QUESTION: James in Atlanta is trying to get his own video production company off the ground. He’s working part time at night and has the opportunity to take a full-time day job. Should he take the full-time job, which cuts into his business time, or remain part-time?

ANSWER: It wouldn’t hurt to take the warehouse job for a while. It’s not saying we’re going to give up on the video; it’s just saying we’re going to work a lot of hours. You’re 21. You don’t have any overhead. Right now, piling up a big pile of money wouldn’t be a bad idea, especially if the warehouse job had a little bit of flexibility in terms of maybe you work four days a week. You do your weekend and night gigs and other stuff with your video, keep the video rolling, keep pouring into it, and then as quickly as it gets up to making almost as much as you make at the warehouse job, you could quit the warehouse job. But you don’t have enough track record with the video thing to call that full-time yet. If you told me you’d made $8,000 in the last year and you’re living at home, and you’ve made progressively more money every month, we’d be pretty close to talking about this. You’re just a notch above a hobby today.

If you’re going to stay in your mom’s house, I would give yourself a deadline as to how long you’re going to stay as a part of hitting your other goals. The longer you stay in your mom’s house, the quicker you quit the job and go full-time with the video, assuming the video’s kicking in. That gives you kind of a safety net, but if there are other issues or reasons to be out of there, then let’s get on out of there. But I think you just start setting some goals and some deadlines and some benchmarks with the money.

The book you want to read is called Quitter by Jon Acuff. I’m going to send you a copy of it about how to work your day job while working your dream into a full-time gig.

QUESTION: Wendy in Nashville and her husband have been renting a home for seven months. They discovered a mold issue in October and notified the landlord. However, the landlord has done nothing to resolve the issue. He’s releasing them from their lease but not prorating the rent. Dave suggests a compromise.

ANSWER: You ought to split it. Just compromise and split it. You were going on vacation for a week anyway. You stayed one extra week because of the mold. He’s not obligated for those two weeks. A fair thing would be the one week—the extra one—and then move on.

He’s releasing you from the lease because you don’t have a place to live because of the mold—complete release. What would be the proration? January is the only thing up in the air. After January, you’re not on the hook at all. When the work is done doesn’t matter. It’s only when you quit getting use of the house. That’s the only question. The only question is whether you’re getting back three weeks for January or four weeks.

If you want to seek an attorney’s opinion, that might be a good idea. What I would say is if you were my tenant, I would say you’re out of the lease. I’ve got a mess I’ve got to clean up. I’ll re-rent the house when it’s done. You’re on your own. I’ll let you go. You don’t have to live here, but since you don’t have to pay rent, you’ve got to go find a place to live and pay rent there—hotel, house, whatever you want to do. I’m going to not charge you rent after X date. That’s the date that you’ve got to settle on. If you want to argue over a week in court, you can. I wouldn’t. I’d just be happy I got out and the guy is being reasonable and you’re talking to him and go. But I don’t think he’s obligated to pay for the hotel personally. He might be legally, but I’m just thinking you’d have a hard time getting it out of me. I would just not charge you rent and let you free because the house is a mess. But if you want to seek legal advice, you’d have to do that from an attorney.

QUESTION: Jonathan in Wake Forest and his wife work at the same company. She hasn’t been treated right by her boss, and it has driven her to tears. Jonathan wants to know where to draw the line with the company and the boss.

ANSWER: I think you go and sit down in his office and close the door. Calmly but firmly say, “The way that you are treating people here is making it very hard on them, my wife included. We need to talk about if this is going to be the behavior going forward. Otherwise, we’re probably going to have to talk about whether or not we’re going to be able to stay here. I don’t know if you care if we leave or not, but if I treated your wife the way you had treated mine, you’d probably be all up in my face.” Just say that to him.

He’s a horrible leader, obviously. I will tell you as a leader that I’ve gone through several phases in my life. I’m much better now than I used to be. At the starting phases, I don’t know that I’ve yelled at somebody across the office and that kind of thing, but I’m a strong enough personality that I’ve had people who were just hormonal and sweet, kind, little shy-type people who the sheer force of my personality caused them to cry if they were in the room with me. I’ve had that happen to me. You need to make real sure that what you’re observing is not that. If he’s just literally yelling at somebody, this is something like your fourth-grade gym teacher or something. This is ridiculous. He needs to adjust his deal and quit being a twerp as a boss. If he can’t, you guys need to get out of there. You’ve got to be fairly wise about how quickly you get out of there. I wouldn’t be rash. I would do it gradually. One of you quits, and then the other one quits. You find something. Just come up with a 60-day game plan. You can hold your breath for 60 days, and then we’re out of here.

What I might do even before you sit down and confront him is just start looking. See what’s out there. If she can find something, go ahead and move her and then confront him. He’s the type that might just blow up and fire both of you if you talk to him. You’re taking that risk, and you don’t want to do that to your family, so just be wise about it and calm. Separate yourself from people who can’t learn to behave. I would give him the opportunity to learn to be calmer and gentler with certain personalities and that kind of thing. It’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, I can tell you that.

QUESTION: Ann in Dallas and her husband are considering re-mortgaging their house in order to get a lower payment on their bills. Their son is in a boarding school, and Ann is a teacher and currently unemployed. Her husband makes about $70,000 a year plus bonuses. They currently have no mortgage. Dave doesn’t like the cost of this boarding school and has some tough words for Ann.

ANSWER: It’s $30,000 a year, and you make $70,000. That’s how you made an unwise decision—you made it real quickly. You guys are willing to live in a one-bedroom apartment to do this because you cannot afford a $30,000 on a $70,000 income and keep a house and keep anything. I don’t disagree that saving your son was important. I disagree on how you saved him.

Here’s the problem. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t help your son. I’m not saying that your kid doesn’t come first. I’m saying that you can’t bankrupt your family in the process of helping your son. That’s what I’m saying. Mathematically, if you sit down and do your budget, you cannot write a $2,400-a-month check, and you sure can’t write a $2,400-a-month check and a mortgage check. If you don’t get a job, your house has to go up for sale when he goes back to school in the fall. You don’t seem to be connecting to this reality when I’m talking to you. I’m not trying to be hard on you, but I’m trying to make sure I pierce through all of this emotion and all of these problems in this extremely stressful situation you guys have been facing and to also not let you make another financial mistake. I’m trying to pierce through without being unkind to you, but I don’t have the sense I’m doing that.

Let’s do a little bit of math. If you go borrow $50,000 on your home to finish this year out and to pay off the credit card debt, I do not want that to be a form of financial denial. By August, if this kid is going back to school, you are saying out loud that him going back to school is costing you your home and you’re going to have to sell it. You do not have the money for him to go to school next year.

I think paying your mother back for helping with this is awesome. I have no trouble with that. That does not change the equation that if he gets ready to go back to school next year and your household income is $70,000, your house is for sale. You cannot afford a second year of this school. You need to find another alternative or be willing to sell your home. Mathematically, it’s not working. All you’re doing is putting off the decision. If you go borrow $50,000 on this house, do it at the credit union—no closing costs, no prepayment penalty, and put it on as short a term as you possibly can. Be committed to the idea that you cannot pay this house payment and send him to school with just your husband working next fall. There is an end to this. It’s bankruptcy if you don’t change the direction of it. You can patch it up one time for one year’s worth of crisis, but you can’t keep on this track because it’s a track that’s going to lead you to bankruptcy court.