A Utah business owner thought she and her husband were building something big. Instead, she found out a large chunk of their borrowed money had quietly disappeared.
Tiffany called into “The Ramsey Show” and said her family had loaned the couple about $2.1 million over the past few years to help launch two construction-related companies. But when she recently reviewed the books, she uncovered something she did not expect.
“He tanked over $113,000,” she said, describing how her husband secretly used company funds to day trade. About $80 was left.
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The couple owns a steel framing company and a construction company that builds spec homes. Since 2022, they’ve borrowed $1.2 million from family to buy equipment, another $200,000 the following year and $500,000 in 2024. They later received an additional $200,000 from another family member. Now, they are applying for their first bank loan because they keep running out of money.
Their strategy has been to build a home, sell it and roll any profit into the next project. Tiffany said that in 2024, they made about $850,000 gross. But when personal finance expert Dave Ramsey pressed her on where the money went, she admitted there was nothing sitting in the bank.
“If you have profit on paper, honey, you have the money in the bank,” Ramsey told her. “There’s no on-paper profit. There’s no such thing.”
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He explained that if you build a home for $400,000 and sell it for $500,000, you should have your original $400,000 back plus $100,000 in profit. If there’s no cash left, something is wrong with the math, the expenses or the business model.
The couple’s monthly overhead is about $25,000. Ramsey suggested they may be trying to do too much at once and should consider focusing on one company instead of two.
The financial strain is only part of the issue. Tiffany said she had no idea her husband was day trading until after the losses were already locked in.
Ramsey called it what he believed it was: a breach of trust.
“He lied to you and he stole the money,” Ramsey said bluntly. “This is really crooked, bad stuff for anybody to do to their spouse.”
