Chapter 1: What is discussed at the start of this section?
Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Normal is broken. Common sense is weird. So we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network and the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio, this is The Ramsey Show. Alongside the fabulous, incomparable Jade Warshaw, I'm just Ken. That's a lyric, you know? I'm sorry, Ken. From the Barbie movie. That's all.
I'm just trying to do a little shout-out, see if the audience is awake and paying attention. Fabulous studio audience today. Yeah. Handsome looking group of people that we'll meet here in a little bit out there watching in the lobby. So let's get right to it. 888-825-5225. That's the number to jump in today. Sarah joins us in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Sarah, how can we help? Hey, guys.
So my husband and I keep on loaning his mom money. She always pays it back, to be fair. But then she asks again, and I'm starting to really resent it. And we disagree on whether to keep helping. And I just don't know how to go forward with my husband from here. Oh, boy. Obviously, you don't want to. He feels he has to. Is that a fair classification? Okay.
And tell me about the last conversation that you guys had about this. How did it go? Well, it started because she asked for $7,000 to fix her car. I thought this was in the $70 range to be completely honest. No, no, no. This is not chump change. Wow. No, it's always thousands of dollars. And I basically told him, like, listen, we're her piggy bank, and I'm tired of being her piggy bank.
What did he say? Go ahead. Well, he says that... She never asks for frivolous things. It's always, quote, unquote, an emergency or important. Okay, tell me what the $7,000 ask was for. Just, I think it was the transmission on her car.
Hmm.
And how often does this occur? Is this once a year? Is it every couple months? And is it always to the tune of thousands of dollars? Or is it sometimes just like, spot me a couple of hundies? No, it's always thousands of dollars. It's at least once a year. And it's sometimes twice a year. And she always pays it back? She does, yeah.
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Chapter 2: What financial challenges does Sarah face with her husband's mom?
How long does that take? I don't know because this is all just my husband's word, but I think six months. Yeah, this is tough. The reason I asked, because I really wanted Jade to lean in on this one, because you are the wife. And this is tough for me.
I don't have any clear response because the reason I asked about the relationship conversation was what had happened the last time we talked about it. And you didn't give me a lot of detail, but from what I am inferring, he basically was like, well, it's not frivolous. She needed a new transmission. And so in his mind... He's justifying mom's crazy ass. He's on mom's side, and that's a problem.
So I'm going to actually defer to you here, because this... Not to say that a man can't inform this question, but I do think it's unique. I want you to lead off here. Could I be honest with you? I'm not sure what she does here. I think that this is a classic... Therapy, for sure. This is kind of a classic leave and cleave type deal, where...
the son has to go, I love my mom, my mom made me, she raised me, I have nothing but love for her, but if I'm forced to choose and my wife is not wrong, it's just a, well, I think the husband's wrong, but I'm just saying in his mind, in his mind, if he's seeing it as a question of preference, my mom prefers this, my wife prefers this, you gotta go with the wife every time. Yeah.
And that's the question I have quick. I don't want to totally interrupt your momentum, but I do want to Sarah. I mean, is he completely clear if he were sitting right here with Jaden? Would he be completely clear that you've had it with this or or does he think you're just mildly frustrated? What does he think? I think he knows that I've kind of had it with this. Okay.
I've been pretty blunt with him. You said something earlier that begs a couple of questions from me. When I asked, does she pay the money back? By the way, that's neither here nor there to the question of whether you should lend it. I was trying to understand his point of view a little bit more so I can... argue it. But what you responded was, was interesting.
You said that basically, as far as you know, based on your husband's word, which made me think like, do you not have access into seeing each other's finances? Are you sharing finances basically? I mean, technically we do, but we do not have a joint bank account.
Okay, so that right there, and I'm going to tell you right now, Sarah, we've been getting more and more of these calls where what happens is you guys have not fully aligned on finances. the philosophy of it, nor how we share our money, right? There's still this kind of side business going on where we have one account that we put checks in, but we also have our side accounts.
What happens when you set up life like that is you actively pull yourself out of being the decision maker with your spouse on every major financial issue, because you've already said we're not fully together. And so that I think is why your husband is operating over here saying, ah, it's not that big of a deal. She always pays me back. I'm not saying it's right. I'm just understanding it.
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Chapter 3: How does Sarah's husband justify lending money to his mom?
This is embarrassing. I mean, I would just go straight at it. He's not here today. So we want to equip you. But I think Jade's insight is absolutely phenomenally on target. So because of that, I think you're going to have to have a marriage therapist to bring you together hopefully a skilled one who is the middle ground and can go, we do have to reset.
Because I think he's operating like, what's the big deal? Yeah, because you're the one who, and I'm not saying this in a wrong way. I think you're absolutely right, Sarah. But if you look at what the agreement was, right? If you and I say, here's the stakes, we'll do this together. And then you're the one who changes. He has the right to be confused or wonder, well, what's the big deal? Mm-hmm.
And again, I can't stress this enough. I believe you're right in wanting to not continue to lend her money. But in that, that's not the bigger problem. The bigger problem is we actually need to have full transparency on our money. We need to be fully combined on our money. And I agree with Ken, counseling is the way to start that new process. And here's the ask. Here's what you got to tell him.
You have to say, we have to do this. We have to go to counseling. It's not a threat. We have to go. This is causing me to resent you and your mom. I don't like it and I don't have the tools to convince you. So will you please do this for me? I think that's your posture. And, you know, the context has to be reset. Because you guys are not on the same page. Therefore, he's like, what's the issue?
So it's going to be tough. It's not going to be easy. Right, right, right. But, Jade, in this situation, there is no easy. This has to be confrontation and, to your point, a full-blown operational reset. Absolutely.
And then on the money front, what I see, honestly, just on the money front, it's only a matter of time because she's not been a good, the mother-in-law has not been a good manager of finances. It's only a matter of time before she stops paying you guys back is what I see because she's just not a responsible person with her money. Oh, and be prepared. And I don't want to judge her.
But be prepared for a pretty nice blowback from mom. Because I believe she's either knowingly or unknowingly manipulating your husband, her son. Wow. And that's going to be sticky and stinky. The words of Scar. Be prepared. Dave, we got a lot of calls on this show where life happens. One day someone's healthy, they're working, providing for their family, and then a curveball hits.
You know, we hear it all the time. A car accident, a cancer diagnosis, a heart attack, and suddenly everything changes. Yeah, and that's why you've always said that having term life insurance from Zander is essential because it protects your family if the worst happens. Yeah, that's right. You need 10 to 12 times your income in coverage.
No gimmicks, no whole life junk, just straightforward term life protection. But there's another piece that people often overlook, and that's long-term disability insurance. Yeah, it's important to understand the difference between them. Life insurance steps in when you die. Disability insurance steps in while you're alive but can't work.
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Chapter 4: What advice do the hosts give Sarah about her situation?
Now the car's just kind of sitting, it's being used. But we had asked her to sell it by we, I mean, my other siblings and I. But she doesn't want to sell it. Why? She's kind of underwater. So even if she does sell it, she won't get much for it. Okay. How much do you guys, well, let me say, how much does the mom and the brother owe on it? About 20 grand left on it. Okay.
What's it worth if they sold it? It's in such bad shape, you kind of ruined it. Sorry? You said somebody ruined it. She ruined it or he ruined it? He ruined it when he was using it. Just wrecking it? He just didn't take care of it. Maintenance. Yeah, it's been wrecked a couple times as well. Why are you calling? Interior is terrible. Because mom has asked him to help out.
And brother, because brother won't. She was in an accident last year as well. She was? Taking care of her while she's been going through rehab and physio and stuff like that. Understood. What could she sell the car for today? Maybe five grand, honestly. Oh, gosh. If she's lucky. Okay. Well, this is, first of all, your brother is in a season of life where he is impersonating a deadbeat.
And so deadbeats only wake up when they're forced to wake up. But the problem is mom's name is on this, and she refuses to help herself, correct? Kind of. The main reason she doesn't want to necessarily take it back to the bank or maybe just get it repoed, which I've heard is a good idea. Well, repo is not an option, and we can talk to you about why that is, but continue on.
Yeah, so eventually she says she wants to get a house soon enough, which I personally think she can't afford. So the biggest thing for me really is just... Continuing to help feels like enabling. I don't know how to approach her in a sense like, okay, in as much as we've been helping this entire time, there's a couple things she could do. What else have you been doing to help?
Because it sounds like you've already been down that road. It's mostly just bills and rent and stuff like that. I still live at home, but I just got married, so I'm moving out. Is that because of the accident or that's just always been ongoing? It's been ongoing, but more so after the accident. And who's we? I thought I heard you say we've been helping.
My siblings and I. I have a younger brother and then I'm older. Are your siblings that have been helping with the bills, are they all in the same opinion of you that you just said, which is, I feel like I'm helping and it's enabling. Do they have the same feeling? Somewhat. My older sister, yes. My younger brother, not too sure. He doesn't say much.
Listen, you asked a question, and I'm going to answer the question that I heard, and that is, how do I approach her on this? How do I handle this? And this is you going, Mom, I can't do this anymore. Here's what you should do. If I were you, this is what I would do.
And you lay it out and say, I'd sell the car because every day that she doesn't sell the car, there's like another calamity that's probably going to happen to this. And I feel like this entire car represents a lot of the calamity that your brother creates and no one is willing to do anything about it.
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Chapter 5: What is your net worth and how is it structured?
What is your net worth? We like to say it's in excess of $2 million. You like to say? What does that mean? Well, there may be a little bit more in there that's promised to our endowments and things like that that we don't really consider our money anymore. Okay. Because we made a pledge to give it away. Okay. So we set it on $2 million, and our mind is our money. Got it.
And what is the mix that creates the $2 million? We have about a million and six in mutual funds and 401ks and then the remainder in real estate. Jeff, I don't know what's going on with the phone here.
Chapter 6: What advice do you have for young couples starting their financial journey?
We're having a hard time understanding you. Your phone's kind of coming in and out. All right, well. You need to speak closer, that's why. There it is. Leonora is on top of it. That's great. So 1.6 in mutual funds, and what is the other $400,000, the mortgage? No, no, no.
Chapter 7: How do you maintain financial discipline while enjoying life?
Real estate, we don't carry mortgages. We don't carry any debt whatsoever. Right, I mean the equity. Oh, gosh. I'm going to say half a million dollars in equity.
Okay.
Perfect. And what is your income or what was your income? Give us kind of your lowest income ever and then what you guys may have finished out at, your highest income. Our lowest income ever was probably $30,000, $40,000 to $50,000. Okay. And it grew to an average between the both of us of, I'd say, $150,000. towards the end of our saving years. Okay, great.
Chapter 8: What are the key takeaways for managing family financial expectations?
And what did you guys do? We're both medical professionals. I'm a trauma nurse and a paramedic, and my wife, Leodora, she's a registered nurse. Wow. We were an ER director for years as well. Oh, fantastic. Okay. And your age is right now? I'm 68. I'm 71. Okay, great. And any of this money inherited at all? No. The chuckle.
The knowing chuckle that we ask just so people realize you can actually do this without inheriting money. Wow. Really fun. What would you say to young people who, you know, are just getting started? Maybe they're a young couple. Maybe they're in the medical profession, you know, and they wonder, is this possible? What would you tell them they need to do to actually get where you guys are?
Well, I would say no amount is too small to start saving and to clear all your debt. My husband, that was his clarion call, no debt. And a lot of that he learned from Dave Ramsey and listening to him and reading his books. And we lived by that rule. Because we had lots of debt when we were young, when we were first married. And very little, very little. We pant the mouth, as they say.
But we just struggled. You make sacrifices, but you have to have your eyes on the prize. And it wasn't always easy, but it's without fail, hard work, determination, and commitment. You can do anything. I love it. And we just saw an awesome picture of you two on a cruise ship. So describe what life is like now on the other side of all that hardship and discipline that you talked about.
Well, basically right now we still survive just on our social security checks, believe it or not. Okay. But every once in a while, we splurge, and we've splurged to the tune of about five cruises this year. That's awesome. I'm sorry? I said that's incredible. Yeah.
Yeah, we've been to the South Pacific and Fiji and all those islands and places out there in Alaska and a number of different destinations. And, you know, so we understand our mortality to be in our ages that we are. So we're going to spend a little bit of it. Well, we're so proud. You guys are heroes. We're so proud of what you've accomplished. That's awesome.
Jeff and Leonora, thank you so much. Our Baby Steps Millionaires today. Thanks for sharing your story. I love it. And there's so many young couples that could aspire to that. And here's what I love about that, Jade. You know, Leonora laid it out. There wasn't any fancy strategy, right? Nope.
It was just gods and grandmas, ways of handling money, the same theme that we've had on this show for decades. So thank you all again for sharing your story. Really, really fun. Let's go to Nick in San Francisco. Nick, how can we help? I'm doing great. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's going on? I live in California, and as you can imagine, housing is extremely expensive here.
And I was wondering if it makes sense. to buy a rental property before buying a primary property. what would be the purpose of doing that first? Is it a size issue? Like, is it a rental is way smaller than what you need, but at least it gets you in the door? What's the play here?
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