Transcript of Building Wealth Is Hard but Being Broke Is Harder

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing Raising Relations. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Jade Walshaw. Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author is my co-host today. You jump in, we'll talk about your life and your money. We'll talk about you right in front of you. The phone number is 888-825-5222. The call is free, and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. Tommy starts off this hour in Reno, Nevada. Hi, Tommy. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Good morning, and thank you for taking the call.

Sure. What's up in your world?

Well, I'm a 75-year-old senior with a 68-year-old wife, and I found a month and a half ago that I was $53,000 in debt on credit cards. I thought I was debt free for quite a while now. I come to find out that there was money being put against the credit cards from casinos, mostly. For the last five years. Anyway, right now I'm lined up to borrow $80,000 at a credit union at 6. 625%, 30-year amourization, but it's a bloom payment. The reason I went with that is because I can pay different amounts at different times because I make $30,000 to $50,000 extra approximately every year over our Our retirement income is 57, 35 a month.

Who racked up the credit card bills? Your wife?

Yes, ma'am. And you didn't know about it? I wasn't smart enough to keep my I was in the books, and I trusted her 100%.

How long have you guys been married?

Thirteen years. It's my second marriage.

Okay. And so approximately half the time you've been married, she's been lying to Yes. Because she has a gambling problem?

Yes.

Okay. Well, you described to me how you're going to try to fix and get out of this. What about stopping the problem? What are we doing about her gambling problem?

Well, she left me because she knew I'd be really upset, and she went to her mother's. She says she's getting counseling every week, but I'm not sure it's for the gambling problem.

What do you think it's for?

She's going to a Christian counselor, and I'm not sure she's admitting that she has a gambling problem yet.

Well, it's good that she's in counseling. I'm sure if it's a great counselor, they can get to the core of what's going on. Right. But she has not had contact with you?

No, we have contact every day now. Okay. We plan to get together again. She's just been dragging her feet as to when.

Well, the good news is she's looking for help, and then it's up to you and her to decide together what the boundaries are going forward and what the marriage needs to look like going forward.

Right. Now, these cards, I assume they're in both of your names?

Yes, they are.

Okay. You don't have any money saved in retirement?

One card is just in her name that was hidden, and the others are in both our names.

Do you have any money saved in your nest egg?

Not very much. I have a $10,000 IRA, and I have a 5,000 in checking right now. My wife has a little IRA, and she won't tell me how much is in it, but I don't think it's more than 50.

50,000?

50,000, yes.

Didn't you say that was how much is on the credit cards?

Yes, about 53.

Okay. I think I see a plan evolving here.

You may have been drawing out of that without telling me, too. I mean, there's some dishonesty here.

Yeah, well, yeah, obviously a lot.

Okay. Yeah, and I don't have access to her IRA Which I should.

The 5,735 you're getting every month, is that Social Security? What is that?

It's our two Social Securities, and I'm a retired teacher. Okay.

Why would you borrow 30,000 more than you need? You said you were going to borrow 80.

We've been full-time RVers for quite a while, but I finished a one-bedroom house last summer, and We finally moved into it, and I'm trying to finish it off completely, and I need about another 30,000 to put the final touches on it.

I would not borrow this money. No. Essentially, what you're doing is you're trying to borrow money to get out of debt, and that's impossible. You have to pay in order to get out of debt. You have to use your money and pay off the bill.

Okay. What I'm going to do in this situation is, how do you eat an elephant a bite at a time? Priority number one is establishing what's going to happen with your relationship. For your relationship to be brought back together, trust This has to be reestablished because there's been a lot of deception. There's a path forward with you and the counselors where everybody comes clean, she comes clean as being a gambling addict, which she obviously is, and gets help for that. A part of a normal restoration plan in this situation would be that she does not control money again for the next three or four years, that you control all of it. If you're together. Now, obviously, if you divorce, then that's a whole other thing. If you divorce as a part, if you come back together, we're going to find out what's in this IRA, we're going to use it. Her $50,000 IRA or whatever's left in it is going to go towards this $50,000. Then we're going to cash flow through the credit card debt, like Jade said, whatever that doesn't cover. Then we're going to pay out of pocket to finish up the repairs on the house because you've almost got the house done.

You weren't planning to borrow money before all this blew up. You just said, Oh, I'll just add that while I'm cleaning up this other mess. Now you've got a massive debt, $80,000. But you don't need that around your neck at 75 years old. The first thing is if we can reestablish trust and what the boundaries are going to be in relationship. If it goes the other way and you end up divorcing, then you're still going to go the same route. I'm going to find out how much is in this IRA, and we're going to use all of her assets to clean up her mess, whatever's left, you'll have to negotiate on the balance of the credit card debt. But anything she owns in this divorce settlement negotiation, if I'm in your seat, she's going to use to clean up the deception and the lies and the gambling addiction. I'm not using my money, and I'm not borrowing money to pay off your stuff. You're paying off every bit of this, especially the cards that have my name on them. That's your divorce negotiation. But you got to decide first which direction you're going to go.

Obviously, she's got to say in that. Getting with the counselor and establishing some boundaries. But addicts don't get to handle money for the next 3-5 years. Someone's coming off alcohol, off of cocaine, off of sports betting, off of casino gambling, off of pornography. When they're coming off of this stuff, they are not... Addicts all are manipulative. They all lie. And so they can't be allowed to handle the family money. She's that. This is the Ramsey Show. People tell me about their experiences with big banks all the time. Bad service, fees that nickel and dime them to death, and predatory lending that tries to catch them in never-ending cycles of debt. If you're ready for a bank that puts people over profits, check out Fairwinds Credit Union. I recommend Fairwinds because they share our Ramsey values of helping people get out of debt and live generously. If you go to fairwinds. Org/ramsey, you'll see the combined checking and savings account bundle they created just for Ramsey fans. This account bundle is designed to help you take control of your finances and stay out of debt. And Fairwinds also has a great mobile app that's safe and secure so you can manage your transactions with peace of mind.

Fairwinds has been helping people avoid big bank traps for 75 years. So go to fairwinds. Org/ramsey to learn more. It's It's easy to join no matter where you live. That's F-A-I-R-W-I-N-D-S. Org/ramsey. Jade Walsh, Ramsey personality. My co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. It is normal, Jade, in most marriages, for one of the people to be more, we call them the nerd laughingly around here, to be more detail-oriented, money-oriented, the one that likes spreadsheets, the sicko. That's me. It's normal for the other one to, we call them the free spirit, to just whatever you want to do, honey. That's a normal process. However, I will tell you that when the person that is handling the money does not have a good, clear stream of communication where everybody, where in my case, Sharon knows exactly what's going on because I'm the one doing the budget. Which one of you do it? Sam, are you?

I do it. You do it? I set it up. Tell him about it.

He's like, looks good. Because Rachel doesn't touch it. I mean, it's Winston. I mean, Winston lays it out. And so either way, it doesn't matter who it is that the other person is involved enough in the budget to, A, have input on where our money is going, and B, have agreement that this is where our money is going. If you have agreement before the month begins of where every dollar is going, one of you is the nerd and you did all the details and the other one looked at it and changed a few things and then agreed to it. There is no room in that because we've agreed to where every dollar is going. It's why we call the budgeting app Every Dollar. We've agreed where every dollar is going. Now, again, if you're the free spirit, the I don't care whatever you want to do, honey, I'm not asking you to become a nerd, but I am demanding that you do be an adult and not ask the other person to be the only adult in the family. Well, my husband don't give me any money. My wife won't give me any money. What are you, a child?

I mean, you don't get a vote in the house.

Yeah, it's your responsibility to check in.

It's your responsibility to have a vote. You go, No, I mean, we decided what we were going to do with our money. The nerd will execute the plan. The nerd will probably develop 90% of the plan, right? Yeah. But you're in agreement. The neat thing about that is it creates a real clear combining unified marriage where we're unified, we're agreeing on our dreams, we're agreeing on our fears, because these are two grownups both speaking into where the money that we work so hard for goes. Where does it go? Two grownups. When you do that, I don't get the call that says my wife was hiding credit card debt. It's almost impossible to do. That's right.

Then.

Because you know where the money is going. That's right. Even if you're the free spirit and not the nerd. It's almost impossible to do. So you alleviate that, or my husband went and bought a bass boat without my permission. All that stuff doesn't happen.

Yeah. This is perfect, Dave. This weekend, we had the money in marriage event, and I was talking about creating transparency in your marriage. I was saying there's a couple of things that you can do, just practical things that will make it, like you said, nearly impossible to hide money. One of those things is sharing passwords. Everybody should have access to the bank account. Everybody can log in. Everybody can see what's going on. Turn on the spending notification. Those are practical things that you can do, and it alleviates any illusion of you're hiding something. I told him, I said, In our house, you would have to work very hard to hide something from me or vice versa, because it's all out in the open. Nobody has anything to hide.

I know every one of Sharon's passwords to everything. She knows every a lot of my passwords to everything. There's no chance I'm doing porn on my computer because she can open it up anytime she wants and look at it.

And get in there. It's not to say that you're- It's simple. It's not even anything about spying on your spouse or creeping on your spouse.

If you're doing If you have a gap that you're ashamed of- You try to hide it. Then you hide it. If you're not doing things that you're ashamed of, then you don't have anything to hide. That's right. It's a pretty simple thing. It's a little difficult. I ran into a guy the day, he's 300,000 in debt on credit cards. His wife just found out, and it's all sports betting, which is probably the fastest-growing addictive problem that we're running into in the money world right now. That's right. Out-of-control sports betting. The dirty little secret of FanDuel, the dirty little secret of all these ads. You know why they're buying ads on the Super Bowl? Because they can afford to. They're making so much money off of you guys because you can bet on whether they're going to dance backwards or forwards after a breakdown. You can bet on Anything. They are betting on everything, and it's out of control. Some of you are losing your entire futures to betting on watching someone else earn a living. It's stupid. But that doesn't happen. If husband and wife are both on the same page, you don't have an ability to pay the bill on that without it showing up.

It just doesn't work. Here's the thing. Not only is it a preventive medicine for things like misbehavior in a marriage, but more importantly, it combines you guys When the preacher said, And now you are one, when you are unified and have an agreed future that we are both pulling towards, the probability of you hitting it goes up like 10X. Yeah, that's right. You're probably going to be wealthy. The inverse of that is the number of times we talk to millionaires, we studied 10,000 of them and said, How many of you did this in spite of your spouse being an idiot? In spite of your spouse being out of control? In spite of your spouse, my husband's an out-of-control spender, my wife's a princess. How many of you did that in spite of the fact that you had a child attached to your hip? Almost none. They almost all said in the 80 percentile, which is statistically mind-blowing, said, One of the reasons we're here is we're both adults, and we both agreed that we wanted to be here, and that's how you become a millionaire. The chances of you marrying some moron and then becoming a millionaire are almost zero.

So be careful. Yeah, I saw a guy on the- You're people dating? Oh, Lord, be careful.

I saw a guy on the internet talking about the most important decisions, and I agreed with him on this. One of the most important decisions you'll make is who you marry. If not the most.

There's one with Charlie Munger on that. Is that the guy? Yeah.

It's so true. Again, if you're looking for those ways to be proactive, sharing passwords, pass codes. I'm talking about banks, investment, savings, your will. Your will, your spouse should know where the will is. Even your electronics, they should be able to have the passcode to your phone, your computer. They should be able to log into your social media and slide in your DM so they can see who else has been sliding in your DM. This is the transparency you want. Combining bank accounts. We have every dollar spousal accounts now so that you guys can all have the profile, all see what's going on. Finally, Dave, this one's controversial, but the little location app that's on your phone where you can turn on your location. I didn't know you could do that, but my My best friend called me up. She said, Jade, share your location with me. I said, What are you talking about? She said, There's a little button you can add me and I can see where you're at. At first, I was like, Why would you want to do that? She goes, You go for runs early in the morning. I just want to know, make sure you're all right.

I thought, That's Great. She showed me how to do it, and I said, Sam, show me your location. He was happy to do it. It's not like I'm on my phone looking, where's Sam going? But if you're a person who's not hiding anything and you want the best thing for your marriage, transparency, that's the key. That shows, Hey, I have nothing to hide.

If we did that, I might not be able to find Sharon, but I could find her phone. Which I am tasked with looking for pretty regularly.

That's funny.

It's true, though. That's old people problems right there. Can't find my phone.

Oh, man. But Dave, you know the people, we say, What's the passcode? They're like, I'll type it in for you. And they want to type it in for you. They don't want to give… That's a red flag right there, I'm telling you.

If that's your husband or your wife, it's a problem. That's a problem. Here's the thing. All the data that we have from 40 years of doing what we do says not only can you avoid people's misbehavior in a marriage, addiction being one of them, affairs being another. A little difficult to have a budget line item says, Honey, that doesn't work. That doesn't work. Side, honey, that doesn't work. You can't have a budget line item that has that. That one won't pass. That won't fly. Not only do you avoid all that, but you also are almost guaranteeing your ability to build wealth because you're working together and you're aiming and you're agreeing on our fears. We're agreeing on what we're going to do. It gets rid of I told you so, too, which is a neat thing to get out of a marriage. This is the Ramsey Show.

This show is sponsored by Better Help. You've probably heard people talk about different kinds of flags in friendships and romantic relationships. Red flags, green flags, beige flags. Listen, it can be helpful to look for patterns or unsafe behaviors in potential relationships, but all those labels can distract from what's really important, your values, and whether you and your potential partner are willing to wake up every day and choose to honor each other's values. Look, I know it can be tough sometimes to even know what's important to you in a relationship. Therapy can help you figure out what your values actually are and decide your boundaries and your non-negotiables. If you're thinking about starting therapy, try Betterhelp. Betterhelp is 100% online therapy that works with your schedule. To get started, just fill out a short online survey to get matched with a since therapist. If it's not the right fit, you can switch therapists at any time for no extra cost. So whether you're dating, married, building a friendship, or working on yourself, do it with help from Betterhelp. Visit betterhelp. Com/ramseyradio to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp. H-e-l-p. Com/ramseyradio.

Thank you for joining us, America Jade Walsh. Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Eribella is with us in Springfield, Missouri. Hi, Arabella. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

My husband and I have a crypto portfolio that is at about $1,000 right now, and we are about to close on the house. We have no credit card debt, but we have 14,000 in student loans and 37 in an auto loan. We don't know if we should sell our crypto right now and just pay off all of our debt and start this process with a home with a mortgage debt-free or try to wait out the bull run that is projected to happen with crypto in about April and sell at whatever price it'll be around then.

I wouldn't try to time the market with it. You guys are in debt today, and you're closing on the house really quickly. I would liquidate this crypto, and I would pay off this debt. I would do that instantly.

Okay, but Do you have any advice on what if it were to go to the projected amounts that the coins we hold are going to go to?

You know what the other projected amount is, right? The other projected amount is zero that they go to. Do you have a recent memory about crypto?

We are not invested in meme coins, which is-You are invested in crypto.

Do you have a New recent memory, like in the last 36 months, of what that category of investing has done. It's one of the most volatile high-risk investments on the planet. It's not technically an investment. It's actually called speculation.

We were up $30,000 more than we are right now, just right before the tariff.

Interesting. What happens when Trump burps again? You're It's crude.

Okay.

Okay, listen, stop a second. You're acting like this is some steady, predictable investment because it has a long track record. The only track record that crypto has is extreme volatility. That's the facts.

We've been writing it out for five years.

But you are not listening.

Arabella, do you know what you sound like?

You sound like- Somebody's in denial.

Someone who's in denial and somebody who's like- I don't drink Not much.

I do very little cocaine.

Someone's at the craps table. I'm just going to let it ride.

If I let it ride, I'm hot.

I'm hot right now. That's what you sound like because it's basically a form of gambling because you don't know what's going to happen. Just because you had a great week, two weeks ago, you don't know.

It's not an investment. It's speculation. It's the roll of the dice. You're in Vegas and your car payment's on the line. The answer to your question is what Jade said, Cash it out today and pay it off. Another way to help you analyze this from a decision-making paradigm is to do a sunk cost analysis. Pretend in your mind before you called us and asked this question, pretend in your mind if you said, Okay, I have no credit card debt and no car debt. Should I go borrow on my car and on a credit card to buy $60,000 worth of crypto?

Absolutely not.

Well, it's the same thing. Okay. If you don't sell it today, you borrowed it again tomorrow. It's the same thing. It says, If you borrowed it. You understand that?

I have one more question then. The reason we invest in crypto in the first place is, obviously, we are Christian and we do not gamble and don't think gambling is okay, but we felt like God showed us these three specific coins that we're investing in.

Like a crystal ball.

We have just been waiting for the right time for him to show us when to sell, which is why we've been holding for five years through two bull runs.

Arabella, I'm upset with this. I'm upset that you're telling us this.

This is really bad theology, Arabella. Really bad, okay? Because there are no instances in the Bible, zero, where speculation, which is what this is. It's not gambling, but it's speculation. The difference in investing and in speculation is, speculation is you're buying something you hope is going to go up that has no track record. That's speculation. You're looking for a short-term gain. Investing is a long-term gain. Investing over a long period of time is scriptural. Playing short-term games with money that you don't have because you're broke, you have a car payment, you're broke people, and you're borrowed on your car and on your credit card effectively to play a short term game, please don't blame that on the Holy spirit. It might have been a spirit, but it wasn't the Holy. That's nuts. Sorry, now I've inserted you completely, but oh, well. That's for the rest of the audience is at a vacation. That's all I can say, because I don't think I'm going to help you at all. Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

Clear the air. Okay, let's go.

Matthew gets to follow that in Chicago. Hey, Matthew, how are you?

Hey, Mr. Randy. What's up? Not much in the parking lot. I'm a barber. I'm going to go on to work after this. But I called you today Because last June, I was looking for a car, a vehicle. I couldn't get approved for a car for credit. I'm 23 years old. I've been I got out of debt twice, like in $10,000 worth. I read your book, The Snowball Method. I got out of a $10,000 debt twice. And then I saved my money a little bit for a down payment for a vehicle. I have a son, I have a fiance. I live with my fiancé's mom at her house.

What's your question?

My question is, I got a loan from my grandpa for $35,000 for a Jeep Grand Cherith Cherokee. He was supposed to cosign for me, but he didn't want the title in his name, so he just paid it off. I made an arrangement with him to pay him, and he wanted 5% interest. Okay, sounds good, whatever. I It's a $687 a month to him with the interest without the principal is like $602.

It turns out this is not all it was cracked up to be. You're not having fun, are you, buddy?

Pardon me?

The This is not fun, is it?

No.

Why'd you call us?

Because I feel like I'm throwing money, and I realized, okay, this is not an asset, it's a liability. I make a decent amount of money where it's like I'm good at saving, but then I save more. I want to get my own house, my own property with my wife.

Good for you. I I'll get rid of the $35,000 car then.

I know.

You already knew that. That's before you called, didn't you?

I did.

I want to know- You just want somebody else to say it instead of your own brain.

Yeah. My family is against me because I said, Okay, I might as well go to CarMex, sell it. All right, I'll take $8,000 loss. That's fine. I will pay my grandpa back in a few months. Then I'm out of that debt, right? Yeah. Then whatever. I'll carpool my wife or I'll buy a beater. Buy a beater.

Why are they against you? Why do you feel that your family, and by family, is it just fiance is against you?

No, my father- Is he paying the payments?

No. He doesn't He got a vote.

Right.

You're like a grown man and stuff.

I know.

You get to decide this.

Does your family want you to move out, or are they convincing you to move in?

He's in his fiancé's office.

No, it's not my fiancé.

Your family believes that they're going to be in death their whole lives. They've lost hope. I haven't lost hope in you. I think you can make it because I think you've got a good brain. I want you to learn to trust your own brain. Your brain is telling you before you call that this is a stupid situation and to get out of it. Yes, sir. I agree with your brain. I think you got a good brain. You can trust it. Not your dad's, yours. Your dad's not a bad guy. He just doesn't have any money, and you should never take financial advice from broke people. Man. It's like taking diet advice from fat people. It's a dumb idea. This is The Ramsey Show. Statistics show that half of Americans don't have enough life insurance, or they don't have any at all. I don't understand this, John. Why don't people want to take care of their family? They think they're not going to die or something?

Well, I used to be one of those guys. I didn't even think about it. One of my buddies said, Hey, the only reason to not have life insurance is if you hate your wife and kids. I immediately went and got term life insurance.

That's a gut punch.

For decades, Dave, I've sat across people who've lost a spouse, they've lost somebody important to them, and they don't know what to do next.

You're going to have a crisis here. You got two options while you're sitting and talking to a young widow. She's concerned about how she's going to invest all this money properly and not mess this up, or she's concerned how she's going to eat tomorrow. That's exactly right. These are the two options. It's saying I love you to your family. Term Life Insurance. Jeff Zander and the team at Zander Insurance makes it easy and affordable. I've used them personally for 25 years. They're the only people I trust. Go to zander. Com or call 800-356-4282. Jade Walsh, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. We started presale on my brand new book. It comes out April 15th, and we started selling it yesterday. Thousands of you have already bought it. Thank you very much. We appreciate the endorsement of you going ahead. The book is called Build a Business You Love. It is the system, the entree leadership system that we have developed. We know from counseling 10,000 businesses plus, us over the last many years, plus what we've done at Ramsey, growing it from a card table in my living room, that business goes through five stages, and there are six things that drive the business through those five stages.

That is essentially the baby steps for small That's the way it works. This is what you're going to experience in small business, just like you do with the total money makeover with baby steps. That's what this book is about. It's the detailed unpacking of the five stages and the six drivers. Build a business you of mastering the five stages of business. It'll come out April 15th, and it's on sale today at ramsey solutions. Com in the store. If you pre-order, you get $350 in free bonus items. Sal in Philadelphia. Hi, Sal. How are you?

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my call.

I appreciate it. Sure.

What's up? I'm 21 years old. I have a baby on the way in July.

Congratulations. When's it due?

July I'm 14. They're very excited. Awesome, man. Very, very excited. Good for you. Thank you. I have my own business in pet care. I'm a dog trainer, and I am $300,000 in debt. From what? My question is... My My question is, do I focus on expanding the business, hiring, and trying to be able to make the business self-running so I could be as present of a debt as possible, or focus on paying off debts?

Is the debt business debt? Is it from you building this business? Is that where it came from?

Yes, that's where it came from. Most of it.

How to explain- Why does it take $300,000 to train a dog?

We started mobile. I started the business when I was 19, doing it mobile, kept cost loaded out my truck. Then as we expanded, we decided that we needed a facility. We rented and then renovated a 4,000-square-foot facility. That was in April of last year. I took a home equity loan, a credit loan from my dad, which I know now from listening to you guys is a no-no.

Just give me a quick synopsis. If I bring my dog to you and say, I'm dropping my dog off, train him, what does it cost me? What do you cost for a service? I'm just curious.

Our lowest package is 3,375, and our most expensive package is 8,000.

Okay. These are house pets. They're not service animals or anything?

Some are service dogs, some are protection dogs. We work with a large range.

You're doing protection dogs for eight grand? Wow. That's low. Okay. All right. You spent money renovating someone else's building that you rent?

Yeah. We did walking kennels. We had to put in someone else's- But you don't own the building? No, it's a rental.

Okay. You spent $300,000 on someone else's building?

The Homeowner Line of Credit, the total of it was $225,000. Then we use some of that to do employee salaries. When we first moved in, we'd a lot of that for renovations and then also into marketing. Then we have $30,000 for a van that we use.

Are you profitable?

Yeah. Last year, we did $300,000 in sales. $40,000 of that was profit for our first year.

Wow. What's all the overhead coming? Well.

Our total overhead per month is 17,000.

Okay. What's your question, hon?

Do I focus on expanding the business? No. Hiring, trying…

No. Okay. You need to make some money with all this money you've spent. You need to double your revenues with your There's no wasting facilities in your stupid $30,000 van that you did not need. You have never seen anything you wanted that you didn't go buy it. Stop it. You're going to run yourself out of business so fast as That's unbelievable. You need to learn to organically grow the business. Ramsey Investments, Ramsey Solutions has grown from a card table in my living room to a $300 million business, and we've never borrowed a dime. 100% of our growth has been funded by profits. A little bit and a little bit, and a little bit, and a little bit and a little bit and a little bit and a little bit and a little bit. Now you've invested leasehold improvements in someone else's building. What's the length of the lease you have? It's five At the end of five years, all that money is gone if that guy wants you out. You've got to ameterize all of that cost in five years on 40K profit. You can't even come close.

Did you know that? Did you realize that or you just didn't care? I'm just curious.

Realize which part?

The part that you're leasing and that you don't own the building. So when your lease is up, there's no guarantee that you get to stay there with all the renovations you've made.

So what I I figured while going through the process of it. I believe that the total cost of renovations alone that we did was between 15,000-65,000. But the goal was to then extend our lease once that five years was up That's a goal.

That's a wish. That's a hope. That's not how you run a business. Okay. As a young entrepreneur, what I would have you to do is I want you to concentrate on getting revenues up without spending more money.

Would that include- Stop expanding.

No, work.

How many employees do you have?

It's just me. I work completely by myself.

I thought you said you spent some of this on salaries. Where the heck did the 200 grand go? All I got is 30 in improvements or 40 in improvements and a $30,000 van. Where did the rest of it go?

You paid yourself out of the loan?

No, I didn't pay myself out of the loan. We had employees. We had up to at one point. But then in October, we got pretty slow, so I let everyone go. Went down to just me working, and then.

You have a $40,000 a year job that you own. So your job is to make it an $80,000 a year job that you own, and then $100,000 a year job that you own. You need to find out the most profitable areas of your business and grow those areas, and yes, you need to do it. As far as you being at home with a baby, fathers, since time has begun, have gotten up and gone to work, and babies have survived. You're going to work, my son. You have $300,000 in debt. You've made a mess, and you need a shovel, and you is the shovel.

How much is the lease every month?

Lease is 4,200. Yeah.

That's why you brought in 300, and you're only making 12% margin on a service-oriented business because you've used it all up. Your margins ought to be double, triple what they are in a service business. You don't have any cost of good sold except dog food, for God's sakes.

He needs your book, Dave.

Yeah. I'm going to send you a copy of the Entree Leadership book. Jump in on the Entree Leadership podcast and start listening to it that I do on small business and so forth, because we've coached people exactly like you for 20 years, and I love small business people. But the disease that you have is the idea that if I spend more, I'm always going to make and that is a disease that doesn't work in business. Spending does not equal income. You've bought everything fresh and shiny and new, and now you need to go make some money. You probably ought to dump the $30,000 van and get rid of it, get some of the money back towards your dad. Anything you can get rid of and still operate the business and get money back towards your dad. I want you to concentrate on making money, not spending money, and quit telling yourself, you just need one more marketing plan, or you need one more purchase for this to get breakthrough. In business, if you are not the secret sauce, you're screwed. The other stuff around the dog training is window dressing. Your ability to look at an animal and teach it to behave is the secret sauce.

And your ability to teach other people to do that that work for you is the secret sauce. It is not whether you have a van and it's not whether you have a rental property with a kennel in it. It's your ability to do your job. And so if you'll go do that and make a bunch of money, you're going to be a great dad financially and you're going to be fine. But you got a lot of work to do, and it's not unusual for a young dad to be working. It's not a bad thing. This is the Ramsey Show. Have you gotten one of those texts recently claiming to be the USPS with some sketchy link to update your address? It's annoying and a little terrifying. And you probably think to yourself, I should do something about this. But where do you even start? Well, As your nerdy friend who does the research for you, I found the solution. They're called delete me. Here's the reason they come in the clutch. The internet is packed with data brokers, which are these shady companies whose sole purpose is to collect your personal info and sell it for a profit.

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That's joindeleteme. Com Ramsey. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions. It's the Ramsey Show. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Jade Walsh, Ramsey personality number one best-selling author is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us and for hanging out. It's a free call at 888-825-5225. Com. That's 888-825-5225. Mark is in Portland, Oregon. Hey, Mark, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Something's not working, guys. Let me try again. Put everything on hold. And three. There we go. Mark, are you there?

Yes, sir. I'm here. Good. How can I help? Well, in 2012, my dad passed away suddenly from cancer.

I'm sorry.

He didn't have a very concise will put together. He had directives. When he died, he was taking care of his mother, who was suffering from dementia and Alzheimer's. Six months after he died, she died. That left everything that was supposed to go to kids and grandkids and cousins up in the air. Then eventually, everything was in my aunt's name. How? Yeah. How? How did it end up in her name? Probate? She was the- Deciding that? No, no probate. No probate. Somehow, we skated by probate. Nobody was arguing about anything My aunt happened to be the last surviving child, and it just went everything into my aunt's name because my dad's will was not in good shape. But my grandmother's was, but she died after my dad, so nothing went to him. I am in a position now to where I'm the only person who has a steady job out of my siblings, and I'm trying to get my siblings and my cousins together because my aunt's husband is also dead. She was my aunt, and she's going into a little bit of a mental decline. My siblings are okay. Everybody knows who's supposed to get From the aunt?

From my cousin's. Yeah, from the aunt because she's okay with everybody getting what they were supposed to get in the beginning. The cousins, nobody's arguing about anything that they're supposed to get.

But she's not put it down in a will.

There's no judge involved.

Correct. What we've got, this is the biggest struggle is my aunt's two children, the only bicker is over her own personal effects that she had and her husband had. Not about the properties, nothing that anything my grandmother had. They're fighting over those things, and it's making it difficult for any of the rest of us to get a regular will set up.

Okay. Well, I- What's the value of all this stuff?

All this stuff. If you had to guess.

Okay. I'm going to be... I'm collecting rent on two homes. There's no mortgages. Everything's paid for. There's no mortgages. I'm collecting rent on two together. They're about 375.

My brother's over the leverage. And those are to become yours?

Yeah.

Okay. If I were in your shoes, have you sat down in person and talked to your aunt and asked her to do a will?

Yes, I have.

What did she say?

She is reluctant to go along with it unless her two kids agree on what is supposed to be divided, that was my aunts and her husband's.

You said she's got mental decline. Do either of them have power of attorney, or is that on track to start at any point?

No. Are the two The two houses that you have, are they in your name or your aunt's name?

Everything's in the aunt's name.

You're going to lose those. Okay. If your aunt does not leave them to you or deed them to you prior to your death, you're going to lose them because you do not have any standing in this family anymore. She has confiscated all the assets into her name. Her assets, if there is no will, will go to her children. You're going to lose these houses.

That's my struggle.

No, you are. I mean, there's not a question. If you don't get this done, this is a $400,000 problem for you and your brother and your sister. If I'm you and your brother and your sister, I'm going to grab my cousins and put them in a headlock and go, All right, you twerps. We need to get this straightened out because I'm not letting you take these houses. You all need to get over there with your mama and get this written down.

That's what we're struggling to do. Do you have any suggestions questions and how to speak to them in such a manner? Because headlocks won't work. They're a bunch of hillbillies. We all are, actually, but how to go.

I just sit down with them and go, Okay, do you think it's fair that I lose these properties because you won't sit down with your mom and get this other stuff worked out. I don't think that's fair. Okay. The other thing you could do is you could go to your aunt and ask her to quit Claim Deed the properties to you.

Okay. If that was to occur, would there be some net gain tax?

Oh, yeah. She'll have a gift tax on them. Well, she could actually… But She could avoid it by doing a unified estate tax planning document, but it's easier to just do a will. But I can write this down, unified estate tax, okay? If If the estate tax is still in place, and the GOP is currently doing away with it on the federal level, but if that's still in place, you can use up some of her estate tax exemptions against her gift tax. She would not have gift tax if she files that But I've got a feeling this bunch of people doesn't file documents. They just make up whatever they want to do and think it works. That's how it's been. Yeah, that's their problem, though. They have the gift tax, not you. I'm going to go over there and say, Auntie, here's two quick claim deals. I need you to sign these so the properties are in my name.

Okay.

That's the easiest, cleanest thing you can do here. And your brothers and sisters do the same thing. Because I'm afraid, because otherwise, this is going to go to your kids and that's not fair. I need you to sign them right now. I'm not getting up from this table until you sign these because they were supposed to go to my dad and they're supposed to go to me and you know that. I need you to sign these and put these properties in my name. That's a one-page document, a quick claim Indeed. Go see an attorney, have that drawn up for each property, and then have a notary, notarize them, and then you file them at the courthouse, and the property is then in your name. It's over. Now, she technically would be due to gift tax on that, and she can avoid I've employed that within 12 months of her signing that over to you if she files under the Unified Estate Tax Credit program. But I got a feeling this lady is not doing any of that.

She doesn't. This is a lady, she's never had a job.

Yeah, I know. I can tell.

She's raised kids. I mean, that's work, too.

I mean,. No, I don't mean that. She's not got any level of financial sophistication.

Not at all. Yeah.

I'm like... Yeah, And so you got to roll over there, and otherwise, you're going to lose $400,000. That's the problem here. Folks in America, everybody needs a will. Hello? Everybody needs a will. If you got a simple estate, go to amabairlegalforms. Com. It's very inexpensive. You can have it done by morning. If you got a complicated estate, sit down with an estate planning attorney. But everybody needs a will. It's not fair to the people. You look at what his dad and his grandmother have done to him by screwing around and not writing this stuff down. That's wrong, you all. You need to take care of your family better than that.

Hey, guys, I'm Jade Warshaw, and I want to talk to you for a quick second about student on refinancing. If your payment and your interest rate are burying you and you feel like you can't dig out, refinancing your student loan debt might make sense. That's because a lower rate could free up more money in your budget and a shorter term could help you pay down your debt faster. So reach out to the student loan refinancing experts today at laurelroad. Com/ramsey. There you'll find helpful resources like a student loan rate table, a refinancing calculator, and other tools. Plus, you can get an initial rate in just a few minutes. Laurel Road offers low competitive rates starting under 5 %, and you can get your interest rate even lower if you sign up for auto pay. But if your situation is more complex, sign up for a free 30-minute consultation with one of their student loan refinancing experts to get your tough questions answered. Listen, not everybody should refinance their student loan, so make sure you run the numbers. But for some people, it is the right move. Learn more at laurelroad. Com/ramsey to find out more about their student loan refinancing.

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Hey, guys. Dr. John Deloney here. Finding time to intentionally connect with your spouse can be hard. That's why I'm excited to announce that Money and Marriage Getaway is back. Hang out with me and Rachel Cruz, November sixth through eighth in Nashville, Tennessee. You'll learn practical tools to better communicate, deepen your intimacy, and more. Plus, we'll dig into your questions with live Q&A's. Early bird tickets start at $749, but hurry, prices are going up soon, and this will sell out. Get yours at ramsey solutions. Com/event. Com. Defense.

Jade Walsh, Ramsey personality, is my co-host. When we start talking about the word investing, most people's eyes roll back in their head going, And now I don't understand Now you've gotten complicated. This is weird. I don't like math. I don't want to talk about investing you, a bunch of nerd people. And I don't have a master's degree in finance. And I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. If you're unsure where to start or you're afraid to make a mistake, our Investing Essentials virtual event is going to teach you everything you need to know about how to get started and how to maximize your investments. It's happening March fourth and fifth, two nights, two hours each night. It's George Campbell and Dave Ramsey, me, March fourth and fifth. Tickets are $1,999. That's where they start at. Plus, we're going to go into detail, nerdville. For those of you super nerds that want to go into the detail, I'm going to open up my playbook. I've only done it one other time, and that was about this time last year. I did one of these events where I go into all of the real estate.

I own several hundred million dollars worth of real estate. I love real estate, and all of the proper analysis and the nerd analysis that we do when we're doing a real estate deal and how to properly unlock all of that and look at it. It's two hours each night. One night will be almost all real estate. It's live, too, correct? It's live. Me and George, live, Investing Essentials, March fourth and fifth. You can get your tickets at ramsey solutions. Com/events, or click the link in the show notes and get signed up. There's usually a couple of hundred thousand people on something like this watching us. By the way, we're going to take questions live by email at the same time. We stop in the middle of it. It's not just a straight teaching. George and I will have conversations. We're going to answer your questions live. Some of them, obviously, we can't answer 100,000 of them, but we're going to weave in what is a a regularly occurring question and make sure it shows up in there. We really dig into this stuff. It's not only going to have the basics, which we've been teaching for years, but it's going to have stuff you've never seen me teach before.

George is really good at the nerd stuff. We're going to dig deep into this stuff. Our question of the day is brought to you by YreFi. If you're struggling with defaulted private student loans, YreFi offers a great solution to get you back on track. For a low fixed rate or more flexibility, go to remsci. Com/ramsci today. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y. Com/ramsey. Might not be in all states.

All right. Today's question comes from Bobby in California. He says, Should I purchase a home? I'm 48 years old and I have the cash to buy one outright. But my concern is I would be paying HOA fees, property taxes, and insurance, which equal what I'm paying in rent now. I'm happy with my current apartment. Should I just keep my money in a high-yield savings and have less worries that way? Or should I bite Take a bullet and buy a home as an investment for my future? I love this question. First off, no matter what, no matter what you do, if you buy a home, whether it's on payments or you pay it off or you buy it outright in cash, you're always going to be on the hook if you have an HOA for the fees and the property taxes and the insurance. That's just part of the deal. As far as should you buy the house or should you just remain where you are? You're 48 years old, you've got the money, there's no time like the present. For me, I break down home ownership into two areas. Number one, like we say all the time, it's the biggest line item on most people's budget.

We want to create stability there. When you're renting, it's fluctuating, it's going up and down, you have to deal with lease agreements, all of that stuff. But when you purchase a house, it's yours, you can lock in, especially when you're buying it outright in cash. Then the second purpose is it does help us build wealth. Those are really, for me, the two primary purposes. I I think that you should do that. Otherwise, when you're renting in perpetuity, you really are at that point starting to throw money down the drain because there's no end to the process. You're not doing it as a means to buy time so that you can buy.

Perfect answer.

That's my answer.

Maybe if you're 48, think back to when you were 28 in 2005. What was that house worth then? What did it sell for then? Don't you wish you owned that now? That's the same thing you're going to have when you're 68 from 48. The same 20-year period of time. Houses go up in value over time. Unless you buy in an area that is a neighborhood in decline of some kind, in general, good, reasonably purchased, reasonable neighborhood, single family homes over a 20-year period of time are a gold mine. They go up in value, period. The other thing we can be 100% sure of, during the next 20 years, your rent is going to go up every year or almost every A hundred % of the time, your rent is going to go up. It does not go up when you own the house. The only thing that does go up is HOA fees and insurance and taxes, but that's not going to keep up with rent escalation.

I think he more so has an issue. You see that big nest egg in your account, and he likes the way it looks in his account as opposed to- But that's got to be invested at 10 to 12% to even keep up with what that house is going to grow to, and it's probably not.

No. I'm going to go buy that house a hundred 100% of the time in this situation, because 20 years from today, not because two years from today, but because 20 years from today, it's going to go way up in value. And 20 years from today, your rent is going to have gone up in value. As Jade says, you're stabilizing the largest line item in your budget. She's exactly right. Brenda is in Greenville, South Carolina. Hi, Brenda. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hey, how are you doing?

Better than we deserve. What's up?

I do have a question. I'm 55 and I'm still ranting. I raised my four grandkids. I have for the past 21 years, and I just feel like I'm just too old to get out of debt.

Oh, you're ancient. What? I can't believe old people like you ask questions. How'd you even dial the phone as old as you are?

I don't remember.

If you're older- Woman, I'm 64. Who do you think you're calling?

That's what I said. If you're old, there's no hope for days.

Well, I guess I just feel like I'm just Until I start listening to you guys, I think about paying a house, and usually it takes 30 years.

No, it doesn't.

By then, I'm like…

No, and listening to you, I've learned a lot.

I feel Like, and…

What is it? Have you got debt now?

I do. How much? I do. I guess about… Well, okay. I did something stupid. You even have a… What is it? Youtube or whatever video of it that my son showed me or my grandson that it says, You pay $800 a month for a car. But anyway, that's me.

Oh, your car payment. How much do you owe on your car?

31,000. The same car- What do you make? Sells straight down the street for 20,000.

Got you. What do you make?

I make 43,000 a year.

Okay. All right. How much other debt have you got, hon?

I have rent It's $2,100 a month. Okay.

That's not debt. You rent a house, right?

Right.

That's your monthly. Okay. It's not debt. Do you have any other debt?

Credit cards? Just a few credit cards I have two personal loans. Okay.

The big issue is you just bought a car that's way more than you can afford, right? Exactly. It's not fun. You're not having fun, honey. No. Sell a stupid car. Yes.

Do you want it? Sell it.

Do you have any cash? Well, who's going to buy it? Somebody will buy it if you price it right. Do you have any money to cover that it's upside down? Because it's upside down $9,000, right?

Well, you can get… Yeah, exactly.

I don't think about that.

Do you have any cash stored away anywhere? I don't. Any non-retirement money?

Well, no. The only thing I have is my employee meant it's a 401k, and you can't get that out unless you're…

You can't. Where's the car loan?

Who's got the car I have it through Santander.

Through what?

Santander Bank.

Yeah.

Oh, it's a subprime? Oh, God, it's even worse. It is. Do you have a credit union?

I do. Good. I tried to go through them, and they asked me to pay on it another six months to a year because I was so upside down in it.

What I want you to do is I want you to go down there and I want you to get them to loan you the money for the hole you're in. Loan you $8,000. Okay. Then you sell the car and get you a $1,000 car. Okay. Then you got no car payment. Then you plow through that $8,000. Then you got no credit card debt, no car payment. Now we can start talking about saving up and buying a house.

Okay. I'm working now and I work at DoorDash on the weekends and sometimes at night.

You're not afraid of work. You just bought something you couldn't afford. That's all. Exactly. You're okay. We're going to show you how to do all that. I'm going to put you in the Financial Peace University and show you how to handle money because you're not too old, honey.

Definitely. Surely not.

If you're still sucking wind, you got a shot, folks. We'll put you into Financial Peace University and every dollar, we'll pay for all of it, honey, because I've been where you are, where I'm scared and don't know what to do, and people help me, so we're going to help you. You hang on. This is the Ramsey Show. What does the future hold for business? Ask nine experts and you'll get 10 different answers. Economic growth or a recession. Business taxes will go up or down. Ai will help us work or it will replace us all. But there's no such thing as a crystal ball. That's why more than 40,000 businesses have future proofed themselves with NetSuite by Oracle. The number one cloud enterprise resource planning system. Ramsey Solutions uses NetSuite, and you should, too. Whether your company is earning millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities. With one unified business management suite, there's only one source of truth for the visibility and control you need to make quick decisions. Netsuite's real-time insights and forecasting help you see into the future with actionable data. When you're closing the books in days, not weeks, you can spend less time looking backward and more time focusing on what's next.

Speaking of what's next, download the CFO's Guide to AI and machine learning at netsuite. Com/ramsey. It's free at netsuite. Com/ramsey. Running a business is freaking hard. It's easy to get caught up in the daily challenges and fears that keep you stuck. That's why I want you to reserve your copy of our new book, Build a business you love, where we share the proven system that helped us break through those challenges and build Ramsey Solutions from a card table in my living room to a $250 million company in the process. When you pre-order today, you're going to get more than $350 in bonuses for free, including an enhanced audiobook experience Cents, early access to the Build a business you love e-book, and instant access to our hiring playbook, so you can start transforming your business right now. Build a business you love, the essential guide for every business owner like you that who wants to grow yourself, lead your team, and scale your business. To reserve your copy, go to ramsey solutions. Com/store, ramsey solutions. Com/store. Jade Walsh, Ramsey Personal, He is my co-host. If you don't know, we do this show three hours a day, Monday through Friday, on the glass in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions.

You're welcome to come by anytime. Homemade chocolate chip cookies and coffee are on us. Sometimes there's two people out watching the show live, and sometimes there's 200. Just come by. If you're making plans south of Nashville, in Franklin, Tennessee, beautiful little town, that's where we are right off the interstate. Very easy to come by. In that lobby is a little stage we built called the Debt Free Scream Stage. That's what happens there almost all the time that someone's on it. That includes Davin and Terry, who are here with us. Hey, guys, how are you? We're good. We're good. How are you? Where do you guys live? Kansas City, Missouri. All right. Very cool. Sorry about your chiefs. We're sorry, too. Man, too soon. Oh, my gosh. Well, congratulations Congratulations. You're debt-free. How much have you paid off? $125,000. Very cool.

How long does that take? $60. 77. Okay, say all of it. Say it again. $125,060. 77. There we go.

28 months. Exactly. All right. How long did this take? 28 months. Good for you. And your range of income during that, two years and four months. We started at $89,000, and we went down to $52,000 for a little bit, and then we ended at 107. Nice. What do you all do for a living? I work in a factory.

I'm in social work field.

Okay. Wow. Good for you guys. What debt was the 125? It's a little bit of everything. Credit cards, student loans, a car. Well, two cars, actually. Two cars. You all were normal. Yeah, we Yeah. Yeah, normal sucks. Yeah, it does. It's no fun.

A lot of medical bills and collections.

Now you're weird. Good for you, man.

What got your attention? What caused you to go on this journey a little more than two years ago?

Well, we decided to get married. Once When I decided to get married, I think for me, just as a husband, I was like, Oh, okay, I guess I need to start paying attention to this. We sat down to start paying, and she had $7,000 in savings, and she put it on the debt, and then that was enough for me to see. I was locked in, and we were running from there. Was all your debt? No, it was both of our debt.

I was in a lot of student loan debt.

A lot of student loan debt. Okay. All right. A lot of student loan debt. Your degree for social work? Yeah. Yes.

I mean, you guys were living on nothing. Tell us more about how you did this because on '89, at some point, you went to 50. How did this happen?

It was a lot of work, a lot of overtime. That was really what it was, about 55 to 70-hour weeks.

She didn't see you? No.

There was weeks that I was nice, and she was dazed, and we'd pass each other on the way out the apartment.

We're on the phone and we're driving down the highway and we're like, Hey, I see you. I love you.

See you on Thursday. Two years of that. That's hard. It was tough. Was it worth it? Definitely worth it. Definitely worth it. You have the rest of your life with no debt, right? Yes. Because you're not going back, right?

Oh, never. No. No. Yeah. Lots of sacrifices, for sure. The number one question folks ask me is, how do you stay motivated? I want to ask you the questions. How do you stay motivated? Almost two and a half years.

What does that look like? You're burning the candle, man. You're getting it. I think it was a lot of talks about our future, just whenever we have kids, the legacy that we want to leave and just having reasons that were bigger than to keep going than reasons to quit. So I think that was it.

For me, I think it was just a lot of prayer. There was times that we were, we're so tired of doing this. When are we going to be debt free? When are we going to be out? Then just dreaming. We're running around and looking at houses and, Oh, one day we're going to get there. Different things to just try to keep us motivated, but for sure. What was the dream? As far as getting our own house is what I meant by that. We were wanting to have our own house and we want to just set up financial freedom for the bloodline, really. Good for you.

Change your family tree. For sure. That's a big why. Yes, sir. If you have a big enough why, you can plow through some hard stuff. Because it's not forever. It's for two years. Two years sounds like a long time, but when you look back, you're like, No, we're done. Mic drop. We're out of here. Oh, yeah. Good for you. Good for you, guys. Well done. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? Go to work. A lot. A lot of work. Then just be willing to sacrifice. We missed out on family events and things like that. But at the end of the day, it's all worth it because we don't owe anybody anymore. People question your sanity? Oh, my goodness. Definitely. People thought we were crazy. Oh, that's good for you, but I'm not going to do that.

People People saying we need credit cards. We didn't agree on credit cards for the first, I would say, year. Year and a half. Yeah, about year of our marriage. I wanted credit cards for the points, and I tell people now that wasn't a good enough reason. I cut all my credit cards up about a year and a half in, and we hit the ground rolling. Has it happened yet, that moment where the same folks who were saying, Why are you doing this? Why are you doing this? Asking, How did you do this? How did you do it? Oh, yeah.

I think recently more so now. I actually went live on Facebook not too long ago because I posted our journey, and then people were like, How did you do it?

I was like, I'll just go live and answer you guys as questions.

But yeah, everyone's wondering how we did that. Yeah. That's good. Good for you. Well, a man with an experience is not at the mercy of a man with an opinion. That's where you are. Congratulations. Very good stuff. Thank you. Nobody can argue with your success because it's your success. That's where you are. If you want to go over there and live that way, you can go over there and live that way. But as for me and my house, that's what we're doing. Now, how did you run into the Ramsey stuff? About the same time you married?

For me in 2016, the church I was attending at the time, they had this financial class, and they were telling us about the baby steps and the snowball method. I actually started paying off debt then. Slow, I wasn't attacking it like we did. I had paid two student loans off, I believe, before we got married. That's how I got started.

My dad, he told me about the show. I was in the car with him, and he was playing the show, and he talked about the Ramsey show. Obviously, I didn't listen at the time. Then my mom gave me the total money makeover book. It didn't really click to me until we decided that we were getting married. I was like, Oh, I guess I need to take this seriously. Time to man up now. Yeah.

Life events do that.

Good for you all. Well done. I'm so proud of you all. Thank you. I bet you had to have some cheerleaders. Who was your best cheerleaders? Friends, family, parents, grandparents, siblings. Yeah, they're all got to be watching this.

I would definitely say our parents, both of our parents.

I mean, your dad's the one told you to listen to the radio. Yeah, definitely.

Our family and friends, for sure. We had a good support system.

Yeah, we did. That's necessary because you're going to have the haters, too. You got to have the angels and the devils, both right there. Good stuff. Well, congratulations, you guys. Thank you so much. Thank you so I'm proud of you. Thank you. Very, very well done. Thanks for making the trip from Kansas City. Hope you enjoy your time here in Nashville. We did. We don't owe anybody, so it was great.

Yeah, we can do it. We don't owe anyone.

All right, Davin and Terry, Kansas City, Missouri, $125,000 paid off in 28 months, making 89 to $52,000 to $107,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one.

We're debt-free.

Yes.

I felt that one.

That was good. They did it. They did it right. Well done, you two. Jade, you know what occurs to me watching those two? That… I mean, they're young. I didn't ask I don't know how old they are, but they're young. Really, you probably even fall into the same category. My daughter does for sure. You all have all grown up with a magic wand in your hand.

If you want something, you push a button. It's at the doorstep.

And you get it. There's an app for it. There's something, an easy button. It's a magic wand. Everything's easy. It's not all easy, but it's ridiculous how quickly we can access information or things or even solutions to problems. That's right. That are valid in a digital world. That's all good. The problem is none of that does what those people just did. You know what they got? Grit. Grit is not a digital thing. There's nothing easy about what they just did. They passed each other on the highway and sent a text, I love you, I'll see you Thursday. Did you hear what they said? I heard it. Newlyweds. Well, what about life balance? Well, they didn't give a crap. They wanted out of debt. That was their life balance. The life balance is they wanted to be out of balance, so they're in balance the rest of their life. That's right. You know what they can do now? Anything you by God want when you don't have any payments, you're set up to do whatever you want to do now. Don't talk to me about balance. Those people got grit, man. That's right. They're getting it.

I mean, those people are heroes right there. Yeah. If you want to teach someone something that you love, your kids, your grandkids, teach them grit. Teach them the ability to roll up their sleeves and do what those two got. I don't know where they got that grandparents' parents, but those two are studs right there, man. They're amazing. Absolutely incredible. This is The Ramsey Show.

Hey, guys.

Rachel Cruz here. All right, I'm about to say what everyone already knows, but budgeting is a good thing do.

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So go download the app for free and get started today. Again, go download every dollar today. Jade Walsh, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. This is the last segment for all of you, unless you're on the Ramsey Network app. Then you can get the rest of the show on the Ramsey Network app. You can get the whole show on the Ramsey Network app, and it's completely free, video or audio, however you choose to view it, and a lot of other features, including you can email us from the app. You get all kinds of searchable tools. It's a great app for managing this show, and it's completely free, and there's not a paywall, and there's not going to be a paywall. So go check it out. Ramsey Network app, download it, and start using it, and you'll get the entire show every day and be able to watch it there. Randy's in Dallas, Texas. Hi, Randy. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Sure. What's up?

My question is that my aunt, well, my sister-in-law had my aunt picked up, and she's about 90 years old.

Had her what?

Had her picked up, not picked up by police. Had her picked up and sent into a nursing home.

Who picked her up?

Well, that's what we try to find out. The police She said that they didn't do it, so they convinced her. They put her in a car. Who's they?

The facility? The nursing home picked her up?

Correct. They brought the little van over, loaded her up, told her they're going to the bank. They assigned some paperwork. They signed some paperwork, which is transferring her account or adding their names to her account so they have access.

The nursing home?

Yes. Then the bus went one way, and my sister went the other Your sister-in-law was in the van? No, she drove behind them.

You're saying she set it up?

She set it up. Okay. How is she, then? I'm a little bit confused. Sister-in-law, your aunt?

Correct.

So this is your brother's wife, right?

Correct.

Your brother's wife put his aunt against her will or against the family's will into a nursing home. Why?

Well, she She has property. They figured that once they gained access to her accounts and what she has, they figured they could cash her out and she'd be gone. They're banking on the fact that she may pass away.

Well, she will pass away. Everybody does. What is all this property worth?

Maybe half a mil.

When you call your brother and say you're a crook, what are you doing? What does your brother say?

He acts all confused, says, I don't know what you're talking about. She needed to go. She's mentally disturbed. She doesn't know where she's at.

Things like that. Did she need to go? Aside from the property, was it time for her to go?

No, actually, she's pretty independent. For 90 years old, she still drives. She still pays her bills.

Not anymore.

No. I can't get her out.

Do what?

I can't get her out. We're barred access. We're barred access from seeing her. We can see her.

By the nursing home? Correct. Have you hired an attorney yet?

Yes, we have, and it's very costly. They told me to sit down because they wanted to let me know what this would cost and how long this would take.

Okay. And what'd they say?

We go to court. This is not his specialty. He's a friend.

Why don't you get someone whose specialty it is?

Is it some a restraining order? What has to for you?

No, he has to go to the court, and the court has to appoint a guardian at light of him for this lady and take all the power away from the thief that is his brother and sister-in-law. There you go. The judge will do that in 30 seconds once he understands what's going on. You just got to get in front of the judge.

We get in front of the judge, and lo and behold, the attorney who's overseeing her in the nursing home, who's appointed her guard or her attorney. The attorney that's working, what we thought was working for her best interest, they're both working together. So they go in front of the judge.

The one you hired is working with the other attorney? No.

She has an attorney. So apparently, they had pointed her an attorney, not allowing me to sit here and say, I've got an attorney. So you can bring your attorney if you'd like to. Here's the hearing.

No, that's That's not how it works, dude. You can file suit on behalf of your aunt as a guardian at Lightam and have the judge review this situation because you think a scam is going on, and the judge will look at it. You need a new attorney. I think your attorney is an idiot.

We asked to have guardianship, and she said, We'll take a look at that. We have presented the information for that, and they went first, got all these people in brought a lady in that said, Well, she has Alzheimer's. This is what's going on. So when we question her, she's been doing this less than a year. And she said, Well, it's really not my specialty. So once we asked the judge, it's not even her specialty. She doesn't even know whether she can assess the lady mental state. He goes, I'll take that into account, but let's continue on.

Let's just stop. You've been at this story for a while, and I'm not sure we know how to help you. Everything I've told you to do, it sounds like you already are doing. You're in court, you got a judge looking at it. That's where I was taking you immediately. You were already there before I got to you. How can we help you?

The problem is that every time we turn a corner, it seems like we run into a dead end. The thing is that the judge, the person that we thought we hired, not my attorney, but the person we thought we hired to help is basically building a case against us.

Why did you hire them?

Well, we didn't hire them. Well, we hired them to help. Then basically, they weren't really helping us.

You need a new attorney, like what Dave said. Whoever you're working, you need to start fresh. That's the advice.

I don't know how we're supposed to help you. This is a convoluted mess. But what you've got to do is you got to get good counsel on your side and start making a solid case before the judge that what has occurred is that your brother and your sister-in-law have stolen a half million dollars from a 90-year-old lady and put her in a nursing home against her will. That the judge needs to see that, and then you've got to present evidence that that's what exactly occurred. He will undo all that if he believes that, or she, the judge, whatever it is.

If the lady is lucid like he said she is, bring her up on the stand.

Bring her up. Put her on the stand. Let's make an assessment right here in front of everybody in God. But anyway, we're not experts in any of this. The only thing we're experts in is stirring up trouble, and it sounds like you're already doing that. That's the thing to do. How far do you want to take this? How much do you want to invest in this? Then relationally, how are you going to treat the crooks that are in your family from this point forward? Because that's the devastating part, is that you've lost a brother in this process because you can't have any dealings with someone that acts that way. He's not confused. I don't care how he acts. He's not confused. As Dr. John Deloney says, behavior is a language, and he has spoken very loudly. You can try to blame it on his wife if you want, but he's a wuss, so it's his fault if his wife's running over him. That's just ridiculous. They put everything in their names. Now, possibly a 90-year-old lady does need some care. That's possible. No one else was looking after her.

It's almost like the question is, is the issue that Auntie went into the nursing home or is the issue the property? Because if the issue is the property, then he maybe needs to focus on that as opposed to getting her out of the nursing home because that might be the right spot for her.

I don't know who her heirs are, but whoever they are, if he's one of the heirs, should be upset about the theft that has occurred. There's that part of it. But it is also possible that in a situation like that, that someone is in declining mental state and someone did care enough to get them some care when no one else did. Then you go, Well, my sister-in-law threw my aunt in a nursing home, well, I mean, no, maybe she needed the care. That's true. Yeah, exactly. I don't know that about this case. I can't tell one way or the other. I'm going on. The only thing I've got to go on is what Randy is saying, which is that's not what's going on here. But you do have that separate piece you're saying, which is the theft of a half million dollars. That's not caring for someone. That's not taking care of them. That's sad. Yeah, it's a sad mess. It's horrible. Some people's children. Wow. That puts us our The Ramsey Show in the books.