📈 Are you on track with the Baby Steps? Get a Free Personalized Plan Ken Coleman & George Kamel answer your questions and discuss: "My wife has been hiding credit cards from me," "I signed up a loan not realizing that the interest is 48%..." "Can I afford to buy a home?" "We make $130k and still overspend," "My company is getting hit hard by the tariffs," "My mother added me to her credit card. I've removed myself but what how do I get it off my credit report?" "I've fallen into the personal loan trap and I can't get out!" Support Our Sponsors: 🌱 Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp 🏥 Learn more about Christian Healthcare Ministries 🏡 Get started today with Churchill Mortgage 🔒 Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe 🏦 Go to FAIRWINDS Credit Union for an exclusive account bundle! 🥗 Save 15% on your first Field of Greens order with code RAMSEY ⛨ Find top Health Insurance Plans at Health Trust Financial 💸 To find out more about student loan refinancing, check out Laurel Road 💻 Visit NetSuite today to learn more 🗂️ Use promo code RAMSEY for 18% off at The Nokbox 💵 Learn more about Timothy Plan 🏛 Get started with YRefy or call 844-2-RAMSEY 🔐 Visit Zander Insurance for your free instant quote today! Next Steps 📱 Watch the full episode for free in the Ramsey Network app. 📞 Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET or click here! 🏠 Get organized and prepared to buy or sell a home. ☂️ Get trusted insurance coverage that fits your budget. 📖 Preorder Build a business You Love today. 💵 Start your free budget today. Download the EveryDollar app! 🎟️ Get Tickets to the Money & Relationships Tour 🏘️ Find a Ramsey Trusted Real Estate Agent Listen to more from Ramsey Network 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 💰 George Kamel 🪑 Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman 📈 EntreLeadership Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: What is the focus of today's Ramsey Show?
This is The Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about your money, your profession, and your relationships. The phone number to jump in is 888-825-5225. I'm Ken Coleman, joined by my pal, the Natalie-attired George Camelazinger. Wow. All I could think of was, your profession is Ken's obsession. I think that's a good tagline. I like that. That's a great call.
I want to help you make more money. I'm the work expert, if you're new to the Ramsey world. And that's what they say anyway. I don't like actually calling myself an expert. But I'll tell you what I can do. I'm going to help you figure out how to make more money in your work. So that George can help you with the budget. What do you do with that money? Pay it off debt, investing.
And that's the one-two punch today. And we also think we're kind of funny. We try. We try to make this show enjoyable when we're together. We're going to give you the same advice, but we're going to have a little fun. So if you don't like that, I'm sorry. There's nothing you can do about it. That's Ken's way of saying kick rocks and pound sand if you don't like that. That's exactly right.
Speaking of helping people, you ready to go? Let's go. Let's go to Zachary in Omaha, Nebraska. Zachary, how can we help today?
Well, long story short, we just found the Ramsey Show here about a week ago. Wow. Congratulations and welcome. Trying to get out of debt.
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Chapter 2: Why is my partner hiding credit card debt?
Yeah. Yeah.
And as we were sitting down and going through getting our debt listed, smallest to biggest, to start the baby steps, I had found some debt that life's been hiding from me over and over again. Credit cards, mainly. How much? Well, we have one maxed out credit card for about $1,000. And the biggest disappointment is it's actually maxed out on McDonald's.
Because it was connected to her app, and we had gotten rid of, paid this credit card off twice since June. Thought we had gotten rid of it. She told me she had closed it out.
That's a whole lot of combo meals. Yeah. There's a lot going on here. Was she sneakily going behind your back to McDonald's? Yeah. And not telling you?
No, I didn't say that. It was just, she works really early in the morning.
Uh-huh.
And just stopping and getting Beth's burritos and stuff at the easier to buy. Play on the app, skip the line, head to work, and it just got out of control.
Okay, so you thought it was coming out of the debit account, I mean, excuse me, your debit card or your bank account, and it was actually on a credit card. So was this malicious?
Did she know that it was not tied to the cards that you were aware of?
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Chapter 3: How can I manage a high-interest personal loan?
So what's your question for us?
I'm a math and numbers guy.
Yeah.
How can I go about this to include her, to help her... With taking over the finances, I want to be able to include her and hopefully maybe show her the numbers and the best way to go about it, taking on all the finances, but yet help her so she can eventually... Hopefully control money a lot better by yourself.
Well, I think number one, we have to realize that this is not a, you know, you're not the chaperone here. You are as guilty of making a lot of stupid decisions as we all are. So I think this needs to, you lead first by going, hey. Yeah. I have not done a good job handling money. I haven't done a good job leading us in this area. I want to work together on this.
Here's what that's going to look like. Do you agree? We're going to meet weekly for a budget meeting. We're going to track every transaction. There's going to be nothing hidden. Everything's got to be on the table if this is going to work. Are you in?
Do you feel the unity and teamwork in that conversation versus a, well, I'm taking over because clearly you can't be responsible for, you know, very different condescending tone on that second one. Yes. And so if you want to get her on board, it's going to start with you leading with empathy and creating a vision for what this is going to look like. And then her agreeing, yes, I agree to that.
Great. Now we can actually set some accountability based on what we agreed to in the past.
Okay. Which means we have cut up all credit cards.
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Chapter 4: Can I afford to buy a home with my current income?
What's your business?
It's dog grooming. Why did you need $29,000 for a dog grooming business that's struggling? To... I went to the next phase and, excuse me, didn't expect that. It's going into a mobile situation, a mobile grooming situation with a very specified market that nobody's really tapping into at this point. What is the market? You know. Well, I don't really want to say it out loud.
Oh, competition. You don't want to give away your Shark Tank idea here. Well, I hire mobile groomers, so I'm just curious because I pay these people and I understand how the business works.
And I've used a mobile groomer as well.
Right. But this was a... The concept was a little bit different. It's a larger grooming situation where you have two people inside and then you... We're situated in an area, a contracted area, that we would be there for three or four days, and we would take care of a certain population. So the only reason we're digging is... It's kind of like a pop-up.
Got it. But the only reason we're digging on this is we're trying to figure out how we help you get out of it. So the question is, was the $29,000 for like a van or some type of vehicle? Or was it just the equipment? Or was it just other stuff?
It was...
You're breaking up on us, Karen.
I'm sorry. It was part for the vehicle and then the other part for the conversion of the vehicle to the unit that I was trying to achieve.
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Chapter 5: Should I pause debt payments due to job insecurity?
Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. Alongside George Camel, I'm Ken Coleman. The phone number to jump in is 888-825-5225. The Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by YREFI. With YREFI, you can take control of your defaulted private student loans with a plan that works with your monthly budget. Visit YREFI.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey.
It may not be available in all states.
Today's question comes from Drew in Nebraska. He says, We're comfortable paying about $2,500 a month in rent. We would like to build this summer and potentially finish by the end of the year. Is this something we can afford? Well, Ken, this is like a common core math problem, and I don't think he's going to like the answer. I don't think so either.
I got my mortgage calculator up here on the Ramsey website. I love it when you talk nerdy. I know, and here's the deal. You're going to have PMI because right now you guys have about 12% down, $80,000 into $650,000. Tracking? Mm-hmm. which means you're going to have to pay PMI, which will likely be at least a few hundred bucks, maybe $300, $400, or even more.
And so you said we're comfortable paying $2,500 a month in rent. That mortgage would be closer to $6,200. So that's a lot. Now, you guys make great money. Stout. $250,000, I mean, that's serious. And so if you want to look at 25% of take-home pay, let's say they're bringing in $15,000 a month or so. Mm-hmm.
Well, that's probably a $3,000, $4,000 mortgage would be comfortable for them, which just tells me it's a patient's thing. We either have to save up more down payment or we need to lower the build of the house or look in a different area. And so this isn't a, no, you can't do this. This is a, we got to be patient here. And let me tell you, the baby lives in your room for the first six months.
So you already bought some time there. Not my room. Next up, now Ken's out. He's out on that. It's going to the nursery immediately.
I'm not a fan of that parenting strategy. Just going to call that out. The baby needs to sleep in its own room.
So there's one part of it, but really a baby, you can live where you are for the first year or two of the baby's life and survive. And so my take is have a little patience here and let's wait on this home purchase. Because number one, having a baby is a lot already on top of moving and building. There's a lot of moving pieces there.
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Chapter 6: What is the impact of tariffs on businesses?
Chapter 7: How to handle overspending on groceries?
Yeah, I know.
I'm trying to find one. I know, but Karen, listen. We want you to sell all this stuff, and you've got Social Security coming in, work 20, 30 hours, do whatever you can. But selling the RV and selling this van gets a whole lot of money.
I don't have the van yet. That's why I borrowed the money.
So where is the money right now?
Well, I was afraid to spend it once I figured out how much it was going to cost me. So I kept it and just let it pay itself.
Wait, so it's a money bank. Can you just go ahead and pay off the loan then? Yeah.
I could, but it would take pretty much everything that I had.
Better than paying $15,000 in interest that you don't have. Yes, Karen. This is get out of jail here. This is get out of jail, Kirk. I thought the damage was done and you already bought the van and did the renovations, but if you have the money sitting there... Oh, yeah, no.
No, it's not even there yet.
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