[Music] brought to you by the Every Dollar app. Start budgeting for free today. I'm trying to balance a couple things.
Um, so I have sort of two questions. One is related to a really expensive mortgage I have. Um, I bought a house a few uh years ago and I discovered soon enough that it was a bit of a lemon.
Uh, since then I've been sort of spending all of my time repairing this house and trying to get it up to market value. in hopes to oh, I don't know, rent it or sell it or do something with it that could be profitable. Um and uh the second thing is that you know a couple years ago I also met a lovely lady and uh she's just uh some about last year moved in with me and it's been a bit bit of a struggle trying to uh have enough time for the relationship manage the finances um as I sort of continue to progress with this very expensive mortgage.
Um, how what how much is your mortgage payment? Uh, it's 5,300 a month. And what is your take-home pay, sir?
Uh, my take-home is about 7,700 a month. Your mortgage payment your mortgage payment is 5,000 and your take-home is$7,000. I don't know how you eat.
That's about right. How do you eat? Uh, it's been it's been tricky.
Are you running up credit card debt? I don't have any consumer debt. Is there money somewhere else coming in or going out?
Where? How in the world? That's an impossible budget.
Uh, it's pretty tight. Yeah. Um, I've had to do right a lot of the house repairs myself.
I I keep things pretty. You're cutting in and out. Talk directly into your phone.
What' you say? Oh, uh, I have to keep a pretty tight budget. That's right.
No, you don't have a budget. Th This is impossible. I've done budgets for 35 years.
Your mortgage is 75% of your take-home pay. I don't I don't This is I mean, that's not sustainable. I I'm I'm shocked you've done that for more than 12 months and not caved in.
I I agree with you. You need to sell this house yesterday. Do you have a lot of savings, John?
Are you feeding Are you Are you pulling from savings at all? Yeah. Yeah.
So, I have about uh 30 in in emergency and about 80 in stocks. And how much are you burning through each month of your savings? Uh I would say, you know, maybe uh a,000, maybe 1,500.
Yeah. Okay. Now we got it where you can eat.
Now I understand how cuz I mean what you were telling me just wasn't So So basically you're burning up your savings because you bought a house you can't afford. Sell it. Yep.
Yep. Yeah. Um, okay.
Yeah. So, that's that's really it is uh should I should I jump ship? Should I bring up the value?
It's killing you. It's eating you alive. There's nothing in this home ownership package that is fun.
Everything you've described to me screams anxiety. You knew this, right? Like, well, it's it's in a high value neighborhood.
It's rental market here. High in demand. San Francisco Bayer than your income not to see see the stars and and you know the grass is always greener on the other side so to speak but easier grass is always greener over the septic tank.
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
Well, sell it John. I think it's going to relieve a lot of stress. I think your relationship will thrive.
Your finances will thrive. A lot will thrive when you're not stressed. Stress to the max about this.
I mean that's that's hard. Here's the thing. Not not only is the arithmetic absolutely ridiculous in this cuz you're burning savings arithmetic.
You're saying you're saying the mathematics of this, you're saying it's it's you know, you're burning through your savings. So that's principle number one. But what I want you to breathe in also is what this is costing you.
This the stress level you're carrying around all the time. When you get rid of this house, you're going to feel like you sat down 300 lb that was on your back. and you've kind of gotten accustomed to carrying around 300 lb, but when you set it down, you're going to go, "I can breathe again.
I didn't realize you could breathe like this. My lungs haven't worked like this since I bought this house. " I I mean, you're physically going to feel the release when you get rid of this burden.
Um, but you you've intellectually and willed your way through this. You're like a a bulldog that got a hold of something and won't let go. Mhm.
And uh but but once you let go, you're like, "Oh, I I can let go and I'm free and I can breathe again. " No, dude. This is not there's nothing in this equation that's worth it.
It's affecting your health long term. It's a going to destroy your finances. It's affecting your emotional well-being.
Uh and now you said it's affecting your relationships. So this thing, this house owns you and and you're going to be singing like, "Thank God I'm free at last. " When you get and you don't even know, you don't until you set yourself free, you don't even know how much how awesome it's going to be.
This is a horrible thing for for you. It's not good for John. I want John to have a home.
I just don't want the home to have John. And this one owns you, my son. It owns you.
Let it go. Are you going to sing a little Elsa for us? Little Frozen sing Elsa.
A little Let It Go. Who's Wait. Who's Elsa?
It's from Frozen. Oh, okay. The granddaughters will teach you that soon enough soon enough.
Let it go. John, we need to cue the granddaughters to sing Let It Go. That's right.
That's right. You know, it was so, you know, it's so common to for us as Americans though to be so wrapped up in our stuff and I would put homes in this, cars in this, credit card debt, all of it that for for the sake of a of a thing, right? in a house in of itself.
It's a thing that we deteriorate so much of our peace and our mental margin and our stress and like I mean so much of it for a thing and it's not worth it even a house and again home ownership is something that like we are all about and we want you to get it and have that be part of your long-term financial plan but to the point that it's completely robbing you of a life and it's eating away at your relationships and your peace all of it it's just it's just a thing. It's not worth it. It's not worth it.
So, as Dave and Elsa would say, Yeah. Well, and the minimalists. Yeah.
We can just play their tune right now. They they would love this. But, um Exactly.
Yeah. So, yes, we do want you to own a home. You're You said you're new to this stuff, but it it it's much much less home than you own right now.
And which is hard too, John, because you're in one of the most expensive real estate areas. San Francisco. Yeah.
Yeah. In the Bay Area. I mean, you're in one of the highest priced Tokyo, New York, and Silicon Valley.
I mean, uh, London, these are some of the most expensive pieces of real estate in the world, and that's where you're choosing to live, making $75,000 a year. Well, that's after taxes. Yeah.
Well, so California, he's probably making $140, and they're taking half with their taxes. Yeah. That's true.
Sorry, John. Sell it. Wow, please.
No, I'm not sorry. I'm I'm happy for I'm going to set you free. No, what you thought was a dream's a nightmare.
I'm going to set you free from your nightmare. Create your free every dollar budget today.
