same.

Great.

$100,000 income.

Great.

So this is a solvable problem.

Within the next month or two, we could probably scrape up enough to cover this if we live

on nothing.

So can you keep up with the payment for now?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

That's what I've been trying to do.

I mean, payment.

What's the payment?

The carpet.

It's $3.22 a month.

Okay.

So she showed easily handled that.

On our screen, it says, should I do a voluntary repo?

Is that what you were thinking about doing?

I called the dealership back and they asked them, what should I do?

And they said, your best bet is to do a voluntary repo with a credit.

Oh, my goodness.

Wow.

I said, I just got my credit just went up 50 points last week and like we've been really

trying to do that.

And I don't want to do that.

I'm so glad you didn't listen to them.

That is called set you up for failure.

So I'm so glad that you called us instead.

Yeah.

You're bringing home over $6,000 a month.

You're handling the payment.

But we want you to get out of this because obviously it's not running and we don't want

you in any debt anyway.

So I don't know if you have other debt to speak of that's sucking up more of your income.

But I would put this kind of as a top priority.

My guess is if you listed your debt model or just this is probably towards the bottom of

the heap.

Um, yes.

Yeah.

This is actually the last, this is my biggest bill.

Oh, this is your biggest bill.

Okay.

Great.

That's pretty quickly making a hundred grand.

If you guys, it sounds like you have not been on a budget.

It's kind of just been spending willy nilly, not really paying attention.

Yeah.

Okay.

100% I can't.

Yeah.

Now, are you and your wife ready to for some life change because we're about to be living

differently for a little while?

Yeah.

Um, I've been trying to do that.

There was a lot of bringing that.

I don't know.

I don't know about that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I would, I would have a real vision cast in Convoter night where you say, Hey, listen,

the way I've been leading us in money, this is not an attack on her.

It's start with I statement.

The way I've been leading us when it comes to money has not been great and I own up

to that.

And it's left us in a real pickle where we have this huge repair that we can't afford.

And we got all these payments around us.

I'm ready to live differently.

Are you on board to help us get out of this and stay out?

Well, see how that's, that's not a, and I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I,

I, outside my head, alarming, attacking conversation.

And then it becomes the buy product is, Hey, let's get on a budget and just see what our

income's going to be this month, see what our expenses are and see where we can do better

to give anything that isn't necessary for the next few months, yeah.

And, and that's what this is going to look like, but it's going to start with the two of

you.

And we'll make sure that your set up to one will give you every dollar is the best

budgeting out, budgeting app out there, but it's more than that.

It's really going to help you stick to the plan.

I'm glad you called us because we're going to tell you the fastest and best way to get

out of debt and build wealth and every dollar is going to do the same thing for you as

well.

So Kelly will pick up and get that to you but the key is you guys have got to get on

this, you guys have got to work it together.

It's totally up to you to do this.

So George, let's talk real quick about repo because I feel like first off, I feel like

we're getting more and more calls about that.

I don't know if that's just a reflection of the high cost of living right now and people

are falling behind on payments that they got when auto prices were super duper high.

I'm not really sure what the correlation is there.

I could speculate on that a little bit but repossession guys is never is never the answer.

When you hear the word repossessed, what do you think of Jade?

It sounds like a demon.

A demon.

It's a possession.

Just tie them together.

When you hear that word and so here's the problem.

Yeah.

Whether it's involuntary or involuntary, involuntary is they show up at your driveway

and know the night.

They take that bad boy.

Yeah.

And a lot of people think there's a difference between the two.

Well, it's on me.

I'm voluntarily giving it up.

No, you're still going to have to go through the same negative process.

Yeah, it will destroy your credit.

It leaves you liable for the difference after auction.

So here's what they do.

They go sell it for pennies on the dollar to get what they can.

Then they come after you for the difference.

And so you're in no better of a spot than if you just continued keeping up with the payments

and tried to sell it yourself.

That is the goal to sell it on your own to get way more so that you're at least less

underwater.

Right.

And if there's a thing, if you are underwater, maybe you have a vehicle that, like I said,

you paid too much for your underwater on it.

Guys, what we would suggest here always, some less debt is better than high debt, right?

So let's pretend you had a vehicle that you spent $30,000 on.

And now it's only worth, I don't know, 15 half the amount, your upside down.

We're always going to tell you, go down to the credit union, see if you can get alone

for the difference.

See if you can get that.

I don't care.

You can put it on a credit card for all I care.

I just want that number down.

I want you to be paying $15,000 of debt instead of $30,000 of debt is my point.

And then from there on, now we can actually work out of this.

Now you have a lower monthly payment.

So again, that's going to come and work for you on the debt snowball.

You have more money to throw up your debts, smallest to largest.

That's why we suggest that.

But please, please, please, never go down to the dealership and ask them what they think

because they don't have your best interest in at heart.

Yeah.

They're going to deal with the devil and then going back to the devil for financial

advice.

Yeah.

And thinking he's on your side.

Exactly.

And so this is not a knock on every dealership in the country.

But generally, the dealership is the most expensive place to buy a car and get any repairs

done.

Well, they're not your financial advisor.

No.

And at this point, we're talking about a financial decision.

And that's really where the conversation changes.

They want to sell you a vehicle.

They're in the vehicle business.

But you go back to the devil, you know, a lot of devil references here, a lot of demons

I apologize to the kids watching out there.

Yeah, what's wrong, George?

I'm just so angry.

People are getting hoes.

I talked with a guy in the street last week, 28% APR on his car loan.

Oh, Lordy.

Lordy, because they're credit shot and what do they do?

They say, well, hey, we can work with you.

What kind of payment you're looking for?

If they say those words run, you are about to fall for a borderline scam.

Yeah.

And they'll extend the loan, hey, 72 months, 96 months, whatever you want, we can make

it happen.

Guys, let me tell you, a cash car.

That's where it's at.

Can't be underwater on that.

You can't be underwater.

And I would rather drive a cash car that's 10 years old than have a payment that's going

to keep me broke for the foreseeable future.

I'm just saying.

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All right.

Let's go to George who's in Boise, Idaho.

Hey, George, how you doing?

Doing well.

Thank you.

Yeah.

No problem.

How can we help today?

So, I just started talking to my lender.

My wife and I bought our first home a little over a year ago and he was reaching out because

it interest rates have kind of gone down and we talked about possible refinance in the

future.

And he did a soft credit pool and was kind of running me through options.

And I come to realize that my wife isn't about $24,000 of credit card debt that I was

not you believe unaware about.

I knew she had some debt, but I didn't know that had where there's four cards, three of

them that are about 99% maxed, almost maxed out.

Wow.

Very naively.

Why didn't she tell you?

I'm not 100% sure.

How long have you guys been married?

It will be 15 years of the April.

And how long has this debt been laying around?

Some of it, you know, five years or so and I guess was not aware that it was that bad.

I don't think it was that bad.

I think it's just one of these things where she's just using the card and doesn't really

think of the repercussions.

Again, I'm not 100% sure, but I've been trying to.

This is beyond like I'm casually using a card.

If you've maxed out three credit cards without telling your spouse, this is straight up financial

and fidelity.

I don't know the way to say it.

Do you combine your money or are you guys doing the separate deal?

We've been doing separate.

It's just obviously what I thought would work best and we just, you know, I'm the majority

income breadwinner and I cover mortgage, I cover a card, I cover most of the bills that

I let her do, you know, I handle ensuring or, you know, well, I mean, you kind of have

set yourself up because unfortunately, what happens in an environment where you don't

have full transparency, which is we don't have things combined.

Therefore, you have your world, I have my world.

Like you said, maybe you do the insurance, I do the mortgage, right?

It does set up this idea that I can kind of do my own thing over here and as long, in

her mind, it's probably as long as it doesn't affect you, we're square.

And then that sets you up to have the same thing.

So that's the danger, George.

Both of the George's I'm talking to right now.

That's the danger.

Ha, ha.

When you silo your money.

Yeah.

When you silo your money.

Yeah.

How about what was, where all this money was spent and why she did this without telling

you?

Yeah.

I just, we recently did it and, you know, and it was like I said, so we had, you know,

I guess you put my daughter's braces on one of them.

She had some help.

She did a number of years ago where she had to get some stuff and she put her, you know,

for a copated medical expenses and she was using one of those to do that.

So she's not buying Louis bags, you know, she's not out here.

No, no, no, no, no.

Okay.

Well, that's good.

The upside more noble purchases, I guess.

I still want to see the credit card statements.

Yeah.

And fully understand.

Yeah.

I started going through them yesterday and then she even did some cash advances.

I'm like, that's the last thing you ever want to do on credit cards because, you know,

one of them, one of her monthly payments is like $242.

Have you guys, have you guys had the conversation that we don't, we don't engage in debt?

Has that been something that you guys have said to each other that this is feeling not

only that it's something that she kept from you, but it's also crossing a values line

for you or have you never had that conversation?

Well, it's something where she knows that I've been working on because I had terrible

credit.

You know, maybe six, seven years ago in the low 500s, I couldn't even get a $500 credit

card from my bank.

And now, over the last years or a few years, I've learned how to play the credit game,

how to, what to do with it, not to buy things just because, you know, if I don't have

the cash, I had to kind of learn a hard way, but at that same bank, that wouldn't give

me a $500 credit card.

Now, I have a $46,000 credit card with them and I don't, I maybe owe $1,000 on it.

Here's the problem for some car.

Here's the problem.

Here's where the confusion is.

Here's where the confusion is.

There's a lot of confusion in this.

And I hear what you're saying and it now is crystal clear to me.

So there's two or three issues here.

Number one, like what we already said, the money is siloed.

So because of that, there is just going to be a level of secrecy.

So that's thing one, and you both have created that environment.

Thing two is there isn't a clear stance on debt in your relationship.

It sounds like it's, if it's, if it's this kind of debt, it's okay, but if it helps

our credit score, then maybe.

And so I think that's created, that's the second problem is there's just not a clear

stance on what does that mean.

And then the third thing is, yeah, there is a lack of communication.

There is something there that she didn't feel like she could tell you.

Even something like braces, hey, I have to use this money for our children's braces.

So there's a communication there or some sort of like lack of trust that I don't feel

like I can come to you with this or I don't feel like I can share this.

So these are three main issues.

And I, hearing the call, George, what I would suggest is, if you can take a level of ownership

in this too, and then you can come to her and say, you know what, we've gotten off on the

wrong track, like both of us.

And I see my part in this and I, I want to change what I'm doing today.

And I, like, I hope that you're here with me because we can't keep going like this.

I want you to know that I trust you.

I want our finances to be together.

And what I'm, what I'm finding right now is, I was focused on debt and I kind of was

a hypocrite because I was saying my debt was okay, but yours wasn't.

And I think, honestly, going forward, we just need to say that debt has not been good

for our relationship.

And going forward, I don't want to engage on it.

I don't know about you, but this is what I want to talk to you about.

And that's how I would approach this.

Yeah, no, I, I love that.

And that's some, the conversation I had last night when I said, I was like, regardless

of the year that is my debt, I have like $4,000 in debt, but I told her, and I'm thinking

that we just finally got a tax return for the first time in like two years because I'm

making more money than I've made in the past.

So having to adjust for things like that, we had to owe the last two years, but you know,

having extra money taken out and being on top of the finances where we got like, you

know, $4,500.

You're like, okay, cool, maybe we can use the pay down credit card debt, thinking ours

is roughly around the same, not realizing hers as much as it was.

Yeah.

So what's her total consumer debt now?

Yeah, it's about 30,000 between the both of us.

Okay.

How much do you have in across checking and savings?

Liquid.

Like, left over or just currently right now?

Currently.

I have about $2,300 right now in my debt that's after mortgage and those are paid.

Okay.

I would likely pause in this refinance because it's going to cost you two to five percent

of the loan.

Yeah.

And I don't know that you're going to break even anytime soon.

So this might be a down the line thing.

Right now the focus is just attacking this debt with the debt snowball.

That's the easy advice.

Okay.

It's just tackle it as if it was y'all's debt and smallest credit card goes first, minimum

payments on the rest.

The hard part is going to be resetting your marriage and financial life and her rebuilding

trust.

And the way to do that is a micro commitment every day to be a person who is trustworthy.

And that's going to involve transparency and accountability and having a joint account.

And we know the plan and freezing both of your credit, freeze all the accounts so that

nobody could open debt in your name, including you, make it really hard.

Add the friction there so that we're not tempted.

And if you do all of those things and get on a budget, there's definitely hope here.

We can get out of this pretty fast.

Okay.

Well, a question with the snowball is because like most of them, they're all around the

same.

They're all like 64 hundred, 6,300, 6,600, I'm looking at.

Yeah.

So what I would do then is I would do them in order.

If it's 6,400, you know, if the 6,300 one is the smallest one, do that one first and

then do the 6,400 one and then do the 6,600 one.

So when you do the debt snowball, everybody, what we're doing here is we're listing the

debts smallest to largest by balance, not by monthly payment, not by interest rate.

It truly is by balance.

And when you do that, you get those small wins quickly.

You feel that that rush of dopamine, you feel like, hey, I did something and you want

to go to the next one and it really is proven to be the best method to pay off your debt

quickly.

So let's work for George too.

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All righty, back to the phone lines, Georgia, you're ready?

I hope so.

All right, we got Sarah who's in Las Vegas, Nevada.

What's up, Sarah?

How can we help today?

Hi there, good afternoon.

My question is pretty much on garnish man, but also of course your guys is awesome guidance.

Hit us.

My husband pretty much pays like all of our bills and everything.

Recently, his wages have started to be garnish for a car that we voluntarily let go

a few years ago.

So now we are, you know, I downloaded that every dollar app and I'm trying to do the budget

and it's like in our face that now we're short on bills.

So I'm kind of scrambling looking for a job.

I have a side business, but you know, I obviously need like stable income to bridge that gap.

So I'm kind of scrambling looking for work.

And we just, we've been married for a while, but we just kind of recently started joining

our accounts because of this and working on the budget.

I guess my question is, sure, we, or can we do anything about the garnishment?

How much is the garnishment?

I don't know of the exact details yet, you've been working on getting that information,

but I think, oh, so you haven't, you haven't seen it actually happen yet.

It's just been ordered.

I don't know if these wages are being garnished already.

I just don't have like the physical paper, you don't know the numbers.

So different.

Do you know the balance that's out?

No, I don't.

Okay.

I don't.

Well, there's some homework there because once we know that we can develop a game plan

to pay it off aggressively using future income.

I'm guessing you guys have nothing in savings.

We don't.

He did, but he does not have any more, so we neither of us do.

What do you guys make?

Well, he makes, so before the garnishment, 43 a year, and then after it would be like 31.

So online, it's basically 2600 because they take it directly from his paycheck.

Yeah.

It looks like they can take up to 25% of your income on a garnishment.

So this does have the ability to really mess with you guys.

There's nothing you can do about it.

And the lender sued you and they got a judgment that you owe the money, and this is next steps

because you're not paying.

Did you guys, did you ignore the, when you were served, like, did you ignore this or how,

how did you get to this point?

Yeah, I got ignored pretty much.

Yeah.

Okay.

So we're not doing that anymore going forward.

What's the status on, I mean, obviously you guys are married, the money's separate.

It's like you kind of know what's going on, but you don't know the amount of it.

How are you, I think my question for you is,

what's the plan to come together to solve this?

Because going forward, what I'm seeing, big picture is we've got to get on the same page.

And when life hits, we can't ignore it because it just snowballs and makes it worse,

which you're finding to be true right now.

Absolutely.

I mean, we're pretty much, honestly, I'm just, we're getting into taking the biblical approach

of marriage and finances and everything and, you know, building our accounts in V1 and

that's moving forward.

But we do have, unfortunately, a lot of fights about how many of you guys have.

We have a lot of debt in collections, but right now it's, it's, it's kind of just our

monthly, our monthly, our monthly bills, like, you know, the mortgage, the phone and

cars and everything.

So is there anything you can sell in this picture, or you could free up some payments

and even walk away with some cash?

Yeah, because there's, there's still a chance that they might settle this for you.

If you can get with the creditor and say, hey, if I give you this much lump sum, can you

call it paid and full?

Yeah, that's not off the table.

That's, that's what I was thinking about.

He's kind of like hellbent, I'm sorry, for the reference.

He's kind of like bed on, well, let's, let we have equity and I have no idea how that

works.

I just call the mortgage company and see about that.

So he wants to take out a heel off me, I don't know what type, but I just call to inquire

and they pretty much were like, well, you have to run your credit anyways and we don't

even have the credit.

Good.

I'm glad.

You don't have the credit.

Please do not use your house as a piggy bank and go into more debt thinking you solve

the problem.

Yeah, debt, debt doesn't solve for debt.

The only way you can solve debt is to pay it off with actual earned money.

So here's, here's going forward.

So how's the job search going for you?

Well, it's, it's going.

I recently, I haven't worked for a few years at a 95.

It's kind of my own business.

I kind of, you know, let that roll because we need money, but I've been, I've been hiring

to, I mean, applying to pretty much everything which has past few days.

Today, today, I want you to know any job will do for the time being and be a server at

the nearest restaurant.

Yes.

A fancy salary job right now.

We need any money in the door.

And then the first order of business is to try to stack up.

You need to sit down with your husband tonight, find out what the full amount owed is.

And then try to scrounge together as quickly as you can, 60 to 70% of, of what that is.

Or even 50% start small and say, hey, go to the creditor directly and say, hey, I know

we don't have the full 8,000, but we have 4,000 today.

Take it or leave it and because they're in a position at this point, they're not expecting

to get much, you know, this garnishment of wages, you know, that they're going to get

what they can.

But I would at least try to settle it.

There's no guarantee there, but I would try that.

And then from here on, yes, the solution is income.

There's not going to be a magic wand here.

If you guys pull out a HELOC or any other type of loan or personal loan, you are just

kicking the can down the field and honestly making things worse for you in the future.

So for you guys today, the name of the game is income and drawing a line in the sand

and saying, no more.

This behavior of you over here and me on this side, that cannot continue.

This idea of not facing our financial issues head on cannot continue.

And I love what you said earlier, Sarah, that you guys are kind of trying to get on to

this approach with your life and your money.

So keep doing that, matter of fact, I haven't offered this in a long time, George.

But if you guys, I love financial peace university.

I love every dollar, but I love something about like I'm like getting deep in this.

So if you want to get into that, I would suggest it local church.

I love that for you guys.

We're also going to give you every dollar if you like the digital approach.

But I think you guys could really use some people around you that are doing this and doing

it the right way.

FPU financial peace always has some OGs in there that can kind of guide you.

They've been there.

Yes.

And that's what you guys need.

This is a complete overhaul for you.

And I think it's something to be excited about, you know.

And on top of that, total one makeover, we're going to send you a copy of that.

So in between classes, you're going to be reading this book together and it's going

to fire you guys up.

Okay.

And if that doesn't light a fire under you, I don't know what it will, but that's the

game plan.

No new debt whatsoever.

Freeze your credits so that you can't do something as dumb as taking on a heat lock.

Then we're going to cut our expenses down to nothing and every dollar will help you with

that.

Then we're going to try to increase our income as much as possible.

And that gap, that beautiful gap is called margin.

And you're going to use all of that to attack these debts, to save up a lump sum, to try

to get these other debts out of collections.

Because those debts are next.

They're going to come suing you for those.

And so it's like whack them all right now, trying to clean up these debts.

But the good thing, what we're teaching you, Sarah, is you, it feels like you're

going to have control over the situation, but you can gain control over it very quickly.

And that's going to start by knowing those numbers.

Something truly happens when you sit down at night, George, and you do your budget for

the first time.

And even if it's in the red, for you to just list out, this is the money coming in, and

this is the money going out for a lot of people, it's the first time they've ever seen

it.

Sarah mentioned that.

She said we did the budget and realized, oh my gosh, we're in the red every month.

Yes.

We can't keep doing this.

And so having that level of control and then saying, okay, well, here's what we're going

to do next.

And they've got a plan, a debt snowball, and that for me is the biggest piece.

It's going to take time.

It's going to take time to turn this around.

But then to be able to say, okay, now I'm reading the total money makeover, I'm going

to FBU class.

All of those things combined is exactly what you need to stay motivated, light a fire

under, but keep listening to the Ramsey show.

That's the type of stuff that Sam and I did when we were paying off our debt.

And you kind of have to just jump off the cliff wholeheartedly and really just submerge

yourself in a new lifestyle.

Just have faith that this process works because 10 million people have gone before me and

have done it.

Yes.

Not it.

You got to go all in.

You got to do it.

Go on.

Go on.

And there's a reason it works.

There's a reason it works.

I'm excited for you guys, Sarah.

This is the precipice of a brand new beginning and be sure to call us back and let us know

how things are going or if you need any help whatsoever.

Dave, we got a lot of calls on this show where life happens.

One day someone's healthy.

They're working, providing for their family, and then a curveball hits.

You know, we heard all the time, a car accident, a cancer diagnosis, a heart attack, and suddenly

everything changes.

Yeah.

And that's why you've always said that having term life insurance from Xander is essential

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Yeah.

That's right.

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But there's another piece that people often overlook and that's long term disability

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Yeah.

It's important to understand the difference between them.

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Protect yourself, protect your income, protect your family.

Hey, welcome back to the Ramsey Show here in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio.

It's myself, Jade Warsha, next to George Campbell, continuing to take your calls and we have

Austin, who's in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Hey Austin, how are you?

Hey guys, how are you?

Can you hear me okay?

Absolutely.

Fire away.

Excellent.

Wonderful.

Thanks for taking my call.

So I'll try to be brief here.

We're a family of five with three kiddos and we have just under $100,000 in debt, not

including our mortgage.

And while we can make minimum payments and they're trying to tackle one of them, we feel

so defeated and our youngest has just been diagnosed with a life on medical condition

and our oldest, it's on the spectrum and so a lot of our credit card debt went to help

and get him resources that he needed.

But we just, you know, you close our eyes, you wake up and we just have all this debt and

stuff.

Oh man.

Yeah, that's tough.

That's tough to go through, especially with the medical challenges.

How's your income in all of this?

Yeah, how's your income as 164,000 a year?

Good.

That's a great income and you got, you mean you got a big pile, but you got a nice big

shovel to help clean it up, which is nice.

Can you tell me like the breakdown of the debts?

Sure.

So it's a little bit like death 5,000 cuts.

So we've got roughly $40,000 in credit card debt between two credit cards.

And again, those were, some of those poor financial decisions on our part, you didn't

out, et cetera, but a lot of that was the medical stuff.

I have $20,000 in student loans and we have two car payments.

One of them is 28,000 and it's a relatively new car and the other is 8,000, so it's kind

of close being paid off.

Okay.

Now, you guys' income, is that just you or do both you and your wife work?

We both work.

So I bring home $80,000 in my life, brings home 84,000.

Okay.

Great.

Okay.

So what I'm looking at straight off the bat is maybe the first car that's worth 28,000.

What's it worth?

Yeah.

That's what's tough.

So we did the Kelly Blubert value and if we got like the perfect buyer, perfect money,

it's probably at about 30,000 even.

So we'd make a little bit that's more like, well, what do we do for a decent safe car

for her?

Because she is from a different country and so she's learned to drive as an adult and so

she's a little anxious.

It's the car doesn't have a lot of those safety features to help her out.

Interesting.

That might be solved with some driving lessons, but I think that you could find a, if

you took the 2,000, you guys had any cash saved, do you have any money saved?

We did.

Unfortunately, depleted that.

So we're, it's kind of embarrassing to admit that honestly, so we have to build that

back up.

So I don't be embarrassed, but what would be a goal if coming away from this call is,

if you can sell that in pocket 2000, obviously you're going to need to put $1,000 aside for

baby step one, which is just that starter emergency fund.

But then I'd very quickly be trying to scrounge together, I don't know, seven or 8,000 and

just get a car that is safe, that is reliable, that gets her from point A to point B and honestly,

driving lessons.

Yeah.

And any, any modern car from the last decade is going to be safe to drive.

It doesn't need all every single bell and whistle of, you know, the lights on the, on the

mirror to let you know there's a car next to you and all that.

A lot of that's just paying attention to, but you guys make sure you bring home 10K a

month or so.

Yes, and that's, and she might actually get a pretty healthy race coming up, and I

might treat actually, but we can't thank on that.

So this is sure.

Like, and that's where the thing is, because we are, we are really tackling, I think we're

doing it backwards, but, and I was going to ask you about our high interest credit card,

but we're doing like the opposite of the snowball now that we realize what the snowball

is and they fix that, but we've been trying to throw money at the high interest credit card.

And we're throwing like almost two grand a month at that and the minimum payments everywhere

else.

Yeah.

We're just, I'd swap this around, I'd swap this around your biggest, your biggest

opportunity here is with that car payment, because if you can, how much are you paying

a month for the $28,000 car?

We do it twice monthly, but it's all together about 500 a month.

Yes.

So if we said, hey, 2,000 from the sale and instead of throwing $200, $2,000 at this credit

card every month, since it's not even the smallest debt, what if we pocketed that for two months

in a row?

Now we have $6,000.

We can find a very reliable car.

Surely there's someone in the community that you know, ask around your church, ask around

at work.

Surely somebody's selling something or knows somebody who is.

And I like a used car like that because then I can get a more accurate picture of what

the background of the vehicle is.

So that would be my first move, because if you can reclaim $500 a month, plus to add

that to now the margin of the $2,000 that you were already throwing at the debt, now you

got $2,500 a month that you're pounding this debt away.

And it knocks out over 25% of your debt right there.

So now you're down to 72, making 164.

Now it's a solvable problem.

And you're not going to be driving that car forever.

So I don't want you to think, you know, oh my gosh, this is a deathmobile.

I can't have a drive in this car.

This might be six months to a year until we can upgrade if we get intense about this.

Yeah.

And your current car is worth $8,000 and you guys have been driving that one just fine.

So that would be a full argument for that choice to be made.

Second thing is, I love that for a second thing is I think you did say that you're getting

right side up on doing the debt snowball the correct way, which again, by balance is

what I would do.

So what's the smallest balance that you have laying around?

And you can include student loans in that too, by the way.

Yeah.

So I guess the other one would be that $8,000 at my car, which we could take care pretty

quickly.

So it's the 8,000.

Then it would be the two credit cards are high interest one actually is about 15,000.

And we were planning on using my life bonus to knock that down through 4,000, but maybe

we'll rethink that now with this.

And then we have another credit card at 21,000.

Okay.

And my student loans at 20,000.

And the student loans is just one big chunk.

It's not divided into smaller loans.

It actually is divided into smaller loans.

I don't know exactly what those breakdowns are right now, but they add up to just show

that 20,000.

Yeah.

I look into that because again, the whole method behind the madness of the debt snowball

is small wins.

So if you can, you know, say you look at that student loan, my guess is it's probably broken

into $5,000 chunks.

I don't know.

I'm just going maybe by semester.

But if you can feel that, oh, we knocked out 5,000.

And you can see it as four pieces instead of one giant chunk.

It does feel like, it's almost the feeling of, I don't know if you're like this, but

I love making a list and being able to check things off my list.

It just feels great.

And it's the same way with debt.

And so if you can look into that tonight and you might find, oh, this is broken into four

or five smaller loans, that is going to do so much for your psyche while paying off

this debt.

So we talked about income.

We talked about the debt.

The last piece here is the expenses.

And I can tell you guys have just been in survival mode, which means we're just going to

eat out because I nobody got time to go get groceries and cook.

We are stressed.

We're exhausted.

That's exactly right.

Right.

And so it's not because you're maniacal.

You're just human beings.

No.

Yes.

And I will say, since December, we've gotten really intentional about cooking at home,

not eating out, doing all those things.

So it's been a pretty good difference, but yeah, it's just the exhaustion at the end of

the day.

That's the temptation.

That's where the spending happens.

We're in bed at 11 p.m. and just adding to cart and going through the drive through.

And so that's really going to be a great opportunity for you guys to create even more

margin because you have a great income.

We can all agree.

You know, if you were 18 year old Austin, you're going to make $10,000 a month take home

one day.

We are rich.

That's right.

Instead, you're looking around going, we don't have enough money to pay our bills.

And so we've got to take some serious action because once we do clean this up, you guys

are going to be in such great shape to build wealth for the rest of your life once

we're done with this debt.

You're going to be able to keep up with the medical needs.

That's an even better reason to become debt free.

When you got those little kiddos as you're why, there is nothing that will stop you.

And that's one part that we didn't really talk about knowing what their medical needs

are going forward.

And you may need to have a fund that's there to the side.

If you know, hey, we're spending, you know, a certain amount, a couple hundred dollars

on this a month or maybe even a couple of thousands of this over the course of a quarter,

I would certainly have that money set aside aside from your normal emergency fund.

Just knowing, hey, this is part of our budget at this point.

It's something that we have to create a sinking fund around to make sure that money is there

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All righty then, back to the phone lines we go, where we have Steve, who's in Chicago,

Illinois.

Steve, happy to have you on the phone lines, my man.

Thank you for having me on.

You're welcome.

How can we help?

So, me and my wife, we got married in 2024.

She's originally from the Philippines and she still has her family there.

One in particular is her mom and her mom, as of recently, has come on some financial

problems that we want, it helps support her and we're blessed when a good spot we can

do that.

The problem is that she lives with her son.

You're breaking up a little bit.

You broke up on a Steve.

Can you hear me okay?

Yeah, just repeat what you said again.

So she lives with who?

She lives with her son, so my wife's brother.

Okay.

And he, I think 42, 43, and hasn't had a job in many, many years and the problem is

he's basically siphoned off everything that she had for retirement, where the problem

is that we want to support her, but we don't want to enable him at the same time, so

we're not really sure what to do with that situation.

Well, at that point, you're just enabling his behavior.

Exactly.

So all you'd have to do theoretically, you could talk to her and say, hey, here's what

we see mom, and this is your wife talking.

We see that you could use some help and we'd like to help you.

The only way we can do that is if you're separate from my brother, because what we've

observed is not good for you and we cannot give you money knowing that it could enable

him.

But my second question to follow up that is, how is it not enabling your mom or the

mother-in-law?

Is she unable to work?

Like, tell us more about that part.

Because this sounds like a forever problem that you're going to have to manage if you

start giving her a room for ever.

Yep.

So she's retired.

She had a good nest egg.

They actually sold some land and something in this house where she had decent amount of

money.

And we've had that conversation with her like, hey, she had to have a condo in a different

area.

But she refuses to leave the brother behind because she's worried about him and his life and

stuff.

But it's hard to explain it to her where we want to support her.

But at the same time, you know, we see that enabling that's happening.

You may not be able to.

You may not.

Yeah.

That's where we're at.

You know, having stipulations or having something that you need to see.

In order to know that money is going to be spent responsibly, that's not mean or wrong

or unfair.

It's just honestly being a financially responsible adult.

And if you've observed that she has not been responsible with her money and that there

is a person who's taking advantage of her.

But she refuses to leave that situation where she's being taken advantage of.

There's not a whole lot that you can do other than say, hey, this offer is here.

If ever you want it, but these are the terms of it.

And, you know, we love you.

But we can't let, you know, Billy Bob, who's 43, continue to take your money and therefore

take our money and take it or leave it.

How much are you giving her right now?

Right now we're giving us $1,000, but no, right now it's been one time.

Okay.

She actually leads them into she's in dire straits and she reached out to some of her sisters

for money and then her sisters, my voice, and she reached out to us to let us know because

she didn't want us to know about it.

Because Shane?

Or what?

I think so.

I think that's the biggest thing because she knows that her son is a problem.

Yeah.

But everyone's healthy.

Is everybody healthy?

Yes.

Everybody's healthy.

And how old is she?

I think she's 70.

Okay.

So, yeah, going out and getting a job is not going to be the easiest thing here.

I think if you wanted to give and you knew the exact needs, you can try to give directly

to those needs.

So if it was, I don't know, covering her taxes and insurance for the year or covering

groceries, you can make sure she gets a gift card that's, you know, in her control so

that he's not just getting access to a bank account.

Absolutely.

So there's things you can do to try to separate this.

But again, it's up to her to not enable him at that point and somehow turn this into

him getting this money anyways.

But if you can give directly to the need and that way he can't get access, that's probably

the best way to do an ongoing gift.

And it's also okay to say, hey, we can do a one-time gift to $5,000.

We can't give you any more money.

And if you squander it, if he takes it, that's all we can do.

Is he getting money from somewhere or somebody else providing for him that he's able to

kind of do the other things he needs to do?

He's just living there?

Yeah.

So, I mean, he got access to her money for a long time.

He actually sold some family land.

He lived off of that for a while.

He's always going to one to another thing up in another.

Is he an addict or some sort of job?

No.

Nothing like that.

Where is he blowing all this money?

We don't know.

We don't know.

That's the part that scares me.

I just want to make sure that your mom is in a safe environment as well or your mother

and law.

And that might be a conversation between your wife and her to figure out, you know, what

really is going on underneath the surface?

How can we really help to give directly to the needs if we're going to continue giving

it all?

Yeah.

Because right now, I would pause until you have more information because right now, you

might be throwing money into the abyss.

I would agree with that.

And probably the most important thing out of this entire conversation is whatever you guys

decide, you both have to feel good about it, you and your wife.

If it has to be something that you feel like, yes, this is money well spent and that

she feels like it's money well spent because all of this is sheer generosity.

And so for that reason, it's not something that must be done that is really yours to

solve, but out of the goodness of your hearts if you're doing this, that's a great thing.

I just would not want it to cause any resentment between you two who are married.

So it's a good advice.

That is a tough one.

All right.

Thank you for the call.

Mike, who's in Kansas City, Missouri, hey, Jack, how can we help?

Hi, how are you guys?

Good.

What's up?

So I am looking to figure out what I should do with a decently large sum of money.

I don't have any debt.

I basically have $200,000 of liquid cash that I've saved.

And then I just had a judgment in court that is awarding me about $530,000.

Wow.

Like I said, yeah, I mean, I've paid, I've always been really, I mean, I've been long time

followers of the show.

So like, I've always been very careful.

I don't have any credit card that paid my student loans off like I don't have anything

that's outstanding.

And you'll be sitting on three quarters of a million dollars?

Yeah.

Pretty much.

Wow.

How old are you?

Single?

Yes.

Are you renting?

I am currently renting with my brother for the past couple of years.

So that's where I'm at with that.

Cool.

Is there any like health or anything going forward that you need to know about?

No, I mean, I'm a pretty healthy guy.

The one thing that I did do just at the end of last year was because I wanted to get a

good start on it.

I did open like a Roth IRA and contributed like $7,000 just to the, for the past year, just

to get a good start.

Yeah.

Great.

But still, I have all this that I feel like I could do something with.

Yeah.

I would split it across a few areas.

Number one is giving.

I think that's an wise thing to do with any amount of money that you get.

And the other one would be saving and investing.

And so that could be, hey, I'm going to max out another Roth IRA for the year.

And I'm going to put a chunk of this into an investment account, like a brokerage account,

non-retirement, just to have it grow with compound interest or compound growth.

And then the final thing is, you may want to buy a house with cash or upgrade your car

with cash to a reasonable car and enjoy some of that money because locking in a house

in cash at your age is one of the best wealth building moves you could make.

Yeah.

So I think we're thinking about that because, yeah, I bought my car with cash.

I could bring, I ordered a brand new car and I loved driving that away knowing that

it was mine.

Pass.

And then I thought about the house thing.

I just, I didn't know if that would be like a really wise move to get built for that.

Don't go crazy.

But, you know, I don't know what houses are in your area, but if there's a, you know,

a single family home that's, I don't know, $400,000, I mean, that's, you'd still have

plenty left over to invest and give and enjoy.

And so I would do all three things with it.

I would spend, save, invest, and give.

And if you do all of those things, you won't feel like you have a flat tire, but I love prioritizing

a home.

I mean, home ownership at 28, you'll be a unicorn, especially with a paid for house.

So that's the key.

It's trying to do everything with cash for the rest of your life.

You've already been doing that.

That's going to be the best way to steward this money wisely.

I love that idea.

Just because you can afford a $600,000 house doesn't mean you need that.

Just get what you need for your life in this moment.

You can always upgrade later.

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All right, Manny is in Orlando, Florida.

Hi Manny.

Hi, thank you for taking my call.

You're welcome.

Thanks for today.

So, my mother is 65 years old.

Her house is paid off.

She collects social security and she, kind of a health action.

She's got two wheel apartments in her house which she rents out and that's which she

uses for income.

However, she has very low retirement savings, about $50,000.

So my idea was to outright buy her house so she can retire in the house and have some

money to enjoy her retirement.

And so that was kind of my question whether this would be a good thing.

And my concern is that she would remain continued to rent out the couple studio apartments

within her house and whether, you know, that would be advisable thing to do.

So you'd buy the house so she has the cash spending money.

She'd continue to live in it and you're just kind of would buy your time until the day

comes where the property would roll would be empty and roll back to you.

Correct.

How much is the house worth?

I mean, on realtor.com, it's about $400,000.

Okay.

Before I ask you if you have the ability to do this financially, how much is her social

security and how much does she pull in from the rent?

Probably so she pulls in about $2,000 a month for the rent, so $1,000 per studio.

And her social security is about $1,000 a month.

Okay.

And she's able to cover all of her bills?

She is.

Okay.

So why do we need even more if she's doing fine?

Well, just because she's only, she only has $50,000 and no 401k, just $50,000 in a state

of account.

What's she going to use the extra money on if her, if she's living life, increase her

lifestyle?

Exactly.

To be able to enjoy retirement and be able to travel, that's what she does.

She just likes to travel.

Understood.

I feel like at this point, you feel responsible for her lack of retirement.

Well, it's a way for me to, you know, be back to her and not necessarily responsible,

but I have a couple of rentals operating in terms of the position where I can, how

much money do you have?

In some way, I've got about 300 cash.

Okay.

So you couldn't afford it in full right now anyways.

Well, I could, but, you know, my idea would be to take on a mortgage.

No, no, if it's, you know, if it's worth 400, my, my proposal would be like to do a,

make it 300 and be responsible for taxes, insurance and all that.

That feels messy.

So you want her to give you a 25% discount?

Well, you know, we can, we haven't really discussed numbers and I honestly, I could

pull the 400 if, um, if need be, um, that's all your money.

I mean, is that all, I mean, when George asked you how much cash do you have?

And you said 300, is that all your money, all your cash that you have?

No, no, no, it's just a liquid cash that I have of, you know, I could give us a full

snapshot.

Give us a full snapshot.

That's how much debt you have.

Tell us about your, give us a bigger piece of this so we can understand how many properties

do you have?

How much cash do you have?

What's in your retirement?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, you know, my, my phone is paid off, um, and then I have two rental properties that

are also paid off.

Okay.

Uh, and then, uh, and then liquid, uh, cash in the bank is 300, okay, and then I've got

a couple liquid accounts, um, that are 200,000.

Okay.

Well, and I'll make liquid, uh, you know, cash and, uh, a couple accounts that are pretty

liquid, is 500,000.

What would be cheaper just to, if you want to bless her, cover the taxes and insurance on

that house?

Instead of you buying it?

Well, I mean, paying taxes and, uh, that, that wouldn't really help her, or, or her

be able to travel how she wants to.

Uh, but she can't afford it as my fear.

And right now it's sort of your artificially propping up her life.

Who knows how long she could live another 30 years, right?

She's in good health.

Yeah.

Or if the, if the renters don't want to live there anymore, right?

Well, she blows through that money.

And then what?

That's another concern I had.

Yeah.

And so these are all, you might be resentful.

I would rather you give her 10 grand a year to go travel.

That would be a cheaper option with less mess than you buying this house, but she gets

the rental money and it's kind of in your name, but she's still living there.

And then what if you need to sell it one day for whatever reason?

You go to a picture, elderly mother, I just think it's just too messy to get involved

at this stage.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I just personally wouldn't do it.

Yeah.

She doesn't need the money.

And if she wants to travel, she might need to go make some, you know, do a part-time job

in order to come up with the money.

Or if she wanted to downsize and sell this home and buy a smaller apartment or, you know,

there's options here that I think she has that she may not want to do, nor really need

to do at this point, but I have a feeling that you stepping in and trying to do this is

just going to lead to more problems down the line.

And for that reason, I agree with George.

I'd rather spotter some cash as a gift maybe here or there for a trip if you want to

do that.

But she's got options here.

She's sitting on a nice piece of property that she's paid for over the course of years.

So unless somebody did that for her, that lets me know she's got somewhere with all on

being able to handle her money.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Those are for my hesitation as well as I think it does sound pretty messy.

Would you inherit the property solely?

I have three sisters and kind of talking to them about this idea.

They were at first, they were not so happy with it.

Because they were going to get a piece of that upon inheritance.

And now they don't.

They'll get a piece of whatever's left of mom's pile of money, which will likely be gone

if she's traveling the world for the next, you know, several decades.

And the truth is here, I mean, the hard part with this is we all have a picture of what

we want for our loved ones, all of us do.

And sometimes that's just not the reality.

And there may be, I mean, I, this sounds harsh, but it's just, it's just, I'm just being

a realist right here.

She may not get to travel as much as she wants to.

Her life, her life and her lifestyle does not afford that to her.

And all of us face that every single day.

There's things I would love to do right now, but I can't afford to do it.

So I will either have to change something about my financial situation.

I'll either have to wait.

I'll either have to save up.

I'll either have to write.

And so there's part of that, that rather than make something very messy because we want

to have a picture so badly, there's part of it of just saying, well, this is the reality

of life for everyone to some extent.

And it's maybe not here for me to try to clean up and make perfect.

Yeah.

What if there was a compromise?

Does she want to travel solo or is she, like, experiences with other people or family?

Both ways.

Whenever we take a cruise, we bring her along.

So she does also like to travel solo to like, fast American, central America kind of thing.

That's cool.

I wonder if there's a compromise here.

I'm wondering if you go, hey, mom, once here, I'd love to take a fun trip with you.

You get to decide where we go.

Here's the budget.

So now she gets to live that dream without you being intermingled with the finances and

mom's a tenant now.

I like that plan better because I can tell your noble guy or a great son you want to

bless your mom.

You want her to have a great life, but I don't think artificially funding it by buying

her house when she could sell it for more is the move.

I just think there's going to be too much dysfunction in the family if you make this happen.

I agree with that.

As long as you put really strong and clear boundaries and very clear expectations, if you do decide

to do these trips, got to be so clear with that.

Otherwise, next thing you know, it's like, but I want to go to the Bahamas.

I wasn't part of the deal, mom.

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Today's question comes from Shelby in Indiana.

I have two children under five years old who are beginning to get invited to birthday parties

for kids in their play groups and daycare.

This can get pretty expensive depending on how many parties are scheduled and it's hard

for me to justify spending a lot of money for children we're not especially close to.

Do you recommend capping it out at a certain amount to spend per birthday or should I look at

this as an opportunity to be an example of having a giving heart to my kids?

Well, let me know more information I want here.

Number one, I don't know her financial picture.

If she's in baby step two drowning in debt, it looks like a lot of, hey, wish we could make it

or a real simple gift that the kids make.

It doesn't have to be a $15 gift because the truth is, under five years old,

bad is excited about a cardboard box as they are about the thing in the box.

Yeah, I mean, those little match box cars or even the ones from the movie cars,

but those are like $2 or they're not $6.

They're not expensive.

I would, if you're in debt, if you're in baby step two, I would for sure cap the amount of

birthday parties that we're going to and I would cap the amount that we're spending.

And it's just like you said, something small, a $5 gift, I think that you could do that

in that way your five year old is not feeling like, you know, I missed Isabella's birthday party.

Yes, and I will say these birthdays have gotten out of hand.

They have.

It used to be simple.

Like I remember it, which is like, come over, we're going to get a few pizzas.

Now it's like you got to get like a white bounce house.

It's going to be like a progressive dinner.

It's out of control.

I'm going to one, Jade, for my two-year-old daughter, a kid in her little daycare,

and there's a full-on petting zoo with exotic animals.

You want to know where I come from?

I come from the roller rink, George.

That's what I'm talking about.

The sticky carpet, questionable individuals, bad pizza.

Like 10 bucks for unlimited skating.

Okay, take me back to that.

But yeah, this business, don't get caught up as well, we're saying.

I would cap it just out of principle.

I don't think kids need expensive birthdays.

I think they need stable parents.

So unless this is a kid that they're really close to and maybe the kid chips in.

If they want to go to all these birthdays, all right, you're going to do these chores,

get a little commission, and you can use your own money

to buy whatever toy you deem fit.

I love that. They'll feel the pain.

They'll go, you know what?

Maybe I don't need to get that $20 toy.

Can I tell you something else I've adopted?

What's that?

Now, hopefully this doesn't get...

This isn't a viral.

All right, here's what you do.

However, whatever age they are, that's the money that you put in the card.

Oh.

And it's cute.

So it's cutesy.

If they're three years old, you put three crisp dollar bills in the card.

If they're four years old.

And that way it's thoughtful because you're thinking about,

I know how old you are.

I went to the bank and I got four crisp bills.

That's effort.

So there's effort there.

And it's very like, if you're an auntie or an uncle or whatever,

it's just a very cool way to send it in the mail or if it's a buddy's birthday.

And it's kind of like, this is what their family does.

Like, this is what the war shots do or this is what your...

I love that idea because it's thoughtful, but it's not breaking the bank.

They're three years old.

They don't need it.

Well, my favorite part is it doesn't add to the clutter.

It doesn't add to the clutter.

How many toys these kids have?

Yeah.

And then on the way home, they'll stop and they'll get a fun drink or they'll get a...

Yeah.

You know, stop through a driver or whatever.

I really like that plan.

And kids love money.

It's like magic to them.

They do.

They think it's a million dollars if you get a kid five dollar bill.

Oh, you got to do it when you do the magic trick when you pull the quarter out from your ear.

Yes.

Listen, drop in like flies.

I like that.

I would go for a creativity.

I would set a cap in a budget because that is teaching your kids a whole lot more.

Absolutely.

We don't just unlimited do whatever we want, no matter the cost.

We make a plan and we stick to it.

Like that.

All right, let's go to Savannah who is in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Savannah, you are on the line, my friend.

Hi, Jade and George.

How are you doing today?

Excellent.

How can we help?

Thank you.

All right, I'll make this really quick.

So I have a son who's in high school and he has a vehicle that I purchased for him

and he is responsible for some of the car expenses.

And here's where my question comes in.

He was in a car accident that was pretty hefty.

The repair was about $3,000.

He did borrow $450 from me and did repay me back after about two months.

Here's where my question comes in because I'm really struggling with this every day.

As soon as he handed me the money and it got to my hands, I felt so guilty.

My first thought was the $450 meant more to him than me.

And I'm really struggling with this feeling.

Did I handle this correctly?

I understand why you did what you did.

Like I understand your heart behind it.

It sounded like you wanted him to have some skin in the game and to have some responsibility

in what took place.

The part where I think you may have gone wrong is you caused him to engage in his first

like debt.

Like I owe my mom and now what you guys experienced is kind of like the borrower slave to the lender.

It changes the relationship.

Exactly what I saw.

That's exactly what I saw.

And I thought I was going to be a great woman.

Life costs money and you got to be prepared and you're not always going to get bailed out.

This is not the first time he's going to have a $450 bill.

And so it's a good learning lesson and you can even have the conversation.

Hey, the way I approach this, I wish I would have done things differently.

I wish I didn't say you owe me this money but we had to do what we had to do.

And what I do want you to take away from this is emergencies are going to happen and it's very

wise to be prepared to have the savings in the bank.

And maybe you put this money in a college fund for him and it becomes a gift and you surprise him.

Now, did I say, didn't you say it was 3,000 didn't repairs?

It was.

So you covered the difference?

No, he did.

I gave him some money, you know, for Christmas time toward it.

If I think about $300, but no, my hardworking son paid for it.

Well, yeah, go.

So he was just short a few hundred bucks and you said, hey, you can all cover that.

You can pay me back.

Correct.

Yeah, maybe.

And he didn't ask for the money?

He did.

No, he did.

He said, hey, I'm sure I have enough.

God, you can think about this.

What I might do, because I tend to think that some of these lessons stick to when a parent

makes what they feel to be a mistake and they go back to their children and make it right,

that really sticks.

And I think it's something that is so good for parents to do for our own hearts,

but also for our kids to learn that it's okay to make mistakes.

Um, I might go back to him and I might say, you know what?

I didn't practice something that I believe in, which is I don't,

I don't borrow money and I don't engage in debt.

And I'm sorry that I put you in that situation.

The best time to give people money is if it's a gift.

And so if I was going to give you this $450, it should have been a gift.

And that's on me and I might give him the money back.

Okay.

And he'll always remember that.

Yeah.

And he'll remember that as a lesson.

We don't borrow money.

We give money.

Yeah, that's exactly what I thought after the whole thing happened,

but I wanted to see another perspective of it.

You know, should I return it back?

Yeah, where I was thinking.

You're a great parent.

Like the fact that you're even mulling over this is, I mean, it's pure gold.

Like whatever you decide to do, like you'll be a winner.

But a quote unquote bad mom is not even having this conversation.

Exactly.

I release you over the mom guilt officially, Savannah,

as if you needed that for me.

All right.

No, you're incredible.

You're doing a great job raising this young man.

And I think this is maturity building.

I think so too.

In character building.

It's not punishment.

You're not doing anything cruel.

No.

Things happen.

A kid's going to wreck a car.

Yeah.

And by the way, don't you feel any guilt over it?

You know, I think just being a parent is making mistakes daily.

Like that's the way I feel about it.

When you grow up and you're like, oh, my parents were just figuring it out.

Bro, I feel on the next stage.

Absolutely.

And they look at you like you have all the answers.

And you're like, ah, I googled it.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

At least we have Google now.

I don't know what our parents did.

They just followed their instincts.

And I actually think that that's might be a little bit better.

Because I feel actually bad saying, yeah, I googled what to do.

I overrode my instincts.

And instead, I googled it.

AI is now raising our kids.

That's a frightening thought.

Oh, boy, oh, boy.

But the point is, I think that as parents, when we make a mistake,

it's okay to go back and correct it,

specifically when it comes to money.

Because then they understand this is trial and error for everybody.

And if you make an error, you can always go back and make it right again.

And I tend to think that those lessons stick the most when you're a kid and as an adult.

Yeah, you don't always rescue them because that creates dependence.

And so instead, you give them some responsibility.

That's going to build some strength.

So don't remove the consequences.

Your job is to raise a capable adult.

Not a child who doesn't know any better.

Well, welcome back to the Ramsey show here in the Faroeon's Credit Union studio.

Let's go back to the phone lines, George.

Shall we?

All right, Greg is in Texas.

Greg, you are on the line, my friend.

Thank you all for having me.

You bet.

How can we help today?

Well, I am recently engaged.

And we are extremely excited about that.

We have, I've listened to y'all for years.

And I've talked with her about budgets.

I've talked with her about our finances.

We've gone back and forth.

And we agree on just about everything.

However, there's one thing where I'm having a bit of a moral quandary.

We both own our own homes.

And the plan is to sell my house and move in to hers.

Okay, which I'm comfortable doing.

She wants to do some repairs.

But ultimately, she doesn't want me on the deed to her house.

Thank you.

Of this current home.

Okay.

She has witnessed her mom go through several divorces

and struggle with home ownership.

So, in worst case scenario, she wants to make sure

that she has this paid for home.

She doesn't, she has a mortgage on it currently.

But she agrees with me to get out of debt

and kind of snowball through everything

and work the baby steps.

And that's fantastic.

But she doesn't want me on the deed.

So she trusts you.

But trust you, but only to a point.

Pretty much.

Okay.

And there is a mortgage you're saying,

but she's wanting to pay it off.

Well, she wants us to move forward and pay it off.

Now, I have a unique opportunity.

I'm about to, the business that I work for

is about, is possibly going to sell.

And my proceeds from that will be about a half a million dollars in cash.

Amazing.

That's great.

So, thank you.

And it's a boon for me.

I've never had that kind of cash before.

Yeah.

And my question is, do we just work the baby steps

and I collect that money is set aside

and it's in investments and other things

or do I try to attack the debt

and get out of debt as soon as possible?

I mean, there's two things here.

I'm of the mind.

Yes, if you guys are married,

your finances should be together.

If you have the extra money to do things like pay off mortgages,

I'm all for that.

But before we even get to that,

I do want to go back to your wife

because on the bigger scale,

you being on the deed,

you know, we can make the argument of,

hey, you're married after a certain point

if anything happens,

how's it going to pass to you anyway?

Blah blah blah.

But what we're really seeing is it is a trust issue

and it is due to something that she experienced

which is completely valid.

And I want to say that to her

and really anyone listening.

Of course, our past and our past relationships

and what we saw growing up,

all of that informs how we view money.

And so, yeah, when you get experts like

Georgia, I giving you a simple piece of advice,

everybody's going to filter that differently

through what they've experienced.

And some people are going to go,

yeah, that makes sense, no problem.

And other people are going to go,

whoa, absolutely not.

I can't.

And so what she needs to understand

is it's very easy for a good excuse

or a good reason even to become a bad excuse.

If she allows that to persist

and doesn't get the help that she needs

to process through that,

it's going to keep her from having

the marriage that she ultimately wants.

Before we get off the show,

I'm going to give you a copy of my book,

what no one tells you about money

because I think that's really going to help her process

those emotions around what's going on

so that you guys can have the best possible financial picture

and best possible marriage in this whole thing.

So that's thing one.

Do you think she'd read the book if you gave it to her?

I do.

Okay.

Do you think it's something that she wants to work through?

I think through our continued conversations,

she might be waning on it.

I'm not sure.

Yeah.

Well, you don't seem like a gold digger, Greg.

You're about to acquire a half million

on top of whatever else you currently have.

And you want to put it towards her house,

which is awesome.

So is she not going to get a dime

of anything you're bringing into the marriage?

Because that's what it's turning into.

No, I believe I believe in joint finances.

My parents, they operated that way

their entire lives, so.

But you would agree.

It's unfair that you bring all of this into the marriage.

You help pay down the mortgage

in the future once you're married

and you have no claim to the house on paper.

That that's what I'm that's one thing.

Am I being a but or am I if you ask?

If you were in my situation,

how would you feel about all this?

You're not being a but at all.

But I do think this is an opportunity

for you to understand her a little bit more.

And I think it's an alt.

I think you both have opportunities here.

What George is saying is absolutely right.

It's not fair.

Like you're in a situation where you're thinking,

hey, like hello.

But again, back to the first point,

you saw parents who managed money just fine, right?

So of course that informs the way you view this.

You're like, yeah, what's the big deal?

Understanding her who is going to be your wife

is it that is going to set you free in so many areas

if you approach this from that.

Not I'm going to do whatever you say

because what you're saying is broken.

But I do want to understand where that's coming from.

And I want to be an active participant

in us working through that

and getting to a point where it's

as healthy as it possibly can be, right?

And I think if you approach it that way,

she's going to put like her eyes are going to turn into hearts.

And she's going to love you for that.

If you really dig into this

because she is operating out of fear.

So the most loving thing you can do

is get to the root of that

and build the trust with her that her fear is valid

but the outcome is not something that is a possibility.

Because I'm guessing there was a very specific reason

her mom got divorced or multiple.

I don't know the story, right?

And do you know the reasons behind it?

Have you asked her about that?

Yes, we've talked about it.

And was it financial?

Was it infidelity?

What was at the core of those?

Several different.

Two of those already, yes.

I would say infidelity and financial.

Okay.

And so the sooner we can be aligned

with our money values and our principles

and we say, hey,

this is how we're going to operate as a family.

You guys are already light years beyond

probably where her mom was.

Yeah.

Right, relationally, financially.

And so that's, I think, some good pre-marital counseling

is necessary before you guys move forward on this.

I don't know that this is like going to be

an ultimatum or deal breaker for you.

But I think the spirit of this

puts a little pause in my book.

Yeah, absolutely.

This is something you guys are, have the,

look, it really is an opportunity

for you guys to work through this

and how great that this is popping up now

before you're even married versus on down the line

when you're all setting your ways.

So I think if you both can look at it that way,

I think that is a winning combination there.

So thank you for that call.

That's a tough one.

It is a tough one, George.

And that is the truth.

You know, these conversations,

obviously we make no bones about it here

that money should be a joint effort

if you are married.

It should be combined.

And what we mean by that is there's one checking account.

Both checks goes in there

and there's no side accounts that is like,

well, I put the money for the mortgage in here

and I keep my money.

No, both checks go in

and both people are aware of the monies.

Both people are on the budget.

If there are assets, both people are on those assets.

And it's very easy to say that

from a healthy perspective,

but anybody who's been burned,

here's that and goes,

oh, don't listen to them.

Yeah, don't listen to them.

Protect yourself.

And that, like, human nature is to protect yourself.

But I mean, part of marriage is letting go

that you're risking something

in order to be married in this financial merger.

That's right.

So think about it like mergers and acquisitions, right?

Except you are acquiring everything she's got

and she's acquiring everything you've got.

So romantic, George.

And it can't work without that.

If you're like, well, I want to keep my toys over here.

But I want to play with your toys over there.

That's not marriage.

Doesn't work.

That's just fancy roommates.

And if you're splitting the bill with your spouse,

you don't have a spouse.

You have a roommate with benefits.

Ooh.

I'm calling it like I see it.

Got him.

Hey, good folks, Dr. John Deloney here.

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