Debt Isn't A Tool, It's Bondage!

[Music] this is the ramsay show you can be intentional about your character you can have money and a career you are the hero in your story [Music] live from the headquarters of ramsey solutions broadcasting from the dollar car rental studios it's the ramsey show where debt is dumb cash is king and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the bmw as the status symbol of choice i'm dave ramsey your host my co-host today ramsay personality number one best-selling author anthony o'neil host of the ever-popular youtube show exploding called the table the table's not exploding but the popularity is so uh you can check him out there on youtube anytime and of course check out his uh advice here today on the air if you want to talk to us the call is free and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it the phone number is triple eight eight two five five two two five that's triple eight eight two five five two two five victor is in dallas hi victor how are you hey my man i'm doing good how about yourself better than i deserve how can we help so i have a fourteen thousand dollar um debt remaining on my car finance via ford and i could sell it today for about twenty two thousand dollars um and just keep the cash and use that to buy another car and have a little bit of money left over um me and my wife are both in grad school so we're cash flowing that and just paying that um out of pocket so that extra money could be helpful the complicating factor is that i don't actually pay the monthly note on my car my dad pays it for me every month and it's been like three years and he's never missed a payment so he's really good with it um so i'm not actually like spending that money but the car is in my name and i think that's it uh what do you guys make what's your household income so we make about 42 000 when will you graduate from grad school so i'll be done in next year i don't know whether it's going to be in the summer or in the fall it kind of just depends on how much course that i can handle but i'll be done next year for sure and just don't know what semester and my wife has about another two years probably and we're both in seminary she's doing counseling to be an lpc and i'm just getting like a general theology degree um for the password and that kind of stuff [Music] okay sell it yeah yeah now when you sell it have a conversation with your dad and make sure that he's not going to want part um some of the proceeds oh no he i talked to him already he's like hey if you sell it you can keep all the cash and i'll send you whatever i would pay for the car to you just in cash as a gift to like help pay for school um so he said he would give me that and we'll have that in our pocket as well i like your dad how much how much is your car payment um my car payment is maybe like 430 i don't actually know i've never made the payment but it's somewhere between four and 500 it's like a 2018 mustang yeah so okay here's here's what i'm basing that on your income is low for someone driving a 22 000 car and it's going to stay low for a while if you told me you were getting ready to graduate in the fall well everything's getting ready to change then we're not going to make a decision based on what's happening today because it's going to change real soon but it sounds like you've got a couple more years of this and not having this around your neck or your dad's neck or anything else would be really handy so the rule of thumb is don't have too much invested even if it's paid for in things that are going down in value one definition of too much invested is anything with wheels and motors added together equaling more than half your annual income is generally too much invested so if you make fifty thousand dollars a year you buy a thirty thousand dollar boat that's under the stupid column okay and you know you make forty thousand dollars a year you got twenty two thousand dollar car now you're not paying it and that you know and that's nice and all of that but just getting rid of an asset that's going the wrong way while your income stays in the 40s for the next two years is a wise thing yeah yeah and he's going to come out with about 8k uh dave so i mean i'm buying a five thousand dollar car cash yeah five or six something like that and you know and then the 400 goes in your budget instead of going to the bank there you go so it's almost as if you got rid of a car payment yeah since your dad is going to continue to send the money that's very generous of him i'm with anthony that's very nice be supporting him he's proud that he's going into the seminary yeah and uh you know trying to be there to help him and walk with him through the process and that's good so as a father dave what would you like what would you like to see him do with that four hundred dollars that he's getting from his father every month i think i think the young guy's got a pretty good handle on his budget already absolutely he's out of debt i mean he was there's nothing in here that indicates he's lacking in frugality um so i i think he's what do you think i mean i i agree with you i mean i'm i'm i'm pocketing it i'm gonna use it towards school yeah it's going in the budget the monthly budget for food lights water school yeah cash flowing school and now we're four hundred dollars up i mean if nothing and we don't have something that we own that over the next two years while we drive it's gonna lose eight thousand dollars in value absolutely you know which is what happens to these stinky things they go down like a rock that's where chevy got that like a rock but you know what day some of our listeners saying but dave he's not paying for it i know but he is paying for it right when you take 22 000 and you turned into 12 right that's paying for it yes anytime you do that you're going the wrong direction all right tony's with us tony is in sacramento hi tony how are you hey dave thank you so much for taking my call how you doing there anthony i'm doing well man thanks for asking so my question is this um our parents-in-law had just offered us to live rent-free in a vacant home they have uh owned so they own several properties and uh this one is just vacant and they wanted to us to sell our house stack that cash that we made on equity live there rent free while my wife finishes nursing school this december and uh we don't know where we want to be located yet just because when she gets done with nursing school we get a better idea of where we want to like settle and we know this is not going to be our forever home so should we take that offer it's a tough one for me anything with what parents and and i get a little nervous especially when i hear free i just because i don't want something to go left and cremit from wrong dave but if something goes left that they don't like then they can kick me out you know so i i'm i'm 50 50 right here i'm a little nervous how's your guys relationship it's pretty good so um my parents-in-law had helped all of the other siblings and they just we're the youngest one now so they had helped all the other siblings like they were living written free also so they're not they're not like controlling people no absolutely not they're they're very helpful i think that's anthony's concern and that's a valid concern yeah i'm probably going to take it since it's a quality relationship with quality people and for it's for a short term and your game plan is you're going to be moving anyway in six to nine months anyway right right correct and so you just pile up the cash are you guys out of debt we don't have a debt in the world so i did oh like when i bought this house i did close out with her sister-in-law because i have no credit just because i never had a credit card at all so she's under the loan also that helps get rid of that exactly exactly how much money do you have in your savings account right now tony right now without selling the home is 40k oh yeah yeah okay i agree with dave yeah you're gonna you know you're just cashing out while the market's hot and you're gonna put the money in the bank for your next move in this next transition there's nothing wrong with that there's nothing huge no huge advantage basically your monthly payment is your advantage for six months and that's that's enough reason to do it as long as everybody stays on their side of the fence good boundaries with the with the relatives then this can be okay this is the ramsay show [Music] [Music] stop paying your overpriced wireless provider and switch to pure talk they use the same network as the larger providers for much less for just thirty dollars a month get unlimited talk text and six gigs of data with no contract the average family saves over seventy dollars a month by switching to pure top just go to puretalk.com and enter the promo code ramsey to save 50 off your first month pure talk simply smarter wireless [Music] new episodes of the table with anthony o'neil air every monday how to set a clear vision for your future everything you need to know about success and how you can go from looking fake rich to really becoming wealthy a lot of people looking fake rich hey absolutely and you know what dave i think you'll be very proud of me i know you probably listened to the show but this week's show is the 10 things you shouldn't do with your paycheck and i literally write down verbatim it's an hour-long show and i literally talk about here's what you need to do with every time you get paid cover your four walls do this do that um and the the the the response is insane i already had 25 000 views in 24 hours wow because i literally go through the basics because people want to look rich when i want to help people hey here's how you build wealth and it's a solid foundation so tom stanley wrote the millionaire next door the last book he wrote before he passed away um wrote a book called stop acting rich there it is and he went through the statistical and mathematical evidence that acting rich will actually cause you to never be rich yes sir yes pretty intense pretty pretty amazing well here at ramsey solutions we want to transform so many lives that disruption happens to this crazy culture this crazy y'all have you all noticed that this culture is out of control imagine a world where it's weird to have a student loan where most people pay cash for their car where the credit card is the cigarette of the financial industry where you actually understand the success principles and your kids do too that anthony teaches every day where you understand how to get a job and have a career you love from ken coleman and it becomes normal well instead you know we're trying to put ourselves out of business but there's no danger of that if you want to join us on that crusade we're currently on the hunt for software with expertise in ruby rail ruby on rails so you don't even know what it is java c-sharp front-end technologies if you're a ux designer seo content marketing specialist a data data analyst if you're in the tech world we are hiring 300 folks this year and uh ramsey solutions is exploding and uh not just tech but everything but a bunch of high-end tech jobs and here's the cool thing about tech jobs at ramsey we work 40 hours not 80. we actually go home you come out of the parking lot at 5 30. oh yes it's empty empty it's empty empty and we don't ask people that we don't crack the whip on them and so forth so text the word work if you're interested you can check out dave's hiring tab at ramsey solutions.com or text work 233 789 work 233 nine because we do do that during the 40 hours we do we work laura is with us laura is in montreal canada hey laura how are you good how are you better than we deserve how can we help um you're breaking up try again hello hello try one more time you're breaking up okay no worries um my question i'm really clueless right now to be honest um so my parents have an 18-year age difference and there is a so obviously recently we've had some about wills and things like that and um my family has a cottage it's really important to us it's been in our family for generations and it really means a lot to our everyone and our family however um i was speaking to my mom who doesn't uh she doesn't have a job and she expressed that she would be interested in selling it after god forbid the passing of my father especially if she needed money and i'm really wondering what is the what right as a child do you have to interfere in that none not zero it's not your stuff yeah why do you think you do laura i don't know it's just so hard seeing something that meant so much to everyone in our family possibly not you know being in our family how much is it worth a lot um it's just done a really good piece of land for probably upwards to a million well why don't you sell some of the land and keep the cottage wouldn't but would i be able to suggest that or is that well you could buy the cottage and ask them to carve out just a few acres and keep the cottage itself because it's not the farm that means something to you it was the it was the lake part of it right yeah it's just generally having even a piece of it you know just the just the memories that are attached to the the area i guess that is a good idea it's just rough it's hard to like i have offered to even like give support if needed like i would be fine giving financial support obviously to my family how old are you i'm 26. okay what do you make um just under 70. that's great all right and uh your dad is how old um my dad is in his mid-60s now okay all right well uh let's pretend you got 20 years before this really comes up he gets to his mid-80s okay that would give you time to prepare if this means a lot to you to build some wealth and be able to offer to buy it yeah and it would be certainly okay for you to ask that you be given the option to buy it in the will should they give that you'd be given first route of refusal or a an option to purchase it uh first option to purchase it or something like that so that they didn't just call you up one day and go we sold it you know instead you got you you know if because you'd saved up a half million dollars and you could have bought half the property and uh had them sell off the other half or something like that and that would have scratched your itch and then you then at that point you become a customer of the estate not someone who just feels entitled to it agreed i agree yeah just have the conversation but i wouldn't go in there saying hey this is what i want this is what needs to be done just ask you don't have any rights yeah you're not entitled to anything i'm sorry it hurts your feelings i understand that and it doesn't mean a lot to you emotionally i hear you saying that but that doesn't give you any moral or legal or even emotional rights to it um we have a lake house and if i decide to sell it tomorrow uh it will break my kids heart because they've all learned to ski there the grand babies have all spent time there we all love it it's the same kind of a thing it's an emotional piece of property for us it'll break my heart anthony anthony anthony's anthony would be crying he's already his eyes are already leaking i'm serious that's where you learned to ski exactly there hey he did he's quite a water skier now you should have seen him the falls were amazing last weekend but the uh anyway the uh uh yeah that that the point being uh you know you earn the right to speak into this by having some money to do something it's not just a matter of offering support it's a matter of hey if you ever gonna sell it i don't want that to happen because i love it so much please give me first rights and would you mind even putting that in the will dad um and something like that that would be okay and there's nothing wrong with that at all and so i got dibs on that you know that that's a if if you're gonna if you would allow me to i would consider that awesome because it means so much to me but just because it was your childhood uh summer vacation and it's emotional does not give you any rights you're not you have zero entitlement on that sorry josh is that's my opinion and you asked it josh is in dallas hey josh how are you sorry to talk to you dave i have a question about trading in my vehicle so i purchased a um a brand new truck november last year and traded in my truck um the dealership contacted me a couple weeks ago or last week and they're wanting to buy my truck back with the shortage of vehicles so o26 on it right now i made a really good trade on it and got a lot of equity in it and i owe 26 not one offer me 41 000 in cash right now would you pay for it i uh i paid like 42.5 wow yeah yep uh what is it worth yeah what does kelly buble says says um that's why i did a online kelly blue book trading and um it was it said that it was worth 40 but then whenever i went and talked to the dealership they said they would give me 41. yeah and that's trade-in by the way that's not private sales so i think yeah i think you'd probably get i think you could push them get a little more out of it do you want to sell it um well here's the thing so my wife and i took on some debt from a child custody case of fourteen thousand dollars from a attorney fees so we're working on paying that off um what's your household income 140 okay i'm okay if you sell it it's certainly a good opportunity if you want to get out this is like getting out while the getting's good uh and you probably get more for it if you lean on them just a little bit because you do obviously have a vehicle wow you can sell it but you six months later how weird is that highly unusual [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] in the lobby of ramsey solutions on the debt free stage jeffrey and megan are with us hey guys how are you hi we're great i agree welcome where do you guys live lee's summit missouri lee's summit kansas city area that's where my daughter-in-law is from awesome good for you guys welcome to nashville and all the way down here to do a debt free screen yep cool how much of you guys paid off one hundred thousand six stop one hundred six thousand eighty 6180 and 44 cents good how long did this take two years two months and 10 days all right and your range of income during that time is 102 000 to 130 000 good what do you guys do for a living i'm a medical laboratory scientist and i'm a clinical manager for a residential behavioral health facility oh great okay cool what kind of debt was this about half was my student loans um and then we had uh my car and then credit cards ah you were kind of normal scary normal sucks but you were there lots of debt a hundred and six thousand were the car credit cards and student loans that's a lot that's a whole lot yeah so what happened two years and two months ago that got you started on this journey so our church had um started offering fpu and i'm actually the nerd and was kind of like oh i think we need to do it but i never pushed for it and then megan was actually like we're doing this oh that's good so megan what push what made you decide to push for that you know i think it was really when you're close to maxing out a credit card that has a 20 000 limit every month you've got a problem and as a counselor the first step to change is admitting that you have a problem hey man a little bit of my own advice amen yeah that's exactly right that is by far the first step as a matter of fact uh you've almost solved a problem once you admit that there is one because everything else will just happen after that yeah once you say oh this has got to stop yeah so then the class pops up at just the right time at your church and you jump into financial peace university both of you together and uh so how far into the class were you before you kind of went i think we really can fix this like probably the third week and it's actually kind of interesting megan had gone shopping at walmart and she had her cash envelopes but didn't have enough cash so she grabbed for a credit card and that evening uh during our class we cut that puppy out ah so that was the debt lesson that was the debt lesson that was the plastic surgery yeah and at the end of class everybody chops up their credit cards [Laughter] well that was perfect timing yeah one last hurrah at a walmart chop chop i love it plastic surgery very good you guys i love it good so throughout this journey two years that's a that's i mean that's that's a long time let's be honest um what was the hardest thing outside of cutting up the credit cards i see her face right now but outside of that what was hard throughout this journey you know i i think for me um it was just really learning to live within my limits like setting limits for myself and i'm the free spirit i'm the one who likes to go shopping on the weekends i like to go do things um but learning to be more intentional and you know we didn't you know we we set a recreation budget so that we weren't driving each other crazy and we set a date budget so we still have that time protected um and just making good use of the funds that we had it's awesome that is awesome now you with you being the nerd what was hard for you because it seems like you actually enjoyed this process once you started i did the hardest part was actually starting i had a very good 100 match on my 401k up to 10 [Music] i actually had to convince him that i'm like no look at dave's math it works you have to we have to stop this he ran the numbers himself and he's like oh it actually would work that's a nerd for you i love it that's fun that's exactly what i would have done brother all right so uh what do you tell people the key is now you've done it you've gotten out of debt what's the secret to getting out of debt no credit cards all right also in that same vein i mean it's the patent answer that everyone gives but the budget yeah it sets the budget it sets the limits for you spin this well it's the map to florida if you want to drive to florida you need a map you know it's the gps it shows you where to go and get on you know turn here don't turn here oops you missed it keep going you know whatever i mean that's what you need with a budget you got to have a guideline and you don't get to your destination if you don't have a map and that's all it is it's that's why everybody says it because it works it's it is the key element that we do see in people that are successful because as you said earlier megan it's the intentionality but in this case it's intentionality on paper and that's really all a budget is i'm curious uh now that you're out of debt what's next well um as part of our journey jeff was commuting an hour each way to work so we made the move from a rural county south of kansas city to the metro area so we're renting now so we that total doesn't include selling our house so we sold the house that we had we're renting now so now we're trying to plow through three and three steps three and three b yeah there you go all right get the down payment so if you get another property yeah yeah good for you guys so well done well done so uh you brought your kiddo with you what's your name and age bethany age six bethany is six years old so was she participating in all of this process she well kind of um you know she's gotten a little bit older in this um she she has her own chores and her own money that she gets to earn and so we're trying to help her learn how to do that cool way to go bethany good job well we've got a copy of the legacy journey for you that is the next chapter in your story as you move on and change her family tree and leave a legacy well done you guys very proud of you thank you congratulations very very neat job i love it also a copy of the total money makeover an extra one for you to give away so you can pay it forward and get somebody else moving on this journey so we can keep spreading the good word out here on how to get out of debt and how to become wealthy well done jeffrey megan and bethany from kansas city 106 000 paid off in two years in two months making 102 to 130. count it down let's hear a debt-free scream three two one [Applause] you can tell she was counting she was counting a lot louder than her parents i love it good for you well done man that is awesome you know they moved they got new information and they acted on it yeah yeah a hundred and six thousand dollars of credit cards yeah credit cards credit cards we just don't trash credit cards often enough on this show we really don't we should trash them more you know so they had plastic surgery and they didn't say oh i get airline miles oh i get i get discover points oh and they did they didn't start talking broke people talk uh-oh because rich people don't say that stuff come on dave that's what broke people say i know i'm ready to point card for an emergency that's just broke people talk oh you just made some people upset dave that's my spiritual gift i am talented at that my goal because some of the best things that have happened to me in my life are when i got pissed off and i had to go prove somebody wrong and i was wrong yes so cause i'm not wrong on this one and so if you're pissed off because you're one of those little hanging and gaining mileage like like you're ever going to use that mouse have you ever tried to use the miles or the airline freaking jupiter has to be aligned with mars i mean there's so many guidelines and setbacks and no ways to do it and you know what she said trick to getting out of that yep cut them up cut them up cut them up cut them up and after you cut them up get intentional about getting out of debt yeah bottom line yeah otherwise you're a rat chasing its tail man you just go go go go go go go nothing happens nothing happens except you're making mastercard and bank of america oh make me want i just gotta throw up in my mouth bank of america oh gross gross and make them rich we'll make them rich they're already rich why are you giving them your money in the name of airline knives it's just straight up stupid hope i wasn't unclear this is the ramsay show [Music] [Music] anthony o'neil ramsey personality is my co-host today open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five that's triple eight eight two five five two two five colton is with us in iowa city hi colton how are you hey dave i'm well thanks for asking that by yourself better than i deserve sir how can we help good uh yeah so my wife and i have been struggling uh maritally lately we've been married uh will be six years this august and the fifth year has been rough uh one of the areas of stress are our finances uh we're in need of rebuilding uh foundations really we have a starter emergency fund um about thirty two thousand dollars in debt a mortgage and uh income that's not always predictable um so i've got some specific questions for you but first i just want to know like what do you recommend to rebuild financial foundations in our marriage [Music] well i i think everybody has to have a voice in the discussion and uh sometimes that's what happens and then the second thing that that if everybody has a voice the voice has to involve um that as i use my my vote in our marriage that my vote is not for my selfish need or want my vote is for the good of the overall family that's how i'm using my vote and so it's not like a little child in other words stomping their feet with a red face on the cereal aisle demanding frosted flakes because i deserve them and sometimes we get that little kid inside of us making our adult decisions called selfishness and then it affects our relationships so couples that can rise up above their own selfish desires for the good of the overall family will ultimately get their own selfish desires uh but they also get unity then and because there's some nobility to that but the most most of the money fights that sharon and i have had uh involve selfishness on one of our parts usually mine does that make any sense oh yeah absolutely i just i i got a a new craving for a new car and that's been uh not so good for us and so i totally get that yeah so that kind of explains you know what's going on with you that's not a bad thing that you want a new car the bad thing is if you actually acted on that while you're 32 000 in debt and your wife's scared to death because she's worried with the erratic income all the time if you're going to have money for electricity and you come waltzing in with your muddy boots going i just bought a new car because i'm just the smartest guy on the planet and she's going to slit your throat you know that's what's going to happen right so that's that's what goes down you get you just get angry at that stuff but so you have to say hey i'm going to get a new car but the way i'm going to get it is i'm going to live like no one else so that later i can live like no one else because i got to clean this 32 000 up for the good of myself and to go this family before i can even talk about a car yeah i'm curious colin now what's the family uh household income uh yeah so it is she brings home probably around uh 2800 a month that's uh after tax um and then for for me i'm a worship leader at a church as well as a wedding filmmaker so that is super sporadic um making fifteen dollars an hour um at the church so it sounds like about 40. about 40 grand a year yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so i could see i could depending on how many weddings that we booked because if we book weddings i can make 40 000 myself with just uh uh 15 or so weddings so what does a typical case study fight look like in your house describe it to me about money a money fight yeah typical uh fight i guess would be i want to do one thing and she wants to do something else with money so for example i want to say invest a little bit of money and she don't want to do that she want to want to be rigid and pay off debt or i want to pay off a debt but she's afraid of not having enough money for next month um and so a lot of it's uh pretty passive um passive aggressiveness uh we're not really like vocal at each other like that but um yeah it can lead to some tension yeah okay so that's where uh the way if you'll start doing a detailed budget where every dollar of your income for this coming month has a name on paper has an assignment on paper and you agree on where it's going to go and you're applying any extra money you can find in the budget to the baby steps and both of you are in agreement on that concept then what happens is all you're holding each other accountable to is what you agreed to and that we're sticking to the baby steps and what here's here's exactly how this will go down the first month the first time you do a detailed budget where every dollar has a name it's going to be a big fight get ready you may need to actually stop midway through working on the budget and have a cooling off period and both of you go for a walk around the block separately because it's going to drag up all this stuff okay it's going to drag up all these insecurities it's going to drag up all these uh feelings of inadequacy where maybe i don't feel like i'm making enough money or doing enough it's gonna it's gonna drag up a little selfish kid that's in the cereal aisle all this stuff is gonna come up but if you can push all of that down onto that paper and say the best way for me to have the life i want which is for my family to succeed is to follow these steps and have a game plan for the money the best way for me to have security is to follow these steps then you're going to begin to get the emotions under control the second month you'll have there'll be some rough spots in the discussion the third time you do the budget the third month it'll actually start to work but i'm going to promise you some pain between now and the third month and and correct me from wrong dave because i'm not married but i i from a money perspective colton i would suggest to help you kind of ease that pain a little bit maybe you and your wife talk about what does success look like for us five ten years from now what is our vision what are we aiming for is it to be debt-free is it to buy a home is it to go on a dream vacation is it to build wealth and then once you identify that success that vision then the budget helps you get to that then the budget and we'll be like all right is this gonna if me buying a new car or it's me doing this is that helping us get towards the next five to ten years and if you're following the baby steps you don't have to have a discussion about whether to do investing or to do debt you have debt we're working on the debt there you go so we've both submitted ourselves to this proven plan yep and so all i got to do is go no it's not what the baby steps are because we've agreed we were going to do this oh i guess darn it that's right so the best way to get to investing is to get out of debt for the best way to uh get out of debt is temporarily stop investing and so the there's a reason the baby steps are laid out the way they are the reason millions tens of millions of people have done this now literally yeah that's not an exaggeration and so you just say all right i'm gonna do this plan that has worked for so many others we are going to do the plan we're both in agreement that we're going to do this plan it's not like i'm going to do it make you do it we're both in agreement and then when that feeling rises up and she says hey i feel insecure i really want to start investing the best way for us to get investing is get this debt cleared let's keep hammering the debt there you go okay or you know i really want to or you're thinking man i want to get a new car well the best way to do that is get clear of all this stuff and have some wealth uh because you know right now you're too broke to be buying a car you know and so you know you all of a sudden it all starts to come very very clear and you know some of your vision can be little things i'll give an example when we were broke i clearly remember sharing and i arguing about the food budget how much she was going to spend at the grocery store and she was mad i mean she because she wanted more food like yeah because i was not i was not being forthcoming enough on that line item okay and she was she was hot you know what sharon looks like she gets that little oh yeah it's a head just a little bit yeah and so you i mean you can see it coming right and she says you know someday sarcastically like he said passive aggressive i just hope we're rich enough that i can just go to the grocery store and just fill up the basket and i said you know what the best way for us to get there is to stick the dadgum budget hey and you know what today she will tell you that story today she remembers that fight too are you serious because she says sometimes i just go and fill up the basket even though we don't need food just because by god i can do it now because we paid the price we lived like no one else now and you fill up the basket like no one is no so maybe your vision is something just like that yeah absolutely what was that that was a sign of her insecurity because i had screwed up and lost everything and she scared her family's gonna be hungry yeah that's what all that meant yeah it was passive aggressive as crud is what it was this is the ramsey shop [Music] hey guys this is james senior producer for the ramsay show did you know over 18 million people listen to the ramsay show every week and a lot of those people listen on one of our 600 plus radio stations across the country to find a station near you head to [Music] thermsyshow.com this is the ramsay show [Music] you can be intentional about your character you can have money and a career you are the hero in your story live from the headquarters of ramsey solutions broadcasting from the dollar car rental studios it's the ramsey show where debt is dumb cash is king and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the bmw as the status symbol of choice i'm dave ramsey your host anthony o'neil ramsey personality number one best-selling author of the book debt free degree yes you can go to college debt free and he can show you how he's my co-host today open phones here at triple eight eight two five five two two five kristen is with us kristen is in alberta hi kristin how are you not too bad how are you good how can we help uh so i have a question um i bought a mobile home about two years ago and i did a bunch of indoor repairs and uh put probably about 20 grand into it uh however i wasn't marked about my choice in renovating so i ended up maxing out my visa and my line of credit um doing the renovations and then i've been living off of my line of credit for bills and food and everything else since then since the spending got a little bit away from me and i wasn't thinking about some of those things going into buying the place so i've been putting everything i have extra into my visa my line of credit to try and keep my minimum payments low and it's been about two years and i came across you in november so i started your baby steps and i have 1500 in my savings for the emergency fund and then i'm working on baby steps too so i've seen finally now probably three months in a decrease in my visa as i'm working on that with the higher interest rate and i've run into some more renovations and repairs that i have to do due to the trailer park so my question is is it smart for me to just do what i need to do to the trailer park and sell the trailer it was a foreclosure when i bought it so i'm most likely going to make money off of it still i just don't know if it's wise of me to continue working on the baby steps and uh pay off my debt and then we're going towards paying my money home off or if i should just sell so how much on your credit how much do you owe on your credit card uh so my credit card i'm at 7 100. and how much do you owe on the trailer uh 42 000. and what do you make a year uh so i just went up to about 27 dollars an hour and i get paid about 80 hours every two weeks okay and i'm just it's just me that owns it i'm 25. and what can you sell the trailer for uh so if i finish doing the outdoor repairs i could probably put it up for about 80 000. really yeah uh i got a really good deal um we've put in really yeah yeah i got a really really good deal um on this foreclosure so you can really sell a trailer that's used that you've done a bunch of repairs to for eighty thousand dollars in edmonton alberta just the trailer yes is there land with it uh sorry is there land with it uh no it's in a mobile home uh trailer park that's hard that's hard have you i hope you're right yeah me too have you gotten perfect i don't think you are but i hope you're right have you got an expert to give you the number so i actually brought in the realtor who sold me the trailer when i originally bought it um it had been up for 75 000 and then i bought it for 50. and since then we we installed shutoff valves we've done repairs to the furnace exploring electrical all that and so when she came in uh there was a few things but okay well yeah i finished up listen if you can get if you can get that or a lot less sell it okay yes and you wanna know why uh why is that because what do you think an 80 000 trailer let's just pretend it's worth that because you you think it is and i really don't have a good basis for arguing with you other than i'm shocked but um let's just pretend it's an 8 000 trailer what's it worth in 10 years uh i'm going to say probably half the price tada goodbye trailer yeah it's not a good long-term plan it turns out it turns out to have been a genius short-term plan if you take 42 and double it into 80 i'm gonna just smile for you and cheer you on and say way to go you are the luckiest trailer buyer i've ever met and way to go you killed it and if you can get that 80 out of there you get it out there and you run as fast as you can go okay if you can get 60 out of there tomorrow as is take it and go yeah and that's what she said i could put it up for given i do the repairs that i'm also told to do with the trailer park yeah how much are those going to cost uh i'm trying to do it on a budget and so i'm doing all of the repairs myself and how much is that going to cost uh well skirting and hand railing and fence and deck and how much is that going to cost i'm not too sure i'm new to this so i know when i did renovations before the spending got away and i didn't plan yeah that's what i'm afraid of here if you can take 65 as is and sell it by the weekend sell it okay because yeah between my line of credit my visa i'm sitting up at about 60 000 the good news is you're going to make money and you're going to get rid of the stupid visa bill of 41 7 100 and you're going to get rid of a trailer that's going down in value okay that's the good news it's not a good long-term plan to fix this and hold it yeah the hassle of working on this and running up debt working on it has not been a blessing to you it stressed you out am i right oh for sure yeah and you're going to turn 80 000 into 40 if you keep it 10 years there's no reason to stay in this deal kiddo zero get out while the getting is good yeah apparently you've made a good deal yeah at least with the numbers you believe are true and i sure hope you're right highly unusual i'll tell you that and it sounds like dave what she's trying to do is put more money into get to 80. no yeah i know but i sell it for 65 like it is exactly and don't be out there building a deck yeah in a trailer park no get out of there yeah and you got your money out and you and go get you an apartment and you got rid of your visa and and then just you know then start working your baby steps from a simple inexpensive rental and build your life out that way and you don't have any debt and you're doing really really good then that's going to be the way to go so uh those of you in the mobile helm industry i'm not mad at you uh but those of you that have bought one know that they go one direction when it comes to value down they depreciate they're a car you sleep in that's what they are this is not a home well it's inexpensive it's affordable when you lose half of the value it takes away all the affordability crap that you think you believe this is not a play buy things that go up in value to live in simple rule this is the ramsey show [Music] uh still on baby step number one huh how'd you guess with health care costs rising learn how christian healthcare ministries can help you make the most out of your budget visit chministries.org budget don't worry it's worth it [Music] [Applause] [Music] anthony o'neil ramsey personality is my co-host today according to the u.s census bureau nearly one in ten people relocated last year and that was 2020 when a lot of people weren't even moving around that means this year there's a good chance you or someone you know is planning a big move i know it feels like that there are a thousand of unknowns if you're struggling in juggling with relocating but you cannot lose focus of one of the most important and personal and financial factors in your move your housing cost i recommend hiring a quality real estate agent like one of our endorsed local providers to help you find the right home in your new city elps are top performing experts in their local market and have years of experience helping folks just like you make successful moves it's easy to get instantly connected with an endorsed local provider a high octane high protein agent that knows their stuff to help you with the move go to ramseysolutions.com agent and you can talk with a ramsey trusted agent about how they can help you with your relocation ramseysolutions.com agent our question of the day comes from blinds.com one of america's great success story this company is yeah you ought to check them out they the number one online rela retailer of custom window coverings i have bought window blinds from them i love these guys you get free samples free shipping and with the new promos they run every month you'll save even more use the promo code ramsey to get the best possible deal so dave uh today's question comes from teresa in ohio she says my husband and i contributed monthly for our son son in a state run 529 plan plan he will be going to college in the fall between the 529 plan and scholarships he's earned um he's earned we have almost enough to pay for all four of college yay yeah i love it should we continue to put money in this 529 plan until he graduates college our other options are putting the money towards our daughter's 529 or paying down our 30k mortgage balance well i mean hey you guys already have his uh four years taken care of should we continue to put money 529 plan until he graduates no no um should you go ahead and continue and put money towards your daughter's 529 absolutely yep bottom line easy i mean honestly you can do both put money towards 529 and pay down your mortgage at the same time exactly depending on how much you need what you need to do is figure out what the target is for her 529 and are you on pace to be there if you're on pace to be there maybe you lean on the mortgage absolutely or if you're behind maybe you'll lean heavier on the files on her 529 yeah way to go teresa you did it i love it he paid for college 529 and scholarships yep this is what anthony o'neill teaches simple it's it's tuesday and you go to a school that actually allows you to do that because you can afford the school yes you pick a school based on listen if you got 20 000 to buy a car you don't need a test drive for bentley so you don't need to visit a college campus that's 80 000 a year if you're broke people why would you do that because when it comes to education people lose their freaking minds so we do they don't think anymore they're not smart when it comes to education now that's an oxymoron sam is with us in saint paul minnesota hi sam welcome to the ramsay show hey gentlemen thank you so much for having me it's really an honor appreciate everything you do thank you how can we help so looking for a little uh what would you guys do question here is the first time in my life earlier we got a letter from a collections agency saying that i have a three and a half year old stupid red light ticket and the more i investigate it the turns out they were said they sent a citation to an old address that i haven't lived at since college and um my of course the thing has now you know tripled in how much i owe and uh how much is it do you so right now it's at almost 400. started out at 150 and how much do you mind i i make plenty i mean i make like 116 and my wife makes like 54. so we can roll the thing over it's more of a matter of principle i mean anthony's had more traffic violations than i have maybe he can tell you and man i was barely rolling through as it turned red hey man he gets that porsche gets it going and it's pulled over i'm telling you oh yeah well this was a 2008 ford taurus so i wasn't doing that trust me yeah definitely not doing that in ford hey man honestly i mean just pay it man you got the money it's going to take you so much time to fight it it's not going to really be worth it bro i mean just hang up the phone go pay the ticket call it a wrap yeah all right we'll do it it's hard to swallow thank you guys i i don't blame you it's hard as well it's not four thousand dollars though yeah call it a day um yeah you're fighting with the government and they're incompetent and they know it and you know it and i know it the only thing that's competent in this whole discussion was the stinking red light camera it actually was telling the truth but um everything after that was not nobody else in the whole story was including i got one of those one time yeah i got knoxville they put them up in knoxville and i was down there for a football game and i roll a red light like all the time i mean he can call him and say hey listen i see this in collections i have i wasn't there i'll give i'll give you half of it i'll give you two feet try but yeah it's probably not gonna work exactly so it's nothing cause they got you on that one i mean it's it's a traffic ticket right so so that was that's what you usually do you just pay it i mean you know listen i gotta pull it over the other day i know i just pulled over before the cop even killed me i'm guilty give me give me the ticket you were really guilty and he was really merciful he didn't even give you a team he didn't he sure didn't thank god turns out he was a big anthony o'neill fan yes lord i've been working hard to get that you know yes lord when he's i'm serious was he was nice to you yes all right bob pops in cincinnati hey bob how are you hey dave how you doing better than anthony deserves what's up so i got a question about how to utilize or best invest some extra cash that my wife and i have at the end of each month so currently we pay off everything the only debt we have is our house we pay that off or should i say i refinanced at the beginning of 2020 on that um and i paid two times the monthly payments we did a 30-year loan so i just double up the payments trying to pay it off early and so that said what we have at the at the end of each month about forty five hundred dollars to invest uh we have three kids and we have a utma for each of them um we can max contribute 15 000 um each year into those accounts and then i have a traditional ira that i put uh the remainder usually about six thousand in each year um and then on top of that my wife's company has a 403 b that she max contributes to and my company also has a sep ira that's typically uh it's about 15 to 20 annually are you putting 15 of your household income into retirement um no okay what is your household income uh all in let's see gross we're probably around 160. okay what we teach folks to do is put 15 of their household income into retirement at baby step four beyond that fund your kids college what you're doing and beyond that put every extra dollar towards the house until it is paid off once it is paid off you max out everything that's available to you and you continue investing at that point and that's what we call baby step seven when the house is paid off what do you owe on your home about 257 okay you're gonna be done with this house in no time with the numbers you're giving me and it's gonna be it's gonna be a beautiful thing you're gonna have a paid for home that's worth a lot of money no payments in the world which guess what we did then we just increased your monthly cash flow now you got even a bigger problem on where you're gonna invest all this oh darn i hate it when that happens well all my kids are girls so oh well there you go it won't hurt to have some extra money laying around because there's these uh you know you may want weddings wedding funds uh you know they're uh they can they can be expensive if you allow them to be really like traffic tickets i'm just saying they show up and just uh there's there's all these things in life that just happen so you're doing so good bob way to go man absolutely killing it 15 of your income into retirement then kids college then pay off your house as fast as you can then baby step seven is you build as much wealth as fast as you can and be outrageously generous this is the ramsey show [Music] hey folks i got a great option to help you pay for your education the army national guard the army national guard believes you are the next greatest generation because you have proven that even in adversity that you have what it takes to succeed that's why they offer benefits like tuition assistance career training and a paycheck to help you avoid debt no matter what your goals are the army national guard can help you get there visit nationalguard.com to find out more [Music] [Music] in the lobby of ramsey solutions on the debt free stage open phones this hour here at triple eight eight two five five two two five on the debt free stage first baptist church mount dora florida pastor thomas and sherry jameson anthony also a former pastor from florida this church first baptist church has become debt free amen it certainly has for you are you guys in town for the southern baptist convention yes sir all right wow y'all had a little little ruckus down there so you heard yeah i think yeah well it's kind of it's kind of an every year thing but some years the ruckuses are bigger than others but congratulations you got this paid off how much debt did this church pay off well when i became pastor they had uh 2 million 889 000 in debt they were paying 8 interest on it yes and uh it took three years for a bank to trust the new pastor to be able to refinance and even then it was only down to six percent wow they had 524 thousand dollars of that debt in unsecured church notes to individuals that could be called in at any time with no penalty and so it really put the church in a precarious position my goodness gracious yeah so we we we've refinanced over a four-year period when i went the annual or the monthly payment was 23 600 that was the every month so uh the crash hit 12 months after i had been there of course my first sunday to preach on money was september the 9th of 2008 i remember it well i'm preaching on money and uh how we need to be good stewards we're taking a special offering and the banks have all luck locked up great time for a special offering wow so uh we did three special offerings over three months they collected over 153 000 wow uh and we put that directly on the debt and sherry and i as a sign of faith to the lord we had been given wedding money that we had put aside for 10 years that we had kept kind of as our emergency fund like what you talked about and we gave the church for this debt all that we had in savings wow and what i didn't know would be that it would take us about six years to save money again um and personally we also forego we we did not have any raises or anything for eight years we were really careful and trying to make sure that the church could afford staff and and pay down the debt so when i went there were 39 employees so it was very very top-heavy and that meant we had to cut staff there was a preschool it was running in the in the hole we had to do away with the preschool it was a lot of hard decisions but you were not a popular guy some weeks if you only knew i told the lady this morning nothing is mean is a good mean christian well that's that's really true we did we did go through a little i hate to say split splinter we did have that in 2011 after i'd been there three and a half years and then all the debt uh notes which was over three hundred and one thousand were called in wow so uh the church what we did is we managed but we had about 35 i think left in our checking account after we paid all of that off and but it's gone forever then exactly it was gone forever he's got a strong leader he is he's a strong leader he's still there still there 14 years and uh and so by the way we suspended all employee benefits it sell accept health insurance during this time because our budget fell by 33 percent from 08 to 2012. it just it took a nosedive it was a very construction-based church with no doctors no lawyers not even police and fire i just started praying god give us people who earn a salary we need teachers we need we need we need uh doctors we need and so i've baptized nine police officers and uh we've seen the lord work through the years so when you started at the church how many years ago in 2007 how many people attended uh the day i was voted on it was around 350 that voted i mean today uh well pre-corona we were running we were running around 500 yeah 485 to 500 it's been as high as 5.50 and i've been through a ride to get there yes sir yes i'm so proud of y'all so well done we so what what gave you this fire to get the church's finances straightened out that's not usually a pastoral gift no no sometimes we have to encourage pastors to do this um my background was business actually my my bachelor's was in business my parents i was the first person in my family to be called into ministry okay and the first person in my church in uh almost 80 years to be called into ministry wow and there was a group of little old ladies who prayed every week since world war ii that somebody would be called into ministry so uh the lord answered their prayer in 1989 i surrendered uh went into full-time christian service served as a missionary uh went to seminary at new orleans and then after that did my phd in at southwestern yeah and then uh went to work for billy graham and worked for the billy graham evangelistic association and did that for several years and traveled all over the country and uh that's why there's a positives to being young and dumb so when i worked for mr graham we would raise five million in six months and i did all of his largest crusades at the end new york city and and los angeles and so i thought when i was young and dumb three million wasn't that much and so i thought we can pay this off in 18 months at this church only billy graham's not around exactly exactly so let me ask an issue let me ask you this pastor thomas what was throughout these 14 years what was the hardest thing as a pastor to get the church and the community on board to be intentional about paying off this debt the hardest thing uh constantly refocusing the vision that this matters it matters in missions and what we can do in the community uh we're very active in our community we have been the largest benevolence organization in mount dora florida wow a number of years where our giving in the city is over eighty thousand dollars that we're giving away wow um our missions giving has been between a hundred and two hundred and fifty thousand at the same time we were paying down debt and the buildings were all falling apart at the same time so we had to replace all the roofs renovate the preschool we had to renovate the children's building the youth building all of these structures had to be renovated at the same time as paying down debt so that was the challenge one of our deacons who i love dearly he's 92 years old mr ray white is his name and mr ray white would tell me uh from time to time when he saw that i was wavering he'd look at me and he'd say don't give up you can do this he never told me what to do he was just a faithful steward so one of the things i did is i called on other leaders how do we pay this off and they said we'll do some dinners and get all the people who give over a hundred thousand in your church and i started laughing and they said well give all the get all the people who give over 50 000 in your church i continue to like i said we don't have those kind of people in our church we don't you know i mean to give 25 000 in a year so did you guys have how did you get tied to us uh how did we get tied to you well we've taught financial peace in our church for years we've got a video of the congregation doing their debt-free screening yes i want to make sure we get that on so proud of you guys thank you sir thank you for this opportunity pastor tom pastor jameson thomas and sherry are with us from mount dora florida first baptist church paid off 100 of their dad i talked to another church this morning down in texas that just paid off these 24 million in debt they just cleared theirs and um but it's the same kind of story it was a long slog yes they fought through it but when the bride of christ can get out of change important things happens amen so i'm so proud of y'all thank you sir honored to know you guys all right james let's fire that [Applause] a church debt free [Applause] yeah that is awesome any of you churches that get debt free that you want to come on and do that we'll we'll celebrate with you i promise you we're proud of you good good stuff wow well done this is the ramsay show [Music] [Music] anthony o'neil ramsey personality is my co-host today open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five you jump in and we'll talk about your life and your money josh is with us josh is in chicago how are you josh hi guys i'm doing great how about you better than i deserve what's up it's such an honor to be talking to you guys you guys are both such role models to me so just to give you a little background i'm 24 years old i'm in my third and final year of the doctor of physical therapy program and basically i'm working my way through cash flowing the program my question is i've estimated about five thousand dollars left from the three semesters i have in my savings i have about thirty three thousand dollars and i have an additional twenty two thousand dollars in mutual funds and my question is am i at a bit of a risk you know having a possible change in tuition a little bit i i maybe have like a four or five thousand dollar margin am i good to let those mutual funds continue to grow or do you think i should basically just cash them out to ensure that graduation well let me answer this question is the mutual funds covered with the roth ira is it in retirement no there's not retirement no it's just it's just regular mutual funds not retirement okay cool and you say you have 33 000 in your savings account right now correct i mean if i was you i mean and you only need 25 about 25 i could see it i don't mind leaving it in there because i don't think they're going to go down that substantially yeah if they did go right me too so i mean right i'm sticking with my savings account just a cash flow through school yeah use the savings account first and if you need to dip into the mutual fund you can uh it might have dropped a little you might lose a little but that's going to be still better than going into debt yeah and and so but you're going to burn your savings first and then dip into your mutual fund that's what you're saying absolutely yes sir i just want to make sure that it wasn't in retirement but yeah use a savings account yeah don't cash out a retirement account but you shouldn't put in putting it in there anyway until you're out of school so well done good good i love it nicole is with us nicole is in kansas city hi nico whoops women not there there she is hey nicole how are you good how are you better than i deserve what's up perfect my question is my husband and i are in baby step two we have about 31 000 just in student loan debt and that's it my husband does have one more year left of law school but he's smart so it's a full ride and by the end of the summer with his internship we should have about that 32 000 saved up in savings but since his payments are being deferred for one more year should we take that money that we have in savings and just pay it off now since interest starts back up in october we're just not for sure kind of we've just been saving for this moment you know and since we'll have all the money we just don't know what to do so nicole let me get this straight your husband has um some scholarships getting him through school 100 debt free right correct is there anything that could possibly come up that can change that no at this point just with his gpa um he's set going into this final year so he's been on a full ride luckily all three years so and they can't revoke that for any reason correct okay and how are you paying for the rest of your life um off my income i make about 40 000 a year okay so you pay rent food and so forth with that his school is paid for locked for the last year done correct yeah go ahead and pay it off exactly okay okay we just weren't for sure and we just didn't know if with payments being deferred and all that here's what's gonna there's an interesting thing that you haven't thought of and you're gonna be able to feel it just by saying it when you pay this off you're going to feel it you're going to physically feel it right right okay that's not a that's that's a spiritual thing right right yeah i just wanted some confirmation so we're just maybe we should maybe we'll hold on to it until we can start making payments we just didn't really know what to do now nicole let me say this if there is a one percent possibility that something could come up to where you will have to pay something then i want you to hold on to that money to make sure that you get through college without racking up any more debt if there's a one percent now as soon as he graduates you're gonna take all that money and put it on top of the student loans but if you know a hundred and one percent that there's no way that you all will need any more money to graduate then i'm working with dave go pay off your student loans today do not put yourself in any possible position where you have to borrow money to finish law school right when you have the money in your hand and spent it on this yeah so don't do that but it sounds like that they've already made the commitment and even if his gpa went down that he would get that this year is over because they make the commitment one year at a time they being the law school yeah that's what it sounds like to me so hey good question and what a great job he's done obviously he's a smart cookie uh you know that kind of gpa in law school enough to get free money that's a good thing real good that's a good thing and they said it's impossible tina is in saint petersburg florida hi tina how are you i mean gab how are you doing better than i deserve what's up well um i hope and y'all can help me with a problem that i have here i have a um a 200 000 uh vacation property that is paid for at the cabin on 13 acres and um we also have a 225 000 mortgage on our primary home which we also use as an airbnb and i wanted to know if you think that we should take the investment property the cabin on the acreage and sell it to pay off the mortgage that's our airbnb i'm sorry i i is it your primary residence or is it an airbnb how can it be both um we have some additional rooms that we rent out oh i see we live in part of the house i see okay and what's your household income um we have about 93 000 take home per year okay so how quick do you pay off the mortgage if you keep the lake house if i can put everything into it keeping my current full-time job a little under four years yeah you like the lake house uh well i've only been up there once and how long so uh um we've it's been a little less than a year that we owned it okay well i mean if you're not going to use it even if your home were paid for i probably would sell it but if you're going to use it and you love it and you want to fight for it and for scratching claw and grind for four years and keep the thing and get your mortgage paid off i'd be okay with that too yeah either one of those is an okay process the trick is that have a short-term plan to be debt-free and don't keep things that keep you in debt that you don't even use okay so i mean if you put those two things together you get your answer out of this facts also with that we we had thought about purchasing an additional duplex to have two more airbnbs but with um with what i've got going on right now i wouldn't be able to do that debt-free no no yeah no stay away here's the problem some cities are passing ordinances against airbnb yeah and if they pass that as a zoning violation in your area after you went in debt to do it now you just have two duplexes right yeah and so um because you're running a hotel is what you're running yeah some cities are objecting to that uh from a zoning standpoint and some neighbors are objecting to it yeah as well so um it you know it's it's not all roses and rainbows with airbnb so i you know i'm not saying it's horrible a lot of people are making good money on it but it you know to assume that that is your business model long term is probably not a good plan yeah i agree i was looking into it dave and i didn't do it too because of my realtor he said hey i don't trust the zoning uh especially here in nashville knights national pass to law against yeah yeah yeah so now it's being challenged in court right because you know nashville tries to do a lot of communist stuff huh but tell me about it yeah we'll see what they get away with or not but that's you know they did they they flat out shut it down well there you go that puts us hour in the books anthony good hour hey thank you dave well done james charles is our producer kelly daniels our associate producer i'm dave ramsey your host and we'll be back [Music] hey it's kelly associate producer and phone screener for the ramsay show if you would like to do your debt free scream live on the show make sure you visit theramsieshow.com and register we would love for you to come to nashville and tell dave your story [Music] this is the ramsay show [Music] you can be intentional about your character you can have money and a career you are the hero in your story [Music] live from the headquarters of ramsey solutions broadcasting from the dollar car rental studios it's the ramsey show where debt is dumb cash is king and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the bmw as the status symbol of choice i'm dave ramsey your host open phones here as we talk about america's largest legalized fraud this hour time shares oh i just got a little throw up in my mouth when i said it time shares if you've been ripped off or locked in one of those rooms or someone you love has been ripped off by a timeshare company you know what that makes you typical most people have it's a horrible business they have absolutely zero value you know what a time share is worth when you try to sell it zero you actually have to pay to get rid of it and you go on vacation and you're so cheap that you thought you were gonna beat them up and they say we'll give you a free hotel room if you will just come to the sales presentation and then they lock you in the sales presentation with no food no water and no bathroom breaks for six hours literally does happen until you surrender because your blood sugar is so low that your brain quits working and you buy one of the dumbest things on the planet called a time share even going to one of those meetings is a dumb thing signing up to get a free hotel room that isn't that great to start with in return for giving up six hours of your soul is a dumb thing don't do that that's like going over to the zoo and they say we'll give you a year's pass if you go into the cage with the tiger and pet him for an hour oh by the way he's not eaten in three days he's a greedy animal and he will chew on your head he will likely not allow you to pet him you will die and you go oh no for a free pass to the zoo for a year i'll try petting the tiger because i can pull it off and you go in and you come out without your arm and then you're shocked because the tiger ate your butt well that's what happens the aarp says the top 10 scams that cost older americans the most money number one way the elderly is scammed romance scams 83 million dollars lost last year number seven out of the list of the ten scams that take money from the elderly according to the aarp timeshares 17.4 million number 10 trying to sell the timeshare 12.5 million which by the way together is 30 million dollars that the elderly have been cost last year in late december diane burkhardt sent a complaint to the fbi describing our 88 year old father agreed to purchase 250 000 worth of timeshare points over the course of 18 months he was diagnosed with dementia during this time he's now 89 and living in a nursing home and the couple of course purchased the points from diamond resorts international one of the grossest of all the timeshare companies who has just been purchased or is in agreement to be purchased by hilton for 1.4 billion dollars hilton you're getting ready to screw up a really good brand by swallowing this rat i know you think you're swallowing this rat but you're going to get indigestion when you do hilton it's going to cause you a problem as a matter of fact there are activists shareholders trying to prevent the sale because they do not want hilton to buy diamond resorts her father 87 at the time enjoying a day trip to the beach with his wife at a town about 30 miles from their house in central california and they came across a charming hotel unbeknownst to them the property was hotel california no i'm kidding it would you know you know you can leave you can but you can't you can come in but you really can't leave you know been purchased by diamond salespeople standing outside the property lured the old interested couple into a timeshare sales pitch she writes that they immediately regretted the purchase a month after purchasing the first contract my dad tried to end the agreement due to his wife's declining health and included a letter diamond turned him down so he paid off the promissory note in full believing that would be the end of it it was only the beginning shortly thereafter diamond told them they needed to go to a meeting to learn how to use their points the meeting turned out to be another lengthy sales pitch 250 thousand dollars later they owned a bunch of points to diamond oh by the way he had dementia turn it over to the fbi who's investigating it's not the first time consumers have described possible elder abuse in the timeshare industry which was reinventing its business model in recent years yeah sales are down timeshares used to be tied to a specific property where people owned a partial deed and had the right to vacation for a set amount of days a year but in recent years the industry has instead switched over to the points concept just kind of like those airline miles you get with your credit card you ever tried to use them dadgum near impossible so if you've been screwed over by the timeshare industry we want to hear from you this hour we're going to talk to real people we're going to talk to attorneys who are suing the timeshare industry we're going to continue to expose this fraud in america today diamond international being at the top of the list westgate along in there and when mo wyndham you have done some nasty things to people and uh we're going to be talking about all of you guys this hour at length things that actual real people are saying about you like the aarp or the fbi these are initials that actually people think might matter when someone files a complaint against you people because you screw people for a living a time share is one of the worst possible products out there because it has zero value zero none nada horrible with what you spend on a time you go pay 22 000 for a week how many times can you stay in a freaking hotel for 22 000 where is the math going did you people go get out unbelievable what grade did you graduate from but when you're sitting in the tiger cage and the tiger's going come here i won't eat you if you sign come here come here pet the tiger go into the tiger cage and pet the tiger he's not eaten for three days they will tell you anything they will lie to you they will be mean to you they will be nice to you they will do anything to get you to give you give them your money for something that has absolutely no value zero none nada no value so time share people we want to hear from you the phone number is triple eight eight two five five two two five if you're in the scummy business and you wanna debate me call in come into the tiger cage yeah that would be good radio yeah and uh maybe maybe you don't like me that's fine come on we'll talk i i don't like you either so it's a fair trade yeah you screw people for a living you should stop it oh my son's a timeshare salesman dave you shouldn't talk nasty about him your son should get a job where he doesn't screw people for a living he's scum don't be scum anymore and i won't call you scum it's easy [Music] real easy don't rip people off and you won't have me on your back it's not a hard thing phone number here is triple eight eight two five five two two five what makes our show unique is that we genuinely care about our listeners we're intentional about choosing the best advertisers to recommend blinds.com is no exception they offer high quality window treatments at unbelievable prices and they make it simple to shop blinds shades and interior shutters with easy online ordering free shipping and a guaranteed perfect fit go to blinds.com and take advantage of this week's special savings [Music] so if you have a background in the time share industry or you have been ripped off by them or you want to talk about the business because from a personal experience we want to hear from you the phone number is triple eight eight two five five 5225 you can also email kelly and put timeshare in the subject line and tell us a little bit about your story and we'll get back in touch with you and put you on a future show on timeshares because this won't be the only time we talk about america's greatest legalized fraud so you can email kelly at dave on air at ramseysolutions.com daveonair ramseysolutions.com put time share in the subject line tell us a little bit about it and give us a place for kelly to get back in touch with you we're not going to tell you what to say but we just want to arrange for you to be on the air and tell your story to 22 million people yeah you should we want to hear from you dave on air at ramseysolutions.com ben is in chicago hi ben what happened with you oh i've had quite a journey uh with the timeshare industry and and actually with you as well i went to get my master's about seven years ago and one of my professors made us study this book you may have heard of it total money makeover and uh so my wife and i actually began to live out those steps very laser focused because our goal was to not have kids until we were debt-free we accomplished that goal and then once we had kids our laser focused from fatigue or whatever went away and uh had made a couple questionable choices one of them happened in february we hadn't taken a vacation just her and i together for a long long time so went down to florida i'm naturally relatively frugal and so uh just got signed up for a time share presentation and in hopes that we could see some free sea world and so went down there and had you didn't even get a free night you got tickets to see to sea world to see yep exactly wow exactly so we went down there and this is this past year so february 11th we showed up as far as the comedies that is fine you know nothing overly special but it's fine did that for three days and finally the timeshare presentation came around it was early in the morning on valentine's day sunday morning and so we went down there early got pulled into a room had a one-on-one experience with the sales person and they start asking you personal questions about yourself because they're trying to find what they can poke what they can manipulate right what your soft spots are and like i said for me it's my kids and so they poked in pride until they found that and uh basically the sales pitch was well you want to have your kids have a great experience right you want them to have regular vacations right you want them to grow closer to you this is how you do it you can do it in an affordable way since i do have a background with you in the past but i hadn't recently been walking that line well i knew timeshare was not ideal so i said look i don't want to be in a contract i don't want to pay an xx amount it's got to be it's got to be a deal and so he said well we are the only time share company that offers a full buy-back guarantee so if you don't like it whenever this happens you sell it back it will be market retail you know you're gonna you're gonna have at least as much as you paid for it if not more and so that was appealing right it's a get out of jail free card if we hated it and he gave us points and so he said your stay is 40 000 points and i said well what is that worth right it means nothing until you have some time on it he said offered to stay here in a silver lake resort which is in kissimmee florida he said that that was worth three weeks and i said okay did the math we did a down payment of five thousand zero percent interest for the rest of it which is ten thousand total i've done the math obviously on that three weeks in orlando and they said or anywhere else uh it was a fairly reasonable deal and so we walked out we felt pretty comfortable with it but everything we found out very quickly was fraudulent so 11 days out which of course is one day after the contract they finally give us the login information no points there i call in and they say well you've got to wait we'll insert the points for you and the process goes on and finally in april and may we have access to our points and so i try to punch them in to test their value because i'm starting to feel pretty concerned about this at this point in time and i realized that forty thousand and not only just forty thousand but they gave us a bonus twelve thousand points on top wasn't worth three weeks in fact it wasn't worth one week of a stay at this resort and so i called back in and said this is a fraudulent sales practices i don't want to be a part of this and so i'm going to evoke the buy back guarantee and they said we don't offer such a thing so of course this drove me through all sorts of things including reading every word of the contract and of course built into the contract is this tiny little phrase we are not held accountable to anything the salesman says and so we went through that process uh try to get a hold of them back and forth no response no response no response no response right in the middle of that of course in my stress and distress you did this hour-long time share presentation talk which made me feel much much worse about the situation i'm sorry and i reached no it's okay it was just the reality right it was true yeah so which company is this uh the the resort is called silver lake resorts in kissimmee florida i don't know the affiliation i know you've talked about some of these bigger entities but i i'm not entirely sure of whatever their affiliation is but since then i've contacted the better business bureau of course all they do is say do bad we've contacted them they refuse to work with you they refuse to work with you they refuse to work with you we'll just put a bad review on their page which doesn't help me at all so right now i'm stuck with something i don't want based on two aggressive lies when i finally got a hold of somebody of course they said well we can't do anything for you and and the guy who sold that to you of course doesn't work here anymore of course which i wish i'm assuming is just a a quick yeah no they don't because they know they're screwing people and they go get a job where they don't have to do that anymore because most people have somewhat of a soul you know most people do but uh so i'm trying to look up silver oak on google while we're doing this james you keep poking around it looks like it's independent rci resort directory i don't know what rci is but uh yeah so but anyway we know we know that that's one but this is standard i mean this is standard for all this this this story could have been logged under any uh you know any of the companies that are out there because this is this is exactly what happens with every one of them and so but this one is uh whatever rci is apparently they're affiliated with that so very interesting wow i'm so sorry ben sorry you got screwed but thank you for telling the story because that lets people know that this really happens all the time so really what we're saying is you can tell a timeshare salesman is lying if his mouth is moving that's what you experienced accurate and i you know after your long presentation about this i was really embarrassed and i haven't want to tell anyone about it but i thought you know what scripture is filled with these guys who make mistakes and it's from their mistakes that we actually grow from it so i thought you know what i'm embarrassed about this i don't want to tell people about this i don't want to tell my neighbor about this but people need to know i appreciate you i appreciate you pushing through that when i went broke and lost everything i was embarrassed to tell anybody about it for a long time and now i've helped a whole lot of people because i told the story so all it makes you if you got messed over by these people is human dude you got nothing to be embarrassed about they lied to you as you said it was a fraudulent transaction and now we just let the world know silver lake resorts kissimmee florida gosh i wouldn't want to be them this week would you can you imagine what happened i just said that over the radio with 22 million listeners can you imagine working there tomorrow [Music] the largest legalized fraud in america today the timeshare industry billions upon billions upon billions of dollars one of the largest diamond international being sold right now to hilton for 1.4 billion dollars mike flasky the ceo mikey i call him mikey is obviously as the ceo's holding a bunch of stock in his hand that's getting ready to be converted to hilton stock this guy's getting ready to get richer than he already is with his sale to hilton activist investors are fighting the hilton stockholders of hilton are fighting against this sale saying it's bad for hilton well guess what it is when you swallow a whole wheelbarrow load of rats you know what you're going to get hilton indigestion your brand is going to get screwed up because you're associated with people screwing people westgate all this bunch westgate resorts according to this article westgate resorts class action alleges high pressure sales tactics uses high pressure schemes to convince prospective purchasers in the buying vacation timeshare program according to legal news a recent class-action lawsuit alleges westgate failed to adequately disclose material and legally required information to prospective buyers and also doesn't provide adequate access to their time shares there it is again in addition the timeshare owners claim westgate fails to adequately train and supervise its sales agents and does not provide them with disclosures to give to prospective customers and encourages them to lie to customers with high pressure sales pitches westgate also also allegedly relies on its closing agents to provide written disclosures and provides them with a closing portfolio that contains a secret pocket where the closing officers can conceal legally required disclosures about the consumer's rights including their right to rescind the purchase scummy scummy uh randy's in madison wisconsin got a time share story what's up randy hey dave uh my story's not unique probably to anything that you guys have already discussed or anything but i just kind of wanted to share and just kind of warn people about what you're talking about and uh it kind of relates to what you say about credit cards you're just playing with snakes and if you get in that snake pit with them eventually you're going to get bit so don't even give them the opportunity to bite you because that's what they're really trying to do is lure into that pit and fill you full of their venom it's like when we went and did it i think they really truly try to prey on poor people the most because if you if you've got money you you're really not there trying to seek a good deal on a vacation you just go on vacation you get the hotel room you book you get the flights and you go but they try to who i think prey on the people that they're we're trying to reel in by well we can sell them this great deal even though they might not be able to afford it be the only way they can go on vacation what happened well in our scenario it was we were just newly married and we were we were thinking about you know vacations you know heck we got 40 50 years hopefully together and what do we want to do for vacations you know we got this thing in the mail you know say come join us you know basically feed you for the you know give you that free meal and uh lure you into a casino night where you could win gifts and uh and then they they lure you into the room by themselves and they give you the sales pitch and they they all you know just like everyone else has said the pressure the tactics that they use the promises they give you but even some more the stuff that they don't tell you we weren't told about numerous things whether it be the rca subscription that you had to use to buy every year whether it was the exchange fee that you had to pay if you wanted to go outside your week you know and and we borrowed money you know like you say you know the borrower's slave to the lender i walked out of that meeting that night with them guys and you know they they bring it in with the one guy and then you know they they got the guy in the back who can make you a better deal you know what i mean oh yeah and i i walked out of there that night me and my wife sick to our stomach as soon as we got in the car and left that after we signed on the dotted line we were sick to our stomach what did we just do well little did we know we had a writer rescission we knew nothing about that because we weren't educated in it they didn't let us in on any of that you know that we could have got out of it you know when we got home the next day but we were reeled in and um with all the promises and uh which company well and dave i don't know who that was um it was um up at the wisconsin dells outside of madison and it was at christmas mountain village is the name of the resort but it might have been like winter tree or winter green or something like that i can't really remember bluegrass um oh that okay that could have been what it was but um and i mean and i know people they have that own three of these things and they don't ever leave their yard can you imagine that i mean you're talking four or five thousand dollars and you're not even going on vacation but you own three of them oh boy i to talk about a sucker one sucker twice but um so we were blessed dave unlike the gentleman that you just had on before me in wisconsin um we contacted the better business bureau and the consumer protection agency and they actually filed a class action lawsuit on our behalf and we we did not pay a dime to get out of it and they won the lawsuit and they agreed to let us out of the deal and give us our money back wow praise god yeah you got it you got out with your skin but other than that it's the same story it's the same story i mean don't even give them the opportunity because just don't go in the tiger cage don't pet the tiger you think you're stronger than the tiger but when you get in the cage you realize you're not yeah don't pet the tiger why pet the tiger just for just for a pass to the zoo it's silly that's what that's what everybody does hey man thanks for the call i appreciate you sharing that hey if you've got a time share story call us at triple eight eight two five five two two five or email me at dave on air at ramsey solutions dot com dave on air ramsey solutions dot com put time share in the subject line tell kelly who be picking up those emails a little bit about what's going on and how to get in touch with you we certainly won't tell you what to say but we will schedule you to be on the air scott montgomery is a an attorney who frequently sues the timeshare industry he's in springfield missouri we thought we'd have scott on because he's got some expertise in this area how are you scott i'm great dave how are you i am better than i deserve sir and uh that's confirmed by mike flasky wow so tell me uh he thinks i deserve a lot worse in other words so tell me your experience with this industry well back in 2018 we filed lawsuits here in missouri uh near branson missouri which is a a beautiful part of the country but certainly a cesspool of timeshare activity so we were hired by dozens of mostly elderly timeshare owners and we filed lawsuits on their behalf and in retaliation for that windham and bluegreen sued me personally down in florida where i have never practiced law and i'm still mired in those lawsuits today the the discovery seems to be never ending and you know these lawsuits against attorneys like me who represent defrauded timeshare owners they're clearly designed to chill access to the courts or these defrauded owners it's it's really horrible one of the timeshare pushers attorneys actually said in court that their goal is to put fake law firms out of business they they call mine a fake law firm you know we're a small law firm of poor attorneys here in the missouri ozarks but we're far from a fake law firm and we've filed lots of lawsuits against the timeshare industry in the suit that they filed against us down in florida they actually complained that we have not sued them enough so we we have tried to oblige them and sue them some more [Laughter] that's fabulous oh can you hang with me through this break scott i sure can okay i'll be right back with you i want to hear the rest of this so we oblige them and suit them some more i like this guy this is fun oh we're talking about time shares this hour if you want to join the discussion the phone number is triple eight eight two five five two two five [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] our scripture today psalm 62 and 5 let all that i am wait quietly before god for my hope is in him amelia earhart said decide whether or not the goal is worth the risks involved if it is stop worrying well our goal today is to continue to expose and continue to discuss the timeshare industry the american association of whatever having to do with the timeshare business is called arda and they funded a report that says that 87 percent of time share owners rate their timeshare ownership as good or excellent funded by the timeshare industry uh however university of central florida did a study that says just the opposite eighty-five percent of time sharing owners who go to contract regret their purchase how many businesses do 85 of their customers think they suck and they stay open how many unbelievable all right we're talking with an attorney in missouri scott montgomery who was uh on behalf of elderly people ripped off in the ozarks with time shares it sued several companies their answer was to sue him to sue the attorney and since they're a small law firm to go ahead and just bury them in discovery requests buckets and failings of discovery requests to see if they can put these attorneys out of business their goal is to put these attorneys that sue them out of business by countersuing them or suing them and burying them scott that's what you said right absolutely dave that's what's happening now christian wall was on here a few weeks ago another attorney who's representing attorneys who have been sued and is he representing you too yes he is dave oh good good sharp very good so you guys are kind of banding together to fight back we are absolutely we're trying to gather together good litigators from around the country to combat this problem and you know our firm we we represent almost 7 000 time share owners from around the country and i would say that 100 percent of my thousands of clients think that the timeshare industry sucks and they hate their timeshare and regret their purchase tremendously yeah so that's an unofficial survey right there but fairly accurate yeah if you if you hire an attorney to sue somebody you pretty much think they suck i think that that's 100 yeah i'll go with that that's fun so the cause of action from a legal perspective that you guys usually take if you're going to sue someone you can't just make up something to sue them about unless you're the timeshare business which they made up something to sue you about but you guys are finding actual fraudulent processes that you're putting in the case i assume absolutely dave we we sue for fraud and for negligent misrepresentation and for violations of state merchandising practices act which allows our clients to recover their damages along with their attorney's fees but we we've also started filing lawsuits based upon some more innovative causes of action i think one is for the charging of illegal document preparation fees if you if you go to a closing at your timeshare sales presentation you're probably going to be stuck with hundreds or thousands of dollars of illegal document preparation fees that uh that constitutes the unauthorized practice of law that that's a crime a non-attorney cannot charge for document preparation fees we're also seeing the tactics where the timeshare pushing companies they charge their uh they charge the consumer for title insurance title insurance for these points you don't get create it if you don't get a title how can you get title insurance it is certainly a mystery to me but they charge hundreds or thousands of dollars for title insurance for points that they created it's just crazy we we have seen a large time share pusher charge uh thousands of dollars for a life insurance policy so that the consumer can you know be sure and pay off their debt to the timeshare company when uh when they pass away we've also filed suit for the unauthorized practice of realty you know these shares there and they're an interest in real estate and the seller and the agent that have a real estate license yeah the guy who's sitting across the table from you at the timeshare sales presentation they should have a realtor's license and they don't so we're filing suits on on the basis of all of those things yeah and how often are you getting them out these days well that's a that's a great question it depends on the individual circumstances of the individual case yeah there are hundreds of time share pushers in the country but you got you said you had 7 000 cases underway right we have almost 7 000 clients currently or who we have have helped to obtain a release oh i've asked okay we've helped thousands of people obtain a release it is unfortunately it is uh much easier for you to get out of your timeshare contract if you are what is known in the industry as paid in full if you paid off your timeshare mortgage and that's a thing most timeshare purchases are financed if you've paid off your mortgage and you've paid your annual maintenance fees which are often fifteen hundred dollars for something you can't use if you're paid in full we can often negotiate a release for you from the timeshare pushing company yeah if you still have if you still have a mortgage it's much more difficult they don't want to give up that money they've already but if they already got your money they're more likely to let you go yeah that makes sense oh my gosh hey scott we appreciate you sharing with us today man that's incredible i'm so sorry they're going after you personally that's just ridiculous but it's uh it's par for the course with these guys they think they have enough money to just bury anybody who takes them on and uh well now they've met somebody that's not gonna happen james is with us james is in waco texas hey james how are you i'm doing fine dave how are you good give me a quick version of your timeshare mess okay basically uh back in uh march of 99 my wife and i i went on a honeymoon in las vegas and uh we were hanging around the hotel and guy came up to us and was talking to us about uh a show that they were giving free tickets to that night if we wanted to come and listen to a presentation the next day so we did that and uh make a long story short we ended up listening to the presentation and we purchased the timeshare phone and uh we uh had the time share for about 15 years and only use them five times [Music] okay so you paid three thousand dollars per use yeah and so yeah and so uh was it worth that i mean did you no no no i mean what could you bought a hotel room that was similar to that for oh my goodness probably 120 at the moment back then anyway yeah yeah per night yeah yeah okay 10. right yeah wow amazing which company was this i was uh diamond um diamond international international okay so what ended up happening at the end of the story well basically uh we uh went to um uh branson for another vacation and and the hotel had the same guys there from diamond resorts they were pushing you know these timeshares and i told the guy we were already remembering the timeshare so they looked us up and said hey you know you guys under the old program uh that's why you have to pay all these maintenance fees but if you sign up for a new program you don't have to pay the maintenance fees and of course you know we're already listening to your show and we're trying to figure out what to do about all that oh my gosh i'm sorry james so our answer is if you've been screwed and you complain about it we'll sell you some more what a business 85 to 87 of your customers hate you and you still stay in business that's amazing well maybe we can help with that that puts this hour of the ramsey show in the books we'll be back with you before you know it in the meantime remember there's ultimately only one way to financial peace and that's to walk daily with the friends of peace christ jesus [Music] have a friend or family member that needs a daily dose of ramsay advice in their life let them know about the ramsey call of the day podcast it's a quick hit of advice about life and money in under 10 minutes check out the ramsey call of the day podcast wherever you listen to podcasts you

Channel: The Ramsey Show - Full Episodes

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Id: 6E_7QdxI5Ak

Length: 121min 55sec (7315 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 17 2021