Transcript of Building Wealth Means Choosing What Matters Most

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Normal is broke and 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 George Campbell here with Jade Warshaw, and we're taking your calls at 888-825-5225.

Ready?

Reggie's kicking us off in Chicago. What's going on, Reggie?

Hey, what's going on, guys? Um, so little dilemma that I find myself in. Um, we saved up a ton for college for my son, put it in the college fund. It grew to like $120,000. I thought for sure that would be enough to get him through like 3, maybe 4 years. And we're coming up on year 2. It looks like it'll all be eaten up by the end of year 2.

Wow.

And yeah, That's a fancy school. Yeah, we thought he'd be able to get some help. We thought we'd be able to get a financial aid package or some kind of assistance, but so far no luck because we're making too much money, they say, and we've saved up too much on the side.

What's it cost every year?

It's about $65,000 right now.

Wow.

What do you guys make?

Yeah. Uh, just over $200,000. Um, and so the options we're looking at is, you know, I've, I've got the house for sale. We've got a pretty nice house right now. Hoping to take some equity out of there to help him.

Oh boy. You're going to take a HELOC to pay for your kid's college?

No, no. I was just going to sell the house and buy another one for cash and then put some money aside.

Okay. Would you downgrade anyways, or was this just for the purpose of cash flowing college?

Uh, we are, our mark, our house like doubled in value in about 5 years. And so we were thinking about just like, you know, making some cash off it and, and slightly downgrading. We love the place, but you know, with property taxes and everything else going up too, we thought we could kind of, you know, have a win-win here and put some money aside and help him as well.

What would be the equity? What would you take if you sold it?

Uh, we're looking for like $1.2 million and then to buy something for about $700,000 or $800,000.

Okay. Um, let me ask you this. What's he studying and is he the only child?

Um, no, he's not the only child. Uh, his sister's coming up behind in about 4 years, and there's not as much saved for her account, so we'll probably have the same problem there. Um, and he is, uh, he's a filmmaker actually, not too far from you guys at Belmont University there.

Okay, interesting. What's his end goal with filmmaking?

What's that?

What's his end goal with filmmaking?

Um, I mean, he's already put out his own documentary that's on Netflix and, uh, Amazon Prime right now. Yeah, he was able to put something out professionally in high school.

So that's nuts. What does he need school for?

That's my question. I'm concerned about that.

People are going to school to get the degree to hopefully one day be on Netflix, and he's already on there.

Uh, I, I hear you. I hear you. I mean, so I have, I have no degrees and my wife has 4 degrees, so we kind of see it both ways. I mean, I don't think you def— I don't think you need a degree to do something great.

Absolutely.

But at the same time, like, he, uh, I mean, he's, he's killing it there, and, you know, he's connected in on Music Row there and with a lot of people there, so We do think there's some benefits there. It's also a Christian-ish university, so we're enjoying that aspect of him growing up in that. But it's just more than we thought we'd ever end up paying.

And have you—

trying to figure out, should we let him— I mean, even if he takes a part-time job, it's not going to help that much. I mean, $500,000—

your income is the secret sauce here.

So obviously there's a problem to solve. I agree with you on that. You've explored the avenue of solving the financial side of it. Has there been any talk or exploration consideration on what other education avenues there are. Like, is there another way that he could pursue some education in the same field that's not at the expense of Belmont that you guys can actually afford? I would love for you guys to explore that side of the equation because it does exist, and I would hate for you to feel like you're backed against this wall. This is the only place he can go to school. Um, you see what I'm saying? What have you guys looked at on that side of the equation?

Yeah, we, we've looked around a little bit. We haven't really done all of our homework there. He's kind of, uh, uh, he's got a hard head a little bit. So like when he finds a path he likes, uh, like, you know, that's why he was able to put out his own documentary in high school basically, right? He just gets stuff done.

So that's true, but he's not, he's not getting done there. He, he has— well, can I talk to you like parent to parent?

Yep.

It's not his choice because you're paying, so you do he doesn't get to choose that part, right? You can say, we can either afford this or we can't. We're willing to do this or we're not. So you still do hold a level of say-so in this conversation, and I don't want you to forget that because selling your house and taking the equity is a huge step. George and I haven't asked you what you have in retirement yet, and you know that the sister's coming on down the line and there could be some expense there. So let's ask those questions. What do you guys have locked away in retirement? Hopefully it's juicy. Yeah.

We've, yeah, we've been teaching FPU for a while. We haven't in the last 5 years since COVID but we followed the Ramsey principles for a long time. So we have over $1 million in retirement right now. The house is $1 million plus.

Awesome.

And things are going really well. What are you owing mortgage? Uh, about $110,000 or so right now.

Oh, fantastic.

Okay.

That's good.

So you're talking like, you'll walk away in profit of like $900,000, something like that.

Yeah, the goal is over a million. Yeah. And then buy something for, you know, I'm fine buying something for 6 or 7 and, you know, just putting some cash on the side.

So, okay.

I love it.

Let me just lay out the options. It's going to be your choice, but here's your options. Number 1, of course, sell the house, use some of the profits to cash flow the rest of college and probably lock some away for the daughter too. Right? Option 2, we don't sell the house and we use this income that you have. And that's going to mean sacrifices in the budget to go, we got to cash flow $60 grand of school. Out of our $200,000 in income. That's option 2. And then the last option is what Jay's been talking about, which is could he transfer to Middle Tennessee State if they have a filmmaking program and still be just as fine?

And, and he's got relationships. Keep building those relationships. Keep getting indoors. Keep working on set. Like all of those on-the-job experiences is really what's gonna help him. So yeah, those are the 3 options.

I tell you this is this company has hired a lot of guys who have went to film school or have the audio degrees in this media creative space, and they don't get paid more because they went to Belmont versus MTSU.

I can tell you that right now.

So I just want to make sure that we're clear on the ROI of this degree. And again, he's the secret sauce in all of this, not this piece of paper that says, right, hey, you sat in class and did great and maybe learned a thing or two.

Especially in the arts.

Yes. Making the films, making the connections, building his portfolio, getting on Netflix. His professor probably doesn't have a documentary on Netflix. He should be teaching this class.

Facts. Yeah, yeah. No, that's— I mean, I think we're on the same page there. So I just wanted to hear somebody else say it. I appreciate you guys.

Have him watch this call and he can message me and, you know, just rip me a new one if he's upset. But I just think he's so sharp that we need to look at this a little bit more, you know, cautiously to go, dude, do you really want to graduate with a bunch of debt? No, that's off the table.

That's off the table.

And you guys selling your house, making all these sacrifices. You can do that. You're awesome parents, but it just feels like a pretty drastic move for something that's avoidable.

Yeah. And I also want to call this out too, and I don't know that this is true, but it's worth saying. I think a lot of times you can get focused on the notoriety of the way a university title sounds. Oh, they went to Belmont. Oh, they went to, you know, Juilliard. Oh, they went to Harvard.

Princeton.

Princeton. Ivy League. Sorry.

I know.

A lot of conversations to have, Reggie. I hope you can talk to him and come up with a game plan. The key is you guys are unified on what the plan is. There's no surprises, and you make peace with whatever decision you make. Out of those 3, you got to make peace with it and go, all right, this is a season, it's not forever, we're going to be okay, but the goal is we're going to avoid debt and make sure he graduates in 4 years or less.

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Thank you very much. How's everybody today?

We are doing great. It's a pleasure to talk to you.

Um, my call, um, as I told the gentleman that answered the phone, um, I'm retired, I'm 69 years old, I have, uh, Social Security after Medicare taken out. It's $1,800 a month. I get a pension that's $293.70 a month, plus twice a month, maybe 3 times, I do a little side thing on the weekend and make an extra $100 each time, which I, I pay my tithes first, I pay my bills. I have excellent credit, but if something comes up out of the way— my washer tears up, I need new tires I have to put it on the credit card because I don't have it sitting around. Um, I had the emergency fund, uh, $1,000 saved, and something happened that I had to use that. Now, right now I have a bill where I was in the hospital, $500 and something, so I'm paying that every month to get it paid off. But I just feel strapped. When I was working as a nurse, I made Good money. I'm thankful for what I get, but if something comes up, I'm just— I feel like I'm in the hole again. Yeah. So any suggestions would help.

Thank you, Susie.

Yeah, I can imagine how you're feeling. You know, it's just one thing goes wrong and it kind of just sets off a crisis financially. How are you living right now? Are you in a paid-for house? Are you renting? Do you have a mortgage? What's going on there?

I have a mortgage and I've been adding some to it because I agree if I can get an extra payment each year, then that takes off so many years.

So what's the mortgage payment every month?

Like $479. I've been putting an extra $40 or $50 with it. Okay. That extra, uh, it was my parents' house for years and then moved down here and was renting for a while, but now I bought it.

What's left to go on that mortgage?

Um, probably I don't know, 50-something or— okay, $1,000. And then I have a car that should be paid off within 6 months.

Can you tell us what the mortgage is worth? Um, if you were to sell that house— not that you will—

about $150,000 maybe. I think I saw that, and that was where they raised the taxes to, and they said it was worth that.

Okay.

But right now in this area, some homes are, $1,000-something to $2,000. Wow. And I wouldn't be able to—

So let me recap your debt here. You have about $500 in medical debt. You've got the $50,000 on the mortgage. And then what's left on that car loan?

Probably $6,000. That's what I'm saying. I'm hoping to have it.

Okay.

Anytime I've had money along the way, I put it toward the principal. And so that's about what's left. And so I'm looking about 6 months to have it paid off.

And is there anything else on the credit card, Susie? Because you said you were putting other things like tires and things like that.

Well, before I got sick with pneumonia, I had paid those back down to zero. So right now it's just what was left that the insurance didn't pay and a couple of copays while I went in. But I've already paid $200 toward that. So there's about $500 and something left. Okay.

And you're bringing home about $2,100 a month total.

Uh, that sounds about right. And that, and yeah, right. And then the $200 for that side thing I do. But, uh, one of those side things, I always pay my car insurance out of one, which doesn't take it all.

So we'll call it $2,300 a month.

Okay.

To be fair. Now, Susie, what about your health? You mentioned medical bills. Tell us about your health. Are you able to, if you did want to get out there and, and do something Are you able to get out there and do a small, small amount of work if you needed to?

Well, that's why I do that on the side where I make the extra $269. Yeah. And I said, nurse for almost 30 years. So that's all I'm going to say. Now, it'd be hard to do a regular job, right? I've got bad shoulders, bad knees, and just keep on.

Wow.

You know, and like I say, I know I pay tithes. God's faithful. But it's just something's always going on. And, you know, I just get frustrated with what I call feeling strapped.

Yeah, absolutely.

I have a—

well, there's hard all around. It's going to be hard either way. It's going to be hard to sacrifice and work 15 hours a week. It's going to be hard to stay in the cycle that you're in. And so at this point, it's going, all right, what's the hard that's going to get me to where I want to go? 5 years from now, 10 years from now, you know, God willing, you live another 30 years, where are we gonna be? How are we gonna be living as inflation continues and our income stays fixed? Now your Social Security will go up incrementally, but not enough to make a dent. And so what you're doing now is doing a lot of, you're doing a lot of good things. You're just doing them all at the same time. And that's why you're treading water. So I would stop any extra payments on anything except for your smallest debt right now. And really you need to get that $1,000 emergency fund stacked back up. So if you stopped all of your extra payments, you kept the side work, could you save up $300, $400, $500 in a month to put away in savings?

I could save something. You know, I'm just not for sure. It just seems like I said, I always pay my tithes first. And so that comes off first. And we want you to do that first.

Have you ever done a budget, Susie, where you laid out, okay, here's my $2,300, here's all of my expenses, because you seem to know your numbers well. Down to the pennies.

I, well, I hunt for that penny too if I can't find it. But I pretty much, when it goes in the bank, sometimes I even get up and when I know it's in there and I pay everything off and then what I have left, I have left.

Okay. So yeah, I think we want, George and I want you to get a little more organized and make the plan before that check hits. And so we're gonna make sure we give you EveryDollar. It's really easy to use. It's very intuitive. And that way, let's pretend you get paid on the 15th. You can go in there on the 1st and start planning. Here's the way I wanna spend that money. And it'll kind of let you make choices. So once you've put your minimum payments in there, you'll be able to see how much margin you have. Margin is just whatever is left over. And to George's point, instead of saying, okay, I'm gonna use that margin to put extra on the house, or I'm gonna use that margin to do something over here, take all that margin and start paying off that medical debt. It's good that you're not currently putting anything, you know, on credit cards or, What you can do, Suzy, is kind of take that moment and look out over the horizon and say, "Okay, what do I see that could potentially be something outside of my normal budget? Do I need an oil change?

Do you know, am I starting to notice that the tires are getting bald?" And really take that time to plan and say, "Okay, I actually might need to, instead of putting extra on the debt this month, I might need to plan for an oil change, or I might need to plan to replace these tires, or I might," do you see what I'm saying? And the budget will really help you get ahead and be able to take care of the things, I think that you have the margin to kind of cash flow things as they come, at least at this point. But if we can get you doing that and then gradually pay off this $500, gradually build up a little bit more savings beyond the $1,000, then suddenly you get in a place where if something pops up, it may be an emergency, but it won't feel like a crisis. And you certainly won't have to lean over and rely on credit cards or debt.

Suzy, we're rooting for you to figure this out, get out of this consumer debt, build up an emergency fund. And at this point, it's going to be surviving for the foreseeable future unless we can see a change in that income. If you can get your health and energy back up to work, even a little bit would go a long way. If you can double that $300 to $600, that's some breathing room right there. And Jade, it's a, it's a stark reminder for everyone out there that Social Security will not be enough. And if you're young, it may not exist. And I'm, I'm looking at the data here, the trust fund will be depleted by 2032. That doesn't mean it's going to go away, it just means that the benefits would be reduced by about 20%. Which for someone like Susie, imagine her getting a pay cut of 20%.

Yes, it was already not enough. And for Susie, if I were in your shoes, it sounds like you're in a good church community. I'd be looking for families who need somebody to sit with the kids for a few hours before mom and dad get home. If you can get into that area, that's something that you can do to make a lot of money fast. And it's, you know, you can— you don't have to be on your feet all day or anything like that. So try to get involved with some families that need help with, uh, not babies, but younger kids. Hey guys, healthcare is one of the biggest stress points in your budget.

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Go to chministries.org/budget and use promo code Ramsey. That's chministries.org/budget and use promo code Ramsey. Buying or selling your home is high stakes because one bad deal could cost you tens of thousands. You don't want to overpay for your next house or sell your current home for less than it's worth. And that's why Ramsey Trusted connects you with vetted real estate agents who have the experience to guide you step by step to make smart decisions, not expensive mistakes. Connecting is easy. You can compare agent profiles, interview your top choices, and pick the right one for you. Find a local Ramsey Trusted agent who has your best interest at heart for free at ramseysolutions.com/agent, or click the link in the description if you're on YouTuber Podcast. Hunter is in Hartford, Connecticut up next. What's going on, Hunter?

How's it going?

We're doing great. How are you?

I'm not too bad. Glad I got in to talk to you guys today.

We're happy to talk to you. What's going on? What's your question today?

So I've just been recently engaged, um, and we're looking to get married sooner than later, but she has about $18,000 in debt between a car loan and student loans. I'm— I live at home. We both live at home still. I have a very stable job, and financially I have a lot saved up in savings.

How much?

What makes sense? About $135,000.

Nice, way to go. How old are you?

23.

Wow, what do you make?

Last year I think I took home like $88,000.

Good, you're crushing it, man.

Okay, thanks.

So no wedding date, she's got $18K, you're debt-free with a whole bunch of money in the bank.

Pretty much. We'd obviously like to get a house sooner than later, but the market's kind of tough right now. We don't want to just jump on something just to live together. We're both comfortable at home and everything. Yeah. Looking better to save the money. But I just don't know. I totally agree with Dave's rule. Once you say "I do," you are— you're one. Everything should be together. And that's how my parents have made it work. That's how I see things. But would it make sense to start that debt-free and clear our marriage pretty much from the start, or am I better off putting that, say, $20,000 into investing even more or something?

I mean, there's no date on the books, and so I would not put any money onto her debt until— to your point— until the day that you say I do. Um, Um, in the meantime, because you've said that it's also important for you that you guys are thinking about buying a house, I probably would not invest that money. I'd probably park whatever's left after you paid off the— well, and this is assuming there's debt left by the time you get married, by the way, because she should be working hard to pay that off in the meantime. But I'd probably keep that $135,000 parked in a, uh, high-yield savings account. I'd separate it though. I'd put aside what you think is going to be 3 to 6 months of your expenses. At least 3 months of projected expenses once you were to move into a house. And then I'd put the rest aside and start piling up a down payment. The reason I said 3 months of what you project your expenses will be is because you've said, hey, we want to move into a house. We know that that's going to be more expensive, right, than living at home.

So really think about what that would be with a mortgage and with some of the other things that are required living in your own place. And I'd make sure to have that stacked up. But my biggest expectation is I'd be talking with her now and say, okay, these are my philosophies on debt. What's your philosophy? And my— do you plan on working hard to get this paid off in the meantime? I mean, I know we don't have a date set, but I'd be looking to see if she's hitting the ground running on this debt.

Yeah, no, 100%. She's paying pretty much like close to 70% of what she makes, throwing into everything she has. Uh, okay, so then it should mostly be gone. Yeah.

And whatever's left, yeah, let's pile our money together in one checking or savings account and go, all right, let's clear the debt. Let's have the emergency fund. Anything left becomes our down payment money and then see where you're at.

Okay.

Now I will say, let me just— yeah, like, let me add this to the mix. So I feel like that part of the subject is kind of put to bed. Let's talk about the house buying part because both of you have been living at home. It sounds like both of you have never lived on your own. Honestly, George, I would advise you guys to rent someplace first as opposed to just jumping right into home buying because home buying is a fabulous thing. It's a wonderful thing. It's necessary to build wealth. But at the same time, it is a huge change in life. And if you've never lived on your own, I would start with maybe renting an apartment or renting a small place together just to get the feeling of what it feels like. Get that first year of marriage under your belt.

Yeah, getting married is already enough of a change. So to add homeownership on top of that, it's just going to feel like, whoo, Ooh, I just grew up real fast. So there's no rush to buy a house. You were doing so well. I have no fear that you're going to buy a great house and do it with a whole lot of peace with this wonderful gal. So it's kind of logistics at this point of paying off the debt. I would not wait until her debt is paid off to get married. I would go ahead and go, hey, we're engaged. What are we doing wasting time here? Like, don't you want to move in and spend your life together?

Yeah.

What is the holdup?

Exactly. Um, like, we've been together since high school, so we've been together 7 years, and now it just seemed like the right time where I felt financially enough that I could support her, worst case if something happened. Um, but the main reason also right now is like getting married sooner than later is for health insurance.

Okay. Oh, because you're going off of Mom and Dad's?

Correct. Yeah, like, I've had mine since I was 19 when I started my job, um, which I work for the state, so has very good benefits and very good health insurance. Okay. But she's just like kind of in need of the insurance. So that was kind of the thing of like, I wasn't sure since it would be like a sooner than later kind of move-in date and stuff.

Are you saying she's on her parents' insurance and she'd lose that once you're married?

Correct.

And then you can't add her to yours once you're married?

Yes. Like, the main reason for getting married soon would be to get her on like the better insurance to Got it.

You know, I, I don't love making a marriage choice based off of insurance. I would much rather you guys make it based off of, here's when we think it's time, you know, uh, we feel good about this.

Like, the insurance is a part of it. Um, that was just like, the insurance is like the urgency of it. But we've been saying, like, I mean, for probably 3 years now I've been saying I have a wife, it's just we're not married.

Well That's here, neither here nor there. You gotta get married before you have a wife.

Um, it's like I'm debt-free other than this loan I gotta pay off.

This is the girl.

Yes. Uh, I'm gonna say it again. If it's time to get married, go ahead and get married and don't let life insurance stop you. But my, my, my biggest pieces of advice to you, there's 3 pieces. So this is your homework. Write it down. Number 1, uh, you said this and George and I said it, don't pay off any debt until you're married. That's number 1. Thing number 2 is I would advise that you rent a little while, at least 1 year before you get married. And thing number 3, this is a new topic. When you do go to purchase a house, please, please, please keep in mind, if you know, you guys seem like you're planners and you're, we're going to do this and then we're going to have babies. And we're just, when you buy a house, think about what it might look like if one of you were to stay home with a baby. Okay. And make sure you're buying a house based off what those plans are. Don't bite off more than you can chew because, you know, all of that matters in the grand scheme of things.

Yeah. If you kept that mortgage payment to 25% of your after-tax monthly income, that's a win. —then anything she brings in is gravy. And now you guys are doing great. You could pay off the house. I mean, this is what my wife and I did, Hunter. And this is not saying it's prescriptive. You don't have to do this. But my wife and I got really aggressive. We almost treated Baby Step 6, paying off the house, like Baby Step 2. We knocked that thing out in 26 months. And then when we started a family and had a baby, it wasn't a financial discussion about could she stay home. It was just an emotional one. And she left her 9-year career here at Ramsey. And so I want you to have those kinds of options. And that's why we don't want you to rush into anything. Thing. Do everything with peace. You're 23. Yeah, average homeowner is now 40 years old.

When I saw that, I almost fell out of my chair.

So you are ahead of the curve.

Don't let anyone say, man, go get a house. No, you got time.

You got time, brother. You got a lot of time. I am not worried about it.

And then I have one more question too. Hit me. Um, what should I be putting into, like, for my future here? Like, I have a 401k, I have a pension, stuff like Yeah. What else should I be putting into right now being this young and having the savings? Like, oh, I got you, Hunter.

I'm gonna gift you a virtual ticket to Investing Essentials. It's happening September 1st and 2nd, and you can tune in, watch Dave Ramsey and I unpack this wealth playbook of how we've created so many millionaires, what Dave actually does with his money, and we'll walk through the exact steps, the exact sort of waterfall you should do with that 15% that we recommend investing. That's the step that you're on currently.

And the truth is though, if you want, Hunter, you can wait up to 3 years. If you say, I want to forego investing for a while while we're saving up a down payment and potentially doing what George said and paying full cash for a home, I might absolutely do that. You're 23 years old, you've got plenty of time, and to be able to buy a house in cash is really a major deal for you.

Compound growth will do the heavy lifting as you work for the next 30 to 40 years. So taking a year or two off to get into that house could be worth it.

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Christopher's up next in Huntsville, Alabama. What's going on, Christopher?

Hey, not too much. How are you guys doing? We're doing great.

What's your question today? Hey, that's wonderful.

Hey, so I just want to say thank you guys, first of all, for everything you guys do. I've been following the Baby Steps for the last 3 years, having stepped through from Baby Step 1 and currently Baby Step 6. Way to go. Yeah, having gone through FPU, and I have paid off about $50,000 in consumer debt and saved up about $200,000. For my mortgage, which leads to the question at hand. So, uh, basically I had this lump sum for my mortgage. Uh, you know, I kept that fire going after I paid off all that consumer debt. Um, met my wife, married my wife. She, uh, shout out to her for putting up with all my crazy Ramsey antics over the last couple of years. Um, but we've, we've kept that fire going and we've been able to save up, you know, the amount of money that we owe on the mortgage. Lucky for me, Bought a house, uh, in COVID. So I locked in a really low interest rate. So it's an interest rate of 2.9%. And, uh, I've got that, that amount. We've got about $200,000 saved. We owe about $160,000 on the mortgage.

Um, and so I'm really, really struggling. I'm definitely the nerd, super analytical, looking at everything, you know, looking at all the numbers. And from some really rough calculations I've done, um, you know, putting that money into a brokerage account over the course of the remainder of the mortgage, which is about 24 years, um, essentially the principal amount made on that amount would essentially pay the mortgage every month. Right. And then at the end, I would still have that principal amount that I put into the brokerage account, plus, you know, some additional money. So I'm just really, really struggling with knowing what to do, whether to take that money and put it in the house and just be completely debt-free, no longer have a mortgage, or put it into that brokerage account, you know, a safe, you know, brokerage account tracking the S&P 500. Um, you know, that is going to get that, anywhere from 6% to 12%, you know, if not more yield depending on the year over the course of the next 24 years. I'm just, I'm stuck. I don't know what to do.

Yeah, you've spreadsheeted your way into oblivion.

And Christopher, you're not wrong. I have. You're not wrong, by the way. I love that you ran out those numbers and I love that you did the math on that. And I'll be honest with you, this is probably one of the teachings that we have that's not about the math. It's not about the numbers. It's more about the mentality behind it. And Dave will tell you, I'll tell you, George will tell you, there's— people forget to account for risk and they forget to account for peace in this equation. And I have a good feeling, George, you've paid off a mortgage, so you're probably better to talk to talk about this, but he's leaving out what it feels like to actually have a paid-off mortgage. Yeah. And he's leaving out the idea of if you did have a paid-off mortgage, would you borrow to go against it to invest? And the answer is, is likely no. I mean, I could tell you, I've been hosting the show not as long as Dave. I've hosted for 4 years. I've never once heard someone call back and say, I paid off my mortgage and I hated it, and I'd like to go get another mortgage please so that I can— I'd like to borrow against it so I can invest.

I've just never heard it. Yeah, Christopher, I, I can't outmath you on this one because there's too many variables, right? We're comparing something that's a guaranteed obligation, which is your mortgage, versus something with a variable return, the market. And I understand 24 years, I believe you, it's going up into the right. That's right. And you probably could make a spread. The question I have for you is, what is your, what's your endgame here? What's your goal? Is it to have $4.9 million versus $4.6 million? Cause that's probably what we're talking about here.

Yeah, no, 100%. And that's, I'm, I'm really glad you asked that question because that ultimately, you know, I think for me it's ultimately what is the price of that piece, right? And that's what I gotta decide. That's the decision I'm struggling with.

What's your wife say? What's she say about it?

She, she supports me. She is such a sweetheart. She supports me. She trusts me with finances. But what's her opinion? Very involved. But what's her opinion?

I know she trusts you, but what's her opinion?

Sure. Honestly, I'm not sure. I mean, I think she supports whichever one it is. I mean, if I, if I decide, if we decide to pay it off, I think she's cool with that. Yeah. If I had to, if I had to ask her right now, I think she would want us to pay it off, honestly. Okay.

Yeah, I find that out. I find out from her. I, and if she seems indifferent, I would challenge her to say, no, no, no, I want you to, I want you to formulate your own thought around this and I want to know what you think. That's so important when it comes to your money. And I would, especially on something like this, I would get her opinion and make sure she's, she has one to contribute, even though of course she does trust you. I mean, that should go without saying. 110%.

Have you done the math on investing the payment once you pay it off? Not, not 100%.

And so I'm currently working with a couple of trusted financial advisors to kind of run the exact numbers. Cause for me, you know, that'll really help me kind of understand what it is, you know, I'm really looking at to be able to make that decision. Cause in my head, if it's like less than half a million dollars, $500,000, I don't say that like that's not a lot of money, but in 30 years, right. If that difference is about $500,000, when we're looking at $5 or $6 million, okay, maybe it doesn't matter as much, but if it's like a million or a million and a half dollar difference and it's like, okay, well that's pretty significant. And so that is one piece that I definitely have on my to-do list to look at and evaluate to see what makes sense for me. But to answer your early question, my entire goal with all of this has just been to leave a legacy for my family, my future family. I don't have kids yet, but I just wasn't raised in a household with money and I'm just trying to change my family tree. That's my ultimate goal, to answer your question about that.

Well, one thing I will say, I loved hearing your heart around that. And it's no doubt about it that you're thinking about your family and thinking about what's going to be best for them. You don't have kids yet, but I will say this, having a paid-off mortgage, we talked about this in the previous call, having a paid-off mortgage and bringing kids in the family, it creates so many options for you. And I just love that conversation of it. And I mean, the other side of it is, from this side of the desk, when people call in, I can tell you when tough times come in life, whether it's a job loss or a diagnosis or just things in life not going the way that we planned, the number one thing that people want want to protect is their home. They don't want to lose their mortgage. They want to make sure that everything is okay because your home is your safe place, right? Like that is the ultimate place that you want to find, you know, shelter and security and comfort. And so from that point of view, that's why I always lean towards if people can make the choice that's going to protect that, ultimately it's going to give them the most peace.

And if you're doing and making decisions from a place of peace and freedom and options, then you are going to make the best choice. So that's kind of where I'd leave it. I think you're a really smart guy. I, I think whatever you do, you're gonna do it in a, in a really methodical and in, in intentional way. So I'm really not worried about you, Christopher.

Yeah, there, there's nothing on fire here, but here's how I look at it. Do you wanna spend the rest of, you know, the next 24 years making the payment, trying to get the spread, checking the accounts, or do you wanna spend it just living your life? Mm-hmm. And you do what you want with that payment. Maybe you invest a bunch of it, maybe you give some of it, maybe you invest for your kids with make that mortgage payment? I don't know. But there's so many things you can do, and I don't want you to get too short-sighted going, well, life is about the spread, life is about investing. Because we didn't buy a house to leverage it. You just sort of— this fell in your lap, this amazing once-in-a-generation interest rate. And you're right that everyone around you is telling you, dude, that would be so dumb if you paid that off, bro. That's— you're gonna— you can make so much money. And again, we don't buy this home to make money. You make money from your You make money from investing. We don't need to do it based on a spread. So it's up to you.

I'll tell you, I did it. I've never once calculated how much I could have made if I didn't pay off the mortgage because I simply don't care. I got a toddler, an infant, a crippled dog. I got too much to worry about versus a spread. So I think you'll make the right decision that's right for your family. And again, you've got the option to always pay it off. I just don't want you to be losing sleep at night over this decision. It's simply not worth it.

And I will say, George George just said something so true. You can pay it off, and if you don't like it, you can borrow the money back.

It'll be at a higher interest rate though, Jade. That's true. It's gonna be at 6%. That's true. That's gonna crush him.

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that would be absolutely crazy.

And what's cool, Christopher, is 100% equity, the next home you buy, which everyone's like, it's my forever home, you'll likely buy another home in your lifetime, right? Yeah. Now you have all that equity to roll into the next one, and then you'll likely be paying cash. That's what happened to us. Paid off the mortgage, stayed in the house, sold the house, saved up along the way because we could, because we didn't have a mortgage payment. And then all of a sudden you're like, sweet, I just bought a house in cash. This is crazy.

And you know, there's a mental component to that that I really like, because a guy like you, Christopher, let's pretend you did what you're thinking and you put the $200,000 in and, you know, you invested it. A guy like you is not going to like the feeling of pulling from that nest egg to buy something in cash. But when it's already the equity is already in your home and it's kind of like earmarked for living, it's going to feel a lot easier for you to take that money and roll it into your next cash home purchase. So that is a really good point that George made.

Life is full of uncontrollables, and paying off that house is a forced savings plan. Yep. And I love that. It gives me a whole lot of peace, and I think you'll find the same, Christopher. Hey, George Campbell here. Listen, if you've had your phone 2 or 3 years, your phone can now be unlocked. That means you can switch to Boost Mobile to get unlocked, bring your own device, and keep more of your money where it belongs. Look, the fat cats of big wireless, they are counting on you just staying put and overpaying every single month. They want you to think switching is complicated, risky, or just not worth it. Meanwhile, your bill keeps climbing like it's training for a triathlon. But Boost Mobile makes switching simple, simple and way less spendy. You bring your phone, keep your number, and get unlimited wireless for just $25 a month. Yeah, $25 a month. Not for 6 months, not for a promotional period— forever. And there's no contract, no hidden fees, and no 'we changed your plan because we felt like it' email. So if you're tired of overpaying for something you already own, this is your moment to save money.

Go to boostmobile.com/ramsey and get unlocked today. That's boostmobile.com/ramsey. Boostmobile.com/ramsey. $25 forever requires customers to remain active on Boost Mobile Unlimited Plan. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio. I'm George here with Jade Warshaw. The number to call is 888-825-5225. Melanie is in Philadelphia up next. What's going on, Melanie.

Hey, how you guys doing? Thank you so much for taking my call. Absolutely. Um, yeah, so first of all, George, I love you, but this question is for my sister from another mister. I appreciate that.

I'm gonna sit this one out.

Yeah, yeah, I think just sit back on this one for me. So, uh, I got a hair and budget question for my girl Jade. All right, uh, woman of color here, you know how we feel about our crown. I do. And you know, I'm in Baby Step 2 with my husband. We have a lot of debt to off. We've paid a lot, but you know, we still got a little ways to go. How much, um, we spent? So we have paid off $92,000 of $258,000. Nice. Okay, so we're getting there. But recently I had hair down to my waist, cut it down in a short pixie cut, and now it requires a lot more maintenance than what I'm used to. Okay, so, and I'm gonna add nails in there too. So between hair and nails is anywhere between $200 to $300 a month. Okay, which to me seems kind of a lot, but did you put that on pause when when you were doing your Baby Step 2. Sometimes I feel guilty that I'm spending this kind of money on my hair and nails, and I just don't know if I should scale back, if it's something I can continue to do.

Um, so I have about another 14 months or so before we finish paying off the rest of the debt. But what's your guys' income? 14, 15 minutes. So we make up— we take home about $11,000 a month.

Okay, that's good. Um, okay, you take home $11,000 a month. I can tell you what I did. I did not get my hair done regularly. I learned to do it myself. And in order to do that, I changed the way that I was styling my hair. And I did that because I was like, hey, I can't be going to get a silk press. I can't be going to do all this stuff all the time. It's expensive. And to your point, yeah, you could easily spend $200 to $300. Same thing with nails. I saved it for special occasions. I was a performer. Performer. So there were certain things that I did have to do for my job. And so it was a little bit different. I, you know, if you're gonna go on stage, you have to come on stage. And so I did. I, there were certain things, yeah, I invested. I had a lot of wigs. I had a lot of, you know, nails and things like that. But when I knew that I wasn't on stage and that, that wasn't required, I did not spend the money on it. Okay. And it was a, I will say it was a very tough sacrifice to make.

It was an extremely tough sacrifice to make. But I think if you can find a way. I think for you, it sounds like you almost did the opposite. You're like, man, I cut my hair in a style that requires more maintenance. That may have been exactly what happened.

A mistake. I was— I love it and regret it at the same exact time.

Yeah. Um, listen, start growing it out and see if you can pivot into some other things if you need it. I mean, you got to go to work looking nice. I understand that, you know, there's a standard. It's just for somebody else, that could be a man who has to wear a suit and tie to go to work every day,, right? So each of us have the things that we require to be able to show up in the spaces in the way that we need to show up. So I think that you can use your best judgment to determine what that level is because we all need grooming and that is just part of life. Now, $300 feels a little steep. If you can say, hey, I'm gonna do the hair, but the nails, honestly, the nails are not a requirement. And I would leave, I would probably leave it at that. Nails, certainly not a requirement, especially The articles I've been reading today, George, and I think you should jump in because you do have natural nails and I've been reading that natural nails are the way to go now.

I've been told au naturel is in, so I'm finally on trend for once. But I do like what Jade's saying. And Melanie, I'll just jump in with this. I think it's, it's less about the financial aspect and the mathematics because mathematically it's not making that big of a dent in your income or your debt. If you took $100 and threw it at the debt every month out of, you know, the $166,000, it's not going to speed up your debt payoff that much. But what it does is it changes your spirit, your intensity. It is the, I remember having to sacrifice that much to get out of debt, and therefore I never want to go back. And so I think it's more about that line in the sand than it is, well, if we crunch the numbers, we can get out of debt, you know, half a week faster. Yeah, I don't think that's the exciting part here. I think the exciting part is it's a new identity for you guys to say, we're people who don't borrow money. Money, and we climbed out of this huge mess, and never again is that going to happen because Mama likes her nails done.

Yeah, George makes a good point. Yeah, because I feel guilty almost about it. Like, every time I go and I'm like, should I really be spending this? And then I also have a 6-year-old daughter. Sometimes she requires to go too. So then you're talking up in the $350s and $400s for the both of us. Yeah. And it's just like, poof, I, I can't keep doing this.

Yeah, I would, I would cut out keep the hair and even maybe change what you're having done when you get there. And I think that, that, that will go a very long way. And to George's point, just to add on that, yes, I think when you're getting out of debt, and this is not just for you, this is for anybody listening, whenever you're getting out of debt, you have to be careful with exceptions because to George's point, you're, you're turning into a different person and you've got to be very careful about where you draw that line in the sand because if you say, oh, Oh, well, this, this can kind of slide under the fence and get over on the other side. And then you'll start, before you know it, you're letting a lot of other things in. And before you know it, you're not making as many concessions and sacrifices as you wanted to. You're like, oh man, I, I'm not as intense as I thought I was.

On the way to get the hair done, you're stopping in the drive-through and then all of a sudden you're on a shopping spree and it just feels like there's a, a domino effect that can happen.

I'm gonna send you my—

we've cut out so many of those bad habits and I'm like, okay, we're on the right track here. And I just kind of feel like I don't I don't wanna go back, but I, and the guilt, I feel the guilt every time I'm there. So, okay. I'm gonna send you my book. I know my behavior's changed.

I'm gonna send you What No One Tells You About Money because I talk about all this in the book, all of it. Mm-hmm. The guilt, the feeling of like, I thought I was going ham and then I looked up and I realized I'm not going as strong as I thought. And then, you know, you go up to the next level and then after a while you go, you know what, I think I'm not doing as much as I can be. And then you go up to the next level. Uh, so I'm gonna send you that. I think it's really gonna help you. I, I enjoyed this conversation, It was a lot of fun.

Thank you so much, Melanie. You're doing so good. You're talking to me.

I love you guys.

Thank you. You're crushing it. Yes, the guilt part is interesting, Jade, because there is a level of shame and guilt around money, especially when it relates to, "I shouldn't have done that." Yeah. "I'm so stupid. Why you always do that?" And you start to talk to yourself in a way that you wouldn't talk to anyone you love.

No, and you shouldn't do that. You know, I think we have to be careful because because, you know, we've all done things like that early layer of like buyer's remorse when you're like, why did I buy that? And, you know, you can't really go back and change it, but you want to learn your lesson from it. And it kind of feels like she's there. She's coming home and going, gosh, why did I do that? But she's not ready to learn the lesson of, I think I just need to pull back or not keep doing that thing that I feel remorseful for. But I think when you feel that, that's like just the right amount of— it's like touching the hot stove and you're like, Ooh, I felt that for a reason. Let me divert, let me change my habit here and listen to the sting. Yes.

But I don't want guilt to be in the driver's seat.

No.

You want to be focused on the future and the vision that you have for that person you wanna be, the goals that you have. And then the byproduct of that is, all right, I'm gonna cut this out.

Yeah. And let's, you know, there are things that are necessary in your budget. Budget, and certain things that might be necessary in somebody else's budget may not be necessary in another person's budget. And we're not here to police anybody or make them feel bad. We're here— remember when we were kids and in school you would do things and it's like, "On your honor," and the teacher would be like, "Okay, it's on your honor," and it's like, "Yeah," you know, you feel good about that. This is on your honor. Learn to trust yourself.

Trust yourself.

We believe that you're looking at your budget and you are a responsible adult who will look and say, this is necessary and this part absolutely is not. And I'm going to cut it because I know that it's not.

One day there's going to be a $500 line item for Melanie, just for hair, just for her. I like that. One day.

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How can we help today? Hi, thank Thank you for having me. My question is, should I follow the next Baby Step, my Baby Step number 4? I have— I'm 43 years old and I do not have any retirement at all. I'm a single mom now and I make $28,500 a month— or a year, but I also get child support and alimony for $58,000 a year. That's going to dwindle down when my son reaches after college, basically, and he's 13 years old right now. And I just don't know, since where I'm at in my life at 43, if I should, you know, increase that retirement since I have none of that. I was married for 19 years, and so we saved in his accounts, and basically I got the house and he got all the retirement. And I'm— right now I'm living in a townhome um, and I make— I owe $230,000 on that. Okay.

When, when your son is 18, how much will the alimony dwindle down to in the child support? Um, if he continues—

if he continues to go to college, it will stay till he finishes college. Um, so that would be great for him to keep that, but it will go down, um, $12,000 a year $12,000 a year until it's gone, right?

Okay, okay. Uh, what are you doing for work making $28,500?

I just got a job as a library assistant at a high school, so I've been a stay-at-home mom. And, you know, after 19 years, um, I guess we, you know, he wanted a divorce, and so Um, we were doing the Baby Steps and we had a lot invested, but he kind of received that and I had to sell our home, and that's how I moved into the townhome. Okay. So I don't have a lot of money right now, and I was thinking about getting a second job as well, you know, to increase my funds. Um, I do have a master's degree, but around here right now, it's like that's a dime a dozen.

Like, what was your master's in?

Kind of hard to find I work in human services.

Okay. So if I had a magic wand, what work would you be doing today? What job?

Oh, I'd love to work for like— I would love to work like as a social worker or something like that. I tried to get a job with Department of Social Services, but that didn't work out. You know, they didn't hire me. I'm just trying to get my— land my feet somewhere for stability. And then, you know, I thought about just getting another job to, you know, save at least one bit of retirement. I do not have any retirement.

So let me go back to that for a minute. Let me go back to that, your initial question. So you've got the $28,000, but you're getting another $58,000 a year in alimony. I want to make sure I understood that correct.

With child— with child— with child support compensation. Are you—

I mean, I don't know any restrictions around that. Are you— I mean, that's income for you. Are you able to invest off of that like it's normal income, or are there any restrictions? Correct.

So there's no restriction. Okay, I can choose.

So what I'm hearing is you at least have anywhere between 5 to 9 years, right? Your son's 13, to be investing 15% of your 7— you know, $86,000 income. I'll crunch the numbers here. That's $1,075 $1,000 a month. Okay. So if you're doing that and you, you know, have a rate of return that we would suggest just at that number, you know, now until let's say, what did you say, George, age what?

I mean, it depends on where we go to. I mean, if you go to 65, let's say that's over $1 million.

And that's assuming that as it starts to dwindle, you're also getting your, your core income up. So the idea is you've got plenty of time and plenty of runway way that as that starts to dwindle down, your own income is coming up to meet it and possibly exceed it, exceed the $86,000. And I see and hear no reason why that can't be the case. But to answer your initial question, yes, you need to be investing right now. If you are on Baby Step 4, yeah, you need to be investing 15% of this $86,000. To our point, it's $1,075 a month.

Nothing should stop stop that. And then what do I do about my son? Because, you know, I don't know how much really I invest in his future. Yep. I mean, we're getting child support, so I'd love to put some of that money towards that. Yeah. So I'm not sure like how much I should actually—

should or not. Yeah. So what you— where you're in, you're in Baby Step 4, but it's actually Baby Step 4, 5, and 6 that you do simultaneously. Honestly, so you've got to do the 15%. And then because you've got children, now you've got to invest some amount of money in a 529 is what I would suggest. And the way to find that number is really to think, okay, we could do some calculations to see, okay, in my area, what do the state schools cost? What do the community colleges cost? And really, how much do you have in your budget that you can even put towards this? Because ideally, Ideally, you would be putting a little bit of money there and putting a little bit of money extra on this, on this, uh, mortgage if you can.

So for example, it could be $1,000 for investing. That's your 15%, maybe $500 a month for the 529 for college, another $500 for the mortgage. So that's $2,000 out of the take-home pay we're going to apply to those steps. Wow. But you don't have any obligation to cover all of college. No. That's a luxury. It's a privilege. It's an awesome thing to do, but I don't want you to feel like a bad parent, a bad your mom if you can't fully cover any school they want to go to. That's also a ridiculous, you know, assumption. So I want to free you of this, Sarah. I can— the, the guilt and the shame and the hurt is dripping off of you right now, and I just want to free you from that and tell you it's okay to heal. It's okay to grieve. It's okay to have a season where you're not making a whole lot of progress financially, because we need Sarah to get well before her financial future can become well. And what you can do, Sarah—

George is absolutely right. There is no obligation 'Cause plenty of parents don't have the margin to pay for college. But what you can do, and honestly, what in many ways I think is even more valuable, is to simply start having the conversation and set expectations with your boy and say, "Hey, you've seen what's going on. What I need from you is when it's time to come, when it's time to start talking about college, we're doing scholarships, okay? We're doing state schools, we're doing community college. You'll work, I'll work. We're gonna cash flow this thing because you are not gonna go in debt. I can promise you that." And if you can, You can set that standard and then everything that you save is just a cherry on top of that. That is such a win, Sarah. Mm-hmm. I agree.

Thank you guys so much. I really appreciate it. Absolutely. We're rooting for you.

Just know it's, it's not too late. And so I, not at all. I think you're, you're starting to believe your own lies because of the brokenness that you're sitting in right now with the divorce and the rejection from these jobs that is your dream job. There's just a lot of hurt all around you right now, and I want you to to know that at 43, you got a whole second or third half, man, to, to fight this battle and live a whole new life. And so the dream doesn't need to die just because you had some serious life events beat you down for a little bit. So take the time to get well, take the time to get that core income up, and you will find that job one day. I believe even if it takes getting licensed to become a social worker, you will create that margin over time if you follow these steps.

A lot of women don't hit their good stride until their late 40s and 50s. And it's your best earning years anyways.

Yep. Kelly's over here nodding. Kelly Daniels. Absolutely. She's like, yep. Kelly's, she is in her stride. She is crushing it.

She's in that. She's that girl.

She is. I see it. So it's not too late. I know it feels like the best years are behind me and man, that chapter of my life is over and now I'm just going to do this $14 an hour job and let it ride. She's not done. You're worth more than that. So we are absolutely rooting for you. And that goes for anyone out there who feels like it's too late. Because guess what? Everyone feels like they're behind. The 24-year-old is going to call in and say, I feel like I'm behind because I saw a TikTok. The 34-year-old is going, I know I should be doing better than I am. The 44-year-old also feels like, I wish I knew this stuff earlier. I made some mistakes. And then you get the people in their 50s and 60s.

It's because we do, we do too much comparison, George. We're looking at everybody else and thinking and measuring ourselves up to them. You can't do that. Yeah. Life's not race. Yeah, it's just your race. It's your run. It's your stride. It's your pace. You don't need to look. Don't look to the left or to the right.

Yeah, I'm not racing Jade. I can't keep up. So I put the blinders on and I run my little 5K and she's doing her Ironman. That's okay. We all got to live our truth. Hey, George Kamel here. A few years ago, someone stole my identity, and let me tell you, that is not a quick fix. It takes hours on the phone, piles of paperwork, and a whole lot of stress trying to untangle the mess. And even after that, there's this nagging paranoia annoyed because your information is already out there. And the truth is, you can do all the right things and still become a victim. That's how common identity theft is. And that's why I'm glad I had Zander's Identity Theft Protection. When my identity was stolen, their team stepped in right away. They were monitoring my information and caught the issue, and their US-based recovery specialists helped handle the calls, the paperwork, the cleanup, so I didn't have to do it all on my own. Zander also includes up to $2 million in stolen funds and expense reimbursement. Reimbursement, and with the family plan, your kids are covered for free. You work too hard to let identity theft steal your time, your money, and your peace of mind.

So go to zander.com to enroll today, or call 800-356-4282. Ask Ramsey is our free AI tool that's built and trained on proven Ramsey principles. And today we're going to break down one of the top questions of the week. The main question: Why does Ramsey recommend only investing 15%? Only?

I feel like that's a pretty good number if you ask me.

That's a great— I mean, what's funny is like the entire financial planning community, as much as they can disagree with Dave on— everyone's like, yeah, 15% is a great number to hit.

It's a great number considering most people are only at their match, right? 3% or 4% anyway. 15% is enough to build real wealth without sacrificing everything else in your life. FIRE, you know, those, those movements, people are investing 30, 40% of their income, but at what cost and how long can you really keep that going? I see a lot of people burn out in that.

There's a time and place to increase investing. So it's not only investing 15% your whole life. For all time. Yeah. Invest 15% while you save up for college for your kids, which is wildly expensive while you try to pay off the mortgage early with extra payments, which is going to take a lot of margin. Oh, and by the way, you got to go on vacation and upgrade the cars. You got to cover the kids' generosities, activities, and give. And so there's so much more to life than just investing. And I think 15% is a good parameter to make sure you don't lose your mind along the way.

Absolutely. Yeah, it's a great number. It makes sure that you can do those goals that are really important, like George said. And if you invested only 5 to 10%, then you'd actually be falling short of what you need for retirement. So 15% really is in that sweet spot of being able to accomplish your goals and also being able to have just enough and more for retirement. A few key things to know about the 15%, George. This is based on your gross household income. I cannot say that enough. So if you say I make $100,000 a year before taxes, that's the number.

The $100,000 a year better be invested. And then your employer match doesn't count toward the 15%. We get that one a lot. Well, my employer matches 5%, so I'm going to invest 10%. Cherry on top. It's 15% of your money regardless of what's going on with your employer, because your employer can change and you want to have that habit built up in the budget of being able to live off of 15% less in your take-home pay. So that's important. And then the order is pretty simple. 401 up to the match if you have one, then move to any Roth options you have like a Roth IRA, max that out if that's still in the 15%. And if you still haven't hit the 15% threshold, threshold, go back to the traditional 401 for the rest.

Yeah, I love that. And remember, guys, the goal— we don't want you to just retire. We want you to retire with dignity. We want you to have freedom. And this word again, it keeps ringing in— options. Options is what you want. And I promise you, 15% is what's going to get you there.

So if you want to crunch some numbers, Ask Ramsey can help you determine what is 15% of your gross household income so that you're on track for retirement. Go ask all of your questions today at RamseySolutions.com or just click the link in the description if you're on podcast or YouTube. Sarah is in Charlotte up next.

Sarah, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you. What's going on? So my husband and I love our jobs. We make about $7,000, or we bring home about $7,000 a month, and the Lord blessed us with twin boys, and we are struggling with the cost of child care.

Yeah.

Oh yeah, because that's what it was, $3,000 a Um, it is $3,490 at our current center, which we cannot afford at $7,000 a month. So we're looking at other options, and the choices are between $3,026 for both kids or $1,200 for both kids. The mom heart of me is struggling with the lower amount because of the quality that we're losing with that.

Absolutely. When you said $1,200, I was like, what, what is that place look like. Um, yeah, I, George has kids, I've had littles. Um, and we know those numbers that you quoted are really right on. And how, how old are your twins?

They're 15 months old right now. Yeah, they're still young.

Mm-hmm. Uh, yeah, cuz the younger the baby, the more, you know, care and the more expensive it is. So you're right in the thick of it. Uh, of the $7,000 a month, how much of that is your income?

So we make $7,000 a month, but minus our fixed brings us to $2,889. So that's minus our mortgage, which is a little less than 25%, and our utilities and groceries and stuff.

I'm confused. So what portion is your— what do you take home versus your husband?

Uh-huh. Okay, my take-home is $3,300 and he brings home about $3,600. $3,300.

Okay, so it's pretty much a wash. If you stayed home, you're losing that $3,300. Could you live off of his income? Is that a preferable experience, or do you want to keep working?

I want to keep working. I'm a kindergarten teacher and it's my dream job, so I would not consider that.

Now, what about family? Do we have any options in the area that we can kind of offset this and pay someone but not maybe pay them what we'd be paying a day care?

My mother-in-law can watch them one day a week, but she can't do any more than that. And, um, we don't have any other options other than that.

Do you have a, a church community?

We don't have the option to like have a babysitter or anyone else at a lower rate. The lower rate would be the $1,200 a month like church option.

That is a church. That is a church. Okay. The reason I was asking is sometimes— I mean, we had a lady call in early earlier that she would be a prime candidate to help with children. So a lot of times you can find people in your community who, they're looking for the extra work. They're looking for something, uh, full-time that you can bring into the house, right? Um, and get the same level of care, but it's in your home and at least you're not having to pay, you know, the same premium here. So you guys are up against it.

Um, I would also look into maybe some nanny share programs. It might actually be deeper in your case with the twins. So I would just do all of the homework you can and then make the best decision with the information you have and with the values that your family has. And that might lead you down the path where you go, all right, we got to pay $3,400 a month because this is what we value, and that means sacrifice in all the other areas to make that work. Or, or it might mean—

and I'm not saying it has to be you, I'm only saying this based on the incomes— it also be that the person with the lower income stays home and does part-time work. So you're getting the value of bringing in some income, but you're also not having to pay the full, you know, the $3,400 or the $3,000 every month. And that, I kind of don't mind that because although you wouldn't be in your dream job for the moment, you can always go back when they get a little bit older, when they get kindergarten age and they're able to go off to school and maybe you'd be their kindergarten teacher.

And this might put a fire under you guys to go, okay, how do we get our core incomes up? So what does your husband do for work?

He has an accounting degree. Accounting degree? Does he doing accounting? Yes. Okay. Purchasing, bookkeeping, it's kind of a purchaser. He does all kinds of stuff.

Yeah. You can make 6 figures in that role. So what does the sort of ladder look like in in his company that he's in or in his role that he's in to go, okay, here's the next step up. Here's what it's gonna take for me to be senior accountant. Does it need a certification? Do I need to really prove that I'm bringing so much value to this organization that I deserve to be paid more? So I'd start looking into those things too. 'Cause if he can double his income, we've just solved the problem, right? And that's easier said than done. But if he can go from making 50 or 60K to 100K, K. Well, now the daycare becomes a much smaller portion of your life. You still have margin left over. That's what we're really worried about is can we still live our life, can we still do the Baby Steps if half of our take-home pay is gone day one when that paycheck comes in? How old are you guys?

Right, I'm 27, he's 30.

Okay, and how long has he been at this, in this particular role at this particular company?

Uh, 2 years, I think.

Okay, yeah, I, I agree with what George said, and I would start looking out there and seeing, are there other opportunities with his degree that he can be making more money? And if it requires you guys to, you know, go to another area, I think that's fully worth it for you guys to get more income into the mix. Okay.

Thank you guys for your advice. Absolutely.

I feel for you, Sarah, that everyone out there who's paying a daycare bill right now is like, yes and amen. Oh man.

And I mean, when you know how it feels when you find out you're having babies you're like, oh, you're already like clutching your pearls. And then if you find out you have twins, like that is a whole different—

that'll change your world.

That's a whole different ballgame.

It'll be fun down the road, but right now it's just like, how are we going to do this this month? And so it's going to be, you know, could be 3, 4, 5 years of some deeper sacrifice, but it's a season. Daycare is not forever. That's right. And then, you know, hopefully they'll be in public school, fingers crossed, instead of turning that into another private school bill. Oh, that— people do it. Hurts my soul, but people do it.

Mm.

One of our favorite things is when people share their stories of how they're winning with money, and we got this awesome review for our EveryDollar budgeting app. "Just being able to use EveryDollar and see all the extra we had every single month was super motivating. We'd have thousands of dollars extra and just throw it on the mortgage." That is incredible. That's amazing. And you can do this too. I mean, the numbers may look different, but the peace and control you feel will be the same. You can take control of your money. You can live like no one else. Start EveryDollar for free today in the App Store or Google play. Melissa is up next in Chattanooga.

What's going on, Melissa? Hi, I am just recently listening to y'all and trying to make sense of the Baby Steps for my situation. We owe approximately $30,000 on our house and have about $65,000 in other debt. Would it make more sense for us to just pay off our house and then start paying on the rest of the that? No, but let's explain why.

Uh, do you have a chunk of cash that you're sitting on? No. Okay, not really. So you're just thinking, okay, we need to start making extra payments somewhere.

Where do we start? You broke up on us. Speak directly into your phone.

Sorry. So we've been making extra payments on our house for a little bit. Um, but then I started listening to y'all and it was like, we'll pay off all the consumer our debt. Um, but then if we pay off our house, then they can't take it away from us. So it seems like, you know, like that's the thing that would give us security, and we could— it would be ours then. Does that make sense?

Yeah, I, I like the way you're thinking. I think your, your mind is going in the direction where we want it to go, which is you want peace and you want freedom. Am I right? Yes. Okay, so let's talk about the best way to achieve that, because we want that too. I mean, that's what this show is all about, is about helping people build wealth so that Ultimately, they have financial peace. Ultimately, they have options. Ultimately, they feel a sense of freedom, uh, with their money. And so what we found is the best way to get there is a series of 7 Baby Steps. Are you familiar with them? Yes. Okay. So for those who aren't familiar, the very first Baby Step is to get $1,000 saved. And that's just so that you can have a cushion between you and life. You don't have to rely on credit cards if something pops up. Do you have $1,000 saved? Saved? Yes. Yes. I'm glad. I think you said yes, Melissa. That's great. I did. Do you have more than $1,000 saved?

Yes. How much? Um, probably around $10,000.

Okay, so you've got $10,000 saved. So keep that to the side. The next step is, yeah, just like you said, we suggest paying off all of your consumer debt. That's everything everything except the house. And the reason that we do it that way is because we're, we're building a foundation here and we've gotta clean up our mess before we start building wealth. So what you're talking about, paying off the house, that's a wealth-building practice and we're not quite there yet. We gotta clean up the, the mess first. And by doing that, it gives us more of our hard-earned money back into our pockets. All right? The biggest wealth-building tool that you have is your income, the money that you make every single month. And as long as it's going out in debt payments, you don't have that money at your full disposal to really do what it is that you need to do. So by paying off our consumer debt, not only do we keep that risk out of our life, but now we're getting back our, our tools. We're getting back the tools it takes to build wealth. So we would say, yes, now let's pay off the debt.

You've got $65,000 in consumer debt. So if you were to, uh, take $9,000 of the $10,000 that you have saved and put that towards the debt, we'd keep the $1,000 obviously as Baby Step 1. That's going to give you a quick kind of leg up on this debt, and now we're, now we're ready to roll. You know, we got $56,000. Let's start paying it off and let's do it smallest to largest. That's called the debt snowball. List them out by balance, smallest to largest, and we'll help you do that. And then we're gonna attack the smallest debt with all of the margin that's left, any extra money. So tell us about the $65,000, uh, that you have. What kind of debts are they and how much are they?

So it's, it's really just, uh, two categories. It's, Um, about $3,000 on credit cards and the rest of it student loans. Okay.

And are those student loans split up amongst 10 or 11 different little loans?

2, just 2 different loans.

2. Okay. What's the biggest one? What's the smallest?

Um, one's like $20-something and the other one's $30-something. Okay. They're very close together.

Yeah. Those student loans scare me so much more than the mortgage mortgage does. The mortgage is in— is tied to the asset of the home that's going up in value. These student loans have no real value in the real world, and they're not going anywhere. You can't even bankrupt on student loans, and they're likely at a much higher interest rate than your home. Yes. So let's knock those out. I know you want to get the mortgage knocked out. The good news is when you knock out a $30K student loan and there's less than $30K left on the mortgage, you're just going to keep plowing right on through and get rid of that mortgage too. Yeah, it's going to feel easy after that.

What's your income? What do you guys take home How much do you guys come home every month?

Probably $11,000 a month.

Excellent. That's fantastic. So you're going to knock these debts out fast if you guys get intense.

Yeah, do you have a budget?

I've tried to create one, which brought this question up. Okay. Where did you try to create one? Tell us about that. Well, I downloaded the free version of the EveryDollar app and it was like, "Well, start paying off the student loans." And I was like, "That doesn't make any sense to me." That's when you called in.

Okay. Got it. Got it.

Okay, wait, can I ask about this mortgage? How is it so low?

Because, well, because everybody says you should pay extra on your mortgage. So since we bought the house, we've been paying extra on the mortgage and just let everything— that's amazing.

That is amazing.

Well, usually when there's a mortgage that low, it's like a double-wide situation and it's going down in value. So that was my fear. Uh, that's great to know. So you guys are going to be in Baby Step 7 in no time. If I were you, I would just keep on going, same intensity, and just be done with this whole thing. And then you're making $11,000 with no payments in the world. Tonight, with your spouse, add up all of your payments you're making with the mortgage and go, that's going to be freed up if we stay intense. And you'll probably do this in 24 months. You could probably be completely debt-free, mortgage and everything.

Yeah, Melissa, very stressful, but yes. No, it's a good thing.

When you built that budget, how much margin do you guys have left once you've made minimum payments? No extra payments, just minimum payments and you've kind of satisfied the things that you need, you know, for your month-to-month life, how much margin do you have?

There was probably $4,000 or $5,000 a month left over. Wow.

Oh yeah. That's exactly 2 years. $95,000.

And that's everything.

If you throw $4,000 a month, you're done in less than 2 years.

Yes, that was everything. Yeah. It's fantastic.

And so then to continue on, so now you've accomplished Baby Step 2 and you've kind of jumped ahead, but after that you can save 3 to 6 months of expenses. Expenses, and that's going to make sure that— that's like insurance. It makes sure you never have to go back into debt again. You never have to scan a credit card again. You never have to pull out, you know, a 401 loan. Not that you were doing that, but people do that kind of business. And so it's giving you insurance on your debt freedom when you save up that 3 to 6 months of expenses. And then from there, now we're really digging into building wealth. We talked about it earlier, but you'll be investing 15% of your gross income every single month, and you You can do that simultaneously alongside Baby Steps 5 and 6. Baby Step 5 is you can put away for your kids' college into a 529. You could do an ESA, but I love a 529. And you're putting extra on the mortgage, which you don't need to do because yours is going to be done, son. And then after that, Baby Step 7, living like no one else.

Just build wealth and live.

It's a choose your own adventure at that point. It looks different for everyone. Yeah, but I love this picture for everyone listening out there. Imagine your life with no payments and not just imagine. Add it up. Add up all the payments in your life you're making to the lenders, the mortgage company, the student loan companies, and go, what if that was in my bank account every month instead? What would I do? What could I do? And it all comes back to those options we've been talking about. I mean, it's just so freeing to go, oh, all of my hard-earned income is for me. And if you do the math on a calendar, you'd be shocked about how many days you're working for somebody else. Yes. If a third of your take-home pay is going to lenders, a third of your month working is going to lenders. Yes. So imagine the first 9 days you go to work, you don't need somebody else. Oh, I don't. Yeah. Sallie Mae is putting you to work.

Now let's, let's, let's park back on what she said, Melissa, because the truth is, when you do start to lay out your debts, when you look at the Baby Steps for the first time, you look at it and you go, oh great, a plan. And then when you start digging into it, you go, ooh, that's daunting. Like that. There's a lot of work.

I said 24 months. She said, oh, that sounds stressful. Yeah. I went, most people are going to live the next 24 years in stress and mediocrity. So I'll take 24 months of sacrifice for the next 24 years of freedom. Absolutely. That's a worthy trade-off.

Yeah, you got to look at what's at stake. If you do nothing, where will your life— where will your life be in 5 years? But if you do something today and you start doing the things that we teach, in 5 years you're not even going to recognize your old life.

It's that old Zig Ziglar quote, you aim at nothing, you'll hit every time. So let's aim in the right direction. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio. Brittany is up next in Las Vegas. Brittany, how can we help you today?

Hi, thank you so much for taking my call.

Absolutely. What's your question?

Um, okay, what are your thoughts on using surrogacy as a way to speed up the baby steps?

Wow. I mean, we talk about gazelle intensity and sacrifice. That's about the biggest sacrifice you could make is renting out your body.

Wait a minute. Hold on. Let me, let me make sure I understand. Are you saying, cause there's two ways you can hear this. Are you saying that you don't want to carry the baby so you can keep working and stuff? Or are you saying I'll carry someone else's baby to make money?

I would carry someone else's baby to make the income.

Got you. Where'd you get this idea?

Is this something that's been on your mind for a while? Or was it like a friend told you about it?

Well, my sister does it, but it's also my husband's working day and night right now, 80 hours a week trying to pay off our debt. So as a thought to try to get him home back with us, with our kids sooner, that, you know, pregnancy was kind of easier for me, that it could be something that I could potentially do.

I can't think of any world where pregnancy is easier than anything.

Listen, some, some women, some women, they really enjoy it. And their bodies don't seem to mind it. I don't know.

Pop them out. Have you had a baby before?

Yes, I've had 3. Oh, OK. How old are you?

Old hat for you. Yeah, 29.

29. Wow. And how much debt are we talking about? I need to see how desperate we're getting, because this is getting to some desperate measures.

We're $66,000 in consumer debt.

Okay, and what's the household income currently?

Um, so with his second job, and then I work full-time from home watching with the kids, and we're at $11,000. So it's a 3-job. So you have a great income.

I mean, we can knock this debt out pretty fast. We're talking less than 18 months.

Yeah.

So the question is, do you want to spend 9 of those pregnant, hoping— I mean, that's like, this is all things go perfectly— to get rid of the debt a little bit faster. Because 18 months, that's square in the average it takes for people to get out of consumer debt following our plan, 18 to 24 months.

Yeah, well, my thought is it would also help us fund Baby Step 3.

Let me, let me, let me get away from the numbers for a minute. Were you planning on having any more of your own children? Children? No, we're done. Okay. Um, are there— what, what would you— I said I was going to get away from the numbers, but what would you earn for doing this, just so we can understand?

Yeah, starting cost is about— starting pay is about $65,000 for a first-time surrogate.

$65,000. Okay. Um, here's— I'm gonna just tell you some of the things that are floating around in my mind. You've had way more time time to noodle this around. I heard it, uh, for 90 seconds. So first thing I'm thinking is, you got younger kids in the house, you're gonna have to explain this to them. Um, and there's going to be attachment whether you want it or not. There's going to be attachment for you, and there's going to be attachment for your kids because they knew that they grew in mama's belly, and then they're seeing somebody else grow in mama's belly. I'm wondering how that's gonna feel for them. So there's an impact here that goes beyond you and your body. And I just wanna make sure that we're thinking well through that because there's nothing dire in your situation that I think that we're to that level. Your num— matter of fact, your numbers are very similar to, uh, the folk, the person that called in earlier. Yeah. He had 6, you know, made $11,000.

Yeah. Made $65,000 in consumer debt.

And so, and I wasn't like, you know what, you should do surrogacy. So, So, I don't want you to feel that you're in a desperate situation that you need to do something desperate. That's thing one. Now, thing two is, if you had said to me, and maybe this is true and we just didn't start here, if you had said to me, "You know what, Jaden and George, I'm thinking about the ministry of surrogacy because I really have a heart for moms who can't carry their children, and that's something that's really important to me." me and I think I can help because I actually love being pregnant, then now we're having a conversation. So I think those are the, those are the two biggest things that I think we need to talk through beyond the numbers first. Okay. So where do you fall?

And you can be totally honest with us. You can't hurt our feelings.

Yeah, we're not judging you. We're just, we're chopping it up.

Yeah, no, I think it's about, I mean, 50/50. I mean, the idea of being able to help a mom, but at the same time, I see how hard my husband works and him not sleeping, only in between shifts, because he's working 80 hours a week and just sleeping anytime he has the chance to, that he's— I feel like he's missing our kid's childhood.

Okay, so let's stop there. That, that's your driver. I think your bigger driver is getting your husband the rest he needs and you feeling some level of guilt or whatever for what he's having to go through. I actually— it sounds like— I could be wrong— sounds like that's a bigger driver than what I'm going to call the ministry of surrogacy. Is that fair?

And yeah, I would say that's fair.

Okay, so let's solve that problem. Let's solve for husband first, and then let's see if all dials point to surrogacy. I have a feeling that they're not, but let's, let's look at other things that, that dad can do in, in getting some relief for him.

How much is he working with that second job? How many hours a week?

Uh, 40 hours a week with his main job and his second job.

Could he dial the second one down, or is it required to be full-time?

Um, it's— I don't think it's required to be full-time, but he's trying. He want— he's at the same level I am of trying to pay off debt. We're dialed into the Ramsey Method and just trying to pay off debt, so he's doing the 40, the full 40. Okay, where is—

where does he stand on this? Is he like, hey, I'm happy to keep this going, I'm doing I'm fine, you know, physically I can handle this, or is he like, hey, I got maybe 3 more months of this before I'm burnt out?

I would say it's about 50/50. Depends on the night, if you ask him. Okay.

I'm just wondering if we dial it back. Sunday, let's say it takes you guys 2 years to pay off the debt instead of 18 months. Yeah. But you can survive it and avoid surrogacy as a side hustle. Does that sound like a good plan?

Yeah, that sounds fair. And I love that.

That's if you have no increase in income with your core full-time jobs, because I'm just looking at a mom who's watching 3 kids, working a full-time job, now add a pregnancy on top of that. It's going to be stressful for someone. And so I'm like, can we kind of— can you both carry some of the load? Maybe you work a little bit when he's home. He works a little bit, but not 40 hours a week. And then we have a middle ground here.

Yes. And I want to say something, and I think I can. You know, we love gazelle intensity. We love people to go fast, and we love people to do whatever it takes. But also, in a debt payoff journey, mine was 7 and a half, not a little, you know, a decent bit longer than yours. There are— what I'm going to say is there's times where you're really accelerating, and there's times where it's like, bro, I'm tired. I got to just pull off the gas a little bit. And that's That's okay. It's okay to pull off the gas a little bit. You're still going towards the goal. That could look like, I've been driving Uber and I hate it. I'm just going to stop driving Uber as a side hustle for a while, and I'm going to give myself a month or two breather, and then I'm going to pick up a different side hustle, right? There are ways that the debt-free journey can morph over time, whether it's speeding up or slowing down, as long as you're still going intensely towards the goal, and everything that you're doing is done with intentionality. I'm intentionally taking a 30-day break.

I'm intentionally now coming back and doing a different side hustle. That's totally fine. Um, what I don't want you to do is— I, I'm hesitant to people when they're putting their bodies on the line, when they could potentially be putting their health on the line, because pregnancy, there's so many factors that can take place. And you have a family of your own, and for that reason, I think I'm going to say I don't, I don't think you should do that unless it's a ministry.

You should not feel uncertain about investing, and you don't have to. That's why we created Investing Essentials, a 2-night virtual event where George Campbell and I walk you through my playbook for investing and wealth planning. We'll simplify everything from 401s and mutual funds to passing on wealth so you can invest with confidence. Tickets start at $199.

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Okey dokey. Today's question comes from Alexandra in Iowa. She says, my parents surprised me with a new car for my birthday that's worth $40,000. My husband and I have been paying off our debt, and together we earn about $60,000 a year. We have about $30,000 in debt, not including our mortgage. I want to sell the new car and drive my beat-up truck again. Doing so would pay off the debt and give us a head start on our emergency fund. The problem is I know it would cause issues with my parents. What should we do? Okay, this is a sticky one. It's a sticky one. I mean, the truth is, if somebody gives you something, it's yours, and it should be unattached. It should be that way.

But obviously, I mean, okay, one day you're gonna sell this car. One day you're not gonna have it for forever.

And they were probably thinking in their minds, they were thinking, I'm going to give her a car, not I'm going to give her money to pay off her debt. That's probably what they were thinking. Yeah.

Well, to be fair, it's a lot more exciting to give your daughter a new car when hers is all beat up and go, woo, this is fun. It's something visual. They can see it's physical. Yes. Paying off debt is kind of intangible and less exciting from the gift giver's perspective. Yes. If they're not aligned with the Ramsey plan going, man, it would change their life if we paid off their debt. Instead, let's give them a depreciating asset that they have to maintain maintain for years.

That's so true. And the other side of it is you have to ask yourself, and I'm— if you're the gift giver and somebody does something with the gift that you didn't want them to do, now you're talking about control issues. Because it's like, well, I, I want to give you the gift and I want to control how you use it and how you enjoy it.

So I have the right to be offended if I give you a gift, Jade, and you go sell it on Facebook Market second place and go get your nails done. I'm like, well, wow, do you really? I'll be offended for sure. That's a normal reaction as someone who gives a gift. Okay, because it shows that you didn't like the gift. You didn't— you don't respect me.

But here's the thing, let's bring the level down a little bit because we're talking about a $40,000 car. Let's pretend that I bought you a $40 sweater and it wasn't forest green and it was— what's your— what's the other color? You like?

I like all of them. Like maroon? Sure.

And I accidentally bought you, I don't know, a purple sweater.

Yeah, I don't do purple sweaters.

And you're like, I don't do purple sweaters. So you went and took it back and got something that was more valuable to you. Sure. So, you know, I could be a little offended, like, well, but at the end of the day, I'm like, well, I actually want George to have what he wants. And I assumed he wanted a purple sweater. He actually wants a green one. Well, let's walk through.

That's really what it is. Well, it could happen. Let's walk through the different Let's talk about two different scenarios. Scenario 1, they sell the car without talking to the parents at all. And it becomes probably a blow-up argument once the parents find out. Yeah. Right. It's kind of behind their back, so to speak. Sure. Scenario 2, she talks to the parents and says, hey, I'm going to do this and here's why.

And they say, we don't want you to do that.

And then she can then go her own way and say, well, I'm choosing to do it, but I wanted to be respectful and let you guys know that debt payoff is a priority, and I really love the car. It's a beautiful car, but right now that's not a priority for us.

It's such a, it would be a greater gift for us. Yes. To have it. I agree. I think that the, the, the kind thing to do would be to let them know first so they don't feel side-blinded. But I will stand 10 toes on business and say truthfully, they should not require that. Yeah, I will say that.

Well, I mean, it, if they knew her situation, they know they're $30 grand in debt. They know her life and their marriage, they probably should have gone like, hey, what would be the best use? If we were going to give them $40,000, should it be in a depreciating asset or should it be debt freedom plus an emergency fund? I'm going ding, ding, ding. That one sounds a lot better. Yeah. Especially when she's happy with her beat-up truck.

Well, then, you know, it gets into the whole talk of everybody doesn't follow our principles and they don't have to. But a lot of times people do get pushback when when they start doing this way of life because a lot of people don't understand it. Like, why would you go through discomfort? Why would you sacrifice a $40,000 car? It begs questions for a lot of people and that's okay, but—

The other thing I think about though is the insurance is gonna be real expensive on that car. Absolutely. It probably takes premium gas if it's a $40,000 car. Yes, yep. Now they've increased their costs and their budget every month just to drive a car they don't even want to drive. And so again, I don't have any problem with it personally. I would talk to my parents, if they're level-headed parents, this is— you're hoping there's healthy people on all sides of this equation. Yeah, I'm hoping so. Which is pretty rare these days. But you have a conversation with them and that way they're at least not blindsided by it. They may not agree with it, but it feels a little less disrespectful if you kind of bring it up. Yeah.

How mad could you really be if somebody said, instead of having this car, I want to pay off debt, or I want to invest the money, or I want to do something else way more financially savvy with it? How mad How sweet can you be?

But I mean, it's a pretty sweet gift. Not going to lie. It is a nice gift. I'd take one. All right. Art is in Greenville, North Carolina up next. What's going on, Art?

Hi, Dave and George. My wife and I are in Baby Step 7. We have the opportunity to purchase a second home in our neighborhood with the hope that her parents and her brother would move here. Why is that a hope? They currently live 3 hours from us and they can't afford to move move here. We can afford to—

you guys want to be generous, you want to have family close by, they can afford it, so you're going, hey, what if we bought this house and they can just move into it and they wouldn't have any payments?

Yeah, and they could gradually move into it. Her parents, uh, we're 45 years old, her parents are both about 80 years old, and, um, her brother lives with them, and the three of them have health issues. Okay, what's the house It's about $425,000. How wealthy are you?

What's your net worth?

We have about $1.5 million in brokerage and about $900,000 in 401s.

Okay. And how would you pay for the house?

That was another question. If we should pay for it outright or finance it. I wouldn't really want to finance it. Is your house paid for?

Your personal residence?

Yeah, our house is paid for. We don't have any debt. Awesome! I love that!

Cash would be the only way. If you're going to do this, it's a second home. We see that as sort of a luxury toy. It's not making you money. We'd never recommend going into debt for any reason on a second home. So if you're going to do it, it looks like you'd cash out a lot of that brokerage in order to make that happen. Happen, right?

Yeah, the biggest purchase we've made. I mean, it's in our neighborhood, so that it's more than what we originally paid for our house.

Yeah, well, and think about this: you're footing the bill for the rest of at least your parents' lives. I don't know about the sibling, but are you okay with that side too?

I just didn't want to complicate it with— if they bought it, then how would they pay us back for it, and how would the will go? And so I thought it would be cleaner Yes, yes.

Well, I'm just looking at, you know, you're gonna pay the property taxes, you're gonna pay the insurance. Are you gonna also cover utilities? Are you gonna cover food? Where does this end?

Yeah, that's a good question.

Do they have any income?

Essentially, they would pay for those or rent from us, but like at $0 rent, or, you know, cover the utilities. They're living on retirement and Social Security.

Okay. I'm just wondering, you got to know there could be a day where they go, hey, we can't even pay the utility bills and you're going to have to foot the bill for that and go, hey, I can't pay for this. I don't want to pay for this. So if you're okay with that, I'm not ever going to be against generosity. I just want to make sure we think long term about what this looks like. Obviously, they're 80, so this is not going to be for 25 years we're doing this and it will set you guys back, quote unquote, as far as your investing goals. But if this is what you want to do and you think it's going to get them to move here, obviously have the conversation with them ahead of time. You know, you don't want to just hope and just buy it and go, well, they decided they don't want to move. Because I don't know if you know this, old people are stubborn. So they may go, I don't want to move. That's a big life change. I'm happy where I'm at. Even if it's not that fancy, we're good.

And then you might go, all right, instead of buying them a house, what if I just send them $3,000 $1,000 a month.

That's an alternative. It's just, uh, you know, I want them to be closer to their grandkids, and if we have to take care of them, yeah, they get older, you know, we just want them closer.

Yeah, I'd start those conversations, and if you decide, hey, this is a great move, we're happy to cover the cost, this is a value for us, then go ahead. I mean, you got that brokerage for a reason. Options. It's a way to go, man. You guys are doing great. Hey guys, George Campbell here. You ever feel like you make good money and still have nothing to show for it? You run into Target for one thing and somehow walk out $87 later with toothpaste and emotional support candles. Just me? Okay. Well, that's the problem. Most people don't pay attention to how they spend their money, so it does whatever it wants. And that's why we created EveryDollar. It's a budgeting app that helps you create a simple plan for your money. EveryDollar is simple, it's clear, and it helps track where your money's actually where your money is actually going. Plus you get daily lessons, to-dos, and reminders along the way. It's like having a money coach in your pocket. Your money's been freelancing long enough. It's time to give EveryDollar a full-time job. Go download EveryDollar for free on the App Store or Google Play.

The right insurance acts as a shield around your loved ones and your wallet if disaster strikes. We've got a free insurance coverage checkup that helps you figure out if you have the right coverage by giving you a personalized action plan with clear next steps. Head to ramseysolutions.com/checkup to take the coverage checkup and find out if you have the protection you need. Tina is in Minneapolis up next. Tina, what's What's going on?

Hi George, um, I just have a question. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. Um, and hi Jay. Hey, how are you doing? I met you both, I met you about 3 years ago, so I still have the picture taken with you. Oh, that's sweet. Um, yeah, so the question is, uh, should we, me and my husband, continue to have a joint account or not? Because I just discovered about 3 weeks ago that he has been committed financial infidelity. Oh, for the last 7 years. Oh, and I secretly have the secret bank accounts away from the joint accounts and spend like over close to $100,000. Oh, borrowing from his 401. And I didn't know it. It's kind of shocking to me. And I was pretty upset at him, but, um, he's willing to change and promise to change. You're willing to go to therapy to, uh, fix whatever that is causing him to do that.

What caused him to promise to change? You finding out?

Um, yeah, I, I, uh, discovered that the money missing, uh, like $15,000 missing. Last year. So if you, if you never found out, he would still be doing this? Correct. He probably do until he die. That's the part that worries me.

It's like, well, I'm going to keep committing crimes until I get caught, and I'm going to promise to not commit more crimes. And so, correct. What did he spend all this money on? It sounds like there's probably some addictions here. What do you think is going on? Has he told you?

Yeah, he did. He told me about the addictions. Um, he did spend a lot of money on himself and on other women. So that's, uh, addiction.

So it's not just financial infidelity, there's just straight up infidelity.

That's right. So I was like so torn, but he's willing to change. And we went to— we're going to see marriage therapy, see a pastor, a soul pastor last week. So he's willing to change.

What's his track record for change? Have seen— have you observed in your relationship that when he says, I'm gonna do something, that he's good for it? Have you observed that?

Um, he said he, he had changed before. It took a long way for, for him to even join, uh, me to have a joint account. We went to Dave Ramsey program 7 years ago, so that's why we decided to join. And we pay all of our debts off, including the house, this March. Okay. And he threw this 3 weeks ago that he addicted to pornography and spend a lot of money on buying stuff.

Yeah. Oh yeah, okay. I love that you're in counseling. I sense that you have compassion for what he's going through and you want to see it, see it through to the other side. So I commend you for that. I think that you're gonna have the best litmus test on if this is worth trying to save. And it sounds like in your opinion it is. Yeah.

He, he, it's the thing, he's appeared to be so kind and that's like, that's like, it's a really good life. So he walk around, he went through budget every, uh, every month together. And he, you know, I'm the one that lead him, but because he doesn't like to study too much about money. And I, that's my things that I love to review, study and, and learn how to do it the correct way. And okay, as long as you are participating, I'll I'll be fine.

Okay, so your first question was, do I need to keep my money joined with someone who has a known addiction? And I would say no, you don't. Um, when you— once you know there's an addiction, and once you know that clearly there's, there's no self-control present in, in the moment when that's going on, and we've seen that to the tune of at least $100,000 that you know about, and so for that reason, I would work with the counselor on setting what those boundaries are and saying, Okay, what does that look like? And what does it look like for him to then regain access to the money over time? So those are the things that you want to set up is what does it look like to separate and you have, um, conservatorship or whatever you want to say over that money. And then what does it look like to create milestones where he can be let back into the process?

If you do X for 6 months, then you will have access to a debit card or whatever. Whatever it is. If after 12 months, here's where we'll be, and after 18 or 24 months, we'll consider rejoining if the track record remains. So that's the thing with trust is it's easy to break and it's really hard to rebuild. And if he's really serious about this and you guys are willing to work through it with the marriage counselor, and he's willing to give you full financial transparency, which is what you need starting today, every account, every debt, every paycheck, no more secrets. Every password. And that means he's pulling his credit report today. You guys are going to go to annualcreditreport.com, pull them from all 3 credit bureaus, and get a full picture of what is going on with all this debt and these accounts. And then we can make a plan to clean it up. And we're going to freeze his credit, remove access for him to spend. You've got to add so much friction to his life to help him avoid falling back into these patterns. Yeah. And There's two—

there's— I'm not a counselor by any means, uh, but I will say there's marriage counseling, and then he needs some separate counseling for what he's going through with the addiction, uh, and you may need to see somebody separately as well. So there's a lot of, uh, relational and personal work that I think needs to be done here. You guys have a journey ahead of you.

But, you know, you know about the $100,000 401k loan. What else is out there that you know of?

Um, that's all I know. Yeah.

Okay, so that credit report will give you the truth. I'd pull yours as well, because there's the chance he took out debt in your name without your knowledge. So I would pull both of your credit reports with all 3 bureaus, take a good look, and then freeze both of your credit so that you can't open new accounts without going through a whole bunch of hoops. That's also going to help. And then he needs to be transparent about where this money has been being spent. If it, if it's on certain websites, we need to block that. We might need to get him a dumb phone for a while where he doesn't have access to the internet on on his phone. All of those things. I know it sounds brutal. You're not here to punish him. You clearly love him and you want to see this relationship heal, but you need to set up these strong boundaries to help him. Yes. So I, I wish you the best. Yeah. I mean, this is a big journey. I mean, this debt that even just $100K, that's setting you guys back financially by years. Yeah. And so he's gotta have way more skin in the game than you do.

He's gotta be willing to sell all the things things he bought need to get sold, and he needs to do that work. Yes, he needs to feel some of this, the weight of this.

Thank you so much for your advice. I've been trying to talk to somebody, and I've been following your advice for so long, and it helps us, it helped me to get out of debt and even pay the house off. And, uh, and I'm so— I was so excited until this hit me about 3 weeks ago, and say, oh, it, it threw me back.

I can't imagine. I mean, a lot of, a lot of, it's a long period of time to be doing this behind your back with a lot of zeros on the end. And so you have every right to be angry, to be upset. And so you don't need to sort of shove that down and go, no, it's fine. This is normal. It's not. This is a huge betrayal of trust. And it's going to take, it took 7 years for him to make this mess. It might take 7 years to climb out. Yeah.

That's the hard part. Tina, call us back if you ever need, you know, if you get to a point and you're like, I don't know what to do next, give us a call call back, and we're happy to help you through that. But this brings up a bigger conversation, uh, and it's worth having, I think, in this moment. So when we talk about, um, the word accountability, a lot of people don't like the word accountability because they— they— it's synonymous with control. I don't want anybody controlling me. I'm a grown woman. I'm a grown man. I don't want anybody looking over my shoulder, right? But I love the word transparency because then it's just like, it just helps you see. It's like, it's a clear, it's, you can pass through, you can see through it. There's no veil, there's no door, there's nothing there. No walls. No walls. And so if you like the word transparency better than accountability, fine, I'm with you. But the point is, when you're in a marriage situation, and I've said this, I know I don't want to put any words in Dr. John Delony's mouth, but I've heard him say a similar thing.

When people have when people hide things, when they have something to hide. And so if you can start your marriage off with full transparency, I know the passcode to Sam's code, he knows the passcode to mine. I have access to every account, he has every access to mine. There's nothing that I have that he can't get to. And I don't view that as him controlling me or me controlling him. It is, there are boundaries that keep us both safe. And protect our marriage because it's the most precious thing that we have. And so just remember that.

Our scripture of the day, Job 34:32: Teach me what I cannot see. If I have done wrong, I will not do so again. Sarah Blakely said, it's important to be willing to make mistakes. The worst thing that can happen is you become memorable. Or infamous. That's the thing. Big difference between famous and infamous. For sure. Oof. All right. Curtis is in Austin, Texas up next. What's going on, Curtis? How can we help?

Hey guys, thanks for your time today. My wife and I, about 3 weeks ago, we were victims of a scam that targeted our credit union. There's some details to it, but the short version of the story is they got everything, including our starter emergency fund. No. Okay. And how did this happen? So they pose as fraud agents and like they did everything. How— this is a credit union I've been with since I was in high school. Um, they spoofed the numbers, they followed all of the same procedures and scripts as other fraud claims that were legitimate that I've dealt with in the last 15 years that I've been with them. Um, and so like all the numbers, all the phone numbers were the same, whether it was a text message or a phone call. So it was by the— I didn't realize what had happened until after I got off the phone. And we immediately started trying to put the pieces back together. Oh boy. Filed a fraud claim with my credit union. They denied it because of the— they said it was an approved transfer, whether it was legitimate or not, that I approved the money under false pretenses.

And so it doesn't qualify as fraud. They're also still trying to recover the funds, which I don't understand, but they said it could be 90 days before they know whether or not they're going to be able to get them back. They recommended an IC3 report with the FBI, which I did. Yes. And then I did a police report that night as well. And so I've done all of that. My question is, my wife and I were talking shortly after this happened about how, how do we move forward. We're on Baby Step 2, we use EveryDollar every day. How do we go about recovering financially, understanding there is a decent chance we don't see any of that money ever again?

Yeah, that's how I would live my life. Otherwise, this will just consume you and live rent-free in your head. I hope you get the money back.

How much was it? $6,848.

And that's money you had in the account? Yes.

Yeah, that was, uh, that included our starter emergency fund. I'd been— my brother and I have always dreamed of going to a World Cup match. I'd been saving up for a ticket for that. We had saved money to replace— my wife graduated with her master's last month. We drove out to Lubbock. We put money aside, um, because she was out of leave, and so we knew she was going to get docked for some days, so we put money money aside to offset that. Um, it was all of that.

Curtis, help, help, help the listening audience and tell us how this happened. Tell us, tell us how they contacted you. Tell us what they said. Tell us more so that if anybody else is— because chances are somebody else is in the same situation and they're wondering, I wonder if this is real or is this fraud. So give us, tell us how it went down.

Yeah, they called while we were, we were traveling for my wife's, uh, cousin's wedding. They called while I trying to get the room key fixed, and I ignored it. It showed up as being from my credit union, like it had the name of the bank on the screen of my phone. Okay. I didn't answer the first call. They immediately called back a second time and then again. So it was, it was—

you were like, I need to answer it.

Yeah, exactly. And then when I got on the phone, they're like, hey, it's our fraud— it's the fraud department. 'Bank name here, and there's been some suspicious activity on your debit card. Did you spend $360 at a Walmart in North Carolina?' No. And so they're like, 'Okay, what about $65 at a Shell in North Carolina?' No, I'm in Houston— at the time I was in Houston and not North Carolina.

And so how did the transfer happen? Did they say, 'In order to protect your money, you need to transfer it here?

They, they put me through to what they called the Web Services team. Um, and again, that's another department that I'd actually spoken with on the phone in legitimate circumstances before. And so, um, they, they said that you should have gotten a fraud alert over text message. Um, and they, they— some— I don't— there's some parts of it that I don't remember, but at the end of the day, they started sending me text message alerts alerts that I was under the impression were tests. And those text message alerts approved, uh, transfers— 3 transfers that took all of our money.

At any point, did you give them— I'm guessing at some point, obviously, you confirmed account information, uh, or gave account information. Did you know that they were doing a transfer, or did that part happen without you ever even knowing it? Because it sounds like the credit union is saying you approved a transfer, and I'm wondering what that looked like.

Yeah, they're, um, and I may have— they, they told me, the folks on the phone, the scammers on the phone told me it was a test for a fraud. They were testing my fraud alerts to make sure my account was working correctly. Wow.

Um, did you like Zelle the money? I'm just confused how someone can just— it was real.

They, it was some, uh, when the— when I called and filed the fraud report that night, they— it was a real-time payment is, uh, what the woman said on the phone. Okay, it shows up as RTP.

Okay, and you never checked your actual bank account to see if there was any weird transactions?

Uh, not, not before, not before all of that, not when the first call came in.

So let's, let's run this back because usually you will see a transaction if they say, did you do this? You can go back and see and it'll be sitting there pending and it's like, no, I I didn't do that. So for those listening, yeah, you always want to verify it. Uh, and Curtis, I hate that this happened to you, but so many people are going to learn from this. We have millions of people that watch and listen. Um, the second thing is, you know, if you have fraud happen on your account, they take care of it on their end. There's almost literally really nothing you ever have to do on your end other than say, I did, or I didn't do it. So if anybody's asking you to, you know, transfer the money, wire the money, anything like that, avoid it at all costs. And one thing that I like to do is if somebody calls me, I say, okay, hold on a second and I'll call back. And that way you can make sure that it's legit. So then it's like, let me go on the website and let me find the number and let me call them back and say, hey, I was contacted about fraud.

And that way we know that it's a clean, it's a clean connection.

And they'll confirm yes or no. Yes, we actually did call you or nope, that wasn't us. That's a scammer. Scam. But man, I mean, I would file a police report because you're going to need that to escalate anything. And I would also file a report with the NCUA, which is like FDIC but for credit unions. So it's the National Credit Union Association. That's the governing regulator for credit unions. So once you have that police report, I could file it there. But again, do— filing all this stuff doesn't mean you're going to get your money back, but at least there's some attempts you can make.

Do we treat it— so as far as the recovery, because we filed the police report, we've filed the IC3 report, do we treat this like a debt and pay ourselves back to try and get back on our feet financially? Do we—

Yeah, you'll need to rebuild. We haven't gotten paid. You'll need to start an emergency fund. You'll need enough to cover your bills. And then once you kind of have— you're back to some status quo with your money, then you can start hitting play on that debt snowball. But right now it is going to set you guys back probably at least a couple months, right?

Yeah, at least 2, and there's a chance that it would take us 3 with some health issues that we're navigating right now too. I am so sorry.

I mean, when you said it, I got a pit in my stomach for you. That is just the worst. Sam and I have been there. We had our debit card skimmed at an ATM machine. And they cleaned out our account and it was heartbreaking. I mean, it is just, it makes you feel like you wanna throw up. My mother-in-law just got scammed outta $35,000 this week. And so it is, guys, this is just running rampant. So please just be careful out in these streets. Verify. Yeah. You know, the best thing that you can do is if you get a text message, an email, a call, and you're wondering like, maybe this really is real.

If your spidey senses are going off, if there's a lot of urgency on the other end, if they're asking asking for any kind of personal information, likely a scam.

Yeah, never click the link in the email. Never click the link in the text. Never call the number that they give you to call. Always go online. And a lot of times you can Google the numbers and find out if it's a scam, or you can plug it in. If you get the email, click it and make sure it's the real email and not just a front. Oh man.

Wow, well, that puts this hour in the books. Remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, And that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.