Stop Giving Away Your Control

brought to you by the every dollar 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 i'm george camel joined by jade warshaw and we're taking your calls at 888-825-5225 gary is in huntsville alabama what's going on gary how can we help uh yes um my father-in-law who's 85 in a nursing home wants to take 10 family members to the holy land and pay fifty thousand dollars for that trip i am nervous that he is going to spend down his nest egg and may need medic medicaid in the future so that is my my dilemma what's the entirety of his nest egg do you know i have heard he has two hundred thousand dollars and he's using social security and the rmds for his current monthly payments to the nursing home who told you that um his uh my brother-in-law his son okay um is he using the nest egg at all right now are you saying he's just using social security plus rmds from an investment account elsewhere or is it this 200 grand that's it it's all about 200 grand that's everything he has to his name and he wants to blow a fourth of that on this trip why does that concern you are you afraid that you'll be on the hook like tell us more about how you're involved well um i'm a family i'm one of those 10 family members i'm a family of four so that is 20 000 of this money and i don't want to burn his money i don't want to be responsible for burning his money and getting him into medicaid if he has a stroke or a mental decline uh let me ask this is he in his right mind is he well mentally still is he still with it is yes he's declining he has he's having some thinking issues and some uh memory issues so that also i mean it's in the kindness of his heart he wants to do this i'm just not comfortable with it i'm just not comfortable with it i'm just not comfortable with it i'm just not comfortable spending for me twenty thousand dollars of that money don't go don't go what happens if you don't go yeah well i mean i was asked quite frankly big dates and i was like i'm kind of being a you know wet blanket on this thing so i don't think you're being a wet blanket i think that you're an adult and you have the ability to look look out at something and say this makes me feel comfortable or this doesn't make me feel comfortable and i think because other family members are involved that might not agree with you or maybe don't maybe they don't have the same you know knowledge base that you have about his money uh i think it's okay for you to say and you could even say to him here's the i got some information i don't know that it's accurate and i'm not trying to overstep but this is what i was told that you have two hundred thousand dollars and i just don't feel comfortable for of with you spending twenty of it on my family i think what you're doing is generous but i just don't feel comfortable thank you but no thank you and then he might come back and say actually that's not true i have you know more money or whatever but i think you have the ability to say that and it's not being a wet blanket it's just you choosing as an adult okay yeah thank thank you i i was heading that direction i i don't want to see him on medicaid uh basically being a being a burden on society when i'm taking the money to go on a nice trip now the medicaid i don't think that's really what's going to happen here uh you're saying if he runs out of money and then can't pay for the current nursing home then he switches over to medicare because he's basically impoverished yes medic and there's a i think there i looked and there's a five-year look back yeah exactly so so if he burns through this money there can be a five-year look back and he may not be able to get it which would put him on the street now there's a gap and you guys are gonna have to cover it and that's your true fear gary is that the financial burden is going to be on you guys the siblings to have to fund the rest of his life and let's say he goes to 90 that's still five years right right and so have you tracked his actual current burn rate to see how quickly this nest egg is being dwindled down i i i have not had visibility into that but i i'm i'm yeah how long has he been there how long has he been in the nursing home i would say gosh four years there might be is that like a hundred grand a year what's it costing i i do not know the details he said that it's social security he's he's very independent he has a room and food that's what he's using right now but he said it's social security and the rmds is what's paying for that yeah i mean if you wanted to look further into it you could look and find out what is he spending on nurse the nursing home every year uh there could very well be a lot more to his financial life that you just don't know i mean he was he you know he he's an adult and probably probably has more going on than than maybe what you're aware of so i just think there's a lot of unknowns here if you just don't feel comfortable about it and you don't want to snoop around and you don't want to snoop around and any further you can say no if you feel like you have the right to snoop a little further and just find out hey is this going to affect me in any way if we run out of money you've been here four years you've already gone longer than the average kind of stay here is there anything we need to know like i think it's okay to ask questions in a respectful way if you're concerned about you're clearly doing it out of love yeah and so i don't think it's going to come across like you're just trying to be a jerk here but i mean here's the truth gary whether he burns 25 of his nest egg or 15 chances are he's still gonna run out of money and so i don't want you to feel any guilt for whatever happens in the future regarding his finances he was an adult he made his choices your best bet is changing your own family tree so that you never put your kids in this position and you are the in-law so you probably need to step lightly here uh your wife is probably the one that needs to have these conversations um how does she feel about it um gosh um she she was she was uh willing to pick dates and we need to talk about that why not just send your wife and she can have some family time that's possible you hang back with the kids you don't have the guilt she gets to have probably the final trip with her father that she'll ever take and so that part to me listen you don't block a blessing if this is what he wants for his legacy and to have this experience with his family let him have it because again it's not going to be the make or break on if he's going to you know not be able to be in this nursing home it's 20 grand and so he has 200 to his name it's true we don't know if there's more we don't know what it's invested in we don't know how long he has on this earth and so i think you're taking on a lot of the weight and i want to release you from that yeah thank you i'm guessing you care more than anyone else in the family about this at this point yeah yeah i i generally try to plan my finances and i try to work through contingencies myself and here's the thing i'm like you i'm very type a i'm also be the spreadsheet nerd going hey um i see on my spreadsheet you're gonna run out of money in the next six months you can try to warn them but again as the father-in-law to you know your relationship with him i don't know what it is i don't know that he really wants your opinion or will respect it what do you think yeah i i i don't i mean like i said i think he's he's he's a kind of heart and i don't think he even understands you know potentially what he's doing and i think is you know how much is how long is necessary will last i mean if he has a stroke tomorrow that's full-time care and you know that would probably put a damper on this whole trip anyways right right of course right well maybe he wants to do this before his health continues declining i don't know but i would at least have a conversation with the family with your wife and let the kids have this conversation with him you can lay out the facts but i don't think you need to be busting up in the nursing home with spreadsheets to convince him otherwise that's not gonna end well i wish you the best of luck let me tell you what i get asked all the time when should i get term life insurance how much do i need is it affordable those are the right questions to be asking so let's take a quick review the fact is term life isn't a baby step so if anyone is dependent on your income you need to have 10 to 12 times your income in life insurance now and most people are surprised by how affordable term life really is even if you're not in perfect health look i understand the hesitation since most insurance companies make it more of a hassle than it needs to be not at zander insurance they're not an insurance company 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That's Zander.com. Joel is in Los Angeles up next. Joel, welcome to The Ramsey Show. Good morning. Well, honestly, good afternoon. Well, it's morning to you over there. So we're happy to talk to you, man. What's going on? I have a—my mom passed away last year. I tried to call last year, but I got through, but I didn't have time to finish the call. So she passed away last year. The house is paid off. My sister and myself are on the will to do something with her house and her estate, but I can't seem to get my sister to initiate to help me to get this, to put me on as a trustee. So I can sell the house and give her her half and my half. So what are my options here? She doesn't want to sell the house. Why? She's got a little bit of a mental health—well, she's got a mental health issue, and she thinks I'm out to kill her or something to that effect. Oh. Yeah. So what does selling a property have to do with this? I have no idea, man. She won't even answer my call. I know where she lives. I went over there to talk to her, and she threatened to call the cops because I wasn't invited on her property or something. Do you have a history of being murderous? No, I don't. Okay. Do you think you need to get a court order or a judge involved if she's honestly mentally unwell for you to be listed with her on this? It's going to be hard for you guys to do anything. Yeah, she can pass that test. She can pass that. She's done it before. You know, I think she does have some mental health issues, but when she goes to court because she's been to court a few times, I think she passed out all that. So. I'm trying to avoid this going into probate. It shouldn't really go to probate, but that might be where we're going. I think it's going to go regardless. Was it willed that way, or is this just something you guys are assuming? Well, what do you mean by willed, ma'am? Did she have a will that said that you and your sister are the owners of the house if she were to pass away? Yeah, it's deeded down to my sister and then myself, yeah. Equally, 50-50. Yeah. What's the house worth? Oh, probably about $500,000, maybe $600,000, something to that effect. How are you doing financially? I'm doing okay, man. You know, it was always happening because I took care of my mom and dad for a long time, and then my dad passed away in 2021 and my mom passed away last year. A little burnt out, and now I've got a little bit of nest egg with my pension and my 401. I'm a little early for retirement because I can do it at 62, which turns in November. So. You know, I'm thinking about going ahead and pulling the turn around back, but I'd like to get that settled, but I don't know what my options are because every time I try to talk to her, it's always, she doesn't return a call, she doesn't want to talk to me, and it just keeps going on and on. Well, I mean, there's something you can do called a partition action, but that's going to cost you time and money in courts to basically have the judge force the sale of the house. And she obviously is not in a place where she's going to buy you out. She doesn't have $250,000 to take. That's your portion. No. To get you out of this. So the other option is it just sits. Is anyone using the house right now? No. Nobody's using the house, no. It's just vacant, collecting dust, and you guys are paying property taxes and insurance on it? Who's covering that? My mom's estate, so she still has some money in the bank. Okay. And once that gets dwindled down, what happens? Or is there enough there to cover it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is there enough to cover it in perpetuity? Is it $500,000 in there? No, it's not even close to that. Okay. It's probably about $60,000, I think $60,000 in that effect, yeah. I would talk to your. I mean, you can't talk to your sister casually at this point. So you might need a mediator to actually get through to her to explain the situation and what the options are. And are you saying. Is it just with you, or does she have enough mental health issues that she's not in a place where she could even make this decision? She really hasn't worked in years. I can't remember the last time she had a real job. She does this hustling thing where she does try to book people for travel, stuff like that. But I don't. She's got a pie in the sky, you know, a life thousand rich and famous, but on a pork and beans budget. You know, it's been like that for years, and I didn't get any assistance from her taking care of my mom or dad for years. So I don't expect her to change anything now. I just want her to. Sign the paperwork over to me. I'm not going to. You know, I'll have it all legal. Do you know what? She'll get her half, and I'll get my half. Yeah, does she understand she's going to walk away with this thing with, you know, over $200,000? That's life-changing money, considering it's not even being rented out. There's no cash flow happening here. No. So regardless of how she feels about you, if someone were to stroke her a check for $250,000, I think she would take it. I'll try to go that route, you know, but this is like. It's tough, man, you know, because I can't get. I think you're going to need a mediator, yeah. Yeah, I would contact a lawyer and just kind of understand what your state laws are and what you're able to do and not able to do to at least give you some clear next steps, regardless of the communication with her. But this is a messy one. It's a pretty rare scenario where your sister thinks you're out to murder her and therefore won't let you sell the property. But I don't know what that has to do with the property still, regardless. You don't have to be there for the sale. You guys can be in separate rooms, but I would try to get some closure on this and I'll let it. just sit there collecting dust while you keep paying the bills out of mom's estate. Abby is calling in from Sacramento up next. Abby, welcome to the show. Hi, good morning. Hey, how you doing? Good. So I am a college student and I have recently come into a gift or inheritance of $25,000 from when my grandpa passed away in 2023 from the sale of his house. Cool. And I want to make a very wise decision where to put this, inheritance money or this gift money. And I currently have a Roth IRA and I work inconsistently, but I have a monthly income of about $400 to $500, give or take. And yeah, I just want to make a really good financial decision for my future for after I graduate. Love it. How far are you into school? I just finished my junior year, so I'm going into senior year, two more semesters of undergrad and then two semesters of a credentialing program. Nice. How are you paying for that? My parents, they're paying for my college. They're paying as they go. So no student loans, no parent plus loans or anything like that. How are you living? Are you living on campus or do you have an apartment? Tell us about that. So for the first two years, I went to junior college and I lived at home. So no rent or anything expenses that way for the first two. This year, I moved down about an hour away from home and had an apartment. My parents paid my half of the rent. My boyfriend paid the other half of the rent. And I just used my work to pay for groceries, gas, utilities, Basic living expenses. Okay. So you currently have no debt whatsoever? I have a car payment with my parents and me as a co-signer and there's about $6,700 left on that, but they make that payment as well. Great. So now you're down to $19,000 because we're going to pay that off today. That's not a fun thing to have hanging around. It's going to cause resentment at some point. So now you're debt-free with $19,000. Do you have anything in savings currently? Currently in savings, I have probably like $500. Great. Okay. So now we can beef that up to have a little emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. Even if your expenses are low right now, having $10,000 as a minimum is a good baseline. Okay. So now you're down to $9,000 and now you're at the spot where you're debt-free, you got an emergency fund, you're investing for the future, so you could max out a Roth IRA for the year and still have money left over. Yes, I maxed out my Roth IRA. I've had it since 2024. And in 2024, I maxed it out, the $7,000, and then last year, the $7,500. And then this year, I've only contributed $50 to it because I was living away from home and all of my money went to my living. Perfect. So you got another $74.50 you can put in there with $1,500 left over. I would just park that in a high-yield savings account with your emergency fund and call it $11,000 or $12,000 for your emergency fund. Because what's going to happen is once you graduate school, life's going to change drastically and you're going to be very thankful to have some money on hand to cover maybe it's a car repair, maybe it's a move across the country, for a different job, maybe it's a future down payment on a house. And so those are shorter-term goals. So I would keep that more liquid. That's where my parents were kind of going. They wanted me to use the whole $25,000 as a down payment for a future house or as part of the down payment. And they said that they would match whatever I put down. That's a route you could go. I think both of those, I think what George laid out is a fair path. And I think there's also a path where you do keep the emergency fund separate, like you said, and then with whatever's left over, you park that and maybe a separate high yield or you use a fair ones account and just earmark that money instead of putting it in a Roth. You just earmark it for house down payment. And if you have a plan of buying a house, you know, in five years or less, that's a great idea. And then if your parents want to match it, well, now you've got double the money. They're going to match it regardless. So I would become debt free with an emergency fund before ever starting that savings for the down payment. Way to go. you as a dad of young 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 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 promo code ramsey to get started that's worldwatch.news slash ramsey hey if you're a newer listener to the ramsey show one thing to know is that we answer every money question through a framework called the baby steps there's seven baby steps and if you're not familiar with them you can check them out at the link in the description of this episode and that is the key that is the same thing that i use that jade used to get out of debt and build wealth and it works every time you work it so check that out in the description if you want to learn more all right haven is in knoxville tennessee up next what's going on haven hi guys thank you so much for taking my call absolutely what's going on okay so my question is me and my husband took on debt about two years ago the first time in our five-year marriage and it was all in a mortgage but that was the that was the first time in our marriage that we felt a lot of weight and and a stress and even though it was still within ramsey's perimeters it still it still felt very heavy um especially after and it especially after i became a mom i felt like removed the option of me not being able to just be a mom anymore i had to i had to continue working because the mortgage was based on both of our incomes and so we decided to try to put the house on the market go to a smaller rent and our goal in the long run is to never go back in debt but to instead take that house payment that we were making and put it into investments to hopefully one day buy a house outright and i just wanted to know in the long run especially with well-meaning people around us telling us no you need to buy a house you need to buy a house i just wanted to know in the long run that we were we were still going to be financially okay who um i will say we teach two methods of buying a house here um and the one that we love is when people have cash to buy a house outright we don't get a whole lot of those calls but there are people who do it um and then of course the other method is to have a mortgage that's in the proper parameters and we can talk about that later um for what you're saying i i think it can be good the tough part about this and in the variable here that's kind of the most important thing is that it's a moving goal post right so it's what will the house cost 10 years from now and there's a big difference between five years from now and 10 years from now and so i think the question you guys have to be asking is how do you want your life to feel which i think you you have asked that question and i also want to know how old you are because um i i'm you know taking 10 years to buy a house is not a bad thing it took my husband and i 10 years to buy a house and i think it's and as long as you're able to do those things uh that cause you to build wealth in the process i don't have a problem with it but just know that there's a moving goal post there george and that's that's the unknown that can be really tough is we're depending on the market to give us the returns that we want and we're depending on the housing market to be where we want it to be when we're ready to pull that money out and so there's a lot of variables we can't control so let's focus on the ones we can control and one of those is we can't control the money that we can't control saving enough to get the mortgage that's super reasonable even if it's on his one income so what is the mortgage payment today three thousand dollars three thousand okay and what do you guys bring home currently um well with my income we were bringing in about 200 but like i said i have some babies in the picture that i want to be with more so um that could drop down some to what let's say it was just his income if it's just his income it it's it's going to vary um george but it could be 150 to 200 because he's taking on more work so that i could work less got it now let me just ask this question because the way you framed it was you didn't feel good because we needed your income for the mortgage if there was a world where you could have a reasonable mortgage just on his income would would that be enough to relieve the stress while still getting you into the housing market potentially because the biggest thing was when the babies came along i was like i want to be with them um but i mean yes potentially i think that would put stress on him um but maybe yeah i think the ideal scenario is can we get his income up sustainably to the point where you guys can just stay in the house that's option one that'll save you the most money because selling your home and buying a new one is going to cost you a whole lot in fees too on top of hassle so the next option is you guys sell and rent for a while but rent is going to cost you what in your area 1400 okay so what you really can save is the 1600 and put that towards a down payment fund yes so you're not taking your whole mortgage payment and saving it because you still have to pay for rent over here right yeah so 1600 we'll do the math here 1600 for 12 months you're of your house if you sold it today about six seven thousand wow so you'll be lucky to break even on this thing yes okay so we're not making a lot of profit so basically you're starting from scratch and what would a house cost you if you bought one in the future this was only a 1300 square foot home um but probably around the same the area i mean we looked at several homes they were all upwards 250 to 300 this one was 355 okay so to buy let's say magically the home is still 350 grand years from now at that rate you're still talking about needing to save for 18 years that 19 grand a year it's going to take you 18 years to save up 350 what about investing it into like the market would that help it would help a little bit but it's not going to be magic your savings rate is going to be the trick here when you're talking about a four to five year time horizon to buy a home investing it isn't going to move the needle a ton if you're super lucky like we've seen these last few years you could double your money in about five or six years so 40 grand could turn to 80 80 grand can turn to 160 so you're still a ways away from that number had you run that math at all haven or was this kind of and it's okay if it was just kind of an idea that you wanted to run by us yeah we did we did um run at some and we were also thinking i mean i've listened to the show several times i hear you guys say a lot like your income could potentially go up i've seen his income even just in the five years that we've been married um continue to go up um he's an electrician and so it does the more work and the more his name gets out there the more money he does have come in is it his own business that he's running or does he work for someone yeah yeah so george did you plug him in do you see him there yeah i'm looking at if you let's say you invested for five years you did that 1600 a year you even started with six grand from the home sale you'd have about 133 grand in there five years now no george we would start with about 60 we have 16 investments oh good i think you said six or seven when we got married we had you know we had no debt and we just started investing okay is it in brokerage funds not in retirement funds yeah roth iras and um traditional okay so that's if it's in roth iras and traditional iras that's retirement earmarked for retirement so we wouldn't we wouldn't include that uh because that would be to your detriment so the money would need to just be invested in a normal brokerage account probably i just throw it in an index fund but with the the money that you currently have available to you and with a fair rate of return did you put 10 in there george yeah that's that's where we're at and we're not saying that to bust your bubble and i i kind of want to like shift the mood here because i absolutely think that there's a way that you can be in a home that you can be in a home in a responsible way that's not going to feel detrimental to you as a stay-at-home mom and you know do this thing without having to wait 10 years i just think that it's going to require you guys to go okay the current house house we have, maybe it's too much house for you if you're staying home, that's fine. And if you decide to rent for a little while while you save up a better down payment, that honestly, just, you know, woman to woman, that feels like a fair trade off to get you in a house where you're actually, you know, feeling the growth of equity, you're actually participating in the market and building wealth in that way, versus waiting 10 years with more unknowns in the equation. So I would wait and see, I wouldn't rush to sell this house, I would see, do a budget just based on his income, on the average, what would it feel like to make a $3,000 mortgage payment if he's making 10 grand a month? Because I don't want you to feel like you have to sell it if it's 26%. And Ramsey said 25%. It's not about that. It's do you have enough margin to invest 15% for your future, save up some for your kids college, put a little extra toward the mortgage. Those are the signs that you're doing well financially and that you didn't make a huge mistake with this home. So I love the heart that you want to stay home, you don't want to make a bad financial mistake. But I don't want you to feel a paranoid level about this purchase. You guys are doing great. Hey, what's up, guys? It's Jade. Back to school season is here. And that means you've already got enough on your plate between dropping the kids off at school to taking them to practice, or maybe you've got a kid driving off to college. Either way, you rely on your vehicles to keep life moving. That's why I trust Christian Brothers Automotive, because the last thing you need is car trouble. And one thing I really like about Christian Brothers is their digital vehicle inspection. They show you exactly what their technicians see. So you're not left wondering what's wrong with your car or whether the work is actually needed. You get honest recommendations, repairs you can trust, and the confidence that comes from knowing what's really going on under that hood. Think of it like a report card for your vehicle. And the best part is every repair comes with their nice difference warranty. Three years or 36,000 miles, whichever benefits you more. Give yourself one less thing to worry about this school year and go to cbac.com slash Ramsey to schedule your service and get 10% off your visit. That's cbac.com slash Ramsey. 10% off. Up to a $250 value. See store for details. If you're working the baby steps, the best and fastest way to do it is by using every dollar. It's more than just our budgeting app. The plan is now built into it. You can track your progress, get personalized recommendations, and coaching for your situation. So check it out. Start every dollar for free in the app store or Google Play. Kirsten is in Houston, Texas. What's going on, Kirsten? Hi. Oh my gosh. I'm honored to talk to you guys. You won the lottery today. You got Jade. I did. I did. I love you guys both. So some background on my question is my husband and I are on four, five, and six. Our kids go to private school. You know, we're living our best lives, frankly. And we've been running the numbers with our financial advisor. And we need about $10 million to retire in about 30 years. And that's kind of our surplus number. At 15%, we will be retiring with over $15 million at this rate. So yeah, I know it's a tough place to be. But my question is, is we just don't want to live with a crazy surplus at the end of our lives. So we were thinking about pulling back about 5%. Excuse me. And putting that towards the house so we can pay it off in like seven to eight years instead of about 13. And I wanted to get your opinion on that. That number that you quoted, what percentage of your income is that you investing? Is that 15% or? Yeah, 15%. Okay. What's your household income? $3.28 on the basis. And then we get like $50 to $70 in bonuses. Fantastic. Well, I love all these numbers. And these are, what was the annual rate of return you guys were using to crunch this to get to that $15 million? Do you remember? 9%. So it was a little low. Good. Cool. Well, I love that. We've never told anyone to stop investing to pay off the house earlier or to, hey, you're going to be funded later on. Because I don't know what the next 30 years holds for you. If I did, I would tell you absolutely do this. But you might want to retire 15 years from now, 20 years, who knows what's going to happen. A health crisis, maybe it's for a good reason. And you want to step away. But I just wouldn't, you know, put it all in that basket of, well, we're definitely going to have this income for the next 30 years. One person could get laid off and not have that income anymore and not be able to get a job that pays that much. I hope that's not the case, but I'm kind of a, I'm a glass half full guy when it comes to what it could be. And I'm also a glass half empty guy when it comes to preparing for what could be. It's just the nature of life. Life be life in. So how long would it take with your current fantastic income, outside of your 15% to pay off the house? 13 years is what we currently have projected, but obviously that may change as our income goes up, hopefully. What do you owe on it? We owe about $600,000. Okay. And how much can you realistically put towards it? Could you up that from cutting expenses elsewhere in your budget, making this kind of money? Yeah, I mean, we could probably, realistically, like I said, I think we're living a pretty nice life as is, but over 50% of our income is going to go to the house. So we're probably going to have to, you know, we're going to have to, we're going to have to have to pay off the house and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and then we've got our mortgage and other things. So like, realistically, outside of giving in private school and investing in the mortgage, we're probably living on like 20% of our income, which is why we need such a low number compared to our actual income. Yeah. How old are you guys? 30. Okay. So, I mean, you highlighted something which is important to highlight, which is there are seasons of life, obviously, seasons where there's daycare, there's kids in college, those tend to be more expensive years that you really can't get around. But then there's values that you decide that you're going to sink money into, which are my kids are going to go to private school throughout their entire education. And when you make those, those choices, there's a trade-off involved, which means because I did this, now my margin is maybe significantly less margin that I would have put in my mortgage. So I'm going to have to, I'm going to have to, I'm going to have to towards the house or margin that I would have put towards a 529, those sorts of things. So just realize that you guys are making choices based on your family values. And when you do that, it's not just a choice, it's a trade-off. And I think that's probably what you're feeling, saying that, okay, it's going to take us, because of that, it's going to take us 13 years to pay off the mortgage. And because we want to continue to enjoy certain other niceties, it's going to take us 13 years, which 13 years to pay off a mortgage, by the way, is that's not small potatoes like that's pretty impressive especially since you'll be 43 years old with a paid for i'm guessing million dollar plus home yes yeah the value is about 900 000 right now so it's going to be way more than that 13 years from now i don't think that's a bad thing yeah looking at the full picture i don't have any problem with you guys paying it off in 13 years versus eight years and freeing up that money a little bit sooner because cash flow isn't your problem right now and if you guys said hey we have this other thing we really want to do we don't have the money for we need to temporarily pause i can make a case for that but long term just investing less because you don't think you'll need it i'm gonna go hey i'd rather you have five million extra that you can give to the places and people you want to give to because you have the option and so yeah we we took a call similar to this the other day jade and dave had a a similar response dave could have stopped investing 30 years ago he still invests to this day as a 65 year old man who definitely doesn't need another dollar but it's because he wants to have options he wants to give even more and have even more impact and leave an even bigger inheritance to his children's children there's nothing wrong with that and even if you did have 15 million you can spend it from 60 to 90 if you want to yeah and it also highlights the nature of the baby steps how we teach them which is you know steps four through seven really are about intentionality you don't have to have that same speed and intensity that you had in baby steps one through three and i think that's a really good point and i think that's a really good point and i think that we get that call a lot because people do the nature of what we teach everybody's like ricky bobby they just want to go they just want to go fast and there does come a point where you can go you know what i can actually enjoy my life i can value private school i can value family vacations and if that means i pay off my mortgage in 11 years instead of six that's okay you're still winning at life if you pay off your mortgage in 11 or 12 years if you pay it off in under 15 that's a huge win in my book and you're doing better than most of america absolutely way to go i like solving good problems that's a good problem to have right there all right matthew's in austin texas up next what's going on matthew hey thanks for taking my call absolutely hey just a quick question on 401k plans my wife and i have worked at several companies over the last 10 years and we have 401k plans kind of spread out everywhere all different apps things like that and really wanted to consolidate it and to be honest jim and i and claude have been giving me conflicting stuff so i really wanted to call and see what are my best options to consolidate everything in a safe way i'm curious what what was the general consensus so far if you didn't call general consensus was to do a uh an ira rollover but But our contributions are split up between pre-tax and 401k Roth, and I'm not sure how to split that up or anything like that. I got you. I actually just did this for my wife not too long ago because she left Ramsey to stay home with our kids after a nine-year career. And because her match portion was in traditional and her investment portion was in Roth, her contributions, what I did was create two different IRAs. So a rollover traditional IRA and a rollover Roth IRA. And so once I get that check from her old 401k, it goes into Vanguard, into one portion, and the other one to the other portion. So you just want to keep them in like kind. So a traditional portion needs to go in traditional rollover, and same with the Roth. And if you do it that way, it wasn't all that complicated. I literally took a picture of the check on my phone and deposited it within a day. And just be sure when you say check, the check is not made out to you. You're not cashing out those funds in any way. Yeah, you should be able to do a direct rollover. I, for some reason, because my life is difficult, they had to actually send a check for, you know, in Vanguard's name to that account. In Vanguard's name, yep. And so that's the simplest way to do it. And you can do all of that into, if you have five old 401ks that are all traditional, you can put that all into one rollover IRA. You don't need five different rollovers. Do they split it up for you, or is that something I have to figure out between what we've already done for 401k Roth versus, what's already, what hasn't been taxed yet? They should be able to write the checks. If you contact them, then there'll be separate checks because they're separate accounts completely with different account numbers. So once you get that, you should have two checks from every 401k if they had both Roth and traditional in them. Okay. And if you need help with this, you can contact the SmartVestor Pro, and they'll walk you through the whole process and handle all those pieces because it can be scary. You're dealing with some big numbers here. You're like, oh, that's $160,000. I don't want to hit that. I don't want to hit the wrong button. And so our Investment Pro can really help. You can jump on to RamseySolutions.com and give that a go. But yes, please, this is a PSA for anyone out there with a bunch of old 401ks sitting around. It is collecting dust, and it's dinging you with fees, and it's probably not performing very well. So it's time. Contact them. Get that money out of there. Put it in an IRA that's in your control. That's your best option. George, there's an estimated $31.9 million of forgotten 401ks left behind. That's wild. Don't forget, my friends. Couldn't it? That's different than $20 in the coat pocket. 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. 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Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio. I'm George Camel here with Jade Warshaw, taking your calls at 888-825-5225. Maury is in Tampa, Florida. What's going on, Maury? How can we help? Hey, y'all. Happy Friday. It's been a bit of a crazy year for me since January. I just want some help figuring out what the next best step is for me. Yeah, lay out the crazy. What happened? Well, at the top of the year, I was kind of crushing it, man. You know, top-performing portfolio at my job, you know, leaving the account management team. I had Baby Step 1 knocked out, which was brutal. That was brutal. And I was working on it. I was working on Step 2. But then my old Accord crapped out on me, and it would have cost more to fix it than I initially paid for it. So I figured I'd get creative about a used electric motorcycle because down here it's sunny all the time, and I don't have to worry about the snow, right? But that was really done to avoid wiping my savings completely and, you know, trying to keep some momentum on Step 2. So that was really rough. But I actually ended up getting a promotion about two weeks later. So I thought we were looking good, man. And the nature of that business. It was more so urgent versus important, make money today type of thing. And the role they put me in was very experimental and more long-term stuff. And unfortunately, they ended up laying me off two months later. Oh, man. When was that? Yeah, it's pretty rough. I don't really want to, you know, I have a very strange name in a very known place, and I think these people are just kind of listening, and, you know, it's insensitive stuff. How many months ago? Like, have you not had a job for months now? Yeah, that was in May. And I've been working on getting, you know. Getting applications out. But, I mean, I even applied for a part-time spot at a gas station, and I got shut down the other day, and that's been really rough. Man. Okay, how much debt do you have? So through all that, I've got $27K in two cards, a personal loan, and student loans. And that's what I was working on paying down in Step 2. So you got two car loans? Cards. Cards, credit cards. Oh, credit cards. Okay, so no car loan. No car loan. Just you? No. Only no car, no car loan either. Is it just you, or do you have kids, a wife, anybody else? Oh, man, that's the rough part. My lady and I are going through a breakup right now. Oh, man, I'm sorry to hear that. Was this a girlfriend? Yes. Yes, yes, sir. So there's no real, you know, it's not a divorce proceeding or anything, but, you know, our lease is ending right now, and it's been really rough over the last couple months. And so I've just been down in the dumps, man, to be honest with you. It's been tough. It's been a lot. Yeah, I mean, you're living in a country. It's been a lot going on right now in the worst way, so I'm so sorry you're going through it. Yeah, without the dirt roads and the beer, you know? Yeah, none of the fun parts. So what's next? Where are you going to live when this lease is up? I have two scenarios that are playing out in my head right now. Number one, one of my good friends has offered me a place in his guest room for three months. He gave me a solid tenure, and he tried to help me get back on my feet, but I'm looking at a move back to the Northeast to be close to family. Family again, which is what I'm probably going to end up doing is living with an aunt for a while and then jumping back on my feet from there. Are there more options in the Northeast for what you do? Because I feel like much of where you decide to go needs to be based on the job market for what you are skilled to do. Yeah. I mean, being in account management and sales, it's kind of everywhere. And then up in the Northeast as well, I mean, I'm sure I could knock on some doors for somebody selling shoveling services. You know, it's just been, it's just been tough. So you need, I think there's two sides of this coin. I think there's the change of scenery because of what you've been through. And then there's the actual, where do I have the most opportunity? And I would spend some time really making sure that one is not, that the emotional side doesn't lead you to do something that maybe may not be best for you work-wise. So I don't know the answer to that question. It's just me putting that out there for you to be thinking through, because I could see how a change of scenery would be nice. But if the truth is there's more opportunity, I don't know, in the Florida area, then maybe you should stay in that area. So think through that because you will get a change of scenery simply by moving into a new apartment, wherever that is. Right. Yeah. I'm not mad about the fresh start. I think that's great. We just need to be a little strategic about it because right now we're moving out of weakness and desperation and not out of a place of strength. And so I would be applying for jobs in the Northeast around where your aunt is and going, okay, what are the opportunities there? Who do I know there? Who does my aunt know there? And kind of, you know, I don't know. I'm kind of using that to, you know, once you land the job, now, you know, there's income there and it's the place I'm going to be. So, you know, your next step right now, you're sort of floundering because you don't even know what day it is. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, you know, I like to think I got my bearings, you know, but yeah, you're, you're a hundred percent spot on with that, man. And you mentioned a phrase in there, fresh start, which is something that I wanted to ask for some counsel about. I, it was recommended to me because my severance ran out and I currently have no monthly income to explore a potential chapter seven bankruptcy, but I don't know what to even start looking into. Well, how much severance did you have? They gave me a month. Okay. One month. It was like, yeah, it was like 5k worth. And that was, I mean. Yeah. I don't think you're anywhere near bankruptcy. I think you've just fallen on a hard time and I think it's hard in multiple ways. Like we said, it's emotionally, it's a blow to your confidence. Losing a job in some ways is akin to grief of a lot, a loved one. It can really feel that way. Especially when you were really counting on it and then when it came out of the blue. So I think, I mean, I do not want to minimize what you're feeling on an emotional level, but I think that there are some practical things that you can do today that'll give you a little bit of hope. First off, we're going to send you Ken Coleman's find the work you're wired to do because you do have a set of skills and they've given you a level of success and chances are those same skills can be translated into other career fields that you're just not thinking of right now because you're not in the clearest state of mind. Right? So that's going to help you do that. And then tonight, just a personal bit of homework that I'd love for you to do is I would take the time and I would write down everyone, you know, who knows someone else that might can lead to a job. So let your goal be to write down the names of 10 people. And over this weekend, you're going to call up 10 people and be like, Hey, um, I'm really looking, these are my skills. Do you know of anybody is grandma looking is auntie looking, do you have, you know, your buddy will like whoever it is, just call these people up and put your name out there because you will be surprised at how things like that travel. And that's really the way that you find opportunities is through the people that you know, in the network that you have. So that might feel like Jade, that's not going to do anything, but trust me, just do that bit of homework and write down those names and call up those people because it will make it, if nothing less, it will make you feel better that you're putting in a different type of effort. Yeah. Right. And sending a hundred texts is going to go way further than applying for a hundred digital resumes in another pile somewhere. Yeah. And to Georgia's tech, to Georgia's point, don't text them, call them, call them on the phone and say, Hey, I'm just, I'm looking right now. I'm casting my net out. Here's what I've done. I know that you do X, Y, Z. Can you think of anything and really push, like press in and see what's out there? I think that'll help you out. Um, that's what I would do tonight, but this is one step at a time right now. You're just trying to cover the four walls and get through the end of the lease and put food on the table. So I'd be doing gig work. I'd be signing up for every app under the sun, walking dogs, you name it, hell sitting, pet sitting, find out who in your community needs anything and you go do it and treat them well. And all of a sudden you get to survive the next day and the next and the next, and hopefully you can find a part-time job that leads to the full-time job. And then we can make this move. But right now, man, I don't know how you're going to bike e-bike your way all the way to your aunt's house in the Northeast. Yeah. We don't have money to do that. So we got to figure out just the next right step. So hang on the line. We're going to send you, find the work you're wired to do to help on the job side. A lot of banks are happy to hold your money, but Fairwinds Credit Union helps you make progress. Most people spend years focusing on their financial goals and never stop to ask whether their bank is helping them get there or just holding onto their money. The real goal is building an emergency fund, paying cash for your next car, saving for a home, looking at your finances and actually feeling some peace. That's why I love Fairwinds. Their smart bundle gives you up to 10 free high yield savings accounts to help you stay organized as you save for different goals. Plus early direct deposit and no monthly fees. And you get support from real people who want to help you win with money. You can even get the Ramsey Debt is Normal Be Weird debit card, which is linked to your free Fairwinds Spend Smart checking account to tell the world you think differently about money. So look, if you're working the baby steps, your bank should be helping you move toward financial freedom, not just park your cash. Go to fairwinds.org. Ramsey to open your smart bundle and start making progress today. That's fairwinds.org slash Ramsey insured by the NCUA. Elizabeth is up next in Nashville, just down the road. What's going on, Elizabeth? Hi, I am. My husband and I are 100K. I'm in debt and we just found out we're pregnant. Whoa. I feel like we need to make some radical decisions in order to make this work. We also have a four month old. You have a what? Four month old? A four month old. Okay. And we just to give you, we live in Nashville, but we're from Minnesota. And we originally planned to move back to Minnesota after we got our debt paid off because Nashville doesn't have state taxes. But Minnesota does. But now we're two under one. So that is literally the only reason just to avoid state tax. Yeah. The taxes, it's a, they have the state income tax. Uh-huh. So that's why you moved here. You said you're trying to move back. We've been in Nashville for five years, but obviously being closer to family. Okay. So being closer to family. Okay. So now you have another one. You have another one on the way. You're like, hey, it'd be easier to be closer to family. Yes. Okay. What do you guys make? We've been working so hard. Um, 120,000. All right. And you said you have 180,000 in consumer debt? Yeah. Well, tell us about that 180. What is that? It's, um, 150 in student loans. And then two, my son's medical bill is my medical bill. And then a car for $7,000. $7,000. And then another medical bill for $3,000. Wow. What are all these medical bills for? Birth. Birth. Just all from birth. And the insurance didn't cover it? Yeah. They didn't cover that little bit. They covered everything else though. Okay. The student loans, is that all one person or is that both of you combined? It's, mine is $49,100 and his is the rest. Okay. Okay. Are you guys using those degrees? I have paused. I have paused continuing my education until we get out of debt because we don't want to take out any more. And then he was going to be using his degree, but we couldn't afford him to transfer to where he would lose his health insurance. Oh boy. So what are you guys doing for work? Not, if you're not in your fields. He's a high school, he's a high school teacher. He was going to be going to the, college atmosphere for recruitment, but he's staying in the high school for now. And then I work in accounting. And what were you going to do? I was going to actually get my accounting degree. Oh boy. Okay. Okay. But I paused it for now because I don't want to take out any more debt. Got it. And the good news is there's an upside there for both of you career wise that we could probably get to pretty easily once we get this cleaned up. Okay. So. Have you guys made progress thus far on the debt? We started this June 12th. We started on our journey and we've paid off $5,100 so far. Good. And how much do you guys have in savings right now? Just the baby step. You got a thousand bucks, starter emergency fund. Good. Baby step one. And then debt snowballing this, what's the next smallest debt you have to pay off? A $300 student loan. Correct. Okay. So we got some. We got some little ones, some ankle biters we can start knocking out. When you guys do your margin, when you do your every dollar budget every month, how much margin do you see there? It's going up right now. It is $747.39. I've been on this. Look at this. Way to go. See, America, that is the type of answer we're looking for. This is a person who's on top of their numbers. You get down to the decimal, I know you're getting out of debt. I know, that's right. Okay. So that's on top of minimum payments and all that. All of your living expenses, you got an extra $750. And that's just with our income. We've been, I'm sorry. We've been doing the list and I've been doing like 15 to 20 hours of list and then I started house cleaning. Wow. Good for you. And it's just, I thought there was a light and now I'm like, sorry. That's okay. It's okay. You're doing a lot and then you, it sounds like you're doing a lot. It sounds like this pregnancy was unexpected. Am I right? Yes. Out of the blue. And it's kind of thrown, I mean, as wonderful it is for a baby to come into this world. It's also a little bit of a wrench in your plans. So totally, we're with you. We get it. Okay. Okay. And we're going to help you go through it. Because you've still got time, right? How far along are you? Five weeks. Okay. So this baby's got time to cook. You still have time to make a big. Big impact here. Right? And if it slows down the debt payoff by a little bit, that's okay. The baby's still a blessing. And if it takes you five years instead of 4.6, we're going to still call that a win. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It's like you and like however many people are listening now, but nobody else knows. Well, I won't tell anybody if you don't. Secret safe here. You guys are on the right track with the 747. That's margin just from your normal jobs. And then with you doing all this extra side work. And I'm guessing your husband's doing some side work too, right? Yeah. We don't see each other. It's a one's in with the baby and the other's out to go do something. And what do those side hustles combined bring in? Last month we brought in $1,900. See, and again, I point to this call again, Elizabeth, because you guys are doing exactly what we tell people to do, which is you can increase your income. $2,000 is fine. Fabulous. And if you add that to the 747, this is how it's done. And so now it's all about taking- Taking the number that you're out and running it backwards and saying, OK, if we continue to chunk this at the next series of debts and then once those are freed up, that money adds to the snowball. Before you know it, your snowball is going to be at like four or five thousand dollars. Am I wrong or am I right? No, you're right. Yeah. And it's OK if you pause the debt snowball for a little bit to stack up cash until the baby is is here and healthy and safe. That's OK. I know it hurts because you're seeing the interest go up after you've been trying to knock it all down. But right now you're in a you're in that sort of storm stork mode. Yeah. And you want to learn from last time because it sounds like last time you guys didn't have that emergency fund there, that stork mode fund, and you got hit with some medical bills. So this time I would be stacking up at least your deductible, your out of pocket max is what I would shoot for. It might be a thousand bucks a month for the next eight months and we're not going to do extra payments on the debts. But at least then you've got, you know, nine, ten grand right there to protect you until you guys are home safe. And then if everything's great, just hit play. And apply that nine extra grand towards your debts. OK. So it's a temporary setback as far as your debt payoff journey. And then are you guys going to move anyways so that family can help take care of the kids and you continue working? Our original plan was to move once we were completely out of debt. And I was hoping to have that done in three years and four years. And I'm thinking if we move now. Well, not now. We can't afford it now. Well, and you need jobs, right? Or are your jobs remote? He's in high school, so. Yeah, no, we would need jobs. So what's the game plan for child care? What are you thinking? The baby would have to go to daycare because we can't afford not to both work. But it's just figuring out what to do because daycare is going to be $16,000 to $2,000. Yeah. For both kids? Or one? Because you've got a four-month-old too, right? No, that'd be. You know, his daycare, I am very blessed. His daycare is only $800. Good. Okay, wonderful. But then due to some complications, formula is $400 a month. Oh, wow. When will that budget line item end? When he's a year. Okay. So what you could do, if you were to move, let me just get the facts here. If you were to move, would you have a family member that would watch them instead? Or that's still not an option? I think so, but I don't have that 100% nail down. I know in the past that our friends have, not friends, our family had said that they would babysit if we moved back. I would check into that. I would check in to see if that offer is still good. Because if it is, then I might, that might motivate me to start looking, you know, start the job hunt, you know, back in Minnesota and see what's good over there. Either way, I think you guys, this is an emotional time. But I think if you just take it. One day at a time and take it one baby step at a time, I think that you guys are going to work your way through this. And it sounds like a lot right now, but each day that pressure is going to real relieve just a little bit every time you take a step in the next right direction. And I think that's what we're going to have to deal with in a couple of weeks. So I think that's what we're going to have to deal with in a couple of weeks. Hey guys, George here. I love the movies Angel makes because they always deliver great entertainment. And I want to tell you about their newest movie coming out August 14th, The Brink of War. It's a historical drama about the 1986 summit in Iceland when President Reagan and Soviet leader Gorbachev faced each other in the height of the Cold War with the fate of the world on the line. It's got Jeff Daniels in it, Jared Harris, J.K. Simmons, and the cast alone tells you this is a serious film. And it's the kind of movie that's perfect for a date night. And Angel also has you covered for other date nights and a lot of nights when you stay in. Because when you become a premium member of the Angel Guild, you get two free tickets to The Brink of War in theaters, access to Angel's entire family-friendly streaming library, and free tickets to every future Angel theatrical release. So use promo code DATENIGHT and you get four months of your annual membership for free. Come on, President Reagan had to negotiate with Gorbachev to get a deal this good. You just need a promo code. That's angel.com. slash Ramsey to become a premium member of the Angel Guild. Use code DATENIGHT. Angel.com. slash Ramsey. Promo code DATENIGHT. I can't believe it. The 2027 Ramsey Gold Planner is here and now available at the lowest price. We'll offer $35.97. Wow. Not even $35. $36. For a limited time only. For a limited time only, George. Well, they up it as time goes on, as we get closer to the new year. So this planner is more practical than ever before. We got brand new content from Jade Warshaw right here next to me, Rachel Cruz, Dr. John Deloney, plus goal-setting guidance and clear action steps to keep your momentum going all year long. And you did some new content for this as well. I did. Every year we do new content in it. So it's really good. And like George said, don't wait. You want to grab it by August 23rd because that's when the $35.97 price goes away. So don't be mad. Not on August 24th. Don't come at me. Yeah. And Black Friday, if you think, oh, I'll just wait for Black Friday. Don't wait because no price is going to beat the price today. $35.97, a very precise price. So get yours today at ramseysolutions.com.store. Or if you're watching on YouTube or podcast, just click that link in the description. I need a copy of that. Can you sneak me one or do I got to pay two? I have one. I have one. They're hard to get your hands on. I know. They don't just give them out willy-nilly around here. I'm not giving you mine, George. I got to pony up the cash. Matt is in Chicago up next. What's going on, Matt? Hi, guys. I'm just curious. For the last six months, I've been working about seven days a week, 12 hours a day to pay off about $72,000 in debt. Wow. How far have you gotten? I'm done. I got my debt paid off. I got my emergency fund and I got a Costa Rica trip planned for next year that's already paid off. That's what I'm talking about. Hold on a second. I got to bust in and say this. I'm going to say this really quick because this, again, Matt, you're doing the thing. Matt, just let me take a quick second to say this. I saw some people on social media who were bashing some of our content saying, you can't do it. You can't pay off debt. You can't buy a house. You can't save up. And look at Matt. He just worked really hard for 12-hour days and he paid off $72,000 of debt. Stop telling me folks can't do this. People do it every day. Way to go, Matt. Keep going. All right. So basically, well, about the house part, that's, I guess, part of my question. So my fiance is an amazing woman. She's been supportive of me through all of this. I mean, she also works, too. So basically, I want to kind of keep going and pay off my house early. By the time I'm 40, I'm 37, almost 38 right now. And I kind of made a deal with her that I'd take Saturdays off, but I'd still be working an insane amount of hours. But I really want to get my house paid off by the time I'm 40. I want to be 100% debt-free by then. Okay. And this is still 12-hour days. 12-hour days just taking one day off. Yeah, but I mean. You slacker. Come on, Matt. Well, right now, too, is like the overtime's here. I don't know 100% if the overtime's going to stay around. Who knows if another COVID happens or anything like that. I mean, do you really think you can sustain that, though? 12-hour days, six days a week for three years? Is that sustainable? Sustainable? I'm a beast. Yeah, I could do it. When are you guys getting married? So, actually, we're coming to Tennessee, and it's supposed to be January. Supposed to be? Well, like, do you have a date? Or are you just going to roll up to the courthouse? It's going to be the end of January. We just haven't finalized everything with, like, the venue, what exact date it's going to be at. But it's, like, the last week of January. Okay, wonderful. Because I'm just thinking through this, then you're going to have two incomes. Right. Which is going to speed up the process. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Which is going to speed up the process, which might mean you can then slow down. That's what I'm thinking, too. Well, no, you guys are going to hate that part of it anyways, because she lives with me, and we already do that. We have. So, that part you guys don't like. So, she's helping you pay off your mortgage. She is, yes. She's paying those. Hmm. So, like, yeah, I know. She makes about $2,800 a month take home. Like, that's what she brings home. So, she's pretty much paying, like, the mortgage, and I'm paying everything else. Like, I bring home about $95 base. But with all this overtime, I'm projected to hit around $200,000 this year, and I want to kind of keep it going. Let me just throw this out here. Let me just throw this out here, because it has to be said. So, I will say this. I mean, obviously, if you ask us, Ramsey Opinion, we're going to say, hey, if you guys are not married yet, you should not combine your monies in this way. It's just an invitation for disaster. But if you are, like, if you're going to just be like, hey, that's just not my way of thinking. I am going to move in with this person, and we are going to combine money. At the very least, can you at least just sign a cohabitation agreement and something that's going to protect both of you in case something were to happen? Please just do something like that so that there's some legality to this and so that nobody gets burned if, for some reason, something should happen and you should go your separate ways. I'm just going to throw that out there for anybody listening. It's important to protect yourself if you're going to do something that is somewhat financially reckless. Fair enough? Yeah. Yeah, I understand that part too. house is only in my name it's so I mean I guess that part's kind of I know but if you were to go separate ways and she's put put all of this money onto your mortgage that's in your name that's that's at a detriment to her so she needs to have something in writing that would say hey I get this money back or whatever that case protect yourselves if you guys are going to do this outside of the law put put some law around you is what I'm saying yeah agreed I guess I guess her part of that is $28,000 of that debt I paid off was hers. So it's like kind of a trade-off. But for both, that's what I'm saying, for both of you, because you guys are doing this in such a crazy fashion, you're making headway. Like, I don't want to take away from the fact that you're paying off debt, but the way that you're doing it is in a reckless fashion. No, 100%. I know how you guys feel about that. Yeah. So here's what we teach and here's the way I live my life. Once you get out of baby step three, you're moving from intensity to intentionality. And I'm like you, Matt. I paid off my house. We did it in 26 months. The goal was four years. We were crazy. My wife and I both were like, let's just go for it. And we had both a very aligned vision for that. But it was a pretty small mortgage at the time. We put like almost 50% down. And so there wasn't much to go and it didn't crush our life. I was not working 80 hours a week. I don't even know if I was doing side hustles at the time. So it was a pretty low stakes way to live. I'm worried that you're going to burn out or at least she's going to get burnt out on you never being home. And so I think there is a happy medium here of you working a reasonable amount going. All right. My goal is three years. If it takes four or five, it's going to be OK. I don't need to work Saturdays and Sundays and work till 9 p.m. every day. Like I know you're capable of that. It's not a sustainable thing to do for the next three years on top of what you've already done. Yeah. It is going to cost you something. Whether it's your physical health, mental health, your relationship. Yeah. She's on the same page as you. She wants to spend. More time and stuff. That's why I was trying to take the Saturdays off and everything. And we still do trips and vacations and everything like that. I just really wanted to get this done. Now, I do think that you should be really intentional about putting extra towards a mortgage. I don't think any of us are saying by any means not not to have that as a very clear goal. But we're just saying the speed can slow down a little bit because you will have a new marriage and that requires a lot of time and intentionality as well. And you guys will both make more money over time. So you might end up hitting the goal. Even if you slow down. That's what I found happens. If you guys are aligned from the get go with this marriage, you're going to hit the goal if you set it. And so I would I would definitely slow down if I were in your shoes because we care about you. She cares about you. And you've got time. Yeah. This is a self-imposed goal. They're like, I'm just, man, I want to do it. It's OK if it happens at 41. No one's mad at you. Yeah, I guess that's a comparison is a piece of joy type deal. I hear some of these people that are younger than me having all this stuff done. So I just I just really want to be done. And there's people older than you that wish they were where you're at. And so it's it's always a good reminder. There's an old Craig Groeschel quote. Pastor Craig says this, Jade, it's something to that. I'm going to butcher it. So I know what you're going for. Comparison will either make you feel inferior or superior and neither honors God. Something to that effect. You're pretty. I think that's right. Like either. Well, I'm better than them because I compared or I'm not as good as because I compared. And, you know, whether you're a person or faith or not, it's just unhealthy. Yeah, I think that's right. And so it's. A good reminder that no one is setting this goal, but you. And it's great to be better than you were yesterday and beat your personal best. But don't do it in a way that causes you to become a workaholic or unhealthy and unbalanced. Yeah. And it's the same. I mean, we've we've hit on this a couple of times already. This this show about making sure to make that shift from intentional from intensity to intense. Boy, say it for me. From intensity to intention. Thank you. My goodness gracious. But, you know. There are some times where people call in and they've just they've never been in debt or they never really had to go through baby step two. And those people, if they want to crush it through their house, that doesn't really bother me because they didn't have that time period where they spent, you know, months or years in a slog. And so if you want to do that, that doesn't really bother me too much. 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. 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And today we're going to break down one of the questions we received this week. Here it is. I'm debt-free, have a fully funded emergency fund, and I'm saving for a down payment on a house. I do need to purchase a new car. Can I use my emergency fund for that? Ooh, wow. Yeah, I mean, we would advise you against using your emergency fund to pay for a brand new car. And we would say to just start a sinking fund instead. You can set aside a monthly amount until you have enough to pay cash for that car. Because you never want to raid your emergency fund for a planned purchase because then you're unprotected when a real emergency hits. Yeah. Here's the three questions to ask. Is this urgent? Is this necessary? Is it unexpected? And the truth is, this is none of those things. So don't use your emergency fund. Use money outside of that and get the car you can afford and then upgrade with cash over time. So check out Ask Ramsey. It'll walk you through your financial goals based on your specific situation. You can input all of your numbers and it's going to give you somehow better advice than you would get on this show. I know that you may not think it's possible, but it will do it. So get your question answered today, RamseySolutions.com, or click the link in the description if you're on podcast or YouTube. Diane is in Cleveland up next. Diane, welcome to the show. Thank you. I have a bit of a conundrum. My husband, after 23 years of marriage, is divorcing me and I need to know how to start over. He was always the breadwinner and now I'm left in my 50s starting over financially and don't really know what that's going to look like. So I just am calling in for help about, you know, we don't have any debt. Our cars are paid off and we have a big nest egg. But now the attorneys are fighting over this. And so I don't know. I'm so sorry, Diane. So we're already at that stage. We're at the attorney's fighting stage of this thing. Yes, and it just started in April and he filed and I don't even know for what. So, yeah. You don't know what happened? It was just random? Well, there's, you know, people that aren't in the marriage and I confronted it and, you know, and now we started counseling at a Christian counselor and that didn't go anywhere. And so now he filed. And so 23 years later, here we are, you know, and I have to think, what am I going to do with my life? I have a master's degree, but I wasn't. I'm not using it. And what was your master's? It's in design. I'm an art educator. And so, you know, now I've always been supporting his corporate job, him climbing the ladder and, you know, with bonuses and everything else. So now, you know, way over six figures. So here we are. Well, the good news is there's no debt, which is a good thing. And you said there's a big nest egg. How much is the nest egg? $160,000. Okay. Do you guys have kids? No, we never, you know, he didn't want that. So, you know. $160,000 is in retirement? No, it's just in, it's just there. Retirement is well over, you know, millions. Okay. So $160,000 liquid. And tell us how much is in retirement. Do you know? I don't. He put it in an affidavit and I didn't know that was even. I didn't even know that we had that. Okay. So now it's a matter of like. everybody's like discovery and i'm like what is that you know um putting all the cards on the table yeah so everybody by the time this is finished you're gonna know every dime of what's out there which is a good thing and you're probably going to be shocked by a lot uh but it sounds like i mean it's it's a little different for every state but like i said the good news is there's no debt and hopefully you're entitled to half of everything that's going on here at least that's what i'd be fighting for and potentially some alimony yeah what is your lawyer saying he's not saying much and that's what i called in i was like my attorney's like saying you know you owe me this but i haven't heard anything i don't know what i don't know the process i don't know the steps i've never been married before i've never been divorced did your attorney come recommended or is it just somebody that you selected yeah it's just somebody i selected okay it might be it might be time to move on it's time to start talking with friends and family and people in your community about a good divorce attorney and if you don't like the one you have you can fire them and move on to someone else because it sounds like you want more of an understanding of what's taking place and i could understand that and that's i feel very in the dark and they just say i forwarded an email here's another i want another five thousand dollars yeah i mean yeah you're gonna pay for every phone call every text yeah to every email and so if you don't feel like you're getting the information just a basic level of communication then you don't have to continue on with that person they work for you and so you want to make sure that you know what's going on at all times i'm getting bullied a little bit and is he still living at the house or you guys no i'm the only one living there i don't even know where he is at this point he's disappeared in april so yeah okay and are you making payments for all the bills um that's what the attorney agreed to but i don't have a job so i'm like do you have a bank account or access to one we have a joint and i moved so that i could have retirement money because i want to move to florida because i need to get away from that situation okay so i think the fair thing for you to do right now is i wouldn't make any major moves right now's not the time to move to florida now's not the time to buy another house not right you this still needs to be sorted out wait till the dust settles yeah wait till the dust settles on this and i think that the two pieces basic based on you based off what i hear and the way you sound i think you need two things i think number one you need to find somebody who's a good friend who can help you advocate for yourself in this situation somebody if it's somebody from church if it's someone who's been through this you just need someone in your corner who can help calm you down and help you get out of this situation who can you know be in the meetings with you or help you interpret an email that that goes a really really long way and number two based off what i hear i don't know and a good friend or advocate could help you but i don't know that this lawyer is um what you're looking for in in terms of you you you ought to know what's going on in your own case and if you don't one of two things is happening either they're not communicating well or you're just not in a place where you can hear it and receive it yeah and i'm not sure which is true to be honest with you i don't either because i did i've never had to hire an attorney so i'm really just kind of at a loss and you know i've always gone with dave ramsey people because i know that they always educate you well use the resources you have if you receive a letter from your attorney attorney run it through claude run it through chat gbt and say help me understand this what does this mean what's likely coming next like there's a lot of resources out there and i'm not sure which is true but i'm not sure and i think that you're just in an emotional state and it can be hard to just interpret things in a in your normal way like the way you used to before all of this happened yeah and if you're just in a mental fog yeah and so do that tonight take every single email that you've had drop it in there and say what what does this mean put it in layman's terms tell me what's next what's what are my options and i think that's going to also uh give you some peace just to help you sort through this and you said you've contacted some ramsey pros so if you have a smart investor pro in your life or a ramsey trusted agent i would ask them say hey do you have any attorneys you would recommend in the area who can help me with xyz and they have an amazing rolodex of people they've worked with that they trust that they can recommend and that's going to be a big help but we always say that divorce turns a marriage into a business transaction and so now it becomes all right what are all the assets who's getting what and then you guys the lawyers the judge is going to decide what's fair so just know that you're going to have a lot of work to do and you guys know that you're not destitute you will be okay and your job now is to figure out what this next chapter for diane looks like and maybe it's wow i haven't worked in 20 years and now i'm going to go get licensed and be an art educator at a local school in florida who knows what that looks like but i hope there's some silver lining here and you actually find some newfound freedom because it sounds like this marriage wasn't great for a while this wasn't super sudden yeah absolutely and for anybody listening i mean it's a cautionary tale right we tell folks all the time that we're going to have a marriage and we're going to have a marriage and all the time that in a healthy marriage there's that transparency you should know what's going on with the money what the assets are what the debt is what people are earning all of those numbers it's so important to be involved and to take a seat at the table so that if the worst happens you're not left out in the cold and certainly in the dark yeah being close-fisted like that is a huge red flag for any marriage you want to know exactly what's going on welcome back to the ramsey show in the fairwinds credit union studio i'm george camel joined by jade warshaw taking your calls at 888-825-5225 andrew is in fort wayne indiana what's going on andrew how can we help hey hey friends so grateful to take your time here i do appreciate it uh so i am kind of in a pickle here uh i have no money and i have a vehicle uh that has 278 000 miles on it i've been the one that miles on it uh i have about 20 000 in debt and i'm going to need a new vehicle uh sooner than later especially as we start getting to the winter season here i i really don't want to have to go in debt unfortunately i just don't have any liquid cash or anything to uh buy a new vehicle is it broken down has it stopped on you so no the i think the motor in this vehicle is going to outlast the frame uh but it is certainly going to be at some point where it is going to what kind of car is it highway it is a 2011 ford escape i bought it 10 years ago i was young and dumb uh i just showed up on a car lot and i was like oh my god i'm going to have to buy a new vehicle i'm going to have to lock next thing you knew i was signing papers and i bought a way overpriced vehicle and so i have at least drove the the wheels off of it it's getting pretty close so yeah i mean but i mean what's wrong with it today is it just the fact that it's got a lot of miles and you see the writing on the wall or is there an actual issue with it other than the miles today uh i mean it's still roadworthy at the moment uh there's quite a bit of rust in the in some spots where it's like okay you know i could lose a tire anytime i hit a bad pothole around here right so you're more just thinking i need to start a sinking fund for a new car sooner than later correct and unfortunately i financially like i just a lot of life has happened over the last year i don't have an emergency fund like i've been unfortunately living paycheck to paycheck what happened over the last 10 years oh so the last 10 years i had some debt and then i paid it off in 2020 i bought a i bought an affordable house uh it's less than a quarter uh of my take-home pay so and i i bought it in 2020 where the uh interest rates were still good so that at the moment is probably my best asset again i just don't have any anything liquid from that what's your 20k in debt uh so some of it is i just a lot of stupid so i got a home equity line of credit to pay off a medical debt and the only reason i got money was to negotiate with the uh the house or excuse me with the the medical stuff and it turns out that they don't charge you interest on that stuff so now i'm paying interest and uh variable interest and it's tied to your house and the whole 20 000 is the heloc uh so i right now i i i pulled out 20 000 from the home equity line of credit uh 10 000 of that was going to be for um a vehicle but having that 10 000 that you know i was paying interest on my own money even though i was borrowing it on the bank i just put that all right back onto the debt uh on the the heloc and then the other 10 i'm confused where did it go what magic trick did you do so wait you took what'd you use the 10 grand on so i yeah i went to my bank i pulled out a home equity line credit to pay for a vehicle uh for when that time came and then i had took the 10 extra grand to negotiate with the uh the hospital bill so that 10 grand's gone where did the 10 grand go uh i put it back towards the heloc so now so now what do you owe that currently i only owe about three thousand dollars left okay well you told me you had 20 grand of debt so three thousand of debt yes no no that was just the first one so i i uh time is of the essence so break it down just quick yeah just tell us what you have today don't tell us the backstory just yet yeah no so uh i owe my aunt eight thousand dollars and then i uh another one is like i'm six hundred dollars behind in my gas bill and then another eight hundred dollars on my water bill okay eight hundred dollars behind on water six hundred dollars behind on gas okay tell us about your income because something is happening there that this with your income that's causing these problems so what kind of work do you do and what do you earn i have a niche industry job so i'm a professional silk screen printer uh i will be making probably about forty six thousand dollars this year you have your own setup nope i work for a shop okay uh how many hours a week do you work so i have unlimited overtime technically that i can get but i've been doing about 43 to 44 hours so not a whole lot of overtime and with the with the overtime you're that puts you at 46 uh no that's that's base pay okay okay so 46 plus you can make overtime and are you living alone uh yep what's your mortgage payment so uh my mortgage right now is at five uh 515 515 bucks or 550 that's it oh yes sorry 515 dollars okay that's great and what what do you take home from the 46 plus overtime what's an average month look like for you so average weekly uh i take up so about uh 2800 okay 2800 we know 515 is going to rent what's your other major expense because you don't have a car payment and it's just you eating yeah that's pretty much it uh are you making payments to the ant or is this just sitting out there no that's unfortunately just sitting out there like my what like there's just i have so many like with the the gas and uh the water uh it's just been yeah why haven't you been able to keep up with those bills yeah what caused you to get behind something uh so i was unemployed for a few months last year uh then i had a leak uh with the water and all that stuff just kind of but i mean today let me go back to today so if i take your 2800 and i subtract 515 now i've got 2285 and let's say what do you spend on groceries let's say you're going bare bones let's say you do four hundred dollars on groceries you don't have a car payment can you reach over today and get current on the gas yes i certainly could uh but then the problem is like my concern is like because next week i will like i'm not behind on my mortgage but like i still have to pay my mortgage at this no no i already i already could let's let's pretend a clean month let's say you make 2800 a month and if i make 2800 a month i pay my my rent that's 515 now i have 2285 dollars i'm gonna go ahead and pay let's pretend we pay 400 for groceries now i've got 1885 dollars now let's say you know what i'm gonna pay the minimum that i can to keep my water on let's find out how much that is how much can you pay minimum to keep the water on uh probably about 130 bucks okay so i'll pay 130 there and then i'll say i really want to get the gas current so that's 600 and now i've still got 1155 dollars to go you don't have a car payment you don't have kids in daycare maybe you have a cell phone i hope you're only paying like 30 bucks a month yeah do you see what i'm saying so what else is there that we're forgetting about what i think is that you don't have a budget and i think that you're doing some reckless spending and living for the moment that's what i am guilty as charged okay you open the call and you're saying hey i've been doing stupid things it's fine to do that and then learn from it but it's been a decade of stupid so you got to decide andrew two years from now where does he want to be financing a car keeping up the cycle of payments or finally breaking free going you know what i gotta go make some money i gotta go do some overtime get rid of this debt never going to debt again get an emergency fund pay cash for a car and build some serious wealth you gotta decide man it's up to you you hey guys dave ramsey here every day on this show we help people work through real money problems and figure out what to do next now you can get that same kind of help anytime with ask ramsey ask your money question and get answers built on ramsey principles we use on the show whether you're making a decision or just want something explained ask ramsey is here to help it's a great way to get your money back it's fast simple and free to use go to ramsey solutions.com and try ask ramsey today that's ramsey solutions.com we want to hear from you guys so jump in the comments on youtube or spotify and tell us what you're connecting uh with on today's show maybe you have thoughts maybe you would have told to call or something different we want to hear about it in the comments our team enjoys seeing all of those appreciate that all right jade one of the biggest mistakes people make is they think they can just skip having a will because well i'm too young i'm healthy i don't own enough i'll never die whatever it is you're wrong a will helps protect your family and every single person needs one it gives clear instructions and keeps your loved ones from having to guess what you wanted during a difficult time or even worse having the government decide for you so if you're ready to create a will and you are go to mama bear legal forms.com that's mama bear legal.com i apologize and if you're not sure where to start you can text the word quiz to this number 33789 and we will help you figure out which option fits your situation chris is in sacramento up next chris welcome to the show hey how y'all doing we're doing great how can we help today all right so we got a situation i want to buy a boat and my wife does not want to buy a boat oh no okay what a conundrum i hear a little a little background right so uh no debt other than the mortgage okay uh we're making extra mortgage payment every month so our mortgage is 3,900 a month we pay 5,200 a month good um we bought a year and a half ago after we got out of all our credit card debt and everything and um yeah it's just a grind so we do you know i'm not going to you know we do house projects save up right and all that and so you know i see that i see that we could buy a used boat you know not a new one not how much money do you guys have saved for this well none yet it's in the conversations right so we're finishing up a backyard project that uh you know is about like 25k right okay um with not too many projects in the future so the backyard project was that a project that you both wanted to do the 25k project was that a project that you on the backyard or was that more her bag no no we it needed it drainage was bad all that right water under the house so i mean it's definitely and you know we ripping up the yard we said hey let's make it nice right so we're okay so you both were cool with that what about the boat is that something that you'll both get enjoyment out of or is it just something that's really something you want is it more of a wants thing or is it a money thing uh well so i don't know i definitely want one uh it would be a bass boat a fishing boat she enjoys being out in the water with me and goes fishing from time to time but uh it would definitely be more like my thing you know okay and how much would it cost uh we're looking at like 10 to 12 000 you know a decent used boat to get us through you know five ten years and then and then look at a real nice dream boat later on you know and in her mind spending that 10 12 like what's the opportunity cost what does she feel like you guys are giving up on by spending that 10 to 12 grand or saving that up over time i think ultimately uh we're being pretty aggressive towards the mortgage and she wants to pay off the house so i think you know i don't want to speak for it but i think at the end of the day most of it is she thinks and feels that that money could go towards the mortgage okay i would if i were in your shoes i would double check that and make sure that that's how she feels instead of guessing i i'd want to know hey where do you see us spending this money instead is it a vacation that you wish we were taking is it going to the house like really get clarity on on what the issue is uh with her on that because that's the only way you guys are going to arrive at how this money is actually being spent i mean for my two cents i think it's great that you guys are making an extra payment on the house i think that's a really fair place to be in baby step six is um you know doubling the payment i mean i think that's pretty fabulous yeah so 10 to 12 for the boat she just feels like that's a waste of money from what i gather that could be going towards the mortgage um what's the ongoing cost of this the ongoing cost of a boat like maintenance and whatnot yeah do you have something to haul it because that's where i go well now i need a truck babe i gotta haul the boat and now i need to now i gotta store the gas and all that so what's your do you have a full plan for how this is all going to shake down so i still got to get a quote for insurance insurances the boat insurance is the number i don't have but you know maintenance is relatively easy especially since i do a lot of it myself we have a toy at a tacoma with 280 000 miles on it right so that thing will i think i'll run forever ideally um you know so we do need to factor into the budget a little bit more i would start a sinking fund for that truck while i'm at it as much as it'll keep going there will be a day where it doesn't and you're gonna be like oh i gotta finance a truck now so as long as you guys are saying no to debt then the total value of all the things with motors and wheels is no more than half your annual income you're in good shape as far as the the checkbox is here so the alignment with the spouse is the final piece what is your household income um we're around 200 awesome what's the total value of the vehicles uh it's just that toyota tacoma so eight eight or ten thousand oh it's your only vehicle uh we are both very lucky uh with our jobs uh and company vehicles um so we literally only have that toyota tacoma so you drive other cars but you don't have it yeah yeah i just sold my my toyota rap 4 because we just weren't using it you know okay i mean unless she's looking at the upkeep of this and thinking i don't like how this is gonna affect our month-to-month budget and again i would run out those numbers and make sure you're talking about that but other than that i mean financially i don't see why you can't save up and do this um especially if you're doing a reasonable amount if this is your hobby this is where you want to spend your time and some money and it's in the budget i would make a fake budget saying hey here's what life looks like when we have a boat and then see and try to get alignment on what's what's the root of this why doesn't she want this to happen versus just trying to convince her i think that's where we need to start talking to each other instead of missing each other but good luck man brett is in cleveland up next what's going on brett hey jayden george thanks for taking my call sure how can we help uh yeah i just had a question uh so lord willing next month my wife and i will be uh debt free and we'll move into baby steps four five and six love that we're really excited we're excited about that my question is how do you deal with the fact that you're going to be a part of the gold industry and i think that's a really good question for you today is a couple years ago a relative when they passed gave us three gold coins one ounce each and so we've had those of course gold going up in price should we sell those the coins which would basically give us our three-month emergency fund uh or would you hang on to the gold since you know it could go up i know it could go down too so just want to get your thoughts on that well we're not fans of precious metals around here as a investment so when you say well it could go up that tells me we're sort of hoping and speculating it could go up and gold out of all the things you could have is not it's not crypto right we know that gold's going to hold some value it'll always be there but i personally would be selling that thing instead of sacrificing for three more months or six more months or however long it would take you to get through baby step three could you get what i don't know what an ounce of gold is going for today how much could you get for all three um it's at like 4200 a day okay so at the beginning it's at 4000 then it's at 4200 a day which i think is is great yeah i mean if you were like hey dude i'll give you i'll write you a check for 12 grand that could fund an emergency fund today instead of you having to continue to sacrifice i'm personally taking it and i'm not going to miss out on what could have been i would just don't check gold prices after you sell it that's what most people do they go oh man it's 4500 now and now you're driving yourself crazy looking at what could have been right right okay well that's yeah and i thought we'd just put in the chairman's account with the three percent interest it would you know then you're always kind of gaining yeah you're at least keeping up with inflation and i don't use gold as an investment i just invest into the stock market and over time the stock market is at a higher return than gold gold has averaged about 7.8 percent a year uh since 1971 where it stopped being tied to the dollar which is not a bad return but you can do better with less stress in the stock market and there's a little less risk since it's not a physical thing you're trying to keep safe okay good that's what we were gonna do i just wanted to make sure i was thinking about right so thank you guys very much absolutely and there'll be egg on my face if there's an apocalypse where we only barter in gold one day jade who knows i'm thinking like spoons and forks will probably be more yeah i'm thinking ammo fuel water yeah weapons water that's gonna be useful shelter yeah i've seen enough post-apocalyptic movies i've never seen them ago well bro i got some gold listen a fighting style you better start brushing up on your uh i do need to go to jiu-jitsu is that what's hot right now jiu-jitsu yeah i think if you're into like mma yeah you lost me there if i get kicked in the face this is the money maker all right i can't afford that can't risk it hey guys george camel here you ever feel like you make good money and still have nothing to show for it you run into target for one thing and somehow walk out 87 later with toothpaste and emotional support candles just me okay well that's the problem most people don't pay attention to how they spend their money so it does whatever it wants and that's why we created this channel every dollar it's a budgeting app that helps you create a simple plan for your money every dollar simple it's clear and it helps track where your money's actually going plus you get daily lessons to do's and reminders along the way it's like having a money coach in your pocket your money's been freelancing long enough it's time to give every dollar a full-time job go download every dollar for free on the app store or google play if your private student loans are in default when you've fallen so far behind the loan is considered unpaid why refi may be able to help why refi helps borrowers in tough situations explore low fixed rate refinancing options that fit your budget go to why refi.com slash ramsay that's the letter y r-e-f-y.com slash ramsay may not be available in all states all right today's question comes from glenn in pennsylvania he says what are your thoughts on cell phone on cell phone plans where big companies lure you in for years to pay off my wife and i never really thought about the most about the monthly cost of paying off our cell phones we just paid the monthly amount this this month we got our monthly bill and we're surprised at the new amount due to our phones being paid off it's drastically lower uh than our normal monthly bill should we start saving now to purchase our phones outright the next time around short answer is yes and i glenn i love it this question because this happened to me i didn't even realize they're sneaky these days they're sneaky i didn't even realize that our phones were not paid off we had been out of debt and i'm like woohoo debt free and then one day you know randomly i see the bill and it's a lot less i'm like what happened and then i realized we were paying still paying for our phones i didn't even know that so you're not alone on that and yes from now on just whenever you go to upgrade your phone hopefully it's not an android but whenever you go to upgrade your iphone you just pay cash for it and let that be that on that but i did hear something george you'd probably be in the know on this i feel like i heard that apple is about to do away with that and you're just always like leasing your phone literally they're calling it a lease and so you have to make the payments and then if you want at the end you have to pay the remaining balance that's left for that device whether it's a laptop a phone whatever it is or you can hand it back to apple and restart the process man i've seen everything at this point so it is brutal so yes if you got a plan on a depreciating asset it is a type of debt because you have to pay that yeah otherwise it's not your phone until it's paid off yes so to me that is a form of debt you can get sent to collections for these kinds of things so i would definitely set up a sinking fund and pay cash for your new phones and just like a car just try to get something that's going to last you a couple of years at least yeah and don't upgrade every year because listen the 16 is really no better than the 15 it's really not i don't i couldn't even tell you what phone i have and i agree with you so much george especially if you're in baby step 2 just get whatever you can that makes the phone calls that sends the text message and on your service you know go as cheaply as you can because there's a lot of money to be had there i meet people in the lobby and it's my favorite when i see a single lens on the back of that iphone i'm like oh man a real one i know that's right on to that iphone 4 let's go you know what i could really go back to a flip phone i really could i could be the person who has a flip phone that all it does is send phone phone calls and text messages you know rachel cruz's husband winston did that he's got a dumb phone he likes it the man is at peace uh you know what birds flock to him you know what i mean like the owls land on his shoulder he is like one with nature now i'm gonna try it without a smartphone i don't know if i could survive it i'm too like i need to be googling at all times so i wouldn't survive long in the wilderness i think i take offense that people are calling them dumb phones well smart because isn't it really the smarter way george yeah but it's the opposite of smart and it's a funny name so just go with it jade don't ruin it all right jennifer's in phoenix up next what's going on jennifer hi um thanks for taking my call I have a question regarding my 16-year-old, who's going to be 17 in about a month. So he is in his junior year of high school. He's a huge Dave Ramsey fan. He took financial literacy. They all have to take financial literacy their sophomore year. And their curriculum is based off of Ramsey. And so he has become a huge fan of investing and compound interest. And now we listen to it in the car all the time. And you're super annoyed? Yeah, I mean, I'm learning a lot. So everybody's a huge fan. They love my husband and my boys both love when Dave laughs at his own jokes or flips out on people for their bad decisions. So it's a good time. We love it, too. That's so funny. Yeah. So what's the connection? It's a great road trip. So he's been playing baseball since about eight years old. He just had his best season yet. He plays club year round and high school ball in the spring. And he since he's done financial literacy, he's thinking that he's not confident that he's going to play baseball in college. So he's thinking that he should. So he's thinking that he should quit baseball and start a part time job and start earning money and investing and getting that compound interest to set himself up for the future. OK, so if you sat down with him and said, why do you want to quit? He would say, I don't think I'm going to finish doing this in college and I'd rather be working to start investing. Right. OK. And you want him to finish. Why? Why do you want him to stick through it through the end of high school? So, I mean, you only get this much time in childhood. Right. And then you're an adult and you have all the responsibilities. So it's not that we're we're not supporting him. Like he has some really great points. He was a little he talked to me before he talked to his dad because he was a little nervous about dad. And I said, I love all of your points. And I I said, now, let's just really think about it. So we support him either way. We just are curious if we should. If we should squash the idea and say, enjoy your childhood, play baseball. It's only going to be here for a few years and then think about investing. Or if we should support him in his idea to quit and start investing now. Are you guys doing well financially? Yeah, we're we're we're Ramsey-ing it. But yes, we are. Like, do you have any debt? Yeah, we do. OK. I'm just wondering if there's a. If he's all about investing, is there a way you can help him with that and go, hey, you know what? We're going to match whatever you put in or, hey, we're going to put in a thousand bucks this summer for you to get started investing. But we want you to keep playing baseball. What would he say? I think he would consider it. He also has told us, like, it feels a little bit more like a chore now. Well, that's what I'm saying. Because you're positing it as, man, his childhood. I'm like, baseball at 17 is work. I mean, you're showing up to practice. You're showing up to everything. You're showing up to every game. Is he good at baseball? Get the outfit on. Or is he not good? He's good. I don't know if he's college level good, but he's good. But I mean, he plays in the game. He's not just sitting on the bench. He plays. Yeah, he was in the top three stats of every single stat his coach shared. And was he complaining about baseball before he started learning all of this? And so this was coming either way? Or do you really feel like? Do you really feel like? This kind of came out of the blue just because he learned about the compounding interest. I know. He's always kind of had a love-hate relationship with it. But more love. He loves the social aspect of baseball. He loves the, like, camaraderie that it builds. But it's always been kind of a love-hate relationship. Probably because we live in Arizona and it's really hot. Yeah. I mean, he can get camaraderie at work with coworkers. At the old ice cream shop. So here's my take. I'm going to just say it. You can take it or leave it. I don't want him to resent you for making him play. I'd rather him, on his own volition, regret turning baseball down to go work. And the truth is, I don't think he's going to regret it. I think he's going to go get a job and go, wow, I feel like I'm stepping into adulthood. And there's responsibility here. There's discipline. You've got to show up. And it's going to prepare him for the future more than baseball will at this point. I think I disagree. I think I have a conflicting view. I have a different view. Jade's forcing him to get out there on the field. If he's played all of these years and you don't feel like this was coming down the road, I actually think that I would say, I think there's a world where he can do both, where he can play the season of baseball and finish out with his team. And then I think there's a world where when he's not in baseball training or in the season that he can work. And I think that there's something that comes from team sports that's very different than what, he would get, you know, working at the grocery store or working at wherever he's working. And I think if he can get the best of both worlds, I think that really can create some well-roundedness. Team sports are really important, not because of going pro or because of getting a college scholarship, but just what they build on the inside of you. And part of that is, you know, sticking to a task. So I think that there's something there. I don't think either is the wrong choice. I just think that you got two different views this time. I like letting him own the decision either way. To let him. To let him feel like, all right, I'm an adult. I got to make peace with the decision I made. Good and bad. You work your butt off for your money, but your money's never going to go away. You're never going to return the favor if all you do is hope for the best. If you're ready to learn how to make your money work for you, check out the SmartVestor program. SmartVestor can help you find advisors who specialize in retirement planning, charitable giving, advanced investing strategies, and more. Whatever your goals, your pro will take the time to explain your options, so you never have to invest in anything you don't understand. Head to RamseySolutions.com slash SmartVestor to get connected. Get connected. Ramsey Solutions is a paid, non-client promoter of participating pros. Learn more at RamseySolutions.com slash SmartVestor. Our scripture of the day, Psalm 1-3. They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do. Peter Marshall said, When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong and contrary winds, and diamonds are made under pressure. Boom. Under pressure. Thomas is in San Antonio, California. I didn't know there was. I'm learning a lot today. What's going on, Thomas? Good, thank you. Happy to be here. How are you all doing? We're doing great. How can we help today? Yeah, so my wife is. I'm very blessed. She put her life on hold. I'm a CrossFit athlete, career on hold to put me through law school debt-free. Awesome. Yes. And I'm graduating here soon with a great offer. And we have a net worth pretty much of zero right now. And so I want her to go back and pursue that CrossFit career that I think she can attain. But she is a big fan of Ramsey, and she wants us to get to, you know, step five. And I'm going to be a big fan of her. um she's a pt tech okay how much of it is how much of this is your personal guilt for her sacrificing versus what she even wants to do at this point because if you're telling me she's saying no i don't want to pursue that right now i want to focus on you know whatever the next couple baby steps are if that's what she's saying she wants to do that might be what she wants to do or are you just worried that she's gonna have resentment later on in life yeah that's a good point um i'd say probably a little bit of both uh we're we're both young and this is like her prime time and so this sounds like a date night conversation where you guys sit down and you unpack what what you're feeling and you ask her about what she's truly feeling and you guys really get a sense of where each other is at today um based instead of where it was in the past and you know making sure you're making up for lost time and all that i think this is just a conversation you guys have to have yeah and that's that's gonna you know point to okay yes we can continue to do some of these baby steps the speed of at which we do it uh might change if she decides you know i do want to start you know pursuing this competition you might be going slower but it doesn't mean you have to stop and that you can't do any of the steps going forward until she's done yes what does she make as a pt tech um like 35 okay and what will you be making with this offer uh 200 okay fantastic so you would just live off your income because here's what i'm thinking she wants you guys to have the emergency fund have the down payment and if she stopped it would slow down your goal by a little bit but the lion's share of the income will be yours yes so it's not like a million dollars it's not like a million dollars it's not like a million dollars it's not make or break if she pursues crossfit and quits her job it's not like i'll never own a house now so i'm just trying to not make it this like huge a or b scenario there's an option c which is it takes us six months longer to save for the house and we're going to make other sacrifices in other areas to make this happen so i would sit down make a budget for what this is going to look like making you know 200 grand and then factor in taxes and factor in we got to save the emergency fund that's going to take this many months then we're going to save a down payment that's going to take this many years and then start to go okay here's what we're really giving up here's the opportunity cost of you pursuing this and if you find that it's a couple of months she might then go oh you know i didn't think about it like that i'm good to do this sooner rather than later that's that's helpful thank you i think just using logic and facts because everything right now is just like emotion on both sides and i like the idea of the date night to just get some clarity get all the emotion out and then let's look at the facts yeah and i just want to he used some phrasing that i'm like oh gosh i don't like that you know when you're building a life together with your spouse each person is sacrificing to get to a shared vision a shared outcome him becoming a lawyer is not just beneficial to him it's beneficial to the family unit so his feeling of i've got to pay her back for her sacrifice and it's like i get what he's saying but does that make sense it's like making sure that everybody it's not about paying people back in a marriage it's about both people sacrificing and both people doing things to for the greater good so and dreams change too i mean she could have a kid and decide you know what i don't want to pursue this anymore and she might stay home and that's fine too but i like having the options through healthy budgeting and knowing what the numbers are all right may is in phoenix up next may welcome to the show thank you thank you so much for taking my call today um so my question is um i am thinking of you know i'm thinking of you know i'm thinking of you know going back to school for about uh about 11 to 13 years and i'm thinking like how should i prepare financially i am 33 years old and still in 69 000 of debt um so i'm thinking do i take the debt off completely before even thinking of this as an option what are you going to go back to school to do um so i'm thinking of forensic pathologist which will require like medical school and basically be a doctor wow that's pretty intense that's very cool yeah okay thanks are you single uh no i'm married okay what does your spouse think about this plan um of course she thinks i can do anything so she's like pushing me to do it of course we want to get into like a little bit less of like have a little less debt before doing this is that the combined debt the 69 000 or is that just you combined 69 okay because i'm i'm worried that you're not going to be able to work for 11 years it sounds like um yes and no so i'm thinking of taking it slow but yeah i feel like when i get further down in the process you know that's going to be i'm thinking i'll do whatever i can like if i have to work nights and you know what does your spouse earn during the day um she makes um about four to four thousand forty four to forty five hundred a month so forty five hundred a month okay and can you can you run your household just off of the forty five hundred a month have you budgeted that out we can if we're out of if you're out of debt okay so that's a prerequisite no matter what happens we're getting out of debt no matter what's next what is the 11 years of school going to cost um that's another thing i'm currently looking into i don't know specifically but um roughly about fourteen thousand a year so we are that's the thing is like we're wanting to pay like out of pocket like obviously not get into any more debt so we're thinking do we completely clear out our 69k before even trying to attempt this you have to maybe okay i think there's two things that have to be true first hear me say i think this is a really cool goal i love the fact that you're wanting to reinvent yourself and you're like i'm willing to put in the time and effort to do it that's number one i think that george is exactly right you got to pay off the seventy thousand dollars of debt first and i think that's worth both of you hunkering down and doing whatever it takes to knock that out full baby step style to get that done and then from there it's about saying okay during that time there's also got to be an increase of income along the way so that we can start to save up the fourteen thousand dollars a year or at least get ahead of it so that we can cash flow it and your spouse is probably going to be bearing the brunt of that weight while you're in school that puts this hour of the ramsey show in the books remember there's ultimately only one and that's to walk daily with the prince of peace christ jesus