Transcript of Stop Living in Financial Chaos

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Normal is broke and common sense is weird. So we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network and the Fairwinds Credit Union studio, this is The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by my ride-or-die, Dr. John Delony, and we're taking your calls at 888-825-1111. 5225. John, are you doing all right? You need a moment?

There's a lot going on. We're good though, man. Let's dance.

This should be a fun show.

I'm not your ride or die. I would probably show up.

I said it facetiously.

Okay.

That's a $10 word.

That was a big word.

Thank you. I went to college.

Look at you using ChatGPT.

Don't need 2 PhDs to know that.

You went to Alabama College, so let's don't, let's don't stretch on that.

Okay, Roll Tide. Adam's in Green Bay, Wisconsin. What's going on, Adam?

Hey guys, good afternoon. Thanks for having me on the show today. It's a pleasure being on and looking forward to it.

Absolutely.

I got a question for ya. So, I'm within about 12 months of being completely debt-free.

Awesome.

Which is great. Yeah, I've been sacrificing for about 15 years.

Wow.

You know, I met my wife, yeah, probably 12 years ago, and we've just had our nose down to the grindstone. We've been doing the right things, following the show, doing the Baby Steps. Um, the last thing we got to do is pay off the mortgage. So if we're working hard enough on it, we'll probably have it paid off in about 12 to maybe 14, 16 months, something like that.

Awesome.

So, uh, I don't know, this is gonna be a little maybe pep rally or reassurance check or what, but I'm getting a little, uh, getting a little nervous because now I'm able to forecast, uh, what the next year looks like. And it's looking like I'm gonna have about an extra $700 per month to use after I free up that mortgage.

What's the mortgage payment?

Well, the mortgage payment is actually, thankfully, I bought the house quite some time ago. Mortgage payment is $600 every 2 weeks.

So $1,200 a month or so?

Yeah, about $1,200 a month, but that's escrow, With my property taxes and homeowner's insurance.

So principal and interest side, you'll save $700 a month is what you're saying?

Correct.

Okay. I was like, man, there should be more margin with a paid-off house. Do you guys have any extra margin now outside of the extra? 'Cause you're paying extra on the mortgage, right?

Yeah, we are. Yep. We are paying extra. Yep. So, and that's, we're living this lifestyle now where we got some extra, we're already saving $400. And this is after everything is, all the Baby Steps are covered, everything's, You know, paid off. We're doing the right things. We're making sure— we're kind of spreading ourselves thin on purpose just to make sure 401s and IRAs and all that.

If you're doing it right, there's not just like a huge pile of money sitting in the bank account every month. You already have a plan for it.

Correct.

Okay. So you're investing 15%, you're putting some money away for college if you have kids, and you're throwing extra at the mortgage.

Yes, exactly.

What's your question?

Yep, we're right on track. Well, my question is, uh, you know, the light at the end of the tunnel is looking dimmer than expected. And, and I don't know if I'm just need— I need to maybe take a breath and just realize I am doing the right things and, and everything, but $700 extra a month is not going to move the needle a whole lot. It's, it's going to give us some breathing room. Uh, however, we've been sacrificing so heavily that we've neglected some things around the house. You know, uh, flooring needs to be fixed, or, you know, we may need to— we're looking at buying a to put some stuff in. And, you know, these things are gonna take quite a bit of time to save up and pay cash for. So once I start adding all this stuff up in my head, I'm like, oh boy, we're gonna be dead by the time we—

By the time you've actually done all the things you need to do as an adult?

Yeah, kinda, yeah. And some of the stuff is, you know, you guys would probably slap me a little bit and go, well, you don't need a new car, so let's not worry about that. But that's in the future. You know, one day maybe I do want a new boat or a new car. And if I'm just saving up for cash to pay for all that stuff, it just seems like it's going to take an eternity to do that.

Sure. Well, there's levers you can pull here. I mean, there's your income side and the expense side. And it sounds like you guys have been pretty good on the expense side, living fairly frugally. So how much do you guys make?

Well, we take home about $5,400 a month. My wife is a stay-at-home mom. We have a 4-and-a-half-year-old daughter.

Awesome.

So I'm currently— providing the income for our family. We live a pretty frugal lifestyle. Thankfully, I bought the house in 2009, and it's quadrupled in price since then. I'm fortunate enough to pay a mortgage that is a lot less than if you were to get one today.

Yeah, that's what I'm wondering. So after the mortgage is paid, you should have $4,200 left over today.

Well, yeah, to pay for the bills.

Then we've got a little I think you can squeeze more margin out of this, and I think you're also not realizing your income is going to go up over time as a household, especially if your wife ever returns to work. Is that a game plan?

Well, that was one of the questions she actually said, you know, you should maybe ask them if they think it's a good idea to, you know, if she were to look for a job or not. And as a husband, and we kind of live more of a traditional lifestyle, um, I, I like that she's a stay-at-home mom. I'd prefer that, and I would rather take that burden off of her shoulders if possible. So I think I know what you're gonna say, and if I had to guess, it would be, well, if you wanna live a little bit more lavish of a lifestyle, you just need to find ways to make more income.

Well, don't voluntarily take that weight on your shoulders and then complain about it.

Correct.

Yeah.

Right?

Like, if that's a choice you wanna make, that's awesome. Good for you and good for her. Maybe call me untraditional, non-traditional. I don't, I don't know that that's a, a decision I think you should unilaterally make. If she's asking you, do you, do we, do you need me to go to work? Do we need to go to work? Versus, hey, I'm kind of burnt out on staying here all day. I would like to get back out with other adults in the world. Like, that's something I would hope y'all would make together.

Mm-hmm.

I, I, I'm, I'm struggling, brother, buying the $700 margin thing. That is, that's not passing my smell test. I'm not as good at math as George is, but Mm-hmm. That doesn't feel right.

For, for, in what means?

Meaning you bring home $5,400 a month and let's say you put $1,000 away every month for, um, taxes and insurance. Is that too low?

Uh, well, I'm predicting that, um, I put away about $500 a month for property taxes and insurance. So that'd leave us the $700.

But that leaves you $4,800 a month.

So we're talking food, utilities, transportation, fuel, other insurances. And beyond that, that's where I want you guys to dig into an actual EveryDollar budget and sit down together and say, can we find more margin here? Because I think what you're going to find is you could— you're going to be able to squeeze out $1,700 a month once you pay off the mortgage if you do it right, which is $20,000 a year. Which should be enough to cover home repairs, upgrading the car over time, and living your best life.

Now, I will tell you this, if this is the, the, the bigger question you're asking, which is, or the, the bigger pressure you're feeling, which is, I thought when I didn't owe anybody anything, I wouldn't have to worry about money anymore. Like I thought if I sacrificed for 15 years, I wouldn't have to think about it anymore. And that feeling, brother, is real. And that's the worst and it's frustrating. And for whatever it's worth, like Dave is a, is our boss, but Dave's also a friend of George and I. And I hear Dave say all the time, I was thinking about buying this, but I, I'm, I, I'm not, I don't wanna spend that much, that kind of money on this. And so there is always gonna be an intentionality with your money regardless of how much you have. Hey, I wanna talk to you for a second about love, and not love like in Titanic or something. I mean responsible love, the kind of love that moves you to take care of the people closest to you. And one of the most important ways to show that kind of love is by having term life insurance.

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Brandon is in Nashville, Tennessee.

on the road. What's going on, Brandon?

Hi, um, I, I'm a first-time caller. I just want to tell you all how much I appreciate you guys. Um, I, uh, I, um, I'm just, uh, think I'm finally reached the point where I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired and, um, a walking example of why not to do everything you all say not to do. Um, I have, uh, I bought a— I, instead of trying to pay off All my debt first, which is what my original plan was. I bought a house last year, um, FHA, 3.5% down, um, and racked up more debt after I bought the house. And, um, so now I'm a little upside down on the house. I'm upside down on a car that I didn't even have before buying the house. And I have so much debt. I'm just trying to break it down and Figure out if even keeping the house is an option. And if it is, what do I pay off first? Where do I— how do I get to where I need to be?

Yeah, man, that's heavy. Well, let's walk through this in a very tactical way, because I think when it feels emotional and overwhelming, it helps to just look at the numbers and kind of get the boogeyman out from under the bed. So what is your income?

My income, It's sustained around $115,000, but I am a flight attendant. It's variable. I can pretty much work as much or as little as I want.

Beautiful.

So I can get it way above that if I need to.

That's music to my ears.

And I will.

Okay. That's a great lever we can pull to get out of this faster.

And do you have family or dependents or anybody sharing this rent with you, or are you all on your own?

My mom lives with me right now. She gives me money. I've just been putting it to the side for her because she's on disability and I, um, I just want her to be able to sustain herself, um, down the road. And so we're teaming together. She watches my dog while I'm, while I'm flying so I can work as much as I need to. And, um, so I don't have any income coming in, but she lives with me.

Okay.

And how much debt do you have? Outside of the mortgage?

Outside of the mortgage, $80,868.

And what kind of debt is that? Break it down.

The car is $33,878. I have a consolidation loan that I should have never gotten, which was $31,099. I owe the IRS $13,041. I owe $1,901 on appliances. And $947 on a phone. And it all comes out to about $1,664 a month in payments.

Okay. And what do you take home every month?

Um, my, my, when I, when I'm working like I'm supposed to and not, I, I've, I've, it's $8,000 usually. I've just been struggling to go to work with my depression and everything. So I'm trying to get back my hours back up right now. So what's your, what's your mortgage every month? With the HOA, it's $3,046.

Man, so that's eating your lunch right now out of your $8,000 take-home pay.

Right.

We recommend 25%. So if it was at $2,000, we'd call this a win. And so right now, a big part of it is your consumer debt. A big part of it is the mortgage. And the part that we can control today is getting rid of the consumer debt payments. So nothing— can you afford the mortgage payment every month? You're not on— you're not at risk of being behind, right?

No, I haven't missed a payment. And I, um, I mean, by next year I'll have a 9% raise, and then I get 5% every year after that for 4 years. So I feel like I'm gonna keep getting better. I just, I just want to get rid of something.

Yeah, well, the house isn't on fire right now, so can we compartmentalize and put this house on the back burner and say We're gonna be okay. You didn't lose money. It's like a stock. Until you sell it, you're not gonna realize a loss or a gain. And Nashville is a solid market. Let's just hope in the next couple years the market bounces back up, you're out of the water, and you've also been adding equity with every payment.

Right.

So now if we focus all of our energy toward your smallest debt, which one is that? Is that appliances or the phone?

It's the phone.

Okay. Then we have the IRS debt. I'm gonna put an asterisk on that because that one's gonna go to the top of the list because they can destroy your life. Garnish your wages, all of that. So let's— you have a payment plan with them? Have you talked to them?

I do. I pay $170 a month.

Okay, so let's knock that one out first. And then this car loan, what's that? What's the car worth? You owe $33,800 on it.

It's $26,000. So I was— I just need to pay it down by $8,000 to get rid of it. And I, I just didn't know if I should prioritize that or what, what to do first. But I feel like—

You have any savings?

Um, and no, I have $147 in my checking, but I also, I get paid tomorrow. And so I, I try to budget all the way down to zero. Okay.

How much do you have in the secret account for your mom that she thinks she's paying you rent, but you're not really?

Uh, she, she does know I'm doing it for her, uh, but it's, it's $4,000 in there.

Okay. Because I'm thinking instead of you trying to pay down the car to get it there, because what's going to happen is the car is going to continue to depreciate. So you might be better off just setting money aside to cover the amount you're underwater on, or going to your, your local credit union down the road and getting a personal loan for the difference, plus enough to get something to get from A to B. Is this the only car at the house?

No, my— I have another car. It's a 2005 Scion that my mom drives when I'm gone because we live 35 miles away from the airport.

Oh man, that's a hike. Okay, because I'm trying to think. You obviously need transportation, but getting rid of this car, what's the payment on that?

$714.

Goodness gracious, you could really make a dent in those other debts if you freed up that payment.

I know.

That's why I just realized that was one of my biggest mistakes.

Yeah. And is that $2,600 private party value or trade-in?

That's Carvana, but I feel like Carvana usually Kids, one of them. Private party would probably be a little higher, I'm sure.

That's what I'm wondering. If you can get private party for $30,000, you have enough today to clear it with mom's savings. So I would look into what you could get private party, because man, you just got a raise and you got some breathing room. You can live to fight another day and start attacking these debts with the debt snowball. But that's the game plan. There's no shortcuts. No more consolidation. No more credit cards. We are just doing nothing but knocking out the next smallest debt. Can you focus on that instead of the whole big picture, the entire mountain? Let's just focus on the next little crest we're trying to hit.

Yes. And I, and I, I believe that as long as I can get back to working as hard as I was at the beginning of the year, that I could create $2,500 to $3,000 extra margin per month to put towards it. I love it. I, I do.

I love that, Brandon. Is, is depression something you've struggled with forever, or is this just an ever heavier shadow that's, that's just forecasting over your life as you've taken on more debt payments, got into more situations, your mom moved in? What's the nature of this?

I think I've always, I've always, I mean, I've definitely always had it. I was, um, clinical depression was, um, a diagnosis as a kid. I just think that all of the stuff recently has heightened it.

Okay.

Um, and, and I just fell into a deep depression around the same time last year, and then every time I end up being out of work.

Okay.

So I just, I Yeah. And I'm going to the doctor on Monday and I'm trying to—

Make sure you go to the doctor on Monday. I'm proud of you for that. And hang on the line. We'll hook you up with 3 months for free with our friends at BetterHelp. That you can just do that whenever and wherever. Okay. But I want you to talk to somebody.

Okay.

But one of the things I want you to do is exactly what George said, but I wanna take it one step further. I want you to not type it. I want you to get a piece of paper, old school style, and write down your debt smallest to largest.

I have it right in front of me. I wrote it down to talk with you guys. Cause I didn't know that I didn't want to pull it out of my head.

That's a dude. And getting this stuff out of your body onto paper and then mapping the plan. All right, here's, this isn't pretend. Like, I think I can get 3 or 4. I'm going to actually write this stuff down and get a map so that at the end of this month, I've paid this off. And at the end of this month, I've paid this off. And Over time, the single greatest gift you could give your mom is you being sturdy and well. Okay. And that might mean taking the $4,000 that's in this little account over here and clearing your debts so that you can put $1,000 a month away of your own money or $1,500 or $2,000 away, creating your own emergency fund from the floor up. And you'll have that money back in way, way, way, way more when it's not all flowing out of the house to pay debt payments.

Yeah.

Here's the math on it, Brandon. You get rid of that car payment like we talked about and you free up that $700, you start throwing at the debts, you'll have $48,900 left in debt. And if you chunk $2,800 a month at this thing, you're done in 18 months. Imagine who you're gonna be 18 months from now, completely debt-free with the financial strength to actually help your mom out. You're a good man.

Thank you.

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Cash flow.

Kathy's in Richmond, Virginia, up next. Kathy, welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hello.

Hey, how can we help?

I'm 56. I'm 56 years old and I'm currently separated, um, after my husband left of, uh, 24 years. He left in January and, um, I'm looking for some help or advice because I was a stay-at-home mom for 4 kids. Um, and supported my husband in his career. Um, I took care of other family members, my grandparents, um, my dad, my mom. Um, I have no Social Security points. I have no job history to speak of. Um, I do have some health issues.

Hmm.

Um, and I'm kind of in limbo right now. He left in January and there's been no separation agreement or anything done yet. And, um, I feel like he's kind of trying to For months, he kind of, I felt like he kind of played me that he was gonna come back. And then a couple of weeks ago, he told me he wasn't coming back and that he'd been seeing somebody and, um, that he wanted us to get a separation agreement written up. And the cheapest way for us to do that was to sit down and agree to everything ourselves and just have a lawyer write it up. He thought we should have Yes.

I'm not doing— so when somebody leaves another person, whether in a business arrangement or in a marriage, when somebody says this marriage is over, this business is over, we now— partnerships now enter into a business transaction. And that's what you are in. And I don't do business with dishonest liars.

Right.

And so the most unwise thing you could do is have a man who has no character, who lied to your face over, over, over months and years, who then says, I want to sit down at a table with you and we'll come up with an agreement and somebody will stamp it for us because it's going to be cheaper for me. No chance, no way, no how.

Yeah.

So you need your own attorney that's fighting for you.

You go get an attorney.

Well, I went to an attorney. I borrowed $300 from my son to go to an attorney, and I went to him, and, and it was before I found a lot of stuff out. But, um, he sat down and did the basics and, and didn't look great for me, but, um, you know, he said what it was, and, and I went on about my business. And recently I got in touch with legal aid here and They told me they couldn't really help me.

Okay. So why did you say it didn't look good for you?

Um, well, I'm currently in our home and, um, we have about $400,000 in equity in this home.

Okay.

Out of that $400,000 in equity, um, about $225,000 of it was from my parents' home That was sold and put into this house for a down payment because my mom also moved in with us at that time.

Okay.

Um, so I could help take care of her. She's here. I'm here. He left the home. Um, he's been paying the bills somewhat because obviously maintaining 2 homes when you haven't been financially honest and whatnot, um, there's been issues and a couple of times there's—

But let me, let me, let me, let me interrupt here because we have limited time and I want to make sure I pretty clear here. Part of you metabolizing the, the divorce is coming to grips with, I'm probably going to have to sell this house.

Yeah.

Me and my mom are gonna have to move possibly to a 2-bedroom apartment for a season.

Okay.

I'm gonna demand via my attorney half of the retirement accounts this, my, my ex has. I'm, any other secret accounts he has. And by the way, you can tell him all of that stuff is in discovery, all the secret accounts, all of the, all that stuff gets put out on, on paper. How long you've been having affairs, who with who, all of that stuff gets laid out. And if he comes back and says, I'll give you a, a 70% and you can have the house and you can have all this, great. He might give you the house and you still have to sell it because you can't make the mortgage payments.

Yeah.

And, but, but it's, it's recognizing Most, most folks, especially ones who get blindsided into a divorce like you're in, they recognize the marriage is over and all the grief and all the heartbreak and all of the relational mess that is, but they wanna keep everything else the same. I wanna keep in the same house.

Wow.

With the same car and the same life and the same cell phone plan and the same every— and it's, it's, it's those who can exhale and say, everything is different now. That's one that can then look at a clean slate and say, okay, here's how much money I actually have. I'm 56 and I gotta go get a job today. And it shouldn't be that way. Part of the problem, but that's where I'm at.

That's part of it.

So what are the health issues that are keeping you from working?

So I have some immune deficiency issues and I, I get sick very often and I have chronic diarrhea. Um, there's lots of things. Um, My doctor suggested that I go ahead and try to get on disability. And when I talked with them, um, with him paying the bills here, and even after, once I'm getting alimony, um, the only thing I'd qualify for is SSI. And they said that I would qualify for the disability part, but not the financial part. So I wouldn't be able to get that. And I tried to work. Um, and I got sick a lot, which poses a problem. Um, you know, obviously stress doesn't help it.

Sure.

Sure. I'm hoping that, you know, That'll get better, but I'm worried about my health insurance. I'm worried about just surviving. He makes about $115K a year, maybe $120K with his bonuses and raises, but his 401K, he pretty much wiped out during the pandemic to take care of some other things. And when he lost his job, he started rebuilding it and it's not much there. I mean, he— I had no idea how bad we were financially.

Sure.

And that was my stupidity. I take full responsibility for that. I trusted him.

Yeah.

Do you guys have any debt?

We have debt. There's credit cards, some that I didn't know about. There's 2 Parent PLUS loans. There's a car payment. He actually owes about $6,000 on a utility bill. That I didn't know about.

On your house?

At some point on my house. And at one point he had that bill sent somewhere else because it was late and didn't want me to see it, I guess, and forgot about it. And this is a small water company where we live, privately owned for our neighborhood. And so he worked something out with At some point when I did find out about it, I just lost it. And—

Okay.

But hold on. Let's do, let's do this, Kathy. Let's do this. Let's give those type of what happened to a, to a lawyer and let 'em dig through that stuff.

Yeah.

Because it's distracting you from this one terrifying question. What am I going to do now?

Yeah.

And all, I want all of your energy focused on what can you do? What are you going to do? Um, it might be, I have to make some hard phone calls to my kids cuz I can't work and I, it's gonna take 4 months for me to go through the SSI process. And like, but, but it's you saying this stuff all happened. He should have been doing this. He's been doing this for years. Yada, yada.

Cool.

Attorney, go, go to war on my behalf and get whatever you can. And here I am now. What am I going to do now? Is there an online job I can get, um, just in my house for, for a year?

That's what I'm trying to do.

Yeah, right.

So I've networked. I have a huge network, and I've reached out to everybody, and I'm, I'm working on that now. I've been putting applications in for months.

Good.

Um, trying to find a work-from-home job because that— I could, I could do some of that, you know.

Excellent, excellent.

And, and I want to, um, but I'm also, you know, I'm worried about my mom. She lives with me. I can't You know, I've got to make sure she's okay.

And all the kids are out of the house?

All the kids are out of the house.

Does she have— is she eligible for Medicaid?

She is getting her retirement and my dad's widow's benefits from my dad's job.

Okay.

Until we know what's next and how this dust settles, it's going to be hard to make a financial plan. So your goal should just be to sock away as much money as possible, get by for now, And try to clear the decks and have the best financial outcome for you so that you're not carrying a load that you can't carry.

Sit down with a lawyer ASAP and say, it's time to buckle up because we're going to war.

Hey, what's up guys?

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Hello, George and John! It's good to talk to you guys!

You too, brother! What's up?

I just want to know how I can save money for medical school. I know it's a really big expense and I really do not want to go into debt to do it.

Love this mentality. How old are you?

I'm 18 years old.

18, nice!

So the good news is med school is a little bit of a ways away. Do you guys have any money saved right now?

Yeah, so I have $20,000. I will not need to use— I will not need to use those $20,000 to pay for undergrad.

Great! How's undergrad getting paid?

So I have a scholarship that covers about maybe 70 or 80% of the total tuition. And then my parents have enough money to pay for the rest. Uh, oh, well, most of the rest. And then whatever I can work during college, we'll pay for that.

Cash flow it. So you'll leave that $20K alone for now?

Yep. Barring unusual circumstances, that should be able to work.

Fantastic.

So I, I think there's a couple of things, by the way, I'm super excited for you to go to med school. I want a world full, like there's a shortage. I want there to be good primary care doctors out there. Like I'm, I'm, I'm excited for you to do this.

Well, I'm going to be done because it's psychiatry.

Oh, nice. Nice.

Nice. I wanna do psychiatry, so I knew you'd like that.

There you go. So like, so hear me say everything I'm about to tell you is I want this to be part of your life. You, you're a young man, you're driven, and I love it. And you've got a plan already. I love that. Here's the things, the, like a, a couple of frameworks I want you to wrap your head around. Okay. First is there will be an immense amount of pressure to Sold to you that there is only one path, and that is you better be super grateful. Whatever school offers you a thing, you better take it, and you have to take it. And if you don't take it, you're a terrible person. You'll never get into med school, and it's all over for you. And whatever you get, you just pay that price. And if you don't have that money, then you borrow that money. But that, that's the path. I wanna, I want you to, I wanna free you from that. Okay? You're gonna feel a ton of pressure that way. The second pressure, and this is the one that you might not like, Is you do not have to go to med school the year after you graduate undergrad.

You can graduate undergrad, go work for 2 or 3 years, save a whole bunch of money, and then go to med school. And yes, you will not be however many years old. You still gotta do your residency. You still gotta do your psychiatric rotation. All that stuff is true. But I'm thinking, uh, you at 18, I'm thinking of you as a 33-year-old doctor, not as a 21-year-old med student. And when I come on, come into your office bringing one of my kids, or I'm struggling, or my wife is struggling, I want you not owing anybody anything so that you can look at me and be super honest and direct and give me the clearest path. You get what I'm saying?

Mm-hmm.

So I'm thinking of you way further down the road than— what, what about 21? What about 21? What about 22? What about 22? Man, if you have to wait till you're 25 to go to med school, that's awesome. It's great.

Yeah, you'd be happy to know that I've already kind of actually like thought through those things. So like, for example, I would love if I could go to University of New Mexico because they're the cheapest medical school in the nation.

Great, great. And New Mexico's a rad state. I spent a lot of time there. I love New Mexico. So it, it, but again, it's, it's looking at the price, looking at the total picture, seeing what kind of scholarships you can get. All that same stuff is still gonna apply. It's gonna be different in med school and it's gonna be more competitive and yada, yada, you know, all that stuff.

Mm-hmm.

But it is saying, okay, if you, if you look at it from, I have to go to med school in this year at this time, you, you put yourself on the only train in town, which that is accept whatever offer you get. And take out loans up to your eyeballs to pay for it. If you unhook yourself from that and say, I will buy the Lexus, which is an amazing car, when and only when I have the cash to hand over to buy that Lexus, then dude, you un— you free yourself from the traditional path, which means you also free yourself from the chaos that millions of borrowers have found themselves in across the country, myself included. That make sense?

I appreciate that. Yeah, I have one follow-up question regarding the money I do have saved. So currently, it's in a high-yield savings account, but considering I won't need to access that, most of it, for at least 4 years, bare, bare minimum, probably 5 or 6, how would you recommend I manage that money right now?

Now, that's all the money to your name?

Pretty much. I have $2,000 in a general savings account, and then I have about $500 in a checking account that I budget out of.

OK. Here's what I would do. I would definitely keep liquid money, because you're going to need it. I know you may not need it for school, but life's going to happen along the way. So it's good to just keep $20,000 in a high-yield savings account. And let's not think about it as an investment. Let's think about it as insurance. This is our never-go-into-debt insurance plan. So here's what you can do. You can set up a different fund, call it the med school fund. That can be high-yield savings. You could even invest it if this is a, you know, 6 to 8 to 10 year plan. And you can sock away every paycheck, every scholarship, grant, whatever comes your way. You put it in that med school fund and that can grow for you over the next, you know, 6 to 10 years. And if you do that, you're gonna walk out of undergrad with no debt, a big pile of money, and ready to face the world. And like John said, you might work a gap year for 2 years and sock away even more money and get accepted to an in-state public med school or University of New Mexico and know the numbers, know the facts, and go in clear-eyed going, oh, I can cash flow this.

And Thomas, what, what George just said is really, really important, okay? And here's why. I, I in no way want to cast anything out on you, okay? I hope it's a smooth ride, but for almost 20 years, my, my job was sitting with young people who came in and said, my dad's got cancer. My mom just got laid off. My mom and dad are getting divorced. My dad just died. And, or my transmission just fell outta my car and my dad lost his job. What do I do? And so I want you to do what George just said is right. At 18, you have a plan and you have followed that plan. But as you enter into higher stakes and more responsibility and you're making more decisions and you just get older, the world happens. Still. And so having that $20 grand in, in an, an account that's gonna grow as high as it can, but I mean, with as much, as much interest as it can, but also you can get it if you need it. That's really important. Okay.

Mm-hmm.

So remember this, the person with the most patience, information, and options always wins. And so that's what we're trying to set you up for. The patience being, it doesn't have to happen this year on your timeline. The options being, you don't need to just go to the one med school that accepted you. And then the information. What are all the variables at play so that I know, I know, I know what all the scholarships and grants are, who's charging what for tuition, what kind of aid I can get that's not student loans. All of that is gonna put you in the best position, and it's gonna feel like you're moving backwards because all of your friends are gonna be leapfrogging you. But what you're doing is you're moving backwards in a slingshot so that when you finally get out of med school, you are going to be catapulted so far ahead of everybody because you don't have debt. And so it's a temporary setback for a long-term win, and that's the goal here. It sounds like that's what you're wanting.

Will you do me one thing, Thomas? I've been listening to you guys for a while, so yeah.

Thomas, will you do me one thing?

Yeah, I'm ready for you.

Do you know, uh, do you have any friends or family members or neighbors who are psychiatrists?

Uh, I do not, so I will have to like meet some people that are more psychiatric.

Here's what— well, I think it's, I think it's instructive. It won't matter. Well, you would, you would need to know this before next year. Um, I'm hearing more and more folks deciding to go the psychiatric nurse practitioner route.

Mm-hmm.

Or going to be a nurse practitioner or going ahead and getting their nursing degree, working for a couple years. The hospital pays for their master's degree, and then they have saved up enough money to go get their doctorate nurse practitioner. Like, there's so many paths now that get you very, very close to what you wanna do, which is sit with hurting people. And yeah, be a resource for folks that may not take 14 years of your life, may not take 10 years of your life, and may get you out into the field earning money faster while also doing the thing you really love to do. Does that make sense?

Mm-hmm.

Now I've got friends in who work in medical schools. I've got, I mean, I love that whole process, but also be open to, there may be alternative paths to what I really want to do, which is to sit with hurting people, and in your case psychiatric places, man, maybe a psychiatric nurse practitioner is the way to go. Um, and you can stretch that over time, get a nursing degree instead of a pre-med degree, get into a hospital, get to work, and then start earning your way up that way. So that's another option. But sit and talk with people in the field and see where the field's going and anticipate it that way.

Man, I'm so proud of you. The fact that you've already said this is your goal, that you're taking debt off the table, tells me Ultimately, you're going to take debt off the table because it's not an option. You're going to find a way.

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Welcome back to The Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio. I'm George Campbell, here with Dr. John Delony, taking your calls at 888-825-5225. Xavier's in Orlando up next. What's going on?

How are you doing? I'm interested in— thanks. I'm interested in how I can pay off my debt Those are 2 opposing goals.

Yeah.

How are you gonna do this? Uh, what's the purpose of saving while paying off debt? What are you trying to do here?

I just feel like that I should have more than a couple thousand dollars, you know, available at all times just in case anything happens. Um, but I don't know what the right number to have is for emergencies, and I don't like seeing you know, the numbers that I have, if that makes sense.

I totally get that.

How long have you been listening to the show?

Not very regularly. My mom's an avid listener. So growing up, driving to school and whatnot, I'd hear it every morning. And I just thought it may be a good idea because I knew it's out there and I have those questions right now.

How much do you owe?

I graduated college a year ago and I owe about $70,000. $20,000 of that is on my car. About $8,000 is on a high-interest personal loan I took out in college to get by. And then the rest of it is student debt, which is about, I think, $35,000.

How much are you making in your full-time work?

I make $75K a year.

Okay. So George is going to give you a path that will work 100% of the time if you'll just do it. But I love the fact that you're looking at your risk profile and seeing, I don't have enough savings. I love that. That's awesome. But if you try to save and you try to pay off debt at the same time, saving while you're, while you owe other people money is like trying to turn the bathtub water on faster, but you haven't dealt with the fact there's a huge hole in the bottom of the bathtub.

Hmm.

As you keep adding water, it's just going out the bottom. And what we would need to do first is fix the bottom of the bathtub so it can hold water. And then when you turn that faucet on, dude, it will fill up so freaking fast. It'll, it'll go and go and go, but you've got a $70,000 hole in the bottom of your bathtub right now that we gotta get patched up because it can't— your bathtub can't hold water anymore. You get what I'm saying?

Mm-hmm.

So prepare yourself to feel really uncomfortable for probably 2 years of really grinding, hustling, moving. And dude, then that sucker will fill up real, real, real fast.

I'm going to quote Aladdin here on his magic carpet outside the balcony. Do you trust me?

Sure.

Alright.

I like how long that took to get here.

Let's go on a magic carpet ride.

I also pause when George asks me, do I trust him?

I try to quote Aladdin once a day. How much do you have in savings now?

I would say about $3,000. I wouldn't necessarily call that savings. That just lives in my checking account for expenses.

OK. If push comes to shove, could you keep $1,000 aside and not spend it?

Oh yeah, for sure.

Great. Let's call that your starter emergency fund, and we're gonna use that to hit all the little things that might come our way as we tackle the rest of the debts. Now, what you're saying, that day is coming when we fully fund the emergency fund to 3 to 6 months of expenses. So are you living at home right now or renting?

I'm renting. My rent is about $1,000 a month.

Great.

You got roommates, or is that you solo?

No, I have a roommate, so I'd be paying $2,000 if it was my own place. We split.

OK. Now, you have a great income, but we also have a pretty sizable amount of debt. It's pretty much, you know, you got $70K in debt, you got $75,000 coming in. So this might take a beat unless we make some drastic sacrifices. So how badly do you want to get out of debt?

Pretty badly. I've always told myself after college I wanted it to be 3 years, and I'm getting close to 1 year in and I haven't made the progress I'd like to make.

So we want to knock this out in 2 years?

I don't know how feasible that is, but yeah, that would be—

Let's, let's find out. That's $30,000 a year.

Magic carpet rides, dude. We got you.

That means $2,900 a month or so would need to go toward the debt. So looking at your current take-home pay, how much are you bringing in every month?

It's about— let me look here, sorry. It's about $2,800 a paycheck pre-tax. Post-tax, it's about $2,000. And I have 8% of that going to 401 for my—

I'm so glad you said that. I was going to ask. So you make $75K, right?

Yes, sir.

So if we take that 8% that you're putting in, that's $6,000 a year. So we both agree that paying off debt is the A-1 so that we can then get an emergency fund so that we can build wealth.

Yes, sir.

So what if we reallocated that 8%, that's $6,000, toward debt payoff instead? So now that money's back in your paycheck instead of sitting in retirement, and we're going to come back swinging. Because right now you're investing 8%. We're about to double it once we are out of debt with an emergency fund up to 15%.

What would you say to my company's matching? Because I feel like I'm losing money if I'm not putting in that minimum 8% Well, we can't talk about losing money when we're $70,000 in debt with interest. Fair enough.

If we really cared about losing money, we would have not gone into any of this debt. And so, yes, you're going to miss out on the match, but what that does is it makes you angry, doesn't it? You're like, dang it, I'm missing out on free money because of my past decisions. So here's what the whole purpose of these Baby Steps are, is to get you to be angry at the debt. The debt is the villain. Now, you had a part to play. You were an accomplice to the crime. But if we can be angry that we only have $1,000 and that's kind of scary for our emergency fund, if we're missing out on the match and that makes us angry because we'd rather get free money and build wealth, good! Because that's going to speed up the process. What happens is too many people get comfortable because they got $3,000 in savings, they get their company match, and they're in no rush to pay off the debt. They're like, I'll get there when I get there. I want you to have a goal where you're saying, man— Are you 23 right now?

Yes, sir.

Okay. Your 25th birthday, let's celebrate with a debt-free scream. That's, that's how visceral and clear you need to make it, is I'm paying off $70,000 in debt by my 25th birthday. That means this much needs to go to debt per month. That might mean you need to go get a side hustle or two.

Or it might mean, hey, Mom, can I move in for 1 year to pay all this stuff off?

Right.

Or it might mean, hey, I'm gonna sell this car and I'm gonna drive a $2,500 Camry with 250,000 miles on it. And all the paint's come off on the hood, but I don't care because at 25, I'm not gonna owe anybody any money.

Right?

And if you, if you suddenly overnight you sold this car and you took the $12,000 that George just found for you, 6 this year and 6 next year, now you're down to $58,000 against your $70,000. Now suddenly you're 22 down. Right? So you're down in the 30s of how much you owe. You get what I'm saying? How fast you can go if you start saying, I'm done with this.

Yeah, I never even considered the car option because that would save me about $500 a year on the payment and knock down my debt another $20,000 on top of that, or $500 a month.

So what's the car worth?

About $20,000. I don't know what it's worth. Um, I paid about $23,000 for it and I have a little less than $20,000 on my loan.

Okay, I would see what you can get private party for it, and if you can get a decent amount and go get you a different car, that might mean you save up for a little bit. It might mean you get a personal loan from the credit union for $5,000, but at least we're going from $20K in debt to $5K.

Yeah.

Just to get from A to B. This is not the car you drive for the next 5 years. This is your 2-year Baby Step 2 car so that the next 20, 30, 40 years of your life is just freedom. And I'm telling you, man, you make a great income for your age. You're a sharp guy. If you just trust us and do this process, You will be debt-free by your 25th birthday.

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10% off up to a $250 value. See store for details. We love hearing from you guys, so we'd appreciate if you leave a comment on YouTube or Spotify. Let us know what you think of the show, a particular call. And if this episode helped you, share with a friend. Hit that share button and send it on and keep the hope going. Eric is in Lynchburg, Virginia up next. What's going on, Eric?

Hey, guys! George, Dr. John, I just wanted to tell you, you guys are in the top 5 favorite Ramsey personalities for me.

Oh, nice! I'm glad we made the top 5!

Yeah.

I love it.

How can we help?

I'm going to quickly give you the bullet points. Um, my wife and I, we, we bought a house at the end of July. Uh, we got a mortgage for the house, but then in August, uh, we received a lump sum of money. Uh, we, our mortgage was sold to another mortgage company and we wanted to go ahead and pay it off. But we lost—

Sorry, you broke up on us. You wanted to go ahead and pay it off, but—

We wanted to pay it off, but we lost the paperwork in the move, and we called the mortgage advisor to find out who we needed to pay our mortgage to, and she urged us not to pay the mortgage because it would hurt her professionally.

In what way would that hurt her professionally?

She didn't specify, and I didn't reach back out and ask her. I don't know if it would just be that she would lose her commission or if there would be something with the investors that she works with, if it would put a black mark next to her name.

This makes no sense to me. I've heard this in the car loan world where they get a kickback, and if you pay off the car loan in the first month, Then they lose the kickback. But in the mortgage world, they make money on origination fees, and that's a one-time thing. And then they sell the loan off, as you just saw. It went to a different lender. So I don't know how this would hurt your original loan officer.

Right. And I don't know, but it's, it's been bothering me because I don't want to hurt anyone professionally.

Now, Eric, let me, let me say this, man. Man, I, I'm going back in my mind right now and I'm thinking of my friend Larissa. I'm thinking of my friend David. I'm thinking of my friend Todd. These are all folks that I have used over the years for various, like for a mortgage, for, yeah, for multiple mortgages, for banking back when I would borrow money from a local bank, all the way to the bank I work with now that is, um, I don't know any of the bankers particularly. It's a, it's an impersonal relationship. Like we do business together. That's about it.

Right.

Every single one of them, I've paid off something early and they have celebrated me. I don't like to do business with somebody that is, it, it, that is not happy when they, when I, as their customer, am winning. Do you get what I'm saying?

Yes.

And so I, I, I, I, on its face, I don't like this interaction. I don't like you, cuz basically what this person is saying is, hey, I need your family to keep staying into debt, going against your own principles, paying extra money every month, because I think this might ha— that it's just, it's not passing my smell test. But more than that, I don't, I don't wanna do business with folks who aren't in the business of helping me as their customer win in whatever way I need to You get what I'm saying?

Yeah, I do. So she specifically asked us to wait until March to pay it off.

Very strange. Well, here's the deal. She may be talking about servicing.

$5,600 in, uh, in interest.

Yeah, that— this whole thing is gross, man. It doesn't make any sense to me.

Think about it this way: if your freedom is bad for someone else's commission check, that's their compensation plan's problem. Not your mortgage payoff's problem.

Right.

So I would pay it off today and she can be upset. I don't— I mean, she's not even explaining what's going on here. And even if she did, even if she's like, well, I get a portfolio bonus because we service the loan and if that goes away then I'll lose that. That's not your problem. She can go make money off someone else who's going to hang on to their mortgage for the next 15 or 30 years. But Eric wants to be debt-free. She'll be just fine. You're not taking food off of her table. So, are you gonna pay it off today?

Uh, I'm going to, yes.

That's what I needed to hear.

Eric, I—

Eric wins.

Man, you've—

you've—

this is a rare feat, brother, but you almost got me speechless.

I can tell you're a very kind-hearted person, and when someone says, hey, this is gonna hurt me, you go, well, I wanna pause for a second.

And your loan officer didn't give you any further, any further, like, explanation as to why she needs your $5,600 or something bad's gonna happen to her?

She said it would be detrimental to her professionally.

Okay. If she gets fired over this, then she works for a terrible organization. That's not how it works. And if—

I've never heard of a situation like this.

Is she gonna pay the interest payments that you're making to keep this loan afloat? Where's her generosity here?

Right.

So let's think through this clearly. This was a business transaction.

This feels like a scam, brother. That, that, that's the best I can think of it.

I would pay it off and be done, and that way you don't have to talk to a loan officer ever again. That's how I would trade it, man. But it's, it's very sweet. I mean, the motive behind it, the heart behind it is, is sweet, but the actual logistics of this are pretty wild. I would not do it.

Yeah, you're a good man, Eric.

Better than us, apparently.

No, I mean, I know— here's the thing. If somebody says, hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask you something bananas, and it might cost you this much money, here's how you can help me out, I'll hear you out. But if I come to you and say, hey, I'm excited, this just happened, I'm about to do a thing, and you're like, hey, please don't do this, it'll, it'll hurt me professionally, I can't tell you any more than that.

I'm busy profiting off of your debt, please don't ruin that for me. That's crazy behavior. Hope that helps.

Especially to the tune of $5,600 more.

No, thank you. Connor's in Milwaukee up next. What's going on, Connor?

Hey guys, thanks for taking the call today. How you doing?

We're doing great. How can we help?

Yeah, a couple of questions. Uh, first, uh, my wife and I got married last August, August 16th of 2025, and, uh, since being married, we went from $70K in student loan debt down to $39,000.

Nice. Good work, brother.

And that is on one income. She was finishing up grad school for speech therapy. So that was just on my income. And I bring home roughly about $100K before taxes.

Awesome.

So the question at hand is we still have one loan on there with a nasty interest rate. It's about 7.8%. It's at $20,000, that single loan. It is, it's a Grad PLUS loan. And, uh, we are, we found out 2 weeks ago, expecting.

Hey, congrats!

So yeah, amen, amen. Uh, so the plan was to get debt-free and then start a family, but our good God had better plans. So we're, we're ready, we're ready to rock. Uh, the question is, the $39,000 in debt, uh, does that get put on hold? Uh, if it's not put on hold, uh, we're thinking about moving. Uh, I'm sorry if I'm rambling. The, the question here is Do we move? Because we currently live in a dirt-cheap apartment paying $1,045 a month in rent, and we're thinking about moving to a 3-bed apartment for a nursery because I work remote to be at $1,950 a month. So that's a big jump. So the question is, does the debt stay? Do we keep paying the debt or do we move and put the debt on hold?

You, you're asking 2 guys this question, so I'm gonna answer this way that, and my wife might answer differently. Um, I, I know the picture of a big fancy nursery is fun for Pinterest and stuff, but you're, you're really 18 months away from a, a, I, I, I would stay where you are and try to get this debt paid. I would stack cash actually. as much cash as I possibly could to make sure everybody gets through the pregnancy safe and sound and everything's good and all that. And after that, I would dump all that cash we'd, we'd, we'd stashed away towards this debt, get this thing knocked out, and then start looking at what's another apartment gonna look like. That's what I mean. That's what I would do. And it, it does take away the Pinterest photo or the, the Instagram photo of the new nursery.

Right.

But I mean, you're talking about a 6 to 7 to £8 little That's gonna live in your bedroom for the first 3 to 6 months. In a bassinet. That's about what you need.

I don't think we would make this move yet. I would treat it as a, hey, we are out of debt, the baby's growing, we need a little bit more room, and we have the income to do it. Because $1,950 is a big chunk of your take-home pay right now. So that's the other piece to look at, is can we even afford this apartment regardless of what happens next? If you're waiting for rates to drop before you buy a home, here's what nobody tells you. When rates fall, every buyer who's been sitting on the sidelines makes their move at the same time you do. That More competition, higher prices, bidding wars, all that. That's why I tell people to talk to Churchill Mortgage before they do anything else.

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Hey guys, thanks so much for taking my call. Sounds like all kinds of people from Virginia on here today.

It's the Virginia theme hour.

It's the Virginia theme hour. There you go. What's up?

All right, so guys, I'm, I'm 61 years old, and for years I've been following you guys. My wife and I were doing the Baby Steps. We were on Baby Step 6, saving 20% of our income. We were sitting pretty and, and paying down the mortgage. Um, on my 61st birthday last February, she decided she didn't want to be a part of the team anymore. Oh no.

I'm so sorry.

We went, yeah, that's okay, brother. I'm going to rebound. It's no worries. Um, so I had to, unfortunately I had to, I wanted to keep the house. So I, I had to refinance the mortgage and take cash out to pay her some money. So I ended up with a, instead of the two of us going in with a small mortgage, now it's me going in with a pretty big mortgage. So my dilemma is, can I still retire early despite the fact that I lost her income and have a mortgage? It's the last thing I thought I'd be doing right now, but I am where I am. I still think I can do it. I just want to see if you guys think I'm nuts. Wow.

Well, I'm so sorry, man. That's not the picture you had heading into retirement. That totally flips the table for you and restarts this next chapter.

It does indeed. It's only $2,800.

OK. And what's your income?

$350,000 mortgage.

OK.

$180,000 base, $20,000 bonus.

OK. So about $200,000, you'd say?

Yes.

And what's your take-home generally from that, your after-tax monthly income, but before investing in healthcare and all that?

$8,400. I stopped contributing 'Cause I'm ready to pull the pin.

Okay, how much do you have in your nest egg?

I've got $475,000 between a Roth and a rollover.

Okay.

I've got some unconventional stuff that I've done, guys. Keep me honest on this. So I've also got $260,000 in precious metals.

Okay.

It's secured safely. And I took in that Roth and rollover IRA account, I, I invest heavily in gold and silver mining stocks, so I know it's risky.

Um, but what do you know that we don't know, Craig? You're going all in on this, brother.

I've been studying it for a long time, and I have some people that I subscribe to that, that help guide us, and it has worked out just spectacularly for us.

Um, so what's your net worth today?

What I $1.3 million.

Okay.

But that counts what I was just going to tell you. I took $334,000 out of the rollover and bought an annuity. And I locked in— I wanted to de-risk it essentially. So I took the gains from some of these miners in January during the big run-up and took that $330,000 out, bought an annuity, and I locked in $2,200 a month for the rest of my life. When added to my, to my Social Security, if I take it in February, that'll be $5,000 a month between the annuity and the Social Security. Then I've got to roll over the Roth and the metals to carry the balance.

And what are your monthly expenses?

$7,000. And that's, that's building in a little bit of slosh. I think that's, that's, that's safe for me to do. So I've got the $5,000 locked in, $7,000 a month heading in. So essentially when I start, if I start pulling out in January, I'll start pulling out about $2,000, $2,200 a month.

So are you going to dip into Social Security early to make this happen?

I, I— if you guys don't think I'm nuts, I'm going to file in November and start taking it in February.

I think you're— I think you're insane. But like, you knew that before you called. I wouldn't do any of the things you're doing, zero of them. And so like, this is like fun for me to hear, like it's awesome, but like, yeah, this is madness. But like, you have a plan. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, I can't tell you on a, on a 3-minute call without seeing all the variables, like, yeah, just go pull the plug, man. You just retire early. You got this. And then you're gonna call back 4 years from now saying, I'm broke and can't cover my bills, and George told me to retire early. So it's, it's hard to say how long you can make this last, but so far it feels like everything is sort of feeling like impulsive now. Like you just want— I just want to do it and see what happens. And so I would have you sit down with an actual investment pro who who can slow you down, look at all the numbers, all the variables, and see, is there a better strategy? Because right now you're talking about de-risking, but then you have all these single stocks, and you got money over here, and then there's these precious metals which you're going to have to liquidate to turn into actual money to use to live, because you can't pay your bills with bars of gold yet. And so that's the part I want to investigate, is there a better strategy overall?

Keep in mind, brother, there's a strong possibility you've got another 30-plus years of being Yeah, I hear you.

I, I bought some old software.

30 years.

Yeah, yeah.

You know what I mean? And so I hear you, the game you're playing is of such bizarre risk on one side and such collapsed risk on the other. George's word is the word that I had in my mind, and it's very common. And, and you might be like, no, bro, no, no, no, no, it's all Good. But what you're experiencing is something I've heard over and over and over again for years after something life-changing happens to somebody. A loved one dies, a spouse gets Alzheimer's, a spouse just up and leaves you, a child passes away, where there's this rush for a sense of feeling aliveness, which is really an avoidance of grief and reality. And I'm gonna just run roughshod because I only got one life to live. I've already seen what happens when plans don't go the way I wanted him to go, and I'm just gonna go bananas. And that's my fear for you. I hear it in your voice. I've got this panic almost. I'm gonna do this, I do it my way. I've been following this guy on the internets, and that's— and bro, if that's you, go, go that way.

No, I'm just nervous. I'm just nervous.

You should be.

I, I think that's your body saying, I, I don't know, man. You know what I mean?

I've been, you know, I honestly, I've been planning this for 6 or 8 months. This honestly doesn't feel impulsive to me. I've, I bought the Bolden software, I plugged I put all the numbers in and verified things. And by the way, the mortgage is— it's only a 15-year, and I'm paying extra on it, so it's going to be paid off in 10 years. So because I'm paying $3,400 a month on that—

And that's even if you unplug your $200,000 income?

Yeah. So in 10 years, the mortgage will be gone. So I'll have that $5,000 a month coming in, and my expenses will only be $4,000.

But why wouldn't you stay for 24 months and pay your house off in cash? Like, what are you in such a rush to go do?

I travel for a living.

Okay.

And I've been doing it for 15 years.

Okay.

And I'm over it.

Okay.

I'm just, I'm just, I'm just over it. I'm over the airports. And frankly, I think that's what contributed to the, to the separation.

Okay. Now, now we're getting to the root of it because here's what's gonna happen.

Knowing that the mortgage will be gone And, and the annuity and the Social Security cover my bills, and I still have half a million to—

I know, but let's, let's, let's say this. If every single part of your strategy works out, then the mortgage is gone in 15 years. You can guarantee it's gone if you still work for 2 more years.

Understood.

You get the difference?

I want to have so much that I don't have to think about, can I retire? I I'd rather be like, I could have retired 5 years ago, but I like what I do.

I need every parlay to hit for me to get my money at the end of this, of this plan. I mean, dude, and you do you, boo, but I, that's just not a risk I want to put myself through when I've got a potential 30+ more years to go.

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Today's question is from Scott in Idaho. Scott writes, my wife and I are about to hit Baby Step 4, which means we'll start investing 15% of our income. I have a question around the 4 types of funds that you recommend. When you say 4 types of funds, do you literally mean we should invest in 4 individual mutual funds, or should we try to find 1 or 2 that covers all the bases?

Good question, Scott! Well, if we meant 1 or 2 that cover all the bases, we would have said that. So, 4 mutual funds means 4 different mutual funds.

That was the most spouse answer.

I would have said it, Scott! Scott's not on the line, so I feel like I can be a little— no, it is a great question. There is a lot of confusion around this, we do recommend diversifying across 4 types of mutual funds, and that is growth, growth and income, aggressive growth, and international. Oftentimes, the best equivalent to this that you might find out there in your 401 or an IRA, they might be listed as large-cap or mid-cap or small-cap or international. Those types of funds have different types of companies in them. You think about large-cap companies, their capitalization is $10 billion or more. And then you get to international companies, who are established overseas companies, but produce a lot of products that we buy stateside. So if you're diversified across all of those, you have likely thousands of companies sitting in those accounts. There might be some overlap across large-cap and mid-cap, depending on what funds you're in, but the key is that you are widely spread. So, yes, you're right. There are 1 to 2 that could cover a lot of those bases, like a total total market index fund has the entire U.S. stock market.

Now, you're still missing out on the international side, but you're largely getting the large-cap and mid-cap companies inside of those big funds. You hear like an S&P 500 fund? That's the largest 500 U.S. companies. So it's a lot of those large-cap companies. It's a great question and we do have a lot of resources around this, so we'll link one in the description below of how to actually choose mutual funds. We'll have the team drop that for you if you want to read up on that. But it is a good question, all snark aside.

By the way, that's kind of a question I would have.

John from Nashville.

John from Nashville.

Alright, Willis is in Charlotte, North Carolina, up next. What's going on, Willis?

Hey, guys! Thanks for taking my call!

Sure!

I've got a question about how to tackle my student loan debt. I guess the second part of that question would be, did I When we got into the details, I want you to tell me if I messed up by the house that I purchased and my mortgage amount and what I should be prioritizing.

Hit us with some numbers here. What's the mortgage and what is your after-tax monthly income?

So the mortgage is $2,298 principal and then all in with utilities, I'm somewhere around $2,550 to $2,600.

We'll take out utilities. We'll leave it at $2,298 for your mortgage. That's, that's gonna include principal, interest, taxes and insurance, and HOA.

Actually, that does not include HOA. So HOA would be then like $2,398.

Okay, got it.

So after-tax income is just right around $5,000, $5,100. Yeah. And then, yeah, so that's, that goes to those numbers.

So it's about half to cover the mortgage. It takes about half your take-home pay.

Exactly.

Okay, that, that's a lot of house for sure. And how much student loan debt do you have?

I've got $32,000 in student loan debt. Now the good thing is— not, not on— it's not good on that behalf, but I have no other debt whatsoever. I've crushed all that in the last 3 years. Good.

Are you married?

I'm not. I'm single.

Single. OK, great. What do you do for work?

I'm in the solid waste industry. We build RNG facilities. We convert methane to natural gas.

John knows a lot about that.

Keep doing it, brother. It's a good business to be in.

So let's talk about this. You're trying to connect the dots here between your student loans and the mortgage. What's the question in here?

I guess the question is, do I have too much house? Should I be looking to get out of the house so that I can then kind Take a step back to go forward and crush the student loan debt, and then from there, look into the housing market again.

We recommend doing this in a certain order. What you're describing here is what happens when you do it out of order. We recommend getting out of all consumer debt, getting a fully funded emergency fund, and then purchasing a house on a 15-year fixed-rate mortgage where the payment is no more than a quarter of your after-tax monthly income. So what you're describing here is half of it is your mortgage and we have these student loans. And do you have savings? Do you have an emergency fund?

I do, yes. I have around $12,500.

Okay, great. So one problem doesn't solve the other here. Even if you were completely debt-free outside of the mortgage, this is still too much house. Now, the too much house is not helping you pay off the student loans because there's not much margin to go at this debt. Is that the main issue here?

Say that one more time.

There's not a lot of margin left over after all of your bills are paid to then throw extra at the student loans.

Exactly. And I've tossed around, you know, is it that, you know, the house is obviously one of the issues. Do I chase a larger salary, or do I just kind of take the, I guess you'd say, easier route maybe and get back out of the house?

I mean, if you can double your salary, we've solved some problems. I don't know how realistic that is for you, but what I would say is that the The house is— there's some smoke, it's not quite on fire yet, but if you can't get your income up to, let's say, your, your butt— let's see, $2,400. So you're looking at close to like $9,000 or $10,000 is what you should be taking home just after federal and state taxes in order to make this make sense. So if that's not going to happen in the foreseeable future, you may want to look at selling in the next year.

Okay.

And part of that means the, the profit— will you get any profits?

Do you have enough I've been doing this since January, so I would probably just— no, I would say no.

Did you put any money down?

I did not. I find that's another kind of probably internal issues. I financed 100% of the loan.

What kind of loan is it?

It is a 5-year ARM at 5.75%.

Oh, bro, get out, get out, get out, get out, get out, get out, get out.

Ay caramba. Okay. Well, with the Fed rates just moving up, that ARM just got more expensive. So your mortgage rate— your mortgage payment is not a static payment. It's gonna go up. So I would definitely look at getting out of this house. You don't have to do it tomorrow, but I would be looking at getting it listed, seeing how much you can actually net, seeing if you're gonna be underwater, because that's a big part of this.

Okay.

It's one thing to make some money or break even, but if after fees you're not gonna have enough to pay off the mortgage, that's a different problem.

And Willis, let me just tell you, brother, I've, I've been here. I've done this exact thing. I had a— I had way, way, way, way more student loans than you did. But man, I, I was in a rush. I bought a house that I couldn't afford, and 11 months later, I took a check to closing to get out. And it was embarrassing.

Right.

It hurt me and my wife's relationship. It was just— it was— I had a little kid. The whole thing was a mess, dude. But it ended up being the right decision that's— that really changed the trajectory for me and my wife. my wife in 2 different areas. One, it got us out of the hemorrhage, which was we're never gonna get this debt paid off because our house takes up so much of our monthly income. And the bigger thing that it changed in me is this right here will never happen again. It was, it was just like, I will never be embarrassed. I'm never gonna bring a check to closing again as long as I live. You know what I'm saying? So I've, dude, I've been there.

Yeah.

It's humbling. It's embarrassing. All those words you wanna say. But man, if you're thinking about you in 5 years and the guy that doesn't owe anybody anything, that's back in his own place, a house that he can afford, likes his job, all that kind of stuff, man, you're talking about a free man in 3 to 5 years. You know what I'm saying?

Got it.

I've been there and I hate it for you, brother.

So you're gonna be okay. I'm not worried about you. You're a young guy. You're gonna get out of this debt. You're gonna be a homeowner again one day. But for now, to kind of clear the decks and start from a place of strength. I think that this house is gonna continue to be a problem. And I don't want you just chasing a job you don't like that pays more just to make a mortgage payment on a house that you really don't need right now.

And no, no, no, no 100% down loans. And God help you, no adjustable rate mortgages. Please, please, please.

That's always—

that's my note to America.

Fixed rate is the one you want. And, uh, I, I wish you the best, man. If you wanna reach out to a solid real estate agent, you can go to ramseysolutions.com/agents. and get connected with one of our Ramsey Trusted Pros. They can help you get out of this and get the most for that house, put you in the best financial position possible.

If you're already enrolled in a Medicare plan, you might think there's nothing else to do. You're good to go.

Wrong.

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Welcome back to The Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Delony. Taking your calls at 888-825-5225. John, as we kick off this hour, there's something we need to talk about. Big headline floating around.

You've changed hair products?

I've not yet. I'm getting close to it. But it has to do with the Fed.

Oh!

Everyone's favorite 3-letter word.

Buckle up!

It sounds like the mafia.

It is, of course.

What does the Fed do?

They have unlimited power. So let's talk about this headline. We're going to throw it up on the screen for you guys. guys, it's a juicy one. Federal Reserve hikes interest rates for the first time since 2023 amid stubborn inflation. So basically, you know, there's been a little bit of chaos happening in the world and inflation is still pretty rampant. So the Fed, one of the levers they can use is increasing the Fed funds rate. And what that does is it trickles down to consumer debts, specifically things that have a variable interest rate. So let's talk about what this means, what it means for your money, and I hope it affects very few of you because you follow the Ramsey Plan. So, what happened? The key rate for the Fed went from 3.75% to 4%. That's up a quarter point. That happened on September 16th. It is the first hike since 2023, after 2 straight years of the Fed cutting. They were cutting, cutting, cutting, and then inflation's hot, and they went, we gotta bring it back up. The vote was unanimous. Nobody That's the whole headline. Everything's moving up a quarter point. So, what does that mean for your debt?

Well, if you have a fixed-rate mortgage, it means nothing. It's a fixed rate. It's not going to affect that. If you have a variable mortgage, like an ARM, like we had on a previous caller, it will affect that. If you have credit card debt, that is a variable APR. So, instead of 27%, it might be 27.25% now. Car loans, same thing. If you're looking to go get a new car loan— I hope you're not. I hope you're paying cash cash, that's going to be a little bit more expensive. So the over-under is the Fed is making borrowing more expensive to try to cool inflation. They're trying to limit how much people are borrowing, make it hurt a little more so that we spend less. Will it work? Well, they've been doing this for a while now, but it is one of the ways historically that has been used to cool inflation. So we talk credit cards, we talk car loans. Here's some good news if you're looking for it. Silver lining: high-yield savings accounts.

I was about to ask. So if you've been following the Ramsey Plan for a decade and you have an, uh, an emergency fund in a high-yield savings account, that rate suddenly went up too. So you're gonna be earning more money.

Exactly. So if rates are at, let's say, 3% for high-yield savings accounts, you might see it go up to 3.2%.

Yeah.

So that is a win. Uh, and it's a good reminder that wealthy people earn interest, broke people pay interest. You wanna be on the right side of interest. And the problem is people have been borrowing up to their eyeballs. and rarely do they even look at the APR. They just see the shiny car, that new car smell. They swipe the card because life happened, not thinking about the ramifications of how difficult it is to pay down debt when it's at 27% APR. So if you're a Ramsey follower, you are trying to get out of debt you're currently in, not taking on any new debt, this likely won't affect you that much. And, uh, if you don't have a mortgage, this affects you zero. So here's what I want you to walk away with. This is one more reason you don't want your life dependent on debt. The Fed is going to move rates up. and down forever. That's their entire job is to find the sweet spot Goldilocks balance. But if you don't carry this consumer debt, you're not white-knuckling an adjustable rate mortgage, a rate hike has a lot less power over your monthly budget.

So control what you can control. That's always been the move. I can't control what the Fed does, but I can control me not going into credit card debt.

So this is not for me, 'cause obviously clearly I know the answer. This, I'm asking for a friend here. Could you explain to my friend as though he was a middle schooler how— I'm clearly asking for myself— how does increasing the interest rate cool inflation down?

Well, if less people are borrowing money, that's gonna limit the amount of spending. And so part of inflation is people are spending so much that it's bringing the inflation rate up. So if we can curb that part, less people taking out, buying new cars, less people swiping the credit card, That will end up cooling the inflation rate overall. Their goal is 2%.

OK.

Is the goal. And they are not quite close. Not even close.

Yes. Not even close.

And so, they're just trying to move these levers, and it's not an easy task. I don't envy them. I would not want to be sitting in that seat right now, because they're in the hot seat. And they're nobody's friend when they raise the rates, because especially with the midterms coming up, they're going, whoa, whoa, you're making us look bad over here raising the rates. So, overall, this is kind of a nothing burger in the grand scheme of life, a quarter percent. And it doesn't have a direct correlation to mortgage rates because most fixed-rate mortgages are not tied to the Fed rate.

Sure.

It's actually tied to the bond market, to mortgage-backed securities, the 10-year Treasury yield. So you're not going to see this affect mortgage rates directly. There might be a correlation slowly over time that it ticks up, but it's not going to happen overnight. So I hope that helps people understand a little bit what's going on with the Fed funds rate. Again, I don't— this is as much as I've thought about it. I don't lose sleep over this. this, and you shouldn't either. Just keep following the Ramsey Plan. Control what you can control. Get out of debt. Alright, let's go to Annie in Richmond, Virginia up next. What's going on, Annie?

Hi! Thank you guys so much for having me. My question is, my husband and I are wondering if we should sell our house. It's more than 25% of our income, and it's definitely limiting our ability to pay off our debt and build our emergency fund. Honestly, even in the long term, it's limiting us to be able to save up for a down payment on another home. So, um, yeah, we're just wondering if we should sell it. And if we do, would we buy smaller or would we rent something?

Can I ask you a question before George answers your money question?

Yeah.

Do you hate this house?

Um, no, but we don't love it. We only— we're like in between like and love.

Hate was a little bit of a, of a Deloney being a drama queen like I usually am. Um, I can hear in your voice you don't like this house.

Well, I think we don't like where it's at. And yeah, there are some aspects of it we don't love. It's hard. We've like, we've been here a couple years, so there's some memories here that we like and we've made it our own as best we can, but we don't love it.

Yeah. Then, then numbers, who cares? You, you sell the house.

It's okay to decide we don't wanna live here anymore. But if it helps you financially, that's a byproduct that we can all get Yes, no, it would definitely help us.

I think that we would not be able to buy something else that would be any better financially for us currently until we obviously pay off our debt and get our, our money in order there.

That means you're going to rent, right?

Yeah, that would be— yeah, I guess so.

Did you just realize this for the first time? Like, oh gosh, we're not going to jump into another house we can't afford. We have to rent. So that's going to be the sacrifice. The sacrifice is we're going to rent for a while. It feels like we're moving backwards. It's a smaller space. We got, you know, neighbors right next door through the wall. This might not be fun, but what's fun is not being stressed out about money for the next several years and building a foundation to where you make this next house purchase from a place of strength instead of, you know, impulse or desperation.

And somebody else fixes your plumbing for the next few years.

That's always— I miss those days.

Yeah, I do look forward to that part of it. That would be nice, for sure.

Walk us through the numbers. What is your mortgage payment every month?

Our current mortgage payment is $1,850.

And what is your after-tax monthly income?

About $5,800. It gives and takes a little bit. We have a daughter. I work part-time, so I just work as many hours as I can, but usually right around there.

So it's about a third of your take-home pay. Not unreasonable. So that part's not on fire. How much debt do you have?

We have $8,000 left to go, so not a ton left.

Um, yeah, Annie, I would stay put. I would knock out the debt, build an emergency fund. If you got savings, let's knock that out now, sooner the better. Build the emergency fund, and then you can continue saving and make the move on your terms. But nothing's on fire here. I would not go ahead and just sell this house to go rent somewhere for $1,850 instead. Whether you're a small business owner or an individual, doing your taxes is not It's like an algebra test where if you get anything wrong, the IRS can make you pay with actual money. But if you work with a Ramsey Trusted Tax Pro, you don't have to be a tax whiz because they are. They know taxes like the back of their hand, which makes filing super easy. So work with a Ramsey Trusted Tax Pro and get back to doing what you love, which probably isn't taxes. Visit ramseysolutions.com/taxpro and fill out the referral form to get connected to a Ramsey Trusted Tax Pro today. Ask Ramsey is our free AI tool that's built and trained on proven Ramsey principles, and we're going to break down one of the questions we got this week.

Here it is. If I have extra money coming in this month, should I prioritize putting into my son's 529 for college next year? or pay down my car loan? Well, I love that you love little Jimmy, but that car loan comes first every time. The Baby Steps make this very clear. You don't put a penny away for your kids until you've got your own mask on first, clearing the decks for your own non-mortgage debt. And here's the core reason: the car loan has an interest rate that is working against you right now. Any extra money you put into a 529 instead of the car loan is costing you. So even with college coming next year, it doesn't change the order of the Baby Steps. You've got to have a conversation with your son about how he's going to pay for this without debt. That might be scholarships, grants, working part-time, community college. There's a lot of ways for him to go about this in a smart way. So kill the car loan now. If you've got more questions, you can ask very specific questions and have a back-and-forth conversation, just like you would on this show, at RamseySolutions.com and then click on Ask Ramsey.

Let's get to Hope in Medford, Oregon. What's going on, Hope?

Hi, Robert! Hi, I'm 19 and getting married exactly a year from today.

Woo!

We bought a fixer-upper about a year ago. I'm in real estate, so my job, my money, my monthly income really varies. I'll be officially on my own by next month or next year, and so my income will double. My fiancé makes a pretty set income, and we're just trying to figure out what we should prioritize first, our house, our wedding, Okay. And we also have a truck payment. And we also have a part-time job where we work on a ranch and get paid in cattle. But I have the option, instead of getting paid in cattle, to cash out at the end of each year. So I'm just trying to figure out the best way to go about all of our debt and also this house, because it was a fixer-upper. We did a private loan where we have 3 to 4 years to pay it off. Refinance and build the main home, and we have to pay them off.

And what's the interest on it?

Just trying to figure out the best way. It's 6.7%.

Okay, so you've got a mortgage and you have things you need to fix up on the house?

We have already fixed up everything versus— I was able to save up $25,000, and I bought the house right when I turned 18.

Way to go.

So instead of doing a down payment through them, thank you, we built a mini house inside the only existing thing inside. So we spent that $25,000 on building a miniature house that we live in and cleaning up all the garbage. Wow.

Well, you guys inside of a house like a Russian doll?

Say that one more time. Sorry.

You have a house— you built a miniature house inside of your— of the fixer-upper house?

Of a shop. So they burnt down— it was a— it was a tweaker house. They burnt down 2 houses and the only thing left was a shop. So we cleaned the shop and we built 500 square foot of a Okay.

Okay.

Gotcha. So let's make this clear. At least let's separate the debts until you guys are actually married.

Yes. I, I hope you're not gonna like this. Okay. But I would only have a job. That's okay. If people's best relational plans didn't work out, that's all of my life. Okay. And so I want more than anything, George and I are rooting for you and your fiancé. to get married and y'all are gonna be married for 70 years. It's gonna be awesome. But we also spend most of our time talking to folks who bought a house together, renovated together, paid off each other's debts, started businesses together, and then they break up. And untangling that type of financial mess is almost impossible when 2 teenagers are, are, are in the eyes of the law, 2 teenagers are dating. dating and they went into all of these business arrangements together, what usually happens is somebody walks away having paid off their boyfriend or girlfriend or fiancé's debts, bought them a car, whatever, paid for their school, and then they are out all of it. And so that's why we always tell folks, we keep everything in our own name.

So the house is under my name because I bought that the, the month we got together. Um, so he has helped with that, but it is in my name and the truck is in his name.

Okay, so your name's not on these. So if he breaks up with you and drives off in this truck, you don't— you're not obligated on the loan to make payments for his truck?

No, sir.

Okay, perfect.

The house, it's under my name, not his.

Excellent.

So the only 2 debts are the truck payment and this private loan on the house?

Um, yeah, I just, I just made my last school payment this month. Awesome. And so that's fully paid off. Thank you. And then I owe $1,000 on my tires. Like, I had to get new tires for my truck. So that is the only—

And you went to debt for that?

My truck is also paid off.

$1,000?

Okay. Um, yes.

How much do you have in savings right now?

So we lease out our front field, so we get cash for that. So in cash we have $3,300, and then in the bank I have $500, he has $500.

So when you say we, whose money is the $3,300?

That is very much so together. He sold a car, so $1,500 of that was his.

So is half of it yours? Could you reach over and pay off the tires?

We could, yes. So my question is, should we pay off the tires with that cash, or should we put it towards the wedding so we don't go in debt over a wedding?

Well, you have time to save up for the wedding. I don't want you hanging on to tire debt while saving up for the wedding for the next year. So let's just knock that one out. Now that makes you completely debt-free outside of the private loan on the house, right?

Yes.

Now we have 12 months. Are you guys sharing the cost 50/50 for this wedding?

Yeah.

What's the budget?

Right now I'm at $3,700 towards it. Like, I've already bought my wedding dress. We've already bought tables and chairs.

So what's the total budget? Like, are you— is this gonna cost you guys $10,000?

It should be under $4,500.

Oh wow, okay.

We're doing everything, we're working for the venue, so we will put in work.

You guys are hustling. Okay, so you need to save up $2,250 over the next 6 to 12 months.

Totally, yes.

That's very reasonable, that's less than $200 a month.

Or that's one cow, you get paid in cows, don't you?

We do get paid in cows. Cows are at about $3,000 is how much we get.

Yeah, I was gonna say, I went to get a burger the other day, cows are about $10 million apiece. Man, I would love to get paid in cows.

Yeah, so we get the cow and then we have the baby and then we sell the baby at the beginning of each year.

Wow.

So this year we're gonna, we have $3,000. We can either cash out or buy another cow from them. Now buying a cow may be best because we can, um, you know, invest into a herd where we could be making certain money each year. It'd be about $2,500 gross.

Dude, forget crypto. We need to get investing in some herds, John.

All day. At least I can, at least I I can hug a cow.

It's like Settlers of Catan out here.

All right, I can't hug a crypto.

I like this plan, Hope. So here's the deal, you pay off the tires today, reach into that fund, then you're saving up for the wedding. You're going to do that, and I mean, your next commission check from real estate will do that.

Except it won't. I'm in appraisal, and so with the appraisal, it's— I don't get the $10,000. I get about, you know, then $800 every time I do a job, which is great. Some weeks I'm super busy and I make Okay. Because I'm in training for the next year, I only make half of that. So if that's an $800 appraisal, you get $400. I know the math. Oh well, no, $850 for an appraisal, 35% goes to the company, then I split that 50/50. So I truly only get $247.

But you got like 9 side hustles, so I'm just saying altogether you can come up with $2,000 over the next 12 months.

Yes.

So you're good. Now the question is, can he pay off his truck before the wedding and get an emergency fund to when— when you— here's the goal: you guys get married a year from now, and you both have no debt and a fully funded emergency fund. Then we tackle this private loan together on this house, because now it's our house.

The truck, no. It's $30,000.

So he's not going to be able to— how much does he make?

He makes about $1,400 to $1,800 every 2 weeks.

He can't afford this truck.

That's way too much truck.

His payment is No, his payment is $100 a month.

I don't care if his payment is $0. He owes $30 grand on a depreciating asset and he's making $40 grand a year?

Yeah.

That's a problem.

He's bought, he's bought something that's going down in value every day that he owns it, yet the amount he owes on it is staying the same. The rule of thumb that we use and that we all live by is Everything with wheels and motors in your home should not be more than 50% of your total take-home pay.

Total gross income. So he's way over that. So there's an easy solution here. If he wants to build this life with you, let's sell the truck, get something we can afford in cash. And now by the time we're getting married, we have plenty to pay for the wedding, to have a nice emergency fund of 6 months of expenses, And then never go into debt again and knock out this private loan.

And if you're making $40 grand a year, $400 truck payment is still a lot of money.

Hey, George Campbell here. So you're thinking about buying or selling your home. It's exciting, but there's a lot to think about, and all those decisions can feel overwhelming. Well, here's the good news: you don't have to tackle the process alone. Ramsey's Real Estate Homebase is the place to find all of your free tools and resources for help to get prepared to buy or sell your home. home with confidence. You'll find calculators, start-to-finish guides, a podcast, and even an in-depth video course hosted by yours truly. What's not to love? So if you're ready to take the next steps toward your home goals, go to ramseysolutions.com/realestate. That's ramseysolutions.com/realestate. While you're out there playing offense, trying to build wealth, you also have to play defense, and that's where insurance can come into play. But it can be hard trying to find pros who aren't just looking to make a buck and agents who actually know what they're doing. They know their stuff. So I got you covered here. Ramsey Trusted Insurance Pros are vetted and coached to make sure they're market experts who have your best interest at heart. interests at heart. You can go to ramseysolutions.com/coverage to find the type of insurance you're looking for and connect with a Ramsey Trusted Agent.

Alex is in San Diego up next. Alex, welcome to the show!

Thank you, Dr. Loney and Mr. Campbell. I appreciate you taking the call.

Absolutely! What's going on?

My wife and I have completed Baby Steps 1 through 3. We're on Step 4, or close to finishing up Step 4. We're getting close to that 15%. We bought a new-build home about a year ago. It was obviously quite a bit of money. But currently, we're doing pretty decent even though our monthly payment is pretty high. We're saving quite a bit. We have a lot in savings. I'm just trying to figure out where to go from here.

Cool! So you are close to investing 15%. What's the holdup there? What's the timeline to get to 15%?

Nothing. It's just a matter of adjustment. I'm probably at about 14% and my wife's about at 12%. We've just got a lot going on in the mind because there's some family planning that's going on. We've been keeping that in mind. But yeah, we're close to bumping it up to the full 15%.

OK. Once you're at 15%, you dial that in. You said you don't have kids yet. You're looking to start a family?

We're probably looking to have one here in the next year or 2.

OK, great. So we can pause on Baby Step 5. We can skip that for now, which then puts us at Baby Step 6. Anything beyond the 15% going to investing, any extra margin, we can throw some of that at the principal on that mortgage.

Understood.

What's left on the mortgage?

Like I said, we just bought it, so it's about $705,000.

Is the mortgage?

Yes.

What's the payment?

The payment, our total housing costs, that's including the insurance and the HOA fees, is about $5,800 a month.

$5,800. Okay. And then what do you guys take home after taxes?

It's $10,003.

Okay.

Yes.

So you're talking over half of your take-home pay is taken up by this mortgage?

Yes, it's about 56%.

That's up there.

That makes me nervous for you, brother.

Yeah, yeah. Well, well, I would, I would say we're saving actually about $2,100 a month. We're, we're, we're really good with our expenses and our going— I may have, uh, omitted this, but our savings is pretty high. We're at about $97,000 in savings right now, so we're well above that, uh, $6,000. It is in a high-yield savings account, but we're past that 6 months of expenses.

That's great! And you guys have no consumer debt?

No. I paid off my student loans very quickly. She was fortunate not to have any student loans. I was pretty aggressive about mine. Paid them off in like 3 years after I graduated.

OK. The issue I'm seeing here is that that high-yield savings account, while it's awesome to have $97,000, doesn't fix the ongoing issue that half of your take-home pay is disappearing into that Mm-hmm. Because you're not going to dip into your high-yield savings to try to keep the mortgage afloat.

Correct.

That's not going to work. So we're going to have to look at the overall picture to see, is the income going to go up anytime in the future? Because what happens, let's say you guys have a baby and she wants to stay home, or she keeps working, daycare is $2,500 in San Diego.

Or there's an extended NICU stay, or she's got to be on bed rest for 4 months. Like, that, that's one of those things that's out there. that we say that's, that's one of the reasons why, and I know it's so frustrating for everybody, especially with how high, uh, the housing prices are, is to keep it at 25% just because you never know what's coming down, down the road towards you. Right?

Right. Yeah. Yeah. I'd say my, my income or both of our works are pretty stable. She's a nurse, uh, and I'm actually working in higher education at a 4-year university here in San Diego. Okay. Um, my pay bumps, my shovel's getting, my shovel getting bigger is not as fast as hers. She's getting pretty substantial increases in, in pay. Yeah.

Okay. So, well, what I'm trying to show you is that you've limited your options by making this home purchase because both of you have to keep working and you have to make way more than you are now. So that's an imperative if you're going to stay in the home long-term. Now, if you're going to decide we're willing to sell in a year or two when the baby's here and we got this daycare costs and things are tight, then that's another story. But for now, your plan, you're, you're going to try to get to 15% and just sock away money. And if and when, uh, you got, you know, you guys are pregnant, then we can pause and, and save up some money. You already have $97,000, so there's really no need to go to stork mode, as we call it. Uh, you guys are in a good spot there. But the bigger glaring issue is what are we going to do with this house payment?

Yeah, yeah. My only, in terms of the immediate nature, not now. I am, we are currently doing biweekly payments and I actually have set it up so we actually put in an additional $300 each payment towards the principal. I'm trying to pay it off close to 20, if not sooner. But I was also thinking about putting something in an opening of a 529 and putting a couple thousand dollars away for now at that point, and then just leaving it so it can continue growing. But yeah, the move is definitely to increase our income.

Yeah, I wouldn't put anything in the 529. I mean, you got 20 years potentially plus before we have to even think about the kid going to college.

Yeah, all the AI companies said we'll be dead way before that.

Yeah, I'm more concerned you guys run out of margin here because of this house payment. It's only going to go up as taxes and insurance go up, as well. That's where we need to look at our incomes pretty severely and go, if she's not going to go make 30% more and you're not going to go make 40% more in the next couple of years, you probably have to sell this house eventually because you're just not going to have that much margin once you factor in daycare costs.

She's actually going to be seeing an increase of 20% in the next few years, actually, given her union had just a big fight over pay increases. But yeah.

Okay. I would just keep watching it. It's not like an immediate fire now because you guys do have some stability with no debt and emergency funds. So I'm not gonna tell you to go sell the house today, but that's the main issue I'm seeing. But I wouldn't let that stop you from trying to start a family or do anything else, but there's no need to get hyper-focused on saving for college right now. I'm more concerned about the mortgage.

George, is this a situation where, like, let's say he's got, he's, he's basically got $100,000. in an account and he owes $705,000 on this mortgage. Is this a situation where he could say, okay, 6 months is, you know, $30,000 for us, and then take $70,000 and put it against that mortgage and recast it to where it ultimately gets down below without having to sell the house? I'm trying to think of a solution for him to not have to sell it.

Yeah.

And if he's able to pay off massive chunks of principal, Because they, they, they are saving and right this moment they're making money and it, it, you know, they wanna start a family in a year or two. Maybe that happens. Or like me and it, we wanna start a family. It took 3 or 4 years, right? So who knows what that timeline looks like, but is that a, is that a viable option?

Well, you can do a recast, which is where you take a big lump sum of money, throw it at the principal, and they basically reamortize your mortgage. So the payment does get lower. It's not magically No, it's not. But it does take a new balance and just redoes the math for you. So that is viable, but with a $700,000 mortgage, throwing $50,000 at it is not going to make a dent in your payment. Plus, just 6 months of their mortgage alone is $35,000, let alone their other expenses.

Oh yeah.

And so that $97,000 is likely, you know, a little more than 6 months, but not much. And so I don't think that's going to make a dent to— now, if they had $400,000 they could chunk at the principal and recast it, I'd say great, problem solved.

And bring it down to $200,000, or all they owe is $200,000 or $300,000.

Yeah.

But again, he said they had $2,100 in margin, and I don't know what daycare costs are in San Diego, but that'll disappear real quick with a baby.

Yeah.

When you're paying for that, because she is, she is going to continue working. So that's the part that worries me long-term, and it's the kind of stuff— it's, it's why we are so conservative. People yell at us because they go, Ramsey's out of touch with their 25% going— I'm like, I'd rather be out of touch and allow a mom to stay home if she wants to.

Yeah.

Because now you have no options. And so I want to have as many options as possible. And part of getting locked into this mortgage taking up 56% of your take-home pay is you got to keep working, you got to make more, you have to take that job even though you hate it. And so it just limits your options. So my, my heart breaks for them, but they're sharp. They're young and sharp. They'll figure it out. Maybe he'll switch careers. Incomes can go Yeah. And maybe they decide, you know what, we can downsize, but it's San Diego.

Yeah. So, I mean, it's one of the most expensive places.

Yeah.

You're not gonna find a, a house for $300 grand that makes sense for them. So that's part of the issue with, with real estate, especially high cost of living areas. You need a really high income.

Yeah.

That's part of the math. And they have a great income. They're taking home $10 grand a month.

Yeah.

But it's just enough for—

Where they're choosing to live and where they're choosing to buy a house and the house they're choosing to buy, like all of those things together. It's frustrating. Uh, but there is— I always, I always say this and I hate having to say this because I have to say it to myself all the time. If I take the emotions out and what I want out of the picture, I'm just looking at a math problem and math often doesn't care what I think.

Hurtful.

Listen guys, I've heard just about every excuse for why folks think they can't get ahead with money. So let's go ahead and settle this right now. You get the final say on what happens with your money. That's why you have to start telling your money where to go. So you can stop wondering where it went. So if you're going to start winning with money, you have to get on a budget. And the easiest way to get started and stick to it is with the EveryDollar budget app. It'll help you make a plan for every single dollar coming in and every single dollar going out every single month. And guess what? It's free. So no excuses. Download EveryDollar in the App Store or Google Play today.

Our scripture of the day, 1 Corinthians 9:24. Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. William James said, most people never run far enough on their first Amy is in Dallas up next. Amy, welcome to the show!

Hi, thank you! I'm a single mom. I'm 50 years old. I have a rent house in a college town where my daughter goes to school. I'm wondering if I should keep the rent house when my twin boys get to college, even though I'll be collecting less rent. Is it going to make financial sense to keep it?

So you want to hang on to the investment property for what reason exactly?

Well, that's a— well, I don't really want to. It's kind of— it stresses me out having a property that's far away that I have to manage.

Yeah.

Um, but right now it's providing my daughter a place to live.

And once she's out, can you sell it then?

I could. That's what I'm wondering, like, if I sell it then, because it's paid Okay. Um, and so if I sell it, then I could— I'm still going to be responsible for the boy. I have twin boys, um, putting them— getting them housing through college. So would it be better to, since the house is paid for, let them live there, still collect rent for 2 other roommates until they get through too?

Oh, so you're going to be losing— on paper, you'll be losing money because you're going to go down to 2 renters instead of 3.

Yes. Okay.

And you're gonna have to fork over money if you sell it to cover housing for them.

That's correct.

But you'll be— you're not saving money, but you'll be saving capital outflow cash. You won't be having to write 2 rent checks for them wherever they're living.

Exactly.

What would you net from this if you sold it today?

Um, since it's paid off, um, about $320,000.

What would you do with the $320,000 if you had it in your hands right now?

I would add it to my retirement.

Okay.

So I don't have any debt. My home is paid for. The only debt I have is the boys' car.

What's left on that?

$12,000. And the only reason why I haven't— so I have about $25,000 in my emergency fund and about $200,000 in retirement. But after my divorce, I had no credit at all. Nothing was in my name. So I kept the car payment in order to build up some credit.

So the car is in your name or just the loan?

The car's in my name.

Okay. And he's driving, he's a driver on the insurance and all that?

Both of them are. What's your primary residence right now?

What do you mean? It's a home, a house.

Yeah. Is it paid off too?

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Okay, man. It sounds like what you said at the beginning of the call is this house, this rental property is stressing you out and you don't want to be a long-distance That's true.

With my daughter living there, I kind of have her to help. And then once the boys are there, they can do the yard and things that I'm paying for now that I can get them to do.

Yeah, but they'll set the house on fire, too.

They might.

So what would it cost for them to go live on campus or live off campus on their own?

About $1,200 a month.

OK. And would they be working part-time during school?

I would like them to, yeah.

I think that's a good plan to have some skin in the game because right now you're covering all the— you're saying, hey, I'm covering all the housing expenses. You guys don't have to worry about anything?

Yeah. With the divorce decree, their dad is paying for school tuition and I'm paying living expenses.

What if we, I, I, I, I think $1,200 is low, but I'm gonna trust your numbers.

Yeah.

'Cause you're pretty sharp. You're on top of it. So if we just did like, A, you said, I, I don't like being a landlord. It stresses me out. It's a long distance thing. I'm 100% in agreement with you on that.

Mm-hmm.

Also, again, I don't wanna overly gender this, but I just worked with college students my whole life. And I know when I was in college walking into my girlfriend's house, who's now my wife, was a much different experience of her walking into my house where I live with 4 other dudes, right? Yep. Yep. And so if you just looked at, so you got that issue, number one. Number 2, if you sold this house and got $300,000 and you put $50 grand in a high yield savings account, then they're gonna live on campus that first year probably anyway. Then you've got 3 years at $1,200 a month. That's gonna be about $44,000, $43,000, $44,000. Then you've got it paid Yeah. And then you could take that $250,000, drop it in your retirement, and call it.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm looking at this $320,000 you could net. If you just drop that in a high-yield savings account, you could make $10,000 a year, and you're not paying property taxes, insurance, you know. Yes, you're gonna have to pay for their housing, but I also think they can help out with that too, so it's not all on you. Or they might get scholarships, we don't know.

Yeah, they're not going to get scholarships, I think.

The way you said that so confidently was worrisome.

No, I mean, I love them. They're great.

But you're doing such a great job to not say anything negative about 'em. But you're like, I don't want 'em living in my house. I don't, they're not, they're not gonna go to school.

I only trust them to mow the lawn.

They're twin 17-year-olds.

No, of course they're feral and that's awesome. That's why we love 'em.

Yeah.

And also that's why we're excited for them to go to college.

Let 'em go destroy someone else's house. You don't have to be the landlord.

Yeah.

I'm totally with you on this.

I personally would sell it based on everything you've told me. I think you're gonna be okay either way, but the mental The load is not worth it. The juice ain't worth the squeeze on this one. And I think you can cash flow any housing costs that do come up. What's your income?

I'm a kindergarten teacher. I make about $60,000.

Gosh, you're a saint, dude.

Wonderful. Well, you're in a good spot. I mean, I know you want to, you want to make up some time on retirement, and I think eventually we can start dumping some of that money in. Are you talking about using that money in like a non-retirement account?

No, I would put it into like my Roth.

Because there's a contribution limit on the 401 and the Roth IRA.

Yes. So you're not going to be able to dump $300,000 into it. No. So when we bought the house, we were using it as long-term income because that's what my ex-husband wanted. He was going to be in charge of it, and that was great. I just don't want that stress, even though it might be potential income. You know, years down the line.

Yeah. Well, you sort of become a landlord by default.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I can imagine in your situation, especially given what you've gone through, having $320,000 in a high-yield savings account just there for a season is going to give you some breathing room.

Yes. Well, and I'm doing okay. I'm— like I said, I have my emergency fund, I have a start of retirement, and I'm putting about 10% away a month into retirement savings. Um, and I have the I have my boys' first year living in the dorm and living on campus saved for them. That's from my parents. My parents actually set that up for them.

Amazing. That's awesome.

Well, I would pay off this car and then you can up your investing to 15% or more because that puts you in Baby Step 7. You'll have no debt whatsoever, right?

Yeah. And I'm a little bit worried because when they turn 18, I'll no longer get child support. But I'll still be paying— even if I pay the car off, I'll still be paying their car insurance on the car.

I know. But Amy, sometimes you sit down and you have a really direct, hard conversation with 18-year-olds.

Yeah.

About here's mom's situation.

And if you wanna keep driving this car, you're gonna have to cover the costs.

Or I can pay $250 of it and y'all are gonna have to get jobs.

Yeah, they have jobs now. They know. I mean, they were old enough when everything happened with their dad, but they're very aware.

But, but, but, but I, I, I know that you love them and you want it to be— them to get the same experience their sister got. All that is awesome.

Yep.

And I'll just tell you, having worked with college students and their parents for most of my adult life, what they really need from mom from 18 to 21 is mom to be whole and well.

Yeah.

Right.

And, and I am. I'm, I'm in a, I'm in a good place, I think, um, emotionally, mentally right now. And so that's why I'm able to start looking at these things critically.

Perfect.

The first, the first 6 months was just survival. Of course.

Yeah.

You don't give up because you don't have a choice.

That's exactly what you have to.

Yeah.

But now I'm starting to look at, okay, life goes on and I want to make the best of it.

Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. You're awesome. Awesome.

I love it.

You're gonna do just fine.

I would sell this house ASAP.

And again, nothing's on fire here, but the way you were like, this thing is stressing me out. I don't want to deal with it. I don't wanna keep it long-term just because it's a quote investment. And I see this happen a lot, John, because parents, they see like a TikTok, a social media video about how it's a life hack to go buy your kids a property where they go to school and they live there and you can collect the rent and depreciation. And it sounds so good on paper. And the reality of it is this.

Is you got 4 college kids living in your house for, for—

And you're eating the expenses.

8 years.

Yeah.

That's, it's a tough road.

All right. That puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in the books. Remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.

Christ Jesus.