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Chapter 1: How should I handle a poorly maintained inherited rental property with back taxes?
This is The Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about life, specifically your money, your profession, and your relationships. 888-825-5225 is the phone number to jump in. We'd love to hear from you. 888-825-5225. Joining me today is Dr. John Deloney. I'm Ken Coleman. We're excited to be together to help you out. Let's get it going with Michaela in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Michaela, how can we help today?
Good afternoon. Thank you so much for allowing me to receive your wisdom today.
Oh, boy. Well, don't thank us too soon. That is youth. We haven't even dispensed of it yet, but I like how optimistic you are. What's going on?
So I have both a money and a relationship question all in one. In January, my father-in-law sadly passed away and left behind my mother-in-law. They were married 52 years, and he handled all of the finances. So on his deathbed, my father-in-law asked my husband to take care of his mom and take care of the rental property, which is going to be basically her income going forward. All great.
We didn't realize until a couple months in that the property was left very poorly maintained. There were some back taxes on it. There's been no insurance on the property. HOA is very high. So after we looked at all the numbers, we realized this is never going to be a truly income producing property where she can actually receive income from it.
Um, and the only reason it has been lately is because it was not maintained well. So it's been a point of contention because, um, it makes sense to sell it and get her something else that's more income producing for her, but she doesn't understand all of that. And she's very scared right now. And my husband just wants to leave everything as is. Um,
And she thinks that we're kind of stealing her money right now, which is not the case. We're just trying to back pay ourselves from all the expense we had to put into the rental property. So my question is, because the death is still so recent, do we just leave everything alone for right now?
Or should we pursue selling it and buying something that would actually be income producing for her, for her to live off of? And if so, at what time does that make sense to do that?
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Chapter 2: Should I quit my job to attend business school with a full scholarship?
And what's her income? You're going to go from combined income of what to what?
uh combined 210 stable to about 98. okay you've crunched these numbers and you guys are not going to be struggling just a little bit tighter true or false um we won't be struggling we'll be tighter we do have our our um our funds already that we have security and we also have some money that we have available in investments that we're willing to Okay, so a couple things here I'm hearing.
We don't want you using the emergency fund just to pad the income. Emergency fund is for emergencies only. And then I get nervous when I hear you talk about moving around investments. What does that mean?
Well, so from what we did, we said we will be able to afford this change in income based on our expenses.
Travis, let me recontextualize this. When you call the Ramsey Show and say you're struggling, people, when they call us, they don't know how they're going to pay rent or they don't have food. Gotcha. So when you say you're struggling, does that mean you don't know how you're going to pay your light bill and you may have to sell some stock to pay your light bill?
Or are you saying we're not going to be able to go out to eat for two years while you knock out business school?
Well, no, I didn't say that I was struggling. No, he said they won't struggle. He said it would be tight. Ah, okay. Tighter.
I thought he said he was going to struggle, too. No, no.
If I heard you right, Travis, you didn't say you guys will be struggling to make it paycheck to paycheck, correct?
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Chapter 3: How do I manage $40k credit card debt while dealing with health issues?
Here's me telling you I love you. The greatest gift you could give as a caretaker for somebody else is to make sure you're okay. And right now, your body is revolting for a number of different reasons. But I'm going to suggest that one of the main reasons is it knows you're not safe because it doesn't have groceries. It doesn't have a roof.
It doesn't have a friend that you can go laugh with or weep with. And so this is going to sound counterintuitive, but not kind of hoping. I would really love you to see for nobody else, but just Alexis, you to find two part-time jobs that you can do, even if it's uncomfortable, even if it's a little bit painful and begin to show your body. I can.
And that goes counter to everything, and I don't want to minimize your pain. I know you're in a ton of pain. And like you said, that not knowing, there's no name to this dragon that keeps burning down how you feel every day. Like, man, that is haunting. I get that. And it may be that when you get these diagnostics, you can go file for SSI and go through that whole complex place, but...
I don't see a path forward, but you've got to make some money.
I agree with you, John, wholeheartedly. Alexis, real quick here. What we've got to do is you've got to come up with a baseline of what I need to make to be able to just survive, take care of myself. And then I know the $43,000 or $44,000 seems insurmountable. It's actually not. It's not.
Don't file for bankruptcy. Please don't.
Don't sign up for one of these dumb credit things. Just get yourself above water.
by working the two jobs or whatever i couldn't agree more with you john and that means care about you as much as you care about you've got other people in your life you've got what it takes alexis but you got to fight right now or this is going to get way worse so fight you know one of the first things i discovered working in the financial world is how absolutely devastating it is when the breadwinner of a family dies
and there's too little life insurance or none at all. Grieving families are suddenly left behind scrambling to pay bills and trying to make ends meet. I also discovered that there are a lot of rip offs in the life insurance world like that whole life crap posing as an investment opportunity. What you need is level term life insurance, usually 10 to 12 times your income.
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Chapter 4: What is the best strategy to pay off multiple debts including student loans and a car loan at a young age?
Can we double click on that? You're a teacher? What did your wife do?
She was in property management. And so, yeah, I taught elementary and she was in property management.
What's the most you guys ever made combined income?
Probably around, oh, maybe about $170,000. Yeah, very cool.
Good for you. Congratulations, guys.
Yeah, and I mean, we just got to the point where we doubled down on our house payment. When we bought our last house, we did a very short mortgage, and we just doubled up on everything. That's awesome, man.
Congrats. So when you called us and started this call, which way were you leaning? Were you going to buy it, or were you leaning against not getting it?
Well, we weren't, weren't really sure. We had just started to check into it probably the last two weeks. Um, we've talked to like one of our financial advisors. Um, she gave us some options to go.
And I guess one of the questions that I wanted to ask you guys is, um, some of the people that we had talked to had recommended, uh, like a life insurance policy with the writer and then some of them were like strictly life insurance. And when we got thinking about it, some of the policies, Basically, if you didn't use them for long-term health care, you had no money at the end of the policy.
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Chapter 5: When is it necessary to consider long-term health care insurance?
Chapter 6: How to stay financially calm and on track during stock market volatility?
Chapter 7: What tools can help me check if I am on track with the Baby Steps?
Chapter 8: What live events involve Dave Ramsey and Dr. John Delony?
So we've already got $43,000 in debt. Doesn't sound like we have any kind of diagnosis or treatment plan in place right now. What do you anticipate? The timeline being that you get some type of diagnosis plus treatment and any sense of when you might be able to go to work and how are you going to stay alive financially? What do you know?
So I'm hoping in the next six months I can get treatment for the diagnosis. I have been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. I have tested positive for lupus, but it's a symptom-based disease. So we're trying to limit what is and what's not.
Any sense from your doctors as to when you would be able to work?
No, not really. The waiting time to get into specialists is pretty hard. I've been on waiting lists to get into neurologists and different rheumatologists, different GPs.
So what's the plan as of right now to be able to fund your life?
As of right now, what I'm looking at is trying different things. I'm trying to see if I can do some part-time marketing. I'm also looking to see if I can do some part-time dog watching or dog sitting just to bring in some type of money. I'm hoping in the next six months I can get a diagnosis and get some semblance of my life back.
Well, the diagnosis, it's going to be a confirmation, but it won't be a magic wand.
No, I know that. But I think an answer would help.
Absolutely. Not being able to trust your own body is a terrifying proposition. No question. And so is it okay if Ken and I love you in a way that we tell you the truth that probably nobody has? Is that okay? Okay. Um, When it was about caring for you, somewhere along the way, you got the story that you're not worth caring about.
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