Transcript of It's Never Too Late To Build Wealth

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Normal is broken. Common sense is weird. So we're here to help you transform your life and your money. From the Ramsey Network in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio, this is The Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshaw. Next to me, George Campbell. We will be taking your calls about your life and your money for the next couple hours. Uh, it's a live call, 888-825-5255. 5-2-2-5 gets you on the line. Harold is on the line. He's in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Hey, Harold. How can George and I help?

Hey, what's going on, guys? Thanks for taking my call. I'll make it really brief. I'm 70, going to be 71, still working full-time, been there for 20 years. I've blown all my money all over the years by traveling, going to different countries, continents. I started listening to you guys when I was 62, 63.

Okay.

And I'm totally out of debt.

I have no debt.

My house paid off.

Um, uh, I have credit cards. No, I don't owe anything. I have no personal debt. No, nothing on wheels. As Dave says, I have no debt on wheels at all.

Okay.

But I'm frustrated because I've lived a, like Dave says, uh, so you spend like you're in Congress. Um, today I just went out and had prime rib for lunch.

I, I like to live in your best life.

I, I am, and I don't know when I'm going to die, right? Next week.

I hear that.

5 years.

But you have nothing saved, Harold?

Uh, no, not really. No, no, excuse me, nothing to speak about. I make $3,500 a month in Social Security, another $4,500 a month, uh, from Costco where I work.

Are you full-time? What's your hours like?

Yeah, I am.

I'm full-time. I had a chance, I went part-time for a little while, but I'm working because of my benefits are so great there.

That—

yeah, Costco crushes the game on the benefit side.

Are you investing? Are you investing 15% at the very least, Harold, of that $7,000 that you're bringing in?

You know what, I'm not. I have my 401k and my Roth at Costco for the last 20 years, and I know there's some money there, but—

How much is it now?

I think it's $663,000 as of yesterday.

That's not nothing.

No, but I mean, it's nothing that I pull out or use, 'cause I'm at a point in my life, you guys, maybe it's psychological, but I feel like I'm going insane. Pain because it's like, what do I do with my life now? I, you know, I'm just working. I have my dogs.

Are you healthy?

I don't know what to do, you know.

Are you healthy?

Healthy?

I'm a little chunky from eating so darn good.

But listen, that's all right. You have a family? Do you have grandkids, wife, significant other?

No, they're all gone. They're out of state. They're in Virginia. They're all successful, you know. They're all— my son's been in the Air Force for 20-some years, and all my grandkids.

And but you have good relationships? Do you have good relationships with them? Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

So you're not alone. You're not alone. You're just, you're just chilling.

Yeah.

You're, you're in this weird sort of purgatory, Harold, where you're not like rich, but you're not broke. And so I think you just haven't really taken the time to create a vision for what you want this, this sort of quarter to look like of your life to go, okay, what does it look like? Is it me working full-time? Do I want to travel more? Do I want to go see family? Do I want to pick up a hobby? Start a business. It sounds like you're sort of itching for some purpose, something you can sink your teeth into.

Yeah, because otherwise I'm just sitting around the house with my dogs, endlessly working on the yards because I have a huge yard and stuff. And I'm always out there mowing, pulling weeds, cutting the bushes. And I think what it is, I'm like this kid.

You're just aimless.

Yeah, I'm anxious and it's like I want to do stuff.

If, Will, you could snap your fingers, What would you be doing if we just said to you, hey, you have a genie in front of you, you know, do the little I Dream of Genie thing and you can have what it is that you want. What would that look like? Would that be I no longer work at Costco? Would it be I live closer to family? Would it be I moved overseas? What would that be?

You know, definitely not living close to family because I think that's when you start taking on all their responsibilities and their needs and stuff.

Yeah, you got to watch the grandkids. That's a real drag, man.

But I myself would probably I'd be on a beach down in Playa del Carmen somewhere. Okay. With a drink in my hand. I don't know. That's how immature I am.

No, that's not immature. It's not immature.

I hope to have your energy at 70, Harold. I don't have it now at 37, so I pray I get some later on.

You need something to aim at. I think that's what George is getting at, and that's what I'm getting at too. And we can do that. If you say, you know what, I'd love to see what it would look like for me to move down by the beach, to get myself a little condo. Maybe I move down to Mexico. Let's, let's put that on the board and let's start working towards that. What must be true in order for that to be the case? What age do we want that to happen at? How much money in the bank would make you feel secure? Right. And even if you don't ever do it because you get down the line and you go, you know what, I actually didn't want to do that. I just loved dreaming about it. I love thinking about it. That's also fine.

But at least it's now just, well, I'm, I was just unwilling versus I regret never figuring it out.

Exactly.

So you might make a list of here's the things I want to stop doing. Ideally, these are things that are draining me. Here's what I want to start doing. Doing. And for you, that might be, I delegate the lawn work for $300 a month. Someone else can deal with it because it does not fill my tank. It does not reduce my anxiety. I'm going to throw in a spa day here or there. And then that's going to factor into a real budget.

Mm-hmm.

So now you need to figure out, can I sustain the life I want without needing to keep this full-time job?

Yeah. And the thing, the thing that must be true for you is starting today, you do need to start investing 15% because a day is going to come when you let that Costco job go and you're going want to replace that $3,500 a month. You're going to want to draw whatever that is, you know, $30,000 a year off of your nest egg, $35,000 a year off that nest egg to kind of take the place of that money. And so by you investing, that's going to make sure that money is there for you to do just that.

Yeah.

Now, Wes, I listen to you guys every day, and I don't see a lot of callers, you know, that are in that position of, man, I'm old.

And what—

and I'm still working. What the heck do I do? You know what I'm saying? Because it gets scary. It becomes—

what are you scared of? You know, I don't know, that you can never stop.

Yeah, yeah. Because I'm 70 and I'm like, I love working with the people that I do, and I enjoy the interaction with the employees and my members.

And I think you need that for your mental health. I think you need interaction. I think you need purpose. I think you need to be using skills and using your talents. I think that has to be a part of life no matter It doesn't matter if you're working a 9 to 5 or you're volunteering or you're mentoring someone. You just need to use your functions and your devices. And I think that's what you— I don't know, but based off of what you're saying, I think you're afraid that if you let this job go, that's like the beginning of the end and it's kind of a downward spiral from there on. And so just tonight, I think, Harold, I think two things are your homework, and these are going to be things that you look at for the rest of the weekend into the weekend. Number one, start playing out that dream of moving to Playa del Carmen. And what does it look like? Would you be willing to sell your house? Start looking online at what little properties look like. Get some numbers and put some real vision to what that is. And then you can actually decide, do I really want this or do I not?

That's thing one. And then thing two, I'm actually going to give you Ken Coleman's book, Find the Work You're Wired to Do, because I think that you deserve to know exactly how you're wired, what your skills are, what you enjoy to do, and how you can kind of filter that into other activities. Maybe it's not just working at Costco. Maybe you get involved in a local ministry. Maybe you start volunteering at a school or at a hospital. Whatever that is, you just need to get into the game and start using your personality. Because George, this guy's got a great personality, I can tell you that.

I want to hang with Harold, I'm going to be honest.

Yeah, you sound like a good time. You sound like, listen, at the family reunion, he's the one that everybody's flocking to.

But the key here is I want you working because you want to, not because you have to. That work optionality changes your life.

Yeah, agree.

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Well, we're going back to the phone lines where we have Eduardo in San Antonio, Texas. Hi Eduardo, how can George and I help today?

Hello, I had a question. Um, my question is, uh, I have $200 $100,000 in bad debt. When is it okay to give up on my credit?

Give up on your credit or give up on the debt, on paying off the debt?

I guess it'd be both, because you— I guess the credit would go bad after giving up, or, you know, let's say I let my truck get repo'd or the credit cards go into collections.

I see. Um, so I'll try to answer your question. When you make the choice to begin paying off debt and closing accounts, your credit does get bad before it completely goes away. And once it completely goes away, that's actually a really good thing because a zero credit score is the same as a very good credit score. The hard part is watching that number tick down because as you're paying them off and as you're closing those accounts, the factors that are used to measure your credit score, they start to disappear.

Right?

And so that's kind of what's going to happen naturally. That's what happened to me. That's what happened to George. Um, and that's not a bad thing. But what you're talking about, I think, is a bad thing because what you're saying is, hey, I'm kind of just giving up on this entire process. I want to do a voluntary repo. I don't want to even fool with this anymore. And I think that we can help you curtail that a little bit and do it the correct way.

How old are you?

23.

How did you get into $200 grand in debt by 23? What happened?

So, um, when I was 18, I got my first credit card, uh, secured. They, you know, gave me, or I put $200 down. And after that it became $3,000. And then after that I applied for another one and became $6,000. And I had a business at the time where I would just kind of use the credit and pay it off. But after a while it just kind of added up. And somehow I got to $25,000 in credit card debt. And then later on I ended up buying myself a truck to do hotshots because that was like the only way at the time to kind of, you know, do anything for myself because I couldn't get a job.

Why couldn't you get a job?

I guess I have a criminal past because I had a Mustang at the time when I was young. And I evaded arrest and I got arrested for that. And that basically shut down all my chances to go up there and do anything.

So you're thinking I have to start a business. What type of business did you try to start?

Um, I was trying to do vending machines because they say passive income is, you know, the best thing, but that was not even close to passive income.

Sure.

Yeah.

Um, I was doing it and I was an electrician for a good while. But I couldn't get into every single, you know, place. I was working in Tesla, but then I got a job in Google and they declined me.

Mm-hmm.

What are you doing today for work?

I'm a truck driver.

Okay. Okay. And is it, or do you work for a company or do you own the truck? How does it, how is it set up for you?

So I get 25% of whatever comes in and I work for a company.

Okay. All right. And what do you earn? What do you take home every month, uh, doing that job, your portion after expenses?

So weekly I do $2,500. Monthly I would say around $8,000 to $10,000.

Okay, great. And is it just you or do you have a family, children?

I have a wife and a kid.

Okay.

And does she work?

And she does not.

Okay, how old is the kid?

One year.

Okay, so she's home with the 1-year-old.

All right, and, uh, if you broke down the debts, how much of this is credit card debt versus the truck loans? Break that down.

So $25,000 is credit card debt, $70,000 is, um, my, my truck debt, and then $35,000 is my fiancée's car debt, and then, um, $60,000 is around my house debt.

Okay, so we're not going to count the mortgage right now. You're talking about a mortgage?

Yeah, I have equity in it, uh, it's worth around $180,000. Just thinking of selling it to get out of this, but no, I'd rather you sell the car and the truck before your house.

Yeah, because the house, that's just the mortgage debt, it's not a HELOC or anything, right?

No, it's owner finance.

Okay, so yeah, I'm with George. The truck and the car look like the, the very first places I would start.

Half your debt is gone immediately. And so let's move the mortgage out of this. That brings your debt down to $140,000 in consumer debt. We get rid of the cars, that gets rid of $105,000, right?

Uh-huh.

This is a solvable problem now. We just went from, I can't make my payments, to, oh my gosh, I'm almost debt-free by the end of the year.

Yeah. What's that $70,000 truck worth if you maybe sold it private sale on Kelley Blue Book?

Like $55,000.

Okay.

And what about the $35,000 car? Do you know what that might be worth?

Probably like $20,000.

When was the last time you checked?

For the car, I haven't checked on it. I just bought it this year. Um, reason being We got kicked out of our parents' home pretty quickly. And she also was forced on, like, to get a car. I was kind of forced up on me that I need to— she needs to have a car in case of any emergencies that she needs to be.

She was forced against a wall to buy a $40,000 vehicle.

I'm gonna cut through that because that's some BS. Yeah, everybody needs— everybody needs a car, but you ain't need to get a $35,000 car. Let's just be like, you could have gotten a $10,000. You could have gotten a $12,000. So like, those are the things that I want you to internalize and go, I needed to solve a problem. I did not need to go to that extreme because that's the only thing that's going to save you going forward. You've got to look at some of the choices you've made and go, why did I do that? And why did I go to that extreme? Because going forward, you and, you and your wife both, you're going to have to stop and think in a different way going forward. Otherwise you're going to start to repeat the same things for the same reasons. Well, we needed a car. Well, we needed to do this. And all those things are needs. You needed to get a job. You needed to probably come up with something smart to do, uh, that was different because of your record. She needed a vehicle. Like, I understand that, but we have to not go to the greatest extreme on it.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

Yes. Okay, so to George's point, Let's keep looking at these cars. So back to the $35,000 car. Let's check tonight and see what it's worth because, you know, obviously for the call today, I appreciate the guests, but let's get the real solid numbers, uh, really on each of these vehicles because that's the ticket to you guys truly getting free on this and doing it quickly.

Just see the private party value on Kelley Blue Book, check Carvana and CarMax and all the others to see what they would offer you for these vehicles. Then at least you know the amount you need to cover that you're underwater on.

Right?

That— let's say it's $24,000.

I've checked, I've checked the truck, uh, yesterday and it was $50,000 what they offered me a dealer trade-in.

Okay, so yeah, dealer trade-in is going to be the worst offer ever. So I'm not— we're not looking for a dealer trade-in at the local dealership that's selling brand new cars.

Private, private sale.

Yeah.

So what would it sell for on Facebook or AutoTrader? And then what would CarMax or Carvana give you for it, which is likely going to be higher than a normal dealer trade-in.

Okay, and then whenever it's time to, you know, sell the—

how does that work?

Do you have to like just pay it out of pocket, whatever you need to come up with the difference?

Some people go to the local credit union and get the difference as a personal loan, as just an unsecured loan, and some people will save up the difference. Now with your income, if you really hunker down making $10,000 a month, you could save up $24,000. Pretty quickly.

Yeah, or at the very least save up the difference on one of the cars. You see what I'm saying?

Yeah, one payment trailer that I could sell. Uh, like I said, I was doing Hot Shots for a bit and a trailer is worth around $10,000.

Oh, perfect. Okay, and it's paid out cash. Yeah, so let's do that. Let's sell the trailer. That gives you the $10K. That's probably enough to get you out of your car. Yeah.

Now what's your wife's car payment?

Uh, $750.

Now imagine you got a $750 raise every month in your net take-home pay that you can now apply to your other debts or use that to save up for the underwater difference on the truck. Now we're starting to get some momentum. So you went from your back against the wall to should I let this car get repoed to oh, we can be done by Christmas.

Yeah, the thing that's missing, and it's not just for Eduardo, it's the nuts and bolts of what it takes to get out of an underwater vehicle. And George said it beautifully. If you can get a loan from a credit union, I love that. I don't care where you get the money. If you get the loan, the point is we're going from $70,000 in debt to maybe $10,000 or even $15,000 or $20,000, but that's going backwards. We want the debt to go down. And as long as you're doing that, we're okay with you doing this. The point is you're freeing up payments up to the tune of $750, $800 a month in car payments. That's big money.

¡Muy bien!

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Hello there, ma'am. I'm on step 2 of the Baby Steps, you know, uh, the debt snowball, and I'm actually treating it more of an avalanche. I'm Um, the, my smallest debt is also my highest interest rate. So, um, but anyways, all I have is $50,000 in student loan debt, right?

Okay.

And it's the highest interest rate on it is 5%. It's several different loans, but the highest one is 5.02%.

Uh-huh.

And I, I'm likely going to have some changes with my housing situation soon. I've been, uh, staying with my grandmother, taking care of her for the past 3 years. And there's a good chance that she may have to move to a a place with higher amounts of care, or, you know, God forbid, should anything happen to her, um, I will need to find a new place to live. At the same time, my vehicle has also started trying to go out on me. My question is this: the $1,000 that I saved up for the emergency fund, I do not think it will remotely cover a vehicle repair, replacement, or temporary housing while I find something long-term? Should I postpone Baby Step 2 until I get maybe at least 2 or 3 months' worth of income saved up? And that way I won't be up against a wall should one of those two eventualities take place.

Yeah, I hear two things here. I do hear a bit of a storm mode, which is kind of what we would call a situation in life things are changing, whether it's a job loss, it's a move that's coming up. A lot of times when people are pregnant and having babies or if there's a diagnosis, all of those things kind of cause us to put things on pause while we stack up the cash that we need to endure that next season. There's a couple of things I hear though, when it comes to car repairs, and I want to say this to you, Caleb, but I want to say this to the broader audience that's listening. Emergencies are considered things that are for unexpected, things that are completely necessary, and things that are needed, like, within a specific time. When it comes to cars, regular maintenance, or when we know we drive an older vehicle, those are things that we want to be putting aside money monthly, like a sinking fund. We just know there's a maintenance line item on our budget, and that way when something happens, it's not like, oh my gosh, it's an emergency.

So that's just a little tidbit there. But let's talk about the temporary housing situation. How much time do you think you have left, with your grandma in her residence?

Uh, most likely, probably 6 to 8 months, I would say, at least. Um, you know, granted she's 93, so that could change anytime, but you know, Lord, hopefully it'll be a good at least 6 months.

And what happens to her residence if she were to, God forbid, if she were to pass away, or if she were to go into like an assisted living? What's the plan for that home?

It will most likely be sold by my father and my aunts.

Got it. Okay. Alrighty then. And are you living in that area strictly for her, or is your job there? Tell us more about that.

No, ma'am, I work at a state park. Um, I'm actually not in Little Rock. I'm about 120 miles south of there. That's just the only place anyone would know. I'm, uh, In the middle of nowhere. My job with Arkansas State Parks, I've worked with them for 12 years and realistically one step above my current position, it comes with housing, about a 20% pay boost and you know.

How do we get that?

I'd expect it. Well, you have to be picked for at the very least one of the trainee programs. Which is one of the reasons that I'm looking a little harder at the future now because I was turned down for my 6th time yesterday.

Oh man, I'm sorry. Do you know why you were turned down? Did they tell you?

So for the first one, they said my qualifications, they were excellent, but I lacked a more managerial experience. So I worked my current job is, I'm a facility manager and I have employees underneath me. So I worked that for another year. The next time they said, "Yes, your management experience is good now. You need more maintenance experience." And so then I got my supervisor to agree to let me work 2 days a week with maintenance.

Okay.

Got all that. And the next time they said, "Well, you need even more maintenance experience." So I did that for another 6 months. And then this time they wouldn't even give me a reason.

Wow.

I'm sorry.

Well, what would it cost to rent around you? Let's say that wasn't an option and you got to get out of Grandma's. What would it cost to rent somewhere, whether it's on your own or with a roommate?

Realistically, the town that I'm in, there's only, uh, the only place— and I know this sounds strange— the town of about 800 people, and that's including the dogs and cats. The only place to rent, there's low-income housing, which for my $43,000 a year income would hit me about $800 a month. And that's just down the tubes, you know, it's no, no movement forward in life.

No, that's not true.

That's my whole—

No, no, no.

Let's, let's talk there because I'm, and I'm glad that you said that because I, I want to challenge that belief. Renting is not down the tubes. Renting is a fabulous option that prepares you for being able to buy. It's, it's a preparation deal. It's not down the tubes. 'Cause the truth is the opposite is, oh, I'll just buy a house and I won't have enough money for repairs and I won't have enough money if property taxes go up next year and I'll be house poor.

And most of my payments goes interest.

Yeah. So, yeah, trust me, and this is coming from Caleb. My husband and I rented for 10 years while we saved up and paid off debt and saved up a down payment, and I don't regret it one bit. I'm 42 years old now. I don't look back and go, oh my gosh, I can't believe I rented for 10 years. I go, thank God I rented for 10 years. So I just want to let that kind of put that in your back pocket and, and think about that later. But the $800 a month, I think that's a fantastic price place, number one. And if that's the only option, I don't think it's a bad thing.

And it's not forever. This might be for 6 months, 12 months while we get some financial footing, get the emergency fund, you know, start saving up for a down payment. Because I imagine if it's a small town, housing isn't super expensive if you were to buy your own place.

Uh, it just depends. The big, the big problem is it's a farming community. And so a lot of migrant workers come in in the summer, which means that anything that's cheap and easy to put people in gets bought up by fairly large farmers. And then anything that's an entry-level home winds up being $100,000.

Okay.

And on a $42,000 a year income, that's kind of tough.

So what you're talking about now is just it's almost the logistics that anybody has to decide about in life, right? So the career that you've chosen has put you in this location. The question I'd say to you is, okay, you're doing this in Little Rock, Arkansas. What does it look like for you to go to another place where there's national parks and do the same job there?

And you get a promotion and be able to afford your life.

Right.

Because right now you're sort of stuck on your own volition going, well, this is the only job I can find. It's the only place I can live. Live.

And that's not true.

Yeah, well, you see, and that's the reason that I did apply for all those promotions, because every single one of those would have had me traveling the entire state for about, you know, 2 years.

Right.

But we're saying, Kayla, once I finished it, they would move me to another place, likely better opportunity.

We're saying, is there a way— is it just one tube of opportunity, or is there a way that you're like, you know what, forget the state of Arkansas, I'm going to go to the state of Montana or I'm going to go to Utah or I'm going to go to Wyoming and see what it's like out there. I don't know your career field, but I'm just wondering with your degree and what— with your expertise, it seems like you could go to another state. Maybe there's some training involved. Maybe there's, you know, some things, what have you. But I don't want you to think that you're up against and backed into a corner because George and I see options.

Yeah. And I would definitely, if you want to save up to cover the repair, get some actual facts on what this repair is going to cost. Let's pause Baby Step 2 and save up for that, but let's not just save indefinitely 3 months of expenses just in case. Let's get some facts and figures first.

Yeah.

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All right. We've got Bill who's on the line.

In Chicago, Illinois. Hi, Bill. How can George and I help today?

Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my call.

Yeah, you bet.

So I'm looking for your thoughts on the following situation. My wife and I are retired in our mid-70s, uh, do well financially. We have 2 children who are married, each have 2 grandchildren, and we're wondering about should we start giving them money now, when the kids are— grandkids are small, rather than waiting for inheritance someday.

I love this idea, Bill, and I'm going to speak on behalf of your kids and say they would love it too. Now, are they doing well financially on their own?

Yeah, they're all doing pretty well.

Nice. What's your net worth?

About $5 million.

Fantastic. You guys have done an awesome job.

Way to go, Bill.

And what is this like? Break that down for us. How much of this is your, your primary residence? Do you of properties? Is it all retirement accounts?

It's basically all retirement accounts.

Fantastic.

How much do you want to give, and do you want to give to something specific, like buy them a thing, or is it just, "Here's money, do what you want with it"?

Uh, you know, the last few years we've been giving them $10,000-$15,000 at Christmas, something extra, and we're probably going to kick that up a little bit more, maybe $20,000-$30,000 a year.

Wow, awesome. Well, you can give— I mean, without even having to file a form with the IRS for gift tax, you can give each kid $38,000 between you and your wife.

Yes.

So you can at least give up to that amount if you want to do a straight cash gift. But I would, you know, talk to them about it and see, hey, what, what are the current needs? What could really help you guys out? Is it an experience? Do we just take them on a great cruise once a year internationally with the grandkids, or do you want to just give them cash to help bolster savings or car replacement funds.

Okay, great. Yeah, I, uh, we've been kind of talking about this, and, you know, we've been fortunate in our lives, and we just don't want to wait till we die and have them both get a big pile of cash.

Yeah, I love that. Well, there's an old saying, you know, better to give with a warm hand than a cold one. And, uh, it's a dark— it's a dark, very dark—

it's dark.

But I like the idea, you know, you want to see your kids thrive and enjoy this money while you're alive versus, well, once they're in their 60s and I'm 90 85. They'll get some inheritance to do what they want with. The best time is when your kids could use a leg up, when they're raising young kids. Things are expensive. Daycare is expensive. Everything's expensive, especially for those in their, you know, 30s and 40s. So I love this idea of giving while you're alive. There's a great book too, Bill, that will go into this. It's not a Ramsey book, but it'll help you think about this in a different way. It's called Die With Zero. Again, sounds very dramatic, but the idea is you don't need to go into the afterlife with $28 million if you don't want to. Yeah, I spend it while you're alive.

I love that idea. A little bit of both is great. You know, there's an inheritance there when you pass away, but if you're able to give while everybody's alive and kicking and can enjoy it in their youth, I mean, that's my plan at least. Yeah.

And you're responsible. Set them up so well to where they don't even want the inheritance. Like, we're good, man.

Yeah. Yeah.

I think the line is you want them to still be productive human beings and feel like, "I'm not relying on this money to take the place of my own productivity." If you give it to someone who is not managing money well, they're just going to manage more money terribly.

So, you want to make sure— that's why I always ask, "Are they doing well? Are they not in crippling debt and going further into it? Are they working full-time?" So, there's some good pieces there to say, "What's the work ethic like? What's the current family dynamic like?" before you just go hand a pile of money over.

I agree with that. Great question! Thank you so much, Bill, and well done! Next week, We've got Marsha who's in Tallahassee, Florida. Hey, Marsha, you're on the line.

Hi, thanks for taking my call.

Yes, ma'am. How can we help?

Well, I have a couple questions. Um, I'm retired. Um, I've been through some situations, so now I'm disabled basically, and I'm dealing with a fixed income, but I do have some debt and I'm trying to figure out how to get out of it and following the plans that you guys up, and I've been trying to put money away and paying off the credit cards that I have. But I still have like a personal loan, and I have some money saved, and I'm wondering if I should use that money to pay off some of these things and then just maybe start from scratch even though my income is not going to change.

What is your income, your fixed income?

About $74,000, $75,000 a year. Year.

Okay, what's that breakdown every month?

Um, I have a mortgage, so take-home spending about $6,000 something.

About $6,000.

Okay.

And you mentioned some credit card debt. How much is credit card debt and how much is personal loan debt?

I have a $30,000 personal loan debt. I've paid it down to that. Um, then I have about $8,000 Just credit card, 4 cards. Okay. That I'm trying to pay off.

And there's no more debt? That's, that's the only 2?

Those are the only 2, yeah. Okay.

What's left on the mortgage?

Um, I have $255,000 left on the mortgage.

$255,000?

Yeah. I have some equity in there.

Are you living alone or do you have family?

I'm living alone.

Okay. And how old are you? I think, I don't know if I missed that. I know you said you're retired.

How old are you, Ms. Heard?

Oh, I'm 63.

63.

Okay.

What's the nature of the disability?

Um, military.

Okay. Because I'm wondering, you know, do you have a skill set and experience where you could actually go make more than the disability is offering you if you wanted to get out of this thing faster?

Um, I can't, no. Mobility-wise, I'm handicapped that way.

Okay. That's good. Now you did mention you had some money saved. How much non-retirement money do you have saved?

Well, about— I have $20,000 in a, like a mutual fund plus an IRA. And I have, I'd say about $1,800 just like in regular savings.

Okay. So $1,800 in savings. Did you say the $20,000 was in the IRA?

It's in a mutual fund and IRA. I have about $5,000 in IRA. Okay. Okay.

And the other's just in a mutual fund, a brokerage account?

Yes.

About $15,000?

Yes.

Okay.

Okay. So you're right. There is some money at your disposal to kind of start cleaning some of this up. I would keep the $1,800 in savings. I'd probably drop it down to $1,000 and just keep that as a starter. Emergency fund. It's just there in case something pops up that is unexpected and you need a little buffer there. That'll keep you from running to a credit card, right? But then that leaves you $15,000, almost $16,000 that we can start. We can fully knock out the credit cards, right? We can knock out all $8,000 of those. And now you've got another $8,000 that you can throw towards these personal loans. And so you could begin to clear that out. Do you know off the top of your head what you were paying each month onto those credit cards to pay the minimums?

To pay the minimum?

Probably about $1,000-something.

Yeah.

So if we, if we reach over and pay off those credit cards today, essentially now you've got $1,000 back in your month-to-month budget that you can put towards paying off the remainder of the private loans. Loans or personal loans.

Okay.

Now let's get back to what George was saying, because I do wonder, you did mention that your mobility was down, uh, but everything else seems to be intact. I would be curious, and it might just be something that fills up your, you know, personal time too, just to see what other skills, what other things that might interest you that you can do with your time. Because it is important for all of us to do some sort of work that matters and have that sense of purpose every single morning. Um, and obviously the benefit to that is we can make some money in the process. And in your case, it would really, really help because I'll tell you what I envision for you, Marsha, is to look up and have this mortgage paid off one day when you're ready to fully retire. And when you've said, you know what, I'm just not working anymore. I'm hitting that age. I would love for that mortgage to be off of your plate. Have you thought about that?

Yes, I do. I do think about that.

I like this plan. Do you have— is this VA disability? What kind is it?

Yeah.

Okay, because you should be able to, to work part-time with no earnings limit, uh, if you can do something that's not physical. And that could help speed this up if you're looking for ways. Otherwise, you're going to go at the current pace you are, try to bring your expenses as low as you can, but we can't pull the other lever, which is income.

Yeah, that's right.

So this is just going to take a while if we if you don't pull one of these other levers on the expense or income side, you just gotta make the budget and go, "All right, it's gonna take a couple years to get out of this thing." The good news is you have that disability locked in.

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Well, welcome back to the Ramsey Show here in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio, continuing to take calls about your life and your money, where we have Miles who's in Bis— Bismarck, North Dakota on the line. Hey Miles, how can George and I help out?

Hey guys, how you doing? I got a question about my mortgage. Uh, first off, let me say I have 5 kids, married, I got a single income. Wondering if I should refinance my house. I have about $100,000 left on it in order just to have some more cash flow during the month while my kids are still young. My oldest is 16.

Teen.

So I just want to enjoy time with them as much as I can.

When you say refi, are you trying to get a lower interest rate, or are you thinking about like recasting it so that you can get a lower payment on the same terms?

Um, I would refinance to a 30-year. I'm on a 15-year right now, and then, uh, the interest rate would be a little higher, but my monthly payment would be cut at least in half.

I don't love that idea.

Are we thinking about cutting the payment in half because it's too much of your take-home Um, we have some money left over at the end of the month, probably saving like maybe $1,000 a month.

It was—

my thoughts are my kids are getting older, uh, just to have more wiggle room at the end of the month is basically my thought on it.

Tell us, tell us what you're bringing home every month and then tell us how much the mortgage is.

All right, I bring it home between about $6,000 a month after taxes and everything's taken mortgages with taxes and all that and insurance is about $1,400 a month.

Okay.

That's very reasonable.

Uh-huh.

What else is going on? Your wife's at home, so I'm thinking there's no daycare costs, or are there? Nope.

Wife's at home. She homeschools our 5 children. Just maybe, I don't know, I have a little money anxiety. We both do the finances together, but I would say I'm the main one that looks over the numbers on a regular basis, and maybe too much.

Are you investing right now? Do you guys have other debt?

We don't have any debt other than our mortgage. Great. I am investing. I have some money in a money market account and then money in an index fund and then my 401.

How much are you investing as a percentage of your total income right now?

Now?

I do 4% in my 401. I work for a major railway, so they take out— actually, they don't take out Social Security. They take out two different tiers of retirement, and that second tier is about an extra 5% compared to normal American.

Okay.

So you're only investing 4% of your household income right now?

Yeah, outside of that extra tier 2 that the railroad takes out.

Okay.

And that creates sort of a pension for Correct.

Yep.

Okay.

I'd love if you were investing, I mean, truthfully, assuming that you've got some money saved and I'll ask about that in a minute. Uh, truthfully, I'd love for you to be closer to 15% that you're saving of your income. So that'd be around $900 a month, probably a little bit more if we took it off the gross. Um, so I, I'm wondering what's creating this squeeze on your budget that's causing you to consider refinancing from a 15-year to a 30-year, cuz that's pretty drastic and And to be fair, it's going in the wrong direction. And so something is causing you to really consider like a drastic measure and almost doing something I'm gonna call foolish. Not that you're a fool, but it, it's, it's a very rash move.

It's moving you backwards. Yeah. Our whole goal in the show is to help you build wealth. And we found the best way to do that is to get debt-free as soon as possible, house and everything, to have as much margin as possible. So if you called in saying, hey, I've got a car payment, it's $500 a month over 3 years. If I refinance to a 6-year loan, I can get the payment down to $300. We'd all agree that's a bad solution. And so we're trying to find another solution, which is you got $4,600 coming in outside of the mortgage payment. Where is all that money going?

Mm-hmm.

Can we squeeze some more money out of that? And then let's actually put down on paper what are the goals with this extra $1,000? Because if it's just, I'll feel better emotionally, that may or may not be true. But if you go, "I want a vacation with the kids once a year, it's gonna be $6,000," great, now we know. Let's set aside $500 a month.

Or is it kids' college? Do you have some that are coming up that are getting to the age where they're starting to think about university or college?

My oldest is 16. She doesn't have an interest in college. I guess what we do is kind of just throw all the money into our money market account every month. We don't have a designated college fund, but we just stockpile that up.

How much is in that there?

About $32,000 in a money market and another $14,000 in index fund.

Is that outside of an emergency fund?

I— the money market would be my index, or excuse me, my emergency fund.

Okay.

I also have another $10,000 in a regular savings.

Okay, okay, good. So you've got some good money saved. You are thinking about education and putting some money there. I was a little confused though because it almost sounded like the college fund was the emergency fund.

Well, I would say, um, so the emergency fund is like the money market, the $32,000, and that $14,000 in the index fund would be above and beyond my emergency fund.

And is that earmarked for college? I think we need to put some parameters around what this money is. So I would say, and you, you jump in and tell me if I'm wrong, I agree, $32,000 emergency fund. Then you said you had an additional $10,000 saved that was kind of on top of that, we need to earmark what's that money for. And then you said you had $14,000 in an index fund. I'm almost wondering if you should take, you've got 5 kids, I'm wondering if you should take that additional $10,000, add it to the $14,000 and call that kids' college fund.

Okay. We are, our vehicles are kind of getting older too, so I have that on the horizon of saving up for a vehicle.

Okay.

I kind of just said I really like a slush fund.

Well, well, I don't mind. Listen, I don't mind if you said, hey, no Jade, keep the $10,000 and that's going to be our vehicle fund. I'm fine with that. I just think we have to put very clear markers on what this money is for. Number one, it's going to make you feel better. It's going to give you guys some organization and it's going to make you feel like, okay, I'm being very intentional about this. To your point, what you said, when it feels like a slush fund is when it feels like anything goes, nothing's really solid.

Sort of floating.

Yeah.

You don't want that feeling. You want to know No, this is what that's for. So I let's, yeah, let's say $10,000 vehicle fund, $14,000 index fund. And that's for kids' college. And at this point where you are in the Baby Steps, which is our overarching plan for your money, where you are right now, Miles, is let's bump up. And I know this is against your feelings right now because you're feeling like things are tight, but let's bump up the investing to 15%. Let's say, hey, on top of the $14,000 in the index fund, what would it look like if we continue to put another $150 or maybe $200 a month in there? And then instead of going backwards on the mortgage, what would it look like if we just continue to make the payment and maybe we threw, whether it's quarterly, whether it's once a year, maybe we aim for an extra payment every year. However we want to break that up. And that's you going in the right direction. But I think what would really help, and I don't know if you have one, are you guys on a budget?

Um, yeah, I have a written budget on just like on a Notes app on my phone that we go over every month, but it's not hard and fast.

Yeah, the hard thing about that, I love that you have that because it's a great place to start, but the tough thing about that is you, you're not able to track your transactions in real time, so you can't really see if you're off track. And if you are off track, then it's not till the end of the month where you go, oh crap, we're $1,000 over, or, oh, you know, we should have had money left over, where'd it go?

Yeah, that's where the budget comes into play. So Miles, hang on the line, we're gonna gift you EveryDollar, the premium version, for the next year so you can connect your accounts and get a real plan with your wife going, listen, we're gonna have $1,000 left over because we are going to be in control of our money.

Yeah.

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All right, we have what may possibly be my favorite type of call on the line. Line 4, Jordan and Taylor in St. Louis, Missouri. All right, guys, set this up because this is my favorite.

Okay.

Um, Jordan and I own a home on 15 acres, and it was kind of always our dream But now I'm to the point where I want to sell and Jordan wants to stay.

Okay.

The dream changed.

What caused it to change for you, Taylor?

I have lost my job a couple of times in the last few years. One was a wrongful termination and then one was my last place of employment. They filed bankruptcy and we closed unexpectedly. And I've always been the high earner. Um, Jordan's always had the more blue-collar job that allows more time to spend with our daughter, and then he carries really good benefits for us.

Okay.

Um, so it's always really worked out, but I've always been the high earner. So when I've lost those jobs, and with the amount of debt that we have, it's really impacted things.

And you feel it?

I've always just— yeah, I'm feeling it bad. And I've always just figured out a way to make it work, and now I'm I'm tired.

I can understand that. So, and it's no shade on Jordan, but you're literally feeling the weight of the household on your shoulders.

Yes.

And one thing changes and it's like crushing.

Yep.

Okay.

Um, I feel like I'm failing.

What's the current incomes?

Um, I make about— so I just accepted a new job, um, about 4 weeks ago because— so this is kind of fresh where I just lost my job again. Um, I'm expected to earn about $137,000 $187,000. And I used to earn $200,000, though, so that's part of the reason for this call.

What type of work is it?

I work in automotive management.

OK. And what is Jordan doing?

I work for the post office and I'm close to about $65,000.

OK. OK, great.

So still over $200,000 household income, which is fantastic. How much consumer debt do you guys have?

Um, $192,000 including vehicles.

Okay, tell us about the vehicles.

So the vehicles, um, so I used to always have a demo, a vehicle provided for me, and when I lost my job, I no longer had a vehicle. So I bought a Chevy Trax because they had 0% interest and it was a $500 payment and it could get me— I'm driving an hour to work now.

Would you pay for for it?

I bought, uh, $28,000.

Okay, $28K. And then what other— any other vehicles?

And then Jordan has a vehicle that we owe $42,000 on. It's an F-150.

Okay, F-150. Anything else?

Um, we have a tractor.

Okay, you need that.

That, yeah, it's, uh, $20,000 that we have left on that.

Okay.

Um, we have $3,000 left on a lawn One more.

Okay.

We have $7,500 left on vending machines that I'm currently trying to sell. So in my last dealership, we owned the vending machines in the company. So when it closed, obviously I sold one of them. I have two more to sell. Um, and I think that would pay off the remainder of the loan that's owed on them.

How quickly can you sell those? I don't know much about that. Maybe you can educate me a bit on that.

Hi, so I just posted them like 4 weeks ago. I've sold one and I'm trying as hard as I can to get the other two sold. I, I owe like $7,000 on the loan. I'm thinking, I mean, even if I can take $6,000 for it, I, you know, I'm willing to do that just to get them gone and get a payment going.

Okay, and you said the total was $7,000, did I hear that right?

Yeah, $7,000 that we owe.

Okay, $7,000 that you own.

So we still got $92,000 to go. What else is there?

What's up, Camper?

Camper?

Camper, yeah. So we have, uh, $9,700 on a camper that we no longer own because because I, um, we weren't using it, so I tried renting it out to make income to try and pay off that, and someone totaled it, and they left— it still left me with a payment on it.

There was no insurance paid out?

The insurance didn't pay the full value of the camper.

Okay.

And why?

Okay, I won't ask more questions on that. Okay, anything else? Because I think we're still missing quite a bit here.

Um, we're about $80 grand.

IRS, okay, IRS $11,000.

Okay.

Um, we owe a little over $2,000 on student loans and tuition.

Okay.

And then the rest is credit card debt.

Our—

yeah, our total is like $197,000 actually.

Wow.

Okay.

And the rest is just credit card debt.

And this is all while you guys have been making six figures or Yeah, yes.

And I just, I can't, I can't catch up. It doesn't, no matter how much I make.

Well, here's the, here's the good news is you guys have a great income. You got a lot of land. You could get out of this fairly quickly. The bad news is selling this piece of land alone is not going to change any of the behavior that got us here.

Yeah.

And behavior hasn't changed until probably recently, very recently. Okay. Has the behavior changed?

What do you owe on all of this property and what's it worth? What's it worth?

We, so last year it appraised at $695,000. I think I could probably list it for $715,000 maybe. I am working on my real estate license. Uh, it's just always been something I've kind of wanted to do. So I was thinking if I had my license, then I wouldn't have to pay real estate fees if I sold it and I could keep more of the money.

Uh, maybe, but I don't know about that. I think I'd want somebody who's been doing this for a long time to make sure you're getting the best price and they're not missing anything.

And you're pretty close to the transaction because it's your own property. That could also muddy the waters and make things a little emotional.

Mm-hmm.

What could hurt you?

What do you currently owe on it? We know what it's worth, $715,000. But what do you guys currently owe?

We owe $453,000 on the primary mortgage and we owe $120,000 on the HELOC. The contractor went over budget also.

Okay, so we're $573,000.

So you might net $120,000 after all said done.

Yeah, I guess if I— if you count in realtor fees, yes.

Now let me ask this: is there any separation that can take place between the home and just kind of like parcel out some of the land and say we want to get rid of a certain amount of land and make this more manageable for us but keep the house? Is that possible?

No, not the way that it's parceled and the way that— and there's easements on the property and stuff for the farmers behind us, so it, it will work.

And you're positive? No. Has anybody else looked at it?

I'm like 90% positive.

Okay.

I'm 100%.

I might add that to my due diligence list just to make sure. You know, it's easy sometimes to make assumptions and then you might find something that's like, oh great, like I didn't know. I trust what you're saying, but just because we're talking about big numbers and big decisions, I would do some due diligence on that. But I agree with George. I don't think selling this land at this point is necessarily the key to you guys getting out of debt. I think it is a behavioral thing. However, long term, you might find that there is a lot of just emotional maintenance that's attached to this. So you might sell it for those reasons, but that would not— I would not sell it to get out of debt, if that makes sense. I might sell it to simplify my life, but it's not the key to you getting out of debt.

Is that Yeah, except I don't see the way out. Whenever, like, after I accepted this job, now we are $2,500 upside down every month to make minimums. So the money that I have in our checking account is gonna go quickly. Like, I'm not gonna be able to make it. Understand, I don't have enough funds to cover the monthly payments.

Okay, and what is the payment on the mortgage?

The mortgage is— so the first, the, uh, the first one is $2,508 $1,800, and then the HELOC payment is like $1,200.

Okay, so we're about $3,700 out of your take-home pay.

Okay, so I, I said one more time.

Yeah, I mean, the, the mortgage and HELOC is still a small part of everything else, all these toys, all the payments. So the goal is we got to focus on the IRS debt, so that goes to the top of the debt snowball. But in the meantime, let's try to sell everything that can be sold— every car, every vehicle, every camper, every lawnmower— and just start from scratch. And if you guys do that, then I would where we're at 3 months from now to see if it's still an unsolvable problem where we need to sell this land and, and start fresh and clean up the debt.

And, and I will say, and, and you can stop me, I think I do hear that you do want to simplify your life, and I do think that the, the land and the mortgage is part of that. Is that fair to say?

I, I don't mind the land. Like, I know that Jordan loves to hunt it, but I want a simpler life.

We can go hunt on someone else's land. Cuz right now the dream that you both guys— that you had is turned into a literal nightmare for you guys financially. This is not a blessing in your life, and it's okay to call a spade a spade and say, we tried, we messed up, we made some decisions, let's start over fresh.

Fresh start. Yep, do all of it, sell all of it.

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Well, George, you had a really interesting weekend.

Yeah, you know, I, I, uh, I'm, I'm a hustler, Jade, so I didn't get any breaks this weekend. Me and the whole YouTube team for my YouTube channel, we went to the World Cup. Not into the World Cup, but outside the stadium.

Oh, okay.

Because inquiring minds want to know, how much did people spend on this thing?

I'm very curious.

So we filmed it and God bless our team. They stayed up till like 3 a.m. to get this video out by yesterday morning. So I want you to watch a clip from this. We'll drop the link to the whole episode. It's about 16 minutes worth the watch in the show notes and description of this episode. So click down there to watch the full thing. Here's a taste, Jade.

Okay.

What you think? How much did you guys spend on your World Cup Finals ticket? Combined, we spent $30, bro. Okay, so is that $15 apiece?

$15 apiece.

I'm gonna file for bankruptcy after this.

I'm calling my credit card and I'm saying this was never me. So you put it on a single credit card?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So who's paying who?

I have to pay him. Yeah.

What's the interest rate on this credit card? I don't even want to think about it.

4.99%.

What's your credit limit on this thing? It's already maxed.

After this, it's maxed.

They call you and be like, hey man, you know you can't do this.

They let me through.

They let me through.

I got happy to collect 25% on 30 grand. Exactly.

Wow.

Okay, how much do you have in like checking right now?

Checking?

I'm, I'm net negative, brother. Shut up. I've got no investments.

I've got no savings.

I've sacrificed everything for my life to be here today.

You know how much I sacrificed?

There you go. Oh, that was just a scratching the surface of what I experienced.

I'm shook upside down. I don't even have of a— when he said 30, I was like, 30,000?

Yeah, there's a couple of zeros after that.

And then the fact that his, his dog owes him $15,000 on 29.9%, I'm just— this is gonna go bad very quickly is all I'm saying.

Like, I had secondhand stress just talking to these people. And here's the crazy part, there was only two camps: guys like that who put it all on the credit card, super broke, and then there was the families who who, let's just say, had some generous, outrageous generosity.

Okay.

Either like a family member, grandpa covered the whole trip for all 5 of us from Spain.

Oh, wow.

That was $80,000. So, you know, a lot of these people were entrepreneurs. You know, their family has a company and they were able to afford this.

Great.

Great.

Love that for them.

All in cash. Absolutely. But those two— And then you have the spectrum. But it still shocks me regardless of how you paid, people paid anywhere. This is just from me talking to people anywhere from $4,000 $30,000 to $15,000 per ticket. And that's without flights, lodging, all of that.

Okay, but school me because I don't follow World Cup. Was that just— do you see one soccer match with that money or how many soccer matches do you get to see?

So that guy specifically was a single ticket. A lot of people did say, hey, I've been to 5 games so far. It was about $4,000 per ticket. So I'm $20,000 all in.

Okay.

Just on tickets.

But that guy was $30,000 for one single game. Game, which means he was closer, like closer down.

Yeah, well, he, he must have paid a lot of money and last minute kind of thing.

Oh my word. I hope his team won.

They didn't.

Oh yeah.

That was the funniest part. I met a lot of Argentina fans and the whole time I was like, all right, let's hope they win. Little did we know what would happen in this game.

Gosh, the next morning he probably woke up feeling like, cuánto.

Yeah.

Like, can you imagine spending $15 grand to see zero team score in the first 106 minutes?

I would never.

I'm sure it was still a great— and here's the thing, they always said, well, I'm going to be telling my grandkids about this. I'm like, you're assuming your grandkids are going to care. You're going to do this all for the grandkids? Don't put that on them.

So I do. I got to know, is there comments? Like, what are people saying about this?

This is the top comment on the YouTube video. The winners of the World Cup are Spain, Visa, MasterCard, and American Express. And someone added, and FIFA, $9 billion this year. Yeah, they're the real winners here. Ah, wow. Extorting money from people for this once in a lifetime experience.

I love a lifetime, once in a lifetime experience. I love if you can afford it. I love if you've saved up over time and budgeted for it. Then I'm not mad. Then I think it's like, yeah, good for you.

Yeah. But otherwise, just watch it at home, guys. Go to the watch party and you'll have a good time, which a lot of people did. I met a lot of people who said, no, I'm not going into the game. It's not like that. I just wanted to be around it. And I was like, I understand that. You want to be around the energy.

I hope you gave them— I hope you gave those two guys every dollar so that they could at least maybe next time this comes around, do it with a little bit more wisdom.

Well, the problem is we met a lot of international people, and EveryDollar is a U.S. budgeting app. Oh, good point. So the ones that were U.S., I could hook them up. The other ones I said, "Good luck, God bless," and watched more Ramsey Show.

Ah, OK, well—

So check out the whole episode. We'll drop a link in the show notes. That was just one of the many people I talked to, and they were very entertaining. As much as it was chaotic, it was a lot of really fun, interesting people that we got to talk to. So a very fruitful time in New York. We did some other other ones. Ask people the cost of living in New York. How much are you paying for rent? That was a fun one.

Oh, I would like that.

International people, how much they have in debt. How do you view debt? How do you view America's debt?

What do they— I'm like, what did they say? You'll have to wait.

Subscribe to the George Campbell YouTube channel. And again, we'll drop a link to the World Cup episode if you want to see how much people spent on tickets. But goodness gracious, it made me even more fiscally responsible.

Yeah. And you already are.

Thank you.

I almost want to know how much was Ticket?

Well, we didn't pay for the flights.

I guess you didn't. Wait a second.

We didn't go into the game.

Go into a game?

No, George. This is my life, Jade. I was just in the worst parts of it in the vuvuzela zone and people, you know, hawking flags.

Yeah.

All to then go home.

Oh, wow.

But it was fun. It was worth it for your entertainment, folks.

There you go.

Go check it out.

Sacrifice.

Yep.

Well, I mentioned earlier, and now I'm going to do my seamless transition into EveryDollar.

Smooth.

It's very smooth.

Yeah.

I want you guys to have a good time. Do those life once in a lifetime events. Listen, I went to see Beyoncé and I spent more than I've ever spent on a concert ticket.

Did you go like sinking fund? Like, all right, I'm going to put away $500 a month to have $6,000 in a year?

Yeah, I knew it was coming. And so when it was time, I was ready.

Well, this makes Beyoncé look cheap.

I mean, yes, it does.

It makes Taylor Swift tickets look like a bargain.

Uh-huh. Yeah.

You're going to be in a sinking fund for a really long time in order to do that. But I'm telling you, people love EveryDollar. It allows them to do the things that not just they need to do, but the things that they want to do. And they can have a plan for their money. You can find that on the EveryDollar budget app on the App Store for free, or you can find it on Google Play. All right. We've got Sam, who's in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on the line. What's up, Sam?

Hey, guys. I'm fanboying so hard right now. I love the Ramsey Show. I love you guys. Thank you for what you do.

Thank you.

We're glad you're here.

OK, so I'm on baby steps. Step 2, I am currently not investing in my kids' college accounts. I opened them up 9 years ago when my son was born. I have 4 children, ages 9, 6, 4, and 1, and there's about $20,000 spread out across the 4 of them. My mom is currently investing in it, like $25 a month per kid and $100 on their birthday.

Good.

And my wife brought up rolling it over or moving it into like an IRA or like a Roth IRA account for my kids. And it was kind of like, I didn't know if that was a good idea or not. Neither my wife or I went to college. We're not really big believers in it, I guess, if that's blasphemous or not.

But is she talking about now or later if they don't use the money?

Do you—

she, she was talking about it I can't do it now.

You can't now. There's a rule that 529 has to be open for 15 years.

Mm-hmm.

At least. OK. Before you can even begin the rollover. And then it's $35,000 max per child. So up to the Roth IRA limit for that year. This year it's $7,500 until you hit $35,000. And that's only if they don't end up using it for college.

Right.

Because I know, you know, we all think, well, who knows 20 years from now what will college be? Well, what if they go and it's 3 times as expensive as it is now?

Right.

And now they're in crippling student loan debt because mom and dad said, "You probably won't go." So I would rather be safe than sorry and have the money and then not need to use it or roll it to a different person. You can change the beneficiary anytime. Again, you can roll over up to $35,000 into retirement. There's so much you can do with these accounts and the tax advantages are so good that I would hate for you to miss out out on that.

What was her purpose in doing that? What was her purpose in making that move? Is she trying to solve a different problem?

I don't know, honestly. My wife brought it up. I didn't really want to touch it. We're not investing in it right now, like I said, anyway. Um, and it was just kind of on my wife's behalf. I thought I would ask you guys.

Yeah, my guess is maybe she was thinking since you guys aren't currently investing, if, if you rolled it over, it could either, either for your retirement or for the kids' college. But to George's point, it doesn't work that way. It's got to be one or the other. And you guys are in Baby Step 2. Keep chunking away at that. After that, you'll build up your 3 to 6 months of expenses, and then before you know it, you'll be investing 15%. And what I'd, uh, advise you to do is go over to ramsaysolutions.com and use our investment calculator and start calculating. If you start investing, you know, from this age to that age, how much money that you're gonna have. And when you know those numbers, it gives you a lot of peace. Or if you don't like the numbers, you can start to plan, uh, for a scenario where you do like the numbers.

Let me tell you what I get asked all the time. When should I get term life insurance? How much do I need? Is it affordable? Those are the right questions to be asking. So let's take a quick review. The fact is, term life isn't a baby step. So if anyone is dependent on your income, you need to have 10 to 12 times your income in life insurance now. And most people are surprised by how affordable term life really is, even if you're not in perfect health. Look, I am I understand the hesitation since most insurance companies make it more of a hassle than it needs to be. Not at Zander Insurance. They're not an insurance company. They're a broker that works for you. That means they'll shop and compare the top term life companies to find the most competitive options on the coverage for your family. For almost 30 years, I've recommended Zander for straight answers, competitive rates, and customer service coverage that actually protects your family. Call 800-356-4282 or go to zander.com for a quick and easy quote. That's zander.com.

Alrighty, your Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by Yrefi. When past-due private student loans keep pulling you backward, it's hard to focus on what's ahead. Yrefi helps borrowers with a low fixed-rate refinancing option that fits your budget so you can focus on the future again. Visit yrefi.com/ramsey and remember, it may not be available in in all states.

Today's question comes from Victoria in Louisiana. "Would you explain how compound interest works with regard to the stock market? I understand earning interest on bank deposits and how stocks can increase in the market, but how and when does compound interest happen?" I love this question! This is super fun!

Matemáticas!

Wish we could do a whole Bill Nye visual just to make it easier. There's a couple things going on here. No. 1, compound interest interest is more like a bank deposit, like your high-yield savings account. The bank says, "Hey, we'll pay you 3% on your balance." So, every month, the bank looks at your balance, and, you know, per day, and they go, "All right, here's what paid out per day. We're going to pay it out at the end of the month." That's pretty easy to understand. 3% on $10,000, divide that by 12 months, that's how much you'll make if you just left that amount in there. Now, compound growth is actually a little different. That's what's happening in the stock stock market, and it's not as straightforward because the stock market goes up and it goes down. So, I buy a share of Jade Incorporated for $10. Right? Now Jade's crushing it. The revenue comes in. We're all excited for Jade's company. How's that stock doing? She's crushing it. The stock goes up to $15. Well, thank you. Now remember, I bought it at $10.

Mm-hmm.

So, I just made $5 profit. So, now as you start to go, "OK, I have multiple of those shares," now the profit increases. And so, now I got $15. Well, Jade's company is now, they're going for $20 a share.

Killin' it.

So, now I just made money on top of the money I already made. And so, over time, that growth compounds to where you don't have to actually invest $1 million. You invested $10,000 or $15,000, and over the course of decades, it grew as the, sort of the piece that you had of ownership—

The stock itself grew.

Grew.

So, that's how the stock market works, is you have a share price. That share price goes up and up and up and up. Bada bing, bada boom, you can retire one day. And we've seen about 10-12% on average in the overall U.S. stock market.

I love that. You know, I'd pay good money to see you explain that Bill Nye style, but I think the closest I could get is Investing Essentials.

There we go. That's true. We are going to walk through this in nerdy detail— how to choose mutual funds, how to, you know, sort of filter and balance where you invest, when you invest, where do I put this money, what about the kids, What about estate planning and taxes and insurance? How do I keep the government's hands off of it? How do I hand it to my kids without destroying them? And at what point do I do that? What about trusts and wills? We're going to get into all of it at Investing Essentials. It's a virtual event that Dave Ramsey and I are doing September 1st and 2nd. So you can join us from anywhere. Two nights, couple of hours a night. It is definitely worth the ticket price if you want to learn about this stuff. So, all right, Victoria, ramseysolutions.com/events.

There's your answer. If I had your information, I'd send you a free ticket, but I don't have it right here. All right, Dawn is from Dallas, Texas on the line. Hi, Dawn. How can George and I help today?

Okay, hi.

Um, so the good news is I got married 3 weeks ago.

Congrats.

Thank you. We have a situation where my husband and I need some guidance on. So before this marriage, I was married before. I've been divorced for about 8 years now. In my first marriage, um, I took out a life insurance policy on me and one on my ex-husband. They're $500,000 term life insurances on each of us. After the divorce, um, I kept the life insurance policy on both me and him because he was paying child support and other expenses, and if something were to happen to him, you know, you know, it would be difficult pulled. So anyways, um, with that, my new husband, he's like, he says it feels weird to pay life insurance on my ex-husband. He's not 100% against it, but he's not 100% for it, and he doesn't know what to do. But then on the other hand, um, you know, I want to make sure my kids are taken care of because we have a set of 14-year-old twin boys who are about to go into high school. You know, we're staring down college. You know, there's just so much going on at this stage in life and if I want to make sure something were to happen that they're taken care of.

But on the flip side of that, I also want to respect my husband's decisions and follow his lead. But then he's like, he's like, he doesn't know what to do. So we're like, so go ahead.

I can see two sides of it. I can see how— I'll tell you how my brain is seeing it. Obviously the purpose of insurance is to replace income that's a necessity, right? So before you were married, obviously, yeah, this guy was, you know, you were married to him, so he was part of the income situation. And then even as an ex, maybe he was paying child support or alimony, that sort of thing. At this point now you're married to somebody else. There's kind of a new situation going on financially. The, the only piece of this that I could see a connection to is the kids, if your, if your ex-husband was saying, hey, this is kind of an inheritance thing. When something happens to me, I want the kids to have this money. That piece I can totally understand. And them being the beneficiary of that makes sense to me. If that's something that he wants to do from a legacy perspective. And as your current husband, I don't know that that should bother me, um, to that extent because this, this is their dad.

Um, yeah.

So how are you guys viewing it? Is he viewing it from more from a marital perspective? Perspective or more from a children's dad's legacy perspective?

Um, well, Mike's husband, you know, or his, his health, it was difficult to get the life insurance to begin with. And, um, like, he had gotten rejected multiple times over the course of the times we have tried. And so, um, his health is not great, um, as we speak. And then, um, so I'm also got that in the back of my mind. And then, but my new husband, he's like, um, you know, he's a truck driver, so he makes pretty good. And, um, you know, he's adamant that, you know, these are his kids, he will do whatever he can to take care of them. But the fact of the matter is, you know, he's a truck driver, I'm a teacher, there is only so much money that, um, we make. And And I, and with being a teacher, education is important to me. So I want that option to be there for my kids to be able, if they want to, to go to college, to whatever college.

Um, so if you're having to worry about, how are we gonna— if your ex-husband said, I want you guys to keep this policy and the purpose of it is for the children's college, and if my life exceeds that, then it's there for them, you know, as they begin their life and start their their life, then I, I think that's a wonderful thing. And I hope that he has a will and some documents that can really outline some of those things that he wants for his children. Um, there's part of this—

the policy—

I am the policy owner. I got it through, um, so I'm the one who's always paid.

And you're listed as the beneficiary, I guess?

I am the beneficiary of the policy. I always have been. So, um, I don't even think he even remembered We had the life insurance policy until the other day when I called and talked to him about it.

Uh-huh.

Well, the main distinction is you are not hanging on to this policy to hang on to the past. You're hanging on to it to protect your kids' futures.

Right.

So until they are independent, on their own, they're through college, they're working, okay, now they're fine. But right now, the truth is, let's say you got rid of this policy, well, you might not be able to afford college and support them. And so part of having kids is it's your obligation to support them. Now that might That might be through child support, that might be because you want to, but I would keep it for that reason. And it really has nothing to do with, you know, the new husband. The new husband.

Yeah.

And so I totally understand his side of it. So I don't want to diminish that. It is uncomfortable, but that's the nature of a broken marriage and kids from a different father. That's just part of what he signed up for.

Yeah.

There's a little bit of this discomfort and messiness.

And if, I mean, I'm trying to put the shoe on the other foot. If for some reason my kids, I was separated from them through, you know, divorce, I would. I'd want them, I'd want them to still have life insurance on me so that they have access to whatever money I've accumulated, or, you know, obviously get that death benefit, uh, if, if I were to leave this earth. So I can totally, totally understand it, and it's just a good lesson, guys. Life insurance is so important. Um, I said it earlier, but I'll say it again. The purpose of life insurance is to take the place of income that's, uh, people are dependent on. So you don't take out life insurance policies on children, you take them out on working individuals, and we always suggest 10 to 12 times your yearly income is what you would need. And Zander is a great place to look that up if you haven't looked it up. Zander Insurance, that's where I get my life insurance. Term life is what you're looking for. That's where George gets his. And if you call them up, they are going to hook you up and take good care of you.

Welcome back to The Ramsey Show here in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio. Continuing on with the phone lines, we've got Amanda who's in Tampa— just Tampa, Florida. I almost said Tampa Bay. Isn't it sometimes called that?

You know what, I forgot there was multiple.

Okay, well, we're just gonna go with Tampa, Florida. Uh, hey Amanda, what's What's going on? Is it sometimes Tampa Bay?

Hi.

Yeah, okay, just was checking my old— checking out my own brain there. Okay, how can we help today? Yes, ma'am.

Um, first of all, I am sorry for your loss. I saw your post this morning on Instagram.

I left you a message, but, but yeah, so sorry for your loss. I'm a big fan.

I am almost done with your book, and I am such a big fan. So, um, I'll make it brief. I have a question about an Alabama state tax issue. Um, I believe there has been an error with my 2024 tax return.

I've worked remotely for a company based in Alabama and I lived, um, in Tampa, but the state says that I owe $1,100.

I've tried to resolve it because I don't think the amount is correct, um, or I don't think that I owe them any tax because I never physically worked in the state of Alabama. Should I just pay the $1,100 or just— they're trying to garnish my wages now, so should I just—

they, as in the IRS?

Yeah.

So have you verified this debt? Have you actually logged into irs.gov and checked for all the letters there?

I have, yes. And I have called and talked to multiple people and, um, they all say the same thing. I, I did file the return and they say that it shows in their system that I do owe because the company is based out of Alabama. So we just finished— I worked so hard to finish step one, it's, it's crazy. And so now I'm like, do I I just go ahead and use that money to pay off the, you know, that tax that they keep saying I do owe.

Did you prepare your taxes or did somebody else?

I did. No, I did it myself. Um, on TurboTax.

Hmm.

I mean, I, you might have a, a tax professional take a look at it just to verify that there was an error.

Mm-hmm.

Or, or say, no, this is actually exactly right. There's no error. I mean, that would be the best way to look at that cuz George and I wouldn't be able to tell you, uh, just from sitting here, I'd want somebody to to look at it. And if it turns out you do owe the money, then we can talk about— let's talk about that scenario. Let's pretend you run it by a tax professional and they say, sorry, Amanda, you owe this money. Let's talk about what a plan could look like for you to pay it.

Okay.

Have you checked with your employer? Checked with the accounting department there? What do they say?

Um, so in 2024, it was reported that I had moved, which is true because I did.

I lived in Alabama for like 2 months out of the beginning of 2024, and then we moved to Florida, and that was reported.

But it's a mess because the old employer said that it has been reported, but when I tried to call out like the state of Alabama, they said no, they didn't do that because it was reported.

That I'm residing in Alabama. So yeah, I'll probably get a tax person to look through it, but—

Well, I'm trying to figure out, I just think we need some facts here because I'm wondering if they say, hey, well, those 2 months where you're going to owe taxes in Alabama. So you might owe taxes in 2 different states for that year because you did live there.

I make $18,000 a year. I'm a part-time employee.

I have kids.

I work from home and there's no way I owe $1,100 in 2 months to the state of Alabama.

I mean, $500 a month for 2 months is— that's not outrageous in taxes. Alabama has an individual income tax rate about 5%. So I'm just wondering, you know, I'm not here to defend the IRS, but I just wonder if maybe there is a legitimate tax owed and we just didn't understand the tax law. And that's where I would reach out, go to RamseySolutions.com. And click on Tax Pro, and we'll connect you with a Ramsey Trusted Tax Pro to just look it all over and go, okay, here's the facts, here's what's not true, here's how to respond to the IRS before the deadline. That's what you want to do is stay in communication, meet all the deadlines, document everything, and versus just going, well, I don't feel like I should pay it. That's the last thing you want to do.

And if you do find that you owe the money, let it— if you have other debts, let it jump to the top of the list. Like, IRS debt is something that we don't want to fool around with, and that's definitely one that we want to knock out sooner than later. And until, again, until you find out otherwise, I'd start stacking up for this payment knowing that it could possibly be coming down the pipe. All right. Thank you so much for the call, Amanda. Let's go to Mason in Dayton, Ohio. Hey, Mason, how can we help?

Hey, guys.

Yeah, thanks for taking my call.

So my wife and I were both 26, just starting the process of realizing we're in a bad situation, trying to get out of it. So we have a lot of debt, but we have an investment home and we're just curious if we should sell the rental property and get out of this hole. Or put our nose down and kind of stay in the hole longer while keeping the investment property.

Interesting.

So just tell us right off the bat, what do you owe on the rental and what's it worth?

Yeah, so we owe just right around $60,000 and it's worth around $160,000.

Okay, that's great. And you have a— are you and your wife also living in your own primary residence?

No, so we rent from actually a family member, my grandparents' house that we are renting. So we're getting a pretty good deal rent. It's more the location we want to be opposed to where the rental property is.

Got you.

So you guys are renting. So how much other debt do you guys have?

We have between student loans, cars, and bad credit card debt around $78,000.

Okay, $78,000.

And what's your income household?

Um, right around $95,000 to $100,000.

Is that including the rental the rental or not?

No, not including the rental.

Okay.

What is that cash flow? What's the actual net profit per month?

Um, about $600 a month, roughly.

Okay.

Is there ever any, uh, is it in your plans to move into this house as your own at any point? Like, what was the plan with this rental?

Yeah, so, um, the plan was for it always to be a rental. We actually lived in it for about a year, and it's just not in an area or neighborhood that we really wanted to live in and raise family. We have two little kids.

Okay.

So my parents helped me buy it when I was in college, so helped pay some bills and stuff while I was in college. I rented out while I was in college, got out of college and didn't have money to buy another house, so I moved into it for a year, actually about 3 years, but got it fully in our— me and my wife's names a year ago. So that's kind of how we got there.

Understood. And now you're renting it again. And I guess my big question is, was the plan to be landlords, or did it just kind of happen by default?

Just by default, I guess. I like the idea of the income coming in, but we realize what kind of hole we've been in, so we finally put it all on paper. We're like, "Wow, that's a bigger number than we thought." You know, you get those credit cards or a car that you can't afford.

So now we're just like, "How can we get out of this the quickest way possible?" The math just says, "Hey, we could get about $100,000 out right now, or we could take home our $7,000 a year." a year. And it sounds like there's more urgency for you guys to get out of this situation that you're in versus, man, we love the extra $7,000.

Well, you never set out to even be in this situation, which is sort of landlord by default. Yeah, I think that is a pretty clear decision.

Yeah, that's kind of what I was hoping, kind of some information. A lot of my family and stuff's in the real estate, and I know that you guys all preach, you know, it's a good way to make that extra income when you have the money. So it My thought was, is it better to put our nose to the grindstone and keep the rental and then we have it at the end, or, or start over fresh again once we get out of this big hole?

I don't think this rental is like the key to your whole wealth building scheme. I think the key is going to be getting out of debt, creating margin with your core income, that $100K. So I would sell it personally. I would get out of this, but I'd make sure to change the behavior along with it and not use it as a get out of jail free card.

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 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.

All right, George, let's Let's go back to the phone lines. We have Karen there who's in Dallas, Texas. Hi, Karen.

Hi, Jade and George. Thank you so much for taking our call.

Yes, ma'am. How can we help?

So my husband and I both lost our jobs in May, and we want to know if it's okay to take this time to build the potential businesses that we have our eyes set on, or if we should go back and start looking for, you know, quote unquote, normal Well, gosh, I'm sorry that you both lost your jobs.

Did you work in the same place, or this was just a crazy coincidence?

Thank you. Yeah, we were working at the same place. I was laid off just after coming back from maternity leave, and his contract ended.

Oh, I'm so sorry. Do you have emergency funds? Do you have money set aside?

So we, we've been kind of working the Baby Steps, not as well as we should, but we do have our basic $1,000 emergency fund. And then on top of that, we have, I would say, our emergency fund plus the 3 to 6 months. It's just not all in the right place. So, oh, and I actually got a severance of $12,000, so we started with that and just said that we would try to live off of this for maybe 3 months or so.

Do you guys have kids?

We do.

We have 2, you know, fresh baby. She's, um, almost 5 months now, and then we have a 5-year-old.

Okay, so this is a— I mean, this is a huge a huge life change. Obviously it's also a huge emergency. Hopefully it doesn't feel like a crisis though, because you've got this money set aside. $12,000 severance, $1,000 Baby Step 1. And how much would you, uh, say that the 6-month, 3 to 6 months fund is? How, how much money?

Um, so our expenses on a monthly basis are about $3,000. And so we felt that 6 months was the safe this bet. So we have $20,000 in a high-yield savings account, right? And then we have another $20,000 in a separate high-yield savings account for a little bit more cushion. The goal is to try to start generating income from the businesses so we don't have to touch any of our savings. But how long do we do that before it becomes, you know, the UMB?

Well, tell us a little bit. Well, first let me also ask, do you have any debt?

Um, we do not have any debt, only the house. Oh, excellent, excellent.

You're sitting on about $53,000 $100,000 in liquid cash.

Okay, that sounds—

is that what you're telling me?

I guess I haven't put it all together.

Sounds like you've used some of it the last 2 months to live, so it might be down to like in the $40s somewhere. But I would sit down tonight and understand, here's all the rations we have, and also we need some urgency to get income in right now versus, well, let's just wait and pursue our passion project. Like, I would be feeling the fire right now of going, we got a baby, we got a 5-year-old, and we no income. You're going to burn through those savings way faster than you think.

Did you already have a business that you'd started that you're just going to focus more on, or is this starting something from scratch?

So we've been noodling on it before, and it kind of branches off of what we were doing prior. I luckily enough— well, we both actually have nailed down clients, um, since losing our jobs. I got 2 clients, and so I have been able to generate about $2,000, which paid, you know, the mortgage. And then my husband is generating a couple photography clients, so it's as much as we would like, but it's kind of working.

The idea is that we, we don't want to go back to normal 9-to-5.

We want to really, really make these work.

I respect that.

We're just hoping to keep money coming in.

What are the two businesses? What is it he's doing?

Photog.

What are you doing?

Operations consulting. So before I was like an executive assistant operations manager, so now I am doing consultant for like, you know, small business owners, founders, um, consulting for their businesses, cleaning up their anything, you know, cleaning up their papers, inbox, documentation.

Okay.

So many different things.

And what do you need to bring home every month to match what you guys were making before?

Um, we were bringing in together— he was bringing in $3,600 bimonthly, so twice a month, and I was bringing in about $2,400. So in total, I believe we were, yeah, right around like $10,000, maybe $12,000.

Yeah, I'm seeing $12,000 is what you guys were bringing in take-home, which is more than we needed.

Yeah, that's what we are bringing in take-home after taxes, which is more than we needed. Our expenses, um, prior to losing our jobs were about $3,600, but we've since been able to get that down to $2,700 to just to stay in our home.

Oh boy. Okay, well, we want to, we want to calculate beyond that because you got to live, right? You have to have a, a lifestyle that you joy. Um, so if you said, hey, for us to obviously not just pay our bills, but just to kind of have a life and be able to invest a little bit and save a little bit and, and not just be bare minimum, what do you think that number is?

I would say about $3,500.

Okay.

Um, yeah, that, that would take care of the home and then we could invest a little bit as well. And we do have actually, um, $10,000 invested into a Betterment account. Sorry, I'm just pulling more out.

That's fine.

Um, But we do have $10,000 in a Betterment. I wanted to ask, is that what Dave considers good growth stock mutual funds? Does that count?

It depends on what it's invested in. My guess is it's in a taxable brokerage account that's non-retirement, and then you can buy anything within that. So you tell me what you invested in.

I actually don't know because I put it in the hands of the account because I didn't want to pick individually.

Like a robo-advisor? A financial advisor?

Uh, no, it wasn't.

What do you mean, in the hands of the account advisor?

So Betterment is the, the platform, and essentially I understood that they were investing it into the S&P 500.

Got it. No, okay, so it's likely in some sort of index fund, which is— it's fairly close to a mutual fund that we talk about on the show, which is you want to diversify across, you know, different types of companies. So large-cap, mid-cap, small-cap companies, and international. That's what we recommend. Your index Your mutual fund is likely not as diversified. It's probably mostly large-cap companies, but that's not a crisis right now. But I would not be investing until I had consistent income because you guys are still— you're not as safe as it feels. You're in a great spot. You've done an awesome job. No debt except a mortgage. You've got $40,000 sitting there to protect you. But I don't want it to give you a false sense of security either and get too comfortable.

Right.

I, I, I agree.

I want to say to you, I love businesses. I love small businesses. I love people who are like, I break out of the 9 to 5. I, I, I love that. I just want to know how consistent we are because the best way to do that is having a consistent income while we build the business. And then once the business gets to a point to where it really is spitting off enough income for us to live our lives on, then we can transfer and do the business full-time. So right now it does sound like you guys are in those, that stage of, hey, we've got money coming in. It's still a little inconsistent. We're still trying to build the structure out, especially I haven't heard much on the photography side of things. For that reason, I think that you both probably should pick up two other jobs. Like, you should pick up another job, he should pick up another job. And the point is, hey, this is not our long-term play. This is just to get us some consistency while we build the thing that we really do want to do. And there's no shame in that game.

That is the way that it's done. Otherwise, you guys are going to be living hand to mouth.

Like, yeah, especially if you're both reliant on clients. That's kind of a scary situation versus one of you having the stable stable income, and now you're out here trying to gather the clients, and if you have a bad month, it's not going to sink you guys. Was he doing photography before full-time? What was he working in?

Uh, just kind of freelancing. He was doing photography and he was working as a similar consultant, office manager kind of deal. That said, we did, you know, think a similar thought, but we were concerned that maybe getting sucked back into the 9 to 5, you know how it just gets tiring, you know, and then you feel like you don't have time for yourself at the end of the day or time for the kids. So we were afraid that would take away all of the momentum from the businesses. And the next thing you know, we look up and, you know, 2 years later we're still just comfy in these 9 to 5.

Well, what you could do is you could split it and say something like— and this is just me looking at the numbers you've given me, it may be different— but I'd go, okay, so the person who has the biggest upside right now seems to be you. You can go out, you can get a couple clients and make $2,000 or $3,000, which is just shy of what it is that you need. So I'd say, okay, given that information, husband, why don't you go out and get the stable job? Or I hate to say stable. You go out and get a job that's going to bring in some consistent income. I'll go out and I'll build my thing over here. And once that gets solid, that will allow you to then go out and build your thing, right? We don't have to both do it simultaneously. You guys are young. You've got two babies. You've got time to build this, and I want you to, please hear me say, I want you to do this. I just want you to do it in a way that's going to cause as little rocking of the boat and as little, uh, financial ups and downs as possible.

And entrepreneurship, self-employment, the first couple of years, it ain't for the weak. It's not 20 hours a week with a bunch of flexibility. It's 80 hours a week. And so I don't want you to get it twisted that this is going to be a walk in the park either, going this way.

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You know, we wish we could get to every single single call and question here on the Ramsey Show, but that's just not possible. So if you have a money question and you want an answer for your question, go ahead and head over to our website, uh, ramseysolutions.com, and use the Ask Ramsey tool. Ask Ramsey is our free AI tool. It's built and trained on proven Ramsey principles, and you'll get an answer the same way that we'd answer it here on the show. Ask your question today at ramseysolutions.com, or just click the link in the description if you're listening on podcast YouTube. All right, Kris with a K is in Atlanta, Georgia. All right, Kris, how can we help today? Hi there.

I have a question about debt. I have a few different categories of debt, and I am trying to determine which to pay off first.

Okay, we can help.

Yes, so I have a mortgage payment. The mortgage I have left is about $190,000. $200,000. My interest rate is 2.5% on that mortgage. For student loans, I have about $23,000 with the highest interest rate is 4.6%. And then my car, I owe $16,000 with a 5.5% interest rate.

Okay, anything else, or those, those three are it?

That is it. I luckily don't have any credit card debt.

Way to go. Okay, well, first off, we tend to separate the debt by consumer debt versus mortgage debt. Uh, we don't touch the mortgage debt until a little bit further down in our steps of methodology. So, are— how familiar are you with Ramsey? How long have you been listening?

I, I'm just an occasional listener. Um, so not very much.

Okay, so for your benefit and for anybody else listening, we have a 7-step, 7 Baby Steps program that we teach, and it helps people not only pay off debt, but, uh, you know, long-term they're building wealth as well and doing all of the things that are necessary to do with your money. So part of that, Baby Step 2, is the pay off your debt section of this methodology. And like I said, we break it up. Mortgage debt is not until Baby Step 6. So today we're just looking at the student loans and the car payments. So that's the first answer to your question. And then within Baby Step 2, what we do is the debt snowball method. A debt snowball method is when you list your debts from smallest to largest by balance. And so in your case, I know that you read off the interest rates, but we do it smallest to largest by balance because we find that over time, people are more willing to stick with the process and they're able to experience small wins quicker. And so for people who actually want to finish paying off their debt, studies show that the debt snowball method works best in order to do that.

So you mentioned that the student loans were broken up. How many individual ones are there?

I have a mix of subsidized and unsubsidized.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and there are 6 and they all vary between $3,000 to $5,000. And I've been on a forbearance for the last several years since COVID Mm-hmm. Uh, with the repayment plan. And so I I need to change my payment plan or I just need to pay off the debt. Yeah. Um, so that's kind of what I'm curious about, especially because the car is less money, right? I, I owe less on the car. So are you suggesting I should pay off the car first and then the student loans?

No, I'm suggesting since the student loans, there's 6 of them, I would go through tonight and look at what the individual balances are. So you might have one for $3,000, you might have one for $8,000, you might have one for $7,000. Whatever those numbers are—

you say there are 3 to 5 total, like $3,000, $3,000, $4,000, $5,000?

Yes, yes, $23,000.

So if you use our EveryDollar budgeting app, it'll list out the debts from smallest to largest for you, and that will give you your next step. So you're gonna make minimum payments on all of the debts, but that smallest balance, that $3,000 student loan, that's the one you're gonna throw extra money at. And once that's knocked out, you free up that payment, now you apply that newfound payment to the next smallest debt. And so that's how the snowball starts to gain traction. And that momentum, like Jade talked about, is what actually causes people to follow through with it versus interest rate focused.

Got it.

Yeah. And then after that, I know it's probably tough for you because you're, you're used to these student loans being on default and so, or being on, you know, forbearance. Forbearance. Thank you. And so you're not paying the payment. And so you're probably thinking, oh, if I just pay off my car payment, that's a bigger— that's more money that's being freed up. I totally understand that line of thinking, but psychologically what George said is absolutely true. Uh, I use the debt snowball method to pay off, uh, $230,000 of student loans, but in a total $460,000 of debt. And I can tell you it really does work. George used it as well. Um, and so that's what I would suggest. How much money do you How much do you bring home every month?

About $7,000 to $8,000.

Awesome.

Mm-hmm, yeah. I have a good chunk of savings, too, which is why I thought maybe I could go ahead and pay off— I have about $60,000 in savings.

Oh my—

wait, you're telling me you could pay off all of your consumer debt today and have money left over?

Yes.

And we just spent 7 minutes walking you through this like it was going to be a whole ordeal?

Kris with a K, I'm mad that you told us this this late.

Come on, you buried the lead. I thought you were broke.

Yes. No, I, I've done my savings, and I, you know, because they've been on forbearance, I haven't really thought about paying towards it.

The interest has been accruing this whole time. I know, that's the scary part. You're going to look up and that balance is ballooned.

Yeah, that's what it is. And then the income did, you know, start to increase a little bit in the last few years, which is, um, why I'm in this position now to be able to pay some of that off.

Well, I'm glad you are.

So you're going to pay off all the debts today. Congratulations.

You still have money left, and you'll have 21 grand left.

We're going to call that your emergency fund. You may want to add a little bit to it. We recommend 3 to 6 months of expenses.

That's baby step 3.

So if you're a solo income earner, you may want to lead towards 6. And so if your expenses are, let's say, $5,000 a month, $30,000 is 6 months. So you got $9,000 to go, and you'll save up $3,000 a month for the next 3 months, and boom, by Christmas you are completely debt-free with an emergency fund of $30,000, and you're investing 15%— that's baby step 4— into retirement accounts. And if you just do this, I know it sounds like, oh, should I let go of the savings? Uh, should I focus on the— if you just, just trust us on this one, this is a trust me, bro situation. You will be in a very different place mentally, emotionally, financially when you don't owe anyone money. You've got a pile of money in the bank and you're building toward the future.

Yeah. I love a call like this where we find out that there's some cash that they're sitting on. But even if you're listening now and you're thinking, okay, I have debts. Trust me, if you just start to think about this, think about, do you have money? Do you have stocks? Do you have money sitting in a brokerage account?

Non-retirement things you could sell.

Are there things you could sell?

Vehicles, toys, recreational vehicles.

Yes.

That's what George and I do. When you guys call in and tell us your list of debts, we're thinking, okay, what are the easiest ways that we can knock out money? And it's almost always, it's sitting in stocks, it's sitting in a brokerage account, or it's sitting in your vehicles if you're just willing to liquidate them and drive a hoopty for a while. And you would be surprised.

Even like pausing investing. If you're investing, yeah, you know, 5, 10% and you pause that, that's money back in your paycheck.

Yes.

Or if you get a big refund, change your withholding.

Yeah. Yes. Thank you, George. Changing your withholding. A lot of us got refund checks back from the IRS. If you take that amount and divide it by 12, you could essentially get that much money back in your paycheck if you just change your W-4 withholding.

That's $3,600 refund, that's $300 a month you could have had in your paycheck.

Yeah, that's big money, big money. I love this. So just take a moment tonight, comb through your assets, comb through what you have, and you might find that getting debt-free is quicker than you think. All right, I love a social question, George. How about we do it? This is Daryl from Facebook. He says, should gifted money received for a birthday be separate from household income and theirs to spend as they choose? Or should all income, regardless of its source, be considered household income?

Oh, brother.

Come on, you better spend that birthday card.

Say the quiet part out loud, Darryl. Like, I want to keep this money for me.

Yeah, keep your wife's hands off of it. She's like, she's like—

and the question is like, where are we at financially? If we're in crippling debt and you got $100, you may need to throw it at the debt. But if you're in a decent spot financially and, you know, Grandma gave you birthday money. Like, if my wife gets birthday money, I'm not like, hey, you know, uh, I get a cut of that, right?

Oh, that's not right.

It should go towards, uh, the bills this month.

However, can I just tell you, this is like a real story. There were several years, uh, my mother-in-law Bubby, she would give us like, uh, cards every year for our anniversary. She would give us Valentine's Day cards. I'd get a birthday card. I can tell you that money went to utilities many times when Sam and I were getting out of debt, or it went towards getting, you know, paying off a credit card balance or getting back current on something.

So I love it. The receiver gets to choose how the blessing plays out.

I know, but it is kind of sad when you don't get to spend your birthday money on your birthday.

What'd you buy?

Electricity? Does that count?

Water.

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All right.

Our Ramsey Show scripture and quote of the day. Ecclesiastes 10:10 says, if the ax is dull and its edge needs unsharpened, more strength is needed, but skill will bring success. John Wooden said, talent is God-given, be humble. Fame is man-given, be grateful. Conceit is self-given, be careful.

Wow, I like that.

That's a Foreboding. All right, Jenny is in Cincinnati, Ohio. Hey Jenny, you're on the line.

Hi.

Hi.

How can we help?

Um, so me and my fiancé are getting married in October. We've been together since high school, and, um, he bought a house last June, and I'm not on it yet, obviously, because we're not married. But he got it through a VA loan, and the VA inspector missed a bunch of stuff. So our $150,000 home, we had to put $50K in so far.

Wow.

On repairs and maintenance, unfortunately. And last month I got laid off from my job, and we're doing okay-ish. It's just after I got laid off, we found out that all all of our waste plumbing was still clay pipes and they collapsed.

Oh, oh boy.

So that was another $30,000 we had to take out in debt for that.

How old is this house?

Uh, it was built in 1910.

Goodness gracious.

Okay, and this, this inspector really screwed you guys big time.

Yeah, which is what we've been told, but Since being laid off, uh, our PIPE payments don't start till next month, and I've been applying like crazy daily, even to like entry-level fast food jobs, and I keep getting rejected. And I just want to know how to deal with the guilt and ways that I could help him out more, because I've been feeling really guilty. He assures me it's fine. He's pretty, uh, traditional traditional where he thinks that the man should take care of a majority of things anyway. But I come from a family that if you're a woman, you still have to make your own income and you should feel financially secure on your own in case anything happens. So I'm feeling a lot of emotions and I don't know exactly how to deal with that.

Hmm.

Well, I'm hearing two things. I, I want to get to the emotional part, uh, but I also am thinking about this home inspection, and you can, uh, you can pursue a claim against a home inspection company. I don't know if you've looked into that, but I mean, if it's—

yeah, sorry for interrupting.

Yeah, did you?

Uh, so unfortunately I can't do anything because I'm not on the house itself, the contract, mortgage. But I keep telling him to pursue that because I can't do anything. If I could, I— sure, I would be on the phone daily.

Why is He is just—

I love him.

He's a very laid-back person when it comes to stuff like that. He'd rather figure stuff out himself than—

to the tune of $80,000?

Yes.

That's not, that's not a fun way to be chill, to just go into crippling debt and do nothing about it. So he's right in that this is his problem, not from a like traditional man standpoint, because if that was the case, you guys wouldn't be living together before marriage if he was like super old school in that way.

But this is his house.

And so let's say you guys, God God forbid you broke up and you put $50,000 of your own money into this house, you have no claim on this house.

Yeah.

And so that's the scary part. This is his problem to deal with legally, financially, and you have your own problem. If you guys broke up, you have nowhere to live and you have no income. And so you both have your own crises to deal with right now, and this is on him to figure out this financial aspect. Now, once you're married, you combine your lives. Now it's going to be your jobs together to clean up the mess and to get to a better spot financially. But right now you both have your homework to do.

Mhm.

Now what were you doing for work before you were fired, or laid off?

I was an insurance agent, so I was the one that pushed him originally with the pipes happening, and I pushed him to look because he didn't know if he had any, um, sorry, blanking on it, but like the extra stuff you add to your home insurance.

Mm-hmm.

He had no idea if he had any of that or not.

Any of that?

So I'm like, well, he did.

Oh, but the clay pipes are considered wear and tear, which is not covered under most home insurance policies.

Sure.

Yeah.

That, that insurance company didn't exist when those pipes were put in. So that's the hard, the hard part here is I would be going through that thing. I would upload my insurance documentation to AI and help me figure all of this out.

Yes.

And do some due due diligence here to figure out what we can go after, what we have to cover, what isn't covered. Yeah, so that's part of this whole thing. But what is he making right now?

Uh, I believe he makes around $3,000 to $4,000 a paycheck, and he gets paid twice a month or what?

Yes.

Okay, so he's making a great income, $6,000 to $7,000. And have you tried to get back into the insurance world?

Yes, it's just I'm having issues It's like I just get rejection emails or I get ignored even if I try to reach out again.

Well, do you know people in the insurance world that you can contact personally versus just sort of a name in a digital stack?

Uh, yes, I've tried to reach out, but most of the time they're just— so unfortunately with my company, the reason I got laid off is, um, they got acquired by a bigger company. So they weeded out the old employees.

And from what kind of insurance were you selling?

Uh, it was life insurance and car insurance.

Okay, because a lot of these jobs are commission, so it's not like they need to go pay you a whole bunch of money, right?

Yeah.

So I would be contacting every single person I know who's still in the insurance world who's not tied to that company and say, hey, are you guys hiring over there? What kind of positions? Can you give me a reference, a referral? That's how a lot of people get hired here at Ramsey, because we get thousands and thousands of applications, and the ones that pop to the top is because, well, Jade said he's awesome, you should look into him.

Yeah, that'd be my homework for you tonight, is I'd be compiling a list, and I wouldn't go to sleep tonight until I have at least 10 people on that list, even if it's somebody that somebody else knows that can say, oh, my buddy has a friend, right? Get— it's okay if you're 1 to 2 people away. It's just something that someone can say, oh, I know somebody, or I know love somebody, that's, that's going to be something that's really going to help you. Um, that being said, don't stop applying. You know, you've got to get something. So keep applying, uh, keep looking for that in-between job to have something in the meantime, because I agree with you, you, you want to contribute. And I know that you're getting married, but today you want to contribute and you want to use your skills. And I think that you should. So keep working towards that. And I, I mean, my heart goes out to you because I know that tough. It's not, it's not easy to lose a job and it's not always easy to find a new job. So you do have your work cut out for you, but don't give up on that.

And I do think that this also opens up an opportunity in your marriage to have some deeper conversations about expectations and how we're going to handle money and how we're going to handle things that pop up, right? Because this is an $80,000 deal here. We don't want to sleep on this. And we don't want to, you know, go easy on it because we're quote-unquote chill.

Yeah, if this is what the next 40 years of marriage looks like, is he's super passive and you're super frustrated, it's not going to bode well. And you guys have known each other a long time. So, you know, here's the parts he probably will change or is willing to change, and here's where this is just who this guy is. And I love that about him, that he's so chill. And also, there's a downside to that. So, some new conversations to have. But I would also look into just side gigs right now, Jenny, I know it's tough to kind of swallow the pride. I mean, you've done a great job just going, I'm going to apply to entry-level fast food. I'll do anything. I just want to have the, you know, that feeling of I'm producing, I'm adding some value here. And that might be, you know, delivering pizzas. I'd be going everywhere going, hey, are you guys hiring right now? I'd be driving around town looking for any hiring signs and I'd walk in there as the best employee they've ever had.

Absolutely. George and I actually did a segment on side hustles on Friday. Friday, that episode aired on Monday. You can find it on our, uh, Ramsey Solutions YouTube, but people posted tons and tons of side hustles in the comments of what they're doing and what they're earning from it. Um, one person said, and I'm not saying that you're gonna go on to do this, but just for anybody who's looking, one person said that they do document review and they do it from home. They make $23 an hour.

Wow.

Photography. If you have a, a special skill, I'm not saying it has to be photography. Even if you can watch kids or babysit kids or be a nanny. Those are services that people will pay money for, uh, based off of your skillset, based off of your background check that you can do. That's true.

Yeah.

You, and there's like a lot of apps and sites that make it easier. Like if you're gonna watch kids or walk dogs, Care.com.

Yes.

You can jump on there. Or if you're gonna deliver Instacart, DoorDash, all of these apps can help. Even finding side gigs, like doing, you know, special events. They need people to help out and serve concessions, all all kinds of things.

Yeah, that's right.

You just gotta be looking for those opportunities.

That's correct. Well, George, that puts this one in the books. Remember guys, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.