Don't Leave Your Financial Future To Chance

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. 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. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author and co-host of Smart Money Happy Hour, is my co-host today. The phone number here is 888-825-5225. The call is free, and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. Josh is in Virginia Beach. Hey, Josh, what's up? Not much. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. How can we help? Oh, just trying to figure out what I need to do on getting myself out of a financial pit. What's going on? What happened? Okay, well, I closed my business and moved to Virginia to try to just go work for somebody else, get rid of the hassle, all nine yards there. And even though I'm making good money, I've still got six bucks in my bank account by the time I pay the bills. How much debt do you have? Combined with my old business, around $100,000. Okay, and how much do you make now? I'm making right at $85,000 a year at the new job I started. I was making about $80,000. Good for you. Josh, how long ago did you close your business? Literally, actually, my last day in my shop was the first of the year. And I've been about eight months now. What kind of business was it? It was auto repair. How long did you have it? 15 years. Wow. That's kind of heartbreaking, isn't it? It is. Yeah. There were a lot of bad decisions, and choices there kind of led me into a financial pit. So how much of the $100,000 is business debt, and what kind of debt is it? I got the taxes, and they hit me with a bunch of penalties and everything. So I got probably about $70,000 in the taxes with penalties, and then just the vendors and everything, and probably about another $15,000, $18,000. Okay. That's $85,000, and then the other $15,000 is what? Yeah. Well, actually, then I got a vehicle payment, or my vehicle was $22,000. I still owe on it. Mm-hmm. And credit cards, I'm right about $3,000 in credit card debt. Yeah. What's the vehicle? It's a Jeep Wrangler. What's it worth? Probably $17,000. You're single? Yeah. Okay. All right. I've been through closing a business and the heartbreak of that and the gut punch that that was to my confidence. And so sometimes in these situations, it's more about confidence and believing than it is an actual math problem. You've got a bit of a math problem, but it's not overwhelming. But it's also believing that Josh is a good guy. Josh can win. Josh knows how to do big things again. And Josh does. He ran a dadgum thing for 15 years. Okay? You just made a few mistakes and got tripped up. And so now we've got to work our way out of those things. But if you're single and making $85,000, we can address these things and push your way through it. So if I'm you, how old are you? I'm 42. Okay. So if I'm you, I don't have anybody to tell what to do except the guy in my mirror. And so I'm going to set up camp. I'm going to set up camp in the cheapest possible, safe and clean, one-bedroom apartment. And then I'm going to start working all the time, spending nothing, and cleaning up this debt as aggressively as I can. You could think about selling the Jeep, but meh, maybe not. It's not that big a deal. It's not your biggest problem. Your biggest problem by far is taxes. Are you paying anything on those right now? Not yet. I mean, I've just been paying all the other debts and everything. I've been trying to pay. I've been trying to pay all the personal debts. Yeah, and the vendors that were your friends. You're right. So I'm trying to put, you know, and that's where my whole paycheck's now is going from other than my Jeep payment, which it got behind, and I had double the payments up on it. Yeah, you need to get it caught up. But what happened was, is you were in a tailspin, and you were dizzy, and the chaos came in, and so you were doing a bad job, a disorganized job, because of the failure and the loss of confidence, failure on the business, and that's normal, and I don't blame you for that, but I just want to give you permission to be where you are, and now let's fight our way out of it. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to get above this problem and get away from all the emotion and just look at the facts. The facts are we got $85,000 coming in. These $15,000 worth of vendors will work with you. They'll probably settle for pennies on the dollar. If you'll go to RamseySolutions.com and click on Tax Professional on the e-mail address, they'll help you set up a payment plan on the tax and keep them from coming down on your head randomly, because they will randomly come in and screw up your life. Get the credit card paid off and get the Jeep paid off, the vendors paid off, and then work on the taxes. And so, you know, work these off smallest to largest. The good news is you have a very, very marketable skill for a side hustle called fixing cars. Did you come out of this with a tool set? Yes. Okay. Yeah, I mean, and that was another issue I'm at right now is I'm renting a one-bedroom apartment. Good. The utility and everything is $800 a month, which is dirt cheap. Great. That's good. Excellent. But if I could find something that I had a little bit of space to work, I could do side work and make money on. Yep. But that's also a gamble. It's kind of. Well, I mean, here's the thing. I want you to go get some side work. And there are guys that. Roll up in the parking lot here at Ramsey and work on people's cars in the parking lot while they're at work. Mobile repair. And they don't need a space because there's a brake job going on out in the parking lot right now, probably. Yeah. It's half the time I'm out there. That business is blowing up. And you can start it with nothing. Yeah, because all you need is your tool set. And you can do the basic stuff, some maintenance stuff. Obviously, you can't pull an engine in the parking lot of their office, but you can do some of the other stuff. And make some really good side money while you're doing this. And then, George, I think we need to put him on every dollar budget and take the 85 plus any side hustle money we can scrape together and then start working a debt snowball. Yeah. I mean, if you're saying your rent is pretty cheap, your expenses are pretty cheap, sounds like most of his income is going out to those debt payments. Well. But if we can throw a couple grand at that debt a month, we can clean this up in a couple of years. And I want you to call those vendors. I know they're the ones that are tugging at your heart the most. But if you owe a guy $5,000 and he hasn't been paid in a while. Yeah. Yeah. In nine months, just say, hey, man, I'm over here. I'm living in one bedroom. I'm broke. What will you take to settle this debt? I want to stand up and pay you. And what would you take to settle it? And you owe him $5,000. He'll probably say, hey, send me a couple grand. We'll call it a day. Get that in writing so it doesn't come back to haunt you. And then send him a couple grand. They'll settle with you, though. Vendors will. But the thing is, when you're a small business guy like that, most of those vendors are your friends. And so you don't want to pee on your friends, right? But in this situation, I'm just going to. I'm going to ask for some mercy, you know, like when you're a kid. Uncle, right? You got me down. Uncle, right? So. And they'll be shocked to hear from you. Well, they'll be pleased that after nine months that they got anything. Exactly. They thought you were gone. And that's the thing. So they'll settle with you. This is not like some stupid credit card company with some collector in a cubicle 500 miles away who can't keep a real job and is calling you 42 times. That's not who we're dealing with. We're dealing with a guy you know down the street. This team stepped in right away. They were monitoring my information and caught the issue, and their U.S.-based recovery specialists helped handle the calls, the paperwork, the cleanup, so I didn't have to do it all on my own. Zander also includes up to $2 million in stolen funds and expense reimbursement, and with the family plan, your kids are covered for free. You work too hard to let identity theft steal your time, your money, and your peace of mind. So go to zander.com to enroll today or call 800-356-4282. We'll be right back. ramsey's taking over an entire cruise ship 2,500 ramsey people who beat debt change their family trees they're on baby step four and beyond and they're celebrating with the ultimate debt-free vacation if you're on the cruise or you get on the cruise before we sell it out here's what's going to be waiting for you seven days with me and all the ramsey personalities in the western caribbean new wealth building teachings the world's largest debt-free scream live episodes from your favorite ramsey shows and a whole lot more if you're baby step four or up click the link in the show notes and go to ramsey solutions.com slash events and book your cabin right now george i just heard my friend and i just really love this woman is going to be uh some of our one of our musical guests uh the one and only natalie grant you and uh man she is a wonderful human being but also had that voice world class voice and uh just so i'm really excited to have her with us on here and um we had stephen curse chapman with us last year so i mean we got the lineup of lineups you got all the entertainment you could ask for yeah oh it's going to be something you're going to be you're going to be entertained out if you're bored it's your fault exactly so again go to ramsey solutions.com slash events or you can click the link in the show notes and get get registered for this cruise it's next march and uh it is not quite sold out you can still get some of the cabins uh and there's some specials running literally today so check it out uh julie's in houston texas hi julie how are you hi doing well thanks for taking my call sure what's up um so i initially uh attempted to enter into an agreement with my father to purchase a house that he had inherited from my great aunt um and i sort of had to compromise on the purchase price by giving him an upfront five thousand dollars to remove the lien that was on the house that lien was a medicaid lien um he could not sell the house unless that lien was removed um and so i did that with the understanding that we were good with the agreement and the the purchase going forward um but he ended up using that money to remove the lien and um then decided that he's going to sell the house for more money than our agreement um because that's what's best for him um you know i i told him that i expected to be paid back if that was his decision but i feel like this is just another way that he has sort of um been dishonest and and hurtful i think financially in our relationship and it makes it complicated that he's also my dad um and i know that i'm called to honor this relationship but i do feel like um there is a there's some financial um issues between us that i'm having a difficult time navigating and just would like some advice on how to go forward all right um so you said another so this is not the first time he's done that yeah he's done it for the first time he's done it for the first time something underhanded or dishonest to you i feel like this is the worst where no it's not the first time there's a pattern and you you know that this guy is a crocodile the pattern is we're very generous with him and he loves our generosity um you know we've purchased transmissions that have no happened no that is not true you're you're putting sugar on top you're putting sugar on top of a crocodile he loves that he can take advantage of it of you you felt have felt taken advantage of as a pattern and yet you gave him five thousand dollars which you should not have done because by the way you can have a lien removed from the house at the closing you don't have to do it before the closing so that you could have given the title company the purchase price and they could have removed the lien and then given him the net proceeds which is the way a normal human does a transaction if you're not a crocodile okay all right so here's the thing you've got to separate your the the you do not honor when the bible says to honor your parents it does not say to honor your parents misbehavior it's honoring the office of father the office of mother and that's like for instance i i agreed with almost nothing that joe biden did or said when he was the president of the united states some of you loved him i didn't okay but the bible calls for me to honor those that are in power and pray for them so i'm going to honor the presidency but not the things that joe did as president so i can honor my father but i don't have to honor his cocaine use i'm not saying my father does cocaine that's not what i'm saying but the point being okay that your dad you can honor the position of father and say i honor you as my dad but i i cannot do financial transactions with you anymore because i can't trust you yeah that's not dishonoring it's just observation i think i know how this is going to turn out i do too he's going to be pissed next time you tell next time he can't take money from you well i think he's going to sell this house and he's going to feel real rich for three years and he's basically selling me and him i think he's going to be pissed next time he's going to be pissed next time he's going to be pissed next time he's going to be pissed next time he's going to be pissed next time he's going to be pissed next time he's going to be pissed next time he's going to be pissed next time he's going to be pissed next time he's going to be pissed next time he's going to be pissed Date nights are supposed to be fun, but between what theater tickets cost now and what Hollywood keeps putting on screens, that's not always the case. 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I'm good, how are you? What's up? Good. Well, I'm kind of in a dilemma. I'm currently on Baby Step 5, and I finally actually reached that 15% for my retirement. Good. But I'm going to be needing a new car in the next year. Well, maybe, but. No, not maybe. I mean from 68 to 98. Okay. Oh, okay. That's 30 freaking years. You lost 400 grand or 500 grand if you don't go buy a house. I don't have to mow the lawn. I don't have to pay property taxes. Pay a guy to mow the lawn. Right now. You're paying property taxes as a renter. Well, for $400,000 or $500,000, you can pay somebody to mow the lawn. Yeah, I could do that. So you don't think that's a good idea? I'm positive it's not a good idea. What would a house over there cost? I could buy, this house is about 3,400 square feet. So you downsize and pay cash? Yeah, if you pay cash for a house and you own it, your costs don't go up except the insurance and the taxes. If you're a renter, 100% of the rent goes up. Can you imagine how much your rent will go up in 25 years? You want to screw up your retirement budget? You want to mess up that golden rocking chair on the front porch? Yeah, be a renter. That'll screw it up. Don't do that, man. Hey, this is Dr. John Deloney. I take my sleep seriously because better sleep means better health. And if you've been losing weight, losing sleep, or waking up sore because you've got some old, thin, gross mattress that wasn't designed with you in mind, it's time to make a change. I love Helix mattresses. They make mattresses for real, individual people. Whether you're a side sleeper, a back sleeper, whether you sleep hot, or if you and your partner have completely different sleep styles, Helix has a mattress designed just for you. I want you to get online and take the Helix Sleep Quiz. It takes like two minutes, and they're going to match you with a perfect mattress. That fits how you actually sleep. Helix is not just a show sponsor for me. 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Or are you referring to the mutual fund details themselves, such as admin fee, performance, what types of funds it contains, et cetera? I want to invest for retirement, but currently my money is just sitting in a savings account because I don't know what questions to ask. So you say don't invest in anything you don't understand. So how do you understand it? I think part of that is knowing how the thing works, the mechanics of how a mutual fund works. A lot of us are putting money into this fund. It's across 90 to 200 plus companies. We're rooting for the growth and revenue in this company, and therefore the shares we bought grow. Okay. Can you define a mutual fund? That's your start. Can you tell me how a mutual fund works? fund works in general. And then if you're going to buy a growth stock mutual fund, as an example, can you tell me what that is, what the difference in that and a growth in income are? Not a substantial difference. Growth is buying stocks. It's a growth stock mutual fund. So it's buying stocks that are growing. Because every mutual fund has an objective. So the objective is growth. And it's usually in the name. So growth and income, a bond mutual fund. Growth and income will have bond and large company stocks. And it's the calmer of the two. That's the first two things. So what is a mutual fund? How do they work? Basics. Primitive. Like a seventh grader can understand it. Most seventh graders. And then secondly, the type of mutual fund you're looking at. And then thirdly, understand the history of the particular fund and the market in general. So for instance, a lot of the mutual funds have really good, I was looking at one the other day with American Funds. Okay. So I'm not endorsing. I'm just saying they got a great brochure. So you can pull up the American Funds brochure on ICA, Investment Company of America, which is a growth and income. Okay. That thing's like 80 something years old. It's ancient. Been around forever. So it's got a good track record. Multi-billion dollar fund. And they've got a great brochure. So you can say, okay, what does this fund do? It's a growth and income. What does this fund do when the market's up? What does this fund do when the market's down? What does this fund do when there is a, when the president decides to bomb Iran? And you look back in history and it'll have different dates of things that happened and what that fund did and what the market did during those dates. The reason you want to get a little bit of a history lesson is that you're trying to be comfortable when things happen in the current or right over the edge of the future that you don't get nervous and jump out. Okay. So if you've studied the roller coaster and the roller coaster is safe, because what goes down, what goes up will come down. What goes down will go up and we can ride the roller coaster with safety. Then it's just the thrill of the ride. But if we think the thing might come unjointed while we're on it and land on our head, then we're not going to feel good about that. But that's knowledge of that roller coaster. An example would be this. Okay. If you drive down the street, and you're looking at homes and the vibe in the air, the way the homes are kept up, the way cars are parked, the people walking around, you're looking at them, you don't feel comfortable. Well, you're looking at what's going on in the neighborhood and you're making a decision. This isn't a neighborhood I should buy in. You're driving down the street, everything's very calm. We don't even see any cars. All we see are 25 year old, Oak trees, you know, well, this is an older neighborhood that's very settled. Feel comfortable with that. And you can look at the track record of that neighborhood and say, in the past 20 years, what has that done? And this other neighborhood might be trending the wrong way. And so same thing with mutual funds. You get comfortable with the track record, the history. And you've heard the disclaimer, past performance is not indicative of future returns. That is disclaimer bull crap. Of course, past performance is indicative of future returns. If you look at the past performance of Scotty Scheffler, who just won a golf tournament, it is indicative of whether he's going to win next week or not. You know, if you look at the past performance of Michael Jordan, you can tell he's going to win basketball, right? It is indicative. Of course, it's indicative. You know, you look at the past performance of this neighborhood. It's indicative that houses are going to continue to go down. This place has turned into a ghetto. Of course, it is. So ignore that. Look at the past performance. Get comfortable. This fund has outperformed the S&P 500. 19 of the last 20 years. Okay. But you think it might do it again. This fund has never outperformed the S&P 500. You think it ever will? Probably won't. I mean, this is pretty basic common sense stuff, right? So, A, what is a mutual fund? B, what's the category of mutual fund mean? What am I buying? And C, the track record of the fund and the market. If you understand those, you don't have to understand 12B1 fees. If you understand those, you don't have to look at expense ratios. That stuff doesn't kill you. What kills you is getting scared and jumping out. Or investing in the wrong thing, which is a lot of where that advice comes from. If you can't explain it to me and you got all your money sitting in it, that's dangerous. Which is exactly why the crypto bros are all mad at me. Because the crypto has only one reputation. None. And they can't even agree on the definition of it and what it's doing and why. What it is or what it is. Well, it's blockchain. You just don't understand. Yes, I do understand blockchain. I understand mining it. I understand the electrical costs. I understand all that. None of that matters. What matters is, what's the track record of this sucker? Scares me to death. That's quite the rollercoaster. Way up. Way down. Way up. I mean, what's the track record of gambling with a slot machine? What's the track record of gambling with a slot machine? All your money until just before you leave, and then you make your money back, so you stay another four hours and lose all your money again. That's the track record of a slot machine. So understand what the track record of this stuff is, okay? And then decide whether this is a stupid idea or a good long-term investment. And that's the route I would go. But this lady, Jill, George, she's in my category. When you ask questions like this, the mutual fund details such as admin fee performance, what types of funds. What types of funds it contains, et cetera. It'll be stocks it contains. You're probably nerding out a little much there. I think she probably has a natural tendency towards nerd. I don't want you to go. go so far into this that you get paralysis of the analysis and don't do anything the number one key to investing is do some standing on the sidelines looking at it do some a guy asked me the day he said you've had eight best-selling books how do you write and i said you start writing and one day you'll finish how do you know if you're a writer if you're writing right we don't talk about it no how you know if you're a good writer you probably never will i'm still not a good writer i'm a good salesman so none of these books are dadgum literary works of art i can tell you that but it makes it very readable for people like me i know stop that fifth grade reading level that's what i am i'm the guy that puts the cookies on the shelf for regular people but where we all reach them but that that's it i'm i'm happy with that but what makes you a writer right what makes you an investor invest what makes you a wise investor invest over time and make money and you can be a super nerd and be broke so oh all the time that's right that exists so you don't need to know about all the nitty-gritty now we do that like our investing essentials event we actually do walk through this we have a chart and graph and here's how to pick the mutual funds so we get a little bit nerdy if you're having trouble sleeping we are doing an event you can watch and you'll go right to sleep it's the super nerd event it's called investing essentials george loves it i have a good time it wakes me up it energizes me to choose mutual funds oh i it's the type of event that i said that i got in business to not do and now i'm doing it so sorry well the people demanded it they're like go deeper it's dave ramsey's investing playbook i'm going to show you what i do how all the nerd analysis i do on real estate i'm going to show you all of it and you're going to love it if you're a nerd but um if you're not you're going to be going i you know i just cured my insomnia there's a few tickets left i think it's a virtual event so of course there's tickets left there's room always room in that room so i like um yeah come on out guys it's gonna be what september 1st and 2nd yes and again it's virtual so you can join us from anywhere there's even a replay you can catch if you can't make it each night we'll do our best to make the root canal not hurt once you start going into formulas for you know internal rates of return that's like some goodwill hunting stuff dave i gotta admit so as a dad of you kids i'm starting to think a lot more about the world they're growing up in and how i'll help them make sense of it as they get older and that's why i like world watch a video news service for pre-teens and teens because one thing i know for sure if you don't teach your kids how to understand the world somebody else will and these days that could be tiktok youtube instagram influencers or whoever happens to show up in their social media feed world watches 10 minute videos help young people understand what's happening in the world through a christian worldview without all the outrage negativity and noise and i'm going to show you how to make sense of it as they get older that is everywhere these days the reporting is factual engaging and designed specifically for pre-teens and teens and world watch creates opportunities for something every family needs more of meaningful conversations instead of just reacting to headlines kids learn how to think about what's happening in the world and parents get a chance to keep those conversations going at home because when my kids are old enough i want them informed not overwhelmed and right now you can get a 30-day free trial just go to worldwatch.news slash ramsey or use the link in the description box and you can get a 30-day free trial just go to worldwatch.news promo code ramsey to get started that's worldwatch.news slash ramsey welcome back to the ramsey show in the fair winds credit union studio david is in columbus ohio hi david how are you i'm doing great good what's up well i appreciate all your advice for over 20 years since i read that first total money makeover well thank you thank you sir i've got um one and a half questions i can give you the logic behind them i give you as much of my situation as you want and if you agree with me i may have some questions of how to implement it i'll start with the questions sure i have at it all right all right should i set up a trust that would pay each of my three sons 25 percent of their individual incomes per year until their individual retirement age so that i can receive a final cash disbursement that's the first question how old are your sons they are 37 41 and 49 okay all right um it's not the thing i like about the plan i've never heard this before is the idea that if they don't work they don't get anything exactly i want to encourage them to build their own lifestyle instead of me buying them a lifestyle instead of turning them into trust fund morons i mean babies that's the plan exactly i like that what's your estate worth right now uh right now it's about two million net worth okay you've done a great job david yeah i love that plan and i've never heard that i'll probably steal it it's that good i like it a lot i want it to be out everywhere yeah and um the thing i want to guard against with a few additional provisions in the trust is that if someone is completely off the ranch um i don't want them getting anything uh i'll give you a bizarre example okay and you may have heard me say this on the air is just to wake people up if one of them's doing heroin i don't want to give them the money for an overdose correct okay and so um if one of them's doing x or y that you don't approve of or that you think is harmful to themselves we don't want to fund that in any way okay so if you're making a hundred thousand dollars a year um no i'm not gonna give you 25 000 a year if you're doing heroin so somehow or another if there's there's got to be some kind of a character or um i would want it uh there is in my trust uh or more or um and i'm not going to give you 25 000 a year ethics type of a thing to protect them from themselves not because i'm trying to control from the grave okay because people become more of what they are so 25 of what they earn and then they get a lump sum upon what retirement yeah fully terminated say whatever so 65 or whatever you want to call it 58 yeah okay all right and the money is invested until then correct okay and you're gonna um splice this off as like you got three million dollars like a million million and a million to pull this off all right no i want to do it differently because i think you should the money is unrecoverable if you didn't work so it's one lump sum the trust would have all the money and each of them pour individually from the same trust yeah that way the ones that are making more are going to drain it down more exactly and then we're all going to get the same amount at retirement no no no the oldest one will get a third of it when he gets to 60 okay i see the second one will get a third of what a third of what's remaining at the time correct okay all right it's not a bad formula david i kind of like it as it stands are they people of character working full-time married healthy right okay so this isn't coming from anywhere i'm independent now but i just don't want to drop you know quarter million to one million dollars on them at one time well are they all do they all have homes right now no none of them do they all rent you okay because i'm just wondering there's another uh sort of train of thought which is help the kids when they need it most which is in their 20s 30s 40s versus at 65 when they've already built their own wealth so it's another thing to think about it's not a bad idea you could put a thing in there you'll do a 50 or 100 match for down payments well what i thought to answer that question i thought it was a good idea to do that the second half question is should i start giving them uh 10 of their incomes now while i'm alive just for a birthday gift when i would enhance their current lifestyle you know 10 while i'm alive yeah but i'm not i'm not going to buy them into a house they can't afford you know no i'm not saying to do that but there is you know i'm 37 so i'm the age of your youngest kid and if i'm not a homeowner yet and i want to be and i'm working hard but homes are expensive man i'd love a gift now versus 65 or 25 percent of my income you know staggered so there's just something to think about there you can play with the numbers both ways and see how it ends up but yeah you would need it so the will will tell you who gets what the trust will then can control the timing of all of that so you would need something like a revocable living trust in order to set up something that that could be formed upon death yeah a family trust is formed on death but i could choose to do something with their housing now while i'm alive exactly you know that exactly and i i think i'd probably go pretty generous on that if you can figure out a way that you feel like you're not quote spoiling them unquote but if i can get them all in a paid for house pretty quick um if they're if they're behaving and they're good you know reputable human beings i'd want to try to do that more so than the other stream of income but or as much as the other stream of income uh so i might lean a little heavier over on that side you're alive um than the other but it's a neat formula it does it it's in it's got a good incentive plan in it i like the way it's thought out and um You know, they keep somebody from, you know, sitting on the back of a yacht saying, peel me a grape, you know, because that's what you get into. And we don't want to create a reality show out of our children. And so that's the good news is, you know, it's not like you have twenty five million. We got two right now. So two hundred fifty grand probably won't destroy your child where they go. I can retire today on a beach. Yeah. Yeah. You get them in a paid for house by some formula, some methodology. I don't care what it is that continues along the same idea of incentivizing, inspiring, lifting up rather than allowing them to, you know, be a financial lobotomy. That's what we want to avoid. So very cool. Neat idea, David. I just learned something. Now, Dave, I don't know how you set up in your family. I know you guys have an annual planning sort of conversation with the trust. But what are some of the sort of mainstay things everyone needs to think about, regardless of the size of their estate? Because I've heard you say it doesn't need to be. No, no. And they're not in his formula. They're getting based on, you know, they're proving themselves, so to speak. And I love that. And not based on age or anything else. So I'm just on performance. So I think the biggest thing is this. And David is he's passed this. But some of you were talking to like you and Whitney have little kids. The biggest part of estate planning is raising good kids. That money won't ruin. That's 90 percent of the problem is if you raise twerps and you get money, they're very wealthy twerps. I mean, it's all it is. And so, you know, it's all about parenting and raising kids that know work ethic, that have generosity, that know how to save. They know how to function as an emotional and spiritual adults. So the question is, do they have the character to then carry the weight of you're preparing them to carry the weight of wealth that's going to be left to them? And I think that's a really important question. Most people think making a will is some huge legal project they'll get around to someday. 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We'll see you next time. Bye. Bye. Bye. Some of the main questions we're getting on this. Our guys ask us to go into it and just cover the basics on this. First question is, what is Medicare? What is Medicare? So this is a federal health insurance program primarily for people 65 and older. So you hear people signing up, hey, it's my 65th birthday. Time to sign up for Medicare. Very exciting rite of passage. And some Medicare coverage comes directly through the federal government. That's parts A and B. We'll talk about that. And other coverage comes from private insurance companies that have to operate under federal guidelines. Side note, you often hear in the same sentence, Medicare, Medicaid. Different. Medicare, Medicaid. Medicare, Medicaid. They have nothing to do with each other. Medicaid is welfare. Medicare is available regardless of your income. That's the way I think about it. When you turn 65, you can sign up for Medicare. Medicare is about age. Medicaid is about income and assets. That helps you. Or lack of income and assets. Yes. So let's go through just the four main parts. Part A. Think admissions. So this is hospital coverage. This is the part you've generally paid Medicare taxes toward while working. So all those payroll taxes going toward Medicare, it's covering this part. What we used to call hospitalization. Yes. And then you've got Part B. So in my head, I think basics. So think medical coverage, doctor's visits, outpatient care. And these two parts together, this is called original Medicare. It's what it was originally set out to do. And then we decided it's a federal program, so let's complicate it. But of course, it doesn't cover everything. So now all these supplemental plans came to be. So you've got Part C, which is Medicare Advantage. So think C for combo. So it's a private all-in-one alternative. It combines Parts A and B. And you can also add a few other things like dental and vision and all that. And these plans do typically have more restrictions on which doctors and providers you can use. Yeah. But keep in mind, Part C is the one you pay for. Yes. Because that's private taxes. Parts A and B, you've already paid for with your taxes. You paid for all of it, but you're paying for it with your taxes. Okay. So A and B, the government furnishes. C, you purchase. And it's your add-ons to A and B. Yeah. It's the combo plus the add-ons. And you've got Part D, easy to remember this one. Think drugs. Prescription drug coverage is Part D. And outside of those parts, there's something called Medigap. And again, you pay for that. Yes. You're going to pay for that as well with a premium. And then Medigap or Medicare supplement plans think this is covering the gap. So private plans to help cover some of the deductibles, co-pays, other costs that original Medicare plans don't cover. All right. Question two, which Medicare plan should I get? It depends. Everyone's least favorite answer. So there's hundreds of plans available, and it's good to get personalized help from a qualified Medicare advisor. But that would be, you automatically get A and B. And what type of C plan, what type of add-on plan, and what type of prescription drug or any other supplement, Medigap plan, those are the ones that get confusing, and you're buying them. Yeah. So you need to get someone. You need to look at your situation, give you a customized response to your particular situation of which of those you need. If any, you're not required to buy anything beyond that. With anything this big, there's always going to be some grifters, scammers out there. So the federal government has actually taken legal action involving major companies over allegations that there was financial incentives that influenced how Medicare Advantage plans were marketed or sold. And these plans can have more restrictions on which providers you can use. Doesn't mean they're a bad option. They can make sense. They can make sense for some people. But if you're getting pressured towards, hey, you've got to get this particular policy, it could be because that's what pays them the most. So you want to be aware of that. Probably is. Yeah. If somebody's steering you a certain way, and they haven't done a full analysis and shown you why this is the best for you, but instead just blindly do what I say, this is the science. Yep. You know, give you a Fauci answer, right? Then don't do that, right? Okay. Number three, when do you sign up? So there's two major timeframes. So no, the first is your initial enrollment period. So this is a seven-month window, the three months before you turn 65, the month you turn 65, and the three months after. So it's sort of bookended there. So I'm born in May. So February through August would be my initial enrollment period, the year I turned 65. And this one's really important. If you miss the appropriate enrollment window, you can get some long-term penalties associated with that on certain parts of Medicare. And then the other one is annual enrollment period. So this one's ongoing, October 15th through December 7th. Each year, and you can make certain changes to your Medicare coverage. Yeah. So those are the two to note, the initial one and the annual one. Now, let me stop you a second. If you are in a situation like I am in where you don't need Medicare, I have a Ramsey plan. I'm over 65. I missed the enrollment window. They're not going to send me a bill for penalties. They'll only send me a bill for penalties if I later on choose to sign up. But I have my health care taken care of without the government with health insurance plan here at Ramsey. And with wealth. And so I am not in Medicare. And a lot of people are in that situation, especially people that listen to this show. So don't be thinking you're going to get a penalty unless you join late, later. And you do have annual enrollment period, October 15th through December 7th, where you can make changes and everything else. So the last piece here is a lot of people think, okay, great. I got Medicare. So my long-term care is covered. No. No. What's the difference here? Medicare primarily covers health care expenses like doctor's visits, hospital stays. prescription drugs, long-term care is very different. out on the show, long-term care insurance, which is, that's your nursing home, in-home care expenses, and Medicare generally does not cover those ongoing custodial long-term care costs. Medicaid will pay for a welfare poor person's nursing home. They will not pay for someone that is not poor for the nursing home. And so we have people doing stupid things like Medicaid fraud, welfare fraud, where they move a bunch of assets out of mom and dad's name to make mom and dad appear poor so they can put them in the welfare nursing home. Medicaid. Bad idea. Bad idea. That's criminal activity, and you will run into serious problems doing that. Do not do that. And by the way, set yourself up so you don't need welfare. Hello. This is saving money for retirement, becoming a millionaire. That's what we're doing here. So long-term care insurance, if you've got assets under a million dollars and you're over 60, go buy a long-term care insurance. If you've got assets under a million dollars and you're over 60, go buy a insurance has nothing to do with this discussion. That's right. And remember, the purpose of insurance is to transfer risk that you can't take on from you over to the insurance company. That's why you pay that premium. And Medicare and long-term care coverage, they address different risks. So you've got to plan for both. And what's really cool, Dave, is we have a great partner called Chapter that helps people navigate this crazy messy water that is Medicare. And we have a whole guide that we created for Medicare that actually walks you through this and much more. It's a great asset to send to people that you love that might be in this phase of life or you might be in it. So if you want to check that out, you want to learn how to choose a Medicare advisor you can trust, just go to ramseysolutions.com slash Medicare guide. We'll also drop a link to that in the description. So here's the thing. A and B, which is hospitalization, doctor, the basic coverage, outpatient, that kind of stuff is furnished by the government. C is add-ons that you can do to soup that up. That's where people get tangled up. D is prescription drug coverage. That's also where people get and Medigap. That's what these are the three things. So C, D and Medigap are where people get tangled up. And that's where you need a pro that can help you untangle this and look and go in your situation. You don't need that. You just need this. I would self-insure through that over there. I wouldn't buy it. I wouldn't buy that. I would just buy a little bit here. And a pro can look at that or a pro can look at it and go, look, you're pretty vulnerable. You need to buy three things here and they can help you customize it to your situation. And that'll keep you from getting screwed. This thing, this whole, this whole space is scummy. It's full of people that, that are, uh, inept, incompetent at best crooks at worst. And so you need to get with someone like our guys at chapter that can sit down and walk you through this and you understand what you're doing and where the advice is coming from. Always Ramsey. People are always going to tell you, you need the heart of a teacher. Whoever we're sending you to needs to be at the heart of a teacher to help you walk through this. It is, it's complicated, but it's, it's not, it's not so complicated. You can't figure it out. It's really not rocket surgery. You can do it, but it's good to have somebody on your team to teach you and walk you through it. Ramsey solutions.com slash Medicare guide. Check out the folks at chapter. I'm all about practical ways to save time and mental energy, especially during the summer when life gets busy between vacations, camps, deliveries, travel plans, online shopping, and trying to keep everyone organized. My mental load can get pretty full. That's one of the reasons why I love delete me. Most people don't realize how many data broker sites have their information online, like old addresses, phone numbers, and even family connections. And that can put you at risk of being a target for spammers and scammers, but removing all of it yourself can turn into a giant project. That's why delete me is amazing because delete me handles it for you. Their privacy team of experts removes your personal information from hundreds of data broker sites, and they keep monitoring it throughout the year. So far, delete me has saved me about 90 hours. I would have spent myself removing my information. And honestly, it feels so good knowing that someone is in the background helping me, and I don't even have to think about it. So this summer, give yourself a vacation with one less thing to manage. Get 20% annual plans at join delete me.com slash Ramsey. That's join delete me.com slash Ramsey. Hey guys, if you like this show, we could use some help. Please hit the subscribe button. Please hit the like button, all those things. And share this show. Send a link or a share button, whatever it is you got on your particular platform, and let people know we're here. We would appreciate that. James is in Memphis. Hey, James, what's up in your world? Hey, Dave. Just trying to work through my day here. Decided to call in. Certainly. How can we help? Trying to figure out if I can retire from my business early. And my wife and I are kind of and needed some advice. Okay. Why do you want to retire early? Well, I'm a home builder. And some of mostly what I've done for the past 15 years is spec home building. And I'm not wanting to continue that route. Okay. All right. That's different than retiring. I mean, you can start building custom homes. Well, I've done that also. And there's quite a lot of competition. I've done a lot of competition. I've in our area and just kind of lost some passion for the business. Okay. So what do you want to do with your life? Well, I'm on a vision quest to figure that out. I don't exactly know, but just something a little more fun and not as stressful. Okay. All right. Don't mind you doing that. The idea of sometimes when people say retire, they mean sit down at 53 years old and do nothing for the next 40 years, which is not good for you. No. And I'm not recommending that. So currently you're retiring from something instead of to something. Yeah. And I would retire to something. So does your business have a value or will you just close it? I would just close it. Yeah. It's home-based. There's no value to it really. Okay. But you made a good living and it's been good to you. So we're going to find out what our next phase is. So what's your net worth now? 3.2. Good for you. And how much of that is in retirement accounts? Uh, 400 roughly. So most of it is not in retirement accounts. Correct. Okay. What's it invested in? I have to, I have to sell some stuff. Um, we have a very nice home with some additional acreage and I have, uh, a lot of land. What's the, what's the home worth? With the acreage, it's 1.5. Okay. All right. All right. So you got a million and a half otherwise. All right. Million seven otherwise. And how much the X, the other acreage, the other acreage you're getting ready to tell me about the plot of land is worth what? I have a plot of land that's worth just over a million, I think. And I have some heavy equipment that I own. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Which you won't need. So we'll sell that. What's that worth? Uh, 400 roughly. Okay. Okay. So, uh, I mean, if you took the plot of land and the heavy equipment and sold it, you'd have about $2 million to invest. That should create $150,000, $200,000 a year in income for you. Um, while you go on your next vision quest. If you want to keep the land and the house and only sell the equipment, you're going to be short of funds. So, I mean, just do some rough numbers if you want in your head, just say, okay, whatever, whatever amount I'm going to put to work for me, if I put it to work at a good mutual fund, it's making 10 or 12. If I pull 10 off, which I wouldn't want you to pull that much off, but just easy numbers, 10. So I got a million dollars, 10 is a hundred thousand. I got $2 million, 10 is 200,000, right? Million five, I got 150,000 to work with that. That's the maximum you could pull. And I wouldn't want you to pull. I'd rather you be 8% or below on your drawdown. That way that lump sum will run in perpetuation. Does that make sense? Yes, sir. And, uh, meanwhile, you're going to make a living doing the next fund thing and don't even need this money. Right. What were you making on average in the business? What were you bringing home? I mean, the good years we'll make 500,000. Um, last year we lost money. This year we'll make a little bit, it's just been a roller coaster. Always is, I've been doing this. Yeah. Yeah. It's a scary, it's a scary business. So, um, uh, you got stuff under construction now? I have one spec home and I've done a few customer pay jobs this past year that have been pretty good. Okay. All right. Well, I mean, you really, do need to figure out where your feet are going to land and then what we're going to put in a pile to create create income. And it sounds like the land, the plot of land, I think you called it, and the heavy equipment would be a big enough pile to live off of. But then also you need to figure out while all that's happening, how we're going to make a living, what we're going to eat with and so on. And I'm sure you've got some cash laying around, but I just don't. A five-year plan of generating zero income, still trying to find yourself is not a good five-year plan. Yeah. Do you know your yearly expenses? How much it takes to run your life? Oh, for our personal, it's, yeah, about $90,000. You know, we can have a little bit of fun and that pays for our groceries and everything. Great. You guys have no debt? No debt. Well, I have some debt. Yeah, business debt. So I'll have to pay that off in the process? How much business? On that how? On one spec or otherwise? The one spec, I owe about $400,000. I have one bulldozer that I owe $250,000 on. And then I have. I have one of the land, piece of the land, I owe $200,000 on. Okay. Yeah, you got to clear all of that while we're clearing this. But you're going to sell off the spec and you're going to sell off the dozer and the piece of land. If it's in the plot that we were talking about selling, it's just going to reduce the size of the golden egg or of the goose that's laying the golden eggs, right? Correct. And so, yeah, you just. Okay. So you've got assets. It'll shorten your runway there, but. Yeah. But I mean. I don't think you're going to make zero dollars. You need to lay out a plan with your SmartVestor Pro that I'm going to liquidate these things and put them in good income-producing mutual funds to live off of. And meanwhile, go find yourself and figure out what your next chapter is. And that's going to be fun. And let me give you a hint, okay? The interesting thing is this, James. All of our data shows that people, especially in a situation like you're in, it's even more accentuated. The highest income. Decent income, decade of your earning life is in your 50s. Okay? And the reason is it takes about that long to quit doing all the stupid stuff and to hone your craft and hone in on what you're good at and nail it. And so my point being that if you choose this carefully, it might not just be fun, it might be more lucrative than anything you've ever done in your life. It would not be unusual for you to make triple the income you used to make by the time you're in your 50s. In this scenario. So being more fun does not necessarily mean I don't make money. Yeah. It could mean that you just hit the sweet spot, you know, and you just nail it and the ball goes over the fence. You know, you swing the bat and it's that certain kind of sound when it makes contact and it goes right over the fence. And that's where you're sitting. You know, you've done stuff that what you call stress, other people don't call it stress. You've done stuff that completely debilitated by what you call fun. Other people would call stress because you've already learned how to run a business and juggle and handle subs and run, run down timelines and deliver properties and keep the stinking bank off of you. I mean, we're doing what you've been doing, running, running. You, you've pretty massively successful to get where you are doing specs and not go broke. So a tip of the hat to you, sir, I think you're in a really good position. And you got some homework here to, sell off all this stuff, pay off the debts and kind of see where you land with that pile of money. Give yourself a little bit of runway, but let's aim at something. The number of times that we've talked to people in a wealth that in a situation where I'm dealing with wealthy people that they went bankrupt early, had to find their way like I did. And then they sold out of something or did a major business model shift away from something they were working on, or did a major business model shift away from something they were working on. And then they're, they're just printing money. It's like they got a printing press in their basement. You know, I mean, it's just like they're bailing it. Especially with entrepreneurs. They have a hard time not entrepreneuring. They're just going to find their way to the next problem to solve. It's what they do. It's hard to stay put. It could be something that's an invention that's been scratching at the back of his head, itching at the back of his head. Yeah. What's the biggest problem you've experienced in 15 years? The biggest problem you've experienced in 15 years that you think you could solve? Yeah. That's a fun creative decision. One of the biggest mistakes homebuyers make is talking to a realtor and shopping for houses before understanding their real budget. And that's how you end up falling in love with a house you can't afford and trapping yourself in a bigger payment than you can handle. That's why you should talk to Churchill Mortgage first. Churchill shows you what you can actually afford, not just what a bank will approve. And with their certified homebuyer program, your financing is completely secured before you shop. So you won't miss out on your dream home while you're waiting for pre-approval. I've recommended Churchill for 30 years because they help you buy a home the Ramsey way. So here's your plan. Contact Churchill. Know your numbers. And then when you find the perfect house, you're ready. Go to churchillmortgage.com slash Ramsey offer. For a special offer only for Ramsey fans. That's churchillmortgage.com slash Ramsey offer. Or click the link in the description. ♪♪♪ Stephen is in Buffalo. New York. Hey, Stephen, how are you? Hey, good. How are you guys? What's up? Hey, so my question today is to just kind of find out more about wills and trusts and what to do moving forwards. So I guess a little context. I'm 22 years old. My wife and I got married right out of college last May. Fast forward a year to this May, we welcomed our first baby home. Yay. And while she was pregnant, we were doing that. It was a stork mode thing, just piling cash. So once all the hospital bills were paid, as of August 1st, we became debt-free. Look at you. Well done, sir. Thank you. I have a disability and term life insurance through Zander. And my wife's working on getting her life insurance now. So kind of with all that, we don't really know much about wills or trusts or anything. And how that expands with more kids. So I'm just calling in to get any advice or direction. On that, if you wanted to share kind of what you guys do with your family. Such a great question, man. You're the most mature 22-year-old I've ever met. I wish I was you at your age. Man, you're going to be so rich and your family's going to be so well taken care of. Well played, sir. Well played. I'm proud of you. Good work. And a great question. Okay. So some basics on wills. Number one, a will is state-specific. So it has to be written for the laws of your state. And you're in New York. And New York's one of the weird states. So you really have to make sure. California, New York, Texas, Louisiana, four weird states on wills. Okay? Because Louisiana's French-based law. Everybody else's English-based law. California's granola. New York's close. And so that's what you're running. And Texas doesn't even think it's a state. It thinks it's a republic. So it's got all these weird laws. So all of that comes into the way they make laws and how they put them in place. It needs to be state-specific. And one way to get that is the. The advertiser we've had for years that helps you do a quick, easy will, which is exactly what you need, from MamaBearLegalForms.com. So just go to MamaBearLegalForms.com, and they'll help you print it all out. The second thing is I would recommend you look at what's just called a mirror image will. And that means your will and your wife's will look exactly alike if you both die. And before you both die, it all goes to her if it's you. It all goes to you if it's her. Pretty simple. Okay? So the wills, if you laid them down beside each other, it looks like they came off a word processor, and they're exactly the same except the names were changed to protect the innocent. Right? I mean, that's all it is. So that's the second thing. Just mirror image will. You leave it all to her. She leaves it all to you. The insurance, the primary beneficiary on her life insurance is you. The 401K primary beneficiary is you. Your 401K. Your 401K. Your life insurance primary beneficiary is her. Your secondary beneficiaries on everything, this is the last thing I'm going to teach you, is to do a children's trust if both of you die. So how's this baby going to be taken care of if both of you die? All the life insurance proceeds dump into the children's trust, and the 401K dumps into the children's trust, and it's only formed if both of you die. Okay. THE CHILDREN. are minors okay okay that's how mine was set up when my children were minors but that's that's why the secondary beneficiary meaning both of you are the the primary beneficiary is dead so they go to the secondary beneficiary okay so primary beneficiary is the opposite spouse but the secondary beneficiary on everything for all of for both of you is going to be the children's trust because you're leaving your money to your kids now that's a very simple way to do it and then you name who the trustee is that's who's taking care of the money and you can state in the trust what you want it invested in how it's paid out towards the kids while they're minors all of that and ours was set up to where the and then the guardian of the child is a separate person typically than the trustee oh okay because they're not personally the money's different the person taking care of the kids you may have different people for that and it's wise yeah and so if the person taking care of the kid gets a monthly check from the investments in the children's trust in the event both of you die then they got child support on steroids because they're getting a nice check to take care of these kids to raise them and in addition to that we had in there our child if they had a major medical they could do an additional drawdown on the trust to not put a burden on the family that's raising them first car purchase they could do a small trial down on the trust in college they could do a draw down on the trust so there's no debt involved and not a burden on the family that's raising them then when they're after they graduate from college they're 22 the trust dissolves the money goes their portion of the trust dissolves the money goes to them or you can stagger that out and give them a little bit over the next few years until they're 30 however you want to do that that's that's a fairly standard fairly easy thing to think through mama bear will walk you through every bit of that and that's exactly what i did when i was your age and that's what i would recommend yeah i was just looking up mine on my mama bear because i can just sign in and look at the documents which is awesome so i was checking ours out and there's a few major decisions steven you need to make that's the hardest part it's not actually getting the will done you can do that in 20 minutes the hardest part is who do we trust to take care of our children that's the guardian who's going to take care of the financial side financial power of attorney and then you've got the health care power of attorney who's going to make medical decisions if i can't and so those are really the big things and then of course there's the who gets what which is pretty simple in your case yeah that i would recommend what we said on who gets what the health care stuff is just to unplug or not to unplug that is the question that's the that's the health care power of attorney and so typically the spouse is the primary on that but if if there was a car wreck one of you's in a coma the other one died who's who's a secondary on the health care prime pair of attorney on whether to unplug this coma or not right all that kind of stuff that's the kind of junk you're looking at and it doesn't take long once you identify who those people are oh and by the way you should let them know you should talk to them i'm going to ask you to raise my child if i die and don't don't let that be a surprise um you know but um and i'll ask you to be the trustee well who's raising the child so and so and so and so is the trustee tell them who the trustee is going to be who's going to be handling the money and who's going to be handling the kid let each one of them know in the event that something does happen in the unlikely event honestly statistically very low chance that both of you are gone before these children are adults very low can you create the trust like through mama bear legal forms the trust is created technically upon death but it's instructed in the will the will says to create the will states to create this trust upon death of both people if the children are still minors okay and are there any like backup guardians or trustees i guess if you were all in an accident well the guardian if uh if yeah i guess if the whole family's on an airplane or something yeah i guess you could um i didn't i didn't go that far uh typically you could there's standard terminology in this that a successor trustee or a successor guardian can be appointed but um again statistically this is such a low probability i really wouldn't i'm not worried about that if you've done all the other i think you've been diligent all right thanks so much way to go man you are on fire and this is perfect it's actually national make a will month i know you've been celebrating all month long yeah i got candles on a cake not you're kidding it's make a well i want to mention to him what do we not have a month for well i wanted to give him a will for free oh on behalf of mama bear do that hang on the rest of you let him have the guy needs something for free as he's killing just crushing it he's killing it he deserves it and for the rest of you we actually have a cool thing running right now ramsay solutions.com slash wills quiz you figure out if you need a will if it works for you if a simple online will works and there's a 20 25 off promo code there yeah it helps you figure out if mama bear will handle it or if it's super complicated whether you need an attorney everyone needs a will that's an adult period 78 of americans die without a will you know what's odd about that statistic 100 78 of americans live paycheck to paycheck oh interesting you think it's the same you think people that don't pay attention don't pay attention who would have thought you know so if you're gonna just be uh you know mediocre with your money and not not be proactive then it shows up in a lot of different areas man well when i'm gone i want people to think i didn't like the guy but he handled his business he had a will he had term life he had it all going on he's a bit controlling but he was good at it he was a super nerd that's how you say i love you to your family hey guys george camel here there are a lot of things you probably shouldn't ignore your check engine light that weird smell in your fridge the smoke detector that's been beeping for six days and maybe most importantly your phone bill the things we ignore have a funny way of costing us the most and your phone carrier is counting on you ignoring that overpriced bill month after month so they can keep charging you more and more but that's not the case with boost mobile you don't need to keep overpaying when you can pay just 25 bucks a month for boost mobile's unlimited plan and the best part is you can bring your phone keep your number and pay just 25 bucks a month forever that price will not go up it is inflation proof there's no contracts there's no hidden keys there's no catch and since most smartphones have an e-sim these days you can switch from the comfort of your home just like i did so it's okay to notice when you're paying more than you should but you shouldn't keep doing that stop overpaying for your phone service go to boostmobile.com slash ramsey and make the switch today that's boostmobile.com slash ramsey 25 forever requires customers to remain active on boost mobile unlimited plan you come back to the ramsey show in the fair winds credit union studio george camel ramsey personality is my co-host today mary is in las vegas uh not working hold on let me try that again all right i'm gonna try one more time and then you guys are gonna do something else uh-oh all right let's see if we can get mary there she is mary are you there hi yes i am hello good good i'm i'm actually pushing the right button now how can i help um okay thanks for taking my time call dave and george um okay so my question is uh well i'm contributing to my roth psp and ever since i listened to your show i started becoming more intentional about that but i do have about 26 000 in my traditional psp of like those contributions and i'm wondering is it worth converting that that 26 000 to the roth psp and then paying the taxes now and then additionally i get a five percent from the federal government but that goes also into their traditional so should i it's required at the end of every year or what should i put this money in the traditional yeah um where are you in the baby steps um i am well i don't have debt i have an emergency fund and i'm investing 15 and i don't have a mortgage i don't have kids you don't have a house yet you're renting correct okay cool what do you make what do you make um i net or i gross a hundred thousand five hundred and i net 97 good for you way to go you're doing so good congratulations how old are you i'm 36 well done very well done okay so um yes i would convert the 26 000 and yes i would convert the match at the end of each year and pay the taxes and you're gonna have to do that out of additional savings and that has the effect of putting actually more money than 15 into your retirement but not much it's okay so you're probably going to have um four or five thousand dollars in taxes on the 26 000 and whatever the match is you're going to have you know a little bit on that that's not but i'm the same way i actually own ramsey solutions so i match myself and i'm required to match it in traditional and so i roll it to roth at the end of each year and pay the taxes oh wow and so i've done yeah so yes i would go ahead and do that now i as i've said to do that now i want you to recognize that that four or five thousand dollars here it is in taxes on the 26 000 is going to reduce your down payment savings your down payment amount that you have saved towards a house or it's going to slow down by five or six thousand dollars that i still would do it because it's a small amount and it gets your stuff all cleaned up and it gets it all in the roth column okay cool okay but i want you to recognize that's five thousand that could have gone towards the house down payment fund sure yeah i understand yeah and so if you had a mortgage i would really tell you to put it towards the mortgage instead um but because it's a small amount i'd be tempted to do it anyway so if you if you like if you were like working four five six seven at the same time here instead you're just doing four don't have kids don't have a mortgage so um that makes it a little easier to do it in your case and the last thing is what is your tsp invested in um so i have it in the cs and i five thousand and i'm going to put it in the mortgage instead of the mortgage so i'm going to put it in the mortgage instead of the mortgage so i'm going to put it in the mortgage instead of funds you have been listening to ramsey i yes yes a lot very good i'm very impressed you passed the test with flying colors very cool absolutely so that's the thrift savings plan ladies and gentlemen the federal employee has or the military has and it's their version of a 401k some branches actually also have a 401k and they have uh three or four different things you can put the money in the f is a fixed which sucks the rate of return is horrible the g is government bonds horrible rate of return the c is very close to an s and p 500 index fund it's common stock is what it stands for the s stands for small company so that's like an aggressive growth stock mutual fund the i stands for international those two have not kept up with the c and so we have told people to put 80 or 90 into the c and split the difference left over between the s and the i which is exactly what you're talking about so i'm going to put it in the f if she does they also have a really lame-o plan that uh you can put the money in and it's automatically moves around depending on your age your risk tolerance which means it's going to be way too conservative and it's really sucks give you terrible returns really sucks but i'm looking at the 12-month returns here just for the csn i fund and they blow away g and f of course yeah so what are they uh 16 over the last 12 months for the c fund 14 to 15 for the s fund and 35 for that i fund because as we've seen the volatilization of the c fund is going to be a lot more expensive it's going to be a lot more expensive than what it used to be but it's going to be a lot more expensive than what it used to be but it's going to be a lot more expensive than what it used to be but it's going to be a lot more expensive than what it used to be but it's going to be a lot more expensive so just like i told you they suck you don't want your investing at four when inflation rate's four that you know you're just treading water and if you got it in traditional you got to pay taxes on it so you've lost money after inflation when your long-term investments are making four or five or six you're not even treading water so you've got to be doing better than six on your long-term investments you're not even treading water so you've got to be doing better than six to beat inflation and taxes but the general parameter is don't do any conversions until you're in baby step seven because that money is better off used to knock down the mortgage versus if she had 260 000 in traditional i'd tell her to just wait yeah and do it in chunks later save up and buy your house get your house paid off and when your house is paid off like you said at baby step seven then i would work on converting that 260 but normally if you're investing in the That's what she's doing. She's going the Roth side. And that's what she's doing. Mary has been listening, George. I'm so impressed. She's doing the Ramsey plan. I mean, dialed in. If she ever wants a non-government job, apply here, Mary. We could use you. We're no government, but we get the job done. We do not have a TSP. By the way, if you've got a TSP, it's not horrible to do 100% C and forget it. That's like investing in an S&P and forgetting it. For those of you that are boggleheads that like passive investing and the S&P index and all that crap, the equivalent would be just buy C inside the TSP, and it's going to give you a great rate of return. You're missing out on the small cap and mid cap. Yeah, which is like 16. And the other one, the C was what? C was 16. S was the 14, 15. Oh, the I was 30. They're fairly close. Yeah, that I fund. That's the last 12 months, so it's not a great picture. I don't know. It just spiked up. Yeah. But honestly, the C has outperformed everything else long term. If you look at like a 10, 20, 30-year return, you would see that. Yeah. And so you're in good shape. You're in good shape. She's done everything so smart. By the book. A lot of smart people on today's show. I'm very inspired. Yeah, hold on to it. The kids are going to be all right, Dave. So, George, recap, match beats Roth beats traditional. Yes, that's the investing strategy that we recommend because the match from your employer is going to give you an instant return on your money. 100%. So we have a match here at Ramsey. I put 100 bucks in. Dave's giving me another 100 bucks. That's incredible. So we start there. I got to chill. Thanks, Dave. Appreciate that. Then we go to Roth, which means you're using after-tax dollars. You're not going to get the deduction, but that money now is going to grow tax-free and the government's not going to get their grubby hands on it ever again. That's incredible. And then we move to traditional if we've run out of Roth options and that 15% threshold. The only way, if your company offers a 401k Roth and you have personal Roths and you do backdoor Roths if you've got higher income, the only way you would run out of Roth and have to go to some kind of traditional is if your company offers a 401k Roth. If your company didn't offer Roth, that'd be the only thing. And there's even, like, we have a mega backdoor 401k, which allows you to do even more. Yeah, and you can do all of that Roth. You can do it all Roth. Pretty incredible. If the company offers Roth. So you got all kinds of ways you can do this stuff. So you can do it all the time. So you want to have your own place. That's the goal. That's the goal. That's the goal. penthouse but what's the place you're looking at i think like reasonably the least i could get something for is around 2600 2700 okay something like that it's about double what's your after tax monthly income um i take a lot out right off the top between espp and uh do rock 401k so without the investing if you just said hey here's the state and federal taxes here's what i'm really making or i would say probably i'm taking home about 120 000 a year okay so let's call it 10 grand a month yeah so it's about 27 percent yeah so a rule of thumb we use is when you're buying a home don't let your payment be more than a fourth of your take-home pay not counting 401k and espp okay so that's about where you would be with this rental number uh and that shouldn't choke you to death but keep in mind but keep in mind when you're renting a hundred percent of the time it's patience while you wait to buy and so it we're buying we're buying patience we're not buying a house buying somebody else's house for them but we're not buying a house and so you're buying time you're buying patience you don't want that to be your long-term goal with that in mind i'm trying to save towards a purchase someday how old are you i am 26 and you don't want to be in a house you don't want to be 36 and still sitting there paying rent i definitely don't want to and i my partner i've been with him for almost six years now so i'm hoping that i get to be a part of a dual income rather rather soon and so we can combine and but i don't really want to work on his uh how aggressive he is six years yeah yeah painter get off the ladder dude what are you guys waiting for i could not tell you i'm not waiting on anything okay that's a discussion for another day anything more but today's point what you're dealing with here is opportunity cost what you're giving up by getting your own place is about sixteen thousand eight hundred dollars a year that you could have been saving towards your down payment yeah yeah so if you're okay with that and slowing that goal down because you want your own place that's fine as far as the parameter goes you're you're pretty much right there if you're if you're if you're life goal you're the way you see your life unfolding to getting a home is to having a dual income and that's not an unreasonable goal um we should put a timeline on that yeah in other words he needs to put a ring on it i would love that yeah and uh that's the old that's old grandpa talking okay but um yeah yeah you know if you find one like sam don't let her get away hello and so um uh because and because it sounds like this okay if i think this is five years and for quality of life i'm willing to give up sixteen thousand or eighteen thousand dollars a year to live by myself and that's all you're buying because you're not buying a house and you're taking that out of your down payment fund but if we're doing that for two years um and then we're going to be married that's one thing or we're going to put forty thousand dollars a year and then we're going to be married that's one thing or we're going to put forty thousand dollars or twenty five thousand dollars away thirty thousand dollars away uh and stay with roommates so that when we do get married we've got more money to put down and buy a house faster so if i if i knew if i was in your shoes okay i'm not telling you what to do exactly but if i were in your shoes and i knew i was going to be married within 18 months to two years which is very reasonable if you've been together six years but if i was if i knew that was going to happen um then i would stay with a roommate and i would stay with a roommate and i would stay with a roommate and i would stay with a roommate and i would stay with a roommate because i'd be planning towards my marriage self rather than my today's self but if i don't know if i don't know and i may have to kick bubba off the ladder because he's not going to come to the table we don't know what's going to happen there if i don't know and i want to have this quality of life i might go over and do the thing for 2700 and kick the can down the road a little bit on buying i guess the other question similar to that is i've got it between i wouldn't touch anything in retirement but like just in the future i'm going to be married and i'm going to be married and other things i've got i think my net worth right now is around 370 000 way to go and save things because i can't count on them but yeah at least right now um but would it be worth it to even consider just buying buying a place for 200 and depleting some of what i have invested you're saying you could buy an apartment or condo for 200 no it'll be 200 down um maybe not in new york maybe somewhere side but i'm going to be in new york for 200 yeah not in manhattan but again if you can do that with the parameters and go all right it's going to be about a quarter of my after-tax monthly income after the down payment you could consider it but i would still wait to see what the future and i'm only no i'm not going to wait i'm going to present this in a conversation hey if you're not going to come to the table i'm going to go buy a house yeah because i'm going to go i'm going to make a plan for my life to be whole without you because it appears you're not going to be around you're either here or you're not and this sort of thing ain't working i mean you you you're not going to be as blunt or crazy as i am because i'm already married but um but uh you see what i'm saying it's like if you're going to come to the table we'll wait and buy a house together but if you're not i think i'm going to go buy a house because i'm going to start planning my life and make it whole as if you're not here because i don't know if you're going to be here or not and you can phrase that however you want to phrase it but that's really i would tell him what's up hey i'm going to go buy a house for us no no no no no no no us here buddy yeah i don't need to be like well i'm going to move in that sounds fun me yeah no me buying a house for me that's what we're doing you have done so well sam and let me tell you the better you have your financial foundation laid like this the more confident you are making relationship decisions that are good long-term decisions you don't feel trapped that's a really good smart place to be young lady i'm proud of you Thank you. Thank you. RamseySolutions.com slash insurance. Never been a better time than right now to find a job doing what you love. At Ramsey, we're on a mission to provide hope to everyone in every walk of life. And we need more talented team members to join the mission we are growing. Especially for roles in paid media marketing, email marketing, analytics engineers. And you can come do work that actually matters at Ramsey. Check out RamseySolutions.com slash careers and click the link in the show notes. Benjamin and Laura are with us on the debt-free stage in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions. Hey, guys, how are you? Hey, Greg. Welcome. Where do y'all live? Baltimore, Maryland. Fun, fun. Well, welcome to Nashville. And how much debt have you two paid off? $282,000. Way to go. And how long did that take? About seven years. All right. And your range of income during that time? 151 to 210. Good. What do you guys do for a living? So I'm an application systems analyst technical lead for an investment advisory firm. Okay. And I work for a ministry that helps people living through addiction. Oh, good for you. Wow. Good jobs. Well done. Very cool. All right. And your shirt says mortgage-free, so I'm guessing you paid off house and everything. House and everything. Way to go. Looking at weird people. And you guys aren't that old. How old are y'all? I'm 39. And I'm 47. Excellent. And what's this house worth? $480,000. $480,000. Way to go. And how much in your nest egg in your retirement and so forth? So in IRA and 401ks, we have $430,000. In addition to that, we have another $230,000 in the emergency fund. Sinking funds, HSA, 529, company stock. And now that the house is paid off, ETFs and a brokerage account. Wow. So you're running what? A million and a half net worth? 1.1. 1.1. Awesome. All right. Well, very good. Way to go, Baby Steps Millionaires. Yep. Look at you. In seven years. That's amazing. Well done. I'm so proud of y'all. Congratulations. Thanks. How's it feel to not even have a freaking house payment? Awesome. Free. Free. - Free, yeah, that's exactly how it feels. - Was the whole thing the mortgage? No. What else was in there? I came into our marriage with $12,000 in IRS debt. I had $1,000 in debt to Maryland and a $1,000 dental bill that was around so long it was like a pet. Wow. And then you met Laura, who analyzes everything very carefully, I can already tell. And she said, we're not doing this. Am I right? Yeah. Absolutely. So you guys have been married seven years? Yep. Yes. This is tracking now. So you get back from the honeymoon and she says, all right, down to business. No, before there was a honeymoon, she already said it was down to business. Here's the prerequisites. We paid off the IRS and the dental and the Maryland state the day we got back from the honeymoon. Yes. And that set us back to baby step three for a couple weeks. And then we had to very quickly adjust because Jacob. Because our older son, my son Jacob, he was in. He went to college right after we got married. And we were cash flowing a lot of his college. So you did that in addition to all this? Yep. Wow. Way to go, guys. Well, very cool, though. Very good. I mean, all the goals are hit and you knocked it out. And then you start on the mortgage. Yep. That's it. And seven years later, you're millionaires. Yep. Wow. So when you're in your 30s and you had IRS debt or you're in your mid-30s and you had your IRS debt, and all that, did you ever think you'd be a millionaire by now? I never thought of it, no. I didn't think that it was possible at that point in time. And one of the big things that held me back was debt. And we learned a lot through Financial Peace University. I just got real gazelle intense about it. So originally, I took FPU in the fall of 2013. Somebody at my church. Paid for 11 scholarships. Wow. And I have no idea who paid for it. Wow. And it completely changed my life because Liam, at that point, was only six years old. And I was a single mom making 55. And I paid off $75,000 in three years. And then three months later, I met Benjamin. And I told him that I was three months into an 18-month plan where I was going to save up $60,000 and buy a house an hour away. And that didn't scare him. No one impressed him. Yeah. I said, you can't stop a train once it's on the track. That's it. I heard the locomotive going. Yeah, here we go. Yep. And so five months after we met, he asked me out. And I had a 48-item RFP. And he met almost all of the requirements in my RFP, except number 12 was he needed to get a date. Wait a minute. I know what it is. But tell the public what you gave your date. A request for a partner. Oh, okay. All right. And there was 48 items he had to check. Yes. And he checked every single one except for one? Except for two. Except for two. So one, when he asked me out, he said, I know we have to make compromises because you prefer the mountains and I prefer the beach. And I said, where are we going to live? Are we going to live at the Strait of Gibraltar? I don't want to live at the Strait of Gibraltar. What about Ireland? Ireland, it rains too much in Ireland. I don't want to live in Ireland. And he said, I was thinking that we would live in the mountains and we would have a mural of the beach. And so the second item that he didn't check off yet was. Dave Ramsey follower on Sam Pace Financially. So I agreed to go out with him under the condition that he complete FPU before he proposed. Wow. That is wild. All for one date. And this didn't scare you at all. For those of us in the business world, it's a request for proposal. In this case, it's a request for partnership. Oh, my gosh. Wow. That's impressive. I'm just surprised he checked off 46 of them the first day. I mean, you picked well. I mean. The chances of that happening alone are pretty low. This is amazing. Wow. Very cool. The cool thing, though, Benjamin, too, like you said, you got gazelle intense. And it wasn't just because of that, because of her demands. I'm guessing what you do for a living, you observe people who change behaviors permanently, and they usually do so fairly radically. It has to be radical for it to even be effective. Yes, for it to stick. Yes. It's all or nothing. And so you applied that. I'm guessing whether you consciously or unconsciously applied that knowledge to this subject. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. It was learning how the debt percentages work against you when you owe money and work for you when you invest the money. It made a night and day difference in how to see that. Yeah. And so then it wasn't like, oh, I'm having to do this to get this girl. No. It was more like, this works, and I'm freaking doing it all in. Yeah. She's just incredible, whether it's- Either way. Yeah. Either way. Yeah. I got you. Well done, y'all. That's very cool. Very cool. What was the church you went to Financial Peace in? Lighthouse in Glen Burnie. Okay. Very nice. Very nice. Well, thank you guys so much. We're so proud of you. What do you tell people? You've both been through Financial Peace. You've been married seven years, and you went from in debt and to paying off mortgage and everything, and now a net worth of over a million dollars in seven years. What's the secret is? So, I tell them three things. One is the budget is foundational. If you don't get the budget, nothing else is going to work. Two, marriage is a partnership, not a roommate agreement. Make sure you're on the same page financially. And three, we started coordinating FPU in the fall of 2021, and I would tell my class to set three types of goals. You set realistic goals, ridiculous goals, and mathematically impossible goals. And you tell people what your mathematically impossible goals. So, I was telling my class that my mathematically impossible goal was I was going to pay off my house before I turned 40. And I have achieved every one of my mathematically impossible goals. When it was just me, I would barely make it. We actually did it eight months early. Wow. That's amazing. Well, yeah, we call them God wow goals. If God shows up, we can do this, but otherwise, we can't do it by ourselves. The math says we can't. Mathematically impossible goals. And then that's. That's great. And your class is. Man, can you imagine being in her class? I feel like everyone should go through her class. We need to put this at scale. Yeah, this is great. Yeah, coordinators, financial peace coordinators, when they're like this, the people that go through their class, their lives are all changed. They don't have a choice. You can't be in the class. You got to do an RFP. Let's get to it. So, you guys are amazing. All right. And you brought Liam with you. Does he want to come up for the debt-free scream? Yep. All right. How old is Liam? He's 19. All right. And he's been following this journey. He's been following this journey since he was six. I love it. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yeah! House and everything, baby. Woo-hoo! Hey, guys. Dave Ramsey here. Every day on this show, we help people work through real money problems and figure out what to do next. Now, you can get that same kind of help anytime with Ask Ramsey. Ask your money question and get answers built on Ramsey principles we use on the show. Whether you're making a decision or just wanting to make a decision, ask Ramsey. If you just want something explained, Ask Ramsey is here to help. It's fast, simple, and free to use. Go to RamseySolutions.com and try Ask Ramsey today. That's RamseySolutions.com. Our scripture of the day, 1 Peter 1.6, so be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead. Even though you have to endure many trials for a little while. Winston Churchill said, the pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty. Brayden is with us. Brayden's in Atlanta. Hi, Brayden. How are you? Good. How are you? Thank you for calling. Thank you for taking the call. Sure. What's up? I have a question. Me and my fiance are looking to get married and move out, and our options, right? Now are either move out into an apartment, or my parents gave me the option of paying to finish the basement and then living down there for a couple of years while we saved up to put a down payment on a house. I just want to know what the smart move would be there. I currently have an income. She does not. And we are both in college still. When will you both graduate? Next year. Like May of 2020? 2027? Should be, yes, sir. Okay. And what will her degree be in? She will work in physical therapy. Okay. Is she finishing her master's in PT or undergrad? It will be more like an associate's degree to work in physical therapy assistant. Oh, okay. So she's not going to be a PT. Okay. All right. PTA, sorry. That's okay. And what will your degree be in? I will be graduating. living with an accounting degree. All right. And sitting for and passing the CPA, I assume. Your master's in accounting? No, I will be going a different route. I will be going into, like, corporate finance route. Okay. All right. Cool. No problem. Good, good, good. All right. And when are you getting married? September of 27. After graduation? Yes, sir. It's about a year from now. Okay. Yes, sir. We want to graduate and move in together at the same time. Good, good. So it doesn't matter until then? Yes, sir. Okay. All right. Do you have student loan debt or other debts? I do not. She does. It's about $10,000. Okay. All right. So you probably can save up enough to pay off the student loan debt when you come home from the honeymoon in September of 27, correct? Yes, sir. I plan on having that paid off by the end of this year. Well, don't pay off her debt until you're married to her. Okay. That's not a smart idea? No, it's not a smart idea. Okay. You don't pay people's debt that you're not married to. But I would have the money saved up to do that on return from the honeymoon. Write a check and pay it off. Yes, I would do that. I'd be ready to do it. Okay. Yes, sir. And she's not taking out any more student loan debt, right? No, sir. Okay. It will stay at about $10,000. Okay. Hmm. Okay. The way we answer questions on this show and the way I've talked to George and all the others to do the same thing is, what would I do if I were in your shoes? Okay? Okay. Your parents' offer is a kind offer, but there is a huge advantage to a young couple to be separated and have their own entity, their own physical entity in terms of the first year of marriage relationally plugging in with each other, not having the in-laws above your head. Yes, I agree. The relational advantage of that is very, very real. And it actually, the weird thing is, it will actually parlay over into your finances. In other words, the more adult the two of you are, because you're a separate entity and not plugged still into mommy and daddy in any way, the better your first few raises are going to be, your first few job decisions are going to be, and all that kind of thing. It all kind of goes with the same territory. And there's, you know, we've seen those data points for years doing what we do. So for the sake of your marriage and even indirectly the byproduct of your finances, I would just rent the cheapest one bedroom I could. Okay. I guess to add to that, is if we lived with them or, you know, other costs like utilities and groceries, I most likely wouldn't have to pay car insurance. So there would be quite a few other costs that would not be there if we did live with them. I think it's a net positive still. But you guys will be grown adults, probably making 150K household income starting out with no debt. So you're going to be able to afford rent and save up for a down payment with no issue. So when my daughter, when my daughters were four to seven years old, they had in the playroom two pretend dresses that they wore all the time. One of them was a wedding dress and one of them was a princess dress. When your fiance was wearing her pretend wedding dress at seven years old, she was not visualizing living in your mother's basement. That makes sense. And walking upstairs to breakfast to see your mother-in-law. As much as you might love each other, you'll love each other more if you live in different spaces. It's, again, it's a kind offer, but the unintended consequences offset the advantages as far as I'm concerned. And I wouldn't do it. And so I have to tell you what I would do. George, you're. I'm in the same boat. I mean, I moved out when I was 20. Yeah. And so I wasn't like a living at home kind of guy. And there's times where we'd say, it makes sense to live at home for this season. Until this thing. But I don't like the idea of just, well, cheaper and we can save money to save up the down payment. You guys are going to be in great shape starting off. And for household income. For those of you out there that are in these situations, this would not be hard relationally at all for Braden because he just steps right back into the family script that he's been in his whole life. It's going to be 10x harder for the one that's not, that is not their parents. Not because the parents are mean or not because they're not loving or anything like that. It's just awkward as crud. You know, it's just weird. And so, I mean, even like when we first got married and we went back to Sharon's parents for Christmas and we stayed in her old bedroom. That's just weird. It is just strange. You know, that's just, this is the bed you were in in high school. It's like, ugh, you know, and I can do that for about three nights. And after that, I'm going home, you know? And I resort to like my childhood self or mom starts folding my lawn. Yeah. She's bringing me meals and I go, it's hard to feel like a grown-up. And when your mom brings a meal, it's a good thing. You can't pass that down. I'm talking the baklava is unbelievable. May Camel's cooking. You better be ready. You better be saddling up. Jordan is in Albany. Hey, Jordan, what's up? Hi, Dave. How are you? How can I help? Good. Thank you so much for taking my call. Sure. So, I bought a car about a month ago and I am wondering if I should sell it because I'm having. A bunch of regret about it. It's a newer car and I just feel like I'm taking on. You think it's going to be more of a curse than a blessing? Yes. Because of the. Yes, especially. How much did you pay for it? $25,000. And what are your payments? About $365 a month. Okay. What's owed on the loan? $25,000. Oh, no, you paid $25,000. What's the loan amount? No. So, I put down $2,500. Mm-hmm. And then it was $25,000 in total. Yeah. So, $22,500 is what's owed today? Yes. Okay. Okay. And what is your household income? So, I'm single. I live with my parents. So, I bring in about $2,600 a month. Mm-hmm. I just picked up some tutoring and I've been doing that this summer. So, that's upped my income about $1,000. So, $3,600. And I'm planning on doing that throughout this school year. Good for you. It is too expensive a car for your situation. Mm-hmm. We tell folks not to buy a car that's more than half their annual income and you did. Yeah. And I would sell it. Yeah. It's going to, you know, I would buy something about $12,000 in your situation. Okay. Okay, yeah. I also, I have a bunch of student loan debt and I thank you for all your advice and stuff. I've been putting a lot of money towards those as well. Okay. Way to go. But it's a hefty, it's a hefty amount. Yeah, and now you've just added another chunk to it. You know, you had this, put another $22,000 on top of that before you get out of debt. So, now I even take back my $12,000. I would go cheaper than that. I'd buy something super cheap, get to work, clean up the student loan debt, and then, and only then, move up in car. One day, you'll have a $22,000 car. But not today. I wouldn't. I'm with you, Jordan. I think you, I think your brain is telling you the right thing. That puts us out of the Ramsey Show and the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.