Transcript of Financial Peace Requires More Than Good Intentions New

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Normal is broke and common sense is weird. So we are here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio, this is The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Jade Warshaw, and we are fired up to take your calls about life and money. The number to call is 888-825-5225. I can see we have one or two phone lines open right now, so if you're that person who's going, why should I call? I'm never going to get through, You might win The Ramsey Show lottery today and make it through if you're kind to our phone screener, Christian. 888-825-5225 is the number to call. Susan is in San Francisco kicking us off. What's going on, Susan?

Hello.

Um, thank you for taking my call.

Sure.

Um, I'm calling regarding my father-in-law. Um, my father-in-law lost his retirement money due to bad investments and a divorce. Now he's barely scraping by with Social Security. My husband comes from a family of 3 other siblings. "My father-in-law has told us that he's in—" or, "My husband and I told—" he told us, my husband and I, "that he's in $33,000 in debt from credit cards and is barely scraping by between the credit card debt, food, living expenses, etc. He has about $100 left over a month. He has started asking us to buy him things after a knee surgery he had. We bought him a recliner, also redid his shower to help him get in and out easier." Wow, that's great. And then he asked us for $1,000 more to help with some other expenses. Now he's asking us to buy him hearing aids. My husband and I hasn't talked to any of the other siblings to help with their dad. He doesn't think they can afford it. When do we stop?

Wow. Um, how old is the father-in-law? Uh, 84. Okay, okay. Um, Gosh, I'm so sorry that that took place. And it sounds like he just didn't have the financial literacy to invest correctly. And then it sounds like the divorce was kind of a double whammy there.

Did he get divorced very late in life?

Well, he's divorced twice.

So this one, yeah, he was a second marriage.

Was he—

what I want to know first before I talk about him, I want to know about you guys. What's your financial situation?

Um, we're doing, um, you know, well, we do have two, um, uh, children that are still in school, so we are paying for them, um, to finish school. They'll be here done in about a year or so. College? So financially-wise, I mean, we're, we're doing, um, good in the way—

if there's no debt, um, you guys have plenty of retirement. I should be clear by that, by that question. Any debt?

Um, no, um, we pay off our credit cards every month. Uh, we're doing well with retirement. We're putting away with money with that. I mean, we are— I mean, to pay stuff for him, I mean, yes. So I mean, we have to tighten the budget a little bit to pay whatever the father-in-law needs. Um, so that does put like some kind of strain on us, um, just because we, uh, aren't able to do the things that we would like to do.

Right, because this is costing you, this has cost you a lot so far. And I mean, hearing aids are not cheap. I mean, we're talking a couple of thousand dollars. How much?

Well, he's anywhere between, you can get them from $1,500 to $5,000.

Right, right.

Mm-hmm. What does your husband think about all this? Does he want to continue helping dad financially? Does he want to put a stop to it, a limit to it?

Well, he's now, you know, after this is like the fourth time he's asked us for things, he's like, "Okay, when is this going to end? Like, what is next? Like, if the car breaks down?" Yeah.

Well, the truth is it won't end until you end it.

Yeah, because, you know, life keeps lifing and things keep popping up. So, I agree with George, it's not going to end.

I mean, I don't know what his health is like at this point. Is he able to take care of himself? Does he live alone? Yeah, he lives alone.

He's able to take care of himself. He lives in a small apartment. It's so, you know, I mean, health-wise, he's okay.

So there's two realities here, and I don't think I need to say this to you. I think you've thought of this, but it's worth saying out loud for the call. We're very, around here, we're very much self-starters. Autonomy is good. Be in charge of your own life, that sort of thing. And so for that reason, I don't think that you have a moral obligation to take care of this person. So hear me say that. However, the two things that you're holding in your hand are, I have my life going over here. I have money that I want to spend on my life and my family, what have you. And then you have this guy over here who the truth is he's not gonna work. He's 84 years old. He's not going to bring in any income. And so what you're balancing is his quality of life and how that is affecting your quality of life. And this is not a, a selfish statement, but it is kind of like a, a mental calorie, soul tax statement, which is, is it going to drain you more to know he's over here? Uh, he needs hearing aids.

He doesn't have them. His car is broke down. He's having trouble eating. Like those sorts of things. Are those going to bother you to the extent to where you go, you know what, maybe it's just worth it for me to help out. Maybe that actually does improve my quality of life and I'm not over here worried about it all the time. There is something to be said for that. Mm-hmm. And I think that you've probably weighed that out mentally. And I think only you know, is this something that really is a need or is this something that there are measures that he can take to lower his lifestyle? Can he sell his home and downgrade to an apartment? Are there things that he can do to kind of fund this out for another 10 years if he's healthy? So does, I mean, does he live in a house? Is there things that you can sell off that can kind of stave this off from you guys fitting the bill?

Um, not really, no, because when he did lose his house through the divorce and they had to sell it, they were already deep in debt at that time. So he didn't make any money from selling the house. So he basically has, you know, he lives, like I said, in a small apartment and stuff. What's his rent? Um, I'm not exactly sure what it is, um, to tell you the truth. I don't, I don't know.

If you're gonna give him a single dollar more, you're going to be very involved with his finances and understand exactly how much is coming in and how much is going out, because that controls how much you're going to end up having to give every month. And it gives you a very clear picture about the future of this. Is he even making the minimum credit card payment? Is it in collections and they're coming after him? You guys need to get clear on that as you step further into his financial life. And I would have your husband talk to the siblings. Right now, we're assuming that nobody can chip in and nobody wants to help. I would have a come to Jesus meeting with them going, hey, listen, here's what's going on with Dad. Not doing well financially. Are you guys willing and able to chip in a certain amount per month? Mm-hmm. Put a limit on it, even a time limit and a number limit so that they know this is not an eternal funding of Dad's life. That's right. Because he could live another 15 years, right? Right, right, right.

And if he, if he has no assets, truly, I wouldn't even worry too much about this credit card debt. If they sue him, there's nothing they can take. It's unsecured. And it's not gonna pass to you guys. So that would not be something I would jump in and say, well, we've got to pay off the credit card debt. No, you know, you can keep paying minimums if you want to.

But, and if they do come after him, if he does miss a payment, I would be contacting Guardian Litigation. They're a nationwide law firm that can help with this debt settlement collection issues. They'll assign him an attorney to help with all of this. You can reach out to them at guardianlit.com/ramsey. But right now it's we need a game plan. With some timelines. We need limits to all of this. Otherwise it will never end. It is Bank of Susan forever. And he's going to come for 1,000, then 2,000, then 5,000. And you guys need, for your own marriage and sanity, this needs to stop or it needs limits.

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Ray is in Columbus up next. What's going on, Ray?

Hey guys, thanks for taking my call.

Sure. How can Jade and I help?

Um, well, first I'd like to share a brief cautionary tale with other Ramsey listeners, and then I'll get into my, uh, specific housing circumstance. That hopefully you guys can give me some advice on. So, um, last year, uh, I purchased my first home with my fiancée and, uh, which goes directly against Ramsey advice. And sure enough, the thing happened, um, not 4 months into that home, uh, we ended up separating. Oh no. Um, yeah. Uh, so that, you know, was very stressful emotionally, uh, on top of the financial aspect of that. Um, so I was forced to sell I sold a home that I could no longer afford. It made sense with two incomes, but just couldn't swing it with one. So this is a classic kind of circumstance that you all would warn against.

How did that work? Was both your names on the mortgage and the deed? Just me.

It was just me. Okay. So we had split the down payment, which is a very modern thing to do. And so I had to sell the home and I didn't quite get back the down payment, but I was fortunate enough to be able to make sale without realtors, just to a neighbor. So didn't have to pay commissions. So got out of the home relatively clean. But that brings me to now. I moved into a one-bedroom apartment to try to get my feet back under me and, you know, keep chugging along with life, even though it was very difficult. And not a month and a half after signing that lease, I was laid off from my job. Oh boy. So kind of just a combination of things. So now I'm really, I'm looking at really potentially moving back with my parents at 32, which is incredibly humbling. Um, I guess my question is, uh, in terms of the lease, you know, what are, what really are my options? I, I, uh, asked the rental, the property management company about a potential buyout and, uh, that would ultimately amount to roughly $16,000 for only 3 months of occupancy.

And they're not willing to work with you at all on a, a smaller early termination fee, or could you find a replacement tenant to take over? Right. So I've explored those options.

I requested the early termination fee, um, which they, uh, wanted to be $7,000. Um, so that would be in addition to the rent that I've paid. And then of course the fees that are non-refundable, et cetera.

Um, So you can't, you can't go back and get the rent that you've paid, but just if you were to early terminate today and be— how quickly could you move out and what would you still be on the hook for?

I can move, I can be out of there, um, I mean, in 2 days really.

And so they'd prorate this month or they make you pay the whole month?

They would make me pay the whole month. Well, I need to give them 30 Excuse me, I need to give them 30 days notice.

Physically, I could be out of the apartment, you know, this week.

Um, I had offered, um, you know, a few thousand dollars to, uh, cover their estimated damages, which is typical for early, uh, termination fees, right? A couple months rent for them to remarket and re-rent the unit. But they were very firm on the $7,000 on top of all, like I said, the other rent and whatnot. Um, so I'm— what I'm worried about is, uh, not being able to pay that and then being sent to collections, and then that impacted my ability to rent, um, for years to come. Yeah.

So what are— was there a severance with the layoff?

No, it was unexpected and without notice, so no severance. Okay.

And what are your job prospects now? What were you doing, and how long do you think it'll take for you to get back into a similar role?

So I was a designer, an architect in training, so to speak. Um, things are slowing down in the industry, especially where I'm living currently. Um, which is why I'm kind of trying to regroup, like I said, for just a short period back, uh, back at my parents to really explore what the next move would be.

Um, how much money do you have to your name?

So I, uh, that's another thing I wanted to talk to you guys about and get some perspective on, uh, because typically the show has some pretty dramatic scenarios and maybe, and which makes me feel a little better about myself, but maybe doesn't give me a lot of, uh, perspectives in terms of how well I'm doing. Um, so I have, uh, $20,000 in a Roth IRA, $20,000 roughly in a 401. $10,000 in another brokerage account and then about $8,000 in kind of a typical checking savings. Okay, great. So you do have some money.

So if they were to offer a settlement for an early termination, you could cover it through the brokerage account and/or your checking or savings. Mm-hmm.

True. Yeah. What would stop—

what's stopping you from What caused you to look at this and go, "I don't have the money to do this. I need to call the show"? Why do you have pause on spending your money to get out of this lease?

Frankly, I wanted to know if there were other options in terms of just where I stand legally, if I had any grounds for debate or negotiation with them. Really, it just felt like an exorbitant amount of money.

Yeah, well, I mean, there's, there's certain laws in your state and I don't know what those are.

I would be—

if you want to contact an attorney, that would be the place to get legal help. We are no experts in that field. But what I would do is push on the negotiation front because if this— is it a large kind of complex corp owned by a corporation?

Yeah, it's a larger management company. Okay.

The other thing I would do just as a resourceful guy is I would take my lease agreement and upload it to AI and really understand it better than they do. 'Cause that's what you signed. That's the contract they're gonna hold you to. I don't think they're gonna rip it up and go, "Well, we'll just work with you outside of that." Because again, this is a big corporation. They want their money. They're just all doing their jobs and they want their money. And so I would just be pushing on that, figure out exactly what's in that lease agreement and contract to figure out what my options are. I don't believe Ohio has any job loss, financial hardship exemption. Unless the lease itself has a provision for that. So that's again, some of the homework I would be doing. You can contact an attorney, but I think worst case, what is your rent right now? What is it costing to stay there?

The rent is $1,600 a month, roughly. Mm-hmm. Okay. And what are your other expenses?

Like what does it take to run your life for a month if you went bare bones?

You know, I'm a pretty efficient guy. Bare bones would be probably another grand on top of that. Okay. I would say for gas, food, et cetera.

'Cause you're still a capable man. You can go do 7 side hustles and still cover that month without dipping into the brokerage or savings. So I would try that. I would try desperately to find an actual career job again. In the meantime, doing all these side hustles and floating your checking and savings until you can negotiate with your landlord to maybe negotiate the $7K down if you found a replacement tenant. So they might be willing to work with you there. You said, hey, if I find a replacement tenant, will you bring it down to one month's rent as penalty and keep the deposit, whatever? Right. And I think if you're the squeaky wheel and you do the hard work for them of finding a tenant, they might be willing to work with you. Yeah, it's not a— I don't— I would not just go pay $16,000 today to get out of this. Yeah.

I just want to check on, though, your efficiencies because I want to make sure you're covering your insurances and stuff. Do you have insurance? Do you have medical and everything like that?

So lost that with the job.

Yeah. That's, that's what I'm concerned about is I don't want you one accident riding around here. So I need, I would want you to pick up something for the interim.

You should be able to get COBRA even though it's expensive. Exactly. In the interim. So that's on my list too.

Yeah. Because I mean, every time you go out in the street, there's an opportunity for you to be in a worse off position than you are now. So let's make sure all of our bases are covered. And if you look up and you go, that gummit, you know, with rent, with my eating and gas and COBRA and all that, I can't float this, then that's an excuse to, okay, we might have to dip into the checking just to get out of this. But please, please, please don't sacrifice lack of health insurance. We've seen that happen, and that's where a lot of bankruptcy cases are born.

Good luck, Ray.

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¡Gracias, baby! If you're working the Baby Steps, the best and fastest way to do it is by using EveryDollar. It's more than just our budgeting app. Now, The Plan is built right into it. You can track your progress and get personalized recommendations and coaching for your situation The goal is to help you free up more money to work the plan even faster. It's like having one of us walk with you every day, 24/7, showing you the right next step and holding you accountable. Go start EveryDollar for free. You can download it in the App Store or Google Play. Matthew is in Fort Lauderdale up next. Matthew, welcome to The Ramsey Show! Wow!

This is amazing to get to talk to y'all!

We're amazed to get to talk to Matthew! We're so excited to help! Yes, sir.

Yeah, so I'll be brief. And my question is, is, uh, me and my fiancée, we just got engaged and I'm 20 years old and I don't have no debt and I make pretty good money. Um, however, she wants to go to RN school to become a registered nurse, but I'm trying to convince her not to take out student loans. And I'm in the financial position I could pay for it but I don't want to make a mistake saying if she did not end up loving registered nurse that I'm out $40,000.

Yeah, um, when does— when's the wedding? Have you guys set a date?

No, uh, it'll probably be January of next year. Um, but she, uh, she has got graduated with an associate's degree and now wants to go RN school.

Is she working right now?

Yes, sir. Yeah, she's a waitress at a barbecue joint.

So your uneasiness about paying for this is more about, is this the career that she really wants? It's not about anything else, correct?

Yeah, no, I mean, I work really hard for my money. I'm a rancher. And I don't mind helping her out just so we can stay out of debt, because once we are married, I don't want to get the burden of debt.

You're a wise man at 20. That's impressive.

And how old is she? She's 21.

What makes you think that this could be something that she's just got in her mind right now but will change her mind down the line? Has she shown that to be part of, like, a personality characteristic?

Not necessarily. Um, it's just, she's never had any family members or experienced a job. And I know being a nurse is a super hard job. Uh, so I just don't want her to— I don't want to spend this money and then we end up looking back as a huge mistake.

Yeah. Well, the other piece that you haven't mentioned is covering somebody's education that you're not married to just has a lot of risk.

Yeah, just like the last caller. You heard it, man.

I mean, I paid— listen, you could be calling in a year from now, man, I paid for her nursing school and then we broke up and I can't get my money back. Now, I hope that doesn't happen. I hope you guys are married and have a wonderful long marriage, but there's still that risk factor when you're not married. You have no protection there. And so I love the idea of you guys developing a plan to cash flow her nursing school. And that might mean, hey, you're gonna work for this next year and come January, we get married. Let's reassess. Let's see where we're at financially. Let's have you, her start saving up in order to cash flow this. Mm-hmm. Uh, because it's gonna become y'all's burden once you're married.

I'd also look at, I mean, you guys have a, uh, not quite a year, but if you're planning on getting married in January, in the meantime, she can do some programs out there that will allow her to shadow that career and really get in that environment and see, do I, can I stomach it? Do I like it? And get a sense of what it feels like, get a sense of the hours and really do her due diligence before you were to shell that money out. And this is the perfect time to do that while she continues to work and save up.

Yeah, I was gonna suggest, can she work in a healthcare environment in an administrative role where she at least gets to see the inner workings of the system, talk to the nurses and get a real feel for what it's gonna be like. Mm-hmm. Because she might find out, man, I really like healthcare, but I'd rather be on the business side. Versus with patients all day. And so I do think you're right to be cautious and go a little slow here. And I think she's just going, nursing sounds good. And it is, it's a great field if you're the right fit for it and you can get paid a lot of money and help a lot of people.

Yeah, she could do a nursing shadowing program. She could volunteer at a hospital for a while. She could maybe start as a CNA and do that first and not shell out the $40,000 right away. There's a lot of things that she could do to kind of get her feet wet without spending a ton, ton of money.

Yes, ma'am. Okay. Yeah, I'll try to pass it on. And then my other situation is trying to get her to fall in love with the Ramsey Plan like I did about 4 years ago.

Well, she fell in love with you. Is that partially due to your fiscal responsibility?

Well, it's, uh, I think she loves the lifestyle and she loves me. We live debt-free. I mean, I live at the ranch. We take care livestock all day long. She, she helps out with it a lot, and I think she's really interested. But the nursing— she doesn't know anybody that's a nurse, and she goes on Google and see what a nurse makes, and she wants to do that.

And that's, that's the fear. If you're aiming at a certain paycheck, then that scares me, because number one, you may not finish school and may not see that paycheck, and it might be less than you thought, or it might be more stressful than you thought, and she jumps out of nursing. After you guys sunk $40,000 into it. So, I do think there's some premarital counseling to be done here, and we can help with that. We'll gift you guys Financial Peace University, and you go through that together, get on the same page, and we'll do the work for you on trying to convince her to jump on the Ramsey plan.

Yeah, I think we've given you some good solutions, and even for her to suss out the nursing program, my bigger thing is you need to talk about your viewpoints and philosophies around money. And like George said, we'll hook you up with the stuff, but you need to sit down one night and say, okay, Hey, here's the thing. I'm a guy. I built my whole life on avoiding debt. I don't do credit cards. I don't sign up for debt. It bothered me, or it gave me at least questions when you were so quickly willing to go into debt for a degree. And those are the questions that you do wanna start asking now, and not even in an accusatory way or with like a bad, you know, air about it. Just seek to be curious and learn about her.

And say, I wanna be aligned in every area of our life. Yes. And money's a part of that. That's it. That's how you start it. So wishing you the best. Hang on the line. We'll get you Financial Peace University to watch with her. All right. Brock is in Tampa up next. Brock, welcome to the show.

Hey, how's it going, y'all? I appreciate you taking my call. Sure. What's going on? Uh, so I got just a small question. Um, I've got a classic car that I've heard some mixed input on whether I should keep it or sell it, then invest the money that I get from it. Uh, I'm a young guy, so, you know, I guess any money that I can invest now will set me up later for the future.

How old are you, Brock?

How old are you, Brock? I'm 19. Okay.

You got any debt? I have no debt. Good. How much do you have in the bank right now? Uh, a little over $100,000. Fantastic. At 19?

Yeah. What do you make? Uh, about $120,000.

Dude, you are crushing it. Okay.

What kind of work do you do, Brock, at 19 making $120,000?

Uh, I run like a, like a landscape company kind of deal.

Good for you. So tell us about the classic car.

So I bought it off a customer about 6 months, 7 months ago. Um, it's a great little car. I love it. It just, you know, it just kind of sits and, you know, I, I've got money invested. I don't, I don't know. I just, I've heard people are like, hey, are you gonna get rid of it? What'd you spend on it? I just want to see. Uh, I bought it for $10,000 and the car is probably worth closer to $20,000.

Cash?

Yeah, yeah, everything I got.

So you could sell it for $20,000 and you're going, I might rather see that grow in an investment account than sit in a garage and collect dust and be something I have to maintain.

And that's, that's kind of where I'm at with it too. Now what's even worse is the car sits outside, um, exposed to the elements, not protected. Yeah, exactly.

And you want to pay for storage, insurance, all of that.

How many other cars do you have? I've got a place to store, uh, I've got two other trucks.

Okay, can you get another classic car one day, or is this the one of a kind, you'll never see it again and you'll hate that you sold it?

I could definitely get another classic car. This car too isn't even like— if I was to— if I wasn't to get a good deal on it, I would have never bought it because it's not something that like would appeal to me.

Yeah, you kind of sound like you're talking— you've— we haven't had to talk you out of this. It sounds like you're set on it.

You just want somebody to say, "OK." From 19 to 59.

What if I can't get rid of it, though?

Well, you'll have a little bit of— you can grieve it. You'll say goodbye. You'll take that $20,000 and invest it. If you just leave it in an investment account from 19 years old to 59 years old, that's a 40-year span with an average 10% rate of return, you're looking at $1 million in that one account. That's true.

But also, hear us say, you don't have to sell it if you want to keep it.

If you were in crippling debt making $30,000 and this thing was going to be your savings, Savior, we'd say sell it today. Nothing's on fire, but you just convinced us you don't want to deal with this thing anymore.

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We had a blast recording this show live in front of audiences on the road in April. That's right, Ramsey Show Live. We traveled to 4 cities in the month of April and did Ramsey Show Live in front of about, you know, 300-something people. The show was filled with live questions from the audience. You get to see their faces, see the reactions, bring the spouse up for the debate. And Jade and I had a great time. I was on 2 of those. I think Jade was on—

Were we Phoenix?

We were on 0 of them, Jade, together. Oh, we weren't? This year. Is that right? Yeah. I was with— No wonder my mind went blank. Rachel and Ken. You were with Deloney and Ken for one, and Rachel and Ken for the other.

Oh, George, what's up with that, man? I know, I know.

They split. Well, we're too powerful together. You know, it's like, Air Force One, you gotta have one person on Air Force Two for safety. So Charlotte and Denver episodes are out right now on the Ramsey Show YouTube channel, Spotify, Ramsey Network app. Phoenix and Anaheim episodes will be coming out soon. They were super fun, and I think you're gonna really enjoy watching them. The energy is electric. It's just different. It's just different. That's right. Go check it out. All right, let's go to Eric in Las Vegas up next.

Hey Eric, what's going on? Hey, how's it going? Uh, I was calling in, um, because I kind of have a situation with my grandfather and his reverse mortgage. And my wife and I are still in Baby Step 2, um, but he's having some health scares, so he needs us to kind of move in with him. So I'm trying to make sense if it makes sense once we get done with our, uh, Baby Steps if we try to tackle and get his reverse mortgage paid off, or do we just live there Uh, he said he'd let us live there without rent while we're helping him. Do we get our money situated for a down payment on our own house after he passes? We're just kind of not sure where to go.

Man, that's a lot to be handling right now. So he's got a health scare. Is that meaning you need to move in and take care of him full-time? What does that look like?

Yeah, um, so he's been passing out recently, uh, and he, you know, falling around his house and not being able to call for help and stuff. So it's kind of like like, okay, it's time to, you know, move in. We don't have— he doesn't have any other family. And how old is he? Uh, not—

he's 80. Okay. And so the deal is you, you move in, you help out, you don't have to pay rent, and then when the day comes and he's beamed up, you guys inherit the property? Yeah, basically.

Um, but he has a reverse mortgage, and my wife and I just, uh, 6 months ago we had our son. Um, and so the house is— it's not super old, it was built in the '90s, but it needs some TLC, uh, so I would probably have to front-load that before even thinking about the reverse mortgage at all, which means if I didn't get the house, I'd pretty much lose that money.

Do you know the numbers around the house? Like, what does he owe on it? What percentage is the reverse mortgage? And what's it worth?

Yeah, uh, the house is worth about $530,000. Currently he owes $302,000 on the reverse mortgage, and I don't know the interest rate, but it's about $1,700 a month that goes Man.

Wow. Well, I would not do anything with the reverse mortgage right now. You guys aren't in a financial position to do anything anyways. You got your own financial, you know, mess to clean up. You can still move in with him and it can still be quote unquote rent-free. I mean, he's basically just using his house as a piggy bank with a lot of fees right now. These reverse mortgages, there's a reason they're sold on late night TV with a, you know, washed up actor with a mustache. Yeah. And so it's not a good product, terrible product. Yeah. And I'm, I'm sad that he fell into it. But this is the reality for a lot of, you know, elderly people, is they didn't save for retirement, but they've got a paid-for house, and they see this marketing saying, 'Hey, what if we could just send you a check every month? Doesn't that sound good?' And they take it. So I would just hold, get his health back in order, and see what you can do to help take care of him. You keep fighting your own fight to get out of debt. And if this is a win-win for both of you, because you get to live rent-free with your family and get out of debt faster, and he gets the help from his wonderful grandson, I call this a win regardless of what happens with the house later on.

Yeah, so like, because we— because I make about $7,000 to $9,000, so I could clear this debt pretty quickly if we moved in. So that's my whole thing is like, I don't know, I don't know if it's still worth it once we get out of debt, or—

Well, I mean, you don't have $300,000 to pay it off anyway, so Yeah, he was talking about a full mortgage or something. Oh man. Well, I would also get clear on his estate planning wishes and what is going to happen and who inheritance will go to, because I don't want you paying off a house that ends up going to somebody else and you have no recourse. Yeah. And so I'm not saying that, you know, you need to say, hey, if I'm paying this off, I get the house in the will. You may not even want this house. House to deal with. Because like you said, it needs some TLC. It may not be the house you would have chose for your family to live in, but right now that's, that's not a problem. That's a bridge we can cross way later on.

Right. The best, best, uh, case, short-sight everything and just live rent-free and kind of get out of my own situation.

You get yourself to a financial position, and this will be a great wake-up call of, man, I never want this to be me.

Yeah, I'm telling That's it.

And you help Grandpa live the best life he can live considering his health conditions, and you will have done a good deed on this earth, my friend. Wishing you the best. Joseph is in Tampa, up next on the line. What's going on, Joseph?

George, Jade, it's an honor to talk to you both.

Thank you for taking my call. Absolutely. What's your question today?

Uh, guys, I think I made a dumb decision. I took out my 401k. Uh-oh. So I can transfer it I know I took it out. I have it in the form of a check so I can transfer it to a Roth IRA.

Wait, was it like a direct rollover check?

Um, yeah, that was my intention.

Like, it's not— and is it made out to you or to the next institution?

It's made out to the next institution.

Okay, that's good. We're still good.

But the institution I'm trying to roll it over to is saying that the The account that I have would have to be closed and liquidated with them so they can open up a new IRA to put this money in, but I may face tax implications.

I think what you're talking about is the pro rata rule. Pro rata? Yeah. That's something you can look into. Basically, if you have a traditional account that has money in it and you're trying to convert— Do you know what type of money this is? Is it all traditional or all Roth? Roth? Is it both?

This is— it's just a 401 savings plan. It's all traditional, but I'm trying to put it into, uh, I'm trying to put it into— it's called a later traditional IRA. I've never heard of that one.

Me neither. Tell us about it. Why is it different?

Um, well, it says here you want to change your later IRA account type. They're saying that I can only have one Later IRA. It's their name for their investment account, Later, with Acorns. Oh, that's where you're trying to roll this into?

Yes. OK. I would try to use a more reputable institution to roll this over into, like a Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab. They're going to be much easier to work with. And you should be able to contact them and say, hey, I need this check to be voided and made out to this other institution.

Oh, okay.

Because at this point, I mean, I was getting ready to crash out on these guys at Acorns and shut the account and put it back into Fidelity. Yeah, I don't know the exact reason.

I'm just, I'm trying to think of why they would block you and say they need to close this account, liquidate it, open a new one. And my guess is there's some function where they can't do a rollover into an existing account.

Right. They can't have it into an existing account and they won't let me have two of these investment accounts with their institution.

Yeah, I think George is right. I think you just need to knock on another door and go to another bank.

Because I've done this with my— my wife used to work at Ramsey for 9 years and so we transferred her 401k. It hadn't, you know, they ended up doing it as a check and then I literally took a picture of that, deposited it into a Vanguard rollover IRA. So that's what you're looking for, is a rollover IRA with Fidelity, Vanguard, or Schwab. That's what I would recommend.

And then contact the original institution and have the check reissued or whatever.

That's right. Yes, because I don't know enough about Acorns, but I don't know that they accept 401 rollovers. Or if they do, they're clearly making it very difficult. They are. Okay, because I'm seeing here, as I looked it up, Acorns Later is designed for new contributions only, not for receiving rollovers from workplace retirement plans. So You chose the wrong brokerage to mess with, unfortunately, Joseph. Sorry, but at least you didn't withdraw the funds into your bank account. Thank God. Because you'd be on the hook for some taxes, my friend. For anybody listening out there, if you leave your employer for any reason, you can do a direct rollover in-kind, so from traditional 401 to a rollover traditional IRA, or Roth to Roth. Off, and you want to make sure that you don't see the money, the money goes from one institution to the other institution, that's the way to do it without penalties and fees.

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That's churchillmortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. NMLSConsumerAccess.org. Equal Housing Lender. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio. I'm George Kamel here with Jade Warshaw taking your calls on money and life at 888-825-5225. Sarah is in Spokane, Washington up next. Sarah, what's going on?

Um, so my question is that, um, my husband and I have been debt-free from about 2013 up until this year. Um, and my husband is, um, an alcoholic, but got sober in January. Um, and replaced alcohol with spending. So now we have $38,000 in debt. And, um, so he is now unfortunately not sober again, but now wants to pay off the debt.

He's not sober now, but he wants to pay off the debt.

Yes. It's the opposite of That's what traditionally happens, I think.

And the $38,000, is that all sorts of different things or was it like one vehicle? Because $38,000 since January is a lot of money.

Two major purchases.

What are they?

So one is a boat and one was a bathroom remodel.

Okay, boat and a bathroom.

One of those we can sell, so that's good. How much is that boat worth? Yeah.

About $28,000. And what's owed on it?

$13,000. Oh, good. Good. So there's some money there.

And the bathroom, you were on board with that a little bit, I gotta believe.

Hard to sneak that one past you.

Yeah, so I was until they came back with the quote, and then I said no, and he signed the papers without you.

Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay, so the good news is there's money to be made back on the boat, and then we can cash flow the payoff off of the rest of this. Is he working? Is he able to hold down jobs? Yes. Okay, what does he earn and what do you earn?

Um, so together we earn just under $300,000.

Wow, great income. So that's nice. We'll clean this up fast. I mean, if you sell the boat, you'll profit $15,000 and apply that to your $25,000 left on the bathroom loan.

Well, so my question is more— so we have the money Um, we have— I have $50,000 in savings and I have, um, $35,000 additionally in an emergency fund. Okay. Um, however, the last year of our life has been incredibly volatile with a lot of things that we've not seen coming that we've had to cash flow. So I'm just worried about draining savings. Um, he has some stocks that he plays with that he needs to sell to pay for this. And I worry about the tax implications for that. I just don't know the— like, we can pay it off, I just don't know the best way to do it.

I'll tell you my thing that I'm a little concerned about. You said your concerns. My concern is if he's back drinking again and you guys have this stellar income, does this have the ability to affect his job and his employment, therefore putting you guys at— in a really tough situation financially?

Um, it hasn't ever, is all I—

so he's a pretty functional alcoholic. Very. Okay, well, here's the thing. You can move around the money, pay off the debt, but it's not changing this underlying problem, which is your marriage and his addictions, right? You guys are not on the same page. He's making moves behind your back. You doesn't seem like you have much of a vote here, and you're realistically worried about the future. Now I would pay off the debt and I would sell the boat. It's not going to put you in dire straits to do all of this, to knock out the debts. What I would do is put some guardrails in place so that neither of you can make any more stupid financial decisions. And that means we're going to freeze both of our credits. We're going to pull both of our credit reports today. You can go to annualcreditreport.com, pull those for free to get everything out on the table. Table, and he needs to be very much involved in this. Is he on board to rectify the situation and get his life and marriage back?

Um, that's to be determined. I don't— yeah, I can't answer that.

I think I would go— I think I, I would go to a further extreme on this. I don't think that you can give access to an addict to the money. I don't think he can have access to the money because the problem is he's going to spend it, whether it's Signing a, you know, a bathroom contract that you didn't agree to, or— Toys, gambling.

I mean, it sounds like he's just looking for every vice possible.

So I think that you have to have that conversation and figure out, um, on the side and, and possibly with some counsel what it can look like for you to, um, have access to this. And maybe you, I, I, it doesn't sound like he would work with you on this to say, hey, uh, I'm worried. I'm worried about me. I'm worried about you. I'm worried about the family. Do you guys have kids? We do. How many? 3. 3. Yeah, I'm worried about the kids. We're unsafe. And so the only thing that I can do to stay in this environment with the kids for it to be safe is I have to have access to the money because I have to make sure that mortgage is paid. I have to make sure that the needs are met financially and that you don't mess things up for us going forward for the long term. If you're not able to do that, then I have to make other arrangements.

Which means you're the gatekeeper. And in order to make sure that you're safe, and until he shows himself to be trustworthy, which means he is sober, making wise financial decisions over a long period of time, I do think it's wise not to quote unquote separate your finances, but to make sure that he does not have access access to this money to make bad decisions with, right?

Because you're still keeping him abreast of what's going on. He can still look at the budget. Like, it's not to say that he can't— there's no transparency. It's just to say, hey, you used to be able to have this debit card and go and spend, spend, spend. Now I'm, I'm going to be the one that pays the bills with— out of our money. I am going to be the one that handles the money, basically. Does that make sense?

Yeah, I mean, it's— I do handle it already.

Um, right, but he's got a debit card in his wallet and he can go out and— right, he has the same access.

Like, give it— give us the top priorities of things that you would be worried about right now with your finances.

My biggest thing is if we were to drain the savings, and then we have— we've had a couple like $10,000 emergencies come up in the last year because of other circumstances that we've cash flowed And so I just am worried that those may come up and we've already drained our savings to now pay for that.

No one's asking you to drain the savings. I mean, if you sell the boat and pay off the bathroom remodel, you're still left with liquid $50,000. Okay. And you're not going to have a $50,000 emergency and you can probably cash flow that now that you'll be completely debt-free with a full emergency fund with $300,000 coming in. So you guys are actually in a really decent spot financially. But it's more of the what-ifs and is he gonna get better and will you guys work together and will this addiction get worse? Those are the parts we need to deal with.

How long was he an alcoholic before he got sober this last time?

So this is the first and only time so far and it's been 20 years.

Okay. Wow.

What gave him the ability to get sober that first time? Was there one thing?

It— our son was also an addict and went through rehab. Wow. And so it was an eye-opener, but yeah, but it wasn't enough. I don't know. Yeah, our son is 1 year sober. Okay, that's good.

Listen, we're rooting for you. You've got, you've got your work cut out for you, and I think the best thing you can do is control your actions. You can't control his. So you can decide what your boundaries are going to be, what you want, the picture you want for money that makes you feel safe, and you can act on those things. You don't have to, and you can't wait for somebody, especially somebody who's not in a healthy place at this moment. But rooting for you guys.

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We're headed to Grand Rapids up next.

Kenzie joins us there. Kenzie, welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hi, thanks for having me.

Absolutely. How can Jade and I help today?

Alrighty, my husband and I have been married for almost a year now. We've been essentially running from my father-in-law for almost 3 years. We do not pay a monthly flat rate rent, rather we pay just the monthly expenses like propane, electric, and minor repairs. Um, so we're very fortunate to be in this situation as it has allowed us to stay safe, but I'm to the point where I want out of this house. Um, I prefer for my father-in-law to just be my father-in-law at this point, if you know what I mean.

Yes, I do. Um, instead of your landlord. Yeah. Now, he's not— is he living there, or is this just a house he owns that you guys are—

no, this is just an extra house that he owns. It's paid off and everything. He's— it's— I don't know, he, he's like gifting it to us, like, just to live there for free. Um, he means no ill will by it by any means, but you feel Yes.

Are there some strings attached relationally?

Not exactly, and I don't think he intends to do anything purposely, but I just kind of feel obligated to do certain things. Yeah, I think it's time for us to get out. But my husband and I do not agree on this. He wants to wait until we have enough cash to purchase a home, whereas I'm okay with starting to look now and having a mortgage.

So, oh, so he wants to do like he—

the 100% down plan.

Yeah, not just saving a down payment. Oh gosh, how much is that going to cost?

What's the number? Um, I'd say $250,000 to $300,000.

How much do you guys have now? Um, we have roughly $120,000. We have $51,200 in our savings and then we have $68,445 in a CD.

OK. How long would it take to realistically do this, which means you've got a 3- to 6-month emergency fund and you've got the cash money for the house?

I would say 3 to 4 years.

What do you guys make a year?

We bring home— well, we don't bring home. We make roughly $110,000 to $120,000. It just depends on overtime. And I will say, this is my first year like with an actual salary. Um, okay.

So it'll, so you're essentially living on $60,000 and banking $60,000 in a year if it goes well. Yeah.

I think I'd like to hear more from you because I, I mean, I'm thinking about Mike's situation. My husband and I, we rented a house from Sam's mom, which is my mother-in-law, and we did that for 10 years almost while we paid off debt. Mm-hmm. Saved up a down payment for a house. Um, And I, I, I understand what you mean, which is that per— like, Nina is the best. Like, she gave us so many breaks, but I still always felt a thing. Like, I was grateful, but at the same time, when it was time to move into our own place, I was really excited to have our own place. But I wanna know, cuz a lot of that can live in our own minds too. And yes, it does affect the relationship, but because he's not living there and because it sounds like he's happy to do this service. It sounds like maybe there's more to it, but there's part of me that's like, hey, don't block the blessing. Like, if there's a blessing here, don't block it. Um, is there more we should know about it before I say that?

I think it just feels like we're leeching off of— in my opinion, it feels like I'm leeching off of his dad, and I don't ever want to be like reliant on somebody else. Okay, that—

now we're getting somewhere. What if you paid rent? What if he paid a reasonable rent instead of just, you know, utilities and things like that? Because that'd still be cheaper.

I don't think he would take it. He's a very stubborn man. I don't think he would allow us.

What would it cost to rent elsewhere right now if you guys were to leave today and go rent? You weren't ready for the house?

$1,200 at least, I'd say.

Okay. I mean, I'm just trying to do the math of the reality. So $1,200 times, let's say, a year. That's $14,000 less that you would bank. Yeah. In the year.

And I'll throw in another wrench. We are expecting our first child in November. Oh, that's great. So maybe I am just being a little bit dramatic here and I need to suck it up for another couple years. Listen. Since we are having a child.

What you could do, if you really wanted to, but to your point, he's not going to take it, you could pay $1,200 into an account account and just say, this makes me feel better. And when you're ready to move out, you could say, Grandpa or Dad-in-law, this is, you know, however much money, this is $50,000. And he's not going to take it. And then you're going to say, well, I really tried, I did my best. And it's okay for somebody to give you a gift because think about it like this, um, if you had the ability to do something like this for your children children, for your children, would you do it? Absolutely. Absolutely. So that's a joy that he has to be able to do that. And so I think sometimes it's hard to be on the other end of somebody else's generosity. It doesn't sound like it's stunning your growth. Like, if I was concerned that it was really—

if you guys weren't saving any money, there was a bunch of strings attached, their relationship was awkward and strained, then I'd say, hey, it's worth getting out and paying the $1,200. But to Jade's point, Point. This— it feels like we're just blocking a blessing because it feels weird, and it, it is hard to accept generosity. It does put you in a place of weakness. But I, I think that's, that's okay for a season. If this was 10 years and you guys weren't moving forward— but you guys have a baby on the way, you're banking $60K a year to save up for this house. And can I also tell you, Kenzie, it's okay if you guys went and got a 15-year mortgage where the payment was no more than a quarter of your take-home And then you pay that off because the truth is the goalpost will keep moving with this house. That $300,000 house 4 years from now— good point— is a $375,000 house.

Yeah, and I feel like, uh, to a certain extent, like, the mortgage would make us save more, if that makes sense, because right now we're living there kind of rent-free. We don't really have— like, yeah, we have a budget, but we're kind of—

you're getting laxity.

You can— yeah, you can— yeah, be a little more comfortable and have a little more of your luxuries.

Yes, we need to redo that.

So that's where I'm going. Could you save $70,000 instead of $60,000? I think you might be able to do even better if you guys got really focused on, all right, it's not gonna be 3 to 4 years, it's going to be May of 2028, we are out of here.

Mm-hmm, and whatever we have saved, that's the down payment.

That might be a nice compromise because it gives you a timeline. So this is not an endless, well, maybe, but then 4 years from now the house price has moved, we want a different house because we have 2 kids now. "Need to save up $500,000." That's where I would come to a compromise where you guys land on something a little more solid than vibes.

I like that plan, too. Good old compromise.

Boom! I want nobody to win. That's how you know the argument went well. That's so great!

Congrats on the baby, Kenzie! Thank you! Thank you, guys!

That's so exciting! Jade, this is a good time to remind people of the principles around house Dave has always said that the best plan is 100% down payment.

If you can do cash, we love that.

Yeah, but we will yell at you if you get a 15-year mortgage. It's the only debt we will yell at you for where the payment's no more than a quarter of your take-home pay. Yeah, that's right. So I'm doing the crunch of the numbers for them. A $300,000 house with $100,000 down on a 15-year, probably looking at about $2,000. Yeah, good. So if they take home $8,000, they're right there in the parameter. They could go buy a house house today. Now they're going to take on the burden of home ownership, which comes with its own— that's true— joys, highs, lows, roller coaster, adulting.

Yeah, what can I say?

It needs a new HVAC the week after we move in with the brand new baby. Yes, but I—

to your point, the, the goalpost is always going to move here, and I would hate for that to keep somebody from jumping in with both feet. You know, um, to save up $300,000 or $350,000, that's a great thing, but if it's going to take you 6 years to do Well, now suddenly that $350,000 isn't going to get what you thought it was going to. And now you're frustrated. So for that reason, yeah.

Going, well, I can't save as fast as inflation's happening in the housing market. You can't, yeah. And if you saw what happened during the pandemic, I mean, it was insane. It was— Absolutely. That $300,000 home, 18 months later was $500,000.

Right, and here's the thing you have to remember, for the person who jumped in, they were like, this is great.

If you bought a house in 2019 or real early 2020, you were like, score.

Yes, that's why I'm like, jump in. The best time to buy a home is when you can afford it. When all the planets are aligned and everything is perfect. It's when you can afford it. And if you can do it, I say jump in. Real estate is a ladder, you know, start at the lowest rung that you can get in on and don't be afraid to climb it until you get into the house that you want.

Because then you, you lock in that mortgage payment for the duration of the loan. So you're not dealing with that moving goalpost anymore. And then outside of property taxes and insurance going up, which that's a piece to factor in. And the last piece is, you know, thinking about Kenzie's situation with a kid on the way, way. What if she wants to stay home one day? Well, that might change the figures and facts to where I would be planning for that option always, which means you don't want to have a giant payment and jump into a house too early. There is this Goldilocks sweet spot, and that's that 25%, and maybe factor it off his income and where that's going. Yep, to give you that flexibility. So that's the point of the Baby Steps, is to give you option, margin, meaning. All of that is, is built into plan.

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In a perfect world, we could get to every single call and question here on the show, but we have a solution. If you have a money question, you want an answer for your situation that's personalized, head over to our website website and use Ask Ramsey. It's our free AI tool that is built and trained on proven Ramsey principles, so you're not left guessing, is this what I should do? What would Dave or Jade or George or Rachel or John say? You'll get the answer the same way we'd answer it right here on the show. So go check it out for yourself, ramseysolutions.com, and you'll see that little search box to enter in your question, or just click the link in the description if you're listening on podcasts or YouTube. RJ is in Greensboro, North Carolina, up next. RJ, welcome to the show.

Hey guys, how you guys doing today? We're doing great. Thanks for having me on. So I'll try to keep this short and sweet. So me and my wife are just starting out and getting, getting started with the Baby Steps, and we're still working on Baby Step 1. So, okay, $1,000 off. Yep, $1,000. So, um, that goal doesn't seem too unattainable at all. Um, most people do it in 30 days.

Just for a little milestone there.

And that's where we should be at. Um, I'm thinking within the next like 30 days we should definitely be there. Okay. So I guess my question is more towards Baby Step 2 when you start paying off consumer debt. Um, to us it seems like we just have so much debt that needs to be paid off and we just feel like we don't make enough money to like actually make that happen within like a reasonable time frame.

And that be the case. I mean, what you're discovering is something that everybody's got to look at, not just you, RJ. For anybody who's considering the Baby Steps and looking at their debt, there's really two ways out of this, George. You've either got to lower your lifestyle, RJ, or increase your, your income, or do a combination of both. That's the only options really that a person has. So if you're looking and going, man, on our income, this thing is going to take forever lower, then you already know income's got to go up. So let's talk about what that means.

Pull some levers. So how much total consumer debt do you have?

So right now I think we have somewhere between $80,000 and $85,000. All right.

And what is your household income?

Uh, household income, we're about $70,000.

Okay. And in the $80,000, $85,000, what's the, what's the split there? Break it down for us.

Um, so most of it is student loans from me. Uh, wife doesn't have any student loans. How much? Um, I'm about $50,000 in student loans.

Okay. And the other $30,000, $35,000, what's that?

Uh, so we have about $15,000 in a car, um, and then just, just random little personal loans. Those are about $300,000, $400,000 each. I want to say about maybe 5 or 6 of those.

Okay. What's the car worth if you sold it private party?

Private party, if I sold it, probably be about $7,000 to $8,000.

Oh wow. How'd you get that far underwater on it? Did you roll over negative equity?

Um, no, I think we just have just very bad credit, so we just got a terrible interest rate.

Understood. Okay. All right. Well, I mean, you're right. I mean, what are you guys bringing home? $4,800, $4,900 a month?

Um, yeah, I think that's what we calculated.

I know last month we had a little extra because my wife got a bonus from work, which she doesn't normally get. Okay. Um, so that kind of helped us out a bit and Like I said, we, we're just starting. We're trying to use the EveryDollar app. Excellent. It seemed to help us out, you know, that first month. Of course, we forgot to budget for the second month, so we're not using it now.

Um, that's the thing about budgets, you gotta do one every month.

Yeah. So when you did that first budget— and, and I do want— it's not too late, you can still log in at any time and complete the one for May, even though, you know, we're, we're almost midway through, but go ahead and do that because every day that you get on a plan, you're on a plan and that's a better trajectory for you. So on the $4,900, when you did the EveryDollar budget, were you in the green? Was it an EveryDollar budget or were you in the red?

Or tell me what you saw.

At first, at first we were in the red. And then we just kind of shuffled some things around just to kind of make it work to be in the green. So we did we did kind of figure out how to get into the green. I guess it's just being realistic. Like, with us, we, we never know when things are going to come up. So like, with 3 kids and, you know, kids come with us on field trips or school, school things, and, you know, some emergencies have popped up over the past couple of months.

So, so let's talk about how to budget for that, because that is life, and your budget should be able to be realistic for your life. I always A good budget is detailed, realistic, and flexible. So you need that flexibility 'cause there's real life, but you also need the detailed nature of it because that's gonna help you have something concrete month to month. So every budget does need a cushion, a little bit of extra money for you, you know, on $4,900, it's not gonna be a whole lot. Maybe it's $100 there that's just held for something that you completely forgot about. Oh my gosh, the field trip. But really what you need on that budget is a line item for, you know, your kids, whether it be, school lunches or school projects, and you set the amount. And if it's beyond that amount, sometimes you do have to say, "We're not doing this one," you know? And so, the more you do a budget, for most people, it takes 90 days to lock in what you would call kind of a sustainable, you know, this flows with my life budget. You've only done one, so that's okay.

Keep doing it. The more you do it, you're gonna learn each time, "Oh gosh, we didn't schedule for the kids' stuff. Now, that's part of the budget from now on." "Oh my gosh, we didn't schedule for birthdays." Now we realize that's something we need to think ahead of when we have our budget meeting every month. Because what should be happening, George, is you guys sit down and you're racking your brain for the things that could pop up. She's rocking, rocking, racking her brain for the things that could pop up. And together you guys are saying, oh yeah, hey, don't forget about that trip. Oh yeah, don't forget about grandma's birthday. Oh yeah, don't forget, you know.

You're interrogating the kids about what's coming up, looking at their little calendars they brought home from school. Because they, those kids, kids, you can't trust them to remember every little thing.

My daughter had, my daughter had like hot dog picnic day today, and I was like, what in the world is this? Okay, but you know, yet another thing with the budget.

Everyone's got to chip in $3.

Exactly. So we get it, RJ. So that's the first rhythm that I want you to start developing because that's going to be so important to you guys walking these baby steps. The budget must be locked in. Otherwise, George, the wheels fall off very quickly.

And once one thing falls off, you're like, well, what's the point? It's hopeless. So get back on the wagon. It takes 90 days just to get this budget dialed in. And the other side is, let's see what we can do with this income. Yeah. Because you're making $70K with both of you working full-time and you've got student loans, which tells me you've got a degree.

I do not. So I have a bunch of student loans that kind of, a couple of 'em kind of racked up and I never finished school. Oh no. One of 'em I did, you know, one of 'em I did, the main one that is, that one's about $40K. Grand. I did graduate from trade school.

Okay, what's your trade?

Uh, so I originally was an automotive technician. I have since switched. I am now a locksmith, which I just started about maybe a month or two ago.

Is that a solo gig or do you work for a locksmith company? I work for, I work for an international company.

Okay, so what do you make and what does your wife make? Uh, so as of right now, like I said, I just started this gig about a month or two ago, um, and I'm still getting training pay, so that's what I've been basing income off of. Oh, okay. Yep. So my training pay, I make about $1,700 every 2 weeks. What will it go up to? So just potential of what it could go up to, from what I've been told from some of the other people who've been with the company for a while, I could potentially be making over $100,000, maybe $120,000. When would that be? That's kind of when you kind of I get vested a little bit, that would be, um, later down the line, maybe within the next year or two.

Okay, so that's, that's really promising and that's exciting because that could change the game for this debt payoff journey. And so that's what we're saying, this is a journey. Most people do it in 18 to 24 months. It might take you 3 to 4 years, and that's okay. And it might speed up on the tail end and be real slow to start, but the key is you just keep hunkering down, stay focused. Maybe you're doing side jobs right now until that comes up with those promotions. Maybe you get so good at your job they have no choice but to promote you sooner.

What I would do is I would get really serious about sitting down with your wife and you guys set the tone and say, this year, for the next calendar year, how much do we want to pay off? And work backwards and say, if we want to pay off, I don't know, uh, $40,000 this year, what do we have to do to make that happen? And work backwards and say, okay, what do we need to do side hustle-wise, what do we need to do overtime-wise in order to make that happen? And you guys set the rules on this and make sure that you're driving the intensity forward.

Don't just let life happen. That's right. That's the saying we have around Ramsey is, "What must be true?" Yes. And that causes you to reverse engineer that goal.

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, and one of my buddies said, "Hey, the only reason to not have life insurance is if you hate your wife and kids," and I immediately went and got term life insurance. That's a gut punch. And you're telling me— and for decades, Dave, I've sat across people who've lost a spouse, they've lost somebody important to them. Me too. They don't know what to do next.

Me too. I mean, you're going to have a crisis here. And, you know, 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 the two options. And take care of your dadgum family.

Term life insurance can replace income, pay off debts, cover funeral expenses so your family can actually have the opportunity to just be sad. Yeah, to just miss you.

That's exactly what it's supposed to be. It's saying I love you to your family. Term life insurance. Jeff Zander and the team at Zander Insurance makes it easy and affordable. I've used them personally for 25 years. They're the only people I trust. Go to zander.com or call 800-356-4282.

Jonathan is in Boston up next. Jonathan, welcome to The Ramsey Show.

George, thank you for having me. I appreciate your time.

Absolutely. How can Jade and I help today?

I'm calling because I'm on Baby Step 4. Uh, my wife and I just became completely debt-free, paying off $200,000 of debt at the age of 24.

Wow, way to go, man! How long did that take?

Uh, I'd be lying if I said I didn't know. One year, 9 months, and about 5 days.

Excellent! That's incredible.

What kind of debt was it?

It was about $188,000 in student debt and then about $10,000 for the first little car that I bought right out of college.

Oh my gosh. Well, I know you didn't intend for this to be a debt-free scream, but I I just, when you say that you paid off that much debt, what caused you to kind of wake up one day and realize this is not the life we want to live?

Uh, well, I got a job in the financial industry and I started helping people invest, and I realized that I should probably start practicing what I preach. My wife and I really have an appreciation for the military, so we joined the military, and I think that very squirrely mindset, um, helped us really get on the right track and start taking action for, uh, for ourselves.

I love that. Fantastic.

So much congratulations. How can we help today? This is an exciting stage to be at.

Well, I appreciate it. So we're in a spot where we're debt-free and we have about $45,000, probably $50,000 saved now. Um, and personally, I'm a huge car guy and I have a lot of friends who are in the same financial situation where they have almost 6 figures saved up, um, and they're buying these cars that are not depreciating. And so I thought I may as well take a stab at looking at it, and I found myself looking at something called a Porsche Cayman and It's about $40,000. I've been very carefully tracking the market of these cars. I didn't know if it was a better idea to purchase a car that might not lose as much value and maybe be a better option to not have as much depreciation.

Unless you're buying a classic car that's going up in value, everything that you buy is going to depreciate. The idea that their cars aren't depreciating is not true. Now, a lot of nicer cars cars, they kind of fall off that initial cliff in the first 1 to 2 years, and then they tend to hold their value a little better longer, some better than others. But just know, if you're driving something with wheels and a motor, unless it's like I said, a classic car, it is going to go down in value. The question is, can you afford a $40,000 vehicle? So tell us about your income.

Uh, so my wife and I, after tax, bring in about $210,000. $100,000. My comp is set to go up end of this year into next year to about $200,000 for myself, and she's probably on track to make $150,000. So we should be looking at around $300,000 after tax by tax season of, you know, this time next year.

That's really, really good.

What's she driving?

Uh, she leased a Volkswagen Tiguan with no money down and $300 a month, and then my car is fully paid off. Oh wow.

So you still the lease.

Was that newer? Is that a newer decision, or is that an old decision that you've now since learned from?

Uh, so the Volkswagen Tiguan was in 2024, and we have a friend that works on the dealership side, so he got us a really good deal, and we have kind of unlimited, um, kind of mileage with the car. I think it's like 20,000 miles. We don't really drive that much, so we got a good deal on the car, and we didn't want to go into debt to buy another car, so that's why we made that decision.

But I mean, it's a contract. Contract where you promise to make payments. That sounds very similar to debt in my book. Now, there's not a loan balance that you can stare at and knock down, but I rescind my debt-free scream until this lease is dealt with, Jonathan. I agree. What is the buyout amount for the car? Uh, I think it's $21,000.

We don't plan to buy the car.

So you just want to rent it and then give it back, and then you'll restart this process? What's the What's your long-term plan?

I think we're going to buy a car in cash next year for around $25,000 for her. We don't really want to go through that whole lease or debt process again.

Okay. I agree with that part.

I would never lease a car ever again. It really is one of the most expensive ways to operate a vehicle. And I think the feeling of, we got a really good deal and no money down and all these things, but the truth is it's still money that you're on the hook for. Unless you make a lump sum payment to get out of it. So it's risk that you're allowing in your life when you really don't need that. You guys make such a great income. You've got cash saved, and I think you understand that, uh, once this happens, never again, because truly lease payments, car payments, they are the divide, Jonathan, between middle class and wealthy folks. It's, it's just really the divide there, especially with the amount that you could invest, uh, by not having a car payment or lease payment. Payment. Okay, so learn lesson there. Moving on to the Porsche. So it's $40,000. You guys are making $210,000 a year. We do have kind of a rule of thumb when it comes to vehicles, George. We say you should never have anything, uh, with wheels or motors that's more than half of your salary every year.

Um, so you guys would not be, you know, basically capping up against that $100 grand total in vehicles and toys.

And so if you're, yours are worth $40, hers are worth $25, you're in good shape. Now the thing to think about, I wouldn't at this At this point, thinking about resale value and depreciation is just going to hurt your soul. That's right. So if you're paying cash, you don't have to worry about being underwater. Are you going to drive this thing for 7+ years?

Probably closer to 10. I'd like to keep this car and maybe even pass it down to my kids one day. Wow. Oh, okay.

Well, they better be ready for those maintenance and repair costs 10 years from now. That's going to be the problem with cars of this caliber. You're going to need to have a nice, healthy sinking fund in your budget. Budget, you know, for $2,000 to $4,000 minimum to maintain this car.

Sure, I plan to save about $5,000 a year for preventative maintenance and to keep the car in good shape. I just thought, you know, it's a car that I've wanted since I was probably 6 years old.

Yeah, I would do it.

You said you've got $45,000 to $50,000 saved, um, that's not including your emergency fund, right? Or is it?

Um, that would be all our savings total. Um, we're saving about $5,000 or $6,000 a month right now. Okay, so we should hit our $100,000 goal by November or December.

Perfect.

I'd be very, yeah, I'd be very careful to separate that money and make sure that this $50,000, whatever your 6 months of expenses is, put that someplace separate and then save up for this portion of $50,000.

And label it car fund. And that way you're not going to make the mistake of thinking this car is an emergency.

Yeah, definitely don't do that. If this is the only $50,000 that you have, you're not quite ready to buy this yet, but it sounds like you'd be there in the next, uh, are you saying you do this in November?

November?

Um, well, I did hit a deer in December, so my car is kind of on its last legs right now. Um, so I probably need a car within the next month or two.

Oh wow.

Then I don't think you're ready to buy this one because—

yeah, what is your 3 to 6 months emergency fund? What would that entail? What does it take to run your house for a month?

Uh, including rent, an additional $3,000 a month buffer, we're probably sitting around $6,000 or $7,000 a month. So that puts us around the $25,000 to $30,000 range.

Okay, so then any money above $25,000 or $30,000 is now your car budget. And so that, that's a hard line you guys have to decide. We're not going to do half down, half on a loan. We're going to pay cash. We're going to do this the smart way. And that might mean we need to make this car last a little bit longer. Maybe that's a repair, maybe that's an an intermediate car in the meantime, right? For the next 6 to 12 months.

And you know how to do that. You understand delayed gratification. You guys paid off $200,000 of, of mostly student loan debt. So keep flexing that muscle because it's gotten you this far and you've benefited from that. Now's not the time to kind of fall off the things that you know. Do what you know to do that's caused you to be successful to this point.

Because right now, if you got $25,000 in emergency fund, that gives you an extra $25,000 in this car fund, and you said you can add $6,000 a month?

That's what we're averaging right now. It will probably go up, but I don't want to overestimate.

Okay, but let's say, you know, 2 months from now, that's $12,000 added to your $25,000. Well, now we're at $37,000. So you're on the, on the bubble of car shopping. Maybe you get a slightly, you know, 1 year older, or you decide to wait 1 more month, and now you have $43,000. And so if you can just wait 90 days you're going to be able to get the exact thing you want and pay cash. I'd be very focused. I'm guessing you've done a whole lot of research on the exact make, the model, the engine, the features, all of that.

Oh, George, you don't want to see my little poster I have up at home that tracks the trend lines of all these cars. Oh, that's incredible.

I love the nerdery. But that tells me you're going to make a good decision with this, and it's not flippant and impulsive. You said you've been dreaming about this since you were 6. Wow. And you've done the work to get there. And so just don't let go. Don't let the foot off the gas, pun intended, quite yet, Jonathan. You are so, so close. And you're going to love that car because you're going into it eyes wide open, understanding it's higher insurance, it's higher maintenance, and it has increased your quality of life. And 6-year-old Jonathan is smiling going, "Dude, you paid cash for a Porsche." Love it. Crushing it, dude. Keep it up. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio. I'm George Campbell, joined by Jade Warshaw this hour. The number to call is 888-825-5225 if you want to jump into the conversation about your life and your money. Shawn joins us in Baltimore up next. Shawn, welcome to the show!

Hey guys, how's it going? Great! How are you? Good, good! Thanks for having me on. So just a quick backstory, my wife and I followed the Baby Steps minus one. We did purchase a vacation house about 5 years ago, which I know is Dave's pet peeve if we can't afford it with cash. We can finance financially afford it, but we do have two mortgages right now. So my question is, my wife gets RSUs through her job. We also purchase stock through her employee stock plan. And is it smart to sell those stocks once they vest each quarter and put it towards our mortgages?

And you know, and which one should I put it towards?

Or reinvest it or not sell them at all and let them sit?

I love the idea of selling them once they vest.

I would do that anyways. Yes. Just because you don't want concentration in any single stock. Yes. Enron would like to have a word. Uh, and so it's wise to sell them anyways. And to, if you want to reinvest those into mutual fund or index funds or pay off the house, I would apply it to your next baby step, which for you guys is, I assume, baby step 6. Are you guys currently investing 15% of your household income? We are. Yeah. Great. And you got kids, are you saving a little bit for college? If so?

Yeah, I have 2 kids. My daughter's 11 and my son is 9. We have about $50,000 in their 529s. Fantastic!

And what's left on these 2 mortgages?

I have about $270,000 on my primary and $165,000 on the vacation house.

So, when you sell these stocks quarterly, what do you—

take away from that? You, on average, probably about $25,000 to $40,000. It fluctuates. Awesome. It's been, it's been, yeah, the stock has been doing really well recently. Okay, I love that.

Um, I would totally do that, and I would go towards the principal, your main home, first because I like the peace of having that paid off, even though obviously it's a higher balance.

Um, if you had like a full $165,000 and you could just knock out the vacation home today, that would fine. But I, I'm with Jay that the primary home is usually the, the focus because that's where you rest your head. Mm-hmm. And so I like that idea of having that paid off. What is the mortgage payment on the primary home?

The mortgage— say that one more time.

What's the mortgage payment for your, your home that you're living in right now?

So it's about $2,500, I believe.

And what about the vacation?

It's $1,500.

Okay. Yeah, cool. I feel solid in that approach.

How much money do you guys have that you could sort of liquidate to put towards these mortgages? Yeah, so that's what we did.

We actually just sold a bunch of stock a few months ago, and we, we still have about $60,000 sitting in our savings. So that's why I wanted to call you guys to see what, you know, what we should put towards it. Really, we could drop $60,000 really tomorrow, and then we have another another vesting period coming up in June.

And so do you have your emergency fund separate?

Emergency fund is separate, yeah.

Okay, great. Man, I mean—

I love that idea for you guys.

The number going down faster is always more encouraging and more exciting. Yes. And once you crack under, you know—

That's what I always look at. If I just can wipe out the vacation house, it might feel a little bit better.

Yeah, I mean, either way, you're gonna be in good shape. If you're really going after these with your income, I mean, you guys are making a couple hundred thousand a year. What's, what's the household income at this point? About $300,000. Fantastic.

I mean, if you did one, if you decided, hey, we're gonna do the vacation home first, there are worse things you could do. Like lightning wouldn't strike you. Nothing, nothing bad is there. My thought is just for the purpose of peace. And it doesn't hurt that the monthly payment's more on that one. Uh, that's the reason that I selected that. But if you guys sat down together and you decided something different, currently. Yeah. I mean, come on.

Usually if you have like 7 properties, it's almost like you can sort of debt snowball the properties. Uh-huh. But since just your vacation home and primary, there's really, it's, it's sort of a, you know, choose your own adventure here based on what excites you guys. Right. Because that's what's gonna keep you going.

Where is the vacation property? Uh, it's in Ocean City, Maryland. So it's about, about 3 hours from my, my primary.

Very cool. What's it worth?

Uh, probably about about $450,000 now. Nice.

Okay, and what's your current home worth?

About $550,000 to $600,000.

Okay, very cool. I think you guys have done really well for yourselves. I think that's really exciting.

Thank you. What are you going to do? America wants to know, Sean.

Lock in your vote. I think I'm gonna— I think I'm gonna chop down that vacation house. Ah, I like it. Go back to the primary.

You've done this before with the, you know, the vested RSUs. Do you know the tax implications of selling off $40,000 of those?

Yeah, well, we figured that out a couple years ago the hard way.

It probably turns into like—

I appreciate you asking that, but no, my accountant did not tell me that.

And were you under withheld and had a big tax bill? And now we know. Were you under withheld and had a big tax bill?

Is that what happened? That's what happened, yep.

That's a good lesson learned for anybody out there who has RSUs or really those restricted stock units or employee stock purchase program or whatever whatever it is. If you sell anything and you have a gain, or it counts as income, it ends up in your bank account. The IRS wants their cut, and you don't realize how quickly, Sean, it can bump up into different tax brackets. And you go, oh, now we went from like 22% effective to 28%, and we didn't factor in that extra 6% of $300 grand, or, you know, whatever you brought in. Mo money, mo problems. I'm proud of you guys, man. That vacation home is gonna— it's gonna hit different when there's no mortgage attached to it. Oh yeah, you'll be even more excited to visit.

Yeah, thanks so much, guys.

Yeah, send us the invite once it's paid off. Yes, I'll enjoy it. A barbecue. I love that. Barbecue. I haven't heard the barbecue. I like that. You know, barbecue.

What was I— cookout? Yeah, I like— is there a difference between a barbecue and a cookout, George? Uh, the public wants to know.

I will say cookout is a different vibe. And how's I think a cookout feels a little bit more communal. Okay. A barbecue feels like, "All right, we're going to be grilling, but it's a one-man show here." Okay, I'm with you. A cookout is an experience.

Cookout is like, "Everybody's coming over. Everybody's bringing a dish." Yes, George.

That's how I see it from my vantage point.

Barbecue is like, it could be any weekend. You just throw something on the grill. Yes.

Got it. Well, I want to— Shawn mentioned something that I think is important to our audience. And is when you should be purchasing a vacation home. Yes.

Let's talk about that, George.

We see that as a toy. Yes. It's not producing income. And even if it is, if it's an investment property, we still would say that's risk.

Do you want to know what I think? Can I just— the public wants to know. I think our listeners have figured out a way around. I think they figured out a way.

They go, we found you guys after we bought the vacation home.

They know that if they come to us and it's already— the deal's been done, we rarely tell them to sell it because we're like, We're like, okay, we can figure this out. I'm starting to pick up on that vibe.

Are you? Yeah. I didn't realize that's a life hack to just go, well, I think that's what's happening here. Start the Baby Steps after we bought this giant vacation/investment property.

Yeah. After we started our real estate portfolio of 7 houses.

Well, luckily in John's case, they are debt-free. They're making $300 grand, you know, debt-free outside of these mortgages. But a lot of people, they got a bunch of debt. They still have the car loans. They have all these properties and they think they're real estate gurus. Yes. And we go, how much are you making off of this thing? $100 a month. Oh man, you're losing money.

Actually, we're losing money. Yeah.

But with a vacation home, you want it to be a vacation.

That's right. You want it to be a blessing.

And when you're paying two mortgages and it's just really a money sucker, you've got to realize that thing is a toy and you want to de-risk your life. That is the goal. So once you've hit Baby Step 7, meaning your primary mortgage is paid off, then save up and pay cash cash for any extra homes on top of that, whether it's an investment property or just a vacation home. That's right. And if you're Dave Ramsey, you don't mix the two. That's right.

Hey guys, Dave Ramsey here. Every day on this show, we help people work through real money problems and figure out what to do next. Now you can get that same kind of help anytime with Ask Ramsey. Ask your money question and get answers built on Ramsey principles we use on the show. Whether you're making a decision or just want something explained, Ask Ramsey is here to help. It's fast, simple, and free to use. Go to ramseysolutions.com and try Ask Ramsey today. That's RamseySolutions.com.

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Indeed. Today's question comes from Elizabeth in New Mexico. She says, "Hearing the calls on your show made me realize I want to do better for my son. He turns 18 this year and just started his first job. He makes between $150 to $200 a week as a bartender." busboy. He opened a savings account on his own and deposits 50% of his pay. I was never taught anything about emergency funds or investing. I want him to have the freedom to buy a house, go on vacation, and have a good life. How do I set up an IRA for him, and what accounts should he have other than the savings and IRA? Okay, so let's back it up just a little bit. What I love about Elizabeth's question is she's thinking about her child's future. I don't know any parent who's not doing that. However, you got to be careful not to put the cart before the horse. And I think that Elizabeth, if you wanted to have some sort of a, you know, upma, or you wanted to do a brokerage account for him, that'd be fine. But for him with his money, George, I think the first thing for him to focus on is what's in front of him, which is a new car, you know, college, short-term goals.

Yeah, those short-term goals. And so for that reason, I'd like for his money to stay liquid. I would not invest his money at this this time, I would do a high-yield savings account if he needed it. Obviously a checking account for, you know, day-to-day and month-to-month spending. But if he's saving, uh, 50% of his pay, yeah, throw it in a high yield and he can save up for, like I said, a car. He can save up for an apartment. He can save up for, uh, higher ed, whether that looks like trades or certificates or even, you know, going to a university or community college. And that would be my number one goal for an 18-year-old right now. George, What say you?

Well, I love that he has this habit of depositing 50% of his pay. Excellent. That's the hardest part, is just to build that muscle of delayed gratification, living on less than you make. Because if he's doing that making $150, if he can continue that making $1,500 a week— Yes, good muscle. Now we're actually in business. Because right now he's not making enough to do any damage when it comes to a home down payment or a vacation. Right now he's just an 18-year-old trying to figure out his life. So that's where you can step in as mom and help him navigate that. Ask him really good questions, support him, find him opportunities where he can figure out that thing he wants to sink his teeth into. And that might mean education. It could mean trade school, could be a 2-year community college, could be 4-year. Maybe he's an entrepreneur and he wants to start his own thing. You can support him in that. And that's the best thing you can do as a mom. And the investing will come, like Jade said, when the time is right. 'Cause I don't want him going to get a car loan 'cause he's been investing all of his money, but doesn't have $25,000 for a car.

And I think that's so good.

I think as a parent, I think the best thing you can do is teach your kids healthy and smart money habits. I know for our kids, so our kids are on, I mean, they get paid for their chores basically. So they get paid. Commissions. Yeah, commission or just paycheck, whatever. So they get paid at the end of every week. But Sam and I's rule is you do not get to spend the money until the end of the month. So the habit that we're trying to build with them is I don't spend my money as soon as I get it. So I get paid every Saturday, but not until the 4th Saturday can I spend. And the other thing that we, that we teach them to do. I can't say we make them do it, but we teach them, "Okay, if you do want to spend your money," we have them tell us, "What's something that you're thinking," before we ever go to the store, "What's something that you think you need or that you have your eye on?" That way, we're identifying. We don't just go to the store and let the store tell us what we want.

Let the shelves speak to us.

Yeah. We say, "What are you thinking about?" And my daughter said, "Oh, I'd like to get roller skates. And I was thinking about clothes for my doll." Like, give us 3 things. And then, when we get we go to shop. Those are the things we keep our eye out for. So I think those are the types of habits and just really mindset that you want to teach your kids.

I like that. And we always say more is caught than taught. And he's been watching Mom. He's continuing to watch Mom. And so he doesn't, it doesn't matter what you say at this point. He's gonna be looking at what you do. And so I love that you're taking this seriously and you're having open money conversations. That's a great start to not hide it under bushel, as they say.

No. Yeah, hide it under a bushel.

Alright, Jessica's in Philadelphia up next.

Jessica, welcome to the show! Awesome! Thanks for having me. I'm so excited. We are too.

How can we help?

So I'm a single mom as of 2.5 years ago, and I have been surviving on my own. I'm a little bit concerned with my income in the case that it does go up because I don't have a great, a great income through my career because I was— I always had a job to kind of support my marriage, not to support myself as a single mom. Okay, so I only make about $50,000 a year through my 9-to-5, and then I also have a side hustle, but I very much rely on child support to get by, to kind of make ends meet. And how much is that? A couple years. My child support, I get about $2,000 a month. Okay, child support. So in 2 years when my oldest turns 18, that's gonna be cut in half. And while I'm doing everything I can to like find a better job, and I'm, you know, working my butt on nights and weekends at this side hustle that I'm doing, I'm just worried about kind of preparing for that, for that change that's happening in 2 years, because I want to make sure that I'm gonna be able be okay.

Uh, what do you bring in? So you've got $50,000 from your main job. What does the side hustle bring in every month?

Um, it's— it fluctuates a lot. Um, it can be anywhere between, I don't know, $800 and $2,000. Okay, so it's not consistent and I don't want to rely on that. So that's understood.

You want to up your core income, and we're talking it's going from $24,000 $4,000 to $12,000. So the gap we need to fill in 2 years is $12,000 a year, about $1,000 a month. Yeah.

What's your margin as it stands today? Like when you do your EveryDollar budget today, how much margin do you have to put towards your next goal?

So I actually just started figuring out how to budget because I've spent the last 2 years just trying to stand on my own two feet. I'm so financially illiterate and I've had to learn a lot over the last 2 2 years. So, and I started from scratch with $0, absolutely nothing to my name. And, um, so I'm only just starting to get into the budgeting thing.

Okay.

And I would say that probably I'm able to put right now about $800 to $1,000 into savings. Like, I've been trying to dump everything into savings right now. I do have a car payment too, so I don't know where my money should be going. Okay. Really? What?

We can help give you some focus there for sure.

Yeah, us seeing that. So basically your margin would be gone when this happens in 2 years. Uh, and I think that there's probably some places that we can find it. You mentioned some debt, so what other debts do you have?

That's— I only have a car payment. I have a little bit of debt, um, to a hospital because my son had to have surgery, but I'm working with the hospital on figuring that out, so I'm not too worried about that one. Okay. Um, how much is that payment? About the hospital debts, about $3,000.

Okay, and how much is the car debt?

Um, I owe $8,500 still. Okay, what's the payment? It's $300 a month.

Okay, so we're a third there if we can clear up that car payment.

Do you give yourself a little raise just by paying that off? How much money do you have to your name right now in savings?

So in savings I have about $13,000. Okay, awesome.

So I'd actually, the, the $800 to $1,000 a month that you're putting in savings, I'd actually start applying that to your debt snowball. So debt snowball is a, a method of attacking debt, and here we teach that taking your income back is the most important thing that you can do, right? Your, your income is your biggest wealth building tool. So we would say, hey, first thing you need, you need $1,000 saved as as a cushion. Next thing, we're attacking debt, debt snowball method. We're paying off the debt smallest to largest. I think I heard you say you have $13,000 saved. Yes. I would jump in that today. I would pay off—

what if you paid it off today and you, you were left with $4,500, which is still awesome. And next month it's $6,500 if you crush it and get that $2,000. How would that feel?

I would just be— it's taken me so long to get to the $13,000. $13,000, it would, it would make me nervous. I mean, I guess I can always work more.

Well, let's do, let's do math, because math, it helps set everything straight. The truth is you don't have $13,000 saved, okay? You got $12,000 in debt, so you have $1,000. That's the truth.

That's on paper math.

That's the accounting math. You only have $1,000 to your name anyway. So you may as well pay off the debt and make it so, and then keep adding to it.

Debt-free, emergency fund, then begin investing. You'll be on the path if you just start focusing your money. You got this.

Hey guys, Rachel Cruze here, and I love summer. There is more fun on the calendar, more time with your people, and way more chances is to make memories. But you know what else there's more of? Spending. Oh, between the extra groceries and gas and camp fees and family trips, it all starts to add up so fast. And before you know it, money stress starts to steal the fun out of everything. And that is why I love the EveryDollar budget app, because it helps you plan your money, track your spending, and find more margin in your budget so that you can put extra cash towards the goals that matter most. Enjoy your summer without the money stress. Download the EveryDollar app in the App Store or Google Play and start for free today.

Buying or selling your home is a a huge deal and you want an expert in your corner who's fighting for you to find the best deal for the right price or get the most for your home if you're selling. And the Ramsey Trusted program is the only way to find a top agent you can trust who will help make your home buying or selling a blessing, not a burden. It's easy. Compare agent profiles, you interview them, you choose the right one to work with, and you can find a local Ramsey Trusted real estate pro for free at ramsaysolutions.com/agent or click the link in the description if you're listening on YouTube or podcast. Mark is in Birmingham up next. Mark, welcome to the show.

Hey, how are you guys doing today?

We're doing great. What's going on with you?

Thank you for having me. Sure. So I have a little predicament, um, oh, not a predicament, I guess, but I'm wondering if you guys think that it is okay for me to quit my job because I'm basically working two full-time jobs with my side business as well that I've built. Um, and I honestly hate my 9 to 5. Absolutely hate it. Got a new boss and it has become, um, extraordinarily, uh, difficult for me to even get up in the morning and want to go.

Wow. What sort of things are happening there?

What's your job so I can make sure I don't— I never do it. Don't apply, George.

Uh, well, I'm in retail. I'm in retail. I've been in retail for my entire adult life and Uh, I built a YouTube channel up and basically now it's— my dad laughs at me because he thinks that I should just quit, but I do have insurance through my job and that's of course a very important thing. Uh, you know, I'm 30 years old now, so I'm getting older and trying to take care of my health as well. Uh, but what do you make from the YouTube channel and what do you make from retail? Uh, so retail, I bring home a salary of like $3,200 a month, uh, bring home and YouTube is kind of up and down depending on like if I have brand deals or if it's a good month, bad month, whatever. But on average here this year, I've made around $8,000 to $9,000 a month just off of YouTube.

Okay, and what I basically— triple your income.

Yeah, and like good months, I can like— I've made $15,000 to $20,000 off of YouTube in months before.

I mean, isn't that enough that you could buy your own insurance and you wouldn't need to be on the retail company's insurance if that's the only thing keeping you at that job?

Uh, benefits? I could. I just, I just don't know how expensive that would be, even though I do have like an LLC and everything. I just really haven't—

I mean, I got your homework assignment right here, okay? When you're done with the call, go to healthtrustfinancial.com. They're a health insurance broker that we recommend that can shop for you to find the best coverage at the best price. So once you have that information, you're gonna feel more confident to go, okay, it's $1,200 a month for the coverage I need. Great. I can stomach that considering your mental health is on the line and you're making triple with YouTube pretty consistently. How consistent has this been that you've made more than, you know, 4 grand a month on YouTube every month for the last year?

Last, yeah, last month was my worst month. I've had in like the last 3 years and I made $5,000. Cool. So you know that's the floor right now. Yeah, I'm at like 115,000 subscribers and, you know, it's way to go, obviously growing.

And what kind of channels, what kind of content do you do?

Yeah, I'm looking it up. What are you called?

I just want to know. Okay. Um, okay. He Got Kicks is the name. So we changed my name from Mark to something else because I don't like everybody knowing how much money I have. You said he got kicks.

I see you. Yeah. Yeah.

There we go. And yeah, and I've done that and I've saved up like $135,000. There you go. There's your off-ramp.

Wait a minute. You need some cushion. This is the channel I need to be following. You got the right person on the on the call, Mark, because Jade's a big— she's a shoehead, I think is what they're called. Sneakerhead. Sneakerhead. Yeah, that's how old I am.

He said a shoehead. That's okay, I'll take it. It's fine. Yeah, I am— I listen, when you tell me the numbers, dude, put your 2 weeks in.

Yes. Tomorrow.

Because here's the thing, if you decide that, oh man, I want this $3,200 back, go get another retail job, right? Retail will always be there.

They're always going to need Marks of the world. But right now, you, you enjoy this YouTube stuff, right?

It's my passion. It really and honestly saved my life.

How many hours are you putting into it right now with your retail job? Every week with retail, I'm at—

with retail I'm at 40, and with YouTube I'm at least at 75 to 80. Like, wow. I do, you know, because I'm also trying to build another channel as well about technology and trying to build that up as well. So I'm really—

Dude, I would ride this train until the morning.

Follow the passion. It's been lucrative for you and it seems like you have cracked a code that many are trying to crack. So keep going in that direction. Yeah. And you can afford, I'm telling you, you can afford health insurance for yourself. Is it just you or is it an entire family?

Uh, it's just me. My girlfriend lives with me and I mean, she makes like $75 grand a year too, but I mean, and it's just, then it's just for you.

You can afford that. Yeah, correct.

Congrats, Mark. You just earned another subscriber from Jade today. That's exciting.

Wait, let me go and click this. Let me smash that. Let me smash that subscribe button.

That's pretty cool. And it is true, Jade. I mean, it's crazy. We'll talk to like a 13-year-old who's making 7 grand a month from YouTube. It's just a different environment. Different environment. And not everyone's gonna understand it, but it sounds like even your family's supportive. Your dad's laughing at you saying, dude, you made 9 grand a month from this YouTube channel, it's time to go. Why are you spending 40 hours a week in retail? I love it.

That's a great— subscribe—

great story. You got kicks. That's the American dream right there, is becoming a YouTuber. Liz is in Omaha up next.

Liz, how can we help? Hey, I'm Jaden George.

What's going on?

Um, so, um, how can I let go of my savings account that I've built over over a decade. Uh, I'm a workaholic and I work about 60 to 80 hours a week. And, uh, the only debt I really have is about $500 in credit cards. Just, I pay it off each year— I mean, each month. Okay. And, uh, and I got in a hit-and-run accident in 2023 and I financed a car.

Oh, what's left on the balance?

So, uh, about $12,600 and I think $75.

And how much do you have in savings?

So I have 2 bank accounts. I moved up here in Omaha in— from South Carolina, and in my South Carolina bank account I have about $12,667. $1,000. Okay. In a CD, actually, actually it's in a CD, and I have $800 in the savings account in that same bank. And then the bank that I use right now, I have $38,000 and about $1,000 in checking. Um, I, I just found you guys in February, in the February, beginning of March, and now I'm just obsessed with you guys. I listen to you guys 24 $47,000. And, uh, I did the Baby Steps backwards. I opened a Roth IRA a couple months ago, and my savings account is now $38,000. So I had $47,000 in my Wells Fargo, and now I just can't— I can't get myself to, to make that last. Because I, I could really pay off this car like right now if I wanted to.

Yeah, just take the $12,000 from the one savings account and, and knock it out and then cash flow out. Yeah, why not?

I mean, look at the reality of this. You pay off this car and you're left with $25,000. Can you live with that? Can you stack back up some cash?

I mean, I work two jobs now. I probably could.

Yeah, I mean, you're a workaholic, you're a save-a-holic. It's time to be a debt-free-aholic. How about that? What are you making from these two jobs from these 80 hours a week?

Uh, $15 from Culver's, and, uh, I'm a vendor, so I make $22 an hour, and I do about—

I will say this, I will say this to you, Liz. I might look for some jobs that are a little bit higher paying so that you're not having to work 80 hours to get the same result, because that'll break your back after a while.

If you can work 40 to get the same amount of pay, you'll get your mental health back and you won't have to be so aggressive in every other area. But I would pay off the car today, and if you don't sleep good at night with a paid-off car, you can always go get another loan. They'll give it to you.

Listen, your home is your most expensive asset, and now you're ready to sell fast and for a lot of money. But in this wackadoodle real estate market, one mistake could cost you tens of thousands of dollars. Here's the deal: this ain't amateur hour. You need a pro in your corner, someone who knows how to price your home right, market it well, and negotiate the best deal. That's where a Ramsey Trusted Real Estate Agent comes in. To find one near you, go to ramseysolutions.com/agent. That's ramseysolutions.com/agent.

Our scripture of the day, Ecclesiastes 3:1-2. There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to uproot. Michael Altshuler said, the bad news is time flies. The good news is you're the pilot. Look at that. All right. Okay. I'm the pilot of time in my own life, I guess. OK. I'll chew on that one, Michael. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Neal is in Grand Rapids up next. What's going on, Neal?

Hi, Jade and George. Thank you for taking my call. Absolutely. I'm retiring next year, and my wife and I are both 75 years old, and we've been married for 59 years.

Congratulations.

Thank you. I think we're in great shape financially. My wife is still a little nervous. If you do the math, we were married when we were 16 years Wow. And I was a father at 16. So talk about baby steps. Amazing. Yes. And I was working at a car wash. So I understand why she's a little nervous about money because we started out dirt poor. Um, she doesn't want to go back to being poor, but I think we're in good shape. Our kids are all grown. They're all financially okay. I don't plan on leaving money to them intentionally. And I think, uh, here's what we have. We have our home is worth $350,000. We have a $63,000 mortgage at 2.75%. We have Social Security after taxes of $41,000 a year. We have a 401 worth about $450,000. We have a Roth IRA at about $150,000. $100,000, and we usually carry about $40,000 or $50,000 in our bank checking account. Beyond that, we have cars and antiques worth about another $100,000.

Are the cars paid off? Yes. Okay, good. Um, so we have no other bills. So the Social Security, what is that, $3,000 a month? About, yes. Is that enough to— can you live solely off the Social Security, or do you need— how much do you pull out of the— would you be pulling out of the 401 paying the Roth?

I would think we kind of did it, and it's going to be a little hard to figure, but about another $10,000 per year. Okay.

Is what you need out of the retirement accounts?

Yes. Okay. Yes.

We'll call it $12,000. So what's your question today?

Well, I'd like to take time for travel and entertainment. I'm looking at about $15,000 a year, maybe $20,000, that I think we should be able to enjoy our lives over the next, you know, 15 years. that's going to 90. Um, I think I'm aggressively, uh, I mean aggressively on our 401s, et cetera. But I think I would, uh, downplay that down to about a 50% short-term after I'm retired, 30% in an index fund and 20% in an FDIC. So I do the math and it looks like we're okay. But again, my wife's a little nervous and I get it.

Um, so would you be pulling from retirement instead of pulling $12,000, you'd pull $24,000? Yes, something like that. Okay. Yep. I mean, I'm crunching some, some napkin math here. If you had a 24-run retirement, let's say you guys live to be 99, and just using your $600,000, if you needed to pull $24,000 a year from retirement, you have a 99.2% success rate. And that's not counting the antiques, the money. So mathematically, you're okay. And I would have her and you sit down with a SmartVestor financial pro to actually show her these projections, to show her just how small of a chance there is of failure with these numbers. Now, if you ramp it up to— they'll show you, hey, if you ramp up to 36 instead of 24, you could run into problems if you guys live to be 100. And then you guys can have actual facts instead of— right now it's just all emotion.

Right, right. And I understand the first 10 years of our marriage we were struggling, uh, and then we, you know, started investing late. I had a business, so I didn't invest in a 401. Until I was probably 50. So, you know, it went from there.

But what's your mortgage payment? Pardon me?

What's the mortgage payment every month? Mortgage payment?

I don't— I think it's $700 approximately.

Okay. I was just wondering if she'd— if there was a compromise here where you said, hey, we're gonna sell off some of the antiques, pay off the mortgage, that'll free up $700. Would that make you feel better about us loosening the purse strings a little bit and enjoying our retirement. I'll tell you, it'd make me feel better.

Yes.

Well, she doesn't want to pay off the mortgage because I suggested we do that. Why doesn't she want to? Well, because she's earned— she's worked through our way to a 2.75% interest rate. She's very proud of that, and she likes knowing that we have paying the bills. She does a good job with it, and I think there's a little security be there.

You said she likes paying the bill.

There's security in owning your own home free and clear, not the bank owning it.

She'd still pay the taxes, right? Right.

Let her pay the insurance and taxes and she can have a field day. But if she's worried about money and she's also saying, I want to keep my $700 payment, well, now we have two conflicting opinions. You want to keep the interest rate or do you want to enjoy retirement? Right.

I mean, you said you're going to work for one more year. Yes. If you reached over and you paid off the mortgage package, and then for, for the next year you put the $700 back and reinvested it along with what you're doing now. That feels pretty good to me. Yeah, I think so.

And that's what I was talking about too. So yeah, I think she's going to be okay. She's probably listening. Oh, I'm working out of town, but, uh, just knowing that somebody else agrees with me, I think she knows. And yeah, but we just want to enjoy ourselves.

What kind of work do do you do, Neil?

I'm a CEO right now. I did, uh, construction most of my life, but I've been a CEO for 20 years.

Wow, fantastic.

Way to go. Proud of you guys. Congrats on 59 years. That's really incredible.

Enjoying retirement, because the truth is, Neil, you're 75. I hope you guys live to 100, but we don't know what the future holds. And some people hoard the money and go, well, when we're 80, we'll enjoy it. And then there's a health problem, and now they can't travel, and they can't enjoy it. And so there's a great book too called, uh, Die with Zero. I don't agree with everything in the book, but the general premise is pretty good of enjoy your money while you're alive and spoil your kids while you're alive and not hoard it until they're in their 60s and you give them a million bucks that they don't need anymore.

It goes right along with our scripture and quote of the day: there's a time for everything.

That's right, it's time to live. So I hope she's listening, Neal, and I hope that helps. But I would sit down with a professional who can run these actual numbers and show her the truth and show you the guardrails. Hey, you can spend between this and this and be totally fine. Even in a worst-case scenario, here's where you'd be. So I hope that helps. Thomas is in Bentonville, Arkansas. Thomas, what's your question today?

Hi there. I make about $50,000 a year take-home, and I was just curious on how you guys could have— how to afford a house. "That income is subject to change due to promotions in the future. I'm only 23 years old. We're on Baby Step 3 right now, and we're just trying to build a nice emergency fund because we're a one-income household with a little boy at home." Oh, wow.

And that's, you want to keep it that way. You want to keep her at home, keep you working, and let's increase the income so that we can become homeowners instead of continuing to rent?

Yes.

What do things cost in your area to have the, the type of home that you're thinking of? Reasonably, what would you have to spend?

Uh, right around $300,000 right now. Um, there's nothing within an hour, uh, there's nothing within an hour of work that we can afford with the 25% rule.

Yeah, and I was gonna say, you know the 25% rule, that's good. And you're bringing home, what is that, around $3,500 a month?

Yeah, around. A little more actually, $3,900.

Okay, $3,900. That makes sense.

Cuz right now that means a $1,000 mortgage payment, which as you can imagine, very difficult with today's housing prices and interest rates. Which means we need to either save more for the down payment or change the home price, and that's going to take some patience in getting your income up. So that's what I would be focused on. You're 23, that's a great income, I would focus on what can I do to start making $60,000, $70,000, $80,000 over the next couple of years so that you have more margin to stack for the down payment. Yeah.

And let me just encourage you that 23 is so young. My husband and I got married at 23 and we didn't buy our first house together until, oh my goodness, was that 35 that we bought?

And the average age now, Jade, is like 38 to 40 for first-time homeowners. Yeah, that's right. So I wouldn't be in a rush, Thomas, but I would be very intentional. On working on my income, staying debt-free, setting a goal. You and your wife sitting down saying, hey, we're going to save $24,000 a year. That's $2,000 a month we got to sock away into this high-yield savings account. What must be true for us to get there? I need to go make more money. We need to cut down our expenses. Hope that helps. That puts this hour of the show in the books. Remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.