Transcript of Your Future Self Deserves Better Choices Today

Live from Ramsey Network, this is the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm George Kamel, joined by the great Dr. John Deloney, and we're taking your calls at 888-825-5225. You call us up, and we will do our best to give you the right next step for your life, your relationships, your emotional mental health, and your money. Jessica is going to kick us off in Seattle. How can we help, Jessica?

Hey, guys. How's it going?

Great. How are you?

Not too bad. I'll cover the chase. I've got bipolar I. I was diagnosed when I was 19, so I'm I'm 24 now. I've been on my meds, been in therapy for five years the whole time, and then just crashed this last couple of months. I went into a full-blown manic episode for about 5 to 8 weeks, wrapped up $20,000 in debt, and blew through my savings that was almost $20,000. I'm financially not in the best situation right now. I make $104 right now. I quit my job when the manic episode happened, and luckily, caught a new one that I started in October. I'm just a little lost and scared of myself, if I'm being honest.

Yeah, that's it, right? Well, number one, can I just tell you I'm proud of you?

Thank you.

That's going to sound bananas, but you've had one blowout in five years.

Yeah. I I've dealt with manic and depressive episodes in that time, but nothing to this degree.

But that tells me you've been working real hard. Yeah. That means you've been taking your meds even when you don't want to. That means you've been going to counseling, even when you don't want to. That means you've been putting the work in. I'm proud of you.

That's hard. Thank you. Okay. Thank you.

I love... Your self-awareness is pretty amazing. The person that you've lost trust is not your boss, is not the government, it's you. That's just a scary place to find yourself when you're worried about what you're going to do next. Are you pretty leveled out right now, or do you go down in the valley after a pretty hot episode?

Typically, I go straight plummeting down. Luckily, I got a new psychiatrist, and I'm on a new medication. Over the last 2-4 weeks I've been taking it, I want to say. Feel good? Yeah, I feel pretty… I'll be honest, I feel like normal, if you will, mellow, medium, whatever you want to call it. Sure. But to me, this is my own guess here, but because I was manic for so long, normal feels dull and low. That's right.

That's right. Yeah, Yeah, lame. I love that word. That's the challenge, right? Is how do you... It's making peace with the ordinary, right? Making peace with day in and day out. That's hard. That's hard. Here is the best worst news I'm going to give you, okay? You have one choice. Actually, that's not true. You have two choices. Choice number one is to say, See, I told you so. You blew it You screwed up everything. It's just going to keep happening forever, whatever. Or you can look at the data you have in front of you. The data says for five years, you scratch, you clog. By the way, you got a diagnosis at 19. That means that 18, 17, 16, 15 were really tough years for you, weren't they?

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

You got it at 19, and you've been wobbly and figuring it out and doing pretty dang well, making a whole bunch of money, which tells me you're really good at what you do. You had one off-the-rails manic episode. You quit your job and you managed to dust yourself off and go get another six-figure job Now you're back at it. Option two is you take your lumps, you'll learn, you put one hurdle in front of yourself, which is you have one or two people that you know and you trust and love who have your ATM number and your Amazon login. The next time they see you starting to spin up, they have permission from you in writing that they can go cut something off. You're just going to need different hurdles than other people, but everybody's got their own hurdles. Yours are going to be taller because you've got BP1. But, dude, I'm proud of you. The thing I don't want you to do is give up on you because your track record is pretty dang good.

Yeah, I mean, I've dealt with a lot. I'm never a division one athlete. I hit all the milestones I was supposed to do, and now I just feel stuck and failure. I'm not good at reaching out for help. I don't want help. I keep telling myself I can truck along and figure this out on my own, and I'm realizing that- You can't.

It's okay. You know who else can't? Me. You know who else can't? George, Dave. None of us can.

You reached out for help right now. You called the show. That's bravery.

Yeah.

You realize that it's okay to bring others in to help you through this, and no is going to judge you. The ones that do, get them out of your life. I love John's idea of make the bad things difficult to do and make the good things easier to do. We did this with our little toddler. We took off all the arguments on the bottom of the tree so that she couldn't reach them and smash them. For you, that means freezing your credit, cutting up the credit card, and putting some restrictions to make it harder to spend. Put friction in your life to where you can't spend money on that credit card because you don't have one anymore.

And by the way, it feels like the end of the world. George and I talk to people all day long who don't have bipolar I, who blow through 20, 30, 40, $50,000 in credit card debt. Yeah. And so 20 grand making $100,000 a year, $105 grand. You're going to be able to pay that off real quick.

Could you put four grand a month toward this debt right now with your income? If you got on a real tight budget?

Yes. The other issue is that 5,500 of it is what I'm calling a personal loan, but is to someone that... I gathered a bit of a gambling problem over this last episode. Okay. I lost eight grand to someone who was supplying that money for me to gamble with.

Do you have savings so you can go pay them off today?

No, I blew through the savings I had on top of the $18,000 I have left.

At $104,000 a year, can you get onto a local credit union and take out a loan for $4,000 or $5,500 and get them paid off? Yes. Do that today. Do that today. Okay. Then delete their number out of your phone. And block it. And block it and delete every app off your phone.

Then debt snowball the rest. Whatever the smallest balanced debt is, we're going to tack that first, make minimum payments on the rest.

Hang on the line. I'm going to send you Financial Peace University. We're going to get you hooked up, and I'm going to send you the EveryDollar app. I would love it if you had an accountability partner who also you could connect to the EveryDollar app, and you all could review budgets together. Or if you bought stuff, it shows up and they can see it, too. That might be a way that you can have mutual accountability with somebody. But all in all, man, you had a rough season. By the way, if you got trouble with gambling, go to a meeting tonight, go to a meeting in the morning. Get on top of this stuff. But man, you are on the right track. I want you to dust yourself up and get up and go again. I'm proud of you. We'll be right back.

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Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney. The phone number to call is 888-825-5225. It's the only way to get on the air to talk to the great Dr. John. And George. To do so choose.

Hey, I want to hijack this for one second. This is totally self-serving America. Listen, my YouTube channel is at 997,000 followers. I'm 3,000 away. I want to hit that million mark before Christmas. Wherever you happen to be right now, if you'll stop and go to the Dr. John Deloney show and subscribe on YouTube, just help me hit that million mark real quick. It'd be a Christmas miracle.

That is self-serving.

Thank you for that.

You're right. I'm not even going to mention my YouTube channel.

Nobody cares about it. I'm just kidding.

It's fine. No, John needs the affirmation. I need this. He's very insecure. So if you want to give him a gift, hit a button that makes him feel better about himself.

Hit the subscribe button.

You're exhausting. All We're going to try to help Joe in Detroit up next. Joe, how can we help you today?

Hello, hello. How are you guys?

Doing well. How are you?

Good. So I have a question. Heading into the new year, I want to continue contributing to my retirement, about 15 %. My company offers 401k, where I can contribute either pre-tax or Roth dollars into. And they contribute twelve and a half % annually, and they don't even offer a match. So they just flat out give twelve and a half %.

I'll take that over a match, man. That's incredible. That's their money. Not your money. They're forcing, but it's their company money. They're putting in 12.5 of your income?

Yes.

That's awesome.

Which is very generous, and it's a great company, so I really enjoy working with them. So the question is, should I go hard into that? Because I can contribute Roth dollars into the 401k. I think what they contribute is pre-tax, but should I go hard into that 401k with Roth, or should I continue doing a Roth IRA where I'm trying to max that out each year?

Great question. I would focus on the Roth side of the 401k. If you have great funds in there, if they have some decent options, it sounds like they do based on how they treat this retirement program, you could do all 15% in that Roth 401k of your own money.

Okay.

It'll be very similar to the Roth IRA. It probably has very similar funds. There's not going to be that much of a difference. The difference with the Roth IRA is you can invest in any fund in the world. On top of that, you can look at expense ratios. But I think it's a good deal to invest in that Roth 401(k). And again, their side will be the traditional pre-tax side. That's okay. When you get to retirement, when you hit Baby Step 7, you could begin rolling some of that money over from the traditional side to the Roth and pay the taxes on it.

Okay. Got you. Yeah, because right now, I dabbled in both. I have a Roth IRA with about four grand in it, which I can use as an emergency fund, I guess.

No, that's a retirement fund, not an emergency fund. Your emergency fund should be just in savings outside of that.

Yeah. I mean, that was the plan, too.

Do you have any debt?

Heading the new year?

No, I have no debt. Okay, awesome. And do you have an emergency fund saved?

I have a high-yield savings account with some money in there.

Okay. Your goal should be three to six months of expenses in that high-yield savings account? Then beyond that, invest 15 % of your own income, regardless of what the company's putting in.

Okay.

How old are you?

Sounds good. 24.

Oh, man. The fact that you're talking about this stuff now and already investing, you're going to be just fine. The key is just invest consistently. Never stop. From 24 to 64, that's 40 years of growth. It'll blow your mind. Go punch it into our investment calculator and have a Merry Christmas.

All right. Well, thank you so much.

Yeah. Thanks for the question.

Because I was debating between the two accounts.

So thank you. Yeah.

They're very similar. And for everyone listening in going, what the pre-tax and the traditional Roth is just the tax treatment. So the pre-tax means you're going to get the It's a tax deduction now, but you're going to have to pay taxes on it later when you take it out in retirement. With the Roth account, it's going to be after-tax. So you don't get the tax deduction come tax time. But when you withdraw that money in retirement, it grows tax-free, and you can withdraw it tax-free. So I love that. You can control the controllables because I don't know what taxes are going to be when I retire 30 years from now. So I like knowing that it's tax-free. If there's $2 million in that account, that's $2 million of take home pay in retirement. So I like that plan. Let's go Alice up next in Sacramento. Welcome to the Ramsey Show, Alice.

Hi. I have to say thank you to both of you and to the whole Ramsey team for everything you do.

We're happy to do it. It's an honor.

I have a question today, a fun one. In 2011, I moved back from college. I'm from Fremont, California, and my mom said, Hey, the car plant that's been, it used to be called New Me, dead for years. A little electric car company from across the Bay is going to start building cars. They're looking best. And through $1,000, all I had at the time into Tesla stock. Last week, I'm upwards of $380,000. What? And we owe... Yes, sir.

From that $1,000, you didn't put in a dime more. $1,000 turned into $280,000 because you were on the very front end of buying Tesla stock.

No. I put in 1,000. I did not put in a dime more. Upwards of 380,000. Wow.

That is wild.

It is wild.

Do you ever play the lottery? Because if not, you should probably start.

No, sir. That is the one time I will have won the lottery in this lifetime, I believe. Congratulations.

Way to go.

Thank you. Now, happily married, we owe 288 on our home. The question is whether we sell with the potential, of course, nobody knows what Tess is capable of to pay off the home or if we hang on to it.

Well, what's your household income this year?

This year, it will be $175,000.

Okay. Here's the question.

I'm a big fan- I'm sorry. I misspoke. I misspoke $275,000.

Okay. You just missed by $100,000. No big deal.

That's it. No big deal.

Like My immediate gut reaction was, Oh, my gosh, sell it and pay off the house today. What I want you to think about and talk to a tax pro about are the tax implications, because you're going to have to pay the capital gains on this, which will be a significant tax bill. And so I just want to make sure if you talk to a tax pro, there may be a better strategy to sell portions of this off every year and use that toward the house payoff to get this done over the next three years, for example.

Okay.

Instead of paying a larger tax bill with your tax brackets, because you're basically paying taxes on $379,000 of gain.

Absolutely.

So I would crunch the numbers with a tax pro and see what the best strategy is. But yes, as soon as you can get that house paid off and get out of a single stock, the better. If you invest in a mutual fund in your 401k, Tesla is going to be in there. It's just going to diversify your risk because Elon could Trump could go, Elon's not a friend of mine anymore, and Tesla stock takes a 10% dip in one day. We just don't know. Sure.

George gave you the money part. Can I just give you my two cents, what I would do in my house?

Please.

How long have you been married?

We've been married 13 years.

Gross. You all still like each other?

We love each other.

That's so awesome.

I told him no one's getting out of this alive.

Dude, Awesome.

A little frightening, but also awesome.

What do you all do for a living? You all make a great salary. What do you do for a living?

My husband's in law enforcement, and my salary, this is the first year, I'm at 115. I'm an engineer for a major telecommunications company. But that comes with a big caveat. I am a contract. I'm not directly on quite yet. That's right. We have a large savings as well, and we've always has been able to live within the means of his income, and mine has been extra right now. Yes, and also not guaranteed.

If I'm you, I want you to imagine you and your and just imagine this weekend, what would our marriage be like? What would our life be like if we had no house payment? If I'm you, I put $1,000 on the table and I got $380,000. I've won with a period at the end. I might keep winning Cash out. I would pull my money off the table, go to the window, cash out, and say goodbye, Vegas, and I'd pay my house off, and I'd have a different level of peace in my home. I'd never look at the Tesla stock price again because it's only going to make you crazy, but I'd sell it and get out.

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Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney. Hey, student loan debt is an epidemic, and defaulting on debt It makes you feel even worse. But our question of the day sponsor, YreFi, refinances defaulted private student loans and builds a custom loan based on your ability to pay. So you'll have a payment you can afford with a low fixed interest rate you couldn't get anywhere else. Check them out at yrefi. Com/ramsey. That's the letter Y, R-E-F-Y. Com/ramsey. May not be available in all states.

Today's question comes from Vince in Massachusetts. Vince writes, My son graduated from high school this year. He lives with his mother and doesn't have any ambition to go to college or to even get a job. He's blocked all contact with me. My current wife and I are preparing to create our wills. My question is, what would you do if you were in this situation? Part of me doesn't want to leave him any assets because I'm afraid if he knows there's an inheritance, he'll never have any incentive to make something of himself. I love the question. I don't like so much this idea that inheritance is an ROI that your kid has performed up to your standards. I guess, although there is some life and behavior standards, too. A, I guess if he's blocked all contact with you, that's one thing. No, I would not leave somebody in the will who has cut me out of their life. The second thing, though, is he's 18, he's a teenager, and he's probably dealt with a lot of trauma in his life, probably dealt with a lot of chaos from you all's divorce, you getting remarried, and all that stuff.

I would have some compassion there, too. My hope would be at some point you all could sit down and have a grown-up conversation and let him know I've got inheritance. I don't know, sometimes people are like, I got a ton of money. It's $25,000. Then sometimes it's like, Dave, I got a ton of money. It's $700 million. You're like, Okay. I think it depends on how much money we're talking here. But I think if he knows, I'm going to pay for him to go to college, I'm going to support him to go to med school to do whatever. I think it's worth having those conversations. At the end of the day, if you've got a son or daughter who's struggling with mental health challenges, if you've got a son or daughter that is struggling with some form of addiction, just dumping a bunch of money into their checking account after you pass away is going to kill them. It's the worst thing you could do. I do think there is room for, Hey, here's my expectations. My expectations are you are a good person, that you treat people with dignity and respect, that you work hard in your job.

Here's how my will is set up right now. You don't have that luxury because he won't talk to you. Maybe you could set up in a trust with a custodian that, based on certain metrics, once he graduates college, then this comes. If he never goes to college, then this money never comes, and then eventually it rolls to a charity of your choice or something. But I'd sit down with a estate attorney and work through the knickknacks of that stuff. But I think, George, it comes down to most kids I think I have a right to mom and dad's money, which isn't true. Then I think the other side is mom and dad often think, Oh, I have to do this with my money. I have to give it to my kid or else, and they won't like me. It's like, He already doesn't like you.

Yeah, well, the irony here is he's saying he already doesn't have ambition, and he has no clue that there could be an inheritance. Adding one to the picture is not going to remove more ambition.

Exactly.

I would see if I can repair the relationship. You can always change your will This is not like a forever thing. But what would I do at this point? If there's no connection to this person, they've cut me out. There's no reason to leave them in if you don't want to. That's your choice. If you want to leave a million dollars anyways, that's also your choice. But I would do my best to see what's behind that lack of ambition because like John said, there's likely trauma, there's just a lack of hope, and I think he does want to make something of himself. He just needs some support to get there.

One last note, Vince, if your son's not talking to you because you were a jerk when he was a kid, let's say you You married his mom real poorly when you all were married. You went and cleaned your life up, and you've changed, and you've got a new wife, a new life, and you all are doing great, but son is still harboring some anger and some rage. Don't give him a bunch of money as a way to buy back his goodwill. That's going to backfire on you. That's just me throwing that out there. We often try to solve guilt through our wills. I'm going to do this, and then when I'm dead, they're going to think good of me.

That might make you feel better, but it doesn't actually solve any of the problem.

But you'll be dead. You'll be dead. Maybe this is a conversation between you and your ex-wife, you and his mom, to talk through where he's at, what he wants to do. But It seems to be a lot more going on here. There you go.

Thanks for the question.

Did you put your kid in your will?

Yeah.

You're one of those parents, huh?

Are you not supposed to? No, I'm just kidding.

I did, too. It's like, sorry. I was hoping you were going to say no. That would have been hilarious.

Deloney's kids are listening. They just learned about Santa today. There we go. Zack is up next in Tulsa. What's going on, Zack?

How's it going, guys?

Pretty good. How are you?

Doing good. My mom's played this show in the car since I was eight. It's- I'm sorry. Ready to be a good place to go from there.

It's a lot of trouble. It's a lot of trouble. It's a good place to go with my question. If you're 10, that's not that impressive. How old are you? I'm 25. How old?

I'm 25.

Wow, 25. George wasn't even born when you started watching this show. That's amazing.

That's weird to think about.

What's up, dude?

My wife and I recently started our big boy and big girl jobs out of college. Her job comes with our housing being paid for for the next year and a half to two And so in March, we're projected to be done paying off our student loans. We've been attacking those for the last nine months. And so from March until whenever we move out of this place, we're We're just going to be raking in an income without a lot of expenses. And so we were looking for ways to invest that smartly and save up for a home. But we're new to that whole realm. So we're looking for some advice.

But you just told me you have a bunch of debt to pay off, right?

Actually, not a bunch. We've done a lot of work on that in the last year. We started with about 60,000 in debt when we both graduated, and we're down to 13,000 left.

Great. How fast can we pay off the 13K? Having little expenses.

We're expected to be done with that by mid-March.

Okay. So by March, you're debt free. Then how long until you have a fully funded emergency fund?

We already have a fully funded It was an emergency fund. We did the baby steps, wacky, but got them done.

You've been listening to the show since you were 17 years. Since you were 17 years? Eight years old. And you decided Zack's plan is better than Dave's.

Bold choice. Sounds very Oklahoma It's a moment, if you ask me.

So the question is, why do you feel like your method is more optimal?

Well, I don't think it's more optimal. We're in an optimal position where we're going to be debt free, and we don't know if we should invest just the 15 % that's part of Baby Step 3, or if we should increase that while we're not paying for where we live. Should we be investing 25, 30 % because we don't have any other expenses?

Well, don't you want to home one day?

We do, yeah.

You're going to need to save up for that, and that's why we position Baby Step 3B before 4. 3b is save up your down payment. Once you're debt free with an emergency fund, start saving up the down payment. You can do 0-15% during that time. If you guys want to be investing while saving up the down payment, invest 15%, any extra money goes to the down payment savings.

Okay.

I What type of account would you recommend- I would call it a Christmas miracle. I'd be debt-free this evening. I would take my emergency phone and pay off all my debt. How much do you have in there?

In the emergency fund, about 5,000.

Okay. So it's not enough to knock it out.

.

But you could be in the four-figure mark if you knock it down from 13 down to nine.

Yeah, pretty much every time we have some extra money, we knock it down.

It'd be debt-free by late January or February instead of March, and then you'd have the emergency refunds saved up probably six months after that, if not less, with no expenses, then we can begin saving up 15 %, and then any money beyond that goes to down payment, and then we'll see where we're at in two years. But investing 25 or 30 % now, you're going to go, Man, I really want a house. We have nothing down, so we're going to do it anyways on a 30-year loan with one % doing FHA. This is the cycle that people get into when they want to shortcut it. There's something beautiful about just relinquishing going, I'm not the smartest guy in the room. I'm going to follow a proven plan that works for millions of One thing in front of the other. That's the way to do it. Thanks for the call, Zack. This is the Ramsey Show.

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Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney. The phone number to call is 825-5225. If you're looking for a shortcut to get better with money, I wish I could tell you there was a magic trick you could do. But here's the best shortcut I found is making it easy to do the right things with money. And that's why I love our Every Dollar Budgeting app. You punch in your income, you list out your expenses, you track your transactions against that. If you got a spouse, they can be signed into the same budgeting app. And so you have accountability, you have clarity with where your money is going. And I'm telling you, no matter what your money goal is, whether it's paying off debt, saving up for whatever it is, the budget will be your best friend. You can download every dollar for free in the App Store or Google Play, or click the link in the description if you're listening on YouTube or podcast. David is up next in Colorado Springs. What's going on, David?

Hey, how are you guys doing?

Doing great. How can John and I help?

Okay. Well, I got onto the debt-free train a bit further down the track than most people. We are currently debt-free, except our mortgage. I'm hoping to retire in about six years. And my question is, I am currently investing 15 % of my income into the 401k at work. And sometimes during the year, we'll have an extra $500, excuse me, an extra $1,000 that we can put towards something. And I was wondering, given that I'm in my 60s and I don't have the 20, 30 years or compound interest to work its full magic, should I be putting extra money towards our mortgage or should I be putting a little extra into my IRA to try to give that a little bit of a boost?

How much do you have in your nest egg currently across your retirement accounts Probably about 180, 190,000. Okay. Is there any other retirement income that you're planning on, a pension or anything like that?

No, there's nothing.

Okay. History will tell us in the a pool of 72, that every 7.2 years, your money would double at a 10% rate of return. That 190, let's call it 200, would double to 400 in seven years. You'll have 400K in your nest egg.

How much is left on your About 130,000.

So over those seven years, can we also make a plan to get the mortgage knocked out, which will reduce your expenses by whatever your mortgage payment is? What's your payment every month?

I'm trying to remember. We just moved. We just downsized. I think it's about $1,100 a month. I'm paying like 2000 a month on it.

Oh, good. You're already paying extra, and you're saying there's extra money coming in. Yes. I love it. Here's what I would do if I was in your shoes. I would put any extra money beyond the 15 % toward the mortgage. The answer is pretty simple. If you can reduce your expenses by 1100 bucks a month, you're going to be better off in a retirement. You won't need as much in the nest egg to cover your expenses.

Okay, yeah, that does make sense. Yeah.

The true part is you're going to knock that mortgage out probably quicker, and that will allow you to then invest up to the max with your catch contributions, just max everything out that you can once the mortgage is paid off. That might mean I got to work an extra year or two longer than I wanted to.

Well, I'm already doing that, but yeah.

Yeah. Well, the thing is, retirement is not an age. It's a financial number, so I wish I could just tell you, Yeah, you should be good at 66. You might need to go, I'm not quite there yet based on the life I want to live, or we have to make some serious sacrifices in our lifestyle in order to stay at this level in retirement.

But David, I can tell you the conversation I had with my parents. I think people get the Retirement number is really important, but I also think the retirement risk profile is important. The conversation I had with my parents who were in their 70s was, I want you all to be in a position where nobody can come take your house. Thinking about, how much do we have in the nest egg? What about our bills? I've got this one taken care of. Nobody can come take my bed from me. You get what I'm saying? I really want you to I have a nest egg in retirement, but man, I want you to have as little risk as possible. If you don't have a house payment, they can't come take your house from you. Man, just thinking about my own parents entering into their 70s, that just gives me a lot of peace. I know it gives them a lot of peace.

Yeah, I hadn't really thought at that angle, and that actually makes a whole lot of sense. Technically, I could pull money out of my 401(k) and pay off the house now. Oh, boy, don't do that.

I don't want to do that. Yeah, don't do that.

No, I'm not going to do that. Don't do that.

I would love you to land. Okay, cool. Now we have no bills. Not one person owns us, except we have to pay taxes, we have to pay our light bill and our water bill, and we'll have to put some gas in the car. Man, That just feels like a great place to start the fourth quarter of your life.

Then you don't need 1.5 million in that nest egg. You might be able to make two. But I would still crunch the numbers on this and go, All right, how much will we likely need? And is there going to be a gap? And what does that mean for our income? We might need to get our income up for the next seven years in order to hit this goal. There are things you can control in this, and I love that you're taking charge, even though you're getting a later start than many. Way to go. Jackson is up next in St. Petersburg, Florida. Jackson, welcome to The Ramsey Show.

How's it How are you doing, guys?

Great. Doing all right, man. What's up?

I am 26 years old. I've been married for just about a year. We bought our first starter home in end of February. Unfortunately, Unfortunately, we took about four, four and a half feet of water during the hurricane. Oh, man. Pretty much everything we own. We made five mortgage payments on this house, pretty much still owe the full mortgage amount, and now it's essentially worth nothing. The insurance is giving us about half of what we've been quoted to put it back together. So trying to navigate my existing finances and all of this has been a challenge.

Is your house a total loss?

It's certainly unlivable, but it can be repaired. It's not a total loss.

When you're getting... Where did the insurance company get their numbers from?

Did you not have enough coverage or did they lowball you for some reason?

No, they seriously lowballed us. We have good flood insurance, homeowners insurance. We're working through the appeal process right now.

I think it's worth you- But it's not looking great. I think it's worth going to get an attorney to walk through it with you.

What's the quote?

We have already spoken I have one, but trying to prepare for the worst.

What's the quote? What's the gap here? Hey, the quote is actually 100,000 and insurance is covering 50.

Yeah. Insurance is giving us 60, and it's looking like it'll be about 135 to 140.

Okay. You know someone else that might get involved is your mortgage company?

Yes.

Okay. Let them know, Hey, this is what they're coming in at. Because a cornerstone of a bank lending you money is that an insurance company has said, We'll take care of it if something happens to your investment bank, right? If this guy keeps paying us for his insurance, we're going to take care of your investment, Mr. Banker. They're saying, Yeah, no, we're not. Then that That might be another call I would make.

A lot of people in the neighborhood are selling for land value or pulling $300 cash out and lifting their home to above sea level. That's the other aspect of this is we spend all this money and put it back together, and then it could happen again next year.

Yeah. I mean, you live in Florida. I grew up in Houston. That's always a thing, right? We know that living on the Coast. Yeah. You hope it doesn't happen. If you're in a flood-prone area, you're going to pay more for insurance.

Do you still have the insurance? Yeah. They didn't kick you off?

No, they've not.

Okay, good. You're still living in this house?

No, it is completely uninhabitable.

Where are you now?

Renting.

You're paying rent plus still making the mortgage payment.

Well, the insurance company should pay for you while you're displaced.

That is not part of the policy or any flood policy. So our only option there is FEMA. We're on our third appeal with them. So obviously, that's a very slow process.

What's your take home pay?

About 102,000.

And what does this mortgage plus rent add up to every month?

If the mortgage is 3950, rent is about 950.

Man, that's a lot of your take home pay going to just try to cover this in the meantime. This could be a long journey. That's a tough one. I'd talk to everyone, real estate agents, attorneys, the mortgage company, and just fight, fight, fight, man. I'm so sorry you're going through this. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books.

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Live from the Ramsey Network, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm Ramsey Personalities George Kamel, joined by my colleague and friend, Dr. John Deloney, host of the Dr. John Deloney Show. We're taking your calls at 888-8825-5225. If you got a question about money, relationships, mental or emotional health, help us, help by calling in, and we'll do our best. Connor is in Anchorage, Alaska, to kick us off. What's going on, Connor?

Hey, how's it going? Good.

How are you?

Good. Hey, I just wanted to get your opinion on what I should do to build wealth for my future.

Awesome. Let's hear your situation.

Okay, so I'm 18 years old. I own a landscaping company. I bring in about 70 grand during the summer and then 30 to 35 during the winter. My truck is completely paid off, and that's about $23,000. I have a $20,000 camping trailer that I rent out, and that is also paid off I have a motorcycle that's paid off, and then a bunch... I have more trailers and stuff like that, and everything's paid off.

Goodness gracious.

You sound like an 18-year-old that suddenly started making six figures and bought every toy imaginable, just like I would have done.

Yeah, right. You've done it all very wisely.

You don't owe any money to anybody?

I don't owe any money, nothing.

Okay, will you make me in Georgia promise? You'll never borrow money.

I will never borrow money.

Listen, You just took one leap for mankind towards you having an astronomical amount of wealth. You're a hustler, aren't you?

I am, yeah.

Okay. When hustling is going well, hustlers get loaded. When things get dicey, when the economy gets sideways or people don't need your gear or somebody's like, I thought you made a lot of money. Why are you driving that truck? It hurt your precious feelings. Hustlers get themselves in a mess. If you will stick to this principle and the principle George is going to walk you through, all of us will be working for you someday.

Got you.

Is that cool?

That's cool. All right, good. Love it. Is this a solo gig or do you have a team?

It's solo, but I do have a team for lawn care and stuff, and then I designed the landscape projects.

But you're taking home 100K a year?

Yeah, just about that, give or take, depending on the year. It's gone up every year, though.

Amazing. Okay. How much do you have in savings?

I have about $20,000.

We'll call that your emergency fund?

Yeah, let's do that.

Okay. You're at the point where you're able to build wealth. You don't have any debt. You have an emergency fund that puts you in baby step four in the Ramsey plan, where you begin investing 15 % of your income into retirement plans. For you, 100K a year, we're going to call that $15,000, should be being put away every single year into retirement. Now, for you, you're self-employed, you have options. You can always open a Roth IRA. Do you have one of those?

I do, but I only have a thousand bucks in it.

Okay. Well, it sounds like you just made it to this point where you're in a really good spot. You've got all the toys you need, and you have the emergency fund. So I would begin doing what's called cost averaging. So you take $7,000 is what you can contribute to a Roth IRA this year. And so come January, we're going to put in one month of that. And then February, one month of that. And so by December, you've put in all $7,000. Got you. Okay. That's what? $550? I got to check my math on that. $583. Okay. So you can put $583 every month in there. It'll be maxed up at the end of the year. But remember, you should be investing $15,000. So you still need 8,000 more of retirement account, which means you might want to look into, depending on your situation, a SEP, IRA, or a Solo 401(k). Okay. Depending on how your business is set up. And I would be contacting a SmartVestor Pro. This is a person who can help you on your investing journey. If you jump on ramsey solutions. Com and click on SmartVestor, they can walk you through the best options for your situation, for how your business is set up to get the right retirement accounts going for you.

Got you. Okay.

But, man, you're crushing it. And as your income goes up, that 15 % will also increase. Yeah, true that. And then, I'm guessing you have other goals. Do you want to be a homeowner?

I do, yes.

So beyond the 15 %, let's say, hopefully you have money money leftover because you're doing such a great job budgeting and living on less than you make, that you could then also set up another high yield savings account and just start shoveling any extra money into that account so that you'll look up and have 100 grand ready for a down payment in a few years.

God, Got you. Okay, that's good to know. Yeah, that would be nice. Then another question, how do I start? What's the best way that I can build credit? Because I still don't have a credit card yet.

Don't, ever.

You're 18 and wealthier than most Americans. What makes you think you need a credit card?

I was thinking like, someday when I do want to buy a house.

George and I have both bought houses with a credit score of zero. Really? Okay. Yeah. That's an old story our parents taught us, and it's a news story that floats around on the TikToks and the Instagrams. If you want to get stupid, Rich, just delete social media. Just delete social media and become a great- Freeze your credit accounts, never touch the stuff.

Because guess what? You've already learned that you know how to manage your money instead of managing debt. Credit scores are all about being good at managing debt. It's not something you need or are interested in.

Think about a credit score like this. Imagine you're dating, and since you're 18 years old and you make six figures, you're going to be a prized possession there in Anchorage. All a credit score is Is somebody asking how you've treated your old girlfriends before they... They want to know everyone you've dated. Okay, that makes sense. If you ever go on a date and the first question somebody says, Hey, hold on, before I go out, I want to know the names and numbers of everyone you ever dated, I'm going to call them and check up on you. Just walk away. That's not going to be a good relationship for you. That's not going to be good.

Okay, that makes sense.

That's good to know then. Listen, I could give you $10 million in cash today, and you could put it in your checking account, and your credit score would not change. Credit score has nothing to do with how much wealth you have. It just has to do with how you've danced with debt in the past. It doesn't matter. It's a scam.

Okay. Here's the process, and I'll send you a copy of my book, Breaking Free from Broke. In the homeownership chapter, I walk people through the process of buying a house without a credit score. Actually, in the credit score chapter, if that makes sense where it goes. It's a process called manual underwriting. You'll hear this as a no-score loan sometimes. What they do, just like the olden days before credit scores existed, they'll look your actual financial picture and they go, Okay, Connor has a very low debt to income ratio because he has no debt. He makes a great income. We see his tax return, and we're going to grant him this mortgage based on real factors. The automated underwriting is just a computer saying, Hey, he's got a great credit score. You can trust him to hopefully pay back this loan. It's a very similar process. It's just a little bit more manual. It doesn't take much more time. It's simple. You just need proof of... Are you paying rent every month on time? I am, Are you paying any utility bills or cell phone bills on time every month? Celphone, yeah. Insurance?

Yep.

Boom. Those are the types of things that would qualify you. Our friends at Churchill Mortgage have been specializing in these types of no-score loans for a long time. It's why they've been great partners for us. John and I have both went through this process, so we're here to tell you it's very much possible.

Hey, you're going to learn a hard lesson. Can I go ahead and just ruin it for you, Connor?

Go for it.

If you've got for easy math, let's say you make $100,000 every year on the dot. $35,000 of that, you got to pull out for taxes. $15,000 of that, you're going to pull out to invest. Now you're down to $50,000. And then you're going to have an emergency fund, and you're going to see why you're My dad's grumpy a lot because he makes a lot of money and there's nothing. He didn't get to spend it on anything other than planning for the future and giving it to the government. So don't get antsy. Don't buy crap you can't afford. Just keep plugging away, dude. And I'm telling you what, I'm so proud of you. George, so proud of you. You're a hero. You're on the path, my brother.

Congratulations. Hang on, child. Hang on the line. We'll send you a copy of my book, Breaking Free from Broke. Hope it helps you build wealth in a much more peaceful way. This is the Ramsey Show.

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Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney. The phone number to call is 888-825-5225. John, listen, I was in the Ramsey Network app, as I tend to be in my free time.

You live there in your free time.

I noticed there's a new spot up top, and it's got your face on it. That's right. United States of Anxiety.

They've moved the Dr. John Deloney show into the app, and along with the Ramsey show, and you can get the show a week early. But one of the big questions that people have asked since I started on the show is, okay, you talk to people for eight minutes and you give them this idea, or 20 minutes, then you give them these things they need to do. Does this stuff actually work? This was a bluff call. There's a couple of episodes of me sitting with somebody for 90 days. We sit in person. One person, I got on a plane and flew to Connecticut. I was like, I need to see her ASAP. But we walk through. People are struggling with various things, relationships and anxiety, whatever. It turned out to be a pretty amazing show. This This latest episode is about this extraordinary woman named Kelsey, who, man, she does a lot of hard work during this thing. It's a fun episode. But you can check out my show. You can check out the Ramsey show. You can check out everything on George's favorite place to hang out, the Ramsey Network app.

It's totally free, so go download it. A good reminder that the next hour of the show will be exclusive to the Ramsey Network app. That's right. We're putting a lot of cool things in there on top of new shows, the The third hour of the Ramsey Show is also in there. Go check it out, go to your app store, and search for Ramsey Network and get it today. All right, Rachel's up next in Wichita. What's going on, Rachel?

Hi, guys. I basically just lack boundaries and the ability to keep my boundaries. That's got my marriage to a place where my husband's a bit spoiled and I can't get him unspoiled.

We I love the self-awareness and honesty here. Yeah.

It's like, I can't drive in my car is in a ditch. All right, so what do you struggle with boundaries? What boundaries do you struggle with?

I would say probably the most major thing is I am a huge people-pleaser, and I don't like to, I guess, annoy people or bother them. Instead of doing that, I just take everything on myself.

Who told you? Hold on. Who told you, either explicitly or implicitly, who told you that you're a burden? Somewhere along the way, you picked up the message that the world would be better if you just stayed in the shadows? Who told you that?

I would say it would partly be maybe a lack of self-confidence mixed with bad previous abusive relationships.

Okay. But that lack of self-confidence comes from someone, something. You don't just wake up with a lack of self-confidence. That's something that's earned over time.

That's true. I guess I couldn't necessarily pinpoint. I don't recall ever not being like this.

Did you grow up in a house where an adult said, Hey, if you do that, your dad's going to get really or Hey, you know mom gets mad if you… Is that the house you grew up in?

No. My household, it was, I guess, maybe easy for my parents. My mom handled me and my dad handled my brother. It's just us two. I didn't really get any maybe discipline from my dad.

What did you get from your dad?

I guess that's maybe… Okay, so now I am thinking about it a little harder. My parents have always denied it, but I've always, and other family members and things like that have always felt like my brother was maybe favored a little bit more. At least that's always been my thoughts on it. I felt like he was getting things that I was being told I couldn't have and things like that. I guess maybe that could be where it stemmed from is like, why is he getting it and I'm not?

Well, but take a step deeper. That's the way to intellectualize it. But imagine yourself a seven-year-old little girl when you're just basically a walking nervous system and you aren't asking yourself, Why is he getting what I'm not? You can ask that question, but the underneath it is, What's wrong with me?

Yeah.

Why doesn't dad like me, too?

Yeah, and I don't think it's that he didn't like me. I think it's maybe just easier for him to do that.

I know. Seven-year-olds don't tell the truth. They're not factual creatures, but they're just full We're healing creatures. All I have to say is, here's where that's important right now. Nothing I tell you, nothing George tells you is going to matter if you don't think you're worth even the conversation. If you think you're a burden to tell your husband, I'm not doing this, or, We don't have the money for, or, I need your help around here with the kids. If you don't think you're worth that conversation, or somehow his time or his precious little feelings are more important, more valuable than yours, then it doesn't matter what tips or hacks we give you.

Every time someone steps over that boundary line, the story you're telling yourself is, Well, of course, I'm not worth someone respecting a boundary. I shouldn't have put that boundary up. That's on me. You've taken this on yourself.

Tell me something. You said your husband's spoiled. How is he spoiled?

It's mostly just the chores around the house. We don't actually have kids. We both work full-time, so I feel like chores should be split pretty evenly. Correct.

You're correct.

At the beginning of our relationship, I would say they were. He fell into a depression with his last job. That, I think, is where the bulk of it came from, is I was obviously there for him through that. We've gone through that, but during that time, I just ended up taking over everything, and it's never gotten back to the 50/50.

Well, I think 50/50, if you try to keep score, that's a recipe for you crashing and burning. I wouldn't do that. But I would seek equity. We pull equal weight around here. What 50/50 means is, you do the dishes, I do this. You do this, I do this. Then somebody gets the flu and dishes pile up, or somebody has a really wild... My wife has an editorial deadline for her book, I don't do the dishes. I do my half. She does her half. That destroys relationships. But if there is a sense of whoever walks by the dishes, picks up the dishes. Both of us help with kids' bedtimes. Both of us help with laundry. It does help sometimes to divvy up like, Hey, I'll take care of the laundry. I need you to push. My wife hits send on all of our bills. We talk about our budget and stuff, but she's the one who actually writes the check or hits send on whatever internet-y thing they have. I don't know how those things get paid by. But it starts with a conversation, and it starts with the deeper layer here is, We do this together.

Here's a beautiful moment. You're coming up on a new year. This is a great time to do it. I would love to see you take him out to breakfast and say, Hey, the last year was hard, and I'm proud of you for the steps you've made. I want us to have the conversation about what marriage we're going to have this year. I want to talk about what you and what you want. I'm going to talk about what I need and what I want. Then we're going to talk about how we can love each other in 2025. We get to build a new marriage this year.

Yes, I love that.

If you come at him and say, You haven't been doing your stuff, the moment you say the word you, his body is going to... You start to fight. He's got to defend himself. But if you sit down and say, I've been taking on the lion share of this stuff while you got well, and I'm so grateful that I was able to help you and walk alongside you this way, that's great. I want to back off on doing everything around the house, and I want us to begin... You're using the word I, which is an invitation word. Man, you get to decide, you get to lay it out there. I would suggest that you come with a picture in your mind that you can tell him pretty clearly. Because usually these conversations with the people-pleasers start with, I just want you to pick up some more slack. You have a picture in your head of what more slack is, and he gets a picture in his head of what more slack is, and those pictures do not match. That's very true. So let's be specific. Let's be very specific. And find a moment where you can be grateful for the things that he does do.

These conversations always help with a spirit of gratitude, a spirit of curiosity, not judging, not I can't believe it. It's just about imitation. Then if he says, I'm not doing any of that stuff, now you have to deal with the actual gaps in your marriage. Hopefully, he hears you and says, I'm all in. I can't wait to build something new in 2025. Thanks for the call.

I've been doing this show for over 30 years, and some of the saddest calls I have taken are from situations that are completely preventable.

Yeah, What's so hard is I feel like one of those, especially the ones that I'm like, Oh, it's terrible. People that call in and their spouse has passed away suddenly, and they don't have life insurance. When you have to think through, how am I going to pay my bills in the middle- How am I going to eat next week? Yeah. In the middle of all that grief. It's terrible. Life insurance is the one thing, especially as a mom with three little kids that I'm so big on for people to get because it's inexpensive. Xander is the place that Winston and I actually get all of our life insurance.

It doesn't cost much because Xander shops among a gazillion different companies. It doesn't cost much. You just have to admit that someday you're not going to be here. You got to say it out loud, and you got to say, I'm going to say I love you to my family by taking care of them and taking the time to put this stuff in place. The cost of a stinking pizza. To get a free quote, call 800-356-42 That's 800-356-4282, or go to zander. Com.

Are you determined to get out of debt and build wealth this new year? Then don't leave out an important step, which is having the right insurance. Don't make the mistake of thinking you can get by with minimal coverage or no coverage at all. Because when Murphy comes knocking, and he will, you'll start backsliding further into debt if you don't have the money to pay for it and if you don't have the right insurance. So take our insurance coverage checkup. We make it easy with a free tool that helps you find out if you have all of your bases covered. To check To find out, go to ramseysolutions. Com/checkup. That's ramseysolutions. Com/checkup. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney. The number to call is 888-825-5225. We'd be happy to help you take the right next step for your life, your money, your relationships, whatever you got going on. Noah is up next in Jackson, Mississippi. Noah, welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Thank you so much, gentlemen. How are we?

We're doing great. How can we help today?

Okay, so I guess long story short. I'm about three months out from turning 30, and I'm having some crisis realizing that I have essentially been in survival mode, it feels like for the last 13 years of my... My wife and I have been together 13 years, and we have three children together. I've come to notice that I have nothing saved. I'm constantly overdrafter, and I don't have a 401k because my work doesn't offer it. My wife is self-employed, so we don't have anything like that. I feel like I need help. I'm trying to take in as much info as I can and do it that way, but I'm like, I just need someone to talk to me about what I need.

Tell me if I'm out to lunch, man. Dude, I want to honor you in this moment. This isn't an easy phone call for you to make, is it?

No.

Okay. I want to tell you, if you were here, I wouldn't say anything to you. I'd just give you a hug for a second, okay? I know this call is hard. You got three kids, you're a good dad, you're a good husband, and you also have that nagging feeling that you've probably had for 13 years. I don't know what I'm doing. Is that fair?

Yes, it is. We were young parents. We were 16 and 17, and I just All of a sudden, it's like life has come together. I've got a job that I adore. My wife, like I said, she's running her own business that she adores. It's like, Okay, we've made it, but what do we do now?

How much money do you all make a year? What's your annual salary?

I brought home a little over $115,000 this year. Okay.

What about your wife?

My wife, right now, we pay ourselves $600 a month from her business account.

Is it a glorified hobby? I'm not asking that in a mean way. It's an accounting firm.

Yeah, she does her own accounting firm. We built a little office in our backyard, and she deals with agricultural accounting.

Okay. But she makes $6,000 a year?

That's what we bring home, yes. Then we leave money, obviously, in the business, and it pays all of its own bills and all that.

Is she also at home taking care of the kids, and this is just a few hours a week thing or what?

My kids are all in school full-time, as much as kids are. But so, yes, she is home full-time. The thing about my job, I work as a paramedic, and the only way I was able to find money like that is I have a travel contract. I go up to Chicago for two weeks every month, and I work in Chicago for two weeks, and I come home for two weeks.

So The quickest way to get out of survival mode is you've been running. Think of it this way. You've been running for... You're a paramedic, so I've run the streets with I'll talk to you guys a little bit. You know how annoying it is when a colleague from another department shows up and is just yelling, running around like crazy without a direction, without a set of orders?

Yeah.

That's in your life. The thing you have to have more than anything else is, A, a direction and a goal where you and your wife actually want to end up. Then you got to have a plan to get there. But you don't have that. You've just been doing the next right thing for 13 years, and now you're almost 30 years old. You got three kids, and you're like, Oh, gosh, we don't have anything.

The part that's concerning is you've been making more and more every year with nothing to show for it, which tells me every single extra penny you earn is getting also spent. I I don't think it's all like, It's for the kids. There's probably some spending we've been doing out of just survival mode to have some retail therapy or just go, I just deserve X, Y, Z. Where is that spending happening? Where would you say, Man, this is where the money's going? If you told me straight up, Beyond the bills, this is where it's going.

Gosh. Truly, like I said, my wife had some anxiety. When I'm home, I'm sorry, when gone. She does not do necessarily a whole lot with getting out of the house. When I am home, we are taking the kids to movies and taking them shopping. I know that I have this desire to seek this approval, I I think of everyone in my household is like, Hey, it's okay that you're gone because... There you go. I don't know.

I'm trying to justify why I know that- So dad's gone, and when dad's home, he buys our love and life is okay.

Right. So Again, going back to this is the magic question that transformed my marriage. It actually didn't transform it. It kept it from falling completely apart. When my wife asked me, What do you want this house to feel like when you walk in the door? That led me to go to counseling because I was such an anxious mess, and I had to deal with that. That led to us getting our money squared up because I was tired of being anxious about it. My wife had to go do her own work. Your wife just deciding, I'm so anxious now. I just don't do anything for two weeks out of every month or whatever, 26 weeks out of every year. That's insane. That's madness. She needs to go talk to somebody and head straight into that anxiety. You, you're making good money, and probably you told You're going to change yourself since you were 16 years old, if I could make six figures, all my problems would go away. But you're missing half your life. Maybe 85 is a better number for you where I can be with my family.

Right.

Or she's working. You all built a whole thing. Hopefully, you didn't take a whole bunch of loan on it or take an equity line of credit to build the thing in the backyard. But, dude, she could work at Starbucks for six hours a week and make $6,000 a year. Right. You know what I mean? It's just a matter of asking, where do we want to actually go? What do we want this house to feel like? Right. You have felt less than for a long, long time. I almost want to tell you, dude, The odds you're getting somebody pregnant at 16, that A, you stuck around, that B, you all stuck this out, that C, you all aren't in abject part. You have beaten every statistic against you. That's what I'm saying.

I'm not so I'm like, I've got to get this figured out.

No, no, no. Hold on. Before you do that, I want you to exhale and say, I've done some good.

Right.

Okay? You've done some good. Now, tell me, you're 35 years old.

What do you want your house to feel I mean, I don't know. I want my kids- No, no, no, no.

You've been thinking about everybody else for 13 years. What do you want your house to feel like when you're 35 years old and you walk in the day after your birthday? What do you want the house to feel like?

I just want it to feel safe in the sense that, I don't know, that if something bad were to happen tomorrow, that we're okay or that- That's your survival mode talking.

That's your scarcity world. That's the childhood you grew up in.

Yeah.

Let's flip it around. What do you want your house to feel like? In my house, you know what I want? I want it to be filled with laughter.

Yeah.

I want my wife to be happy that I'm home, which means I have to exercise. I got to go deal with my mental and emotional health. That means I got to help her on the house. I got to be an active participant in my house. I want my kids happy that I'm there, right? Not just because I buy them crap, but because they like me. Yeah, absolutely. They know that I'm a safe person. I think that's the exercise. I want you and your wife to get away at the turn of the year here and ask yourself, What do we want this house to feel like? Then hang on the line. I'm going to send you. George and I will send you Financial Peace University. We'll send you the Every Dollar Budget. I'm going to send you a copy of George's book, Breaking Free from Broke, that will walk you through step by step. I'll send you Dave Ramsey's best seller. Gosh, I just lost the title. Total Money Makeover? There it is. The book that built this building. James is laughing in there. Total Money Makeover, the O. G. Book, right? I'll send you everything because I want to support you guys and walk with you.

But you guys have to get away and say, Okay, what does this house to feel like? And then you'll have to head into these things that you've been scared about. I don't know anything about money. We got you. I'm worried about your anxiety. We're going to go see a counselor. I'm worried about the kid number two, we're going to go meet with the teachers. We're going to go head into these problems in 2025. No more avoiding. We're done avoiding. I'm proud of you. We'll be right back.

Folks, the Ramsey Christmas Cash Giveaway is here, and you could win big. We're giving away $500 prizes each week and one grand prize of $5,000. Enter daily for your chance to win at ramseysolutions. Com/giveaway. It's that easy. Plus, our 50 days of Christmas deals is on right now. Get up to 30% off best sellers and life-changing gifts that won't break the holiday budget. Ramseysolutions. Com/store.

Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney. As a listener of The Ramsey Show, many of you are wondering, Am I on track financially? Am I on track to hit these baby steps to reach my financial goals? Well, our team created a really quick, easy fund quiz to check your progress, And on the other side, you'll get a personalized plan built just for you. So if you want to check it out, go to the show notes and click on the link titled Are You On Track with the Baby Steps? And complete the free quiz. If you didn't know, the Ramsey Network app is the only place to get full episodes of The Ramsey Show. You can download it for free. We get the link in the show notes again, or just search Ramsey Network app in the App Store. This will be the last segment of this show where you're listening right now if you're on YouTube or podcast. If you're on radio, stay tuned. The show will continue. Everyone else, you don't want to miss more calls, so go get the Ramsey Network app and finish the show like a decent human being, John.

Be a good American.

Be a good...

Good job, George. Thank you. Robert is up next in Houston, Texas. What's going on, Robert? Dr. John is already a fan of you.

Oh, fantastic. How are you doing, gentlemen?

Well, they traded Tucker, so I'm still bummed about it, but we're moving on. What's up, dude?

Well, We try to be really wise with our income, and I'm afraid we may have made ourselves artificially house poor.

Tell me more.

Artificially... You use some great big words in that sentence. That was fantastic.

Oh, yeah, I Almost two years ago, we took out a construction loan and built our forever home out on the family property next to my folks. We didn't get the land. We didn't build our home in someone else's land, so that was smart, I think. The issue is we painted ourselves in a corner when we did it because we did it in an adjustable rate mortgage. Now it's forcing us in a situation where we're having a snowball pay off the mortgage before the adjustment hits. So I'd appreciate your perspective on whether it'd be a better choice to continue power paying this mortgage or maybe loosen the belt a little, live our lives and plan to refinance before the adjustment happens.

When is the adjustment happening?

December of is a 10.5 ARM at 5.375. We built it in March of 2020, so it was like the worst time in modern history to both retire from the military and build a home.

Okay. And And you're thinking, hey, do we just try to snowball this or refinance later on? When would you be refinancing?

On 33? Well, before 10 years is up is what I'm thinking, because we're able to make the payment and stuff right now. We built it for 675, but we only finance 549 because we try to pay as much cash as we could for different parts. The builder worked with us really well.

What's your household income?

So my military retirement is 35,000, and then I have a VA disability of 45,000. That part's tax-free. And I do have a phenomenal job, almost like a 190,000.

Amazing. So what's your monthly mortgage payment right now, and what's the monthly take-home pay?

3,100 is the mortgage, and we're taking home about 9,000 a month because I have some payroll deduction for the Roth 401k. I'm at 9%, the company match is six, and they also have an ESOP of an additional 5% on top of that. Then we're real generous, so I got about 18% of my income going out of our take home to tides and just being generous.

Okay. Well, if it puts your family in financial jeopardy at some point, you may want to dial that back so you can take care of your own house first. But I mean, nothing is on fire here. I don't see a world where, I mean, if you refinanced, what would the big deal be at this point? You'd get a slightly higher interest rate?

Right now, it'd be a lot higher, plus all the closing costs. I mean, I wouldn't make a... We're on track to pay it off in November of '32. But that's right I'm making the $3,100 payment, and we're paying an additional $3,500 every month.

How much you owe on it?

466.

So you're saying, Hey, we can pay this thing off before it adjusts?

Right.

That was our initial plan.

I think it's a great It's a plan. But it is. Because we snowballed our dead, I've got both of our vehicles. I think the youngest one is 16, and the lowest miles is like 230,000.

Yeah, but your future-casting problems. What if you just simply said, I'm going to take my two VA checks for five years, and that's going to go straight to the house? That's $450,000, right? Wow. It's $80,000 times five. It's $450,000. So the house is covered. Now, you and your family have to struggle and scratch and claw to live off $190,000 with no house payment. I don't know how you all make it, but surely you all can figure that out.

Wow. I didn't look at it that way.

You see what I'm saying? You just cleared every one of your problems. You have a guaranteed income that will vest your house before... And vest is the wrong word. It's just the word I'm using. It will clear your house before the arm resets You're done. It's guaranteed money. It's not going to go away. Your salary will probably fluctuate. You're 190. Hopefully, it keeps going up, but you can't predict 5, 10 years from now. Correct. Good God Almighty, dude. That puts you in the tip, tip, tip top of earners in America to take care of your family. You're going to have a huge house, a nice place, and a great salary, and you're not going to have new Tahos, and that's frustrating. That's annoying.

You're going to have to keep your lifestyle in check, keep living on less than you make, and maybe even downgrade a little bit from what you guys are doing.

Yeah, you're going to get Cameries. Retired military guys aren't supposed to drive Camries. We all know that, but you know what I mean?

We're still driving junkers right now. I'm figured one of them is going to blow up here pretty soon.

It will. Let's We'll not be surprised. Let's solve that when it gets there. Let's start a sinking fund. Part of that is we're going to put 2,000 bucks a month right now into the savings account every month. We're going to have 24 grand in a year so that when the car blows up, we got 20 grand to go buy something used and reasonable. I think you're trying to go all in on one thing. You're in this spot in baby steps four through 6, where we're going to balance a bunch of things. That's where the sinking funds are beautiful because you just stack the money away every month. You're intentional about it. Nothing's ever a surprise. Whatever's left, we can throw at the mortgage. You said you're only investing 9%, and the baby set 4, the 15%, is your income, regardless of the match.

Should I still do the full 15%? Yes.

You need to give 10% to your local church, and you need to give a little bit to here and there. Right now, you need to make sure that nobody's going to have to give to take care of you in 30 years. Got you. You know what I'm saying? You're a good, good man.

If you complain that you've amassed too much wealth because of the extra 6% invested, you can call and yell at John and I.

Yeah, I'll take that call.

You can Venmo us the difference that you want to unload. Exactly.

But I think, yes, tie your 10% to your local church and be generous where you can and help out. What'd you do in the military, brother?

Electronics.

Okay. Domestic or overseas, or both?

I love both.

Okay.

Yeah. I was gone, I don't know, six years out of 22.

Tell me if I'm wrong, dude, but I feel like I hear it on you. Do you have that sense of why me?

Sense of what?

That sense of why me? Why am I the one who's got a good house and my parents are still together and we're living by them and I got a good marriage and my kids are healthy and I make great money? Why me?

You know I used to, but it's because it's been a marriage of three. God has been in our relationship since we got married back when we were 19. Awesome. We just hit 28 years.

Congratulations, dude. Way to go. I want you to hold your head up high. You're in a good spot. You've got to where you are because you're good at future casting. You're good at predicting what comes next and solving that problem.

You give me entirely too much credit. I was really good at picking up the pieces after I made a bunch of mistakes.

Yeah, but you learned this magic thing. You learned this magic thing intuition, which people think is some voodoo. Intuition is just, I screwed it up a bunch and I see it come again, right?

You work hard and you're good at what you do. People don't pay people 200 grand when they suck.

There's a fine line. Yeah, exactly. You're clearly good at what you do. But there's a fine line between future casting and anxiety and worrying. So spoiler alert, yes, your cars are going to crap out. They are. So just start planning now. Spoiler alert, you got 80,000 $1,000 guaranteed tax-free income coming every year. As a taxpayer, I'm honored to get to pay it for the work that for the parts of your life you gave up to protect my family. Dude, I'm all in on that. Pay your house off with it. Call Good. Worry about other things later.

That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books, go check out the Ramsey Network app to get even more calls coming up.

What up? What up? It's Dr. John Deloney from the Dr. John Deloney Show with some amazing news. The latest episode of United States of Anxiety is available right now exclusively on the Ramsey Network app. This docuseries follows real people from my show as they embark on a 90-day journey to transform their lives, and I personally walk alongside them every step of the way. Okay, now, here's a sneak peek of what the new episode is all about. Don't forget to click the link in the show notes to download the app. What's up, Kelsey?

I've lived with crippling anxiety for for as long as I can remember, how do I stop it from constantly coming up in different areas of my life?

What does crippling anxiety mean? Paint me a picture of that. All right, so you're ready to jump in?

I'm ready to jump in.

We're going to check in with Kelsey 30 days, 60 days, 90 days.

I cannot even function because I'm just crying. My mom left us when I was four. I truly felt like for a while, had no family.

She's experiencing things that really hurt a long time ago. Tell me about this boy.

He triggers me a lot. Scared of losing Paul, scared of doing the wrong thing, scared of not being enough.

It just feels like it would be exhausting to be Kelsey. It is. Whenever somebody's playing Whac-a-mole with their anxiety, when it just keeps moving, that tells me the underlying system's not okay.

How do I get my inner child out of this relationship? Because I feel like she's running the show.

One of two people that's supposed to never leave took off. How is this burden? The burden, that's right. To the one person who should carry it, all of it. Did you ever tell that little girl that it wasn't her fault?

I don't know what to do.

You either have to choose to let this guy love you, or you got to choose to let this guy go.