Transcript of Financial Freedom Gives You Safety, Not Risk

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Normal is broke and common sense is weird. So we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network and the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio, I'm John Deloney, joined by George Campbell. Taking your calls on your money, your relationships, your work, everything Anything you got going on in your life, we're here. 888-825-5225. Let's go right down the street to Nashville, Tennessee, and talk to Ethan. What's up, Ethan? Hi, can you hear me? I got you, man. What's up?

Well, thanks for having me on today. I was calling because my wife and I were in Baby Step number 2, and we've made some pretty good progress, but we've made it to our final... We call it the Big Dog. It's our final payment, and it's a student loan of 118,000.

That's one loan?

Yes. My wife's an occupational therapist, and that was her graduate degree.

That is a big, big dog.

Yeah, that's why we named it that. But to name my question is, is that a 6. 1 % interest rate? And it makes me sick to look at the balance and it goes up like... From the last time I checked, it was sometime this week to, I I think last night was $70. Do I save any more money by paying that weekly or monthly? I just didn't know if I saved more, if I paid every single week versus every month.

Just one big- The I'm not sure you bring the principal down, the less interest you're going to pay. But the simplest way to do it is just apply extra to each monthly payment. Monthly, okay. How much are you guys making?

We're fixing their taxes, and we made around 140 in 2025.

Okay, what is she making?

Well, she's PRN OT at the hospital, which we just had our first baby back in July. She was born a little early, so she's needed a little extra love, we call it. And so she She put her hours back, but she made 29,000 this last year. But the year before, before we were having the baby, she had made 65.

Okay, how do we get her making closer to six figures so we can knock this out quick.

Well, our daughter's fixing to... We're waiting for the next doctor's appointment to come up. We're hoping that she can come off breathing treatments and whatnot, so we can hopefully free up Mama to be able to Work more hours.

Work more hours. How much are you making?

Because I made 120 this last year. Awesome.

Okay. What do you do for work?

I guess I'm a UPS driver.

Okay. Is there room for overtime for you?

Oh, Yeah, I get plenty of it.

Okay. I think one or both of you get hustling. As soon as this baby is healthy, let's get this income up, because that's your greatest shot at getting rid of this debt faster than the interest is growing. Because it's just one loan, so there's really no debt snowball here. It's basically you're trying to knock out a mortgage.

Correct. Can I say something cruel to you, Ethan? Please. I'm going to put a worm in your ear, and you're going to have to promise me that once you've paid this off, you're going to take that worm out. You ready? Yes, sir. So one time, me and some buddies were going to a concert, and one of my buddies was an attorney, and we were all meeting at his house. And I got there early, which has never happened in human history. But I got there early, and we just plopped on the couch, and we ate some, and we watched an episode of Seinfell. And we got up after that 30-minute episode, and he goes, Well, that cost me $300 or something like that because this bill hour rate was 600 bucks an hour, whatever it was back then. I remember looking at him thinking, That's a terrible way to live. Here I am now, I'm on 100% commission. I had that same thought sometimes, like, Well, I just watched a whole football game, and I could have been, right? I want you, every time you're not on the clock and you're not fully participating in your house, right?

But I want you to think, Man, that hour just caught... I just donated this much more money in interest to that bank. And use that as a fuel to say, I'm going to pick up two more extra hours in overtime today. I'm going to do an extra hour tomorrow. I'll come in for a half day on Saturday. Because I refuse to sit on the couch and pay them 50 bucks in interest for the privilege of watching whatever dumb show I just watched. You can't do this forever. It will melt you and your family. But for a season to get this stupid student loan out of your life, man, let that thing just worm I'm hole its way into your brain. Yes, sir. I'm not going to pay these banks. I'm not going to exchange, kicking my feet up to pay these banks some more money. I want them out of my life.

Do you guys have any other debt?

No, we're currently rent, which our rent is only like 650 a month. Oh, that's great. So we're able to make... Yeah, we make some... And all the vehicles are paid for.

The only thing we have is that big dog. Okay, so here's what I'm thinking. You guys, if If you make, let's say, 150 this year, if you really get after it, which is very doable, you'll probably clear, what, 9,500 bucks a month in take home pay?

Yes, thereabouts, yeah.

So think about that. If you can live off a small portion of that, three or four grand, we can throw five, six grand of this debt, you're done in less than two years. You're talking 18 to 24 months max.

Yeah. We actually even were just talking the other night, and I guess we've put it to the side, we're just saying, what is going to come back and talk about what we're actually trying to see what we could do in the next 13 months. I love it.

Set a goal that scares you a little bit and excites you a whole lot.

Yeah, it excites me. It scares her. So I'm the one that's like... There's times where I might be dragging her along in all this.

Hold on. She's been pregnant for a year and had a child with help. Don't drag her too much. You know what I mean? Give her some grace. It's been a tough year.

Yeah. And I can be a little too intense sometimes, which she tells me. It's like I'm the hare, and she's the tortoise in life.

Well, you got some homework now. Just figuring out how much can we really throw at the debt right now, and how much can we throw at it when she's back to work full-time. Sure. And then you can get a timeline going and go, All right, 14 months. It's game on. We're getting this thing done. Yes, sir. And then stick to it. Hold each other accountable. Do the every dollar budget. And every month, you pay your four walls, your insurance. Anything other than that, it's going towards the debt. Yes, sir. We love it. That's it. I think you guys will get there. I have a lot of faith in you, and we're wishing you the best with the health of that little sweet baby.

George, I don't hear that very often. You work through it with a ton of people through budgeting and helping them. You do those webinars and stuff, actually sitting with people and helping them work their budget. It seems to me that, for me at least, the greatest path forward would be to say, I'm going to put a ridiculous month amount, 13 months, 15 months, and I'm going to reverse engineer that and say, Okay, what must be true? What dollar amount would I have to come up with? That to me feels like taking what feels like a big target on the side of a wall and making it like a laser target. Like, Okay, I've got to get this many dollars this month. I can figure out how to do that.

Oh, yeah. And when you look at a big mountain, he's got 118 grand, it's hard to just look at it and go, Yeah, we can knock that out in 12 months.

It's impossible because you send six grand, and it's like, Oh, cool, 112, right? It feels so insurmountable.

Yeah. And so they're breaking it down into small chunks that you can see on paper. If we live off of 3,000, we will have 6,000 left over. That's the fact. So I love focusing on the facts because debt is emotional. It's scary. You're going, We'll never pay this off. And they go, Wait, you guys make amazing money. What if you just took control of that, did a budget, got in a plan, held each other accountable, and made it fun?

I know this is cheesy, but we had our Excel spreadsheets and we had all our stuff. We did this before the Every Dollar app. But we went old school and made a construction paper chain, and I hung it in the bedroom.

Arts and crafts, baby.

I want to see this thing. I'm going to tear off a chain every week and just watching that thing gets shorter.

You get below six figures, below 75 grand, 50 grand, 25. It's like an auctioneer in reverse.

Watching that chain get shorter and shorter was awesome.

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All right, let's go out to Columbia, South Carolina, and talk to Dustin. What's up, Dustin?

Hi. Thank you for taking my call today.

Is your car okay, Dustin?

Yeah. Are you good?

I was rolling up to Linda.

Oh, there you go. Sweet. My question is, do you risk setting yourself back on the baby steps and your goals to help family in need?

Here's the situation. My dad lost his business last year, and ever since then, it's been a process of losing just about everything. He is going to lose their car, the family car. And he came to me and asked if he could borrow one of my wife and I's cars. We have two. We have a truck that I use for work and an SUV, a midsize SUV that my wife uses. Here's the thing that would complicate it. We have a baby. We have another baby coming in September. And that would create its own problems with the growing family. Plus, my dad would likely need the car for the rest of the year, I'd say. Probably till at least around the time the baby comes, and my wife and I would look at saving a new car. We just finished Baby Step 3.

Let me take this off the table for you. You all are not in a position to do this. At my house, I have an old farm truck. I could give that truck. I could loan somebody because I've got my car that I get to work with. My wife has the car that she gets to work with, and we both shuttle kids around. And I have an old farm truck that I loan out regularly. You don't have that. No. And so you're not in a position to... This isn't about setting yourself back. This is about your dad put a pretty heavy burden on you. I don't know him. This could have been a manipulative move. You've dealt with your whole life, or it could be a guy who's just at desperation level right now. But the reality is You don't have it to give. You don't have it to give, and that's heartbreaking.

Now, you can help him work through this in other ways, because he's probably in a cloudy spot right now. But it doesn't mean that we're going to be in the car give away business. What happens to his vehicle? Did it get repowed? Did he have to sell it?

It's going to be. He doesn't have the money to dig out of the hole he's in, two pames behind, and he's upside down on it.

When you say he lost the business. What does that mean?

The business, he had a lot of debt on the business equipment. It was a lot of landscaping business. He had a large client that dropped He dropped him, and then he had another customer refuse to pay him about $15,000 of services last year. So.

Okay, but he has the equipment. He can sell off all the equipment and hopefully walk away with something. No, he's gone. It's gone? What do you mean?

Everything's gone. Some of it was repossessed, some of it he sold, he paid off some of the loans, but he doesn't have any equipment left.

Okay. And what's he going to do for work, for income, right now?

Right now, he's working at a hardware store, making about $20 an hour, but he has another job lined up now that'll pay him about twice that, in April. Great.

Or it's in April. So he's not just sitting on the couch feeling sorry for himself. He's out there hustling. Yes. Good deal. That's noble. That's good.

Good deal. And what's his transportation right now? Is it still the car that's about to be repowed? And can we sell it before it gets repowed or catch up on payments and sell it?

I think it's about past that point.

Now, what you could do, if you wanted to, is just catch him on his payments so that he can go sell this thing, which is better than repo, which they're going to come after him for the deficit. They're going to go sell it at auction for way less than it's worth and then still come after him. And so you'd be in a better spot if you can help him catch up on payments to then sell it outright and make more for it.

Is this something that you would use your emergency fund for? Because that's- If I had a baby on the way, no.

Because right now, you got to protect your own family. They come first.

Yeah I agree.

If I'm in your shoes, we're in stork and storm mode right now, and dad's in his own storm mode, and we all got to figure it out.

I would honor my dad by having a, if this is possible geographically, having a face-to-face conversation to say, Dad, I 100 % get that you're in trouble, and I really honor the way... You're setting a good example for me as a young dad for when life throws you a whole bunch of curveballs in a row, you put on your belt and you went to a hardware store, right? That's honorable. And I got a new baby on the way. I've got a youngster. I'm not in a position, both financially or with vehicles, to help you out, man. And it breaks my heart, but I'm just not in a position to do that. That face-to-face, man-to-man conversation, assuming, A, he's not going to throw a temper tantrum, and he'll actually hear you, right? I have a rule that I only have conversations if somebody can hear me, right? And if they're angry or frustrated or think I owe them or whatever would be in the case here, you can decide whether you'd have that. But that would be a neat way to honor him, to say, Hey, I want you to know I see and I'm proud of you, and I simply don't have it to help with right now.

Do you know the deficit on Is that $2,000 payments, the exact number?

$2,700.

Goodness gracious. So this is more than two payments, unless this is a giant payment.

It is two payments. It is a over $1,300 payment.

Goodness gracious.

And so I just, I don't have it.

Yeah. Let me tell you this. There's a psychologist out in New York. Her name is Becky Kennedy, and she's a friend of mine. And she gave me this new definition of guilt I want to pass to you. She said, Often what we call guilt is not that at all. Guilt is a feeling that's inside of our chest that's right and good when we violate our own values. You You haven't violated your own values here. That guilt that you think you're feeling, you're trying to take his sadness and his franticness and his fear, and you're trying to manage that for him, and you can't do that. It's you saying, I'm not violating any of my core values. I'm doing what's right for me and for my wife and for my young child and the child that's about to be here. I'll sit with you while you have these feelings, these big feelings of fear and terror and embarrassment and shame, all that stuff that he's feeling. But I can't hold that for you. I'll sit there with you, but I can't carry it for you. And I know all of this, you're talking to two guys who love their own dads.

I know this is heavy for you.

Yeah.

But you know what else it is? It's a line in the sand where you go, I want to be in the position to where if this ever happened again, I could help. And I wouldn't flinch. It would be such a small part of our world that I get to help the family that I love, and it wouldn't set us back. This is one of those things where you start to run away from the decisions that your parents debate. Not the character. He sounds like he's a great guy. But as far as the decisions and the financial place he put himself in, highly leveraged and running a business that he still is going to owe a bunch of debt on, you know. I'm never going to put myself in that position. I'm going to pay cash for things. I'm not going to owe other people money.

And this is the other side. When we talk about financial freedom, I don't do great job of talking beyond my own house, right? I want my house to have peace. But part of my house having peace is knowing I can help folks out when I think it's the right thing to do, right? And so this is yet another encouragement for you and your wife to stay the course. You all have paid off everything you own. You've got yourself an emergency fund saved up. You got a new baby on the way. We're going to continue to walk these baby steps all the way out. And I want to be in a position one day that Come what may, I can help out, right? Mm-hmm. Hey, let me just... You're a good son, man.

Really? He's lucky to have you. Regardless if you can fund his misbehavior, he's so lucky to have a guy who cares this much about his old man willing to walk through this with him.

You're a good son. And by drawing this line here and having the courage to have a face-to-face with him, you're also showing courage and honor for your family, too. Your wife and your two young kids.

Thank you for that.

It's an honor to talk to you. Okay?

Thanks. And I love your book, Building a Non-Anxious Life.

Oh, thank you. I think I think the hard part about building an unanxious life is these moments. It's simple, but it's real, real hard in real life, right? Mm-hmm. All right, brother. Keep going, doing the next right thing, man. George, this one's hard. This is one of those, and again, we We'll probably talk about this more. This is the give like no one else, right? Yeah. This is the, I've taken care of my family and my bills. I drive this vehicle, or we live in this size house, or we don't go out to eat this often because it's more valuable to us to have a pot of money that when one of the people we love gets in a pickle, we can sit down and help them out.

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Let's go talk to Monica in Indianapolis. What's up, Monica?

Hi. How are you guys?

I'm good. What's up with you?

I'm good. Thank you so much for taking my call. I love you. I love you. And my sister loves you, George.

Oh, that's sweet.

Why doesn't your sister love me? All right. I get it. I get I get it. Teach has been happening since high school. All right, so what's up?

So, yeah, I've been having a conflict with my husband. I work full-time, he works full-time, and then he also has a second job, a second part-time. A second job that's part-time, excuse me. And we've been thus far using his income from his part-time job as extra principal payments towards the mortgage. But he now starts starting in March, wants to use that income towards investing in crypto.

And I'm not on board. That's an oxymoron.

I'm not on board, and we just have a lot of conflict on it. So I wanted to get your guys's thoughts. I'm a bit afraid of being controlling because I grew up in a home where my mother was very controlling and wore the pants in the house, and I don't want to be like that.

You're not being controlling. If my wife said, Hey, I know we got debt to pay down. I'm going to go gamble in Vegas instead. Are you okay with that? I think it's wise as a spouse to say, That's not a good idea. Those are opposing goals.

What about the last two months with crypto has made your husband be like, You know what? I think I need to get in on this.

I know he has a friend who's in on it, and he claims, and this friend claims that he's very successful in it.

Recently successful? Because it went down 50 %.

50 %. It's lost 50 % of its value in the last two months.

Which makes me think, well, maybe he's trying to buy the dip. Everyone's going, You got, now's the time, man. It's going to climb back up to 100,000. And maybe it does. I'm not here to, you know, play back the tape a year from now and be wrong. That's fine. I just think there is a guaranteed outcome of paying down your mortgage. There's a guaranteed interest rate rate, which is your mortgage interest rate that you're making by paying down this mortgage. So really what this is, there's a difference in risk tolerance, and you guys have different definitions of winning. So you're just not on the same page. You value different things right now in your marriage.

Okay.

So it's really a conversation about unity. And he thinks, Well, this is our path to financial freedom. And you're going, no, my financial freedom looks like less risk, not more.

And keeping this conversation, the fight about crypto, you're never going to get below the surface of the water. You're all going to make a lot of splashes, and you're going to take in a lot of water up your nose, but you're never going to get to the actual issue, which is under the water, which is, hey, we made an agreement that we wanted to never owe anybody any money again. And you're violating that agreement. Okay. That's the real issue. Because this is a trust issue, right?

Yes, definitely.

And often, I wonder if your mom ended up wearing the pants because that's who she was, or if she ended up because over time, she felt like she had to.

Yeah. I still don't want to be like that because I, unfortunately, resent her way more than my dad when it comes to what they did with me, to me, financially, as a child.

I got that. And that's why it's imperative for you to not fight this on the surface. Don't engage in a proxy war. This is not about crypto. This is about him feeling You can't tell me what to do. This is about him feeling bored. This is him feeling- Prideful? Fomo, right? Fear of missing out. And this is about you saying, Hey, we made a deal, and you're violating our core Have the true conversations underneath the thing.

Okay.

But just for whatever it's worth, George and I are 100% on your side on this one.

Oh, thank you.

I've never won against a crypto bro yet, so just know, I don't think this is going to be easy to win him over because he is so convinced that you guys are missing out on the opportunity of a lifetime.

And George gave you the best... I just view this as sitting at a blackjack table in Vegas, and the house has won four times in a row, and the guy next to you is like, Dude, they can't win five. This is it. Let's go all in. Put all your chips on. And they might, right? Maybe you win this time, but maybe you don't.

I just talked to a collar. The wife found out about some financial infidelity. He took out a heelock, $250,000, put it into crypto, lost it all. Wow. He claims he hit the sell short button instead of sell, which we all know is a lie. And so this is what it leads to. I'm not saying this will be your husband, but there's a level of fear, greed, pride that lead to to the risk meter being broken, which leads to- Desperation. Really bad financial problems. And so paying off your house, nobody calls in saying, Oh, my gosh, worst decision of our life. We are deeply in debt. They're not. You're debt free. And so it's an opposing goal that you guys have. I would get to the bottom and say, Hey, what are you really hoping crypto will do for us? Is it quick wealth? Is it freedom? Is it the security? Is it FOMO? And then share your why. Hey, paying off the house for me makes me feel safe, makes me feel stable. And the security matters more to me than the potential of making money.

And if you want to be a gangster, you can say, Hey, we pay this house off and we get this much cash in the bank. You can use all your fun money to buy some crypto.

I like that compromise.

There's $25,000 to go buy as much crypto as you think you can get. Or whatever.

Once we're in baby step seven, and we're already investing 15 % of our income into retirement- Now we can go play. Now you can use your fund money to go do this. Yeah. How much is left on the mortgage?

$244,000.

Okay, and how much are you guys paying extra right now? What's your total payment?

Our mortgage payment is $2,400. $400, and we've been paying double.

Nice. 4,800? Yes, correct. That's awesome. And so based on that timeline, when will you guys pay this off?

If we keep paying double, it would be paid off- Four years? Within the next six years.

Okay. My guess is, he goes, Man, six years is a long time to be paying double. It would be easier if I could 10X my money and put it into crypto, and then we could pay off the mortgage. Is that his thinking?

I think so, yes.

He wants to shortcut this and speed up the process. Mm-hmm. Okay. I always go back to this proverb because it's so grounding for me. It's Proverbs 13: 11, Wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it. You know what getrich quick is? It's wealth gained hastily. When you do it little by little, you tend to lower your risk, increase your peace, and you stick with it. You're not going to make any rash decisions when you work really hard to get this money or pay down the debt. You're not going back in because you sacrificed for it.

I can't imagine how many people who have leveraged their souls and watched it all get cut in half the last couple of months. I don't have a penny in crypto, but even it makes my stomach hurt just thinking.

It's 24/7. At least the stock market closes. You could be up at 3: 00 AM watching it go up and down. For me, it's just not worth it. I got other things to be anxious about. Don't need one more to add to the list. I'm good. I got a dog on two legs right now, so let's worry about the real thing.

You got a dog on wheels.

That's true. He does have a wheelchair now. Thanks, John, for bringing it up.

Appreciate that. Not a lot of people can say, Hey, you know what? I got a dog on wheels.

At least it's not a Tesla.

You have one of those, too. I do.

0 for 2.

Even better. What else you got, George?

I don't have any crypto, so that's the good news. But here's the thing. People think we are anti-crypto. What we are is anti-get-rich-quick, anti-greed, anti-pride, anti-destroying your marriage.

Anti-doing things out of order.

Yeah. There's a time and a place to have fun.

You get as much crypto as you want after you have taken the existential risk of your home getting taken away, of your cars getting taken away, of your ability to take care of your family getting taken away.

Replace this with sports betting, whatever you want. It's just there's a risk here. It's speculation. It's unwise, and it's not investing, and there's way better ways to access peace.

Yeah, all day long.

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Hi. Thanks for taking my call.

Of course. Thanks for calling. What's up?

So I'm just looking for a little bit of advice. I'm 60 years old. I just ended a career in which I'm receiving a pension, and I've started a second career, which I'm hoping to work for about the next 10 years. And I'm just wanting to make sure I'm on the right track as far as what I should be investing over the next 10 years.

Very cool. What's your new side hustle? I mean, it's not even a side hustle. What's your new career?

Yeah, I'm consulting. I started in LLC. I'm debt free except for my house. I only owe about 60 on my house. But all I have right now is that pension. It's about 47,000 a year. I know that's not going to be enough. I'll tell you, I don't have anything else because of a couple of things. First, I just found you guys a few years ago, but I also have a special needs adult fund. He's in his 30s. So throughout the years, when things come up, and every time I think I have a little bit of money to set aside, something comes up, right? So then I have to spend, or I do spend. So here I am, and I'm I'm getting a little worried because he continues to have needs, but I just want to make sure I'm on the right track. I have a 47,000 pension. My gross income is about 130 to 150 a year. I have expenses from my business of about 30K, I'd say. I'm just trying to figure out how much do I put aside, how much do I try to invest between now and then to feel it comfortable.

I feel like it should be, like my goal should be about 300,000.

In an investment account? Yeah. Okay, at 70. So that's your goal. And you still have the mortgage. And the goal for, I would say, let's go into retirement completely debt free, house and everything. And so I would be investing 15 % of your awesome income while paying down extra on the house. And in no time, you're going to pay off that house with this income, right? In the next few years, it's gone. Which means the following seven years, we Can I now max out retirement options like, for you, a self-employed person, a solo 401(k).

So I tried to ask my tax person and my investment guy about that, and they both were just like, You don't need that. Those are complicated.

What did they say you need?

They have me right now in a... I wrote some 403(b) money into a CEP IRA.

Okay, that works, too. I like the solo 401(k) because the contribution limits are massive, especially for someone your age because you have catch-up contributions. So you're talking, I think it's 80 grand this year for someone in your shoes, which is insane. You can really catch up on retirement with those a lot of numbers. I would look into that as an option on top of your IRA.

Terry, I'm going to ask George a question on your behalf, okay? He's smarter than I am at this stuff. Terry, how old are you again? Sixty Sixty? Sixty. All right, George. My gut tells me that if I was in her situation and I suddenly stumbled on, not stumbled on, I created $130,000 to $150,000 in extra value, right? So in New Hampshire, I'm going to guess you'll take home 80 of that after taxes, and then you're going to have 30 of that off the top. So you're going to have $50,000. I would feel an intense internal pressure to not put a penny in retirement until I could just throw everything and get that house taken off. Like, clear my house at 60 grand, work maniacally to get that risk taken off. So I've got that taken care of. And Then I would spend the next however many years just socking every penny away and trying to live off that 47. Could I find a world where I just condensed my expenses, my travel, all that stuff, lived off that pension, and I just started saving everything. Is that bad?

I wouldn't say it's bad. I think either way, if you did it on paper, you'll get to that finish line either way. But if you're tracking through the baby steps, it's 15% until the house is paid off, and then we're maxing out retirement. I like the idea of you flexing this investment muscle because you really haven't. It's been the pension the whole time. You'll get used to not seeing that money in your bank account. Instead, it's going towards your future. I can crunch the numbers for you here. Let's say you pay off the house in three years. Could you pay it off 63, put 20 grand a year towards it? Yeah, I can. Then after that, the mortgage is freed up on top of the money you can throw, how much could you throw a month after that if you keep making what you're making? Three grand a month?

I mean, at least.

Okay. So three grand a month from 63 to 70, you'll have 362,000 dollars at our 10 % rate of return.

And then I just let that sit, really.

Yeah, if you let it sit. I mean, what we've seen in the stock market, it's the rule of 72, it'll double. If you get a 10 % rate of return, that money would double every 7. 2 years. So if you didn't need it, you could live off of your pension for a few years. It's just going to continue to grow. And if that's in a Roth 401(k), it's going to be completely tax-free because you used after-tax dollars to fund it Okay. So think about that. It's like net income, 360 grand.

And then if you create a special needs trust- This is not real.

This isn't like pie in the sky.

No, I would tell you if you were way out of line. But you told me your goal is 300 grand in that investment account plus your pension, you will be okay. Okay. If you do four grand a month, you'll have 483 grand. And so you can play around with the numbers using our investment calculator to figure out what that future is going to look like.

I would create a special needs trust for my child that if something happened- I'll need to find out more about that because I feel like I never have enough money to do that. Okay. Yeah, I would dig into that. But if you end up with 400K in retirement funds, retirement your pension. I don't know how pensions work with trust and with special needs trust. I don't know whether it would be transferable or not.

Their survivor benefits, something like that.

But I would dig in and get every bit of that information. And by the way, some of that Panic is the wrong word, but that growing, gnawing. It's tiny right now, but it's getting bigger, that sense of angst. You're 60, and then you're going to blink and you're going to be 70, and your special needs child will be 40. It feels like guilt almost. I need to take care of them. What am I doing? I didn't make enough money. A lot of that type of angst is quenched when you have real information.

You hit the nail on the head with that because that's why I'm feeling a little bit frantic about that exact thing you just said.

Finding somebody and saying, I want to learn about this, and here's the words I use now, I want you to teach me like I'm a ninth grader. I ask folks that about any purchase I'm making, if I'm going on a hunting trip, if I want to learn about this electric circuit thing, I want to learn how to work on the lawnmower. I ask people, teach this to me like I'm in ninth grade. And I walk away learning how to actually do this thing.

Okay.

And at least, even if there's no way you're going to leave that conversation feeling great, right? Like, Oh, he's going to be... You're going to realize, Oh, I got a decade's worth of work to do. But you'll have real information and an actual lit path on what direction to take.

Okay. I think you're going to feel a whole lot better when this is knocked out. I would reach out to a couple of state attorneys in your area and just get a feel and go with the one that you like, that you trust, and Have them explain it to you and have them walk you through what is this going to cost to set up. It might be a few thousand bucks, but you will sleep so much better at night knowing that you've taken care of your family, and now we're on track for retirement.

George, this goes when it comes to finances, when it comes to retirement, when it comes to future, that angst that we all feel. The closer you get to the third and fourth quarter of your life, the bigger that anxiety gets, you cannot avoid it or work around it. There's one path only, and it's through it. Often that path is lit with real information. Getting real information on a special needs trust, using the Ramsey retirement calculator, say, How many dollars will equal this many dollars?

Getting facts on paper Because your emotions will cloud your judgment and you'll just feel overwhelmed. All the time. Facts on paper give you a path forward.

Statistics show that half of Americans don't have enough life insurance, or they don't have any at all. I don't understand this, John.

Why don't people want to take care of their family?

They think they're going to die or something?

Well, I used to be one of those guys. I didn't even think about it. One of my buddies said, Hey, the only reason to not have life insurance is if you hate your wife and kids. I immediately went and got term life insurance. That's a gut punch. You're telling me for decades, Dave, I've sat across people who've lost a spouse, they've lost somebody important to them, and they don't know what to do next.

Me too. You're going to have a crisis here. You got two options while you're sitting and talking to a young widow. She's concerned about how she's going to invest all this money properly and not mess this up, or she's concerned how she's going to eat tomorrow. That's exactly right. These are the two options. Take care of your dadgum family, man.

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Welcome back to The Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio. I'm John Deloney, joined by George Campbell. Take in your calls, 888-825-5225. Let's go out to H-Town and talk to Gary. What up, Gary?

Hey, guys. How are you?

We're good, my brother. What's up with you?

Good. Oh, not too much, really. Enjoy the show. My question is, I've been happily married for coming up on 26 years. I hit the wife lottery. We've been financially very fortunate during our marriage. At this point, we're in a very good place financially, but we have never really followed or strictly I can't really adhere to any budget during that entire time. I have tried throughout the years at various points to get my wife on board with at least looking and following some budget, but probably mostly my fault, those discussions just end up in arguments. I just wonder, at this stage, at this point in our lives, I'm considering, I'm looking at retirement, hopefully in the next few years or the ability to retire. Is it worth it to continue to try and fight that battle? If we may do and gotten by with the way we've been doing it, is it worth it to try and get that, try and continue to get her on board?

I have a physical aversion to the words just getting by.

Yeah. Maybe I shouldn't say Maybe that's the wrong word as far as... We're in a good place.

Have you all just out earned your spending for all of your marriage?

Pretty much. Okay.

Pretty much. So let me ask That's just been me on a single...

That's maybe just being lucky on how we are. It's being me on a single salary that whole time. But yeah, that's what we got.

So just talking to you and me and George and a couple of million people, just us three guys. Why do you want her on a budget?

Of course, as we consider retirement, the spigot, the earning spigot is going to turn off. Frankly, I want to be able to stress-free, live the retirement we both want.

So if you sit down with her and talk about a budget as a path to... And I'm going to use language that Texas males don't use, okay? If you sat down with your wife and said, Hey, we're heading into retirement. Our life is about to change dramatically. Time-wise, financially, all of it. I won't feel safe in my own skin unless we have a plan with our money. Would you join me in that? Versus her feeling like a budget is you trying to control her.

Right.

If you We were open and honest about, Hey, I want to solve for peace in the fourth quarter of our life, the back half of the third quarter and the fourth quarter. And that means, Here's what peace looks like for me. I'd love to hear what peace looks like for you. And then how can we agree together on, here's how many dollars are going to come in from our investments, from our retirement accounts, et cetera. And here's what it costs to live our life and just live in that reality as a way to have peace and inside your own chest to feel safe. If she won't join you in that, if she looked at you and rolled her eyes and was like, I'm driving this suburban, I care what you say, then A, you know what she truly thinks about you. And B, yeah, there is a futility to that because you've married somebody who doesn't care about you, really, doesn't care about her, doesn't care about anything other than what I want right this second. My hope is that's not the case. My hope is for 20 years, when you've brought up budgeting, it's been about, You're spending too much.

Why'd you buy this? We didn't need that. We don't even have a budget. And then she just decides to go to war back with you, right?

She associates the word budget with stressful money fights.

Yet another complaining husband. I do all of this, so I deserve this. And then you come home, and you got another box from Amazon. That fight. And I don't know if that's the case. Does that sound familiar?

Yeah, I think that's fair. I've listened to you guys, and I've tried to... The last time I brought it up, it was I statements. It was on a vacation. It was about a trip, and it came up last minute and I said, No, we can't do that. I tried to go back and later explained, I said, I am concerned about how we do that, but She went back to my first reaction, which was no, and said, Well, that really caused stress. Stress brought out the way I... So there's just equal Claim on equal blame. Sure.

Equal blame.

I don't want to make it sound like it's just her.

No, of course not. But own that. Own that up front.

I'm sure.

I have not done a great job of talking about this for the last 25 years.

Are there I guess, are there tools or resources that I should read? I don't know. Maybe I'm just a bad add.

I think it's just a different approach. I don't think you need to read a whole book.

I'm writing the book right now, actually. I just left a meeting right before this show. I'm writing that book right now. It's just not how... It won't come out until October, I think. But so it's not in the world that I know yet.

Just save the word budget for the very end into the how are we going to do this? All right, we'll just make a financial plan. It happens to be called a budget. But start with the vision, the dream, the fear.

What do we want our life to look like?

Man, we've just floated through and we've done really well, but I have not done a good job leading us in this area and really crafting a vision for what's going to happen when I don't want to work or can't work anymore. So how old are you guys?

So I'm 53. She is a little bit older than that. Okay.

What's your net worth?

And so probably about five and a half to six million.

Amazing. So you guys are living pretty good.

Well, that's, and I guess it's You could retire today, right? I probably could, but believe it or not, just you look back and it's an obscene amount of spending.

Well, are things feeling tight? Because you can still say, Hey, we've done really well. It's crazy that we've worked this hard, have this level of networth, and things still feel tight. I would love to have extra margin.

Yeah, right now, I mean, absolutely, they do not feel tight.

So a budget for her isn't a matter of survival. A budget for you all isn't a matter of survival. It's really a tool to bring you all together and say, What do we want the next 25 years to look like? And that's a totally different conversation. That's a different path.

It's a transparency and clarity tool at that point.

Take her on a half-day retreat and say, I want to plan our next 25 years, and I'd love to hear what you want that to look like.

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Let's talk to Daniel in Des Moines, Iowa. What's up, Daniel?

Hey, guys. So good to talk to you.

You too, brother. What's up, man?

Just hopefully a quick question here, but I am looking at taking a position in full-time ministry later this year, and I'm wondering, number one, is it morally okay for me to take a religious exemption from Social Security and Medicare? And then number two, if it is, is it wise, considering, I guess, the circumstances I'm in?

What are your circumstances?

So nothing huge. I mean, me and my wife, we're debt free besides the house. We're already investing 15 % 20% into retirement, but we have a baby on the way. And the other thing, too, is going into a position like this, I'd actually probably be taking about a 20K pay cut. Those are it. And the other thing, too, I guess, is I wouldn't be hired on as a W-2, it would be a 1099. I'd be paying the full extent of Social Security and Medicare. I think it's around 15% If I were not to take that exemption.

So it sounds like you've already made this choice. There's a lot of reasons this is a tough move.

Yeah.

There's a lot to think about, too, of what you're giving up here. And listen, I love the idea of not having to pay all these extra taxes for a system that isn't giving me great returns. But you got to think about things like term life insurance. You get strong term life in place. If something were to happen to you, strong long term disability insurance because you'd lose that with SSDI, long term care insurance.

Yeah, and I've got the long term. I got where I guess I should say. I got term life insurance. We're good there. The long term disability that is one thing I was thinking about, too.

I'm going to be honest. I have a bias to this question, and my bias is not representative of reality. It's just my experience. And that is, I've just sat with too many 60 and 70-year-old pastors who lived on property, lived in a church house, and got paid pennies, and they have zero, nothing. And so the discipline it would take for me, personally, to never waver in saving for future me and future wife and future family. I can say I don't think I would have that type of discipline. And so while these programs are a mess, an absolute dumpster fire, they are still something.

Sure.

And my fear is you're not doing this, not because you have another long term plan in place. You're doing this because you're trying to make this job that you really feel called to take, financially palatable today. And that's making a decision for- I'm definitely trying to bridge the gap between the way I'm getting now anyway and the pay I would be getting.

I definitely make it a lot easier.

And again, that's solving a problem for today you, but it's really leaving future you high and dry.

Yeah, if you're having to justify this by saying, well, if I take the exemption, I'll get 10 % back. But you're not going to be investing the difference that you're saving if it's already tight. And if your income stays pretty low for the rest of your life all to get an exemption, well, that was a terrible plan.

Right. And as I was looking into this and looking into all the different things anyway, tax benefit-wise anyway, like housing allowances and all this stuff, too. I think it would be palatable anyway to actually keep investing just about the same amount we are right now. And if I did take that exemption, it wouldn't be so much as a $20,000 pay cut as probably more of a $10,000-$12,000 pay cut, which is still... And my wife works, too, so she's making okay money, too. And so I might just be trying to justify this all, but yeah, that's what I meant.

So let me ask you this hard question. Can you afford to do this?

Yeah, it would be tighter, but we've looked into it and I felt this call for, shoot, probably the last five years. And even if I was to completely take a step away from the money side of it, too, for our future family, I think this would probably be still the right thing to do just because I know there's Definitely different stresses in ministries, but the job I'm in now, I haven't been happy with since I got into it six or seven years.

Oh, there's a few stresses, like full-time ministry stress. I grew up in the home of a ministry. It's chaotic. And it's It's noble and it's worthy and it's awesome, right? I have a gut reaction, growing up in this household, a gut reaction to groups of church leaders who pay ministers very low and expect them and their families to show up in certain ways that are financially impossible. That's my own baggage. I won't put that on you. Is this new job going to give you opportunity? Will you have time? I know a lot of ministers do stuff on the side. My dad had a mowing He wasn't on the side for seasons, or he did janitorial work to help make the bills during those seasons. Do you have opportunities where you could do that, too?

Yes. I'm working as an electrician full-time right now. So outside of that, there's There's definitely side work I could be doing on the side if we really needed it, too. And the other thing, too, that makes me a little bit more comfortable with this is I've seen him the same as you. Ministry positions typically do not get paid very well. This one is definitely on the, I think, the higher end of what would normally get paid for this position. So it's definitely more palatable in that way, too. But yeah, there is other ways I could making income outside.

And again, I want to say this out loud. We don't do Ministry for money. We don't do it to get rich. That's like get struck by lightning thoughts. Like, I want to do this so I can get rid. That's not how we do this. But also there is a reality. It's very expensive to be alive today. It's very expensive to have a child and to feed and clothe that kid these days, right? And educate that kid. It's just it's insane. And so there is a reality to it also.

Right. Yeah. And that's one of the other things that is just weighing on this decision anyways. We got a baby on the way coming in September, and it's our first one anyway. And obviously, I want to take care of my family, too.

And maybe you take this job and you keep hustling on the side for a season to stack cash. Right. And you and your wife shake hands and say, We're going to have a really busy six months until the smoke clears on our new job, our new life. When we have the We can do all the math on paper we want, but there's a lived reality when this is the only amount of money in the checking account, this is the bills we have, right? And you had a new mouth to feed on top of that. And your wife comes home and says, Hey, I just can't stomach going to work anymore. And are we setting ourselves up for this new value is going to emerge, and we can't afford to take that value? Because you have to work because I took this job.

It removes your options and flexibility.

That's right. That's right. It might be that, Hey, I'm going to keep working electrical work on the weekends, and I'm going to keep working electrical work on the evenings and doing odd jobs and whatever so that we can be as flexible as possible so we can have peace in our house.

Right.

And by the way, you'll have to pay Social Security on that side work. You'll never escape the system, unfortunately.

You guys definitely knew that. Again, I always want to tell you, what would I do in my house? I pay into Social Security and Medicaid. George and you?

Yeah. Your next steps would be just calculate how much you need to invest yearly to replace all the benefits, evaluate your insurance, disability, life insurance, make sure that your organization meets all the IRS rules to do this, and then only proceed if you know this thing is air tight. You've checked it 27 ways to Sunday, and then you can move forward. But I would not just go, Sounds good. Do not have to pay those taxes. I'll take it.

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Our team here at Ramsey is super excited. We built a new free AI tool called Ask Ramsey that is built and trained on proven Ramsey principles. And today we're going to break down the most asked questions from the week. A lot of themes here. We got creating and managing budgets, a lot of questions around that, how to deal with credit card debt, retiring versus continuing to work. And the number one question this week was around retirement. What was it, John?

How much do I need to save and when can I expect to retire?

You tell me.

Well, and this is awesome because off air, because I have your cell phone number, I've called you several times and been like, Hey, I have a retirement question, or what about this fund? Should I move this money over here? And not everybody has your cell phone number.

Now I just text John back with the link to ramsey solutions. Com. I'm not your human Google, John.

But this is like having George or Dave or me or Rachel or Ken, like Jade in your pocket.

Because it's literally it's built on things we've said on the show, all of our articles that we've written. And so this is really good. I want to take this for a test drive and see how it does with this question, How much do I need to save and when can I expect to retire? Again, this is a free thing you guys can jump on ramsey solutions. Com, and use that Ask Ramsey search bar to ask your question. I'm going to pull this up. Our team is going to pull up my screen here. So if I fat finger something, I'm sorry. There's no Wizard of Oz today, just me. All right, let's see what it spits out. And what's really cool, John, is it analyzes the question and asks me follow-up questions. So it's a real conversation, just like you'd have on the Ramsey show. And we're going to see what follow-up questions it asks. I'm guessing it's going to need to know, well, how much do we have saved? When do we want to retire?

I want to kick some stuff. I'll kick some numbers to you, okay? Okay.

Let me scroll the bottom here. So it's walking me through how to calculate your nest egg. If you want to have this much, here's how to calculate that. At the bottom, it says, What do you think your monthly budget would look like in retirement?

All right, let's pretend we have... I'll put a big number up there. Let's say we were going to have $7,000 a month in expenses.

Okay. Monthly budget, $7,000.

Let's say between me and my wife, we have $500,000 in retirement. Okay. Let's pretend I could go back in time, and I'm, I don't know, 35 years old.

Got it. Must be nice.

I want to invest 500 bucks a month.

I will invest 500 a month. Okay, let's see if it can figure out how much we really need to create this nest egg, live off of the income once we are work optional or fully retired. It's It's working its tail off here. Here we go. Found five Ramsey resources. It recap our situation, our monthly retirement goal. And it says, Here we go. It's calculating based off a 7 to 8 % withdrawal here. It's showing us our target nest egg is about $1. 1 to $1. 2 million, not including Social Security or any other income stream. So it says, Are you on track? Right now, you already have $500,000 saved, and it's going to continue to grow. It will reach about $2. 7 million in 30 years at age 65. That's pretty incredible. It's telling us, We are on track, and if you invest more, you could have more. That makes me feel really good. Thanks Ask Ramsey.

Yeah, not bad.

It's that easy.

That's pretty great.

Not a lot of people can get through the phone lines, and googling things is going to send you into 19,000 rabbit holes. That is not the Ramsey advice that you trust. Go check out for yourself. Go to askyourquestionramseysolutions. Com. You'll see the search bar there. It says Ask Ramsey, or you can click the link in the description if you're on podcast or YouTube.

All right, let's go out to Santa Fe, New Mexico, one of my favorite places in the United States, and talk to John. What's up, John? Hey, John.

How are you doing?

We're doing great, brother. How can we help, man?

I'm buying like this person's vehicle.

Sorry, you're breaking up on us, John. Yeah, you're breaking up for me.

Are you inside of a tunnel? All right, we might have to try you again later. All right. We tried our best. We'll try to get you on a clear line here. I will go out to Christie in St. Louis instead.

What number is she? Four. What's up, Christie? Hi. How are you guys? Remarkable. How are you?

I'm doing pretty well. I just had a question. I am 28, and my fiancé is 26. We are planning to get married in April of 2027, and I'm trying to figure out how we're going to pay for that. We did get a gift from his parents that they're going to spend about $25,000 to help us with the wedding, and we're budgeting about $40,000 just with other extra costs and all that stuff. But I have about $69,000 to $70,000 in student debt. We don't have any other debt. And I'm wondering if we should use part of that gift money to put down towards my loans, or if we should put all of it down towards the wedding and then cash flow the rest, or put all of it down towards my loans and cash flow the whole wedding, or- George may You disagree with me.

I would not take a gift from my fiancé's parents to pay off my student loans. I would use that money towards the cost of your wedding.

We haven't told them. We haven't told them that's what we're thinking about potentially.

I would not do that. If I gave my kids... I wouldn't do that. If they said, Hey, this is you all free and clear to use however you want, that's a different story. If they said, Hey, we want you all to start your marriage off debt free. We're going to pay your student loans. That's another thing. But them saying, Hey, We want to support... We know you guys are struggling. We know you all are working really hard. We're going to give you $25,000 to help pay for a nice wedding. And you all were like, Cool. We're going to use that to paint the house. That would not That's pretty cool. That's my take on it.

What do you think, George? No, I agree. If it was going to clear your debt today and it freeze you guys up to cash flow this whole thing, then I would be like, Okay, that makes sense. You're essentially just trading the money one way or another. But I would just use this money for the wedding Because you need it. It's not like you just have $100,000 sitting around. Yeah.

The option you're not mentioning is you and your fiancé deciding, We're going to do our wedding for $25,000, and essentially putting 15 grand towards your student loans.

Yeah, that was another option. The only problem is we did put a deposit down on a place. It's an all-inclusive in Florida, which is where we're wanting to get married because our families live out there. And it's going to be about 28,000 for the actual wedding, but that's only if it's 100 people. And we all know that that's probably not going to happen, it's probably 120. And then they charge per head. So we're trying to buffer that a little bit. We're expecting it to not cost the 40,000, but we really just want to have a safe buffer.

Okay, but hold on. We're okay, which- Hold on. You are telling this story as though this thing is happening to you. And I want you and your fiancé to get back in the driver's seat of own lives. The only things that are going to happen with this wedding are what you all sign your name to and what you all allow. It's true. If there's only 100 spaces, there is only 100 spaces. We're going to have to be grownups and tell aunt Edna's cousin's sister's dog's roommate, he can't come.

Yeah, and I'm very okay with that. I'm very much on this boundary, and I don't need these cousins at my wedding, but he's on the other side. He's got a really big family.

And he has a problem in the world. And I can guarantee you his parents' $25,000 investment is going to- They're strings attached.

They're strings attached, that's right. And Edna will be on the invite list.

And so that might mean, what are you in for this wedding venue if you canceled today?

We put $500, sorry, $500 down for the deposit. All right.

I would much rather lose $500 than $15,000. And we could pay a $500 stupid tax and say, Whoa, let's get back in the driver's seat.

Yeah. The only thing is, though- You don't want to do it.

I know you don't want to do it. But here's the thing. I don't want to just do whatever I want to do and then take a gift and say, I have to do it this way because I was so out of control with my wants and my spending that I'm going to use this to cover up the last time I was out of control with my wants and my spending, and I took out a bunch of student loans.

Well, my student loans, actually, I needed that because I got a master's in physician assistant studies, so I make a really good salary, and I needed that for that job.

What do you guys make a year once you're married?

So once we're married, he'll be a captain in the Air Force, so he's going to be making like a 110 gross salary. And I'm making the Louis Oliver make right now, which is like 100. And then I'll be making like 120 to 150.

Awesome. So you guys can knock out this debt quick once you're married. So that's good. And you should be able to cash flow the rest of the wedding without issue if you continue on, right?

Yeah. Well, my thing, yeah. I was going to... Right now, I'm starting to hopefully bonus at my job because I have the ability to do that. I'm right now putting down about $2,500 a month towards my loans, and then I'm putting down $4,000 a month when I start, actually, when I move in with him in two months.

Awesome.

I'm going to be chunking it down, and I'm not going to be putting anything down towards the mortgage with him. He's going to cover the mortgage. So that's going to be a godsend. But then I was also thinking to get It was so intense. Why don't I just also, in addition to my 50 hours a week, go pick up a DoorDash job and then. Yeah.

Dude, before you're married, spend every spare moment you can stacking cash and getting this debt off.

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Buying or selling your home is a big deal. Buying and selling a home makes me so anxious all the time. With all the click bait headlines and conflicting data out there, it's hard know what's really happening in the housing market. I can almost guarantee you whatever you're reading on social media is not reflective of reality. We are here to make the latest trends easy to understand. Here is real honest data as of today. Medium home prices dipped a little below $400,000 last month, which is typical for this time of year. Mortgage rates also dipped to 5. 44 in January. That's down from 6. 27 last January, giving buyers some breathing room. And since rates are unpredictable, the best time to buy is when you're financially ready, not when you're trying to guess when home prices are going to drop or when rates are going to drop or whenever you think you can time the market. When you're ready to learn more about housing market trends and to get free tools to help you buy or sell your home with confidence, go to ramsey solutions. Com/market or click the link in the show notes if you're listening on podcast or YouTube.

This It is a great, great resource. I love it. All right, let's go back to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and try John again. Hey, John, what's up? Hey, how's it going? How much better? We can hear you well. What's up, dude?

The reception in this building is not very great.

I'm doing good.

So I am buying my first vehicle this coming up Monday.

I'm buying it from a co-worker at work.

She is selling it for $2,000. The truck is worth about three.

I'm trying to figure out how much insurance coverage I should get on it. I've been checking different policies. I've been checking. I'm getting quotes from two or three different companies, trying to figure out which ones are better with claims and rates and all sorts of different things. It's just trying to figure out with the truck being worth so low, how much coverage should I get on it?

Where are you at financially?

So I just started working at my first job within the I think I've been about here six months or so, six, seven months. So I have about a little over, I believe, 1,500 saved in my emergency fund.

I have just under I have $4,000 in my car fund, so I have plenty of money for the truck and also for repairs.

And then I have a pretty good being I have a checking account as well.

So I'm financially stable from where I'm at at the moment.

Do you have any debt? I do not have any debt. Okay. So let's talk about your- Hold on.

Can I just shout you out for getting a $2,000 truck and not getting your first job and going out and buying the biggest, dumbest truck you can get like I did? Good for you, bro.

I didn't know those exist.

My parents have taught me well.

Can I ask what truck this is? Because I want it now. Yes.

It's a 2000 Toyota Tundra.

Oh, yes.

Epic. Yes. Gen one, dude. Did you get Did they pre-purchase inspection on it?

They got an inspection a few months ago whenever they were first talking about selling it.

And so I know what needs to be fixed, and they've been doing some minor things like spark plugs and all changes. That way, all I really need to do are a couple of major things.

Okay, cool. And you have the money set aside for that?

Yes. Bro, I have a Gen 1 Tundra, and I love it. I love it. Well done.

So you're talking about how much coverage should you get because it's so cheap? Yes. All right. So the one you definitely it's non-negotiable, is your liability insurance. Correct. I like to go 250, 500, 250. That's your split on that.

And that's because if you hit somebody, the chances of their car being 50 grand is Yeah.

That's 250K per person bodily injury, 500K per accident bodily injury, and 250K property damage. That's the part that it doesn't matter what car you're driving, you need to protect everything else. Okay. So beyond that, we're talking comprehensive coverage, which is theft, fire, weather, all of that. If you're like, Hey, I could probably cut this because I can replace the car. If it were to burn up, I can just go buy a different one. And then same with collision. If there was damage to your car from an accident, insurance I wasn't going to write you a check if you don't have that. If the car is paid off, it's older and low value, which yours is, and you could replace it from savings, then I would do it. What you might want to do is hang on to get all of these coverages for now and then drop it once you're in a better place financially, once you have 10 grand in an emergency fund.

Okay.

Because you're riding it fairly tight between the money you have for the car fund and your emergency fund to where you get one more emergency on top of the car being done. Now we got a real situation on our hands. I would personally get it for peace of mind so I can sleep good. And once I'm doing a little better, more money in savings, then you might want to look at dropping collision or comprehensive.

Okay. And then also with the collision comprehensive, would it be a smart idea? Because I'm using my car fund for repairs and also saving up for a new car, a better car.

A few years down the line, I'm going to pretty much ride this one to the ground if I can.

So would it be better to get a $500 deductible or a $1,000 deductible?

If you can swing the $1,000 deductible, it'll lower your premium. And so because you have the money and you could handle the extra $500 of risk, I would take that. Okay. And the one other thing you should look into is uninsured and underinsured motorist protection. If medical expenses, if you're hit by an uninsured driver, hit and run injuries, we're seeing more and more of this, sadly, where the person driving the car didn't have insurance, and so you're not getting anything. So that's worth having. What I would do is jump on ramsey solutions. Com/insurance. We have trusted pros, a whole network of them across the country, including in Santa Fe, that can help you price all of it out and say, Hey, what would it be if I added this? Okay, what if I took that away? What coverage do you I should have based on my situation. They'll walk you through all of that so that you're confident in what coverage you're getting and getting you the best price because they'll shop the top companies.

John, let me tell you, in my house, I have a new fancy Tundra. I have my wife's car, and I have my old Gen 1 Toyota that we use for hunting trips and stuff like that. I have full coverage on the two nicer cars. I have liability on the Tundra. Basically, I'm just making a deal with the devil that if it wrecks, if I wreck it or somebody hits it, it's just gone. Okay. But I do, even though I don't have a payment on the other cars, I do because those are nice and I want them to be replaced if something happens to them. So I pay more for that coverage. Now, I also want to tell you one more thing. I have a Gen 1 Tundra. I drove it for years before I spent crazy money trying to make it cool. Okay. I'm That's what I'm interested in bells and whistles. I know, but dude, this is a drug. Once you put that first thing on it, and then the second thing on it, you're going to start seeing cool Tundras everywhere. You're going to be like, Oh, I want to get new suspension.

I want to get bigger tires. Just continue to hold the line like you've done so far.

Okay.

That would be awesome. And by the way, I have a feeling this car will outlast you. So trying to drive it into the ground, best of luck to you.

Did you mention how many miles it has on it?

It doesn't matter.

Just over 300,000.

Yes. I just wanted to know to let people... Because they go, John, it's got 100,000 miles. It's going to burn up on the interstate tomorrow. Oh, no. It's a Toyota, dude.

We've driven the Alcan in our Toyota and Honda three times. And the most of them have over 200 or 300 miles on it.

So we're used to that. Fantastic. Try to set a world record.

Well, it's just not hard with those cars.

I think someone did over 500,000.

Oh, easy. It's pretty incredible. Yeah. Well done, man. Man, you're a wise young man. That's good for you, brother.

Very few young guys are thinking this way. Most guys are picking up a $1,000 truck payment.

A month, not a $2,000. And by the way, can we be honest? This truck doesn't look nice.

I'm not turning heads at the stop light. No. Except for bad reasons. They're like, Oh, my gosh.

No, No, no, no. There's tons of people who are like, That's awesome. It's rock and roll. That's pretty rad. But yeah, he's not going to meet somebody and she'll be like, I'm falling in love with you because of your truck. That's not going to happen here. If somebody goes out with him, he'll know, Oh, she really likes me. Because it's not going because this truck looks cool. But man, that's so wise for a future him.

Yeah. And honestly, a good $200 detail, you'll feel like it's brand new to you. It's pretty sweet. That's exciting.

$200 detail? Where do you get those?

That's the going right in my neighborhood. I don't know where you live, John. They probably have an upcharge for the Deloney family.

That's way more expensive than that.

I got a good guy. You got a good guy? I love the mobile ones. They come to the end of the driveway, they get it done.

For $200?

Yeah. Well, maybe you have a gigantic truck. I have tiny toy cars. That is true.

That's the difference. That's the difference. Tiny electric toy cars. There's a lot of square footage in your truck. Do they use a screen wiper to wipe off a Tesla?

They use special gloves. It's so sensitive, just like me.

I bet they do. That's another hour in the books. We'll be right back on The Ramsey Show.

Welcome back to The Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio. I'm John Deloney, joined by George Campbell. Let's go out to Columbia, South Carolina, and talk to Lee. What's up, Lee?

Hi. Hi, John and George.

How are we doing, brother?

Good. How are you guys?

We are doing all right, my man. How can we help?

I'm trying to break out this paycheck-to-paycheck thing, and I'm looking for some advice.

Excellent. I'm glad you called, man.

Tell us more. What's your financial situation? So long story short, I owned a sawmill.

I produced railroad ties, cross ties.

I lost my contract two years ago.

I went and got another job as a mechanic. I'm I'm picking 1280 a week, and I have three different loans with mortgage included.

The mortgage is 130 at 4.

5, and I have 10 years left on it.

The second one is five years on a 4.

5, 45,000 left on it. And then the last one is five years at 8.

5 at 50,000.

That was to clean up my line of that I had for the mill. And then I have two credit cards, one 2,500, one 2,000, $8,000 that I loan from my family, and then 5,000 miscellaneous.

So my monthly payments, everything except food, like lights, mortgage, and the loan payments are 4,190 a month. And I just can't get out of it.

So what I'm considering is using the equity from my house. I bought it 160 with seven acres just prior to COVID.

And I talked with an auctioneer and he thought he could probably get upwards of 400 for the property.

So my question is, would you guys advise me to do that or hang in there and see what I can work out.

What would you say your mortgage payment was?

It is roughly 1,300 a month.

Okay, so it's about a quarter of your... Now, that's not your take home pay, the 1,280. Is that gross? Or is that what actually shows up? That's gross. Gross. That's gross. That's gross. Yeah. So it's more than 25 % of your take home pay, but it's not on fire. The mortgage isn't the problem. You're trying to shortcut it and clean up the mess by just selling. Would you just go rent somewhere?

Probably.

Because you wouldn't be in a spot to buy another place, I'm guessing. If you sold it, took... Now, you could clean up all the debt with the proceeds. You'd clean up the mortgage plus all the other debts, which add up to what? What's the total amount of debt you have? Not including the mortgage. 283 minus the 130. Oh, not including the mortgage? Yeah. Okay. So you got 150 there. So, yeah, you got $150,000 a debt making 60 grand gross? Yes. Yeah. The math is not math in here unless there's something that we can sell or liquidate or use a bunch of savings that you have sitting around. Is there anything like that?

I have no savings. I do have my equipment still, and I'm sure you don't... The lumber market is like murder. And so that tanks the value.

I could possibly get 30 to 40,000 for my equipment, and that's about all the assets I have.

Okay, so that would knock your debt down to maybe for lucky 110. But then we're still, we're making 60 grand. So if there's no room for growth with your income right now where you could double that, then selling the house would give you a nice clean slate if you're ready to change your behavior.

Well, we are.

And by we, who else is involved?

My wife and I have two children, and another one due any day.

Wow. Well, congratulations.

Well, thank you. No time like the present. Congratulations, and lots of stress.

No time like the present to clean this mess up. Yeah, well, there's other people involved now. Is your wife staying home with the kids?

She is, and she will be more than ready to start clean as well.

Could you go rent somewhere for a thousand bucks if you sold?

Yes.

Okay. You said that so quickly that I feel good about it. I would personally in your shoes, I definitely would consider selling the house. It doesn't sound like there's a lot of variables in your life that are about to change. There's nothing you could sell. Your income is not going to go up drastically. I don't know that you could get seven side jobs. You could clean this up over the next few years. But I think with the stress of the baby on the way, it would just be so much more freeing to sell the property, rent for a while, and start to rebuild a solid foundation.

You said this property that you bought for one, 60, is now worth 400?

Roughly, yes. Our area has seen a rampant increase in commercial manufacturing and et cetera, and we're also close to an army base, so there's a lot of people looking for houses.

Okay. I would not take the word of an auctioneer. Okay. I would go to ramsey solutions. Com/market and get with one of our real estate pros. Okay. Who will come in and do comps in the area, projections in the area. Because your property sold at auction, maybe at 400, it may sell in the housing market at $600.

Okay.

Okay. And So don't- Because I know a similar...

Actually, trailer house with an acre or two, sold for 400, very close to me.

Yeah. Your area sounds a lot like what happened in Nashville a few years ago, and stuff got bananas. Right. And so I would sit down with a true real estate professional that you trust, and we have a whole network of them that I'd suggest you get with. That's who I got with when I sold and bought houses. I'm not asking you to do something I didn't do with my own family, but get a true price on what this property will go for. Here's the other thing. You and your wife have to make an ironclad commitment because Because if this works, you're going to be sitting on what? $250, $300, $1,000 cash. You can sneeze, and that money is going to be gone. Because suddenly, she'll need a new car, you'll need to upgrade your truck, you're going to want to do this, and that money will just be gone. You all will have to make an ironclied commitment that this money goes into retirement, this money goes into an emergency fund. We never, ever, ever, ever borrow money again, ever. And we have to learn to live on a budget with our 65 $5,000 a year salary.

Sure. Because you're going to feel rich for a minute. And bro, you're going to burn, you're going to crack open your nest egg at a real young age with really young kids, man. You're going to be in a mess.

Yeah. So the game plan We're both ready for something different.

Good.

So the game plan would be, if and when you sell, use the proceeds to pay down all of your debt. The money left over is going to become your emergency fund. Three to six months, I would lean towards six months. Single income family with three kids, I'd a whole lot better having six months of expenses saved up. And then beyond that, any money beyond even that, then it's okay, we can start saving back up for down payment. Let's not get out of the housing market for too long, because guess what? The next house you buy is probably going to be a half million dollars. So you're going to need a giant down payment to make that payment work with your $60,000 income.

Right.

That's the homework, is we're going to put this all to good use. Like John said, no lifestyle creep. We're not having fun here. This was a reset. It was like we went through a bankruptcy It's sobering, and now we want to do the right thing so that we're never in this position again.

Yeah. I mean, it just burns you down every day trying to get on it. We've made progress.

We paid off a $13,000 credit card last year, but it's just- Good.

Yeah.

Yeah, you got a mountain ahead of you with that 150. And so based on the math, it's a decade plus just to get rid of this. I would sell, I would rebuild, I'd try to get that income up, and you guys will survive this and be renting for a while.

Hey, good folks. Dr. John Deloney here. Don't you think life is too short to hate Mondays? Listen, you're worth loving the work you do and where you do it. So guess what? Ramsey Solutions is hiring. If you're ready to join an amazing team that's all about changing lives and spreading hope, we want to see your application. Right now, we're hiring for technology sales, marketing, writing, copy-editing, and creative roles. Check out all our job postings at ramseysolutions. Com/careers. That's ramseysolutions. Com/careers. Our question of the day is brought to you by, WhyReFi? Defaulted private student loans don't go away by ignoring them, but you can face them with a plan. Yrefi helps you refinance into low fixed rate payments, built around what you can afford so you can take control and get back on the baby steps. Go to yrefi. Com/ramsey right now. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y. Com/ramsey may not be available in all states.

Today's question comes from Abigail in Pennsylvania. My husband and I are at a crossroads and need your home buying advice. Should we buy a house that is affordable but not in a city that we love or rent for another year until we can afford to buy where we prefer to live? It's a no-brainer for me.

It's the quickest question of the day ever.

I'm renting for another year to get the thing I want. It's called delayed gratification. If there was some urgency, we have to move now for whatever reason, then move now. But then you're stuck there. You don't want to be buying a house and selling a year later. That's going to cost you. Rent for another year. Bying a home is the biggest financial decision you'll ever make. Do it with caution and be planted there.

I don't even I have anything to add.

That's my take. One man's opinion. But I want to live somewhere that I enjoy living.

It's not even that.

Is that too much to ask?

I want to live. If it's going to take one more year of sacrifice, then outstanding. So be it.

I'm glad they didn't say, Or should we just buy a house now we can't afford? That was my fear. That's a very different question. But if you're willing to wait, just do it right the first time.

Let's go out to Philadelphia, where we were born and raised, and talk to Melody What's up, Melody? Hi. How are you? Outstanding. How are you?

We're doing great, thanks. I am calling today because we have started an addition on our home, and Because of change of plans, we're going to add a little bit more to it and increased cost, we are maxed at our budget. So I was looking for some advice. I was looking for some advice. Do we take a home equity loan? No. Or should I sell some stock that I have?

Oh, I didn't know we had an option B. This is nice. How much do you have in stocks?

So I have a brokerage account. This is in a retirement, and there's about 328,000.

Well, let's go. How much of that are you going to need to liquidate to finish this renovation?

I'm thinking around 60,000.

Okay. Are we in a spit shake that this is 60 grand and it's not going to turn into 150 grand? Because it's already gone. Because you've already done that once. Yeah. We've already been down this road.

You know what? It jolly well may. It's touch and go with the price of construction costs, and they rise and fall. Hold on. Well, they rise.

But you didn't sign a contract that said, I'm going to build this for this price?

No, our builder, my husband's able to work with him, so he works at an hourly rate, and we are purchasing the building material.

Yeah, but are you saving money in your left hand that's costing you more money in your right-hand? I never thought about that. Meaning, if you had signed a contract and said, I want this addition for $210,000, shake hands, they are responsible for sourcing materials when they continue to go and up, and up, and up and up and up. But by saying, Hey, we can do this for $175,000 just by all GC it, and I got a guy who will work hourly. Now you all are into a significant... You see what I'm saying? Yeah. It may be too late for that, but man.

We're much in a position where we don't have solid answers or solid- That's the part that scares me.

This could be an endless project. And so I would get some real hard numbers before continuing this thing. What is your house worth before the addition?

According to Zillow, around 300,000.

What's the total addition going to cost you based on what you currently know, with all the extra you're going to have to put in?

Seventy-five thousand.

Okay, and you said you still need 60 to go. So you thought this thing was going to cost you 15?

No, no, no. I'm sorry. Seventy-five was the original. What happened was it's going to be a four-car garage And we thought, Oh, let's add in second floor.

Okay, so it's going to be really $135,000 addition. Probably, yeah. Almost 50 % of the home value we're adding. Are there homes on your street that are worth that Because I'm scared you're going to overbuild the neighborhood. Nobody's looking for a $500,000 home when the rest are 350.

We're going to stay here our whole life. This is not something that we're looking to ever How old are you guys? Movers about 47, 48 years old.

Wow. You're talking 50 more years in this house.

I wish I was as confident as you. I love my house in my neighborhood, but man, I'm not bold enough to make that statement. You have transformed this project into a, I'm oversimplifying it, but a four-pillar, four-wall project to a two-story addition. I think that's worth the pause button and going and talking to a contractor to see what it would cost to do this thing. You might come back and it's triple the price, and you all are still in better shape. Great. I would at least want that peace of mind, because once you start adding second floors, dude, I want this thing insured and bonded, and I want it done right. That's just me, and that's what I would do in my house. I pay guys hourly to do all kinds of stuff. I would not pay people hourly to do this big of a project.

You want the full scope, something this big. What was the brokerage account earmarked for?

Honestly, that's like our savings. When we have extra money, we buy stock, and we look at it as if we need it, it's going to grow.

It will grow until we need it. So this wasn't for something else, and now we're robbing Peter to pay Paul. It's totally fine if you use some of this money to finish the addition. Correct. Okay. I would calculate how much you'll pay in capital gains taxes.

Right. Well, that's the concern. And with the high returns right now on the market and the percentage rate of buying right now, which one is the better choice for us?

Well, I could tell you I would take off immediately. Again, as for me and my house, I would not put on the block the very house I'm trying to put an addition on that's supposed to be my house for the next 50 years. And when you take out a heelock to fund another project on that same house, you're putting the house itself on the block. I would not do that.

So whatever you do, we are not going into debt for this addition. If you do want to continue on, I would liquidate parts of the brokerage. You can choose which stocks you're selling off, and you want to choose the ones that are going to have the least amount of capital gains. If you need help with that, you can reach out to a smart investor pro and go to ramsey solutions. Com for that. But, John, I was reminded of this verse from Luke 14 that I just want to read out loud because it's so perfect for the situation. For which of you intending to build a tower does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it. Lest after he has laid the foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build and was not able to finish. That's a roast right there.

I This is just planning ahead? I don't put a shovel in the ground until I've shaken hands and we've agreed on a price.

Because it's an endless fit.

Endless. I don't trust myself. I like the fact that when I shake hands, there There is always a, if you change after today, not only is it going to add cost for whatever you want to actually change and do, there is a percentage penalty, and that puts an extra hurdle, an extra set of breaks on my whims and, Well, let's just do this and let's just do this, because she's right. It's going to be, Let's add a second story. And then it's like, Well, let's just put a bathroom up here. And that's going to turn into, We need to have another entrance in the back.

Well, we're going to be here for the rest of our lives. We might as well make it what we want.

Yes. And suddenly you've burned through that brokerage account and you're taken out of here.

Well, the problem is it's exacerbated when you take out debt because you're using your house like a piggy bank. And so it's so much easier to go, Well, we can just do more. We don't have the cash. We can just take more on the line of credit.

If every time you sell one of those stocks, you have to pay the capital gains on it, you're going to be very particular about what you sell and how much money you're bringing in. And that's going to act as a set of breaks on this endless build.

Bringing friction back into the process is the way to make a wiser decision.

I trust Melody that she's going to live in this house for 50 years. I don't see that happen almost ever.

Ever, ever, ever, ever, ever. I'll be impressed. Call us back when you're 97. Let us know. How many times have you started January saying, This is the year I'm finally going to get my money under control.

But then months go by and you still feel broke. You work too hard to keep living like that. Look, there's only one way to move the needle on your finances this year. You've got to have a plan. Start by downloading Every Dollar. Every Dollar is way more than our world-class budgeting app. In 15 minutes, we'll build you a personalized plan to free up extra margin in your budget and use it to beat debt and build wealth. You'll find thousands of dollars on average just the first day, and you'll get new steps and new lessons every day that help you stay on track and create unstable momentum. Don't waste one more day feeling broke and stressed. Get your plan in just 15 minutes by downloading EveryDollars for free today.

One of our favorite things is when people share their stories of how they are winning. We just got this amazing review of our Every Dollar app. I love this app. It makes it super easy to budget with my husband. We have implement We've implemented this practice since our wedding day, and we have had zero, no way, it's awesome. Zero money fights because there's full transparency when it comes to our money, and we're on the same page. Awesome. Listen, this can be your life, too. You can take control of your money. You can change your family tree. You can live like no one else. Go download our EveryDollar budget app for free in the App Store or for you Android users on Google Play. Let's go out to Dallas, Texas, and talk to Anne. Hey, Anne, what's up?

Hi. Thank you for taking my call.

Of course. Thanks for calling. What's going on?

Thank you. I'm so grateful, actually, that someone can look at my situation from outside of the box. I am considering to file a bankruptcy, and I was wondering if you would recommend doing that or not. Honestly, I don't want to do that because I'm very grateful that the bank gave me that money back when I needed it. So I want to pay it back, but I feel like I just can't.

Tell us about your situation. How much do you owe?

So I owe... I have five I have two credit cards and two business loans that totals to $123,000. And I owe about $35,000 to the IOS and back taxes. I used to make about 150 for a year, a thousand a year. And in 2024, I made only $52,000. In 2025, I make 39,000. I did start doing all kinds of gigs and delivery and driving for Uber. I set up an anybody's store. I started selling everything, my expensive suits and things, trying to help me. I also had to file for forbearance. Last year, I've been out of forbearance for about nine months, and I just had to file for another one, and I'm in the second one. But the good thing is my car is paid off.

You're good. All right, so before we get to the actual money part, okay, what were you doing for What was your job when you were making 150 grand? And what are you doing now making only 40?

I own a business. Well, I sell real estate. That's what I did. I sold real estate. And I As you know, I don't know, real estate hasn't been selling very well.

Yeah, it's been a tough season. Okay.

Why do you need business loans for real estate?

Back then, so when things were great, so 120,000 was for marketing and set on the website and following up with clients. They took over all my marketing team for me and did everything so I could focus on my clients. And then 60,000 was with small business administration that was taken out during COVID.

That loan is haunting, haunting small business owners, still. But so, George is going to walk you through the money side of this, okay? But what I'm hearing is deep, deep shame, and I want to free you from that, okay?

No, you're right.

Okay? Thank you. You are not the dollar amount you bring home. So, yes, your business has crashed, okay? You are still a person worthy of being loved. You're still a good community member. You're still a fellow Texan, right?

Yes.

And so you have to back out of the muck and the mud and the actual stress you have from real bills that need real dollars to pay them. That's all real, okay? But on top of that and underneath that, this sense that I am a human failure. All that is doing is bringing extra weight to an already challenging situation. I want to free you from that. Okay? Yeah. Let's set that nonsense down. It might be that moving forward, you sell real estate as your side hustle, and you get back in the 9: 00 to 5: 00, 8: 00 to 5: 00. I'm going to go clock in somewhere, and I'm going to go get a real job all day, every day with benefits, with- I love that. Getting there, and I'm going to do that. And I'll sell real estate at night time and on the weekends until the market picks back up. Maybe that's the move. I don't know. But I want you to get to the core, who am I? If you're a great real estate agent, what that tells me is you're somebody who serves other people, you're somebody who listens well, you're somebody who fights for their clients.

That type of heart is useful in a million different industries. Okay? Mm-hmm. And so trying to hang on to my identity as a realtor is drowning you to the tune of 110 grand a year. Let's let that go and say, Okay, who am I? I'm somebody who helps people when they need help. I'm somebody who shows up. I'm somebody who listens. I'm somebody who fights for people. Man, that opens you up to a whole suite of different career opportunities that backfill your purpose on the planet, okay?

Mm-hmm. Cool?

Yeah, I like that. Okay, so let's walk through the money stuff.

All right. Okay. Are you covering your four walls right now? Are you covering your basic bills? Food, rent, utilities, transportation?

Yes, that's pretty much the only thing I can cover. And the minimum payments is where I basically, like try to Uber or try to sell stuff, clothes, my old whatever I own. And to pay those minimum payments, really, because I have several of them, and they're not small, each of them. Like, IRS payment a loan is $617 every month.

And how long is that payment plan for?

So I owe 35,000. I don't think they had a year.

Okay. Well, your goal up front is the IRS debt. That one rises to the top because they can really mess with your life. So we want to get them off our back before we tackle the business loans and the credit cards. Now, that's going to take getting our income up. That's really the variable here that you can control. Okay. And so this is going to be the hard work. It's easy for me to say, go get more income them, but I can crunch some numbers with you to show you that bankruptcy is not the only option. In fact, I wouldn't recommend it as an option for you because it will destroy your financial life in a whole other way.

I really don't want to do that. I really don't. I want to pay everything off. I feel it's just not the right to do that.

So think about this way. If we reverse engineer this and just put some facts on paper right now and try to just step away from the emotions, if you put, this is a big number, but if you put 3,200 bucks towards your debt, you would be debt free within four years.

Really?

Yeah. That's the math. You have $158,000 in debt, so you can divide it by however many months, whatever your goal is, and go, All right, That's the number I need to come up with for my debt. Now, that means you need to go make $7,000 a month in order to do that, right? You need to have enough money to cover your bills, cover your insurance, basic expenses, and every extra dollar is going towards your debt. If you do that, within a few years, you can climb out of this, but not making $39,000. We need to get back up to a six-figure income to knock out six figures of debt. Are you tracking with me?

Right. That means I'm going to go find a $50,000 or $60,000 your job.

And make more every single year. You're going to be so good at your job. They're going to be promoting you so fast. And if it's self-employed... Now, self-employment in real estate, it's a tough gig right now. And so to John's point, if you can go find something that is salary, benefits, steady, you're going to feel so much better about climbing out of this because you're not waiting on that next commission check to come through.

Right.

And by the way, four years of $3,200 a month, that sounds insane. It's a long time. But the seven-year shackling around your ankle from bankruptcy is way worse.

Yeah. I've been trying to pay this off for years anyway. I've probably paid it in multiples, but it's on me.

Well, it's Whac-a-mole right now. And so instead, you're going to do the debt snowball method, and I'm going to help you and walk you through this. I'm going to give you my book, Breaking Free from Broke, Total Money Makeover, and give you the Every Dollar Budgeting app so that you have a game plan instead of just spray and pray. We're rooting for you. All right, let's cut to the chase.

It's easy to get discouraged about crazy house prices and interest rates.

But when you have the right real estate agent to help you buy and sell the right way, you'll have confidence to make smart decisions.

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They're people you can trust to have your back from the first call to closing day.

Find a Ramsey trusted agent near you at ramseysolutions. Com/agent. That's ramseysolutions. Com/agent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock.

If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with me. Revelation 3: 20. The quote of the day is from Bruno Mars. Man, George has Bruno Mars tattoos on his chest.

He loves that guy. It's on my ceiling in the bedroom.

You can't knock on Opportunities' door and not be ready. All right, let's go out to the 512. Let's go out to Austin, Texas, and talk to Natalie. Hey, Natalie, what's up?

Hey, guys. I'm so excited to talk to you all.

We're excited to talk to you. What's going on?

I am 27, and I'm wondering, should I buy a house this year by myself or wait until marriage to share that whole experience and homeowner responsibility. We're not engaged yet, but probably headed that way in the next year or so. Obviously, I don't want to bank on that happening.

Oh, you're so wise.

It also seems like a huge milestone that I want to share with him, but I also don't want to miss a good opportunity to buy a house.

Well, are you financially ready to buy a house on your own right now as it stands?

Yes.

Tell me about the money here. What are you thinking about buying? How much do you have saved?

I've got saved about 300,000.

Natalie, what are you doing?

I've just been blessed.

What's your income? People want to know how you did this.

My income fluctuates. My base is around 117, but the job I'm in has some pretty awesome bonuses.

And you have no debt? No debt. I love it.

Okay, hold on. You've been blessed. Yes, fair. And you've been really wise and a good steward of this money.

I would like to think so, yeah.

Because I have lots of friends in Austin, Texas, and if they had that money, it would be invested poorly in really flashy automobiles Houses they can't afford. They would be up to their eyeballs, right?

You're in the 0. 0001 %. The fact that you're a single woman, no debt with 300 grand sitting in the bank. So you've worked your butt off to be blessed. That's for sure.

Does this guy know?

I'm very curious because I'd be like, Let's get married sooner. Yeah.

What's this idiot waiting on? Because not only do you have money, you're a wise, good human being.

Yeah, he does know. And get this, he doesn't let me pay for a single date.

Yeah. You know why? Because he's texting. Well done.

Yeah, he's a good one.

Yes. Well done.

I love it. So should you buy a house? I know you want to share the joy. And the truth is, he's going to get the joy of homeownership for the rest of his life. Just picture it. If he's stepping in the situation and you are fiscally responsible. You've got a reasonable mortgage payment. Now, he steps in with his income, too. And now you guys crush through this mortgage. I don't think he's going to be like, Man, I just really wish I was there at closing.

You know what I mean? And by the way, I don't know who you've talked to. I have bought a lot of houses over the years. None of them have been a pleasurable experience. And by the way, that includes when I am using a mortgage lender that I trust, a realtor that's a friend of mine, and the closing attorney is a college roommate of mine. The whole process is still so stress-induced. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. And so I don't know what you've imagined this will be like, but I almost think you'd be doing both of you a huge favor if you just bought this house.

Okay, and don't share the grief with him.

I mean, he's going to share the grief if he's dating you.

Fair point.

There are some things to think about, though, with a long term decision like this. Where do we both work? Is this going to make sense for us? Are there going to be major renovations? Do I like the area? Does it have good schools in case we start a family here? So there are things to think about, but I would go ahead and get your foot in the door of this housing market, especially before it ramps back up, because I have a feeling at some point it's going to get crazy again.

Why do you feel... Is the 300 grand just burning a hole in your pocket? What do you feel like you're missing out on?

I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything I'm just so sick and tired of dealing with property management companies.

You get to deal with yourself soon enough. You're like, This toilet's not working. Oh, dang it. I got to fix it.

I got to fix it.

Sometimes I would rather just do it myself.

A true Texan right there. Or Natalie, I'm I'm so proud of you. I would definitely start shopping, start to see what's on the market, what's in their budget, stick to a 15-year fixed rate mortgage, make sure the payment is not more than a quarter of your after-tax income, and you will be in such good shape. Because once you have dual income, maybe you decide, once you have a kid, I want to stay home. And it'll be a no-brainer because you did everything the wise way.

Or let's just take two years and let's just pay this house completely off, which would be amazing.

She's going to be a multi, multi, multimillionaire.

I have a paid-off house before I'm 30, and I can do whatever I want. That's amazing. Good for you, Natalie. That's awesome, dude. Let's go out to Houston and talk to Kevin. Hey, Kevin, what's up, brother?

Hello.

How are you doing? Good, man. What's up?

Yeah. So basically, just graduating law school in May and having a lot of trouble finding positions. I'm about to take the bar exam in a few days and just wondering what advice you guys had.

What law you want to go into?

Well, I was hoping to be in-house counsel somewhere. I would love to do that. That's a little tougher to get into.

Yeah, that's tough for a first-year grad. That's almost impossible. Yeah. My students and my friends who are attorneys, that was always a destination. I want to get there one day, right?

Yeah. And I'm also looking into more realistic options, like family law as well, and estate planning.

Okay. So have you I was just... Sorry. Are you struggling with... Have you sent out a bunch of applications?

Yeah. I mean, hundreds. I lost track at this point.

So when somebody tells me they've sent out hundreds of resumes, almost always they are applying to online job application inquiries. Is that true for you?

Yeah. I mean, I think I would put it into different categories where I have tailored applications. I mean, I've still done hundreds of those and applications through contacts that I know. But yeah, and then the category of like, okay, let's just put a resume in, put a cover letter in, and see where we go from there.

And personally, I don't count those because the ability for anyone to even get to those resumes these days is so hard. I much prefer you focus on folks you went to school with. A lot of my students, one person would get into a firm, and then two or three of them would end up working at that firm, or one person would get a job at the DA's office, and then four of them would follow them. That tended to be what I saw, how my students got their foot in the door at places. Do you not have access to a Career Services Department at your law school?

I do, but it's very limited, especially in my case. Like, they don't have a lot of postings. And, when you do talk to them, they just refer you to the postings. And in my case, I got a scholarship in a law school in a different state, and now I'm trying to get my license in Texas.

Yeah. Do you think that's hurting you? Yeah, that's- On top of not having to pass the bar yet?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, obviously not passing the bar, but, yeah, the lack of opportunities through the school is a little rough.

Yeah. Here's what I would focus on. I would put every single aim, every gun I have at passing the bar exam, period. I would join both the local community bar association and the state bar association, and I would look at every government opening right now in a one-hour radius. You might not want to do government law. You may not want to do assistant DA work. You may not want to do that work, but that might be the only work available to you. By By the way, those are opportunities for you to get a ton of different cases and a ton of different clients and rub shoulders with a ton of different attorneys and judges that can help you begin to network for your next move. But that would be where I start right there.

I'd quit applying and start going, All right, I need to set up 15 conversations this week with people that are in this space. Maybe it's the alumni, maybe you know a judge's clerk, whatever it is, just go, Hey, I'm going to hang. I'm going to see how I can add value to their life, get to know them. It's not a desperate plea for a job. That's right. You just making the connections, and they might know a guy who knows a guy, and that's how you get it. Or that temp job or contract work turned into full-time work, or they knew somebody who was looking for somebody. That's how people get jobs in the real world these days versus the spray and pray. I click some buttons, and hopefully it's an addition.

Nobody's calling me. It wouldn't surprise me if your university where you're graduating has an alumni group in Texas. Check them out, too. Thanks for a call, brother.