Don’t Let Your Emotions Drive Your Financial Choices

The Ramsey Show

In this episode of The Ramsey Show, Dave Ramsey addresses a listener whose mother spent $1.1 million on cruise ship art over several years, driven by grief and emotional distress after her husband’s death. The episode explores the dangers of emotional spending, the lack of safeguards in cruise ship auctions, and the importance of financial discipline and professional money management.

Key takeaways

• Emotional spending, especially during grief, can lead to massive financial losses with little to no long-term value.
• Cruise ship art auctions often target vulnerable individuals and lack consumer protections found in other forms of gambling or investment.
• The mother’s behavior was not just financial recklessness but a sign of unresolved emotional trauma that required intervention.

Transcript preview

Brought to you by the Every Dollar 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 in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio. This is the Ramsey Show. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Dr. John Delone, Ramsey Personality, number one best-selling author. host to the Dr. John Polonie show, my co-oosh today. Open phones here at AAA, 825, 5225. Jackson, New York. Hi Jack, how are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. How can we help today? Oh, hope you can help me. My mother, after dad died, went on a series of cruises. And as you may or may not know, on cruise ships, they have art auctions. overpriced art if you've had a few drinks and everything and my mother on a series of six cruises spent 1.1 million dollars on cruise ship art. You can't get into her house, there's so much cruise ship art in the bedrooms and everything. My brother and I are trying to sell it at auctions and stuff. We're only getting 10 cents or 20 cents on the dollar and I know you good folks have seen it all. I thought maybe you could give me a suggestion or something. This is a new one for me Jack well done brother Wow Wow that's a while disturbing. Yeah So how many cruises? I believe six or seven cruises and she kept it from the family I mean like you guys you guys didn't go inside of her house for six or eight months Oh no we would go in and we saw some art there but she had it in the garage I mean like you guys you guys didn't go inside of her house for six or eight months Oh no we would go in and we saw some art there but she had it in the garage? I? I mean So we did see some of it when we went into her house and we said okay mom's spending five or six grand She's worth a lot of money once have a little fun Then she just kept doing it and we kept trying to get her to stop But she would just disappear and go on cruise ships and keep buying all the stuff Is she is she broke now? Good question. She has? She's living comfortably as opposed to super comfortably. Is she? Is she? Is she? Is she? Is she? Is she? Is she broke now? Is she? Is she? Is she? Is she? Is she broke? Is she broke. Is she broke now? Is she? Is she broke now? Is she? Is she? Is she? Is she broke now? Is she? Is she? Is she broke now? Is she broke now? Is she? Is she? Is she broke now? Is she? Is she broke now? Is she? Is she? Is she broke now? Is she? Is she? Is she? Is she? Is she broke now? Is where next meal is coming from, but the little extras, that's where she's struggling with. Yeah, there's not another million dollars to buy art with. No, thank goodness. No, there is not. Does she recognize she has a problem? She did, towards the very end. And we had no idea she was spending that kind of money. Again, we thought, that's not good, it's sloppy. But she saved all her life. She was a use the same teabag twice type of person. And And she just, she lived with her parents, got married to my father who would have squashed it in two seconds. How long after he passed, did this go on? It started about, oh, I'd say a year and a half to two years after he died. So this was her wicked, weird way of grieving. Wow. And I'm sorry. I, I, um, you know, I've been on cruise ships, I've seen those. auctions I have purchased precisely zero dollars in that stuff. I'm not an art critic. I don't know anything about art. Nor would I know where to move it? You know what I would do is this. I think she was just dumb she had like it's almost like her because otherwise she I mean like if she met with her medical doctor he would say she was in her right mind she was just grieving in a very inappropriate way well she was remarried at the time where did he go but he just didn't do what he just didn't do anything he's kind of it's kind of not the type of guy that would tell her what to do and keep in mind that was her money my father it was their money Yeah, I got that. I got that. But still, I mean, if you love somebody and they're doing something stupid, you stand between them as stupid. But, so Bozo has no backbone. All right, the only thing that pops into my head, and I have no idea is if I were you guys, I would get in touch with the cruise line and try to work your way into the publicity side of the cruise line or the customer service set of the cruise line. and say, you know, here's what has happened on your cruise line. Was it all on one line? I think so. Yeah, probably. But it's the same company on. And I would just say, here's what's happened on the line. So we have a widow here that you all accidentally took extreme advantage of. We're not saying there was malicious intent on the part of the cruise, but the cruise just. took a million dollars from her for art that's not worth a million dollars and we're gonna ask you to buy it back and put it on the cruise ship and resell it and make your money back as a PR decision. Okay. Because you don't really want me telling the whole world on social media that your cruise line took a million dollars from a widow. Okay. Because you don't really want me telling the whole world. I honestly don't think you guys did it on purpose but I do think you need to do something about it because you should have had some kind of checks and balances in place because you've got widows and old people cruising with you every day and if you guys are taking advantage of the other people at this level even if you don't mean to you should stop it. It's wrong. And so like if my company had done this accidentally we would probably consider at least at some percentage, 50% or something, taking the inventory back in and trying to help the lady out because obviously she's out of control and we were contributing, not knowing it, but we were contributing if my company did that. Or I, one thing about our company is we want people to be better off after they've been with us than before, and if we find out somebody was exponentially worse off, right? Yeah, we would try to help fix that. But and I do, honestly, I, I... not like it's a gambling thing so if it's a gambling thing and your name shows up on the watch list of problem gambler they shut you down and keep you from gambling but they don't have that for art auctions right especially on cruise ships right so it's there's no way to there's no database to that they should have been accessing to protect them I mean it's just a customer they got millions of customers and this customer just liked art and so our cruise ship art in particular but also wasn't well I'm going to ask for some mercy from the and some help and I'm not going to do it with accusing you guys of having done something wrong But I am gonna say the net result is you caused something wrong to happen and we're gonna ask for some help Yeah The if she it's a new wrinkle that she's remarried if she wasn't married I would Jack I would I would get with you and your siblings and sit down with mom and say we would like to take ownership of your finances we want to help out? We want to help out from here on out? you got a roof over your head, we'll make sure this money is managed well. It's complicated now that she's got a new spouse that they may want to co-manage that together or whatever, but I would sit down and at least offer the help you can. I've never. I mean I've heard, I've just ever heard this one. I've seen hundreds of thousands of dollars on shopping network. Sure, yeah. They're sitting lonely. Yeah. And just keep calling so they can talk to somebody and buying whatever stuff. They got a basement full of stuff they don't need. I've seen that. I've seen that. on the cruise ship, this is the first one. 35 years. You gotta have a new one every day. You know when I became a dad something flipped suddenly it wasn't just about me and my wife anymore it was what happens to my family if I'm not here tomorrow and things like that just hit different when you become a parent but I'll be honest making a will feels heavy and complicated and it's not exactly what I want to be doing with my time off but here's the deal being a parent. lawyers just a simple online tool that helped me create a legit will in about 20 minutes. So it was pretty much painless. Plus I added a notch to my dad belt right there between installing car seats and bedtime stories. Listen, being a dad never stops and making a will is how you make sure your family's covered even when you're not there. So get your will done today at mama bear legal forms.com and use the promo code Ramsey. Heidi's in San Antonio. Hi Heidi, how are you? Hi, doing well. Thank you for taking my call. Sure, what's up? Well, we are done with Baby Steps 1, 2 and 6. And we've been now with those for more than 4 years now. for an emergency fund. But for the last four years we've been stuck and not able to save it all and don't really see any possibilities of moving on to step four. Our kids are out of the house which is at least eight nine years away. You don't have a payment in the world? No. And you're stuck. Yes sir. Where is all the money going? Well we don't have a mortgage but you can call paying for our two kids private school a mortgage because it is almost the fourth of our take-home pay. Well that's where it is. Yeah that's where that is and I mean... What is your household income? Monthly? Annually, monthly? I don't care. Well annually we have about just about a hundred thousand dollars. And twenty five thousand dollars is going to private schools. with no payments. Correct. Minus food and lights and property taxes. Yeah and a lot of gas. We live about 35 minutes from anything so we spend a lot of money on gas. There's not 70,000 dollars worth of gas. Yeah. Where's it going for real? Do you all budgeted out? Yes sir, we do. We did the SPU about 10 years ago and so we're not using the app. on our computer a monthly budget and we pretty much stick to it besides we have had some medical bills that we've had to pay and yes I would say probably over 500 six hundred dollars a month probably more than that we're paying towards medical things. husband we've had all kinds of things he had to have surgery and missed out on two months of the work this year so that that's this year. What what tell me about the private schools because $25,000 for two private school tuitions either that's a very inexpensive private schools or that's not the real number. Is it more than 25,000 a year? Well we have a partial tuition grant so right now right now right now right now right now right now right now right now right now right now We're paying about when I said a quarter of it's a quarter of our take-home pay besides you know whatever's taken out of the paycheck which includes some dental and that kind thing but we're paying right now $1,400 a month for both of the girls to go. And you have because you've got some kind of a subsidy is that what you're saying? Oh yes sir. Yes sir. Okay. a little bit of a grant. Just that the math isn't math and for me and it may be me but I can't make the numbers work. A hundred thousand dollars is eighty three hundred dollars a month so you should be taking home right around seven thousand bucks, six five hundred to seven thousand dollars not counting health insurance and not accounting 401k. Are you putting money in 401k? No sir we're not. What are you getting home with? 6500, 7,000? Okay, good guess, Dave. And, um, yep. So, uh, minus 1400, right? Yes, sir. That's correct. Minus food and lights and car gasoline for a 35 mile drive. So let's say that's $2,000 a month. There's still thousands of dollars missing in this discussion. Um, well, I can give you some of our biggest line items. Um, um, You know we do tithe every month we've got our we set aside for property taxes We got our we do a medical needs sharing ministry which is that's about $800 a month So you're not purchasing health insurance at work then Correct. Okay. All right. No problem with any of that. That still doesn't get you there? add in some of our other items, like you said, like electricity, homeowners insurance, internet, phone, like I said we don't eat out. I'm looking down our budget to see some of our bigger line items. I mentioned the medical stuff. Why have you, I'm not debating it, but since the largest item in the budget so far is still what you started with and that what you led with and that's private schools, why have you made the decision for private schools? We really enjoy and value the education that our girls are getting at the school where they go. I totally support that, but could they each not earn $700 a month? Well, they're 9 and 13. So, I thought you said the kids were out of the house. I'm sorry. Oh, no, no. I said that. So you value the education. The quality of the education or the content? of the education? Both. It's a very good school and we see the way the seniors turn out when they leave the school and they have a really good portrait of a senior there. So the thing you have to own is you're making a values-based decision on we want our kids to maybe look like this kind of senior someday and we want to have no retirement. and we want to have no savings. I mean at some point there's a math problem and it's a very uncomfortable decision to look at hey we don't want to buy insurance through our business we want to do this ministry sharing program. Okay that's a choice you can make all of these things here are choices. We want to drive an F-250 instead of a Prius like all these things are choices we want to live way out in the country and because we like that life instead of selling our house and maybe moving closer to town. medical is not a choice, food, it sounds like it's not a choice, you all aren't extravagant, but these other things are choices... And I'm still not finding at all. I'm not either, but you have to balance, we're choosing this over this. I think Dave, one of the illusions is I should be able to do everything I want, regardless of how much of money I've got in front of me. And it's just not the way it works. It's just not... Can you imagine where she would be if they had two car payments, a student loan and a master card payment like most people? Correct, yeah. They would be bankrupt? Yeah, they'd be over. It'd be over. And they make $100,000 a year? Right. See, that's what doesn't compute. Yeah. There's something off. So, there's something off. So, yeah, I think you guys are making choices, but there's also some kind of a mystery here in the budget. And I would want you to sit down with your and the two of you look at this budget very, very carefully and say, okay, we're starting with $8333 a month, that's $100,000 a year, minus taxes, we're getting home with 6600. And then after we pay property tax and lights and water and food and transportation, here's what we have left, and here's what we're choosing to do with what we have left, and is that what we want to choose. And that's what you've got to decide. So I don't hear extravagance. No. I just can't fill up all the thousand the math while I'm working with you here. I can't get there. I got 6600 minus 1400, minus property taxes, minus food and lights and water and minus 800, minus a tithe of 60, 660 bucks. And, you know, and so, or maybe you're tithing on the gross 83, 830 bucks. Okay, either one, still not there. I'm still not down to zero. And I don't hear massive amounts of waste or something. I just don't know what it's going to. Usually when I'm having these discussions I can keep talking and all of a sudden a $1,200 car payment appears and I know what's going on, but I'm not, I've not found that in this discussion. So I can't, I'm not, I'm sorry I wasn't able to be more help. But that's the thoughts I have on what you guys are facing Heidi. I would dig further into it and then as John said, consciously, as a thing called opportunity cost on money. By choosing to do, A, I am simultaneously a choosing to not do not do. B and C. And own that choice. Yeah. 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The Churchill certified homebuyer program is available for qualifying borrowers and select known types only. InMLS ID 151. Consumer Exumexus.org, Equal Housing Lender. 1749, Mallory Lane, Sweet 100, Brent, Tennessee, 37027. is by putting together a plan on every dollar. The every dollar app will make you accountable for every dollar every month, and you'll place those dollars with personal coaching, customized plans, exactly where they need to be placed on the baby steps to get you out of debt the fastest and into wealth the fastest. Download it for free on the App Store or Google Play, every dollar. Jordan is in Houston. Hey Jordan, how are you? How can we help? Well, so my me and my wife we got married a year and a half ago and her parents very generously paid for the wedding but a kind of a piece of fine print that I was unaware of when they offered to do that was that any dollar that we spent above what they had allotted we would go back to them and so and I was essentially uninvolved in the planning of the wedding and wasn't aware of that and so pretty quickly after we got married we got a bill sent to us for a few thousand dollars that you know they told us hey there's no interest on it pay it back when you can but as we're starting to we we recently purchased a car in cash from a member of my family which has kind of resurfaced this conversation with my wife of what's our plan for paying this off and her parents have had a lot of conversations with her about it, but never with me. And so I was just going to ask for help, how to move forward with this. You said it was in the fine print. So did your wife know? Mm-hmm. She did know. Okay, then pay it off. Stop the conversation to pay it off today. Okay. Like, you're, you're, you're, it's costing you all the money. Like, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, it's going to cost you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, But that was the handshake agreement they made with their daughter. How much is it? Yeah. How much did she, how much did your wife go over budget on your wedding? A little over $4,000. Okay, and you paid how much so far? A few hundred, maybe five hundred. And what's your household income? A hundred and forty thousand. Okay, so write them a check. Today. Cool. And lesson learned, we don't do any deals that we don't both know about. Yeah. Ever, particularly with your freaking parents who are Pharisees. Got it? No more money deals with your parents, honey. Ever. Right to check. And it may be her parents are struggling and they stretched and did whatever and nah They're just weird It's four grand Who sends a bill kid their kid for four grand I mean I know I'm trying to be generous I'm not I've done we've had three I'm get married and the budgets were horrendous and they stuck to their budgets and we laid out the budget ahead of time. We agreed to fund it and if it went over that they came out of their pocket with it, we didn't come out of our pocket, they didn't go over, they stuck to the budget. It was generous, they had a great wedding, we had big parties, we love doing it. I love big parties, I love weddings and babies and grandkids and all the things that happen when you have weddings, it's all awesome, go do all of it, but parents seriously and kids don't make a deal like this and not tell your spouse your fiance, oh I promised my dad 40,000 dollars back. Right. And you make 140 grand, right, today. Yeah. Sorry, it took so long. Not worth it. It'll never happen again. And I promise you'll never happen to him because we will do no more money deals with you people ever. Yes. Because you didn't bother to include me and you should have in that discussion. That's the parent. That's on the parents. You think so? I think it's on the wife. Absolutely they should have. I promise you if I'm looking at Rachel Cruz going to pay. I'm going to look at Winston and say and say, and say, oh, oh, oh, oh, up right? I did tell him that but it wasn't about money. Yeah. Winston she's gonna be your problem now. He reminds me of that occasion. Yeah sometimes Winston sitting on my front portion he's like man it's my problem. I'm going to see Dr Deloney. Randy's in Shreveport what's up Randy? So I'm giving you kind of a backdrop. So I retired last year in March at age of 63 and my mother passed away in May of that same year. Oh man. And she wheeled, she wheeled her farm to me and my sister. There are no other names within that wheel other than my sister is in mind. she's been on Social Security for a long time. And with the earnings cap and Irma and everything else, how do we, can we secure the farm in a trust so that we don't get hit with capital gain tax? Are you going to sell it? More than likely yes. Okay. Well, your basis in the property is its market value at the time your mother passed away. So what was the farm worth a year ago? Okay so this quarter was recently reappraised by the county now the county doesn't count it's a prime she what do you think what do you think the farm's really worth the county is a tax assessment that's not an actual value that's a just assessment for taxes it's not not an appraisal what do you think if you were gonna put it on the market for? Probably not. Yeah. Probably wasn't it wasn't worth 700,000 and went up 300 and one year, right? Yeah, actually the appraisal went from 300,000 to 700,000 in one year. That's the tax assessment. That's not the real estate market. That is not a real appraisal. Hear me. Okay, your tax assessor does not give you accurate values. Zillow does not give you accurate values. That is not a real appraisal. That is not a real appraisal. That is not a real appraisal. That is not the appraisal on the property. And you could do that based on a year ago. So here's the thing. Let's pretend for a second that the farm a year ago was worth a million dollars and the farm today is worth a million dollars and you sell it for a million dollars. You have zero taxes. You've had no gain. Because your basis in the property for purposes of calculating capital gains and the gain is over the amount over the basis. You've had no gain. You've had no gain. You've had no gain. is the value the market value not the tax assessor not zillo the real appraisal at the time of death and it's only been one year and it's a farm in Louisiana it's probably not gone up in value hardly at all in one year maybe a little bit but not much and if it did it's probably gonna get eaten up with selling cost anyway so you need to see your tax professional and if you don't have one just go to Ramsey Solutions.com and if you don't What I would do is sell it and I would claim that it was sold for market value and there was zero game. If you're ever audited you'd have to go back and have an appraisal done at the time of death and compare that to the actual sale price to prove that there was no actual gain. But I don't think you're having any gain. If you had a hundred thousand dollars gain it's only fifteen dollars worth of taxes, it's not that big a deal. And I this is news to me. I'm glad you're teaching me this. So if she had right before she passed, she would have had to pay taxes, capital gains on all the growth from when she got it. Exactly. But if she held on to it and passed it. It's called a stepped up basis. Okay. So you you when you inherit a capital asset, stock, property, anything else, the basis goes from mom's old basis. Zero. Which was all the way up to market value basis. And if so if you sell a stock you know, Grandpa left me a million dollars in Exxon stock and he had only $20, if you saw it within a few months of Grandpa's death. Wow. Huh. Okay, let me ask you something. What would it take for you to switch your bank? Because if you're still earning next to nothing on your savings, you need to check out Fairwind's Credit Union. And I know what you're thinking, it might sound like a hassle. Moving your direct deposit, updating bills, getting a new debit card, feels like a lot. But here's what most people don't realize. could be costing you hundreds of dollars every year. The average savings account pays less than half a percent. So let's say for example you got $20,000 saved. You might earn around $70 a year. But with a fair-wins high-yield savings account earning 3% APY or more, that same money could earn you over $600. And that's real money that you can use towards the baby steps. So don't let temporary comfort keep you stuck. Check out the smart bundle from Fairwind's credit union. You get a high-yield savings account, a no-fee checking account, and the Ramsey be weird debit card. Go to Fairwinds.org, slash Ramsey to learn more and make the switch today. That's Fairwinds.org slash Ramsey, insured by the NCUA. Jane is in North Carolina. Hi Jane, how are you? Well, let's try again. Hey, Jane, how are you? I'm doing good. Hi. What's up? What's up? Hey, so my question today is, how do you decide when it's worth spending money to improve your quality of life versus staying in a situation that helps you reach your financial goals faster? So my boyfriend and I are credit debt for, our credit card debt free. on that for a while and now we're trying to save for our future and we currently live at his mother's beach house.